Judith E French (17 page)

A smile crossed his scarred face as he descended the ship’s ladder. The trull was young and ripe, the way he liked them. He’d paid top coin for a virgin, and even with the marks he’d left on her back, the captain had assured him he’d take the woman off his hands at double the price when they reached the Colonies.

Murrane laughed as the tightness in his chest became a tightness in his groin. The rum drummed in his ears, and his organ swelled as he imagined the girl’s screams when he threw her facedown and entered her.

He slid the bolt on the cabin door and tried to push it open. Something heavy held it back, and he cursed and threw his shoulder against the door. “What the—”

The girl’s body fell forward onto the deck. Her lifeless head rolled back like a broken doll. Murrane gasped and turned her over with his foot. A fork protruded from the woman’s throat. Murrane backed away as he saw the tide of blood that covered her naked breasts and soaked her curly black hair.

“John!” he shouted. “John!” He staggered against the wall and thought of the bright, shiny golden guineas he’d paid for her living flesh, coin lost forever because the stupid wench had committed suicide. “John!” He backed away from the cabin door as the familiar pain knifed through his chest and radiated down his arm again.

 

Anne could hear the roar of the waterfalls as they launched the canoes again in late afternoon. This time, she was to ride in Leah’s canoe—Kitate had begged her to trade places with him so that he could travel with Ross and Liiuan.
“Manake,”
he’d whispered to her, “just us men.”

Kitate was a sweet child, solemn without being sullen, and mature for his six years. His skin was a light copper color, his eyes as dark and innocent as a fawn’s. He’d spent the portage time pointing out trees and birds and telling her their names in Algonquian.

A movement in the trees on the left bank caught her attention, and she shaded her eyes with her hand, hoping to catch sight of another deer. “Look,” she said to Leah. “Is that—”

A chilling whoop rolled across the water. Before Anne could react, a feathered shaft thudded into Cami’s cradleboard. The baby screamed in pain, and blood sprayed over Anne’s face. Leah moaned and sank to one side as musket balls broke the water around them.

Liiuan toppled from the other canoe with an arrow through his chest. Anne couldn’t see Kitate, but Ross had a musket in his hands and was taking aim at an Indian on the far bank. Ross squeezed the trigger, and his target tumbled from a tree branch into the river.

An explosion directly behind her head deafened Anne. She whirled around to see Niipan frantically reloading his smoking musket. Ahead of them, a howling Indian—his face painted black and his head shaved, except for a cock’s comb down the center—plunged toward them through chest-deep water, an upraised hatchet in his hand. Anne’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the glazed look in the man’s eyes.

Numb with fear, she pried the canoe paddle from Leah’s limp hands and swung it with all her might, striking the painted warrior on the side of the head. He fell backward with a groan and slid under the surface of the river.

Niipan fired again and shouted an order to her in Algonquian. “What?” she screamed. “I don’t understand!” Arrows were flying like hail around her head. Tears streaked her face as the baby’s terrified shrieks turned her blood to ice. Every instinct urged her to help the injured child, but Anne was afraid that if she moved forward, she’d overturn the canoe.

Niipan shoved a pistol into her hand. “Shoot!” he commanded. He picked up his paddle and with powerful strokes turned the canoe, letting the current aid him as he drove the boat back downriver—in the direction they had come earlier.

Another painted face appeared in the trees. Anne pointed the pistol with shaking hands and fired. The man let out a yell, and she dropped the empty weapon in her lap and began to paddle as best she could.

Two braves ran from the forest and waded into the river. Ross shot the first man through the heart with Liiuan’s musket; the second he wounded with his own pistol. A war whoop sounded on his left, and he twisted around to face the attack with an empty weapon. Kitate pushed back the bundles under which he’d taken shelter and rose from the bottom of the canoe, bow in hand. Notching an arrow, he sent the shaft winging into the enemy brave’s thigh. The warrior yelled, but kept coming.

Ross’s heart was pounding as he caught a glimpse of Anne’s canoe in midstream. Moonfeather was down, but Niipan and Anne seemed unhurt. With a cry to match those of the attacking braves, Ross leaped from the canoe into the river. He shoved the boat toward deeper water, then, grasping his musket by the barrel and swinging it like a club, he waded to meet the wounded man.

