Sweetbriar

  “Can you turn over?”

  It wasn’t easy, and Linnet reminded herself of a fish flopping about on dry land, but she would have died rather than give up hope of facing her Devon. It took a moment to see him. “Devon! What have they done to you?”

  He tried to smile but his lips wouldn’t slide across his dry teeth. “They’ve enjoyed themselves. Why are you here? You should be safe with Miranda. Come closer.”

  She scooted across the floor so that she was touching him.

  “Kiss me,” he said hoarsely. “I need you.”

  She didn’t question him but found his kiss to be more searching than anything else, and when she felt the inside of his mouth, dry, almost cracked, she knew he needed moisture from her more than anything else. He broke away and his eyes brightened for a moment.

  “An old Indian trick?” she asked.

  “No. Macalister alone. Linnet, why are you here? You shouldn’t be.”

  “You said that. Devon, I have a knife.”

  He almost jumped as he looked at her, his body tied into a backward circle just as hers was.

  “It’s strapped to the inside of my thigh, only I don’t know how to get it.”

  He seemed to have trouble thinking correctly or swiftly. “Fast. We must move fast. Can you move up?”

  “How can you get it?”

  “With my teeth,” he answered.

  Linnet managed to move upward, her muscles aching and crying for rest. Devon pulled her skirt and petticoats up with his teeth, high above her waist to expose the drawstring of the linen underpants. The string was knotted, and he could not unfasten it.

  “Damn it, Linnet! Why’d you have to make a knot?”

  She smiled through the darkness at his words. With a powerful wrench with his teeth, he tore the string and a great deal of linen away. The knife Phetna had given her was strapped inside her thighs, the hilt of it having rubbed a raw, chafed mark on the soft opposite thigh.

  Devon looked at her body, ivory, gleaming in the dark for a moment before lowering his head and removing the knife from its sheath. He seemed to take much longer than he needed to remove the knife.

  Linnet realized how tired she was—or was it only tiredness? She rolled to her stomach so he could cut the rawhide that bound her feet to her hands. How good it was to stretch out straight once again!

  Devon dropped the knife from his teeth and rested the side of his face against the cold dirt floor, too tired to cut the binding on her hands. After a moment, “Lynna, can you cut mine away?”

  She frowned at his tone. He was hurt, and his joviality was a supreme effort for him.

  “Quick, Lynna, quick.”

  “Yes, Devon.” Her hands still tied behind her, she felt for the knife. He did not stir when she moved to his back and tried to work the knife blade under the rawhide leather attaching his hands to his feet. She tried to calm her frantic thoughts when she cut the rope, because Devon did not move from his cramped and unnatural backward position.

  “I’m afraid my body’s been this way too long. Can you get my hands loose?”

  It wasn’t easy to conquer her fear and control her hands as she tried to saw the rawhide apart with the little knife. The cords were so tight that she could hardly find a place to slip the blade under.

  “Don’t worry about hurting me,” Devon whispered. “Cut my hand off and I wouldn’t know it. Just do it fast.”

  She felt the blade tip touch him once but he didn’t flinch or move and she knew he was telling the truth when he said his hands were numb.

  When he was free he moved his arms slowly, awkwardly. “Give me the knife. Linnet, listen to me,” he said in her ear as he sawed at the rawhide across her wrists. “I’ve been here a long time and I’m…not well. Promise me somethin’. If I fall somewhere, leave me. Go on by yourself and leave me. I don’t want you recaptured by Crazy Bear. Do you understand me?”

  “Perfectly,” she said quietly.

  “Then I have your promise?”

  Linnet pulled her arms forward and rubbed her wrists. “No. Now let me have the knife and I’ll cut this off our feet.”

  “Lynna, please.”

  “Devon, do not waste my time.” She cut the bindings, and as she felt his feet they seemed to be wet, and she realized it was blood. She had no time to cry and made herself do what had to be done. “Can you walk?” she asked when they were free.

  “Not if you can carry me.”

