Judith E. French (3 page)

The swirling snow had drifted hock deep on the mules, and the icy wind was from the north and rising. The cold cut through the trade blanket and chilled Fiona until her teeth chattered. She fingered the amulet she wore around her neck and prayed the two trappers would go on riding through the shadowy forest forever.

Taking her own life would be a mortal sin, but she’d risk losing her soul to keep these human animals from possessing her body ... from touching her with their hot, dirty hands. She would kill them both or herself, she vowed.

She clutched the charm and willed herself away from this frozen wilderness. If she clamped her eyes shut and held her breath, she could almost smell the heady fragrance of blue peat smoke and see it rising straight up to heaven from the clusters of whitewashed cottages along the shore of Galway Bay.

The amulet was all she had left of home. She’d worn the heavy necklace since she was a babe. Her mother had said the ancient piece was solid gold, a gift from her father, and no matter how hungry they’d been, her mother had never sold it to buy food. For fear that someone would steal the precious antique, her mother had painted it black.
Black for the curse it carries,
Eileen O‘Neal had said many a time.
Black for the evil that would take you far from home and kin, and pure sweet yellow gold within. Gold, my darlin’, gold for the shining blessing.

Fiona drew in a long, shuddering breath. Her mother’s voice had been low and husky and full of authority; it was a voice that never failed to turn men’s heads and make even the gentry pay heed. Fiona could hear Eileen’s lilting tone now if she listened hard enough.

The amulet was a gift from your lordly father to you when you were but hours old
... Her mother had repeated the story so many times that Fiona could recall it word for word....
A birthing gift fit for a princess. I cried when first I laid eyes upon the shining glory of the Eye of Mist. “Hardly fit for the likes of our daughter, ” your father replied, all proud and filled with the joy of seeing you so fat and fair. “I’ll see her wed to a prince when she’s grown,” he promised. As God is my witness, little one, those were his very words. He said the amulet had been handed down in your Scottish grand-mother’s family for time out of time. “Whosoever possesses the Eye of Mist shall be cursed and blessed,” so the legend goes. “The curse is that you will be taken from your family and friends to a far-off land. The blessing is that you will be granted one wish. Whatever you ask you shall have—even unto the power of life and death.”

“Unto the power of life and death,” Fiona murmured. She opened her eyes and stared into the swirling snow. If she believed in such nonsense as magic necklaces, she’d use the amulet now to strike Karl and Nigel stone dead. Or ... She thought wistfully of the columbine that had trailed over the wall at the bottom of her grandfather’s yard. Or she’d use the Eye of Mist to turn back time and wish herself a child again in James Patrick O’Neal’s parlor. No, she decided, not her grandfather’s parlor-his office. She’d spent her happiest hours there, watching him tend his patients, holding and sterilizing his instruments and studying his medical books.

Dour and short-tempered, James Patrick O’Neal had reluctantly given her a home after her mother, Eileen—his only child—had died. He’d never forgiven Eileen for giving birth to Fiona out of wedlock.

Or me for being born, Fiona thought painfully. But he gave her an education few boys in Ireland could boast of. He taught her much of what he’d learned in medical school and in forty years of practice as a physician. He gave her a calling, a purpose in life.

Fiona didn’t have to guess what her grandfather would say about the mess she’d gotten herself into.
Any fool who’d indenture himself like a cart horse and go off to the Colonies deserves anything they get.
If she’d used common sense and stayed in Ireland ...

If she’d stayed in Ireland, she might well have ended up hanging from a rope.

Since the days of Cromwell, the English hand of conquest lay heavy on her Catholic homeland. The Black Night, her people called it. The penal laws enacted by William III forbade the education of Catholic children and closed the schools. Even parents who could afford it were not permitted to send their children abroad to be educated. Catholics had no vote and were barred from holding public office or from attending university. Many priests had been imprisoned or put to death, and all religious orders were exiled from Ireland. Thousands of acres of privately owned land had been confiscated, and inheritance rights had been severely restricted.

Hundreds of starving people walked the roads begging for work. Once her grandfather died and his house and belongings were confiscated, she’d had nowhere to go, and no way to support herself. A woman alone in Ireland—without family or money—became a thief, sold her body to strangers, or died alone in a ditch.

