Ethan strained at the leather bonds securing his wrists around the tree at his back. But the harder he struggled to free himself, the tighter they became. Aching and exhausted, he slumped against the prickly bark.
He would have to wait. Gather his strength. Should the opportunity present itself, he would need every ounce of his strength to escape.
Zara’s life depended on it.
Over the clearing in the woods another night had descended. Another night of helpless struggle and desperate thoughts. In the distance, a man’s agonized screams rose above the eerie stillness. Even the warriors had grown silent. Those around the fire stood still and listened with stoical expressions.
Ethan tried to ignore the howling cries of Sparks’s courier. But the man’s torture had gone on far too long. His stomach twisted. His nerves frayed.
The man tethered beside him reeked of fear and urine. Rolling his head from side-to-side, he continued to moan softly, “Oh my God, my God…” And he wept. The sound grated on Ethan.
Then came a thrashing in the brush, and the warriors around the fire quietly readied their weapons. Ethan held his breath. Soldiers! It had to be.
But the Indians let out a triumphant whoop. And more of their own numbers streamed into the clearing with prisoners in tow.
Women. He counted five of them. Peggy Shoemaker, her three daughters, and Eb Willett’s wife. Lashed together at the necks and wrists, they looked dazed and pale. Trembling, faces besmirched with dirt and tears, they were led around the fire.
Young Becky Shoemaker stumbled as she passed, nearly falling over Ethan’s feet. She glanced down at him, and horror charged her vacant eyes. Along with flashes of anger. She began shouting. Incoherent words assaulted his senses. He tried to grasp meaning above the discord of women’s voices rising in response.
“I hope you die,” she cried as her captors pulled her away, and a painful wrenching gripped his gut. “You’re to blame for this. You and her! She got what she deserved. Dear Lord, why didn’t I stay to watch her hang?”
Ethan felt the breath escape from his lungs. A terrible cold and shaking ravaged him. He jammed his eyes shut and tried to will away the sight of Becky’s face and the sound of her words. But they continued to echo through his entire being.
Zara was dead!
Suddenly, nothing mattered.
* * *
Jostled from his numbness, Ethan raised his head. Awareness fired his senses. All at once, fear rippled through him as he felt the knife slicing through his bonds. The man beside him was bawling. Women screamed. A chaos of voices echoed through the clearing.
He glanced around as two of his captors hauled him up from the ground. His legs had no feeling. His knees buckled, and the warriors dragged him around the fire. Shaking the last of the lethargy from his brain, he focused on the truss of poles and ropes, and the glistening, half naked warriors armed with sharpened sticks and clubs.
They were going to kill him!
He dug his heels into the ground and tried to resist.
Two more braves descended on him. Even as he struggled, they carried him to the truss and secured his hands above his head.
His heart pounded, drowning out the screams and cries of the other prisoners.
One of the warriors began cutting away Ethan’s shirt. Straining to breathe, he forced himself to look straight at the son of a bitch, right into his eyes. The bastard seemed amused. Another smeared paint across Ethan’s bared chest and face, while yet another, having pulled a flaming brand from the fire, poked it at his belly.
Anticipating its searing pain, Ethan clenched his teeth. His stomach muscles tightened. His arms went rigid. But the torch never touched him. The Indians laughed. The bastard waved the flame past his face, rippling its scorching heat over his cheek.
They were going to toy with him before the torture began in earnest. This was his worst fear, that they would break him first, that he’d scream like a child with a cut finger, and they’d laugh at him some more.
An odd thought. What did it matter if they laughed? He was a dead man.
* * *
On the ramparts, high on the stockade wall, the men shifted uneasily around her. Zara shivered, hugging herself against the chill and her own fear as she listened intently in the quiet darkness. Still, her request to be heard had gone unacknowledged.
And then a voice barked out in the night. From the stand of trees across the open space from the stockade, the words spoken clearly and strongly sent a pang through her heart. The words were Awkwayawaykhah! The language of The People.
Under the white flag hoisted atop the fortification, Sparks grasped her shoulder. “Now tell him we want to talk.”
She drew in a quick breath and called out across the distance.
Small dots of firelight moved in the brush, but again there was no reply.
She glanced uneasily at Sparks. “I think they do not wish to listen.”
Following a long, anxious silence the voice in the distance responded, “Snyay! Kahawkha.”
She turned to Sparks and wet her lips. “He says he will hear us.”
“Ask him where we can talk and when.”
She shouted to the man in the brush.
“Neh! Is oskah. Tehnyatenote,” the man answered. Come alone. You are my sister!
She tensed and cast Sparks an anxious look before replying, “Kaheeawnihiee? Ehywawhjishehtawhaw.”
“Is oskah!” the voice replied.
