Читать книгу Shawnee Bride - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 11

Wolf Heart cursed under his breath—a white man’s curse—as his prisoner plunged over the side of the canoe and vanished headlong into the brown swirl of water. His annoyance was directed more at himself than at Clarissa Rogers. He should have known she would try something like this.

His first impulse was to dive in after her, but he swiftly checked himself. To jump into the river would mean losing the canoe and all his provisions. It would be easy enough to paddle to shore ahead of her. That way he would be there waiting to confront her when she staggered, dripping and exhausted, onto the bank.

He turned the canoe broadside to the current, expecting at any moment to see Clarissa’s head bob into sight, her russet hair streaming behind her like a long wet foxtail as she stroked through the water. The undercurrent was strong in this part of the river, but the bank was no more than a stone’s throw away. A good swimmer would be able to cover the distance in a few minutes’ tune. And surely, if Clarissa was not a good swimmer, she would not have jumped.

Seconds passed, measured in long deep breaths and expectant heartbeats. More seconds crawled by, and still she did not appear. Wolf Heart’s instincts shrilled in alarm as he realized something was wrong.

In a flash his lean body knifed into the river, leveling out an arm’s length below the surface. Water filled his vision, so murky with silt that he could barely see his own hands, let alone any sign of Clarissa.

Sick with dread he stroked deeper, heading downstream, the way the current would have carried her. The boyhood ordeal by which he had earned his pa-waw-ka served him well now. Every morning, for four long winter moons, he had forced himself to dive naked into the frigid river. On the final day, with the whole village looking on, he had made three dives, the last one carrying him beneath the ice to the Ohio’s dark bed, where his searching hand had clasped the translucent shell he carried now in his medicine pouch.

That long dive came back to him now as he groped for Clarissa’s slender, elusive body. He remembered the fear, the darkness, the deadly cold. As he had once found his pa-waw-ka, he knew he had to find her.

Lungs bursting, he surfaced at last. His eyes scanned the milky surface of the river as he gulped air, then dove again. Could she be playing with him, hiding somewhere out of sight, laughing behind her hands as he searched frantically in the water? He would not put that past the little vixen—but no, a black inner certainty told him the danger was real.

The current was rougher here. Wolf Heart could feel its pull as the river swept him toward an outcrop of rocks. If he did not find her soon…

His pulse leaped as his fingers brushed a mass of flowing hair, long and fine and silky to the touch. He seized it, and in the next instant felt her head, her throat, her face. He reached lower and caught her waist. She did not respond.

With a wrenching tug, he pulled her body clear from where it had wedged between two underwater boulders. She drifted beside him, as lifeless and unresisting as a doll, as he kicked for the surface, made a final upward lunge and broke with her into the sunlight.

Clarissa lolled in his arms, blue from lack of air. A vein pulsed along the curve of her throat, but she was not breathing.

He plunged for the shallows, lifting her in his arms as his feet found bottom. Her wet hair fanned over his arms, its color like polished cedar. Her gown clung in water-soaked tatters to her delicately curved body. Wolf Heart glanced down at her closed eyelids, remembering her laughter, her maddening questions, her astounding courage. Bursting with effort, he surged ahead, bulling his way through the resisting water. Time and distance crept at a nightmare’s pace as he fought his way toward the river’s edge.

At last he broke free of the water, lurched onto the bank and rolled Clarissa belly-down onto the grass. With his knees, he straddled her waist, his urgent hands working her ribs, lifting, squeezing to imitate the motion of breath.

Why hadn’t he let her go free, back there in the woods? She was such a harmless creature, as fragile and innocent as a fawn. He could just as easily have trailed her back to Fort Pitt, protecting her from a distance until she reached safety. Now, whether she lived or died, it was too late. He had destroyed whatever life she had known, as surely as if he had crushed her skull with a war club.

A sudden shudder passed beneath his hands, a quiver of life that sent a thrill through Wolf Heart’s body. Knowing what must be done, he lifted her by the waist, letting her head hang down. Clarissa choked. Her corseted ribs convulsed as she vomited up a stomach full of dirty brown water.

Wolf Heart steeled himself as he lowered her trembling body to the grass and rolled her onto her back. It would have been easier if she had drowned, he lashed himself. Now, if anything, he was even more deeply torn than before.

