Читать книгу Shawnee Bride - Elizabeth Lane - Страница 9

Wolf Heart watched from a stand of birch as the slender white girl scrambled to her feet. The panic in her wide green eyes could only mean one thing-she had discovered his tracks and sensed he was nearby.

His throat tightened as she hesitated, wheeling one way, then another. Her hair was a tangled cloud of flame in the morning sunlight. Her gown-the fabric too light and fine to be homespun-clung to her willowy woman’s body in mud-stained tatters. She looked as fragile as the wing of a butterfly.

Wolf Heart had seen her clinging to the log as it washed ashore. He had melted into the trees as she crawled onto the sandbar, keeping out of sight as she collapsed, trembling and exhausted, onto the bank. A whirlwind of emotions had torn at him. This ethereal young stranger was part of a world he had long since buried, a world he had grown to despise. She and her kind did not belong here.

The girl spun away and broke into a limping run, headed toward the riverbank. Wolf Heart’s blue eyes narrowed for an instant. As she vanished behind a clump of red willows, he stepped out of his hiding place and glided noiselessly after her.

Shadows flickered over his rangy hard-muscled body as he moved through the undergrowth. In this, the moon of mouse-eared leaves, the willows and birches trailed long catkins in the light morning wind, but the foliage was thin. The girl’s hair blazed like a signal fire through the trees, making it easy to trail her even at a distance. Wolf Heart eased his powerful stride, giving her plenty of room. He had no wish to confront her face-to-face. Not, at least, until he had made up his mind what to do with her.

As he paused for thought, his fingers brushed the small deerskin medicine pouch he wore on a thong around his neck. It contained objects of his own choosing, small tokens of memory, family and courage. Wolf Heart’s medicine pouch had been fashioned by his Shawnee mother, Black Wings. She had cut and stitched the leather, adding bands of fringe and fine quillwork to make it a thing of beauty. Inside it, Wolf Heart had reverently placed a tooth from the first bear he had taken, along with the bright indigo feather of a bluebird and, most important of all, his personal pa-waw-ka, a translucent shell he had seized from the bed of the ice-bound river during the ordeal that had marked his passage into manhood.

The medicine pouch was his badge of belonging, his proof to himself and others that he had abandoned all memory of Seth Johnson and become, in his deepest being, a true Shawnee. He had undergone the test and rituals. He had hunted bear, elk and puma, fought bravely against the marauding Iroquois and earned a place of honor among his brothers of the kispoko warrior sept. He had danced around the war pole. He had sung the death chant over Black Wings when she died of the coughing sickness. All this time, he had never questioned who or what he was-until now.

The coppery flash of her hair told him the girl was still running, darting in ragged bursts of speed along the bank of the Ohio-se-pe. She was headed upstream, toward the fort, most likely, or one of the grubby little settlements that pushed the white man’s boundaries ever closer to the world of the Shawnee.

Wolf Heart had met a fair number of white men since the death of his father. There were the French who traded their guns and blankets for furs. There were the English redcoats who were becoming more and more common now that the British had seized the fort at the joining of the rivers. White men, yes. But any images of white women-including his own birth mother, who had died when he was six-existed only in the dimmest recesses of Wolf Heart’s memory. He had never imagined, let alone seen, a fox-haired wisp of a girl like this one.

Any other Shawnee would have taken her prisoner by now, he reminded himself darkly. The tribe had sided with the French in this mad war against the English, making any English prisoner a trophy of war. So why then, when it would be so easy, had he not simply captured her? Was it her startling beauty that held him at bay? Was it the certainty that this girl would never survive captivity? Or was it something more subtle and disturbing-some long-buried tie of blood that even he could not deny? Whatever the reason, it troubled Wolf Heart deeply.

Far ahead now, he saw her stumble and go down in a patch of bog. His breath caught as she clawed her way upright then paused to glance back in his direction, her hair whipping the pale oval of her face. Her head went up sharply, and for an instant Wolf Heart thought she might have seen him. But then, just as abruptly, she wheeled and floundered on as before, dripping mud as she fought her way through the briars and willows that rimmed the flooded river.

