Savage Surrender

by Colleen French

  Broken Horn shouted another command and the savage standing closest to Rachael gave her a shove forward.

  "Gifford, we have to go with them. You have to walk now," she said, forcing him to stumble forward. " . . . Or we'll never live until sunset."

  Chapter Two

  The sun faded slowly in the western horizon until it was naught but the sweep of an artist's brush. The air chilled and nocturnal animals began to crawl from their resting places in the dense underbrush to hunt, to drink from the slow-running creeks, and to peer at the humans who marched northward.

  Heavenly Father! will they never stop, Rachael thought as she forced one foot in front of the other. Her captors were inhuman! No man could walk from sunrise until well beyond sunset at this relentless pace and not tire! No one but these savages . . .

  Iroquois was what Gifford said they were. Mohawks of the Iroquois Nation, People of the Flint Country, said Broken Horn, the leader of the red men who had kidnapped them.

  Rachael wiped her forehead with the back of her ivory damask sleeve, or what was left of it. In the two weeks that had passed since her capture she had walked twelve to sixteen hours a day. Her leather-heeled slippers were in shreds, her feet blistered. Her face was sunburned despite the bonnet she wore. Her gown, her beautiful damask morning gown, was a tattered, soiled rag.

  On the third day of traveling she had insisted Broken Horn loan her his hunting knife so that she might cut the hem to make it easier to walk. He had balked, thinking she meant to kill herself, but Rachael had only laughed as she sawed at the once beautiful fabric, exposing her calves. She hadn't walked those hundred miles through the mosquito-infested forest to kill herself. No. At that instant back at the carriage when she had decided not to run, she had made the choice to live, no matter what it took.

  Rachael turned tiredly to glance over her shoulder. Gifford was lagging again. If he didn't pick up the pace, it would surely mean punishment. She swallowed the knot that rose in her throat. All of Gifford's handsome good looks had disappeared in a day. With his hair dirty, his upper lip split in two places, the purple-green shade of bruising across one cheek, and red mosquito welts covering his face, he looked more like some urchin from the back alleys of London than a viscount of a popular family in Philadelphia.

  "Gifford!" Rachael whispered, her voice raspy. It had been hours since they'd stopped to drink from a muddy spring. "Gifford," she signaled with her hand behind her back, "Gifford, come on!"

  "I can't," he moaned, his head hanging from his shoulders. "I can't walk another mile."

  Rachael eyed the savage walking a few feet ahead of her. Painted Face had been assigned to guard her, but he was lost in conversation with the Indian who wore the cocked hat. She slowed her pace, letting Gifford catch up. She dropped a hand on his waist. "It's nearly dark. We'll stop soon for certain. I know it!" She tried to sound cheery.

  "And then what?" he asked, his voice on the edge of hysteria. "You should have let them slit my throat and have been done with it."

  "Don't say that!" She gave him a squeeze. "You have to hold on, Gifford. We're going to get away from these beasts. Someone will realize we're missing and come searching. My brother! Surely Thomas will come for us!"

  Gifford rested his bruised cheek on her shoulder. "I'm so tired, Rachael. It would be so much easier to just lie down." His knees buckled and Rachael grasped him by the waistband of his pants, pulling him up. It was funny how two weeks ago she could never have done anything so intimate. But two weeks ago seemed now like two hundred years.

  In the first days of travel she had quickly learned that survival was not for the squeamish. In a day's time she had learned to eat half-raw rabbit with her hands, to relieve herself on the path just as the men did, and to sleep on the ground with nothing but a lump of moss for a pillow.

  "You've got to walk!" Rachael insisted angrily as she gave Gifford a shake. "I can't carry you, Gifford! You lie down and they'll kill you."

  "No reason to live," he muttered.

  "You have to live for me," she said impulsively.

  He lifted his head to look at her. "For you? You said you wouldn't marry me. Without you there's no need to go back to Philadelphia. Without you, I'm lost."

  Rachael rubbed her forehead with her free hand. If there was one thing she learned in this ordeal, it was that she was certain she didn't want Gifford for a husband. He should have been caring for her needs! He should have bene protecting her from the savages. Instead, from the very first moments, it had been the other way around.

