“You forget, Opechancanough, that I learned from the Powhatan how to move in the forest. I must have my wife. You know that. A man must do this thing.”
Opechancanough agreed with him. He gave him supplies.
But the days passed, and he could not find the village where Powan was residing. He came upon tribes of Chickahominies, and though the Indians were not hostile to him, they could tell him nothing. Finally, the day before, he had ridden Windwalker into the domain of a curious old medicine man, and the medicine man had suggested that he try deep in the woods.
He had been riding since then. With the noon sun high overhead, Jamie had rested by a stream, tossing rocks into the water and torturing himself with his imagination. Opechancanough had ordered whites killed, men and women. The Powhatans did not mind taking female prisoners, but even then, it was possible that they would grow angry and kill the prisoners. And if they had not killed her …
He had learned that it was a warrior named Pocanough who had taken Jassy and Elizabeth. Powan was his chief, but Pocanough was a wily and temperamental young brave, and it was possible that he had demanded his way, that he had demanded the hostages he had taken.
His face contorted with pain, his body tensed rigidly, and he fought the piercing wave of agony that assailed him as he imagined her with the Indian brave. If she fought him, he would hurt her. If he lusted after her, he would take her brutally. If she kept fighting, he would beat her, until he broke her or killed her, one or the other.
Self-reproach paralyzed him, then he forced himself to breathe, knowing that it would stand him little good now. He had to find Jassy and Elizabeth.
And if nothing else, he had to kill Pocanough. He could not bear what the man had done to his house and his home. He had slain his housekeeper, had taken his wife. Jamie went rigid again with the pain of it.
It was then that he heard the scream.
He did not know at first if his fears and dreams had collided and he had imagined the sound of the scream. Then it came again, closer, and he leapt to his feet, pulling out his knife. He looked around, and he heard the sound of foliage snapping and breaking. He stepped back, into the shadow of wild berry branches.
Then he saw the Pamunkee burst into the clearing. Grinning with an evil leer, the warrior waited in silence.
Then Jassy appeared.
Jassy …
Not as he remembered her.
Her eyes were incredibly blue against the soft tan glowing on her face. She was clad in buckskin, in an Indian maiden’s dress, short and sleeveless, tied at the bodice with rawhide. Her hair was free and flew out behind her like a golden pendant as she ran. She was as wild and panicked as a pursued doe, beautiful and sure and lithe, and he ached from head to toe the moment he saw her, and he longed to call out her name.
The Pamunkee brave laughed and leapt from a fallen tree to accost her, bearing her down to the ground.
She screamed and screamed again, clawing him. And he struck her.
Jamie saw red. His temper split and flew, and he saw the red of the blood that had stained his home. He saw the hot red of the noonday sun, and of the fury that threatened to blind him. He sheathed his knife at his calf and leapt forward, placing his bare hands upon the brave and dragging him from his wife. The young buck was no coward, and no weakling. Jamie’s anger was a powerful force, and he had been proven in many a battle. He slammed the Indian down to the ground and landed upon him. Again and again he drove his fist into the proud face. Then the Indian bucked in a frenzy beneath him, sending Jamie flying.
“Jamie!”
He heard the cry of alarm in her voice, and the concern in it was as sweet as nectar. He wanted to look at her. He wanted to sweep her into his arms, to touch her, to hold her. He could not. He needed to concentrate on the battle before him.
Jamie landed hard, but he quickly regained his footing, balancing upon the balls of his feet while the Indian charged him. He ducked, letting the Pamunkee use his own force to crash hard against a tree. Then Jamie came at him again with a rain of blows, to his lean, hard gut, to his face, to his gut again, to his chin, to his eye. The Pamunkee struck back. As Jamie reeled, the Indian pulled his knife. Jamie raised his own, and they faced each other, circling warily in the small clearing. The Indian smiled through a slit, half-closed eye. “Cameron,” he said. “Cameron.” Then he continued slowly in his native tongue, and Jamie understood every word. The white woman had defied Powan and escaped, and so now Pocanough could have her. He had found her again. And Jamie would be dead.
