Embrace the Day (27 page)

"Nen-nemki," she murmured, "be still."

Swallowing the panic that rose in her throat, she continued loading. The bullet, wrapped in a bit of greased patching, went down into the muzzle, aided by the ramrod, which, mercifully, slid silently. Quaking with apprehension, she added powder to the firing pan to prime it.

Closing the pan, she rose slowly to her feet, her injured leg thudding with pain. She had no idea whether or not the rifle would fire; she could well have left out a step in the loading. The flint might not work. But there was no time to worry about the weapon's shortcomings.

She stepped away from the shelter to divert the intruder's attention from Small Thunder's presence. And found herself facing a tall man who swayed drunkenly in the dawn light. A man with eyes so yellow and cold that his very stare sent terror twisting down her spine. Behind him, a scruffy young boy of perhaps nine hung in the purple shadows, holding the reins of a horse.

Her breath caught with a hiss as recognition dawned. She brought the barrel of the rifle up, level with his belly. Then she spoke his name disparagingly.

"Elkanah Harper." His clothes stank of the scalps he'd taken; one bitten-off ear marked him as a horse thief.

He swayed a little and laughed harshly. "Aye!" he shouted, not at all concerned by the cold round eye of the gun pointed at his midsection, " 'Tis Elk, and glad I am that I came back to see that me and my boys did the job up right."

He hooked a thumb into his belt loop, fingers playing on the handle of his long knife. " 'Pears we overlooked a couple of redskins, Caleb," he said over his shoulder. "Where's your father and his brother?"

The boy shrugged.

"Goddamned boys o' mine," Harper swore. "Must've stopped below the bluffs to water the horses." He turned his yellow-eyed gaze back to the girl, exuding malevolence.

"Guess me an' my grandson'll have to deal with you ourselves." The boy quailed and shrank back.

Whispering Rain felt sickness well up in her. This was the eldest of the Harpers, the man who had assured her father in Chillicothe that it was safe to make salt at the licks for trading in Lexington. Who had given Coonahaw detailed directions, fed him firewater, won his trust.

She met his eyes. They were bleary with drink and full of gleeful cruelty.

"You knew," she said accusingly. "You sent us here."

He laughed again. "My boys did a good job killin', eh?"

"Not good enough," Whispering Rain told him. "They left me, Coonahaw's daughter, behind. To avenge my father."

Harper was not as drunk as Whispering Rain had hoped. As he spoke, he edged closer. She saw his fingers twitch a little in anticipation of seizing her rifle.

"Don't," she cautioned him. "I do not relish killing as you do, but I will take your life. Go away, Harper."

He shook his head slowly from side to side. "You'll come with me, squaw."

"Never!"

He laughed in her face. But the laughter was meant to disarm her, to cover his sudden lunge.

Whispering Rain squeezed the trigger. The flint struck a spark against the frizzen, and the
m
etequa
barked its thunder at Harper. The ball struck him, not in the belly where she'd aimed, but higher, piercing his heart.

The boy dropped the horse's reins and scampered away in terror.

"Bitch!" Elk spat raggedly, clawing at the sooty, gaping hole in his chest.

Elkanah Harper's boys appeared over the rise in time to see a young squaw with a little boy clutched to her breast, fleeing southward on their father's horse.

Luke Adair threw himself to the ground at the sharp crack of a rifle report. He grimaced in silent pain as his knee struck a frozen clod of mud, and then he rose slowly, cautiously, to look around. His sigh of relief froze in the air before his mouth. The shot hadn't been meant for him; it was too far away. But now he moved with more caution. Deep in the wilderness, both Indian and white were likely to shoot first and wonder about the target afterward.

Such dangers never dissuaded Luke from his frequent forays into the thick, river-creased woodlands of Kentucky. It was worth the danger to come here, to hear the wind moaning through pines on high ridges, to see the relic stands of ancient hemlocks, to feel his horse's footsteps springing on a cushion of humus. Beyond the hastily tamed regions of central Kentucky were places where a man could still touch the land.

Luke set out hunting whenever he could, especially in winter when work on the farm slowed down and the family settled into their snug house near Lexington to huddle against the chill.

