by Beth Trissel
Karin bit again into the meat and chewed while searching his taut face. He slid the rest of the venison from the blade and gave the slices to her. Returning to the fire, he stood and brooded into the flames.
“Notha, I can love you and Jack.”
He swiveled his head at her. “Love me?”
“Yes. I think I do.”
His dark brows arched. “Do you always speak all you think?”
“Is that wrong?” she asked.
Those black eyes regarded her in bemusement. “Dangerous.”
“Will I be harmed for telling the truth?”
“How is it you are without guile?”
She pondered the meaning of the word and how it applied to her.
Before she could ask, Shequenor waved her aside, “No matter. John McNeal has cared well for you, I see,” he grudgingly conceded.
“Yes. But I have longed to know you.”
“I am here.” He took a long wooden ladle and dipped it into the steaming pot.
“Not always as you are now. Why are you sometimes a bear?”
Hepouredthebrew intoacup. “I will it.”
“How do you change yourself like that?”
Fathomless eyes regarded her. “Do you wish to learn this magic?”
Sobered at the terrible thought, she shook her head.
Handing her the tea, he said, “Do not ask questions for which you do not wish to learn the answers.”
With that stern rebuff, she sipped in silence, brightening as the flap opened and Jack blew in. Snow coated him and plastered his hair to his face and shoulders. He sprang at the fire and tossed in an armload of kindling he must have chopped with his tomahawk. The flames sizzled to robust life.
He clapped his hands, rubbing his fingers together, and shook himself like a dog. Snow flew from him. “Damn cold out there. Like a witch’s—never mind.”
Karin sat up straighter. “Jack! You’re frozen.”
“To the bone. Ahhh—this fire feels good.”
“Strip off your shirt and climb under these furs with me. I’ll soon warm you.”
Shequenor fixed his astonished gaze on her before he rounded on Jack. “What have you taught my daughter?”
“We are wed,” Karin confessed in their defense. “Like you and Mama. Jack said so.”
“Did he?” Shequenor bit out. “What have you done to this innocent, NiSawsawh?”
“Nothing you didn’t do to her mother.”
For a terrible moment, Karin feared Shequenor would kill Jack then and there. His eyes fired daggers at him. “My heart is Mary’s.”
Undaunted by the warrior’s wrath, Jack flung back, “And my heart is your daughter’s.”
“That is not the same.”
“Yes, Shequenor. It is.” He peeled off his wet moccasins and leggings and set them by the fire. “I’m sorry you didn’t know your daughter earlier, but she’s a woman now.”
Shequenor rolled his eyes. “She speaks as a child.”
Jack chuckled. “True, but she’s not. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” he growled. “I should shoot you.”
“And leave her a young widow?” Jack pulled off the sodden shirt, stiff with cold, and spread it to dry. Wearing only his breechclout, he made a dive at Karin.
She squealed as he shot under the furs and hugged her to him like a blast of north wind. “Ooooh. You’re an icicle!”
“You are toasty warm and feel heavenly against these cold bones. Fine place you’ve got here, NiSawsawh.”
“I never expected anything like it,” she said.
“His other hunting lodge is even bigger. Say, could you bring me some of that venison, brother? I’m as hungry as that wolf pack of yours. And we could do with a drop of whiskey.”
Shequenor appeared on the verge of running Jack through with the knife. “You do not give strong spirits to a girl.”
Karin startled at the familiar words. “That’s just what Grandpa said, only he calls me lass.”
****
Shequenor sat cross-legged before the fire, his pipe between his teeth. He alone was awake at this early hour, not needing much sleep and lost in thought. The raging grief that had distorted his mind for so long was subsiding so that he could ponder more clearly.
Maybe he’d been too hard on Jack and driven him away without meaning to. It was true a sort of madness had consumed him after his beloved was torn from him. But he was calmer now, better able to reason.
Drawing on his pipe, he blew smoke overhead. The fragrant tobacco, sacred to his people, drifted over him as he sought a solution to the couple’s plight. Seeking answers was alien for one accustomed to wisdom, not questions, but everything had altered with his daughter’s coming. Absolutely everything.
From the first moment he’d seen Karin, even when he’d taken the form of a bear, a change began in his soul. She came upon him like a new wind and with her, the voice of her mother.
Shequenor slanted his eyes at the young couple curled together beneath the pile of furs. Only the side of Karin’s lovely face peeked out from the mound and her glossy hair streamed across them both...black hair, like his. She was Mary’s daughter, yet she also had much of him in her. If he could have only one child, she was worth every tear, every drop of blood he and Mary had sacrificed.
At last, he could gaze on this treasure. All cares seemed smoothed from her peaceful countenance while Jack’s more weathered features creased as if he battled on. Instinctively, he circled a protective arm around her and she nestled nearer to him with a sigh.
Precious little moved Shequenor, but the young lovers touched him in the deepest way. Somehow, Jack had hurdled every challenge he’d thrown at him, and would die for Karin, Shequenor did not doubt. And she would sacrifice herself for Jack. The couple would not be parted without being torn in two. That was plain.
