He laughed. "We have no Goddess of the Water."
"I know! I know!" She grasped his arm, pulling him down to sit beside her. "Being the great Shawnee hunter that you are, you had no need to call upon a goddess of the bay! You just dove into the icy water and caught the trout with your bare hands!"
He drew up his knees, wiggling his cold bare toes. "I think you're making fun of me."
She rested her cheek on his shoulder, laughing. "I'm not."
"You are. I am a good hunter. I can run down a deer. I can track one for days, kill it with a single arrow and carry it home to my village on my back."
He wasn't boasting. She knew he was telling the truth. "So how did you catch the fish" she murmured in his ear.
"Actually it got caught on a sandbar on the outgoing tide." He shrugged his massive shoulders. "I picked it up still wiggling on the beach."
She burst into laughter and he pushed her over on the ground and climbed on top of her. She was naked and he still in his torn breeches and a sailor's homespun shirt.
"Stop! Stop! Get off me!" she cried, laughing so hard that tears ran down her cheeks.
He leaned over until his eyes were inches from hers. "You dare to mock a great Shawnee warrior!" He brought his warm hands up under her breasts.
She tried to wiggle free. "No, no, oh great hunter, not I the foolish white ee-quewa."
"Equewa."
"Equewa," she repeated. "I wouldn't!"
"Oh, but you have and for this crime you must pay."
She rolled her head back and forth, still laughing. "And what is my punishment, oh hunter of mine?"
He caught her hands and pinned them over her head, flattening his body over hers. "A kiss . . ."
She stopped laughing, but a smile still played on her lips. "A kiss? What kind of kiss? A brotherly kiss?" She reached up and gave him a quick peck on the cheek and then laid her head back again.
He shook his head slowly. "No, white woman. Your crime is severe and for that your punishment must be equally harsh. A real kiss. This man demands a real kiss from his captive."
She pulled her hands out from under his and reached up to snake them around his neck. She pulled his head down. When her mouth touched his, it was no chaste kiss this time, but one filled with all the passion and desire she had held in her heart for this man all these years. She traced his lips with the tip of her tongue and then delved deep to taste him.
Harrison rolled onto his back, carrying her with him. When their lips parted she rested on top of him. He hugged her tightly. "Ah, Leah. What are we going to do now?" he whispered. "How will I ever give you up again?"
Chapter Twelve
First Lt. Horace Mann, a loyalist and an officer in the Queen's Rangers, leaned one elbow on his stone kitchen mantel. He watched the redskin carefully. "So you say you and your men would be willing to swear your alliance to the Crown?"
Kolheek remained near the doorway. He wore a trapper's tunic and fringed leggings. He had tied his hair back in a queue in the English style. Without the trappings of his native people he had been able to walk right into the town with his men and he was directed to Horace Mann's home. The men he brought with him were mostly half breeds, men accepted neither by the red or the white. They were dangerous men, exactly the kind Kolheek would need.
The English man Horace had given Kolheek and his men good rye whiskey, loaves of fresh white bread, and pork stew and brought him here to the greencoat's house. At this moment his men lay half drunk outside passing around a bottle of English fire water and hooting at the moon that shone through the cracks in the burned out barn. Kolheek wondered why he had not thought of this swearing allegiance to the greencoats sooner. They had food, liquor, guns and ammunition all free in exchange for a few meaningless words.
"Yes, this man wishes to swear to the great English man King across the ocean. The others will do as I say."
"You understand you and your men will be subject to English law. You'll be given an assignment, further north probably. That's where we're using your kind."
"I swear to the English man King and I will be given flintlock and powder? True?"
He nodded. "You'll be provided with good English firearms, powder, and munitions." Horace held up one finger. "But you will be expected to serve your King in return."
"What must we do to serve?" Kolheek asked out of curiosity. Of course he had no intentions of following any white man's orders. He had more pressing matters to attend to.
"Well, to kill bloody colonials, of course."
Kolheek smiled, baring even white teeth. "Of course." He balled one fist. "I am ready. I will swear now and then I will take my flintlocks."
