Lord of the Wolves

by S. K. McClafferty

  Sauvage took her hands in his and squeezed them gently. “Madame, you must listen closely to me. Can you do that?”

  A hesitant nod. She swallowed hard.

  “I must leave you for a little while. There are some things to which I must attend.”

  “You will come back? You will not leave me here?”

  “I will not be long,” Sauvage assured her, “but you must promise me that you will not move from this thicket. Stay quiet and still.” He smiled and lifted her hands, pressing a kiss to each in turn. “Be strong. A proper Delaware woman, eh?”

  Her answering smile was tremulous, but her eyes were dry. Feeling heartened, Sauvage slipped from the thicket, careful to erase all signs of their passage as he retraced his steps back to the path. Moving silently as a wraith, he climbed to the summit of the knoll, pausing in the cover of a huge sycamore tree to survey the clearing below and the forest surrounding it.

  The valley lay quiet. Unnaturally still. Not even the legions of squirrels that lived in the treetops, whose noisy chirping could nearly always be heard during daylight hours, deigned to break the silence which had descended like an invisible shroud over this place.

  Careful not to disturb anything, Sauvage made his way down the steep incline and into the clearing. The carnage he found was terrible. Three men lay sprawled in the open, lifeless eyes wide and staring, their hair lifted and skulls exposed. Two of the men, he did not know. The third he recognized. It was Joshua Stanhope, Kate’s brother. He’d heard from Kate that Joshua had taken a bride and moved to the East. And now he lay dead in this quiet clearing, and his bride was a widow.

  Sauvage’s stomach clenched. He forced himself to rise and move away from Stanhope, to the savaged remains of Benjamin Bones. Bones, an experienced frontiersman and well known to Sauvage, was barely recognizable. Each finger was missing the first and second joint, his ears, nose and eyelids had been cut away, and they’d also taken his tongue. Judging from the amount of blood lost, and the look of horror frozen on the man’s face, he’d been very much alive at the time. On Bone’s right cheek, someone had carved a crude fleur-de-lis.

  The lily of France, heraldic symbol of his father’s king and the chosen mark of La Bruin. It was a taunt he well understood. A calling card to tell the world who was responsible for the blood bath.

  His jaw hardened as he got to his feet. He recalled with vivid clarity the first time he’d laid eyes on that hated symbol. He’d been but a gangly youth of eleven who’d recently lost his mother, dogging his father’s steps through the streets of Quebec, a place far removed from the quiet village on the Allegheny River where his mother’s people dwelt.

  The stink of the city streets had offended his senses, the manner in which his father’s people had lived, hundreds of houses of stone and brick and wood crowded one upon the other, flanking the narrow winding cobbled streets, had filled him with disdain. Yet, he’d remembered his manners and said nothing of his thoughts to the man in whose footsteps he followed. Then, they’d rounded a corner and climbed the steps to a great frame house.

  His father had opened the massive front door, and with a hand on Sauvage’s shoulder, had ushered him into a parlor where a woman sat, a boy Sauvage’s age standing near her elbow.

  The woman, his father’s legal wife, had glanced at Sauvage, then turned her attention back to the embroidery in her lap, as though she’d viewed something distasteful. Sauvage had tried hard to ignore the woman’s coldness, to ignore the boy who stood glaring his hatred at the bastard half brother his father had dragged home, and instead focused his attention on the linen square in the woman’s silken lap. The lily of France had been lavishly worked on it in purple and gold.

  His father had seized the embroidery, ignoring her outraged gasp, and held it out to Sauvage. “You see this, boy? This is your heritage. The lily of France. You remember it! You remember that you are descended from great men and courageous women.”

  The memory of his father’s voice faded, replaced by the droning of a gnat close to Sauvage’s ear. Absently, he brushed it away, still staring at the grotesque mask that once was Ben Bones, but seeing instead that purple and gold embroidery, the same piece of cloth that he’d found beside Caroline’s lifeless body one year ago.

