"I never thought to see Ta-wa-ne again," Storm Dancer replied honestly. "I thought her either dead or sold when the trapper had tired of her. The redbeard Malvin was a hard man; dishonest, cruel. He would sell his own soul for a gold coin and a bottle of whiskey."
"So now he's returned her to you?"
"They could not have possibly known I was here. He simply left her at a camp knowing someone would not let her and the child starve."
Dory watched his face carefully as she asked her next question. "And what of the little one? He yours?"
"I did not know Ta-wa-ne was with child when she left me."
"But the little'n could be yours?"
He lifted his head slowly until his dark-eyed gaze met hers. He could not lie. He had to accept, no matter how much he wished not to, the truth of the matter. "From his age, he could be."
Dory looked heavenward. The stars were brilliant tonight. The sky was a dark canopy that stretched into eternity covered with pinpricks of white light. "That kinda tangles the web, then don't it?" She twisted her lips thoughtfully. "What do you intend to do?"
"Ta-wa-ne has asked nothing of me." He sounded hopeful.
"But her man's left her. She's got no place to live, no man to hunt for her, and she says the boy is yours. You got a responsibility, don't you?"
"I do not know." He clenched his fist. "But what I do know is that I will not lose Rachael. I need her. If we are to make the trek west, she must be at my side."
"She thinks you betrayed her. I can tell you right now she ain't gonna be too willin' to listen to you."
He touched his chest beneath his cloak taking the defense. "If she loves me as she says she does, that love cannot be altered. Ta-wa-ne should be insignificant."
Dory frowned. "Should be, hell. What should ain't got a lick to do with the matter. I'm afraid you got a lot to learn about women."
"I will just go into my wigwam and explain to Rachael that I no longer consider Ta-wa-ne as my wife. As for the child—had my wife died, she would have not resented a child by that previous union."
"It ain't gonna be that easy. I can tell you that right now. You ain't dealin' with no ordinary woman. See if it was me, what would I care? A poor slattern like myself counts herself lucky to have anyone, but Rachael—" she shook a finger in the direction of the wigwam—"that woman's sewn of a different cloth than most of us."
"I will make her understand."
"I got the feelin' you ain't gonna make Miss Rachael do anything. She's come too far these months—with your help, granted. She ain't gonna let no man push her around. Not even you."
He rubbed his temples, suddenly tired beyond reason. "Why is it that the sky falls when you least expect it?" he inquired softly as much to himself as to Dory. "She was so happy only a few moments ago. She had agreed that we had to take our people and go west. She had agreed that we would go together." He thought for a moment and then spoke again. "You are a woman. Tell me what it is she wants me to do now. How can I make what has turned so wrong right again?"
Dory rubbed her hands together, the cold seeping through her thick cloak making her shiver. "I can't tell you what to do except to get that Ta-wa-ne slut out of this camp as fast as you can. Marry 'er off, feed 'er to a wolf, somethin'. And if you ask me, I'd say you'd best let Rachael simmer overnight before you try to talk to her again. You go in there now and she's liable to turn that fancy animal coat of yours to cinders."
"That is my home." He pointed toward the wigwam. "I have a right to sleep on my own mat."
Dory shrugged. "Do as you please, but I'm tellin' you, was it me she was mad at, I'd let her cool down first. She's hurtin' inside and when you hurt you don't always think right."
He pulled his cloak closer. The temperature was dropping quickly. A light snow had begun to fall. "I will do as you say and wait until the dawn to speak with my wife." He glanced toward his wigwam. "But I will give her tonight and only tonight. I will not have this unrest. There are too many important problems to be dealt with in this village."
Dory watched him stalk off toward Tuuban's wigwam where she assumed he would spend the night with the bachelor. With a long sigh, she turned and headed toward Rachael's wigwam wondering how she could possibly comfort her friend.
Chapter Twenty-One
Rachael sat cross-legged in front of her wigwam firepit huddled under a doeskin robe. It was nearly dawn. Dory still slept on the far side of the firepit, gently snoring.
