Sundancer's Woman

by Judith E. French

  How many days and nights would they mourn her before they began to forget her voice or the smell of her hair? Elizabeth stared at Hunt’s back. He was a good man, a sensible man. Why couldn’t he see that it was impossible for a mother to leave her child? Why couldn’t he understand that all his logical reasons for abandoning Jamie to the Iroquois were nothing compared to the ache that burned in her heart?

  “Don’t be afraid, darlings,” she whispered. “Mama won’t forget you. Be brave just a little longer.”

  Shadows cast by the winter-barren trees grew dark, and the sun began to set beyond the western hills. “Can you go on for a while?” Hunt asked.

  She nodded, unwilling to waste the energy to speak. Those who could not keep up when the Iroquois were on the march rested forever. After she’d been captured—on the trip back to Seneca country—she’d seen another prisoner’s head crushed by a war club because she couldn’t keep up with the warriors. She hadn’t known the woman. The Seneca had burned her cabin and slain her grown sons and husband. Elizabeth had seen the killing and smelled the awful scent of burning flesh when they’d fired the log dwelling. Elizabeth shuddered. Hunt thought her bloodthirsty, did he? She had seen enough slaughter to last a lifetime, but she had learned the lessons of survival well. If her will was strong enough, her body would respond. She would never admit that she could not walk, not if her feet froze to chunks of ice or wild beasts gnawed at her vitals.

  She smiled. With such determination, could she fail to find a way to support her children once she had them safe? She had taken the strike of a copperhead snake to protect Jamie when he was hardly more than an infant.

  It had been early summer, and Jamie had just learned to walk. His wobbly efforts had made her laugh, and he was down more than up, but nothing would make him crawl again. He’d climb up on to anything his fat little hands could reach, sway on his bare feet, and set off at a drunken gallop.

  Elizabeth had gone to the river with Raven and two other women, Honey Tree and Summer Rain. Honey Tree had a little girl of four years; Summer Rain had brought a young sister with her. Elizabeth had put Jamie down to dip up water, and he’d toddled off after the two girls.

  The sun was warm on Elizabeth’s face, and the riverbank smelled of crushed mint. Raven and Summer Rain were gossiping about a coming marriage in the village, and Elizabeth was as happy as she’d been for weeks. Jamie had been cutting a tooth, and it had finally broken through and gleamed like a glistening pearl in his pink mouth.

  Then Honey Tree’s daughter screamed. Elizabeth dropped the waterskin and whirled around. A waist-high heap of rocks separated her from Jamie, and on top of the stones curled a red-brown snake with a flat head and bright triangular markings. Jamie squealed with delight and extended his hand to grab the poisonous copperhead.

  “No!” she screamed. There was no way to reach her son, no time to think. Driven by a mother’s desperation, she seized the serpent and hurled it into the river. Jamie wailed in disappointment as the copperhead flew through the air out of reach. She’d been fast enough to save her son, but not quick enough to avoid the copperhead’s fangs; they’d driven into her hand like red-hot needles.

  She didn’t need to look down to know she’d been hint, but that didn’t matter. Jamie was what mattered, and she gathered him in her arms and covered his face and head with kisses. He kicked and cried, angry that she’d stolen his new toy; he was still protesting when Honey Tree pried him from her arms.

  The women pushed her to the ground. Summer Rain made quick cuts with her knife and sucked out the poison. For two days, Elizabeth lay between life and death, but she’d survived and she’d kept her son from harm. If poisonous snakes or Seneca couldn’t defeat her, how could the English?

  “We should cross another creek soon,” Hunt said, interrupting her thoughts. “After that, we follow it north. A Frenchman has a cabin—”

  “A Frenchman?” She was so surprised that she forgot her weariness. “Here? On Iroquois land?”

  “His name is Baptiste. They say he was once a Jesuit priest, but he lost his faith and finally his reason in these woods. He’s totally mad. Lives out here with only a tame bear for company.”

  “Why haven’t the Iroquois killed him?”

  “You shouldn’t have to ask that,” Hunt said. “I’ve never known a tribe who didn’t think that the afflicted were touched by the Great Spirit.”

  “You think we can find shelter with this ... Baptiste?”