  Linnet held her breath as she cut away the side of the little hut and peered into the fading daylight to see if anyone was about. Crazy Bear’s people were lazy and didn’t post guards always, and now that he was away, searching for Yellow Hand, his people were even more lax.

  “It’s clear,” she said and offered him her hand. He took it, and she helped to support him to stand in a crouch, his face a mask hiding all his thoughts and feelings. He nodded, and she led the way outside the hut and into the woods. At her first look at Devon in the daylight, she saw that his half-healed burns were raw again. She didn’t ask what Crazy Bear had done to him.

  His eyes were hard, and without saying a word, he cautioned her and told her to lead ahead. They walked slowly for an hour, and Linnet knew he could go on for only a little while longer. If only I could carry him, she thought as they came to the bank of a river. The water’s surface was covered with several logs, notched and ready for building. Linnet’s mind wandered, and she wondered what catastrophe had caused some settlers to lose all the logs they had so carefully prepared for their cabin, when a thought struck her. She couldn’t carry Devon but the water could.

  “Devon, if I got you into the water could you hold on to a log?”

  He nodded, his eyes glazed.

  She supported him as much as her slight frame could as he walked to the river’s edge. She saw by the way he drew in his breath that the coolness of the water hurt him at first. He was bare from the waist up, wearing only the heavy linsey-woolsey pants and no shoes. Yet as he went more deeply into the water, the chill numbed him and cleaned the wounds. The buoyancy of the water helped to take the pressure off his cut feet and he felt better.

  “Smart. Smart, Lynna,” he said as he let the water lift him.

  “My governess made me study about what to do with raw, bleeding men in the Kentucky wilderness.”

  He put his arm across a log and looked at her, one eyebrow lifted, not sure if she joked or was serious. “Don’t talk anymore. They’ll look for us soon,” he said and put his cheek against the rough bark, resting for the first time in four days.

  They floated silently for hours as the sun set and the night spread about them. There were times when Devon seemed to sleep, and Linnet kept watch over him, ready to hold him if he should slip.

  “Someday I’m gonna take care of you,” he whispered once when she thought he was asleep.

  “I’d like that,” she said as she touched his ear.

  They heard horses along the bank, softly padding, almost inaudible. Devon’s arm came down from the log and pulled Linnet’s head under him, beneath his chest, between him and the log. She did not breathe for fear of making a sound. Long after the horses were no longer heard, Devon still held her beneath him, her neck cramped and hurting. He released her slowly, and she kicked backward to take her place beside him. She looked at him in question.

  “Your hair,” he said, “too bright,” and rested against the log’s bark.

  When the sun came up, Linnet began to realize they would have to stop somewhere, rest and eat. “Devon?” she asked softly.

  He opened his eyes, clear and bright, the blue sparkling. “I thought it was a dream,” he said, smiling, perfect white teeth against his dark skin. “I thought if I opened my eyes you wouldn’t be here, and I’d know I made it all up.”

  She put her hand in the soft, curling thickness of his black hair. “You’d be right, too, because you’re not even going to be able to get rid of me in your sleep from now on.”

  He grinned broader. “Whe
n we get out of this, let’s make more Mirandas.”

  She gave him a look of disgust. “Don’t you think of anything else?”

  “It’s been—”

  “Don’t tell me—a long time.”

  He smiled at her and didn’t answer.

  “Devon,” she said seriously. “I don’t know what to do now. You need to be dry and to rest, and we both need food.”

  He lifted his head and stared about him. “We’re not far enough yet from Crazy Bear. Can you hang on and just drift for a while longer?”

  “Yes, if you can.”

  “Yes,” he said as he closed his eyes again.

  In the afternoon it rained, and Linnet was glad because her neck and hands were beginning to get sunburned. Devon’s dark skin seemed impervious to the sun, and she was glad the exposed sores were starting to heal. At sundown, when the rain stopped, Devon helped Linnet paddle the log to shore. She could not believe how weak she had become from lack of food and twenty-four hours of floating, drifting down a river on a log.

