LeClerc 01 - Autumn Ecstasy (21 page)

The trip was more for pleasure than necessity. The winter had been mild and food plentiful. But they were young and used it as their reason to leave the village.

Time would never soften the agony Bear suffered when they returned to the village. Toting a buck they had killed, laughing and teasing the warriors who had not been as lucky, they quickened their steps as they heard the moaning death cries.

The path of destruction was painfully obvious, heading in an almost straight line toward the center of the village. His blood burning through his veins, Bear dropped the buck and walked toward his home. Somehow he knew what he would find before he reached it. With each step that drew him nearer, he wanted to turn and run, deny the truth.

His stride was sure, moving quickly but refusing to break into a run. The faces of the people he passed would have told him what he was to find … if he had bothered to turn and look at them. His gaze remained glued on the lodge in the distance.

From the outside there was little destruction. Only the door had been torn free, lying on the snow several feet away, shredded by a massive claw. The inside also showed little of what had happened. Almost ironically, everything was neatly in its place. As if he had been searching for only one thing, the bear had found it and destroyed it, leaving everything else untouched.

Bear slowly knelt by the fur-covered figure lying so still on their sleeping shelf. He knew, without looking, that Snow had not survived the attack of the marauding animal. Their time together had been all too short. Never again would he hear her laugh, see her smile or feel her gentle loving touches. His breath coming in shallow gasps, he slowly pulled back the fur. Little beauty remained of his gentle, vibrant Snow. Had the bear tried, he could not have destroyed her any more than he had.

Bear’s eyes moved to the ominously still mound of her belly. His child. Snow’s soft voice whispered in his mind as he remembered their joy when they knew his seed had found fertile ground and in the spring they would be parents. They had shared the excitement of the baby’s first movement, and only that morning he had teased her about her waddling walk. Their child, trapped in the body of its mother, had died before it had taken its first breath.

The entire village heard the death wail of Bear. None remembered that he was white as they shared his loss of both wife and child.

Bear gently covered the woman who had been his wife with the white fur and left the lodge he would never again enter. He passed the villagers, friend or enemy, without acknowledging their presence. Only when he came to the lodge of Wolf did he stop. His eyes turned toward the woods and the obvious track of the grizzly. It was the only time since he and Wolf had become brothers that they fought.

“See that she is buried,” Bear ordered in a voice little resembling his own. “I will not return until I have revenged her death.”

Wolf nodded. “It will be done, but I go with you to track the bear.”

“No!” Bear turned his head, his eyes glazed with the pain of his loss. “I go alone.”

Wolf grabbed Bear’s arm. “She was my sister. I demand the right to seek revenge!”

“She was my wife,” Bear whispered in an agonized voice. “She carried my child. I go alone, my brother.” It had been easy to follow the animal, its lumbering tracks clear in the snow. When darkness forced him to cease his search, Bear rested against the trunk of a tree. His eyes remained open through the long hours of darkness, his mind blank of everything but the picture of Snow as he had last seen her as she lay dead on their bed.

Memories taunted him, teased him. The hours until dawn were spent remembering Snow, both as a captivating child and as the breathtaking woman she became. The light wind rustling through the trees became her voice, promising the pleasures of love as it whispered around him.

When the morning sun lightened the sky, Bear had armored himself with single-minded determination. He would destroy that which had destroyed his wife and child. His search continued. He found the old animal at the edge of the river. With a fierce war cry, Bear attacked, fighting with only his knife and his towering rage. Lost in his thirst for revenge, Bear did not feel the massive claw as it slashed cruelly down his face and body. In a fight that should have left the grizzly the winner, Bear killed an animal feared by all men, both red and white.

Leaving the animal where it lay, his knife embedded to the hilt in its throat, Bear turned back toward the village. He took only a few steps before the loss of blood caused him to collapse in a heap near the dead animal. Wolf had followed, knowing that the contest was unequal and that Bear had left the village without sufficient weapons. He found Bear, more dead than alive, his flesh torn open to the bone in places.

