Judith E. French (7 page)

“You’ve given me little reason to trust what you say.” Her tone was accusing.

He knew that she had been disgusted when he’d shoved the Seneca’s bodies into her ice cave and placed the wolf prints on them. How could he explain that he had done those things to instill fear and superstition into the hearts of the Seneca? Legends of a half man, half wolf passed from tribe to tribe, and helped to protect his people.

The Shawnee were outnumbered, beset by enemies on all sides. The Iroquois were as plentiful as acorns in a forest. If he had to resort to trickery to defeat his enemies, so be it. Once the Seneca were dead, it did not harm their souls if he used their bodies as a weapon against their own kind.

He was a shaman, and the first rule of his profession was silence. He’d been taught secrecy from the first day he had crawled from the sweat lodge into the keeping of the wily old medicine man, Red Smoke. If Fiona thought he was cruel—if she believed he was a madman—then she must do so. He could not break lifelong habits to suit the tender feelings of a white woman.

He went to the back of the cave and took down the surgeon’s box his warriors had carried from the trader’s storeroom. He took it to the fire and lifted the lid.

“That’s mine!” Fiona cried. “I brought it with me from Ireland.” She slammed the lid and grabbed the box, holding it protectively against her chest.

He chuckled. This shy quail chick could be bold enough in defense of something she considered her property. “Prove that it’s yours,” he dared.

She backed away and put the fire between them. Ignoring him, she opened the kit and scrutinized the contents.

“You need not worry. I haven’t stolen anything.”

“You stole it from Jacob Clough, didn’t you?”

He chuckled again. “Hurons. Thieves, the lot of them. A drunken Huron stole the box from the trader’s. If it’s yours and not Clough’s, give me proof.”

“There. There’s proof,” she declared, pointing out the initials stamped on the lid.
“JPO.
James Patrick O’Neal. My grandfather. The surgeon’s instruments were his, and I inherited them when he died. They’re mine.”

“Very well,” Wolf Shadow agreed mildly. “If they’re yours, they’re yours. And you can thank that drunken Huron that they aren’t still sitting in Clough’s store. Wrap your physician’s box in a deerskin and I will carry it to the Shawnee camp for you. It’s going to be a long walk.”

“I carried this case from Ireland. I can carry it a little farther.”

With a shrug, he turned away and began to prepare his own belongings for the journey. Let her carry the box if she wished—she’d give it over soon enough. She was strong for a woman; it was clear to him that she’d not led an idle life. But walking in snow took great energy. She’d be lucky if she could stay on her feet for the twelve-hour march, let alone support a heavy burden. “Must you make everything difficult?” he asked, without looking at her. “I would be your friend, Fiona.”

“If you want to be my friend, take me to the English,” she flung back.

“You are a bird that knows but one song.”

“I’m not a bird—I’m a woman. You’ve no right to hold me. I’ve done nothing to you or your people.”

He let her angry words slide off him like melting snow off the cave overhang. He could not let her go. He could never live with himself if she ended up in the hands of Jacob Clough again. I should have killed him when I had the chance, he thought. Perhaps the only answer now would be to find Jacob and Fiona’s indenture papers and destroy them both. Then he could let her go back to the English.

Killing Jacob in cold blood would be an evil-different from killing the Seneca. The question was, would killing Jacob be worse than keeping Fiona a prisoner among the Shawnee? It was a dilemma he would have to consider. For now, he would keep Fiona safe . . . and if she was unhappy, she had only herself to blame.

 

The sun was high overhead when they arrived at the Shawnee Indian village the following day. Fiona was so weary she could hardly lift one foot in front of the other, but she’d not fallen behind, and she had carried her grandfather’s instrument case every step of the way.

The camp lay in a bend beside a river, sheltered from the winter winds by wooded hills and so hidden that she hadn’t realized they were within miles of a human settlement until she heard the barking of dogs.

Wolf Shadow cupped his hands around his mouth and gave a series of cries that sounded to Fiona much like the gobbling of a turkey. Immediately the call was repeated from the right, and then again—directly overhead.

