Savage Destiny (The Hearts of Liberty Series, Book 1) (45 page)

Alanna awakened each time Hunter stirred during the night, but he appeared to be only shifting position slightly, rather than in distress, and she quickly fell asleep again. She didn't realize he was in trouble until dawn, when he complained of feeling too warm and asked her to help him remove his shirt. The instant her fingertips brushed his skin, she drew back.

"It's no wonder you feel warm." She raised her hand to his forehead to confirm her suspicions. "You're feverish."

Hunter had fallen asleep believing he could not feel any worse, but he had been wrong. "I'll get over it," he boasted without conviction.

The Barclays had seldom been ill, and in those rare instances, they had relied on Doctor Earle or bought herbal remedies at an apothecary shop in Williamsburg, so Alanna had never gathered medicinal plants in the wild. Even if she had, she doubted the forests of New York would contain the same varieties that grew in Virginia. "Do you know which herbs to gather for a fever?" she asked.

"Among my people, medicine is women's work."

"Then it's unfortunate we don't have one of your women here with us." Alanna was deliberately parodying one of his complaints, but either he didn't notice, or didn't care. She reached for the fringed hem of his shirt, and helped him peel the garment off over his head. "Even if we can't brew any herbal teas, you should try and drink all the water you can. I'll get you some now."

Hunter watched her carry the cup she had fashioned down to the lake. She was still barefooted, and it suited her. She had to bring him three cups of water, before he had his fill. "You need to make a bigger cup," he teased weakly, "then you won't have to make so many trips."

"Rather than a larger cup, what I need is a bucket. I'll have to look for a piece of wood the right size to hollow out. Until then, we'll just have to make do with this one pitifully small cup."

"Light another fire. Use the coals to burn out the center of a block of wood. Then there will be less to carve."

"Do your women make wooden buckets?"

"No, but if you wait for me to do it, we'll no longer need it."

Alanna hoped he was referring to his recovery precluding the necessity of a bucket, rather than anything more dire. "Do you think you could eat some fish?"

The mere mention of food made Hunter's stomach lurch, and he shook his head. "I just want to sleep."

Anxious to relieve his pain, Alanna remained kneeling at his side. Believing the knife wound in his leg must have become infected, she blamed herself for not knowing how to take better care of him. He was strong and had been in obvious good health, before he had been hurt. If the infection did not worsen, then he had an excellent chance to survive, but, God forbid, if he developed blood poisoning, not even a highly skilled physician could save him.

"I'm going to get busy on the bucket," she announced. "Then I can bring plenty of water from the lake to keep you cool. I'll just rip more cloth from the bottom of my chemise to make compresses."

Hunter opened one eye. "No more lace."

Alanna rose and brushed the dust from her skirt. "If that's all you have to complain about, you're fortunate indeed."

Hunter reached out to catch her hem in a feeble grasp. "Thank you," he mumbled.

"For such an obstinate man, you have endearing ways." Alanna waited a moment, but when Hunter remained silent, she went to scour the surrounding woods for a log small enough to be made into a bucket. She found some raspberry vines first, and picked so many succulent berries, she had to carry them back to the clearing in her skirt. She hoped Hunter would feel up to eating some later, but for now, she left them piled within his reach and went back into the woods.

By the time she had found a suitable piece of wood and fashioned a bucket using Hunter's helpful tip, his temperature had risen. She used the crude wooden pail to carry water to continually remoisten the compresses she placed on his forehead, chest, and legs, but she feared she had not begun using them soon enough to be effective. She encouraged him to eat berries whenever he awoke, and he swallowed a few, but she knew it wasn't nearly enough nourishment to sustain a man of his size.

"Could you eat some of Blind Snake's jerky?" Having had no time to fish, she had sampled it herself and found its smoky flavor good. "I could cut it into tiny bites for you."

"No, I would still have to chew and then swallow."

His expression was blank, and his eyes were glazed by the fever, but Alanna nevertheless got the distinct impression that he was teasing her. She replaced the compress on his forehead and then let her fingertips graze his cheek. "You are going to get well, Hunter. You're much too stubborn not to."

Hunter was far more worried about her than he was about himself. She had used his line to fish, and had sparked a fire with the flint he carried. She still had boots, if she chose to wear them, and a woolen shawl to keep warm. She was a clever girl and would survive without him.

"If you must leave here alone—" he began.

Alanna protested instantly. "I'll not leave you."

Hunter stared at her, unable to comprehend how she had misunderstood his meaning. "If I die," he explained slowly, "go south. Follow the Mohawk to the trading post."

Alanna wanted to argue that his instructions were unnecessary, but she knew it would only tire him, and simply nodded. "I seem to bring bad luck everywhere I go," she said instead. "My family's gone, and two of my cousins. Don't you leave me, too, Indian."

Hunter reached out for her hand. While he could not be blamed for the slaughter of her family, he knew Melissa's and Elliott's deaths could more easily be blamed on his influence than hers. "I am the one who spreads death," he argued, "not you. Be careful."

"Of what? You?"

Lacking the energy for a lengthy debate, Hunter closed his eyes for a moment to gather his thoughts. When he again looked up at her, he knew precisely what to say. "Blind Snake was trying to kill me, not Elliott, and I was the one he came to kill yesterday. If death comes for me again, do not stand in the way."

Alanna surveyed the open clearing with an anxious glance. Had Blind Snake opened fire on them from the adjacent woods, they would not have had a chance. "Do you have more enemies who might be stalking us?"

"Only death," Hunter revealed.

"You don't mean a person, just the possibility?" When Hunter nodded, Alanna again removed the compress from his forehead, dipped it into the pail, squeezed it out, and laid it over his brow. "I have much better things to do than bury you," she scoffed. "There's your son to raise for one. We've not had any time to talk about him."

