The midmorning sun warmed Brock’s back as he guided Valor across the stretch of Piney Branch Creek bordering Jonah’s farm. Oddly, he still thought of the land as belonging to Uncle Jonah.
He reined his horse to a stop and gazed at the acres of infant corn he’d come to tend. Pride welled up inside him at the sight of the rows of emerging green plants. It didn’t matter that he would never reap any monetary benefits from the harvest. The land, and what it produced, belonged to Annie and his unborn cousin. Until the crop was safely harvested and Annie had delivered her child—or an army posse found him and took him away in chains—Brock would see to it that Jonah’s heritage was preserved.
Thinking of the day he must leave, Brock’s heart throbbed with the ache of loss. He no longer dreaded whatever sentence a court-martial might mete out. All other punishments paled when compared to his inevitable separation from Annie.
Annie.
The ache inside him deepened. Never before had a woman so completely captured his heart. Her beauty, courage, and sweet heart far surpassed that of any other woman he’d met. He still marveled at her willingness to forgive him.
The corner of his mouth drew up in a wry grin. He would have wagered that she’d find him despicable the instant she learned of his desertion. Instead, she’d offered to sacrifice the land she so desperately wanted to keep in an attempt to save his life.
He’d never before seriously considered marriage. So it seemed an excruciatingly cruel twist of fate that he should now—while living on borrowed time—find a woman who, with one flash of her dimpled smile, could entice him to the domestic life. What tortured his heart without mercy was his impression that, were he free to offer them, Annie would not rebuff his attentions.
In his frustration, he kicked his mount’s sides harder than necessary, causing the horse to neigh his displeasure.
As he neared Annie’s cabin, a building sense of unease gripped Brock. The absence of Cap’n Brody’s eager welcome triggered alarm bells inside him. Something was amiss.
He scanned the area, quiet except for the persistent bellowing of the milk cow. Annie should have milked the cow hours ago and staked her to a patch of grass beside the cabin.
Brock dismounted and tied the horse to a sapling. Keenly alert, he slipped his musket sling from his shoulder. Always loaded, the weapon would need only a powder prime.
He poked his head in the cabin’s open door and fought the fear marching up his spine. “Annie? Annie, are you here?”
Nothing.
He stepped into the deserted cabin and walked to the hearth. The fire had gone out. With the toe of his boot, he kicked at the cold ashes, which showed no signs of having been banked the night before. Above the mantel, Jonah’s brown Bess hung in its usual place.
Brock’s smoldering fear blazed into full-blown panic.
He raced from the cabin. “Cap’n Brody! Cap’n! Here, boy!”
Nothing answered but the bawling cow and Brock’s own heart pounding in his ears. Then, as he rounded the cabin, a faint whining led him to where the land sloped toward the creek.
A sick feeling cinched his gut. Cap’n Brody lay in the high grass, his head caked in dried blood.
Brock slung the musket to his shoulder and scrambled down to the dog’s side. Kneeling beside the injured animal, he stroked Cap’n Brody’s scruffy coat. Gnats swarmed around a deep gash, still oozing blood, beside the dog’s right ear.
“Poor fellow. What’s happened here? Where’s Annie?”
Cap’n Brody whimpered and raised his snout. His rough pink tongue crept out to lick Brock’s hand. The big, stout-hearted dog’s effort to show affection despite his grave injury pricked Brock’s heart. Cap’n Brody would never have allowed harm to come to Annie without putting up a fight. And Brock feared that was exactly what had happened.
Standing, Brock scanned the area for signs of a struggle, anything that might hint at what had taken place.
A few feet to his left, he noticed a smooth impression in the mud near the edge of the creek. He ran his fingertips over the indention. Something had been dragged into the creek. Near the drag marks Brock found cut elderberry bushes and willow saplings covering a large patch of mashed grass.
His years of scouting experience told him something had been hidden here, probably a canoe.
He eyed the muddy bank closer for footprints. Two sets of smooth-soled prints suggested moccasin-shod feet. He found only one smudged, partial print of a bare foot roughly the size of Annie’s.
Had Annie been taken by Indians? Fear yanked another knot in Brock’s gut. It was possible Annie had found Cap’n Brody injured and had gone for help. But common sense and Brock’s scouting experience contradicted that conclusion. If she had needed help, wouldn’t she have come to him first? And she would never have neglected the hearth or the cow.
Cap’n Brody’s soft whimper dragged Brock’s attention back to the dog. Before he could search for Annie, her faithful protector needed his immediate attention.
Brock hefted the nearly hundred-pound dog in his arms with a grunt. Although the thought of carrying the big animal up the incline to the cabin was daunting, he knew the dog’s great size had saved him. A lesser animal would never have survived so devastating a blow.
Inside the cabin, Brock laid the dog in his favorite spot near the hearth. He sliced off a hunk of smoked venison from the ham hanging beside the chimney and placed the meat and a bowl of water near Cap’n Brody’s muzzle.