It had taken all the knowledge the Grandmother had known to save him. She bathed his body to bring down the fever and applied salves to his wounds. It was she who fought to save him, refusing to let him die, making him eat and drink … forcing him to live. It was the old Grandmother who heard his feverish whisperings and who knew how greatly he suffered through guilt. When he was well, it was she who convinced him that it was meant to happen and eased his guilt because he had been away from camp.

It was the old Grandmother who gave him a new name. “You are now Bear Who Walks Alone. Your life has changed directions beyond those you desired. You must follow its path wherever it leads, mighty Bear.”

“It was mid-summer before I had the strength to walk more than ten steps,” Bear said quietly, not elaborating on the extent of his injuries or the nearness of his own death.

“I came here and spent nearly two months building a lean-to. I was so weak it took days for me just to cut down a tree. By the time the first snow came, I had a rough shelter made, and I wintered here alone.”

“I’m so sorry,” Linsey whispered, knowing the words inadequate.

He nuzzled against her breasts. “It is over, little one. I have buried Snow, and time has a way of making the pain less.” A gentle smile crossed his lips. “She was so young and our time together so short, nothing can erase the memories I have of her. But I can’t live in the past, and she would not want me to; so I have let her go.” Linsey leaned over him and looked deeply into his dark eyes. She saw that he spoke the truth. The agony of Snow’s death would always be with him, but he had accepted his loss.

Moving slowly, allowing instinct to guide her, Linsey brought her head down to his. She caressed the scars with her lips, her touch soft against the sensitive skin. All thought of pity was also forgotten. It was skin and bone, as he had said, battle scars honorably won against a mighty opponent.

With her mouth and hands, she paid homage to a fierce warrior. Her inexperience was no barrier as she applied recently learned skills to take them both beyond the gates of reality, into the land of lovers.

The fierceness of the winter storm outside the snug cabin could not begin to compare with the fiery battle of love within.

CHAPTER TEN

The thick gray clouds filled the sky to overflowing, telling a tale for anyone willing to listen. The wilderness was unforgiving to those who did not or would not heed the warnings of nature.

Kaleb Smith was not ignoring the signs; he simply refused to obey their command to seek shelter. Hunching his coat more snugly around his neck, he was thankful for the thick leather gloves lined with soft rabbit fur that protected his hands. His lungs ached in protest of the bitterly cold air as his labored breathing made a thick white mist that gathered in tiny ice droplets from his beard.

For weeks he’d followed the trail, and now he knew it was only a matter of time before he found Jeb and Zeke. At mid-morning he’d come across the campfire they had used the night before. Cursing their carelessness in leaving live coals, he threw dirt over the smoldering embers. Wild fire spreading uncontrolled through the wilderness was something all hunters feared. Kaleb had lived through one once and had no desire to repeat the experience.

Kaleb knew that his quarry had lost their way. They had come full circle and were actually a few miles above Big Jim’s trading post. Jeb no longer took the time and effort to hide their trail, making Kaleb’s job that much easier. A child could follow the path of broken limbs, trampled grass and human waste.

Alert ears detected a noise unnatural to the quiet woods. Kaleb stopped, his eyes narrowing as he listened carefully. The few animals and birds that stayed in the area during the winter were aware of the approaching storm and had sought shelter. The only sound was the wind whistling mournfully through the leafless trees. Kaleb cocked his head slightly. The noise had come from his left, and as he listened it came again: a human voice, too far away to distinguish the words, but still identifiable. Quietly, Kaleb moved forward. It was possible that the voices were from men other than the ones he sought. If so, he would cautiously seek information and move on.

But the instinct that had sharpened and grown with each passing year in the wilderness told Kaleb that he had found his prey. He lowered his pack to the ground, hiding it out of sight in the hollow of a dead tree. Cradling his loaded rifle, he cautiously walked to the edge of a clearing.

A smile of grim satisfaction spread through the puddled creases of his face. His search was finished; … now he would have vengeance. Across the clearing, arguing loudly, Jeb and Zeke were unaware that their lives had dwindled to a few short, extremely painful days.

