by Beth Trissel
“Arrogant bastard!” she hurled after him, tugging wildly against the hook. It was solidly wedged and the cord cut into her wrists. “Uncle Henry! Tessa! Help me!”
She waited, more afraid than she’d ever been in her life. Again she called, “Somebody come!”
No one did. It occurred to her that no one could hear her. The walls muffled her cries and the mounting confusion within the fort drowned her out. Women’s shrieks and the rising shouts of men reached her as a volley of musket fire erupted. A hellish fate was descending on them all.
She sagged against the uneven wood. Giving into the frenzy engulfing the fort beyond the captain’s quarters would do her no good. She fought numbing panic and drew on the survival instincts that had aided her in the past.
“God help me,” she prayed over and over, turning as far as she could from one side to the other in search of anything she could use to raise her height. If she were just a little taller, she could slide her cords off the hook.
She kicked back one leg, probing blindly behind. Her foot encountered something hard—the chair Bancroft had tossed aside. Wary of pushing it away, she eased the toe of her shoe over one of its legs. The chair was heavy and awkward. Bit by agonizing bit, she inched it nearer.
Memories flooded back, her challenges to Shoka, even Wabete, to shoot her. Shoka had known she didn’t mean it and he’d been right. Somehow she must escape this fort and find him.
Wisps of smoke curled under the door, as silent and insidious as a venomous snake. Abandoning caution, she tugged savagely and slid the chair against her. Buoyed by success, she climbed onto the sturdy leg that lay across the floor and stretched upward to work her cords over the hook.
“I’m free!”
Her exhilaration turned into a yelp as the precarious support slipped and threw her into the wall, slamming her cheek into the unforgiving wood. She cried out and collapsed on the floor, banging her knees.
She moaned and rubbed her throbbing cheek with bound hands, then got to her feet. If ever there were a day to forget the world and stay by the fireside, this was the one. Yet here she stood, having accomplished nothing except placing herself in grave danger.
Anger flared up inside her like the fire raging outside, far more useful than paralyzing fear. She clung to this familiar emotion like a trusted friend and kicked open the door. A nightmarish scene greeted her. Smoke billowed in a black-gray cloud. Garish orange flames licked the north wall. Women and children pitched buckets of water at the flaming wood, a pitiful gesture.
The men had deserted the catwalk along that portion of the wall; although a few still fired from other vantages. Several women crouched beside them, reloading spare muskets in exchange for those in need of a fresh charge. She admired their courage but couldn’t help wondering if they’d be better served to throw down their weapons and wave a white flag.
Couldn’t they see the impossibility of their situation? Then again, maybe they could. She remembered Shoka saying he’d never surrender. If she were crouched beside him in grim defiance, neither would she.
The smoke obscured the men on the firing platform. She made out one rugged figure who might be Uncle Henry. Holding the cloak over her nose and mouth, she ran forward and missed colliding with Captain Bancroft by an inch.
He grabbed her arm and pointed to the nearest of the square buildings enclosed by the fort’s walls. “Get to the blockhouses!” he shouted at the terrified women and children, waving them away from the flaming wall.
They threw down their buckets and fled. He squinted at Rebecca with grudging admiration. “You escaped my quarters.”
“And shall escape this fort.”
“The warriors will shoot anyone attempting to leave.”
“Shoka is bound to have told them I may try.”
Bancroft coughed and hawked black phlegm on the dirt at his feet. “Pure madness.”
“It’s cruel to make me share your fate. Short of a miracle, death seems imminent.”
He shielded his face with one arm. “Blockhouses act as miniature forts, Mrs. Elliot. We can hold out there even after our gates are forced.”
She lifted stinging eyes to the musket barrels that protruded from long slits cut through the wood in the upper level of the blockhouse. The men firing from these narrow openings could keep the warriors at bay while seeking cover behind the thick walls, but how long could they resist the flames? The fire would soon spread beyond the north wall and engulf the fort. And how long would their powder last? They couldn’t have enough left for many rounds.
A burst of musket fire tore over her head and struck two men on the platform, hurtling them both backwards to the ground.