The girl had spirit, he conceded. She was chilled, sore, exhausted and probably half-starved, as well, but she had shown no sign of flagging. Spunk and grit, combined with a healthy dose of fear, were driving her on, step by struggling step.

But for all her courage, Wolf Heart knew she could never make it back to her world alive. The journey was too long and too dangerous.

On impulse, he paused to examine her tracks in the mud. Crouching low, he traced the shape of one narrow imprint with his fingertip.

Where her foot had pressed, the damp brown earth was stained with blood.

Clarissa plunged along the bank of the river. Her ribs heaved painfully beneath the constricting stays of her corset. Her heart exploded with every beat, hammering the walls of her chest as she ran.

She had seen one fresh track. How many others had there been? How many pairs of savage eyes were watching her, even now, as she fled like a hunted animal.

A gust of wind whipped her long hair into her eyes, half-blinding her. She swept it back, only to feel the tangled ends catch on a low-hanging tree branch. A vision of the biblical Absalom, hanging lifeless by his hair, flashed through her mind as she jerked to free it. Any second now, she would feel the fatal thrust of an arrow in her back or, worse, the roughness of brown hands seizing her waist, dragging her off to an end so horrible she could not even imagine it.

She would die fighting, Clarissa vowed as she splashed through a patch of flooded willows. Whatever happened, she would not allow herself to be taken alive.

As she mounted the bank once more, pain shot through the ball of her left foot. She remembered, however dimly, stepping on something sharp earlier, but she had not dared to pause and investigate. Now the injury was getting worse. Her right sole, as well, had grown so tender that every step was agony. Sometime soon she would have to stop and wrap her feet, perhaps with strips of her petticoat. If only she knew where—

Clarissa’s thoughts ended in a gasp as her toe stubbed against something soft. That same gasp exploded in a stifled scream as she looked down and saw the body of a man, clad in waterlogged buckskins, lying facedown in the long grass.

Her stomach convulsed as she recognized Maynard.

Her first impulse was to run, but when he did not move she swallowed her fear and stood staring down at him He’s dead, she thought. He can’t hurt anyone now.

Flies swarmed around a blood-encrusted gash on the man’s temple, but there were no other marks of injury on him. Most likely he had struck his head when the flatboat capsized, drowned while unconscious, and finally washed up here on the bank.

Clarissa battled waves of nausea as she crouched over the inert form, steeling herself to touch him. Maynard had been armed with a hunting knife. If that knife was still on him, and if she could get it, she would no longer be helpless prey. She would have a weapon to defend herself.

Maynard’s dirty, wet buckskins reeked in the morning sun. The stench swam in Clarissa’s nostrils as she bent close, seized his arm and dragged him over onto his back. Yes, the knife was still there, large and evil looking, laced into the scabbard that hung from his belt. All she had to do was reach out and—

She froze as Maynard rolled his head to one side and groaned.

Panic seized her, and for an instant all she could think of was running away. But she needed the knife. She would have to get it now, before Maynard came fully awake.

She made a desperate lunge for the weapon, her fingers clutching at the leather-wrapped grip. For the space of a heartbeat, she had it. Then his sinewy hand closed around her wrist, twisting so hard that she cried out and dropped the knife.

“Well, hang me for a horse thief!” He grinned up at her, his small eyes glittering. “Heaven don’t get no better than this!” He rolled to a sitting position, his free hand darting out to grab the knife from where it had fallen. A single joint-wrenching move spun her against him with the blade at her throat.

“You and me got some unfinished business, girl,” he rasped against her ear. “And we’re gonna finish it here and now!” His hand released her wrist and slid upward to fondle her breast. “Treat me nice, and you won’t get hurt Hell, you might even get to like it.”

Clarissa struggled to keep her head. “We’ve got to get out of here,” she whispered, her throat moving against the razor-sharp blade. “Indians-I saw moccasin tracks-”

“Nice try, girl.” Maynard’s arm tightened around her. “But I know this country, an’ there ain’t no Injun towns anywhere near these parts. An’ even if you did see tracks, hell, plenty of white men wear moccasins, too. Now quit stallin’, you little bitch, and git down on your back!”

