Cherokee Storm. Janelle TaylorЧитать онлайн книгу.
deep voice echoed off the limestone ceiling and walls. “Maryshannon…Maryshannon…Maryshannon.”
English. He was speaking English, accented, with an almost musical cadence, but she could understand every word. She sucked air into her chest and the buzzing noise receded. How did he know her name? “Who are you?” she stammered.
“Men call me Storm Dancer, but you knew me once when I wore a different name.”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know you. You’re a stranger.”
His thin lips turned up in a faint smile. “Are you sure?”
“Please. Let me go back to my friends. My father is a friend to the Cherokee. He will pay—”
“It is as you say. Flynn O’Shea is a good friend to the Cherokee.” He touched his lips with two fingers in a graceful gesture. “Among my people, we call him Truth Teller.”
“And he will pay well for my safe return.” Shannon straightened her shoulders and tried to force her voice to calm. If she could keep him talking, reason with him, she might live to walk out of here as untouched as she’d entered. She took another breath. “How do you know who I am?”
He made a click with his tongue that might have been amusement. “You don’t listen. But I should have remembered. Once an idea lodged in your head, you did not give it up easily.”
She shook her head. “I’m sorry. I—”
“Have you forgotten the boy who taught you to catch trout with your bare hands? To ride a pony astride without bridle or saddle?”
Otter? She looked at him again. Once, long ago, when she was small, a boy had come often to her father’s trading post with his uncle, an important man called Winter Fox. He’d been older than she by a few years, not many, young enough that her mother hadn’t forbidden them to play together. Other children had visited the post from time to time, but Otter had been her only real friend. But Otter had been a shy, gentle boy, slender as a reed with a quiet smile and tender hands. This savage warrior couldn’t possibly be…
He folded his arms across his chest. “Now you remember.”
“Otter?”
He retrieved a blanket from the edge of the fire and approached her with slow, measured steps. “You are cold, Mary Shannon. Warm yourself.”
“No,” she said stubbornly, clinging to reason. “You can’t be my Otter.”
When she flinched, he followed and draped the blanket around her shoulders. “Long ago I was,” he said. “But his time is past.”
Emboldened by his kind gesture, she sidled past the horse’s rump. In the far corner, a second horse stood nose to nose with Betty. With a shock she realized she knew these animals. The white trappers who’d stopped the Clark party early this morning had ridden these horses—the men who’d warned them about the raid by hostile Indians. This man, whoever he was, was at least a thief, perhaps even a murderer. Her fear flowed back twofold.
“Please, if you’d just let me go.”
He took a stand between her and the entrance. “Do you want to die?”
Her heart hammered against her chest, blood ringing in her ears. “You said…you promised you wouldn’t hurt me.” Tears welled up and rolled down her cheeks. “You promised.”
“Do you think Flynn O’Shea is the only man who speaks true?” His question rang hard and aggrieved. “You are my guest, Mary Shannon. Out there lies danger. I will keep you safe by my fire until morning.”
She swallowed the lump in her throat as thunder boomed and rolled across the mountain peaks. Alone with a nearly naked stranger, a barbaric tribesman with skin of dusty bronze…Safe? And her clad only in shift and stays, how could she be safe with him?
“Come.” He bent and added another log to the fire. “Warm yourself.” The words were soft, but commanding.
“The horses…” she dared. “You took them from—”
He nodded. “I did.”
“And the men who rode them?”
His sloe-black eyes glittered in the firelight. “This is Cherokee land,” he murmured. “The enemy of the Cherokee can expect no mercy.”
Chapter 2
A twig snapped and the flames flared, casting grotesque shadows on the wall and ceiling. A bone-deep chill radiated out from the pit of Shannon’s stomach, and she couldn’t help shivering. He’d as much as admitted he’d stolen the horses and murdered the men who’d ridden them. He was right. If he ever had been her friend Otter, it was long ago—replaced by a cold and heartless killer…a man who could use her as he pleased and discard her without a shred of conscience.
She wasn’t a coward, but she didn’t want to die. Still, if she had to, she’d do it with dignity. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of begging for her life. And she wouldn’t make it easy for him. She’d fight as long as she drew breath.
“Please,” she said, trying not to show how frightened she was, “I’m cold. Could I have my dress? It’s out there.” She pointed, but he’d already ducked around the wall of rock that concealed the inner chamber from the cave mouth. Before she could take two deep breaths, he was back, her dripping garment and stockings in his hands, beads of rain streaking his hard features and bare chest.
“You cannot wear these,” he said.
“Yes, I can.”
She reached for them, but he shook his head and draped the wet garments over a saddle on the far side of the fire. “You were never such a fool, Mary Shan-non. If you put them on before they dry, you will be even colder.”
“Don’t call me that,” she protested without thinking. Her mother had only used her full baptismal name when she’d been in trouble for some childish mischief. Moreover, it was what the orphanage matron, Mistress Murrain, had called her when she’d beaten her for breaking the rules. “Mar-ry Shan-non—Mar-ry Shan-non!” And each taunting syllable had brought another slash of the leather strap and more mocking ridicule from the other girls. “I go by Shannon now,” she finished, her voice dropping to a whisper.
“Shan-non.”
His soft Cherokee struck an unfamiliar chord, piercing her defenses, and unfurling a bright ribbon of excitement deep inside her. Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them back. “If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone I saw you,” she bargained.
“And I am to let the daughter of Truth Teller walk out into the storm to be struck down by anagalisgi, the lightning, or eaten by yona, the black bear?” He motioned her to sit down on the floor of the cave, fumbled in a leather bag, and tossed her a patty of what looked like corn bread. “Eat. You are too thin.”
Why was he offering her food? Did he think she’d fall into his arms for a morsel of bread?
“Eat, woman. Are you simple?”
Reluctantly, she nibbled at the cake. It was sweet and laced with dried berries. And after the first bite, her stomach growled, reminding her that she’d had nothing since mush and weak tea at dawn. Ravenous, she consumed the last crumbs.
“Good.” He indicated the cow contentedly chewing her cud. “There is milk to wash it down. No?”
Shannon dropped the blanket on the cave floor and did as she was told. She squirted warm milk from the cow’s teats into her mouth and drank until her belly was full. Then she glanced at him.
He shook his head. “Milk is not for the Tsalagi.” He didn’t have to translate. She remembered that that was the word that the Cherokee used to describe themselves. Tsalagi…the people. He dropped into a sitting position and held out his palms to the fire. “Warm yourself.”
She