Judith E. French (17 page)

“Most importantly there,” he replied, “lest the spirit of the bees be offended.”

She flung herself back in the warm, soft grass, neck arched and breasts heaving. Her skin was flushed, her breathing deep and quick, her pulse pounding.

He straddled her with his knees and leaned over her, pressing his huge, swollen, pulsating sex against her bare thigh.

Fiona breathed deeply of the scented air and let her hands caress his chest and shoulders. I love him, she thought. He’s right ... We were born to be together like this.

His mouth was doing wonderful things to her throat; his strong hands were hot against her skin. His hips undulated against hers until the heat built within her so that she moaned with desire. She raised sticky fingertips to his chest and smeared him with the sweet. It seemed to be the most natural act in the world to taste the honey ... to flick her tongue against his smooth skin and feel the contour of his hardening nipples against her lips.

He tasted of honey, and salt, and man.

Excitement raced through Fiona, and she exhaled softly. Her body was trembling beneath his; her mind was aflame with wanting him ... with wanting to be a part of him. She arched against him, willing herself to release the past, letting her heart carry her beyond all barriers, opening herself to this man.

His burning shaft brushed the entrance to her sex, and the earth seemed to move beneath her. “I want to fill you with my love,” he rasped. “I want to go deep, deeper than I’ve ever gone.”

“Yes. Yes,” she urged.

She fastened her teeth on his skin and nipped him. She felt like laughing and crying at the same time. Her soul seemed to have taken flight. She was tumbling through time and space in glorious excitement. He pulled away, and her eyes snapped open. She raised her arms to him.

“The ceremony,” he whispered. “The ceremony must be complete.”

The warm drops of honey seared the skin of her belly like molten lead. She threw back her head and writhed against the thick grass in wanton abandon.

He lowered his head and licked the honey, one drop at a time. Tremors rocked her body. She spread her legs wider and dug her nails into his shoulders. Her breath came in jagged gulps; perspiration covered her body in a thin sheen.

He squeezed the handful of honeycomb over the russet triangle of her nether curls, and she sobbed with anticipation. His hot, wet mouth pressed against her.

“Please ...” she panted. “Please ... no more. I need you ... I need you ... inside me.”

“Shall I fill you, little wife?” he asked, and his tongue laved her love-swollen mound.

“Now ... now.”

The warm honey dripped between the folds of her wet opening. “Every drop,” he said softly, “lest we anger the spirit of the bees.”

She closed her eyes and gave herself up to the sweet, wild passion of their love.

 

The sun stood two hours past noon when Fiona raised her face from the hollow of his shoulder and listened. What was that sound?

It came again. A faint shuffling. A squeal, and then a grunt, almost like that of a piglet.

Puzzled, she looked around. The meadow seemed quiet, much as it had been before she and Wolf Shadow had begun to make love. The breeze had shifted slightly; now it blew from the west rather than from the northwest. The steady drone of the bees remained, along with the occasional song of a bird.

She exhaled softly, deciding the strange sound had been nothing more than her imagination. Then the squeal came again from the edge of the woods. Fiona sat bolt upright and stared.

Waddling out of the trees came a small buff-colored ball of fur. Two beady eyes and a little black nose tilted up toward the sky. Then the tiny creature opened its red mouth and bawled like a human baby.

Wolf Shadow’s body went taut, then he came to his feet beside her in slow motion.
“Ne nipauwi.
Don’t move,” he ordered. “Stay perfectly still.”

“What—” she began.

He silenced her with a fierce glance.

Confused, she looked back at the furry animal. Was it a fat puppy? What could possibly make Wolf Shadow react so violently to such a harmless animal?

“Bear cub,” he whispered. His musket and war club lay a few feet away, between them and the bear. Even his knife had been discarded when he’d taken off his loincloth. “Whatever you do, don’t move,” he repeated. “If the sow charges, lay flat on the ground. Don’t run, and try not to move, even if she attacks you.” Slowly, he inched his way toward the weapons.

Fiona’s gaze scanned the shadowy forest. What he’d said made sense. If this was a baby bear, there must be a mother nearby. But where was she? And why didn’t Wolf Shadow want her to run away?

The cub paused in its innocent ramble to bat at a yellow butterfly. The butterfly flew away; the cub scrambled after it, tripped over a rotten branch, and did a somersault. Despite Fiona’s fear, it was all she could do not to laugh.