The broad steel blade caught a glimmer of sun as he jerked her around and slammed her onto the wet grass. Clarissa lay rigid and trembling, praying for an instant’s distraction when she might be able to catch him off guard. Maynard, she calculated, was capable of killing her, or carving her up so hideously that she would no doubt wish herself dead. If her timing was off, she would not get a second chance.

He was breathing hard now, muttering curses as he used his free hand to tug at the lacing of his breeches. The water had caused the leather ties to swell, and the knot was too stubborn to yield to Maynard’s one-handed fumbling. Clarissa tensed as he grew more and more impatient. At last he spat out an oath and tossed the knife, point down, into the grass.

In a flash she was after it, twisting sideways, stretching to seize the weapon where it had struck. But she was not fast enough. With blinding speed, his hand had clamped hard around her wrist.

“Stupid little bitch!” he cursed, twisting her arm so viciously that Clarissa felt her bones begin to separate, and she whimpered aloud in spite of her resolve. “So help me, I’ll fix you good!” he rasped, snatching up the knife and raising it high for a slashing blow. “I’ll show you who’s boss if it’s the last thing I-”

Maynard spoke no more. She saw him stiffen and arch as if struck hard between the shoulder blades by some invisible force. Only as he pitched forward did she glimpse the arrow point protruding through the front of his buckskin shirt, right where his heart would be.

Clarissa’s fear exploded into all-out panic as the lifeless body collapsed, still twitching on top of her. She thrashed and kicked in a wild struggle to throw off the horror, wanting only to be free of Maynard’s smothering weight.

Seconds passed, each one a small eternity, before she realized that her ordeal of terror was only beginning.

The knife—it had been in Maynard’s hand. She had to get it before it was too late. Her fingers groped desperately along the wet ground where he would have dropped the weapon. Her heart convulsed as she felt the tip of the blade, cold and sharp against her fingertip. Gasping with effort, she stretched to reach the handle. Her fingers touched it, almost clasped it.

Then the weight of Maynard’s limp corpse was snatched off her as if it had suddenly sprouted wings.

The morning sun struck Clarissa fully in the eyes. Dazed and blinking, she lay sprawled on the ground, her muddy skirts ruched up to her thighs. She was aware that Maynard’s body had fallen to one side, but that was no longer a concern. Her full attention was riveted on the masculine figure who loomed above her, his features silhouetted by the blinding light.

Sun dazzled, her gaze dropped low, taking in long, muscular, buckskin-clad legs. Little by little, her eyes focused upward, skimming the shadowed bulge beneath his breechcloth, then darting abruptly to the feather-trimmed tomahawk that hung at his waist and the elegantly crafted bow balanced in his left hand.

Flinging herself onto her belly, she made another lunge for Maynard’s knife. This time her fingers closed around the handle. She rolled swiftly, drawing in her knees and coming up in a tight crouch, the weapon raised in defiance.

The stranger had not moved, but from her new position, Clarissa could see him more clearly. His powerful chest and arms were bare except for the leather strap of his arrow quiver and a small decorated pouch that hung from a thong around his neck. His long wavy hair, decorated with twin eagle feathers at the scalp lock, was raven-black, tinged with an azure glow where the light fell on it. Flat silver ear studs, set into his lobes, glittered as they caught the rays of the sun. His eyes, shadowed by craggy brows, wereHer thoughts scattered like alarmed birds as he took a step toward her.

Clarissa tensed, clutching the knife. She had vowed to die fighting rather than be taken alive. Now that vow would be put to the test. “Don’t come any closer!” she hissed.

He took another cautious step, then one more. “Don’t be afraid,” he said gently. “I won’t hurt you.”

Clarissa was beyond hearing his words, let alone comprehending them. Her pulse exploded, pumping her system with the fury of a cornered animal as she sprang upward to meet this new enemy. The steel blade flashed in the sun as she struck wildly, blindly at the stranger’s chest.

She heard him grunt as the razor edge skimmed his flesh. His huge hand captured her wrist, its momentum whipping her against him, where he caught and held her fast. Clarissa had dropped the knife, but she continued to fight like a wildcat, her hands clawing his chest, her feet kicking his solidly placed legs.

A glancing blow from her raised knee caught him off guard. Still gripping her waist, he stumbled backward and stepped into the entrance of a badger hole. His fall carried them both to the ground. They rolled in the grass, legs tangling, knees jabbing as he struggled to subdue her.