Instead, Fiona had chosen to begin a new life in America. And she’d ended up facing rape and murder at the hands of these men ...

The terror and hardship of the bitter night were beginning to take their toll. Fiona had ceased to shiver, and her eyelids felt weighted with lead. She’d never been exposed to such harsh weather in Ireland, but she remembered reading the symptoms of patients who had. She knew that she had to remain alert and that she must keep the blood circulating in her hands and feet.

She tried to wiggle her toes and realized with a sinking feeling that her legs were numb from the knees down. Her fingers were stiff with cold, but she’d folded her arms across her chest under the blanket, and tucked her hands under her armpits.

It was snowing so hard now that she couldn’t see Karl or Nigel. The rump of Nigel’s mule was a moving white mound just beyond her own mount’s flicking ears. She didn’t know where Karl was—if he was riding behind her or ahead. If she was last in line, she wondered if she could just rein in her mule and stop. How long would it take before the trappers missed her?

Would she just sit on her mule in the middle of this endless woods until she and the animal froze to death? And if they did, would it be an easier death than what awaited her at the end of the journey?

Fiona’s eyes snapped open, and she stared around her, expecting to see James Patrick O’Neal’s scowling face materialize out of the darkness. Grandfather’s dead, she told herself firmly. If I’m hearing his voice, it’s only my mind playing tricks on me.

Quitter.
It was her grandfather’s voice, all right.
Weak stock on your father’s side. What more can I expect of an Englishman’s bastard?

“Scot,” Fiona murmured through cold, cracked lips. “He wasn’t English-he was a Scot.”

Same thing. A
gentleman.
Her grandfather’s withering sarcasm cut deep, as it always had.
Weak stock, weak blood. Any farmer knows interbreeding makes worthless livestock. No O’Neal was ever a quitter. Your mother had more gumption than you when she was half your age.

Nigel’s harsh voice intruded on Fiona’s dreaming. “Hold yer blathering tongue, slut.”

“He was a Scot,” she repeated stubbornly, barely loud enough for her own ears to hear.

Her grandsire had always forced her into the position of defending her father . . . defending a man she hated. It wasn’t fair, but it was James Patrick O’Neal’s way, and nothing short of God or the devil would change it.

Whenever the dusty Latin texts were too hard for her, or she couldn’t figure out the handwritten recipe for mixing a medicinal formula, her grandfather would goad her to try again and to keep trying until she succeeded. He never laid a hand on her in anger. But if she sickened at the sight of bedsores on a dying man, or blanched at the cries of a woman giving birth, he would taunt her until she found the strength to face what appalled her.

“I guess you made me tough, Grandfather,” Fiona whispered into the wind, “but it never made me love you.”

The mule stopped short, and Fiona fell forward over the animal’s neck, barely catching herself from tumbling into the snow.

“We’re here,” Karl said. “Get down offen thet mule.”

Seconds later, before Fiona could force her stiffened limbs to obey, he cuffed her sharply alongside the head. The blow brought her fully awake. She slid her leg over the mule’s back and kicked free of the stirrup, then let herself drop. Her knees folded under her, and she landed facedown on the ground, under the animal’s belly.

Excruciating pain shot through her as pins and needles of sensation seized both feet. She bit her lip to keep from crying out, crawled from under the mule, and used the saddle leathers to pull herself up to a standing position.

Nigel’s hand clamped over Fiona’s shoulder, and he dragged her several yards to a crude log structure. “Home sweet home,” he said, throwing his shoulder against the door and dragging her inside.

She shuddered and shrank away from him. He smelled worse inside out of the wind, and the stink turned her stomach.

Nigel caught her chin cruelly between his fingers. “No need to be so standoffish,” he said salaciously. “Before spring comes, we’re gonna get to know each other real well.”

“I’ll kill you if you touch me,” she threatened.

He laughed. “Once ye see what I got, ye won’t be backin’ off, ye’ll be beggin’ fer it.”

“Rot in hell,” she retorted.

His fingers dug into Fiona’s face, and he shoved her roughly away from him. “That’s what my last woman said,” he taunted her, “and she ended up as wolf bait.”