Too much closeness, Luke decided. Too much of his parents' tacit trust in his dependability, of Israel's incomprehensible orations on theology, of pretty Sarah's incessant prattle over her dolls and bright bits of calico. And especially too much of Hance's careless, half-formed dreams of glory, which were constantly thwarted by his own recklessness.

Luke ventured out for the solitude as much as he did for the hunting. Always alone, always on his favorite dun mare, a fleet Chippewa-bred horse. Luke enjoyed the independence of traveling alone, not having to think about planting schedules or sick cows or getting Hance out of his latest scrape. Here Luke answered only to his own needs, and it was a welcome relief after a long season of responsibility.

At the moment his own need was to find the source of the rifle shot, to ascertain that he wasn't the one being hunted. The rifle was Indian; of that much he was sure. Redskins used low-grade powder, which gave the report a slightly different quality.

Hoofbeats sent him and his horse backing into a dense stand of hackberry. An eagle mare burst into view, its eyes rolled back fearfully, showing white. Luke saw a flash of moccasin-clad feet and a well-greased fringe of doeskin. An Indian woman, clutching a child in front of her. She rode past him, ducking low over the horse's shoulder, and disappeared from view.

Luke was about to emerge from his cover when two more riders appeared, well mounted, urging their beasts on with curses. The men reminded Luke of a pair of scraggly wolves.

Stay out of it, Luke admonished himself. But even as the thought squirmed through his mind, he was mounting and spurring his horse in the direction the hunters—and the hunted squaw—had taken.

He couldn't imagine the sort of men who would ride down a lone Indian woman…

Yes, he could. Hance was capable of that. And maybe Roarke, too. The two of them had had enough brushes with redskins to develop a deep, abiding hatred of all their kind. Luke despised Indians, too, but his hatred was more focused, more controlled. An entire race of people wasn't responsible for nearly killing him twelve years ago and carrying off his sister. Luke reserved every shred of his loathing for the one brave called Black Bear.

He rode on, bending low beneath a leafless hickory branch. The fires of rage had subsided over the years. Black Bear was probably dead, and Rebecca undoubtedly so. Luke had done his grieving.

The hunters never saw him. They veered northward, toward the river, having lost their quarry. Luke felt a breath of relief escape him and slowed his horse to a meandering walk. He hadn't given the squaw enough credit. She'd managed to elude the hunters with her inborn sense of woodcraft.

Wandering southward, Luke began to seek out a place to make camp for the night. Lost in thought, he didn't realize what he'd stumbled upon until he was in the midst of a burnt-out Indian camp.

Sickness constricted his throat. Four bodies had been laid out on a mud flat in deathly repose. Swallowing bile, he saw that the women had been butchered every bit as ruthlessly as the braves. The sympathy that suddenly burst within his heart felt strange to Luke. Why feel compassion for redskins?

He supposed it was the waste, the utter senselessness of the massacre. Yet he knew redskins to be equally indiscriminate in their killing. One of them had recently made short work of a white man, Luke saw. Some distance from the rest of the bodies lay a filthy, grizzled carcass, the face twisted into an eternal snarl.

Shaking his head, Luke walked away from the camp, putting a cold hand to his roiling innards. The freezing temperature had preserved the scarlet hue of the blood that crept out across the frozen ground.

A sudden wave of longing for his family welled up in Luke. He'd been gone a month, time enough to forget the tension of all his responsibilities. The cold bodies made him long to embrace someone warm and alive, like Sarah, who was fond of crawling into his lap and begging for stories.

The trail to Lexington took him along the Licking River. He paused to eat, to water his horse, and to savor the last of the day. The bleak winter sun carved deep shadows into the cliffs above the water. A flock of geese appeared soundlessly, hanging still in the air for an instant. Then they wheeled out over the river in perfect V formation and were gone.

A small sound drifted through the evening silence. A human sound. Tensing, Luke scanned the cliffs above the river and edged toward a great limestone outcrop.

The sound grew stronger as he neared it. A voice, sweet and clear, issued from a large cave. Tethering his horse to a bush, Luke climbed to the opening in the cliff. What he found made his throat constrict with emotion.

An Indian girl—or was she a grown woman?—sat on a ragged horse blanket cradling a small child in her arms, crooning some sweet melody. Her face was set impassively, and her cheeks were dry, yet the aching mournfulness in her voice indicated grief more poignantly than a flood of tears.

