Whispered Promise

by Colleen French

  No, it was better if she just let the past rest. This would be a business agreement. She and Harrison would track William's kidnappers, they would rescue William and Edmund, and then they would part forever. It would be easier this way, less painful for them both.

  But as she studied Harrison's belongings that hung from the rafters and lined the smooth leather floor of the wigwam, she couldn't keep herself from wondering what would have happened nine years ago, had she been then, the woman she was today.

  She'd have met with him, of course. She'd have been smart enough not to discuss her plans with her sister. She'd have walked away from Tanner's Gift and never looked back. She'd have accepted the love she knew now came only once in a lifetime. She'd have risked everything for the chance of happiness. What then? she wondered. Perhaps she and Harrison would have gone back to his father's home and made it their home. She couldn't resist a smile. Or perhaps they would have come west together to live among the Shawnee. She'd have been his equewa, he'd have been her brave. Wouldn't that have shocked her dear father!

  Sounds from outside drew her from her irrational thoughts. There was heated argument and brash shouting. Dogs barked. The Indian drums were suddenly silent.

  Leah stepped outside into the twilight, leaving her cloak behind. The November wind swept her hair off her shoulders, tangling it in the breeze. From the doorway she could see the ceremonial longhouse and the villagers pouring out of it. One man led the way. He was the one shouting. It was Kolheek and he was shaking his fist and berating them in his native tongue.

  The men of the village, their faces without emotion, stood stock still outside the ceremonial long-house, as if they were waiting for something. The Shawnee women shouted and threw sticks.

  Kolheek turned away and strutted toward Harrison's wigwam. Leah stood where she was, wondering what was going on. Harrison was nowhere to be seen.

  Kolheek stopped a few feet from her. His face was lined with barely checked rage.

  Leah looked from Kolheek to the villagers, back to Kolheek. Despite her dislike for the man, her curiosity got the best of her. "What is it? What's wrong?"

  He shook his head. "They are fools, all of them. I leave this village, forever." He threw out his hand. Though small in stature, he was obviously a strong man. His arms were strung with hard, bulging muscles. "I am ready to take you north to find your son."

  Leah looked at him, giving a little laugh of disbelief. "No. Harrison is taking me."

  He pointed his finger, taking a step closer. "I told you I would take you. I told you I was a better man for the task."

  Leah didn't like his tone of voice. Here this man was trying to tell her what she should and should not do. Another man trying to control her life. "And I told you, Harrison was taking me."

  He grabbed her by the arm. "He is weak, English manake. Your son will die if it is Harrison you depend upon. Better to choose me." He thumped his chest with his fist. "Kolheek will find the child."

  Leah jerked her arm from his grasp. "Are you addlepated? I wouldn't walk across this camp with you, never the less trek north. You're a bully and apparently hard of hearing as well."

  This time when her reached for her, she was ready. As his hand snaked out to grab her, she swung as hard as she could with her fist. She caught him in just the right place on the jaw and he fell under the impact of the surprise attack. When he lost his balance he tripped over an empty pot on the cold campfire in front of Harrison's wigwam. The pot went clattering across the grass as he sprawled backward into the black ash pit.

  A wave of laughter rose from the direction of the villagers. Men were cackling and slapping their knees. The women giggled, clapping and stomping their feet.

  Kolheek scrambled up. His sun-tanned face was red and puffy with anger and embarrassment. Out of the corner of her eye, Leah could see Harrison walking fast toward her.

  "I thought you said you were going," Leah challenged Kolheek. Her hand hurt but it felt good to have defended herself.

  Kolheek raised his fist. When he spoke it was from between clenched teeth. "You say I am second best. You say you choose Harrison over me. You make a fool of me in front of my clan!" He was so angry his fist trembled. "This man warns you. I tried to be a friend to you, but you refused me. You have made an enemy today Leah-Beale and you will pay for the disgrace you have thrown in my face."

