Into the Wilderness (77 page)

She
jerked away. Some time ago she had decided that it would not serve her in any
way to involve herself in a discussion with either of these men, and so she bit
her tongue and fought hard to keep her face calm. With each passing hour that
became more difficult.

Lingo
had uncorked the bottle and drank again, deeply.

I am not thirsty
,
Elizabeth chanted to herself.
I am not
thirsty.

He
leaned toward her on one elbow, held out the bottle. She pressed her mouth into
a hard line and blinked, slowly.

Lingo
lowered the bottle, but stayed stretched out before her, staring up at her
face. There was graying stubble on his face now, and a network of wrinkles at
his eyes and the corners of his mouth. The skin on his neck was loose and soft.

"You
are older than you first appear," Elizabeth said out loud, surprised at
the creakiness of her own voice, unused now for hours.

His
expression hardened, and he snorted softly. Then with his mouth pursed and his
elegant brows drawn together in a tight vee, he lifted one hand with a slow and
deliberate motion and encircled her ankle with it. She could feel the heat of
his palm through the soft leather of her moccasin, the length of his thumb, the
firm pressure of four fingertips.

When
Elizabeth was suffused with color, he smiled, and let her ankle go.

* * *

At
nightfall the men made a small fire and cooked a hen turkey Ton had snared.
Lingo threw Elizabeth a piece of charred meat.

"So,
how long do you think it will take for Todd to die without medical
attention?" he asked in a jovial tone. "Perhaps he is dead already
and your troubles about the mountain are over. You would owe me a debt,
then."

Dutch
Ton had been sucking on a bone, and the face he held up in the firelight
glistened with fat. He looked between Elizabeth and Lingo with his usual
perplexed gaze. She caught his eye, and held it until he blinked and looked
away. He had brought her water earlier in the evening, enduring Lingo's
ridicule. Elizabeth had hopes of him.

"It
is very rude of you to deny me conversation," Lingo said, sighing.
"Ton here has such a limited view of the world."

"Have
you had any more letters from your sister?" Elizabeth asked Ton.

Lingo
raised his voice. "Of course, maybe Todd and Bonner are both dead. In
which case you will need consolation in your grief. You would prefer Ton's .. .
assistance to mine?"

"If
you still have that letter," Elizabeth persisted, "I would very much
like to look at it again."

"She
is trying to seduce you, Ton. Tell her she needn't work so hard at it."

Elizabeth
was glad of the twilight, hoping that it masked her heightened color. Dutch Ton
was staring at her and she managed a prim smile. "The letter?" she
repeated.

"Don't
have it no more," he said. "Didn't need it, once it was read to
me."

"Oh,
what a pity," Elizabeth said lamely. "Then perhaps you could tell me
something about yourself."

Lingo
laughed softly. "
Oui
, Ton. Tell
her about the day down at the schoolhouse, and how close you came to killing
her husband."

Elizabeth
started. Ton had dropped his gaze and was poking at the fire with a stick.

"Five
good beaver pelts," said Lingo. "That's all it took to have him shoot
your precious husband. But of course, he failed to kill him and never
collected."

In
her cold fury Elizabeth said, "I didn't realize that you were quite that
lazy. To have a simpleminded man fight your battles for you."

Before
she realized what he was about, Lingo had reached across the fire. He used the
back of his hand rather than his fist, but still Elizabeth's head rocked back
and she tasted blood in her mouth. The blow echoed in her head.

"Let
me show you what Ton will do for a beaver pelt," said Lingo. "I think
you will find it most instructive. If the smell of him doesn't choke you first.
And then I will take my turn and demonstrate to you that I am very capable of
settling my own scores."

"Nathaniel
and Hawkeye will track you down," Elizabeth said, her voice faltering.

"The
north woods are very large," said Lingo. "And we know them as well as
your men. Better."

"But
think," Elizabeth said softly. "Am I worth the last chance you have
at your gold?"

