Cherokee Storm (21 page)

If she was going to stay alive until friendly Cherokee came to trade or a white man passed through, she would have to be clever. She would need to salvage what was left of the garden, tend the fish trap, and dig edible roots to roast in the coals of her campfire.

So many questions…What would she do without her father? Where was Oona? Had she been murdered too? Had she run away or been taken captive by the attackers? And who was responsible?

The black feathered arrow she'd seen in the dead hound hadn't been the same as the fire arrows the Shawnee had used at Drake's cabin, but that wasn't proof of who was responsible for burning the post and killing her father. She didn't know enough about the tribes to identify them by the feathering on their arrows. She'd seen no evidence that white men had been involved.

There were no horse tracks, other than her father's animals, and certainly no prints from iron-shod horses. The raiders had most certainly been Indians, probably the same Shawnee who'd attacked Green Valley.

Shannon forced herself to search the compound for anything useful, but there was nothing left but a few gourds hanging on the pound fence. Those would do to carry water from the spring. She took them and the gun and set off, but she'd gone no more than a few yards down the path, when she saw something move in the trees.

Frightened, she dropped the gourds and raised the rifle. “Who's there?” A woman's high-pitched laughter sent shivers down her spine. “Oona? Is that you?”

A ragged apparition flashed through the woods and then vanished.

Shannon crouched by the edge of the forest and waited. A half hour passed, and then an hour. She'd almost begun to believe she had imagined she'd seen and heard a woman, when she heard weeping. But as soon as she took a few steps into the trees, the crying stopped.

“Oona? It's Shannon. Are you all right?”

No answer.

Shaken, but uncertain she could catch whoever it was in the woods, Shannon hurried on to the spring, dipped her gourds into the water, and returned to the spot where she'd heard the sounds. Now all she heard was birdsong and the rustle of wind through the leaves.

“I'm here, Oona, if you need me. I'll wait for you.”

All the way back to the shed, Shannon felt as if she were being watched. She gathered wood and stacked it inside the lean-to, then led the pony inside. Now that the palisade wall was down, wolves might come in the night. If she and Badger were protected by the campfire, she might feel safe enough to sleep. The hound had wandered off, perhaps to go to her puppies. Shannon hoped the dog would come back. She didn't want to be alone anymore.

She forced herself to go back into the cabin. There, at the back of the hearth, nearly hidden by ashes, she found one of her mother's small copper kettles. And high up inside the chimney, on a shelf, was a wooden container of salt.

Finding the kettle and salt raised her spirits. She could boil water for herb tea. She could make soup and salt fish for days when there was no catch. A kettle was a fine prize. This copper pot had survived a sea voyage from Ireland and an Indian attack. Having it was a comfort.

There was no sign of the woman in the woods. Shannon reasoned that it had to be Oona, but if her father's wife had survived, why hadn't she come out when Shannon called her name? What if it was someone else?

As Shannon made her preparations for the night, she tried not to think of her father, tried not to think of the grave in the garden. Tomorrow would be soon enough to remember. Tonight, she couldn't bear any more sorrow.

Sometime after dark, the hound bitch came to the campfire, a small spotted pup in her mouth. The dog dropped the puppy in the hay near Shannon's feet, licked it several times, and settled down.

“Hello, what have you got there?” The puppy wiggled and squirmed until it latched on to a nipple and began to nurse. “Are there any more?” The pup was very young. Its eyes weren't open yet. “Is it a boy or a girl?”

Shannon made no move to touch the tiny creature, but watching it made her smile. Life, she thought. New life in the midst of all these ashes. She added another log to the fire. She should have been tired. Instead, she was wide-awake.

The clouds parted, and a full moon rose high over the trees. Shannon watched and waited, for what she didn't know…until she heard the keening cry from the garden.

The dog's hackles stiffened and she growled. Shannon grabbed the rifle and ran out of the shed toward the sound. Crouched near the grave was a ragged figure. The spectral creature rocked back and forth as it shrieked.

Goosebumps rose on the back of Shannon's arms. “Oona?” The figure turned and hobbled away, but Shannon saw the scarred face in the moonlight. She dropped her rifle and ran after the wailing woman. “Oona. Oona, it's me.” She grabbed her around the waist and found that her stepmother's stomach was flat. But that was impossible. The child wasn't expected yet. It was too soon.

The Indian woman struggled and tried to break away, but Shannon held on tight. Then she saw that Oona was cradling something in her arms, something tiny and mewing wrapped in a blanket.

“Is that your baby? Did you have the baby?”

