by Jamie Carie
“I am yours,” she breathed into his mouth, wanting nothing more than to be his.
He only kissed her more deeply. He pulled her flush with his body until there was nothing between them. “Then live.” His hand clasped the back of her head, his fingers splayed through her hair, holding her in the palm of his hand. He kissed her deeper.
Isabelle lost herself, giving over to this falling, flailing feeling. It was a feeling of pleasure, so opposite of the pain she’d been diligently building a wall against. Maybe she did want to live. Live with this man. No matter the cost of bearing up against such horror every day. Maybe it would be worth the sacrifice.
She pulled back suddenly, breathing heavily. “We have to escape.”
“Yes,” Samuel breathed, holding her to him.
“No.” Isabelle stopped his advance. “Now. This moment. Before they can come and take this away from us. Sunukkuhkau will make me his wife.”
He looked dazed, coming out of their passion dance. “How?” he whispered, understanding her meaning. “How can we escape now?”
“I don’t know.” She grasped his hands. “But we have to try. In the next minute, in the next day, they will change us. I can feel how hungry they are for us. If we give in, it will destroy everything we are meant to be.”
Samuel stared at her, looked down at the foreign soil of the lodge house, then back at her, and nodded.
He looked into her eyes. “I will get word to you when I think the time is right. One day very soon. It should be after midnight. Two hours after you are certain they are asleep, then we will leave.”
Isabelle nodded, grasping his face, staring into his eyes.
“Meet me in the trees, where you first watched the gauntlet. I will wait for you, and if I’m not there, you will wait for me.”
“Weapons,” she said. “We’ll need them.”
Samuel nodded, smiling a little and shaking his head as he said, “You know, I should have been the one saying that to you.”
Isabelle drew back, her lips a bud of provocative nectar. “Do you think so?” She laughed in pleasure. “You don’t know me well enough then. But you will. You will.”
She reached for him and took a deep breath. Taking his hands firmly into hers, she said, “You don’t need the strength of weapons to endear me to you, though you are renowned for such strength. Let me tell you what I feel for you.” She took a deep breath and leaned in. “I, Isabelle Renoir, will relinquish my revelation of myself to you. No matter what occurs, I will only, ever willingly be yours.” She leaned upon his chest, her face buried in his warm skin, as if she’d just given him all of her.
Samuel lowered his head, breathing in her scent, her hair, grasping a handful of the dark silken waterfall. He looked close to tears. Overwhelmed. Undone. “You will always be yourself,” he whispered.
“Non.” She looked up at him, feeling sad and happy at the same time, a death and a birth in the same day. “Together … together we will be more than I could ever hope to be.”
They stared at each other, both ravished, both fierce, not knowing how to reconcile such a thing. These Indians would not recognize this covenant they had made. The Shawnee had their own plans for their prized captives.
* * *
THE ONLY THING Samuel knew for certain was, it would never be a light thing, his being the one to whom Isabelle Renoir gave her heart.
18
Sunukkuhkau approached her in seeming deference. A princess holding court over an iron pot, she watched him with her peripheral vision, eyes appropriately downcast, trying to fool them and play along now that she’d given her word to Samuel, but still she tensed.
She had expected Sunukkuhkau to drag her off and rape her or force her to a heathen altar, but neither had happened. She’d seen little of him these past days beyond sudden, brief nods and looks—looks that held her terrorized as to their meaning.
He would show up at odd times, never allowing her to be fully prepared for the battle of wills to come. This time she was bending over a cooking pot, watching the meat turn from pink to brown, taking in its acrid odor, giving cause to her lean frame.
“You cook again. That is good.”
She smiled, rising, remembering her moment of rebellion earlier that morning when she had spit in it as she’d stirred. “Will you taste it for me?” she asked in feigned innocence.
He nodded eagerly, not having learned from their past skirmishes.
