LeClerc 01 - Autumn Ecstasy (2 page)

Linsey blinked away her tears as she vividly remembered that day and Elizabeth’s excitement over the carriage that had been delivered only two hours earlier. She could still hear Elizabeth’s voice as she pleaded with Linsey to take a ride with her.

“Please, Linny?” Elizabeth’s deep blue eyes glittered with excitement, and dimples peeked enticingly from the corners of her mouth. “Just a short ride; we won’t go through town, just out to the country and back.”

“Elizabeth, I’m not dressed for a ride,” Linsey replied, pointing out the cotton day dress and house slippers she was wearing. “Besides, in another hour or so it will be dark.”

“Oh, please?” Elizabeth pleaded. “I promise no one will see you.”

Since her father’s death, Linsey had become very protective of Elizabeth and found she could not refuse her tiny, pretty stepmother’s slightest request. Smiling her reluctant agreement, Linsey returned to her room to change her shoes and pick up her serviceable wool cape. Innocently, she stepped outside to the new carriage — and certain death for Elizabeth.

True to her word, Elizabeth directed the matched pair of bays away from town, following the winding, tree-lined road into the country. The well-sprung carriage handled well, its heavily padded seats cushioning the larger jolts. The wind tore at their hair, pulling it free from its pins until gold strands mingled with auburn, making them appear to be a dancing wave of fire.

Giggling like a mischievous child, Elizabeth pulled to the side of the road, insisting that Linsey take a turn driving the carriage. As they were trading places, Jeb and Zeke appeared from behind the trees. Each man grabbed a woman, his filthy hand over her mouth so that she could not scream and possibly alert a nearby traveler. Linsey and Elizabeth were both small women, but they fought with all their strength. It was fate that Linsey looked toward her stepmother at the instant Zeke’s handling became fatally rough. A sound like the snapping of a twig filled the air, and suddenly for Elizabeth the fight was finished. Her head hung at an odd angle from her slender neck, her eyes staring sightlessly at the azure sky.

Linsey struggled even harder to escape her captor and go to the aid of Elizabeth. She refused to accept what her rational mind told her was true. A well-aimed blow turned the nightmare scene to darkness as she sank unconscious to the ground.

Linsey cursed the unfairness of life. Only six years older than her own nineteen, Elizabeth was much too young to have been married, widowed and now dead. She should have gotten married again, to a man much younger than her first husband. She should have had the joy of children, the knowledge of being loved and adored by her family.

Forgetting, if only for the moment, that she was heading farther and farther into the wilderness, Linsey mourned the death of the woman who had been not only her stepmother but a dear friend as well.

Laying on the ground where they had left her, Linsey watched the dappled colors of the autumn leaves above her head. A chorus of sounds played soothingly around her: the bubbling of the water as it danced against the bank, the wind rustling through the leaves, a whippoorwill’s plaintive call. Her thoughts were anything but peaceful, and her agitation grew when she once more tried to recount the number of days they had traveled. Linsey soon realized that each day had blended into the next until she was no longer certain of the number. They had walked for several days before reaching the river and the poor excuse for a boat. Jeb seemed in no hurry to arrive at his destination, letting the dilapidated flatboat drift with the current.

At the beginning, they had passed several settlements, and Linsey had hoped to attract attention. Jeb prevented her by throwing a rotting fur over her and warning her against making any noise. Her fear of him had been too great, and she cursed her own meekness at cowering before his threats.

Linsey’s thoughts returned to the present when Zeke entered the camp with an armload of firewood. Not wanting to attract the attention of any roving Indians, he quickly made a smokeless fire. The Shawnee normally stayed on the other side of the river, but Jeb took no chances. He used the fire only long enough to cook their meager dinner.

When the rabbits were cooking, Jeb turned once more to his captive. “Time for us to take a little walk, girlie.” He grinned behind blackened and broken teeth as he untied her.

Linsey climbed clumsily to her feet, rubbing gently at the raw skin of her wrists. She turned her back on his leering face and headed away from the river. At the beginning she had thought she would die of embarrassment when she discovered he would not allow her the privacy of even a few minutes alone. She knew he would just sneer if she asked him to leave her. She had tried, at first, but begging and pleading seemed to increase his feeling of power. Now, after weeks of having his sharp eyes on her, she simply turned her back and did what was necessary.