Pocanough lunged forward. Jamie met the drive and smashed down hard on the buck’s shoulders. He fell forward on his knee, and Jamie brought his knife to the Indian’s throat.
Suddenly a shot was fired.
“No!” A voice said firmly.
Jamie stiffened, holding still. He straightened and turned around but kept his knife flush with the Indian’s throat.
Powan had come among them. He had ridden his big bay into the clearing, and he had ordered one of his men to fire off a musket round.
He had Jassy seated before him. With wide, blue, tempestuous eyes she stared down at Jamie in anguish.
“I have come for my wife, Powan, and the mother of my son.”
“It must be done where men of the Pamunkee can see it,” Powan said. He looked with distaste at Pocanough. “She belongs to neither of you now. She is mine. If you both die in battle, she will remain mine. If one of you slays the other in a fair fight before witnesses, she will then belong to the victor.” He looked to his men. “Take them both. They will fight tomorrow.”
Jamie dropped the knife. He could have killed Pocanough then, and he wanted to. But then they would have killed him. His only chance of getting Jassy back was to do it Powan’s way. When the Indian escort came for him, he walked along willingly. He did not look at Jassy as he passed her by. He felt her eyes upon him and wondered at her thoughts.
That night the Pamunkees prepared for their entertainment. They danced erotically before the fire, and many of the women, with designs drawn upon their bodies with berry juice, danced naked and enticingly, reminding him of the time that he had traveled with Captain Smith in his youth. It had been so long ago now.
Then he had been a guest. Now he was part of the entertainment.
They had taken him to the brook to bathe, and then they had dressed him in a breechclout. He sat before the fire at Powan’s side, across from Pocanough. They watched the dancing, and when the women had disappeared, the chief rose and told his people that in the morning there would be a fight, unto the death. If the white man survived, he was to take his woman and walk away unmolested. It was his, Powan’s, word, and it would be obeyed.
Then he and Pocanough were taken and tied to posts. Two men, naked and heavily tattooed, began to dance around them, carrying claws of the brown bear. Suddenly the men raked the claws down the backs of the men who would fight. Jamie felt his flesh tear, and he ground down hard on his teeth, determined to make no sound. A Pamunkee would not cry out, and he, too, had to win this fight as a guest-member of the great Powhatan Confederacy. Inwardly he screamed, for the claws started at his shoulders and tore down to the small of his back. He felt the blood surge from the gashes.
When they untied him, he nearly fell, nearly blacked out. He balanced himself against the pole, and he was glad to see that Pocanough was staggering too.
Jamie was led to one of the small houses near that of the chief’s. He entered in and fell to his knees. He crawled to his pallet, and as he lay there the pain began to ease. They had left something to drink by the pallet in a gourd, and he rose and swallowed the mixture. He knew it was some drug against the pain, and to help him sleep.
Still, somewhere in the night, he awoke. He did not know what had awakened him at first. The fire in the center of the sapling house had burned down very low, and the light within was eerie. He felt something, some cool, sweet breeze. He looked up and started. He came up on an elbow and stared at the a
pparition before him.
It was Jassy.
Jassy, with her hair soft and nearly white-gold in the firelight. Jassy, with her eyes tender and wide and seductive upon him.
Jassy … erotically naked, her skin very bronzed over the length of her body, her breasts large and firm and provocatively swaying, the nipples very large and dark. He looked at her, and he saw that her buckskin had been tossed in the corner. He wondered if she was a drug-induced dream, or if his wife could really stand so before him, inviting his thirsting eyes.
“Jassy …”
She brought her finger to her lips. Then, miraculously, she came closer. She stepped over him, her legs apart. Then very, very slowly, she lowered herself over him. She sat upon his loins, and her hair trailed over his chest as she pressed her lips against his flesh, over and over again, moving against him sinuously. He felt the hot, sensual love of her tongue, and thought that he had lost his mind. Desire burst upon him in a flood, and he rose hard and swift and tried to sweep her beneath him. Her head rose. She stared at him with her hair trailing upon him.
