When the wolves began to howl, she awoke again. Around her Indians slept, dark, still lumps in the moonlit night. Two stood watch. If her feet weren’t bound, she’d try to flee. Jump atop one of their horses hobbled nearby. As it was, she could only slap at insects bedeviling her as she lay. Ross was just across from her, tied to a tree, head lolled onto his chest in slumber.
In and out of sleep threaded one unceasing thought. Clay, come to me.
Was he even now on their trail? Had he been the one to bury Jasper? Her heart could hardly hold the weight of it. Pa had been too much. Just when they’d begun to make a sort of peace with his empty chair, the pipe and tools and clothes remaining, now this. Yet her life, their lives, were made up of a thousand little losses. Even Keturah’s leaving and Ma’s remarrying were losses too, holding more sadness than joy, leaving a lonesome place. Some said ’twas the way of the frontier, to take and take again. She’d never make peace with that. Wouldn’t life on the Monongahela be the same? Wasn’t the city safer? If Clay was beside her . . .
Life with Clay would be different, aye, because he was different, so far apart from the ragged-edged frontiersmen she’d known. Somehow his Indianness and his whiteness melded to form an experienced, honed survivor of both worlds. Much like Keturah, he was a breed apart, the best of both worlds.
Holding that close, she slept, only to be awakened before daybreak as they took to the trail again, this time at a breakneck pace as if the Indians sensed someone was overtaking them. There was no denying the spiked tension, the heightened wariness. She was equally aware of the Indians’ capacity for sudden violence. Short-tempered, almost childlike in their impatience, they had little tolerance for any show of weakness.
The woods spun by, the autumn smells and sounds of the forest a brittle blur. They were on horseback again, sparing her blistered feet, but her old homespun dress and stockings were being torn to pieces by briars and brambles as they raced on headlong. Morning became afternoon, and their arduous pace began to tell on the horses. Lathered, stumbling, they kept on, but her mare threw her once. Her body was jarred anew by the tumble, which earned her another menacing look.
In time they descended onto a flat plain where buffalo wallowed. A river spread before them, bluer and wider than she’d ever seen. ’Twas more than a river, more a great divide between the world she’d known and the world yet to be. They paused on the bank of a rock-strewn stream that fed into that tremendous river. The Indians were excited now, as if they’d accomplished something by coming here.
She slumped across Blossom’s neck, fingers digging into the coarse mane. Ross was on his feet just ahead of her, several warriors talking and gesturing as they ringed him. He looked toward her, one bare foot in the water. His linen shirt was little more than a dirty gray rag, his britches no better. Dark hair lay lank about his shoulders, a startling contrast to the Indians’ scalp locks and dangling feathers. Her brother looked small. Bewildered. Beyond weary.
The leader gave a thrust of his hand northward. The horses were divided, her brother tied on the mount Jasper had favored. Ross did not look back. Slowly he crossed the stream, and her heart cleaved in two.
With a little cry, she slid off her horse and began a clumsy run toward him.
If he left, if they were parted—
A hard hand spun her around. The tall Indian loomed over her, his painted face so near she smelled his fetid breath. “Ikih!” The commanding word held a warning. He jerked her toward her horse, lifting her onto its broad back, and they were on their way west, not northward like Ross and the warriors with him.
Down the bank she went, plunging into the river’s cold, the current soaking her skirts. There were but six of them now, she at the center. ’Twas getting harder to stay atop her mount. At the end of her endurance, she began to lose hope.
They climbed the opposite bank, the hoofprints seeming of no consequence now that they’d come such a great distance. Her impressions blurred as they climbed another ridge and then descended into yet another forested valley. Fainting or sleeping, she fell off her horse once . . . twice. They tied her back on with wild grapevine.
No grief had been so great as this separation from Ross. Greater than Pa. Than Jasper. Had she not tended him more than Ma? Watched over him, rocked him, soothed him day in and day out when he was little, then delighted in his company when grown?
Stars marked their passage, and a great harvest moon. They pressed on to unknown parts, her hopes unraveling before eroding completely, her prayers unanswered.
30
Though passable riflemen and hardy farmers, the rescue party was slowing him. Harassed by worries of their own homeplaces, their mounts plodding rather than pursuing, they looked to Clay for guidance, for success, and thus far they’d met with one obstacle after another. Two horses were lamed, provisions had been lost in a river crossing, a gun had misfired and injured a hand, and one man was fevered.
At this tempo the Indians would soon outdistance them. Reining in at a salt lick, Clay faced the wearied party. If he was to recover Tessa and Ross, even own a chance at such, he’d have to go ahead of them.
“I’m going to press on with you at my back as fast as you can travel. Jude is a master tracker and won’t lead you astray. If there’s any question as to your whereabouts or mine, fire a single shot, but only one lest the Indians come down on you. I may be close enough to hear it. One way or another, Lord willing, we’ll reunite.”
“How far ahead do you think the war party is?” one man asked.
“A few miles, by my reckoning. We’re close to losing their trail, but I aim to pick it up again.” With that he wheeled round and set off as if breaking a restraint, only Jude realizing his desperation to be free of them.
His pursuit, the coming confrontation, was about far more than recovering Tessa and Ross. It bore a personal grudge, a festering, that would likely end in the death of himself or Tamanen. He felt to his bones his Lenape brother had been the one to wreak havoc at Swan Station, his killing Jasper and capturing Tessa as close to injuring Clay as he could come. Indian grudges went deep, but so did white. He’d borne Tamanen no ill will till now. And he understood the depth of Tamanen’s success in this. Bringing back a white captive—not just any white woman, but one who was affianced to Clay—bore highest honors. And Tessa might burn because of it.
The noon sun was hottest atop the rocky ridge, and a copper snake coiled in his path, then slithered away at the beat of Bolt’s hooves. Fear clawed a new hole in him as he lost the trail and then picked it up again in a shadowed draw, pausing to examine a piece of linen no bigger than a flint. A scrap of apron?
Tessa.
Unbound and on horseback, no doubt, and clever enough to leave sign of her own. He clutched the fabric in one fist and kept on, eyes stinging beneath the brim of his sweat-stained hat. Blessedly iron shod, the Swan horses left undeniable traces yet were remarkably swift. He’d have to press Bolt beyond anything he’d required of him yet if he was to overtake the war party. And if Bolt wore out, threw a shoe, or was lamed . . .
Clay left a buffalo trace and traveled a burned section of forest before reaching a tributary of the mighty Ohio. Here a scuffle seemed to have occurred, the hoof prints deep, the party dividing. Dismounting and allowing Bolt a drink, Clay scanned the opposite shore, knowing he was an easy target in the open. Indecision warred inside him. Which way?
God in heaven, help Thou me.
The wrong path could prove fatal to them all. He dropped to one knee on the stony bank, bent his head in a plea for direction. The hot wind shook the trees overhead, the cicadas raucous.
He mounted Bolt and started into the water, holding his gun high overhead in case of another mishap. His gaze narrowed to the opposite shore, hope rising in his chest.
