Judith E. French (5 page)

“Why?” she dared.

He took her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Can you run?”

She swallowed hard and nodded. “I can run.”

They started at a lope and steadily increased their speed, always downhill. This time, when Fiona’s legs began to fail her, Wolf Shadow caught her around the waist and slung her over his shoulder.

He ran, carrying her, for what seemed to be another mile before the ground dropped away into a sluggish, ice-encrusted marshy area. There he slowed to a walk, carefully stepping on the patches of frozen ground.

“Put me down,” she insisted. She pushed away from him, but a heavily muscled arm pinned her to his shoulder with such force that it squeezed the breath from her lungs.

Beyond the shrub willows were more rocks, and below that a rushing creek about six yards wide. Her captor didn’t hesitate; he broke through the ice on the shore and waded into the frigid water. He turned right and walked upstream, still balancing her on his shoulder. The water was up to his thighs, and Fiona shuddered at the thought of the cold he must be feeling.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked. “Why are—”

“Quiet.”

His hair hung across her face. She drew in his unique musky scent with every breath—not an unpleasant smell, but totally alien, like nothing she had ever known. “Put me down, please,” she whispered. “I can walk.” Even as she said it, she knew she lied. She couldn’t walk in this icy water. No human could.

“Must I bind your mouth?” he demanded. “Do not speak.”

The stream grew ever rockier. The sound of the rushing water filled her head, making her even colder. Once, he slipped, nearly plunging them both under. Against her will, she clung tightly to him. Then, without warning, he lowered her into the stream. She gasped in shock as the water closed over her feet and legs, weighing on her heavy woolen skirts.

“Hurry,” he said, pulling her toward what looked like an impenetrable wall of wind-sculpted ice. Teeth chattering, she forced her feet to obey, stumbling over the slippery rocks. He led her within an arm’s length of the ice barrier, then turned right and pointed out a gap between solid rock and what she now realized was a frozen waterfall. Catching her around the waist, he pushed her into the narrow space. It was too low to stand. She crouched, her back against the cold stone, the curtain of glistening ice only inches from her face.

“Make a sound and you will die,” he whispered. “Wait for me, and pray to your Christian God.” He removed his wolfskin cloak and tucked it around her, then slid one of his two remaining muskets along the wall at her back. “Trust me, Irish.” His features softened, and he gave her a quick smile before vanishing from sight.

Fiona wasn’t certain if it was a smile of comfort or of madness. Shaking with cold, she clutched the hide around her freezing body. She could see nothing but the gleam of distorted light filtering through the ice, hear nothing but the rush of the stream. Her hiding place seemed more like a tomb than a place of refuge, and she was too frightened to pray.

Without Fiona’s weight, Wolf Shadow retraced his path downstream swiftly. He had frightened the woman badly; he knew it, but he’d had no time to try and assuage that fear. At the same time that the mule had caught the scent of horses on the wind, he’d heard a faint whinny and smelled them himself. Not one horse, but several. Horses meant white men, and more than two whites—where none should be—meant trouble. He regretted having to take the life of the mule, but in another instant the beast’s braying would have betrayed their position. Fiona hadn’t understood the danger.

Wolf Shadow exhaled sharply. He was thinking of the woman again instead of concentrating on keeping them alive. By the sacred breath of Wishemenetoo! What was she doing to him?

Why had he left his friends to rescue a white woman anyway? She would bring him nothing but trouble—even she realized it. Involving himself with her endangered his mission. How was he to convince the Shawnee and Delaware to band together and reject the white civilization if he brought an Irish woman to the People’s land?

And she had not even the decency to be grateful for being rescued.

Wolf Shadow knew what Irish Fiona thought of him. He had seen the truth in her eyes. It was the same look that all whites gave him. Even in England ... even when he’d dressed in their clothes and eaten at their tables, even when he’d bested them at their own games ... they still thought of him as an animal—a crafty one to be certain, but still a wild beast.

He knew how a wolf must feel when a human stares into its eyes.