Touched, Luke took a step toward her.

Whispering Rain tensed every nerve when a long, broad shadow closed the mouth of the cave where she hid. Driven by instinct, she clutched Small Thunder closer while her other hand reached for the primed rifle. Her head snapped up, and her eyes clouded with confusion. She was staring at a man far too magnificent to be one of Harper's sons.

He removed his hat and raked his hand through a mane of clay-colored hair. The white winter sun illuminated arresting features that looked as if they'd been hewn from iron maple by a master's skilled hand. A proud, firm jaw and squarish chin, a straight nose and oddly soft lips, lips that made Whispering Rain feel something dreadful and forbidden curl within her.

With an inner tremble she lifted her eyes to his. The color reminded her of a dew-wet leaf in springtime, but he was staring at her with a chilly hardness that made her shiver. She recognized the hardness as hatred.

Whispering Rain swallowed. She was in an awkward position to fend him off, but he hadn't yet taken his knife or tomahawk from his belt.

The speed with which she set Small Thunder down awoke the child, who began to whimper. In one quick movement, Whispering Rain thrust him behind her and seized the rifle.

The man's foot slammed down on the barrel, pinning the weapon on the floor of the cave.

"Don't," he ordered curtly.

With a grunt of fear, she tried to pry it up. The man uttered a curse and took the rifle, twisting it roughly from her hands. He regarded the rusting, dirty muzzle for a moment, his mouth drawn taut in disapproval.

"Now then," he said, half to himself, "what's to become of you two?"

From somewhere in the corner of her mind burst a wealth of English words, words schooled into her by her mother's teaching.

"Do you really wonder?" she snapped. "I should think it is obvious."

His eyes widened in surprise. "So you speak English, do you, little squaw? Damned well, too."

She stared at him, unsmiling.

"You were being chased earlier today," he continued. "How the devil did you lose the hunters?"

"I abandoned the horse and fled on foot. They followed the horse's trail."

He gave a slight nod of approval. "Where will you go?"

His question indicated that he didn't mean to kill her. But Whispering Rain felt no rush of gratitude. She knew she would probably die anyway, alone in the forest with a small child and a leg wound that left a trail of blood to tempt marauding wolves and bears.

In response to the white man's question, she said, "Perhaps I will boil salt to trade for shelter, until I can return to my people." The very thought of her tribe, so distant that they were like a dream, filled her with sadness.

He shook his head. "Salt doesn't bring much these days." His eyes moved over her slowly, igniting a coil of fear within her. "It appears you've gotten yourself wounded."

"What does it matter to you?" she asked hotly.

He pushed back his hat and scratched his head. "I don't guess I know, little squaw."

"Then leave us. You and your marauding brothers have already taken the lives of my family—"

He shook his head slowly. "Nope. I wasn't with them. I've no love for Indians, Shawnee in particular, but I'm not in the habit of riding down peaceful bands."

The silence drew out between them. Small Thunder shifted and trod upon her wounded leg. She ground her teeth against the pain, but a small sound escaped in spite of her.

"Let's go," the man said.

She stared, her heart thumping in her chest. She didn't move.

Impatience tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Come on, little squaw—"

"Do not call me that again!"

He shrugged. "Have you got a name?"

"Gimewane. In your tongue, Whispering Rain."

"Whispering Rain," he repeated. "Hell of a mouthful for a little thing like you."

"My Christian name is Mariah Parker. Given to me by my mother, who was adopted by my people many winters ago."

He nodded. "That explains the blue eyes." He indicated the boy. "Who's he?"

"Nen-nemki. Small Thunder. He is the son of my half-sister."

The man nodded again. "I'm Luke Adair." He hung the rifle about his shoulder, then stopped and picked up Small Thunder, who regarded him with large, solemn brown eyes.

Whispering Rain leaped up and tried to snatch the boy away. "Do not touch him, Luke Adair!"

He turned, ignoring her, and started down toward his horse. "Look, Mariah," he said impatiently over his shoulder, "we're three days from Lexington and you need a doctor. Every minute you stand there arguing with me is a minute lost. Now, you can either sit here and watch the boy freeze to death, or you can try to get some help before it's too late."