Chapter 4
Nicholas Belline was quite accustomed to making his way through the woodlands on horseback, with little more than a bedroll and jerky. In fact, he believed that there was not a better feeling in life than that sort of utter freedom.
But, having two Native women in tow, with one of them injured and only in and out of consciousness, was much more than he ever bargained for. He had used the majority of his leftover coin to purchase two mounts with a few provisions from a farmstead just beyond Governor Stuyvesant’s bouwerij, or bowery, a massive farm estate that stretched along for many hectares outside the city.
He and Opichi had been arguing for the past two days. The language barrier that still stood between them did not help matters at all. He knew the weight of his situation. In his quest for independence – and the persistent need to come and go whichever the way the wind blew him – he had now lost his best friend. Even worse, he had acquired two women who depended on him alone for survival.
Against all his instincts, Nick was beginning to think that it might be the best course of action for them all to simply return to New Amsterdam. There, he could leave women with whatever Natives he could find, and see if his friend had survived the melee. There was no way the Dutch could have held their decrepit fort for very long. The English would be in control by the time they returned, and likely the chaos would have settled in the wake of the transfer of power. It was still quite a bet though.
Opichi, quite vocally, had opposed his idea from the start. It appeared that the city’s bedlam had frightened her much more than even had her defilement by the likes of Le Tousse. Nick supposed that, for a young Native girl, the experience of a British invasion would have been an overwhelming nightmare. Her home was the quiet of the forest. She missed her family village, although he knew it was very far away from their current location.
They both missed Pétant. But as Opichi pointed out, he had made his man’s choice to stay in New Amsterdam. He had done as he felt that he must. He had left Opichi. He had left Nicholas. Now, they should move onward.
Still though, the girl prattled ever on, about what anymore, he was not exactly sure. Pétant was correct in his initial assessment of Opichi as a chatterbox. And even though youthful, when the ‘robin’ desired to be bossy, she surely let it be known. Pétant had been much better at dealing with her, and she seemed to have taken well to his personality. Perhaps it was better that Nick did not fully understand her lecturing tone.
With a momentary groan, he adjusted the injured girl on his right shoulder, which was becoming numb from holding her astride for such a long period. Opichi handled the other mount, taking the lead along the narrow trail, for the time being. Her pony was loaded with their travel bags and scant provisions.
The girl’s injuries weren’t terrible. However, she had surely been struck very hard on the head to be in and out of consciousness for quite a long time. And when her dazed eyes had occasionally managed to open for a few minutes, she seemed in a state of confusion.
Nicholas was surprised when he looked into them the first time she stirred. They were an unusual shade, glinting with golds and ambers – truly not the typical dark brown color of a Native woman’s eyes.
“Mingan,” the girl had moaned, over and over. Opichi had managed to relay to him that Mingan was a warrior’s name of Lenape origin. Wolf, or something of the like.
So, he mused. Due to his superior luck, it was likely that he had kidnapped the injured mate of a fierce Lenape warrior, and was also traveling with the stolen and defiled daughter of an Ojibwe elder – of high status – as he had earlier learned from Opichi.
“Baise malchance,” he cursed his terrible fortune in French.
“Do not swear so. She tells you that her people are four week’s ride to the west.”
Nicholas’s mouth gaped when the woman he was holding spoke to him clearly in French. He couldn’t see her eyes, for her head still rested against his shoulder.
“Are you in pain?” he asked.
“Your hair tickles me. Badly so.”
Nicholas realized his bushy, brown beard was scuffing against her head and cheek as he leaned over her in an effort to better hear her words. He tried to push it back from the girl’s skin and tuck it away into his buckskin coat. He had given up shaving many years ago; it was just too much trouble. The hair kept his face warm in winter and the biting insects at bay during the humid summer months.
“But you are well?” he persisted.
“My leg has much pain.” Her voice was growing weaker. Opichi had ceased her chattering and had swiveled on her pony’s back to stare at them wonderingly. She spoke urgently to the Native girl. The girl replied in a Native tongue then, as well.
