Judith E French (6 page)

“Manese speaks true!” another woman shouted.

“Yes! Yes!”

“Find the Seneca!”

Tuk-o-see-yah raised his wrinkled hand for silence. “Iroquois or demon, we will seek out this intruder and drive him from our hunting ground. Women, cease to frighten your children with tales of Matchemenetoo. Men, sharpen your spears and tighten your arrowheads. We are Shawnee. We fear nothing that walks by day or flies by night. Is it so?”

“It is so!” Amookas answered stoutly.

“We are Shawnee,” echoed another woman.

Gradually, the crowd thinned. Families went to their own wigwams and young braves to their guard posts. Leah remained seated on the ground near the old sachem and Alex the Scotsman with her aunts, Amookas and Tahmee, beside her. Leah’s son, wearied by all the excitement, had fallen asleep in her arms.

“Does Tuk-o-see-yah speak English?” Brandon asked Leah.

“The sachem understands your tongue,” she replied quietly, “but he won’t speak to you.” She sighed and glanced at Alex for help.

“Tuk-o-see-yah canna see or hear ye,” Alex said, taking a puff of the sachem’s pipe and passing it back to the old man. “Ye be a captive, the lowest form of life.” The Scotsman grinned. “He wouldna recognize a Mohawk prisoner. ’Twould gi’ him status, ye ken. And as an
Englishmanake . . .”
He shrugged. “Ye would need t’ rise a great deal to coom equal wi’ an Iroquois warrior.”

Brandon scowled. “I’m a lord of the realm, a viscount, and, if I live long enough, I’ll be a belted earl.”

“And Tuk-o-see-yah is a sachem of the Shawnee. Were he born English, he’d be a prince or a king. This old mon is general, ambassador, judge, and ruler. If he nods his head, he can set ye free or ha’ ye chopped into wee bits for fish bait. Tread lightly, me haughty English laird. If ye insult Tuk-o-see-yah, Leah canna save ye.”

“I had no wish to offend your . . . their chief. I just wanted to ask—”

“Shhh,” Leah said. She shook her head. “Amookas, would you take him?” The older woman lifted Kitate into her arms and carried him inside the wigwam. “Honored sir,” she said, addressing the sachem in Algonquian. “My husband made no attempt to escape. He showed courage against the bear and against the man who attacked us. I would make of you two requests, first that he be permitted to carry weapons, and second that I might seek out a sponsor to adopt him as a member of our tribe.” Leah laid a hand on Brandon’s arm and repeated in English what she had said.

“Just don’t expect me to be his foster mother,” Amookas said as she emerged from the entranceway. “I’ve no use for
Englishmanake,
and I’ll have none at my campfire.”

Leah chuckled. “No aunt, I’ll not ask you. For if you ‘gave birth’ to my husband, he’d be my clan brother. If I wish to share my bed with him, he must be adopted by a woman of another clan.” She glanced meaningfully at Tahmee.

Brandon’s eyes clouded with confusion.

“Tahmee is not my mother’s sister.” Leah explained. “She is the sister of Amookas’s first husband, my aunt by marriage. All the women of my mother’s blood, including me, are born into the same clan. I am a Wolf. Tahmee is a Turtle. If she wishes to, she may sponsor you for adoption.”

Tuk-o-see-yah closed his eyes and puffed on his pipe. Alex propped the stump of his amputated leg on his good leg and began to whittle on a piece of cedar. Brandon noticed that the Scotsman seemed amused.

“Dinna look this way, Englishman,” Alex said. “I be of the Turkey Clan myself, but a mon canna make ye a Shawnee. The power o’ sech things lies wi’ the lassies. Were it up to me, I’d lift your scalp.”

“Hush then,” Amookas scolded in Algonquian. “If Tahmee wants to adopt Moonfeather’s husband as her son, she can. As you say, mighty warrior, the power lies with the women. Men had best tend their own business and leave such things to women. There is no need for you to be here at all, Alex mine. Did you not say that you would finish assembling that musket this afternoon?”

Tahmee shifted restlessly. Her youngest boy, a toddler, crawled in her lap and began to nurse. Smiling, Tahmee began to rock the child and croon softly to him. Another boy, a year or so older than Kitate, leaned against Alex’s shoulder and watched intently as the cedar block his father was carving became a bear.

