Her little brother was getting out of hand, there were no two ways about it. Simon said she spoiled him rotten, and maybe he was right. Lately, Colin had been bordering on cocky, not just with Simon, but with her. It was time she jerked his leadline up tight.
It hadn’t been easy on any of them, her raising Colin off here in the deep forest so far from any white settlement. There were no churches or schools, and no boys of any age for him to play with. The only male company he had was her husband Simon, and that was usually worse than none. Simon had no patience with a ten-year-old child; he was too quick to lash out at Colin with his fist.
She loved the boy so much that it was hard for her to discipline him. Simon didn’t love him at all. If she’d had babes of her own, maybe she would have felt differently about an orphan brother. As it was, Colin was her whole world.
And he’d been gone far too long to fetch water . . .
Indians. The possibility of savages lurking in the hills around the cabin made her mouth go dry. It was long past Indian summer—those balmy weeks in late autumn when attacks by hostile were most likely. Simon had scoffed at her fears when he’d ridden out for Fort Nelson. Common sense told her that Simon knew the wild tribes if anyone did; there’d be no real danger until spring. And maybe not then, she reasoned, if this new peace treaty was signed between the British and the Delaware and Shawnee.
Rebecca finished lacing up her second moccasin, took her hooded cloak off a peg by the door, and stepped outside. It was a bitter gray day—one that seeped into your bones. More snow was in the air, she could smell it. Already, a good four inches lay on the ground, crunching under her feet as she walked.
On the wooded rise behind the barn, a wolf howled and Rebecca cast as nervous glance in that direction. “Colin!” she called again.
She listened hard for an answer, but it was quiet—too quiet. Not even the caw of a crow broke the stillness of the frosty morning.
Rebecca started for the creek on the run.
She was halfway across the clearing of burned stumps when she realized that she hadn’t stopped to pick up a weapon. Their only musket hung over the cabin door, primed and ready to fire.
She stopped short and called her brother’s name again. Nothing . . . for the hundredth time, she damned Simon for not letting her keep a dog.
A dog would bark and give warning of Indians. A dog might have driven off the wolves that had killed her calf last spring. In her mind’s eye, she pictured a huge Irish mastiff prowling the far corners of the farm, protecting them with his keen sense of smell and hearing.
“Colin!” Her heart was racing; her mouth tasted of hammered metal.
He’s playing along the stream bank, she told herself. The rascal’s forgotten the water and gone to check on his muskrat traps, or he’s tracking some animal in the new fallen snow. He’d done it to her before, often enough.
But she’d never before had this overwhelming sensation of impending doom . . .
A sick sensation rose in the pit of her stomach, and Rebecca forced herself to retrace her steps to the house. If Colin was in trouble—if there were Indians out there—she’d need the gun.
The musket was heavy, but she was strong from years of chopping wood, hoeing corn, and carrying water to her garden. She snagged Simon’s old hunting pouch from a pair of deer antlers, secured the knife and powder horn, and slung the strap over her shoulder.
“If you’ve worried me half to death for nothing, Colin,” she murmured under her breath, “I’ll make you rue the day . . .” She prayed that he had—that this was just a boyish prank.
She dashed back across the yard, then slowed her pace on the slippery incline that led to the creek at the bottom of the gully. Colin’s tracks were plain as day, a single set of small footprints, then a wide, flattened place in the snow where he’d slid on his bottom with a separate skid mark for the empty bucket.
Simon had cut two cedar logs and set them into the bank horizontally to make a firm spot to dip up water in all kinds of weather, wet or dry. The snow was scuffed across the surface of the cedar platform. She could see where Colin had dropped to his knees and leaned over the edge. The creek was too swift to freeze over unless the temperature dropped far below normal, but ice crystals formed along the banks. As Rebecca peered over the logs, she caught sight of a half-submerged bucket floating in an eddy.
“Colin.” This time his name came out a harsh whisper. Colin might be flighty, but he was never careless. He wouldn’t have left the bucket unless . . .
“Rebecca.”
She spun around to see an unruly thatch of dark brown hair and two frightened eyes staring over the top of a fallen log. “Colin!”
“Shhh,” he warned. He pointed to the far bank of the stream. “I saw something—” he began.
Relief washed over her, making her all shaky, so weak in the knees that she wanted to drop into the snow. “Lord, boy, you scared me.”
“Shhh.” He stood up cautiously, looking hard and long at the grove of big oaks beyond the creek. “A deer,” he began. “A big doe ran down the ravine and crossed there.” He pointed to a rocky spot a few hundred feet from where Rebecca stood. “She was running like the devil’s hounds were after . . .”
