by Phoebe Conn
"I've lived among white men for nearly ten years, and I'm ashamed of how long it took me to learn I was more often used than respected. I admired Byron and Elliott, and was proud to call them my friends, but I think now they were merely impressed with my tracking ability. I felt out of place in your home, but I was so flattered that Melissa wanted me, I didn't realize I was no more than an attractive savage, a curiosity, to her. I think now she meant only to tease me, but Christian was the result. Had she cared anything at all for me, she would have sent for me, so I could have become her husband rather than Ian.
"It's not fair of you to ask me to raise that woman's child, when she refused to name me as the father. I can't do it, not after the way she laughed at me and threatened me."
His manner bore no trace of the strident arrogance he had shown, when she and Elliott had arrived at the trading post. Instead, he was being remarkably forthright. Alanna could see how badly he had been hurt, not merely by Melissa, but also in other apparently painful dealings with whites. It was no wonder he had grown cold and suspicious, if he frequently felt others were taking advantage of him. She reached out to touch his knee.
"You're wrong about Byron and Elliott. They both valued your friendship, and were disappointed when you left so hurriedly last summer. As for Melissa, I'll make no apologies for her behavior, when clearly it was unforgivable, but Christian ought not to be punished for her mistakes."
Hunter had been too badly hurt to view his son's situation with her logic, and refused to concede the point. "What about his grandparents? What do they say?"
"I'm ashamed to tell you how they've behaved. They've never held Christian, never gone to see him, never sent him any clothes or gifts. They want you to take him, so they can forget he exists."
"So Melissa's disgrace will die with her?"
Alanna hated to admit that he was right. "Yes, they would have been equally heartbroken regardless of the circumstances of her death, but that she wasn't the virtuous young woman they believed her to be, clouds her memory and deepens their pain."
Hunter saw things far more personally. "It's not her lack of virtue that shames them, but the fact I am Indian. When you introduce me as your husband, will they be ashamed of you as well?"
That he would continue to refer to himself as her spouse gave Alanna a burst of hope that, despite their disagreement over Christian, they might still be able to have a shared future. Her mood remained downcast, however. "They'll be so grief-stricken over Elliott's death, that whatever I do won't matter."
Hunter had forgotten they would have to impart that sad news. He did not want to become distracted by it now either. "You told me there was a woman caring for Christian. Won't she keep him?"
"Permanently, you mean?"
"Yes, until he's grown."
"She's a young widow who cares for infants to support her three children. She's very good with Christian, very attentive, but I don't know if she would agree to raise him."
"We could pay her. I earn more money than most white men."
He was a proud man, and she was touched he would take such great pains to talk with her calmly. She had seen a fair sample of how hard and ruthless he could be, and she was grateful he had not chosen to display that side of his personality with her. "What about your family? Would your parents take Christian?"
That was an option Hunter refused to consider. "My father is dead, and I wouldn't ask my mother's husband to raise a dog."
Alanna was shocked by the vehemence of his tone. "Don't you plan to take me home to meet your family?"
Hunter shrugged. "I thought about visiting them before you came, but I didn't really want to go. When my father died, everything changed. When my mother took a second husband, I left. Perhaps someday I'll take you to meet my people, but for now, you are all the family I want."
From what he had just said, Alanna gathered the impression that Hunter felt no greater sense of belonging with the Seneca, than he did in the white world. She looked out toward the lake. Her aunt, uncle, and cousins had done their best to make her feel welcome in their home, but they had never replaced the beloved family she had lost. To learn that Hunter still mourned his father, or perhaps for the life he had once had, inspired a feeling of kinship she had not known they shared. They would have each other it seemed, but she still wanted more.
"I don't want Christian to grow up unloved and bitter," she murmured softly.
"Neither do I. If he's as fine a boy as you say, someone will want him."
"I want him," Alanna reminded him.
Tortured by his earlier suspicions, Hunter's expression grew stern. "More than you want me?"
That he would even ask such a question pained Alanna deeply. "No woman should ever be asked to choose between her husband and her child."
"But Christian isn't your child," Hunter stressed, "and if you don't want him to grow up unloved and bitter, then you'll help me find him a home." Frustrated by their lack of agreement, he rose and took several steps away, but then, believing he had found a way to convince her, he turned back. "I would be the worst of fathers to the boy. Don't doom him to that, every child deserves better."
"We may have children together. If you can't love Melissa's son, will you be able to love mine?"
Hunter took her hands and drew her to her feet. The fringed hem of his shirt reached past her knees, but even dressed in buckskins, she did not resemble a Seneca maiden. He had wanted her to be the first to speak of love. Now that seemed a cowardly way to behave. He cupped her face tenderly in his hands.
"I love you and I want us to be together always. I'll adore our children, but they'll be conceived in love, as Christian should have been." He leaned down to kiss her, and she relaxed against him. Considering that a good sign, he deepened the kiss and made a silent vow to give her a child as soon as possible. He was positive that once she had a baby of her own to love, Christian would be forgotten.