  Harrison came to her side. He stared at Kolheek, his black eyes boring down on him. A silent message crossed between the two men. Though they may have once been friends, it was obvious they were now enemies. Leah saw Harrison slide his hand down his waist to rest on the hilt of his sheathed knife. Kolheek stared back for a moment, his hatred clear in his eyes, and then turned on his heels and walked away. He went into a wigwam nearby and came out a moment later with a bow, a spear, and a leather pack. Without looking back, he walked through the huddle of wigwams and into the forest.

  "I knew you would be trouble, Leah," Harrison said softly as he watched Kolheek stalk away. "I should have listened to my instincts. I should have sent you from my home the night you came."

  "He's a bully, Harrison and I'll not be bullied. I've spent too many years dancing to that tune." She watched Kolheek as he disappeared from view into the pine forest. "Somehow he got in his head that I was going with him—that he was going to help me find William."

  "What did you say to him?"

  She stared at Harrison incredulously. "I said no. I said I wanted you, not him."

  He swore softly beneath his breath, the first English curse Leah had heard come out of his mouth since she'd arrived. "Perfect. Now I'll not only have to be concerned with being scalped from the front, but the rear as well."

  "What do you mean?"

  Harrison gestured in the direction Kolheek had gone. "He's just been outcast, Leah, for crimes against the village, against his people. He will never be welcome among the Shawnee again. To us, he died as he entered the forest. Apparently he thought to save face he would take you on this mission. Now to add insult to his injury, you have told him you chose me over him. You told him he was second best."

  She frowned. "So? I have a right to go with whomever I want. I'm not following."

  "The woman—it's bad luck to speak the name of the dead." He sighed. It was obvious he didn't want to go into his past now, but after a moment he continued. "As I said before, when I refused her marriage proposal, Kolheek asked her to marry him. She refused him saying he was second best." He ran his fingers over his scalp through his long black hair. "Her words cut him deeply. Ever since I came to the village he's felt a competition between us. When she turned him away he was very hurt and very angry with me. He thought it was my fault she would not have him."

  "And now I've told him he's second best as well," Leah said softly.

  "On the mark. Not only does he feel you shamed him by word but by deed."

  "I wouldn't have struck him if he'd kept his hands to himself." She stared into the darkening forest. "He wouldn't try to hurt us, would he?"

  Villagers were beginning to file by now. A young woman carrying a baby on her back walked up to Leah and patted her arm, smiling as she passed. Leah couldn't understand her Shawnee, but she caught Kolheek's name. The young woman was obviously pleased by what Leah had done. Apparently Leah had not been the first person he'd tried to bully.

  Leah looked back at Harrison as the young woman parted. "Tell me the truth. He wouldn't, would he, Harrison?"

  "I don't think so. We were friends, Kolheek and I. We loved once as brothers. That is very important among the Shawnee. Friendship is sacred. I could never harm him." He spoke slowly, as if the works pained him. "He could never hurt me."

  Leah could only stand there, looking up at Harrison's sun-bronzed face. Good heavens he was handsome standing here before her in his quilled leather tunic and tight fringed leggings.

  "What now?" she finally said.

  His black-eyed gaze met hers and held her spellbound. "Now we make plans."

&n
bsp; Leah threw her arms around Harrison's neck. "I knew you would go. I knew you would help me," she cried, her voice cracking with emotion. "I knew I could count on you, if no one else on earth, you." On impulse, she brushed her lips across his smooth cheek. "God bless you. Thank you, thank you."

  Harrison grasped her shoulders and pulled her back so that he could look her in the eyes. "Don't thank me yet," he said huskily. "I'll find them, but I can't promise they'll be alive."

  William sat cross-legged across the campfire from the two Mohawk braves. He chewed on the scraps of the rabbit carcass they had tossed him after they'd eaten, all the while, watching them carefully.

  They called themselves Sky Feather and Two Halves. They were father and son. Both spoke broken English. Both were mean and he hated them.

