Judith E French (7 page)

“Superstitious nonsense! There is no herb that will keep a woman from becoming pregnant.”

“I dinna lie. Of course there be such medicine. How else do Englishwomen space their children and keep from having too many to feed?”

“You lie when you damned well please, the same as any other wench.” Brandon turned and waded toward the bank. “Englishwomen take what children God sends them, and if there are too many to feed, they starve.”

“Indeed? Then Alex spoke true. Ye be barbarians.” She reached the water’s edge ahead of him, scrambled out, and snatched up her bundle. “I’ve no more to say to ye. Find your own way back to the village, or let the wolves ha’ ye.”

Brandon grabbed a tree root protruding from the bank. As he heaved himself up, it snapped off, and he fell back into the water with a splash.

She stooped and picked up his ragged breeches.

“Damn you, Leah,” he shouted. “Leave those be.”

Ignoring him, she tossed a man’s loincloth onto the grass and ran off through the forest.

“Come back with my breeches!” Brandon ran a few yards after Leah, then stopped when he realized there was no chance of catching up with her. Cursing, he turned back and kicked at the deerskin loincloth. “Damn your eyes,” he muttered under his breath. “You’ll not make a savage of me, no matter what you do.” Still swearing furiously, he donned the fringed garment and his moccasins and set off toward the Shawnee village.

Minutes later, Matiassu stepped from the bushes directly in Brandon’s path. “Where are you going
Englishmanake?”
he asked in badly accented English. “Did you think to escape so easily?” The war chief raised the muzzle of the French musket until it was level with Brandon’s midsection. “Or do you plot with our enemies to attack our village?”

Cautiously, Brandon raised both hands, palms open so that the Shawnee could see that he was unarmed. “If I was trying to get away,” he answered, “wouldn’t I be heading away from the camp, instead of back toward it?”

Matiassu smiled coldly and eased back the hammer on the flintlock. “Turn around, Sky Eyes,” he ordered. “Turn and run. I give you a chance—the same chance I would give a Seneca.”

Brandon stood motionless, his gaze locked with Matiassu’s. Brandon swallowed hard as sweat began to trickle down the back of his neck. He’s going to shoot me, he thought. No matter what I do, this bastard redskin’s going to kill me.

Matiassu’s eyes narrowed. “Run, Englishman. Run like the dog you are.”

“Is this Shawnee honor—to kill an unarmed man? Drop that musket, and then we’ll see which of us is the dog,” Brandon taunted. “You’re afraid of me. If you weren’t, you wouldn’t need to kill me this way.”

“I fear no man, let alone a pale-skinned Englishman,” Matiassu lashed back. “In single combat I have killed four men. I do not need to prove my courage with one such as you.”

“Talk’s cheap.” Brandon’s heart was beating so hard he thought it would burst his chest. The sweat was running into his eyes, and the back of his left leg was cramped from holding it locked in place. “You’re afraid of me, and you know it,” he persisted softly. “You’re a coward, a man who needs to hide behind a gun.”

“Nee nin dauw,”
Matiassu replied harshly. He tossed his musket aside and advanced on Brandon. The Indian’s right hand closed around the bone handle of a ten-inch hunting knife, and the gleaming blade slid from its fringed leather sheath with an ominous hiss.

Brandon relaxed his muscles and stepped backward, balancing on the balls of his feet. He’d been trained in the art of fencing, but now his hand was empty and his opponent carried a lethal weapon.

“Now who is the coward?” Matiassu asked. “The musket ball would have been quick.”

“Still full of talk.”

The Indian lunged at him with the knife, and Brandon sidestepped the blow. He snatched a length of broken branch from the ground and swung it at Matiassu’s head. The Shawnee dodged the stick and slashed again. The tip of the knife gashed Brandon’s right arm, and he spun away with bright red blood running from the wound.

“I’ll cut out your heart, Englishman,” Matiassu threatened.

Brandon backed away a few steps, holding the stick up to protect himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he spied Matiassu’s musket lying on the ground. If he could get his hand on the flintlock . . . “What are you waiting for? If you’re going to kill me, come on and do it.”