Rachael had found little rest all night and what scant hours of sleep she did get, were fitful and filled with dark, angry nightmares. She shivered and tossed a small log onto the glowing coals at her feet. The fire crackled and spit, flames leaping up to lick the dry wood.
Her gaze strayed to the deerhide door covering. She knew Storm would come. She was only astonished that he had not yet been here.
Rachael didn't think she had ever felt so bitter, so angry and so hurt in the same breath. Storm Dancer had betrayed her and her love for him by not telling her that his wife still lived. Her marriage to Storm had been a lie. He couldn't marry her when he was still married to Ta-wa-ne!
The worst thing was that Rachael felt stupid. She should have known better than to have trusted Storm with her love. He was a man wasn't he? It didn't matter if their skin was red, white, or green, a man was basically an untrustworthy soul and she knew that. Hadn't she learned that from Gifford?
Certainly Storm Dancer had appeared to be different. Look how many months he had fooled her! All this time she had thought he really loved her. They had been so happy. But he didn't love her; he couldn't. No one would do this to a person they loved . . . .
Rachael heard the sound of snow crunching outside her wigwam and instinctively she drew her robe closer. The door flap moved and Storm Dancer stepped inside.
At the same moment, Dory stirred and looked up from her mat, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. Spotting Storm Dancer standing just inside the wigwam, she bolted up, taking her sleeping robe with her.
"You don't have to go," Rachael said, ignoring Storm Dancer.
"'Course I got to go. Got to every morning," Dory answered, circumnavigating the firepit. "You two go on and talk and I'll be back to check on you later, Rachael-honey."
Rachael felt a certain sense of abandonment as she heard Dory slip out the door and then her footsteps dispel in the dry snow.
Even after Dory was gone, Storm Dancer stood near the doorway, having yet to speak a word.
Rachael took her time in looking up at him. She could feel his black eyes boring into her and she took a deep breath. She wanted to be certain she had control of her emotions before she spoke. She didn't want to cry and she didn't want to shame herself. If there was one thing she had learned in her months among the Indians, it was a sense of self-pride and honor. She wished Dory had stayed; having her friend nearby gave her a sense of strength.
Storm Dancer was the first to break the brittle silence. He came forward and squatted beside her, staring into the building fire. "These arms missed holding you last night," he said so softly that Rachael wasn't certain he had spoken at all. He looked at her and she was drawn to turn her face so that she could see his. "I would that I could change what has happened." He paused. "I did not know this would hurt you so greatly, 'else I would have told you."
Rachael curled her upper lip in an incredulous chuckle. "You thought I wouldn't be hurt by the fact that you have another wife?"
"I told you, but you do not listen to my words." He tapped his ear. "She was once my wife. She is no longer."
"So you say." She looked back at the fire. Even now when her heart ached so badly that her chest hurt, she still felt a stirring for him. He was so damned handsome. She was ashamed to admit that she wanted him, even now. Even after what he had done to her. "Of course, you said she was dead."
He lifted a bronze finger. "I never said she was dead. I said she was gone."
Rachael turned to him in fury, smacking aside his accusing finger. "You let
me believe she was dead, knowing she lived!"
He crossed his arms over his chest, giving a nod of agreement. "I did and for that I have regret. I should have told you Ta-wa-ne still lived."
"Why didn't you?"
A moment of silence hung in the air as he thought about his reply. "Because you would not have married me, or perhaps not made your vow in truth." A black sheet of hair fell off his shoulder and brushed his cheek. "Had I told you of my first wife you might never have loved me."
The sound of his soft, regretful voice was difficult for Rachael to deal with. She wanted him to shout at her, hit her even. That she could deal with. But the tone of his voice made a part of her want to reach out and touch his calloused bronze hand. A part of her wanted to kiss away the etched lines of hurt on his face and tell him she still loved him.