His
smile startled her. In the firelight, his pale eyes seemed totally without
color. "Perhaps," he said. "Just perhaps you are. I have the
idea that you are a screamer, madame. A weakness of mine, you see, that I
indulge on occasion." He was tossing more wood on the fire as he said
this, and there was a swoosh as it caught, and the crackle of resin. An
explosion of sparks flew up and into the darkening sky; Elizabeth watched them
scattering like malevolent spirits.

He
lifted his hand as if to salute her. The rope that bound them together jumped
to life. It had been lying coiled to one side of the fire, but now she watched
him loop it around his wrist, once, twice, until it stretched high across the
fire between them. The first tug Elizabeth was able to resist without moving.
She held his eye, and lifted her chin.

He
jerked harder, and she rose awkwardly. Another yank, and she fell forward onto
her knees, directly before the fire. She scrambled to her feet.

Lingo
stood and gathered the rope in both hands. Realizing that he intended to pull
her into the flames, Elizabeth began to struggle in earnest, leaning back with
all her weight.

"Stop,"
said Dutch Ton quietly.

Lingo
laughed breathlessly. "It won't kill her," he said, jerking again so
that she stumbled half into the fire. "Just a scar or two in payment for
that mouth of hers."

The
skin on Elizabeth's wrist had peeled away, but she was too concentrated on the
fire to take note of that, or of the blood. She struggled for her footing, sliding
forward two inches for every inch she regained. The toes of her moccasins were
singed. Tossing her head back in an effort to keep her hair from the flames,
she saw Dutch Ton towering over her. His large, placid face was creased in
concentration.

Coming
up next to her, Ton closed his fist over the rope in front of her own two
straining hands. For a single strange moment Elizabeth was reminded of
childhood games with her cousins. Then Ton grunted, and pulled. With a shout of
rage Jack Lingo was hauled through the fire, scattering burning wood and embers
everywhere.

They
had stumbled backward together, and Elizabeth stood heaving for breath,
watching while Lingo bellowed and hopped, slapping at himself. There were burnt
spots on his hunting shirt and breeches, and a livid red welt on his hand.

And
then he looked at her, and she knew that the unholy tales Nathaniel had kept
from her about Jack Lingo were all true, and more, and worse. He grinned, and
she moaned.

He
pulled the rope up again, and producing a knife from its sheath at his belt, he
cut it with a single movement. Then he launched himself at Dutch Ton.

Elizabeth
backed away. The men circled each other slowly, Lingo lithe and winding; Dutch
Ton much like a bear, all hulking muscle. She could hear the sound of Ton's
breathing, even above the steady stream of curses in French and English. With a
scream, Lingo rushed the bigger man and threw his weight at him.

Without
stopping to think about the outcome of this fight, Elizabeth circled the fire
to the jumble of provisions, keeping her eyes on the men while she searched
with shaking hands. Her knife, her pack, her musket, these she grabbed up and
turned away, and then turned back. There was no time to look for her wedding
ring or the silver hair clasp that he had taken from her, and no time for
regret, either. After a split second's hesitation, she took up Lingo's rifle,
too, and she ran into the woods.

* * *

In
the meadow there had been enough of a moon to cast a weak shadow, but once the
woods closed around her she was in total darkness. Elizabeth stopped, closed
her eyes, and forced herself to breathe deeply.

There
was a fluttering above her in the trees, and she looked up in time to see the
faint glimmer of a wide white breast. Then the owl called, and her pulse
slowed.

He
would be after her, if he survived the fight. And Elizabeth feared that he
would survive. Dutch Ton had drawn Lingo's anger on himself and given her this
opportunity; he would most probably pay dearly. She could not find it in
herself to be thankful for this, not right now. All she could think of now was
getting away, of finding Robbie.

Her
vision was adjusting slowly to reveal the faintest outlines of trees.