Brandon’s legs cramped. Finally, when it seemed he could sit still no longer, the shaman opened his eyes.

“Someone is restless,” Tuk-o-see-yah said. “Someone may wish to become a human being, and who would not. But it is too soon. One who is not yet a human being may be tempted to do evil if he carries a weapon. He might hurt himself or another. Who knows what that kind might do? We will wait, and we will watch. When the time of planting comes, it may be that Moonfeather will ask again. That might be a better time.” He smiled at Leah. “You have a forgiving heart, and that is a good thing. It pleases me, and it tells me that the seeds of a peace woman lie within you. If your . . .” He grinned. “If someone proves himself worthy, this one will ask the honored Tahmee to sponsor an adoption in the moon of new leaves.”

“Thank you, my shaman,” Leah said in formal Algonquian. She nodded respectfully and crossed her hands over her chest. “As you say, sir, the time of planting might be a better time.” She rose to her feet and motioned Brandon to follow.

When they were far enough away that the others couldn’t hear, Brandon stopped her. “What the hell was all that about?”

Leah reached for her bow and arrows. “I didna think Tuk-o-see-yah would give permission for you to carry weapons yet, but it was worth asking. Now we must wait until spring. Your adoption must wait, too.”

“What makes you think I want to be adopted?”

She grimaced. “Do ye ken nothing? Until you become Shawnee, you will be watched. Every eye will be on you. No one will trust you. And if you try to escape, ’twill mean your death.”

“And if I was adopted?”

She caught her lower lip between her teeth.

“Well?”

“Some who are adopted leave.”

“Then you lied before, when you told me that once I was a Shawnee, I was here forever.”

“I dinna lie!”

“No, you said one thing, and now another. Both statements can’t be true. Either you lied then, or you’re lying to me now.”

Leah walked away toward her own wigwam.

Brandon kept pace with her easily. “There’s no way I’m staying here for the rest of my life, woman. Make up your mind about that. I’ll get out of here, or I’ll die trying.”

“There is nay need for ye t’ die, but ye maun ha’ patience,” she flung back. “Trust me.”

“As you trust me?”

“’Tis different.”

“Yes, I can see it is. You’re playing some kind of game, and no one will explain the rules to me. That damned Scotsman knew it. He was laughing at me!”

“Alex doesna like Englishmen.”

“He’s a white man. He should support me against—”

Leah whirled to face him. “Aye, your skin is whiter than mine. But dinna think for an instant it makes ye better. ’Tis only that the Creator took your kind from his bakestone too soon. Cut your white skin, Brandon viscount, and your blood is no redder than my own.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

She gave a snort of derision and ducked into her wigwam, Brandon following. “Aye, but ye did,” she said. She pulled off her vest and leggings and tossed them into a heap on the floor. “I dinna hold it against ye,” she said coolly. “Ye know nay better. My father said that it was so, that the English all believed their piss smelled sweeter than that of mortal men. Ye be an ignorant barbarian.”

Brandon’s throat constricted as he watched her strip away the last of her clothing and stand naked in the semidarkness of the hut. He splayed his fingers against his hips and drew in a long, shuddering breath. He wanted to look away, but he couldn’t tear his eyes from her.

Leah’s breasts were full and ripe, the color of warm honey; her waist was tiny, her belly too flat for a woman who had borne a child. His gaze lingered on the dark, silky down at the apex of her thighs, and he felt the growing hardness of his loins. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck. “What are you about, woman?” he demanded. “Must you torment me with . . .” His mouth felt dry, and he longed to seize her in his arms and taste those sweet breasts, to lay her back against the bed and cover her with his body. Could she be innocent of what she was doing to him? “Must you flaunt yourself in front of me?” he asked hoarsely.

Abruptly, Leah’s mood changed. She laughed. “I’m going to bathe,” she said lightly. “Ye need to scrub off that blood and dirt yourself. Ye be as filthy as a badger.” She wrapped a short doeskin skirt around her middle and took a bundle from a basket on the floor. “Leave the vest here,” she said. “You willna need it at the river.” She tugged at one shoulder, and he raised his arm to let her remove it.

“Leah . . .” he said. “I can’t . . .” He reached for her, and she stepped away, leaving the scent of honeysuckle.

“Not here,” she answered. “Come to the river.”

His chest felt tight; his heart was pounding. “You know what I want from you,” he persisted. “What I’ve wanted from the first.”