Their tussle had displaced his breechcloth. Clarissa felt the masculine bulge brush her thigh. The contact triggered a disturbing tingle, flooding her body with rivulets of heat-but the sensation was swiftly dashed by terror. This man, this Indian would ravish her, she thought, just as Maynard had meant to do. Then he would use that deadly tomahawk to hack away her scalp, leaving her body here for the crows and buzzards.

He had managed to seize both her wrists and pinion them above her shoulders. Wild with fear, Clarissa twisted to one side and sank her teeth into the firm bronze flesh of his forearm.

“Stop it!” He jerked away, his voice raw with anger now. “Stop now!”

Clarissa went rigid with shock as the realization struck her. This half-naked savage was speaking to her in English.

“What…?” She struggled to form a question, but it was no use. The words died somewhere between her mind and her tongue as she found herself staring up into a pair of cold, angry eyes.

The irises of those black-centered eyes were a deep cobalt-blue.

Wolf Heart felt the girl’s body go limp beneath him. Where his hands gripped her wrists, he could feel her pulse racing like the heart of a rabbit in a snare. She was still frightened, but at least she had stopped fighting him.

“I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said, groping for the words of a language he had spoken but rarely in the past fourteen years. “But if you bite me again, you will wish you hadn’t!”

She stared up at him, her wide eyes the color of deep mossy pools. “You’re a white man!” she whispered incredulously.

“No.” Wolf Heart’s reply was as cold as the chill her words evoked. “I am Shawnee.”

Her gold-tipped lashes blinked as she strained upward. “But your speech, your eyes-”

“I was a white boy once, a very long time ago. I have never been a white man.” Wolf Heart raised his body, aware, suddenly, that he was straddling her hips in a most unseemly manner. “If I let you sit up, do you promise you won’t try to run?”

The girl hesitated, giving him a moment to study her thin heart-shaped face. She would be a beauty in the white man’s world, he thought. But he had grown accustomed to the robust darkness of Shawnee women, and this pale creature seemed as out of place here as a snowflake in summer. Her skin was streaked with angry red scratches from the brambles. Her hair was matted with river weed, and one side of her face was crusted with a layer of drying mud.

“What a sorry sight you are,” he said, the words springing from some forgotten well of memory. It was the kind of thing his white mother might have said to him as a child.

Her green eyes flashed with spirit. “And’what kind of sight would you be if you’d been kidnapped, shipwrecked in a flood and nearly drowned?” she snapped. “Are you going to let me up?”

“I’m still waiting for your answer,” he retorted gruffly. “Will you promise to stay put?”

“That depends.”

“Depends?” Had he ever known that word? A heartbeat passed before it surfaced in his memory.

“My answer depends on what you mean to do with me,” she explained as if she were talking to a backward child. When he did not answer at once, the fear stole back into her eyes. “All I want is to go back to Fort Pitt,” she said in a small strained voice. “Just let me go. Is that such a difficult thing to do?”

Wolf Heart scowled as the dilemma he had wrestled all morning closed in on him. “Fort Pitt is many days’ walk from here. These woods are filled with dangers, and you are not strong-”

“I’m stronger than I look!” she interrupted. “I came close to getting the best of you, if I say so myself!”

“You wouldn’t come so close to getting the best of a puma or a bear-or another man like that one.” He jerked his head toward the buckskin-clad body that lay in the grass, a stone’s toss away. “But I’d wager you’d be more likely to starve, or drown, or maybe get bitten by a copperhead.”

“You could take me back!” She strained upward against his hands, her eyes so hopeful that they tore at his heart. “My uncle, Colonel Hancock, would pay you a handsome reward.”

“What would I do with money? I am Shawnee!” The words burst out of Wolf Heart, resolving his own question. Shawnee law demanded that all captives be turned over to the village council for judgment. To defy that law, to go against custom and set the girl free, would be an abnegation of his duty as a Shawnee warrior.

He willed his expression, and his heart, to harden. “You are my prisoner,” he said. “I must take you back to my people.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! Your people are my peoplewhite!”

