Shawnee Bride

Wolf Heart scowled, his gaze flickering to Clarissa. She could not understand a word of what Cat Follower was saying, of course. But in the hours to come she would be the butt of many such good-natured jokes, and he silently ached for her. Yes, he lashed himself, he should have let her go while there was still time. Now it was too late.

“And what has become of your canoe?” Cat Follower’s grin widened, showing the gap of a missing tooth. “You look very wet, brother, as does your fox. Could it be that she spilled you both into the water? What a shame!”

“Never mind that,” Wolf Heart retorted a bit sharply. “It’s a long walk back to the village. Will your canoe carry all three of us?”

Cat Follower chuckled, one hand indicating the empty hull. “As you see, this was not a good day to go hunting. But my bad luck is your good luck. Since I have no game of my own, there is room for you, and for your whiteskinned fox, as well.”

“Then I owe you my thanks.” Wolf Heart nudged Clarissa toward the canoe. His fingertips brushed her back, feeling the fear in her taut muscles. This time, however, she did not try to fight or run away. She had no strength left.

He seated her in the prow of the canoe, then, pushing the craft off the sandbar, he slipped into place behind his friend and took up the spare paddle. Clarissa sat in rigid silence as the canoe glided into the current, her hair fluttering like a flame in the afternoon breeze.

Cat Follower’s wiry muscles rippled beneath his pockmarked skin as he guided the canoe. Years ago, his family had taken in a French trapper who had stumbled, delirious with fever, into their camp. The white man had recovered and moved on, but the sickness he carried had swept through the small Shawnee village. Only Cat Follower, then a youth of sixteen summers, had survived.

“What do you plan to do with her?” He was staring raptly at the play of sunlight on Clarissa’s hair.

“That is not for me to say.” Wolf Heart spoke around the painful tightness in his throat. “You know our law as well as I do. It is for the council to decide.”

“That will mean the gauntlet.” Cat Follower glanced back at Wolf Heart. “The council will demand it.”

“Yes, I know.”

“This one is not strong, brother. Look at her. She is as thin as a willow.”

Wolf Heart heard the note of caution in his friend’s voice, and he knew it was meant for him. Even for a man, the gauntlet was a brutal test. He could hardly expect a fragile, city-bred girl like Clarissa to weather such punishment.

Even so, as he watched her lean into the wind, her hair flying like a banner, Wolf Heart knew he could not abandon hope. “A willow bends,” he murmured quietly, “but it does not break.”

Clarissa heard the low voices behind her, speaking a tongue as alien as the chatter of wild geese or the baying of a wolf pack. The two men were talking about her—of that much she was certain. But maybe it was just as well she didn’t understand what they were saying. She was frightened enough as it was.

Her hands gripped the sides of the canoe as the slim craft sliced through a stretch of white water. The spray was cool on her skin, the canoe’s wild, careening plunges strangely exhilarating. Clarissa allowed herself to savor the moment. Soon, perhaps forever, all such pleasures would end.

With two paddlers, the canoe soon gained on its mates. Clarissa sensed the excitement among the other young braves as they turned to gaze at her, staring openly at her russet hair and pale skin. Resolving to be bold, she stared back at them. This, at least, gave her the opportunity to study her captors.

Earlier that day, she had observed that Wolf Heart, with his black hair and sun-burnished skin, could have passed for a full-blooded Shawnee. Now she saw how wrong she had been. He was far too large, for one thing. The Shawnee braves were compact and wiry, without an ounce of extra flesh on their bones. The rich coppery hue of their skins could never have come from the sun alone. The color seemed to glow in them, like light flickering beneath the surfaces of their bodies. For all the terror their sharp gazes struck in her, Clarissa had to admit that these Shawnee were beautiful people.

One of the braves called out, laughing. Wolf Heart’s reply was brusque, almost angry. What had the young man said? Had it been something about her?

She risked a glance back at Wolf Heart. He was sitting in the rear of the canoe, the muscles rippling in his arms as he drove the paddle into the water. His hair streamed back in glossy waves from his impassive face. What was he thinking? Why wouldn’t he look at her?

Fear tightened its cold grip on Clarissa’s throat. Her eyes gazed out at the sun-sparkled water. Her ears heard the laughter of the paddlers and the squawk of a passing crow. It was a sham, all of it, she knew. Death and danger lurked beneath the peace of this golden afternoon. Wolf Heart’s face had told her so.

The three canoes had drawn abreast now, and suddenly a shout echoed across the water. The braves leaned vigorously into their paddles. The canoes surged forward with a swiftness that made Clarissa gasp. It was a race! A race to the village!

She strained forward, caught up in spite of her fear. The canoe in which she was riding carried the most weight, and thus rode lowest in the water, but this handicap was balanced by the power of its paddlers. Even Wolf Heart had flung his strength into the contest, his mouth tightened in a grim line as he drove his paddle into the water.

The speed of the canoes became more labored as they turned into a narrow tributary of the Ohio. Now they were moving upstream. The bronze limbs of the young Shawnee gleamed with sweat. Their backs rose and fell with the strain of fighting the powerful current.