The branches parted, and Fiona was startled to see a boy’s round face staring down at her. He shouted a greeting, and Wolf Shadow grinned and returned the salute. “That’s Beaver Tooth,” he told Fiona. He spoke briefly to the boy in Algonquian, the Shawnee language, then translated for Fiona. “He was with us on the raid on Jacob Clough’s. He wants to know if your hair is real or a wig.”

Fiona looked back at the spot where she’d seen Beaver Tooth’s curious face, but the boy had vanished. “Why did he want to know that? Is he planing on scalping me?”

“You’re safe enough,” Wolf Shadow replied solemnly. “I told him it was dyed that color.” He pointed. “The camp is just ahead, beyond that cedar grove.”

“Do I look like a doxy, that I’d dye my hair?” she demanded. “Why did you lie to him, and why was he hiding in a tree?”

Wolf Shadow laughed. “I cannot say for certain that you don’t dye your hair. In London I saw an Englishwoman on the stage with hair so yellow it would hurt your eyes. I do not think she was born with that color hair. The boy was—”

“You were in London?” she interrupted. “You went to the playhouses in—”

“It is rude to talk when I am answering your questions,” he reprimanded her. “Beaver Tooth is a sentry. He’s supposed to see us without being seen. These are dangerous times. A village without guards soon becomes a village of the dead.”

“But what about England? How did you—”

He silenced her with a motion of his hand.

Just in front of them, an older warrior with gray streaking his black braids stepped from behind a tree, a musket cradled in the crook of his arm. He nodded to Wolf Shadow, and the shaman smiled and spoke to him in his own tongue. The warrior stared suspiciously at Fiona.

She offered a weak smile and clutched her instrument box against her chest. “Good day to you, sir,” she mumbled. The brave ignored her.

Wolf Shadow took her arm. “This is Yellow Elk,” he explained. “He’s a good friend.”

“He doesn’t look friendly,” she answered in a low voice.

“No. He hates whites.”

“That’s a comforting thought.”

Wolf Shadow tilted his head toward her and arched one eyebrow wryly. “Yellow Elk has good reason. The English soldiers killed his mother.” His dark eyes held her captive. “And what reception would you think I’d get in Philadelphia? This is Shawnee land, Irish. Many will resent you for being here.” He continued on, talking to Yellow Elk as they walked. Not knowing what else to do, Fiona followed them.

London, she thought. He said he’d been in London. Was it possible he was telling the truth? It would explain his knowledge of the language, but . . . She hurried to keep up with Wolf Shadow’s long strides. As much as she resented him, he was her only protector among the hostiles. If he deserted her, what would she do?

Barking dogs and shouting children ran toward them as they neared the camp. Fiona counted several dozen bark huts and one larger structure with log uprights along the walls. There didn’t seem to be any formal arrangement of the shelters, but the paths between them were swept free of litter and pounded hard from use.

Women and old people spilled from the huts, surrounding them, all talking at once in Algonquian and pointing at Fiona. There were a few warriors visible around the village, but they continued with what they had been doing, pretending not to notice the commotion. Fiona stopped a few feet behind Wolf Shadow and waited, trying not to reveal how frightened she was.

In spite of her apprehension, she was unable to stifle her physician’s curiosity. The Shawnee villagers had the same light coppery skin as Wolf Shadow, and all were well-formed in face and body. The babies were plump and bright-eyed; the chattering children seemed free of the eye infections she’d seen so often in the slums of Irish towns. The women were small and pretty, all with black hair and eyes as dark as coal.

Several women shouted at Wolf Shadow; one shook her fist angrily at Fiona. He answered them calmly in their own language, all the while maintaining his good-natured expression. She couldn’t understand a word, but heard her name mentioned several times.

A small dun-colored dog yapped at her heels, and from the corner of her eye, she saw a tom turkey—tail spread and feathers puffed out—stomping the ground in tight circles, moving ever nearer. She took another step closer to Wolf Shadow just as a boy darted out of the crowd and yanked her hair—hard.

