Twenty-three
July 8, 1758
The Monongahela River
Tess walked beside Rosa among a sea of red-coated soldiers. She and Rosa had meandered to the very front of the line so that Tess could catch a glimpse of Raven somewhere just ahead, cutting a path through the jungle-like foliage for the soldiers.
Tess glanced over her shoulder searching for Boeing. If he caught her here in the front of the advancing army, there would be hell to pay. She was supposed to be in the rear where no one would notice her.
Tess gave a sigh. She felt as if she'd walked a thousand miles in these last weeks. Moving through dampness and shadow, the army had crossed ravines and gorges, passed waterfalls, and crawled over ridges. Only through the damp leaves and mist of the early morning did they catch glimpses of the surrounding green mountains they passed.
By the eighteenth of June Braddock's army had reached a place called Little Meadows, less than thirty miles from Fort Dusquesne. But fever and dysentery had spread among the men. The movement of Braddock's army had become so slow and cumbersome with the hundreds of baggage horses, many weak or worthless, that Braddock made the decision to separate his men. He had taken fifteen hundred chosen soldiers, a few wagons and tumbrels, a small herd of cattle, his heavy artillery, a train of pack-horses, and pushed ahead. He left the remainder of the army behind under a Colonel Dunbar's command with orders to push to Fort Dusquesne at their own pace.
When the army split, Tess had become distressed to learn that Raven had gone with Braddock to continue cutting through the forest while she'd been forced by Boeing to remain behind with the slow-moving supplies. It had been more than two weeks since Tess had seen Raven—two weeks of not knowing if he was dead or alive.
When Tess discovered that Boeing would be traveling from Dunbar's camp ahead to carry a message to Braddock she'd thrown herself upon her captor's mercy. She told him she was afraid to remain with Dunbar's army without him, even in Marty's care. She said she feared for what still remained of her respectability. She appealed to his sense of masculinity, telling him that she could only feel safe when she was near him. She'd even squeezed out a tear or two for good measure. Boeing had fallen for it.
When Tess told Marty and Rosa she was riding up to the front with Boeing, Rosa had excitedly proclaimed she was going, too. She told Tess that the good money was with Braddock's men, not Dunbar's copper pinchers. Tess didn't know how Rosa had managed to convince Boeing to take her along. All Tess knew was that early this morning when she'd met Boeing, there had been three horses waiting, with Rosa's washtub tied to the back of one of them. When Tess had asked Rosa, in a whisper, how she'd gotten Boeing to allow her to go she'd winked. "Good washing," she'd giggled.
Tess had waved good-bye to Sky, signing to her that she would be back the following day. Tears had run down Sky's plump cheeks as she signed again and again, Don't go, don't leave me. But Tess had held firm, knowing the child would be safer with Marty. Tomorrow, she had signed one last time. I love you, my brave Sky. And then she had reined the horse around and followed Boeing and Rosa.
Tess quickened her pace beside Rosa. Two soldiers gave a whistle as they passed and Tess wished Boeing had not confiscated her Mohawk skinning knife. Now all she carried tucked into her belt and hidden by her blue-tick petticoat was a paring knife. Still, it was better than nothing.
Tess heard a horseman coming up behind her and she and Rosa moved to the left to let him by. He was a huge man, taller than anyone Tess knew. He was young, not much older than Tess, with a memorable face and an air about him that emanated confidence. Tess pointed as he rode by. "Who's he?"
"Him?" Rosa raised her eyebrows. "That there's Mr. Washington. His Christian name be George, I think. Fine piece, no?"
Tess watched as the man called Washington turned his mount at the head of the line and began to ride back along the column of soldiers.
"A Virginian. Got money, I think. He'd make a fine catch for a husband. So far I haven't been able to interest him in my services, though."
"He's not wearing a uniform. What's he doing here?"
Rosa shrugged. "I don't know. He's one of what are they called? An aide, that's it. You know. Braddock asks him what he thinks, Washington gives his opinion, and Braddock does what he was going to do anyway." Rosa pointed. "Say, look. There's the axemen." She leaned and whispered. "Do you see your man?"
Tess craned her neck, her heart thumping in her chest. Please let him be all right, she begged silently. Please . . .
Her prayers were instantly answered as she spotted Raven to the right-forward edge of the column of soldiers. Tess's breath caught in her throat. "There," she whispered, not daring to point.
