Spirited (22 page)

“No, no!” Mahwah cried. “No!”

The pouch at her side shifted as if something were alive inside it. She gasped and lifted her arms away from it, frightened. She ran into the tunnel; the torches lighted. She turned the corner to go out the side entrance and—

—Wusamequin was there, in the tunnel.

She collided with him, ramming hard against his
chest. He grabbed her as if he had fully expected to see her there, and wrapped his hand around her forearm as he began to walk her back toward the chamber.

“Oh, no, please. Please, don’t,” she said frantically, trying to free herself. “He’s not the one who did it. Don’t!”

He looked at her as if he didn’t know her. As they entered the chamber, he said, “Yangee.”

“But I am Yangee,” she said. “You spared me.”

“Yangee
soldier,”
he corrected. He added, “His spirit is weak.”

“Is he sick?” she asked. At his look, she put both her hands around his neck and raised herself on tiptoe, studying his face. “Please, please tell me. Is there plague at the fort? My father, is my father all right?”

He said, “I do not know.”

“But can you see? Can you make medicine to show me the fort?” she begged. Her mind was racing. “Wusamequin, you cannot kill that man!”

“Wusamequin can,” he retorted, removing her hands from around his neck and moving her away from himself. “And Wusamequin will.”

Chapter Sixteen

The single tear that Wusamequin had shed had weakened him.

His spirit had been misled; he had begun to open his heart to the captive Yangee. The magic they created together was more powerful than anything he had ever done alone. But he had forgotten one thing: that she was a white skin, and all white skins were his enemy.

Now, as he led Isabella Stevens outside to speak to Whyte, he cursed himself for the tear. Using that essence of his full, deep self, he had put his spirit inside the bear fetish, in order to protect her. Now he no longer belonged solely to himself. But in doing so, he had divided his loyalties and his obligations between the People and her. It was a foolish and selfish mistake.

Isabella pulled her fur wrap around herself, and he walked her to the forlorn hollow in the outcropping of the cliff. There the prisoner lay huddled on a bearskin, which was more than he deserved. Sasious’s braves had done it, to show Wusamequin that they valued the trophy they were presenting to him. Ninigret was there, and chubby Tashtassuck, and
Wematin. Men who valued him, esteemed him.

“Samuel!” Isabella cried, racing to the man kneeling beside him.

“You’re alive!” the Yangee soldier said hoarsely as he gazed up at her.

His face was pasty, his lips chapped. With a growing sense of alarm, Wusamequin studied the changes in him since he had last seen him. The man’s spirit had been thoroughly invaded.

Isabella touched his forehead. Her eyes widened as she moved her hand to the side of his face. Wusamequin couldn’t stand to see him treated with such concern. He crossed his arms over his chest and averted his gaze.

I
have been a weak fool
he told himself. I
shall be one no longer.

In a rush of both fear for him and joy to see him, Mahwah wrapped her arms around Samuel Whyte. He began to whisper; she put her ear to his mouth as he croaked out more words.

“I didn’t desert you that day,” he murmured.
“You
must know that. I knew they would butcher all the men. My single thought was to survive, so that I could go to the fort and tell them what I had seen. To mount a rescue party and come back for you.”

“Thank you.” She took off her fur robe and draped it around his shoulders. “What about my father?” she asked.

“Living, but quite ill,” Whyte confessed. “He has been so afraid for you that he hasn’t been able to rest.
He watches night and day for the courier dispatches, to see if there is any sign of you.” He hesitated.

“I pray you, be honest with me,” she entreated.

“Well, then.” He sighed as if to prepare himself for words that would cost him dearly. “I fear that he may be dying.” His cough was like a death rattle, and icy fear skittered up her spine. “As I am. You must get away from me, Isabella. I have the pestilence.”

“Ah, no!”

“We lost the medicine that day. Another shipment was sent, but it may have been too late to be of any use.” He stared at her. “I hardly recognized you, in those heathen clothes and your hair in those plaits.
You
must have been enslaved. Have they mistreated you?”

“At first,” she conceded. “I’m not well liked.”

“It may be a blessing that they took you that day.” He sighed. His voice was tired. “So many have died. The fort is like a tomb.” He coughed again, hard, and spit up more blood.

Alarmed, she raised her eyes to Wusamequin, and said, “Wusamequin, I beg of you. Let us make medicine for him.” She held out her left hand, the one they held together when they made magic. “Please.”

Oneko turned to Wusamequin and said, “What is she saying?”

“She wishes me to heal the Yangee.” Wusamequin’s voice shook from the insult.

Oneko nodded, as if his answer had confirmed his suspicions. Sasious spat in the snow. “Best we burn her with him.”

Wusamequin did not reach out his medicine hand to her. He said to her in English, “My wife. My son. The Yangees sent them to the Land Beyond. Now it is fourteen moons, and they walk the Road of Stars. This one must die. It is my Way.”

“No, don’t say that,” she pleaded. “I saw. It was horrible. But his death will not help.”

“The Yangee deaths did help. My spirit was freed. My medicine was strong again.”

“Oh, God, oh, dear God!” Isabella cried. “You cannot mean that. You don’t mean that! Please, at least let him have some water. He’s burning up with fever.” She touched the man’s forehead and held him against her breast.

Oneko asked in their language, “Is he her husband?”

It had never dawned on Wusamequin to ask her if she was married. Now, as he observed the pains she was taking with the man, his heart chilled.