Men ruled the world now, but the old tales told of a time when animals had ruled. Wolf Shadow wondered if they would ever rule again. If they did, it would be because Wishemenetoo judged men and found them unworthy.

What was there about white-skinned men that made them so arrogant? If they stepped on a piece of land, they claimed it as their own. If they drank water from a spring, they built fences to keep other men and animals from drinking. If they entered a forest, they felt compelled to cut down the trees and burn them.

The land that Wishemenetoo had given to the red man was vast. There would have been room for the strangers to raise their families, game and fish and water enough to share. The Lenni-Lenape, those the white men called the Delaware, had welcomed the first Englishmen to their shores. Now they held the land along the salt sea in an iron fist, and the only red men there were the old and the dead.

Year by year, the English and the French moved steadily west, eating up the tribal hunting grounds, building their roads and towns, killing the red men with their diseases and their liquor. The white men burned the People’s cornfields and desecrated their sacred places. They murdered copper-skinned babies and made whores of the women. The bounties on Indian scalps were higher than the bounties on wolves.

With the fragmentation of the tribes, the Shawnee were becoming weak, unable to defend themselves from their hereditary enemies in the Iroquois League—the Seneca, the Mohawk, the Cayuga, the Oneida, the Onondaga, and the Tuscarora. Hemmed in by the Iroquois and the French to the north and the English to the east and south, the Shawnee and their Delaware cousins were being pushed westward. Soon their backs would be to the great river. Beyond lay the prairies, the home of fierce tribes who would defend their land to the death. The Shawnee must regain their power by allying themselves with the Delaware and the other Algonquian-speaking nations. They must unite and hold this ground against all white men. It was his mission to weld them together, and he must do it if it cost him his life.

With the future of the Shawnee at stake, with time so short and chances of success so slim, he could not afford to consider the fate of one Irishwoman ... to put her welfare before the good of so many of his own people.

All he had to do was abandon her. Alone in the forest, he would be as hard to catch as his totem, the gray wolf.

Using the overhanging branches of a hemlock, he swept his tracks to hide them, then left the stream and climbed up on the bank. He was so cold that he could hardly feel his flesh below the knees. Gritting his teeth, he stomped in place to restore the flow of his blood. He blew on his fingers to warm them, then crouched to replace the damp powder in the musket with dry. A waterproof bag around his neck kept a precious store of the fine black powder needed to fill the frizzen pan that would fire the gun.

Wolf Shadow cautiously parted the boughs of the hemlock and scrutinized the forest. There was no sign of movement, and no bird sound. An absence of friendly noise screamed danger as loudly as the squawk of a crow. He waited.

The Seneca warriors came over the crest of the hill like a pack of hunting hounds, bending to touch his tracks, sniffing the trail and crying out to the men on horseback behind them. The Frenchman Roquette, the hair buyer, spurred his gray stallion through the trees. Four more white men, three in uniforms and one in buckskins, rode hot after him.

Wolf Shadow smiled thinly. Roquette. He’d not been wrong when he’d slain the mule or run like a frightened buck with Irish Fiona over his shoulder.

His inner voice had saved him again. So many times ... yet each time that his instincts proved right he felt as though a gift had been bestowed upon him. “Thank you, Wolf Spirit,” he murmured under his breath.

If Roquette’s Seneca caught them, he would be dead and the woman would be used by the Frenchman and his dogs. Whether she was dead or alive, Roquette would find value in her. Alive, she would bring a high price from any lonely white trapper, and when her soul departed her broken body, Roquette would demand a ransom from the English settlers. When they paid, they would receive only a corpse. He had done it before.

The English might offer a bdunty on Indian scalps, but Roquette took the game one step further: he paid hard silver to the Indians for English scalps. So long as he could keep the Indians and the English at each other’s throats, he kept the path open for the French to seize the Ohio Country.

Wolf Shadow raised his musket and took careful aim at the Frenchman on the gray horse. Much good would be done for red man and white if he sent a lead ball through Roquette’s heart. He sighed. It was not a shaman’s way. His was the path of persuasion and reason. As foul as Roquette was, as great a stain on the face of the land, still, he was not as important as the task of uniting the Shawnee. If Wolf Shadow killed Roquette now, he would die at the hands of the Seneca warriors. He would die, and Irish Fiona would be left helpless.

