“You will not do this to me, Nicholas!”
“Stop!” He put his hands on her shoulders. “I am sorry, Katari, I have over-stepped my bounds. It is just that…sometimes the look in your eyes tells me the things I want to hear, and not the way that they truly are.”
“Nicholas, you are the one who turned me away. Now, you come back, with gifts and kisses, and attempt to destroy my chance at a suitable marriage with a man of status. You wish to take my happiness.”
She saw him pale with her words. “That is not what I want at all for you, Kat.” Something had changed in his blue-grey eyes, for they had darkened and hardened over once again. “I did not realize.”
“Realize what?”
“That you loved this man of…status. Of course, you deserve such a union. You deserve so many things.”
Katari’s mouth opened. What should she say? She did not truly love White Lynx. But it was basic logic that he was the brave for her. The only one left who could fit her needs at all…if that was even possible anymore. She growled with frustration.
“I cannot take these gifts from you!” she groaned in exasperation. “It would be a bad thing should the others come to know.”
“I would not tell them, Katari. You can hide them.”
“No.” She held onto them for a few more seconds, and then pressed them back into his hands. “It is not right.”
“They are meant for you, Katari, you will see.”
When Nicholas stepped forward, she moved swiftly back in response. “No,” she repeated. “You must seek your rest now, for you have a hunt approaching rapidly. They are likely more rigorous than you realize.”
“Katari-“
“I must sleep now, as well. I am suddenly drained.” She turned and ran through the quiet village. The breeze dried the tears from her cheeks as fast as they fell.
~~~~~
“Nico. Nico, wake up. Réveil.”
Nicholas groaned, not wanting to give into the process of awakening. Not just yet. His back and legs ached terribly. The memory of the thrashing that he had received only hours earlier made his stomach turn. But he had managed to pass off the stolen sack of bread to his accomplice before the bigger boys caught up to him. Claire had eaten well. He could slip back into his dreams for awhile longer yet.
“Nico!”
“S'en aller, Martine! Go away,” Nicholas mumbled. “I have not yet had enough rest to rise again. I hurt and you have had your bread.”
Although the boys he faced had been several years older, Nico was slippery and fast. And never did he feel his bruises until the fighting was done. After rolling away and down a sharp slope – into a ditch of animal slop – he had scrambled up the slimy incline and disappeared like a wraith over the far edge. The edge of the forest was close and his skinny thighs propelled him into it like a rabbit along its run. It did not matter than he smelled like manure.
Nicholas had made it roughly 300 meters before collapsing to his knees. Exhausted, he rolled into a ball under a mossy and rotten log. No one had ever found him. Thankfully so, for he had spent everything his unfed body had to give in that fight with three bigger boys. Two hours later, he had found the inner strength to rise and make it back to their latest tiny and secret encampment beneath a little-used wooden bridge.
His four younger friends had applauded upon his arrival, and the flush of pride he felt at Claire’s adoring smile was like nothing he had ever before known. They had saved him a large chunk of bread, not even stale, but freshly baked, and it tasted like the finest delicacy that could ever grace the French king’s table.
After stuffing his belly full and then securing the make-shift tents against the cool, rising wind, he had fallen into another fit of exhausted slumber, buried beneath a tattered hide and a pile of last fall’s crackly leaves. The leaves gave off a spicy scent of decay and forest floor that had become comforting to him. They were safe for now.
Martine’s bony hand on his shoulder, almost pinching in strength, would just not let him rest. Nicholas shook the boy off and opened his eyes groggily. “Ce que l'enfer, what the hell, Martine.”
“It’s Claire,” the boy told him in a strangled whisper. “Something’s wrong.”
Nicholas’s eyes shot open at the words and he was instantly on alert. He lurched to hands and knees, and then up to a standing position. His legs felt wobbly, but they held. The welts on his back throbbed with each thump of his heart.
He moved through the billowing tents, the material flapping down and inward with the pressure of the wind. It had grown colder, he realized with dismay. The warmth of the early evening was not holding. “Start more fires, Martine,” he urged as he pushed the fabric out of his way.