  “Yes, I do. He and his wife, Clay Basket—”

  “He has a wife?”

  Hunt glanced back at her and grinned. “I told you he was crazy.”

  “But a priest ...” She shook her head in disbelief. “A Catholic priest can never marry.”

  “It’s a woods alliance. Clay Basket is Iroquois—a woman of the Cayuga. She was a widow without children or relatives to hunt for her. Her people cast her out to die in a bad winter. She and Baptiste get on well enough. She’s deaf and doesn’t mind his ranting. They’ve lived together for years.”

  “Mad or not, may he have a good fire.”

  “Not only a fire,” Hunt said, “but a snug cabin with a fireplace. There used to be a Jesuit mission and school there, but the students caught the pox from the black robes and died. Then the Iroquois murdered the other priests in retaliation. I think the loss of the children was what destroyed Baptiste’s mind. He’d spent his life trying to bring his religion to the Indians and he loved them.”

  “You’ve met him?”

  “Yes. On my journey to Yellow Drum’s village. My father knew Baptiste.”

  Elizabeth quickened her step to catch up to him. Her legs were cramping, but she tried to ignore the pain. “Which father? Your Indian father or—”

  “I was born over the sea in Ireland. The man who sired me was honorable, but I never knew him. He died when I was an infant. After that, I had no father. My white sister’s husband despised me. The only thing I ever got from him was a hard fist or stripes across my back.” Hunt’s features hardened. “If I speak of my father, I mean only one person, Wolf Robe. My father is Cheyenne, from the western mountains, but he lived among the Shawnee and they called him the Stranger. His wife, my mother, was Delaware. It is from her that I inherit my tribal allegiance to the Delaware and their brothers, the Shawnee.”

  “But you were born Irish,” she argued. “You’re white, not Indian at all.”

  He shook his head, surprised that he had told her what he’d told few people in his life. His past was his own and best kept to himself. She was English, for all she’d lived among the Iroquois, while he was only white on the outside. Whatever he’d been at eight years old, when Wolf Robe carried him off, that part had died like last summer’s grass. He was Hunter of the Far Mountains, a warrior of the Delaware and Cheyenne. He’d earned the right to wear two eagle feathers and be welcomed at the council fires of the Shawnee.

  The Campbells might have washed the Indian war paint off his face, dressed him in white man’s clothing, and taught him his manners, but all that was only skin deep. Once he’d completed this mission and returned Elizabeth to her father, he fully intended to set his sights on the Rocky Mountains and not look back until he reached them.

  Elizabeth’s right snowshoe sunk into a soft spot and she nearly pitched to one side. Instantly he reached out to catch her arm and steady her.

  “Thank you,” she said, and flashed a smile at him that made his heart plummet.

  “You all right?” he asked gruffly. The wave of protectiveness that engulfed him was nearly overpowering.

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Let’s push on. The creek can’t be far ahead.” He tried not to think about the effect touching Elizabeth had on him. He wanted her so badly that his loins ached. It was hard for him to keep his eyes on the trail and his senses alert for danger. His cock had nearly gotten them both killed back in the cave, and he tried never to make the same mistake twice. Elizabeth was depending on him to get her safely th
rough this, and he couldn’t let her down.

  Damn, but he’d supposed they would make better time than they had. He hoped to reach Baptiste’s place before nightfall. The sleet was coming down harder and the wind was in their faces. Elizabeth had done well, but he could see that her strength was failing. “I can take your pack,” he offered.

  “I’ll carry my own pack.”

  “You’re tired.”

  “And you’re not?”

  He shrugged. “Not so much that I couldn’t take your load.” And carry you as well, if I have to, he thought. I’ve done it before.

  She shook her head. “I’m all right.”

  He brushed the sleet from his eyes and immediately caught sight of a dark shadow slipping through the trees. As he stared into the gathering twilight, he saw a second form and then a third. “Wolves,” he said, pointing. “Don’t worry, they’re no danger to us.”

  Elizabeth grimaced. “I hate wolves.”

  He forced a grin. “Probably after those deer we saw earlier.”

  “I hope,” she replied.