She caught his broad hand in hers. “Come to the river, Brandon mine.” She stared up at him from beneath thick, feathery lashes.

“Will you?”

She pulled him out into the hot August afternoon. “Yes,” she murmured. “No . . . maybe.”

T
he riverbank was deserted; none of the villagers swam or played in the cool running water. Even the mud slide downriver was bare. Not a single child’s voice rang out with laughter. With the threat of an Iroquois attack, mothers had called their children into the comparative safety of the inner camp circle.

Leah paused by the edge of the water, then motioned to Brandon. “Come, we will go upriver.” She led the way through a grove of willows and across a small rocky stream that fed into the river.

Brandon glanced around. The thick forest seemed no different than on any other day. Squirrels chattered in the trees overhead, and bright flashes of color heralded the clear sweet songs of multitudes of birds. Leah turned and beckoned to him as she followed a faint path beside the bank. “Where are you taking me?” She laughed and hurried on.

The river curved sharply to the left, and the current rushed faster. The willow trees gave way to oak and chestnut, and finally to beech. The path turned inward, away from the river. Brandon lengthened his stride to keep up with Leah. “Where—” he began. She stopped and turned back toward him. When he was within a few feet of her, she parted the leaves to reveal a hidden glade in the trees.

The green foliage of the thick forest formed a backdrop for a wide pool of blue-green water. At the far end, a waterfall cascaded over a sheer wall of rock thirty feet high. Spray from the tumbling water rose in a mist over the pool, lending an air of magic to the scene.

Leah caught Brandon’s hand and smiled up at him. “Do ye like it?” Her eyes twinkled with the delight of a child sharing a wonderful secret. “We call it the Place of the Maiden’s Kiss. Long ago, the old ones say, an enemy war party chased a Shawnee maiden to the top of the falls. Rather than be captured, she leaped to her death on the rocks below.” Leah put her bundle beneath a tree and unfastened her short skirt. “The next morning,” she continued, “her betrothed found her body. He gathered her in his arms and kissed her cold lips, and his tears fell on her fair, still face. Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu, the Great Spirit who is a grandmother, took pity on the lovers. She couldna give the maiden back her life as a mortal. Instead, she changed them both into hawks, and they flew together up into the heavens. In memory of their love, the waters formed this pool below the waterfall. Only those with loving hearts, the old ones say, can find this place. To any who would do evil, it be invisible.”

Brandon looked at her without speaking, his expression wary.

“Come,” she said, pulling off her moccasins and standing naked before him, wearing only the gold amulet around her neck. “It be safe for us to swim. The Seneca, if Seneca he be, canna harm us here.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?”

“Aye, ’tis true. Ye need ha’ no fear.” She swallowed the lump rising in her throat as her composure faltered. “Besides . . .” She moved toward the bank. “Our warriors are combing the woods for signs of the enemy. We are well inside the circle of safety.”

Brandon was still watching her, but his scrutiny had become more intimate. She turned her face away to hide the blush rising in her cheeks. What was there about his unwavering blue-eyed stare that made the space between them seem suddenly charged with unseen power? Something fluttered in the pit of her stomach and she felt light-headed, even breathless.

“Leah . . .” He reached out his hand.

With a cry, she dove into the pool, arching her body and propelling herself deep into the clear, blue-green depths. Eyes wide, she swam down to the sandy bottom, letting the tranquility of the cool water wash the fever from her blood.

She heard a muffled splash above her. Rolling onto her back, she saw Brandon swimming toward her. With the dexterity of an otter, she dodged him and swam upward until her face broke the surface. She waited, and when he came up, she scooped up a double handful of water and splashed him in the face.

He yelled and made a grab for her. His hands closed on empty mist. Laughing, Leah bobbed up behind him. He whirled around and lunged for her, but she spun and swam under water toward the foam at the base of the waterfall. Seconds later, she came up, hidden from his view by the tumbling cascade.

“Leah! Leah!” Brandon called. He rose in the water and glanced around anxiously. “Leah?” Taking a deep breath, he dove under.

Leah’s heart was pounding. Brandon’s voice was barely audible above the falling water, but there was no mistaking his tone of concern. He cared for her. The question that plagued her was whether she cared for him.

