AT FIRST SIGHT: A Novella Page 9

  Indignantly she tugged away and brushed herself off. “A pox on you, Adam Sutcliff, if you laugh at me.”

  The sickle was not as proficient as a machete would have been. Shortly after full sunrise, he had cleared their way through to a meadow. He paused at its edge to let her catch her breath, while his gaze swept the frost-tipped, high grass.

  A creek ran through it, and on its other side, two does had halted in drinking, their heads lifted to sniff the air. Suddenly, their white tails flashed as they bounded in leaps toward the forest on the far side.

  “What frightened the – ”

  His raised hand stalled her whispered question. Indeed, what had frightened them? In answer, a bear lumbered from the woods’ far side and broke into loping pursuit of the deer.

  He turned his attention back to her and took note of how her cloak, dress and petticoat hung in shreds below her thighs. Brambles has scratched her bare legs, above her moccasins. Briars had clawed her dirt-smeared face and yanked her hair from its knot at her nape, where twigs and leaves nested in the frizzled mass of curls. She stood, swaying with exhaustion.

  She was the most beautiful woman the good God had ever created.

  “How much longer?”

  “By dusk, if we keep moving – and no one catches up with us.”

  “I cannot. I simply cannot go another step.”

  He frowned. “You are so certain of what you cannot do? While Craven is so very certain of what he will do – he, being a fervent man of patriotic duty – when he hauls you before Cromwell’s court.” He refrained from adding that he considered Craven’s lofty principles overrated.

  Her chin lifted with determination, but before she could take a step past him, he leaned over and, wrapping an arm around her waist, hoisted her up onto his back and shoulders. “Hang tight,” he said, latching an arm under each of her thighs. “We’ve got a muddy meadow and a freezing creek to forge first.”

  Indeed, as he strode into the meadow, his boots sank deeper. Lifting each from the sucking mud became more difficult. Why had he not better prepared with moccasins for himself? Her warm breath on his neck, her breasts pressed against his back, and her legs wrapped so intimately around his midsection only increased his frustration.

  Crossing the creek was more of a challenge. The thigh-high water, icy from melting snow, slammed against him, filling his boots and nearly knocking him off balance. Her arms tightened around his neck. The weighted saddlebags came damned near to drowning them both.

  At last, he made it to the opposite bank, only to have his slick boot soles slide in the slippery, muddy ooze. Down he and Evangeline thrashed, back toward the water line, before they clawed and hauled themselves up through the snow-and-mud-caked grass to the top of the bank. They sat and stared aghast at one another.

  She, first, broke out in laughter. “Truly, Adam, you look like a Blackamoore!”

  He resisted the mad impulse to make love to her. Chuckling, he scooped and lobbed a daub of mud at her. “Then that makes two of us.”

  With an outcry, she swiped the splatter from her chest but missed the delightful speckles on her face. “Aye, but tis you who is the blackguard.”

  Though it was but a jest, instantly he knew that therein lay her true feelings. Still, she doubted his sincerity. And, indeed, so did he. He had an estate to regain. Yet, his yearning for her was a force to be reckoned with. Taking her hand, he hefted her erect. “No time to dawdle. Best we make haste.”

  Accustomed to the torpid vegetation of the tropics, he found this fortress forest of cold, hard wood required all his attention and effort. Constantly, he kept a vigilant eye for the tree’s thickest bark or heaviest moss, which signaled north for him. When he stumbled across an accumulation of well-traveled paths, he knew he was drawing near their destination.

  An hour or so before sundown, they staggered into the Lenape village. Protected by a wooden palisade, it consisted of perhaps a hundred domed and timbered huts chinked with clay. With vociferous shouts and whoops, women and children poured out to either confront or greet the pair who limped in. Amidst the formidable, clamoring welcome party, he shifted the waist of a dragging Evangeline he cradled from his right to his left arm.

  “We wish to pay homage to your sachem, Peminacka,” he told the snaggle-toothed old squaw, at the foremost of the mob. Like the other women, she sported red dots on her cheeks and eyelids.

  He doubted she understood him, but at the mention of Peminacka her head bobbed like a puppet’s, and she grinned as if dinner had just been served up.