Wrapped in his embrace, Alanna felt surrounded by his love, but believing him to have a far kinder heart than he allowed others to see, she prayed that once he saw Christian, he would be unable to give him away. Buoyed by that hope, she hugged him more tightly. "Nothing is ever going to be easy for us, is it?"
Hunter laughed as he contradicted her. "One thing is."
Curious as to what, Alanna looked up at him, but the sparkle in his dark eyes as he leaned down to kiss her again made his answer plain. Love flowed between them with such graceful ease, and she hoped as desperately as he that it would be enough to keep the harsh demands of the world at bay.
* * *
Hunter kept Alanna by his side all day. He showed her how to use his bow when they went hunting for pheasant, and insisted she showed promise, although in truth he had seen small boys display more skill. After her brief lesson, he shot a plump bird and kept a close eye on it while it roasted.
"You didn't help to cook the meals at home, did you?" he asked.
"No, Polly McBride and her daughters did all the cooking. Why?"
"I don't want to expect too much from you."
"I suppose Seneca women are all excellent cooks?"
"Yes, all of them."
"Good, then we can hire one to do the cooking until I learn. I do know how to sew, arrange flowers, read, and write, of course. I can do all manner of useful things, Hunter. Perhaps not as you expect to have them done, but in my own way."
Hunter doubted that he would be alive had she not had the courage to kill two men, or the stamina to care for him while he was ill, and he did not doubt that she possessed a multitude of talents. He smiled at her and winked. "Do you expect to have servants?"
He was clearly teasing her, and she responded in kind. "Not unless you find my cooking inedible."
The pheasant was done, and Hunter removed it from the spit he had constructed over the fire. He drew his knife and began to carve the delicious bird. "The Seneca have dozens of recipes for corn, squash, soups, and stews, but none are written down. When we come back here, I'll
find a woman who can teach you how to prepare the things I like."
"Are we going to live in your house near the trading post?"
Alanna was drawing the pheasant's brightly colored tail feathers through her fingers, but Hunter could see this question was a serious one. "Yes, the trapping is good here. Would you rather live in Virginia?"
"I was born in Maine. Virginia was never really my home."
"So you won't mind living in New York?"
"I'd not mind living anywhere with you."
Hunter gave her a portion of the pheasant, and sat down across from her to enjoy his own. "Thank you, but I don't think you'd like living in my village. My house is very small compared to what you would find there. We build our homes for at least a dozen families, and I think you would find them very crowded and noisy, compared to the big empty rooms of your aunt and uncle's house."
"A dozen Seneca families live together?"
Hunter found her astonishment enormously appealing. "Sometimes more. Each family has its own space, with a sleeping platform and a storage shelf above, like I have in my house. But as I said, the long houses are much larger. They can be one hundred fifty feet long, twenty-five feet wide, and nearly as tall as a two-story house."
Having seen his home, Alanna thought she could imagine such a structure. "How do you decide who lives where?"
"Each long house belongs to the oldest woman in the family, to her and her sisters, daughters, and granddaughters. They are the ones who live together. When a man marries, he goes to live in his wife's long house."
Alanna nodded thoughtfully. "Then you've made a very poor choice of wife, Hunter, because I have nowhere to take you."
"That may be true, but you have other advantages," Hunter revealed between succulent bites of superbly roasted pheasant. "There are a great many things to consider when choosing a wife. First, a man must pick a woman from a different clan. I'm from the wolf clan, and you are not, so that makes you a good choice. It's also best if the woman is not related to any of the man's female relatives. Clearly you are not related to me, so that's also in your favor."
Alanna was paying such close attention, she had difficulty remembering to eat, and paused long enough to swallow a bite. "The ideal wife then, is a complete stranger with a long house?"
Amused, Hunter chuckled. "Yes, for some men, but not for me. You are the ideal woman for me."
Alanna had donned her own clothes when they were dry, but Hunter had not bothered to reclaim his shirt. She looked at him now, seated on the ground, bare-chested, his ebony hair flowing free, eating pheasant with his fingers, and felt that despite the many differences between them, they were indeed the perfect pair. "To wed an Indian brave gives my life a certain symmetry," she mused.
Hunter had never heard the word. "What is that?" he asked.
"Balance, beauty of form."
Hunter nodded. "Yes, I understand. To escape the Abenaki to wed a Seneca is an unusual destiny, but it does seem right."
They had been discussing marriage all day, but Alanna still had questions. "Do you consider us married now?" She attempted to sound nonchalant, but clearly his answer meant a great deal to her.
Hunter finished the last of a piece of breast, and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. "We have no fancy ceremonies like whites do. When a couple wants to marry, they simply say so, and the man moves into the woman's long house. You have already pointed out that you have no house, so I have no choice but to live with you wherever I can."
"Just being together makes us husband and wife?"
"For me it does."
"I want more," Alanna confided. "I want an official marriage, one that will be recorded, so no one can call our children bastards."