“No,” she said softly.
He hesitated.
Then she moved against him again.
All of her body moved and rubbed against him. She used her teeth upon his nipples and then licked them. She swept the softness of her hair over him and shimmied lower and lower against him. When she reached the fullness of his arousal, she took him into her mouth, until he did nearly lose his mind. He sank his fingers into her hair, and he pulled her against him. He brought them both to their knees, and he kissed her until she whimpered softly, then he drew his lips in drunken desire over her throat and shoulders, and he fondled her breasts and teased them with his lips and tongue and sucked them hard into his mouth. He worked upon her with a fascination, until her head fell back and she whimpered out whispers and cried of need and longing and desire … for him. Her milk spilled back onto her breasts, and he stood, dragging her to her feet. Then he did to her as she had done to him … kissing and caressing the length of her, forcing her to stand still while he ravaged her with the hunger of his lips and tongue. When she fell against him, he brought them together at long last.
And the night burst into splendor.
Nothing had ever been like this—the beauty of her seduction, the loveliness of her long, supple body in the firelight. If he dreamed, then he would gladly die in dreaming, for he had never known her touch to be so tender, so sensual, so impassioned.
And she had come to him….
He moved upon her and within her, gentle and fierce, slow, and with impassioned fever. They soared to a summit together and plummeted softly back to earth in the shadow of each other’s arms. and still the fire burned softly, and the darkness cloaked them, and it was real. They were together.
She rolled against him, sobbing softly. He tugged upon her hair, bringing her around to face him. “Why are you here?” he demanded. “Has … has Powan let you come?”
“Yes.”
“Has Powan … touched you?”
“No. He has—he has taken Elizabeth.” She shuddered and buried her face against him. “I am so frightened, Jamie. I’m so very, very frightened.”
His heart hammered, and he tried to make her face him again. “Why? I swear, if I die, he will die with me.”
A shattering sob escaped her. “Oh, God, Jamie! I do not want you to die for me! I have brought you nothing but misery and—”
He gripped her hair so fiercely that she cried out, but he had silenced her, and he spoke swiftly and vehemently. “You have brought me everything. You have given me Daniel—”
“Daniel!”
“Rest easy, he is loved and well. Jassy, if I die, I swear that Pocanough will die too. Appeal to Powan as the child’s mother and he will let you go to Daniel. I know him well.”
She sobbed against the sleek, bare dampness of his chest. “And he knows you, too, for you are here. Oh, Jamie …”
He lifted her above him and spoke, his passion naked in his taut features and in his voice. “Love me again, Jassy. Love me before the dawn threatens and you must go back.”
She did. Again and again. Until the first pink light of dawn rose and she slipped back into her buckskin dress and tiptoed back into Powan’s sapling house. Jamie did not sleep that night. He did not need to.
In the morning he was brought to bathe again. The Indians would all eat their breakfast, and then they would gather for the fight. Jamie did not see Jassy, not until he was led out before the crowd, barefoot, bare-chested, and unarmed.
She was seated on the ground before Powan and beside Elizabeth. The chief’s hands rested on the two blond heads. Elizabeth tried to smile encouragingly. Jassy did not try. Her eyes were in torment.
Hope came up to him. She smiled, too, and Jamie knew that the half-breed girl believed in him with all her heart. He smiled in return. Hope gave him the short-bladed knife with which he was to fight. The blades were short, to make the battle longer—it would not be easy to give a mortal blow.
Then he faced Pocanough across the circle. A chanting rose on the air. Powan stood and spoke again. Then he dropped his arm, and the fight was on.
