The Bearwalker's Daughter (19 page)
Read The Bearwalker's Daughter Online
Authors: Beth Trissel
Alarm sounded in Neeley’s drowsy mind. Where was Jack, and why wasn’t Karin with the others? Something was wrong.
Plainly, Sarah was distressed. Lifting tearful eyes to her husband’s, she asked, “Where is Karin?”
John glowered as he did when frightened into black anger. “I thought the lass was with you, woman.”
Twisting a bunch of her cloak in her fingers, Sarah shook her head. “She went in search of Jack.”
The furrows plowing John’s face deepened. “Why on earth did you let her go?”
“She said she would speak to Joseph first.”
“Joseph!” John bellowed his stepson’s name so loudly the startled young man heard above the noise. All heard and grew quiet. “Where’s Jack?”
He eyed him blankly. “Right behind me the last I knew.”
“Well, he isn’t bloody here now. And what of Karin? Sarah says she came to you for help.”
“I never saw her.”
Heads swiveled in every direction as folks sought the missing pair. Nothing.
“Come to think of it, where in blazes is Thomas?” John demanded.
“Up by the old sycamore.”
John looked as if he’d tack all their hides to the wall. “Still? Someone must have seen something.”
One backwoodsman volunteered, “The bonnie lass rode off on a bay gelding. That way.” He pointed at the far end of the track.
Neeley didn’t wait to hear more, but flew over the field far out in advance of the men springing onto their horses to go in pursuit. She reached the silvery tree arching skyward like an ancient totem pole and sensed she’d crossed a mystical divide. An eerie fog closed in around her. She couldn’t see beyond a few yards in any direction. The moist air seemed spun with spider webs.
Neeley.
Someone called her name. A blackness took form in the mist, then a head and a snout. An enormous bear appeared before her swirled in tendrils of white like a vision, and yet quite real. Unaccountably, she wasn’t afraid for herself, though perhaps she should be. She gazed into the hazy outline of his face.
Eyes as dark as night shadows held her in their mesmerizing depths. She sensed great power. Good or bad?
Both,
she determined. Here was a tormented soul.
I
see
you
, he said.
But it was she who saw him, wasn’t it?
No.
You
see
because
I
summoned
yo
u
.
“Why?” Neeley asked.
You
have
long
wondered
about
me.
“Have I?”
Do
you
not
know
me?
It came to her that she did.
You
were
with
Mary
when
she
died?
The anguish in his voice cut through Neeley. “I was.”
Her
final
words.
Speak
them
to
m
e
.
“She loved you, Shequenor, and said to tell Karin. I have done so.”
A soulful sigh mingled with pain whistled past Neeley as if blown on the wind. And it seemed she heard him whisper,
At
last.
“Forgive me for not speaking sooner.”
There
is
nothing to
forgive. You
have
done
well, wise
woman.
You
completed
your
task.
He was leaving, she knew. Unaccountably, she wanted to continue this strangest of all possible conversations. “Will I see you again?”
You
do
not
truly
see
me
now.
Neeley awoke with a start and gaped into the fire. What just transpired wasn’t possible. Or was it? Had she spoken with Shequenor?
Chapter Thirteen
Thomas lent a strong hand and Jack sat up, shaking his head to clear his dazed senses. He patted his sides. Both weapons were in place. All his hard-won skills rushed to the fore. His heart thudded with the awareness of having had a close call and the likelihood of having a closer one if he weren’t on guard. He’d be damned if he’d crumble again in the face of Shequenor’s threats.
“Let’s get you on your feet.” Thomas stood and pulled Jack up. “That was one hell of a knock you took. Sure you’re all right?”
Straightening with care, he fingered a sore spot on his ribs. “I’ll survive. Damn. That race is long over.”
“Pity. You ought to have won from what I witnessed.”
Jack bent to snatch up his hat. “Yeah,” he said with a slight catch. He’d bruised a rib.
Thomas uncorked his powder horn and tipped a measure of black powder into the long musket barrel. “You spared Joseph a right beating.”
“The least I could do.”
“After stealing his girl?” Thomas suggested.
None of the malignance Jack had expected underlay his tone. “You don’t despise me?”
Thomas looked evenly at Jack then dipped his fingers into the shot pouch for a lead ball and bit of cloth. “You outrode those men. Even Kyle Brewster said the same before heading back. I admire that.”
“What of the war?” Jack ventured.
Taking the ramrod from beneath the musket, Thomas drove the cloth-wrapped ball into place. “I fought. I know what it was. You would have been a Patriot if you had remained here. You were loyal to those you considered your own—” He broke off at the calls echoing through the trees.
“Karin! Jack! Thomas!” Hoarse voices shouted all three names.
Jack exchanged glances with Thomas. “Karin’s missing?”
Worry hazed Thomas’s blue eyes. “Us, too, it seems. Likely she’s not gone far either.”
Jack wasn’t the least bit reassured after what he’d experienced. Regret over forfeiting the race fled and dread took its place. “Good God. Shequenor might have taken her.”
Thomas tipped powder into the flash pan. “You’ve got to cease your talk about him being a bear. I reckon the fall has you ranting like a madman.”
Jack rejected his caution in mounting desperation. He grasped Peki’s reins. “I don’t have time to persuade you otherwise. We must find Karin. I’ll never forgive myself if anything happens to her.”
“How is her straying your fault?”
“I’ve brought only evil to her since I came.”
