The Bonny Bride Page 13

  Jenny seized a large deadfall branch that had caught on the weir. Clutching it in both hands, she brandished it at their attackers. “Come on, ye blaggards!” she roared. “I’ll give ye a right good braining for yer trouble!”

  If he could have laid hands on that stick, Harris might have brained Jenny. For a long, agonizing moment, the world stopped as he braced for disaster.

  Then, like a gaggle of puppets jerked back by the strings of their master, the dark men skidded to a halt. The nearest one threw back his head and let out a whoop of wild laughter. Dropping his wickedly lethal pronged spear, he bent forward until his head nearly touched the knees of his buckskin leggings. Spasms of laughter shook him.

  The others laughed, too, until the river rang with it.

  “And what may I ask is so cursed comical?” Jenny demanded.

  Gasping for breath, the man with the musket called out to Harris in an oddly accented French. “Alors, Barbe-rouge…” Red-beard, you must be quite a man to handle a she-bear like her! Once again, laughter overtook him.

  Anyone who could make such a joke couldn’t mean them harm. The conviction hit Harris with such a powerful clout of relief that his knees almost buckled.

  “Ha-ha.” His own laughter welled up, weak at first and tinged with mild hysteria. Soon, however, he caught the contagious amusement of the other men, laughing hard, until tears rolled down his face.

  Jenny rounded on him with eyes that blazed amethyst fury. “Have ye gone daft, Harris? What did that savage say? What are ye all laughing about?”

  “He…” Harris fought to recover a straight face. “He said he…admires a woman of spirit.”

  “Aye?” She sounded suspicious.

  “Put yer stick down, lass. They’re not going to hurt us.”

  Jenny looked back at the warriors, slapping their thighs, all but helpless with laughter. In their present state, she could probably have walked up to any one of them and clubbed him unconscious. Warily she lowered her weapon.

  “Pardon,” Harris called as he staggered a step toward Jenny and put an arm around her shoulders. He warmed to anyone prepared to mistake her for his woman. I’m sorry we startled you. We just wanted to ford the river. I hope we haven’t damaged your weir.

  “Pas de problème,” replied the one with the musket. He looked to be the senior of the group. Don’t worry about it, Red-beard. It’s a long time since we had such a good laugh. We’ve had trouble with a bear stealing fish from us. When we heard the noise, we thought it was him.

  Jenny looked at Harris expectantly. “What’d he say?”

  Harris explained about the bear.

  When he had finished, the Indian chief asked, “Where are you and your woman bound, Red-beard?”

  “Miramichi,” replied Harris. “It’s easy to get lost in these woods. I want to go to the mouth of the river and follow the shore.”

  Laughing again, the tall Indian shook his head. “That’s a bad way to travel on foot.”

  Passing his gun to one of the younger man, he held out his hands to help them wade ashore. “Venez et mangez…”

  “He’s inviting us to stay and eat with them,” Harris told Jenny. “He says we’re welcome to spend the night.”

  “What’s the French for thank you, Harris?”

  “Merci.”

  “Well then—merci to ye.” Jenny made an awkward curtsy to their host in her waterlogged dress.

  The man beamed back at her and for an instant Harris was glad of the mistaken impression that Jenny belonged to him.

  The other men waded into the river and began taking fish from the weir with their pronged spears. One came back bearing Jenny’s bundle. Like Harris’s coat, it had also snagged on the pointed stakes.

  “Merci!” she exclaimed, hugging it to her like a lost child. “Why, it’s hardly even damp.”

  Harris wished Jenny’s wedding dress had floated down-river and out to sea.

  They followed their host for some distance until they came to a clearing. There stood three tall, conical tents, each framed by several long stakes and wrapped with sheets of bark. Half-a-dozen brown children, all but naked, raced around the encampment, shrieking with laughter as dogs barked at their heels. A woman looked up from stirring something in a hollowed-out log. Giving the white visitors a curious but indulgent smile, she called to the children in their own tongue.

  Harris admired the sound of it—like a verbal brook gurgling over its stony bed. It was a language for laughter, and prayer, and a hundred domestic endearments.