She lay with her eyes closed, color flooding her pale cheeks as she breathed. The bodice of her gown, or what was left of it, molded wetly to her small firm breasts, the tatted edging of her camisole stained brown with river mud. The wet tangle of her hair lay pooled on the grass, framing her porcelain features with flame.

Wolf Heart looked down at her for a long moment, then glanced swiftly up at the sky, his fingertips brushing his medicine pouch.

Weshcat-welo k’weshe laweh-Pah. The words of his Shawnee mother, Black Wings, echoed in his memory. May we be strong by doing what is right.

His gaze dropped once more to Clarissa’s pale face. Weshemoneto, Master of Life, make me strong, he breathed in wordless prayer. Help me remember who I am and what I must do.

Clarissa opened her eyes to find him crouched over her, his hair dripping, his gaze deeply troubled. A muscle twitched in his cheek as their eyes met. As she stared up at him, the line of his mouth hardened into an angry scowl.

“What did you think you were doing?” he growled, the black tips of his brows almost touching above his nose. “I thought you had at least enough sense to stay in the canoe1”

“What…happened?” She blinked up at him, her mind still emerging from the fog of unconsciousness.

“You almost drowned, that’s what! Why did you try such a crazy thing, anyway?”

“I didn’t realize it would be so deep.” Clarissa’s throat felt as if she had swallowed a length of knotted hemp. Her ribs ached with every breath. The sun was a blur of light against the hot blue sky.

“You’re saying you don’t know how to swim?” He glowered down at her, angry and incredulous.

“Young ladies in Baltimore don’t usually take swimming lessons,” she retorted coldly.

“So you just jumped into a flooded river and expected

to float?”

“Of course not! I meant to wade ashore, not swim. I just underestimated the depth of the water, that’s all.”

He shook his regal head in disgust. “Did you think it would be that easy to get away from me?” he demanded.

“Not really.”

“Then why did you take such a foolish chance?”

Clarissa pushed herself up onto one shaky elbow, her hair tumbling into her water-reddened eyes. “The way I saw it, I had nothing to lose,” she said.

“Nothing to lose?” His eyes contained the fury of summer lightning. “That’s where you’re wrong. You’ve managed to lose something very important to both of us.”

His gaze flickered toward the river. Only then did Clarissa realize that the canoe was nowhere in sight. And only then, as she noticed the water drops glistening on Wolf Heart’s coppery skin, did she understand that once more she owed this man her life.

“Not only is the canoe gone,” he said with an undertone of menace, “but also my bow and arrows, my blanket and the corn cakes I was going to feed you as soon as you felt well enough to eat again. Even my parfleche was lost in the river. Now we will both go hungry.”

He rose to his full height, looming above her, his face a thundercloud. With one great fist, he caught Clarissa’s hand and jerked her upward. She staggered to her feet, her senses reeling dizzily.

“I tried to make this journey easy for you,” he said, turning her around and maneuvering her roughly ahead of him. “Youchose not to go along. Without the canoe, we have only one way to get to the village. Walk.”

It was his voice, rather than any perceived touch, that prodded Clarissa ahead. She willed one leaden foot to move, then the other. Her whole body ached. Her mouth tasted of sickness and river mud. The ground swam like water in her vision. But she would not give Wolf Heart the satisfaction of hearing so much as a whimper from her.

One foot. Then the other. She moved like a sleepwalker, conscious only of the dark presence behind her. Wolf Heart would not let her rest, she knew. He would march her all the way to his village.

She stumbled ahead, forcing each step. Then, abruptly, she blundered into a rain-filled hollow. Her leg buckled beneath her and she collapsed flat on the muddy ground.

Biting back a moan of despair, she braced her arms and worked her weight onto her knees. She would crawl if she had to, Clarissa swore, but she would die before she would beg this arrogant savage for mercy.

She inched forward, fingers clawing the mud. Suddenly the earth seemed to fall away beneath her. She gasped as Wolf Heart’s big hands enclosed her waist. His powerful arms swept her upward, turned her deftly in midair, and slung her face-backward over his shoulder. Without a word, he struck out downriver, covering the ground in long, swift-moving strides.

Dazed, Clarissa bobbed limply while the breath returned to her body. Then she began to struggle. Her legs kicked uselessly beneath the clasp of his arm. Her fists pummeled the only part of him they could reach—his muscular buttocks—only to stop abruptly when she realized she was pounding bare flesh.

Her face reddened in spite of her fear. “Put me down!” she sputtered. “Put me down this instant!”