  Impatient now to leave this place, Sauvage shoved the memory away. The lily of France, a symbol of hatred, insignia of a madman. Each time Kingston saw it, he knew that he was not the only one who remembered that long ago day.

  Sarah and Kingston camped that night on the banks of a winding creek a few miles west of the attack. The glade Kingston selected was sheltered by a ring of willows, closely set, so that the long and slender branches provided a graceful living curtain that separated the two of them from the outside world.

  Seated on the blanket with which Kingston had covered her the night before, Sarah removed the pins from her hair and combed through the tangled mass with her fingers. The results were far from satisfactory but it was the best she could do without her silver comb and brush, which had been lost, along with her clothes and belongings in the previous day’s attack.

  She would be going to Brother Liebermann with nothing more than the clothes on her back. Not that it mattered in any case. Her belongings were worldly goods, and therefore easily replaced. Would that her fellow travelers had all been as fortunate as she.

  She had thought of them a great deal since she and Kingston had resumed their journey earlier in the afternoon. Poor Mr. Windham and his son, Henry, Joshua Stanhope, Mr. Bones, and Kathryn. She’d thought of them and prayed. There had been a great deal of time for prayers and reflection on the long walk to this place, for Kingston’s manner had been different since his return.

  He’d been strangely silent. Why, he’d barely spoken since returning to the laurel thicket. That had been hours ago, and Sarah would have welcomed the sound of his voice, even raised in unthinking insult, for it would at least provide a distraction and make her feel less alone.

  There was something else, too, a dark look that came into his eyes when he thought she did not see. That look troubled Sarah. She knew that he was anxious to be rid of her, to get on with his business of finding and killing the Frenchman, which in turn troubled her, too.

  As the cobalt blue of the sky gradually deepened, turning to a velvety black, Sarah continued to watch Kingston closely, trying to fathom his mood.

  “What is it you want from me?” He was sorting through the contents of his leather pouches, a distracted frown on his handsome face. He spoke without looking up.

  Caught off guard, Sarah swallowed hard and glanced away. “Come, come,” he prompted. “There must be something, or are you intent upon looking a hole through me, simply for something to do?”

  “I am intent upon no such thing,” Sarah insisted. She saw his mouth curve in a smile and she colored slightly, suddenly thankful for the firelight, which effectively hid her blush. “Dear me,” she said. “Are you always so direct? You make everything sound so calculated, deliberate, indelicate, and nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “Madame, this is not England, and I cannot take the time to be delicate—time that is better served in keeping us alive.”

  His words sent a chill up Sarah’s spine. She must be bold and brave and a help to Kingston, instead of a cowardly hindrance. “Is our situation so dire?”

  He glanced at her, that same measuring look he’d given her earlier. “We are running low on supplies. I was headed north to trade when I came across you and Kate.”

  Sarah frowned. “How low, precisely?”

  “I have but five rifle balls left, less than an ounce of powder, and the jerked meat I carried will soon all be gone.”

  His implication was clear. They were facing great difficulties in the days ahead and would need to ration their supplies. “Well, then, we simply must subsist on what we have, or find a place to purchase more.”

  He shook his head and his raven locks shimmered blue in the firelight. “There isn’t
a trading post within fifty miles.”

  “What, then, do you suggest?” Sarah asked quietly, bracing herself for his reply.

  It was precisely as she suspected. “It isn’t too late to turn back,” he replied. “We can make it to Bethlehem without undue hardship, and once there, I can trade for supplies at Nat Leasure’s place on Maiden Creek.”

  Sarah was already shaking her head. “It is out of the question. You gave your word.”

  “Damn my word! It is the wisest course.”

  She would not hear it. “I do not think you appreciate how difficult it was for me to leave England behind and come here to America. I put my faith in God and gave Gil my pledge to come to the Muskingum. What manner of sister-in-law would I be if I went back on my pledge because of the paltry matter of five rifle balls? What manner of Christian would I be if I failed to put my trust in God to see us through this minor difficulty? Have you not heard of the Lord Jesus Christ and his loaves and fishes? How he fed multitudes with a small bit of food?”