  Their host spoke to the woman. By some unaccountable intuition, Harris knew she must be his wife. Clearly he was explaining how Harris and Jenny had come to be there, for he began to laugh. The woman soon joined in.

  She said something to Jenny in her own language. Though he could not understand one word, Harris recognized a mixture of amusement and admiration in the tone. Perhaps she was commending Jenny for standing up to the men.

  “Merci,” replied Jenny, as if she understood. She pointed to herself. “I’m Jenny, and this is Harris.”

  “Aw-reez.” Their host tried to repeat the name. Evidently some of the sounds did not come naturally in either his own language or French. “Barbe-rouge.”

  Harris smiled and nodded. Among these people, he was content to be known as Red-beard.

  “Et vous?” Harris asked.

  “Levi,” the man tapped his chest. “Levi Augustine. Bienvenu à mon feu.” Welcome to my fire.

  “The honor is ours,” replied Harris in French. At least he hoped that was what he’d said.

  The woman clucked her tongue over Jenny’s wet dress. She motioned them to the tallest of the three structures.

  Levi translated her words into French. “Suzannah says come into the wikuom and put on dry clothes.”

  Before Harris could repeat it in English for Jenny, she’d already ducked through the low entry of the family’s dwelling. With a self-conscious shrug to Levi, Harris followed.

  His eyes had not yet accustomed themselves to the dim interior when he heard Jenny say, “Did ye do all this beautiful beadwork, yerself? It looks almost too pretty to wear. I wouldn’t want to spoil it on ye.”

  As though she’d understood every word, Suzannah replied something that Harris guessed to mean, “Go ahead. Clothes are to wear. When you’ve changed, I’ll hang your dress to dry.”

  From a hamper woven of long wooden splints, the woman brought out a pair of leather leggings like those worn by Levi and the other men. She handed them to Harris. With a few more words, possibly to say that she must get back to her cooking, she left them alone.

  Jenny touched the garment to her cheek. “It’s softer than kid leather,” she breathed. Then she glanced up at Harris in some alarm. “Mind ye keep yer back turned while I’m getting into this thing.”

  Harris felt his Adam’s apple bobbing in spasms. “I…will…if ye will.”

  Thankful that the flickering firelight masked her blushes, Jenny twitched the hem of her borrowed dress a bit lower on her leg. Suzannah and the other women of the family looked so natural in their skirts, which fell an inch or two below the knee. Jenny felt naked in hers.

  She cast a covert glance at Harris, to see if he might be watching. His eyes were on Levi and the other men as they played a game, tossing dicelike disks of bone onto a wooden platter. He looked rather strange, wearing his own shirt with the buckskin leggings. Jenny half wished he’d emulated their hosts, by going bare chested.

  With a fine meal of smoked duck and shellfish warming her belly, she wrested her concentration back to Suzannah’s beading demonstration. One of the children wandered over and settled into her lap. Jenny rested her chin against his dark hair. Suzannah held the piece of buckskin she was stitching closer for Jenny to see. Tracing the outline of the design with her forefinger, she said something.

  “Aye,” Jenny replied. “It’s a bonny pattern, and the colors so fine and bright.”

  They had been carrying on this queer kin
d of conversation for several hours, each in their own language. Though the words surely made no sense to either of them, Jenny was confident they understood each other. By contrast, Harris and Levi Augustine talked away in their common second language, French. Harris asked question after question—all about how the people lived, what they ate, their traditions.

  Any answer of particular interest, he’d passed on to her.

  “The young fellow there…” While they ate, Harris had pointed to one of the men.

  Jenny recognized him as the first member of the party they’d encountered—the one who’d all but fallen down laughing at her.

  “He’s Noel Peter Paul. His people live on the Richibucto. He’s staying with Levi’s family for a while and working for them to prove he’s a steady lad and a good provider. Then he’ll get Levi’s daughter, Christianne, for a wife.

  Glancing up from Suzannah’s beadwork, Jenny intercepted a special look that passed between the betrothed couple.