Brock knelt and stroked the dog’s side, which rose and fell with the animal’s labored breaths. “I’ll see you’re taken care of, Big’un, and the mule and cow, too.”
Cap’n Brody answered with a soft whine, his brows alternately lifting and falling as he eyed Brock with a soulful look.
“Don’t worry, I’ll find Annie,” Brock said as much to himself as to the dog. “If she’s alive, I’ll find her.”
It was nearly midday by the time Brock approached the Dunbar cabin with Annie’s cow and mule in tow. Leaving the animals in the care of the Dunbars’ twelve-year-old son, Jeremiah, with orders to milk the cow, he sprinted to the family’s cabin. To reach the front door, he was obliged to wade through half a dozen chickens, a spotted pig, two dogs, and three-year-old Isaac Dunbar.
Though tempted to forgo social niceties, Brock stopped at the open doorway and dragged off his hat. He poked his head through the cabin’s entrance and was met by the aroma of stewed chicken and boiling root vegetables. “Please excuse me, Mrs. Dunbar, but have you seen Annie?”
Bess Dunbar stopped pushing a wooden spoon around a kettle suspended over the hearth fire. Wiping her hands on her apron, she turned toward Brock, her plump, smiling face rosy from the heat. “Brock, come in. We’ll be havin’ dinner soon. Won’t you—”
“No … thanks.” Brock hated being short with Bess but every second seemed precious. “Have you seen Annie today? She’s not at her place. The cow hasn’t been milked, and the dog looks to have been clubbed.”
Bess gasped, her voice barely lifting above a whisper. “No. I haven’t seen her since Sunday.” Fear flickered in Bess’s widening eyes. “Somebody killed Cap’n Brody?”
Brock shook his head. “No, he’s not dead, but he’s in a bad way. Don’t know if he’ll make it.” He then told her what he’d found.
Bess blanched and sank to a chair. “Do you think it was Indians?”
“What was Indians?” Obadiah entered the cabin, his broad, bearded face pulled long with concern.
Her eyes welling with tears, Bess looked to her husband. “Obadiah, Annie’s missin’, and somebody liked to clubbed Cap’n Brody to death.”
The preacher crossed the cabin floor to his wife.
“I told her she shouldn’t stay out there alone. I told her….” Bess’s voice snagged on a sob.
Obadiah grasped Bess’s hands, then placed a kiss on her stricken face. “You mustn’t fret, Bess. God is with her. You know that.”
Obadiah turned to Brock. “How long?”
“By the look of things, fourteen—maybe sixteen—hours.” Saying it aloud increased the urgency straining at Brock’s every nerve. Instead of talking about it, he needed to be out there looking for her. He plopped his hat on his head. “I’m going after her.”
“Wait.” Obadiah crossed to Brock in two quick steps. He clasped a restraining hand on Brock’s shoulder. “I just came from Buxton’s Trading Post. Gray Feather is there warning folks of unfriendly Shawnee in the area.” The piercing look in Obadiah’s eyes filled Brock’s chest with an almost suffocating fear. “Gray Feather said a white woman was seen late last evening, traveling south along the White River with two Shawnee. Shawnee not from any local tribe.”
Annie sat in the dim light of the wigwam and tried not to shake. Three weeks of travel with her captors had brought her here, deep in the forests of Ohio on the banks of a river the men called Auglaise.
Hugging her knees tight to her chest, she pressed her back against one of the round structure’s sapling supports. She strained to focus on the muted sounds outside. Though she could hear only a jumble of unidentifiable noises, nothing seemed alarming.
In the minutes, perhaps an hour, since the old woman who’d brought her into the place left her alone, Annie had retreated into herself. Fearing what might become of her, she hadn’t wanted to hear, see, feel … think. But as the paralyzing fear loosened its grip, her senses tingled to life again, and she became keenly aware of her surroundings.
First, she noticed the smell. Not at all disagreeable, the aroma of a potpourri of dried herbs seemed almost calming. Her gaze wandered the shadowy interior of the room. She could make out two dozen or so bundles of drying herbs hanging from the wigwam’s support poles. A plethora of brightly decorated clay pots dotted the space in a haphazard kind of fashion. Baskets, some covered and some left open, held various items. They lined the room’s perimeter. A deerskin was stretched on a drying rack, the fur still on, but scraped clean of the meat.
Two, what appeared to be, low beds adjacent each other stretched to her left. Each was comprised of six short, forked sticks stuck in the ground—three at the head and three at the foot. Long poles rested in the forks. Over these were laid fragrant pine boughs covered with soft-looking deerskin.
A shallow, round, ash-lined pit dominated the center of the room. Blackened stones bordered its circumference. Obviously a cooking area, it was probably only used in inclement weather as Annie had seen another such fire pit filled with glowing coals a few feet in front of the wigwam.
