He started off, and Sarah struggled to keep up. All at once, the wind was rising. Gathering speed, it howled like a living thing in the treetops.
Sarah cast a nervous glance heavenward, and in the same instant the natural gloom of the forest disappeared in a blinding flash of blue-white light. A sizzling crack sounded a dozen yards to the right of the path, followed by the sound of splintering wood. Kingston lunged to the left, dragging Sarah with him. A hail of broken branches struck the earth all around them. Another flash of lightning, a deafening boom that seemed to split the heavens open wide, and the rain fell in a torrent.
It pelted Sarah as they ran, cold and stinging sheets that drenched her hair and coursed in thin runnels into her eyes. It sluiced down the boles of trees, pelting the ground with hail that gathered in icy pools on the ground.
It came so quickly, and with such force, that within minutes the creeks which cut through the marsh surged swollen and brown.
Sarah had never seen anything like it. It was as if a strange and unseen force had unleashed its pent-up wrath upon the land, and she and Kingston were caught directly in its path. He’d mentioned a shelter moments ago, but there was no end to the ocean of trees, no safe place to wait out the storm.
Another sizzle and crack, a burst of blue-white light. The deluge strengthened; the smaller of two creeks edged toward its banks. “We must find higher ground!” Kingston shouted above the roar of the wind. They reached a place where two small streams converged into one wide and swirling mass. A few feet above the water was an Indian bridge, a log which had been wedged into the forks of two trees to form a narrow, makeshift walkway.
Kingston leapt onto the log, then turned to help her, but Sarah shook her head. “There is nothing to fear, Madame. Take my hand. I will help you.”
Sarah shook her head again. “I cannot!”
“You must!” he shouted. “The water is rising fast!” Executing a graceful turn on the surface of the log, Kingston grasped Sarah under the arms and lifted her onto the bridge.
Sarah crouched there, terrified, her gaze drawn to the swift, muddy flow. With a softly uttered imprecation, Kingston reached out, cupping her chin in his palm. “Do not look down! Keep your eyes on me! Think of your betrothed, of the children with whom you will work. Think of the future that awaits you on the other side, and follow me, eh?”
Sarah nodded, too frightened to speak, then watched as he turned and started to make his way across the bridge. With each step, the gulf separating them became greater. His lithe grace served him well, but Sarah had never been graceful. She stumbled often when walking, at home in London, she had often dropped things, and sometimes she bumped into walls.
She could not traverse the log, she thought, staring dry-mouthed at its length. It was too narrow.
Halfway across, Kingston turned to frown at her. He held out his arm, fingers reaching. “Come to me, Sarah. Now!”
Sarah crouched, her legs trembling so violently they threatened to pitch her into the shallows. “Come!” he insisted.
She wanted badly to comply. Desperately. But she was paralyzed with fear. A mere two feet beneath the log, the water swirled and rushed and eddied, rising higher as the unrelenting rain continued to fall. How long until it reached the bridge? As she stared, mesmerized, it edged a fraction closer. Her heart was pounding madly in her chest. Cowardly wretch! she chided herself. Force your feet to obey your commands!
Slowly, she began to move, feeling her way along the log. An inch, then two. She crept along as the storm buffeted her. She was almost to the center of the structure when lightning struck a towering sycamore a few dozen yards along the creek bank. The resounding crash, the roar of the thunder, died away, and another sound intruded: the slow protesting creak of wood giving way under great stress, the rattling shiver of falling leaf-covered limbs. Sarah looked up, startled, and saw the forest giant toppling toward them, Kingston directly in its path.
Time seemed to stand still. A thousand thoughts flashed in her mind as disaster rushed toward her, and not one included her future husband, or even the children who awaited her arrival on the Muskingum. They all centered on the future, and a world without Kingston in it was a prospect she did not wish to face.
As Kingston turned to look at her, Sarah lunged, hitting him low and knocking him clear of the falling giant, throwing herself into its path.
Sauvage hit the water and sank like a stone beneath the raging brown torrent. Water stung his eyes and filled his nose and mouth as he clawed his way to the surface again. He broke from the depths with a splash, glancing wildly around. Sarah sprawled on her belly on the Indian bridge. The huge sycamore, uprooted by the storm, toppled straight toward her.