“What did he say?” Sparks jostled her shoulder.
Her mouth was dry, heart racing, dizzying. “He says he will listen, but I must go to them…alone.” His dour expression told her that the arrangement did not please Sparks. “I ask why he would talk only to me…” she continued softly, “but he does not give a reason.”
My sister!
Sparks set his jaw. His eyes grew narrow. Out of the darkness beyond, the man’s voice came again.
“Khekaw! Kah jih! Koyah tahkawsohtahn!”
“He says I must go now, or I must stay.”
Sparks breathed heavily. “Go then,” he said tightly. Then he grabbed her by the shoulders and stared hard into her eyes. Her arms hurt where his fingers dug into her flesh. “Keep to our agreement. Don’t even think about running. If you so much as try it, by God, I’ll shoot you dead myself.”
Zara stiffened. She returned his gaze, then shrugged free of his hands. “I will keep my word to you.”
Their eyes remained locked, then he backed away and shouted something to the men below. She turned slowly, scanning the dense night for the invisible warrior. “Tkehtahkwa,” she called out, her voice wavering. Then she turned to Sparks. “I tell him I come.”
A man with a musket escorted her to the ladder, where a group of men, armed only with torches, waited at the bottom. They hustled her to the gate. An endless interval seemed to pass before they removed the long, heavy log securing the gate. Three men were needed to swing it open wide enough to allow her to pass through.
Beyond the gate, the dots of light in the brush appeared little more than fireflies cavorting on a summer’s night. Nothing else moved. But they were out there. Watching. Her skin prickled under their vigilant eyes.
Gripped by an intense uneasiness, she glanced back. The men stood, anxious and tense, in the light of their smoky pine twist torches. One of the men hastily motioned her forward. She forced herself to look up at the ramparts. Men trained their rifles on her. Sparks gazed down, his face pale and sombre in the spill of light. He nodded grimly. She drew in a breath to calm her fluttering heart. Squaring her shoulders, she set off toward the dots of light.
The gate closed, and a heavy darkness enveloped her.
Regardless of the outcome, she was free of them. But she shuddered at the thought of what awaited her. If they recognized her. If they knew who she was.
As she neared the stand of trees, a man called to her in the language of the Onatowagah.
“What deception is this? Stand where you are, white woman!” His voice held a note of surprise and disdain. The others with him quietly voiced their own disbelief.
She stopped a short distance from the trees and drew in a calming breath. “It is no deception,” she replied in their tongue.
“You come without fear, white woman.”
“You said we would talk. I have nothing to fear in that.”
“You were foolish to believe me. I thought you were someone else.”
She swallowed down her fear. “You are a brave warrior of the Onatowagah?”
“I am.”
“There is honour in the word of an Onatowagah warrior.”
The others with him in the brush voiced their approval.
“Then tell us what you would say, white woman, and be gone.”
“Do you speak as war chief?”
“I speak for myself!”
Muffled laughter erupted.
Zara raised her voice to be heard. “I bring words for him who is war chief among you. I cannot go until I have spoken these words.”
They whispered among themselves.
“We will take you to our war chief.”
Three men stepped out. Two took her by the arms, while the third barked out commands to others who remained hidden in the trees and brush all around. He headed back into the wood. They followed at a hurried pace.
No one spoke. Her steps blended with theirs in a silent march through the woodland path, over damp leaves and the remaining patches of slushy snow. Her heart churned. Thoughts raced.
A large fire burned in the centre of a small clearing. She saw the light flickering through the barren trees. She smelled fear, long before the sounds of suffering reached her ears.
They led her to the fire. A number of the warriors let out loud, ear wrenching shouts when they hurled her to the ground before the blaze. Stunned, she lay still, gathering the nerve to pull herself up on hands and knees.
“She wishes to speak to our captain!” one of her escorts called out. Soon the clearing took on a pulsing quiet.
Slowly Zara lifted her head. Bound to trees around the perimeter of the circle, the captives held their breath. She felt them, trembling and numb with fear. From across the circle, a group of warriors turned from the man they had tied to poles by the fire. The man’s dark head drooped on his chest. Other warriors stepped out of the darkness and closed in on the fire. Quivering, she raised herself to her knees.
A tall, lean man strode around the fire, and she quickly lowered her head.
“Speak!” His voice roared like thunder.
She knew that voice, though never had she heard it resound with such menace. A new terror rose inside her, and she squeezed her eyes shut, not daring to look up at the man whose shadow enveloped her.
“I have come to bargain for the lives of the captives,” she said, forcing herself to be heard.
“A woman? They send a woman to do their bidding?”
The warriors laughed and pressed closer. One of them poked her hard in the ribs with a stick. She winced.
“Soldiers in the stockade,” she strained to speak through the sudden thickness in her mouth, “would offer themselves in exchange for the prisoners.”
“Who are you?” The power in the man’s tone abated. “By what name are you called?”
She averted her face. “I no longer have a name,” she said hoarsely. “You once knew me as the witch Jiiwi.”
Then she raised her head and looked up into the eyes of the man who was once her husband.
Nichus hulked over her, his painted-warrior face dark with shadows, his eyes gleaming, fire at his back. He said nothing at first, only stared down at her, his expression obscure.
A confusion of voices rose up from the strained silence, voices echoing her former name. The circle closed in around her.
She struggled to her feet. Her legs weakened under what seemed a ponderous weight. Soon they would descend on her in their fear and anger. Their clubs and hatchets would rain on her in a frenzy of pain. She laboured to breathe, aware only of her former name piercing her ears.
Revived by the commotion, Ethan pulled his head up. Pain seared his body where the fire had licked at his flesh. Not really so bad, if he thought about it. He’d been hurt worse before. He could tolerate it, if he set his mind on other things.
But the sudden tumult made it hard to concentrate. All the shouting…
“Jiiwi! Jiiwi!”
What the devil had gotten into them? He could not quite make it out. Across the fire, a great press of men…. He couldn’t tell if they were happy or frightened. Someone stood in the centre of their circle, turning and turning like a trapped animal. He caught a glimpse, a flash of light off hair the colour of wild honey.
No, he had to be dreaming! Or delirious. Zara was dead.
But she moved within the circle of warriors. The young one, the one who had taken his horse…. Damn, if he wasn’t smiling, the crazy bastard! And she called to him. In Zara’s voice. “Hahjanoh!” And she turned again.
Just at the farthest reach of the fire’s light, she turned and met his eye. All colour and expression melted from her face.
Zara’s face.
“Ethan!” Her voice tore a hole in the confusion. She staggered. Silence rippled the night.
“Zara!” His heart raced. With a newfound strength, he strained against his bonds.
The big one. The one with eyes like coal, unmoving and unfeeling, stared at her for a long while, his hands rolled into fists at his sides. Then he turned to Ethan. And the cold one’s eyes grew colder still. Ethan worked harder to free himself.
Zara rushed to the cold one. Clutching at his arm, she spoke in words Ethan did not understand. Impassioned words in frenzied tones, her face urgent. The cold one looked at the captives bound to the trees, and signaled to the others. To Ethan’s surprise, some of the warriors began cutting them free. As the captives, in their consternation, were unceremoniously hauled to their feet and hustled from the clearing, the cold one crossed his arms over his chest and nodded to Zara.
She shook her head and shouted something to the cold one, her voice high-pitched with pleading. He turned his back to her and motioned to some of the other warriors. They flocked to Ethan. One picked up a long pole and struck him with all his might across the shoulders.
Ethan moaned. Pain ripped through his back. He fought against his fading consciousness. “Zara! Save yourself.”
While the warriors occupied themselves with Ethan, Zara desperately sought out Nichus.
Her life, it appeared, and those of the captives would be spared. But Ethan…
Desperately, she rushed into the thick of the activity, shoving bodies from her path with a new and sudden strength.
Nichus turned. His blazing eyes stopped her at once. “You are free to go,” he said to her, his voice low and fierce. “Return to your white friends.”
“Not without this man!”
“This man is a prisoner of war.”
Her thoughts tumbled, one into the next. She spoke without thinking. “A man who cries out in pain and fear brings no honour to great warriors of the Ongweh-oh-weh-ney!”
Another man struck Ethan’s head. Blood trickled over his face. Her heart thundered, nearly silencing his cry, “Get away from here!”
The blood rushed from her head. All melded into a blur. All motion seemed stuck in time. Glancing around in desperation, she plucked a flaming brand from the fire.
“My death will bring you honour!” she shouted.
The warriors all turned to her as one. Their mouths moved, but all sound seemed trapped in time. Nichus lunged toward her. She threatened him with the brand. He stopped in his tracks. And with her gaze locked with his, her jaw set, she took a quick, deep breath, and, without hesitating, thrust her arm into the flame.
The smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils. Oddly, she felt no pain.
The others looked on in consternation.
Ethan shouted, “Zara!”
Nichus pressed toward her and made a move to wrest the brand away.
Again she thrust the torch at him. He threw up his hands and stepped back.
“My life for his,” she said quietly, surprised at the calm, even sound above her drumming heart. She fixed her gaze on Nichus and once more turned the flame on herself.
Pain engulfed her. Her hands trembled. Her knees buckled, but she forced herself to endure. Gritting her teeth against the cry of agony rising and rising, she focused her streaming eyes on Nichus, while Ethan’s voice pierced her heart.
