Judith E French (16 page)

“Aye,” Leah whispered. “He is.”

“What’s that?” Angus shouted. “What are ye sayin’ of me? Did ye tell her that I was blind? What is she, simple, that she can’t ken that herself? Come over here, lassie, and let an old man see for himself.” His voice was much like Ross’s, but thickened by time, and bore the heavy burr of a youth spent in Scotland. “Come, I say!” he ordered. “And let me hear no more of Lord Strathmar. Angus Campbell I was born, and Angus I’ll die.”

Ross gestured to her. “It’s all right, hinney. He’s all bark and no bite.”

“No bite, am I?” the old man growled. “Damn ye, lass, I’ve waited too long for grandsons to eat ye for supper. Come here so that these fingers can tell me what ye look like.”

Holding her breath, Anne crossed the room, stopping within arm’s length of Ross’s father.

Ross caught her hand and squeezed it. “Be brave,” he warned. “Didna I tell ye I was half wolverine the first time we met? Well, lass, this be the wolverine that sired me.”

“Sir,” Anne managed. “It is an honor to meet you.”

Angus laughed loud enough to shake the rafters and raised a beefy, callused hand. Anne trembled but stood firm, letting him trace the outline of her features with a gnarled finger. Surprisingly, Angus’s touch was gentle.

“Hmmph,” the old man grumbled. “Ye’ve brought home a wee lass no bigger than Moonfeather. If ye had to pick an English bride, couldn’t ye ha’ found one brawny enough to carry a deer?” His hand slid down Anne’s shoulder to test her biceps. “Scrawny as a chicken,” he declared, “but bonny. I’d trust ye to find a pretty one—no neat trick among the English. What color is your hair, wee Annie? Nay yellow, is it?”

‘Brown, sir,” she answered shyly. “Just brown.”

“Just brown,” he mocked with a snort. “The Delaware tongue has a dozen names for brown. Be it the brown of muddy water, the brown of dry grass, the brown of earth? What color is your hair, wench?”

“Honey-brown,” Ross said, “and soft as duckling down.”

“Well, then, honey-brown lass, a welcome to ye. And the sooner ye give me grandsons, the more welcome ye shall be.” His head snapped around to face Ross. “Did ye pull it off, son? Did ye bring home enough gold to buy the land?”

“Hist, Daddy,” Ross replied. “Time and time enough for such talk. I’m home and home to stay, and ye still be the Earl of Strathmar. Tomorrow will be soon enough for all of that. For now, we are half starved, and I smell Mary’s rabbit stew and corncakes. Can we eat and share a nip or two of good Scotch whiskey?”

“Aye, lad, so we can,” Angus agreed heartily. “So we can.”

 

Hours later, Ross rose from the bed he shared with Anne and pulled on his kilt. Moonfeather was waiting for him outside under the starry August sky. Together they walked to the wall, and she called to her cousins to come down from their posts.

“We will keep watch until sunrise,” she said in Shawnee. “Fill your bellies and sleep. Tomorrow we begin our return journey to the camp.” As silently as shadows the young Shawnee braves obeyed, climbing down the ladders and passing near enough to touch Ross without seeming to notice him.

“Peace to you,” he murmured in the Algonquian tongue shared by both the Shawnee and the Delaware.

“And to you,” Niipan replied. His brother Liiuan only grunted.

“They dinna trust ye, Ross,” Moonfeather whispered when the warriors had entered the trading post. “They didna think much of ye when ye were a bairn either.”

“They never forgave me for killing that bear,” he said.

“Who killed the bear?” she teased.

“Ye helped,” he admitted. “Ye be bold enough—for a Shawnee.”

“And ye boast as much as any Delaware.”

They climbed to one of the watchtowers and stood a long time without talking, listening to the sounds of the forest around them. The moist night air felt good on Ross’s bare chest, and Moonfeather’s faint scent brought back old memories. As much as he loved Anne, he knew he would always have a place in his heart for this woman. As sweetheart or sister he wasn’t certain, he only knew that the tie between them was strong. He inhaled deeply and let the smell of pine forest and river fill his head.

