Читать книгу Shawnee Bride - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 10

Wolf Heart caught the subtle widening of her eyes. He saw the terror that glinted in their clear green depths. He felt the tension in her slim white foot where it balanced on his bent knee. The girl had courage. Perhaps too much courage for her own good.

At first, when she had defied him, even teased him, he had thought her merely foolish. Now he saw that she was well aware of her danger. Even so, she hid her fear, masking it with boldness.

“Tell me,” she demanded, fixing him with a brazen gaze. “What is your name?”

“In your tongue, my name means Wolf Heart,” he said, bending close to twist a stubborn thorn from her heel. She winced as it came free, the small wound oozing blood. How could she have walked so far on those sore, tender feet without a whimper of complaint?

“I mean your real name,” she persisted annoyingly.

He froze, scowling up at her. “I just told you my real name.”

“All right, -then, your old name. Your Christian name.”

“Seth Johnson.” The long-forgotten syllables were hard to form. They left him wanting to rinse out his own mouth for having spoken them.

“My name is Clarissa. Clarissa Rogers,” she said lightly, as if she were meeting some swain at a party. “May I call you Seth?”

“No.” Wolf Heart carefully brushed the last of the dirt and twigs from her left foot, wishing she would be quiet and leave him alone. But, he sensed she was formulating more questions, and he knew that she would allow him no peace until she had her answers.

“Since you’re bound to ask, I was adopted by the Shawnee when I was eleven years old,” he said. “They raised me as one of their own. I am Shawnee, and my true name is Wolf Heart.”

A quiver passed through her fragile body as he lifted her right foot, cradling it, for the space of a heartbeat, between his big rough hands.

“And did the Shawnee try you as they will try me?” she asked, lowering her voice to a taut whisper.

“Yes.” He worked a small, sharp stone from the ball of her foot and used his finger to stanch the bead of crimson blood it left behind.

“Tell me about it,” she said. “I want to be ready.”

“When you need to know, then I will tell you.” He gazed down at her bruised, bleeding legs, trying not to think of the gauntlet and what it would do to her pale flesh. At that moment, he wished with all his heart she could be spared the ordeal. But that was not the Shawnee way.

“Are you hungry?” He spoke into the gulf of silence that had fallen between them.

“I could probably force myself to eat a bite or two.” Her eyes glittered defiance. “Untie my wrists, and I’ll help myself to whatever you’re serving.”

Wolf Heart hesitated, then shook his head, knowing he could not trust those swift hands of hers unfettered. “First I will finish with your feet,” he said decisively. “Then I will feed you myself.”

He drew his own steel hunting knife and saw her shrink back from him, her eyes as startled as a doe’s. Without speaking, he seized a handful of her ragged petticoat and began slashing a strip as wide as his hand from around the hem.

Her spunk returned as she realized what he was doing. “You owe me for one fine English petticoat!” she bantered.

“I’ll pay you in food.” He finished cutting the strip and began wrapping it in tight layers around her foot. The cloth would wear out rapidly, but at least it should protect her bleeding soles long enough to reach the canoe.

The girl watched him in tense silence as he worked. Clarissa. His mind toyed with her name, turning it over like a glistening river stone. It was a flower name, a name that whispered of pink satin ribbons, dancing slippers and tea in thin little china cups. Clarissa.

“What happened to your family?” she asked, the question pushing into his thoughts. “Did the Shawnee kill them?”

He shot her a glare. “No. I was an orphan. Even that is more than you need to know.”

“I’m an orphan, too,” she said, studying him with those disconcerting eyes. “My brother Junius sent me to Fort Pitt to find a husband.”

“And did you find one?” He had finished wrapping her left foot and started on her right. He was looking down as he spoke and, thus, was totally unprepared for the responding tinkle of laughter. It was a musical sound, as light as the trill of a bird. He glanced up at her, halfstartled.

“Find a husband? Gracious, no!” she exclaimed, her pale cheeks dimpling. “Unless, of course, you’d be willing to fill the job. Junius isn’t fussy. He just wants me out of the way.”