What a change she’d wrought in the self-centered young buck who had gone off during the war and fought with Chief Joseph Brandt and Mohawks, enemy of the Shawnee. But long-held enmities were diminishing and new alliances being forged in the desperate struggle all tribes now faced. The old ways would disappear along with the people who’d walked this ancient land time out of mind. Jack and Karin belonged to the new order he sensed on the horizon, a tumultuous age, but not necessarily a bad one. It would be as they made it. Jack had proven himself in every way. Of Karin’s inherent goodness and ability, Shequenor never had any doubt. In the end, this was all that truly mattered. And to Jack’s credit, he had returned to his adopted brother. Like a soaring hawk, Jack came and went, but always he returned. He was not faithless. In his heart, he’d remained true to Shequenor. Torn, but true.
Shequenor blew smoke circles toward the opening in the lodge he’d built for the two, though they did not realize. He’d foreseen their flight and knew the Long Knives would chase after Jack like angry hornets. These men would not cease to follow as Jack had taken their most precious prize. Danger hovered over the pair like a lengthening shadow. Shequenor alone stood between them and the impending darkness.
What more could he do? Time waned like the moon and his space on this earth with it. What did Mary want from him?
The hour had finally come to join the necklaces and discover what she had to say. His heart pounded with the force of a wild horse freed from its bonds after years of excruciating captivity. He could scarcely believe his chance to see her once more, if only for a moment. Then the magic would fade and he must let her go, again. But that was the way.
Jack stirred in their nest. He further roused and lifted his head. The furs slid back over his bare chest. His alert gaze swept the room, taking in each detail just as Shequenor had taught him. The younger man met his eyes with the scrutiny of a hardened scout and a look of understanding passed between them.
“You are yourself again,” Jack said.
“I am.”
“At last.” Then Jack grew silent as if he sensed what was at hand and awaited Shequenor’s signal.
&nb
sp; In that moment, his bond with this renegade brother was restored. Shequenor gave the charge. “Bring me the necklace, NiSawsawh.”
Chapter Twenty
The change in Shequenor’s demeanor was undeniable. Jack noted the clarity in his adopted brother’s eyes. After all these years, Shequenor was as he’d been when Jack was a child. Perhaps if he’d remained this way, Jack wouldn’t have left the tribe. But that was all in the past. Besides, Jack might not have found Karin. And he’d gone back to Shequenor. Never could seem to keep away forever. No, what was done, was done. He must focus on the present and the strange work at hand.
Wearing only his breechclout as he had when he fell asleep, he rose and walked on the furs to where he’d spread his clothes and weapons before the fire. Nudging his hunting shirt aside, he took the pouch in hand. The peculiar blue light emanated from the fringed buckskin, only for some reason it no longer seemed so eerie.
He extended the pouch to the waiting warrior, and then stopped. Karin should take part in what was about to transpire. He looked questioningly from Shequenor to her and then back again at him.
A flicker of agreement touched Shequenor’s gaze. “Wake her.”
Jack returned to Karin and knelt beside her. “Karin.” He gently shook her until she stirred beneath his light touch. “Your father has need of the necklace. Only you can give it to him. Remember?”
She blinked, looking up at him. Her sleep- blurred eyes cleared and she seemed to realize something momentous was at hand. She sat up and Jack shifted the pouch into her grasp. “All right.”
Clutching the bag, she got to her feet in her shift. With shaky deliberation, she approached her father and stopped before him. Jack envisioned the unsteady one-year-old taking her first steps and the child Shequenor never knew. All Karin had been and the young woman she’d become met in her eyes as she raised them to her father’s.
Standing on her tiptoe, she pressed her lips to his cheek. “I love you, Notha.”
He laid his hand on her head in blessing. “And I, you, Neetanetha.”
Jack never saw this hardened warrior so affected.
Karin settled back onto the flats of her feet, opened the pouch and drew out the necklace. “For you.” She passed it to him.
Shequenor took it with profound reverence in his face. “Untold hours have I waited for its return. Here is its mate,” he said, and parted the front of his shirt.
Against his bronzed skin hung the same pearl- white gemstone colored with a bluish tinge and encircled with hammered silver. As with Karin’s gift, rather than a chain made from links of the same metal, the magnificent stone was suspended from a narrow leather band with ten large claws attached.
As far as Jack knew, Shequenor hadn’t worn his necklace since Mary’s death. But kept it safely tucked away. Now it was back, like him, in all its splendor.
****
Still watching her father, Karin stepped back and sank down on the furs beside Jack. He closed his arms around her, tucking her into his chest, and waited for what would transpire. Something surely would and their lives forever altered.
Shequenor stood in the center of the lodge. The flames cast orange light over his straight figure. He dangled one necklace in each hand with the stones centered in his palms and the sides of his hands pressed together as if to cup a drink of water. The gems shone even more brilliantly, perhaps in anticipation of their joining. And then he rotated his hands and clasped them together.
Iridescence streaked out from between his fingers, the stones flashing in the release of long- seated yearning. Or so it seemed from the powerful emotion Karin sensed in the room.
Smoke from the fire, or somewhere, thickened in the air, but not so that it made her cough. This was a mystical vapor, she realized, and clung uncertainly to Jack. His strength surrounded her like a shield.