Wolf Shadow clenched his hands around the musket. He was not afraid to die, but he was afraid for the woman.

He forced himself to remain motionless and watched as the first Seneca brave reached the far side of the creek. The painted warrior twisted around and cupped both hands to his mouth, letting out a chilling whoop that rang through the snow-locked forest.

W
olf Shadow waited and watched as the Seneca spread out along the stream searching for the spot where he and the woman had left the water. One man passed within a musket length of the hemlock, so close that Wolf Shadow could see that the enemy brave bore a ghastly scar down one side of his face. The spot where his left eye should have been was a twisted knot of flesh, and the empty cavity was painted yellow.

Ah, Wolf Shadow mused. The Seneca has but one eye. Any novice shaman should be able to cloud the other eye. He held his breath, concentrating on the ring of power that surrounded him, a power that drew strength from the grandfather hemlock. Weave a web to dull the Seneca’s mind, Inu-msi-ila-fe-wanu, he prayed silently. Wrap me in a cloak of invisibility.

The Seneca stopped and glanced toward the hemlock. He took a step toward the overhanging boughs. Wolf Shadow tightened his finger on his musket trigger.

Suddenly the disfigured warrior slipped and fell headfirst into the icy creek. Sputtering and gasping, he struggled to his feet. The Seneca’s yellow and black paint smeared and ran down his chin, to the delight of his companions downstream. They howled with laughter, calling out crude insults, while Scarface shook the water from his musket and emptied the useless powder in the stream.

Muttering with anger, the Seneca climbed onto the icy bank a few feet upstream from Wolf Shadow’s hiding place and proceeded to reload his musket.

Roquette reined in his stallion at the creek bank and stood in his stirrups, glancing up and down the stream. “Find them, you devil-spawned bastards,” he shouted in French. “How far can they be?” He switched to badly accented Iroquois. “I want that woman,” he cried. “Find them before nightfall, and I’ll pay double for the scalp of the Shawnee brave.”

Involuntarily, Wolf Shadow glanced down at his water-soaked moccasins. They had identified him as Shawnee by the marks of his footwear. Each tribe constructed their moccasins differently, and the Shawnee had learned the fine art from their Delaware cousins. He wondered if it had been a mistake to change from the Huron moccasins he’d worn earlier at Jacob Clough’s.

Scarface waded back into the water and started upstream, studying the streambank. A second Seneca moved along the eastern side of the creek doing the same. The place where Wolf Shadow had left the woman was upstream and around a bend, out of sight.

Stay where you are, the shaman urged in his thoughts. Don’t move, don’t even breathe.

 

In her ice prison, Fiona was shivering so hard she couldn’t keep her teeth from chattering. The sound of the Seneca war cry echoed in her head long after it had ceased to reverberate through the forest. She didn’t know if the terrible sound had been made by a man or an animal. If it had been human, had it come from the wolf-man, or from whatever he thought was chasing them?

She rubbed her hands together to try and warm them, wondering if the Shawnee had left her here to die. How long was she expected to wait? When night fell, she knew she wouldn’t survive the cold. Her feet had lost all feeling, and she was so thirsty she’d even licked at the ice. It hadn’t quenched her thirst, just made her colder.

She slipped stiffened fingers up to touch her amulet. The charm seemed as frigid as the ice. So much for magic, she thought hopelessly. If she’d had the sense God gave a goose, she’d have tried to barter the golden necklace for passage to America, or she would have tried to buy her own indenture when the apothecary died in Philadelphia.

But selling the amulet had never seemed an option. Her mother had seen them both go hungry without parting with the Eye of Mist. She’d made Fiona promise to keep the necklace—no matter what.

Her mother had treasured the amulet because it had been a gift to Fiona from her father, and because it made real his promise to care for Fiona and “see her wed to a prince” when she was grown. It was Eileen O’Neal’s hope, one she wouldn’t let go of ... even on her deathbed. So long as Fiona wore the necklace, Eileen could imagine that her Scottish lord would come back for them both. Eileen had never stopped loving him, and she’d tried desperately to instill that love for her father in Fiona’s heart.