Wolf Heart bent his attention to the wrapping of her foot. Shawnee girls could also be bold and saucy. That he knew all too well. Yet this fragile creature, bruised, starved and probably frightened half to death, was the most impudent female he had ever met in his life. Her spirit moved and astounded him.

But he could not soften toward her, Wolf Heart admonished himself. This intriguing prisoner was not his to judge. She belonged, even now, to the people of his tribe, and he could not let himself be swayed, either by her fragile beauty or by her white blood. Her fate was out of his hands.

“You need to eat.” He reached into the small parfleche that hung at his waist, drew out a thin strip of smoked venison and thrust it toward her.

“Ugh! What’s that?” She drew back, wrinkling her elegant nose m distaste. “It looks awful and smells even worse!”

“It’s just deer meat,” Wolf Heart said irritably.

He tore off a small chunk from the dark, dry slab. Her gaze widened sharply as his fingers moved the morsel toward her mouth. “It looks raw,” she said, shrinking away from him.

“Smoked and salted. Try it.”

She shook her head in a show of defiance. This, Wolf Heart swiftly realized, was to be a contest of wills. “How long has it been since you ate?” he demanded.

“What difference does it—” Her question ended in a choking sound as he shoved the sliver of meat into her open mouth, seized her jaw between his two hands and held it shut. Inches from his own, her green eyes blazed like a bobcat’s.

“You are going to eat if I have to stuff this down your throat!” he said in a low, menacing voice. “Now chew!”

Her gaze shot daggers as he held her, his fingers framing her temples, his thumbs bracing her jaw. She smelled of river moss, and her cheeks were as soft as the petals of the wild hawthorn blossom. A vein throbbed beneath the translucent skin of her throat.

Wolf Heart found himself growing acutely aware of her body and the way the mud-stiffened bodice of her gown had molded to her small, perfect breasts. He remembered their savage struggle on the riverbank, her slim legs tangling so wildly with his own. Even now, the thought of it triggered a freshet of heat that trickled downward to pool in his loins.

This was not good, he lectured himself. Being this close to her was filling his head with thoughts that would only weaken his resolve and make everything more difficult. Clarissa Rogers was nothing but a red-haired bundle of trouble. She was the kind of female who could get under a man’s skin and fester there like a blackberry spine. He would be a fool not to keep a safe distance.

With a sharp exhalation, he forced himself to let her go. She sagged backward, her gaze searing his senses.

“Very well, I won’t force you to eat,” he said evenly. “But you’re going to need all your strength in the days ahead. Your life will depend on it, Clarissa. That much I can promise you.”

For an instant her pride wavered. Then a single tear glimmered in her angry eyes. Without a word, she began to chew the venison he had given her, gingerly at first, then with ravenous hunger. Her swanlike throat jerked as she swallowed.

Bit by bit, he fed her nearly half of the smoked venison. She might have eaten it all, but Wolf Heart feared that so much meat on an empty stomach might make her sick.

Her eyes watched him guardedly as he replaced the leftover meat in the parfleche. She had not uttered a word the whole time she was eating. Only now, as he stepped back and motioned for her to stand, did she clear her throat and speak.

“Don’t expect me to thank you for the food,” she said. “If you really want my thanks, you’ll untie me and let me go.”

“You wouldn’t last a day out here on your own.” He stepped back onto the trail and waited for her to take her place in front of him. She moved obediently ahead, then swung angrily back to face him.

“Are my chances any better with the Shawnee?” she flared. “What if I don’t pass my so-called trial? What if I’m not judged worthy to live? What then? Why don’t you just kill me here and now?”

Wolf heart met her eyes, steeling himself against the fear in their green depths—the fear that was already eating away at his conscience. He remembered his own boyhood ordeal, the stark terror that had kept him on his feet and driven him through the gauntlet. Maybe it would be the same for Clarissa. Her delicate body housed a fighting spirit, that much he already knew. But would it be enough?