“We don’t have enough timber, Nicholas,” Martine called out morosely from behind him.
He found Claire wrapped in the warmth of a beaver pelt he had stolen a month ago, when the fall winds had started to mount, and a bone chill had crept into the night air. She had told him it was more than suitable, and kept her comfortable and healthy. Staring into her pale, wan face, he realized that more was amiss than the chill.
“Claire?” he asked hesitantly. “Tell me what is wrong?” He was embarrassed to hear his own voice crack.
“Oh,” she said, gracing him with her familiar soft smile, “I am naturally weakened by the wind. Your bread filled my stomach though,” she said, patting herself through the pelts. “I do not know what I would do without you, Nicholas.”
He knelt next to her and took up her hand. He did not like the strange warmth of it, even as she shivered in his grasp. “Claire, you must tell me when you think you are falling ill. I can steal medicine. I can.”
“Nicholas, you cannot keep stealing for me,” she admonished. “You will get caught, and then where will I be?”
He sighed, rocking back on his heels. There was truth to her words. Claire was not fit to live the harsh life of an urchin. She was of finer birth, and prone to illness. Her parents had both died with some strange pox, very shortly after arriving in Lachine. Claire had no remaining folk. Nor did Claire did not have the fortitude to work for a reputable family. She was lost and alone in a treacherous environment at the tender age of thirteen.
Nicholas had come upon her one dreary and fog-laced afternoon in the alley behind a baker’s home. She was propped against the building in a pile of her own torn and dirty skirts, obviously once of a finer make. Although her skin was soiled, he could still recall the sharp red imprint of the man’s hand across her pale and doll-shaped cheek.
Claire had looked at him with innocent eyes. “Boy?” she pled softly. “Will you help me?” Nicholas could have been a cutthroat intent on her immediate harm, but she had lifted her hand and implored him closer.
He took in her ashen skin and her luminous, cornflower eyes. “Can you tell me why such a man would strike me?” she asked. “I only asked for a crust. I did not try to steal from him.” Her irises were lovely, but seemed confused, dazed even. The stinking, fat cul had hit her that very hard.
Nicholas gritted his teeth. “What is your name?”
“Claire…it was Claire Desante. I do not know what I should be called now.”
“Well, I am named Nicholas Belline, no matter what others may call me out loud, and I am no longer a boy. I can help you.” He had lifted her to her feet, and helped her back to his current home, an abandoned shack comprised of old pine planks. He hated the way she cringed when he set her down on the dirty blankets, but it made him even more resolute. Later that night, she had dined on the finest pastry the fat cul had up for sale in his shop. And Nicholas hadn’t paid the rotten bastard a solitary sous.
Claire had been completely smitten with him ever since. Upon his return to their makeshift abode with some sort of bounty to present, her brightly beaming smile made him feel like nothing else. Although Nick was a mere eleven years of age, Claire made him feel like a man, full grown. He had a reason to arise each morn now, other than leaking into the bushes
outside.
He never could tell her that he was the fatherless son of a whore who couldn’t feed him and that she -his own mother- had turned him out like a dog to the street at the age of seven. Instead, he simply said that his parents were dead, too. It could likely be the truth. But Nicholas knew that he would do anything at all to keep her looking at him with adoring, liquid eyes. And he did. Countless times over.
But now, Nicholas felt a swelling sense of panic, not before known to him, when he placed his palm on her brow. It had beaded out in a sweat, although she had grown even more ashen. Her chest began to rise and fall rapidly.
“Claire?” he questioned. “How long have you been this way?”
She opened her lips for him, but only coughed this time, unable to form words. There was a foamy substance in the corners of her mouth.
“Since before you went raiding yesterday,” Martine announced over his shoulder. “She suddenly took a turn for the worse about two hours ago.”
“Merde!” Nicholas snarled. He never should have paused in the forest to rest, battered or not. “Why didn’t someone tell me earlier?”