I am a widow. I can do as I please, she thought. What harm can there be in sharing pleasure with this man? She blinked to clear the water from her eyes. The roar of the cataract in her ears was familiar and soothing, easier to accept than the uncertainty in her mind.
There can be nothing lasting between you,
an inner voice cried.

Brandon’s corn-silk hair broke water. “Leah! This isn’t funny. Where are you?”

She swam from her hiding place beneath the curtain of water and waved to him. “Here.” A half-dozen strong strokes brought her to his side. “Ye dinna think I could drown here, did ye?” she teased. “’Tis where we teach babies to swim before they can walk. I told ye, Brandon mine, ’tis an enchanted pool.”

His blue eyes glared at her. “I tire of your games, woman. What would you—”

She silenced his censure with a kiss, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her naked breasts against his chest. At first his mouth was hard and unresponsive, but then his lips softened and his arms closed around her. She opened her mouth to let the tip of her tongue touch his. Brandon groaned, and one hand slipped down to caress her bare buttock.

Leah laughed as tingles of curious hot excitement coursed through her body. “Ye kiss nicely,” she dared tell him, and tilted her face to be kissed a second time.

Brandon sank under water and came up sputtering. “You’d drown me,” he protested. He caught her arm, and they swam together toward shallower water.

“I wondered if the English kiss as we do,” she said. “Alex said ye do not.” She could not keep her eyes from his wide, brawny chest that tapered to a flat, hard belly; from his sinewy arms with their light sprinkling of blond hair.

Her heart skipped a beat as Brandon pulled her roughly into the circle of those muscular arms. “And how many Englishmen has Alex kissed?” His voice was light, but the pressure of his hands was like iron—not hurting, but as solid and unyielding as the oaks that grew from the riverbank.

“Let me go,” she ordered. “I canna bear to . . .” He released her, and she moved away through the water. It was easier to think when he wasn’t so close, when she didn’t feel the full intensity of those strange blue eyes. “We came to bathe,” she reminded herself aloud. “Ye maun learn to swim every day as ’tis proper for a Shawnee.”

He stretched his arms over his head and leaned back against the bank. In the clear water his nakedness was as obvious as hers. “Even in winter?” he said.

“Aye, especially in winter. We break the ice to bathe in the time of bitter cold.”

He laughed disbelievingly. “I wonder that any of you live to be a danger to the colonists.”

She shook her head as she unbound her hair and let it fall around her shoulders and over her breasts. “’Tis nay enough to swim,” she replied. “Ye maun scrub away the dirt and man smell, lest the animals ye go to hunt smell ye long before ye come into bow shot.” She scrambled up the bank and went to the spot where she had dropped her bundle. “I have herbs that will make a lather to clean ye, Brandon mine. ’Tis time, for I canna sleep much longer in the wigwam wi’ ye if ye willna wash.”

“No woman ever complained of my smell before!”

Leah laid a gourd on the bank and slipped back into the water. “Turn around so I can clean that great back of yours,” she instructed. She kept her eyes down so that he could not read the amusement she knew must show there. It was true what Brandon had said—he didn’t smell badly. But it was also a truth that he soon would if she didn’t rid him of the stench of dried blood and sweat they’d acquired on the deer hunt. From the shallows she took handfuls of fine sand and proceeded to scrub his back and shoulders vigorously.

“Ouch,” he protested. “Gentle, wench, go gentle. You’ll scar me for life.”

“’Tis a waste of my herbs do we nay do this right.” When his back was done, she moved to repeat the process with his chest and arms. “The bottom half ye maun do yourself,” she said, turning to retrieve the gourd containing her soap mixture. Carefully, she rubbed the green paste into his hair, digging gently at his scalp with her fingernails until she raised a foamy lather. “Now rinse,” she commanded.

“I suppose that stuff will make me smell like a goat,” Brandon said, ducking his head under.

“If it does, we will smell like goats together,” she answered pertly. Taking more of the paste, she swam a distance away. Brandon’s gaze never left her as she repeated the process with her own hair.

“I hope you’re satisfied,” he said when she’d finished. “I feel like a plucked goose, scalded and scrubbed for market.” He held out his arms to her. “Come here, love.”

Laughing, she dove under and came up within arm’s reach. “I be here.” She shook her hair, spattering him with drops of water, and he sputtered.

“Closer.”

Playfully, she pushed a lock of wet hair off his face, wondering at the color. “’Tis like sunlight,” she said. “Your hair . . . It is outrageous, no proper color for a man’s hair.”