  His guess proved true. As they followed the gully downhill to a creek, they came upon a half dozen wolves circling a buck and two does. Two deer had reached the far side of the stream, but the third, a yearling doe, had broken through the ice and was trapped by the wolves.

  “Stay close to me!” Hunt ordered, stepping out of his snowshoes. Giving a Cheyenne war cry, he charged the wolf pack. The buck and doe fled up the far bank, and the gray wolves scattered. The remaining deer struggled chest-deep in water, unable to reach safety due to a shattered foreleg.

  Hunt dropped his pack and took careful aim with his rifle. One shot ended the injured animal’s misery. As the deer slumped to one side and started to slide under the ice, Hunt plunged into the stream to seize the carcass.

  The frigid water poured over the tops of his high moccasins and wet him to the waist. He waded over the rocky creekbed and reached out for the doe’s hind leg. The current was swift under the ice; it tugged at his ankles and made his footing uncertain. He got a good hold on the deer and began to tug on the dead weight when he heard Elizabeth scream. Releasing the leg, he turned to look at her, slipped, and went down on one knee.

  “Hunt!” she cried. “Wolf!”

  Dragging his skinning knife from the sheath at his waist, he twisted around to see where she was pointing. Not ten feet away, another wolf—a huge white male—slunk toward him, back hunched high, belly to the snow. The animal’s lips were drawn back in a snarl.

  “No!” Elizabeth’s second scream shattered the dusk as the giant wolf sprang at him with gaping mouth and ivory fangs.

  Chapter 10

  The white wolf struck Hunt full in the chest, and they went down in the midst of broken ice and black rushing water. For long seconds, Elizabeth stood frozen with shock as wolf and man struggled. Huge jaws capable of biting through a man’s thighbone snapped dangerously close to Hunt’s face and throat. Then the wolf’s snarls turned to a high-pitched keening as Hunt buried the blade of his knife deep in the animal’s chest. Dark blood welled up and spilled over the thick fur, covering Hunt’s hands and staining the front of his leather coat. The wolf’s hind legs thrashed wildly, and then the fierce light faded from the creature’s eyes.

  Hunt staggered back and threw off the weight of the animal. Dazed, he looked down at the bloodstained knife he still held clenched in his right hand. His left sleeve was torn, and there were several rips down the front of his hunting shirt.

  Elizabeth gave a low cry and started toward him. “Hunt, how bad are you hurt?” The current had pulled the wolf partially under the ice, but it lay limp, no longer moving. “Hunt?” Most of the blood belonged to the wolf, but it didn’t seem possible that Hunt could sustain such a savage attack without being bitten.

  “Get the rifle,” he shouted.

  Two wolves had come out of the trees and were moving down toward the stream. “Oh, my God!” Elizabeth shrugged off her pack and ran to the spot where Hunt had dropped his. She tore Powder Horn’s rifle free and raised it to her shoulder. The hammer was stiff and hard to cock. Her fingers trembled under the strain.

  “Shoot!” Hunt commanded.

  She pulled the trigger. The force of the explosion sent her reeling back into the snow with the rifle on top of her. She scrambled up, peering through the semidarkness to see if she’d hit her target.

  “Remind me to give you some target practice,” Hunt said. He climbed the slippery bank and ran to his belongings. She hurried to his side as he reloaded first his own weapon and then Powder Horn’s.

  Elizabeth’s shoulder felt as though she’d been kicked by a horse. “Did I kill the wolf?” she asked. “I don’t see—”

  “Not even close.” He put an arm around her shoulder, and she looked down to see more blood seeping from his torn sleeve.

  “You are hurt,” she said. “How bad is—”

  “Bad enough. Wolf bites are nasty.”

  She strained to see in the gathering dusk. “Are there—”

  “Your shot went wild, but it scared them off.” He handed her both rifles. “Keep them out of the snow,” he ordered. Then he waded back into the creek and pulled out first the carcass of the deer and then the dead wolf.

  “You said the wolves wouldn’t harm us,” she reminded him as he began to skin and butcher the deer.

  “I was wrong,” he admitted. “I’ll just take the hindquarters, the liver, and the tenderloin. The pack won’t stay away too long, not with the smell of all this blood.”

  “Leave the venison,” she urged him.