“Papa!” shrieked a girl with gold-brown hair—Tessa. She raced down from the narrow walk and threw herself over Henry McCutcheon’s body. “Papa! Papa!” Her anguished wails overwhelmed another woman’s piteous cries.
Rebecca jerked at Captain Bancroft. “Uncle Henry’s hit! Let me go!”
He held her back. “There’s nothing you can do.”
“He may yet live!”
“To the blockhouses!” Bancroft shouted again, his voice barely carrying above the grief and confusion in the fort yard. He cast a glance at Tessa McCutcheon weeping over her father. “He moves not at all. Come on.”
“Captain, I beg you. Cut my bonds. Let me take Tessa and go.”
He ignored her, dragging her toward the door of the structure that loomed above her more like a death trap than a haven from the madness closing in on them.
She dug her heels into the dirt. “Turn me loose or I fight you now.”
In mocking contrast to their circumstances, a smile flickered at his mouth. “Much as I’d enjoy that delightful diversion, I fear we haven’t the time.”
She anticipated his stride and hooked her leg over his. Caught off guard, he stumbled. She shoved him hard and tore loose from his grasp. Then she leapt forward and slammed her bound fists up under his chin.
“Enjoy this!” she cried and kneed him in the groin.
He doubled over, groaning. “Damn you, woman,” he gasped out as he crumpled to the ground. “Go back to that savage you’re so hell-bent on joining. Poor devil deserves you.”
She fought a brief inclination to kick him again, turning instead to race toward Tessa. A heavyset frontiersman, powder horn in hand, pushed his way out of the magazine in front of her. Before she could pull up, she slammed into him.
He glared at her from under a wide-brimmed hat then grabbed her arm. “Get to the blockhouse, you whoring bitch,” he snarled and dragged her back the way she’d come.
She drove her foot into his shin with the full force of her frustration. “Let go!”
“What the hell?”
“Turn her loose, Hutch, if you value your balls,” Bancroft grunted from behind them.
The big man released her at once.
“The captain may be in need of assistance,” she spat at the dumbfounded man and ran.
The few people scurrying helter-skelter past her kept on going, but the squat gray-haired woman, Ida, shot her a look of pure hate. What torment it would be to live out her days under Ida’s venom. The women at Warden intimidated her even more than the men. Her beauty wouldn’t sway these tough females. Likely they even resented her for it and she feared having to oppose one of them. She might have to, though, if Tessa lived up to Logan’s warning.
She passed the last of the fort defenders fleeing the firing platform and stopped beside Tessa, still slumped over her father. The girl’s back shook and she pressed the crumpled apron to her tear-stained face.
Only one man remained in the yard, a burly older frontiersman who laid a sympathetic hand on Tessa’s slight shoulder. Rebecca blinked back tears and took a final look at the uncle she’d barely known. Death had draped a peaceful expression over his rugged features, rather than the slackness she expected. Blood covered his chest and pooled beneath him, the same blood staining Tessa’s cheek.
“I’m so
sorry, Tessa,” she said.
The big man glanced at Rebecca. Even blinking in the smoke, his eyes were kind. Maybe he didn’t realize about her. The cloak she clutched hid her bound wrists, making her look less like a criminal. Or maybe he knew and somehow understood.
He shifted his watery gaze back to Tessa. “I’ll carry your father, lass,” he soothed, and slid his thick arms under Henry McCutcheon’s body. “No brave will rob his scalp while I draw breath.”
“Thank you, Mister McCue,” Tessa choked out.
He straightened and hacked out a cough in the thickening smoke. “Aye. Get to cover now before our gates are forced.”
The musket fire from the blockhouses would hold the warriors off only for a while. Rebecca expected an attempt on the gate at any minute. This smoky yard wasn’t the place to be when warriors rushed in firing and she refused to get herself trapped in a blockhouse. An inner voice shrieked at her to get out now, but she’d made a promise to her dead uncle’s son.
“I’ll see to Tessa, Mister McCue.”
“Go with her, lass,” he said, and walked off into the roiling black haze filling the air around them.