“Luwènsi Katari.” My name is Katari.
The Native girl who was called Katari attempted to turn her head a little bit to face him, and whimpered in the process. She was in pain. He saw the fine line of a regal cheekbone and the flutter of dark lashes.
Her mouth opened again. “Opichi says that you are going in the wrong direction to save us.” It came out as a whisper before her head lolled back against him yet again.
~~~~~
The forest stream was spring-fed and clear to the pebbled bottom. The sheltering ridge behind it boasted a clear vantage point in all directions. The large outcrop of grey and yellow sandstone boulders provided protection from the breeze that had picked up from the south.
Varied species of tree boughs and branches swayed far above, providing a whispering sound that was soothing. Nicholas felt that it was a very good spot to rein in. Better than they would find elsewhere, at the least. He feared that Katari’s condition was worsening.
Glancing skyward, he hoped that the breeze did not foretell a change in the weather, such as a cooler, rainy night to come. Although it was late May, a damp and chilly night would not be a boon to anyone with serious injuries. Not to mention a raging fever.
When Opichi had cleaned the girl’s dirtied face with a cloth of cool water from the stream, Nicholas was startled by the beauty that emerged from the grime. Her face was heart-shaped with full lips and high, cultured cheekbones.
She looked fairly young, but it was truly hard to judge with her eyes closed so innocently. The eyelashes that framed her flushed cheeks were as thick as he had ever seen on a woman, either Native or White.
There was an ugly cut on her forehead, but it was not so large that it needed to be sewn. Nor could it have caused her serious head injury, as he had initially feared. She had varied bumps and bruises as well, but none that appeared life-threatening. Her bones felt intact. But it was the infected wound that was surely spreading its fever through her body, and keeping her barely lucid.
Earlier, Katari had complained to Nicholas of pain in her leg. So, they had torn off her buckskin legging, which had once been of fine workmanship. It had become shredded and filthy in the melee, and now housed an ugly surprise.
A dirty piece of iron from the dray had become impaled in her slender thigh. The skin around the protruding metal was swollen and angrily red. Her face was now aflame as well and she was shivering in her fevered state. Merde. Shit.
They weren’t going to be riding anywhere else tonight. Opichi’s face was now drawn with worry, as well.
Nicholas grasped the rusty iron shard, and withdrew it as swiftly and as surely as he could manage. The pain of it brought the poor girl sharply awake. Her face went from red to ashen, to red once again, and her chin trembled. But she began to struggle to push herself up on her elbows.
Nicholas laid a hand gently on her shoulder. “Rest, Katari.”
“No,” she insisted, “I must see. Help me to sit, please. Please.”
Nicholas frowned at her, but she stared back at him with those unusually glinting and forthright eyes. At the moment, they were clear of confusion. He relented, and knelt behind her to lift under her arms until she was in a sitting position and could view the open wound herself.
She winced
at what she saw. “This is not good,” she muttered to him in French. “But I have seen worse live to walk again.” She pushed against the edges of the wound, and some watery pus leaked from the sides. Nicholas was amazed that she didn’t even blanch this time.
“It needs thoroughly cleaned,” she told him, looking up at him with that unwavering gaze. Her French was very good. In her earlier delirium, she had spoken often of a father named Allouez. Perhaps she was of mixed race. It would explain much. The eyes. The knowledge. The lack of fear of a man like him.
Nicholas scooped her up in his arms again, and was surprised when she wrapped her own around him without hesitation. He was hairy, ugly, and degenerate-born. Why such innocent women seemed to trust him innately, he could never understand. She was light in his arms and quite petite of build for a woman. He carried her to the edge of the water.
He set her down as gently as possible, knowing her pain must be great. She called to Opichi, who hurried to her side. “We must get my leggings all the way off. They are useless now, and filthy.”