White-hot anger drove back the smothering fear as Fiona sank to her knees on the dirt floor and tried to think clearly. Nigel and Karl believed she was helpless. Well and good, let the English bastards think so! She was no longer bound hand and foot, and both trappers carried weapons.

If only she could just stall their sexual assault long enough to get her hands on a gun . . .

F
iona rubbed her ankles, trying to restore the flow of blood to her feet. The pain was still severe, but hurting was better than feeling nothing.

It was no warmer inside the cabin, but at least the wind had stopped. The earth beneath her was damp and smelled of stale rodent droppings and mold. Ahead and to her left, she could hear Karl swearing, but it was too black in the hut to see her own hand.

Suddenly a spark flared, followed by another, and she realized Karl was trying to start a fire. She heard one of the animals bray and glanced over her shoulder toward the open door, where the white wall of falling snow was broken by the outline of a mule.

Nigel led the animals inside, one by one, and tied them along a wall. Karl’s fire had caught, and he soon had a small blaze starting in a crude mud and stick fireplace. Fiona was drawn to the flames.

“Let the woman tend the fire,” Nigel said. “She can cook us up some vittles.”

“I ain’t lettin’ her near no damned fire,” Karl replied. “She near burned me t’ death.” He leered at Fiona and rubbed his crotch. “Don’t think I fergot what ye done t’ me, bitch. I’m gettin’ first turn at ye.”

“Food first, then futterin’,” Nigel snapped. “I don’t know ’bout you, Karl, but I needs my strength fer what I got in mind.”

Her cheeks burning with shame, Fiona forced herself up onto her tingling feet and shook the snow off her blanket. She knew what kind of men these were; she’d seen them in the back alleys of Galway and Dublin and Philadelphia. They were like hungry dogs—if she showed her fear, they’d be on her in seconds.

Stiffening her spine, she folded the scarlet woolen blanket and glanced around the drafty hovel with contempt. “This be where you live?”

Nigel grunted, then grinned. “Sassy, ain’t she, Karl. I likes ’em with spirit. I likes a woman what bites and scratches.”

Fiona suppressed a shudder. She was light-headed with terror. This couldn’t be happening to her. She put her hands behind her back and clenched her fists until her nails cut into the palms of her hands. These filthy men, this terrible place, surpassed belief.

At home in Ireland, she’d seen horrible poverty in the slums. And later, after she’d gone to live with her grandfather, she’d traveled with him to tend the sick in isolated country cottages. Many times, they’d spent the night waiting for a baby to be born, or for a critically ill patient to either get better or die. She’d shared a single room with a dozen crying children, and occasionally a goat or a litter of pigs. Never had she seen living quarters as vile as this.

Mule droppings littered the floor on one side of the windowless cabin; the other half of the room was empty except for a table made of uneven logs and a wide sleeping pallet of moth-eaten skins. As Fiona stared around the hut in disgust, Nigel dropped a bundle on the pallet and two rats ran out. Instantly Nigel brought his boot heel down on one rodent’s head and kept stomping until the squealing stopped. The second rat escaped through a gap in the outer wall.

“Don’t squash him too bad,” Karl shouted. “He looks fat. Might be a mite tastier than that salt pork ye bought down to Jacob’s.” Karl turned toward Fiona, and she saw the raw, blistered flesh on his burned face and smelled the stink of singed hair. “Nigel’s partial t’ roast rat, ain’t ye Nigel?”

His one-eyed partner kicked the pallet a few more times. When no more rats fled from the bed, he said to Karl, “What I’m partial to is fresh woman. Maybe we’ll jest play a hand o’ cards to see who has her first.”

A moan rose in Fiona’s throat, and she stifled it with a fist over her mouth. Nigel’s musket leaned against the waU next to the door. She wouldn’t give up hope yet. Trembling, she picked up a rusty iron spider. “I can cook pork or rat,” she said flatly, wiping the inside of the frying pan with the corner of her skirt. “Makes no difference to me.” She swallowed hard. “Have you got onions and potatoes in those saddlebags?”

“Sit down and shut up,” Karl told her. “Ye get any closer t’ this fire, an’ I’ll cut ye so bad yer own mother wouldn’t look at ye.”