Oona dropped to her knees and rocked back and forth. The infant whimpered, almost as the puppy in the shed had whimpered. Shannon took the woman's face in her hands. It was oddly black, smeared with ashes.

“Shhh, shhh,” Shannon said. “It's all right. I'm here. I'll take care of you.”

Oona clutched the baby against her breasts.

“I won't hurt…” Horror curled in the pit of Shannon's stomach as the blanket fell away. It wasn't a baby that Oona held so tightly, but another tiny puppy.

For a moment, Shannon was too shocked to speak. It took every ounce of her strength not to scream and run back to the fire. But Oona was staring at her so pitifully…staring at her in the moonlight with the eyes of a madwoman.

“Come back to the fire and get warm,” Shannon said. “The baby needs to be warm.”

Oona looked down at the puppy in her arms and then back at Shannon. Slowly she held out a bloodstained and dirty hand.

“That's right,” Shannon said. “We'll get you warm. We'll get you both warm.” Step by step, the Indian woman followed her to the lean-to.

Shannon motioned to the pile of straw where she'd been lying earlier, and Oona sank down. Shannon tried not to stare.

In the space of days, her father's wife had aged years. Streaks of white had appeared in the wildly disarrayed crow-black hair. One eye was purple ringed, and swollen. Her face and her arms were bruised and scratched. Dried blood caked on her bare legs. If it were not for the old burn scar, Shannon wouldn't have known her.

Oona held out her hands to the fire and a twisted smile appeared on her swollen lips. Shannon winced. One of her stepmother's pretty white teeth was broken. Shannon looked away.

The hound bitch whined.

Oona unwound the blanket and laid the pup tenderly next to the dog. Then she took the other puppy, wrapped that one in the blanket, and rocked it against her. As Shannon watched, Oona began to croon a wordless lullaby.

Shannon couldn't hold back her tears.

In the morning, some of Oona's sanity seemed to have returned. She allowed Shannon to return the puppy to its mother without protest. When Shannon offered her hand, Oona flinched. But she followed her to the creek and allowed Shannon to wash away the dirt and dried blood that encrusted her hair and body.

By daylight, Shannon was even more shocked by her stepmother's condition. It was obvious that she had suffered a miscarriage, but since she refused to speak a word, Shannon could learn nothing about what had happened or how her father had died. She feared the worst. If her suspicions were correct, the bruises on her arms and thighs told a dark story of rape and assault. Maybe what had happened to Oona had been too terrible to survive with her mind intact.

All that day, Oona trailed Shannon around. She followed her to the spring and to the fish trap at the creek where they found three fat trout. Oona helped to carry wood for the fire and water for the pot. And when Shannon took wildflowers to place on her father's grave and knelt to pray, Oona did the same. Again, she spoke no words, but Shannon noticed that fresh tears trailed down the Indian woman's cheeks and her eyes looked more like her old self than they had earlier in the day.

Shannon laid her hand on the fresh turned dirt. “Da?” she asked. “Flynn?”

Oona's eyes widened and her mouth trembled. Shannon jerked back out of reach as Oona snatched the knife from the earth and mimicked being stabbed. Then she hugged herself and began to rock back and forth, moaning.

“Give me the knife.” Shannon held out her hand. She wasn't certain if the crazed woman would attack her, but gradually, Oona calmed and looked at her from the corner of her eye.

“Please,” Shannon said.

For a moment she thought Oona would refuse to surrender the weapon, but then she smiled that strange little fey smile and passed it over, handle first. Shannon examined the weapon. It was fashioned of good steel with the stamp of a metal worker in Spain. Flynn had been proud of the knives he sold, and this one was exactly like those that had rested on the shelves of her father's store.

The knife was identical except for the handle. The plain wooden handle had been replaced with one of antler, carved with the likeness of a lightning bolt and wrapped with strips of sinew. Someone had purchased or stolen one of Da's knives and had personalized it with his or her own handiwork.

She had the strangest feeling that she knew this knife, that she had seen this particular one with the antler handle before. She glanced around to see that Oona had wandered away and was down on the ground attempting to repair a battered squash plant. “Oona,” she said. “Is this the knife? Is this the knife that killed Flynn?”

The woman didn't look up. She kept patting the dirt around the plant, pulling weeds, and pinching off the dead leaves. As she worked, she smiled and hummed to herself, moving on from squash to the young shoots of corn and spreading beans.

Shannon turned the knife in her hand. Where had she seen this before? At Split Cane's village? Here at the post in the leather sheath of one of their Indian customers?