  Kingston smiled at her comparison; it was the first time his expression had softened since early morning. “I have heard the story, but had no idea the same theory could be applied to rifle balls. On the other hand, I once killed two men with one shot. The missile went straight through the first and into the heart of the second.”

  “I am not sure I like that comparison,” Sarah said. “And I confess that I cannot help but notice that your concern seems newly arisen. You seemed to have no qualms last night in the hunter’s camp about pursuing La Bruin, despite the low state of your supplies.”

  At the mention of the French renegade, Kinston’s expression clouded. “That was then, and this is now,” he said flatly. “Quite suddenly I have more than my own life to worry about.”

  His statement chilled Sarah. “Are you saying that you would have gone off in pursuit of your enemy, knowing full well what you lacked?”

  “Oui, Madame. I would have done exactly that. And because of it you think me mad.” It was not an accusation, and he was not at all defensive. Indeed, he seemed amused, though it was something more sensed than seen by Sarah, for his expression remained as hard as flint.

  “In all truth, I do not know what to think,” Sarah admitted, “except that something must have occasioned all of this. Something you are not confessing.”

  Sauvage passed a hand over his face. She was bringing it all back to him with her constant chatter, everything he’d been trying to forget over the course of the long afternoon. The carnage of the massacre, the lily of France, the parlor in Quebec, things he did not wish to remember, yet could not seem to forget. Into the dark memories, Madame’s voice intruded. “It is the Frenchman, is it not? That terrible, godless man, La Bruin?”

  Gazing into her large blue eyes, Sauvage felt a catch in his chest. The golden firelight glimmered in the soft brown strands that framed her face, played across her cheeks, and gilded the tips of her spiky lashes. She was the very embodiment of all things feminine, and it seemed he could deny her nothing. “For me, it has always been La Bruin.”

  “Always,” she repeated, her smooth brow furrowing in a perplexed frown. “You know him well?”

  Tipping back his head, he pretended to contemplate the starlit heavens visible through the willow streamers. “You see that halo ‘round the moon? There will be rain coming very soon. Perhaps as early as tomorrow.”

  “A pretty attempt at evasion, monsieur,” she said. “But I am in a mood as well and will not let you escape my question so handily.”

  He should deny her, ignore her, turn cold and aloof, yet Sauvage found that tonight of all nights he could not. His own painful past weighed too heavily on his mind to be easily set aside. He gave Madame what she wanted—-or at least a portion of it—-hoping to satisfy her sudden curiosity. “You might say that we have a history, La Bruin and I. One that goes back a number of years.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You were not allies?”

  We have always been enemies. Aloud, he said, “No, never that.”

  “Kathryn named him a devil, and as we huddled in the log, listening to the cries of Mr. Bones, I came to believe her. I cannot help but wonder how such evil exists in mankind. Surely he was spawned by Satan and reared up by wolves.”

  “Give the wolves some credit, Madame,” Sauvage replied. “As it happens, La Bruin was gently born and grew up wearing silks and perfumed laces.”

  “La Bruin a gentleman!” She was genuinely shocked. “That is very hard to countenance.”

  “The truth is often difficult to understand.” She would have spoken then, asked yet another question about La Bruin, had Sauvage not put up a hand. “I dwell enough on La Bruin. Tonight I do not wish to think of him, and I would not be the cause of you having bad dreams.”

  “There is a good likelihood that I shall suffer them in any case.” She caught her full lower lip between her strong white teeth, becoming at once the endearing little mouse that he could not seem to resist. “I was such a timid child, forever starting at shadows. My father chided me for my weakness, and told me that I must face my fears to make them disappear. Doubtless he was right, yet I couldn’t find the courage to confront the invisible creatures lurking in the shadows beneath my trundle bed.”

  Sauvage understood about nightmares. Caroline haunted him, waking and sleeping. There was not a day that passed that he was not reminded of her ethereal presence, and rare indeed was the night when he did not awaken, his heartbeat a dull roar in his ears and his body drenched with cold sweat, certain he’d heard the cry of a new born babe.