  Devon sank to a soft bed of dried leaves. “Go find us something to eat, woman,” he said as he closed his eyes.

  Linnet stood over him and glared down as he opened one eye in amusement. “You will pay for this, Devon Macalister,” she said, but he closed the eye and smiled peacefully as she slowly walked into the woods.

  The Kentucky wilderness was a haven of wild game, wild fruits and nuts. She filled her skirt with fat, ripe blackberries and took them back to Devon. He ate slowly, sucking on each berry while Linnet gobbled them.

  She stopped and stared at him. “How long has it been since you ate?”

  He shrugged slightly. “A few days. I lost track of time.” He looked at her and his expression was tender and loving. “I didn’t expect to see you there, Lynna. You shouldn’t have come.”

  “Once I lost you because I thought there was no hope for us and I certainly wasn’t going to let it happen again. Besides, the Squire said you’d run away and left me.”

  He didn’t speak and became very interested in a blackberry.

  “I know it was he who…I know what he did.”

  “I reckoned you did,” Devon said as he put the berry in his mouth. “Now let’s get away from this river and get some sleep. Tomorrow we’ll start walkin’.”

  “But how can we? Your feet are so awful.”

  He reached across the space separating them and took a handful of her wet skirt and petticoats. “If I remember rightly, you got on enough clothes to make a hundred pairs of moccasins and maybe a couple of shirts, too.”

  “Yes, of course.” She stood, lifted her skirt and untied the drawstring to the top petticoat.

  Devon watched her intently but said nothing.

  She tore the cloth into strips and bound his feet, trying not to look at the awful mess they had become. When he stood again, she looked away from the stoic expression he adopted. There were times when Devon seemed very remote and very much a Shawnee. They did not walk far, and he constantly showed her how not to leave a trail.

  They finally stopped and slept under the sheltered overhang of a washed out gully. Linnet removed the bandages from his feet and then slept peacefully, wrapped tightly in his arms.

  Something tickled her nose and she scratched it before opening her eye. Devon kissed her slack, sleep-softened mouth and her arms slid about his neck.

  “No, my sweet little bird, not here. We must travel.”

  He looked up at the overhanging trees. “I don’t feel safe here. We’re being followed and he’s close to us.”

  “He?” Linnet’s eyes were wide.

  “I don’t know who. Let’s go quickly and quietly.” Devon’s feet had begun to scab and she knew the reapplied bandages would not be good for them.

  They walked slowly, and very weakly, Devon more used to the semi-fast than Linnet. She felt dizzy and merely followed him, not questioning or even really aware of where they were. Sometimes he stopped and seemed to almost sniff the air.

  “Devon—,” she began, but his stern look silenced her.

  He was very aware of her noisy footsteps, while Devon, much heavier, could hardly be heard, he stepped so lightly and carefully across the forest floor. They stopped once for more blackberries, but Devon always seemed to be watching for something, preoccupied, while Linnet, with shaking hands, tried to eat as much as possible.

  “Come,” he said, very softly so that she barely heard him, and she looked with regret at the vines heavy with ripe fruit.

  At dusk she looked at Devon’s scarred back, and then the earth seemed to spin round and round, and she felt so heavy and then so light. Her knees gave way, and she fell to the ground.

  “Linnet!” Devon held her head in his arms. “Linnet,” he said again, and she opened her eyes in surprise.

  She started to sit up but he held her firmly. “I fell?”

  “Yes,” he said, frowning slightly. “I’m afraid I’ve pushed you too far. See those rocks over there?”

  She lifted slightly and nodded.

  “Can you make it over there?”

  “Of course.” She tried again to sit, but he held her and his eyes flashed angrily.

  “Linnet! I’m tired of your ‘of courses,’ ” he mocked her crisp accent. “I guess I forget that you’re an Easterner and not bred to this life. You should have had enough sense to tell me you couldn’t go on. Now stop tryin’ to do everything in the world by yourself and get over between those rocks. I’m gonna make a roof over our heads.”

  “But what about you, Devon? You’re the one who’s hurt.” She touched his scabbed arm. “And you haven’t had any more food than I.”

