Lord of the Wolves

by S. K. McClafferty

  “And she never returned to the settlements?” Sarah asked.

  “Gray Wolf’s people became her people.”

  “And your mother married a Frenchman?”

  “Antoine Baer, a trader. He was born in France and later immigrated to Quebec.”

  “How fascinating,” she said, and meant it. She was intrigued by the bits and pieces of his past with which he was willing to part. That her insatiable curiosity concerning Kingston, a veritable stranger, was highly improper did occur to her, given that she was to be wed to another. Yet, Brother John Liebermann was half a world away, and Kingston was here and larger than life. Surely this one small discretion would do no real harm to anyone, certainly not her betrothed, who would have no idea that she was busily prying into another man’s past. “Were your mother and father as happy as Gray Wolf and Regina during their marriage?”

  “When they were together, perhaps,” Kingston replied. “But his business kept him away much of the time. He remained in the village through autumn and winter. In spring he would take the furs for which he had traded during that time and depart for New France.”

  “It must have been hard for you,” Sarah said. “For your brothers and sisters. You do have brothers and sisters, don’t you?”

  His expression darkened almost imperceptibly. His reply was carefully worded. Too carefully, Sarah thought. “There was a girl child, born before me, but she lived only a short while. Great Wind died last year when Armstrong razed the village of Kit-han-ee. I am the last of Gray Wolf’s spawn, and the wolves of the wood are my only true brothers.”

  He took up the rifle and stood. “That is more than enough talk for one evening,” he said. “Get some sleep.”

  He turned and walked slowly, silently, into the obsidian shadows. Sarah watched until he was gone from sight, and then she curled on her side and stared into the flames of the campfire, more intrigued by Kingston Sauvage, despite his revelations, than ever she had been.

  Chapter 5

  A hard hand shook Sarah from her dreams the next morning. “Madame? Are you awake?” When she failed to respond immediately, he shook her again, less gently this time. “Madame!”

  “Yes,” Sarah said, “Yes, I am awake. What is it?”

  “The dawn is breaking,” Sauvage replied, “and we must be on our way if we’re to make the creek before it starts to rain.”

  Sarah yawned, stretching languidly. She’d been dreaming of a cabin besieged by savages, and a raven-haired war captain with eyes of dark fire, who had taken her prisoner and carried her off to his home far away, and that dream was slow to fade. Sarah blinked sleepily up at him. “Must we leave so soon, Kingston? I fear I did not sleep well, and I am feeling very weary. A few moments more and I am certain I shall be rested.”

  He gave Sarah’s shoulder a gentle squeeze, and chuckled darkly. “A few moments more of watching you sleep and I might just decide to join you beneath that blanket.”

  Bold and brash and slightly risqué, like her dream lover, Sarah thought. A glance revealed the same dark fire burning in his black eyes, eyes framed by the same hard and knowing face and flowing raven hair. “It is wicked of you to taunt me.”

  “Who’s to say that I am teasing? It has been a long time since I have lain with a woman. Sleep erases your piety, Madame, lending you the tousled look of the wanton, and the sounds you make as you slumber—-” he stroked his chin—-“if I am any judge of women, that was no nightmare you were having.”

  Sarah gasped. Was it possible for him to read her thoughts? For if indeed he could... .

  “Well? Will you give up the blanket? Or risk sharing it?”

  Sarah threw off the blanket, folding and rolling it, securing it with a rawhide thong. It was ridiculous to think that he could read her mind, but she was suddenly more careful to avoid all thoughts of the dream she’d had, all the same.

  At that very moment, fifteen miles northwest of the clearing where Sarah and Kingston had camped, a German and his yellow-haired wife were just sitting down to breakfast in their sturdy cabin.

  The German finished the blessing with a flourish and ladled a goodly portion of steaming porridge onto his wooden trencher. At that same moment, the large hound sleeping by the fire issued a throaty warning growl and, rising, padded to the door.

  The immigrant looked at his wife. “I bet he smells a wolf.”

  His wife looked nervous. “Maybe he should stay inside, Helmut. Just for now.”