Watching, Nicholas was unsure of how to help. He had dressed wounds in the wilds before, but he had not handled the treatment of an infected one. At the outposts, there had been doctors of sorts, likely of ill-repute, yet at least they knew how to set a break or dig out a lead bullet. And they had plenty of jack-whiskey at the ready to slake the pain.
One freed of the breeches, Opichi helped the girl to maneuver until she had immersed the injured leg in the cold, flowing waters. After rinsing and soaking the cloth, Katari began to clean the wound. Her shoulders shook with the effort.
Nicholas hated to watch anyone in such pain, especially of the female persuasion. He wanted to take it on for her – he was good at handling pain. He was often able to simply step out of his body to lessen the effects. Katari must have been good with pain as well, for although she trembled, she did not cry out or falter.
When Katari had finished her ministrations, she drew a long breath and began a rapid-fire series of instructions for Opichi’s ears. With the use of pointing and gestures, there appeared to be very little language barrier between them. Although there was a multitude of dialects that confounded him, Nicholas knew that the Algonquian languages of the east were similar in structure.
Opichi gathered up a satchel and a knife, and headed into the woods with deliberate steps. Nicholas approached the girl then, cautiously. “Do you need further aid, Katari?”
When she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled wistfully, he felt a strange twist inside. “I need to remain here and allow this pure spring water cleanse out the sickness in the wound for as long as possible,” she explained. “I will endure the frozen backside. It numbs the pain as well.”
“Oh,” he stated inanely. Was this shyness that he was feeling? He looked down, and realized how grizzled and grungy that he must appear to such a woman.
“You are a French-Canadian?” she inquired. “A trapper from the North?”
“That is correct. For nearly seventeen years in fact.” He marveled at the swift passage of time. He hardly remembered the life of the hardened twelve-year old guttersnipe from Lachine. He tried not to, anyway.
“There is still time to set snares before the sun falls,” she remarked. “If you have survived for seventeen years here, I am sure that your trapping skills fall in the good to excellent range.”
Nicholas managed to laugh through his initial surprise. Two bossy women in his care and both were telling him what he should do? Where the hell was Pétant now? Katari arched one dark eyebrow at his chuckle.
“Yes, of course, I will happily set some snares, Katari,” he answered, subdued again, “but I don’t feel comfortable in leaving you alone. You are far from well.”
“The coldness of this water has already lessened my fever and Opichi will return shortly. She is collecting the bark of the white pine, an easy task, as well as that of the willow. I am skilled with healing.”
Katari laughed herself then, a tinkling sound that Nicholas found pleasing. “Although, truth be told, I have never attempted to heal myself. And it has often been said that I am rather difficult to deal with.”
Sighing, she leaned back to rest, the lower half of her body still submerged. “For now, it would be wise for me to save my strength, though.”
Nicholas viewed the bare skin of her thighs and calves shimmering beneath the waters, and the black and unbraided hair fanning out behind her on the leaves. Again, he felt that same strange twist inside. This woman was beautiful. Ethereal.
He looked away from the perfectly proportioned female form spread out on the stream’s bank, with a guilty feeling for the longing that Katari had suddenly stirred. The resultant rush of shame made him grumble to himself, for Native women were unembarrassed of their bodies, naked or otherwise, and he was doing nothing wrong by looking upon her.
It just irked him to feel…well, lecherous. She was youthful and very likely clean of any sin. The likes of a man such as he would need to make due with a hardened outpost woman, and a full bottle of spirits. And then, his freedom when the morning light came slanting through the window.
He strode over to his gear packs and rummaged through them, locating several small game snares. It would be easy to identify some squirrel, hare, or muskrat runs near streams such as these. He was tired of jerky and corncakes, intermixed with hard crusts of wheat bread. The farmer’s wife had not been able to spare much, even with the promise of additional coin.
Quietly, Nick placed the provision pack and an extra knife next to the now sleeping Katari, carefully keeping his gaze averted from her lower half. Then, he moved off into the undergrowth. He would not travel out of earshot.