Fiona rocked back and forth, setting her teeth against the chill that crept through her blood. Love hadn’t made her keep the Eye of Mist ... not love, and not the foolish notion of magic. She’d kept it out of hate—hate for the man who’d taken his pleasure on a trusting woman and ruined her life.

For a woman to bear a child out of wedlock in Ireland was the ultimate disgrace. Eileen’s adultery reflected on the honor of her family and every other decent woman. The pain that most troubled Eileen was what she had done to her own child. So long as Fiona lived, she would bear the shame of illegitimacy; not even Holy Church could lift the scarlet stain of bastardy. The torture of that sentence had turned her mother’s face old before her time and streaked her lovely auburn tresses with gray.

But Fiona didn’t hate her father for her birth. She hated him for abandoning her and her mother. She hated him so much that she’d vowed to kill him if she ever laid eyes on him, and she’d kept the amulet in memory of that hate.

Giving up and dying here in this godforsaken forest would mean leaving that promise of revenge against her father unfulfilled. She’d be damned if she’d let him best her again!

Anger lent Fiona strength to fight the cold. “I’ll not stay here and freeze to death,” she muttered in her native Gaelic. “And I’ll not be dictated to by a madman who thinks he’s a wolf. I’ll—”

Fiona’s head snapped toward the source of the guttural cry, and she stared into the face of a shrieking demon. Her eyes widened in horror as she smelled the rank scent of bear and saw the jagged scar that deformed the Indian’s painted features into something less than human. His mouth gaped open, gleaming with teeth filed to jagged points. One empty eye socket was dyed yellow, and the single eye staring back at her was as black and merciless as hell’s deepest pit.

“Yong wee!”
the savage shrieked again as he dragged her roughly from her hiding place and raised a stone tomahawk over her head.

Fiona fell to her knees in the frigid water, and the shock forced her into action. A submerged rock gouged her left shin, but she barely felt the pain as she drove her head upward to butt her attacker in the belly with all the strength she could muster. He gasped and slipped backward into the stream. Fiona flung herself on top of him, kneed him in the groin, and pushed his head underwater.

The Seneca knocked her aside with one powerful blow. He came up sputtering, his terrible face contorted with rage, and swung his tomahawk at her.

Time seemed to stand still for Fiona. She held her breath and waited for the fierce warrior to deliver what she knew would be her death blow. Her right hand dug frantically in the icy stream for a rock to defend herself with; but even as her fingers closed around the pitted surface, reason told her it was too late.

Another harsh male voice penetrated Fiona’s terror. The axe smashed down, coming so close it grazed her hair. She screamed, then struggled to her feet, her skirts weighed down with water. Her heart thudded wildly as she stared up at the second Seneca warrior.

He seemed as fearsome as the first, despite having both eyes in his head. He was thick and muscular, with dark skin and a fierce expression. His hair was roached and dyed to an unnatural red color, and his face was streaked with warpaint. His features contorted as he argued loudly with the first Indian and gestured.

One Eye turned his back to them both and gave a heated reply. Fiona couldn’t understand a word of their exchange, but it was plain from the way the newcomer kept shaking his musket at her that she was the object of their disagreement. She began to back away from them, one step at a time, trying not to lose her balance on the slippery streambed.

Suddenly Wolf Shadow loomed up behind the second warrior. Fiona tried not to let her expression reveal the tiny hope that flared within her.

Wolf Shadow wrapped a bare arm around the red-roached brave’s neck. Muscles bulged as he tightened his grip. The Seneca struggled for only seconds, then stiffened. His eyes went wide and his mouth opened. Wolf Shadow released him, and he slowly crumbled forward. Fiona saw the bloody knife wounds in the Seneca’s back just before his startled face hit the water.

Wolf Shadow was already lunging toward the one-eyed man, swinging his musket like a club. The scarred Seneca whirled, saw Wolf Shadow, and let out a guttural cry. He blocked the musket with his axe, staggering back under the force of the blow.

