William swung open the door and a gust of frigid air blew through the room. "Sam! Here boy!" He could see the dog's tracks in the snow, but Sam was nowhere to be seen. "Sam!" He looked back at Bo. "I don't see him. I don't see my dog."
"Oh, he's probably chasin' something through the woods. He'll be back. Now close that door and climb onto that bench. I got fresh hotcakes and blueberry syrup comin' your way. Miss Bo here's gonna see if she can't fatten you up a bit."
Reluctantly William closed the door. "After breakfast I guess I'll have to go out after him. Mama said we might be leaving today." He sat down on the bench at the trestle table. "I can't leave him behind."
"Course not." Bo dropped a pewter plate with a big hotcake in the center in front of William.
"Mmmmm." He smiled, picking up his fork. "Smells good."
"Say your thanks to the Lord yourself and eat. I reckon those two'll be in shortly." She slid him a small pitcher full of syrup.
William poured the thick, purple syrup over his hotcakes and cut off a section. He pushed the sweet chunk into his mouth. "Mmm. Delicious. You wouldn't be interested in coming to Tanner's Gift would you? The cook we got, she's old and cranky and her cooking's not half what yours is, Miss Bo."
Bolene laughed, pouring more batter onto the hot spider skillet. "I'm flattered you'd ask, boy, but my home's right here. I'm not leavin' the bank of the Hudson 'till they carry me off in a pine box."
The door swung open and William looked up. It was the Indian, but his mother wasn't behind him. William turned his attention back to his plate.
"Good morning," Harrison said.
Bo offered him her shining face. "Good mornin' to you. Take a seat. Breakfast is up."
Harrison sat across from William. "Good morning, Wills."
William crammed more hotcake in his mouth. "Morning," he answered begrudgingly.
"Sleep well?" Harrison looked up at Bo who had just set a pewter plate with a huge hotcake down in front of him. "Thank you."
"Welcome."
Harrison looked back at William. "Bed comfortable?"
"Comfortable enough." He chewed, not making eye contact. "Did you see my dog out there? I let him out to piddle and he didn't come back."
"No. I didn't see him, just his tracks in the snow. You get dressed after breakfast and if he hasn't come back, we'll both go out looking for him. I'm sure he's just off chasing a rabbit."
William laid down his fork, finished with his breakfast and climbed off the bench. "I don't need your help. I'll find him myself." He picked up his leather clothes Bo had left stacked neatly on the edge of her work table. "Going up to get dressed," he muttered.
"Send your mother down. Tell her the cakes will be cold."
William started up the steps. "She's not up there."
Harrison's fork froze in the air halfway to his mouth. "She's not upstairs?" He looked at Bolene. "Where is she, Bo?"
Bo wiped her hands on her apron, her concern plain on her face. "We thought she was with you."
Harrison dropped his fork and it clattered on the pewter plate. He climbed off the bench. "When did you last see her, William?"
He turned around to face Harrison, looking uneasy. "Last night. I had a bath and she sent me to bed. She said she was going to have a bath and then she'd be up, too."
"Did she ever come up?"
William bit down on his lower lip, thinking. He looked up at Harrison. "I don't know."
"What the hell do you mean you don't know?" Harrison didn't mean to shout at the boy, but he had a sinking suspicion that something was wrong.
William thrust out his lower lip angrily. "I mean, I don't know. You deaf, or stupid, or both? I went to sleep last night. She wasn't there. I woke up this morning. She wasn't there." He stared defiantly at Harrison. "I don't know."
Harrison swore a French oath beneath his breath, one he probably hadn't used in a decade. He looked to Bo. "When did you see her last, Bolene?"
"Last night. She said she was going to take a bath and turn in. I read the Good Book for a short time and then went to sleep."
Harrison stroked his chin, thinking. "She came to me after her bath." Harrison didn't care at this point what he said in front of the boy. What mattered was Leah's safety. "She stayed a short time, maybe an hour, and then said she had to come back to the house to sleep with William. She was afraid he'd wake up in the night frightened." He looked at Bo. "She left the barn, headed for the house. That was the last time I saw her."
