Chapter
24
Angelique fell into Miriam’s arms, and she sobbed against the woman’s shoulder, her breath coming in deep, wrenching heaves. After three days of hard paddling back to the island and containing her sorrow, she couldn’t hold it in any longer.
Each stroke away from Pierre, every league between them made the parting more painful and more permanent. It hadn’t helped that Red Fox had driven them with a relentless urgency, constantly looking over his shoulder to the lake behind them and to the shore, with fear creasing his weathered forehead.
“Angel, Angel . . .” Miriam murmured, her gentle hands caressing Angelique’s hair, combing it back from her forehead.
Angelique knew she ought to be happy to return to her beloved island. She should be overjoyed to see Miriam after the weeks apart. But she couldn’t pretend any longer how utterly wretched she was.
She hadn’t known just how wretched she’d been until she arrived at the farm and Miriam pulled her into an embrace. She knew then that nothing mattered to her as much as Pierre. And now he was gone. In fact, he’d left her without even saying good-bye. When Red Fox had awoken her in the early morning darkness with instructions to pack the canoe, there hadn’t been a trace of Pierre anywhere.
Red Fox had answered her questions about Pierre’s absence with grunts. She’d only been able to assume that Pierre had been too hurt and angry and hadn’t wanted to say good-bye.
“Oh, Miriam,” Angelique said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks, “it’s good to see you again.”
“God be praised.” Miriam’s cheeks were wet with tears too. Her beautiful, unseeing eyes shone with both joy and sorrow. “I never stopped praying for your safe return.”
Angelique took quick stock of the farm, the tall weeds, the untended garden with its yellow withered leaves, the fields that were ripe for harvest. All of Pierre’s hard work from the summer was wasting away. Would they be able to harvest enough to last them through the winter?
Yellow Beaver had already entered the enclosed garden and had started picking some of the vegetables that hadn’t rotted. Red Fox had disappeared inside the barn. He’d explained that Pierre had made arrangements for Yellow Beaver to stay with her and Miriam for the winter.
Even so, Angelique couldn’t shake the despair or the fear that had assaulted her the moment she’d stepped onto the beach near Main Street. When she’d walked the sandy path past Ebenezer’s Inn, she’d tried not to think about what he would do to her once he discovered she was back.
She wouldn’t be able to rely on him to help feed her and Miriam in the coming months. Although they’d have Yellow Beaver’s help, would it be enough?
Miriam lifted a hand to Angelique’s cheek after she’d explained all that had transpired during the time she’d been gone. “You’ve changed,” Miriam said, letting her fingers trail over Angelique’s features to do the seeing for her.
Angelique nodded. She felt as though she’d somehow passed a test. As excruciating as it had been to withhold herself from Pierre, she’d done it. She’d done something her mother had never had the strength or willpower to do. She’d done what was right, even though it had been the hardest thing she’d ever accomplished.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the ugly red marks on Miriam’s hand. “Miriam, what happened to your hand?” But she didn’t need to ask. She already knew that Miriam had burned herself over the fire, just as she’d done too many times since her eyesight had failed.
Miriam tried to pull her hand away, but Angelique wouldn’t let go. “Do you have any salve left?”
“I don’t know.”
Miriam’s confession twisted Angelique’s heart.
As she entered the cabin to look for the salve, one glance confirmed Miriam’s plight. There were flies hovering above a piece of molding squash on the table next to the skeletal remains of a fish, the floor was littered with refuse, and the woodbox sat empty. The scent of charred food permeated the stale air, along with the smell of a chamber pot in need of cleaning.
Her friend needed her. No matter what the future held, for the time being she was where she needed to be.
She was smoothing the ointment over Miriam’s burns when Red Fox exited the barn with Pierre’s boyhood canoe slung over his shoulders. He strode toward her with the same confident walk Pierre always had. “Get me a paddle,” he commanded.
Angelique stared at Pierre’s canoe with unease. “Why do you have Pierre’s canoe?” He would be with his brigade in the long vessels crafted to carry pounds and pounds of trade goods out to the Indian winter camps. Once he arrived he’d trade the beads, guns, ammunition, coats and other items to the Indians in exchange for the fur pelts the natives had trapped. He wouldn’t need the little canoe. It was in need of patching anyway.
Red Fox shook his head to her question and then addressed Miriam, “You get Pierre’s paddle. He needs it.”
Miriam’s unseeing eyes seemed to take in everything. Her expression turned serious. “I don’t know where Pierre’s paddle is. But I have one you can give him.”
When Miriam disappeared into the cabin, Angelique glared at Red Fox. “Tell me what’s going on. Why do you need Pierre’s canoe and paddle?”
Red Fox scrunched his brows with a fierceness that may have once frightened her but no longer did. The darkness in his eyes wavered, and he jutted out his chin. “He runs from the Menominee. They hunt him for the Redcoats.”
The news penetrated Angelique like the first hard frost of the fall. Pierre was a wanted man. Why hadn’t she thought of it before?
She could only imagine how angry Colonel McDouall and Lieutenant Steele had been when they’d discovered the empty Black Hole. Such an impossible escape would embarrass them and undermine their authority. She had no doubt they were anxious to get him back and had likely put a price on his head.
“He is fast and smart,” Red Fox said, eyeing the door. “He will come back to you.”