“Isabella,” he said in English, “Whyte shares your wigwam?”

“No.” The surprise on her face brought Wusamequin relief.

As Mahwah held the sick major, Whyte coughed hard, and then he said, “I wish that were true, Isabella. I wish we could have married.” He coughed again, harder, so hard that blood trickled from the side of his mouth.

“Samuel…”

“Ah. My name.” His eyes took on a strange light. “An angel speaks it before I die.”

“No! You shall not die!” she shouted. “Do you hear me?”

“I am dying.” His expression grew soft. “I have searched for you everywhere. Others had accompanied me, but there has been so much illness …”

“It is all right,” she assured him.

He went on, “It was as if the village had been under a spell. I must have ridden past it a dozen times before I saw it.”

He moved his glance from her to Sasious. “It was deserted, and I knew they had taken you somewhere else. I was at a loss. And then they attacked me in the village, as if they knew I was there. They captured me, and brought me here.”

He smiled weakly at her and added, “It is a miracle that I have found you.”

“No, it was my doing,” she confessed, awash in guilt. “I didn’t mean to lead them to you. I didn’t know.”

“No matter.” His smile was weak, but it was there. “I have a signed letter of safe passage for you,” he murmured. “The French should honor it. And a map from the village to the fort. Both are folded very tiny.”

Surreptitiously she felt in his uniform pocket for the documents. She found a wad of thick paper and cupped it. His body shielded her actions as she
forced open Wusamequin’s medicine bag with her fingertips and dropped the paper inside.

“It’s done,” she whispered.

He exhaled and slurred, “Then I’ve done my duty.”

As he slumped, his eyes drooping, she gently shook his shoulders. “Oh, Samuel, don’t die. Please don’t die!”

He didn’t respond. His weight burdensome against her chest, she clasped her hands together as best she could, holding them out to Wusamequin. “Please, oh, please, help me heal him!”

“Look how she begs, like a dog,” Sasious sneered. “So emotional and out of control. I was a fool to want her in my wigwam.”

“My wife agrees,” Oneko said. “She’s weak in all respects. She’s not good for much.”

“We will burn him,” Wusamequin told her in English. There was no response from Whyte.

“You cannot mean that!” She looked frantic. “You cannot!”

He raised a hand and took a step toward her, thinking to strike her for her insolence. “You do not speak so!” he shouted. “You are my slave!”

“I am not!” she shouted back at him. “Search your heart. You know that I am not!” She clung to the limp Yangee. “He is a human being! You are a healer! You must help him!”

“This is an outrage.
You
should beat her,” Sasious observed. His six braves shifted their weight and toyed with their weaponry as they watched the unfolding
tableau. It was clear they understood most of what was happening; and that, like him, they couldn’t believe that Wusamequin was hesitating to stake his claim on the Yangee’s hair because of the white skin squaw. And arguing about it with her, no less.

Oneko’s attention shifted from Isabella to Wusamequin, obviously waiting for the shaman to do something.

Wusamequin’s weak heart watched her grief. It watched her tears. It understood that if he burned the Yankee, her own heart would be strong against him for the rest of her life.

But he had made a vow.

He sensed Oneko’s dismay, and on Sasious’s part at least, his disgust. The weakness of the People’s third leader, on display for all to see, mortified them.

I
must speak to Great Bear
, he thought. I
need his counsel
But there was no time.

“Isabella,” he began, his voice flat. Then he saw the face of the Yangee. The man’s mouth drooped open. His eyes were open but he was not looking at this world.

The choice had been made for Wusamequin. The burden had been lifted from his shoulders.

“The Yangee is dead,” he said in the language to Oneko and Sasious.

Oneko’s brows raised. He cocked his head, peering at the Yangee, and nodded. “So he is. Evil spirits have taken him.”

“Good riddance,” Sasious muttered, spitting in the snow.

Isabella was watching them. Then she bent her arm and allowed the Yangee’s head to loll into the crook of her arm.

When she saw his open eyes, she inhaled sharply and whispered, “No.” She wailed like a wolf. “No! Oh, God, please no!”

Afraid-of-Everything, who had trotted up beside Wusamequin, sat back on his haunches and lifted his head to the sky. He joined his voice with hers, and the two howled in chorus.

“What a display,” Sasious said above the cacophony.

“Does this white woman rule you now?” Oneko asked Wusamequin.

Wusamequin took one step toward Isabella, and she clutched the dead man to her.

“Don’t touch him, don’t you touch him!” she cried. “Leave him alone!”

He put his hand around her upper arm and half-lifted, half-dragged her to her feet. She fought to keep hold of the corpse, but she could not. It was too heavy.

Wordlessly, he marched her past the eight men. Over his shoulder, he said to Oneko and Sasious, “I’ll return. Let me take his hair before you get rid of him.”

“Of course,” Sasious replied. The braves were smiling, delighted that the shaman would claim his gift.

Mahwah was frantic as he herded her back to the chamber. Afraid-of-Everything had stopped howling, but he was whimpering, aware that something was seriously amiss between Mahwah and his beloved Wusamequin.

He threw her onto her bed. The heads of the four Makiawisug popped from the grass and the little people darted out of the way.

“I will take his hair, and I will put it on my scalp pole!” he shouted at her. “Stay here, Isabella. If you do not…” He made a fist and showed it to her.

“You’re a coward, to threaten a woman!” she screamed. “I hate you!”

“Silence!” he thundered at her.

Then he turned his back on her and stomped away.