Cherokee Storm (23 page)

“Cow needs milkin', husband.” She turned back to her chore. “Sicken and die if she ain't milked.”

“Have you lost your mind?”

Betty switched her tail, and Hannah slapped her belly. “Hold still, you daughter of Beelzebub.”

Sometimes, she couldn't figure what the Lord had in mind, making such misery for his believers. They'd come home from Fort Hood to find their cabin standing, their barn burned to the ground. One beautiful son lost, the other with his face scarred and near blind, and this ornery beast come back. It didn't seem a fair trade.

If the house still stood, wouldn't they all have had a better chance at surviving if they'd just remained here on the farm? Maybe her son would be alive if they had never left Green Valley.

She glanced back at Nathan. “Ye think I don't know our Damon is in that pine box? Who washed him and dressed him and bound up his jaw so it wouldn't hang open? And who cut out Drake's ruined eye and sewed up his back and head? Not you.”

“Women's work.”

“Women's work, all right.” She peered into the bucket to see how full it was. What was it about a man that they always needed to talk a thing into the ground. Hadn't it been hard enough to have her boys carried home, one dead, one half dead? “The way I see it, Nathan Clark, men make the misery in this world and women clean up the mess.”

He began to huff and puff. She knew without looking at him that his face was red as a Boston beet and all swollen. “You mind how you talk to me,” he warned.

“What you gonna do, Nathan? Punch me? Go ahead. I been hit before. But all the yellin' and all the hittin' won't change the fact that you dragged us out here to these godforsaken mountains. We left a good farm behind, a farm where nobody came in the night and burned your barn—where no wild Injuns drove off your livestock.”

“We came for the land. Those acres were worn out. This land will—”

“I've heard enough about your land. It's my sons I'm grievin' over. Who insisted them boys to go with the redcoats? Drake and Damon are farmers, not soldiers. Soldiers get paid for huntin' hostiles. But no, you had to fire them all up. So if our Damon is dead, you can take a big share of the fault for it.”

“Hannah, don't blame me.”

“I do. Lord knows, I do. You never treated Damon right. He weren't the son you wanted. It was all Drake, Drake, Drake. Now, Damon's gone, I 'spose you're happy. Drake will inherit it all.” She looked around. “All this.”

“Let the cow be. Your son's cryin' in pain. He needs more laudanum.”

“Too much will kill him just as much as them wounds. He's hurtin', sure. But I don't think he's dyin'. And folks will be here for the funeral. We'll need the milk. The cows we dragged to the fort and back won't give much.”

“He was askin' for Shannon. Drake was. Couldn't tell him that she's lost too.”

“They find a body?” Hannah drained the last teat. “There you go, Mistress Betty.” She sat the bucket safely out of reach of the cow's hind legs, and hobbled her. “Go find some grass. There's nothin' else.” The grain had burned with the barn, and unless the men cut a lot of hay, it would be a hard winter. Like as not, they'd not see spring with all the cows left alive. “I thought you said there was no sign of Shannon.”

“If not killed, taken. Tortured probably. Raped, fer sure. Better off dead, a white woman with savages.”

“Lord help her, but I can't help but think our Drake is better off without her.”

“You're a hard woman to say such a thing. Your son's wife.”

“Not much of a marriage, if you ask me. No preacher. Don't seem legal to me. Not the way my family did things.”

“Where's your pity? Bad enough he loses his twin. How you gonna tell him his new wife is gone too?”

Hannah picked up the bucket. “How am I gonna tell him?” She shrugged. “Reckon, I won't. You're the head of this house, so you're so fond of sayin'. You tell him.”

“I don't understand why we can't go back for Oona.” Shannon swayed comfortably on the back of the horse behind Storm Dancer. “We've seen no sign of enemy campfires. Surely, we're deep enough into
Tsalagi
territory that we don't have to be afraid of attack.”

“I nearly lost you once,” Storm Dancer replied over his shoulder. “I won't take that chance again.”

“I keep worrying about her. It was wrong to abandon her. I promised that I would—”

“These were not men who dared to raid into
Tsalagi
land. These Shawnee are like the wolverines of the North Country. They are crazed by the scent of blood. They kill for pleasure.”

“I'm not afraid. I was alone in Green Valley when they attacked the cabin, but I outsmarted them.”

“And so you would tempt the spirits?”

“I don't believe in your spirits.”

“But I do. The Shawnee would kill you, but not until they had used you in every way they could—not until they had tortured you to satisfy the perverse pleasure of their lust. You have not seen the bodies of the dead they left in their wake. I have.”

“I feel like such a coward to leave Oona,” Shannon protested. Guilt troubled her conscience. She and Storm Dancer had been taking joy in each other's bodies while her stepmother might be dead or worse….

“You do not understand,” he said gently. “Your father's woman faced the raiders before. I don't know how she survived, but what she saw must have driven her mad. That will save her from further attack. Any of the first people—what you call Indians—would consider it taboo to lay a hand on her.”

“Someone did. You should have seen what she looked like. She'd been beaten, raped, I'm sure. She gave birth too early, and—”

“She survived until you got there. And you told me that she could tend the garden and the fish trap—that she could still cook. Oona will be well. And if no one goes to rescue her, I will go myself. I give you my word, Shannon. You do not have to worry about her safety.”

