"Robertson," someone offered.
"Robertson," she said. "I understand he and the men he took with him to Annapolis are expected back any day, so all we have to do is hang on."
"My husband." A pregnant woman in a red wool cap stepped out of the line. "Where's my husband, Samuel? He was with the lieutenant."
"Dead," Alexandra said. She didn't know how else to say it, except to come right out and tell the truth. "I'm sorry."
The woman fought a sob as she stepped back into the line, comforted by another woman.
"I'm sorry," Alexandra repeated. "They're all dead, every man who walked outside these walls with the lieutenant."
Someone else began to cry.
Alexandra fought the tears that threatened to choke her. She didn't want to be in charge here. She didn't want to be the one responsible for protecting these people, but who else was there? The soldiers left were no more than children and the older man seemed unable or unwilling to give any leadership. So Alexandra had no choice.
"Now listen to me," she said. "We're going to have to get up on this wall and keep watch. We've got to keep those savages outside until help comes. We'll all take turns on watch and that means the women too. Someone starts to scale the wall and we kill them, all right?"
Several of the women nodded their heads. The soldier-boys all murmured in agreement.
"All right," Alexandra said. "There's already one man up there. You, you, and you," she pointed to three more soldiers. "Get up on those other walls and take your weapons."
The soldiers broke from the line and ran for the fort walls.
She walked to the soldier with the broken leg. "Can you coordinate the sentries?"
He nodded his head. "I can't walk with this bum leg, but you prop me against a barrel and I'll sit out here and keep the boys sharp."
Alexandra nodded her head. "Thank you."
She pointed to one of the women. "You and your friend here," she indicated the woman whose husband had been killed, "and you take an inventory of how much food we've got. I want every sack of flour, every hogshead of dried pork, every keg of ale counted and marked down."
"I can do that," the woman said. "Come on, Dorcas. No time to mourn now, you got to protect that baby of yours and Samuel's."
Alexandra moved down the line giving each person a job. "You see to firewood. You too. Gather every stick you can find. We'll all move into that common room where the officers ate. That way we can keep everyone accounted for and save on firewood." She moved on down the line. "You take the children inside. Gather their belongings and take them to the common room. You be sure the livestock is fed."
Alexandra moved to another woman. "How do we get water in here? Please don't tell me you walk out to the river."
"No. This ain't the first time we been laid to siege. Water comes in around the back by way of a stream dug in off the river."
"Good. Then you start storing water in rain barrels in case they get clever and dam up our flow."
Alexandra reached Sara. "You see to a meal cooked for everyone. Make sure the sentries are fed and given something warm to drink. Take those women without anything else to do and get them on it with you."
Sara nodded. "I can see to it, Alexandra." She spoke to several Indian girls and they headed for the inner fort.
Alexandra looked up to see that everyone had been assigned a job now but She-Who-Stands-Strongly and Eli. She approached her Indian friend first. "I know you have medicinal supplies. Gather them. We may have injuries. Then come back to me and I'll give you something else to do."
The woman nodded. She gripped Alexandra's shoulder in a reassuring gesture. "This day I am proud to be your friend. Hunter of the Shawnee has chosen well his new mate."
Before Alexandra could respond, the old woman was gone. Only Eli was left now. He stood at attention.
"Eli."
"Ma'am?"
"I've got some questions, about the fort, about Captain Cain. Can you sit down inside and help me out?"
He grinned. "That I can."
"Good, now—"
"He wants a Hunter," one of the soldiers called from high on the fort wall. "You know a Hunter?"
Alexandra ran for the ladder. She was freezing now and needed her cloak badly, but she didn't have time to run back for it. She scaled the ladder, her musket still in her hand. She took a quick look over the wall to see Captain Cain standing, waiting. She ducked back down.
"What did you tell him?"
"Told him nothin'. He just keeps saying he wants to speak to someone called Hunter. I don't know who he wants."
"Hunter!" Cain called from the ground below. "Give her up and no one else need die."
