The Savage Miss Saxon (16 page)

“I
do believe this is just about the same spot where the highwaymen attacked Nick—er, Lord Linton and myself,” Alix told the three boys as they reined in their horses behind her. “It’s as good a starting point as any for our search, don’t you think?”

“Then you and m’brother really
did
have a run-in with the highwaymen, Alix. Can’t understand why Nick never breathed a word of it to me,” Jeremy puzzled for about the tenth time since first hearing of the incident a half hour earlier from Alexandra. Then, prudently avoiding her angry glare, he dismounted and began casting his eyes about the area with what he hoped was a look of keen intelligence.

He was soon joined by Cuffy and Billy—all three quickly making themselves busy poking under fallen leaves with their toes and peering into the trees as if looking for signs of the highwaymen.

Meanwhile, Harold loped up beside them on foot having, in the way of the Lenape, shunned all offers of a mount in favor of traveling on his own two feet. A little out of breath, but still game, Harold eyed the boys with open disgust and grunted to Alix, “
Geptschátschik. Yuh’ allauwitan!
”

“We
are
hunting, Harold,” Alix hissed at him under her breath. “And for pity’s sake, stop calling those poor boys fools. Why, even now they are searching alongside the roadway for clues.”

Now Harold fairly burst into exasperated speech as he gestured to the boys to stop in their tracks. Alix quickly positioned herself between the youths and their would-be attacker as she interpreted rapidly, “Harold says you are wiping away all the signs with your big feet. Sorry, gentlemen, but I do believe he is right—look how trampled-down everything is now. It looks as if an army has passed through here.”

All three looked suitably guilty as they carefully backed up until they were once again on the roadway. Then they watched as Harold reconnoitered the area. He passed comments to Alix every so often—comments she dutifully translated for her companions.

“Harold says there were three men on horseback here no more than two, three days ago. That would be several days after their attack on Nicholas and myself.”

“Busy little bees, ain’t they?” Cuffy commented.

“Hush!” admonished Alix, straining to hear Harold’s words as the Indian spoke to her from the trees. “He says there are more footprints under the trees. Come on let’s see them for ourselves.”

There followed a lengthy education in the fine art of tracking as done by the Lenni Lenape. Harold explained—as Alix translated—that three white men had stood about in this area, probably waiting for passersby they could rob. That they were white men was proven by the fact that the feet trod the ground toe “out,” rather than toe “in” as Indian feet would.

“That ain’t so brilliant,” Billy sniffed. “Of course they was white—who’d he expect, a passel of ravin’ Chinamen?”

Alix ignored this jibe and continued, “Harold also says the men were careless, leaving a clear trail leading back into the woods. Come on, he’s motioning for us to follow him.”

Everyone raced to their horses, mounted, and hastened to catch up with Harold, who had loped off into the woods ahead of them. They followed along easily for nearly a quarter hour—the woods being neither dense nor crowded with undergrowth—before Harold motioned for them to dismount and tie their horses.

Then the Indian went down on all fours and sniffed at the earth before rising once more and setting off in a southeasterly direction.

“He smells ’em!” Billy whispered excitedly.

“
Smells
them,” Cuffy sneered disdainfully. “He’s an Indian, you looby, not a bloody hound.”

“
Shh!
” Alix cautioned, seeing Harold raise one hand for silence. “And Billy’s right, Harold does use his nose to sniff them out—but it’s the earth he’s smelling, not the men. See,” she motioned, pointing to the ground. “The men obviously dismounted here and began walking their animals. Harold says footprints from several directions converge here. Luckily, the ground is soft and Harold can sniff at one of these deep footprints and tell how long ago it was made. Now stay here a moment and let me find out what Harold wants us to do.”

So saying, Alix bent low and raced soundlessly toward Harold on her moccasined feet, holding the skirt of her riding habit up above her ankles. When she returned, the boys had just finished tying their horses to nearby branches and were fairly dancing about in the excitement of the chase.

