The Bearwalker's Daughter (15 page)

“Why do so now?” Karin asked.

“My days on this earth are like the last leaves clinging to the bough before winter winds sweep them away. I would see you with the right man before I pass on.”

Karin gazed into his face as if asking an unspoken question.
Can
I
trust
you?

He hoped to God she could. Up until now, he’d thought of himself for the most part. Somehow, he must overcome his indomitable independence and make room for her in his life.
Yes,
Karin
, he replied wordlessly, answering her in the same way she’d posed the question.

Her fascinating gaze changed like clouds shadowing the earth, first the darkness of doubt then a gleam of hope, rays of sunshine breaking through. She swallowed and her heart pulsed at the side of her throat. Would she utter the pledge he suddenly badly wanted to hear or bolt from him like a wary doe?

“Karin,” Neeley gently prompted. “I see your fear, also the yearning of your heart. The moment is precious and quickly passes into nothingness. Speak now, or never do so.”

Hesitation crossed her eyes then the words escaped her halting lips. “I bind myself to you, Jack McCray.”

Her tremulous vow stirred him as nothing before, and he smiled despite the solemnity of the occasion. He couldn’t help it. “I bind myself to you, Karin McNeal.”

She shot him a look as if to say, ‘you had better.’

Truly, trust was shaky ground. Jack couldn’t swear he loved her, nor had she asked, but he was as near to that tumultuous swell as he’d ever been. One thing was certain, he wanted Karin more than anything in this world.

From the pocket hidden beneath her apron, Neeley drew out a bright scarf, the color of fire. The reddish orange fabric mirrored the flames crackling in the hearth. “Lift your right arm, Karin. Jack, lift up your left.”

Karin did as Neeley directed and the sleeve slid back over her slim arm. The band of silver, his band, encircled it like a promise. She waited. Then he raised his left arm so that they upheld both side by side. How smooth she was, especially in comparison to his more weather-beaten skin. Her graceful beauty contrasted with his muscle and the scars etched from many battles.

Neeley took the scarf and wound it lightly around their wrists, joining their arms together. Karin eyes were pools of uncertainty tinged with wonder. Her smooth skin lay invitingly against his. The mere touch of her sent a tingle charging through him. Tilting his hand, he entwined his fingers through her tentative clasp.

Neeley laid her hands on their heads in blessing. “As God is my witness, you are betrothed. Be resolved and let no one break this bond. For they will try.”

Jack had no doubt.

_****

Karin snuggled into her bedfellow’s fragile warmth. Neeley’s light snores proved she still lived, at least for now. Her grim prediction otherwise troubled Karin. Granted, Neeley was ancient, but she’d been that way forever and age hadn’t killed her yet.

The chill night left Karin trembling with trepidation. Sound sleep evaded her. Whenever she dozed, the snapping jaws of wolves took shape in her mind as if they lunged at the door. She swore they snarled beneath the windows.

Yet the house was still except for wood hissing in the hearth and the ever-present wind. In its wild song, she heard the hauntingly beautiful music of a woodland flute...the reedy melody called to her.

But to what?

Jack
, she sighed, longing to be near him and just as strongly feeling the urge to push him away. The diverse emotions clashed in her like converging streams in a froth of whitewater. She’d pledged herself to him at Neeley’s insistence, and that unreasoning need within herself. She wasn’t at peace with her choice, but she would not and could not alter it.

She envisioned him stretched out in the dark loft wrapped in his bedroll. He’d easily make do with the floor having known much worse. Joseph refused to share his room with the usurper and she couldn’t really blame him. She’d never meant to hurt Joseph and doubted Jack had either, but how could she be certain? As he’d pointed out, she didn’t really know him.

Louder the wind shrieked and she tried to shut her ears to the strident voice. Behind his summons rose an angry bellow. A woman’s entreaty seemed interwoven with the plaintive wails, as if mediating with the enraged one.

Was that her mother? Karin must be losing her mind. She felt as unraveled as a skein of wool and filled with longing.

The gusts grew calmer, or maybe she just ceased to notice. The hypnotic strains of the flute beckoned again, soothing, lulling. In the music, she saw the darkness of a forest at midnight washed with the light of the great golden moon. Leaves swirled in the breeze like butterflies circling the trunks and long wisps of smoky clouds misted the trees.

Someone waited there for her, deep in the woods where the snowy owl winged across the stars. He bid her to come. His summons was irresistible. Shequenor.

Without full awareness of what she did, Karin slipped from the bed and tiptoed on the icy boards into the main room. Before her was the outline of the door...beyond that, the call.

_{Chapter Ten}

Christ! Wolves! Closing in on Jack like hounds from Hell, their eyes burning, jowls slathering. What was wrong with these creatures? As before, he’d never known them to be this menacing unless they’d gone mad or were half-starved.

They were fast cornering him. He’d better make a swift escape. Where had they all come from? More importantly, where was Peki? He darted his eyes at the snowy woods. Why was he here alone and on foot?

No time to consider. Instinctively, he readied for the attack. Slicking his knife from the sheath with one hand, he grasped the worn handle of his tomahawk with the other. Old friends. Where had he left his musket? A loaded pistol would come in mighty handy about now.