“It’s good to be home,” he said, “and good to see you.” When she didn’t answer, he knew his fears were right. “Ye didna come to trade.”

Her sigh was audible. “Ahuttch. There is trouble.”

“The Iroquois?” When he’d left for Scotland, a peace treaty had been signed between the Shawnee and the Seneca, but a treaty could be broken with the flight of a single arrow. If any of the five tribes of the Iroquois Nation went to war against the Shawnee, the frontier could go up in flames.

“Nay,
jai-nai-nah,
” she answered softly.

He leaned against the wall and stared out at the black void of the Mesawmi River. Moonfeather had called him brother. Aye, it was better that way. A tightness eased in his chest, and he smiled at her in the darkness. “I do love my Anne,” he said. “She told me about her friend in London, but I didn’t realize it was you.”

“There is more than ye ken between us, but as glad as I be to see Anne, it is a bad time for her to be here at the edge of Shawnee territory.”

“If not the Iroquois, then who?”

“Roquette.”

Ross’s shoulders stiffened. “The hair buyer?” Roquette was a Frenchman who traded guns for English scalps, then sold the scalps to the French across the Canadian border.

“Roquette has been spreading rumors among the tribes. He denies that he sells scalps to the French and says that the English general in Philadelphia pays for Indian scalps. A German family was killed at Blue Mountain, and their cabin burned. An English priest is missing. He crossed the Juniatta River and vanished like smoke. It may be that he drowned, or that a bear ate him, but the English blame the Shawnee. They say the priest was murdered. I do not think my people killed him. He was mad, and ye ken the Shawnee never do harm to those who are in the protection of the spirits, but . . .” She shrugged. “In these times, who can tell?”

“Could the Iroquois raiders have killed the German settlers?”

She made a small sound with her lips. “I canna say. Shawnee arrows were found at the burned cabin, and marks in the ashes that were said to be the tracks of Shawnee moccasins. The English soldiers are certain the Shawnee are to blame. They marched against Seeg-o-nah’s band. Two women and a child were killed.”

“When did this happen?” It had been quiet for so long here on the Mesawmi that he’d thought it safe to bring Anne. If the Shawnee went to war against the British, Fort Campbell would be in danger. “Surely the Shawnee don’t put stock in what Roquette says.”

Moonfeather shook her head. “Seeg-o-nah’s people were murdered last month. It is hard to reason with a father holding a dead child. Many hear what they wish to hear. There is bad blood between the Shawnee and the English.”

“Who’s for war?”

“Matiassu. Ye ken that he be a war chief. The sachem, Tuk-o-see-yah, called for us to keep the peace, so Matiassu took his followers and left the tribe. He’s gathered other young men around him. Matiassu’s always hated the English.”

“But you are the Shawnee peace woman. Won’t he listen to you?”

“Nay, Ross,” she answered sadly. “Matiassu wanted me to marry him three years ago. When I took Brandon to husband instead of him, he turned against me. He hates me. I can do nothing with him.”

“Has a High Council been called?”

“Aye. The Shawnee and the Delaware will come. Tuk-o-see-yah asks that ye come and speak for the English and against the French. Roquette will be there, and he will urge other men to take up the war trail. He claims to be our friend, but he brings whiskey as well as guns and powder. The Shawnee respect you, and ye be Delaware by your mother’s blood.”

Ross nodded. “I’ll come, of course. I was afraid it was something like this.” Anne would take it hard that they’d only just arrived and now he’d have to leave her here and go up into Shawnee country for God only knew how long. “When do we leave?”

“At first light.”

“I’ll wake Anne and tell her.”

“Aye, tell her to make ready.”

“Anne? She’s staying here at Fort Campbell with my father.”

“Nay,
jai-nai-nah,
’tis nay so easy. Ye maun bring your English bride. All men bring their women when they come to council. To leave Anne behind when other warriors bring their families would be viewed as suspicious. Roquette would surely say that it proves ye mean deceit. She is my blood-sister and your wife. I would not risk her life any more than I would risk Kitate’s or my wee Cami’s, but she must come if your mission is to have any chance of success.”