She wanted to throw the hateful thing into the creek or to bury it, to never look at it again. But she needed a knife. She knew what her father would say. “Only a fool would toss away something they needed.” A good blade might make the difference between life and death in the wilderness. And it would certainly make cleaning the fish easier. Yesterday, she'd had to use a sharp rock.

When they returned to the lean-to, Oona glanced at the puppies, but made no attempt to take one and wrap it in the blanket as she had before. Shannon took that as a good sign, a sign that her stepmother was healing. She was glad. She didn't know how long she could watch Oona pretending that a puppy was a baby without losing her own mind.

That evening, a raccoon came to paw in the refuge pile where Shannon had thrown the fish bones. She swallowed her reservations and shot the raccoon. There would be meat in the pot for all of them.

To Shannon's surprise, Oona picked up the knife, skinned and dressed the raccoon, and took it to the creek to wash. When she returned, she brought a handful of cattail roots and leaves with her. As Shannon watched, the woman cut up the meat, dropped bits into the kettle, and added wild onions, the cattail, and salt. Whatever part of Oona had been lost, she remembered how to prepare and cook food.

Later, by the fire, while they ate, Shannon spoke softly to her stepmother, trying to get her to answer. But Oona didn't utter a sound, and as the shadows fell, her mind seemed to drift away once more.

In the week that followed, the two fell into a routine of working in the garden, tending the fish trap, and foraging for wild plants and herbs. The hound bitch usually followed Oona, and when the puppies' eyes opened, Oona seemed to take a child's delight in playing with them. Only when they prayed at Flynn's gravesite did Oona slip into the depths of sorrow, weeping and rocking and sometimes tearing at her hair. Shannon hoped that time would heal the wounds and make her whole again.

For herself, Shannon had quit crying over her father's death. The sadness would remain, and the violent manner of his passing would never leave her. But she had no time to dwell on her loss, painful though it was. Flynn would expect her to care for his widow. The responsibility rested heavily on her shoulders. She must keep them both alive, and when rescue came for her, she had to find a safe place for Oona.

 

Storm Dancer held his hand over his horse's muzzle and murmured softly into the animal's ear. A Shawnee war party passed on the game trail just above the rocks where he had taken cover. The sorrel was well trained, and had dropped onto his front knees and had lain down when Storm Dancer gave the order. So long as the horse made no sound, and the enemy warriors did not look too closely into the willows below, they would be invisible.

Twice since he'd left his uncle and father at the home village, he'd encountered bands of roving Shawnee. The first war party had been small. He had seen no white men with them, but this group was larger, at least forty men. They traveled on foot, without women, and were heavily armed. There was no reason for them to invade
Tsalagi
territory other than to raid and take scalps in the pay of the French or the English.

Truth Teller's trading post lay four to five hours away. If these Shawnee continued in the direction they were heading, they couldn't miss it. The palisade reared from the earth in an expanse of meadow in a broad valley. Storm Dancer didn't believe that the war party would pass without attacking such a ripe plum. Reaching his friend before these men would be a near thing.

Once the warriors and their rear guard had passed, Storm Dancer signaled his horse to rise. There was a trail that led over the mountain. It was rough, but passable, and once he reached the pass on the far side, his horse's speed would give him the advantage.

“Up, friend,” he murmured to the animal. “We have far to go this day.” He mounted and dug his heels into the stallion's sides. First the climb and then the run. Attempting to fight so many Shawnee would be a death wish, but if luck was with him, he could warn Shannon's father. There just might be time for them to vanish into the forest before the first tomahawk flashed.

 

Sweat streaked Storm Dancer's bare chest and face as he led the horse up a particularly bad incline. The loose shale underfoot was dangerous for a man on foot, but doubly so for the horse. The way was narrow. One slip, and the animal or both might plunge to their death.

Three times he had seen the war party running through the woods far below. He would have missed them the last time because the trees were so thick, but a flock of wild turkeys had flown up and given away their position. So far, he was keeping pace with his enemy. That wasn't good enough. He had to move faster.

Leaving the horse behind would have gained precious time on the mountain, but he doubted the sorrel could descend the heights without falling or being eaten by a bear or mountain lion. This mountain was no place for a horse, but Storm Dancer had brought him here. It was his duty to bring his friend down unharmed.

At last, they reached the bald crest. He knew he might be seen crossing the treeless area, but there was no time to waste. Carefully, he picked his way through the rock-strewn summit and began the equally risky way down. He was afraid that the war party would move ahead of him now, but there was no alternative. When he reached the hills that rolled down to the valley, he must ride like the wind.