Tessa sank onto the bent, bloodied grass. “He doesn’t know you want to take me to the savages that killed Papa.”
“They spared your brother. You want to be with Logan, don’t you?”
“He’s all I have left,” she said.
“Then come with me,” Rebecca urged.
“Straight into musket fire?”
“I’ll call to them first.”
“In Shawnee?” Tessa scoffed. “Or have you taught them all English?”
“I know some of their tongue.”
Hysterical laughter rocked the stricken girl, as unlikely as it was untimely. “I’m dead whether I go with you or stay.”
“No. I can get us out.”
“You’re mad, cousin.”
Rebecca seized Tessa by the shoulder as firmly as she could with bound wrists. “If one more person says that, I shall be. Get up.”
“You can’t make me.” Tessa laughed again, or maybe it was a sob. “I’ll die right here where Papa did.”
Rebecca released her and struck her cheek.
That unnerving laughter cut off at once and Tessa stared up at her. “You hit me.”
“I’ll do so again if you don’t get on your feet.”
A mulish look came into her reddened, streaming eyes. “Don’t you dare.”
“And don’t you even think about biting me, Miss, or I’ll kick your teeth in.”
Tessa gaped at her. “Who told you?”
“Logan. He wants you out, Tessa.”
Her lips quivered. “All right.”
Tessa swayed a little as she staggered up. “I might as well be shot as to choke to death in this smoke.”
“We shall do neither,” Rebecca said with more confidence than she felt. “Is there some way out besides the main gate?”
“There’s a smaller one in the south wall.”
“Show me.”
“Get to the blockhouse!” a man called from one of the structures.
“To the blockhouse!” another voice echoed.
Praying no one would risk coming out into the yard to enforce the order, Rebecca gave Tessa a shove. “Go!”
The girl bolted on coltish legs with Rebecca just behind her. They raced past the last of the log structures in the fort yard. A cluster of chickens hidden under the eaves scattered. Their frightened squawks were another discordant note in the din of crackling wood, musket bursts, and wailing infants.
“There!” Tessa pointed and dashed to a narrow gate barely visible through the smoke.
“Wait! Let me call out first.”
“Hurry! The fire’s spreading!”
Rebecca dropped the protective mantle from her mouth, her sides heaving. “Shoka’s tamsah! Shoka’s tamsah!” she cried, shouting the Shawnee for ‘woman’ with every bit of precious air left in her lungs.
Then the miracle of the voice she feared she might never hear again as Shoka’s shout carried above the tumult. “Umbe! Come! Come, Peshewa!”
She suppressed the overwhelming need to weep. “Now!”
Tessa lifted the bolt and swung the gate open.
“Stay by my side.” Rebecca shot through the gap with Tessa on her arm. Her vast relief at escaping the fort didn’t allay the danger awaiting them. “Hold your fire!”
The woods were silent and the blockhouses hushed. “Go, Rebecca Elliot! I’ll not shoot you!” Captain Bancroft shouted. “Run! Back to your savage!”
“Indian-loving bitch! I’ll shoot her!” a woman bawled.
Tessa jumped. “Ida Winn.”
“Come on. Before she grabs a musket.”
With fire at their backs and a temporary lull in the attack, Rebecca flew across the clearing with Tessa at her side. Instinct and a consuming desire to distance herself from Fort Warden sped her toward the spot in the trees where she’d last seen Shoka. If only the clearing were a little smaller. The stretch of ground hadn’t seemed this far across earlier, but she’d eaten nothing since the evening before and had had little to drink.
Tessa leaned heavily against her. Poor girl. With her father lying dead behind her, Rebecca was amazed the girl had gotten this far. She knew her cousin was dazed, though, and hoped Tessa would remain in this near trancelike state for a while longer. She wasn’t up to dealing with more hysterics.
“Where are we going?” Tessa asked.
“See that big chestnut standing above all the others? Logan waits in camp back there with my sister Kate.”
“Kate,” Tessa repeated numbly.
“Not so far now,” Rebecca encouraged. A fresh storm of musket fire drowned out her words. The battle had resumed behind them. “Faster!”