"Christian?"

"That's right." Alanna replaced the compress on his chest, before she continued, "He's a splendid little boy, Hunter. He looks so much like you. I know you'd be proud of him."

Hunter tried to picture the infant in his mind, but all he saw was the fierceness of Melissa's expression, when she had threatened an accusation of rape should he ever reveal they had been lovers. He didn't want that spiteful bitch's child. Surely Christian would scorn him as readily as his mother had. "I have no son," he denied.

Discouraged by the blackness of his mood, Alanna went down to the lake to refill the pail, and tarried at the water's edge. Even with the awful specter of death on his mind, Hunter's heart was closed to Christian, and she saw that as a terrible tragedy, even if he didn't. Bitterly discouraged that her trip to New York continued to have tragic consequences, she reluctantly returned to her patient's side. He was sleeping again, and she liked him ever so much better that way.

She replaced the cool compresses on his chest and legs, before sitting back to study his color. She thought he looked less flushed, but feared it might only be wishful thinking rather than fact. She rested her hand lightly on his right knee, and decided there was no difference in his temperature. He was still much too warm. Perplexed by her inability to help him, she realized that lying directly in the sun couldn't be doing him any good. Inspired to remedy that sorry situation, she cut two long slender branches to serve as poles, then dampened her shawl, and strung it between them to form an awning.

Armed with a leafy branch from a sugar maple, she sat fanning him with lazy strokes, attempting to keep him cooled by the breeze wafting over the wet awning. Her arm soon ached with the effort, but unable to devise another way to lower his temperature, she changed hands often and tried only to think of how much she wanted him to live. He was such a handsome man, that sitting with him wasn't in the least bit disagreeable, but she wished his conversation had been more optimistic when he had last been awake. She chewed another strip of venison jerky, and vowed not to let him speak again of death. She had had far too much of the pain of loss, and craved the joy of love and life instead.

* * *

Throughout the rest of that day and well into the next, Hunter's dreams were filled with tortured images that kept him moaning softly. He was running through a dark, overgrown forest infested with evil demons. The hideous creatures leapt out at him, taunting him with vile insults uttered in strident cackles and hoarse shrieks. Their fangs dripped venom, and his buckskins were ripped to shreds by their long, pointed claws. Each time he escaped their grasp, but he had lost his knife and bow, and without a way to fight them, sought only to hide, but they were everywhere. He had to keep on running harder and harder, until he feared his heart would burst from the strain.

Looking back over his shoulder, he missed seeing the cliff until it was too late to catch himself, and he plummeted over the edge. He flung out his arms, hoping to soar like an eagle but he succeeded only in spinning head over heels, until his fall was finally broken by the icy waters of a bottomless lake. He splashed about and, finally free of the demons, awoke just as Alanna threw another pail of water on him. He sputtered and spit, then sat up and tried to wrench the bucket from her hands.

"Are you trying to drown me?"

Alanna released her hold on the bucket and sank to her knees.

"I'm sorry, but you've been delirious for more than a day, and I couldn't think of any other way to bring you out of it."

Hunter found it difficult to believe the ugly demon dreams had lasted so long. "When did you kill Blind Snake?"

"Three days ago."

Her shawl still shaded him, preventing him from seeing the angle of the sun, but he could tell by the obvious changes in her that he had indeed lost a day. Her dress was splattered with water, but seemed to hang on a figure that was rapidly becoming gaunt. There were shadows beneath her eyes, and her hair, rather than falling in attractive ringlets, was in wild disarray.

"You must rest," Hunter coaxed. "Come lie down with me."

"No, I'll bring you a drink first." Alanna struggled to rise and, weaving unsteadily, went to fetch more water. When she returned, she placed the bucket and cup within his reach, and then stretched out beside him. "I think you'll be all right now," she whispered softly, and before his hand caressed her cheek, she had given into the fatigue she had fought for so many hours.

After having slept for an equal amount of time, Hunter still felt drained, but wide-awake. He wiggled his toes, flexed his muscles, and while his leg did still ache, he attempted to convince himself that he would be strong enough to get up later. Recalling his frightful nightmares in the light of day, he wondered if death hadn't come for him again. If so, Alanna had saved him a second time, and he was extremely glad that she had. While he still felt weak, his fever had broken, and he was cheered by that small step toward recovery.

His thoughts remained focused on the exhausted young woman at his side, and he wondered if they might not have been the ones to fall in love last spring, had she not been so terrified of Indians. He tried not to dwell on how foolish his infatuation with Melissa had been, but he didn't want to fall in love with another white woman, who might soon spurn him. Even knowing that Alanna was a completely different person and undeserving of the awful doubts Melissa's memory inspired, he could not silence them.

Perhaps by the time he recovered, he would be a better judge of her feelings, as well as his own. He ought not to get well too swiftly, he vowed with a sly grin, for he wanted to savor awake the delicious attentions Alanna had obviously lavished on him, while he'd been unconscious. She would need her rest for that, however, and again winding one of her glossy curls around his finger, he began to plan how to become a much better patient. Once he had succeeded, he hoped it would not be long before they became lovers, but he would not repeat his mistakes. He would not risk his heart until he was certain Alanna's devotion would last forever.

* * *

"Would you really have married Elliott?"

They were eating a supper of trout and berries. Neither had spoken in several minutes, and Alanna recoiled slightly at the impertinence of his question. Her throat tightened painfully, and she looked away.

"Please, that's not something you should ask."

Her averted glance revealed a great deal. "It's something you should have already asked yourself."

While she had indeed pondered the question, she had not reached an answer before Elliott was killed, and it seemed disloyal to him to now discuss the matter with Hunter. Her appetite gone, Alanna rose and walked down to the river to rinse her hands. She did not return to her companion's side until her mood was again composed.