Horace laughed. "Wait. You get ahead of yourself there. I'm on furlough here in Newark. We'll need to do this all officially. I don't have munitions for you or your men. This is my home. We'll have to travel on to where my commander camps. There you will sign your allegiance as one of the King's loyal subjects."
"We go tomorrow? This man is anxious to become a King's loyal subject."
"Yes. We'll go tomorrow." Horace chuckled to himself. This would be quite a coup, to bring back a dozen men with him, even if they were redskins.
"Good." Kolheek turned to go out the kitchen door. Tonight he would join his men around the campfire and eat and drink. Tomorrow he would collect his weapons.
"Wait. Your name." Horace crossed the kitchen toward him. "You didn't tell me your name."
Kolheek cast his eyes toward the greencoated soldier. "I am a half-breed to you English. I am called Harrison, Harrison DeNay."
Leah dozed in the saddle. It was nearly midnight, but she and Harrison had decided to push on to the American camp near Trenton. Word from the tavern they'd slept in last night was that the main body of the patriot army with Washington in command had fallen back beyond New Hackensack, beyond Passaic, on to Newark and finally to New Brunswick. But Lord Cornwallis and his columns of Hessians and British were still on their heels.
More than a month had passed since William and Edmund had been captured on Manhattan. All day Leah had had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Something was wrong with William. She could almost hear his voice on the wind.
As they approached the town of New Brunswick she prayed she would find Lieutenant Ross, the only name she knew. From a soldier she and Harrison had come upon on the muddy road yesterday, they had learned that the Patriot army had split three ways. While Washington and Greene had taken men south, Gaunt Charles Lee dug in on the Croton River to guard the approaches to New England and General William Heath lay at Peekskill. If Leah and Harrison could gain no information here at New Brunswick, they would have to move farther north. That fear had weighed heavily on her mind since they left the tavern at dawn.
She had spent the entire day relating to Harrison one of William's childhood incidents after another. She told Harrison about his birth, about what a beautiful baby William had been, how strong, and what a good nurser. She told him about how he had walked at nine months and spoken sentences by his first birthday. And what a memory! At two he could repeat long Bible verses and even the silly ditties the cook taught him. He forgot nothing. A week after an inane conversation at the supper table about plum pudding, he could repeat word for word what each adult had said. Of course his precociousness had gotten him into trouble on more than one occasion. Leah told Harrison about the time William had repeated to the pastor what Mistress Lewis had said about his snout-nosed wife, and then of course he had also repeated some gossip he'd heard in the dairy barn about John Clover courting his wife's hand-maid . . . to Mrs. Clover.
All day and into the night Leah repeated tale after tale. She told Harrison how tall William had grown in the last year. She told him about how he'd raised his pup Freckles with a sugar-tit dipped in milk when the puppy's mother had died. She told him about how well he rode, and how good he was at dealing fairly with the workers on the plantation. She told him how he loved the rich Maryland soil as Edmund never w
ould.
And Harrison listened with the patience of a saint. Leah knew he didn't really care to hear a mother's babbling, but he listened anyway. And she loved him for it. Sometime after sunset as she fought tears wondering if William was cold now that darkness had settled in, she actually considered telling Harrison her son was his son.
But of course she didn't. It wouldn't have been fair to Harrison and it wouldn't have been fair to William. Edmund was his father no matter who had conceived him. The boy obviously loved Edmund and she had to admit that Edmund loved him as much as he could love anyone.
What possible purpose could Leah serve by telling Harrison the truth? He could never claim his son. He could never have him because he was Edmund's. That was the agreement Leah had made when she had gone to the altar pregnant with a redman's bastard. Edmund would save her and her family's name and the child's, if Leah would agree that Edmund was the father.
Leah sighed, forcing her eyes open. She couldn't keep thinking about William, else she'd go mad. She had made the right decision when he was born and it was still the right decision. As the son of Edmund Beale, the possibilities in his life were endless. As the by-blow of a redman and his sixteen-year-old lover, there were no possibilities.