“You’re saying you’d rather walk?” Wolf Heart did not break stride. His tone was almost pleasant, but Clarissa did not miss the edge to his question.

“That’s not the point! I’m a lady, for your information, and no man has a right to handle me this way!”

“Oh?” Disdain sharpened his voice. “And how would you like me to handle you?”

“With dignity! With respect!” Clarissa’s spirits sagged as she realized how ludicrous her demands must sound to him. Here she was, slung over his shoulder like a bag of oats. She was filthy, footsore, and facing a fate so horrible that she could not bear to imagine it. Dignity and respect had long since gone the way of the wind.

“Just let me go,” she pleaded, abandoning all pretense. “Turn your back and let me take my chances in the forest with the wild animals. Is that asking so much?”

Wolf Heart did not answer her. When Clarissa twisted her head, she could see that he was gazing upriver, his body tense and expectant

“Please, Wolf Heart,” she persisted. “I’m not your enemy. I mean your people no harm. Just leave me here. Forget you ever set eyes on me.”

His throat moved against the curve of her body. “It’s too late for that,” he said softly. “Look.”

Stooping, he lowered Clarissa’s feet to the ground. The blood rushed out of her head as she stood erect. She swayed dizzily, her vision swimming into darkness. Groping for Wolf Heart’s arm, she clung to his solid flesh with both hands. Slowly the world stopped spinning around her. Little by little her vision cleared.

She stared past him, her gaze following the sundappled river upstream. A blue heron took flight from the shallows, its long neck folded into its shoulders, its slender legs trailing behind like ribbons. Dazzled, she traced its streaking flight along the curve of the bank.

Only then did she see the three canoes. Still small in the distance, they were bearing swiftly downstream toward the sandbar where she and Wolf Heart stood.

It’s too late. His words spun in Clarissa’s mind as she stood helplessly, watching the canoes approach. It was too late to run. Too late to hide. Too late to plead for her freedom. She had run out of hope.

Wolf Heart raised an arm and waved. A lone paddler in one of the canoes waved back and, in a moment, the narrow craft had broken away from the others and was angling across the current, moving toward the bank.

Clarissa remained silent, her heart a pulsing knot of dread. Wolf Heart had not spoken to her in minutes-had not, in fact, even looked at her. He was all Shawnee now, every remnant of Seth Johnson buried beneath the visage of a warrior.

The canoe glided into the shallows. Its bow nosed up to the bank and crunched onto the sand. The brave wielding the paddle paused to rest, a grin spreading across his lean, pockmarked face.

“Tap-a-lot brother!” He greeted Wolf Heart, but his curious eyes were already devouring Clarissa in fascination. “You told us you were going to hunt bear. Is this a new kind of bear you have taken alive? No, it looks more like a fox! How splendid that red pelt will look on your bed!”

Wolf Heart scowled, his gaze flickering to Clarissa. She could not understand a word of what Cat Follower was saying, of course. But in the hours to come she would be the butt of many such good-natured jokes, and he silently ached for her. Yes, he lashed himself, he should have let her go while there was still time. Now it was too late.

“And what has become of your canoe?” Cat Follower’s grin widened, showing the gap of a missing tooth. “You look very wet, brother, as does your fox. Could it be that she spilled you both into the water? What a shame!”

“Never mind that,” Wolf Heart retorted a bit sharply. “It’s a long walk back to the village. Will your canoe carry all three of us?”

Cat Follower chuckled, one hand indicating the empty hull. “As you see, this was not a good day to go hunting. But my bad luck is your good luck. Since I have no game of my own, there is room for you, and for your whiteskinned fox, as well.”

“Then I owe you my thanks.” Wolf Heart nudged Clarissa toward the canoe. His fingertips brushed her back, feeling the fear in her taut muscles. This time, however, she did not try to fight or run away. She had no strength left.

He seated her in the prow of the canoe, then, pushing the craft off the sandbar, he slipped into place behind his friend and took up the spare paddle. Clarissa sat in rigid silence as the canoe glided into the current, her hair fluttering like a flame in the afternoon breeze.

Cat Follower’s wiry muscles rippled beneath his pockmarked skin as he guided the canoe. Years ago, his family had taken in a French trapper who had stumbled, delirious with fever, into their camp. The white man had recovered and moved on, but the sickness he carried had swept through the small Shawnee village. Only Cat Follower, then a youth of sixteen summers, had survived.