“That’s far ‘nough.” Jeb smirked as he watched the blush crawl up the side of her neck. He leaned against the nearest tree, spitting a stream of tobacco into the dirt at his feet, and licked at the juice on his lips. “Ya know what we corned out here for, so get to hit.”

Keeping her back to him, she used her cape as a shield from his prying eyes. Since the evening of the carriage ride, she had lived a nightmare. This was only another part.

Linsey quickly readjusted her clothing and walked back to camp. Kneeling at the edge of the river, she cupped the water in her hands and splashed it on her face and neck.

Letting the cool water flow soothingly around her battered wrists, she looked past the river to the far side. By rights of an oft broken treaty, it belonged solely to the Shawnee. If she could swim, she’d go to their side and throw herself on their mercy. Even facing the hostile savage known for his hate of the white race was preferable to facing the fate planned for her by Jeb. A quick death by one of their arrows would be a blessing in comparison to being sold to a trapper somewhere downriver.

“That’s ‘nough, girlie,” Jeb called from the fire, his leering eyes never leaving her back. “If’n ya wants your supper, ya’d better get your purty butt over here.”

Sighing at the if’s and maybe’s that now filled her life, Linsey took a last longing look at the far bank.

“Six of one, two three’s of another.” She murmured the phrase so often used by her father, her voice sounding rusty from disuse. Rising from her knees, she walked back to the campfire.

She accepted the plate and cup Jeb handed her. She was far past being revolted by their eating habits or by the fact that the meat they gave her to eat was half raw. Even the grunting, slurping sounds made by Zeke no longer affected her.

Sitting on the hard, cold ground with the plate balanced on her lap, Linsey wondered if she had ever really sat at a table with sparkling crystal and polished silver. Had she worn gowns of fine silk and delicate lace? Was the past only a dream, a means to escape the reality of the present? Or was this a dream, a nightmare, never to be broken by the dawn of a new day. Wanting to cry, knowing tears were useless, she ate the undercooked meat to stave off her hunger for the past.

While Linsey nibbled on the rabbit, she watched the men begin to settle the camp for the night. The ritual had been established the first night on the trail and never varied. Jeb hunted, cleaned and cooked the meal. Zeke gathered firewood, built the fire and then, after the meal, cleaned the metal plates and cups they used.

She watched Zeke wipe the plates and cups with the tail of his buckskin shirt. The first time she had seen him clean up, she had been so repulsed she had not eaten for two days. Now it was simply another of the many things she accepted. The cups and plates that had been nearly new at the beginning of their journey were now dull and battered, and at each meal she tried not to think about how truly dirty they were.

As Zeke cleaned up, Jeb kicked dirt over the fire and checked that the flatboat was secured for the night. Once more her wrists were retied. Jeb used a long rope at night. He tied one end to his own wrist, and she had discovered the slightest tug on it would wake him.

Linsey settled as far away from Jeb as the rope would allow. She wrapped her cape around her and with a grimace of distaste pulled the tattered fur over her. Jeb and Zeke each used new wool blankets that were beginning to show signs of wear.

Diamond bright stars played hide and seek behind fluffy moonlit clouds as the night sky darkened. Loud snores from Zeke’s side of camp echoed reassuringly to Linsey. She wiggled, trying to find a little softness somewhere, but as she had discovered every night since the beginning of her nightmare journey, the ground was unrelenting in its hardness. She counted the stars she could see peeking through the clouds and the overhanging trees, hoping to clear her mind of thought until sleep could envelop her in its blessed oblivion.

“We’uns should pass Big Jim’s tradin’ post sometime tomorrow,” Jeb said quietly. “If’n there be ‘nough trappers around, I may just decide to holt me a little sale.” He snickered as if sensing the fear that threatened to consume her.

“I’m still willing to pay you if you’ll return me to Philadelphia,” Linsey replied, trying to hide the quiver in her voice. It was an offer she made daily — and he ignored.

“I done tolt ya, girl, I ain’t gonna take ya back,” Jeb snarled.