“By the wounds of Christ, Moonfeather, ye do set the world on end when ye come calling.”

She laughed softly. “And ye, my old friend, ye be known for your meek and gentle manner.”

“Would anyone dispute it?”

“Nay, Ross Campbell, no one would dare.”

A
nne knelt in the painted birchbark canoe and watched as Ross, stripped to the waist and wearing only his kilt and plaid Scots bonnet, dug his paddle into the water and thrust the vessel forward with each stroke. Muscles rippled under his tanned skin as he repeated the motion over and over. His black hair, so dark and shiny that it seemed to glow with an inner brilliance, fell loose over his neck and back. Anne was so close to him that she could have reached out and touched him, but she didn’t. She was content to watch him and listen to the Indian song he joined the others in chanting as the two canoes made their way upriver.

Behind her, one of the two Shawnee warriors manned the other paddle. Leah—Moonfeather, as Ross called her—had introduced the Shawnee braves to her, but since they were identical twins, Anne wasn’t certain if it was Niipan or his brother, Liiuan. Leah, the other brave, and Leah’s children were in the first canoe ahead. Leah paddled as skillfully as the men, even with her baby daughter, Cami, strapped to her back on an Indian cradleboard.

Glancing down at a water stain on her leather dress, Anne unconsciously began to brush at the spot. When she realized what she was doing, she smiled at her own foolishness. Skin clothing was meant to be worn in all sorts of weather; the doeskin would dry without being harmed. It was the reason that Ross had asked Mary to loan her a dress and moccasins.

At first, she had felt as though she were naked in the Indian clothing. Worn uncorseted, without even a shift or petticoat, the simple garment seemed indecent. Now, on the third day of their journey, Anne had to admit that the dress was comfortable, and the soft leather moccasins were perfect for a canoe, even if they were a little large.

“I’ll give you a pair of mine when we reach the camp,” Leah had offered. “Our feet are the same size.”

Still singing, Ross glanced back over his shoulder at her and winked. The blue and yellow stripes on his face made him look even more of a barbarian, but Anne couldn’t resist winking back at him.

She was happy.

She hadn’t realized that she was happy until Leah had asked her this morning. The two women had gone off alone to wash their hair using sweet-smelling ground herbs that Leah had brought with her for soap. Together, they’d knelt by the side of the river, laughing and talking as easily as if they were careless girls. Leah’s baby, Cami, was propped up against the side of the tree in her cradleboard, her bright, blueberry eyes fixed on the path of a yellow and black butterfly.

“Ross loves you,” Leah said, slipping naked into the river to bathe.

“He says so,” she answered. Suddenly the talk had turned serious, and she’d been at a loss as to how she should respond. She was no longer jealous of Leah and Ross, at least she hoped she wasn’t, but she didn’t wish to discuss her fears of inadequacy with a woman who seemed to have all the skills that she lacked.

“It be a fine thing to be loved by such a man. Be ye happy, Anne?”

She opened her mouth to spill out all the pent-up anger—to tell her friend how Ross had stolen her, and how he’d carried her off across the ocean without so much as a by-your-leave. But the words hadn’t come. “Yes,” she found herself answering. “Yes, I think I am.” She fingered her amulet thoughtfully. “I shouldn’t be. There are many things I want, things I need, but . . .” She sighed. All her life she’d kept her wants to herself, accepting what others told her she must do without complaint. It was a hard habit to break. “He is a rough, wild man . . . but I love him too,” she admitted.

“Then ye must change him to be what ye need,” Leah replied.

“Change him? It would be easier to carve granite with a wooden spoon.”

Now, as she watched Ross take stroke after stroke, as she gazed at the water trailing off the tip of the paddle in clear blue-green drops, she wondered if it might be possible to soften her husband’s heathen ways. England, she realized with a flood of emotion, was a lost cause. Looking at Ross with his eagle feathers in his bonnet and his Indian paint, she knew that England and even harsh Scotland were too small for such a man. He belonged here in this untamed new land where the forest ran on forever and the rivers were so clean they seemed made of liquid glass.

