The Bearwalker's Daughter (10 page)
Read The Bearwalker's Daughter Online
Authors: Beth Trissel
“You spoke it last night when you first came,” she whispered. “You said he sought me.”
“I was half-senseless at the time, but yes, I did.”
“What manner of man is this?”
“One who uses magic.”
Her eyes widened. “Tell me more.”
“You just met him. The bear conjured by the necklace.”
Her lips parted as though she would speak, but for a stricken moment no words came forth. “What man acquaints himself with a fearsome beast?”
“A powerful one.”
She twisted from side to side. “Heaven preserve us. A magician gave my mother this necklace.”
Clasping her shoulders, Jack strove to explain the unexplainable. “He’s not a magician, Karin, but a wounded spirit with fantastic powers beyond any even I envisioned.”
“You know this being?”
“I do.”
Gaping at him, she asked, “From what walk of life? Soldier, sailor?”
“Warrior.”
Teeth clenched, hands gripping Jack’s sleeve, she shook her head. A low wail escaped her. “No. He cannot be my father. He cannot. The blood of the McNeal’s runs in my veins, time out of mind. What viperous poison flows in his?”
“The blood of chiefs and seers from a line reaching back as far as the clans.”
If possible, her glassy gaze grew even more enormous. “A half-breed?”
“No. Full-blooded Shawnee.”
She squeezed her eyes against the tears glistening on her dark lashes. “Murdering savages. My mother could never love a warrior.”
“Mary did. I saw. We were captured together and lived in the same family.”
Karin’s eyes flew open. “Captured? My mother?”
“And carried back to the McNeals against her will,” he added.
“She would rather love such a one as this than live?”
If Jack had insisted Mary loved the devil himself Karin couldn’t have appeared more horrified. Not that he blamed her under the circumstances. Keeping his voice low, he said, “Shequenor wasn’t always as he is now. Sweet Mary gentled him for a time. Then the dark days came and he grew more and more angry.”
She swallowed hard. “And he seeks for me?”
“He does. But do not fear, I shall oppose him,” Jack hastened to assure her.
“Have you the strength?”
“If anyone has. He is fierce.”
“So is Grandpa.”
What a clash that would be, the fighting spirit of the Scots battling with centuries of warrior cunning and determination to rival any.
“Jack, take me home. Away from this dark place.”
No sooner had Karin uttered her plea, than the door flew open as if on a violent gust of wind—the weathered oak scored by the long raking marks of an infuriated grizzly. And looming in the doorway barring their retreat stood the great brown-black bear itself.
She shrieked as the creature rose up on its hind legs. A huge mouth gleaming with needle-sharp teeth opened in a growl.
Had Shequenor run utterly mad? For the first time since his initial captivity Jack truly feared he might kill him. Kill them both. Jack had no defense strong enough to oppose this menace. For Karin, he’d give his all and go down fighting. But what would happen to her? Somehow he must prevail.
****
So petrified was Karin by the ferocious beast, she thought she might sink back into unconsciousness on the floor while he tore unknowing at her throat unless Jack prevented him. But he only had a knife and tomahawk. No musket. As though one shot would be enough to halt this monster, if such a creature could be stopped. He must stand seven feet high, a foot taller than Jack.
God help them. A mute cry went out from her very soul.
In answer, a sense of power flowed into her as if from on high. Not so that she had the strength of angels, or could stand in the lion’s den without quaking, but enough to at least raise her head and look at the bear.
He closed his mouth. Lowering himself on all fours, he regarded her with uncanny, almost human, appeal while nut-brown leaves swirled around his fur.
She stared into his inscrutable gaze, then realization came and she knew. It was he who sought her, he who’d called her here. Shequenor. Not satisfied to appear in the fire, he’d burst open the door and engulfed the front stoop.
“Why is he a bear?” Her voice was so tremulous she scarcely made herself heard above the rain-swept wind.
Jack had one hand on his knife. The other gripped her shoulder. “Only in this form can he go where he wills.”
“I’ve never heard of such.”
“Few have. Fewer still ever witness bear walking.”
“Yet he is a man?” she managed in a quaver.
“Yes. A warrior honed of sinew and cunning, with eyes that flash fire, residing in a bark lodge deep in the Alleghenies where he waits. For you.”
She sucked in a shuddering breath. Jack waved at the obstinate mound in the doorway as if to drive him from the cabin. “Shequenor, be gone!”
He remained solidly between them and their only escape. This was no phantom bear to be passed through, but flesh and blood.
“I know you care nothing for my feeble effort. But can you not see how frightened Karin is?”
The tremendous beast nodded as if he understood Jack perfectly and had no intention of leaving.
“Shequenor means, ‘The Rock.’ Even now, he’s the unmovable one.” Again, Jack tried to reason with him. “Let her go. She cannot bring back your beloved Mary.”
With the frightful snarl of an animal baited beyond endurance, the beast lifted his great head and roared. The agony in his primal cry carried on the wind up through the tossing branches into the mist-shrouded ridges. More astonishing, the guttural cry pierced Karin. She knew what it was to suffer loss and felt the creature’s pain. Had grief consumed him as a sort of madness and driven him to assume this awful form?
Not taking her eyes from his tortured gaze, she pushed herself up on her hands on the floor. The bear raised his paw as if beckoning. And she got to her feet.
Jack kept a hold on her arm. “What are you doing?”
She answered like one in a trance, and maybe she was a sleepwalker lost in a nightmare. “I pity his suffering and shall go speak with him.”