“Back!” He waved the blade at the nearest form, a big wolf, possibly leader of the pack. By heaven, he’d open its hairy throat before it sank those fangs into his.

The incensed animal sprang in a hissing blur of teeth and fur. The next thing Jack knew, it slammed into him with the force of a cannon ball. Air rushed from him. Winded by the impact, he tumbled onto his back in the cold whiteness.

He wasn’t beaten yet. Drawing on skills honed by years in the frontier, he plunged the blade up deep between the creature’s ribs. The knife struck home.

The ravenous beast slumped on him. Grunting under its weight, he shoved the animal off to one side and scrambled up. It lay slack-jawed in a heap at his feet. Blood ran over the pure snow.

He pulled his crimson blade out of the inert predator. At a glance, he saw the wolf’s blood stained all down the front of his hunting shirt. This wasn’t over. Breathing hard, he readied for the next attack, surprised the pack hadn’t gone for him in one body.

Knife in hand, he whirled around. Shifting his eyes from side to side, he yelled, “Come at me, you devils!”

Nothing. Not a wolf in sight. Had he frightened off the entire pack by felling one? Unheard of.

Jack jerked awake. Sucking in his breath, he lay in his bedroll staring up at the blackened beams overhead. Moonlight poured through the small window set in the logs above him and filtered down over the trunks and sacks stored in the loft.

No woods. No wolves...only the silvery stream of light. He gulped in shakily. He must have been dreaming. What else accounted for his sudden assault? And yet, those images seemed so unalterably real. He almost looked to see if red still colored his shirt and his attacker was sprawled at his side. He’d better get hold of himself. Still, it nagged at him that something more, something sinister, lay behind the dream.

Was he that rattled from the day’s harrowing encounter, or was Shequenor tormenting him for refusing to comply with his demand?

That seemed more likely. His adopted brother, now adversary, wouldn’t back down easily just because they’d reached the relative safety of the McNeals’ fort-like stone house. Jack sensed the dark force couldn’t enter here, partly because of Neeley’s ministration with the sacred herbs and because these were God-fearing people, but uneasiness gnawed at him.

He sat up and his heart beat out a warning. No. Shequenor wouldn’t retreat. He’d find a way. And Jack should never underestimate his cunning opponent.

Sudden dread gripped him. Karin!

Clamoring to his feet, he lunged to the railing at the edge of the loft. He bent over it and stared below. Shadows lay heavily in the room where low flames left portions of the generous space unlit.

He spotted her dressed in her white shift, poised before the door. As if she heard something, or someone, calling to her, she walked closer. Her stocking feet made only the faintest creak on the floor.

Heedless of him, she didn’t seem to hear but hearkened to some inner voice. Reaching out her hand, she slid the bolt and swung the door open. Gusts of wind tossed her hair all around her, but even the cold didn’t seem to snap her from this trance-like state.

She was going out that door!

Climbing from the loft would take too long. Jack vaulted over the rail and dropped down onto the protesting boards like a panther springing from a tree to the forest floor.

“Karin!” Crying her name, he galloped across the room and caught her just as she stepped outside. Snagging her around the waist, he jerked her back into the room and shut the door. He slid the bolt. “Are you crazy?” he asked a little roughly in his fear.

Her eyes held the glazed stare of a sleepwalker. How cold she felt, and yet she seemed oblivious of it. “You can’t go out there. You would freeze to death.”

Had Shequenor bewitched her, put a spell on the entire household? No one awakened at the commotion he’d caused. “Good God, Karin, you aren’t going anywhere without me.”

“Come with me, then.”

Those weren’t her words. Shequenor had prompted her to say that. “No. We are staying right here in this valley. Not going deep into those mountains.”

Her dimly seen expression was purely dazed. “You belong to me now, not him.” At all costs, Jack would avoid using
his
name.

Thank God, he’d roused when he had. No one else in the house made a sound. They must be sleeping like the dead, or equally bewitched. He swung her up in his arms and bore her across the room. His one thought, to get her away from that door and back into coherent rapport with him. But where should he take her?

Unless he threw Joseph out of his room, and that didn’t strike Jack as wise, he had nowhere else to go but back to his ill-equipped quarters. He badly needed his own place, he thought, and climbed up the ladder with Karin in tow. Like one in a trance, she offered no resistance.

Jack gently laid her on the deerskin that formed the base of his bedroll. He knelt beside her and circled his hand to her cold cheek. “Karin, come back to me.”

She gazed up at him, trembling, in the milky light without any real awareness in her face. What did he have that could possibly compete with Shequenor’s bizarre hold over her?

He covered her with the blanket and lay down beside her. Sliding beneath the cover, he drew her snugly against him and buried his face in her hair. The silken cascade smelled so sweet. She was utterly desirable, so close, and yet so distant.

She must be in the same place Jack dreamt of, minus the wolves. Shequenor had tried to detain him there while using his unearthly power to transport Karin in her mind. Did that madman actually mean for her to go off into the night? Would he risk her death to obtain her, or somehow whisk her away?