William sat down on the step. "She has to be here somewhere." His voice quivered. "She has to, doesn't she?" She wouldn't leave me."
Bo went to him to comfort him. "Of course she wouldn't leave you." She looked at Harrison, her dark-eyed gaze locking with his. "Not on purpose."
Harrison stood for a moment in the center of the room, the silence of the three of them deafening him. The logical thing would be to look around the cabin. Logically she had just gotten up early and gone for a walk. But Harrison knew the truth. He knew the truth in his heart; he could feel it burning in the pit of his stomach. Kolheek had been here.
Harrison turned on his heels. "I'm going out to look around outside." He left the cabin and walked out into the new fallen snow. It had snowed all night covering any tracks but those he had made this morning and those of the dog. How clever of Kolheek to come during the snowfall to cover his escape.
Harrison crossed the barnyard, keeping his eyes open and his thoughts attuned to his surroundings. Halfway across the yard he saw a clump of trees. Something dangled from one bare branch. Harrison knew what it was, before he snatched it out of the tree.
A single feather tied on a strip of rawhide—the feather from Kolheek's forelock.
Harrison gripped the feather in his hand, lifting his face to the sun that struggled to peek through the clouds. "Noooo!" he shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice reverberating through the naked treetops.
For a moment he stood there listening to the echo of his strangled cry—feeling the anger he felt inside his chest release with the fading of his echo. He couldn't allow his emotions to control him. He had to take the facts and deal with them.
The facts were simple. Leah was gone. Kolheek had taken her. Harrison knew he was Leah's only hope.
He strode back to the cabin, ducking under the tavern sign that creaked in the morning breeze. Bolene met him just inside the door.
"That man she tole me about, the Shawnee, he took her?" Bo asked straight forward.
"Yes."
"I'll get you a bag packed." Bolene immediately jumped into action. "Day's clear. You'll catch the bastard. How far could he get?"
Just then William came down the steps, dressed. "My mama's gone, isn't she?"
Harrison wanted to reach out to the boy. He wanted to comfort him, but he didn't know how. He knew any advances he made would be spurned. "Yes. She's gone. The man who tried to take you at the Mohawk village, Kolheek, he took your mother."
"Red whoreson bastard!" William shouted. "We catch up with him and I say we string him up. I say we strip his hide off before we burn him at the stake."
Bolene was stuffing food, dry clothing, a tinder box, and other necessities into a leather backpack. "You leave the boy here with me, Harrison. He'll be safe. Anyone who steps through that door tryin' to take him, I'll blow their heads off with Jeff's old matchlock I got danglin' there over the door."
William came off the stair landing. "I'm not stayin' here!" he told Harrison determinedly. "My mama's gone and I'm going after her. I don't care what you say! You're not my father and you can't tell me what to do!"
"Wills," Harrison said gently. "You might be better off staying here with Bo. A boy of eight—"
"Nine! I'm almost nine."
"All right, nine," Harrison conceded. "But even at nine you're too young to track a dangerous man like Kolheek. Wills, you're just a little boy."
"My papa killed himself with me sleeping there, wild redskins carried me through the mountains, I've got
army secrets in my head. . . . I'm not a little boy even though I look like one," he lowered his gaze, "and act like one sometimes." He walked up to Harrison. "She's my mama and . . . and if you really are my father and you really do love her, you'll know I have to go, too. If you really are my father then you know I belong with you."
Tears stung the back of Harrison's eyes. Was this what it was to love a child, this tightness in his chest, this lump in his throat, this desperate desire to protect him even at the risk of his own life?
Harrison crouched, putting himself at eye-level with William. The boy thought he was a man, he would talk to him like one. "You travel with me, we have to be partners, a team. It's the only way two men survive on the trail. You depend on me to cover your back, and I depend on you." He studied the eyes as black as his own. "You understand what I'm saying here, son? We've both said some things about the other, some true, some maybe not so true, but it can't go on. Not if we're going to find her in time."