 

Shannon and Oona were checking the fish trap when Badger raised his head and whinnied. Shannon shaded her eyes with her hand and stared across the meadow, but it was Oona who saw the rider coming first and cried out.

The rifle lay propped against a boulder several yards away from the creek, and Oona reached it first. Shannon didn't stop to dispute ownership of the gun. Both women turned and ran for the tree line, but when Shannon reached the edge of the forest, Oona was no longer beside her.

Shannon was breathing hard. She'd known there was no shelter to be had within the ruined palisade, but there was little more in this part of the forest. The trees were huge and thick overhead, but few saplings or outcroppings of undergrowth offered anyplace to hide.

“Oona! Oona!” she cried. “Run and hide near the spring.” She paused to catch her wind. She didn't know where Oona had gone. How had she been almost within arm's length one moment and gone the next? She looked back at the sea of tall grass and realized that her stepmother could simply have crouched down like a quail or rabbit and become invisible.

The horseman was still coming. If he reached the edge of the trees before she found a hidey-hole, she was lost. Then, to her left, she saw a fallen tree. It lay against another chestnut, their limbs intertwined. If she climbed the downed tree, she could take refuge in the branches overhead.

She had nothing left to defend herself with but the knife, and she clung to it fiercely as she scrambled up the trunk and into the shelter of the foliage above. Heart thudding so loud she was certain her pursuer must hear it, she peered through the leaves.

She could see the Cherokee perfectly as he approached the forest edge, see the weary movement of his horse, see the proud way he sat the animal with a back as straight as an arrow. She could even see…

“Storm Dancer!” She screamed his name. “Here! I'm here!”

Somehow, he guided his mount among the trees. She couldn't remember him doing it. One instant, she recognized his face and called out to him, and the next, she was out of the tree, into his arms, and kissing him.

“Shannon.”

He didn't ask why she was here or what had happened to Da's post. He held her for long seconds, and then seized her around the waist and set her onto his horse.

“We must go,” he said. “My horse is exhausted. I can't fight all of them.”

“No, we can't leave yet.” She glanced around. “Oona is here.”

“Shawnee come. We must be gone before they get here. There is no time.”

He gripped her hand so tightly that she thought the bones would break, but she didn't care. He was here. He'd come for her. Wife or no wife, damned or not, they were together. That was all that mattered for this moment in time.

“They are right behind me. If they catch us, I can't protect you. There are too many of them.”

“But Oona…” In a rush of words she tried to tell him everything: the burning of Drake's house, her father's death, her stepmother's madness.

Storm Dancer shook his head. “I must get you away. Deep into the mountains. It's the only way to save you.”

“I won't leave her. I can't.”

He took hold of her shoulders. “Listen to me. Do you see her? If you cannot find her, they won't. And if she is truly mad, not even Shawnee would dare harm her. She is under the protection of the Creator.”

“We can't—”

He vaulted onto the horse's back and put his arms around her. The horse leaped ahead, plunging through the trees.

“No!”

He urged the horse faster.

Realizing that she wouldn't be able to convince him to stay, Shannon called over her shoulder. “Run, Oona! Hide! I'll come back for you! I swear I will!”

Branches brushed her face and she closed her eyes and ducked her head, fighting tears. Before she realized it was possible, they reached the creek. There, Storm Dancer slid down.

“Stay where you are,” he ordered. He led the horse into the water, first wading and then swimming.

Shannon looked back one last time, but saw no sign of Oona. For perhaps ten minutes, they followed the course of the waterway, and then Storm Dancer tugged the horse toward the far bank.

When they reached dry land, he didn't remount, but ran beside the sorrel. Carrying only her weight, the horse seemed to shed its weariness. They crossed and recrossed a small stream that led off the creek, then doubled back and swam the wider waterway again. Then Storm Dancer remounted and they were off down a gully at a full canter.

She had given up trying to argue with him. It was too late to go back. If the Shawnee had been right behind him as he said, they would be at the post by now. She prayed that Oona had heard her warning and would remain hidden and that the hound would find a safe place for her pups. She even prayed that Badger would escape capture.

In time, she grew too tired to pray. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she sagged against Storm Dancer's hard chest. She was conscious of his powerful arms holding her, and then she sank into blessed exhaustion and slept.

Shannon did not open her eyes again until the first light of morning spilled over her face. She lay on her back on a bed of thick moss, surrounded by a curtain of evergreens. The first thing she saw was the horse, his muzzle thrust into a tiny stream bubbling out of a rock. And the second thing she saw was the man stretched out beside her, his dark eyes smiling at her, his handsome chiseled face aglow.