“No man could say that of your hair, Leah. It’s beautiful . . . like satin.” He touched her hair, then let his fingers brush her throat. “Here in this place, you don’t look real. Are you certain you’re a flesh and blood woman?” He leaned forward and kissed the spot he had touched. “Are you real, Leah, or just a dream?”

She laughed up at him through the curtain of her thick lashes, pretending amusement, trying to hide the aching rush of desire that threatened to engulf her.

He nuzzled her throat, trailing kisses up to her mouth, then drew away. “I asked you before how many Englishmen Alex has kissed,” he murmured.

“Alex has nay kissed any Englishmen.” She sighed. “He nay be one who takes pleasure wi’ other men. He was speaking in . . . in general of Englishmen when he said they kissed like crows.”

He tilted her chin up with a callused thumb. His voice came low and husky. “And just how do crows kiss?”

She puckered her mouth. “As though their lips were hard, narrow beaks,” she explained. “Cold lips, Alex said, cold kisses wi’ out passion.”

“Do you always believe everything Alex tells you?” Brandon was so close she could feel his warm breath and see the tiny gray specks in his sky-blue eyes. His hands on her back were faintly tremulous.

“Perhaps I shouldna.” His breath was sweet in her nostrils as she traced the outline of his jaw with her fingertips, fascinated by the stubble of his yellow beard. “Ye be as hairy as Ya’kwahe, the forest spirit,” she teased. “The old women say his hair is the color of dried grass. Of course, I ha’ not seen Ya’kwahe myself, so ye may be even hairier.” She brushed his lower lip with the ball of her thumb. “Ye dinna have lips like
hahees,
the crow, but we havna kissed enough for me to be certain if Alex be right or wrong aboot the passion.”

“Would you care to judge for yourself?”

She moistened her lips and leaned toward him. “Aye, Brandon mine, I would.” His mouth claimed hers, and a sweet warmth spread through her as their kiss deepened and ignited a fire that burned within. She sighed and clasped him tighter around the neck, crying out with delight as his hand cupped her breast and teased her nipple.

“Leah,” he murmured, molding his mouth to hers, fanning the rising flame of desire that threatened her reason. She moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist and running her fingers through the damp tendrils of his hair.

He kissed her again, and she trembled as his mouth left hers and dropped to capture a love-swollen nipple. She felt his thick, hard shaft rising against her bare thigh. Knowing she should stop this before it was too late, she lingered, savoring the honey taste of his scalding kisses, thrilling to the possessive touch of his hands on her bare flesh.

She gasped with sudden pleasure as his fingers caressed her woman’s slit.

“Leah, let me love you,” he whispered. “Let me—”

“No!” Wide-eyed, she struggled free of his grasp. “I dinna think—”

“Damn you, woman!” He pushed past her and dived deep into the water. She was weeping when he came up. “Spare me the tears,” he said sarcastically. “What was I to expect when you brought me here alone, swam naked with me, and let me—”

“No,” she protested. “’Tis ye who dinna understand. I thought we would kiss; I thought we would touch, but among my people it does not move so fast between a man and a woman. We are strangers, Brandon mine. How can we let our souls touch yet?”

“I’m not asking for your soul,” he answered roughly. “You can’t claim you were seduced. What happened between us was mutual.”

“Nay, ye dinna force me to do what we did.”

He wiped the water from his face. “Am I repulsive to you, Leah?”

“Nay, ye be fair.”

“This marriage between us was your idea, not mine. I’ve done all that’s humanly possible to figure you out, but there is no logic about you.”

“Ye dinna ken,” she pleaded. “’Tis nay that I willna ha’ ye, but I was nay prepared.” She gestured toward the forest. “The moon, Brandon mine, ’tis the wrong time o’ the moon. If we shared pleasures now, without taking precautions, I might quicken with child.”

He scowled at her. “What precautions?”

“There is a leaf that grows in the swampy places that I must chew. Ye wouldna ken the name if I told ye, but Shawnee women use it to keep from having babies. I canna ha’ your bairn. I am a woman alone, and I already ha’ a son to raise. If we were attacked by the enemy, or if fire swept through the forest, I could run with my bairn and fight if I had to. But if ye leave me wi’ another babe, I couldna be sure of keeping both bairns safe from harm.”