“Za-ra!”
Nichus wrenched the brand from her grasp and tossed it onto the fire.
She staggered. Her arm screamed with pain. A debilitating wave of heat surged through her. Sweat broke out on her face, all over, bathing her in heat. Shaking uncontrollably, she feared she would fall. Nichus’s arm closed around her waist, as her knees gave out.
Gulping down a breath, she pulled herself upright, and pushed Nichus away.
“My life for his,” she repeated loudly. “Or if you will not release him, then I beg you, let me die with him.”
“No, Zara!” Ethan’s protest rippled through her veins.
Nichus reached gingerly for the hand of her injured arm, and taking it by the fingers, looked into her face with a searching gaze. “I do not recognize this woman,” he said softly. “Never have I known her to be possessed of such strength and courage.”
She stared back at him. “I do not recognize this man. Never have I known him to be so cruel and filled with hate.”
The flinty mask that was his face dissolved and she saw Nichus as he once was. “You would give your life in exchange for this white man?” There was a note of confusion in his voice. A note of pain.
“Is there no other way that he might live?”
“And if there were none…?”
She responded without hesitation. “Then I would willingly die in his place.”
He glanced back at Ethan. “He is worth dying for, this white man?”
She shook her head slowly and fought back the rising tears. “He is what I live for.”
Nichus’s features grew doleful. “And this man, he would do the same for you?”
Tears welled in her eyes. “I would never ask it of him.”
She pulled away from Nichus. She hardly felt herself moving through the circle of men, who cleared a path as she approached.
She could feel the battle Ethan waged within himself to remain alert, his eyes glazed with pain, his face and hair damp with blood and sweat. “Go,” he pleaded. “Save yourself.”
Tears clouded her vision. She touched his stubbled face. “I will not leave you.”
His gaze fell on the angry burn on her arm. “What have you done?” A tear rolled over his cheek.
“It is nothing.” His concern for her in the face of death eased her pain.
“I thought you were dead! I couldn’t bear the thought.”
She pressed her cheek to his chest. “You should not have come! You should not have followed me.”
He breathed deeply. “I had to tell you. I want you to know…”
“I never thought I would ever touch you again. You give me such strength.”
His chest rose and fell with the effort to speak. “I need to tell you, Zara! Why didn’t you come to me?”
“Shhh. You must not speak.”
“Listen to me!”
Nichus moved between them and motioned to two of the men. Immediately, they began cutting through the ropes binding Ethan to the truss.
“Kawnoh awkwah, Ethancaine,” she said softly, unable to control the terrible quaking that consumed her. She stepped back. “I love you.”
Ethan cast an uneasy glance, first at Zara, then at Nichus. A look of panic crossed his eyes as the two warriors grabbed him by the arms. “What are they doing? Zara, what’s happening?”
She met his gaze and he grew still. Then a wild look transformed his face and he strained with all his strength to pull free. “No!” he shouted, intensifying his struggle.
She tore her gaze from his face and turned her back on Ethan as the warriors dragged him away. Steeling herself against his shouting, she took his place under the truss.
“Zara, no! Don’t! Za-ra!”
She faltered, drew in a quick breath, then raised her hands over her head and tightly gripped the truss. Whirling under a rising terror, she tossed back her head. Soon he would be released from his promise. No longer would he need to compromise his life for her. The thought gave her courage.
She closed her eyes. She tried to close her mind and her heart to Ethancaine’s protests. But the sounds of his resistance froze up her blood. She trembled, gasped for breath. Expecting to be bound at any moment, she tried to still her fear.
And then all fell silent.
Startled, she opened her eyes.
Ethan stood before her, his face pale. He slowly extended his hand to her. “Zara, come away from there. There will be no more killing.”
She stared at him, a jolt of confusion dashing the fear from her heart. Wide-eyed, she glanced at Nichus. He hung his head and backed away.
Ethan breathed heavily, his eyes filled with wonder. And tears. “Dear God, Zara!”
She reached for him, her hands quivering. She took a step toward him, but a flood of dizziness swept over her like a crushing weight. She stumbled. He caught her, and, clutching her to his chest, sank to his knees.
“Zara!” His breath rustled her hair. She felt him tremble, felt his heart straining. “What were you trying to prove?”
She clung to him. “Ethan…” And she wept.
“Don’t you know? Don’t you see? I can’t live without you.”
She raised her head and gazed at him through her tears.
Tenderly, he brushed back the hair that had fallen over her face. “I want to live my life with you. It doesn’t matter where, so long as we’re together.”
She drew in a breath. “You would have me as I am?”
“It’s you I want. I love you!” He folded her in his arms and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “I would have you no other way.”