"Where?" Rosa stood on her tiptoes trying to see over a soldier's head.
"He's the only red man among the axemen. How can you miss him?" Tess giggled, giddy with relief.
"Sweet Mary, mother of God," Rosa breathed crossing herself. "I don't believe I've ever seen a body so fine, and I've seen a few."
Tess laughed with Rosa, admiring Raven with her.
Raven was swinging a long-handled axe, his easily defined back and shoulder muscles rippling with each fluid movement. The chains at his feet and hands seemed to be naught but an annoyance as they clanged with each swing. Around his neck was his prized medicine bag that Tess knew held his grandfather's bit of quartz. He was wearing nothing save a pair of tight red soldier's breeches and his own knee-high leather moccasins. His skin, as suntanned red as a potter's clay, was covered in a thin sheen of perspiration. Because he was facing away from her, Tess couldn't see his face, only his shiny black hair pulled back in a thick braid, and the strain of the muscles in his neck as he swung the axe one last time and felled the tree.
"Sweet heaven, were he mine, I believe I'd jump his bones day and night."
Tess felt her cheeks grow warm with a mixture of embarrassment and pride. "I told you, we're not really man and wife."
"And you think that's what it takes to jump a man?" Rosa gave a laugh. "Not hardly."
"Rosa!"
Rosa laughed. "Sweet Mother of God! If you love that man the way I think you do, you'll be getting him free and taking yourselves back to some tepee to make more little redskins."
"He's Delaware. They don't live in tepees," Tess corrected. "And I told you. Once he's free, I'll be returning to Annapolis."
Rosa shook her head making a clicking sound between her teeth. "You're a fool if you let him go. Is he big? You know, his cod." She stared at Raven as he turned around to grab the tree and drag it off the path. "Looks big in those breeches from here."
"Rosa, you're embarrassing me," Tess moaned.
"So how are you going to get to see him? Boeing says we're going back at first light tomorrow before the army crosses the river. Boeing says they're afraid of an ambush at the Narrows so the army's going to cross the Monongahela and then cross it again." Rosa gave a shudder. "Just the thought of Indian attack makes my blood run cold. I intend to have a profitable night, and then I'm high-tailing it back to Dunbar's camp."
Tess watched Raven as he dragged the tree as thick as his calf and as tall as a two-story house out of the way of two men rolling a cannon. He hadn't spotted her, which was just as well. She didn't want him to know she was here, not yet. He would only worry.
Tess looked up at the trees hanging ominously overhead. Despite the breeze, the air was close and foreboding. The army was surrounded on four sides by dense forest and the unknown. Once again she thought about what Raven had said about an ambush. Braddock's army was barely eight miles from Dusquesne and still there had been no attack. Maybe Raven had been wrong. Once Braddock's men made it to the fort, Boeing said the English cannon would splinter the walls in a matter of hours and Fort Dusquesne would fall.
Tess felt a sudden urgent need to be with Raven. She had missed him these last weeks and she was afraid, afraid for him, afraid for herself and Sky. Boeing had sent a message back to Annapolis to Myron, but he had said it was unsafe to send her home right now, even with an escort. The French-allied Indians were picking off Braddock and Dunbar's stragglers and those who wandered from the main body of the armies on a daily basis. Some, they say, were just murdered and scalped; those were the lucky ones. The unlucky were said to be dragged off to endure unspeakable cruelties before being killed.
Tess watched Raven as he lifted his axe and began to cut away the lower branches of an oak tree so that the heavy artillery could pass by. Tonight she would go to Raven. Tonight they would figure out a way to get him free. She shivered despite the overwhelming heat and humidity of the day. She just had to get Raven free before something terrible happened. And something terrible was going to happen, she could feel it in her bones.
It was near midnight when Tess finally heard Boeing's breathy snoring. Only then did she crawl out of her bedroll and out from under the cannon where Boeing had bid her sleep.
Boeing was asleep on his back, fully clothed in his buckskins, his musket cradled in his arms. Beside him, Rosa's bedroll was still empty. Tess looked out over the sleeping army, spotting the shadows of the many sentries. Rosa was out there somewhere, no doubt in one of the officers' tents, entertaining.
Tess took Boeing's waterbag from a pile of belongings at his feet and crept silently away. Tucked in a bag she wore on her waist was a small ration of bread. It was all she'd managed to take without being noticed. With so few soldiers willing to venture far enough into the forest to kill wild game, the army rations had grown sparse.