  Surely Christianne couldn’t harbor the kind of romantic daydreams of a European girl. She could expect a life very much like her mother’s—without a proper house, wandering from the shore to the tide head to the deep woods, depending upon the season. Relying for food on what the family could hunt or gather.

  In many ways, it was a much more difficult life than the one Jenny had fled. Yet, the people seemed happy. They laughed a great deal. They cared for their children with obvious affection. Even between Levi and Suzannah, who had been together many years and surely endured many hardships, Jenny recognized a strong, tender bond. Listening to the singing and the storytelling around their campfire that summer night, she felt a pang of wistful envy.

  Before she could recover from it, Harris sauntered over from his place by the fire. “I ken everyone’s soon going to bed down for the night.”

  A powerful yawn racked Jenny. “It sounds like a fine idea to me. I know I’ll sleep sound.”

  “Aye, well…” Harris hesitated. “Ye see, it’s like this. Levi says we can sleep in the smaller wikuom with his son and daughter-in-law.”

  His tone and his look of guilty embarrassment made Jenny exclaim, “Sleep—together, ye mean? I should say not!”

  “We slept together last night. And the night before.”

  Men! Could they understand nothing?

  “That was different, Harris. We were out in the woods, and…and…it was different.”

  He shrugged. “We’re still in the woods. And these folks won’t think anything improper of it.”

  Something about the way he said it made Jenny inquire sharply, “And why not, may I ask?”

  Even in the firelight, she could see him redden. “Well, I may have led them to assume ye’re my…woman.”

  “Then ye can just have a wee talk with yer friend, Mr. Augustine, and set him straight on that score, Harris Chisholm.”

  “Aye, I would.” He raked the long fingers of one hand through his hair. “It’s just that Levi’s brother, Joseph, lost his wife last year in childbed. I ken if he knew ye weren’t mine, he might make me an offer for ye.”

  Jenny glanced over at Joseph Augustine, in earnest conversation with his brother. It was a wonder he hadn’t remarried already, for he was a fine figure of a man—tall and broad shouldered with strong, handsome features. He reminded Jenny of Roderick Douglas the last time she’d seen him. Would seven years in this harsh land have changed him much?

  Remembering Harris and the sleeping arrangements, she cast him a wary glance. “I suppose there’s not much help for it. But make certain ye behave yerself, mind?”

  He raised his hand, as if to swear an oath. “Get it through yer head, lass, I’ve given up on any notion of the two of us making a match. I only want to see ye safe to Chatham so I can get on about my business with a clear conscience.”

  “That suits me,” Jenny replied half-defiantly.

  Remembering the delicious torture of the previous night lying with Harris, she knew it was her own wilful desires that truly worried her. She should rest easy in the knowledge that he’d do nothing to take advantage of her wayward inclinations. Instead, her heart contracted in a stab of disappointment.

  It was going to be a long night.

  It had been a long night!

  Harris scratched the bristly three-day growth of whiskers on his face. Then he yawned and stretched. Despite a luxurious mattress of animal furs, his body ached worse this morning than it had the past two days.

  He ached for Jenny.

  All night, as she lay beside him, her body warm and oh so accessible in the brief buckskin gown, he had ached for her. Ached until he feared he would explode from the effort to contain his own yearning.

  As soon as he heard the first stirrings of the Augustines preparing for a new day, he rose and joined them. When Jenny got up later, he hardened his heart against the early morning softness of her face.

  “Eat and get dressed,” he snapped. “We can’t be dawdling here all day. We’ve a long way still to go.”

  “Aye, Harris, I won’t be long.”

  She sounded subdued. There was a look of puzzlement and hurt in her eyes, which Harris made grim efforts to ignore. An answering echo of that pain and perplexity tugged at his own insides.

  As Harris watched Jenny enter the wikuom, Levi Augustine clapped a hearty arm around his shoulder. “Mon ami, stay with us a few more days. Eat and rest for your journey. Tell me more about this land of yours far across the water.”

  “Merci pour votre hospitalité.” Harris meant it sincerely and with more than a touch of chagrin.

  Here he’d been, fearful and suspicious of these native people, when they had far more cause to be wary of a foreigner like him. Yet they had made him more truly welcome than he’d ever felt. Had the need to deliver Jenny to Chatham not goaded him, Harris would have been content to linger on the banks of this river with the unpronounceable name, basking in the unexpected fellowship he’d discovered.

  “I’ll return this way, when my business is done in Chatham,” he added, purposely neglecting to mention that Jenny wouldn’t be with him. “Then I’ll stay a while with you, if you’ll have me.”

  Before continuing their journey, Harris and Jenny fed fully on berries and more shellfish, and drank deeply of the savory game broth that was the family’s principal beverage. Then Suzannah Augustine packed them a woven-rush basket of smoked fish and Levi ferried them across the river in his canoe.

  Jenny almost wore out her one word of French, merci.

  “Je regret…” Harris said to their host. “I’m sorry I haven’t a gift to give you in thanks for all your hospitality.” He resolved to bring something back with him on his return trip from Chatham.

  Their host waved away his apology. “You brought us the gift of laughter, Red-beard. And the gift of respect. White men, the English especially, talk to my people like we are foolish children. You talk like we are brothers. You will always be welcome in our wikuom.”

  Harris forced his feet forward. He’d lived most of his life as an outsider, and he’d made his peace with that. He wasn’t sure what to make of this instant kinship he felt with the native folk. He only knew it was a wrench to leave them.

  “Encore une chose!” Levi called after them. “One more thing. Be careful with your fire. This has been the driest summer I can remember. The trees are thirsty. The creeks are low. Light one if you must, but tend it well and be sure you don’t leave hot embers behind when you break camp.”

  “Je comprends,” replied Harris. “I hear ye.” A fire raging out of control in heavily wooded country like this was a terror he preferred not to dwell on. He hoped Suzannah’s smoked fish would last them the rest of the trip so they wouldn’t have to cook their food.

  “Now would ye mind explaining to me again,” said Jenny when they were out of Levi’s sight, “why we aren’t walking up the coast, like ye planned.”

  Though the question exasperated him a bit, implying that Jenny didn’t trust his judgment, Harris
welcomed the distraction of conversation—on any subject.

  “It’s like this.” He did his best to sound patient. “According to Levi, the coast bows out quite a ways. It would likely double our journey. Besides, we have three more rivers to ford…four if we kept to the coast, and they’re all wide at the mouth. We’d need a canoe to get across them. Levi gave me good directions that’ll take us to Chatham almost as the crow flies, and we’ll miss one of the shorter creeks altogether.”

  “Aye?” Jenny sounded skeptical. “What use are directions in open country like this?”

  “We’ll get there fine, ye’ll see. We just have to follow this ridge until we come to a big stand of birch trees. Then we look for a dry creek bed and keep to it until we reach a rock taller than a wikuom…”

  Repeating the litany of directions over to himself, Harris experienced a twinge of doubt. If only he had a paper and pen to copy them down. Levi, whose people had no use for writing, possessed a formidable memory. He could recite the list of his ancestors back more than ten generations. He could tell many tales, of why the beavers built dams and how the porcupine got his quills. Most importantly to Harris at the moment, Levi Augustine seemed to know this trackless wilderness with astonishing intimacy.

  Harris hoped his own memory was equal to the task. His survival and Jenny’s depended on it.

  Chapter Thirteen

  “Are ye sure we’re going the right way, Harris?”

  The August sun beat down on Jenny. A nasty fat fly with a green tail lit on her arm and bit. She swatted and killed it, taking grim delight in her vengeance.

  Yesterday they’d emerged from the cover of the forest into an area of newer growth. A few charred tree trunks bore witness that the territory had once been scourged by fire. At first Jenny had enjoyed the open country. Blueberries were plentiful. They could see much farther in any direction. Best of all, she no longer had the suffocating sense of the trees closing in on her.

  As a second day passed, with stubborn barricades of alders blocking their way and the sun beaming relentlessly upon them, she had begun to crave the friendly shade of the woods.