Fiona blinked as a knife appeared in the Seneca’s free hand. “Shoot him!” she cried to Wolf Shadow.

The one-eyed warrior slashed out with the knife. Wolf Shadow dodged the thrust and swung the musket again. Suddenly remembering the fist-sized rock in her hand, Fiona flung it with all her might, striking the Seneca full in the mouth.

Wolf Shadow leaped on top of the Seneca, and the two went down locked in mortal combat. Over and over they rolled in the water. Fiona shuddered as sunlight gleamed on the Seneca’s knife blade. She reached down into the stream for another rock and lifted it high, waiting for a chance to throw it at the painted warrior without hitting Wolf Shadow.

Blood ran down Wolf Shadow’s arm, but he paid it no heed. Inch by inch, he forced the Seneca’s head back until water covered his face. Fiona caught a glimpse of the brave’s fear-filled eyes, and pity knifed through her as the man struggled wildly.

“Stop!” she cried. “He’s drowning.” Bubbles rose to the water’s surface. The man had nearly stopped kicking, but still, Wolf Shadow held the barrel of his musket across the Seneca’s throat. “Let him up,” Fiona insisted. “You’re murdering him.”

Wolf Shadow gave no sign that he heard her.

“Stop it!” Fiona pounded his back with her fists. “Let him up before he drowns.”

A minute passed, seeming to Fiona like hours. Finally the wolf-man released the pressure on the musket and stood up. The Seneca’s head remained submerged; his moccasined feet bobbed in the running water.

“Murderer,” she accused. She turned toward the bank, stumbling, shivering. She felt suddenly exhausted.

Wolf Shadow pulled the scarfaced man from the water and dragged him to the place where he’d hidden her beneath the falls. He removed his wolfskin cloak and his second musket, and shoved the body of the dead warrior upright in the cavity. Then he recovered the body of the brave he’d slain with a knife and placed him beside the first man. Lastly he took a corner of the wolfskin, a section from which dangled a claw, and, using the Seneca’s own blood, imprinted the pawprint of a wolf on each dead man’s forehead.

Horrified by the barbaric act, Fiona shuddered and covered her face with her hands. How had she forgotten that Wolf Shadow was an uncivilized savage? Now he’d reminded her by murdering two men before her eyes and then defacing their corpses. “You didn’t ... didn’t have . . . to ...” Her speech sounded strangely slurred. She was cold—so cold.

“Irishwoman, can you walk?”

Fiona lowered her hands and looked into Wolf Shadow’s face. “Don’t ... touch me,” she warned him. “Don’t ...” She blinked her eyes and swayed. The earth seemed to open before her, and she cried out softly as she tumbled into a black void.

 

The odors of wet wool and roasting meat teased Fiona’s consciousness. She moaned and snuggled deeper in the soft, warm furs. The sound of a rich male voice singing seemed to come from far away. She couldn’t understand the words, and the repetitive rise and fall of the melody was totally alien. Yet in some subtle way it soothed her. The chanting surrounded her, wrapped her in a protective cloak, and made her feel safe and loved.

She sighed as the tension drained from her muscles. She felt as though she were cradled on a warm blanket of clouds. The cold ... the fear ... the confusion ... all were fading memories. She moistened her lips with her tongue and tried to open her eyes. Her lids seemed to be made of lead; they were too heavy. She lifted a hand and let it fall. It brushed against bare skin. Questions rose in her mind, but forming them was too difficult. Asking them would be impossible.

Gentle fingers ran through her hair.

The chanting was closer now ... it was all around her. The timbre of the voice brought tears to her eyes. The pull of sleep was intoxicating. By sheer will Fiona struggled to stay awake. And lost.

 

A warm hand caressed her naked back.

She exhaled softly and snuggled her face against a broad male chest. Her eyes snapped open, and she gave a little cry of alarm.

“Hush, Irish. You are safe here,” Wolf Shadow murmured.

She pushed frantically away, tangling her legs with his long ones. “Oh!” Fiona rose to her knees and stared at him in shock.