Tess crouched behind another cannon as a sentry approached. She tried to remember all that Raven had taught her about the forest and about the enemy. She had to believe that she was invisible to the soldier. She stood motionless becoming one with the warm metal, trying to imagine what it must feel like to be made of wood and iron.
The sentry passed not noticing the woman who stood so close she could have touched his hand with hers.
Tess skirted along the camp, avoiding the fires where men remained awake playing at cards or dice, too fearful of the French and their Indians to sleep peacefully. She knew where she would find Raven, at the very head of the column. His guards would have chained him to a tree where the army and forest met.
When Tess spotted Raven she knew that he had heard her approaching. He was staring at her, his black eyes glimmering in the pale moonlight.
"You should not be here," were his first words. "I thought you had remained behind with the packhorses and wagons."
Tess crawled the last few feet toward him. Less than twenty yards away, hired axemen slept around the dying red coals of a cookfire.
"How long must I be gone before you're glad to see me?" she asked, half teasing, half serious. The sound of his voice made her chest ache. Heaven above, but she had missed him.
Raven followed her with his coal eyes as she slipped the water skin from her shoulder and made herself busy with the tie that kept it watertight. "Tell me why you are here, my Tess."
His face was thinner than she had remembered, his high cheekbones more defined with dark shadows beneath his eyes. "I had to see you," she whispered passionately. "Drink this." She pushed the water skin to his mouth. "I had to know you were all right."
He took the water in great gulps. How often do they give him food and water? she thought. Not often enough.
"You were safer behind," he said, his voice raspy with the strain of the day and the lack of proper hydration. "You should have stayed there."
She brushed her fingers along his jawline, a lump rising in her throat. She hated to see him like this, chained to a tree like a rabid dog. "I told you. I'm fine. But we have to get you loose, Raven. I'm afraid for you." She clasped his gaunt cheeks between her palms.
"I am all right."
"No—And I am truly afraid. It's something I can't explain, just something I feel all of a sudden."
He sighed, softening his tone as he brought her closer to him, taking care not to disturb the chains that bound him to the tree. She rested her cheek on his bare shoulder.
"It is the way of the Lenape to feel the struggle of the cycle of life and death around us," he told her gently. "Some say it is a blessing, others, a curse."
She lifted her head to stare into his dark eyes, eyes that made her weak in her knees. "It's not just me, then? You feel it, too?"
"For weeks I have known something terrible circles this army of men. A darkness that will swallow them up." He clenched his fists in anger. "And I am powerless, powerless to protect you. I should never have let this happen."
"It's not your fault. Wouldn't Dream Woman say it was just fate . . . in the stars? Manito's will?" She smiled at him, at his unfailing bravery. "Now stop worrying about me and let's figure out what we're going to do about you. I told you, I can take care of myself. Last week some soldier thought he'd take liberties with me. I brained him with a cookpot. They say he's still got no vision in one eye, but he's left me alone." She forced herself to smile as she pushed bites of bread into his mouth. Then she grew more serious. "Now tell me how are we going to get you free of these chains, Raven."
"The guard carries the key to the padlocks," he said chewing hungrily. He reached out as he spoke, smoothing a stray lock of hair that had escaped her simple chignon. "There is no way to get his key short of killing him for it."
"I'll do it," Tess whispered, peering out into the darkness. "Tell me which one he is."
Raven laughed. "What a fierce wildcat you have become, my Tess."
Still on her knees she turned back to face him, her face only inches from his. She had missed this closeness to him, this feeling that together the two of them made one. She stroked his cheek, his neck, his shoulder ridged with cuts and scabs. She could have sworn that she detected the marks of a whip on his back, but she said nothing. "Be serious with me," she went on. "Tell me what I can do."
"You can go back to the Dun-bar camp. Better, you can get the man called Boeing to take you home and let your My-Ron pay him for returning you safely."
"Don't say that. I won't abandon you."
"There is no way for me to escape. My hope is that once we reach the fort—if we reach the fort—one of my brothers will see me and set me free before it is too late."
Tess lowered her head, fighting tears that stung at the backs of her eyes. He sounded as if there was little hope. She rested her hands on his bare shoulders to steady herself. "I love you, you know."
"Shhh," he crooned, pushing back the hair that had fallen across her face. His chains clinked as he moved. "The words are not necessary."