The Indian circled to the left, and Brandon moved with him, keeping a safe distance from the naked steel. Brandon’s mouth tasted like ashes, and the sounds of the forest—the birds and the rustlings of small creatures—had faded. The sound of his own breathing was overly loud in his ears. If I don’t get my hands on that gun, I’m going to die, Brandon thought.

Matiassu feinted to the left, then leaped right and swung again. The knife bit into Brandon’s bare thigh as he twisted away and drew a long, shuddering breath. He moves like a dancer, Brandon thought, gritting his teeth against the pain. He’s fast and he’s smart. “You move like an old woman!” he mocked the Shawnee. “Come on!” He motioned obscenely. “Come and finish me, if you can.”

Brandon stepped back, and his shoulder hit a tree. As Matiassu sprang at him, Brandon slammed the branch down across the Indian’s forearm. Matiassu winced, and Brandon kicked him in the ankle. Brandon seized Matiassu’s knife hand, and they struggled face to face. Matiassu wrapped his leg around Brandon’s, and together they fell to the ground and rolled over and over, fighting for possession of the knife.

Brandon’s head struck a tree root, and he saw stars. Above him, Matiassu’s face blurred. Matiassu’s hand, still clenching the deadly knife, moved closer until Brandon could feel the cold steel against his throat. Brandon’s muscles screamed in silent agony as he forced the Indian’s hand up a fraction of an inch. Matiassu’s teeth were bared; Brandon could smell the acrid sweat from the Indian’s body. He knew Matiassu was near the limit of his strength as well.

“Enough!” Leah’s voice came loud and crisp in Brandon’s ears. “Drop the knife,” she commanded in Algonquian. “Drop it, or I’ll kill you myself, Matiassu.”

The war chief relaxed his hold and rolled off Brandon. He dropped to his knees, then rose to a crouch. Brandon scrambled up and turned to stare at Leah. She was at arm’s length away, her bow drawn taut. Notched in the bowstring was a steel-tipped arrow, and it was pointed at Matiassu’s chest.

“Throw down the knife, Matiassu,” she warned.

“You wouldn’t kill me for
that.”
The war chief motioned with his chin toward Brandon. “We are Shawnee, and he is enemy.”

“He is mine! My husband,” she said. “And I would kill you as quickly as I would a mad wolf who attacked my son.” Leah’s arms trembled with the strain of holding the bow. “I would kill you,” she promised, “and none would know who had done it. Look closely, Matiassu. Do you recognize this arrow? I took it from your wigwam minutes ago. Look at the feathering.”

Matiassu let the knife fall to the ground and turned away, his face crimson with shame. Picking up his fallen musket, he stalked away into the forest without looking back. Leah held the bow in place, the arrow aimed at his back, until he was out of sight.

Brandon exhaled loudly. “Thank you, m’lady. That was well done, and not a minute too soon.” He leaned back against a tree and tried to keep his stomach from making a complete fool of him. His arm and thigh were bleeding freely, and he felt light-headed. “What was all that about?” He indicated the direction Matiassu had taken. “Why was he trying to kill me? And what did you say to him?”

Leah released the pressure on the bow and lowered it. She plucked the arrow from the string and held it out to him, feathered end first. “This nay be Shawnee feathering,” she said precisely in English. “Look, Brandon mine, and remember. I have found our Seneca.”

“Him? But why?”

“Matiassu wants me to be his wife,” she explained starkly. “I have taken ye to husband instead.”

“So he wants to make you a widow.”

“Aye, and Matiassu be a dangerous man. He’ll do it, if we canna think of a way to stop him quickly.”

“What of the old man? Tuk-o-see-yah, your sachem. Can’t you appeal to him?”

Leah sighed softly and reached out to take his hand. “Aye, Brandon mine, we can. Tuk-o-see-yah is a wise man and a great leader. We may ask him for justice, but . . .” Her eyes grew large and troubled.

“But? But what?”

“Matiassu is his only grandson.”

T
hat night, Leah sat in her aunt’s wigwam holding Kitate and singing him Shawnee lullabies until he fell asleep. “I have missed him so much,” Leah admitted as she tucked him into his sleeping robe and put his favorite toy beside him. “My house seems empty without his laughter.”