  Ignoring her, Helmut came off his bench and went to the door. “What’s de matter, Otto? You vant out to catch de wolf?”

  Whining softly, the dog thumped his tail on the puncheons.

  “Helmut, please!” Helmut’s wife pleaded. “Wait just a bit.”

  Never one to heed his wife’s worries, Helmut lifted the latchstring and edged the door open. Otto slipped outside, brushing past the stranger lounging in the shadows by the door. “How opportune,” the stranger said, addressing the half-dozen warriors accompanying him in heavily accented English. “It would seem that we are just in time to break our fast.”

  With each passing mile, travel became increasingly difficult for Kingston and Sarah. The gentle rises were steeper now, the undergrowth at times, nearly impenetrable, and Sauvage and Sarah spent most of the morning and afternoon threading their way through gigantic deadfalls which blocked their path.

  When at last they reached their destination, the afternoon was nearly spent, and Sarah was weary beyond belief. Sinking down at the base of a chestnut tree, she closed her eyes, but as she drifted off, Kingston grasped her shoulder, and for the second time that day, shook her none too gently. Instead of waking, she pressed her cheek to his hand, making a small noise in her throat. “Timothy?” she said with a sigh. “Is it time for dinner?”

  Sauvage gazed down at her, a thousand thoughts running through his head, none of them sufficiently wholesome to meet with Madame’s approval. Her small prayer cap was pushed back on her head, and several strands of brown hair curled slightly at her temples, her small shell-like ears and her cheek.

  Unable to resist the urge, he reached out, taking one shining brown lock between forefinger and thumb. It was softer than silk, just as he suspected it would be. He released the strand, but did not ease his hold on her shoulder. He’d longed to touch her since that first night, to savor the velvety texture of her pale skin, to feel it lightly abrading his. He wanted to pull her into his arms, bear her to the earth, and smother all of her protests with kisses.

  Instead, he tightened his fingers over the lush shoulder he held. “Madame. Come, Madame, you must waken. This is no time to be sleeping. There is still work to do.”

  Groaning softly, she opened her eyes. “Work? You wish me to work after fighting my way through the brambles all day?”

  Sauvage gave her a level look. “You want to sup this night, do you not?” She nodded with a quick bob of her capped head. “Then, I would suggest that you go gather some wood for the fire.”

  Sarah yawned widely. “I should like to be more helpful, Kingston, yet I am certain I shall be more hindrance than help. I have no experience in making a camp, or gathering wood.”

  “Then you should consider this a valuable lesson, a skill you will need to master if you are to live on the Muskingum.”

  “Surely there will be servants to see to the menial tasks.”

  Sauvage cut her off with a hard glance. “You are a long way from England, Madame. Here a man must toil if he wishes to eat, as must a woman. Tonight, we will fish for our supper. The sooner we finish setting up camp, the sooner we can begin.”

  Disgruntled, Sarah picked herself up and went off to collect the dry wood to fuel their fire, while Sauvage labored to construct a simple three-sided structure. It was completed by the time Sarah finished collecting the firewood. “Here is the wood you wanted,” she said. “I am ready to fish. Where are the hooks and line?”

  “There are no hooks and line,” Kingston replied. “We’ll fish as my mother’
s people have fished since the beginning of time.”

  “No hooks and line?” Sarah questioned. “Perhaps my time would be better spent gathering nuts and berries. It might not be substantial fare, but at least it would be something.”

  “Nuts and berries are not filling. Besides, you must learn to make yourself useful if you’re going to survive on the frontier,” Kingston replied. “A lazy woman who waits to be waited upon is a shame to herself and a blight upon her husband’s name.”

  Sarah gasped her outrage. “I am far from indolent!”

  “No? What practical skills have you mastered, Madame, besides napping at a moment’s notice?” The smiling wretch persisted. “Cooking over a campfire? Skinning game, perhaps? Or making a deerskin as supple as butter so that it might cover your husband’s nakedness without chafing his skin to blisters.”