“What do you plan to do with her?” He was staring raptly at the play of sunlight on Clarissa’s hair.

“That is not for me to say.” Wolf Heart spoke around the painful tightness in his throat. “You know our law as well as I do. It is for the council to decide.”

“That will mean the gauntlet.” Cat Follower glanced back at Wolf Heart. “The council will demand it.”

“Yes, I know.”

“This one is not strong, brother. Look at her. She is as thin as a willow.”

Wolf Heart heard the note of caution in his friend’s voice, and he knew it was meant for him. Even for a man, the gauntlet was a brutal test. He could hardly expect a fragile, city-bred girl like Clarissa to weather such punishment.

Even so, as he watched her lean into the wind, her hair flying like a banner, Wolf Heart knew he could not abandon hope. “A willow bends,” he murmured quietly, “but it does not break.”

Clarissa heard the low voices behind her, speaking a tongue as alien as the chatter of wild geese or the baying of a wolf pack. The two men were talking about her—of that much she was certain. But maybe it was just as well she didn’t understand what they were saying. She was frightened enough as it was.

Her hands gripped the sides of the canoe as the slim craft sliced through a stretch of white water. The spray was cool on her skin, the canoe’s wild, careening plunges strangely exhilarating. Clarissa allowed herself to savor the moment. Soon, perhaps forever, all such pleasures would end.

With two paddlers, the canoe soon gained on its mates. Clarissa sensed the excitement among the other young braves as they turned to gaze at her, staring openly at her russet hair and pale skin. Resolving to be bold, she stared back at them. This, at least, gave her the opportunity to study her captors.

Earlier that day, she had observed that Wolf Heart, with his black hair and sun-burnished skin, could have passed for a full-blooded Shawnee. Now she saw how wrong she had been. He was far too large, for one thing. The Shawnee braves were compact and wiry, without an ounce of extra flesh on their bones. The rich coppery hue of their skins could never have come from the sun alone. The color seemed to glow in them, like light flickering beneath the surfaces of their bodies. For all the terror their sharp gazes struck in her, Clarissa had to admit that these Shawnee were beautiful people.

One of the braves called out, laughing. Wolf Heart’s reply was brusque, almost angry. What had the young man said? Had it been something about her?

She risked a glance back at Wolf Heart. He was sitting in the rear of the canoe, the muscles rippling in his arms as he drove the paddle into the water. His hair streamed back in glossy waves from his impassive face. What was he thinking? Why wouldn’t he look at her?

Fear tightened its cold grip on Clarissa’s throat. Her eyes gazed out at the sun-sparkled water. Her ears heard the laughter of the paddlers and the squawk of a passing crow. It was a sham, all of it, she knew. Death and danger lurked beneath the peace of this golden afternoon. Wolf Heart’s face had told her so.

The three canoes had drawn abreast now, and suddenly a shout echoed across the water. The braves leaned vigorously into their paddles. The canoes surged forward with a swiftness that made Clarissa gasp. It was a race! A race to the village!

She strained forward, caught up in spite of her fear. The canoe in which she was riding carried the most weight, and thus rode lowest in the water, but this handicap was balanced by the power of its paddlers. Even Wolf Heart had flung his strength into the contest, his mouth tightened in a grim line as he drove his paddle into the water.

The speed of the canoes became more labored as they turned into a narrow tributary of the Ohio. Now they were moving upstream. The bronze limbs of the young Shawnee gleamed with sweat. Their backs rose and fell with the strain of fighting the powerful current.

Just when it seemed they were all beginning to flag, the pockmarked brave behind her—Wolf Heart’s friend—started to sing. Clarissa felt the hair rise on the back of her neck as his thin voice rose to a high-pitched wail then dropped abruptly into a guttural, rhythmic chant that the other paddlers swiftly joined. The canoes surged ahead with renewed vigor, driven by the throbbing beat of the song.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Clarissa saw that even Wolf Heart was singing, although not with any great enthusiasm. She watched him furtively, her own spirit reflecting the blackness that had settled over him with the arrival of the canoes. If only she could talk with him, but that, she knew, would no longer be possible. He had withdrawn into his Shawnee self, and even now he was far beyond her reach.

Turning away from him, she gazed ahead to where the river curved and vanished behind a low, wooded bluff. A fresh breeze cooled her face. She inhaled deeply, flooding her senses with the faint but unmistakable aromas of wood smoke, roasting meat, tobacco and hominy.