Amookas took a long draw on her soapstone pipe and sighed loudly. “Did I not warn you, child of my heart? Did I not say that the sky-eyed
Englishmanake
would bring you nothing but unhappiness ?” She passed the pipe to her husband. “Alex mine, did I not say the man was bad luck?”

Alex nodded solemnly. “Yes, mother of my sons. You said it. You repeated it loudly. I doubt that there is anyone within a day’s hunting of this place who didn’t hear you say so,” he said in burred Algonquian.

“The child could have been with his mother if she’d left the captive where he belonged. If she wanted another husband, why didn’t she choose one of the good men who offered for her? Why not take Matiassu?” She shook a finger at Leah. “Being one of two wives of a good man is not a punishment. Haven’t I shared Alex with Tahmee? Did it do me harm?”

Leah made no reply. It was Amookas’s way to complain bitterly. When her aunt had said all that was on her mind, she would be in a mood to offer help.

“Not that we haven’t enjoyed having Kitate with us, you understand,” Alex said. He was busy rubbing oil into a new musket stock he had carved from cherry. The barrel of the musket lay on a deerskin in front of him. Alex’s skills as a gunsmith were well known on the frontier. His muskets brought top prices to Indian or white man, and the proceeds made his extended family wealthy. “Kitate is as welcome here as our twins.”

“And who said otherwise?” Amookas protested. “Moonfeather knows that we love Kitate as we love her.”

“I know this,” Leah said. She looked around the snug wigwam. The house seemed larger tonight with only the four of them inside. Her cousins were playing the bone game with some of their friends, and Tahmee and her children had gone to their own wigwam for the night.

Alex switched to his native tongue. “’Tis a serious accusation ye make again’ Matiassu. If he’s guilty, it could mean loss of his station wi’ the tribe. ’Twill cause great strife among us. Clan weel stand against clan. I’ve seen tribes break apart for less cause.”

Leah brushed a lock of hair from Kitate’s face. “Aye, so I’ve said to myself. It pains me that such a man has come to this because of wanting me as wife.” She left her son’s side and moved close to her aunt. “’Tis why I didna go to the council. ’Tis why I broke the Seneca arrow and buried it in the forest.”

“While the matter remains hidden, there may be a way to mend the pot before the stew is lost,” Amookas said. “Your sky-eyed husband must go far from this place. If he is gone, and you say nothing of Matiassu’s shame, it will be forgotten. If anyone learns what has happened, Matiassu will have to kill the Englishman to save his own honor.”

“So I have thought, sister of my mother,” Leah replied. “Brandon must go, and he must go at once. If there is a scandal, he will never be permitted to become adopted. And . . .” She took the older woman’s worn hand and squeezed it tightly. “And he will die.”

Amookas peered into Leah’s face. “You have allowed yourself to care for this foreigner. I can see it plainly.”

“Aye,” Alex agreed. “She has. And she speaks true. Matiassu will not rest until he lifts her mon’s hair, that’s certain.”

“You know that if the captive is caught trying to escape, the council will put him to death.” Amookas’s kindly features creased with concern. “You could be in danger too, daughter. Matiassu may try and kill you both.”

“I mean to take him away tonight, while the young men still search for Seneca . . . before Matiassu returns to camp,” Leah said. “Brandon would be as helpless as a newborn elk calf in the forest. I’ll have to guide him back to the white settlements. I need to know that my wee son will be safe wi’ ye while I go, and I need your blessing.”

“Aiyee,” Amookas cried softly. She rocked back and forth and moaned. “I see great danger for you. Would it not be better to wait until the men relax their vigil?”

“Nay,” Alex said. “The lass be cunning as an old fox. The warriors watch for those who would sneak up on the camp, nay those who’d flee fra’ it. She kens the woods as well as any mon. If any can get the Englishman free, ’twill be she.” He set the stock aside and massaged the stump of his bad leg. “If I stood on two pegs instead o’ one, I’d see t’ the matter myself. But I canna. Sech be life, Amookas mine. Dinna fash yourself, wife. Nay harm weel coom to her. She wears her luck aroond her neck.” He nodded. “Aye, ’tis a good plan, lass. Dinna worry aboot your bairn. He’ll be safe wi’ us, or we’ll all be in heaven together.”