Martine fidgeted. “She said nothing to us at first. She hid it. You know how she is, Nico.”
He did know. Claire never complained, and even attempted to cover up her infirmities from them all. He realized that she was ashamed of what she felt was inner weakness. It was up to Nicholas to monitor her, and check in with her frequently to gauge her needs. The others helped, of course, but they were not as diligent as he was. Now, the one time he allowed himself to rest, Claire had fallen sicker than ever before.
“Claire, why do you not tell us these things?” he admonished. He turned to Martine. “Bring cool water and rags. Hurry!”
When he turned back to the girl, her slight body was trembling all over. “Claire?” He grabbed at her bony shoulders. He could feel the rapid bleating of her heart, racing at the speed of a rabbit’s beneath his thumbs. Foam trickled out and onto her chin.
Her beautiful, blue eyes were wide with the starkness of utter fear, and she stared right through him.
Chapter 21
“Claire, no!”
Nicholas blinked, staring upward in sudden confusion at the interwoven tree boughs and thatching that visibly arched above his head. His heart was racing. He was covered in a slick sweat.
“Nick?”
Pétant’s voice brought him to understanding. The sound of ever-flapping canvas faded away in his mind. He was in a Minsi lodge, and not a youth back in Lachine, helplessly holding a dead girl in his arms.
“I’m good,” he rasped.
“You getting those dreams again, Nick?” Pétant asked in a hushed tone. His friend had grown familiar with them over the years bunking together.
Nick pushed himself upward, amazed that he had fallen asleep so deeply in the middle of the day. The night’s revelry had caught up to him.
“Sorry,” he whispered back. “I hope I did not wake you.”
“It is no matter,” he heard Opichi’s muffled voice, and Nick shook his head in dismay, knowing now that he had done so. “This baby is kicking my belly like a bucking fawn,” she added. “Surely, it is male.”
“Truly?” asked Pétant, growing excited.
“Only a boy would kick his mother so,” she grumbled.
Nick rose and stumbled outside the lodge, stretching and attempting to shake off the vestiges of the old dream. It irked him that the day – that moment – was still etched so vividly in his mind after all these years and that he had no control over its appearance. It stalked him like a mortal enemy. He had allowed Claire to die while he slept peacefully. She was a gently-bred, noble soul who deserved the very world laid at her feet. Fate gave her Nicholas. Fate was cruel.
He walked down to the gurgling waters of the stream and took a trail north along its banks, looking for privacy. There were still not many Minsi natives about, even though the sun’s position told him it was mid-afternoon. When they reveled, these people did not hold back, and had the sense to take a solid rest in turn. It was an excellent philosophy that made for happy people.
Several hundred yards upstream he located a pool where the waters slowed and grew deep enough to provide a place to swim. He stripped from his damp clothes and waded in. The water was frigid, but it didn’t bother him. It felt much too good to clean away the sweat and lingering stink of both fear and failure. He scrubbed, kicked, dunked, and back-paddled leisurely. When he could no longer feel his feet – or his manhood – he emerged into the afternoon sun.
Nicholas spread his buckskin pants out on the bank, and plunked down on them, laying back to allow the mid-summer rays to thoroughly dry his skin. It felt comforting, healing, and soothing. If only Claire could have experienced a place like this village, perhaps she would not have withered away.
Clipping off a piece of sedge, he stuck it between his teeth and chewed upon it. It was moist and slightly sour against his tongue, not like a sweet grass of the meadow. He spat. Why did these dreams still continue to plague him? It was like a slow torture of his soul. The price of his failure followed him like a cloud of wood-gnats, freshly borne and craving blood.
He heard the familiar tread of Pétant’s steps. Knowing the man by sound alone, heel first-then toe, heavy yet not loud, Nick did not need to turn for confirmation. He just stared up at the cerulean arc sky with only the wisp of a cloud to embellish it. Beautiful.
“Cover that mighty root, Nicholas, there’re women nearby,” his friend announced loudly.