The cub bawled, its cry a cross between that of a calf and a puppy. The answer came from the woods on the far side of the clearing, a rumbling bellow that made gooseflesh rise on Fiona’s arms. She caught her breath and waited, watching for a shape to materialize from the shadows of the trees.

When the nightmare became real, Fiona’s mouth went dry. A scream rose in her throat, but she stifled it by sheer will. The bear lumbered out into the meadow from the north; the cub was at the south side of the clearing. Fiona didn’t need Wolf Shadow to point out the danger. They were between the mother bear and the cub.

The old sow rose on her hind legs, her huge front paws waving in the air. She was as big as a full-grown bull. Her hair was black, but the years had streaked her with gray and given her a ragged look. One ear was missing, the other flattened against her gnarled head. Her mouth gaped open, and Fiona could see the rows of ivory teeth surrounding a bloodred tongue.

The mother bear snarled again, and the baby gave an answering whine. The sow sniffed the air and swayed back and forth, seemingly scanning the meadow for her lost youngster. Beyond her, Fiona saw a second cub scramble up a pine tree.

Wolf Shadow slid the musket into Fiona’s hands. “It’s primed and ready,” he whispered, “but don’t shoot. Whatever you do, don’t move, and don’t pull the trigger.”

The she-bear roared again.

“Look at her eyes,” he said. “She’s nearly blind.”

Fiona caught a whiff of rotten meat and dried blood; the smell made her stomach turn over with nausea. It’s the bear I smell, she thought. The taste of fear was acrid in her mouth, and she strained to breathe.

The bear cub bawled and started toward the sow. The most direct route would take it over Fiona’s lap. Then the cub sniffed the air and stopped short, puzzled by the strange scent of man.

The she-bear dropped to all fours and came toward them. Wolf Shadow stepped in front of Fiona. “Stay still,” he reminded her. Slowly he moved to the right, three feet, then four.

“No,” Fiona cried. “What are you doing?”

The bear grunted and reared up again. Her deep roar seemed to shake the earth. Saliva dripped from her open maw, and her yellowed claws gleamed like daggers in the sunlight. Her head snaked out as her cataract-clouded eyes spied Wolf Shadow.

The bear looked from the man to the spot where she could hear her cub on the far side of the clearing. She tottered, then fell forward on all fours. Her muscles tensed, and she rolled the skin back from her muzzle like a snarling dog.

“Sehe,” he ordered.

Fiona gave a faint moan. Did he think he could tell a bear hush and it would? Was he mad?

Naked, with empty hands, he moved toward the angry sow.
“Sehe, nee ke yah.
Be still, mother.” He brought his palms together and then spread them before him.
“Penno wullih.
Look yonder.”

The sow growled a terrible challenge.

“Peace to you, mother,” he continued in the Shawnee tongue. “I come not to harm you, but to share your meadow.”

Fiona stood and lifted the heavy musket, aiming it at the bear. The bear took a dozen running steps toward Wolf Shadow, and she forced back the hammer with shaking hands.

Wolf Shadow stood motionless. “Be at peace,” he continued in Algonquian. “We mean you no harm. I have gathered honey. Take it as a peace offering.”

A Shawnee war whoop split the air. Fiona spun around to see a slim, bronze figure, bow in hand, streak toward the buff bear cub. With another howl, the boy slapped his bow on the cub’s back. The little creature let out a cry and barreled across the meadow toward the mother. The boy struck the cub again, and the terrified animal sped past Fiona and Wolf Shadow, ducked under the mother, and ran squealing into the woods behind her.

The mother bear gave one final snarl, turned, and loped after her cub. Too shocked to move, Fiona stood where she was until Wolf Shadow took the musket from her clenched hands and pulled her against him.

Fiona began to weep as he patted her back.
“Sehe, sehe,”
he soothed. “It’s all right.”

Sobbing, she clung to him. “I thought ... I thought ...” she managed, then broke down in tears again.

Kitate came to stand grinning beside them.

“I suppose you think you saved us,” the shaman said in English. “Another moment, and I’d have convinced her to leave.”

Kitate nodded. “Yes, I’m sure she would have, right after she had had your head for dinner.”

“Why didn’t you just shoot the damned bear with the gun?” Fiona demanded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hands. Suddenly she realized that she was standing in front of Kitate as naked as the day she was born. Her face flamed as she ran to where her skirt and vest lay, turned her back, and dressed as quickly as she could.