“The Englishman knows the risk he takes, if he tries to escape?” Amookas asked. “You’re certain his wounds won’t slow him down?”

Leah looked up into her aunt’s eyes. “The wounds are painful, nothing more. And he knows the penalty if we’re caught.”

“Go then, with our blessing,” Amookas said. “You’ll listen to my warnings no more than you did before, no more than your mother listened when I told her not to wed your father.”

Leah embraced them both, kissed her sleeping son, and turned toward the door. “I’ll be a few weeks on the trail, a moon at most. Keep Kitate safe for me.”

“Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu protect you,” her aunt whispered.

“God go wi’ ye, lass,” Alex murmured.

Eyes clouding with tears, Leah ducked out of her aunt’s wigwam and hurried toward her own house where Brandon waited impatiently.

 

Fluid ribbons of incandescent violet spilled slowly across the gray eastern sky. As Brandon watched, the purple streaks gave way to coral and shimmering gold so vivid that he paused and motioned to Leah to look up at the magnificent sunrise. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen one so beautiful,” he said.

“Kesathwa, the sun,” she said. “He comes to light our way.”

“You didn’t seem to need light last night,” Brandon replied. “Even without a hint of moonlight, you kept going.”

She shrugged. “I prayed that Tupexkee-keethwah, the moon, would hide her face behind the clouds and that the fog would make us invisible.”

Brandon looked down at his mud-encrusted leggings and dirty moccasins. His arms bore the scars of branches and briers, and his hair was tangled with leaves and twigs. “While you were making us invisible, couldn’t you have done something about the pain? I feel like a fox that’s been chased all night by hounds.”

She laughed. “But the hounds didna catch us, did they?”

The two had left the Shawnee village within minutes of Leah’s return to her wigwam. Carrying packs, they had circled around through the west cornfield and entered the river. Instead of crossing, they had waded and swum upriver, going ashore on the same side as the village. They’d walked along an ankle-deep stream for nearly an hour, not speaking, listening for any sound of the men from the village. At one point, Brandon had been certain he’d heard the falls, but he’d never caught sight of it.

They returned to the river at a spot where rocks spilled into the water. Again, she had led him along the riverbed, sometimes walking ; other times, when the current permitted, they had swum. Without moonlight, the night had been so black that he couldn’t see Leah an arm’s length ahead of him.

In the middle of the night, a thick fog had settled over the river. It was then that Leah left the water for the last time and led him directly into the forest. After a time, she changed direction, following what she whispered to Brandon was a game trail. He could see little difference between the untracked woods and the path.

Once, they’d come upon a herd of sleeping deer. The animals had panicked and fled before them; one doe whirled and leaped completely over Brandon’s head. He and Leah had been so frightened by the sudden burst of noise that they’d laughed like errant children when they realized it was only deer and not a charging bear or a war party of Shawnee braves.

Leah had left the trail where the deer had bedded down for the night. She’d dragged him through a green-brier thicket and into a low, marshy area. They’d not stopped to rest once through the long night, and now, at daybreak, he was tired and hungry.

“We haven’t seen or heard a living soul,” Brandon said. “Don’t you think we could take time to eat something and catch a few hours’ sleep?”

She shook her head. “We sleep when we are safe, Brandon mine. You are slow in the forest, and I canna travel as fast as Matiassu. When they take up our trail, we maun be far enough away. We canna rest yet.”

“Maybe he won’t follow us at all.”

She laughed softly. “Matiassu will follow. He will have to. If we make a mockery of him, they will take away his badge of office and make another man war chief in Matiassu’s place. To lead warriors into battle, a chief must command respect. He canna be publicly bested by an English captive and a woman.”

Leah rubbed the back of her neck and adjusted her quiver of arrows. She was dressed in a laced-up vest and leggings, much as she had worn when they went on the deer hunt. Her fringed skirt was cut short, and her heavy elkskin moccasins rose under her leggings to tie at the knee. Over one shoulder, she wore a cape despite the heat. Her hair was plaited into one thick braid and held back off her face by an intricately beaded headband.