She held out a steaming spoonful, benign lips curved upward, eyes slanted. He took it to his broad lips, inhaling the steam as he shoved it into his mouth. Immediately he spat it out, cursing in his native tongue and turning on her.
“You poison me!”
She shrugged. “I never said I could cook,” she said in his Indian tongue. It was the only phrase she’d thus far bothered to learn. Then she laughed, quickly ducking her head in mock humility.
At her laughter his face changed from anger to something else—something heated that brought true concern to her belly.
“You speak truth,” he said simply, nodding once, considering. “Come.” He held out a long, tanned, muscular arm.
Isabelle studied the hand. It was as human as hers, and he might take her away from her womanly chores. Nodding once, she took it.
The moment she did, had it firmly clasped in hers, she glanced up and saw him, saw Samuel for the first time in days, their vows of escape echoing between them across the expanse of the camp. He was staring hard at her and this Indian. She jerked her hand free, heat filling her face.
She wanted to run to him, her body straining to do just that. Her insides burst into life. Exuberance. Anger. Longing. Just to hold his face between her palms. Just to have that chance. It was what gave her the courage for this place.
Sunukkuhkau followed her gaze, then looked quickly back at her, making her realize her mistake. They couldn’t know—these savages could never know her feelings for Samuel. It might mean his death.
Taking sudden grasp of Sunukkuhkau’s hand, her eyes slanted toward him in a way that no one had ever taught her but that she knew would work, she said a bit breathlessly, “Show me.”
He stared hard at her, uncertain at this shift, then caved in, as they all did, and nodded, leading Isabelle away from the camp and toward his longhouse on the outskirts of the camp.
Once inside the small dwelling, he proceeded to take up many weapons, holding some, putting others aside. Finally, he handed Isabelle a delicately carved bow. He leaned into a corner, bringing out a deerskin quiver of white suede, full of arrows, their ends adorned with brown dappled feathers. It was like nothing she’d ever seen, and she gasped in delight. She reached for it.
He walked slowly toward her and murmured something in his tongue, but she could only shake her head, looking longingly at the prize.
“C’était à ton épouse?” Isabelle looked up into his eyes, reaching tentatively toward the offered gift. “It was your wife’s?”
He nodded, placing it firmly into her hands.
“What happened to her?”
“Smallpox. A slow death.”
Isabelle looked down at the prize, then back up at the warrior. “I am sorry for your loss.” She nodded at the gift. “Merci.” She grasped it tightly.
He smiled then—a big, toothful smile that softened the harsh planes of his cheekbones. “She did not shoot it,” he said in stilted English.
“Not a huntress?” Isabelle asked in French, switching to something more comfortable for him.
“Non.” He was still smiling. “She cooked … good.” He patted his bare, taut belly.
Isabelle couldn’t help but laugh, looking up into his dark brown eyes, caught for a shared moment.
“It was meant for you.” Sunukkuhkau smiled, turning serious and intent.
Isabelle shook her head. “How can that be? You didn’t know I would come here.”
Sunukkuhkau leaned in toward her, then looked up and around at the ceiling of the tent, motioning with h
is muscled arm, a dance-like movement that held her to the floor, the familiarity of it so strong. “The spirits knew.”
Isabelle caught herself looking up as if some being lived in the stretched animal skin of the roof. “Did they?”
Sunukkuhkau nodded. “Our grandmother knows all things.” Then he took her gently by the shoulder, leading her outside and toward the edge of the woods.
* * *
THEY TRAVELED QUICK FOOTED and well matched through the forest. Isabelle found to her disquiet and a small thrill that she could match him step for silent step, that she knew instinctively where they were going and even somehow seemed to lead at times.
Deeper and deeper into the forest they roamed, taking long drinks from the same hide filled with cool, clear water. Never talking. Only stalking … looking for the prize.