Fiona whirled on him. “Stop that!” she admonished. “It hurts, and ... and it’s rude, very rude.”

The child’s mouth opened, and he began to howl. Tears rolled down his cheeks as a gray-haired woman lunged forward and yanked him to safety.

Wolf Shadow put an arm around Fiona’s shoulder. “Don’t be afraid,” he said. “No one will harm you.”

The gray-haired woman glared at her, but Fiona noticed two other women whispering behind their hands. One looked pointedly at the older squaw and the weeping child, and giggled.

“I’m not afraid,” Fiona said. Surely he didn’t expect her to let herself be abused by a naughty child.

A tall, graceful woman in a beaded dress ducked out of the large bark house and walked quickly toward Wolf Shadow with an expression of relief and delight. He hugged her affectionately and turned to introduce her to Fiona. “This is my sister, Tandee—in your language, Willow.” He motioned. “Willow, this is Fiona. Willow speaks English,” he explained. “She’ll make you welcome. You’ll stay in her wigwam for the time being.”

Willow’s exquisite features hardened, and she replied in a quick burst of words. He answered in Algonquian; she frowned and shook her head no. It was plain to Fiona that Willow had no intention of welcoming her into her home.

“Take her back where she come from,” a sensual young woman with an infant on her back called in heavily accented English. “We no want her here. She make trouble.” She pushed her way to the front of the group. Shell earrings dangled from her ears, and more shells were laced in her loose, flowing hair. “I, Shell Woman, say you no belong here.”

The other women began to speak in Algonquian. Yellow Elk shrugged and moved away from Wolf Shadow toward the long house. The dun-colored dog continued to bark annoyingly at Fiona.

Wolf Shadow exhaled slowly and straightened his shoulders. “Fiona is our guest,” he told his sister. “I expect you to treat her as such.” He scowled at the grumbling women and spoke sharply in his own language.

“I not bite my tongue!” Shell Woman retorted hotly. “Is she prisoner? If prisoner, give her to me. I will find work for her.”

“Enough,” Wolf Shadow said, his patience clearly at an end. “You shame me. If the guest of your shaman is not welcome here, then I am not welcome.”

Spots of color appeared on Willow’s cheeks. Her irritation lingered for a few seconds more before she nodded and looked directly into Fiona’s eyes.

“Honored guest,” Willow said formally in soft, distinct English, “come, please, with me. I would offer to you food and fire.”

Fiona shook her head. “No.”

Wolf Shadow shot her a withering glance.

She stiffened. “No. If I am a prisoner, you must do with me as you will. If I am an honored guest, I’ll not enter a house where I’m not truly welcome.”

A titter of amusement rose from the gathered women. Wolf Shadow glared at Fiona, then turned his biting gaze on his sister. “You behave like children, both of you,” he said.

Suddenly the tension was broken by a man’s loud voice. A brave appeared from one of the huts on the far side of the village. He shouted and waved to Wolf Shadow. Shadow signaled that he’d heard.

“That is Spear Thrower,” he explained. “His wife, Sage, is in pain. Go with my sister. She’ll look after you.” He walked swiftly toward Spear Thrower’s wigwam without waiting for a reply.

“Wait, I’ll come with you,” Fiona offered.

“No.” Willow shook her head. “No. My brother has no time for you now. Sage is with child. She has pain since the night, but it be no ... not time for child to be born. It is—” she struggled for the English words—“too early for born.” She held up six fingers. “This many turnings of moon.”

“Premature labor,” Fiona said, nodding her understanding. “But I may be able to help. I’m a trained apothecary, and my grandfather was a physician-surgeon. I studied under him, and I have delivered many babies.”

Willow looked unconvinced. “Sage be Shawnee woman. I no think she want white medicine.” “If the life of her unborn child is in danger, I’ve got to try to help her whether she wants me or not.”

“No,” Willow insisted. “Wolf Shadow is shaman—great medicine man. You go where he say no, he have great anger.”