The brave went down like a felled tree, but another took his place. Ross struck him in the pit of his stomach with the musket butt. The warrior aimed his pistol point-blank at Ross’s chest and pulled the trigger. Ross braced for the blow, but the wet flintlock misfired, and Ross’s return stroke brained him.

A musket ball cut a furrow along Ross’s arm. He felt a brief sting of pain before a killing rage numbed everything but the urge to strike out at the enemy. Seizing the dying warrior in his hands and using him as a human shield, Ross charged out of the shallows and up onto the riverbank. An arrow lodged in his arm, and he snapped it off, then dropped to one knee and began to reload his musket.

A brave shouted a challenge and ran down the bluff toward him swinging a spiked war club. One side of the man’s face was painted black, the other yellow. Ross caught an acrid whiff of bear grease as the screaming warrior bore down upon him.

Ross’s eyes never left the man’s face as his fingers went through the routine of loading: dump a measure of black powder into the barrel, position patch over the muzzle, seat a lead ball in the patch, ram it down with the wooden ramrod, and load the frizzen pan with powder. There was no time to lift the loaded musket to his shoulder; the Indian had already raised his club to deliver the death blow. Ross fired from the waist, and the man flew backward with a bloody hole in his belly.

Anne’s scream cut through Ross’s trance. He spun around to see a brave poised on a rock ahead of her canoe. A second enemy warrior was wading out toward the rock, his musket held high over his head. Ross plunged back into the river. Kitate called to him. The boy was trying desperately to bring the canoe back, but the current was too strong. It spun around, then tipped over when a musket ball struck the boy’s paddle.

“Kitate!” Anne cried.

The boy’s head bobbed up in the river, and the man on the rock took aim at him. Ross’s shot caught the attacker full in the chest, and he toppled into the water.

“Kitate! Here!” Anne held her paddle out to him, oblivious to the second brave swimming toward her on the far side of the canoe.

“Niipan!” Ross yelled. “Behind you!” He dove in and swam in their direction. He was closing the distance between them when a great weight slammed into his head, and suddenly the river, the sky, and Anne’s pale face dissolved into blackness. The last thing he heard was Anne’s scream.

“Ross!”

Niipan hurled his knife at the enemy brave. It lodged in the man’s throat. Thrashing, he went under and didn’t come up.

“Ross!” Anne cried again. Blood was streaming from his head as he tumbled over in the current. “Ross!” Near exhaustion, Kitate seized the tip of her paddle, and she pulled him to the edge of the canoe. Niipan thrust the canoe out of the current toward the far bank.

As soon as the boat scraped bottom, Niipan leaped out, gathered Moonfeather and the baby in his arms, and carried her up the bank into the trees. Anne scrambled out and ran along the shore, trying to keep sight of Ross.

“Maata!”
Kitate ran after her and seized her hand. “No!” he shouted. “No! We must go! Quick!”

“I can’t leave Ross,” she insisted. “He’s hurt.”

A shot ricocheted over their heads. “Come!” the child insisted. “It be death to stay.”

“Go on without me!” Stubbornly, Kitate tugged at her hand. “I can’t leave . . .” An icy grip tightened around Anne’s chest as she realized that she could no longer see him. “Nooo,” she cried.

“Please!” the boy begged.

Another shot plowed through the trees from the other side of the river. Waves of despair flooded over Anne as she turned and followed the child into the forest.

Once the trees sheltered them from enemy fire, Kitate began to run parallel to the river. Branches whipped Anne’s face and tangled in her hair and clothing as she ran after him. They rounded a huge oak and crossed a narrow path. “Come,” he hissed. “The falls. We must reach the falls before Ross goes over.”

Terror lent wings to Anne’s feet as they sped along the twisting game trail. Her breath came in ragged gasps and her legs felt as though they were made of lead. Still Kitate ran and she pounded along after him, the metallic taste of fear strong in her mouth. She could hear the roar of the falls growing stronger by the moment. Then he ducked to the right. She followed him, tripped over a tree root, and tumbled down a muddy bank into the edge of the misty river.

Anne pushed herself up on her hands. Kitate was scrambling across the slippery rocks toward the edge of the waterfall. Spray rose twenty feet in the air, and the roar of the boiling water was like constant thunder in her ears. Her eyes searching the white water for Ross’s body, Anne stripped off her moccasins and ran barefoot over the rocks to the boy. He was shouting and pointing to a spot just out of reach.

