A Wild Yearning (40 page)

"The woman is mine!"

Tyler Savitch strode unarmed through the gates of the Abenaki village.

The Dreamer's face registered shock, then a gloating triumph. "Have you come here to die, Yengi?"

"I have come for my woman." He spoke in Abenaki this time, and to one man only. Assacumbuit. His stepfather.

For a moment Ty saw fierce emotion flare up in the grand sachem's eyes. Then they glazed and hardened. There was no feeling on that chiseled face, for an Abenaki warrior never revealed his heart. Ty tried to keep his own face blank, but he doubted he succeeded as well. It had been ten years since he had seen this man. A man who, as a child, Ty had adored. The man he still thought of in his heart as his father.

Assacumbuit's glance flickered over to Delia; Ty's did not. He had yet to look at her, although he knew she had run over to kneel beside Elizabeth's unconscious form.

"She is your wife?" the sachem said.

Ty was tempted to stretch the truth, but he would sooner have ripped out his tongue than lie to this man. "I would make her my wife."

The Dreamer stepped between them, his face flushed with anger. "I have taken her. She is mine now."

Ty turned his head slightly, pinning the Dreamer with his eyes. The hatred the two men felt for each other twanged, tense and tight, like a bowstring stretched between them. "And I will take her back again," Ty said.

"You will have to kill me first."

"Then I will kill you."

"You can try—"

"Enough!" Assacumbuit's voice slashed through the air, effectively silencing both men. "The pair of you have changed little since you were boys. If you wish to be so foolish as to fight over a worthless woman, I will allow it. But"—he held up his hand—"this time it will be no boy's contest. It will be a formal duel, and to the death. Are you both sure the woman is worth it?"

Ty and the Dreamer exchanged mutual looks of scorn and contempt. They would be fighting over much more than a woman, and all the Norridgewocks knew it.

Assacumbuit's sigh was almost sad. "So be it."

At last Ty turned toward Delia. Slowly, she stood up. Love and joy blazed from her face as her eyes devoured him, and he returned the look. Unashamed and unafraid at last of the great love he bore for this one woman, Tyler Savitch let all the emotion he was feeling show in his expression. This weakness elicited a snort of contempt from the Dreamer, but Ty didn't care. He loved her and the whole damn world might as well know it.

She was naked and her poor body was covered with cuts and bruises. But she had fought back. He thought he would never forget the sight of her, swinging that club, bellowing curses, battling for her honor. He had never seen anything more brave. His pride in her brought a tight ache to his chest. Heedless of those who watched, he walked up to her. He stroked a bruise on her cheek, just once and lightly with his finger. Then he unlaced his shirt, pulling it off and bringing it down over her head. His hands lingered on her shoulders, gently cradling her neck.

"Oh, Ty, what was all that about? What's happening? Why the bloody hell couldn't you speak English so I'd know what's going on?" she burst out, unable to contain herself any longer. It was so typical of Delia, it brought a smile to his lips.

"I have to fight the Dreamer to get you back."

Delia gasped and her eyes flew to the huge warrior, who watched them with a sneer on his lips. "Oh, Ty, he'll kill you!"

The remark stung Ty's male vanity to the quick. He dropped his hands from her neck. "I appreciate your confidence, Delia."

Tears formed in her eyes. "But he's so... He's wearing Nat's scalp."

"I saw it." Her obvious respect and fear of his rival's prowess brought a rush of jealousy surging through Ty's blood. "Do you
want
him to win, Delia? Is that it?"

For a moment anger flared in her eyes. "Oh, don't be a bloody f—" She choked on a tiny sob. Reaching up, she cupped his cheek with her soft, warm hand. The feel of it and the husky sound of her voice almost unmanned him. "Oh, Ty, I couldn't bear to lose you. I might as well kill myself."

He couldn't afford to indulge in any more emotion and so he hardened his face. He removed her hand. "Neither one of us is going to die," he said curtly.

Ty was led to a small wigwam to prepare in private for the coming battle. In typical Abenaki fashion, and in spite of what he had said to Delia, he not only prepared himself to fight, but he also prepared himself to die.

He stripped naked and rubbed his skin with bear grease. He painted his face to represent the sky at sunrise, yellow at his chin that blended to white—a symbol of the dawning of the new life he would have with Delia after he had won her. Once, he had believed there was magic in the ritual painting; perhaps a part of him believed it still.

He touched the amulet pouch around his neck, which contained a symbolic fragment of the Thunder Spirit, his personal manitou. Throwing back his head, he sang his death song, a prayer that if he was to die let him meet death as a man, with courage and dignity. It was a chant that he had rehearsed all his young life and then not uttered once for ten years. But he sang it now, with feeling and belief, a guttural wailing that would have frozen the blood of the Merrymeeting folk who called him Dr. Ty and thought of him as a civilized man.

The last haunting notes of the song died away. Ty lowered his head in thought and he thought not as an Abenaki who put all his faith in dreams and spirits and fate, but as an Englishman, who put his faith in logic.

He thought of his enemy.

Once, he had called the Dreamer his brother. They had hunted and fought, danced and feasted together. They had sung together in the sweat lodge. They had called the same man father.

But between them there had always been a competition that was almost savage in its intensity. They were close in age, the Dreamer being only a year or two older, and the Abenaki boy had always been bigger and stronger than Ty. But on that long, arduous march to Quebec with the image of his father's murdered body fresh in his mind, Ty had learned the power of endurance. He was smaller than the Dreamer, but he was tougher.

When the Dreamer proved better at archery and spear-throwing, Ty spent hours practicing until he had mastered the skills. In swimming and foot races, in wrestling matches, Ty always won because, while he might come up short in physical strength, mentally he just wouldn't quit.