“But Jebby…” Zeke whined, shuffling his foot in the dirt.

“Ya ain’t gonna go back,” Jeb said firmly. “There’s a storm a’cornin’, and we’s gotta be ready for hit.”

“But hit was a purty red fox just a’waitin’ for me to let hit outta the wood, Jebby.”

Jeb snorted with disgust. “That purty red fox tweren’t nothin’ but a piece a brokin’ tree branch. If Ma a’ knowed what trouble hit was gonna cause, she’d never gived ya that knife and showed ya how to carve. Now ya won’t let me burn a piece a wood to keep us warm if’n it looks like some animal to ya.”

He raised his head and looked at the gathering clouds. “Ya do like I tolt ya. Go get us a lotta wood so we don’t have to worry none about freezin’ afore the snow stops.”

“But Jebby, hits just back down the trail a ways. I can get hit and still get some wood.”

“I said forget hit! Hit ain’t down the trail a ways; we passed hit two days back, and ya ain’t quit complainin’ ‘bout hit since.” Jeb turned and began setting up camp. The temperature had dropped steadily all afternoon, and he had started to worry about finding a good place to build a shelter. The small clearing had not seemed a likely location until he discovered a natural cave dug into the rock.

“Go get all the wood ya can find,” he ordered Zeke. “I’ll make sure there’s no animal a’nestin’ in the cave.” From his hiding place, Kaleb freed his knife from its sheath and rested his rifle against a tree. He watched as Zeke passed within sight of him and breathed a silent sigh when Zeke kept his eyes on the ground, never looking right or left.

“Poor little foxy,” Zeke mumbled as he kicked at a pine cone. “Got caught in that piece of wood and Jebby won’t let me go get ya.”

Kaleb silently followed Zeke and realized from listening to his mumblings that the other man intended to ignore his brother’s orders and go back down the trail for a particular piece of wood that had caught his fancy. Kaleb knew Zeke’s mind was slow and without Jeb to care for him he would soon die in the wilderness. Weighing the idea, he decided to let Zeke go. His death from freezing would come much quicker than the fate Kaleb had planned, but now he could put all his attention on the man he held responsible for Mary.

For almost an hour Kaleb followed Zeke. When he was sure Zeke would not return to camp, Kaleb left him and made his way back. The first few gentle flakes of snow began to fall by the time he took up his hiding place again.

Jeb had cleared the cave of debris and made a covering for the front entrance by tying four sturdy branches together and covering them with one of their blankets. It would stop the wind and snow from blowing into the cave and keep some of the heat inside. As he worked, he was unaware of time passing, and only as the falling snow thickened did he realize Zeke had not returned.

He carried their packs inside then returned to begin gathering wood. His eyes constantly scanned the area, hoping to catch sight of Zeke. Even as he considered going in search of him, the snow became a veil of white. Jeb knew if he left the cave now he might never find it again. He carried the last armload of wood inside and pulled the blanket-covered barrier into place.

“Gawdamn ya, Zeke!” Jeb swore as he lit a fire near the front of the shallow cave. “I been a’takin’ care a ya since ya tweren’t no more’n a tadpole. I protected ya when Ma’s men wanted to wop ya ‘en she’d had too much rotgut to know what were goin’ on. Ma never had no truck with me ‘cause I knew she tweren’t nothin’ but a whore; but ya were special-like to her, and I promised I’d watch out for ya. But how em I gonna do that when ya don’t mind what I say?”

He slowly added logs to the flame. “I done tolt ya hit was gonna come a storm! I done tolt ya ya coun’t go back for that piece of wood! Now you’re out in the snow, ‘en you’re too stupid to find a place to hole up! You’re gonna freeze your gizzard for a gawdamn piece a wood!”

Jeb stared into the golden flame as he cursed the only person who had ever looked up to him or ever needed him … the only person he had ever loved. Noises were hidden beneath the building fury of the storm as the wind howled fiercely. Jeb didn’t know he was no longer alone until the covering at the front of the cave was violently thrown open.