The Bearwalker's Daughter (28 page)
Read The Bearwalker's Daughter Online
Authors: Beth Trissel
What more could he do? Time waned like the moon and his space on this earth with it. What did Mary want from him?
The hour had finally come to join the necklaces and discover what she had to say. His heart pounded with the force of a wild horse freed from its bonds after years of excruciating captivity. He could scarcely believe his chance to see her once more, if only for a moment. Then the magic would fade and he must let her go, again. But that was the way.
Jack stirred in their nest. He further roused and lifted his head. The furs slid back over his bare chest. His alert gaze swept the room, taking in each detail just as Shequenor had taught him. The younger man met his eyes with the scrutiny of a hardened scout and a look of understanding passed between them.
“You are yourself again,” Jack said.
“I am.”
“At last.” Then Jack grew silent as if he sensed what was at hand and awaited Shequenor’s signal.
In that moment, his bond with this renegade brother was restored. Shequenor gave the charge. “Bring me the necklace,
NiSawsawh
.”
Chapter Twenty
The change in Shequenor’s demeanor was undeniable. Jack noted the clarity in his adopted brother’s eyes. After all these years, Shequenor was as he’d been when Jack was a child. Perhaps if he’d remained this way, Jack wouldn’t have left the tribe. But that was all in the past. Besides, Jack might not have found Karin. And he’d gone back to Shequenor. Never could seem to keep away forever. No, what was done, was done. He must focus on the present and the strange work at hand.
Wearing only his breechclout as he had when he fell asleep, he rose and walked on the furs to where he’d spread his clothes and weapons before the fire. Nudging his hunting shirt aside, he took the pouch in hand. The peculiar blue light emanated from the fringed buckskin, only for some reason it no longer seemed so eerie.
He extended the pouch to the waiting warrior, and then stopped. Karin should take part in what was about to transpire. He looked questioningly from Shequenor to her and then back again at him.
A flicker of agreement touched Shequenor’s gaze. “Wake her.”
Jack returned to Karin and knelt beside her. “Karin.” He gently shook her until she stirred beneath his light touch. “Your father has need of the necklace. Only you can give it to him. Remember?”
She blinked, looking up at him. Her sleep- blurred eyes cleared and she seemed to realize something momentous was at hand. She sat up and Jack shifted the pouch into her grasp. “All right.”
Clutching the bag, she got to her feet in her shift. With shaky deliberation, she approached her father and stopped before him. Jack envisioned the unsteady one-year-old taking her first steps and the child Shequenor never knew. All Karin had been and the young woman she’d become met in her eyes as she raised them to her father’s.
Standing on her tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you,
Notha
.”
He laid his hand on her head in blessing. “And I, you,
Neetanetha
.”
Jack never saw this hardened warrior so affected.
Karin settled back onto the flats of her feet, opened the pouch and drew out the necklace. “For you.” She passed it to him.
Shequenor took it with profound reverence in his face. “Untold hours have I waited for its return. Here is its mate,” he said, and parted the front of his shirt.
Against his bronzed skin hung the same pearl- white gemstone colored with a bluish tinge and encircled with hammered silver. As with Karin’s gift, rather than a chain made from links of the same metal, the magnificent stone was suspended from a narrow leather band with ten large claws attached.
As far as Jack knew, Shequenor hadn’t worn his necklace since Mary’s death. But kept it safely tucked away. Now it was back, like him, in all its splendor.
****
Still watching her father, Karin stepped back and sank down on the furs beside Jack. He closed his arms around her, tucking her into his chest, and waited for what would transpire. Something surely would and their lives forever altered.
Shequenor stood in the center of the lodge. The flames cast orange light over his straight figure. He dangled one necklace in each hand with the stones centered in his palms and the sides of his hands pressed together as if to cup a drink of water. The gems shone even more brilliantly, perhaps in anticipation of their joining. And then he rotated his hands and clasped them together.
Iridescence streaked out from between his fingers, the stones flashing in the release of long- seated yearning. Or so it seemed from the powerful emotion Karin sensed in the room.
Smoke from the fire, or somewhere, thickened in the air, but not so that it made her cough. This was a mystical vapor, she realized, and clung uncertainly to Jack. His strength surrounded her like a shield.
“Smell that?” he whispered.
With the mist, came the unexpected fragrance of spice bush and scents of the forest in spring time when rosy mountain laurel pinked the ridges...the scent of new life…nothing to fear.
At first, Karin couldn’t be certain she truly saw what she thought, and then a shape took form in the haze, a woman. Even if she hadn’t known whom to expect, she would have recognized her mother. Mary McNeal was as Neeley had described her, only far more so and streaming with light.
The white shift she wore shimmered like angel’s wings with the sheen of a thousand butterflies, just as Karin had always envisioned. The red hair she’d heard about glowed with the radiance of the setting sun and spilled down around Mary to her slender waist. Her face was as youthful as Karin’s and her eyes an ethereal blue. She was beyond beautiful, good, and lit with purity.
Through Mary’s form, Karin saw the fire and skin-lined walls. Her feet didn’t touch the floor but seemed to float slightly above it. Of course, she was a transient being and could not rejoin them as flesh and blood.
How Karin wished she could, if only for an instant. She longed to hold her just once. Her father must be consumed with longing.
Shequenor stood immobile, his intent gaze never leaving Mary’s face. He seemed to pour himself into her soul. She gazed back, floating so closely to him that they were as near as a spirit and man could be. Her hair entwined with his in a luminous wash. Karin couldn’t be certain where the one began and the other ended.
“Shequenor,” she whispered, and tenderly rested her head on his shoulder.
