Wind Dancer (19 page)

Samuel shook his head, looking around the clearing, then finally back at Clark. “I cannot leave her here.”

“Yes. You can.” Clark took a step toward him. “You won't do her any good here. If you go with me, we can raise a ransom. Find a hostage of their people to trade her with, something. Here you will only watch her become more and more their captive.”

“You don't know her.”

Clark stared hard at his best man. “After tonight … I think I do. I know enough to know that she will be all right for a
few more weeks. It's her only chance. They won't give her up willingly.”

Samuel looked into his leader's bright blue eyes. “We could take her, tonight, by force.”

“I can't risk war with the Shawnee, not with so much at stake.”

Samuel nodded his understanding. “She will think I've abandoned her. She won't understand.”

Clark glared hard at him. “Don't forget why we came here. Your purpose, our mission. I won't risk all that for a woman. Not even … such a woman as she.” He clapped Samuel on the shoulder. “She is stronger than you give her credit. Did you see what she did during their ceremony? How she turned it against them? And still they didn't dare destroy her. She holds some magic over them.”

“That's what I'm afraid of. If she doesn't give in to them soon, or at least pretend to, they will kill her.”

Clark smiled at his friend. “You've never been so taken with a woman before, have you? Let me tell you. After seeing what I saw tonight, I don't believe they will harm her. Samuel … trust me. Come with me. We will get her back.”

“Yes.” He looked ashen, so sick to leave her, wondering what she would think of a man who would turn tail and run out, leaving her with the enemy.

Isabelle woke to the news that Samuel and Clark and the Americans were gone. Her hope for salvation had deserted her on a white horse and night wind.

She had been hurried to bed the night before with the other women, the Green Corn Dance abruptly over. Waking early, hoping for some news, she had rushed out into the summer sunshine to find they had left her there. Alone. With the enemy.

The realization was crushing, like a great weight on her chest, her next breath a forced thought. She kicked at a little stone on the ground, watching it roll over and over in the dirt. She picked it up and stared at it in the palm of her hand. It was one of the blue stones she had given Samuel last night for her dance fee. He had thrown it away.

Isabelle turned toward a sound behind her. Sinchi slowly approached, head down, her big solemn eyes hesitant. Isabelle saw that this woman, this enemy, had tears in her eyes.

“I am sorry for you.” Sinchi spoke quietly, knowing the traitorous sentiment for what it was. She looked at the stone in
Isabelle's hand, recognized it, and pressed her lips together, her hand coming up to rest on Isabelle's shoulder.

Isabelle looked into Sinchi's eyes, her own filling to match her friend's. Then she dashed them away and took a bracing breath.

“I am not sorry.”

She dropped the stone in the dirt and turned away toward her morning chores. After a few steps away she stopped and looked back over her shoulder. “Thanks,” she whispered the only word she could force past the tightness in her throat.

The tears flowed down Sinchi's round cheeks as Isabelle turned and walked away.

* * *

OVER THE NEXT few days the camp seemed to embrace Isabelle, elevating her chores to those more to her liking, giving her choice food, presenting her with gifts, and Sinchi staying nearby and speaking to her in English.

Sunukkuhkau did not press himself on her, didn't demand that she speak to him or expend herself in any way on his behalf. He was simply there, a quiet presence beside her. Together they would look off into the sunset, feeling the evening breeze, not speaking.

Every day she found little presents from him left on her bed or in her moccasins—a beaded necklace, an armlet of beaten brass, a clutch of downy feathers. She couldn't help her smile this morning as she awoke to a baby bird sleeping next to her bed, its tiny, glossy head tucked under a wing. Upon inspection she discovered that one of the wings was wounded.

She carried the bird with her as she did her chores, careful not to bump it, but not knowing what to do to help. The other
women, when she asked, only shrugged and gave her a secretive smile.

She hadn't seen Sunukkuhkau for a couple of days, and as she looked around the camp for him, she was surprised to realize that she missed him. Then, looking at the baby bird in her palm, she felt him come up behind her.

“Did you leave this for me?” she asked, raising her head to look at him.

He looked good, tall and lean, strong muscles in his chest and belly. His face was serious and full of compassion. He nodded. “I found it in the woods, fallen from a high nest. Not ready to fly.”

“Will it ever fly again?”

“If you help it.”

“I don't know what to do. I have asked the women, but they just shrug. Even Sinchi, who I know understands me.”

“That is because they know that the bird was not the gift. The gift is the lesson. I will teach you to mend its wing.”