He opened his mouth to cry out, and water rushed in, choking him and filling his mouth with sand and grit. As the current took him, he saw Sarah rise to her knees. Then, with the sound like the crack of a rifle, the tree struck the Indian bridge in its vulnerable middle, the bridge snapped like a twig beneath the enormous weight, and Sarah was toppled headfirst into the stream.
The current proved too strong to fight. It bore Sauvage along on his back, hurling him against rocks, pushing him to the surface, dragging him down again. He fought to locate Sarah. She’d saved his life, but at what cost? Mon dieu, where was she? He hit bottom and shoved off, forcing his face out of the flow. “Sarah!” he cried, swallowing a mouthful of filthy water, coughing and choking on the grit. “Sarah!”
And then, he saw a small patch of darker brown bobbing along in the current ten yards behind him. His heart constricting in his chest, he fought the current with every ounce of strength he possessed. The object swept closer, a leather shirt... and there beneath the water was the pale oval of Sarah’s face.
Sauvage fought his way to midstream, then, reaching out, made a wild grab for her. His fingers brushed the leather of her shirt, her knotted sash. Desperate now, he closed one hand over the trailing ends, dragging her toward him.
She was limp as a rag doll, unconscious. It was impossible to tell if she was breathing or not as they tumbled madly around a bend in the stream and into the rocky narrows. Ahead was a huge deadfall, the roots of which hung over the bank and into shallower water. All manner of twigs and debris had caught and were lodged in the tangle of roots.
Salvation.
His lungs on fire, Kingston inched his way to the opposite side of the swift-flowing stream and the mad tangle of roots. Still holding onto Sarah, he fought for purchase, working his way into the shallows, protected by the great fallen tree, and finally, dragged Sarah ashore.
How still she was. How ashen. Except for the deep purple bruise on her right temple. Sauvage put his cheek to her lips. She was not breathing. Taking her by the shoulders, he shook her hard. “Sarah! Damn it, Sarah! Breathe!”
She did not respond, but lay, still as death, her dark hair streaming over her face. Sauvage’s heart turned to ice in his chest. I cannot lose her. Not now, not this way. I cannot let her go!
Desperation clawing at his vitals, he rolled her onto her stomach and draping her head down over a log, shook her again.
She coughed weakly, then, with a soft groan, spewed up a great deal of water. When she started to breathe, Sauvage gathered her into his arms and turned inland again. His rifle was gone, lost somewhere in the muddy waters of the raging creek. He had his bullet pouch and powder horn, but the powder was wet. Ruined. All of their supplies had been lost when he’d tumbled into the water.
Strangely, it didn’t matter.
None of it mattered now.
Sarah was the only thing of importance in his universe. Somehow, he had to get her to Angel’s hunting lodge near the Juniata River, where he could make her well again.
Sauvage carried Sarah from Edmund’s Swamp, heading west along the Raystown Path, loping uphill and down, inching his way through impenetrable underbrush, marsh and thicket, then, on open ground, picking up pace again. Through it all, she never wakened.
The rain ce
ased, and evening came on quickly, all golden light and purple shadows, quiet and serene in the aftermath of the storm. Sauvage barely noticed. Nine miles lay between Edmund’s Swamp and Angel’s hunting lodge, yet it might as well have been nine hundred. Sarah needed a place to rest, a fire to chase the chill from her body, herbs and maybe some brandy to warm her and lend her strength, none of which he could provide.
Everything was lost, washed away in the muddy torrent, his medicine bundle, their blankets, his rifle and food. Without the flint and steel from the rifle and hampered by the fact that everything in his world was wet, he could not even make a fire to warm her, and night would be coming on soon.
His belly clenched at the thought. She already trembled with cold. If he could not get her out of her damp, muddy clothing, she could sicken and die.
