Judith E. French (22 page)

“Aye, little sister, we take this serious enough,” Moonfeather continued when Fiona returned to crouch beside her. She thrust a pistol into Fiona’s hands. “Reload that, if ye ken how.”

“I do. Wolf Shadow taught me.”

“Then ye had a good teacher,” Ross said.

Moonfeather’s musket cracked, and Fiona coughed from the smoke. “Ross and I have been friends for years,” Moonfeather said. “We played together as children.” She traded the empty musket for the loaded pistol. “We hunted bear together,” she said calmly.

The musket barrel was hot to the touch. Carefully, Fiona measured powder into the barrel, seated a ball on a patch, and rammed it down with a long wooden rod.

“Take care that ball’s rammed- tight,” Ross cautioned before he fired and began to reload. “If it’s not, the barrel will blow.”

“Once, Ross and I hunted larger game than bear,” Moonfeather said.

He grinned. “I nearly married her.”

“I said no. If I’d said yes, he would have married me,” Moonfeather answered. “Sweet sister Anne is right for him. He and I would have killed each other in two weeks.”

“One,” Ross corrected. “She—” He broke off as an owl hooted from the trees. “Hist! Listen there!” There were two more shots, then silence. “Hold your fire,” he ordered his men.

“Look!” Moonfeather beckoned to Fiona.

Fiona stood up and looked out the window. Her heart skipped a beat. Wolf Shadow was coming out of the forest with a small army of cheering Shawnee and Delaware braves, at his back.

“He’s safe!,” Weeping and crying his name, Fiona ran down the steps and across the garden. And she flung herself into his arms and showered him with kisses.

F
iona sat on the grass in front of the small log cabin she shared with Wolf Shadow in the forest near Anne and Ross’s home. It was a warm July day, and the air was heavy with the scent of the honeysuckle that grew thickly up the sides of the house. They had just finished sharing the noon meal, and Fiona was watching her husband craft an instrument for the dances and ceremonies that would be held that evening.

In the peaceful three weeks that had passed since Wolf Shadow’s followers had helped the Delaware braves to defeat Matiassu’s war party, Fiona had come to know her father and her sisters better. Every day they spent hours together, talking, laughing, and sharing their life stories. Anne—her newfound English sister—was a sweet and caring person, and much to Fiona’s surprise, she was as drawn to this shy, quiet lady as she was to the incandescent Moonfeather. Discovering that she had a family after a lifetime of believing she was alone in the world filled Fiona with happiness.

She and Wolf Shadow had remained at Wanishish-eyun to care for Anne and Cameron, and Moonfeather, as peace woman of the Shawnee, had called for the Grand Council to assemble here on Ross Campbell’s land. Already more than a hundred shelters had been raised in the valley, and more tribesmen and women were arriving every day.

Fiona and Wolf Shadow had been discussing Anne’s uneventful recovery from surgery, and why the massive infection that Fiona expected Anne to suffer had never invaded her body.

“The amount of medicine you give is critical,” Wolf Shadow said. “Too much and it can bring death . . . too little and . . .” He shrugged.

Fiona still couldn’t believe that they had performed the operation under the most primitive conditions and saved both mother and child. Although Anne was still very weak, Wolf Shadow had insisted that she nurse the infant herself and that she be up on her feet and walking every day. The baby boy, still unnamed, was rosy and plump despite his unorthodox entry into the world.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” Fiona argued. “I’d think she would heal faster by lying in bed.”

“Patients who lie in bed suffer lung fever,” he replied.

“But what will happen to Anne later if she becomes pregnant with another child?” Fiona den-manded. Now that she knew Anne and had accepted her as her sister, she had become fiercely protective of her health. “You can’t expect her to live through an operation like that again. Shouldn’t she sleep separately from Ross?”

Her brother-in-law had wasted little time in telling her that she had no need to address him as Lord Strathmar. “Titles in the wilderness be of less use than saddles on cows,” he’d insisted. “Ross Campbell I was born, and Ross I shall be to my friends and kin. The only time I need to be called earl is when I’m dealin’ with those rascals in the king’s service back in Annapolis.”

Wolf Shadow shook his head. “Anne should wait two years before she has another child, if they ever choose to have another. Moonfeather can show her what plants to eat to keep her from conceiving. Shawnee women usually have only two babies, and your Anne now has three boys already.”

“You know of something that will prevent a woman from becoming pregnant?”