Of course she knew she did still love him, no matter how much she didn't want to love him. But that didn't change anything. She'd not be a second wife.
Feeling warmer, Rachael loosened her robe. "Come spring someone will take me as far as Annapolis. From there I'll find a way to Philadelphia on my own. You can have your wife and your child. I'll not get in the middle of it."
Storm stood abruptly. "You are my wife. You'll go nowhere!"
She threw her heavy robe off her shoulders and jumped up, her hands dropping to her hips. "She says she's your wife. You say she's your wife."
"I said she was my wife. We are divorced. I told you once long ago that my people divorce. I know it is not common among our people, but it is done. Why is it that you cannot accept a mistake righted?"
"Once you're married, you're married for life. She's your true wife."
"Why should a man be punished the rest of his days for an error in judging another? Why should a woman be forced to marry a man she says is cruel to her."
"You were cruel to her? You hurt her?"
"I did not want her sleeping with my brother, with my friends, with every trapper and soldier that passed through our camp and offered her a bauble for her flesh." His dark eyes watched her closely. "Had you married Gifford coward and he had beaten you, don't you believe you should have had the right to no longer be his wife?"
How many women had Rachael known in England who had poor marriages? Too many to count. Some wives were beaten, locked up in abandoned country estates, or verbally abused, but most were simply ignored, which almost seemed worse. What if she had married Gifford? What if he had beaten her? Wouldn't she have wanted the right to divorce him. She might have wanted it, but it would not have been a option in Philadelphia.
"Why do you not answer me?" Storm challenged.
Rachael's lower lip quivered. The Indian reasoning sounded logical. Storm made sense. But he was good at that . . . making her see his way. She felt tears well in her eyes and she looked away. "That little boy is yours. You should be with him. You should make amends with your wife and be a father to your son."
"I do not know that he is truly mine. Ta-wa-ne has not asked anything of me. Her man abandoned her. I am certain she wants only a roof over her child and food to feed him."
She looked back at him, scrutinizing him. "So she's joined the village. You're going to have to take care of her. She has no other protector."
"I will marry her off to a man from another village."
"And what of your son?" Rachael asked. "You are willing to give him to another man to raise when I have been unable to give you a child?"
"A child belongs to his mother among the Lenni Lenape. I have no right to the boy even if he is mine, unless his mother offers that right."
She wiped a tear that threatened to slip down her cheek. When she spoke her voice was strained with emotion. "I feel so betrayed, Storm. You've been dishonest with me. I can't help wondering what other half-truths I've been gullible enough to believe."
He took her hand and pressed a kiss to her palm. "There is nothing, I swear it upon this land."
His warm lips felt so good against her hand . . . She pulled away. "I can't think." She touched her temples. "I'm so tired I can't think. I knew you had once been married, but that was different. She was dead then."
She looked up at him, her hands falling lamely at her sides. "But how can I compete with that? Even if I can accept this married-but-now-divorced nonsense that's so foreign to me, how can I compete with her? She's so beautiful. She gave you a son, something I seem unable to do."
"I love you," he said simply. "I do not love Ta-wa-ne. I have never loved her. As for our child, I have told you before, I see him in our future. And even if there was no babe, I would love you no less, I would want you no less."
"I don't want to talk about this anymore right now." She shook her head. Her mind was reeling. She was so confused by all she felt and thought. "I want you to go," she whispered. "Now."
"This is my home." He suddenly became irritated. "I gave you the night to think, Wife, but it is time to settle this matter and go on with our plans. You and I have much planning to do if we are to move our people when the spring showers come."
"Oh, no." She waved her hands. "It's not going to be this simple. You're not just going to say I'm sorry and have it done with. You lied to me, Storm! You betrayed my trust in you and in your love for me." She reached for her doeskin robe. "I don't know that I can be your wife knowing that."
"You are being hardheaded, Rachael. You can have anger for me. You can burn my venison, you can turn me away at your sleeping mat, but you cannot destroy all we have had these months over Ta-wa-ne."