  “I’m taking enough to feed us for a few days. The wolves can have the rest.”

  “You’re hurt. We don’t need the meat. Let’s go while we can.”

  “I fought for this venison, and I’m damned well going to eat some of it.” Then his features turned serious, and he uttered something in a language she couldn’t understand.

  “What are you saying?” she asked.

  “It’s a prayer for the deer, an apology for taking its life.”

  “Hunt, it’s getting dark. It’s snowing; you’re soaking wet, and we’re surrounded by a wolf pack. It’s time to go.”

  “This is the first time I’ve ever known a wolf that wasn’t starving or sick to attack a man.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t hungry?”

  “If he’d landed on top of you, you’d know he wasn’t starving. He was in prime condition. It makes no sense.”

  “Maybe he just didn’t want you taking his deer.”

  “Maybe not,” he conceded.

  Elizabeth watched the forest nervously as he cut a few choice parts from the deer, rolled the meat in a section of hide, and slung it over his shoulder.

  “Let me take the venison and the extra rifle,” she offered. “It’s too much for you to carry.” The sleet had turned to snow and was coming down in earnest. Already the wolf’s still form was nearly invisible. “This weather is turning bad. Suppose we’re caught without shelter? The wolves—”

  “You worry too much,” he said. “It doesn’t matter about the snow. The mission should be less than a mile upstream. A baby could find it with his eyes shut.”

  “And if you’ve miscalculated? If Baptiste’s cabin is downstream instead of up?”

  He laughed. “You of little faith.”

  Elizabeth kept close behind him as they set out. She didn’t see how he could take his close call so lightly. When the wolf had leaped at Hunt, she’d nearly died of terror—fear not just for her own safety, but for him. If he had died ...

  He stopped and put a hand on her arm. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “I’ll take care of you.”

  She shivered. The rising wind and creak of the snowshoes couldn’t cover the fierce growls and crunch of bone behind her as the wolf pack devoured the remains of the deer. And she couldn’t keep herself from looking back over her shoulder to see if any of the animals were stalking them.

  They pushed
hard, and as the snow fell harder, Hunt began to whistle. Suddenly he stopped short and pointed. “There,” he said. She stared, but saw nothing except swirling white. “It’s the remains of the church,” he explained. “The Indians burned it. The cabin lies beyond. Watch your step. Baptiste is always building something. You don’t want to trip over—” He grunted and swore softly.

  “What was it?” she asked.

  “A post. God knows what one post is doing here.” He stayed her with a touch. “I don’t smell any wood-smoke, do you? There should be smoke from Baptiste’s chimney. You stay here,” he whispered.

  “Not on your life. Where you go, I go.”

  He didn’t try to stop her as she followed him across a cleared area, past another ruined building to the door of a small cabin. Hunt removed his snowshoes, and she did the same without being told.

  The door was fastened on the outside with a wooden bar. Hunt lifted it, pushed the door open, and stepped inside. “Baptiste?” he called.

  The only reply was a low meow. “A cat?” Elizabeth said in surprise. “He has a cat?” She stepped up into the darkened cabin and closed the door against the wind and snow. The meow had become a loud purr. Elizabeth dropped to her knees as the cat rubbed against her. “Nice kitty,” she said.

  “Stay put until I make a light,” Hunt ordered. He crossed the room and Elizabeth heard him fumbling against the stone hearth. Something metal fell and clanked against the floor. “I found a fire kit,” he said.

  Elizabeth petted the cat and waited until a single spark flashed in the blackness.

  “Just a minute,” he said. He struck another spark and she saw a glow. Within minutes they had both fire and light.

  Elizabeth looked around the tidy room. The floor was hard-packed clay, swept clean. A wooden shutter covered the single window, securely locked and barred from within. Traps and a fishnet hung on one wall; baskets and herbs and dried meat dangled from the rafters. There was a wide plank table, scarred from long use, three straight-back chairs with rush seats and a real four-poster bed. A covered crockery jar stood on the window shelf, and an unfinished pine-needle basket sat on a smaller worktable beside a woman’s sewing bag. The table was set for two with blue-and-white porcelain plates and bowls, and two pewter goblets.