Alexandra listened to the grating sound of the captain's voice. He didn't know Hunter wasn't here!
"Do you hear me? I say give her up!"
Alexandra grabbed the boy's arm. "Tell him we give up no one. He's talking to my husband. He mustn't know he's not here. He mustn't know how many of us are in here."
"Hunter!" Cain bellowed again.
The boy raised his head above the wall calling out between two jagged spikes. "We give up no one!"
Alexandra watched from between two spikes farther down the wall.
Cain's head snapped in the direction of the boy. "I want to speak with the man who calls himself Hunter! The woman is mine. I'll take what's mine and then I'll go on. No one else need get involved." He indicated the bodies that littered the muddy ground. "These men didn't have to die."
"Tell him again," Alexandra told the boy.
"We give up no one," he repeated.
"Oh, you will," Cain answered, his voice taking on an odd tone. "I'll have her. I'll have her because she's mine. The question is, how many of you will die in the process? How many will give their lives before one of you turns her over to me?"
Alexandra stood up, no longer able to control her anger. "You'll have me in hell!" she cried.
An Indian standing behind Cain spun around and shot an arrow through the air. Alexandra ducked and watched it whistle over her head.
As she started for the ladder she heard Cain chastise the savage for shooting at her. He wanted her alive, he said. Alive to regret crossing him like this.
"Come on, Hunter," she murmured silently and she climbed down the ladder. "I need you, husband. I don't know how long I can hold on here."
"I have to go." Hunter accepted the Shawnee woman's hand. "I thank you for your hospitality, but I must go," he repeated in the Shawnee tongue. "I have to return to my wife."
Twice Mended smiled all-knowingly. "The home campfire burns for you, no?"
Hunter accepted the small pack of food Twice Mended was insisting he take. "Something like that."
She handed him his bow and quiver of arrows. "This woman thanks you again for coming to tell us of my great-uncle's injury. Our men will bring him home, even if it is only the shell of his body. We thank you from the depths of our hearts for caring enough not to let an old man lie to rest so far from those who love him."
Hunter pulled a leather headband down over his head and tucked back the last stray locks of red hair. When he left the village, he would travel straight through to the fort on the Noniack. He wouldn't rest until he held Alexandra in his arms again and knew that she was safe. He told himself that he had lost one wife to Cain, he'd not lose another, but the truth was, he missed Alexandra. He missed her sharp tongue; he missed her fiery kisses.
"He's a brave man, your uncle," Hunter went on. "This man is thankful to have known him in this life, if only for a few moments."
Twice Mended nodded. "Well, do not let me keep you from the wife that calls. Goodbye to you, Hunter of the Shawnee. Your dugout waits down by the river bank."
Hunter turned to go. It had taken him longer to get to the village than he had hoped. It was further than he had remembered. He'd now not slept in more than two days, but he wasn't tired, just edgy and anxious to be on his way. "I'll try to get the dugout back to you somehow. I
appreciate your lending it to me."
She waved her hand in farewell. She was a pretty woman in her midthirties, a widow, a woman who might have interested him a few months ago. But suddenly he had no eyes for anyone but the dark-haired white woman, Alexandra.
"May the wind always be at your back and the luck always at your heels," she called after him.
Hunter left the small village and followed a path down to the river's edge. Just as promised, a dugout canoe waited for him. He dragged it off the bank and waded into the icy water. With one easy movement he swung into the boat and dropped to his knees. He tossed the food bag into the bow and grabbed the single carved wooden paddle. "I'm coming, Alexandra," he murmured to himself as he turned the dugout and headed out into the open water. "I'm coming, sweeting."
"Four days," Alexandra said softly. She stood in the fort's compound, her cloak tied tightly around her neck. It was almost dusk, and the October air was sharp and stinging. Tonight she could almost smell the salt water of the bay. "Four days and still you don't return. Where are you, husband?"
She-Who-Stands-Strongly laid her hand sympathetically on Alexandra's arm. "He will come."
