Sundancer's Woman

by Judith E. French

  Rachel flashed her most innocent expression, the look that Elizabeth knew meant her daughter hadn’t changed her mind one iota, and that she was actively planning a new attack.

  “But she said—” Jamie began.

  “She called me No-tha.” Hunt fixed Jamie with a shrewd gaze. “Haven’t I heard you speak to Fire Talon in the same way?”

  Jamie gnawed his bottom lip in silence.

  “No-tha can mean a person’s sire or it can simply be a term of respect,” Hunt explained patiently. “Rachel didn’t mean kne-hah, which is my father in Iroquoian, did you, Rachel?”

  Rachel beamed and nodded. “Hunt is my kne-hah.”

  “See!” Jamie sputtered. “I told you so!” He spun around and kicked at his sister. She dodged behind Hunt.

  “No kicking,” Hunt admonished sharply. “No hitting, and no kicking. A brave does not attack women.”

  “She’s no woman. She’s a papoose!” Jamie proclaimed.

  “Am not.”

  Jamie tried to get around Hunt’s legs and Rachel ran behind her mother. “She’s stupid,” Jamie cried. “She’s dumb.”

  “Elizabeth?” Hunt looked at her.

  This time she took pity on him. “Jamie is right,” she said smoothly. “Rachel, you may not call Hunt Father in Seneca. Yellow Drum is your kne-hah. But Hunt can be No-tha.”

  “Fair enough,” Hunt agreed. “Jamie?”

  “It’s not fair,” he grumbled, but Elizabeth knew by her son’s grimace that it was only a token protest and not a real expression of anger at injustice.

  “My No-tha,” Rachel murmured. “Mine.”

  “Now that that’s settled, can we move on?” Hunt asked. “I want to make the river crossing before dark.”

  “Of course,” Elizabeth replied. “Whatever you say.” She glanced at Rachel and winked, and the little girl giggled. Hand in hand, they started off with the two males mumbling behind them.

  Over the next rise, they found a road with wheel ruts cut into it, and beyond that the ground ran down to the river. Hunt led them downriver for another half mile to a ferry. There, they met two astonished white men who were all too glad to pole them across the water to an ordinary on the far side. The inn was large, consisting of a main two-story log building, several outbuildings, and a stable, all surrounded by a log palisade.

  “I know this place,” Hunt said. “It’s run by a family of Quakers, very respectable. You’ll be safe here while we send word to your father.”

  Jamie and Rachel were so excited that they couldn’t stand still. Elizabeth stood at the ferry railing, clinging tightly to their hands, certain that given the chance one or both would tumble to their deaths in the river. Her own pulse was racing, and her face flushed. She could feel the force of the ferrymen’s gaze boring into her back, and she imagined what they must think of her—a white woman—with her Indian clothing and two dark-skinned children.

  Once on the other side, she had no time to think. Jane Goodson, the proprietor’s wife, swooped down on her and whisked her away to her private chambers. There, she and the children were fed and fussed over and dressed in sober English garments.

  “Poor things,” Jane exclaimed. “So long prisoners of the naturals. God be thanked for thy return to the bosom of thine own people.”

  Elizabeth caught no sight of Hunt for hours, and when she did, there was no time for them to speak privately. John Goodson, his three grown sons, their wives, servants, and two families who were staying overnight at the ordinary all plied her and Hunt with questions and tried to tell them the news of recent happenings in the Carolinas.

  “A rider was sent to your father in Charles Town,” Hunt managed to tell her between bursts of loud conversation.

  Elizabeth nodded. The more questions these people asked her, the more she wished to be silent. She wanted to be alone with Hunt and her children. These whites talked too loud, and they smelled of sour sweat and dirty clothing. Her head ached, and her feet pinched in the hard leather shoes. She could hardly draw a breath in the whalebone stays and layers of scratchy wool that enveloped her. Worse, her hair had been pinned and tucked under a linen cap that had seen better days and worse owners; and she was certain something alive was crawling over the crown of her head.

  No one had accused her of being an Indian’s whore; no one had called her children half-breeds, but she still felt heartsick and miserable. She missed the friendly faces of the Shawnee women; she missed her comfortable Indian dress and moccasins. She missed Hunt’s teasing and the companionship of the trail.

