by Beth Trissel
“I might.”
Uncle Thomas fingered a chin stubbled with brown whiskers. “What of you, Karin?”
“Not if Jack’s to be pummeled everywhere we go.”
“I’m fully willing to pummel in return,” Thomas assured her.
“And I,” Jack added.
Just as the tightly coiled tension seemed to be easing, Jeb sprang to belligerent life. “What’s this about letting that blasted rogue back among us?”
“Is it better to leave her out here, possibly with child,” Thomas snapped at him. “Or maybe she should go live with the tribe? ’Tis plain she’ll not live without Jack.”
Joseph shifted his reluctant gaze between her and Jack. The lines at his mouth lessened as they did when he was somewhat mollified. “I never meant to drive you away. Just come on home, Karin. Bring that brother of mine, if you must.”
“Hell no.” Before anyone could stop him, Jeb leveled his musket at Jack. “I’m putting an end to this nonsense now.”
It all happened so fast. One minute Jack was on his feet—the next, flying back under Shequenor’s forceful shove. Tumbled to the white ground, he rolled down a slope as the shot meant for him struck her father. Black fur flew from Shequenor’s buffalo robe in the smoky blast. Then the warrior hurtled to the powdery earth and lay flat on his back. Blood ran from him, staining the snow crimson.
How impossible that someone this powerful should fall. Like a mighty oak ripped from its roots and toppled to the ground by a puny wind. For that’s what Jeb was and his vile act against nature.
“Notha!” Screaming his name, she ran to him and flung herself over his prostrate form. A bloody hole gaped in his chest beyond all the herbs and cures Neeley had taught her. Even so, her mind reeled with thoughts of poultices...anything to stem the deadly flow and mend this hideous wound.
He fluttered his eyes and looked up at her, the life force in his black gaze ebbing. He lifted his hand to her hair. “Do not weep for me,” he rasped between pale lips.
How could she not? Sobs welled in her throat, but she struggled to choke them back. Taking his hand, she clutched its lingering warmth. He gave her fingers a slight squeeze. Even now, his grasp was losing its strength.
The stunned tableau of men stood over them. None spoke. Karin forced one name past the searing lump in her throat. “Jack!”
****
Karin’s desperate cry rang in Jack’s ears and fisted deep in his gut. Breathless from the fall, he clamored back up the wooded slope. He knew what evil must’ve befallen Shequenor even before he saw the warrior bleeding in the snow. He ran to his fallen brother and bent near. Karin lifted her head and looked at Jack. So wounded. The anguish seizing him colored her tearful eyes.
“Shequenor, no. Not you. Not you,” he pleaded.
“It is my time, NiSawsawh.” So faint his voice.
Raw emotion hardened Jack’s heart. “Like hell it is,” he ground out. “Jeb—you bastard. You want me? Here I am.”
Flashing fury, Jack sprang up from the stained snow and flew at the perpetrator of this monstrous deed. Hands balled into mallets, he pounded the shocked man’s face then drove his knuckles into Jeb’s stomach. Back, back, he beat him. Jeb stumbled to the ground, cheek gashed, nose bloody, lip bleeding.
Panting hard, Jack hammered him relentlessly. By heaven, he’d send his spirit after Shequenor’s. “You aren’t half the man you just felled.”
Jeb doubled over, too winded to swear. Brewster grasped Jack by the shoulders and wrenched him away. “Stop, Jack. What he did was wrong, but it’s done.”
Chest heaving, Jack gasped, “Wrong? This admission from you?”
“We may have been too hasty to condemn you,” Brewster conceded.
An aura of sadness cloaked Thomas. “I know of no man who has a powerful warrior take his part and die for him.”
Jack lowered his unwilling eyes to the still figure and Karin weeping over him. Shequenor foresaw what would happen. He’d placed himself in harm’s way to save Jack. That was something Jack would have to live with, and up to. Shequenor was right—the coward fires the first shot.
“Let me go, Brewster. I want nothing more to do with Jeb,” he said in disgust.
He left the moaning man where he lay doubled over in the snow and turned back to Karin. “He’s dead. There’s nothing I could do—” she choked out.
Kneeling beside her, Jack gathered her in his arms. “I loved him too.”
“I know.” Her voice was muffled against his chest.
Jack looked down at Shequenor, the one he’d always looked up to…for better or worse. How peaceful his adopted brother looked now, all his cares removed. Jack owed Shequenor his life. A debt he could never repay. And then, it seemed to him that there was something they could do. “The necklace, Karin.”
“But Notha said it would work only once.”
“For him. This is our turn.”
Understanding filled her liquid gaze. The gaping men stayed where they were while she reached into the pouch hung around her shoulder and drew it out. Jack did the same. The luminous spheres shone more splendidly than ever in the sunlight. Colors rippled over the opaque surfaces and beamed up into the sky.
John McNeal slid back his hat. “What on earth?”
“It’s not of this earth,” Jack answered.
“Magic?”
“Of sorts.” He wasn’t certain himself. But it seemed a fitting tribute to the tragedy Shequenor had averted for him and Karin. Without the warrior’s intercession, Jack would now lie as he did, and Karin left to grieve.
Jack extended his gemstone. Karin did the same and they joined the two together, the brilliance more blinding than the snow. He squinted, as did she and the mesmerized onlookers. Through the shimmering white, he saw Mary take form. This time her spirit wasn’t shrouded in mist. No scent of the spring woodlands accompanied her. He inhaled the forest in winter. She was there as if she’d been waiting a short distance away for the summons.
She gazed past everyone in the gathering with eyes only for the fallen warrior lying in the snow.
John, Thomas, Joseph, and Brewster stared in mute wonder. Jeb roused enough to goggle at her as she floated to Shequenor, breathing out his name, her voice so soft Jack strained to hear.
Mary took Shequenor’s hand. “It’s time to come with me. At last, my darling.”
Shequenor sat up the way he’d done countless times in the lodge when he and Jack lived together—or his spirit did. His body remained behind. Joy welled in his eyes made new and he clasped her hand with a firm touch as if both were made of flesh. “Care for my wind daughter,” he said to Jack. “Tanakia.”
Jack held Karin close. “Tanakia,” he repeated huskily, using the Shawnee for ‘until our paths cross again.’
Together, Shequenor and Mary rose in radiant light more glorious than the dawn.
And Jack knew, somehow, he and Karin would find their way together. His love for her would never waver, and her heart would always be his.
The End~
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