  William gnawed on a knob of gristle on a leg bone as he watched them through the flames of the campfire. Today they had climbed higher into the mountains, north he thought. Today it had snowed.

  William smiled to himself. He liked the snow and now that he had knee-high moccasins like the men, his feet were warmer. Today as he walked behind his captors he had pretended he was back on Tanner's Gift. He had pretended he and Father were headed to the north pasture to look on the horses, then he hadn't felt so tired and lonely. It had been fun as long as he didn't look up and see the savages and remember that Father was gone.

  Father . . .

  William looked down at the rabbit bone in his hand, concentrating on the shreds of meat that still clung to it. He wouldn't cry. He was eight years old and too big to cry.

  Father had hung himself. That morning after his father had hit him, he had woken to see his father hanging from a rope from the barn rafter. When William closed his eyes he could still see his father's blue, lifeless face. He could still see his body spinning ever so slowly. He could hear the rope creak.

  The soldiers at the fort who had cut him down had said it was because his father was a coward. That's why he'd killed himself. William had told them it wasn't true and when they had laughed at him, he had attacked the big one in the English uniform. He had given the soldier a bloody nose before another one had pulled him off him. It didn't matter that William had earned a stiff kick for his behavior. He had defended his father's good name, the Beale name, and that was what was important.

  William swallowed hard against the lump in his throat that wouldn't let the rabbit meat go down. He always got this lump in his throat when he thought about his father or mother. How long had father been dead now, two weeks? No, longer. William had tried to keep track of the days making marks on a stick he carried in his pocket, but sometimes he was so tired at night when the redskins finally stopped, that he knew he forgot to make his mark.

  Father told him he had to escape. He had to go back to the camp, but so far, William wasn't sure how to escape. The Indians who had taken him from the camp watched him too closely. They still tied his feet together too and that made it hard to walk. But he wasn't going to stay with these red-niggers long. That was what his father called them and that's what they were. No, he'd bide his time and when they took their eyes off them, he'd run. He'd run all the way to New Jersey and Mama would be there waiting for him. That's where she was now. He knew that. Father said so.

  William tossed his rabbit bone into the blaze of the fire and wiped his mouth on the leather tunic sleeve. He glanced up at the three quarter moon that hung in the dark sky. "I'm comin', Mama," he mouthed silently. "Just don't go without me. Don't go back to Tanner's Gift without me, Mama . . . "

  Late that night Leah stood outside Harrison's wigwam, staring up at the bright three quarter moon. Flakes of snow were beginning to fall. The ground was already dusted in a blanket of soft white. She and Harrison had talked for hours. They had made plans and tomorrow morning they would leave the village and start north. First they would go into the Jersies and track down the American Army. They would gain what information they could about the kidnapping, then they would head north. Leah had suggested they stop at Tanner's Gift for supplies and horses, but Harrison balked. Either time was a factor or it wasn't, he'd snapped. "Make up your mind." So they would purchase what they needed in Annapolis and then head for New Jersey.

  Leah stared up at the moon, wrapping her arms around her waist beneath her cloak for warmth. God, but her arms ached for William . . .

  She heard the leather doorflap lift and fall behind her and then Harrison was at her side. He stared up at the moon and then at her.

  She didn't look at him for fear he would see the tears in her eyes.

  "What do you think of, Leah?" he asked, his voice oddly tender.

  "Of William. I . . . I wonder if he's cold. I wonder if he sees the moon tonight from where he sits." She fought her tears. "I wonder if I will ever see him again."

  Then Leah felt the pressure of Harrison's hand on her shoulder. "It's difficult for me to understand this love for a child because I have never had a child, but I can imagine what it must be." He paused. "I can imagine, because I can remember the ache in my heart when you left me."

  Leah turned to Harrison. "This is going to be hard, traveling together. We need to try to make an effort to respect each other and each other's feelings."

  He took his hand from her shoulder. "You say that as if you were the injured party." Any tenderness real or imagined was gone from his voice in an instant. Now he was cold again, cold, and uncaring. "You forget, you were the one who betrayed me. I was there that morning in the clearing, Leah. I waited for you."