  So when Jane Goodson announced that it was time that Elizabeth and the little ones were in bed, Elizabeth was all too happy to abandon the public room and retreat to a quiet room under the eaves. To her great relief, Jane assured her that she and the children would have privacy. No one else would share the chamber.

  Murmuring thanks to the Quaker woman, Elizabeth soothed Jamie’s and Rachel’s fears, hugged and kissed them, and watched over them until they were asleep. Then she stripped to her linen shift, let down her hair, and brushed it out. Later, a need for fresh air drew her to the single window, and she pushed open the wooden shutter and stared out pensively into the moonlit night.

  She sat there for a long time. For hours, the noise and smells of the ordinary—the clanking tankards, dishes, and voices, the odors of mutton and pork and ale—floated up from the rooms below. Hounds barked and chased a cat across the inn yard. Horses neighed and stomped in their stalls, and an evening breeze brought the dubious fragrances of pickling sauerkraut and a fresh manure pile.

  A lantern bobbed as a maidservant went to the well for water. Elizabeth heard the splash of an empty pail striking the water, then seconds later came the creak of the windlass as the wench drew up the brimming bucket. A door slammed, and Elizabeth listened as footsteps thumped on the stairs.

  Hunt didn’t come to her room, and gradually, the inn grew still. The only sounds she could hear were the faint breathing of her children and the reverberating snores and coughs coming from an adjoining chamber.

  “Please, Hunt,” she whispered. “Please don’t leave me alone tonight. I need you so.” Eventually, her hopes deserted her. Dry-eyed, with a lump in her throat, she closed the shutter and crawled between the sheets of the ancient poster bed. Still, sleep would not come. She tossed and turned, thumping the lumpy feather pillow with both fists, trying to settle her mind enough to drift off.

  Then a small click caught her attention. She held her breath and listened. Yes, she had heard it. A shower of hard objects rattled her shutter. Rising from the bed, she went to the window, unlatched the covering, and swung it back. She peered out into the night and smiled.

  Hunt stood directly below in the inn yard. He looked a proper Irish yoeman in his boots and shirt and breeches with his hair tied into a queue at the back of his neck, but he was still the man she loved.

  Her heart began to flutter dangerously as she leaned out. “What are you doing?”

  “Throwing stones at your window.”

  The sound of his voice made her all giddy inside. “How did you know it was my window?” she replied.

  “I’d be a poor scout if I couldn’t track a single woman inside this palisade.”

  “Have you come to rescue me? To carry me away from all this?” she teased, only half in fun.

  “I miss you, cat eyes.”

  “Where’s your flute?”

  He grinned. “Even Quakers would notice an Indian courting flute.”

  She twisted a lock of hair around her thumb. “Will you come up?”

  “Will you come down?”

  “Hunt Campbell, you are a contrary man.”

  “Shh, you’ll wake the children,” he warned.

  “And how am I to come down?” she asked.

  He held out his arms. “Jump?”

  “You’ll drop me.”

  He laughed. “I’ll not drop you, sweetheart, not yet, anyway.”

  “And if I do jump, how will I get
back?”

  “I haven’t thought of that part yet.”

  “You want me to jump out this window in my shift and take the chance of getting caught and causing a scandal?”

  “Trust me.”

  She gathered her courage and jumped.

  Chapter 27

  Charles Town, South Carolina

  July 1765

  Elizabeth clung to the memory of that night of abandon she and Hunter had shared in the hayloft at the Quaker inn. It carried her through the awkward meeting with her father’s new wife, Lady Gwendolen, the day-long thanksgiving services for her return that were conducted at their parish church, and the constant parade of visitors who wanted to stare at her. Thoughts of Hunt’s passionate lovemaking even helped to ease her heartache in the long, restless nights she spent lying awake in her father’s house.

  Rays of sunlight filtered through the louvered shutters of the floor-to-ceiling windows of her elegant bedchamber. Elizabeth groaned and rubbed her eyes; she felt as though her head were stuffed with un-carded wool. This must be what a hangover feels like, she decided. But she hadn’t overindulged in brandy-wine; she simply hadn’t had enough sleep. She’d still been pacing the floor when the tall case clock on the stair landing had struck four.