  At once, he and Evangeline were ushered to one of the domed structures. She dropped near the fire pit, her legs tucked beneath her, one arm barely supporting her, and mumbled, “Ask for Rasannock.”

  Shortly, the heavyset old squaw returned with pemmican and wooden bowls of mush that could have been duck feet and field mice’ carcasses, for all he knew. But eat he and Evangeline must. “Rasannock,” he told the squaw, while nudging pemmican bites between Evangeline’s unresisting lips.

  Only when a handsome Indian male pushed aside the deer hide flap and swaggered inside did she perk up, her smile quick and warm. “Rasannock,” she breathed, her small frame coming alive, and Adam felt rankled by foolish jealousy over the animated affection the young man elicited from her.

  The Indian’s dusky face lighted with warmth. “It is you!” He plopped down beside her, totaling ignoring Adam. “What of Gantu and Bonnie Charlie?”

  So, this was the sachem’s nephew who lived with her and the other two. Astonishingly, Rasannock wore a woman’s red hooded, fur-lined cape over his buckskin shirt and leggings.

  “I know naught of Gantu,” she sighed heavily. “The last we saw of Bonnie Charlie, he was holding off the Swede’s Mingo scout and five militiamen who were pursuing us.” She clasped the man’s swarthy hands between hers. “Robbie – he fares well, Rasannock?”

  The young man’s expression grew uneasy. “That the baby does. But my uncle, he mourns his daughter. He grieves bad. He may speak with you in the morning. After you have rested.”

  Adam found himself wrapping an arm around her narrow shoulders and was immediately disgusted with his possessiveness – a perverse possessive pleasure. “We come in peace. I represent the English’s Great Father across the ocean. Tell your uncle then we await him tomorrow morning.”

  The Indian nodded and soft as an evening breeze stole away. But later, the squaw rejoined them and sat in placid silence, watching. Adam learned she was the sachem’s mother-in-law.

  Evangeline gave over to his embrace, cuddling her and him within a smelly, scratchy Indian blanket. His saddlebags served as their pillow. Beyond ordinary fatigue, she fell instantly asleep. With the deepening night, the squaw also fell asleep, snoring louder and louder. He lay awake, going over the morrow’s possible ramifications.

  If Bonnie Charlie had been unable to waylay Catamount, Adam judged the Mingo and the Swedish militiamen would show up, by midday at the latest. It would then come down to who was the most persuasive, which, linguistically, put Adam at a disadvantage. Everything – life itself – could depend on this Rasannock to translate eloquently for Evangeline.

  Even before dawn’s light, she stirred in his embrace and with a sigh breathed his name against his neck. Clasping her to his length, he swore that sigh would not be his undoing.

  Somewhat later, Rasannock lifted the deer hide flap and, ducking his head, entered. “My uncle has summoned a counsel.”

  Evangeline stirred, stretching her arms from the blanket that encompassed them, and Adam smelled the sweet, musky odor of her body’s lethargy. “This early?” she asked, pushing to a sitting position.

  Rasannock left off his sidelong inventory of Adam and focused on her. “Another visitor has come.”

  “Bonnie Charlie?” she asked more urgently. “He is all right?”

  The young Indian’s plucked brows furrowed. “A Mingo scout for the Swedes. He claims this Englishman stole you from them.”

>   “Impossible,” she said, shoving back a swath of tumbled honey hair. “I am an Englishwoman, not a Swede. And I went with Adam willingly.”

  So, Catamount had bested the fur trapper. Adam had liked the old geezer. “Time we greet this new arrival,” he said, sweeping up his saddlebags.

  Time.

  The way he had it figured, he had just enough time to conclude the negotiations for the land purchase before hightailing his way back to England – by way of Jamestown’s seaport, since Craven certainly would not welcome him with open arms aboard the Sovereign.

  The Counsel House was much like the hut he and Evangeline occupied, only twice as large and hazed, both from the center fire pit and the pipe of peace being passed among the counsel sub-chiefs, all older men. Peering through the smoke that stung his eyes, he searched out his Mingo foe.

  In the center of a circle of men sat an older Indian, draped in a deerskin robe. Wrapped around his waist was a sash of blue cloth decorated with coral and shells. The venerable, dignified man had to be Peminacka. Next to him, Rasannock dropped down in a fluid motion to sit as daintily as a maiden.