About midday they saw their quarry. Its silken fur blended with the forest bramble, revealing itself to their eyes only when the animal twitched an ear. Isabelle raised her weapon. The bow was tight, never broken in, and took more strength to draw back the arrow than she thought it would. Her chest heaved with the effort, but within moments she had the measure of the bow, knew instinctively the draw length and cast of the weapon. She looked down the sight, feeling Sunukkuhkau’s presence beside her—so still, so confident in her, so … proud. She found she wanted more than anything to show him she could do it.
The deer looked up, some sixth sense alerting it to danger. Isabelle let the arrow fly. For a moment she thought she had missed, and then a red mark appeared in the deer’s neck. It bucked, kicking up its hind legs in a shock-dance before bolting. Sunukkuhkau quickly pulled back his arrow and let it fly. It lodged just above Isabelle’s, causing the deer to fall, lashing out in the leaves. In the moments it took Isabelle and Sunukkuhkau to reach her, she had stilled.
Sunukkuhkau put the beast out of its misery with a knife to the heart region, then stood back to smile broadly at Isabelle. But as she gazed at his lips, she saw the feral edge, knew him in the moment in the cabin where he’d fought her in his war dance, remembered her brother, falling and now fallen. She relived it all in seconds—the battle of the cabin, the blaze of Julian’s pyre, the women beating her. She turned her back to the warrior.
How was it possible that she felt so torn into two persons? Half of her exhilarated in the kill and his exultation, while the other half was filled with hate and dread toward this man who had helped to murder her brother. Then came the waves of guilt, overwhelming her, incredible guilt that she could look this murderer directly in the eyes, that she had even once touched his hand.
Quickly she turned, fleeing him, running through the forest, her moccasins quiet and soft and comfortable and suddenly hated, tripping over exposed tree roots, desperate to outrun her panic.
She heard soft steps behind her gaining ground, making her run faster, her legs stretching out against the hide of her skirt. Silent tears coursed down her cheeks as she panted with the effort of escape.
He caught her then, his long, lean fingers wrapping around her pumping arm, stilling her feet as they twisted toward him in the dry earth. Like a colt roped, she bucked against his grip, pulling away, her hair wild and in her eyes.
“Let me go,” she snarled.
He just stood there, staring at her with those chiseled features, the dark eyes that nonetheless were readable—patient, cold, sure, waiting for her to comprehend her defeat.
“No.” She shook her head slowly back and forth answering his unasked question. “Never.”
“Let Samuel go. He will be a great warrior.”
And there it was. They had thought they were so secret.
“It is not Samuel I won’t let go of.” She pulled away from him, and this time he turned her loose, causing her to stumble back. But she didn’t fall. She would not fall.
Instead she took a few steps away, then stopped, her moccasins turning in the dust. She turned her head to stare back at him and smiled the smile that only she had. Isabelle. Isabelle! She let it fill her face, she felt it catch … glow, her voice a radiant hum. “My name is Isabelle Renoir.”
She breathed as if she had just run a race. And she had. She was running to keep herself. Quieter, but with strength, chest heaving, her head down but her eyes locked with his, she said it again. “My name is Isabelle—‘consecrated to God.’” She dared him to deny it, her head tilting in the fading light as it gave way to forest shadows. “Say it, Sunukkuhkau, say my real name.”
“You would be Cocheta—That You Cannot Imagine. What more glory could you seek?”
She exhaled in a laugh-cry. “Why would I want to be something you cannot imagine … when I can be set apart to God, my Creator? I could never desire more.”
She took a step toward him, her brows together, her words an entreaty. “Don’t you see? There is nothing you can give me that I don’t already have.”
His lips pursed together as he inhaled, deep and long. He stood straight, his chest expanding. “You reject a great honor.”
She laughed at him. She couldn’t help it. A crazy joy rose from her throat and expanded throughout her body until she threw back her head and laughed with the joy of it. “Yes!” She shouted to him and to the treetops and the forest and to the spinning circle of life around them. “I reject what you have to offer me.” Her laughter died down, and then she just stared at him. “I don’t need you.”