Brandon’s leggings and loincloth were still damp from the river, and his vest was hot and sticky. A blister had risen on one heel and broken; the sore spot rubbed every time he took a step. Leah looked as though she had just strolled out of her wigwam; her hair wasn’t even tangled. “I’d give the price of a coach and four to see you in a proper lady’s gown with hoops and stays.” He grinned. “If I took you to the theater, none would watch the play—you’re that lovely, m’lady.”

“Why do ye call me m’lady? I’m not your lady,” she protested. “I be my own woman. A Shawnee woman is nay a thing to be possessed like a pair of moccasins or a French musket. You make fun at me, and I dinna like it.”

“Why do you call me Brandon mine?”

“Ahuttch,
’tis nay the same.” She slung her bow across her shoulder and set off through the trees. “I dinna laugh inside when I call ye so. I’ll nay be sport for the likes o’ ye, Brandon viscount. I be the daughter of a peace woman.”

“I don’t
ken
this peace woman. What does it mean?” He ducked his head to avoid a low-hanging branch.

“I’ve nay time to educate a barbarian. There be sachems and council members, either men or women, but usually men. There be war chiefs, only once in a great while a woman, and there be peace women. A peace woman be always female, never a mon . . . a man. She has power that comes from above and great wisdom, wisdom of a different sort than that of a sachem. A peace woman must be born wi’ the power. It be magic. No woman can decide she wants to be one—she either is or she isna. In battle, a sachem may be killed by an enemy, but not even an Iroquois would dare murder a peace woman if he knew what she was.”

“And your mother was such a one?”

“Aye, Brandon mi—. Aye. On her word, the Shawnee would lay down their tomahawks and take up the hoe, or they would don warpaint. She was first in the council, and she was honored among the Delaware and the Menominee, as well as the Shawnee. She was born the granddaughter of Mo-na Mskee-yaik-wee, the greatest of all peace women. Usually, there be an unbroken line, mother to daughter, but my grandmother—my mother’s mother—died in childbirth when she was still a young woman. My mother and her sister were raised in the wigwam of Mo-na Mskee-yaik-wee.”

“So your mother and your grandmother both died giving birth.” For some reason the thought disturbed him greatly. His eyes rested on Leah’s slim hips, her delicate frame, and he couldn’t help wondering if she would meet the same fate.

“Aye.”

“Did you have a difficult time when Kitate was born?” he persisted. At home in England, women died every day in giving birth. There they had the benefit of midwives, and proper medical care. Here . . . Brandon glanced away from Leah, his mouth suddenly dry. Here in the wilderness, Indian women probably went off into the brush like animals to give birth alone and unattended.

Leah sniffed. “This is not a thing of which I care to speak with an Englishman. Enough talking. We waste breath, and we have far to go.”

Brandon wasn’t listening. From his memory, a girl’s face appeared . . . blond and blue-eyed and laughing. Cecily. He hadn’t thought of her for years. How old had he been that summer he’d loved Cecily? Fifteen . . . sixteen?

Leah thumped him hard on the chest. “Brandon viscount! Do ye sleep on your feet? I tell ye, we ha’ far to go.”

Cecily’s face vanished, replaced by Leah’s very real one. He forced a chuckle. “You’re the walkingest woman I’ve ever seen,” he said lightly. “Since the first day I laid eyes on you, you’ve tried to walk me to death. Haven’t you people ever heard of horses?”

“I’ve seen them. I’ve even ridden one. But a horse be nay use in the thick forest. The beasties be for open places. They make a target of a man so that enemies may lift his scalp.” She veered off to the left and began to follow a faint path. “The wind be in our faces,” she cautioned. “’Twill carry our voices.” She held a small finger to her lips. “Shhh.”

The sun was high over Brandon’s head before Leah spoke to him again. “Down,” she ordered, motioning urgently with her left hand. He dropped to a crouch, and then onto his stomach as she had done. Together they crawled to the top of a rocky ledge and peered over the edge.

Brandon heard Leah’s sharp intake of breath as they both saw the group of Indians and uniformed white men gathered below. The wind was still blowing from east to west, and Brandon could make out a few words the officer was saying. “French . . . those soldiers are French,” he said.