~~~~~
“You are extremely good at this, Opichi.”
Katari was pleased with the young woman’s ability to take instruction, and add her own considerable experience in the process. Although Katari was quite hindered by her immobility and the throbbing in her thigh, their preparations were quickly coming together.
Katari’s short nap had helped immensely. But she knew that her strength would not last long. She chewed steadily on the bark of a willow sapling to ward off the return of her fever. She needed all of her wits about her to do this correctly.
Opichi had efficiently started a small fire upon her return. Together, they now worked on creating the poultice that Katari hoped would ease the threat of her infected wound. As instructed, Opichi had collected a good deal of the bark of the White Pine and brought it back to Katari. With their flint knives, they peeled out the green, inner bark and pounded it with stones until it softened into a pulp-like substance.
Katari heard the crunch of boots in the undergrowth. She held her breath until Nicholas emerged into the clearing carrying two squirrels and a muskrat on a line of rope. She smiled her appreciation at him. At this moment, it seemed that luck was on their side. She needed to heal quickly in order to find her brother and Father Allouez again.
Katari had never, ever, been separated from her twin in such a manner. It was truly the most devastating feeling she had ever known. Grey Wolf’s absence, and the knowledge that he could be injured or even dead left a dark pit of terror inside her that was nearly paralyzing. Thrusting the negative thoughts aside, she focused on her tasks to keep her fear at bay.
Nicholas settled in close by and began to swiftly clean his catch for their meal. His practiced motions spoke of his skill. Prepping smaller animals were often much more difficult than the large ones. Within minutes, they were dressed and ready for the spit.
Katari noticed his occasional furtive and curious glances in her direction. Of course, she had been appraising him much the same. She cleared her throat and brought forth her French. “Opichi is helping me to prepare a poultice from the sap of the White Pine tree. Have you heard of such a method?”
When he shook his head, she continued. “It would be wise for you to watch the process, then. The resin inside this tree has an amazing power to take awa
y the heat of an infection, and speed healing.” They began to heat the pulp over the fire to release the resin within the fibers.
“How have you learned these things, Katari?” he questioned softly.
“I am from a line of Lenape Medicine Women,” she said matter-of-factly. “And Opichi is a tree-eater.”
“A what?”
Katari laughed again. “It is a name the Iroquois have given to the Ojibwe people. Opichi’s people are bright enough to utilize the power of the white pine tree when times are harsh, and not just for good medicine. The inner bark and pine cones can be eaten for sustenance.”
“Adirondack,” Opichi added staunchly, nodding her head.
“Yes, that is the Native word for tree-eater,” Katari added. “It may have been given as a…slight, but the Ojibwe are proud of their ability to survive and adapt in the harshest of conditions.”
“So are the French-Canadians,” he added with a bit of cockiness in response to her lecture. “The Coureur de Bois fear nothing.”
“Ah,” Katari responded. “So you are a true adventurer, then? Father Allouez has spoken highly of men such as you, runners of the wood who blend with all race of people. But he also taught that you are wild, and unsuitable for tribal – or White - lifestyles.”
“We are free men,” he grunted. “And your father is correct.”
“So why is it that a fierce adventurer is bent on protecting two Native women from harm rather than seeking his liberty and stacking his furs? Opichi has told me all that you have done for her, as well.”
Nicholas stood abruptly and arranged the spitted meat across the coals of the fire. He looked angry, with his beard bristling every which way, and his golden brows drawn together. “It seems I have a weakness after all,” he grumbled.
Katari gasped and grimaced as they began to layer the warm poultice over the wound, packing it in carefully but firmly. Nick was sure that it must hurt like the dickens. The stringent scent of pine tar filled the hollow, overriding that of their meal on the spit. Though it was not at all unpleasant, he imagined that torn and infected flesh might not find it so appealing.
Savage Journey Page 4