"You mean we have to stop fighting," William said stiffly.
"I mean we have to set aside our differences for the sake of the woman we both love."
William stared back at Harrison, his lips taut. "I don't have to like you, do I?"
Harrison shook his head. "As long as I don't have to like you."
"But we'll be partners."
Harrison nodded his head. "We'll track Kolheek and we'll rescue your mother."
"Then we'll string the red bastard up."
Harrison couldn't resist a smile as he stood and tousled his son's dark hair. "If you're going with me, we leave in five minutes time. Be ready."
William turned to run up the steps to get his leather pack. Halfway up, he turned back to Harrison. "My dog. I didn't find my dog."
"Don't you worry none about that hound. Old Bolene'll find him for you," Bo assured him. "You get your mother and you bring her back here. That pup'll be waitin'."
When William had disappeared up the steps, Bolene turned to Harrison. "I don't mean to stick my nose in where it don't belong. I don't know if he's yours or not. Don't matter to me. But you sure you ought to be takin' the boy out there?"
Harrison focused on the tiny frosted window near the door. "He's my son, Bo. He's my responsibility if something has happened to Leah." He looked back over his shoulder at the woman. "He goes with me. It's the only way I know I can protect him . . ."
Leah huddled in the bottom of the birchbark canoe, her teeth chattering. The hull of the bark boat was damp; river water sprayed over her head wetting her with a fine mist. She was so cold she couldn't think. She'd lost all feeling in her toes and fingertips hours ago. She lifted her head to look at Kolheek seated on his knees in the center of the canoe, paddling rhythmically.
"You're going to have to find me some clothes," Leah said sharply. "I'm going to freeze to death in this damned nightgown."
"Silence!"
"Look, if you want to kill me, just push me into the blessed Hudson and be done with it. Otherwise, get me something to wear."
"We travel fast. I go into the shore and I risk being caught."
Leah threw her back head and laughed, knowing she must be losing her mind. How could anyone laugh at a time like this?
Last night Kolheek had carried her on his back through the snow. Once she had managed to grab a tree limb and knock him over, but he caught her before she'd run a quarter of a mile through the snowdrifts. He'd been furious when he caught up to her. She knew she had a black eye to prove it.
"You don't really think you're going to get away with this do you?" Leah asked with amusement.
"Silence, Rain-Of-Spring."
"You know very well I'm not Rain-Of-Spring. She was an Indian and that was years ago. I'm a white woman and I'm here, now. You took me from my son, from the man I love."
"Silence!" Kolheek screamed at her.
Leah refused to be afraid of the bastard. She had to be strong if she was going to survive this kidnapping. Fear might cost her her life.
Kolheek was crazy, stark raving mad. All night long he had called her Rain-Of-Spring. He half-believed Leah was this Indian woman he had once been in love with. He thought she was some dead girl!
"You know you won't get away with this," Leah said, huddling beneath the red wool cloak she had borrowed from Bo. "He'll come for me. Harrison will. You know he will. You know he's tracking us at this very moment. Any minute he'll step out of the trees and—"
Kolheek brought up the flat, carved paddle out of the water, threatening to strike her. The water dripped on her knee.
"You know it . . ." she whispered.
Kolheek dropped the paddle into the water and went back to pushing the canoe down the river. He remained close to the tree-lined shore, to keep out of sight of anyone watching from high above the river, she guessed.
"You are mine, sweet Rain," Kolheek said, his eyes half closed. The muscles of his bare forearms bulged with each pull of the paddle as the birchbark canoe sliced through the water. "You are mine and you will accept me. This is your final chance. This man give you a second chance to choose me above the half-breed. I will take you as wife. You will give me sons."
"Never."
"You will forget him. You will come to know that this man is not second best." Kolheek's black-eyed gaze bore into her. "You will accept the truth or you will lose your life again, Rain."
Leah stared at him for a moment from where she sat huddled in the rear of the canoe. Die again? What in sweet heaven's name was he saying?
Die again?