Her ribs tightened sharply as if someone had jerked a noose around her. The very smells she was savoring meant that the Shawnee village could not be far. Soon she would know what her fate was to be.

The brightness had faded from the day. The sun lay a finger’s breadth above the trees now, blurred by a haze of low-lying clouds. Soon it would be dusk, then nightfall.

Clarissa filled her gaze with the dying light, with the deepening blue of the sky, the pale green of budding trees and the soft earthen red of spring willows. These she would hold in her memory to save for the time when darkness closed around her.

She did not expect to see another sunrise.

Wolf Heart’s village was nestled in the lee of the bluff, overlooking the river. Cook fires flickered in the gathering twilight. Smoke curled from the roofs of loaf-shaped bark lodges that ringed from a larger building made of logs.

As the three canoes glided toward shore, Clarissa could see people running down the path to the river—children of all sizes, women, some with babies in their arms, and a few men. They clustered along the bank, pointing and jabbering. She turned to ask Wolf Heart what they were saying, but the coldness in his eyes withered her halfformed words. She would get no answers from him—not in front of his people.

But what did it matter? She needed no interpreter to know that the people clustered along the bank were talking about her, exclaiming over her red hair and pale skin. She held her head high, battling the urge to hide her head beneath her ragged skirts.

Wolf Heart and his pockmarked friend had paddled the canoe in a half circle, rotating it so that when the small craft touched land, Wolf Heart was able to leap out and pull it onto the beach. Clarissa, now in the rear, turned to meet his stony gaze. His head jerked toward the village, an indication, she guessed, that she was to climb out of the canoe and follow him.

Only when she tried to stand did she realize how weak she was. Dark blotches swam before her eyes. Her cramped legs threatened to buckle beneath her—and would have, perhaps, if the pockmarked brave had not caught her arm. She allowed him to steady her as she climbed over the edge of the canoe and stumbled on to the sand. His leathery hand released her cautiously. His curious eyes followed her as she lifted her head and, summoning the last of her strength, tottered up the slope on her blistered, swollen feet.

The Shawnee people were all around her now. Inquisitive fingers caught her hair, tugged her skirts and poked at her strange white skin. Panic tightened its stranglehold around Clarissa’s rib cage. She fought back a scream as one wrinkled crone seized a handful of her hair, yanking so hard that Clarissa feared she was about to be scalped.

Terror exploded in her. She spun wildly, flailing at the groping hands and peering faces. She wanted only to get away, to breathe, but they were clawing at her limbs now, their sheer numbers dragging her down. She felt herself stumbling, falling.

“Wolf Heart!” The cry tore from her fear-strangled throat. “Wolf Heart!”

Suddenly he was there beside her, his arm catching her waist, lifting her as she went down. Clarissa heard his voice speaking quietly but firmly in Shawnee. The people were listening. They were backing away, clearing a path.

She sagged against his shoulder, trembling as they moved forward together. “It’s all right,” he muttered, leaning close to her ear. “They won’t hurt you. They’re only curious.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” She gripped his arm, her broken fingernails pressing anxiously into his flesh.

“That’s for the council to decide.”

“And when will they do that?”

“Tonight. Maybe tomorrow.” He spoke tersely, his voice revealing no trace of emotion. “You’re to be given food. Eat it all. Rest tonight while you have the chance.”

“And tomorrow?” She swung back to face him, ignoring the pressing crowd as she forced him to meet her gaze. “Tell me! What happens then?”

Something flickered in his eyes as he looked down at her, then his gaze hardened. “It is forbidden to speak of it,” he said. “You will know when the time comes.”

Clarissa’s taut nerves frayed and snapped. “You insolent savage!” she hissed with a fury she had not known she possessed. Her hand went up, and she would have struck him if he had not seized her wrist. Fury blazed in the depths of his cold blue eyes.

“Never do that again,” he whispered, his voice a menacing rasp. “Now turn around and walk—unless you’d rather be tied up and dragged!”

Stunned by his ferocity, Clarissa did as she was told. Anger fueled her strength as she stalked up the slope of the bank toward the village. She felt his looming presence behind her, sensed it in the parting of the crowd. Wolf Heart was clearly a respected man in this savage place. But it was equally clear that he would never use his influence to save her. From this point on, she could depend on no one but herself.