  “Mornin’, Miz ’Lizabet Anne.” Polly entered the room with a breakfast tray. “You ‘wake?” The wheyfaced serving girl shuffled across the room in worn green slippers with the heel ends cut out.

  Elizabeth sat up and pushed the hair off her perspiring face. Had Charles Town in July always been such a cauldron? She longed for the cool forests and clear mountain streams of the Ohio Country; the sticky heat and flies here were enough to drive her mad. But then, as Polly reminded her—at least twice a day—the family had always retreated to the country in summer.

  “Gonna be a hot one,” Polly said, dropping the tray onto a bedside table. “Sensible folks don’t stay in Charles Town in hot time. They’s ’fraid of the fever.”

  Lady Gwendolen had pleaded to move the household to Magnolia—the largest of the Fleming family plantations—miles inland from the coast. Elizabeth’s brother Avery’s wife and children were there already, along with Elizabeth’s two younger sisters, and a bevy of house servants. But Sir John was determined to remain in town until the matter of Elizabeth’s future was settled, preferably with a hasty betrothal and marriage.

  “Choc’late, Miz ‘Lizabet Anne?” Polly poured the steaming drink into a thin china cup. “Cook sent up fried eggs, her good sausage, and sweet-potato rolls.”

  Elizabeth caught a whiff of the greasy sausage and eggs, and the smell turned her stomach. “Take it away,” she ordered. “Bring me some fruit, please, if you can find any in the kitchen. Hot tea, not lukewarm, no sugar or milk, and a piece of corn bread. No butter or jam.” She’d lost her childhood taste for sweets and fatty pork. How she longed for some of Shell Bead Girl’s tangy sassafras tea and the tiny corn cakes she baked on a hot stone.

  Polly scowled. “What do I do with this breakfast?”

  “I don’t care. Eat it yourself.”

  The girl’s blue eyes widened, a major demonstration of unfavorable emotion for Polly. As far as Elizabeth could determine, the indentured girl had two expressions, sour and suffering.

  “If you say so, Miz ‘Lizabet Anne, but . . .”

  “But what?”

  “I already ate this morning.”

  “Then give the tray to someone else. I don’t care what you do with it. Just get it out of my sight and bring me something I can eat.”

  “I ‘spose I’ll eat it.” Polly grimaced like a tortured martyr. “Cook gives me grits and porridge to break my fast, hardly enough to feed a blackbird.”

  Elizabeth rubbed her eyes again and tried to summon patience. The wench couldn’t help it if she had the brains of an onion. Elizabeth forced a smile. “What time is it, Polly? I haven’t heard the children this morning.” She pushed back the mosquito netting and ran a hand through her tangled hair.

  “Early yet. Master John not out of bed.” She eyed the untouched cup of chocolate. “Isaac took them wild things to the market. Master Av’ry says Jamie should be learnin’ somethin’ useful stead’a getting into mischief. Rachel just tagged along, I s’pose.”

  “You should have asked me. I would have taken them if they wanted to see the market. They’re too much with the servants.” She rose and walked to a window. “Why is this closed? No wonder there’s no breeze in this chamber. How many times have I told you that I want my windows open? If it isn’t raining, leave them open.”

  Polly sniffed loudly. “My gran said night air will kill a body, and she lived to seventy and two. Cornwall woman, she were,” she added as if that was the end to the argument. Shuffling to the window, she draped a silk wrapper around Elizabeth’s shoulders.

  Below, on the cobbled street, a shrimp seller plied her wares. “Shrimp! Hot shrimp! Spicy shrimp, hot as sin!”

  Behind her came a slave girl, barely into her teens, with skin as black and shiny as polished ebony. “Oysters! Oysters! Fresh oysters!”

  Polly was right, Elizabeth decided. It was early; there were no bankers or planters on the street yet. What society remained in Charles Town was shut tight within their houses; no one was abroad but slaves and the working poor.

  “Master says you to stay home today, Miz ‘Lizabet Anne. Master Peter coming to talk with Sir John ’bout your betrothal.”

  “Pieter, Polly; his name is Pieter Van Meer.”

  “No, m’, he calls hisself Peter here in Charles Town, Peter Vaughn. Miz Gwendolen says he’s a upstart Dutch pretending English gentry. That’s what she says.”