Leah racked her brain, trying to recall what Harrison had told her about the Indian woman who had been in love with him. He had said that after he had refused Rain-Of-Spring's marriage proposal, she and Kolheek had argued. Kolheek had wanted her to marry him. Harrison said she had left the village to return to her own village. He had said she and her escorts had been ambushed and killed on the trail. The Shawnee had never found the murderers.
Leah looked up at Kolheek. His black eyes looked dazed. He seemed to be half in this world, half in another.
"You killed her?" she asked softly in horrified disbelief. "You loved her and you killed her because she didn't love you back?"
Kolheek kept his gaze on the water, powerful stroke after powerful stroke. "A second chance," he sang. "I give you a second chance because I'm a generous man, sweet Rain."
Leah gripped the delicate sides of the birchbark canoe, her knuckles going white. She heard the gentle splash of water as the canoe glided over the surface of the river taking her farther and farther from Harrison and their son.
He's going to kill me," she said softly to herself. "He's going to kill me just like he killed her . . ."
Her lower lip trembled as she fought the paralyzing fear that snaked through her cold limbs. "Please, Harrison, hurry," she whispered. "Please hurry . . ."
Chapter Twenty-nine
Harrison went down on one knee at the shore of the river. They weren't more than two miles from the Harrises' tavern. He pointed to the jagged skim ice that ran along the murky shore. "You see here, Wills. Drag marks from a canoe of some sort. This was where he put in, and that's the way he went." He pointed up the bank into the trees and then drew an invisible line south down the river. "By the shape of the ruts I would guess they're in a canoe, birchbark most likely."
William crouched beside his father, staring at the cryptic signs in the snow. "Where did he get the canoe?"
"He must have found it hidden here. Often men leave their canoes high on the bank during the winter. It's a written rule that you don't take a man's boat. He either stole one, or bought it from someone."
William stood. "Stole it, I bet, just like he stole my mother."
Harrison turned his attention south, staring down river. The water was relatively calm. With Kolheek paddling alone, there was a chance they could catch him. He only prayed Leah was still all right. "So what do we do now, Wills? What's our next move?"
"We get a boat."
"Where?"<
br />
William grimaced as he thought. Then his face lit up. "We look around in the woods for a canoe like the one Kolheek took my mother in?"
Harrison nodded. He started back up river as he talked to the boy. "Good thinking, but time is important here. The longer Kolheek has your mother, the more danger she's in. We don't know why he took her, so we don't know what's in his head."
"You mean," William's voice trembled, "she could be dead?"
Harrison dropped his hand onto William's shoulder. "Not likely. If he really had wanted to kill her, he'd have already done it. He wouldn't have taken her in the canoe. We'd have found her dead here on the bank." He squeezed his son's shoulder. "No. She's not dead." Not yet, he thought.
William took a quick step forward, pulling away from Harrison's touch. "If we don't have a canoe, couldn't we just walk along the bank?" He looked up at his father. "That or take horses?"
Harrison ducked under a branch and held it back to let William pass. "Too slow. Water is the fastest way to travel here. He goes by water, we go by water. It's the only way we'll catch him."
William shrugged. "Then where do we get a boat? Today? You said we have to hurry."
"Where were we going to get one to get down river to New Jersey to begin with?"
The boy's face lit up. "Miss Bo's husband. He just got in! He's got a boat! He'll take us."
"That's good thinking, Wills. I—"
The sound of a dog's howl cut Harrison off in mid-sentence. Man and boy stopped in their tracks.
There it was again . . .
"Sam?" William murmured. "It's Sam!" he shouted, running back in the direction they'd just come. "Sam! Sam! Here, boy! Here, good dog! Here, Sam!"
"Wills! Don't run off," Harrison called after him. But the boy was already bounding through the snow. In the distance he could hear the hound dog barking.
"Come on, Sam!"
Harrison spotted the dog a minute later. William got to him first. The tan hound was standing by the river at the exact location where Harrison thought Kolheek had gone into the water with his canoe. The dog was pawing at the frozen bank with one good paw and whining.
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