“What did he say? What did he say?” Jeremy questioned eagerly. “Are we closing in on them?”

“Brought my ruffles,” Billy volunteered, dangling an evil-looking pair of handcuffs in front of Alix’s astonished eyes.

Cuffy shook his head slowly in disgust. “The fella’s really revolting, you know that? Ruffles, indeed.”

“Yeah,” interposed Jeremy. “It’s like it says in his book: he has about as much wit as three fellows—two fools and a madman!”

Alix positioned her hands on her hips and set one moccasin-clad toe a-tapping. “If you are quite done insulting poor Billy here, may we please get on with it?” After Cuffy executed a flawless leg in her direction, followed by two lesser, more humble bows from his fellows, Alix informed them of Harold’s plans.

He would, in true Indian fashion, go on alone, following the tracks the highwaymen had so conveniently left behind. Then, once he had ascertained the thieves’ location, he would backtrack to a place he felt safe and signal for the rest of his trackers to join him.

“What’s the signal?” Jeremy asked, now well and truly caught up in the adventure of the thing. “Will he shoot a flaming arrow into the air?”

Trying to keep a straight face, Alix told him it would be nothing quite so dramatic. “He will make the call of the wild turkey.”

“Well, if that isn’t above everything silly,” Cuffy drawled sarcastically. “
Any
fool knows turkeys don’t call in the wintertime; he’ll set the highwaymen to scampering sure as check.”

“Cuffy’s right. Probably how they lost the wars in America. Stands to reason, don’t it, if turkey calls were the best they could come up with,” Jeremy added, more than a little crestfallen.

Alix refused to enter into an argument with the boys but merely shot them a quelling look before plunking herself down on a nearby fallen log to await further developments. About a half hour later the call came as Harold’s wild turkey imitation set all the smaller birds in the area into flight. Bodies bent nearly in half, the four scurried off in the direction of Harold’s voice. Soon all five of them were hunkering down behind a small stand of trees, their eyes riveted on the scene Harold pointed out to them.

In a small clearing just ahead of them stood a ramshackle cottage that had definitely seen better days. Half of its thatched roof was missing, rags were stuffed into gaping holes where windows had rotted away, and the only visible door to the hovel hung drunkenly from its single remaining hinge.

But it was not the cottage that caused their eyes to widen and their mouths to gape; rather, it was the sound of voices coming from its interior that had their complete attention.

“It’s them—it’s the high toby men!” Billy rasped, nearly exploding with his knowledge. “Let me at ’em!” he blustered, brandishing his ruffles.

Both Cuffy and Jeremy were hard pressed to hold back the enthusiastic Billy, struggling silently as they each held tightly to one of his ankles, but the noise made by the heavy iron manacles clanging together as Billy swung his arms wildly about was more than enough to alert the thieves.

All in a moment, it happened. A mean, dirt-streaked face appeared in the doorway, rapidly discerned the cause of the commotion, and hastily withdrew his head to warn his fellows that “some coves have rumbled our lay!” Before Harold could do more than throw his body over Alix’s in an attempt to shield her, three shots rang out, two of them snapping through the branches near the boys and the third cutting a deep furrow in Harold’s bearskin blanket.

While their would-be capturers nervously embraced the damp earth beneath their prone bodies, the thieves burst from the cottage already on horseback—as their less than refined tastes did not see any reason not to share their living quarters with their mounts—and hightailed it off into the woods.

“Well, that’s that,” commented Cuffy, spitting out a mouthful of moss and rolling over onto his back to contemplate the sky.

“Tipped us the double,” Billy agreed—admitting that the highwaymen had gotten cleanly away—before both his friends began pelting him with leaves and clumps of moss, letting him know just whose fault it was the thieves got away.

It was left to Harold to restore some order to the group, which he did by neatly knocking the boys’ heads together and growling menacingly as he held out a portion of his abused bearskin robe, his finger pushed up through the bullet hole it had sustained.

“We’re in the basket now,” Jeremy said, shaking his head sorrowfully. “Alix would have taken that bullet if it weren’t for Harold here.”