“I don’t understand why you continue to refuse,” Linsey said. “I’m willing to pay you considerably more than you’ll make if you auction me off somewhere.”

“Shet up, girl. I ain’t takin’ ya back!”

“Why?” she whispered, her voice laced with ill-concealed desperation.

Jeb snorted, “Sure you’d pay me! And afore I could get out of town your Pa’d come a’lookin’ for me. May not make me as much with the hunters, but I’ll be alive to spend it.

“Sure is gonna be one mighty happy trapper this winter,” he taunted softly. “‘Course hits gonna cost ‘im a mite, but I figure how he’ll think hits worth hit once he gets hisself atween your legs.”

His snickering laugh made her cringe. “Yep, I reckon just ‘bout any of them trappers would be mighty pleased to winter with ya. Gits a mite bit cold ‘round here during the winter, and you’re ‘nough to warm any man’s feet. ‘Course hit ain’t my feet I’d want ya to warm. No siree, my feet wouldn’t even know they’s cold if’n I had ya on a long winter night.”

Linsey bit her bottom lip to stop the tears rimming her eyes from rolling down her face. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing her terror. To spend the winter alone at the mercy of a stranger, knowing he could, and probably would, use her in any manner he saw fit! To be sold, given no choice, to lose her freedom!

A rustling of leaves followed by a contented sigh told her Jeb had settled himself for the night. “Don’t reckon I mind if’n theys nobody at Big Jim’s tomorrow. That’ll give me a time to have ya for myself.”

Linsey was unaware of the cool breeze playing across her face and teasing the hair around her nape. Tomorrow. It would bring escape from one situation and send her into something that could be far worse. She wondered which was worse; to be sold to an unknown trapper or to be used repeatedly by Jeb. Neither situation was one she would willingly chose for herself, and yet one of them would be fact by the next evening. Linsey tossed and turned, trying to escape her thoughts.

“Lay still, girlie, or we just might see if’n we can do it without waking Zeke. Reckon if’n I put the gag back in your mouth, it’d keep ya quiet like.”

Linsey froze, afraid to move a muscle for fear Jeb would make good his threat. Night passed slowly, Jeb’s snores soon mingled with the sounds of the night creatures, reassuring her that he slept. She drifted in and out of sleep — praying desperately that tomorrow would not come, certain it would be easier to face death than the new day.

The feeling of being watched woke Linsey from a restless sleep the next morning. Zeke hunkered down beside her and reached for a tendril of hair peeking from beneath the fur.

“Purty, purty,” he mumbled softly, wrapping it around his hand.

“Zeke, leave ‘er be,” Jeb called patiently. “Come eat so ya can get things loaded in the boat. We’s got ‘portant things to do today.”

“Please, Jebby?” Zeke whined as he unwrapped her hair from his hand. “Zeke’ll be real careful. Just one time?”

Jeb patted his brother on the back and lightly pushed him toward the fire. Not once in all the weeks of travel had Linsey seen Jeb lose patience with his brother, always treating Zeke with a parental gentleness.

“Not this un, Zeke,” he said quietly. “But I promise ya we’ll find ya one even better after we’s sold her.”

“Hit just won’t be the same, Jebby,” Zeke grumbled, sadly shaking his head as he walked away. “Hit just won’t be the same.”

Their breakfast consisted of warmed-up, left-over rabbit and weak coffee. After the meal, Jeb pushed Linsey to the boat. She settled into the spot in a corner that had become hers. Jeb tied both her wrists and ankles this time and replaced the gag.

They slid leisurely away from the bank and into the current, letting the flow of the water send them downstream. Using a long pole, Jeb would occasionally push away from the bank when the boat floated from the center of the river.

Zeke sat at the front, his loaded rifle across his lap, a piece of wood and a pocketknife held lightly in his hands. Linsey had discovered that Zeke, so clumsy and inept in doing the simplest tasks, took on an amazingly natural grace and dexterity with a pocketknife. She had spent many days of travel watching as he carved small animals in minute detail. A tiny squirrel clutching an acorn between its paws or a mountain cat poised delicately, ready to spring on its prey, each was carved with the accuracy and care of the finest craftsman.