Late in the afternoon, they had come across three families from Split Cane's town. The headwoman wasn't with the group, but the older men, women, and children were traveling to the location of an old village high in the mountains that they used in time of danger. There had been no young braves. Shannon supposed that they had gone to join Cherokee war parties, as Storm Dancer had told her that he intended to do.

The two of them had passed on word that Oona was alone at the trading post and needed care, due to her afflicted mental condition. None of the men they'd talked with were willing to go after her until they safely delivered their families into Split Cane's care, but several promised to see that Oona wasn't forgotten.

“Why can't I go with them?” Shannon whispered privately to Storm Dancer as the older braves acting as rear guard disappeared into the forest. “I'm sure Split Cane will give me shelter. You can go back for Oona and come for me at—”

“How many warriors did you see among them? If a war party hit, there would be no contest. You are safer with me.”

“You're one man. How could I be safer with—”

He pressed his fingertips to her lips. “No more argument. You belong with my mother. The village is well concealed and always protected.”

“But I don't want to go to your mother,” she protested. “Not without you.”

“We've had this discussion over and over. You're my woman. Since you have no clan, you must learn to be one of us.”

Troubled, she locked her arms around his lean waist and leaned her cheek against his back. The stallion moved easily under them, seemingly not overburdened by carrying double. Shannon had given up counting the ravines they'd descended, the creeks they'd crossed, or the times they'd dismounted to walk up steep mountainsides.

She had known these mountains were vast, but she'd had no real idea what that meant in terms of crossing them. Far from roads or white civilizations, the ancient meadows, gigantic trees, crystalline waterfalls, and tumbling, rock-strewn creeks rolled on and on into the horizon. No matter how far they rode, the Smoky Mountains stretched before them. Shannon's heart thrilled to the beauty of Storm Dancer's world: herds of deer and elk, great black bears, a rainbow of birds, fox, raccoon, and numerous smaller mammals inhabited this place.

Once, midmorning, they had paused at the edge of a high clearing to watch a gray vixen and her four little fox cubs cavorting and chasing each other, scrambling over a fallen log, and wrestling. Storm Dancer had signaled her to make no sound, and they had sat on the horse and watched the family of foxes play for a long time before finally riding on.

“A vixen is a good mother,” Storm Dancer said. “She will fight wolves and mountain lions for her pups. Once, I saw an eagle swoop down to snatch a tiny one. The vixen leaped to her baby's rescue with snapping jaws.”

“Did she save it?”

He chuckled. “Yes. After the vixen yanked out a few tail feathers, the eagle dropped the pup. It was probably ashamed to be seen struggling with such a fox.”

She smiled. “I'm glad.” She had handled many a fox pelt at Da's store, but she would never regard the animal in the same way again. She would always remember the sunny glen and the loving care the female had given her little ones. “How can you bear to kill such a beautiful animal?” she asked him.

“All creatures are our brothers. If I kill a buck or even a rabbit, I must apologize to the Creator for taking the life of one of his own. I kill to put meat in my mother's pot or to provide skins for moccasins or clothing. A man must live.”

“At the tavern, where I worked, I always felt sorry for the chickens when I wrang their necks, but I never thought of them as brothers or sisters.”

He covered her hand with his. They were riding up a twisting pass, so narrow that two horses could not have walked side by side. Branches brushed her head and arms, and she kept her eyes clenched to protect them.

“We are taught that all life is a circle. Each drop of water, each blade of grass is as important to the Creator as each human child. And all are related. We believe that even the trees and rocks have souls, but more primitive ones than a man or woman.”

“If we were married, would it be in the Cherokee custom?”

“I would want that, but if it would please you, I could find a priest to say the words over us.”

She smiled. If only it was that easy. But what priest would consent to bless the union of a white woman and a heathen warrior? “In my faith, there are rules about who can and can't be married.”

“As in mine. You are not a Wolf, are you? It is forbidden for me to marry one of my own clan.” He lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it. “These don't feel like wolf claws,” he teased.

“I thought we'd decided I had no clan. I'm an O'Shea and Irish, if anything.”

“It may be that my mother will find a way around that. She is a practical woman. When I was small, she let a black robe put water on my head.”

“You were christened a Catholic?”

“As I said, my mother is practical. I was her only child. If the white man's god was more powerful than the
Tsalagi,
she wanted me protected. But you must know, as much as I respect your beliefs, I have my own. I am Cherokee, blood and bone. I will never be a white man.”

Shannon sighed and hugged him. “I want you to be nothing but what you are.” She wished that they could go on riding like this forever, just the two of them. “Can't we just stay like this?” she begged. “No mothers, no rules, no customs but those we want?”

“Afraid not,” he said with a chuckle. He reined in the big horse and pointed through the trees. “Beyond that ridge lies my home village. Our time of being alone is over.”

 

“Are you mad?” Firefly demanded. “You dare to bring her here? To ask me to care for her?”