A few weeks ago Isabelle would have dumped the bird in Sunukkuhkau's hands and walked away, but now she did not. She nodded, as solemn as he. “I would like to learn such a thing.”

They walked to Sunukkuhkau's lodge house and entered, her eyes adjusting to the dim light after the August sun. She had never wondered before why he lived alone, but now she thought it aloud.

“Why do you live alone, Sunukkuhkau?”

He was turned from her, digging in a bowl of odds and ends. He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. “You are beginning to know our ways. It is a good question.

“I lived in this house with my wife. Her mother and father died many moons ago, and my family lives with my older brother, so I live alone. My wife was,” he made a motion of a round
stomach, “when she died of smallpox. We had plans to fill this house with many children.”

Isabelle nodded, looking down at the bird in her hands. “I am sorry.” She knew where smallpox came from; she knew the white man had brought it into the land. And she
was
sorry for him, for the life he should have had.

Sunukkuhkau motioned for her to sit beside him on the raised pallet that was his bed. Isabelle had no fear of being alone with him in his lodge; he might be a wicked opponent on the battlefield, but the Shawnee had strict rules concerning unmarried women and how they were to be treated. Isabelle knew he would never cross any boundary with her on that score.

She sat beside him, holding out the little bird in her cupped palms. Sunukkuhkau gently propped up the wing, moving the broken part so that it was even with the tiny bone that appeared to be intact. He bent over Isabelle's hands, his breath fanning against her palm, moving slowly and carefully, while the little bird chirped and wiggled in pain.

“You're hurting it,” Isabelle complained, but she watched closely, knowing he had done this before.

“A little,” Sunukkuhkau said softly. Taking up a tiny stick, whittled clean and white, he placed the stick on the underside of the wing. Holding it in place with one hand, he smoothed the feathers down with the other. “Lay it down,” he directed her. “Slow.” Isabelle laid the little farthing on the bed. Sunukkuhkau nodded toward her free hand and a thin strip of cloth. “Wrap it around the wing.”

With painstaking care, Isabelle wrapped the thin gossamer cloth around and around the wing, tying a tiny knot to secure the loose end to the bandage.

The bird quivered suddenly and went still. She looked up to Sunukkuhkau with alarm. “Is it dead?”

Sunukkuhkau smiled and shook his head. “Asleep. Someday, because of our care, he will fly.”

Isabelle stared into this man's eyes, feeling herself fall victim to the spell cast by this scene. His eyes were dark brown, the pupils so black, but there was much to be read in them: strength, heat, a man's heat for a woman, and something else—something that made Isabelle's heart start to pound so hard she wanted nothing more than to run.

This was a trap.

She saw it suddenly, in its full intent. This man wanted her. Whether for love or lust or some power they thought she had, she didn't know. But this touching scene, the little gifts, the salve on her wounds left by Samuel's betrayal—these Indians had seen their opportunity, especially Sunukkuhkau, and taken advantage.

Everything in her wanted to stand and rail at him, to run from him, but she had learned a thing or two in these last weeks. She too could be sly. So despite her certainty of a trap, she lifted her face and smiled at him. A slow smile. The kind that never failed.

He pressed his lips together, watching her, judging her, not easily convinced, so she pressed on. “I do hope he flies someday,” she said, and she did, “but it was your care that helped the poor creature, nothing of mine.”

Sunukkuhkau wasn't one to praise her unnecessarily. “You will learn, Cocheta.”

“Yes,” she breathed, staring into his eyes. “I believe I shall.”

* * *

WHO IS YOUR survival?

The phrase repeated itself over and over in her mind as she lay, later, feigning sleep on her cot. She had begun to pray
the moment she left Sunukkuhkau's lodge. She prayed with her lips moving, but the words were silent and constant until she found her bed. Then came the words, unbidden:
Who will be your
survival?

She pondered this, turning it over and over in her heart, knowing some key was hidden there. She thought back to her mother, Hope, and her lessons of Christ and His sacrifice, of God the Creator, and how He had fashioned this earth and herself. She had always found sure evidence of His glory in the forest and trees and animals and plants. She supposed there was a father-weakness there as well, a need and desire for the loving, constant presence of the father that she'd never had in Joseph. Besides, she loved hearing the Old Testament stories—the fire, the passion, the risks taken by men and women of faith. They had never failed to inspire her.