“Ross!” Anne caught sight of his head bobbing in the churning water. One hand gripped a rock. His bonnet was gone. His hair streamed around his blood-streaked face like dark seaweed.

Kitate lunged for Ross’s hand, and his foot slipped. Anne grabbed hold of the child’s vest and pulled him back to safety just as Ross lost his grip on the moss-covered rock. For a heartbeat, his gaze locked with hers and his lips formed her name. Then the swift current swept him over the falls.

A
nne found her way to the bottom of the falls, climbing down, sliding over the loose rocks as fast as she could . . . despite that she knew Ross’s broken body was all that awaited her. If she could find it . . .

Kitate had gone back along the river searching for his mother and sister and Niipan. Anne had tried to prevent the boy from leaving her. She’d told him it was too dangerous—the war party that had attacked them was still nearby and might strike again at any moment. Kitate had nodded solemnly, then melted into the forest.

One moment she was reasoning with him, and the next she was alone at the brink of the cataract. She’d tried to find Kitate, but the woods were so thick that she realized she’d be lost as soon as she was out of earshot of the falls. So she’d returned to the river to search for Ross.

Below the waterfalls, the river spilled out into a deep, wide tarn before rushing through a rocky channel to form whitewater rapids. The base of the cascade was a tumble of strewn boulders and foaming water. Mist rose above the water’s surface, distorting Anne’s vision as she crept close to the edge searching for the one thing she dreaded to find.

He was floating there, facedown, at the edge of the pool in the shallows. Heedlessly, she plunged in and swam back to the bank with his body. He was heavy, much too heavy for her to pull up on shore. Somehow, she did. She dragged him up the slight incline, and water gushed from his mouth. Hope surged through her. She rolled him onto his back and shook him, crying out his name desperately. “Ross. Ross.”

His beautiful, dark eyes were open and fixed; his tanned complexion had taken on a ghastly shade of blue. The bullet wound along the side of his head had ceased to bleed.

He wasn’t breathing.

“Don’t do this to me,” she sobbed. “Don’t die on me, you great barbarian half-breed.” She wound her fingers in his hair and lifted his head. Only traces of the paint he had worn remained. Tenderly, she kissed each spot, letting her tears run down his cold, pale cheeks. “Oh, Ross, don’t leave me. I don’t want to live if you leave me.”

For an instant, she thought she saw a flicker of life. She laid her face against his bare chest, listening for the beat of his heart. There was nothing. “My darling,” she murmured. Pain greater than any she had ever known twisted her insides. She raised his limp hand to her cheek and kissed his palm.

“You’ve given me more happiness than I dreamed possible,” she whispered. “Feathers, and paint, and absurd Scots bonnet . . . I’d not trade one night with you to be Queen of England.”

She bent over him and kissed his cool, unyielding lips as memories of the first time she’d ever seen him swept over her.

Ross had ridden into the church and carried her off in a whirlwind. She’d hated him . . . and fought with him before she’d come to love him.

“You made me feel!” she said fervently. “I walked though my life half asleep, and you made me wake and laugh and cry. You gave me hope.”

If she closed her eyes, she could hear him singing, could hear the poignant notes of gypsy violins in the moonlight and the crash of the waves against the
Laird’s Bounty
when they’d almost drowned in the hurricane.

“Please, God,” she whispered, “don’t take him like this.”

Panic took hold of her, and she began to tremble.
He’s dead,
a voice in her head intoned.
Dead.

“No!” she screamed. “I won’t let him be dead! I won’t.” Using all her strength, she rolled him onto his side and pounded on his back with her fists. More water ran from his mouth, but still Ross showed no signs of life. “Wake up!” she insisted. “Wake up, damn you! I won’t let you get away this easily. I won’t.”

She released him, and he fell forward heavily and lay facedown on the grass. Anne threw herself across his back and sobbed dry sobs of futile desperation. Unconsciously, her fingers tightened around her golden amulet. If only the magic were real, she thought. If only I could wish breath into him and . . .

“Make him live,” she whispered. “If love means anything . . . if there is a God or magic under heaven, please, give him back to me.”

“Ye maun say the words.”

Startled, Anne looked up to see Leah standing a few feet away from her. Niipan was holding the baby; Kitate stood behind him at the edge of the trees. Leah was pale and leaning on a bow for support, but she was walking under her own power. “You’re alive—” she began.