I do love him, she thought fiercely. No matter why he took me to wife . . . no matter why he brought me to America. I do love him. Was there a possibility that he could bend, that she could bend, until their hands touched?

Ross’s painted face had been hard to accept. “You look like an Indian!” she’d exclaimed when she’d first seen him wearing it the morning they’d left his father’s trading post. He’d awakened her before dawn and told her that it was urgent they go north into Shawnee country to a meeting of the High Council.

“We travel with a peace woman,” he replied. “Moonfeather is a very important person among the tribes. No one, not even an enemy tribesman, will attack a peace woman or her party. This paint identifies me as part of the peace mission. It will do more to protect us in these woods than a company of British soldiers.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, staring at his face. Without the Scottish bonnet and kilt, he could have passed as full Indian. He looked as savage as the two braves pulling the canoes down to the landing. “What is a peace woman,” she demanded, “and how can a mere woman have such standing with the savages?”

“Fie, hinney. ’Tis hard to explain in English. A peace woman is a sort of spiritual leader.”

“Like a minister?” she suggested.

“Aye, and nay.” He grinned at her. “Partly, but also part ambassador, and part witch. A woman—and it maun always be a woman—is born to the role. Moonfeather’s mother and great-grandmother were peace women. Settling disputes among the tribes is their most important duty. Ye may find it hard to believe, but this little lass has the power to send the Shawnee and the Delaware on the war trail—or to hold them back.”

She watched Leah walking down the riverbank with her two small children. It was still hard for her to believe that her beautiful young friend was a political leader. “Then why does Leah need you or this . . . this . . . council?”

“Aye, darlin’. High Council. Very special, very rare. This is a time for the People to be harvesting their corn. If they don’t put up their crops for winter, they risk starving before spring. That the tribes would send their leaders to pow-wow now means the situation is serious.”

“If Leah is a peace woman, as you call it, can’t she just tell them not to fight?”

“Aye, she could try. Most would listen, but a few might not. An Indian is the most contrary human being God ever created—it’s why the English can’t understand them, and why the two cultures will never be able to live side by side without strife. In England, a man listens to his betters. He heeds his pastor, his squire, the lord above him, his king, and finally—if he’s a decent sort—his God. A Shawnee talks straight to God. Oh, he allows a few men or women to dress themselves up fancy and style themselves chiefs, but when the time comes for a decision, every brave and squaw heeds his own conscience. They can’t be led or driven unless it pleases them.” Ross had raised that dark compelling gaze to lock with hers. “Free People they call themselves, and free they be—more independent than the wind.”

More independent than the wind
. . . Ross’s words rose in her mind again. They described him perfectly. Whenever she thought she’d come to understand her husband, he did something shocking and completely unexpected.

Anne smiled as she remembered Ross at the campfire the night before with Leah’s little daughter on his knee. He’d sung a silly nursery rhyme to her and plopped his bonnet down over her eyes to make her laugh. Ross’s hands had been gentle, his voice soft as he played with the toddler. And after the night meal, it had been Ross’s arms the baby had fallen asleep in.

He’ll make a good father, Anne thought. And she wondered what a child of Ross’s would look like . . . and how it would feel in her arms. She glanced over at the baby in the other canoe. Cami’s sweet, round face was shaded from the sun by the overhang at the top of the cradleboard. Her eyes were closed in sleep, and one chubby hand hung limp.

Kitate noticed her staring at his sister and offered a shy smile. Anne smiled back and made a rocking motion with her arms. “Her doll?” she called. Beaming, he retrieved the toy from the bottom of the canoe and held it up.

Anne nodded. She’s been afraid the baby had dropped it overboard. The doll was Cami’s prize possession. Leah had sewn it of deerskin and stuffed it with sweet-smelling cedar bark, attaching two tiny black braids made from a horse’s mane. The doll had a round head, and arms and legs, but no face. Leah had explained that Indian dolls were made without features. It seemed a strange idea to Anne, but Cami didn’t notice the lack of eyes or a nose. At night, she wouldn’t go to sleep without the doll clutched tightly to her bosom.