“A deer?” Anger was fast replacing her gut-wrenching terror. “You put me through this because you saw a deer?”
Colin scrambled over the log and ran to her side. “Don’t be dumb. Something scared that doe plenty.” He dropped flat on his stomach and reached down to seize the rope handle of the bucket and pull it up.
“Your imagination is getting away with you,” she chided. “Why didn’t you answer me when I called you? I—”
“Quiet,” he snapped, sounding like a miniature version of their father when he was at the end of his patience. “Voices carry a long way in the woods. Move out slow, up the hill.”
“Colin.” He was really in for it now. Not only had he caused her terrible fright, but he was trying to bluff his way out of . . .
“There!” he cried. “Look!”
She saw a movement in the shadows of a pine bough fifty yards away. A single ray of sunshine glinted off something bright—something that might have been metal—and the woods echoed with the hunting cry of a gray wolf.
“Run!” Colin ordered.
As she turned to flee up the slippery, snow-covered path, a second wolf howled from the right, and then a third joined in from the hill behind the house.
“That’s no wolf pack,” Colin yelled. “It’s hostiles!”
Together, they plunged up the slope. Weighted down by the flintlock musket, Rebecca was hard pressed to keep up with Colin. She was gasping for breath when she reached the top.
“Come on!” he yelled, offering her his hand. “Faster!”
She glanced back over her shoulder and stifled a scream. Splashing through the creek was a painted savage. Another warrior raced up the ravine, and the chilling sound he uttered was not that of a wolf—it was a Shawnee war whoop.
Rebecca swung the musket around, knelt, and took careful aim at the closest brave, and squeezed the trigger. Smoke and shot burst from the barrel. The stock slammed into her shoulder, but she didn’t feel the pain and she didn’t stop to see if she’d hit her target. She leaped up and ran toward the cabin.
Colin reached the house first. He threw open the door. “Run, Rebecca!” he screamed. “Run!”
She was inside barring the door before the first Indian charged across the clearing. “The window!” she said urgently.
“Got it!” Colin replied. He slammed the inside shutter closed and rammed the bolt in place.
Her teeth chattered as she shrugged off her cloak and began to reload the musket. One gun—she had a single flintlock musket to hold off a Shawnee war party.
“What if they fire the cabin?”
She ignored her brother, concentrating on tamping down the lead ball. She knew she’d dumped in too much powder in her haste. She only hoped she hadn’t put in so much tha
t it blew up the barrel and her to boot.
Colin jumped up on a stool and looked out a small opening carved in the chinking of the log wall. “Jesus!” He gasped. “There must be a hundred of ’em!”
“Hold your blasphemous tongue,” Rebecca admonished. She put the musket barrel through the hole, sighted in on a stocky brave with roached hair, and fired. The Indian tumbled backwards and lay still. “That’s one,” she said with more bravado than she felt. “Only ninety-nine to go.”
Colin had armed himself with his bow and arrows. He’d begged Simon to teach him to shoot the musket, but Simon would have none of it. Instead, he’d brought the boy a worn bow and a few sorry arrows. The bowstring was shredding, and the shafts were missing some of their feathers, but that hadn’t stopped Colin. He’d practiced day after day with the bow until he was bringing home rabbits, squirrels, and an occasional trout or turkey. Rebecca knew that the boy was a good shot, but against armed warriors his efforts would be useless.
Lead balls were striking the cabin like hail as she withdrew the musket to reload. Powder—patch—lead. She rammed the ball home, glad for once that she had a musket instead of a long rifle. A rifle shot farther and truer, but she could load a musket in half the time. And at this distance, you didn’t need to be a marksman to hit your target.
Her fingers trembled as she loaded the frizzen pan with fine powder. Some of the precious stuff spilled on the hard-packed floor, but she didn’t waste time worrying over it. She wasn’t as good at this as Simon. He could load and fire ten times in three minutes—and hit the bull’s-eye dead center every time at thirty yards.
When the gun was ready, she ran to a loophole on the far side of the door and fired again. This time, she missed her shot, and the savage hurled a tomahawk against the log eighteen inches from her head.
Reload. Fire. Reload. Fire. Rebecca stopped thinking rationally. If she let herself reason, she’d know they didn’t have a chance. Already flaming arrows were striking the shingled cedar roof. How long before the cabin went up in flames?
This time when she went back to the nearest opening to shoot, the clearing was empty of all save the two dead men on the ground and the one crawling away through the muddy snow. She hesitated, waiting for someone to move.