They sped through the grass, and suddenly the sun’s heat seemed merciless. Rebecca was smothering in her cloak, and her throat felt raw from breathing the all-pervasive odor of burning wood. Trickles of perspiration ran down her back and between her breasts.
“We’re halfway there,” Rebecca panted.
Chilling whoops rent the air. Tessa screamed, grabbing her sleeve as warriors poured from the trees to their left.
Rebecca froze and Tessa lurched to a halt beside her. She’d been certain the bulk of their war party was centered to the right of the fort. Had they spanned out or was she totally disoriented?
None of the emerging figures were familiar. Their paint was green and black. Scalp locks were plucked farther back on their heads than it seemed they should be. Then she realized. The Catawba were attacking, and not just a few. Dozens of hostile warriors filled the clearing.
Tessa clung to Rebecca’s neck like a drowning woman. “What’s happening?”
“Catawba warriors are coming to the aid of Fort Warden,” she said hoarsely.
“That’s good!” The lusty cheering that broke out from the blockhouses behind them seemed to bolster Tessa’s assumption.
“Not for us. We’ll be caught in the middle.”
With terrible cries of their own, the Shawnee warriors rushed from the trees to meet their enemy, their racing legs a blur and mouths wide open in howling intimidation.
Horror flooded Rebecca, not only for herself and Tessa but also for Shoka. “God help us.”
Tessa’s thin arms tightened at her throat. “What’ll we do?”
Rebecca no longer knew where to go. Meshewa and the others with him must be scrambling to move the prisoners and supplies to another location. Even if they weren’t, if she ran to him Catawba warriors might follow her and discover the camp. She couldn’t just stand here, though, as the opposing human tides converged on them.
“To the trees!” Rebecca lunged forward, but the panicked girl didn’t loosen her grip. She stumbled under Tessa’s stranglehold and her unsteady foot plunged into a groundhog burrow hidden in the grass.
Thrown face down on the ground, she collapsed with Tessa on top of her. She turned over, breathl
ess from the impact, to find Tessa weeping and the Catawba upon them. She struggled to her feet. “Get up!”
“I can’t.” Tessa lay curled on her side, clasping her ankle with both hands. “I’ve wrenched it.”
Rebecca’s ankle hadn’t escaped unscathed either. At least she could walk. “Lean on me.”
“Go on!” Tessa sobbed. “I’ll only slow you.”
“You can’t stay here!”
Tessa threw back her head and howled. “Papa’s gone. I’m next. It doesn’t matter where.”
For the first time in this whole wretched day, Rebecca was at an utter loss. She couldn’t compel Tessa to go with her. Nor could she possibly abandon her. On the verge of losing all hope herself, she knelt over her young cousin.
“I’ll not leave you,” she promised Tessa.
Musket fire shattered the air directly overhead.
Tessa wailed. “Go!”
“No.”
Catawba warriors tore past them. A few glanced down. None paused to trouble with the two huddled women. They leveled their muskets and fired then ran on. Acrid gunpowder and smoke from the fort charged the atmosphere that had been sweetly scented earlier with sun-warmed grass.
Rebecca strained to see through the haze and clashing warriors for Shoka. The wind blew a narrow expanse in the smoke clear and she spotted him, dark hair flying, his tomahawk slicing at a painted, whooping brave.
She held trembling hands to her mouth. “Protect him, Lord.”
Other combatants charged between them, leaving her in an agony of uncertainty before Shoka reappeared, his musket raised. She breathed out a quick sigh of gratitude. Her eyes touched on the bloody fallen body of his first opponent and flashed back to him as he shot down a second.
He slid the musket strap over his shoulder and grabbed her pistol, aiming it at a third warrior. He fired in a blast of smoke, hurling that screaming brave back, then he stuck the pistol through his belt and snatched his tomahawk in one sinuous motion.
Spellbound, she watched his terrible attack, willing him to win, to live.
He ran at a new challenger, dodged his blade and whirled back around, gashing the Catawba warrior’s shoulder and side.