Kitate kept grinning.

“I was teaching Sweet Medicine Woman how to steal honey,” Wolf Shadow explained as he donned his moccasins and loincloth.

“I see,” the boy said, grinning even wider.

Fiona fumbled with the ties on her vest. They were sticky with honey, as was the front of her fringed skirt. She avoided Kitate’s gaze as she searched the grass for her woman’s loincloth. Wolf Shadow found it and tossed it to her. She noticed that he seemed as pleased with himself as her nephew did.

“Why didn’t you shoot the damned bear?” she asked again.

“She was a grandmother bear with children. I thought I could convince her to leave us alone.”

“You tried to talk a mountain lion out of attacking and that didn’t work. What in God’s name made you think you could do it with a bear?”

He shrugged. “I’ve done it before. The magic just doesn’t go well when you’re around.”

“She’s probably a witch,” Kitate put in.

“I’m not a witch,” Fiona protested. “No sane man would try to face down a bear.”

“No white man maybe,” Kitate said, “but mother’s husband, Brandon, did once, and he’s English. I think ye be right, Aunt. No sane man would.”

“I’m a great shaman,” Wolf Shadow declared. “I know the medicine to speak to bears.”

“Maybe this bear spoke only Iroquois,” Fiona said.

Wolf Shadow grinned at her. “The bear didn’t eat us, did she?”

“No,” Fiona admitted. “But it was Kitate who saved us, not you.”

“Don’t be so sure,” Wolf Shadow replied. “How do you know my magic didn’t call the boy?”

I
t was early June. Fiona counted the weeks again in her head, unable to believe her own reckoning. But it was true. The days here, deep in the wilderness of the Ohio country, seemed to flow together and spill over the rocks of her consciousness like a clear mountain stream.

Could it have been so long ago that she’d first set foot on American soil? Could it have been so many weeks since she’d last seen the man who claimed to be her father?

Fiona sighed heavily and clasped her amulet. Wolf Shadow never ceased to plague her about Cameron Stewart.
Forgive him,
he told her.
Listen to what your father says. Hatred eats at the heart of the one who hates, not the object of the bitterness.
“Damned if I will,” she muttered. “He betrayed and abandoned my mother and me. He didn’t want me when I was a babe. What does he want with me now?”

She propped her chin on her palms and leaned forward, supported by her elbows. She was lying on her belly on a hillside, her gaze on an eagle trap in the valley below. Wolf Shadow was hidden in the trees, somewhere not far from the trap, while Kitate crouched in the earthen pit waiting for an eagle to take the bait.

“This is insane,” she’d protested when Wolf Shadow had explained what was involved in capturing a live eagle. “Kitate’s only a boy. An eagle could put out his eye with one swipe of its claws.”

“To be a man, he must capture the king of the sky,” Wolf Shadow had replied.

“He’s not a man.”

“He will be.”

“You’d risk a boy’s safety to satisfy a primitive ritual?”

“It has always been done so.”

He was so stubborn. When she disagreed with him, Wolf Shadow would listen politely, then do what he wanted to do from the start.

And they did disagree. Often. So often that Fiona sometimes wondered at the rationality of her decision to be his wife.

She would never understand him and his Indian ways. She would always be a stranger looking on.

Except when he drew her into his arms and kissed her. Except when he sang to her or played a love song on a bone flute. Except when she lay in his arms at night, and he pointed out the scattered stars in the sky and told her stories about the shapes he saw there: the Hunter, the Bear, the Star Maiden, and others.

She trusted him as she had never trusted another living man. Yet she didn’t trust him completely. She couldn’t.

“Damn. Damn. Damn,” she uttered in exasperation. What had he done to her? She’d given herself up to him body and soul. And she loved it. At least most of the time.

Kitate had brought news of angry grumblings in the Indian camp. “Many are suspicious of Fiona,” he’d told Wolf Shadow when he thought she was asleep. “My mother says that the chances of a Shawnee alliance are farther away than ever. Even Tuk-o-see-yah questions your allegiance to the Shawnee. He asks how you can expect us to put away all English things when you take a flame-haired Irishwoman to wife.”

Wolf Shadow had not answered Kitate. He had gone away from the campfire and not returned until morning. And when she had tried to discuss the issue with him, he’d brushed her off with a careless shrug of his broad, bronzed shoulders.

“You are my wife. So long as we walk the earth.”