"How much further?" Leah called in the darkness. She could hear the horses' hooves hitting the partially frozen ground. She could just make out the outline of Harrison's coat ahead of her.
"I thought you were asleep," came his comforting voice.
"Why, was I snoring?"
His laughter echoed in the treetops above. "No, you weren't snoring." He pulled up on his reins, waiting for her to catch up. They rode side by side. "When we reach the camp I want you to let me do the talking, Leah."
"Like hell!"
He looked at her. "My sweet Leah, swearing?"
"I'm not the biddable sweet Leah you once knew. And I'm not yours," she added softly. "This is my husband and child and I need to do this myself."
"It's just that I may have better luck getting information out of the army."
"Because you're a man and I'm just a woman?"
"Because I've got the balls to get the answers the best way I see fit."
She chuckled, choosing not to get into an argument with him over this. It was funny how she could see how he moved back and forth between being a white man and a red. Tonight he was a white man in a white man's coat and breeches, bought from a farmer down on the bay shore. Tonight he even sounded like a white man. He sounded like the Harrison she had known, just a little older and a lot wiser.
No, tonight she'd not get into a fight over letting him get information about her son while she sat pretty and drank tea in some Colonel's tent. When they reached the Patriot camp, she'd see to it she got some answers. Running a plantation had taught her a great deal about dealing with men. Occasionally it could actually be an advantage being a woman. One man she could sweet talk, the next she could threaten. No one on the Tidewater ever knew what to make of her. That was what made Tanner's Gift such a successful plantation, even in time of war.
Harrison reached out and massaged her shoulder. "I don't suppose you'll sleep in my arms tonight?"
"In my husband's camp? In front of his men? His fellow officers?" She glared at him. "I think not."
"You told me yourself he has a slave woman for a mistress."
"Actually she's free. Born free. Many of my negras are. I find they work better when they're paid for their service."
"All right, so he has the quadroon mistresss. Couldn't his wife have an Indian lover?"
As they rode under a black locust tree, she broke off a switch and smacked him in the head. "Very funny. You know in some places a woman can still be flogged for adultery."
"But not a man?"
She tossed the switch into the trees, watching it sail into the darkness. "It's a man's world."
"Not among my mother's people. Not among the Shawnee."
"No. Not among the Shawnee," she said thoughtfully. "Not in a place where an old woman can be the leader."
"It's a good life, Leah. You could join me. When this is over, you could go back to the village with me. Come spring we're headed west into Ohio country where what's left of our people will be safe. Beale will never find you."
She closed her eyes for a moment, letting the motion of the horse lull her. What a dream, to return to the village to live out her life with Harrison. She could almost imagine herself in one of those white doeskin dresses she had seen a Shawnee woman wearing. A white leather quilled dress and long red braids, wouldn't that be a sight! Leah opened her eyes.
"I can't, Harrison. You know I can't. I have Tanner's Gift and I have my son."
"So bring him with you."
"And a husband."
Harrison's voice grew harsh. "A husband you despise. A husband who cannot find forgiveness in his heart for the fact that you didn't come to him a virgin. A fact that wouldn't matter so much except that it was a redman who took his prize."
"Listen to you! Now you sound like him! My virginity was no booty! I gave the one thing a woman has to give to you because I loved you!"
Harrison pulled up on the reins. "You loved me. You use the past tense there, sweet Leah. Does that mean you don't love me now?"
She rode past him. She hadn't wanted to argue with him like this. The last few days had been so perfect. He'd been the companion she'd longed for for years. But now he was just a man again, making demands. "It doesn't matter," she called over her shoulder. "Look ahead. I see lamp light. Perimeter sentries I think."
"Patriot or Brit?"
"Not funny, Harrison. Let's hope the tavern proprietor was honest in his information and not a Tory on pay off. I'd imagine we've run out of good luck getting past the Brits." Twice in the last week they'd been stopped by English soldiers and both times they'd been able to talk themselves out of being detained.