“Cards, or dice,” Nigel offered. “You was always lucky at dice.”

Karl frowned and touched his ruined face. “No need t’ play,” he said. “I get her first. I said it, an’ I stand by it.”

Fiona gasped as Nigel’s hand flashed to his boot top and came up holding a fourteen-inch skinning knife. “Take yer chances like a man, Karl, or wait yer turn.”

She began to move toward the door.

“Sit, bitch,” Karl ordered.

Fiona crouched where she was. Gooseflesh rose on her arms, and her mouth tasted of ashes. She clutched her amulet and mouthed a silent prayer.

“Dice.” Karl grinned. “Winner keeps her all night.”

“The hell you say,” Nigel began. “I—” He broke off as the howl of a wolf sounded only a few yards from the cabin. The mules stiffened and began to pull at their ropes, their eyes rolling in fear.

Karl exhaled loudly. “Jeezus!”

The bone-chilling cry came again, closer yet, and Fiona hugged herself and eyed the sagging wooden door. The mules were snorting now and pawing the dirt floor. Their ears were laid back flat on their heads.

Suddenly there was a scratching on the far wall. “Damned wolves! I’ll give ’em something to chew on.” Karl grabbed his musket and fired through the logs. The mules went wild, kicking and braying. One broke loose, reared up, and lashed out with its hind feet.

Fiona heard a dull plopping noise from the hearth. The fire hissed and sputtered and nearly went out as a great chunk of snow fell into the center. Another wolf howled, and Fiona jumped up and ran to grab the halters of the three mules that were still tied. She hadn’t gone a full stride when something heavy struck the outside of the door.

Sweat was pouring down Karl’s face. “It ain’t natural,” he said, reloading the musket. “I never knowed wolves to act so.”

Nigel’s hands were shaking as he yanked a pistol from his belt, poured powder into the frizzen, and pulled the trigger, sending a lead ball through the board door.

The dun-colored mule Fiona was reaching for snapped its rope and began pitching around the room, hooves flying. Fiona shielded her head with her arm and backed against the wall as the rest of the mules broke free.

A second lump of snow fell down the chimney, plunging the cabin into almost total darkness. Then, without warning, the door was wrenched open. Fiona screamed as she saw a huge wolf standing upright in the doorway. The beast’s eyes and teeth caught the last flicker of the dying fire.

Karl’s musket roared. An instant later another shot echoed through the room. Fiona stared in disbelief as Karl groaned, clutched his chest, and fell backward against the hearth. Nigel gave a wild cry and dashed, skinning knife in hand, toward the terrible apparition in the doorway. The dun mule bolted for the opening and collided with the hulking trapper. Nigel went down beneath the animal’s hooves. The wolf ducked aside, and the mule escaped into the night, followed by the other frightened animals.

Suddenly the room seemed to be encased in silence ... a quiet so deep that Fiona could hear her own blood pounding in her ears. The air was thick with the acrid smell of black powder. Frozen with fear, she stared at the open doorway. A dark, furry shape materialized out of the falling snow, and a thousand years of Irish civilization dropped away ... leaving Fiona with the superstitious dread of the unknown. Every tale of spectral ghost and banshee that she had ever heard rose to haunt her. Her hair stood up on the back of her neck, and her throat constricted so tightly that she couldn’t breathe.

She heard the crunch of paws on the snow-covered door sill and found her voice. “Get thee gone, creature of the night, ”she cried in Gaelic. “In the name of Mary and her blessed Son—get thee gone!”

The answer came softly in accented English—a man’s voice, as deep and rich as the earth beneath the snow. “Trust me.”

She drew in a ragged breath, not certain of what she’d heard. “If ye be not of God’s children, I bid thee go,” she pronounced, this time in English.

“Peace to you, woman. I mean you no harm.”

Fiona struggled with her own sanity. Her eyes saw a wolf that walked upright and fired a gun; her ears heard the concerned voice of a cultured gentleman. “Be ye Lucifer?” she demanded. Hadn’t her mother warned her that the devil’s tongue was as sweet as new-made honey? “Or one of his demons?”

The wolf-man laughed—a tone so human and merry that she nearly smiled herself. Her mind told her what she was seeing and hearing was impossible; her heart told her she had nothing to fear from the figure outlined against the snow.