The only thing he could never beat the Dreamer at were the visions. Like the other Abenaki boys, Ty had made his spirit trek of fasting and deprivation and had received his vision of the Thunder Spirit, Bedagi, from whom he took his name. But that had been his only experience with the spirit world. Yet the Dreamer had been given visions constantly, even while still a small boy. To the Abenaki, visions were wonderful and powerful things, and the Dreamer garnered much awe and respect because he was so continuously blessed. But Ty was Yengi, and no matter how many races or archery matches he won, his flesh would always be white. Ty had often thought that if only he, too, could be visited by the visions, then he would be more accepted by the clan. He would be Abenaki. But the visions never came. More than anything, Ty had bitterly envied the Dreamer his dreams.

Yet the bad blood between Bedagi and the Dreamer went beyond their childhood rivalry. Assacumbuit had been married to the Dreamer's mother when he brought the Yengi slaves home with him from Quebec. But Assacumbuit in turn became a slave to the tiny, silver-haired woman, a slave of passion. He set his first wife aside, divorcing her and taking Ty's mother as his only wife. The Dreamer never recovered from the shame of this rejection. Nor the fear that he, along with his mother, had been set aside in Assacumbuit's heart, that the Yengi boy had become the grand sachem's most beloved son. The woman had died, but her son lived, and as long as he lived the shame and the fear were kept alive in the Dreamer's heart.

So Ty knew that the Dreamer would be fighting for reasons far more personal than the right to possess a woman. It meant he would be merciless and driven. But it also meant his pride would be vulnerable. Perhaps he could be taunted into anger, and anger, Assacumbuit had once taught Ty in a valuable and painful lesson, could make a man reckless, could lead him into committing a mistake. A fatal mistake.

Just then the deerskin flap to the wigwam was plucked aside and a boy entered, bearing the shield and weapon that Ty would use in the coming battle.

The weapon was a
casse-t
ê
te,
an Indian war club. Its head was carved from a hickory knot and studded with jagged flints and animal teeth. A tuft of hawk's breast feathers dangled from the handle. Ty had once killed an Iroquois warrior with such a weapon and he had never forgotten the feel and the sound of the man's head splitting open like a ripe melon. No matter how many lives he saved as a doctor, he knew he could never erase that particular memory from his mind.

The boy put the club in Ty's hand and Ty steeled himself not to show his sudden revulsion. The shield the boy carried was wrapped in skins, for it possessed magic properties and so had to be kept covered when not in use. Nor must it ever be touched by a woman's hands. It was made of rawhide, emblazoned with magic fetishes, and painted and decorated with feathers.

Pine torches hissed and flared in
a
circle around the torture platform. The thick middle post, where prisoners were bound and subjected to the agonies of fire and the knife, had been removed. But the scalps of past raids still swayed in the smoky air from the four poles that supported the platform where the two men would fight each other to the death.

Delia was brought to stand before it, beside the grand sachem. The iron-haired warrior bestowed an unfathomable look on her before turning his attention forward again.

One of the Indian women had cruelly slapped Elizabeth awake. Then she and Delia had been led through the village by a pair of stone-faced old women. Delia was surprised at the size of the village. They walked down actual streets, past conical-shaped wigwams and longhouses built of timber, with thatched roofs and elm-bark shingles.

They were taken inside one of these longhouses where they both were fed a bland, mushy pumpkin stew. Then Elizabeth, who seemed more enclosed than ever within her wall of fear, was carried to a bed of furs, where she immediately fell into
a
deep sleep. Delia, meanwhile, was bathed and clothed in
a
simple one-piece dress and leggings of soft deerskin. Her hair was brushed and plaited with thongs.

Now, standing beside the Abenaki chief, she strained her eyes for a sight of Ty. She was so tense that every inch of her felt raw and exposed, as if she had been flayed. She couldn't imagine how the Tyler Savitch she knew, the healer with those gentle, magic hands, could defeat the brutal Abenaki warrior.

"If Ty dies I'll kill your great Dreamer myself," Delia declared fiercely to the man beside her. "An' with my bare hands. Aye, see if I bloody don't!"

The sachem raised surprised brows at her. A corner of his mouth twitched. "I can see why my son calls you
lusifee."

"Your son? The Dreamer is your son?"

"They are both my sons."

Delia's eyes widened.
"You're
Ty's Indian father?"

The man said nothing.

"If you're Ty's father," Delia persisted, "then how can you allow him to do this?" She gestured at the platform. "Can you bear to watch him die?"

The sachem gave a tiny shrug that was more French than Indian. "He does it for you."

She grabbed the man's arm, heedless when he stiffened. She was so desperate and so afraid for Ty, she had to struggle to keep from bursting into tears and her chest jerked with the effort. "I will go to the Dreamer willingly, as his second wife," she pleaded, her nails unconsciously digging into the man's stony flesh. "If you'll spare Ty's life, I will give myself to your son. Your Abenaki son. You have my word."

The man drew breath in a soft snort. "You are a woman. You have no will in the matter." After a moment, he fixed her again with his unreadable eyes. "Why do you assume that it is Bedagi who will lose? Perhaps you don't know him as well as you think."

The drums, which had been throbbing softly, suddenly grew into a thundering roll and a great cheer erupted from the watching crowd. Delia's head jerked around as two men leaped from opposite sides onto the platform and she gasped with shock.

If she hadn't known it was he, Delia would never have recognized Ty as the naked, greased, and painted warrior, who looked as cruel and as savage as the man who faced him. But seeing them now together as they circled each other, Delia was also horrified at how much bigger the Dreamer was than Ty, who was hardly a small man. The Abenaki was a veritable giant.