“Smell that?” he whispered.
With the mist, came the unexpected fragrance of spice bush and scents of the forest in spring time when rosy mountain laurel pinked the ridges...the scent of new life…nothing to fear.
At first, Karin couldn’t be certain she truly saw what she thought, and then a shape took form in the haze, a woman. Even if she hadn’t known whom to expect, she would have recognized her mother. Mary McNeal was as Neeley had described her, only far more so and streaming with light.
The white shift she wore shimmered like angel’s wings with the sheen of a thousand butterflies, just as Karin had always envisioned. The red hair she’d heard about glowed with the radiance of the setting sun and spilled down around Mary to her slender waist. Her face was as youthful as Karin’s and her eyes an ethereal blue. She was beyond beautiful, good, and lit with purity.
Through Mary’s form, Karin saw the fire and skin-lined walls. Her feet didn’t touch the floor but seemed to float slightly above it. Of course, she was a transient being and could not rejoin them as flesh and blood.
How Karin wished she could, if only for an instant. She longed to hold her just once. Her father must be consumed with longing.
Shequenor stood immobile, his intent gaze never leaving Mary’s face. He seemed to pour himself into her soul. She gazed back, floating so closely to him that they were as near as a spirit and man could be. Her hair entwined with his in a luminous wash. Karin couldn’t be certain where the one began and the other ended.
“Shequenor,” she whispered, and tenderly rested her head on his shoulder.
His eyes spoke his joy at her coming. But he still joined the stones in his palms.
It occurred to Karin that he must keep them this way and could not embrace his long lost wife. Even if he could, his arms would go right through her as though he clasped a cloud. But he lifted his hands to her cheek and stroked her fairy-like skin with a single finger.
Tears glistened in his eyes and he groaned with the torment of one so near, yet still separate. “Mary.” His voice was hoarse with emotion.
She reached out her hand to his face, though his darker skin showed through her translucent whiteness. “You knew it would be thus, beloved,” she said, in the same soft voice Karin heard in the wind.
“I knew.”
Circling ephemeral arms around his neck, she said, “Still, you summoned me.”
“As you knew I would,” he answered.
“It is for this moment, I have waited.”
“You have not been at peace, my dearest.”
Mary shook her lovely head. “No more than you.”
“I sensed this.”
She turned toward Karin and Jack. The love flowing from her washed over Karin like a warm breath...the love she’d experienced for years, but hadn’t known the source.
“See our daughter and her husband? Evil comes for them.”
“I have seen this. Must I fight all who threaten?” Shequenor asked.
“No. My father and brother are among them. They cannot pay for our pain again.”
“They are the cause of our suffering. Only for you, have I spared them this long!” Shequenor cried in a raw voice.
Mary cupped pale fingers to his cheek. “Release the past and its wrongs.”
His anger seemed to ease at her pleading. “What shall I do, then? Tell me and it is done.”
“This isn’t a battle of muskets and spears, but a struggle of hearts and minds.”
“I know not this sort of battle.”
“You do. You have fought just such a one these many years,” Mary reasoned in her gentle way.
He considered. “Perhaps it is so.”
“And you have learned you cannot prevail with force, only courage and sacrifice. Jack and Karin have their part. You have yours.”
Her wise words had a soothing effect on the troubled warrior. She raised her hand to his head and ran her fingers over his hair. Only the slightest movement, like the ruffle of bird’s feathers, showed among the black threads mingled with her red flame.
“It’s almost time for me to go, my love,” Mary said.
Anguish fi
lled his eyes. “Not yet. I’ve waited so long.”
“So have I,” Mary whispered. “All must be made right for our daughter or she shall suffer our fate. Even now, a tiny life has begun in her. Our grandson.”
Karin shivered at the prophetic words. Jack sucked in his breath.
He tightened his arm around her as if he’d never let her go, but this wasn’t something he alone could protect her from. That was why her mother had come, the reason this was the time for the necklaces to be joined.
Mary shone a smile on Karin that reached into her innermost heart. “Tell the child of me, of your father.”
She nodded. “If I’m here.”
“Have faith. Neeley and I are watching over you.”
Somehow she’d known Neeley was no longer of this world, but a lump swelled in her throat all the same. “Tell Neeley I shall miss her.”
“She knows.” Mary returned her eyes to Shequenor’s. “I shall wait for you, my love. Be strong.”
Arms circled at his neck, she pressed her lips to his, though she couldn’t truly touch him. Then it seemed she found a way to reach through the barrier dividing them and Shequenor felt her as he’d done long ago. Whether from the power of unconquerable love, or God himself, Karin didn’t know. But their lips touched, not with the translucence that affected all their other parts, but as flesh upon flesh.
For a long moment, they remained together in a sacred kiss. Then the mist began to recede and Mary with it. The gems tumbled to the floor and Shequenor clutched at her. But he could do nothing to stop the unalterable flow any more than he could stop the sea. Nor could Mary. Her eyes sought his as she slipped away, until all that remained of her was the scent of the forest in springtime and the warrior with tears streaming down his face.