Having little use for many of the white men's customs, Hunter's first impulse was to refuse, but the seriousness of Alanna's reason showed how much it meant to her, and he could not bring himself to say no. He owed her his life, but he did not want to force her to remind him of it to get her way. "It may take us awhile to find a priest who will agree to marry a white woman and an Indian, but when we do, I'll be proud to make you my wife again."
Hunter had spoken very slowly and deliberately, obviously making a concession, and while Alanna could not tell if it had been merely a small one, or a profound gesture of love, she was very grateful. "Thank you. I'll try and learn how to cook. I promise I will."
Hunter leaned over to squeeze her hand. "You're so pretty to look at, I don't even notice what I'm eating. You'll hear no complaints from me."
Alanna blushed at his effusive praise. "Are all Seneca braves as charming as you?"
"No, I learned that from white men."
Recalling the bearded frontiersmen she had seen watching him fight, Alanna found such a boast impossible to believe. "Surely you don't mean the trappers I saw outside the trading post."
"Would that surprise you?"
"Yes, very much. Those shaggy brutes didn't look like they cared much about being attractive to women."
They had again spent the whole day together, but Hunter wasn't in the least bit bored with Alanna. She was so inquisitive and bright, he knew she would always enchant him. "No, it wasn't them," he assured her. "It was educated men with fine manners, men like Byron and Elliott, who showed me how to treat women, although they didn't realize I was watching them."
"I can't believe you really needed lessons."
"Not in some things, perhaps, but in others."
His sly smile left no question as to which skills he had mastered without tutoring, and Alanna could not help but be amused. "I didn't answer your question this morning, if it was a question. I'd like to stay here with you for as long as you like. The problems that await us in Virginia can't get any worse, so even if we are being foolish not to face them now, I think we should have whatever happiness we can."
Her words had a heartbreaking wistfulness, and Hunter feared she might well be right. For now, they had a delicious pheasant to share, and a night of passion to enjoy. He wanted it to be enough. "You must eat more," he encouraged, "or people will say I can't provide for you."
Alanna picked up a wing. "They'll say nothing of the kind, and you know it. Besides, if you're fond of plump women, why didn't you look for one to love?"
"Perhaps I did."
When he was as relaxed as he was now, Hunter had a marvelously expressive face, and emotions played across his handsome features in a subtle yet fascinating array. Watching him, Alanna feared she had not known nearly enough about her own emotions before meeting him. Now she was ashamed that she had not understood enough about romance to send Graham Tyler away long before he had lost patience with her. Then there was Randolph O'Neil, who possessed endless patience it seemed, but she hadn't been able to share any more of herself with him than she had with Graham.
She twisted Elliott's ring on her finger, and knew that as much as she had loved him, a marriage between them would have left her feeling like a hollow shell of a woman, and he would have become badly disillusioned. Her life had been a long and painful journey up to that point, but she was certain she had arrived precisely where she ought to be. She responded easily to Hunter's jest.
"No, that can't possibly be true, because if you'd really wanted a plump wife, you'd have one."
"You see me as being that determined?"
"Yes, I do."
Hunter feared they were straying dangerously close to another discussion of his tragic affair with Melissa, and she was the last person he wanted to talk about that night. Growing cautious, he swiftly changed the subject. "The only thing I'm determined to do now is make you happy. I want to buy you some horses. I know how much you like them, and it would be good for us to own a few."
"Well, yes, I do love horses, but—"
"But what?"
Attempting to be tactful, Alanna chose her words with care. "I enjoy riding, and my uncle's horses were wonderful company when I didn't really wish to be alone, but I was never responsible for their care.
The problem is, horses need shelter, especially here in New York, where the winters are more severe than Virginia, and constant care. Do you really think we ought to build a barn, and devote several hours each day to caring for horses? Won't that take too much of your time away from trapping?"
Hunter was amazed by how complicated she made owning horses sound. "I didn't realize you were such a practical girl."
"Being practical isn't generally considered a flaw."
"I thought only that having horses would please you."
Alanna could see she had insulted him, and that hadn't been her intention. "Thank you. I'd love for us to own some horses. It's just that there are so many things to consider first. Most couples, or at least the couples I've known, are engaged for several months, often a year before they wed. They have plenty of time not only for parties, but to make plans, and we've had none."
Hunter had finished eating and wiped his hands on the grass. "Is that what you want? Do you really believe if you go home and tell people we are engaged, they'll want to give us parties? Your aunt and uncle's friends won't waste their time on us, because they'll see nothing to celebrate."
His bitter sarcasm made Alanna fear she had only made matters worse. "Please, you mustn't misunderstand me. Parties have never interested me, and I don't need them now. I'll be proud to introduce you as my husband, and if people don't care to congratulate us, I shan't miss their friendship. You are the only one who matters to me, but we can't expect to always agree when we barely know each other."
"You killed two men to save me. That's all I need to know about you."
Not pleased to be reminded of that gruesome deed, Alanna could not suppress a shudder. "I'm not really the bloodthirsty sort, and I hope we'll never find ourselves in such a dangerous situation again."
"So do I, but if it does happen, I'll do a much better job of protecting you."
"You did your best."
Hunter disagreed. "I should have done better."