His mother had been kneeling on a hard-packed section of ground. In her hand, she held a coil of wet clay, and in front of her rose what would become a large oval cooking vessel.

She leaped to her feet and flung the clay at his head. “Ungrateful wretch!”

Storm Dancer ducked and the coil slapped against a tree trunk. “Mother, calm yourself.”

“You are your father's child! Not mine!” Firefly seized the half-finished pot and threw that at him.

He dodged the flying vessel.

“I'll not have her under my roof!”

“You may as well accept it.” He folded his arms over his chest and stood solidly in front of her. “Shannon is going to be my wife, the mother of your grandchildren.”

“I'll kill her first,” Firefly hissed. “I'll use her entrails for bowstrings, her yellow hair for embroidery thread.”

“How did you know the color of her hair?”

“Gall told me. But it doesn't matter. I don't want her in this village. I don't want her in these mountains. She goes.”

“She stays.” He softened his tone. “Mother, she has nowhere else to go. She has divorced her white husband. Truth Teller is dead, and his Indian wife has lost her mind out of sorrow.”

“You would shame Cardinal by bringing this white woman here? I think you have lost your mind.” She tried to move around him, but he stepped in her path.

“You will come to love Shannon. I promise you.”

“And I promise you that I will not. I will skin her and—”

“Whatever you think of her as my bride, she is a guest in this village. You cannot do less than to treat her with respect and kindness.” He held out a hand to her. “Would you have respect for me if I let you turn away the woman I love?”

“You shame me,” she thundered.

Storm Dancer wasn't fooled. For all her bluster, his mother honored the ancient rules of hospitality. Even a bitter enemy might find food and shelter in a Cherokee village if he or she were a guest. “I'm joining the war party. I have to know Shannon is safe.”

“Your father is already gone, two days ago.”

“And my cousin, Gall…Did he ride with the war party?”

Firefly shook her head. “He was set upon by the Shawnee and wounded. He is here, in the village.”

“I'm sorry to hear that. Is he hurt badly?”

“No. But he is in pain. With his bad leg, he couldn't have kept up with the other men.” She raised her chin, but her eyes filled with affection for him. “When will you leave, my son?”

“At once.” He crossed the distance between them and embraced her. “So, will you keep her safe for me? My Shannon?”

Firefly hesitated, but then reluctantly said, “She can stay in the village, but not in my house. You ask too much of me.”

“All right.” He nodded. “Someone else will open their hearth to her for the sake of hospitality.”

“Warn your yellow-haired white woman to stay out of my way. If she angers me, I will cut off her ears and use them for fish bait.”

He chuckled and gave her another hug. “I'll tell her that,” he promised. “I'm certain it will endear you to her.”

 

Shannon woke the following morning to the unfamiliar sounds of children laughing, old men coughing, and infants wailing. She lay on her back on the cushioned sleeping platform and stared up at the ceiling of the house. Fragments of sparkling light shone through, making her remember the shelter in Split Cane's village, the night she and Storm Dancer had first made love.

This wasn't moonlight spilling onto her face; it was sunlight. It was morning. She knew that she had to rise and make herself useful. It was important that these people accept her as a productive member of the community. She wouldn't be a burden, and she wouldn't shame Storm Dancer. She would use the time that he was gone to adapt to the Cherokee way of life.

Shannon was relieved that she was the guest of a plump woman named Snowberry, and not living in his mother's house. She had been told that Storm Dancer's mother's name was Firefly and his father Flint, but she had yet to meet either of them. And frankly, as far as she was concerned, the longer she could put off the confrontation, the better.

Watching Storm Dancer ride away to join the other warriors had been terrible. She didn't want to think of him facing the tomahawks, war clubs, knives and arrows of the Shawnee, or the guns of the British or the French. She had already lost her father. What would she do if Storm Dancer didn't come back? She had thought that it would be impossible to sleep, knowing that he was going into danger, but she had slept, and now she had to face Storm Dancer's extended family and his friends.

“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she murmured, and slid off the sleeping platform. Since it was summer and warm, she'd lain down in nothing but her shift. She had folded her skirt and bodice and put them on top of her shoes and stockings. They were gone. In their place lay a pair of dainty moccasins, a doeskin skirt, and a fringed vest that tied in the front.

She considered remaining in her shift, but it was torn and dirty. Her mother would have considered it good for nothing but braiding into a rag rug. There was little Shannon could do about the color of her skin or hair, but she could adapt to the Cherokee style of dress. That she would do willingly, although the hem of the skirt was shockingly short, and more breasts and belly showed than her father would have approved of.

No one remained in the round shelter, but outside, a bubbling pot hung over a fire. A stranger, an attractive young woman, knelt before the fire, placing corn cakes on a stone to bake. She wore nothing but moccasins and a short skirt. Her shapely breasts were bare.

When Shannon greeted her in Cherokee, the woman glanced up. For a second, something flashed in her eyes, but then, just as quickly, she smiled.

“Welcome to our village. Are you hungry, or would you like to bathe before you eat?”

“Thank you. I'm Shannon.” She was about to say that she would like to go to the creek before she broke her fast, but before she could go on, the Indian woman spoke again in a sweet, clear voice.