“But I won’t come between you and your dream,” she’d insisted. “It means too much to you.”

“I will have both—you and the alliance.”

He had refused to speak of it again.

The hard barrel of her flintlock pistol dug into her hip, and Fiona shifted her position, removing the weapon from the carrying pouch Wolf Shadow had sewn for her and laying it in the grass. She’d kept the pistol near her ever since the bear incident. Wolf Shadow had taught her how to load and fire the gun, and had insisted she practice her aim. She was no expert shot yet, but she could handle the weapon safely and hit anything the size of a man at twenty feet.

A high-pitched
kleek-eek-eek-eek
sounded from overhead, and Fiona scanned the cloudless blue sky for sight of an eagle. She saw nothing.

It had taken the boy two days to dig the pit and weave a covering of branches to cover the top. Wolf Shadow had instructed him, but he hadn’t helped, and he’d refused to let Fiona give any assistance. “Kitate must do this thing himself,” he’d explained. “It is our custom.”

Last night Wolf Shadow had told her of the final test of manhood Kitate must pass, and it had turned her blood cold.

For several years, the boy had been studying under Wolf Shadow. He’d been chosen to become a shaman as Wolf Shadow had been chosen when he was young. Today the boy must capture an eagle alive. He must remove one feather from each wing and then set the bird free. One feather would go to his mother on the night of his naming ceremony; the second would be Kitate’s—an outward symbol of his bravery. Capturing the eagle would give him the right to sit in the men’s council, to join war parties, and to take a wife when he came of age.

“He has already purified himself and fasted for five days in a high place. He has already had a sacred vision and been chosen by an animal totem. Kitate must show that he is worthy to become a Shawnee warrior. He must prove his courage and his dedication to me, his teacher. I have set him a task that women will sing of in the winters to come,” Wolf Shadow had told her. “He must go alone and unarmed to a Seneca camp and steal one of their wooden false faces—a ceremonial mask.”

“You’re out of your mind,” she’d flung back. “You can’t! That’s crazy. You’ll get the boy killed for nothing.”

“And for everything.”

“What do you want with this false face?” she’d demanded.

“I don’t want it. The mask isn’t important. We’ll send it back to the Seneca after Kitate’s naming ceremony.”

“Then why have him risk his life for it?”

“Because it is our way.” His dark eyes had lit with mischief. “Be glad I didn’t order him to bring back a live Iroquois shaman. It’s what my master demanded of me when I was his age.”

Fiona shielded her eyes from the bright sunlight and peered down at the eagle trap again. How could she face Moonfeather and tell her that she’d let Wolf Shadow send her only son on such a useless venture? How could she herself ever forgive him for such reckless disregard of a boy’s life?

Kleek-eek-eek-eek.
The piercing screech cut the still air again. This time Fiona saw a black spot in the sky almost directly overhead. Was it an eagle? Had the trap really worked?

“I bait the trap with a dead rabbit,” Kitate had explained, “and I call him with prayer.”

“I don’t believe you’ll catch an eagle in that thing,” Fiona had said. Now she wasn’t so certain.

There were two holes in the woven top of the pit, holes large enough for Kitate’s hands to fit through. When the eagle landed on the mat and tried to steal the rabbit, the lad would try to seize the bird’s legs. It had seemed a mad plan—outrageous—until Fiona had heard of the scheme to send Kitate to steal the mask. Now the eagle trap seemed merely stupid, hardly worth fighting over.

Fiona rose to her feet, trying to focus in the glaring light. The spot had become the outline of a bird, diving down at a tremendous speed. Fiona’s pulse quickened with excitement as she waited to see if the eagle really would land on the trap.

“Where is the shaman, woman?”

A man’s harsh voice startled her, and she whirled around to see Matiassu standing only a few feet away. Horrified, she looked past him to see if he was accompanied by his warriors. She saw no sign of them. “What are you doing here?” she cried. He wore no warpaint, but he carried a musket in his hands, and a steel tomahawk and knife hung from his belt.

Scowling, he took a step toward her. “Where is he?” The eagle shrieked again, and Matiassu looked down at the valley floor and spied the bird struggling on the roof of the trap. “Ah, the shaman hunts eagle,” the Shawnee war chief said.

“No,” she answered. “I mean ... yes.” Why was he here? He meant them no good, she was sure of that. Fear made her wary. She took a deep breath and tried to look composed. “Are you here to kidnap me again?” she demanded.