  "Harrison—"

  He raised his hand to silence her. "I sleep in my grandmother's wigwam tonight. It's better you go to sleep now. We leave at dawn."

  Before she could answer, he walked away, leaving her nothing but the prints of his moccasins in the newly fallen snow.

  Chapter Seven

  Harrison stepped over a fallen log, ducked beneath a low-hanging branch, and stepped back onto the narrow game path. Because there were no roads this far west, he used the paths beaten smooth by the delicate hooves of the whitetail deer. The Shawnee had been traveling these natural roads for a thousand years. This one led directly into Annapolis.

  Harrison glanced over his shoulder impatiently. He was probably pushing Leah harder than necessary but he had to see now if she had what it would take to track down her son's captors. Better to find out now that she wouldn't be able to keep up, than to find out halfway into New York. So far, she'd been keeping up well. Better than he had hoped.

  "I'm coming, I'm coming," Leah panted. She had pulled her somber linsey-woolsey skirt up to tuck the tail into a wide leather belt she wore. The alteration to the white woman's clothing made it easier for her to move more swiftly, but Indian garb still would have made more sense. Harrison had offered to borrow a woman's tunic and leggings for her, but she'd refused him. He shrugged to himself. She could suit herself. What did he care how many times she fell?

  "Soon it will be night."

  "You think I can't tell that? But I also know we should be in Annapolis soon." She jumped over the log, ducked the branch, and stepped back onto the game path. She was out of breath, but still pressed forward. "It took a good ten hours to make the village from Annapolis, but you walk faster than the two who brought me into the village."

  He gave a snort of derision. "You're lucky they brought you in at all. You know your chances weren't good that you'd make it all the way. Your chances were better that they'd have robbed you, raped you, and left you for a band of Iroquois, maybe some army deserters."

  "Oh, really? They came by recommendation from your friend Joshua. Guess I should take more care in choosing whose friends I rely on in the future."

  He looked over his shoulder at her again, slowing his pace so she could catch up. The woman had a mouth on her. She had been so sweet and easy to please when they were teenagers. He wondered where the cynicism had come from. "My friend Joshua? Joshua Jones?"

  "I don't know what his last name was. The tavern owner of the Two Fleec
e."

  "How did you find Joshua?"

  "Your father."

  Harrison focused his attention on the path ahead. He re-adjusted the bow he wore slung over one shoulder. "How is my father?"

  "Well enough. The gout had him down last, I saw him, but that new young wife of his takes good care of him. I think she's good for him."

  "His third wife," Harrison mused.

  "Yes, his third wife. The colonies are hard on a woman. Wake up, Harrison. Some women die of childbirth, others of us die of plain hard work. But what do you care if your father has one wife or a harem, as long as he's happy?"

  Harrison had heard through Joshua that his father had remarried last year, but he knew nothing about the woman except that she was thirty years his father's junior and a widow. "Does . . . does he love her?"

  Leah laughed and Harrison wished he hadn't asked. Her easy laughter made him uncomfortable. It was a foolish question. What did he care if his father loved his new wife?

  "No. He doesn't love her. Not the way he said he loved your mother. He says he never loved a woman like he loved your mother—soul mate, he called her. But he likes the new wife. Carrie's her name. She keeps him company. She's slim and young, and I imagine keeps him satisfied in the marriage bed." She laughed again.

  Harrison failed to see the humor. "And what do you know of my father's loves? In or out of the sheets?"

  Leah brushed her hand against the leather sleeve of his outer tunic. "You're too serious, Harrison. Lighten up. Your father is getting on in his years. He's having a little fun."

  "That doesn't answer my question."

  She sighed, stopping to lean against a tree. She took the waterskin Starlight had given her, untied the neck, and took a long drink. "Your father and I have become very close in the last years. He became the father I needed, the man my father could never have been for me even if he'd lived." She held out her waterskin for him.