She lifted her head, her gaze searching his. "There's no way for you to get loose? You're certain?"
"Not now. Perhaps soon. But you cannot help, Tess. You can only help this man by promising that you will go. If I know that you are safe, I can turn my thoughts to my escape and not worry about you."
What Raven said made sense, she supposed. Braddock had almost reached the fort. Another two days and Raven might possibly come in contact with men from his own village or another Lenape village. Surely someone would recognize him as one of their own and set him free.
Tess looked up into Raven's dark eyes. "All right," she said quietly. "Boeing says we return to Dunbar's camp in the morning. I'll go, but not because I want to." He smiled and his smile warmed her heart. "You really are going to be all right, aren't you?" she asked.
"It is not my time to die, yet, Tess of mine. Now give this man a kiss and go back to your scout who will watch over you. Let him take you to the home you long for, the home this man has kept you from."
Tess felt herself tremble. All this talk of returning to Annapolis had been so easy. Now she realized the reality of returning home. Suddenly she was terrified that she would never see Raven again. She flung her arms around him. "Swear you won't let them kill you. Swear it Raven. Swear it!"
He kissed the curve of her jaw, a soft fleeting kiss. "Not if it is in my power to prevent it. This man promises. He promises in the name of the honor of the Bear Clan of the Lenape." He kissed her again.
Tess could feel her heart pounding in her chest. I love this man, I love him more than life, was all she could think. It didn't matter that he had never said he loved her. All that mattered was his voice as he crooned soft words in his native tongue. All that mattered was the touch of his lips on her throat.
Tess ran the palms of her hands over his broad scarred chest, letting her eyes drift shut. There were so many cuts and tears on his perfect sun-kissed flesh. The hard, dangerous work of clearing the forest had taken its toll on his body. Her fingers found the nearly healed scar of the musket wound she'd inflicted and a lump rose in her throat. She climbed into his lap, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressed her lips to the wound.
"No," he whispered, his breath hot in her ear. "We cannot. They will hear us, Tess,"
"I don't care," she flung. She covered his face in fervent kisses. "I don't care. I want you, Raven. I want to remember what it feels like . . ."
Tess heard Raven groan as she settled more squarely on his lap, her arms wrapped around his neck. She could feel his loins swelling, pressing against her woman's mound. Her veins were suddenly running white hot with a desperate desire she had never experienced before.
Tess pressed her mouth to Raven's and their tongues twisted in an urgency born of danger. "I can't go back, Raven," she whispered. He was kissing the pulse of her throat, sending shivers of pleasure through her. Tess's chest rose and fell raggedly as she tore at the opening of her muslin shirt, needing to feel his mouth on her aching breasts.
"You must go," Raven said.
"No." Tess arched her back, guiding his head to one erect nipple, threading her fingers through his thick hair. Somewhere in the back of her mind she heard the clink of his chains and she thought of the guards sleeping so closely to them. But it was too late to care. The want inside her was too strong to stop what she knew she'd begun.
"I'll go back with the army, but not to Annapolis," she whispered in his ear, guiding his hand over her breasts. "My place is with you, my husband."
"Tess, you do not know what you say. It is what you have wanted since the first day. You have wanted to go home. . . . Your sister."
"This is home. You, you are home. I'll find a way to bring Abby to the village, Raven. I'll have you both." She pressed her mouth to his as she fumbled with the tie at his red breeches.
Raven groaned as she wrapped her fingers around his stiff rod. "Tess, Tess, this too dangerous for us both," he murmured, his voice thick. "And I cannot move with the chains."
"I don't care," she breathed, slipping off his lap. All she cared about was this fierce love she had for Raven and the fear that she would lose him. "Just sit. Let me make love to you like you've made love to me so many times."
Then Tess lowered her head. She heard the chains on Raven's wrists clink as he guided her head. She touched the soft tip of his engorged shaft with her tongue hesitantly and she tasted his saltiness.
Raven gasped.
How many times had he given her the pleasure of his mouth since he had wed her? Tess wondered. She stroked him with her tongue, exploring the length of him. Now she wanted to give him the same pleasure. Was this what it was to truly love? To want to give entirely of yourself to the other?
Tess heard Raven groan in passion and felt him shudder. The thought that she could give him a little happiness here in this terrible place empowered her. She wanted to hear his sensuous moans; she wanted to give to him what he had given to her so many times.