Just when it seemed they were all beginning to flag, the pockmarked brave behind her—Wolf Heart’s friend—started to sing. Clarissa felt the hair rise on the back of her neck as his thin voice rose to a high-pitched wail then dropped abruptly into a guttural, rhythmic chant that the other paddlers swiftly joined. The canoes surged ahead with renewed vigor, driven by the throbbing beat of the song.

Glancing back over her shoulder, Clarissa saw that even Wolf Heart was singing, although not with any great enthusiasm. She watched him furtively, her own spirit reflecting the blackness that had settled over him with the arrival of the canoes. If only she could talk with him, but that, she knew, would no longer be possible. He had withdrawn into his Shawnee self, and even now he was far beyond her reach.

Turning away from him, she gazed ahead to where the river curved and vanished behind a low, wooded bluff. A fresh breeze cooled her face. She inhaled deeply, flooding her senses with the faint but unmistakable aromas of wood smoke, roasting meat, tobacco and hominy.

Her ribs tightened sharply as if someone had jerked a noose around her. The very smells she was savoring meant that the Shawnee village could not be far. Soon she would know what her fate was to be.

The brightness had faded from the day. The sun lay a finger’s breadth above the trees now, blurred by a haze of low-lying clouds. Soon it would be dusk, then nightfall.

Clarissa filled her gaze with the dying light, with the deepening blue of the sky, the pale green of budding trees and the soft earthen red of spring willows. These she would hold in her memory to save for the time when darkness closed around her.

She did not expect to see another sunrise.

Wolf Heart’s village was nestled in the lee of the bluff, overlooking the river. Cook fires flickered in the gathering twilight. Smoke curled from the roofs of loaf-shaped bark lodges that ringed from a larger building made of logs.

As the three canoes glided toward shore, Clarissa could see people running down the path to the river—children of all sizes, women, some with babies in their arms, and a few men. They clustered along the bank, pointing and jabbering. She turned to ask Wolf Heart what they were saying, but the coldness in his eyes withered her halfformed words. She would get no answers from him—not in front of his people.

But what did it matter? She needed no interpreter to know that the people clustered along the bank were talking about her, exclaiming over her red hair and pale skin. She held her head high, battling the urge to hide her head beneath her ragged skirts.

Wolf Heart and his pockmarked friend had paddled the canoe in a half circle, rotating it so that when the small craft touched land, Wolf Heart was able to leap out and pull it onto the beach. Clarissa, now in the rear, turned to meet his stony gaze. His head jerked toward the village, an indication, she guessed, that she was to climb out of the canoe and follow him.

Only when she tried to stand did she realize how weak she was. Dark blotches swam before her eyes. Her cramped legs threatened to buckle beneath her—and would have, perhaps, if the pockmarked brave had not caught her arm. She allowed him to steady her as she climbed over the edge of the canoe and stumbled on to the sand. His leathery hand released her cautiously. His curious eyes followed her as she lifted her head and, summoning the last of her strength, tottered up the slope on her blistered, swollen feet.

The Shawnee people were all around her now. Inquisitive fingers caught her hair, tugged her skirts and poked at her strange white skin. Panic tightened its stranglehold around Clarissa’s rib cage. She fought back a scream as one wrinkled crone seized a handful of her hair, yanking so hard that Clarissa feared she was about to be scalped.

Terror exploded in her. She spun wildly, flailing at the groping hands and peering faces. She wanted only to get away, to breathe, but they were clawing at her limbs now, their sheer numbers dragging her down. She felt herself stumbling, falling.

“Wolf Heart!” The cry tore from her fear-strangled throat. “Wolf Heart!”

Suddenly he was there beside her, his arm catching her waist, lifting her as she went down. Clarissa heard his voice speaking quietly but firmly in Shawnee. The people were listening. They were backing away, clearing a path.

She sagged against his shoulder, trembling as they moved forward together. “It’s all right,” he muttered, leaning close to her ear. “They won’t hurt you. They’re only curious.”

“What’s going to happen to me?” She gripped his arm, her broken fingernails pressing anxiously into his flesh.

“That’s for the council to decide.”

“And when will they do that?”

“Tonight. Maybe tomorrow.” He spoke tersely, his voice revealing no trace of emotion. “You’re to be given food. Eat it all. Rest tonight while you have the chance.”

“And tomorrow?” She swung back to face him, ignoring the pressing crowd as she forced him to meet her gaze. “Tell me! What happens then?”

Something flickered in his eyes as he looked down at her, then his gaze hardened. “It is forbidden to speak of it,” he said. “You will know when the time comes.”

Clarissa’s taut nerves frayed and snapped. “You insolent savage!” she hissed with a fury she had not known she possessed. Her hand went up, and she would have struck him if he had not seized her wrist. Fury blazed in the depths of his cold blue eyes.

“Never do that again,” he whispered, his voice a menacing rasp. “Now turn around and walk—unless you’d rather be tied up and dragged!”

Stunned by his ferocity, Clarissa did as she was told. Anger fueled her strength as she stalked up the slope of the bank toward the village. She felt his looming presence behind her, sensed it in the parting of the crowd. Wolf Heart was clearly a respected man in this savage place. But it was equally clear that he would never use his influence to save her. From this point on, she could depend on no one but herself.