  No. If she and Gifford survived this nightmare, she would not marry him. Coming so close to death had made her realize how important life was. Somewhere in the world there was a man who would love her. When she escaped—and she would escape—she was going to find that man. Given the situation she and Gifford were in, she didn't consider lying too great a sin. If a few lies would keep him alive, they would be worth the penance, wouldn't they?

  Rachael stroked Gifford's mosquito-bitten forehead with her soiled fingertips. If it wasn't love she felt for him, at least she had compassion. Gifford was a weak man; she could see that now. He needed her if he was to live. "Oh, Gifford. Don't worry about what I said. What you need to worry about now is keeping yourself alive. You have to drink and eat—"

  "I cannot eat raw flesh! Squirrel burned on the outside and bloody on the inside." He tried to spit but his mouth was so dry that he had no saliva.

  "You have to eat to keep up your strength. And you have to walk. You have to do what Broken Horn and his men tell us. If we're going to be rescued, we just have to hang on!"

  He hung his head again. The sun had set and darkness had settled on the forest. "It's past dark," he complained. "And still they keep walking."

  A barked command startled Rachael. It was Painted Face. "Kax aa, no talk!" He brandished the spear he carried, waving her forward.

  Rachael released Gifford, giving him a quick hug. Hurrying until she walked just behind Painted Face, she studied the darkening forest. More than a week ago she had given up hope of her and Gifford simply escaping. Broken Horn and his companions had given them no chance, watching their every movement. Besides, where would they run to? The second day of her capture the Indians had skirted a crude log cabin that she assumed was occupied by farmers, but she'd not seen another sign of civilization since. Once Rachael had realized escape wasn't possible, she had concentrated on the thought that someone would come for them. When she and Gifford hadn't arrived at his aunt's surely her brother Thomas had been notified. And once he found the carriage and the reverend's body with the arrows protruding from his chest, he would have surmised that she and Gifford had been captured. Thomas was looking for her now. She just knew it.

  Night settled on the forest in an inky blanket of darkness. The moon appeared above the treetops casting a pale light across the craggy faces of the Mohawks. Still they pushed on, a sense of eagerness in their moccasined footsteps. When Rachael asked Painted Face when they would stop for the night, he had only grunted threateningly. She lost all sense of time as she trudged forward, occasionally offering a word of encouragement to Gifford.

  Rachael was thankful for the small bit of diversion the darkened forest offered. Rather than being frightened of the eerie sounds, they tapped her attention. She tried to imagine what kind of animal made each sound and what it meant. She was fascinated by the raccoons and opossums that scurried across her path and the deer the travelers scared up out of the brush.

  The sound of a turkey gobble suddenly startled Rachael. A turkey? She had heard no turkeys before. Turkeys weren't night creatures. The bird sounded again, and to her surprise one of the Mohawks in the group repeated the sound with remarkable likeness.

  Several Indians appeared out of the darkness and the group came to a halt. Broken Horn fell into conversation with the tallest of the greeters. When they turned to look at her she felt her face flush. That evil grin of Broken Horn's make her shiver wondering just how long it would be
before she would have to fight for her virtue.

  Broken Horn and the other man spoke for another moment or two and then the group moved forward, Broken Horn falling back to walk beside her.

  "We enter the village," he told her, his head held high. "My mood is good. Crow's Wing offered me two rifles, English-manake whiskey, and a buffalo hide from the great western lands for you."

  Rachael could feel her throat constricting. Her heart palpated so rapidly that it pounded in her ears. "You cannot sell me!" she managed. "I am a human being! You cannot sell people."

  "You are not people," he said incredulously. "We are the people." He glanced at her. They were of the same height so he could look directly into Rachael's eyes with his. "As I told you, Crow's Wing offered me great wealth for you," he shrugged, "but I was thinking you would make a good woman for Broken Horn." He nodded, liking the idea. "I would take you into my longhouse with your skin of white." He caught a lock of her hair and rubbed it between his thick fingers. "You and I we would make sons to fight the English."