She glared up at him with the ferocity of a trapped animal, and for an instant Wolf Heart was tempted to reveal everything she would be facing. He swiftly checked himself. Knowing would only heighten her fear. It would only serve to worsen her ordeal.

He forced himself to give her a hard look. “Turn around and walk, Clarissa,” he said quietly. “We have a long way to go.”

The canoe lay at the river’s edge, concealed by a thicket of overhanging willows. Fashioned of birch bark, the brown inner side facing outward, it was an elegant little craft, as sleek and graceful as the point of a spear.

The sight of it filled Clarissa with a mingled rush of relief and dismay. Wolf Heart had set a grueling pace on the trail, draining every drop of her endurance. Bone weary and sore, she welcomed the prospect of resting her battered feet. But reaching the canoe also meant they were nearing the Shawnee village where she would face a fate so terrible that he had refused even to speak of it.

Tossing her hair out of her eyes, she slumped against a tree. She could feel Wolf Heart’s keen blue eyes watching her every motion, but he had not touched her since their encounter over the meat. He had scarcely spoken, in fact; not even earlier, when she’d insisted that he turn his back while she squatted wretchedly in the grass to relieve herself. He had shut himself away to become as silent and mysterious as the forest itself.

His sun-gilded body glistened with sweat as he bent to slide the canoe into the river. Except for his eyes, this man, christened Seth Johnson, could have passed for a full-blooded Shawnee. He had dark bronze skin overlaying a lithe, muscular body. His flowing black hair and liquid way of moving blended with the elements of wind and water, sunlight and shadow. His face was satin smooth with no trace of beard. How could that be? Clarissa wondered. Perhaps later she would ask him—if she lived long enough.

The canoe lay rocking gently in a shallow bed of water. “Climb in,” Wolf Heart ordered her gruffly. Then, seeing that she would not be able to balance in the wobbly craft with her hands tied, he straightened, moved close to her and began loosening the knot of the leather thongs that bound her wrists.

Clarissa stood very still, her heart hammering as she felt the brush of his fingertips and the stir of his breath in her hair. His skin smelled lightly of rain and wood smoke. She fought the strange compelling urge to strain forward and taste him with the tip of her tongue.

For the space of a breath, time seemed to freeze. Then the leather thong fell away, freeing her arms. He stepped back as Clarissa rubbed the circulation into her tingling wrists.

“No tricks,” he warned her gruffly, “or I’ll truss you up like a dead deer and sling you into the bottom of the canoe.”

She nodded, more in acknowledgment than promise. If any chance arose to escape, Clarissa knew she would take it.

He crouched to hold the canoe’s edge until she could sit down in the prow, facing forward with her muddy ragged skirts piled around her. “Hang on to that cross brace,” he said, his glance indicating a smooth wooden bar in front of her. “There’s some rough water out there.”

She twisted back to look at him. “You don’t have to do this,” she pleaded. “Let me go and forget you ever saw me. I’ll take my chances in the woods.”

The only answer to her plea was the subtle tightening of Wolf Heart’s jaw.

Clarissa felt the canoe scrape the bottom of the shallow inlet as he took his place behind her and pushed off with the paddle. Swiftly they glided out into the flooded river.

Clarissa gasped as the flood-swollen current struck the canoe, sweeping it into an eddy, swirling it around and around like a windblown leaf. She clung white knuckled to the brace, spray lashing her cheeks as the bow dipped and danced through the water. Haunted by the nightmare ride on the flatboat, she battled rising waves of panic.

Behind her, she could hear Wolf Heart laboring with the paddle. She could hear the deep, steady passage of air in and out of his powerful lungs. He was not afraid, she suddenly realized. He knew the river’s nature and how to use it, how to move in harmony with the current, not against it.

Clarissa felt her fear easing. She leaned forward, the breeze lifting her hair as the water foamed along the narrow bow. Her hands kept their tight grip on the cross brace. Except for the persistent churning of her stomach she could almost believe she was going to survive this wild ride.