Raven's shaft was hard and pulsing in her hand and yet his skin was as soft as new-tanned leather. She took him in her mouth and he groaned, threading his fingers through her hair. He called her name as she stroked him. He crooned in his native tongue. It didn't matter to Tess that she didn't understand much of what he said, what mattered was his voice.
"Ah, Tess, enough," he murmured huskily in her ear. "Sit here upon me and let this man take you to the stars and back."
She looked up him, her eyes laughing, crying at the same time. She loved him so much that it hurt.
Tess rested her hands on his broad bare shoulders, hiking up her petticoat until it bunched around her waist.
Raven rested his hands on her hips, his clanking chains restricting his movement.
"Shhhh," she whispered in his ear, nipping at the lobe. "The guards will hear you." She pushed down his hands. "Let me."
Resting her hands on his shoulders she raised her hips and then lowered them, guiding him with her hand until he penetrated her. Tess couldn't contain a moan of pleasure. She had wanted this for so long; she had forgotten what it felt like to be possessed by Raven, to possess him as she did now.
Tess looped her arms around his neck and arched her back so that he could take her taut nipple in his mouth. "There has to be a way," she whispered recklessly, her breath coming faster. "There must be a way for us to be together. I love you too much to let you go, Raven. You don't have to love me back. That doesn't matter. I have enough love for both of us. Just need me. Just want me. That's all I would ever ask of you."
"This man wants you," Raven answered, his voice husky with passion. He was rising and falling beneath her, setting the rhythm of their lovemaking. Theirs was a union of urgency, of desperation.
The seriousness of Tess's words were lost to them both in the passion of the moment. All Tess could think of as she rose and fell, her entire body shuddering with each strong thrust, was that this might be the last time she and Raven would ever make love as husband and wife. Hot tears fell down her cheeks as she drove harder, the need for fulfillment suddenly stronger than the need to live.
At the very same moment that Tess threw back her head in ultimate ecstasy, she felt Raven's body convulse. He spilled into her, calling her name. Tess's entire body shuddered again and again, shivers of delight rippling through her veins.
Raven held Tess in his arms and she laid her cheek on his shoulder. He went to withdraw from her and she shook her head.
"Just a minute longer," she whispered. "I want to feel you inside me just a minute longer."
He kissed her damp temples, first one and then the other. He stroked her back through the bunched muslin of her man's shirt. He kissed the hollow of her shoulder and when he found his voice, he spoke, his words as gentle as the summer breeze that now cooled them.
"What you said of loving me enough for the both of us. It is not true, Tess."
She lifted her head from his shoulder looking into his haunting black eyes. "But it is true. I love you so much that if you'll just have me as your wife, I can make myself content. You and I, and Sky, and Abby. We could be a family. That's what I want, Raven. That's my dream now."
A smiled played at the corners of his mouth. He pressed his finger to her lips to silence her. "What I wanted to tell you was that it is not true that this man does not love you."
Tess's heart leaped in her breast. "What are you saying?" she whispered.
"K'daholel, ki-ti-hi, that is what this man is saying. I love you as the heavens love the stars. I love you as the Creator loves all He has created." He followed her gaze with his, searching for understanding. "It is not until now when I consider I may truly lose you that I know I love you. To admit this kind of love, this weakness, is hard for this man, but I must be true to my heart and to yours."
Fresh tears ran down Tess's cheeks. Raven caught one with his fingertip and brought it to his lips. She threw her arms around him, her chest bursting with joy, her throat constricted with shock. She knew he loved her, she knew it deep in heart, but to have him admit it, made this moment in time perfect . . . perfect forever.
"Tell me the words again," she whispered. "Tell me, Raven."
He took her hand in his and began to kiss her fingertips one pad at a time. "K'daholel. K'daholel, ki-ti-hi. I love you, my heart," he said softly.
She smiled, repeating after him. "K . . . k'daholel, ki-ti-hi. I love you, my heart."
His hands encircling her waist, Raven gently lifted her, withdrawing from inside her. "Now you must go," he whispered. "Before we are caught."
She pushed down her blue-tick petticoat and pulled up the shoulders of the wrinkled shirt. Then she reached out and grabbing the leather thong that held his medicine pouch around his neck, she twisted it, pulling him toward her. "I'll go back to Dunbar's camp, but I'll wait for you there, