Lord of the Wilderness Page 11

  Two Eagles darted a glance at the sleeping Mary. For a second, warmth, tenderness and protectiveness showed on his passive face. He covered Mary with a piece of cloth so her fair skin would not burn from the sun. He knew Juliet watched him but did not acknowledge her. He didn’t turn away either, which was as close to proper etiquette as the Indian ever allowed.

  * * *

  The sun reached its zenith and descended, casting long, late afternoon shadows. Joshua stuck his paddle in the murky depths to avoid a rock. Like layers of a river bottom, Juliet kept parts of herself secret. Before Joshua entered a British stronghold, he intended to know her political leanings. “What is your opinion of the war?”

  She sat quiet, gathering her thoughts, twisting her opinions in her hands. “War is terrible. Is there not an answer to stop it? Put a gun in the hands of men and they will use them. Give them mottos and they’ll turn them into a reality. Sing the battle hymns to glorify them. The beating of the war drum surges the blood of men to a maniacal fervor. Maiming and killing ensue. When it is over, and if they have survived, it is the widows and orphans who are left to pick up the pieces.”

  He steered the canoe up onto a sandy bank. Two Eagles covered the canoe with hemlock boughs. Joshua heaved packs on his shoulder and proceeded up a deer path through the forest.

  She sighed from behind him. “I’ve seen and heard glimpses of both sides. There is persecution of Loyalists, men stripped, tarred and feathered. Some hanged. The taking of their lands. Women and children taken hostages, some women raped and scandalous depredations committed.”

  “Patriots are not all murderers.”

  “Neither are they all Sir Galahads, but with the atrocities at the Hayes’ farm, I can imagine what Loyalists have done to unsuspecting and peaceful settlers…and as I fear what Captain Snapes has ordered Onontio to do to unsuspecting farmers and the forts to the south.”

  Joshua tensed, worried, too.

  “Is there any way we can warn them, Joshua?”

  “You are starting to sound like a Patriot.”

  “I only care for defenseless people. Patriot or Loyalist.”

  “I need to find an outpost to relay a message.” To someone he could trust.

  At a clearing, hidden from the river, he tossed the packs to the ground and waited while the women traveled into the shrubs to relieve their needs. No fire would be laid tonight. No need to alert Onontio to their presence if he had followed them.

  Juliet returned. “If the Patriots win which seems impossible against the most powerful country in the world, I wonder what future generations will say about England.”

  He signaled to Juliet to follow him, picked up his long gun and trudged to the river, confident when he heard her soft footsteps padding behind him. “The defenders of a destroyed old regime have to wait before history does them justice. Their conquerors write the accepted history books. As a consequence, the defenders will be credited with many infamies and encrusted with the mud of prejudice.”

  “As always, the logic exposes no blemishes credited to the one side and few virtues to the other.”

  He stopped, and she collided into his back nearly plummeting him headlong into the river.

  She grabbed his arm to haul him back and her touch burned through his shirt. “Sorry,” she said, dropping her hand, and a blush stole up her cheeks. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

  “Not to worry.”

  She smiled with his absolution and her face took on a mesmerizing radiance, and then he followed her searching gaze over the river. Loons ducked beneath the water and emerged several feet away.

  “Two Eagles and I remain neutral, merely fur traders trying to eke out a living and staying out of the fray.” He didn’t dare tell her he was to scrutinize Fort Oswego’s defenses. Too dangerous of a weapon to put in her hands.

  She drew up beside him, her shoulder brushing his. He tried not to look at how her dress stuck to her like a second skin, tried not to look at her breasts pushed impudently against the doeskin.

  Side by side they stood in companionable silence, peace descending with the setting sun, and he wondered momentarily how it would be to have this woman by him for the rest of his life. He shook the notion aside. A dragonfly skittered across the water. A bass jumped, caught it in its jaws and disappeared forever in the murky depths. “Living in the wilderness during this war, you live or die. There is no middle ground.”

  Juliet harrumphed. “Such is the madness of men. Now why have you brought me to the river?”

  “I want to teach you how to load and unload a gun without alarming Mary.”

  “You expect trouble?”

  “We must be prepared and having one more person to help wont’ hurt.” He positioned the butt end of his long gun to the ground and gave her the powder horn. “Pour a little down the muzzle, and then press the ball straight down the barrel with the ramrod.” He moved behind her, anchoring his feet beside hers, and then placed his hands over hers, close enough to smell her scent.

  Juliet’s heart hammered with his strong arms about her, finding an incredible consolation in the gentleness of his grasp. He’s teaching you to protect yourself.

  He lifted the gun. “Pull back on the hammer and put a little powder in the pan.”

  His hand curled beneath the gun. She hesitated, studying his long, strong fingers, hands of a man of the forests, callused by hard work and hard weather—a frontierman’s hand, one that held a tomahawk and a long gun and killed people. How could it be the same hand that patiently taught her to load a gun?

  Do not read any more than what is there.

  Hadn’t he told her the fake marriage was the only way he could ensure her safety?

  She stepped away and faced him. “Do you think you’ll ever return to England?”

  Joshua stared at her, and she savored the progression of expressions that transformed his face: surprise, scorn, and finally shuttered blankness.

  “What makes you think I come from England?”

  He surprised her by reaching out and gently tracing his finger along her cheek. “Soft,” he said with a wolfish grin.

  She was not sidetracked and relished his uneasiness. “Your accent comes through despite your effort to conceal it.”

  “I come from Boston.”

  She cast her gaze farther into the dimmed and flickering shadows, the lofty, straight trunks of hickory, walnut and maple rose to touch the sky, topped by a canopy of meandering fox grape. She regarded him critically. “You may have come from Boston but you are not from Boston. You can’t hide your midlands English accent from me.”

  “You are an authority?”

  From a hole in a floating log, a slippery muskrat swam out, sat up to inspect them, and then slid into the water. Joshua’s sarcastic tone confirmed he was evading something and she smiled inwardly. Her probing, inflamed an acerbic response. She’d ferret out what he was concealing soon enough.

  “I’m from Leicestershire near Lincolnshire. There is a distinct intonation. You can’t change those clipped vowels. Have you been in the Colonies long, Mr. Hansford?”

  “Long enough.”

  He might deflect with his authoritative tone but she wasn’t fooled for a second. She burst out laughing with her small victory. Oh, to push through that veneer of his.

  He took the gun from her and sighted. What magnificent skill he must have to have earned him his reputation. “I will not shoot. The sound might invite trouble. When you get to be an expert, you’ll be able to load the gun four times a minute. In time, I’ll teach you to shoot.”

  “What do you do when you are not trapping? Do you have a place to call home?”

  “I have a little patch of earth up in the Mohawk Valley with a small cabin. Eventually, I want to farm. The soil is fat and lusty and everywhere a man spits, plants grow. Cherry trees that fruit like clusters of grapes. All sorts of fowls, to take at our pleasure. Nuts as big as eggs. The river flows with lush green grass within the shelter of a mount
ain.”

  Such eloquent descriptions for a fur trapper. And he had the most extraordinary profile she’d ever seen. If she were a portrait artist, she’d define the contours and sharp angles, and capture the light and shadow that made his visage even more handsome. His eyes caught an errant gleam of waxing light, and for a hair’s breadth of a second, she glimpsed pain and stark wrenching anguish before it vanished.

  Lies and secrets, they were like a cancer to the soul. They ate away what was good and left destruction. She should know. She was the greatest practitioner of keeping secrets.

  She dragged her palms against her gown, trying to scrub away the painful emotions of her past, realizing not once had he answered her question regarding his origins. She had liked the way his voice deepened, telling her of his home in the Mohawk Valley, and it was as if she were seeing what he described. The cabin, snug and warm in the winter, with smoke curling from the chimney. Or cool in the summer, with the door open to catch a breeze. Tall grass waving in the meadow along with dazzling colored wildflowers and a bubbling river to swim through on hot summer days.

  “Sounds like paradise,” Juliet whispered. A blue jay darted out from the leafy shore, a flying flash of the sharpest blue, and passed so close Juliet might have reached out her hands to touch it. A place called home elusive as the blue jay. Where did she belong?

  Her cousin, a British officer had the power to return her to England. What was there for her? Loneliness? Her heart seized, split amid two domains and at the mercy of fate.

  * * *

  Joshua skirted the boundaries of their encampment, making sure they were safe although he was assured Two Eagles had already performed the task. Juliet stifled a yawn as they entered their camp. He imagined her craving a month of sleep from her ordeal.

  “Where have you been?” said Mary, her manner accusing Juliet of desertion. “I was alone with—”

  “He won’t eat you if that is what you think, Mary.” Joshua chuckled and set down his gun while Two Eagles unwound the sinews binding the fur packs, snapped out a large bearskin, and made a bed on the ground. Joshua was weary, his leg ached, but he’d not get a wink of sleep with two skittish females and the sleeping arrangements. “Juliet, tell me more of your life in England.”

  “Why?”

  She placed her hand on her gold cross. A movement he’d come to realize as a defensive gesture. “There’s nothing interesting.”

  “Try me.” He narrowed his eyes on her and she turned away, removing corn cakes and salty deer jerky, setting the meal on a stump for everyone to sup. She offered him a piece of jerky, and he refused to release her hand.

  Mary gave a disgusted snort. “Since she won’t speak, I’ll speak for her. She is really Lady Juliet Faulkner. Her father was Baron John Faulkner.”

  Juliet glared at her friend.

  “Lady Juliet Faulkner?” He dropped her hand. She had said her full name during the wedding ceremony and he’d paid no special attention, yet it was beyond his wildest imagination, she was the daughter of Baron Faulkner.

  “And you were going to tell me this fact, when?” His father had purchased an obsidian-black Arabian from Baron Faulkner, a lesser baron from the northeast of Derby County and renowned for his horses.

  Juliet lifted her shoulders. “My title certainly makes no difference. My father died. My uncle took over the baronetcy.”

  Mary plunked her fists on her hips. “What she didn’t tell you was when her father died, his younger brother was quick to seize the baronetcy, appropriating all tenements, lands, monies, rents, freehold profits and manor. Except for a small broken-down cottage, nothing had been provided for her by her father. Not that that was any surprise.”

  “I’m warning you, Mary.”

  Joshua was getting a vague idea of Juliet, yet there was more to her story. “How does a gently-reared noblewoman learn midwife skills?”

  “I learned from Moira. She was a midwife.”

  His sister, Abigail on no occasion would be allowed to dabble in any kind of trade. For a woman of nobility to get her hands dirty was considered scandalous. “Your father encouraged this activity?”

  There was a catch in her voice, a sadness and he presumed it had something to do with her father. Why would Baron Faulkner allow his daughter to perform inferior tasks with common people? And why would he leave his only child a tumbled down shack to live in for the rest of her life?

  Juliet plunked down next to a tree, her arms wrapped around her drawn up knees, the hem of her doeskin dress tugged down to cover her shapely ankles and a picture of misery. “Moira wasn’t just my nanny. She had been trained as a midwife in Ireland and later became my mother’s lady’s maid. Because of her special talents, Moira was called upon in the local villages to assist mothers in labor. No one cared what I did with my time. At thirteen summers, I followed her, and she trained me.”

  Joshua stretched the thigh Onontio had sliced open, then grimaced. “Still doesn’t answer my question. How did your father allow you to practice the trade?”

  When she seemed disinclined to talk, Mary said, “Her father knew nothing of it.”

  “Shush, Mary. Not one more word.”

  “You will not shush me. It is nigh time you faced the truth concerning your horrid—

  Juliet rose, placed her hand over Mary’s mouth. “Not one more word.”

  * * *

  Juliet’s body ached and her eyes grew blurred staring at the cold hard ground and then at the soft warm fur. Two Eagles and Joshua lay down on the furs, leaving a place in the middle for the women. She didn’t even ask. She tiptoed to the edge and lay down in the center of the furs.

  “There is no way I’m going to sleep next to a savage.” Mary stood with her back plastered against a hickory, interrupting the quiet babble of the river as it beat upon a nearby sandbar. “No doubt the heathen’s skill with a knife is celebrated. I’ll never turn my back on him. He’ll cut my heart out and hold it before my eyes, a second before I die.”

  Two Eagles glared at her and turned his back.

  Joshua gave an exaggerated sigh. “Be my guest, Mistress Mary. Sleep wherever you like. If a wolf carries you off or Onontio secrets you away, it will not disturb my sleep. However, if you wish to be protected you will sleep in between us. Your virtue will be safe. We are both honorable men. Two Eagles has many Indian maidens who vie for his attention. He does not thirst for an unwilling maid.”

  Mary lifted her chin. She ripped off shaggy bark from the tree behind her and flung it to the ground. “Indian maidens! I’ll take my chances.”

  Two Eagles spoke quickly in his native tongue.

  Mary shot daggers at him. “What did he say?”

  Joshua punched a fur into a pillow. “He said to be careful of rattlers. They love to cozy up to a warm body at night.”

  “Snakes.” She flew to the blanket and cuddled next to Juliet, distancing herself from Two Eagles.

  Juliet heard the deep rumble of Joshua’s chuckle as he rose to check the river, she presumed to guarantee they were not followed. She waited until he was out of earshot and whispered to Mary. “You should be more appreciative of what these brave men are offering.”

  “He probably lives in one of those silly wigwams that blows over with the first wind.”

  Two Eagles grunted.

  “The savage can’t even speak English. He simply grunts. Imagine the King’s language denigrated. Nothing near this world is civilized.” She flounced around to get comfortable. “It’s terribly cold.”

  Two Eagles settled a fur over the two girls.

  “I thought you said he wasn’t civilized,” Juliet said.

  Mary sniffed. “He’s quiet and aloof, observing things around him with a detached curiosity as one might observe ants on an anthill struggling to carry off a crumb of bread.”

  “I think he watches you.”

  The croaking frogs filled the silence.

  Mary ran her hands through her hair. “At the very least, I could offer h
im a friendship yet he has shown not the slightest interest other than to point and growl and order me around. In fact, rarely does he look my way if he can avoid it. But I’ll admit he is quite comely in his savage way. If I were to compare him to an ancient, it would be Alexander the Great, lithe, muscular, graceful.”

  Juliet coughed. “You call Two Eagles graceful?”

  “Dear Lord, the man moves like a panther. Sneaks up on me and gives my heart a shake. Maybe it is the forbidden nature of a white woman attracted to a savage. I’ve yet to sort it out. Thank God, he doesn’t understand me. Not ever would I fan his vanity with all those Indian maidens chasing him.”

  “You sound jealous.”

  “Ridiculous.” She flounced over, her back to Juliet. “Onontio and his band proved crueler in their crimes, atrocities and outrages than what my father preached in his sermons. Men savages, what is the difference? Every single one of them is the scourge of nature, much like rats, fleas, lice or the plague. I’ll never trust any man again.”

  Juliet sighed. “You are referring to Baron Bearsted who represented the worst kind of betrayal. Your young heart was tricked by a deviant man who lied, promising an impressionable girl a life way beyond her strictures, and—promising marriage when he already had a wife. He seduced you with sweet words and luxuries to gain a son who he’d keep, and then threw you out.”

  “My trust was forever broken. The lies Baron Bearsted cast were enough to cement disbelief in any truth expressed by any man.”

  “In time, you will heal your skepticism, Mary. There are good men out there. Haven’t Joshua and Two Eagles shown us sacrifice and protection when we needed it the most? Are they not good men?”

  Soon, Mary’s soft snores came from the side of her. Juliet threw back the fur and walked to the river. Tired as she was she could not sleep. Joshua drew out of the shadows and startled her.