Pocanough did not wait a second. Snarling like a bear, he burst for Jamie, casting him off-balance. Both men came down to the ground, writhing and rolling and viciously attempting to stab each other. Pocanough’s knife skimmed Jamie’s back where the wounds from the night before lay open and vulnerable. Jamie nearly screamed. He kicked and bucked and sent Pocanough flying across the circle. He leapt to his feet and followed the brave. Falling upon him again.
Both had been smeared with bear grease, and it was impossible to get a hold upon the Indian. Jamie decided to break away, and regain his footing. He did so, and balancing carefully on the balls of his feet, he awaited the Indian’s next move.
Pocanough leapt high and came down upon Jamie, smashing both of his feet against his chest. The air went out of him, and he fell, stunned and dazed, unable to move.
Then he heard her scream.
He looked up and saw that Pocanough was coming upon him now with the sure fire of triumph in his eyes, his knife raised and aimed directly for Jamie’s heart.
In a split second Jamie rolled. The Indian smashed into the earth. Without a second thought Jamie swirled after him, implanting his blade with force between the cleft of the warrior’s shoulder blades.
Pocanough raised his head back in a dying scream of rage and agony that ended in a peculiar gurgling sound.
Then he fell face forward into the dirt.
Jamie staggered over to the chief. He fell to his knees. He looked Powan in the eyes. “I claim my wife and her sister,” he said. Then he pitched forward, too, exhausted, wondering numbly if the very blackness of death itself was not seeping into him.
“Jamie!”
She called his name and fell down beside him, cradling his head into her lap. He opened his eyes and saw the tears in hers, and he smiled. Then he closed his eyes, and the darkness claimed him.
He slept until nightfall, and in his restless sleep he wondered again what had been real and what had been a dream.
When he opened his eyes again, she was there.
She was real.
He came up quickly on an elbow. He reached out to touch her. “Jassy …”
“You need rest. You need to sleep.”
He shook his head, rising quickly. He was naked, he quickly realized, but his own European trousers were near his head. He quickly stumbled into them. “I don’t want to sleep. I want to go home. I want to take you away from here.”
“Jamie—”
“I want to go now.” He caught her slender chin within his hands, wondering if the love and the tenderness and the passion could possibly be real too. “I am all right, Jassy, I swear it. I want to mount Windwalker and go home. Get Elizabeth.”
Jassy left him and went into Powan’s house, looking for her sister. She noticed that her palms were trembling and damp, now that it
was over. The trial was over.…
Life was yet to be lived.
She found that Elizabeth was sitting before the chief’s fire, studying the flames. Jassy hugged her. “We can go home now, Elizabeth. We can go.”
Elizabeth studied her curiously, then shook her head ruefully, her blue eyes filling with tears. “I’m not going with you, Jassy.”
“What?”
“I’m going to have Powan’s baby. I don’t think that they would care for my child back at the settlement.”
“Don’t be absurd. They will love your child! I will love your child and—”
Elizabeth laughed, touching her hand. “Yes, Jassy, you have so much wonderful passion and strength, and if you demanded it, no doubt, the people would all come to love my child. But …” She hesitated and spoke in a bare whisper. “I was always so afraid of men, and the world, and everything and anything at all. And now I am not afraid anymore. Jassy, don’t laugh. Please don’t laugh. I think that I love him. He will marry me, and he says that he will not need any other wives. Jassy, I am home. Please, please try to understand, and try to love me, anyway.”
“Oh, Elizabeth, I will love you forever!” Jassy promised her. They cast themselves into each other’s arms and hugged and cried. Jamie and Powan found them so together, and neither of the men had a word to say.
An hour later it was growing dark, but Jamie and Jassy were on the trail, mounted together upon Windwalker. Jassy had thought busily for the last hour of a way to start speaking. Jamie had cleared his throat a dozen times.
At last he found words. “Are you sure that you’re all right?”
“I was never harmed,” she promised him. She leaned back against him. She savored the warm strength of his chest, and she found incredible comfort in his arms, wrapped around her.
“Jassy …” He paused, and he sounded humble. She had not thought that he could ever sound so. “Jassy, if you wish it, I will take you home.”