  She gave a little laugh. "I won't be your woman! I belong to no man red or white."

  "You refuse Broken Horn, son of the Bear Clan's shaman!" He grasped her arm tightly.

  Through the pale light of the moon Rachael could see Broken Horn's scarred face. She had insulted him. Her survival instinct told her to go along with whatever she must to live, but she couldn't give herself to this man. No matter what. "I refuse."

  He sneered. "Then you will be sold." With that he stalked off, moving ahead of the others and once again taking the lead.

  Gifford fell in beside Rachael. "What was that all about?" he asked.

  Rachael exhaled, the feeling of doom heavy on her shoulders. "He offered to take me as his woman."

  "His woman! But you already belong to me, Rachael, love. You said so yourself."

  She turned on him. "Belong? I don't belong to anyone!"

  Gifford brushed back a string of his dirty hair. "I only meant—"

  "Enough." She lifted a hand defensively. "I've had enough today. Please, don't say another word. Not a single, blessed word."

  Gifford fell silent and they trudged along side by side. Soon the sound of barking dogs filled the night air. The forest began to clear and after passing single file through a thicket of thorns they entered a village.

  Rachael came to a halt, Gifford bumping into her. "We're here," she whispered.

  Painted Face pushed them forward roughly. Rachael dragged her feet, suddenly as frightened as she had been the day the carriage was attacked. Several men and bare-breasted women appeared from the long wood huts that were illuminated by small campfires.

  They were all talking at once in angry heated tones. Rachael shrank back in fear as the crowd descended on them. Broken Horn was shouting and laughing, obviously proud of his captives. A tall woman with a severe harelip stroked Rachael's hair then gave her a sudden, hard push, nearly knocking her to the ground.

  Gifford caught her. "I say! That will be quite enough!"

  The harelipped woman brought her face close to Gifford's, babbling in her native tongue. Laughing, laughing at him . . .

  Trembling, Rachael covered her ears with her hands. She feared she was going to faint. She was deathly tired and the noise, the confusion, was more than she could stand. Everyone was talking, talking about her and Gifford. They were touching her clothes, her face, her breasts.

  "Stop it! Stop it!" she cried. She threw a glance in Broken Horn's direction. "Make them stop!"

  Broken Horn stepped toward her and several Indians made way for him. "You change your mind, white Rach-ael? You wish for my protection?" He caught a lock of her tangled hair and raised it to his lips. "Please this man and I might make you wife." He eyed his first wife, the woman with the harelip. "Please this man much and you might take Pretty Woman's place."

  The woman with the harelip shot Rachael a threatening glance.

  Rachael looked from Pretty Woman to the sea of dark eyes all staring at her, waiting. She could hear Gifford inhale sharply. To turn Broken Horn down again, here in his own village would mean—She lifted her dark lashes. "I have done nothing to you and yet you took me against my will. You dragged me through the forest for more than two weeks and then—"

  Broken Horn slapped her hard across the mouth silencing her. "Enough! Either you accept the generosity of this man of the Bear Clan, or you become one of the others."

  Rachael's gaze followed Broken Horn's. She heard Gifford cry out in protest. Two men were dragging him toward the far side of the camp. For the first time she saw by the dim light of the moon and the glowing cookfires that there were people tied to poles in the ground . . . white men and women.

  Rachael bit down on her lower lip to stifle a sob of terror. So she and Gifford were not the only captives . . . .

  Broken Horn lowered his hideously scarred face within inches of hers. "I say again, do you accept this man's generosity, because if you do not, you will be sold to the French with the others. Sold as the whores that you are!"

  Rachael looked at the captives across the camp. The men dragging Gifford had reached the spot and were securing him to a pole. She looked back at Broken Horn. "I do not accept your generosity," she said quietly, the venom plain in her voice.

  Broken Horn paused for an instant, almost in disbelief. Then he gave a curt nod and walked away.

  Pretty Woman and another immediately descended on Rachael, grabbing her hands and dragging her toward the other captives. Out of the corner of her eyes, Rachael saw a man standing in the shadows of a campfire. His eyes met hers and for a moment she thought she saw a glimmer of compassion in his heathen black eyes. Then suddenly he was gone, just a shadow in her mind making her wonder if she had truly seen the man at all.