“No. I come to bring a message.” He reached out to grab her, and she spun away and darted to the spot where her pistol lay hidden in the tall grass. Matiassu lunged after her, but she was too quick for him.

She hit the ground, scooped up the flintlock, cocked it, and turned it on him. “Drop your musket,” she said.

His face paled in surprise. He stopped, barely an arm’s length away, his dark eyes dilated in surprise and anger.

“I said put it down,” she repeated.

“You won’t shoot me, woman.”

“Move one muscle and, by the sweet blood of Christ, I’ll blow a hole in you that no shaman magic can patch,” she threatened. She held the heavy weapon in both hands. “The musket. Throw it away from you.”

“Has the weeping woman become a fierce badger?” he mocked. “You be too soft to kill a man.”

“Try me.” For what seemed an eternity to Fiona, he glared at her. She glared back, unwilling to give him an inch.

Then, with a rough laugh, Matiassu cast the musket to the grass. “So,” he said grudgingly, “perhaps you be a badger.”

Unwilling to press her luck, Fiona opened her mouth and screamed as loud as she could.

Wolf Shadow came running.

She knew that he’d arrived when Matiassu shifted his grim scrutiny from her to an object beyond her back, and his expression changed.

“Matiassu.”

Warm relief surged through Fiona as she heard Wolf Shadow’s voice. Still, she kept the muzzle of the flintlock aimed at the center of the war chief’s naked chest.

Wolf Shadow came to stand at her side. “It’s all right,” he said. “You can lower the gun. He’s alone.”

“We don’t know that,” she said.

“I know.”

Matiassu raised an open palm. “Greetings, moon dancer.”

Wolf Shadow nodded. “Why are you here?”

“I come to bring you a warning.” Matiassu switched from English to Algonquian.

“You?”

Matiassu smiled thinly. “We are enemies, you and me. It is good for a man to have strong enemies. They make a warrior great.”

“If you are my enemy, then why are you here, and why should I believe anything you say?” Wolf Shadow asked in English.

“Roquette is angry with you,” the war chief continued in the Indian tongue. “He knows you stir the Shawnee against him and against his French brothers. He has placed a bounty on your head and on that of your badger woman. One hundred louis d’or for your head and stones, another fifty for the woman—alive. He wants her for his sleeping mat.”

Wolf Shadow switched to Algonquian. “And you have come to warn me ... out of love.”

Matiassu laughed. “Between you and me there is no love. Between us is only that which will end in death. But when I kill you, shaman, it will not be for the Frenchman’s gold, it will be because you are a dangerous man and need destroying.” He slapped his chest. “I am Matiassu. I do not kill for hire. I kill for pleasure.”

“As you murdered my friends, Beaver Tooth and Fat Boy?”

Matiassu smiled. “Do their scalps hang from my belt? Do I look like a man who would slay unsuspecting Shawnee brothers?” He shook his head. “Prove that I have harmed them or cease making accusations.” He turned away, then stopped and looked back. “When I have killed you, shaman, I will not give your red-haired woman to Roquette—at least not until I tire of her.” He raised a clenched fist in salute, then spun on his heel and strode off toward the forest.

Fiona stood trembling as she watched him go. “What did he want?”

“He came to tell me that the French have put a bounty on our heads.”

“Why?”

“With me dead, Roquette believes the council will vote against the alliance ... the way he wants them to.”

“But why would Matiassu come to tell you?”

“Because he is my enemy, and because he is Shawnee.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. He’s evil.”

“Even wicked men have honor.”

She stepped closer to him, aimed the pistol at the ground, and eased the hammer down carefully to keep it from firing. “What are you going to do?”

“Kitate caught his eagle. I’ll help him get his feathers without injuring the bird, and you can tend Kitate’s scratches so that they will not turn to poison.”

“But Roquette? What will you do about Roquette?”

Wolf Shadow looked thoughtful. “At dawn tomorrow Kitate will leave on his mission, and we will start back to Tuk-o-see-yah’s village. It is closer than my own home. If Seneca dogs hunt us, you will be safer among the Shawnee with your sister Moonfeather.”

Fiona’s throat constricted. “I’m afraid of Matiassu. I don’t trust him.”

He put his arms around her and pulled her against him. “Neither do I,” he admitted, “but he’s done us a favor. I owe him, and I must pay him that favor before I send him across the river to join his ancestors.”