  The more he talked, the angrier Sarah became. A volatile temper was the one shortcoming she had been unable to conquer, and it was becoming increasingly clear that Kingston would not indulge her the least bit; indeed, for some inexplicable reason, he brought out the worst in her. “Perhaps I cannot cook over a campfire, or the other things you have mentioned, but in no way does that diminish my worth! The skills which I possess are the sort required of a gentlewoman. I play the spinet, and I am passing good at needlework.”

  “Needlework, you say?” he said. “Then, you can stitch a wound together without leaving a scar?”

  Sarah sniffed. “It was my embroidery to which I was referring.”

  Kingston snorted. “Fancy stitches on a pillow are of precious little use. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if Brother Liebermann reconsiders his proposal of marriage and takes a Delaware woman to wife, someone more adept at being a helpmate, someone more willing to learn.” With that, he turned his broad back and sauntered toward the creek.

  Fuming, Sarah watched him go. How dare he insinuate that her betrothed would find her so lacking that he would take another woman to wife! She was not devoid of skills, inept! Why, with a little help, she could manage a home and be a worthy wife, and she could learn to fish, if indeed she wanted to!

  Quite suddenly, Sarah very much wanted to. Lifting her skirts, she hurried after him. At the water’s edge, he paused, removing the belt that closed the front of his hunting shirt, revealing a generous expanse of smooth, tawny skin.

  Sarah’s eyes widened. “Why, what on earth are you doing?”

  “Preparing to fish, Madame.” Slipping out of the shirt, he tossed the garment and belt onto a flat rock. He was broad of shoulder and deep of chest, with skin like flawless bronze satin. His movements were fluid, graceful. The corded muscles of his shoulders and back rippled sinuously as he untied the leather thongs which secured his leggings, and eased them down.

  Sarah wondered what it would be like to touch his nearly naked form, to run her fingertips along the thick muscles that joined his neck to his shoulder, and down across his chest. To touch the warm silver bands that encircled his arms above his biceps. Would her touch excite him, as watching him disrobe excited her? Would he groan if she stroked the hard brown buds of his nipples?

  Biting back an anguished groan at her own rampant thoughts, Sarah quickly, carefully averted her gaze. Then, upon hearing a soft, indefinable sound, she risked a second glance, covertly, from the cover of her lashes.

  Mesmerized by the sight of so much naked skin, Sarah watched as he bent to remove his moccasins, slid the leather casings down, inch by inch, and reached for the leather thong that secured the soft strip of cloth that covered his loins—all that stood between Sarah and total humiliation, yet to her vast relief, he only readjusted the rawhide, then straightened and bent a look upon her. “You have changed your mind, Madame?”

  Sarah cleared her throat. “After some consideration, I have decided that I should like to learn to fish. Yet, I wish you to understand that it is not because you suggested it.”

  Smiling, he touched her cheek. “Very well, then. Take off your clothes.”

  “My—-you wish me—-to disrobe? Sir! I cannot! It would be most unseemly!”

  “You cannot fish dressed as you are,” he countered.

  Sarah narrowed her eyes at him suspiciously, wondering if this was some perverted scheme on his part to rob her of her modesty. “I do not pretend to know much about Indian culture, but in England, we fish in a far more modest and restrained fashion—-and we do not disrobe in the presence of the opposite... sex.”

  The last word was hissed. Sauvage smiled to himself, amused by her outrage. He found her maidenly blushes very becoming, and could not help teasing her the smallest bit. “Never?”

  “Never,” she affirmed.

  “My sympathies to Brother Liebermann. It is a very great shame that he will never get to gaze upon your voluptuous charms.” He stood patiently waiting as she took off her sturdy leather shoes and stockings, and, obstinate as any mule, refused to undress. Sauvage smiled. She had pluck. Madame did, a fine thread of tempered steel which lay hidden beneath her timidity and shyness. And then there was the way her gaze had touched his flesh and lingered as he’d disrobed, the fullness of her lips that hinted at a sleeping sensual side to her nature crying out to be awakened.

  Watching the gentle sway of her hips beneath her voluminous skirts as she moved into the water, Sauvage gave a wistful sigh. How strange that he should envy a man whom he had never met. The man who would have the chance to coax Madame out of her inhibitions and into the sublime light of physical love.