“Stay where you are,” he commanded. “I promise I won’t hurt you.”

He moved past her in the darkness, so silently that she sensed rather than heard his passing. The wind blowing through the open door was cold, and her teeth began to chatter. A scraping sound came from the direction of the hearth, and she knew that the wolf-man had lifted Karl’s body and was dragging it away.

A man moaned in pain—Nigel, Fiona decided, judging from the location of the groans. She waited, motionless, not knowing if she should flee into the storm or stay where she was.

Flint and steel struck together, and a spark lit the darkness for a heartbeat. Fiona watched as another spark flared, followed by a fiery glow. She closed her eyes against the light, and when she opened them again, she saw that the wolf-man was crouched and breathing life into an infant flame.

A minute passed. The creature fed the fire bits of dry tinder until it blazed up, and his face was revealed in the flickering light.

“You’re a man,” Fiona said.

“Just a man,” he replied. “Come and warm yourself.” He added twigs to the red-orange flames, then rose and went to close the door.

She retrieved her blanket, wrapped it around her shoulders, and went to the hearth. She dropped to her knees and held out her hands to warm them, her back on the wolf-man. “Do you have a name?” she asked. Her voice sounded oddly thin to her own ears.

“Men call me Wolf Shadow.” He returned to stand behind her.

She twisted to look up at him over her shoulder. “And women, what do they call you?”

He laughed again, and she saw straight white teeth and a strong nose below the wolf’s head mask. “I have not noticed that they call me often, ”he replied. He dropped to a squatting position beside her. “Don’t be afraid,” he said, his voice becoming serious once more. “I came for you. I came to take you from this place.”

Fiona’s breathing slowed to near normal. She licked her dry lips and looked for the first time at Karl’s grotesquely twisted body. He lay on his back. The front of his shirt bore a round hole surrounded by a dark red stain. “You killed him,” she said woodenly.

“Yes,” Wolf Shadow admitted, “I did. But he needed killing.”

“I think the other man, Nigel, is still alive.”

Wolf Shadow touched her cheek with a bronzed hand. To her surprise, she didn’t recoil from him. She should have been afraid, but she wasn’t.

His almond-shaped eyes were so dark brown that they seemed carved of wet, shining ebony. Fiona held her breath and stared into their bottomless depths, then realized with a start that he was no stranger. “You . . .” she murmured. “You were . . . I saw you at Jacob Clough’s trading post.” She shook her head as memories of the drunken Indian returned full force. The Huron had met her gaze, and for an instant she had felt his compassion at her plight. “It was you, wasn’t it?”

He nodded, almost imperceptibly.

She sniffed. His scent was clean and wholly male. There was no trace of liquor on him, nor any smell of unwashed flesh. Even the musky odor of the wolf-hide was not unpleasant. Fiona sucked in a deep breath. How had the wolf-man transformed himself from a drunken Huron to ... to ... She smiled as she realized she still didn’t know who or what he was. “Who are you?” she asked.

“You see me,” he answered cryptically.

“You are an Indian.”

“It pleases your kind to call me so.”

“And what do you call yourself?”

He nodded approval, as though she was a bright pupil. “I am of the Western True People, the Shawnee.”

“You’re not a Huron—not one of the Iroquois?”

“I am not.”

“Then why did you come to Jacob’s and pretend-”

He silenced her with a gentle motion. “Later, perhaps. As you say, the one near the door lives. Build up the fire, and I will see if I can help him.”

“I’m an apothecary,” she offered, “and I know the healing arts.”

“The bearded one abused you—yet you would tend his wounds?”

Fiona stood up. “I was taught to help the sick and wounded, not to judge them.”

His dark eyes caressed her with approval. “I think you are wise, Fiona of the Flaming Torch.” He smiled. “For an Englishwoman.”

She shook her head. “I be no Sassenach. I’m Irish.” She rubbed a hand across her face. This must be a nightmare—it could not really be happening. How could she stand here calmly and have a discussion with a wild Indian who dressed like a beast and spoke like a barrister? Cautiously, she stepped around Wolf Shadow and went to kneel beside Nigel.