Sighing, Nicholas rose and pulled on his buckskins. He had remained shirtless, and found that he rather enjoyed it, after all. The bugs did not torment him as much as he expected in the cool mountain climate of this Dark Forest.
“I came to tell you that they are preparing for this hunt now. I know not what to expect, Nick. Do you?” He scratched the top of his red head, perplexed. “I never, ever expected to take up with the Natives this way. Look at me; I’m even married to one.”
Nicholas laughed. “If I recall, you heartily entered into that agreement, once the notion took hold.”
“And got her immediately with-child, as a result,” he admitted, cracking his knuckles in worry. “We have to impress these people. We need them. Well, Opichi needs them.”
“You really think their trapping skills are superior to ours, old bear?” Nicholas began to shoving his now-dry feet back into his boots.
“I know not. They seem pretty sure of themselves.”
“Well, it’s not exactly a competition. Seems more like a reward, or honor, or some such. That’s what Allouez said, anyway.”
Pétant sniffed. “That man was a born appeaser. I think it’s a test.”
Nick grinned at him. “Then we’d better not fail. Gather your wits and lighten your tread, old bear.”
~~~~~
The evening was surreal. Nicholas rode his mount, laden with the wares of trapping, next to a beautiful woman adorned in Native buckskins and a beaded tunic. She carried a musket strapped to a weathered old saddle - the make of which he hadn’t seen before - but it was definitely European.
Flaxen-blond braids fell below her waist, nearly tickling her pony’s haunches, and were interwoven with ribbons of lovely, red ochre. Now he knew from where Katari’s fashion statement had originated.
“Are you looking forward to this outing, Nicholas?” Jenna asked, smiling over at him with a little quirk of her lips. He could see Katari in her mouth, her brows, and the line of her jaw.
“Very much so. It’s a pleasure that you could join the foray as well.”
Jenna laughed. “Well, that is a bit of a sore subject at times. You see, Minsi women do not hunt – generally. It is frowned upon….tradition and such, you see.”
Nicholas made a non-committal ‘hmmm’ sound in his throat, not sure what the appropriate response would be.
“However,” Jenna continued. “My father taught me to handle a weapon – fairly well, in fact. This attribute was of
great….value…when I arrived here in the Dark Forest. Yet, there were those who did not like that I could shoot well and hunt as men did.”
Nicholas looked at the muscled shoulders of the chief, and nodded.
“No, Running Wolf did not feel that way, for the most part. He recognized the sense in it. At the time, none of the braves had much experience with a White weapon such as a musket. The loading of the ball and powder, and the operation of the flash pan was confusing to many.”
“I can see how that would be so.”
“At first, I did not even wish to hunt with the men. I was ordered to do it.”
Now, Nicholas chuckled. “I imagine there is quite a story behind that.”
“Oh, there is,” Jenna smiled back, “for certain. But once given the opportunity to practice my skills, I was not giving up the right to hunt again!”
“When survival is at stake, one must be willing to…alter tradition, and perform as necessary.” He thought of Claire, then. “For those you care about.” Sometimes, however, life found that you lacked in skill after all.
“I agree,” she returned, “and so does my husband, but there are always those whose tongues will wag about it.”
“I never concerned myself much with what anybody thought about me,” Nick admitted. “Unless they planned to draw a weapon as a result of such negativity,” he added in afterthought.
Jenna laughed again. “I enjoy your sense of humor, Nicholas. And, I appreciate your forthright nature. I do wish to say again how much I value the time and care you gave to Katari’s health and return to us.”
A small smile curved his lips responsively. “I cannot say that it was not a pleasure. Your daughter is a unique individual.”
“Unique! The perfect word for Katari!” she agreed.
“And where did you acquire such perfect French?” he asked.
“Oh, Father Allouez, of course. He has spent many, many moons with us over the years.”
Nicholas looked at her carefully. Her beauty and shining personality would certainly be a draw to a soft-hearted man like Bertrand. “I am surprised that he continues to do so, having converted none of you to his faith.”
Savage Journey Page 20