“Oh, no. Pity him from here.”
“He wants me to come.”
Bring
the
necklace,
Neetanetha,
my
daughter.
A man’s deep voice throbbed in her mind, his mellow timbre heavy with the weight of sorrow. “He wants the necklace, Jack.”
“I heard.”
“In your head, like I did? That’s how you argued with him before.”
Jack shrugged as though he couldn’t believe this anymore than she. And yet, the bear was before them, watchful, impatient, and waiting for her.
“If you’re going to him, Karin, we’ll go together.”
She bent in Jack’s grip to gather the fallen necklace in her trembling grasp. The stone’s pearly-blue luster glimmered in contrast with the haze enveloping the trees. The whiteness partly concealed the bear. She stepped shakily toward the man-beast, Jack beside her.
Clenching her with one hand, he raised his knife with the other. “If you harm one hair on her precious head, I’ll run this through your black heart.”
If
you
harm
her
I
will
do
the
same. I lose patience. Bring her to me soon.
Jack gripped her harder. “How dare you ask that?”
You
know
how.
“Shequenor, I swear, you’re a vile demon.”
I
am
your
brother,
NiSawsawh.
“Some brother. I prefer Joseph,” Jack muttered.
He
will
greet
you
with
his
fist.
Come nearer, Neetanetha
.
“She’s near enough,” Jack argued.
Let
her
come.
“Not without me, she’s not.”
The grizzly lifted his snout, sniffing in Karin’s direction as she tottered toward him on legs so shaky she doubted she could stand if Jack hadn’t supported her. Apparently satisfied with her scent, he lowered his snout. Jack, he didn’t bother with. His musk must be familiar to this most unlikely of brothers.
Closer.
Together, she and Jack crossed the remaining distance to the door. He halted her a few feet from the giant bear. “Stop here.”
Not that this minute distance mattered if the creature chose to rip their hearts out. He didn’t. She stood looking into his eyes, transfixed. His hypnotic gaze held night forests in their black depths. Lifting paws that could slice her to pieces, he gently placed the pads on either side of her shoulders and took her measure, then blinked as if in pain, yet also in approval.
He lowered his paws.
You
have
your
mother’s eyes, the color of rain and sky, of the wind-driven heavens.
“Yes,” Jack agreed. “So fair she is.”
She
belongs
not
to
you.
“She shall, Shequenor. I swear it.”
“
Only if you prove
yourself worthy. Her worth I see
.
“As do all. You will never take her from John McNeal.”
The beast rumbled low in his chest.
Find
a
way.
Dismissing Jack with a shake of his snout, he spoke again to Karin.
The
necklace,
Neetanetha.
She shakily extended the glowing, claw-ringed orb.
Place
it
around
your
neck.
Taking the cord, she slipped it over her head. The lustrous stone nestled at the ruffled edge of her bodice. Its warmth heated her skin.
Keep
this
with
you
always
until
you
come
to
m
e
.
Everything in her quailed at the thought. She couldn’t possibly leave her family and journey to him. Not even with Jack. What, who, was he?
The bear leaned forward and lightly touched his fist-sized nose to her forehead. He smelt of brambles and woodlands…a wild blend of earth, wind, and sky.
Do
not
fear
so.
Rest
now.
Ea
t
.
His voice soothed her and she relaxed a little.
He lifted his big head as if at a summons and listened. For a moment, his eyes returned to hers and probed her innermost being.
Until
our
paths
cross
again.
Tanakia.
At that strange farewell, haze closed in around him and he was gone.
A hawk couldn’t have flown more completely, or an owl glided out of sight in an instant. But Shequenor had. She stared into the vapor wondering if she’d dreamed it all and when she would awake.
“And yet, the door is marked,” Jack said, as if he knew her thoughts, or also wondered if he’d imagined the encounter.
Karin fingered the smooth gem and her hand tingled with its power. “Shequenor didn’t take the necklace, Jack.”
“He has its mate. I saw at once the stones were of a kind.”
“Likely some strange magic will happen when the two are rejoined.”
“Then we will keep them apart.” Jack gestured at the stoop where moments before the bear had been. On the rain-slicked wood lay three plump newly-killed pheasants. “Shequenor provided our dinner.” Then he ground his teeth. “Damn him.”
“What?”
“The last time I saw him he said he would take pheasants before I killed a single one. And the devil’s right. I’ve lived mostly on squirrels and rabbits, an occasional deer.”
A tremor passed through Karin. “Is he always right?”
Chapter Seven
Bent over the trestle table, Jack sliced the browned pheasant with his knife. Succulent juice ran down from his fingers. He’d found a few pieces of cutlery on the shelves built into the log wall near the hearth, including the flat stone where he cut the roasted game. Wooden trenchers waited to serve up the steaming portions.
This snug room and savory meat seemed the lap of luxury compared to the cold meals he’d eaten along wet trails, but Karin was accustomed to far better. And who could blame her? John McNeal had done right by his sacred granddaughter.
God in heaven. Jack might even be forced to join ranks with the McNeal men to protect her. He ground out a sigh. It would mean betraying Shequenor, despised thought. Jack was no traitor, but did brotherly vows hold fast when one of them had run mad as his Shawnee brother surely had? Not only that, it would be mighty tough to band together with clannish males who wanted nothing more than to see his backside ride off into the hills. And that was under the best of circumstances. If he turned up dead, they’d not grieve for him.