  “When we get through all this, I’m gonna take you to meet my great-grandfather. He was so afraid that my white blood would make me too soft that he nearly killed me when he put me through the Rites of Manhood. The fire and Crazy Bear ain’t nothin’ compared to the things that old man thought up.”

  “But it couldn’t be! You had no scars before this.”

  He smiled down at her. “It’s nice to know you been lookin’.”

  She looked away. “I think I’ll go to the rocks now.”

  “Tell me, are all English girls like you?”

  “Not in the least. I’m afraid I have dishonored the entire English people. If my father had known the things I’ve done since meeting you, I’m sure he’d refuse to acknowledge me as his daughter.” She sat back against one of the boulders and watched Devon break off thin branches from the trees for the roof.

  “Lynna,” he said softly, “tell me about your family. Why’d you leave England and all that money you had?”

  Quietly, she told him of her childhood of luxury, of having everything within her grasp. But when her father’s mines failed, he walked away without a backward glance, almost as if he looked forward to a new life in a new land.

  “You havin’ all them servants—is that what’s made you so bossy?”

  She ignored his comment.

  “You ain’t gonna have no big house and people to wait on you if you stay with me,” he said almost threateningly. “My mother—”

  “All rich people are not cut from the same cloth, nor are all Indians nor, I hope, are all vain store clerks! If I’d wanted riches I could have married one of my suitors in England. And perhaps your mother had other reasons for leaving besides her hunger for silk gowns. Perhaps she was worried that her sons would grow up to be pursued by Indians, that her husband would risk being killed by a bear or her friends disfigured in fires.” She turned away, trying to control her anger.

  “Maybe,” Devon whispered, his hands busy with building the shelter.

  It was a long while before Linnet spoke again. “What about whoever was following us?”

  “Not was, still is, by my figurin’. He’s been followin’ us since we left the river. If it was Crazy Bear’s man he’d a’ made his move by now, but he ain’t, just keeps followin’ us, so I guess he’s just curious.”

 
“How can you hear him? I listened and heard nothing.”

  He looked at her as if she had suddenly sprouted three new heads. “Lord! He makes more noise than a buffalo. He must be a big man, heavy. Walks stiff-legged, probably a white man.”

  She looked at him in wonder and then her eyes scanned the forest. “Where is he now?” she asked quietly.

  “He went off a while ago, just after you fell down, reckon to get some food or maybe he got tired of watchin’. Anyways I don’t think I wanta leave you alone out here.”

  “Me? But I have nothing to steal.”

  He looked at her in amusement, and she felt her cheeks grow hot. “I reckon it’s my fault,” he said as he carefully placed tree branches across the top of the rocks. “I shoulda had you by my side for the last three years teachin’ you just what it is you got to steal.”

  She looked up at him and smiled, suddenly happy.

  “You stay right here, and I’m gonna get us somethin’ to eat. I’ll be within earshot so if you move one foot from there I’ll know it and I’ll know if anybody comes, too. You understand me?”

  “Yes.”

  He slipped into the woods, his dark skin and pants blending with the deep, rich green of the Kentucky woods. Linnet didn’t remember even closing her eyes, but all she knew was that she opened them to Devon’s kiss.

  “Here.” He dumped several kinds of berries in her lap. “I got a couple of rabbits, but I don’t wanta light a fire out here at night.”

  She ate the berries greedily, and even in the darkness she could sense Devon’s tiredness. He stretched out, his long body barely fitting in the little shelter, and pulled Linnet into his arms. She lay awake a moment, listening to his quiet breathing, smelling the rich earthiness of him. A remembrance of a ball she had attended when she was fourteen floated before her. She had worn a white satin gown with an overskirt of yellow silk, a rose of the same yellow in her hair. She remembered all the slim, handsome young men bowing politely before her. “Miss Linnet, may I have this dance?” The words echoed through her mind, and she snuggled closer to Devon.

  “Lynna.”

  “Yes?” she whispered, her lips close to his.