At that, Alix, who had been vainly trying to regain her wind after Harold had knocked it clean out of her with his crushing embrace, raised herself to her knees and stared at the bearskin in some fascination.

“
N’tschútti
—my dear, beloved friend—thank you,” she told the Indian, placing a hand on his arm.

Harold seemed to grow another foot taller as he rose, straightened his shoulders, and threw his head back majestically. “
N’nitsch undach aal!
” he pronounced regally—come hither, my child!

Alix got to her feet, brushed off her habit, and quietly followed behind Harold as he strode off through the trees—no longer an interesting oddity or a figure of fun, but every inch the great warrior, to be looked upon with awe and respect.

The three boys, greatly subdued, followed meekly some paces to the rear on the ride back to Saxon Hall—the four horses walking behind the loping Lenape who led the way.

It wasn’t until Alix was safely inside the inner bailey that Harold allowed himself to swoon—collapsing gracefully on the ground at her feet.

Lord Linton was furious! It had been bad enough to hear that the nutting expedition the boys had told him was the outing they had planned for Alix had in reality been merely a ruse to cover a childish attempt to trap the highwaymen, but to discover that they had actually been chuckle-headed enough to put Alix in danger was too much to be borne.

Jeremy’s admission that they had “made a muff of it” was just the understatement of fact to set Nicholas off into a raging fury. Capping his anger was the admission that Harold, in the act of protecting Alix, had taken a ball in the shoulder and was even now lying unconscious at Saxon Hall.

Leaving the three boys behind at Linton Hall to nervously await his return and the punishment that would surely follow, Nicholas set forth toward Saxon Hall on his fastest horse.

That he was not as welcome as the flowers in May was soon apparent, as Alix greeted him abstractedly before ducking inside Harold’s wigwam to tend to her patient. This left Sir Alexander as the only other occupant of the Great Hall, and that distinguished gentleman made no bones about whom he felt to be at fault for putting his only granddaughter in peril of her life.

“That hare-brained bunch of hooligans is under your guardianship, Linton, and I hold you personally responsible for this near-disaster,” Sir Alexander told Nicholas none too quietly as he jabbed at the Earl’s chest with one pudgy finger. “Bedlam-bait, the three of ’em, that’s what they are. You have my word on this, Linton—if they ever dare to show their faces around Saxon Hall again, I’ll have their livers carved out and set up on poles for the crows. Sink me, if I don’t just do that!”

“Such a piddling punishment, Sir Alexander? Pray, don’t be lenient out of any consideration for me,” Nicholas soothed the enraged man. “For my part, I was considering setting the scoundrels themselves up on poles for the crows.”

At that the old man laughed, slapping Nicholas on the back thumpingly, and called to Nutter to bring two goblets of gin. “Should have known you had nothing to do with it—seeing as how you’re to be my grandson-in-law and all,” Sir Alexander told the Earl, his humor much restored, and the two seated themselves at one of the long tables and discussed Harold’s condition.

“The ball passed clean through one of those oversized lumps of muscle at the top of the savage’s arm,” Sir Alexander informed Nicholas. “Alexandra’s already cleaned out the wound, piffling little thing that it is, although the heathen did lose a lot of blood, I guess. That’s why he fainted, y’know. Alexandra didn’t even know he was wounded—says he used that animal fur to sop up the claret, and no one the wiser until the bloody idiot passed out at their feet. Got to admire the man, I guess,” he added grudgingly. “He did, after all, save m’granddaughter’s life, yet I can’t help but know if he hadn’t been a part of the scheme none of this would have happened at all.”

“On the contrary,” Nicholas told him, his golden eye twinkling, “I believe Alix would have gone haring off with my brother and his harum-scarum friends irregardless of whether or not she had Harold’s sanction. Much as I had dismissed our Indian friend as an eccentric fool, I now believe your son Charles’s faith in Harold to have been well placed. Obviously the fellow dotes on Alix.”