“What is it?” Colin demand. “Why aren’t you firing?”
“They’re not out there,” she said in disbelief.
“We ran ’em off? Yaay!” He jumped up and down at her elbow. “They turned tail and—”
“Quiet!” she ordered. “Here, you hold the musket while I look.” There were too many unanswered questions. Why had the attack been so half-hearted? Why hadn’t someone slipped up to the cabin and fired inside through one of the gun ports?
She checked the other sides of the cabin. No signs of hostiles anywhere. The war cries had stopped, but the silence was somehow worse than the screaming. She could feel her own blood pounding in her temple, and her heart was beating so fast it was a wonder it hadn’t burst from her chest.
Simon’s bloody tales of Indian atrocities committed against white women and children coiled in the recesses of her imagination like diamondback rattlers. “Never allow yourself to be captured,” Simon had warned. “Never. Five minutes with a Shawnee warrior and you’d pray for the mercy of hellfire.”
She scooped up a double handful of water from the bucket on the table, drank a little, and splashed the rest over her face. Returning to Colin’s side, she lifted the musket’s weight again and curled her finger around the trigger.
“We can’t hold them off with one musket,” Colin said. His brown eyes were wide with fear.
“The walls are thick, they’ll hold.”
He shook his head. “Not if the Injuns set fire to the roof.”
“If they burn the cabin, we’ll go out through the root cellar and follow Simon’s tunnel to the hill behind the house,” she said patiently. “He dug it for an escape route in case of trouble.”
“This is trouble. I think we better go out now, while we can.”
“No, not yet.” She took a deep breath and tried to sound sure of herself. “We’re safer in here for now.”
“I ain’t seen hide nor hair of ’em,” he said. “Maybe—”
“Hide nor hair of them,” she said, correcting him automatically. Keeping Colin from sounding like an ignorant backwoodsman was a never-ending task. Simon claimed she was “too high in the stomach” for a bastard Irish slut, but it was a habit she couldn’t change. Illegitimate or not, she and Colin were James Gordon’s children, and they would speak the King’s English as properly as he had.
Colin threw her an incredulous look. “Hide nor hair of them. Maybe the In-di-ans hiked up their pants and ran.”
“Shhh.” She gazed intently at the tree line. “You go to the back wall and watch,” she said. “In case they sneak up on us.”
He obeyed without a whimper, and a lump rose in her throat. Colin was only ten, but he was tough. Whatever happened, he would face the worst head on, eyes open, back straight. Papa would have been proud of you, she thought. You’re a Gordon, through and through.
Christ’s sacred wounds! Ten was too young to die. Too young to end up scalped or burned alive. If only Simon would come back—or some of his friends. She hadn’t seen a hundred Indians out there, only a dozen or so. A few riflemen could drive them off before—
Suddenly, something white caught her attention. A brave stepped out of the woods waving a cream-colored deer hide. “Wife of Simon Brandt!” he called in perfect English. “Wife of Simon Brandt! This man, Fire Talon, would parley with you!”
“What do you want?” she shouted back.
“Surrender or we burn your house!”
Rebecca’s mouth went dry, and she dug her nails into the musket stock. The brave was tall and muscular, not as tall as Simon, perhaps, but sleek as a mountain cat. He wore his hair long. Blue-black as the devil’s own locks, it fell to his waist in shimmering waves.
He was too far away for her to see the color of his eyes, but she knew they would be black and cold as obsidian. His brows were slashes across a hawklike face; his high prominent cheekbones were marked with yellow and black war paint. He was half-naked in the cold; his chest was bare, adorned with heathen bear claws. A wide band of copper encircled one sinewy bicep, and a single eagle feather dangled from the back of his head to trail insolently against his naked shoulder.
His waist was as narrow as a girl’s, his loins barely covered with a fringed loincloth. Leggings reached from mid-thigh to the tops of his moccasins. He carried no weapons, but she recognized him just the same. He was the first Indian she had seen splashing through the creek—the one she’d fired at from the top of the slope.
“Surrender, wife of Simon Brandt!” he thundered. “Surrender and you will not die this day!”
“Go to hell!” she replied, drawing a bead on the amulet in the center of his bear-claw necklace. Then she pulled the trigger, solidifying her position with a .75-caliber musket ball aimed two inches to the right, directly at his black heart.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Copyright © 1996 by Judith E. French Avon mass market edition: February 1996
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First Kensington Electronic Edition: December 2013
ISBN: 978-1-6018-3096-8
E. French, Sundancer's Woman
Sundancer's Woman Page 35