The shouts grew louder and a tribe of riders converged through the foggy trees. “Help has arrived,” Thomas said dryly, as if he preferred less of an onslaught.
“I could find her better without that lot,” Jack muttered. “Like a pack of crows.”
Thomas smiled faintly. “Jack’s with me, Papa!”
John McNeal shouted as he rode, “How fares the fellow?”
“Well enough. He was attacked by a bear.”
“Keep a lookout for the beast and Karin,” John answered. “She took off after Jack.”
“See? My bloody fault,” Jack said to Thomas. Ribs protesting, he flung himself up onto Peki.
Thomas grabbed his musket and sprang up on his tethered mount. “Say what you like, she cares more for you than any.”
If Jack weren’t wild to find Karin he’d have been astonished at this admission from a fierce McNeal male.
“Spread out, boys!” John shouted.
“Done.” With Peki’s back beneath him, Jack headed in the opposite direction from the rescue party to cover new ground.
It seemed Thomas had the same idea and guided his brown gelding at Peki’s heels. The blanketed woods were uncannily silent. Muffled shouts carried beyond the tread of hooves muted by the leaves on the path, and little else. Not even birds called in the cloudy vapor.
Jack could think of only one reason why Shequenor would leave Karin behind; the necklace that still weighted his pouch. Thomas didn’t know about that. No one did, except her. And now, maybe Shequenor.
Would he leap at Jack to try and reclaim it? No doubt Thomas was a crack shot. Could a bear walking warrior fall? Jack thought so and denounced the part of him that still clung to the irrational devotion he bore his adopted brother. It was Shequenor’s life or his, he reminded himself. Karin’s, too, might be at stake.
Jack felt rather than saw the pair of all-seeing eyes following Peki’s every step. Was it his imagination or did a black shape rustle the underbrush?
“See that?” Thomas grunted.
“Sure did.” At least in this regard, Jack wasn’t deluded. Rigid with wariness, he nudged Peki on. Ears pricked, the horse was also attuned to the barely discernible presence.
Ever furtive, so Jack couldn’t be certain of his whereabouts, the bear glided ahead. No rabbits or pheasants fled his coming. He seemed to go undetected by wildlife. Now and then, Jack glimpsed a hint of brownish-black fur.
“He’s clever,” Thomas said under his breath.
“You have no notion.”
“Almost human, eh?” Thomas quipped.
“Almost.” Even in manly form, Jack wasn’t sure he’d call Shequenor fully human anymore. He was a lost soul.
“You need a stiff drink, lad.”
“No doubt. Just have that musket ready.”
An enraged bellow broke the stillness, unleashed in a whoosh of wind and swirling leaves. Startled blue jays flapped up, cawing raucously. Thomas leveled the barrel and scanned either side of the blanketed trail.
You
would shoot
me,
NiSawsawh?
The growling accusation sounded in Jack’s mind, though he doubted Thomas heard. He grasped his tomahawk. “I’ll kill you, Shequenor, if needs must.”
“Easy, Jack.” Thomas said.
I taught
you
to
use
that
weapo
n.
“You taught me well.”
Have
at
me
then.
“Jack—look.”
An enormous grizzly took form among the smoky trees. He hovered between leafless oaks, fur bristling, eyes glowing with challenge. Jack stared back, his teeth gritted, hand clenching the handle of the lethal blade. Peki stood with unusual calm after the earlier attack. Even Thomas hesitated at the unexpected visitation. Then he took aim.
Jack’s stomach turned. “Wait—it’s my fight.”
“Don’t be daft. You can’t win against that monster.”
“I don’t expect to. But I must face him.”
“A bloody great bear?”
“A bear walking warrior.” Steeling himself for what would follow, Jack threw a leg over Peki. “Take care of my horse.”
My
horse
, Shequenor growled.
My
daughter
.
“Jack, for God’s sake, stop.”
“Tell Karin I love her.”
“Then don’t be so damn foolhardy.”
Ignoring Thomas, Jack advanced toward the waiting beast. His chest hammered like a man going to his execution, and with one swipe of those lethal paws, he might well be. But he must prove his courage after his failure earlier.
Still unwavering, Shequenor watched him come.
“Stop, Jack, or I swear I’m shooting him through the heart right now,” Thomas warned.
Inexplicably, Jack froze at his threat. Shequenor’s fathomless gaze flickered with satisfaction.
“I don’t know what’s going on here, Jack, but you’re turning back now,” Thomas insisted.
Go, NiSawsawh. Time wanes. Bring
my
daughter to me. I
cannot
convey her
in
this
form
.
Now Jack knew the reason. “Wait. Where’s Karin?”
Under
your
nose.
I
led
you
to
he
r
. As quickly as he’d appeared, Shequenor dissolved into the hazy trees.
****
A hasty search and Jack spied Paul McNeal’s mount grazing on clumps of grass that grew where sunlight found its way through breaks in the forest canopy. The horse’s silent presence in the fog hadn’t alerted him or Thomas to its presence. Not far from the gelding, Jack saw Karin slumped on the ground, curled on the bed of leaves as if sleeping.
Right where Shequenor said she’d be, he thought, racing to where she lay. Her position was unnatural. And no one slept like that in these frigid woods with no campfire.
Thomas rushed forward. “Poor lass.”
“Oh, God. Karin.” Her face was too white, cold. Jack knelt beside her, gathering her limp body in his arms. Dear Lord, how he loved her. It hit him like gunfire. Every beat of her precious heart beat in his.
