Defiant (5 page)

Her father might be a nobleman, but he was also a fool. Unless…

Had the lass been caught up in some kind of scandal?

The thought gave Connor pause. “Do you suppose she’s here because she’s wi’ child?”

“We’ll know soon enough.” Joseph lay down on the bed of boughs beside Connor. “I cannot recall ever seeing Wentworth so distressed.”

“Wentworth never gave a damn when other women were taken. He had Iain nearly flayed alive for savin’ Annie. But when his niece is stolen…”

Connor let the thought go unfinished. There was no need to explain.

“She is not to blame.” Joseph drew the bearskin up over both of them, his body pressed against Connor’s for warmth. “Whatever Wentworth has done—she is innocent.”

Connor closed his eyes. “Hold your whist, and let a man sleep!”

A vague sense of guilt stirred in his chest. He quashed it.

The lass’s kin had taken the throne from its true heir. They’d laid waste to the Highlands, shedding MacKinnon blood. Her uncle had enslaved Connor and his brothers through deceit. What kind of woman could spring from the loins of a clan such as that? She was probably here because she’d bedded half the lads in her father’s stables and now had a big belly.

Whatever else she might be, she surely wasn’t innocent.

But the image of Lady Sarah, young and beautiful, was there before him and would not leave his mind. And in his dreams, she was weeping.

S
arah felt someone shake her roughly—and awoke to discover that the nightmare was real. She was a captive, and dear Jane and the boy were…

Dead.

Memories from the previous day rushed back. The attack on the riverbank. The terrible flight through the forest. The horror of seeing the Indians stitch upon Jane and Thomas’s scalps while she sat nearby too afraid even to weep. The humiliation of having to lie beside her captor through the night just to keep from freezing.

At least he hadn’t touched her in any indecent way.

She sat up and glanced around at the Indian encampment only to find that it was barely dawn and that they had already put out the fire and packed most of their gear. Had something awoken them? Had they heard soldiers nearby? She listened, but heard nothing beyond the rushing of her pulse and the rustling of wind in the trees.

Then more of the greasy meat cake she’d been given for supper was put into her hands, and the Indian who’d dragged her through the forest yesterday sat across from her, eating hungrily. Too cold and tired to be hungry, she nibbled, covertly watching him.

The paint on his face had begun to flake away, revealing
designs that had been etched into his skin—lines and dots on his chin and on his temples. A ring of silver pierced his nose. Shells hung from his earlobes, which had been cut and stretched to form loops of flesh. But although his appearance was frightening and strange, he was not an ugly man. His cheekbones were high, his jaw square, his mouth well shaped.

Then his gaze met hers, his dark eyes seeming to bore through her. He licked his lips, then touched his chest. “Katakwa.”

Was that his name?

“Ka-ta-kwa.” Sarah repeated what he’d said, then touched her hand to her heart. “Lady Sarah Woodville.”

He frowned, as if her name were distasteful to him or too difficult to say. Then he stood, wiped his fingers on his leather tunic, and drew her to her feet, motioning her toward the bushes. She realized he meant for her to see to her private needs. Her wrists still bound, she lifted her skirts as best she could and walked toward the trees, every muscle in her body stiff and aching, her feet tender. By the time she returned, there was no sign that anyone had ever camped there. Then something poor Thomas had said came back to her.

They think our soldiers can’t track you if you’ve got moccasins on your feet.

And a terrible thought struck her.

What if Uncle William’s soldiers could not track her? What if they could not find her? What if she were forced to live out here with the Indians for the rest of her life?

Panic flared inside her, making her heart pound and her head spin. But then Katakwa took her tether and dragged her forward.

They were moving again.

But where were they taking her? And what did they mean to do with her?

In New York, she’d read stories in the papers—of men and women maimed, tortured, and burnt alive, of women forced to marry Indian men and bear their children, of captives sold from one tribe to the next until they were lost forever in the wild. Did such a fate await her?

Terror made her stomach knot.

God, be merciful!