  Sarah’s momentary anger faded as she waded into the creek. Beauty was all around her, in the dark sluggish stream, the towering hemlocks that grew on the opposite shore, the green-black boughs of which stretched far out over the water. In the middle of the stream, shaded by those boughs, a huge gray boulder squatted, easily as large as some cabins Sarah had seen.

  There was an undeniable beauty as well in the man who now stood near the great limestone monument, as silent and still as a bronze statue, the water lapping ‘round his naked flanks.

  “Wait there, Madame,” he cautioned. “Grandfather is dozing by the rock. I will urge him into shore. Keep watch, and make ready to seize him.”

  Seize him? Seize him with what?

  Sarah glanced sharply up at Kingston, then down at her hands. He’d lost his senses. She thought of wading back to shore, of admitting her shortcomings... and then she thought of Kingston’s taunt that Brother John Liebermann would release her from their marriage contract and take a more worthy woman to wife, someone willing to learn.

  It was enough to solidify Sarah’s determination, and she vowed in that moment that she would succeed in this venture even if it killed her. She stared hard at the water, trying to look beyond the refractions of silver light on its surface. But she could see nothing that looked like a fish. Then, she noticed the long gray, undulating shadow that lay on the rocky bottom, a shadow which, as Kingston approached it, moved slightly, and became a fish.

  A whale of a fish, a full two feet in length! A wave of hunger assaulted Sarah. She could almost taste the grandfather fish, firm and slightly smoky from the open fire... delicious, and filling and—Sarah’s heart was pounding. She must be cunning to achieve success. More cunning than the fish.

  She glanced at the shadowy form, so graceful in the pale green depths of the creek, and watched, mesmerized as it moved slowly forward, a few feet ahead of Kingston.

  Bent upon her goal, Sarah moved, too. The cool water lapped around her knees, her thighs, soaking her skirts, wrapped around her legs, hampering her movements.

  “Careful, Madame,” Kingston said. “Slowly. The creek bed is uneven in places.”

  The sleek gray body swam near and then past her and Sarah lunged, heart thudding against her ribs. She grabbed for the great fish, catching his tail, jerking him back and into her arms as she teetered off balance and, encumbered by the tangle of her sodden skirts, slowly sank beneath the surface.

  And then, Kingston was there, taking her elbow, urgi
ng her up and onto her feet. He pounded Sarah’s back as she coughed and sputtered, then, regaining her composure, grinned soggily, triumphantly up at him, clutching her struggling prize. “Delaware w-woman, indeed!” she said.

  Evening came, and the nightly serenade of cicadas and crickets began. Just before twilight they struck up a lively tune, that continued until the first gray light of dawn.

  Sarah sat by the fireside, vainly trying to wring the moisture from her sodden skirts as she awaited Kingston’s return. He’d gone off on his nightly rounds shortly after their meal of fish, in order to assure himself there were no Hurons lurking nearby. But that had been hours ago, and he had yet to return. The purple dusk was slowly fading into night, and threatening storm clouds were beginning to gather.

  There was thunder in the distance, intermittent still, but moving closer, and a brief flash of lightning now and again that lit up the sky. A breath of a breeze, heavy with damp and uncommonly chilly, swept through the valley and was gone.

  Sarah shivered. She was starting to worry. Where was Kingston? Had something happened? Had he run afoul of the Frenchman, or one of his allies? Was he even now lying out there somewhere, wounded and helpless and breathing his last?

  Images of the massacre flashed behind Sarah’s eyes, but instead of Ben Bones being besieged behind the huge oak tree, it was Kingston who was cornered, hopelessly outmanned. “Father, please,” Sarah said quietly. “Watch over him.”

  Heavy silence, then the low rumble of thunder. Sarah chafed her arms, wishing she’d listened to Kingston earlier and disrobed to fish in the creek. Her clothing was still cloying and wet, her skin damp and cold, despite the cloying warmth of the evening.

  Bravery might come more easily, she thought, if she were warm and dry instead of damp and miserable. Caught up in her thoughts and fears, Sarah at first failed to notice the rustling of the underbrush to the left of the fire. Then, it sounded again, and a chill snaked up her spine.