"He won't. Something's happened to him. I know it has. He went after Cain. At some point he had to have realized Cain turned back to the fort. Hunter reads the trail signs too well to have missed it."
"He will come."
Alexandra laughed, but without humor. "How do you know? He could be sick. He could have been eaten by a bear. He could have been killed by Mohawks." She shrugged. "He could have decided not to come back for me. He didn't really want to marry me, you know." She looked up at the older woman. "He did it on a lark. He did it because I wouldn't sleep with him without the bonds of marriage."
She-Who-Stahds-Strongly smiled a crooked smile. "You were smarter than most maids. Luckier to have caught such a catch. Now do not speak words you will later wish had not been spoken. Have faith in the heart, I tell you, Alexandra, wife of Hunter."
Alexandra crossed her arms over her chest. How much longer could they go with this standoff? How much longer before Cain realized there were no soldiers inside the fort, and that Hunter was gone? How long before he realized that if they all attempted to scale the walls at the same time, it would be impossible for her to fight them off? How long would it be before he realized it was a woman holding the fort?
In the three days since Cain had arrived, he'd cut off their water supply by damming it up, just as she had feared he would. He'd made trade offers to anyone who would listen, offering guns, whiskey, even gold, to the man who would hand Alexandra over. Cain had sent several Mohawks to try to scale the wall. Eli had managed to kill one. Another boy severely injured another.
But Cain seemed to be a patient man, and determined as well. He wasn't going to leave without her. She seemed to have become an obsession with him. No one took what was his, he repeated over and over again. No one.
Alexandra hugged herself for warmth. Above, on the narrow walkways two women, a boy, and Eli, paced, keeping the watch. Alexandra figured that they had enough food to last indefinitely, but their water supply would run short in another three days. Even rationing it, it would be depleted in a week.
Unless, of course, it snowed and there was enough to collect and melt for water. She peered up into the blue, cloudless sky that hung in a canopy above the treetops. "Please let it snow, hard," she prayed.
But even if it did snow—they couldn't go on like this forever. Something had to happen.
She hoped the commander who had left Winslow in charge would return, but what if he did? What if he came with only a few men? They would die at the hands of Cain's renegade Mohawks before they ever reached the fortress gates. They would—
"Hunter," came Cain's now-familiar voice from the other side, tearing Alexandra from her thoughts. "I'm losing patience. It's cold out here." There was a pause. Then he spoke again. "Last chance, Hunter, or whoever is listening. Send her out or we burn down the place and we come in after her."
"We give up no one!" Eli called from his post.
A slew of arrows flew through the air in response.
Alexandra crossed the compound in a few long strides and started up the ladder. At the top, she walked to where Eli stood, taking care to keep her head below the jagged posts of the log wall.
"Last chance," Cain repeated. "And if we burn the place down we'll kill every living thing inside! I swear by the father God Almighty we will."
Alexandra felt her heart fall. She had been afraid of this, afraid since the beginning. She'd just not allowed herself to consider the matter.
"Why?" she shouted.
Eli grabbed her hand to try and keep her from showing herself, but she was too angry to allow logic to control her now. "Why?" she asked Cain again. Looking over the top of the wall, their gazes locked.
He lifted a dark eyebrow. He was a handsome man dressed in a fur cloak and an officer's cap. "Why, indeed?"
"This is between you and me. Not my husband. Not the people inside this fort."
Cain smiled a courtier's smile at her.
She could see his soldiers and the Indians at their campfires. They were dipping arrows into a small pot of black ooze and then lighting them. Pitch. They were going to bombard the fort's main building and walls with arrows of pitch! The fires would be nearly impossible to put out.
"Tell me," she demanded. Her heart felt leaden in her chest. She would never see Hunter again, never see her family or England, never give birth to a child like little Matthew.
Cain was still smiling up at her. "He isn't here, is he?" Cain asked. "Your man, the one they call Hunter of the Shawnee. If he were here, he'd have shown his face. He'd not be sending you up. Not unless he was ready to give you up."
