Authors: Elizabeth Lane
Shawnee Bride (11 page)
“I’m certain,” Clarissa said. “I haven’t come this far to lose heart.”
“Once we put you on the bank you’ll be on your own. We can’t stay and wait in case you change your mind. The men won’t stand for it. They’re already as jumpy as spooked rabbits.”
In truth, Clarissa would not have asked the flatboat crew to wait for her. Their presence so close to the village would only create dangerous tension. To keep the trust of the Shawnee she would have to return alone.
“I understand,” she said.
“Then God help you, ma’am,” the boatman muttered as he turned and walked away.
The snow grew heavier as the day wore on. Clarissa watched the bank through a swirl of white flakes, grateful for the dense cloak and sturdy boots she had worn. She would need them to reach the village safely.
But what would she do if her worst fears came true and there was no Wolf Heart to welcome her? After days of agonizing the answer had finally come. She was not just returning to the man she loved; she was returning to the way of the Shawnee. She would remain as a healer to her adopted people, and she would raise Wolf Heart’s child among them.
But to live without seeing him…without holding him…
Clarissa watched the moving bank and silently prayed.
The sun was low in the gray November sky when she saw the mouth of the small river. Her chilled lips parted as the memory flashed through her mind—the racing canoes, the chanting braves and Cat Follower’s jubilant laughter. She was home at last.
Minutes later, without ceremony, she was helped onto the bank. The nervous crewmen poled at once for the middle of the river, anxious to put distance between themselves and the Shawnee. They would toil their way upstream to one of the remote settlements that had sprung
up below Fort Pitt. There, with luck, they might trade their boat timbers for horses to ride the rest of the way home.
But Clarissa could not waste precious daylight watching them go. The sun was already burning red above the trees. If she did not strike out at once it would be dark before she reached the Shawnee village.
Shouldering her pack, which contained little more than biscuits, a few necessities and some small gifts for her friends, she strode up the bank. By the time she reached the familiar trail at the top she was gasping for breath. The long idle months in Baltimore, coupled with her pregnancy, had cost her dearly. But no matter, she reassured herself. Even at her labored pace, the village was scarcely an hour away. Soon the delicious smells of roast corn and venison would float down to her on the river breeze. She would hear the welcoming birdcalls from the lookouts and the laughing shouts of children, and she would know that Dancing Fox had come home at last.
Please let Wolf. Heart be there,
she prayed silently.
Please let him be well and safe. Please let him still want me.
Silence blanketed the twilight—a silence filled with softly falling flakes of snow. The darkening river caught amber glints from the setting sun.
By now Clarissa had come more than halfway to the village, and she had seen no canoes on the water, no fresh tracks on the ground. The only sound that reached her ears was the sigh of rushing water, broken now and then by the melancholy cry of a circling crow.
But everything was all right—it had to be. Any moment now, she would hear the bark of a dog or see the curl of smoke from a cook fire. Any moment now, someone would see her from the top of the bluff. The shout
would go up, and people would come running down the trail to meet her.
She crossed the garden patches where nothing remained except a few standing cornstalks and tangled squash vines, brown from frost. Above her rose the high bank that separated the village from her sight. Clarissa’s heart pounded as she climbed up the last few yards of the trail. Soon she would be safe and warm. Soon, heaven willing, she would be with Wolf Heart.
She reached the top of the bank and stopped cold.
The village was gone.
Clarissa’s eyes swept over the desolation—the bare sapling frames of the lodges, their coverings stripped away; the blackened fire pits filling up with snow, the empty council house, its floor littered with leaves that had blown in through the wide uncovered windows and doorways. Her breath came in stuttering gasps of disbelief.
Something tugged at her memory, something she had heard and forgotten until now. What was it? She groped for the recollection, then sank to the ground in dismay as it came.
Winter camp.
Someone, perhaps Wolf Heart, had mentioned that the Shawnee left their villages in wintertime and broke up into small-groups. This scattering made it easier to find enough game during the long moons of cold and hunger.
How could she have glossed over such a simple vital fact? It was more than a foolish mistake—it was a fatal error, and the price of her folly could be her own life and that of her child.
Darkness was gathering swiftly, and the wind had turned the snow to stinging pellets. Scrambling to her feet, Clarissa made for the council house which, despite
its gaping doors and windows, was the only solid structure remaining in the village. She had a flint for making fire and enough biscuits to last for a day or two. But how long could she really survive here? How long before she starved or froze or—
A distant sound, echoing on the twilight wind, stopped her in her tracks. She paused, her heart in her throat, as it rose again, a haunting, mournful wail that continued for the space of a dozen pulse beats, then dropped in pitch and fell once more into wintry silence.
Clarissa’s arms crept protectively around the tender bulge of her unborn child. There was no mistaking what she had heard.
It was the cry of a hunting wolf calling to its pack.
Once again Wolf Heart’s quest had not gone as he had hoped. He had returned to the cave above the rockslide, seeking a clearer vision to guide his people. But after four days of fasting and waiting, nothing had come to him—nothing except memories of Clarissa bounding across the sunlit meadow; Clarissa dancing in the fire circle with golden light blazing on her hair; Clarissa lying in his arms, her face aglow with love.