She ran her hand along the floor next to where she sat. It was, without question, dirt. But it had evidently been pounded rock-hard and somehow treated until it was smooth as polished stone.
Was this to be her home? And with whom would she share it? Papa had often told stories of Shawnee braves taking women from white settlements for wives. Was it for that propose she’d been abducted? And if so, which of her captors planned to claim her?
She ventured a fearful look at the skin-covered beds and her mind froze, refusing to fashion the unthinkable thought. Hot tears flooded her eyes.
Ne perde pas le courage. Her father’s frequent admonition to never lose courage rang in her ears.
Then, like a quiet, small voice, the words from the thirty-first Psalm washed through her troubled mind like a soothing balm. “Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord.” God had not left her. Whatever unimaginable terrors awaited her, she would not have to go through them alone.
Unbidden thoughts of Brock nudged their way into her mind. Would he even try to find her? It hurt to think he might sell the land in her absence. But perhaps that was why God had allowed her to be taken—to provide Brock with the means to hire legal defense. On the other hand if he simply abandoned the land, squatters could claim it.
A sudden flash of light and stirring of air shattered her musings and drew her attention to the doorway. Someone had flipped back the flap of hide that covered the wigwam’s opening. Annie’s heart leaped to her throat as a shadowy form appeared in the glare.
When her eyes adjusted to the changing light, surprise and relief vied for dominance in her pounding chest. A young woman about her age stood before her.
“Mot-kee-oock-tha, An-nee.” The woman shook her head as she came nearer. “N’ayez pas peur. I forget you do not know Shawnee,” she said, switching to French. I am U-tha-wa Wie-skil-lo-tho. Yellow Bird. I am wife of Standing Buck.”
Annie sat frozen in place. The measure of relief that washed over her at the woman’s introduction quickly vanished, followed by renewed terror. Standing Buck was the name of the kinder of her two captors—the man who had saved her from his more malevolent cohort, Crooked Ear, back at Annie’s cabin. And during their long journey eastward through the forests and down the waterways, it was Standing Buck who had treated her with respect and kindness and often protected her from their traveling companion. So was she then to be given in marriage to the cruel Crooked Ear? She fought nausea at the thought.
Yellow Bird bit her bottom lip, and her delicate copper forehead wrinkled pensively. She muttered a string of Shawnee, then said in French, “Perhaps I did not have the French just right. Sometimes I forget.”
At the young woman’s worried look, remorse smote Annie. “Non,” she hurried to assure her. “You said it perfectly.”
Yellow Bird moved with an easy grace. Although slim and delicate looking, Annie noticed how the girl’s deerskin shift stretched snuggly over a slightly protruding abdomen. Like Annie, Yellow Bird was expecting a child. Annie wasn’t sure just why that knowledge calmed her, but it did.
The Indian girl lowered herself effortlessly to the floor and sat cross-legged in front of her. Without another word, Yellow Bird reached into a leather pouch attached to a belt around her waist and withdrew a few narrow leaves. One by one, she put them in her mouth and began chewing silently. After a while, she cupped her hand beneath her mouth and spat out the green wad of leaves. With her free hand she reached for Annie’s wrist, still raw from the deer-sinew restraints she’d been forced to wear. Yellow Bird began smearing the green mash over Annie’s injuries.
Tears stung Annie’s eyes. Not from the gentle touch of the girl’s slim fingers on her chafed skin, but from the unexpected kindness.
Yellow Bird stopped in her ministrations, a pained look cleaving her smooth copper forehead. “Je suis désolé.” She murmured the apology softly in French, obviously assuming from Annie’s tears that she had caused her discomfort. Her brows lowered into a scowl, and her lips smashed together. “I must scold my husband for allowing my new sister to be injured.” Her brows pinched together in a perturbed look. “Before the ceremony can take place, you must be without blemish.”
“Ceremony?” The word trembled out breathlessly. So she was to be given to Crooked Ear in marriage. A new wave of fear and nausea rolled over her. She stared at the sweet girl before her and pushed the disgusting words through her lips. “When—when will I be wed?”
Yellow Bird’s soft giggle sent irritation raking down Annie’s spine. She found nothing amusing about the dreadful prospect of being joined to such a frightening and disagreeable man.
Smiling, Yellow Bird shrugged and lifted her hands, palms up. “I am not a shaman. Only the Creator knows who you might wed and when.”
There were no imminent plans to force her into marriage. Annie almost swooned with relief, and her racing heart slowed. But the girl had said “ceremony.” Annie licked her drying lips. “You said I needed to be fit for a ceremony. What type of ceremony?”
Tears glistened in Yellow Bird’s dark eyes, and she covered Annie’s hand with hers, a fond smile tipping her lips. “My sister, Bird-That-Soars, died of a sickness the healer could not cure.” Her face brightened. “Our grandmother, Winter Moon Bird, will adopt you into our clan, and you will be my new sister.”