  By sheer dint of will, he pushed back the ghosts of the past and gave his undivided attention to Sarah, his present.

  “It was better after I married,” she was saying. “I felt safer. More secure.”

  “You liked the warmth and strength of a man in your bed, eh?” he surmised with a knowing smile.

  She averted her gaze at his bold comment, but she did not seek to chide him for speaking in so straightforward a fashion. Instead, she answered softly. “I suppose that I did, in a way. Timothy was such a good man, kindly and patient with all of my shortcomings, always understanding. When I would awaken, he would hold me close until the fear all melted away. Somehow it made me less afraid, just knowing that he was there.”

  “And now he is gone, and there is no one to hold you when you waken in the middle of the night.”

  A slight nod of her bowed head, the glimmer of tears beneath the lush sweep of her lashes.

  Madame’s tears and soft-voiced confession had a strange effect upon Sauvage. In that moment he should have liked very much to console her, to offer his own strong arms as a substitute for the ones she had lost, to assure her that as long as he was with her, she need not feel alone, or afraid, or vulnerable.

  Indeed, he ached to say all of the things that Sarah needed to hear, and only the shadowy specter of his enemy lurking in the back of his mind kept him from acting on the impulse, from making vows that he knew in his heart he could not keep.

  La Bruin was still out there, a fact of which Sauvage was well aware.

  Madame dabbed at her tears with a much-wrinkled handkerchief she extracted from her sleeve and sniffed. “I shall not dwell on my loss. It was unthinking of me to have rattled on when I am not the only one who has suffered. Surely you have felt the same things as keenly as I—not the fears and feelings of insecurity, of course, but the loneliness. How long were you can Caroline married?”

  “We were married in the autumn of 1755, when the leaves were tipped with the blood of the bear, and she died one year ago.”

  “The blood of the bear?” She frowned quizzically.

  “It is a story my mother’s people tell about the cold months after the harvest.” Leaning his weight on his left forearm, he indicated one of the constellations shining brightly in the clear night sky. “Do you see that group of stars?”

  “Ursa Major, the Great Bear,” she said. “I am familiar with it.”

 
“The four stars that form the rectangular base are the body of the mythical bear, and the three stars that trail behind are the hunters. My mother’s people believe that each October the hunters corner the bear and slay it, and it is the bear’s blood that stains the leaves a vibrant red.”

  Madame smiled, and at that moment the shared sadness between them and all thoughts of Caroline and Timothy were set aside.

  Sauvage felt at ease in her company, content to gaze at her small face, a pale golden cameo in the firelight, as she continued to gaze at the starlit heaves. She would make a fine companion, he was thinking, a worthy wife for her faraway betrothed.

  Sarah was feeling the same ease in his presence. “Why do you refer to the Delaware as your ‘mother’s people’?” she asked, her gaze shifting to Kingston’s dark, impassive face. “Are they not your people, too?”

  “They were, until my eleventh year. And then, my mother died, and my father came and took me from the village.”

  “He took you from your home? Where did you go, Kingston?”

  “To the ends of the earth... or so it seemed to a gangly youth who had never been far from the village where he’d been born.” Reaching out, he stirred the fire with a stick, then fed the stick to the hungry flames. “He took me to his home in Quebec, in New France. I was gone a long time, and when I returned, nothing was the same.

  “Gray Wolf, my mother’s father was dead, and my uncles, Dark Horse and White Eyes had lost their lives in the struggle with the whites over the land. Great Wind was the only one of my mother’s half brothers still living, and he had never looked kindly upon me. His hatred of whites was unbounded, you see, despite the fact that his step mother was a white woman.”

  She looked surprised. Kingston laughed. “Oui, Madame. Gray Wolf, my grandfather, had been a war chief of great renown in his youth, an enemy of the whites, but Regina Sauvage, daughter of a French Huguenot, changed all of that. He was widowed several years with three small sons when he captured her in a raid on an isolated settlement in the Carolinas, and brought her to his village. Within a year they married.”