“Nay!” the Indian girl cried. “There is no time for talk! The Eye of Mist. Use it! Call upon it. Save him. Now!”

Bewildered, Anne’s gaze flicked from her friend to her amulet. “How could you know—”

“Ye have a wish. Use it!”

Suddenly, Anne seemed to feel a throbbing heat from the golden charm. A blessing and a curse, her father had said.
“Whatever you ask you shall have—even unto the power of life and death.”
The burning surged through her fingers and gave her strength.

“I call upon the Eye of Mist,” Anne whispered. “If this is God’s blessing and not the devil’s work, my wish is that Ross Campbell will live.” She glanced up at Leah, and hope faded. The man beneath her seemed no more alive than he had before.

“Give him your breath,” Leah urged. “Breathe life into his mouth. Do it!”

As though in a trance, knowing it was useless, Anne raised Ross’s head and blew air into his mouth.

“Again!” Leah commanded.

It was easier to obey than admit that he was lost to her. Again, she puffed air through his cold lips.

A shudder ran through his body.

Anne inhaled as deeply as she could and blew in.

Ross coughed, and his eyes opened.

Leah grabbed one shoulder and motioned Anne to take the other. They raised him to a sitting position, and Leah weeping openly, slapped him on the back.

Ross groaned, leaned forward, and choked up what seemed like a bucket of river water. Anne was shaking and laughing all at once as he coughed and gasped and began to curse the men who had attacked them.

When he could stand, he opened his arms and Anne went into them. “Ye be safe?” he asked hoarsely.

She clung to him and touched his face with trembling fingers. “I had the sense not to go over the falls.” He hugged her against him so tightly she couldn’t breathe. But it didn’t matter—she could hear the powerful throbbing of his heart. Questions filled her mind, but she pushed them back. She didn’t care how he was alive. He was, and that was what mattered.

Then, almost at the same instant, they remembered Moonfeather’s injury. Anne tore herself away from Ross and went to her friend’s side. “You were hurt,” she said. “And the baby—”

“Cami’s neck was only grazed by the arrow,” Leah replied. “She lost blood, but her wound does not even have to be sewn. Her cradleboard stopped the arrow from going too deeply into my back. My own injury be slight.”

“Slight?” Anne stared at her friend in disbelief. “But you were unconscious.”

A flush crept up to tint Leah’s cheekbones. “Aye. I have shame to be so weak,” she admitted. “Niipan stopped the bleeding.”

Anne took the baby from the Indian brave’s arms. Cami’s dress was stained with blood, but the gouge on her neck had crusted over and didn’t seem serious. The toddler put her arms around Anne’s neck and gurgled merrily.

Niipan handed Ross a musket and powderhorn. The brave said something to him in Algonquian, and Ross nodded as he slung the weapons over his back.

“What of Liiuan?” Anne asked.

Leah frowned. “He is gone, my sister. The Shawnee do not speak of the dead by name. We looked for his body, but could not find it. The village is only a half day’s march. We maun go quickly before we are attacked again. Men will come back to search for my cousin—to bring him home for burial. But it be nay safe here. We maun go.”

Anne looked at Ross, and he nodded. “What she says is true, hinney. I don’t know why they didn’t stay and finish us off. With Indians, there’s no telling. But the best thing for us to do is get clear of here fast.”

“You told me we were safe,” she said. “You told me that no one would attack a peace woman and her party.” She wanted to stay close to Ross—to hold his hand, to touch him and keep touching him to be certain she wasn’t dreaming. “Leah is hurt. You’re hurt.” The wound on Ross’s head was seeping blood.

“We’re alive,” he answered, “although I admit I feel like I’ve been kicked half to death by a horse.” He rubbed at the swelling on his head. “And as to who attacked us—”

“They used Seneca arrows,” Leah said softly, pulling an arrow from her waist. “I took this from Cami’s cradleboard.” She held the feathered shaft up for them to see. The wood was stained with dark spots. “But this”—she lifted a bow—“this bow is Shawnee.”

Niipan spat on the ground. “Matiassu,” he uttered with contempt.

“The men I faced dressed as Iroquois,” Ross agreed, “but they weren’t Seneca or any other member of the Five Nations.”

Leah’s eyes narrowed. “Matiassu. Only he would dare.” She looked meaningfully at Ross. “He cannot show his face at the High Council now.”

“Nay,” Ross replied. “He and his men will be outcast.”