He was incomplete without her—that much he had known since the day of their parting. But there was no undoing the past. She was with her own people now, where she belonged by choice, and he was still searching for the wisdom to carry on alone. He was still waiting for the guidance of the wolf spirit.
With a weary sigh he shouldered the pack and musket he had left in a small cave at the base of the slide. His time would have been better spent hunting, he groused. He had left the people in his camp with plenty of meat, but by now the supply would be getting low again.
Maybe on the way back he could bring down a deer to justify his absence.
He would be wise to check on the other camps, as well, he mused as he trudged downhill through the snow. As peace chief, he felt responsible for all of his people.
Through a blur of falling snowflakes, he could see the full moon rising above the bare trees. Even Kokomthena looked cold on this chilly night. It would feel good to return to camp and bed down beside the fire in his solitary lodge.
He was crossing the path to the river when he heard it—the long keening cry of a wolf, rising and falling to mingle with the howl of the night wind. He raised his head, listening intently.
The call had come from the direction of the deserted village.
Driven by an urgency he could neither deny nor understand, he plunged through the swirling snow. As he neared the village, his keen nostrils caught the scent of smoke on the wind. Someone was there—someone m trouble, perhaps, who needed his help. Or some enemy bent on harm, he reminded himself as he slowed his approach, moving cautiously on silent feet.
He could see firelight now, flickering through the open windows of the council house. And he could see the gray phantom shape circling outside in the darkness—a huge pale wolf shape that vanished like a ghost as he came closer.
Then, suddenly, he could see the slender figure—achingly familiar—silhouetted by firelight in the wide doorway, a blazing tree branch clutched in her hands.
He raised the loaded musket to defend her, if necessary, but the wolf was gone. There was only Clarissa,
crying out at the sight of him, dropping her torch and flying to meet him through the swirling snow.
He caught her and held her fiercely, feeling her hot tears against his cold face, feeling the sweet solid bulge of their child between them. Later there would be time for food and warmth. There would be time for talk, for understanding and for planning their future together. The years ahead would be difficult, even heartbreaking, Wolf Heart knew. They would both need to be very strong. But right now only one thing mattered.
She had come home to him.
‘
S
o what happened after that, Grandmother?” Sixyear-old Red Arrow’s eyes widened with wonder. “Did Grandfather go out and shoot the wolf?”
Dancing Fox smiled, the creases deepening at the corners of her sharp green eyes. “No,” she said. “The wolf was gone. Later, when we looked around the village, we found no trace of it, not even its tracks in the snow. What do you think of that?”
The little boy considered the question gravely, his scowl a miniature version of Wolf Heart’s. “I think it was a spirit wolf,” he said. “It was Grandfather’s
unsoma,
and it told him where to find you.”
“Perhaps.” Dancing Fox laughed as she hugged her grandson, knowing he had heard the story countless times before and that his answer was always the same.
“And then what did you and Grandfather do?” Tenyear-old Spotted Fawn, darkly beautiful like her Shawnee mother, spoke from her place beside the fire. “Where did you go?”
“Your grandfather took me back to the camp where the other Shawnee were waiting.” Dancing Fox concluded the story that had become a family legend. “I
became women’s chief, and later that very winter your father, Silver Wolf, was born.”
She closed her eyes, remembering the perilous joy of that day. The passing years had been filled with danger and hardship, but Wolf Heart had led his people wisely. He had kept them together, kept them beyond the reach of white civilization. They lived, now, in an isolated northern valley, hoping each day that they would remain safe here.
“I want Father and Grandfather to come home!” Red Arrow declared. “It’s getting dark outside.”
“Be patient.” Dancing Fox rumpled her grandson’s wavy black hair. “You know they’ll come home when they’ve found meat for us.”
“I hear horses—they’re back!” Spotted Fawn leaped up and raced out into the snowy darkness.
“I’m going, too!” Red Arrow bounded off his grandmother’s lap. “Maybe they’ve shot a deer, or even a buffalo!”
Dancing Fox rose from her place beside the fire, her heart singing in quiet joy. One hand smoothed her silverstreaked hair as she waited, all but dancing with anticipation. He would come to her at once, as he always did.
The deerskin flap stirred and lifted. Then he was there, stepping into the lodge, tall and strong, his iron-gray hair glistening with fallen snow. Wolf Heart. Her love. Her life.
She lost herself in his arms.
has traveled extensively and enjoys bringing these exotic locales to life on the printed page, but she also finds her home state of Utah and other areas of the American West to be fascinating sources for historical romance. In the name of research, she has trekked the Himalayas, rafted the Grand Canyon and piloted an airplane. She also enjoys playing the piano, hiking, photography, belly dancing, her grandchildren and her day job as an educational software designer.
The village in
Shawnee Bride
is set on a small tributary of the Ohio River where she once lived.
eISBN 978-14592-5106-9
SHAWNEE BRIDE
Copyright © 1999 by Elizabeth Lane
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