  The powerfully muscled Catamount was distinguished by his frayed leggings, deer hide shirt, and straggly topknot stabbed by a single eagle feather. From a woven leather belt was suspended the long-dried scalp of a former enemy.

  The Mingo scout was speaking in an agitated tone. The sachem listened. Then he responded in a grave tone, and Catamount nodded vigorously. With that, Peminacka addressed Rasannock, who uttered some heated response.

  Apparently, a reprimand was issued by his uncle, because Rasannock turned to Adam with a glum expression. “My uncle, he asks – you fight Mingo scout for rights to the woman here, to Mistress Eve?”

  “Utter nonsense,” she spat at Adam’s side, but fear lurked in the shadowed blue eyes. “I belong to no one.”

  He clamped a warning hand on her wrist. He had learned that Indian were addicted to gambling to a prodigious degree. Their tools, their cooking utensils, their clothes, and their weapons would all be staked at games of chance and often their personal liberty upon a single cast of dice. He would make this work to his end purpose.

  “Agreed.” He dug into his saddlebag and withdrew from the oilskin packet one of two parchments, much the worse for wear but still legible. “On the condition that should I win, the great sachem will also affix his name on this deed as having proprietary rights to 1,500 acres along the Susquehanna River and, as firm and legal, sell the acreage to English settlers of the Commonwealth – this in exchange for gold that buys many fine gifts.”

  She shook her head vehemently. “You have lost your mind. You cannot possibly win.”

  Mayhap, he had lost his mind. But he reckoned that without her as his liaison between Peminacka and him, he would lose any hope of acquiring the land. And, at least, he had a chance, by fighting, to keep her here in the colonies and out of Craven’s clutches.

  The reluctant-looking sachem and Rasannock talked at length. Clearly, Peminacka did not want any more white people trampling the Lenape hunting grounds. But there was to balance against that the weighty gleam of gold.

  At last, Rasannock nodded at Adam. “So done – by Lenape terms. No weapons. First to pin shoulders of the other to ground wins.”

  Adam grimaced. He had been hoping for knives as weapons. A knife he could handle. But after the two-day flight with Evangeline in tow – he was as spent as their horses had been. Fighting on equal terms with Catamount, more than his match in height, would require more than strength on Adam’s part; it would require outwitting the savage.

  He reached across and plucked the feather from Catamount’s topknot, and with a growl of rage the big Indian sprang up, in his hand a knife whipped from his leggings.

  Adam grinned for the effect and told Rasannock, “A quill for signing the deed. Have you a pot of war paint?”

  At this Rasannock also grinned and passed on the request to his uncle, who signaled for the paint.

  Within minutes, the deed was signed in vermillion and stowed in Adam’s saddlebag along with the voucher Craven had signed against his mortgaged estates

  And within the hour, the villagers turned out for the wrestling match, an event of unbridled festivity and worthy of the Lenape women wearing their finest jewelry of shells and beads and the men sporting faces painted in vermillion and black. Children peeked from behind their blanketed parents to watch the contest between the two men, red and white. Scrawny mongrels barked at the hubbub and snipped at heels.

  Despite the cold, Catamount was shirtless. For better purchase in the mud, both he and Catamount went shoeless, he in his tight-fitting hose and breeches and his opponent in his breechcloth and leggings. One look at Catamount’s sheened chest told Adam the Indian had gained yet another advantage, this by oiling his skin. Judging by the rank odor, it was done with bear grease.

  Peminacka raised a gnarled hand, giving the signal for the match to start. The two approached each other from opposite sides of the muddied clearing made by the spectators. The rules of the sport were quite simple: each wrestler tried to out-maneuver his opponent in an effort to seize him and toss him to the ground.

  Warily, the two circled each other. Catamount made the first move. He grabbed Adam’s calf with one hand and used his body to drive him backward. A wild cheer went up.

  Adam stumbled, then managed to grip the Mingo’s tree-trunk thigh. With the leverage, he pressed the Mingo scout back. Both still standing, they held each other in a vice-like grip of the head and shoulders. Muscles bulged and strained. The locked pair circled in what might have been a dance of death. Tramped mud made for a slippery stance. Yet neither gained control.