Ross paused in mid-stroke and pointed with the blade of his paddle. Ahead of them, Anne saw two deer swimming across the river. They reached the far side, scrambled up a muddy bank, and disappeared into the forest. They were the first deer Anne had seen all day. They were so beautiful, she was afraid that one of the men might shoot them, but the men merely watched, as captivated by the sight as she was.

In the last few miles the river had become gradually wider, and jagged boulders jutted out of the water. A swifter current made the paddling harder. The trees on either bank were a tangled mass of twisted logs and branches, and the water had turned from blue-green to muddy brown and frothy white.

“There was flooding here in the spring,” Ross said. “There’s been no rain for days, so we’re in no danger, but this water runs fierce in bad weather.”

Though it was only midafternoon, to Anne’s surprise, Leah steered her canoe toward the shore. Ross followed with the second canoe. He leaped into the shallow, fast-running water and steadied the fragile boat for Anne and the Shawnee to get out.

“There are rapids ahead,” Ross said, helping Anne onto the bank. “We’ll unload the canoes and portage inland for a few miles.”

“We’re leaving the boats?” she asked.

He handed her a pack and showed her how to fasten it over her shoulders with leather ties. “Nay. We’ll carry them on our backs. We return to the river above the falls.”

Ross and the brave hoisted the birchbark canoe over their heads. Leah and the second man did the same with their canoe. Kitate motioned to Anne. “Follow me,” he said in soft, lisping English. “We walk ahead.”

Grateful for the chance to stretch her legs, Anne adjusted her pack and followed the boy into the deep, still forest.

Murrane leaned over the starboard railing of the three-masted sailing ship,
Cumberland,
and spat into the flat sea. “Twenty-two days,” he fumed. “Twenty-two days we’ve laid off the godforsaken coast! How long must we sit here rotting in the sun?” He rubbed at his aching arm and tried to ignore the tight squeezing sensation in his chest.

The captain drew a deep puff on his long-stemmed clay pipe and shrugged. “Twenty-two days, Lord Murrane. It’s not so bad. The winds were favorable from Dover. We crossed without losing a single man to sickness.”

“Hellfire and damnation! I should have been in the Maryland Colony weeks ago. I’d not have chosen the
Cumberland
if Lord Langstone hadn’t assured me you were a competent master.”

“No captain can command the winds, m’lord.” He pointed toward the far horizon. “Virginia lies forty-five leagues east. We need easterly winds to run the Virginia Capes into the Chesapeake.”

“Sir.” John Brown came from the stern and handed over a silver flask.

Murrane unfastened the cap and drank deeply of the fiery rum. It burned his throat and brought tears to his eyes, but it dulled the gnawing pain in his chest.

His old misery had come back to haunt him when the ship had become becalmed three weeks ago. Damn but the waiting came hard to him! He’d expected to be in Annapolis and have the matter settled by now.

In his cabin was a letter of introduction from Anne’s father, Lord Langstone, to the Maryland Royal Governor, explaining that Langstone’s daughter, and Murrane’s betrothed, had been spirited away to America by that scoundrel Campbell. Gathering men and supplies for the voyage had taken longer than he’d expected, and the expense was like to beggar him. He’d recoup it all when he had the bitch in his hands, but for now, the burden weighed heavily on him. He’d had to borrow against lands he no longer owned.

If he didn’t get Anne’s money, he’d be ruined. If... He refused to think about the alternatives. Ross Campbell had made a fool of him—he and the slut together. Now they would pay the price.

“Pray for a change in the wind,” the captain mouthed piously. “We stand for the bay when He grants us an easterly.”

Murrane took another drink, then shoved the empty flask at his lieutenant. Ignoring the captain, he stalked across the deck and went below where the mulatto wench he’d purchased in the Canaries waited for his pleasure.