  “He can call himself whatever he likes, but there’ll be no betrothal with me.” Her father had presented her with three proposed husbands already, and she’d only been home a few weeks. The Honorable George Welby was sixty and had just buried his third wife; the second was a prosperous sea captain who smelled of fish and referred to Jamie and Rachel as “the unfortunates.” Pieter Van Meer—Sophie Van Meer’s cousin, whom Elizabeth had met at her brother’s first wedding—was a surprise, pleasant at first, and then not so delightful.

  Pieter hadn’t died in the Indian attack as Elizabeth had supposed. He’d been scalped, but he had survived the ordeal and covered his bald spot with a curled and powdered wig. Now a rather stuffy gentleman, Pieter had managed to ingratiate himself into the fringes of Charles Town society. Avery had explained to her that Pieter had tried his hand at banking—unsuccessfully. After that, there had been a string of unlucky business ventures. Now, she supposed Pieter felt that marrying Sir John Fleming’s soiled daughter would save him from poverty.

  “Fetch my tea, if you please, Polly,” she ordered.

  “If I please? Don’t matter if Polly please or not, do it? Polly, carry this upstairs. Polly, dust this. Polly, mend that. No matter if Polly’s got a cold in her head or her joints is achin’.”

  Elizabeth threw her a warning look.

  “I’m going, Miz ‘Lizabet Anne, I’m goin’.”

  Elizabeth resisted the urge to feel sorry for herself. She’d known that her homecoming would be like this. From the moment they’d arrived in her father’s carriage from the Quaker inn, her own worst fears had begun to take solid form.

  “Come in with me,” she’d whispered to Hunt as he opened the front gate for her. Her father’s house stood as solid and elegant as it ever had. She’d walked in the front door a thousand times as a child; now the thought of entering made her almost physically ill.

  “It’s not my place. Best you see your family alone,” he replied.

  “I’m afraid,” she said.

  “You? You’re not afraid of anything. Pretend they’re Iroquois,” he teased.

  “Hunt, don’t leave me,” she begged him.

  Jamie moved closer to Hunt and took hold of his hand. Hunt glanced down at him and nodded. “If you’re certain, Elizabeth.”

  “I’m certain,” she said, gathering
Rachel in her arms.

  “Miss ‘Lizabet, it’s Ruth,” a gray-haired woman called. “Thank God you be home again.”

  “Ruth.” Elizabeth forced a smile for the cook.

  A row of fresh-faced country girls in white aprons and mobcaps curtsied. “Miss,” one murmured.

  “This is a funny-looking longhouse,” Jamie said in Iroquois.

  “Speak English,” Elizabeth reminded him.

  Two footmen looked down their long noses at her. Hunt threw one an icy stare, and he jumped back as though he’d been burned.

  “Miss Elizabeth.” Joseph, her father’s butler, bowed slightly as he opened the front door. “Welcome home.”

  Elizabeth nodded. “Thank you.”

  Jamie scowled at him.

  Someone had chosen to send Elizabeth one of her mother’s riding habits to travel in. The coat and waistcoat were of purple camlet, trimmed and embroidered with black satin. Elizabeth was fair roasting in the heavy material, and she could hardly draw breath in the tight stays and linen stock. It had been so long since she’d worn leather boots that her feet protested every step. Her riding outfit was topped with an oversized wool cocked hat edged with black and adorned with a single white plume.

  The children wore sober brown clothing loaned to them by Jane Goodson; both had rejected the English shoes and walked easily in their own moccasins. Elizabeth wished that she could have shown so much common sense. After wearing simple Indian garb for so many years, she longed for something light and comfortable.

  Her father was waiting for them in the west parlor.

  “Courage, woman,” Hunt whispered.

  Elizabeth drew in a deep breath and tried to keep from trembling. “Father!” she cried.

  He looked exactly as she remembered him the last time she’d seen him here, nine and a half years ago. His rather old-fashioned full gray satin coat, embroidered waistcoat with silver buttons, and breeches were spotless; his black, silver-buckled shoes shone, and his pocket watch dangled from a silver chain. His Irish lace cravat was wrapped as snugly around his plump throat as ever, and he wore two large rings on his right hand, one a family crest, the second a ruby.