“I don’t understand,” Anne said. “Who is this Matiassu, and why would he attack us if he’s Shawnee?”

“He is my enemy,” Leah answered. “Once, he wanted to be my husband, but now he hates me. He leads a band of warriors who break the peace, and he trades with Roquette the hair buyer. Matiassu would have come to High Council to argue for war. It may be that the people would have listened to his words—men are ever ready to kill each other. But Matiassu could not wait. He wanted me dead. He broke the greatest of Shawnee laws—he killed the brother of Niipan. Shawnee does not kill Shawnee. Now he will be—as you say—outlaw, and every man’s hand will be raised against him.”

“If he’s an outlaw, why didn’t he kill us all? Then no one could have testified against him.”

“He probably thought Moonfeather and I were dead,” Ross said. “It could be that he didna want to risk any more of his men trying to kill you and Niipan and the boy. Matiassu could have been killed or wounded. He could have been frightened by an owl. God knows, Anne. He’s Shawnee. There’s no saying why he’d do a thing or not do it.”

“But you didn’t see him. You can’t be certain it was Matiassu.”

“Aye,” Leah agreed. “What ye say is true. But if Matiassu does not come to council, then he shows his guilt.”

Anne caught her arm. “Before, when Ross was . . . unconscious. How did you know the name of my necklace? Did Ross tell you about it? How did you know about the legend that goes with it?” She still was not certain what had happened on the riverbank. She’d thought Ross was dead, and now he was alive and giving orders. She wondered if . . . It was too much to try and understand. This she could ask. “Leah?”

The Indian girl smiled and reached for the cord around her neck. Tugging on it, she pulled an amulet from under the bodice of her dress. It shone yellow gold in the sunlight.

Anne stared in disbelief. The charm looked like her own.

“See,” Leah continued softly. She drew the necklace over her head and held it against Anne’s. The two pieces fitted together perfectly. “Don’t you understand?” she said. “They are the same. Both be parts of the Eye of Mist given to us by our father, Cameron Stewart, when we were bairns. I be your friend, Anne, but I be more. We are blood sisters.”

 

Sisters.
Leah’s words echoed in Anne’s brain in the hours that followed. They marched by night, silent and quick. There was no opportunity for speech, but Anne needed none. She needed only to try and sort out all that had happened that day. How many times had Leah called her sister? Yet, never had she realized that the term was anything more than a symbol of their friendship.

Leah’s statement that they were blood sisters was impossible to believe—but more impossible to deny. Cameron Stewart . . . he was the link that bound them together. Their blood father.

Anne had known that Cameron had spent seven years in America—Barbara had mentioned it many times. She’d seen Indian articles that Cameron had brought back with him. But she’d never thought of him fathering a child in the wilderness. And even if she’d known he had, it was inconceivable that her friend Leah might be that child.

The amulet had been solid proof. Leah’s charm was triangular shaped, her own rectangular, but the incised decoration was the same, and the golden amulets fitted together as though they were one. As she and Leah had fitted together . . . Even in England, Anne had recognized that Leah was a friend to be found only once in a lifetime. That a friend might be a longed-for sister was a blessing she’d not thought to receive.

I’ve never had anything that counted, Anne marveled over and over. I never had a family. Now I have a sister and a father.

Cameron was in Annapolis. Leah had told her so in the brief moments before they’d begun the walk to the Shawnee village. If she and Ross had docked in Annapolis, she might have seen him.

There were so many questions she wanted to ask, so many voids to be filled . . .

Leah had explained that Cameron had come to America with her and Brandon. He’d wanted to be near Leah and Cami, to be part of their family.

“Brandon makes a planter of wheat,” Leah had said. “Our father works beside him in the fields. You would not know him as a court gallant—he looks much younger. Brandon swears Cameron has lost two stone and ten years. The riding and plain food are good for him. He will be so full of joy to see ye, Anne. He talks of ye often.”

A father.
Tears filled her eyes as she thought of what it must mean to have a real father—not a man such as her mother’s husband, Langstone, had been to her. Even as a child she’d known Lord Langstone despised her; she simply hadn’t known why.

A sister, a father, and a husband. The curious tickling in her throat had made her want to laugh—to dance. She had a family. The knowledge straightened her shoulders and gave strength to her legs and back so that she hardly felt the weight of little Cami in her cradleboard.