  The Lenape watched in breathless silence. Many of them had wagered on the match.

  Catamount grabbed Adam’s knee and yanked, plopping him on his ass. All Catamount had to do now was press Adam’s shoulders against the ground, and the match would be over. Encouraging shouts went up for the Mingo warrior.

  This was it then – Evangeline would lose her freedom, mayhap her life, and Adam, well, he lost all hope to regain his estates – and, if Craven had any say in the matter, his life, as well. Off to his right, he perceived, incredulously, a tottering Bonnie Charlie, steadied by Evangeline. Blood clotted the codger’s porcupine gray hair and streamed down his forehead.

  Catamount made a sudden lunge, and Adam flung himself to one side. Then he rotated his entire body and in a flash was on top of his opponent. Inch by inch he forced Catamount’s shoulders back. The Indian struggled to escape. His eyes protruded. He gritted his teeth. Sweat poured from his oiled pores. His fingers dug into the mud, and he threw it in Adam’s eyes.

  Disapproval rumbled on the lips of the spectators. It was definitely an illegal move.

  Blinded, he lessened the pressure of his hold. Catamount took advantage of the moment. He rolled to a crouching stance and yanked the knife from inside one legging. His arm swung out in a vicious jab.

  Adam jumped back.

  Catamount swiped the blade again. This time, Adam didn’t move as quickly, and the blade ripped a gash between his ribs on his right side. His explosive grunt felt as if it separated his ribs and sucked his breath from him.

  “Adam!” That was Evangeline’s shout.

  Distracted, he spared her a glance. In that brief moment, Catamount swiped his knife once more, finding the target of the ribs that protected Adam’s heart. He inhaled sharply at the searing parting of his flesh again.

  She tossed him Bonnie’s Charlie’s tomahawk. Catching its haft, he dodged beneath the next jab of Catamount’s knife and with a mighty swing cleaved the Indian’s skull from his topknot down to his nostrils. With spray of blood, the Indian crumbled. It was finished.

  Stunned silence reigned over the crowd. From their dumbfounded expressions, Adam could tell what they were thinking. No Indian could possibly lose a wrestling match to a white man . . . and yet, exactly that had happened. Worse, an Indian had cheated, br
oken the rules. A grim faced Peminacka and the subchiefs turned their backs on the fallen Catamount. The villagers drifted back to their homes.

  Wiping the sweat and slush from his face, Adam staggered and was surprised by Rasannock, who slipped an arm around his waist to hoist him upright. “Come.”

  Evangeline was already in the hut, on her knees, fussing over a supine Bonnie Charlie. She glanced up. “Rasannock, I will need moss. Dried bog moss. And maggots. Find me moss and maggots.” Then beholding Adam’s mud-and-blood-plastered body, added, “And water. Plenty of water.”

  After the young man had departed, Adam slumped against the timbered-and-clay-chinked wall. “How is he?” he asked her, nodding at Bonnie Charlie.

  Without opening his eyes, the old man groused, “The cowardly Mingo damned near took me scalp but was in too much of a hurry to catch up with yew two to finish off his job.” The fur trapper managed one of his toothless grins. “But yew should have seen the three militiamen I laid into with me new whittling knife. The other two high-tailed it back to Fort Christina.”

  She circled the center fire pit to kneel before Adam. In her eyes, he saw anxious concern – the kind of concern shown for a loved one. To be loved. The road of his life had been long and hard and lonely. All these years he had felt that walk it alone he must.

  “Move your hand,” she said briskly, “Let me look at that cut.”

  Barely had she worked loose his ripped doublet’s fastenings, than outside some sort of commotion aroused the villagers. Once more, they trotted past the hut. A cacophony of cries and hoots and whistles and rattles resounded.

  At that same moment, Rasannock entered with a clay pot of water. He was followed by the inordinately tall Gantu in a beaver hat. The man took one look at Adam and asked wryly, “It is you, mon, the One Lucky Devil?”

  “My lacerated ribs would not agree.” However, he did have the signed deed. And that counted for everything. In fact, both signed documents.