Blue—eyed
people are at an advantage in the night woods, Nathaniel had told her once
while they made camp on a moonless night. He had winked one hazel eye at her
and drawn her into the darkness of the balsam—branch shanty where there had
been only Nathaniel and no thought of anybody but him until the sunrise. She
had not feared the dark then. She had never feared it before. But Jack Lingo
had looked at her over the fire, his pale blue eyes promising things she did
not want to contemplate.

Elizabeth
stifled a small hiccup of fear and began to sort through the weapons. As she
tucked the musket into her belt she realized that she had neglected to pick up
the powder horn.

Instead,
she had Lingo's rifle. In the afternoon she had watched him clean it, polishing
the walnut stock lovingly. A Kentucky rifle, he had told her with some
considerable pride in his voice, in spite of her studied lack of interest. She
ran her hands over it in the dark, familiarizing herself with its dimensions,
touching the trigger lightly. It was primed, but to shoot it accurately and hit
a moving target would be a miracle.

Miracles are a luxury you cannot afford,
she
told herself sternly.
You have only
yourself to depend on.

Elizabeth
looped the strap over her head, swung the gun across her back, and set off
cautiously. She thought of Treenie now, hot regret welling up in her eyes.

* * *

She
had feared hunger and exhaustion, and found instead that she was suffused with
energy, uplifted with it, rendered almost weightless. By the time the night
sounds had begun to recede and she was able to make out irregular patches of
sky, Elizabeth had begun to hope that she had evaded Jack Lingo. She would soon
reach the crest of the hill, and there would be enough light to check her
compass. In the early light, walking steadily, she could make Robbie's camp in
two hours from that point.

There
was a spring and a trickle of water; she drank at length, glad of the icy cold.
She filled her palms and splashed her sunburned cheeks with it. When she looked
up, she realized that it was light enough to see the ferns and grasses that
circled the spring. She took a handful of wild mint, tucked half of it into her
shirt and the other into her cheek, and drank again.

Able
to move more quickly, Elizabeth picked up her pace, pausing now and then to
listen. Near the crest of the hill, she paused for a longer time, and felt her
pulse take up an extra beat. Six weeks in the bush under the tutelage of
Runs-from-Bears and Robbie and Nathaniel had made her aware of certain things.
She could not always put a name to what she heard, but she could say if it was
out of place. The faint crackling might be a moose, or it might be a man. She
headed uphill again, hoping for a clearing at the top. What advantage this
would bring her she was not sure, but it was a goal and she moved toward it.

And
then stopped, finding herself at the edge of a small clearing. Afraid to step
out, she hesitated.

She
started at the sound of his voice, yelping one high, clear tone.

"Don't
run," he said easily. "It is such a waste of energy. In the end I
will catch you anyway."

But
she ran, without looking back. She felt his knife thump against the rifle on
her back; heard him curse and stop to retrieve it. She ran faster, into the
woods again, downhill now, she ran hard and clean, her toes turned safely
inward, leaping over a small stream and dodging a deadfall. Branches tore at
her hair like grasping hands. Elizabeth heard Lingo behind her, and she ran
harder.

The
scream was like a woman's, high and shrill. It pulled her up short as nothing
else save Nathaniel's voice could have done. Elizabeth tripped and righted
herself and turned back to see the panther dropping out of a tree to take Jack
Lingo to the ground. She had passed under that tree just seconds before.

Elizabeth
stood taking in great burning gulps of air while she watched. Unable to turn
away, unable to run as she knew she should, she must. She watched first in
horror as they struggled, and then in disbelief and amazement and unwilling
admiration as Lingo extricated himself from the dying animal.

He
stood looking at her, blood dripping from the scratches on his upper body, his
bloody knife at his side. She turned to run again, and again she tripped. In
seconds he was on her, one foot on the small of her back as he reached down to
cut the rifle strap. He was careless with the knife; the cut burned. Then he
was up again, kicking her until she rolled over to face him. Lingo leaned down,
his breath rancid on her face, his eyes glittering. His sweat dripped onto her,
and his blood. She heard a hoarse whimpering, and knew it was her own.