He smiled. “Yes, but it is not a thing men should talk of. Ask Moonfeather. She will show you where and when to gather the roots, and how to prepare them. It is women’s medicine, and a secret best kept by women. Some men resent the power it gives their wives.”

“And me? Would you resent it if I used it?”

“No,” he replied seriously. “It is a woman’s right to decide, but I would hope that someday you will want to carry my child.”

“Someday,” she promised. “Someday.” But that day had not yet come. Each month she waited nervously to see if she was pregnant. It wasn’t that she didn’t want children; she adored Anne and Ross’s baby boy. It was that this life was still too new to her. She needed time, time to learn the Shawnee ways, and time to grow at ease with her husband.

“If it troubles you that I am not a Christian,” he said, “remember that I will never interfere with your religion or that of your child.”

“When the time comes, we will face the issue together,” she assured him. The doubts that had troubled her before the attack on Heatherfteld were still with her, but she hid them from Wolf Shadow. The thought of losing him during the battle had been so terrible that it still gave her nightmares. No matter how her conscience plagued her about the right of their union, her love for him was stronger.

She had never asked him about Matiassu. Instinctively, she’d realized the war chief was dead, and she hadn’t wanted to know how Wolf Shadow had killed him. It was enough for her that her husband had not brought home Matiassu’s scalp as a grisly trophy.

“Royal was a hero,” Wolf Shadow had said, when she and Moonfeather had demanded news of the boy’s safety. “Two Seneca chased him through the woods for miles. One circled around the road and nearly caught him. Royal charged them on that black devil of a stallion and rode right overtop of him.”

Wolf Shadow’s warriors had crept through the forest picking off the larger enemy force one at a time. When the Delaware braves had arrived on the scene, they had joined forces and sent what was left of the war party fleeing for their lives.

Fiona’s husband had accepted her own news about Cameron’s recovery from poisoning without blinking an eye. “I knew your spirit medicine was strong,” he said. “I knew
you
were strong.” He didn’t add that he was proud of her—the look in his eyes said it all.

Early this morning, she had walked in the orchard with her father. The apple and peach trees had been covered with green fruit and the air filled with the buzzing of bees. The bees had brought back memories of the afternoon she and Wolf Shadow had spent together near the bee tree.

She smiled at Wolf Shadow. Since she’d left Cameron in the orchard, she’d wanted to tell her husband about the invitation her father had extended. Not certain of Wolf Shadow’s reaction, she’d waited for just the right moment.

“Wolf Shadow.”

“Yes.” His eyes lit with affection as he looked at her, and she felt a warm glow within.

“Wolf Shadow, I have something to tell you. Cameron . . . my father . . . He wants me to go back to Annapolis with him,” she said. “He says he wants my signature on some documents, and he wants to have the royal governor clear my indenture.”

Wolf Shadow concentrated on pulling a piece of thin deerskin taut over a wooden ring and securing it with even stitches. He didn’t look up at her, but his lips firmed into a thin line of disapproval.

“If I did go, it would only be for a few weeks, a month at most.”

“So you say.”

“He told me that he wants to change his will and leave all his fortune to me. He says that Moonfeather and Anne are both wealthy women, and they don’t need the money. I suppose if he’s an earl, he must be very rich.”

“What did you tell him, Irish?” Wolf Shadow laid the flat hoop drum on the ground. The unfinished instrument was about twice the size of his hand and looked to Fiona much like a gypsy tambourine. Calmly, her husband glanced up at her.

“What do you think I said? I told him I didn’t want his money.” She folded her arms across her chest indignantly. “There was a time when even a little gold would have meant everything to us ... to my mother and me. But not now. I told him to give it to my sisters or to his grandchildren.” A thread of uncertainty crept into her voice. “We have no need of it, do we?”

He smiled. “No, little badger woman. We do not need English gold.”

“Good. I don’t hate him anymore,” she said. “You were right, Cameron is a good man. But I’ll not be beholden to him. I am thinking about going with him to Annapolis, though. Moonfeather and Cami are going. Her husband’s plantation is there, you know.”

“I am not Brandon. I will not have my woman live apart from me much of the time.”

Fiona tried to keep her rising temper from showing. “I didn’t say anything about living apart from you. I thought it might be a good thing to officially dissolve my indenture so I don’t have to constantly watch over my shoulder for a sheriff with a warrant for my arrest.”

“So.” He frowned. Cameron Stewart is an earl. Cameron Stewart is rich. He is powerful.” Wolf Shadow turned a dark gaze on her. “He cannot dissolve the indenture without you?”