  Pretty Woman gave a grunt, jerking Rachael. "Come!" she ordered. "Come to see your new home."

  The other woman laughed.

  They tied Rachael to a pole with another woman, opposite of Gifford's pole. They twisted her hands behind her back, seeming to enjoy her cries of pain. Then they secured her wrists together and left her.

  For a moment Rachael sat huddled on the ground in shock. She had never in her life felt so alone, so frightened. She could hear the even breathing of the woman tied behind her. Through the dim light of the moon she could see the outline of Gifford's slumped body.

  "Gifford," she whispered.

  "Rachael . . . Rachael, love . . . "

  "Gifford, what are we going to do?"

  "I don't know," he whispered back. Then a pause, then, "Rachael, I'm thirsty."

  "I told you, you should have drank back at that last stream."

  "Stream!" he laughed, his voice raspy. "That was no more than a slow-running sewer!"

  "It was water, Gifford."

  He gave a grunt of disdain and then was silent again.

  Rachael took a deep breath and lifted her chin to gaze up at the stars. Her grandmother had always told her life was fate. The day you were born, she said, a life was mapped out from birth to death. She said it was in the stars. Rachael wondered as she stared up at the bright pinpricks of light whether or not her death at the age of twenty-two was in the stars.

  Storm Dancer ducked into Broken Horn's longhouse and stood in the doorway. Gull, Broken Horn's second wife, was serving him a platter of roasted venison and honey-sweetened corncakes with her one good hand. The other, a knot of useless flesh, rested on her hip. Pretty Woman was busy tucking her husband's children by Gull into their sleeping platforms at the rear of the longhouse. At the sight of Storm Dancer, Gull and Pretty Woman lowered their lashes appropriately, taking care not to make eye contact with their superior.

  "Storm Dancer," Broken Horn grunted, cramming an entire square of corncake into his mouth.

  "Brother . . . " It was an accusation.

  Broken Horn glanced up irritably. "Sit, sit," he said in English. "My woman will get you food."

  Storm Dancer broke the plane between him and his brot
her with an even stroke of his bronze hand. "No food."

  "Then at least do not be impolite," Broken Horn went on in English despite the fact that his brother spoke their native tongue as was appropriate. "Sit while I eat." He turned to his second wife. "E a yon te ant."

  Gull quickly dropped a wooden trencher of food at her husband's feet and backed her way past Storm Dancer and out of the wigwam, leaving the men to be alone.

  Storm Dancer crouched before the small, glowing fire in the center pit. Its burning embers cast a glow of eerie light on the two brothers, the two enemies. "You have brought more captives . . . "

  Broken Horn grinned as he reached for another hunk of venison. "Fine white bitch, isn't she? Crow's Wing offered me plenty for her, but I think I might keep her for myself."

  "You have four wives, ak ya tat cke a ha. You are a greedy man."

  Broken Horn gripped his bulging loin cloth with a greasy hand. "My needs are great." He laughed at his own joke as he licked his wet fingers. "You yourself should take a wife, take two, and then you would understand the needs of a true man."

  Storm Dancer scowled. "You must let her go."

  Broken Horn glanced up curiously. "Her?"

  "All of them, of course," he replied without skipping a beat. In the recesses of his mind he wondered why he had said her . . . he had meant the woman of course, the brave woman who had stood up to the Mohawks when they might well have cut her down with one sweep of a war club.

  "I will not let them go. The French offer guns and whiskey for the women. It is a profitable business."

  "And the man? Why did you bring him? The French do not pay for men."

  Broken Horn shrugged. "A diversion." He lifted a finger. "And Rouville still pays for yellow-haired scalps with or without balls."

  "You sicken me, Brother."

  Broken Horn threw down his wooden platter. "And you me! You shame our father with your woman's ways!"

  "You're going to kill us all with your troublemaking, your warring." Storm Dancer lifted a finger. "The Mohawks will die; the six nations will fall. I see it in the storm clouds."