Weary and fighting hopelessness, she stumbled through the gloom of the forest, so cold her teeth chattered, clouds offering only glimpses of the still-starry sky. And some part of her
wanted to scream and scream and scream until someone heard her and came to her aid. But if she did, her scalp would surely hang from Katakwa’s belt.

Then the idea came to her.

She could help. She could help the soldiers find her. She could leave them a trail.

She’d read in the papers how Indians allied with the Crown were sometimes used to track enemies in the forest. And Uncle William had told her in letters about his Rangers—fearless frontiersmen whose woodcraft was every bit as skilled as that of the Indians, soldiers who could track people across great distances. They’d won many triumphs for Uncle William. If she made certain they had a trail, they would be sure to find her, wouldn’t they?

Her mind seemed to sharpen, her despair ebbing as she thought it through. She would have to be careful lest Katakwa catch her. She would have to be quick about it. And she would have to leave signs that would be unmistakable.

She began to drag her feet every few steps, trying to press the soles of her mocassins hard into the thick layer of frozen leaves. But that slowed her down and earned her a sharp tug and angry glance from Katakwa. Then she deliberately caught her cloak on a shrub—and she felt a surge of triumph when several woolen threads pulled free.

And she knew she could do this.

Her vigor restored by a renewed sense of purpose, she dropped a hairpin here, rubbed her cloak against a tree trunk there, taking care to step in snow whenever she could, even catching her hair on low-hanging branches and tall shrubs, each strand that pulled free giving her hope. She overturned pebbles with her toes, dropped bows and buttons from her gown, bent the stalks of dried sedges with her fingers. And when they stopped to break their fast and once more see to their private needs, she took time to arrange twigs into the shape of an
S
and an arrow.

Dear God in heaven, please let them find me!

I
t wasn’t yet midday when Connor and Joseph found the campsite. The trail headed west from there. But the ground had been frozen solid when the Shawnee had departed, making it more difficult to track them.

Connor and Joseph spread out, treading carefully.

“Here.” Joseph pointed.

There on the forest floor before him, frozen and rotted leaves lay crumpled and rolled together as if someone had dragged his—or her—feet. This went on for several paces, then ended abruptly, the toe of her right moccasin having left a deep imprint as if she’d been jerked forward and almost pulled off her feet.

Connor touched his fingers to the decomposed leaves. “She was tryin’ to leave tracks, and they discovered it.”

But at least now they knew which direction the Shawnee had taken her.

Crouching near to the ground, they went on, scouring the forest for any sign that men had been here. Connor spied several gray woolen threads clinging to a shrub. He plucked them, studied them, then moved on. A hairpin. More gray threads. A scattering of overturned pebbles. Silken strands of hair the color of honey. Bent blades of grass. A blue bow. A whalebone button.

Connor held out his hand and took the button from Joseph. “This cannae be chance. The lass is leavin’ us a trail, so she is.”

Joseph nodded. “Wentworth’s spoiled princess seems to have at least some courage, wouldn’t you say, Cub?”

Connor hated that nickname. As the youngest of his brothers, he’d been saddled with it as a boy. He shot Joseph a scathing glance, wishing neither to discuss Wentworth’s niece nor to suffer his Mahican brother’s teasing. He tucked the button in his pocket and moved on.

They were able to move faster now, their eyes accustomed to the kind of sign she left them. Within an hour, they found an
S
made of wee twigs and an arrow pointing not west, but north. And at once Connor knew where they were taking her.

He met Joseph’s gaze, and the two spoke in unison.

“Mequachake.”

Mequachake was the main village for the Mequachake Shawnee, one of five bands of Shawnee that lived here and on west into the Ohio country. Though the Shawnee had no quarrel with the Mahicans, they had recently abandoned their truce with Britain and would likely consider Connor a foe.

He drew out a strip of dried meat and ate. “You’ve hunted with them, aye?”

Joseph also began to eat, answering between bites. “My father has hunted with their warriors. They will know my name.”

As they ate and drank, they talked over their plan of attack.