Yet Jesus, the son of God, had seemed a foreign person. He taught in parables and riddles, seeming slowly to walk the earth, skimming the sand in His holy sandals through desert cities, pouring water into the dry mouths of the Jews. She understood that His death on the cross had paid her redemption fee, like the dance fee, heaven's golden ticket. But she did not understand the man Jesus. His only ambition had been to lay down everything. To die. And that was something she had never had within her.

Who will be your survival if you do not die to yourself?

The words frightened her. What if she was
never
rescued from this place? What if she couldn't escape? She didn't want to give up, lay her wildness, her strength, on a cross like His. But she saw, sudden and complete, that she could not save herself. Her strength had not deterred the enemy; it had only made them more determined to have her.

In that moment, in that minute, Isabelle faced the fact that she was a captive.

It was only a matter of time. The Shawnee would wear her down, wear her out. And she would, eventually, give in.

She turned her head into her pillow and allowed the silent, shaking sobs to overcome her. She had been so close with Sunukkuhkau this afternoon, so close to giving them what they wanted. And she knew, deep in her heart, that if she did, she would never live the life she was meant to live. She would lose everything.

She was on the very edge of losing everything.

Tears coursed down her face, wetting her hair, her neck, her dress, her bed. Tears of grief, tears of turmoil, tears of anger. “I can't do this anymore! I can't do this without You,” she breathed, quiet and fierce. “I need you, Jesus.
You
are my survival.”

A great heaving occurred in her chest that she tried to still for fear of waking her lodge mates. Tremors shook her, and she was soaked in a baptism of tears. Then, gradually, as the emotion was spent, she quieted, and a deep, unfathomable peace came over her. She wept silently now, breathing it in for a long time.

Then, for the first time since Julian's death, she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.

Hope's thighs quivered as she half crawled, half stepped over the huge fallen tree in their path. She looked down at the foot she'd thrown over the log and frowned, thinking the red seeping from the top of her shoe might mean something was bleeding.
Well, that would explain the constant pain.

Adam Harrison looked back at her, saw the difficulty she was having, and stopped. “Need a rest?” There was concern in his eyes as he walked back toward her. He handed her his canteen as she stretched out a hand for him to help her over. She settled on top of the log and took a long drink.

“I'm afraid so,” she said, drinking deeply again. “These legs aren't used to marching.”

Adam nodded, looking her over and noticing her foot, the red now soaking through the brown leather. “Hope, why didn't you tell me you were bleeding? Here, give me your foot and let's have a look at it.”

Hope leaned down to unlace the shoe. They were stout, sturdy shoes but not made for trekking through the wilderness.

“I only just realized it myself a few moments ago. Is it the shoes, do you think?”

Adam nodded as he watched her slowly, painfully remove the offending footwear. He squatted down in front of her and took the foot in his lap, carefully easing down the stocking. “What you need is a good pair of moccasins.”

“Ha! I've never worn a pair of moccasins in my life.”

“Well, once you do, you will never go back to wearing clunky, hard leather like this.” His hands took firm hold of her foot as he turned it slightly to examine the large welt on the outside edge, a raw and ugly wound bleeding profusely. Pouring some of their precious water onto a handkerchief from his pocket, he gently dabbed at the throbbing sore.

Hope drew in a hissing breath. “Maybe you are right. You don't happen to have a pair of those wonderful moccasins in your pack, do you?” She smiled at the top of his head, his dark hair streaked with gray but still thick and wavy.

“Wish I did, but no. We can get a pair in Kaskaskia for the trip home.”

“I have a better idea.” She smiled at him, her eyes wide. “Let's buy a horse and ride back.”

Adam laughed. “Yes, it's too bad mine had a lame foot. If I'd had more time, I could have rounded one up, but what with the rush …” He let the thought trail off, they both knowing that had they not left that very hour, Joseph would have found a more forceful way than threats to keep Hope at home.

* * *

ADAM COULDN'T BLAME Joseph for wanting to keep Hope from going. He didn't want Hope out in the wilderness traveling
like this either; she wasn't conditioned to it. But Adam did hold
a deep dislike for the man and couldn't begin to fathom a father who wouldn't go after his children or heed his wife's intuition concerning their safety.

If he knew anything about Hope Renoir, it was that she had the ear of God; and if she thought her children were in trouble, then Adam would do just about anything he could to help her find them.

And why not? He had been in love with Hope from the moment she stepped off the boat onto the muddy shore of the Wabash River. She had laughingly asked if there was an empty house in town because she was heartily sick of sleeping on the ground and would take anything she could get with four walls and a roof.