With Sarah’s survival foremost in his mind, he ran, slowing his ground-eating lope to a dog-trot only when the fiery pain in his lungs grew too intense to bear, pushing himself beyond the limits of his endurance in an effort to reach his goal before it was too late. Time was his enemy. He was painfully aware of the passing moments, the shifting of the light, which, with each beat of his racing heart, grew increasingly dim. It would soon be too dark to see the path, yet he knew he could not stop.
Darkness fell. The night was moonless, the forest black as pitch. Visibility reduced, Sauvage was forced to slow his pace to a walk. Trees and laurel thicket, rock and winding path all blended into one another.
Panic flooded his mind, and his chest grew tight, his breathing shallow and quick. He was lost... and Sarah was doomed because of it. Sarah, the good and the innocent... Sarah, who just like Caroline, he was powerless to save.
Standing in the middle of the stygian maze of the midnight forest, Kingston fell to his knees, crushing Sarah’s chilled and unresisting body to him and, tipping back his head, let loose a howl spawned in rage against an unkind fate and born of utter hopelessness.
Into the midst of Kingston’s dark despair, a shiver of unnatural sound wove its way, a husk of a whisper, a woman’s voice, seeming to issue from a great distance, and carried on the faint night breeze. Sauvage. Sauvage!
Sauvage stilled, the numbness and despair dissolving as the silvery shapes of the wolves slipped noiselessly from the trees, Caroline’s ghostly figure seeming to glide through their midst.
“Caroline,” Sauvage said. “My darling wife. Please, help me.”
She bent near, seeming to peer directly into the dim oval of Sarah’s face, then straightened with a worried frown. Come. We will guide you.
Caroline’s ghost led Sauvage through the blackest part of night, her pale, ethereal presence his unerring beacon, but when they reached the ridge overlooking the valley where Angel’s lodge stood, the light and the vision she was began to fade.
Sauvage started to call out to her, his heart torn between the woman he had loved and lost, and the one he so desperately wished to save, but he could not force Caroline’s name past the lump in his throat. When he turned away, he heard her voice again. Sauvage, do not regret... we will always be with you.
His eyes burning, his heart frozen in his chest, Kingston hurried toward the dark bulk of the log structure that squatted in the center of a clearing. To his relief, he saw that it was still intact, despite the war being waged all around it, the last existing haven in a raging storm.
Into that safe refuge, he bore Sarah’s limp form, laying her gently down upon the deep pile of furs that served as a bed. A moment or two of fumbling in the darkness and he found a tinderbox. Then, by the wavering light of a betty lamp, he kindled a fire and set water to warm in a kettle suspended over the fire. Then, he turned back to the bed where Sarah lay.
She was very white, except for the livid bruise on her temple, and frighteningly still. But he could not allow himself to think of that now.
Working quickly, Sauvage unknotted the sash at her waist and drew off the deerskin hunting smock, easing her arms from the sleeves and allowing the garment to fall to the floor. In quick succession, her moccasins, the thong belt that secured her leggings, and the leather casings themselves joined it there.
She would be angry with him for taking liberties with her person. But Sauvage did not care. Her comfort—her recovery—was all that mattered to him in this moment. Gingerly, he felt the contours of her cheek and jaw. She must have suffered a glancing blow from one of the smaller branches when the sycamore had struck the Indian bridge, for nothing appeared to be broken. No blood came from ears, nose or mouth—a good sign.
His hopes rising a notch, he rinsed the rag, washing the fine grit from the column of her throat, her shoulders and firm white breasts. Mon Dieu, she was lovely, even in her dishabille. Her body was softly rounded, perfect in its plumpness, her curves generous, the very embodiment of woman. He dipped the rag and cleansed her arms, her hands, her midriff and down... across her belly and down her shapely legs. And when he’d finished cleansing her front, he turned her onto her side and began the process again, not stopping until every inch of her was clean and sweet-smelling once again. Once the task was completed, he covered her with furs, forcing a little brandy down her throat and coaxing her to swallow.
She coughed and sputtered and wheezed, trying to push the bottle away, groaning low in her throat. “Come, mouse, drink. It will lend you strength and help to warm you.”