His eyes spoke his joy at her coming. But he still joined the stones in his palms.
It occurred to Karin that he must keep them this way and could not embrace his long lost wife. Even if he could, his arms would go right through her as though he clasped a cloud. But he lifted his hands to her cheek and stroked her fairy-like skin with a single finger.
Tears glistened in his eyes and he groaned with the torment of one so near, yet still separate. “Mary.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
She reached out her hand to his face, though his darker skin showed through her translucent whiteness. “You knew it would be thus, beloved,” she said, in the same soft voice Karin heard in the wind.
“I knew.”
Circling ephemeral arms around his neck, she said, “Still, you summoned me.”
“As you knew I would,” he answered.
“It is for this moment, I have waited.”
“You have not been at peace, my dearest.”
Mary shook her lovely head. “No more than you.”
“I sensed this.”
She turned toward Karin and Jack. The love flowing from her washed over Karin like a warm breath...the love she’d experienced for years, but hadn’t known the source.
“See our daughter and her husband? Evil comes for them.”
“I have seen this. Must I fight all who threaten?” Shequenor asked.
“No. My father and brother are among them. They cannot pay for our pain again.”
“They are the cause of our suffering. Only for you, have I spared them this long!” Shequenor cried in a raw voice.
Mary cupped pale fingers to his cheek. “Release the past and its wrongs.”
His anger seemed to ease at her pleading. “What shall I do, then? Tell me and it is done.”
“This isn’t a battle of muskets and spears, but a struggle of hearts and minds.”
“I know not this sort of battle.”
“You do. You have fought just such a one these many years,” Mary reasoned in her gentle way.
He considered. “Perhaps it is so.”
“And you have learned you cannot prevail with force, only courage and sacrifice. Jack and Karin have their part. You have yours.”
Her wise words had a soothing effect on the troubled warrior. She raised her hand to his head and ran her fingers over his hair. Only the slightest movement, like the ruffle of bird’s feathers, showed among the black threads mingled with her red flame.
“It’s almost time for me to go, my love,” Mary said.
Anguish filled his eyes. “Not yet. I’ve waited so long.”
“So have I,” Mary whispered. “All must be made right for our daughter or she shall suffer our fate. Even now, a tiny life has begun in her. Our grandson.”
Karin shivered at the prophetic words. Jack sucked in his breath.
He tightened his arm around her as if he’d never let her go, but this wasn’t something he alone could protect her from. That was why her mother had come, the reason this was the time for the necklaces to be joined.
Mary shone a smile on Karin that reached into her innermost heart. “Tell the child of me, of your father.”
She nodded. “If I’m here.”
“Have faith. Neeley and I are watching over you.”
Somehow she’d known Neeley was no longer of this world, but a lump swelled in her throat all the same. “Tell Neeley I shall miss her.”
“She knows.” Mary returned her eyes to Shequenor’s. “I shall wait for you, my love. Be strong.”
Arms circled at his neck, she pressed her lips to his, though she couldn’t truly touch him. Then it seemed she found a way to reach through the barrier dividing them and Shequenor felt her as he’d done long ago. Whether from the power of unconquerable love, or God himself, Karin didn’t know. But their lips touched, not with the translucence that affected all their other parts, but as flesh upon flesh.
For a long moment, they remained together in a sacred kiss. Then the mist began to recede and Mary with it. The gems tumbled to the floor and Shequenor clutched at her. But he could do nothing to stop the unalterable flow any more than he could stop the sea. Nor could Mary. Her eyes sought his as she slipped away, until all that remained of her was the scent of the forest in springtime and the warrior with tears streaming down his face.
Silence filled the small lodge. Minutes passed before anyone moved. How long they stood like that, Karin couldn’t say. She scarcely breathed and shook against Jack who seemed equally stunned.
Shequenor bent down and gathered the necklaces. “Mary came.”
Jack gave a dazed nod. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry she had to go,
Notha
.” Karin wiped at tears.
“How blessed I am to have seen her, to have touched—” his voice cracked.
He walked to where they sat and knelt beside them. Eyes glistening, he held out a necklace to each. “The magic works only once. My time is through. Keep these with you and guard them well.”
Karin took back her gift with a tremulous sniff and Jack accepted his in solemn silence, then he asked, “What are we to do, Shequenor?”
“Face these men,
NiSawsawh
. You cannot run forever and the McNeals will never give up the chase for her. I know.”
Fear sprang up in Karin. “But they will kill Jack.”
“Only a coward shoots an unarmed man. Are your kinsmen cowards?”
“Never. But there are others with them who may be.”
“Do not be afraid. I will be with you.”
She imagined the fierce grizzly. “As a bear?”
“No. My days as a beast are finished.”
“But what will you do?”
He smiled faintly with a transcendent peace she never thought to see. “I know now.”
Karin didn’t. The amazing visitation from her mother left her mystified.
Shequenor grew brisk. “Come, eat breakfast. I have aplenty of meat, nuts, dried fruit—”
“What of Grandpa and the others?” Karin broke in, impatient in her desire to know more.
“I will alert you when it is time to go and meet them on the trail. Until then, tell me more of yourself,
Neetanetha
.”
Her jaw dropped. “Now?”
“When better?”
She tried to think of anything normal to convey in the unsettled whirl that sufficed for thoughts. Nothing surfaced.
“What do you do with your days?” he asked.
Seeking to remember life before Jack’s coming, she offered, “I love to ride horses, but am also content to sit by the hearth and sew with Sarah and Neeley. Or I did,” she added with a catch in her voice.
“Do you wish always to be with others, or sometimes find comfort alone with your thoughts?”
“I am rarely alone,
Notha
.”