They could overtake the war party and reclaim her by force. There were at most eight or nine of them, and Connor and Joseph would have the element of surprise on their side. But there was every chance the warriors would slay the lass at the first sign of an ambush. They’d already proven they would not hesitate to kill. One blow with a tomahawk, one flash of a blade, one shot from a musket, and she would be dead.

Or they could hasten to Mequachake by straighter, rougher paths and attempt to reach the village first. Once there, Joseph could use his father’s friendship with the elders to try to persuade them to free Wentworth’s niece. With luck, they might be able to win her freedom before she reached the village and be on their way back to Albany before nightfall.

There was only one kinch to this second plan. If their entreaties failed or the Shawnee did not receive them in peace, Connor and Joseph would find themselves in an enemy village surrounded by as many as two hundred Shawnee.

In the end, they decided it would be safer for Wentworth’s niece if they were to try first to negotiate her freedom.

Connor ate a handful of dried berries, washed them down with a deep drink of water, his gaze drifting northward toward the leagues of forest they had yet to cross today. What destiny was it that had brought him out here, chasing through the wild after the niece of the man he loathed most in this world, a man he had vowed to kill? If she were anything like Wentworth, the lass would fix them with an arrogant eye and demand to know why they hadn’t reached her more quickly.

He stowed the food away and hung the water skin over his shoulder, glancing over at Joseph. “Try to keep up, old woman.”

S
arah walked numbly forward, her lower back aching, her legs so weary she feared they might buckle beneath her. Never had she felt such exhaustion. And yet she dared not falter lest she meet the same fate as poor Jane and young Thomas.

She dropped another bow, waited a few minutes, then let her
gown catch on a tree root. But rather than losing a thread or two this time, her hems gave way with a loud ripping sound.

The eight men walking in front of her stopped and turned.

Her heart gave a hard knock as she stared into their angry faces. “M-my gown. It caught on a—”

Katakwa spoke in angry tones, and for a moment she was certain he would strike her. But he bent down and jerked her hems free.

Then his gaze fell to her gown. He reached down, touched the places where there had once been bows and buttons, and his head came up, his gaze searching the forest behind her. And Sarah dared not even breathe.

He said something to one of the others, who retraced their steps, disappearing into the forest, only to return a moment later with a little blue bow in his hand, which he held up for the others to see.

The blow came so suddenly that Sarah had no time to prepare. Pain exploded across her cheek, knocking her off balance. She fell to the ground, senseless, and for a moment she couldn’t move. Dreading the fatal blow of the tomahawk, she fought her way onto her hands and knees and tried to crawl away, only to find herself jerked to her feet again, Katakwa’s face pressed close to hers, his hand around her throat as he muttered strange and angry words.

Barely able to hold her head up, she twisted in his grasp. “Let me go!”

But he ignored her, turning to speak to his fellows. Six Indians turned and silently backtracked through the forest, knives drawn. And Sarah knew they were preparing to ambush any poor soul brave enough to have followed her trail.

Oh, God, if there be anyone there, please warn them! Please protect them!

Dark despair washed through her, taking the breath from her lungs. But then they were moving again.

An hour passed, maybe more. Then in the distance she thought she heard voices. A few minutes later, a child appeared. Wearing a tunic and leggings of tanned animal hide, he must have been six or seven years old. He looked up at her, a shy smile on his face. Then he struck her on the arm and ran off squealing.

Soon others appeared—small children, youths, women. They stared at her, shouted at her, shoved her, grabbing her clothes and her hair, pinching her. And she knew they had reached the Indian village. She could just make out rounded lodges through the trees ahead.

Dread knotted behind her breastbone, her breathing shallow, the thrum of her heartbeat making her deaf to all else. What were they going to do to her? A dozen terrible possibilities rushed through her mind.

God in heaven, help me!

Her step faltered, fear making her tremble. Never had she felt more alone or forsaken. Then she thought of Jane and remembered how the girl had taken Thomas’s hands between hers, trying to comfort him even as she faced death herself.