She must have heard, for she stopped fighting and relaxed against the arm that supported her, opening her eyes. “Kingston. ‘Tis you.” Her voice was so weak, like the cry of a newborn kitten. It wrung his heart to hear it.
“Oui, Madame. I am here with you, and here I will stay. Can you drink a little more for me?”
She grimaced, turning her face away. “No more, please. It’s most sinful.”
Sauvage eased her down, onto the furs, smoothing her hair back from her brow with a gentle hand. “You are an angel,” he whispered in French, “and angels cannot sin.”
“No,” she said, tears trickling from the corners of her shuttered lids. “Not an angel. I have sinned often since we met—in my heart.”
Kingston took her hand, holding it in both of his, desperate now to make her understand. “You are the purest thing to have come into my life since Caroline left it... a kind and gentle soul totally devoid of wickedness, and I, of all men, should know. I can recognize an angel when I see one, so do not give a thought to sin. Think only of getting well. It’s all that matters now.”
There was no way to be certain that she had even heard, for she had already drifted off and lay, pale and shivering beneath the mound of furs. Kingston watched her for a while, then, rose from his seat on the edge of her bed. Her words, though hardly lucid, had set him to thinking. When he’d been gathering supplies earlier to make her well, he’d come upon a small store of the Virginia leaf.
It was customary to offer a gift before asking a favor from the giver of all life. Kingston was about to ask a very great favor indeed, but first he must be clean again. He could not address his god covered with silt and smelling of fish and creek water.
Using the cauldron of water with which he’d bathed Sarah, he rinsed the silt from his hair, tossed the water into the dooryard, and filled it again from the spring, and rinsed it again, scrubbing every inch of his body until he was tingling with cold. When he had finished, he took the tobacco and went to kneel naked before the hearth, willing himself back to his youth in his mind, back to the Delaware village situated on the banks of the dark Allegheny.
The ritual of prayer began with the rite of purification, but Kingston could not risk leaving Sarah to build a sweat lodge, so his icy bath would have to suffice. Seating himself before the fire, he dribbled some leaf onto the logs and began the singsong chant that signified an ardent wish. He thanked the Creator for the blessings He bestowed upon him: the trueness of his aim, the many enemy scalps he’d taken, the deer that had fed and clothed him, and the loyalty of his spirit guides. Then he added more leaf to the fire, inhaling the rich
fragrant smoke that filled the room and began his entreaty.
While the fire crackled and the night deepened, Kingston regaled his god with tales of Sarah’s bravery that afternoon and the sacrifice that had brought her to this perilous pass, and asked that her life be spared so that she might bear her betrothed many strong sons and live a life of peace and goodness.
He sang and prayed until his throat ached, until the well of words dried up. Then he fed the last of Angel’s precious tobacco to the flames and returned to Sarah’s side. There was no noticeable change in her condition. She still shivered so violently beneath the furs that her teeth chattered, and her skin was hot and dry to the touch. She was fevered.
Sauvage’s heart sank in his breast. He sought for the trust he knew he must have—trust that his prayers would be answered, that Sarah would survive this crisis. But that trust came damnably hard. Fever had claimed his mother.
Dipping the rag in the cold water, he wrung it out and pressed it to her brow. It would not happen to Sarah. He needed her—more than he realized—more, perhaps than was prudent, given the fact that she was pledged to another man.
He frowned at the thought of the Moravian missionary, Brother John Liebermann. What manner of man was he? Was he gentle and kind? Would he care for Sarah? Keep her from getting into trouble, and deftly extract her when she did? Would he love her unstintingly, as she so rightly deserved, or give her but half his heart, saving the rest for the Lord? Would he warm her flesh with his own on cold winter nights, kiss her and tutor her, and give her the babies she so richly deserved, and which until now, she’d been denied?
All of these things he himself longed to do for Sarah, but never would, because she was promised to Brother John Liebermann, and he was pledged to vengeance.
The night advanced. Sarah’s fever raged and Sauvage’s concern increased. She tossed on her pillow, her body trembling violently beneath the wealth of furs. He forced a bit of water laced with brandy between her parched lips, listening to her ceaseless ramblings.
Lord of the Wolves Page 16