Harrison pulled up on his reins. "I don't think we should ride right in, Leah."
"What, you think they haven't already heard us approaching?" Not waiting to hear his reply, Leah rose in the saddle and sank her heels into her horse's flanks.
A quarter of a mile down the road someone fired a warning shot. Leah pulled back hard on the reins and rode around in a circle. "Hallo! There ahead!" she called. "I'm Mistress Beale, Captain Edmund Beale of the Delaware regiment is my husband. I come with a friend to speak with one of my husband's men, Lieutenant Ross."
"Approach, slowly," called a male voice from the lamplight ahead. "And we'll see you into camp, Mistress Beale."
William rolled on to his side and curled up in a ball. He moaned softly in his sleep.
Asare squatted beside the boy, his hand on the child's forehead. He was burning with fever, yet even wrapped in two hide blankets the boy still shivered so hard that his teeth chattered. "The child is sick," the Mohawk told the father and son in their native language. "We cannot go today. The child cannot travel."
Sky Feather stomped his feet for warmth. "We travel, don't we, Father?" He lifted a hand. "Throw him over the side of the mountain and let him be food for the buzzards."
Asare rubbed the back of his hand against the boy's cheek. He supposed he could carry him. It was true he was a man past his prime of youth. This would be his fiftieth winter, but he was still as strong as a white man's ox. He knew he had the endurance to carry the child home to his village if he had to. But he also knew the boy might not make it in this condition. He needed rest. "One day," Asare said.
Two Halves shook his head. "I told you the boy was trouble. My son is right. We must return to our families. Leave him."
Asare stared out over the great Catskill Mountains. They had climbed so high into the mountains that now white clouds covered the peaks. From here Asare's people said a man could see to heaven on a clear day, or at least to the Adirondacks. A cold wind tore at Asare's tunic. Snow had been falling lightly since dawn. If a storm came in while they were still so high in the hills they could get snowed in for the wi
nter. Many a man of the Seven Nations had lost his life to the snow here on this mountain ridge. The litter of bleached bones along the trail was evidence of that truth.
Asare glanced back at Two Halves and his son. "You go then without us." He waved a hand. "Go. The boy and I will catch up later in the day."
"Fool. Do you not smell the storm in the air? Do you not see how it falls? You would give your life for an enemy's child? These whites, they don't even have souls, old man!"
Asare tucked the skin blanket over William's head to protect him from the biting wind. He needed to pull him in closer to the rock wall where the boy would be better shielded from the snow now blowing from the northwest. "Go on with you. If I do not meet you on the trail, I will see you in the village. Tell my wife, Running Rabbit, I send my heart."
Two Halves grumbled something as he picked up his bag and threw it over his shoulder. The father and son walked off without another word to their comrade.
Asare made himself busy building a fire and then pulled the boy over the snow to a warmer place in a crack in the mountain's rocky wall.
William stirred. "Mama?"
"Shhh," Asare soothed. "Sleep, Aeana. Sleep while this man makes you a fire and warm drink."
William rolled over onto his back. His dark hair was wet with perspiration and plastered to the side of his face. He moaned softly, rolling his head. "Mama, I'm coming. Mama, wait for me!"
Asare covered the boy again and went to melt some snow. With ground herbs from his medicine bag he would make a hot drink to calm the heat of the evil fever that raged inside William's small body. As he stirred down the snow in the bowl next to the fire he hummed softly, then sang. It was a song his mother had sung to him as a child, a song meant more for babies in cradle boards, than big boys like Aeana, but it seemed to soothe the child.
As Asare lifted William in his arms and dripped the hot potion between his lips he wondered where the boy's mother and father were. Dead, he guessed. Perhaps even killed by Two Halves and Sky Feather. He had not asked.
Asare laid the boy back down again and tucked the skins tightly around him. He seemed to be sleeping a little easier now. Hopefully, with rest the fever would pass. If the boy lived, Asare decided, he'd take him back to the village and make him his own son. It had been too long since he'd heard the patter of moccasins in his longhouse.
Whispered Promise Page 13