Fiona turned her back on Willow and hurried after Wolf Shadow. White skin or red, it didn’t matter. Surely labor was the same in all women. She knew medicine, and if she could use her superior European knowledge to prevent a miscarriage, she must try, no matter what opposition she had to face from primitive superstition.

No one attempted to stop her as she crossed the open area, and Fiona’s resolve stiffened as she neared the sick woman’s hut. She was needed here, and if Wolf Shadow tried to prevent her from practicing her healing arts, he’d soon have a taste of Irish temper.

F
iona pushed aside the hanging deerskin door and entered the wigwam. It took a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, but when they did, she saw that the single room was crowded with people—all glaring at her. Even a wailing toddler quieted in mid-scream and gazed at her with astonishment.

Fiona flushed under the obviously hostile attention, took a deep breath, and drew herself up to her full height. “I . . . I’m a doctor,” she explained, trying to convey professional dignity. “A ... a medicine woman.”

The wigwam was high in the center with sloping sides made of bark panels. A knee-high platform of logs, about three feet high and covered with animal skins, ran around the interior walls. There was no furniture, not even a single chair. The floor was dirt, pounded hard and swept bare. Four adults and several children were seated on skin rugs around a glowing fire. Bundles, baskets, and an assortment of items Fiona didn’t recognize hung from the roof supports and were piled on the platform to the right of the fire pit. The smoky hut smelled of tobacco, herbs, and wet fur.

Wolf Shadow was crouched to the left of the fire pit beside the patient. His welcome was no warmer than that of the others. “You have no business here,” he said harshly.

Ignoring him, Fiona moved toward the woman in labor. She lay on the low platform on a bed of furs, eyes closed, round face contorted with pain. “Don’t be frightened, I’ve come to help you,” Fiona began.

“Don’t touch her.” Wolf Shadow took hold of Fiona’s arm. “This is no place for you.”

An old woman shook her fist and muttered something that Fiona knew could only be unpleasant. A swell of distrustful murmuring rose from those around the fire. The baby began to cry again.

“Please,” Fiona entreated. “I’ve tended many cases like this. If you’ll only let me look at her.” She clutched her medicine case and looked up into Wolf Shadow’s irate face. “I have herbs here that—”

A muscular brave leaped up from beyond the fire and handed the weeping toddler to the old woman. “You go,” he ordered, motioning with his hand.

“Leave my house. You have no welcome here.”

“I can help,” she insisted. “Are you the husband? Spear . . . Spear Thrower?” He nodded. “I know about such things. I can use white medicine to help Sage.”

Wolf Shadow made a sound of impatience and propelled her toward the doorway. “Outside.”

Her face flamed as she heard the Shawnee shouting approval. “You don’t understand,” she protested. “I—”

He shoved her through the door and followed her out into the cold air. “Are you stupid that you can’t understand a simple order?”

She twisted out of his grasp, her temper flaring. “Are you such a fool that you don’t see I only want to help? I’m trained for such cases.”

A muscle twitched along his tight jawline. “And naturally,” he replied sarcastically, “European knowledge of such matters is superior to the primitive customs of savages.”

“You said it. I didn’t.” She balanced the heavy physician’s case on one hip and glared at him with stubborn righteousness.

“Pah!” Wolf Shadow spat on the ground.

“My grandfather earned his medical degree at one of the finest universities. I studied under him for years. Will you let that woman lose her baby—maybe die because you’re too arrogant to consider I might know more about the complications of childbirth than you do?”

His features hardened. “I am a shaman—a moon dancer,” he explained with rigid patience. “I have studied medicine since I was six winters old. The suffering of women is not unknown to me, Irish Fiona.” He glanced around at the curious villagers, drawn near by the heated words exchanged between their shaman and the red-haired white woman. “Have you all nothing to do?” he demanded.

The onlookers scattered, pointedly turning their attention to other matters. Willow walked toward Wolf Shadow, an amused expression on her face, and spoke to him in Algonquian. “I knew when I laid eyes on her that she would be trouble, brother. Why, when you finally decide to cause woman trouble, must it be with an Englishwoman?”