“Sit up.” Wolf Heart ignored the sting of her words as he jerked her roughly to a sitting position and bound her wrists behind her back with a strip of deer hide. She did not speak, but he could feel the anger in her slim, taut body and see it in the set of her delicate jaw. When he pulled her to her feet, she did not protest, but he knew her mind was working. Given the chance, the girl would make every effort to escape.

When he motioned for her to walk ahead of him, she moved silently into place. She was footsore and hungry, and he knew he was being cruel, but he did not trust himself enough to treat her gently. Not yet, at least.

Abruptly she swung back to face him. Blazing defiance, her eyes flickered toward the dead man who lay facedown in the grass, the arrow still protruding from his back. “What about him?” she asked in a voice drawn thin by fury.

“That one is past our help.” Wolf Heart turned away from the corpse, which was already beginning to attract flies.

“I can see that,” the girl snapped. “But since you’re a Shawnee, I thought you might be wanting to take his scalp.”

Wolf Heart glared at her, his temper stirring.

“Go ahead,” she persisted. “He was an evil man, and his death was no loss. Show me what a true savage you’ve become!”

Her sarcasm cut as no blade could. Wolf Heart, who had never killed a white man before, let alone taken a white scalp, bit back the urge to seize her shoulders in his hands and shake her until she whimpered for forgiveness.

“Well?” she demanded, her eyes flinging a challenge.

Freezing all emotion, he caught her elbow, spun her away from him and shoved her to a reluctant walk.

Clarissa stumbled along the forest trail, feeling more dead than alive. Her blistered, bleeding feet were beyond pain. Her stomach was a clenched knot of hunger and fear. Only anger kept her moving-that, and her resolve to make this self-proclaimed Shawnee pay dearly for having taken her prisoner.

“It’s a lovely day for a walk, isn’t it?” She tossed her hair, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing her complain.

Wolf Heart’s only reply was brooding silence.

“I’ve always wanted to explore the wilderness,” she persisted with mock pleasantry. “And what a splendid guide I have! A man who knows every bird, every tree-”

“That’s enough!” His voice, behind her, was a low growl of irritation. “Keep that up, and every ear within a day’s run will be able to hear you!”

“Oh, how nice!” She forced her miserable feet to a lilting skip and began to sing. “‘In Scarlet Town where I was born/ There lived a fair maid dwellin’/ Made every lad cry well a-day/ Her name was Barbara-’’’

“Stop it!” he snapped, his massive hand catching her arm and whipping her around to face him. “Do you want me to gag your mouth, tie your legs and drag you along the trail?”

Clarissa gulped back her fear, forcing herself to meet his blazing blue eyes. “Well, at least that might save some wear on my poor blistered feet!” she declared saucily. “Yes, indeed, why don’t you try it?”

He shot her a thunderous scowl. Then the breath eased wearily out of him, and Clarissa knew she had won a victory, however small. “Sit,” he ordered her gruffly.

“There?” She glanced toward a toadstool-encrusted log.

“Sit anywhere. I don’t care. Just keep your mouth shut while I tend to your feet. We still have a lot of walking to do.”

“How much walking?” Clarissa sank on to the log, exhausted to the point of collapse but determined not to show it. “Where are you taking me?”

“To the place where I left my canoe.” He crouched on one bent knee, his heavy black brows meeting in a scowl as he lifted and examined the bruised, blistered sole of her foot.

“And from there?”

“To my village, far down the river.”

“And what will become of me then?” Clarissa’s voice dropped to a choked whisper as the gravity of her situation sank home. This was no game, no idle contest of wit and will. This was a battle for her life.

He was bent low, his craggy features compressed into a frown as his fingers picked away the thorns and tiny rocks that had embedded themselves in her tender flesh.

“You didn’t answer me,” she said, feigning boldness. “What will happen when we reach your village?”

“You will be brought before the council,” he said slowly, his eyes on his task. “And you will be tried.”

“Tried?” Clarissa’s body gave an involuntary jerk. “Tried for what?”

He glanced up at her, his eyes the icy blue of a frozen lake in winter. “To see if you are worthy,” he answered.

“Worthy?” Clarissa could feel her heart fluttering like a trapped bird inside her rib cage.

“Yes,” he answered in a low voice. “Worthy to live.”