"I can't?" She threw her robe over her shoulders. "I can't throw it all away? You think this is my fault?" She grabbed her basket of sewing things from near the door. "Just like a man, isn't it? You futter things up and then act as if it's all my fault!"
"Rachael-wife, that is not what I—"
"If you won't get out, then I will. It's my right isn't it? If I really am your wife and not your captive then I have the right to leave you?"
Rachael saw him clench his hands into fists. He was getting angrier by the moment, but she didn't care. As mad as he could possibly be, she was madder!
"Among the Lenni Lenape you have that right as the wife of this man."
She jerked up the hide flap that covered the door. "Then I'm exercising that right, Husband! You can go to hell!" Rachael ducked through the door, her sewing basket clenched in her hand and stomped across the camp. Other villagers were beginning to rise. Several people looked up to see where the domestic commotion came from and then discreetly turned away.
Rachael marched through the center of the camp to Starlight and Shaakhan's wigwam. It was the first place she thought to go . . . the first place she thought she would find comfort. Calling to Starlight, she waited for a reply, then entered the older couple's home, but not before she spotted Ta-wa-ne headed straight for Storm Dancer's wigwam with her bundle of clothes and her baby on her back.
Storm Dancer spun around in utter surprise that Rachael would return so quickly. Though he was not accustomed to the English-manake habit of cursing, a foul word escaped his lips at the sight of Ta-wa-ne.
Storm Dancer watched her as she lowered her bundle to the floor and swung her baby down off her back. She released him from his pack and set him on the floor. Then, shrugging off her cloak and hanging it by the doorway, she dug into her pack and pulled out a tiny packet of cornmeal. She kept her eyes averted as she hurried toward the firepit, her head lowered in a submissive pose. When she spoke it was in the Iroquois tongue. "It is morning and you have had no food in your stomach, Husband. Let this ugly woman feed you."
Now that he was accustomed to the Algonquian language, the word of the Seven Nations rung oddly in his ears. "I have no hunger. Tell me why you are here, Ta-wa-ne. Why do you no longer cook for the redbeard, the man you left me for?"
She turned up her small nose. "He was a bad man. He was not this woman's husband. He said he would marry this woman but he did not. You are Ta-wa-ne's husband. This woman had been an ill-behaved wife
but she has returned to make all well. She will be a good wife to you. Her lesson has come hard but it is a lesson well learned."
"I divorced you when you left with the trapper." He watched in disbelief a she went on mixing the cornmeal and a little water in a stone bowl she found near the firepit. It was Rachael's favorite bowl with the seagulls painted on it. "You said you wanted a divorce. You said it would be too soon if you saw my face in the afterlife."
She shrugged her delicate shoulders. "I am a stupid woman who has harmed my husband greatly. I will make it up to him." She patted out a corncake and laid it on the cooking rock that had grown hot by the fire. "I will bake his corn bread, I will clean his game." She looked up through the fringe of her lashes. "I will give him pleasure on the sleeping mat. I will give him payment twofold for the manner I have wronged him."
"I have another wife."
"The white whore?"
Storm Dancer's palm itched to cuff Ta-wa-ne. He had once thought she was the most beautiful woman he had ever set eyes upon, but now the evil in her heart shadowed any beauty he had once seen. He saw her only as the conniving woman that she was.
"Do not speak of Rachael in that manner again 'else I will be forced to strike you!" he said through clenched teeth. "She is now my wife. That honor you gave up the day you left with the redbeard."
Ta-wa-ne lowered her lashes, taking another tact. "If there is nothing to be done with the white woman, I would not argue your need for a second wife. I could use her help with the cooking and the child."
For the first time Storm Dancer allowed his thoughts to stray to the little boy who sat quietly by the door in the exact same place his mother had left him. The two-year-old played with the thong of his moccasin. Storm Dancer searched for some indication that he belonged to him, but could see no resemblance. He looked like a masculine version of Ta-wa-ne, giving no clue as to his sire.
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