Moments later they shot out of the rapids and entered a calmer stretch of water. Clarissa slumped over the bow. “Are you all right?” she heard Wolf Heart ask.

“I’m just dandy,” she snapped, feeling dizzy and nauseous. “For someone who’s been half-drowned, forcemarched barefoot through the woods, stuffed with halfraw meat and taken on a giant whirligig ride, I’m doing magnificently! Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

She leaned over the side of the bobbing canoe and proceeded to lose everything he had so insistently fed her.

Behind her, dead silence had fallen. In the midst of that silence she heard Wolf Heart chuckle. The sound was so deep and warm and startling that, for all her miserable condition, it sent a shock of pleasure through her body-pleasure that was swiftly replaced by outrage. Shawnee or white, this backwoods ruffian had no right to laugh at her discomfort.

She turned around and shot him a malevolent glare, only to see him grinning broadly at her. “Clarissa Rogers, you’re a caution,” he said.

“A caution?” She shook her head at the homeyness of the word, coming as it did from a bare-chested savage with silver disks in his ears and two eagle feathers jutting from his scalp lock. “I have no idea what you mean by that!”

Sunlight rippled on his massive shoulders as he maneuvered the canoe expertly around a large boulder. “You’ve been through enough to undo most white women,” he said. “But you still haven’t lost your spunk.”

“I can see you don’t know much about white women!” Clarissa huffed, still feeling light-headed. “Did you expect me to swoon? Did you expect me to whimper and cry like a helpless little ninny? For your information, I’m way beyond that now. I’ve long since had all the crying scared out of me!”

Turning her back on him, she frowned down at the greenish brown river, wondering how deep it was. If she could touch bottom, she might be able to wade ashore and flee into the woods. She would be taking a dangerous chance, but even drowning could prove to be a kinder fate than the unknown terrors awaiting her in the Shawnee village.

“Where do you come from?” she asked, resolving to bide her time and wait for exactly the right spot in the river. “Your speech, some of the things you say—you don’t sound as if you started life in a log hut on the Allegheny.”

When he did not answer, Clarissa realized she had stepped on to forbidden ground. As a man who had buried his past, Wolf Heart was clearly uncomfortable with her question.

“Very well, if you won’t talk, I will,” she said, setting out to distract him with chatter. “My father was a cloth merchant. He owned one of the finest shops in Baltimore. He and my mother were very happy, as I recall, but she died when I was six, and the rest of my upbringing was left to our housekeeper, Mrs. Pimm.”

She spoke into the breeze, letting her words float back to the brooding presence behind her. “My father passed away seven years ago, and, of course, my brother Junius, who was already grown, inherited the house and the business. We never did get on well, Junius and I. He’s made no secret of counting the days until I take my dowry and leave him alone with his precious, moldy, old ledger books.”

Clarissa glanced back over her shoulder to see if Wolf Heart was listening. His stony face had assumed a mask of studied indifference.

“My dowry includes a fine ten-acre parcel of land just outside the city and fifty pounds in gold,” she continued, ignoring his silence. “All of it, of course, will go to my husband when I marry.”

Her voice trailed off as it struck her that, in all likelihood, she would not live to bestow her dowry, or herself, on any future husband. Her land and money would go to the penny-pinching Junius, to gather dust with the rest of his possessions. Her bones would lie in unmarked earth, somewhere in this alien wilderness, unmourned and unremembered.

Tears blurred Clarissa’s sight. She blinked them furiously away, determined not to show emotion before her grim captor. Straightening her shoulders, she cleared her throat to speak again, but no words would come. Her hands whitened on the cross brace as the silence grew more and more oppressive.

“I was born in Boston.” Wolf Heart’s voice, low and husky behind her, sent a tremor through Clarissa’s body. “My father was a schoolmaster, a good and gentle man until my mother died. Then he took to drink, and that changed everything.”