“I have need of a sweat house,” he replied in English, ignoring her sarcasm. “Fiona says she is wise in the ways of
Englishmanake
medicine. She claims to be a healer in her own land. She says I will not let her treat Sage out of arrogant pride.”

Willow shrugged and continued to speak in the Indian tongue. “Only you can know if that’s true, brother.” She turned an appraising look on Fiona, and the amusement faded from her brown eyes. “Sage and Spear Thrower trust you,” she murmured. “If their unborn child is lost, they will not blame you. But . . .” She left the rest unspoken.

Wolf Shadow looked at Fiona. “I will accept your assistance, since you are so certain of your abilities. But you must understand, if the child dies . . . if Sage dies, the Shawnee will blame you. You are the enemy. If you do nothing, no one will blame you, but if you treat Sage and she becomes worse—”

“If I don’t try to help her, I’ll blame myself,” Fiona said. It was unnerving to be able to understand only half of what was being said between Wolf Shadow and Willow. She knew Willow disliked her, and she was certain that whatever the Indian woman was saying about her wasn’t flattering.

“So be it,” Shadow replied. “You will do as I say, Irish Fiona. You will break no taboos.” He glanced back at his sister. “I’ll need the sweat lodge.”

“It’s already prepared,” she answered, still speaking Algonquian. “Yellow Elk knew you would want to cleanse yourself from the raid before you touched a patient.”

“Once I am purified, see that she”—he inclined his head in Fiona’s direction—“does the same. Give her clean clothing and paint her face in the manner of a first degree initiate.”

“And if she refuses?” Willow asked.

“Then prevent her from coming near Sage’s wigwam.”

“You want your otterskin bag? And the powdered root of moccasin flower?”

He nodded. “I have a fresh batch—in the reed basket hanging over my turtleshell drum. Look for a small clay bowl with three yellow slashes on the lid. And painted trillium—the white blossoms, not the red. They are in the same basket, but the bowl has a wooden lid marked with a white star.” He glanced back at Fiona and spoke to her in English. “Go with my sister. She will prepare you to enter Sage’s lodge. Do exactly as she says, or I’ll never let you within an arrow’s flight of another of my patients.”

 

In less than an hour, Fiona stood shivering at the entrance of Sage’s wigwam. In the elapsed time, she’d been stripped naked and shoved into a dark hole in the ground, baked and steamed, then dragged into an icy river and scrubbed dry by Willow and three other women. Despite her protests, they’d painted her still stinging cheeks with yellow stripes and braided her hair into a single plait. They’d refused to return her confiscated clothes and shoes, replacing them instead with a shapeless deerskin dress and high, soft moccasins.

She’d not slept in two days, but her fatigue had vanished. Excitement and fear sent tingling sensations to every inch of her body. She hoped Sage hadn’t gotten worse since she’d last seen her, and she desperately hoped that after all her bold talk, she’d be able to help the woman.

Two Shawnee women stood outside the hut, one on either side of the doorway. They were chanting in Algonquian and shaking painted gourd rattles decorated with white feathers. Neither woman seemed to see Fiona, but since they made no attempt to stop her, she touched her amulet once for luck, stooped, and entered the wigwam.

Again, she had to pause to let her eyes become accustomed to the dim light. This time the room was empty except for the patient and a tall figure in a wolfskin. The fire was built up higher, so that the interior of the wigwam was comfortably warm. Fiona’s medicine case stood on the sleeping platform at Sage’s feet.

Fiona noticed an odor of cedar in the air ... cedar and something else she couldn’t identify. She looked at Wolf Shadow for permission. “Is it all right if I touch her now?”

He nodded and stepped back into the shadows. “Of course. Now you’re purified.”

“That’s what you call it. I call it torture.” She shuddered as she remembered the shock of the cold river water after the intense heat of the sweat lodge. “I prefer my bathwater heated, thank you,” she quipped.

He chuckled softly.