She shook her head. “We aren’t meant to be together.”
“You are good for my brother.”
“You are pledged to another here.” He tapped his head. “But you are pledged to my brother here.” He pounded a fist against his heart. “One pledge can be broken and repaired. The other cannot.”
Miriam’s reappearance silenced any further protest. Angelique sucked in a sharp breath when she saw the paddle Miriam carried, the bright red and blue one that had been hanging above the kitchen table. Angelique had never imagined she’d see it anywhere but on the wall.
Miriam hesitated in the doorway, her fingers caressing the smooth wood of the handle. Then she thrust it toward Red Fox. “Give this to Pierre.”
Red Fox pried it out of Miriam’s stiff grasp.
“I should have given it to him long ago,” she said.
The brave gave the slender piece of brightly painted wood nothing more than a cursory glance. To him it was simply a means for moving a canoe. But Angelique knew it represented much more than that. Maybe Pierre’s father hadn’t given him the paddle like so many voyageur fathers did to their sons. But she could imagine that if Mr. Durant had been there at that moment, if he’d seen the kind of man Pierre had become, a man of faith and integrity, he would have gladly given Pierre the paddle.
But now Miriam was bestowing the heirloom upon Pierre in her husband’s place. And even though Miriam was doing the right thing, Angelique had the urge to grab it out of Red Fox’s hands and return it to the wall.
She didn’t want Miriam to give Pierre her blessing on his fur trading. She didn’t want Miriam to believe Pierre belonged in the wilderness. She wanted Miriam to pray that Pierre would come home and settle down.
But Angelique could only stand back as Red Fox strode away, the paddle under one arm and the canoe on his shoulder.
A tear slipped down Miriam’s cheek, and Angelique reached for her hand.
Miriam tried to smile. “I should have told Pierre I was proud of him.”
“He’ll know that now.”
If he lived. But she bit back the words and squeezed Miriam’s hand.
Somehow Miriam’s acceptance of Pierre’s wandering ways made his choice of fur trading all the more final. Even if he outsmarted those who were searching for him, he would be forever lost to them now.
Pierre huddled in the shallow, crumbling mound. Sticks poked into his wet shirt and scraped his back. His feet dangled in the icy water at the opening of the abandoned beaver lodge. He’d hunched inside the dome as tightly as he could, and now he prayed the decaying structure wouldn’t topple down around him. At least until his pursuers passed by.
Outside, the splashing of footsteps going against the current alerted him to the approach of one brave who had been steadily trailing him.
Pierre held his breath and hoped the brave wouldn’t notice the pile of sticks hidden along the edge of the riverbank beneath a tangle of dead leaves. Of course Pierre had spotted it. Over the years of trading he’d become an expert in locating beaver lodges. Hopefully the brave wasn’t an expert too.
The brave’s sloshing slowed. Pierre’s stomach rumbled, and he pushed his fist into his belly to silence it. He’d been running for days, hardly sleeping and rarely eating, always trying to stay one step ahead of his enemies. He didn’t know how much longer he could keep going.
From the shortening days he knew that September would soon pass into October. And if he hoped to make it to the Chippewa winter camp, he had to set out for it soon.
He closed his eyes, exhaustion crashing over him like the rapids he’d just swum across. His body was numb, his hands cracked. His boots were in shreds, and his feet were now bruised and bleeding, leaving him no choice but to stay in the river so that he could wash away any trace of his blood.
He’d been praying ceaselessly. He’d decided that even if the Menominee captured him, he was trusting in God’s strength this time. Whether God gave him life or death, he wasn’t relying on his own efforts alone.
Perhaps God had given him another trial to drive him back to his knees and turn him into a man of prayer. Maman had always prayed for him. Maybe it was time to start praying for himself. Over the past days of running, he’d prayed about everything, including his angry parting with Angelique. Every time he remembered the way they’d left each other, he wanted to go back in time and redo it.
He’d only been thinking about himself. And when he thought back over his life, he’d come to the conclusion that he’d spent most of his life focused on doing what he wanted without much consideration for anyone else. He’d made the majority of his decisions to please himself.
He was ashamed to admit that even his decision last summer to give up fur trading and stay on the island had been all about his need for Angelique. He hadn’t thought much of what Maman had needed, or even what Angelique needed. He hadn’t thought about what would be best for her, that maybe she wanted someone in her life more reliable, like Jean, and that maybe he had tempted her into cheating on Jean.
The honorable thing would have been to wait to pursue her until after she’d called off her engagement with Jean. He hadn’t been fair to her or Jean.
Jean hadn’t deserved to have him come onto the island and woo Angelique into his arms. Why had it taken him so long to see that?
The splashing outside the beaver lodge grew faint, and he allowed himself to breathe again, sucking in gulping breaths saturated with molding leaves and damp moss. He closed his eyes again, unable to fight the exhaustion any longer. The dark coldness of the hovel closed in around him.
Angelique didn’t need someone like him, someone who was constantly facing danger and death. Look at him now, curled up inside a beaver lodge, trying to outwit his pursuers.
He would have laughed at himself if he hadn’t been so cold and tired. Instead, for the first time in days, he allowed himself to fall into a deep sleep. And his last thought before weariness claimed him was that Angelique would be better off with Jean.
He only wished he’d realized that sooner, before he’d broken her heart.