"My husband is none of your concern. I want to know why you would harm these people because of me."
"Spite." He was still smiling.
Alexandra could feel Eli's grip. "Don't do it. Don't go. He wouldn't kill us all. Not women and children."
Alexandra watched as the first arrow of fire arced over the wall and struck home in the roof of the building. One of the young soldiers in the compound clambered up the wall to try and put out the spreading fire.
"I'm waiting." Cain nodded his head and another arrow flew through the air.
Alexandra couldn't catch her breath. She could feel her heart pounding in her chest. Her palms were wet, her hands shaking.
How could she give herself up to this man, this man who had raped and murdered Hunter's Laughing Rain?
Yet how could she give up the lives of all the people inside the fort? She had gotten to know these people in the last few days. They weren't just names or faces. They were people with families to go to, futures to be made.
"Don't do it," Eli begged. "How do you know he's telling the truth? How do you know he won't kill us all anyway?"
"I'll have to take that chance," she heard herself whisper. She started for the ladder.
"Don't go," She-Who-Stands-Strongly cried as Alexandra's feet touched the ground. "This woman is ready to die for you. Don't give yourself up."
Slowly Alexandra walked toward the massive gates. "I can't ask you to do that," she said softly. "I can't ask that of any of you."
She-Who-Stands-Strongly wept. "Alexandra . . ."
She kissed the old woman on her wrinkled cheek. "Take care of Sara and the baby." She looked into the old woman's teary eyes and then looked away, afraid she would break down herself.
"Alexandra," Cain called from the opposite side of the wall.
Another arrow arced high overhead and struck an inner wall.
"Light the gates!" Cain commanded.
"No," Alexandra shouted. "Don't! I'm coming!"
Everyone inside the fort had spilled out into the compound now. They were running to put out the fires with wet rags and animal skins.
"Don't do it," Mary Masten cried as she ran for the far wall that was already blazing. "You'll not survive."
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"Joey!" Alexandra called.
"Yes, ma'am," one of the young soldiers said, running toward her with tears in his eyes.
"When I say so, lift the latches and let me through. Close them behind me. You understand?"
"Yes, but—"
"Just do it!" she said sharply between clenched teeth. "Let me out. My husband will come for me," she said weakly. "I'll be all right."
Tears ran down Joey's face, but he followed her to the gate.
"If anyone tries to push through as I go out, you shoot them with your musket, you understand?"
He nodded.
"Good." She forced a smile and turned to face the gate. She took a deep breath. She knew Cain was waiting for her on the other side. She could feel him.
"I'm coming," she called in the loudest voice she could muster. "Stand back or the boy will shoot."
She nodded her head and Joey lifted the iron latches one at a time, each one making a hollow clanking sound. She took one step forward and felt a hand clasp her arm and yank her through the opening. Against her will she opened her mouth and screamed.
Chapter Nineteen
When Hunter heard Alexandra scream, he bolted. He ran blindly through the underbrush, oblivious to the greenbriers and branches that tore at his face.
He was too late! Cain had beat him here! Cain would take Alexandra from him just as he had taken Laughing Rain . . .
Hunter was so out of control that he was unaware of the shadow of the man ahead of him. He never saw the man's moccasined foot until he tripped over it and fell flat on his face.
Hunter cried out, but his voice was smothered by the solid ground as his attacker climbed onto his back and forced his face into the wet humas.
"Silence!" the Iroquois ordered. "Silence or they will hear us and we will both die."
Instinctively Hunter struggled against the weight on his back. How could he have been so stupid to have fallen into a trap like this? How could he have lost sight of the basic instincts of survival? How would he save Alexandra when he was lying dead and scalped in the underbrush?
"I said silence or the others will not have to come for you. I will slit your throat myself," the voice hissed in his ear. "The woman is safe for the moment. They have not harmed her—not yet."
His Wild Heart Page 20
