He spoke in a language she’d never heard before, and all she could do was shake her head. “I don’t understand. I’m sorry. I was just...” She swallowed, trying to force moisture into her mouth so she could finish her sentence. “I was just collecting firewood. I didn’t mean to trespass.”
He spoke again, and she hugged the wood to her chest. He wasn’t happy. That much was evident by the stiffness with which he held himself, by the way his words were sharp and clipped, by the serious glint in his eyes.
More rustling sounded, this time from behind her, and she had a sick feeling the Indian wasn’t traveling alone.
A metallic click echoed through the woods—the sound of another gun being cocked.
Dear heavens. How many guns were they going to point at her? Surely they didn’t expect her to try to fight them. What would she do? Throw a piece of kindling at the warrior’s chest?
Someone started talking behind her. She still didn’t understand the language, but there was something familiar about the timbre of the voice.
She shifted slightly, just enough to glimpse the speaker.
Mikhail. The breath rushed from her lungs in a giant whoosh. He was here. In the forest. Talking to the Indian with his own gun pointed at the Indian’s chest. He looked nothing like the man who had offered to help with her tent a half hour earlier. Everything about him was stiff and serious. His shoulders were tight, his eyes were sharp, and his jaw was set in a hard line.
But that didn’t deter the Indian, who seemed to be getting even more upset as the conversation progressed. Then two more Indian men stepped from the trees—also holding guns.
Like the first, they were dressed in furs and leggings, with beadwork adorning the edges of their clothing. Their hair was the color of the blackest night, and their eyes endless pools of the same shade.
One of them pointed his gun at Mikhail, but the third Indian—the youngest of the group—slung his rifle over his shoulder and headed straight toward her.
She’d thought her muscles had been tight before, but she could feel them turning into stone as the man approached.
“Stand up and stay still,” Mikhail whispered. “He wants to touch your hair.”
“My hair?” she squeaked.
“Just stand there, Bryony.”
She did as Mikhail asked, ignoring the fact that her chest suddenly felt as though it was filled with a thousand shards of glass, and the simple act of breathing caused pain to slice through her lungs.
The man approached her with deliberate steps, his dark eyes locked on hers as though trying to soak in every last detail about her. Her breathing turned shallow and rapid, and she pressed her armful of wood even tighter to her chest. It was probably ridiculous, seeing how the wood could do nothing to protect her. But at least it gave her something to squeeze.
The Indian man circled around her once, then slid off his fur mitten and reached out to stroke her hair.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
He slid his fingers through her hair a second time, then said something in his foreign tongue.
“I... I don’t understand. I’m sorry.”
He spoke again, but this time he must have been talking to the other Indians, because they both answered. Conversation swirled around her, but she could do nothing other than wait. Her palms slicked with sweat inside her mittens, and moisture beaded along the edge of her hair as the conversation progressed.
Mikhail finally spoke again in the Indian’s tongue.
The man, still touching her hair, glanced at Mikhail once, then reached down and unsheathed the knife hanging from his belt.
“Mikhail...” she gasped. “Are they going to... What are they going to do to us? Are they going to kill us?”
“No. They want to take you captive. I’m trying to negotiate your release.” His voice was flat and even.
“Negotiate?” she screeched. “You mean that taking me captive is a possibility?”
“There are three of them and two of us, and you don’t have a gun.” There was that calm voice again, as though he didn’t find the idea of being captured by Indians the slightest bit frightening.
“So if you can’t n-negotiate something they like, they’ll?—”
The Indian in front of her started talking again, his eyes roving over her hair and skirt.