She was so beautiful that day, standing in the late-afternoon sun, her hair blonde and shining, pulled into a loose knot at the back of her neck. Her eyes, when he finally worked up the courage to really look into them, were pale blue ringed in sapphire. He saw such pain hidden there, such strength, such forbearance and wisdom for a woman her age. He saw a lifetime in that long glance, knowing her better in that moment than any woman he'd ever known.

Beside her stood a gangly, gypsy-looking girl with a glowing face and too much energy, straining against her mother's hand. They watched her together, he and Hope, as she broke free and, with a running start and a mighty leap, her arms outstretched like the wings of a bird, jumped to shore with a whoop and a deep laugh that echoed across the water and their hearts.

Hope ducked her head and laughed. Adam stared in wonder.

The small boy, though—Julian, as he would later learn—clung to his mother's hand, a blend of his parents in coloring with the dark-blond hair of his mother and the olive complexion and
dark eyes of his father, eyes that were huge and solemn and saw the world from another place.

They were the most beautiful children he had ever seen.

He had fallen so fast and hard that day that he had yet to recover. Then he met the darkly good-looking Frenchman who was her husband, these children's father, barking orders and pointing impatiently.

God help me
, he'd thought then and many, many times since.
God, You
must
help me.
Every day, every minute after that, he had repeated it, aloud sometimes:
Hope Renoir is a married woman
.

Now as he looked into her beloved face, seeing the gray around her temples, her hair not quite so bright, the intervening years etched on her face, his heart still lurched within him. He had to look away, down at the injury, to breathe evenly again.

“Rip a long piece of that petticoat off and I'll bandage it up before you put back on that awful shoe.”

“And ruin a perfectly good petticoat!” she demanded with a smile in her voice.

“Better than ruining a perfectly good foot.”

She shrugged, none of the usual tightness in her smile. “Well, there is that.”

She was teasing him, and he could hardly stand the joy bolting through him, gripping his chest in a wave of triumph. He had to turn away to keep her from seeing it, using the excuse of her needing privacy so that she could hike up her skirt and destroy her petticoat. He heard the ripping sound.

“You can turn back around, Dr. Harrison. I have your bandage ready now.”

He turned, avoiding her eyes and squatting back down in front of her, trying not to notice the smooth texture of her skin as he gently wrapped the cotton around her foot. Rising, he handed her the canteen again, waiting while she took a long swallow,
following it with a quick drink himself, wanting to save as much of the water as he could for her.

Growing brisk and cheerful, he turned them from the intimacy. “Shall we march, my lady?”

“Why of course, dear sir. Was there ever a more beautiful day than this for a stroll through the wood?”

He chuckled, taking her arm, loving the English lilt to her voice, leading them on to what now felt like a casual foray through a glorious park in some exotic location that they fixed in their minds.

Two days later, mid-afternoon on a hot August day, Hope and Adam walked along the shore of the Kaskaskia River to the outskirts of town. She looked tired and dust coated but excited now. After all, her children might be in this place. Adam felt years younger, coming alive in the time he had spent with her.

He only hoped that Isabelle and Julian would be here, in full health and in trouble for worrying their mother so.

* * *

SAMUEL PACED THE floor of Clark's office. “One hundred and fifty pounds sterling?”

Clark nodded, his lips pressed into a grim line. “That was the redemption price of another female captive a few years ago. Delaware. I don't know what the Shawnee price for Isabelle might be. Perhaps more, if they can even be bought.”

“Which seems unlikely.”

Clark stared off into the distance. “I don't know. You know I would give it gladly if I had it, but I've barely enough to feed this army. We're living on the credit of the good Francis Vigo. The men are being paid with land to fight, one hundred and eight acres of Kentucky frontier when this is over.”

“Maybe I could sell my portion. How much do you think it is worth?” Samuel sank into a chair, his head hanging down.

Clark rubbed his face with a hand. “Not enough. And you don't have the deed yet. With the speed of the Virginia Legislature, you won't have that for months after this campaign.”

“I can't just leave her there! You said you would help me.” He groaned. “I never should have left.”

“I am trying to help, Samuel. I've put out word for any information of important Indian captives, someone to trade her for. I've also written to the tribes as far as five hundred miles away, offering them the red wampum or the white. I fully expect them to be arriving on our doorstep in the next weeks for councils. We could learn something valuable from them that might save Isabelle.” He paused, piercing Samuel with his bright blue eyes. “For now, all we can do is wait.”

“She will think I have abandoned her.” It was said as a plea.

“If she thinks that, my friend, then she does not know you well enough yet.”