He watched her as if she possessed some magic, looking afraid for what must be the first time in his thirty-some years.
It was clear to both that she was as sure in her faith as he was in his.
“I will kill him if you will not come into our way.”
Everything in Isabelle grew still. The laughter suddenly stopped. The sure faith wavered. She wavered. “Whom will you kill?”
“The Glorious One will die beneath my blade.”
“Samuel,” she whispered, not wanting to give anything away. She knew. She wasn’t stupid. She knew that the next few moments could mean life or death to the only man she would ever love.
She had gambled her own life with threats of her identity in her Creator, but she hadn’t known this brave would see the truth of her heart so quickly, so completely. She decided to try for bravado and ignorance.
“Samuel doesn’t want your greatness.”
“You know not what you say.”
“Then enlighten me.” She raised her brows at him. “Why should we forsake our Father, our God, for yours?” The question hung, long and penetrating into the shadows, challenging him.
Sunukkuhkau looked momentarily at a loss, as if all people should know this. “He would be honored, in life and death—a legend that our people’s children’s children would tell of.”
Isabelle laughed. “He is already a legend, and a reluctant one at that. My hero was burned at your stake. And I will see that my children will remember him forever.”
She leaned a little toward him and smiled even—it was a fierce victory smile where there was no victory at hand. “You won’t have us,” she hissed on a breath. She let her head fall back, saw the tops of the swaying branches of richly green leaves and laughed, the sound building and building until it rang out in the forest.
“God in heaven, hear me,” she shouted. “They won’t have us!” Then, quieter, almost as if to herself, “You will be my Savior.”
She looked back at Sunukkuhkau, leaning toward him and breathing into his face. “My God will save us. And even if He does not, I will still love Him.”
Sunukkuhkau stared hard at her, taking hold of her arm again. “What god can save you from my strong grasp? If my god blesses our union, none other will destroy that.”
A passage from the book of Isaiah sprang to her lips. It was one of many of her mother’s lessons in memorization of Scripture. Isabelle quoted it often, internalizing it for this time and this place. “Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompense; He will come and save you.”
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�My god is strong,” he said but looked uncertain.
She smiled, as if to a child. “Your god is a grandmother.” She gently pried Sunukkuhkau’s fingers from her upper arm. “My God is the great I AM. The beginning and the end. The Alpha and Omega. Test Him, if you’ve the courage.”
Sunukkuhkau seemed to consider her offer, then nodded. “We will test the gods.”
Isabelle felt a tiny tremor of doubt, of fear. Had she stepped out of the boat onto the waves of a mad sea? Would God, Yahweh, really show up? But she stuck out her chin and nodded. “What shall it be?”
Sunukkuhkau slanted her a look. “We will wait. To see what the fates provide us.” He motioned with his arm toward the camp. “Let us go back.”
She realized at that moment that he carried the deer with him, that he had run after her, nearly silent, for nearly a half-mile, with a two-hundred-pound dead animal on his square shoulders.
It was something she would not have been able to do.
She looked down … and saw the waves.
19
Samuel breathed a sigh of relief as he watched Isabelle pick her way across the village toward him. He didn’t know what had happened between her and Sunukkuhkau that long afternoon. But upon returning she had given him a nod and an intense look. A signal.
Something had happened. They needed to make their escape.
Tonight.
Now he watched as she clung to shadows, crouching when he would have, walking like a delicate deer, the fringe of her dress swaying in the moonlight.
It had been easier than he’d thought, getting her the message that tonight was the night, then sneaking out of the lodge. His “family” had fallen into a deep slumber over an hour ago, but he’d waited, wanting to be sure and to give Isabelle more time.
Then he’d turned abruptly, as if in sleep, while grasping up a tomahawk that Miakoda, his new brother, had stowed under his cot. There was a rifle on the other side of the lodge, but Samuel had only gazed at it in longing, taking the more prudent path to the door.