“I did agree to accept the gift of a medical book and some new supplies. He says the apothecaries in Annapolis are well-stocked. I can purchase almost anything there that I could get in London. I need ginseng root and laudanum, as well as some more needles.”

“Now you go for buying? Why do you go, Fiona?”

“Damn you, why are you being like this?” she said, her anger flaring. “Didn’t you say I was a free woman? That I could come and go as I please?” His jaw tensed. “I did not say you could not go. But if you do, it may mean the end of our marriage.”

She balled her hands into tight fists and rested them defiantly on her hips. “By the holy blood of good Saint Bridget! You were the one who insisted I mend my fences with my father. I thought you liked him.”

“I like Cameron well enough. It is O’Brian I do not like.”

“O’Brian has nothing to do with my choosing to go to Annapolis with my father.”

“No?”

“Why would you think such a thing?”

“He offered to buy you from me.”

“He what?”

“For three French muskets, a horse, and six steel tomahawks.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I threw him into the river.” Wolf Shadow picked up the drum again and turned it between his big, hard hands. He scrutinized his stitches, then began to sew a strip of rawhide around the rim. Dozens of tiny white shells dangled from the leather so that when a dancer shook the drum the shells would clack together. “And,” he added, “I threatened to make this drum of his hide instead of a buck’s.”

“You’re jealous!”

“I’ll kill him if he touches you.”

She shook her head in amazement. “You’ve nothing to be jealous about. Timothy O’Brian is a good man. He offered to marry me, but I refused him. I told him that I’m happy with the husband I’ve got.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” he answered. “It seems to me that I can remember not long ago when all you wanted to do was get away from me.”

“No gentleman would remind a lady of such a thing,” she accused.

“No,” he replied, “I suppose a gentleman wouldn’t.” He exhaled softly. “But I’m not an Irish gentleman, am I? I’m a savage—so you often remind me. Don’t forget that, woman. I am like the wolf, and you cannot always know what I will and will not do.”

“You jackass!” She dipped her hand in the bucket of cold water in which he’d been soaking ash strips, and splashed him. “Maybe that will cool your stupid jealousy,” she declared, then turned and ran before she could tell if he was angry or not.

 

Torches flared in the night beneath a full moon, so low in the sky that Fiona could not keep from staring. at it. Drums sounded, calling the people to gather. And they came by the dozens: Shawnee and Delaware, Seneca and Huron and Menominee—men, women, and children. Gray heads mingled with black, and adolescent boys too young to wear eagle feathers trailed enviously on the heels of young bucks, splendid in their ceremonial finery.

Young women at the height of their beauty moved in the shadows of the campfires, their huge eyes flashing, their soft garments rustling. Girl-children giggled and hid their round faces behind hands heavy with rings, and mothers swollen with pregnancy carried their burdens proudly.

Dogs barked and whined, babies cried, and horses snorted and stamped where they were tied. Bone whistles pieced the warm night air with snatches of melody, then fell silent. And the drums were joined by other drums, lending excitement and anticipation to the gathering crowd.

Pale-skinned men appeared on the fringes of the assembly: French, English, Irish, and Scot. All were unarmed, for the law of the Great Council was that no man should carry a lethal weapon. And the drums touched a chord deep in the hearts of the white men, calling upon emotions buried by centuries of civilization, and their pulses quickened, and their gazes followed the graceful Shawnee and Delaware women.

Roquette was there with a dozen followers, and Cameron Stewart and Ross Campbell watched them with wary eyes. The French party kept to themselves on the far side of the dance ground, and Fiona could tell that they were nervous.

“How can they show their faces after they attacked us?” she asked Anne indignantly. Servants had prepared a comfortable place of honor for the mistress of Wanishish-eyun to watch the dancing, and Fiona was sitting beside her.

Anne winkled her nose. “Indians.” She shrugged daintily and spread her hands exactly as Fiona had seen Moonfeather do many times. “I’ve given up trying to understand Shawnee politics, and God knows the Delaware are probably worse.” She clapped politely as a dignified old Indian woman finished the first speech of welcome. “In England, Roquette would have been drawn and quartered long ago. The thing is, we know that the Frenchmen who led the war party worked for him, but no one actually saw Roquette. Alex Mackenzie blew one white man up when they stormed Fort Campbell, but since he was dead, he couldn’t implicate Roquette either. The Shawnee have this crazy idea that people are innocent until proven guilty.”