He lapsed into silence once more, and Clarissa sensed the struggle that raged inside him. He was not a man who revealed himself easily, that she already knew. This slow opening of his past left her strangely touched, as if, in exchange for her empty prattle, he had presented her with a rare and valuable gift.

Quiet minutes passed, broken only by the ripple of the water and the calls of morning songbirds. At last he cleared his throat and spoke again, each word laced with the pain of memory.

“The whiskey turned my father into a violent, foulmouthed stranger. The more he drank, the more he cursed and beat me. I should have run away, but I was only a boy, and he was all the family I had.

“After we lost our home to the moneylenders, he began having grand dreams about making a fortune in the fur trade. He hired both of us out until he’d saved enough for traps. Then we headed west—farther west than any reasonable white man would have gone alone. We were trapping beaver near the mouth of the Little Miami when a bear came charging out of the willows. She grabbed my father before he could even turn around.” Even now, Wolf Heart’s words quivered with self-blame. “I couldn’t save him. All I could do was run for my life.” He emptied his lungs in a ragged exhalation. “The boy named Seth Johnson died that day. He was reborn as a Shawnee.”

Stillness lay like a wall between them, growing thicker, heavier. “The Shawnee found you and took you in?” Clarissa prompted when she could bear it no longer.

“They offered me everything I thought I’d lost,” he said. “Family. Honor. Kindness. A life filled with meaning and purpose.”

“And when they put you on trial—” a bitter undertone had crept into Clarissa’s voice “—did you prove yourself worthy to live among them?”

“Yes.”

She strained to hear his half-whispered reply.

“As I have had to prove myself many times over. Even now.”

The canoe shot forward as he drove the paddle hard into the current. Clarissa stared bleakly ahead—trees, willows and water blending into streaks of muted spring color. She knew now why Wolf Heart had taken her prisoner, and why he would never let her go. To show compassion for a white captive would prove, to him and to all his adopted tribe, that he was not a true Shawnee. He would be an outcast, torn from a world he had come to know and love.

She could expect no mercy from him.

They were passing through a level stretch of river. Here the floodwaters had crept outward across the bottomlands to form a lake, so calm and glassy that the current was scarcely visible. Clarissa stared down at the clouded water, wondering what lay beneath it. Surely, with the river spread so wide, it could not be more than a few feet deep in any spot. Better yet, the bank on the near side was thick with brush and willows. If she could reach them, it might be possible to duck beneath the water, then surface and hide in the shelter of the trailing branches until Wolf Heart gave her up for drowned.

Clarissa’s mind reeled with the daring of her idea. It was a reckless scheme, to be sure. But a fighting chance at escape was better than no chance at all.

She glanced back at Wolf Heart, hoping to catch him off guard. He was watching her intently.

“How far is your village?” she asked in a ploy to lure him back into conversation.

“Not far.” His paddle rippled through the silky water. “We will be there before sundown.”

“You were a long way from home when you found me,” she ventured. “What were you doing?”

“Trailing a bear.”

“A bear?” Clarissa’s reflexes jerked. She imagined herself lying unconscious on the riverbank, the monstrous beast lumbering out of the trees to sniff at her inert body.

“It came to nothing,” Wolf Heart said. “I lost the trail not long before I found you.”

“At least you won’t be coming home empty-handed.” Clarissa made a show of finger-combing her matted curls, drawing his gaze upward as, beneath her skirts, her legs shifted for the leap to freedom. Her pounding heart seemed to fill her whole chest and throat as she tensed, then sprang upward and hurled herself out over the surface of the river.

For the barest instant she hung suspended between sun and water. Then the cold strangling wetness closed around her and she began to sink. Her kicking feet groped for the bottom that, by all reason, should have been within easy reach. It was not there.

Too late, Clarissa realized how wrong she had been. The nver was far deeper here than it had appeared from the surface, and now its strong undertow was pulling her down. Her bursting lungs released a trail of bubbles in the darkness. Her mouth gulped for air and took in water. Her legs and arms thrashed frantically as her oxygenstarved mind began to dim.

She was already beginning to drown.