Cautiously, Fiona approached the sick woman. Her eyes were open, and beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She flinched when Fiona first touched her arm, but gradually as Fiona ran her fingers over her and murmured words of sympathy, Sage relaxed.

“She speaks no English,” Wolf Shadow said, “but I can tell you some of what you need to know. She was in good health until she slipped on the riverbank. This is her second child. The first is nearly two winters—two years,” he corrected, “old. Actually, he was born in the month you call June so he is about twenty months old. Usually Shawnee women have their children farther apart, but Sage’s mother died last winter, and she was hoping for a girl-child to continue her mother’s clan line.”

Fiona concentrated on the feel of Sage’s swollen womb as she experienced another light contraction. Fiona wanted to question Wolf Shadow about his last statement—that Shawnee women usually have children more than twenty months apart. Surely he couldn’t mean they used some form of birth control. The only sure method would be to refrain from having sexual relations—but would savages understand and be able to carry out such a plan? She forced herself to stop conjecturing and concentrate on her patient. There would be plenty of time to ask him later.

Fiona’s grandfather had always said that asking too many questions was counterproductive in a physician. It was her weakness, and she admitted it. She’d always demanded to know why. “Some things you do because it is the way they’ve always been done,” he used to shout at her.

She struggled to clear her mind of everything but helping Sage. “Often, women have false labor,” she said aloud, unconsciously imitating her grandfather’s bedside manner, “but if this has been going on since last night, then . . . Do you know if she’s had any bleeding?”

Wolf Shadow held out a woman’s loincloth to show the stains. “Not enough to dislodge the child,” he said.

“No great loss of blood, good. Has she passed water?”

“Of normal amount and composition.”

Fiona laid her ear to the patient’s belly to listen for the infant’s heartbeat and was rewarded by a strong rolling movement. She smiled and covered the mother. “The baby is alive.”

“Yes,” Wolf Shadow agreed, “she is.”

“You can’t know it’s a girl.”

“It’s a girl.”

Fiona uttered a sound of disbelief. “No one can tell such a thing until a child is born.” She’d heard the old wives’ tales for predicting the sex of a baby, and the superstitious claptrap for conceiving a boy rather than a girl. All of it was nonsense. She opened her grandfather’s case and scanned the contents. Her grandfather had owned several valuable dispen-satories and a classic text on midwifery, but they’d all been sold with his estate. She’d have to rely on her memory for exact dosages of medication.

“I gave her a tea of moccasin flower and trillium. Her contractions were harder, but they’ve eased, and they’re coming farther apart.”

Fiona bit back the reply that sprang to her lips. What would James Patrick O’Neal say if he could see her standing in an Indian hut in America, discussing midwifery with a savage in a wolf suit? The answer to that question was too outrageous to consider. Instead, she removed a blue bottle labeled
Balsam of Life,
and the box device for bleeding patients.

Unconsciously, she nibbled her lower lip. Nettle tea might help; her grandfather had favored that with a little honey and powdered ginseng. “It will be all right,” she said, uncovering Sage’s arm. “Don’t be afraid.” Fiona hoped the confidence in her tone would make up for her inability to communicate in the Shawnee language. “I’ll need a bowl of some kind,” she said to Wolf Shadow.

The shaman’s hand fell heavily on Fiona’s shoulder. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Bleeding her. All patients with—”

“No.” He took the bleeding-box from her hand. “Sage needs her strength. There is no need for that.”

“Bleeding is the accepted—”

“Not among the Shawnee. We consider such treatment barbaric.” He picked up the blue bottle, uncorked it, and sniffed.

“Don’t do that,” Fiona protested. “It’s ...”

Wolf Shadow tasted the potion and grimaced. “Pah. It’s nothing more than raw spirits.” With a flick of his hand, he upended the container and poured the contents into the fire. The flames sputtered and flared up. “I allow no spirits in this village,” he said firmly. “They are the curse of my people. And yours,” he added. “They fog the brain and turn men and women into animals. What else do you have in that demon case?”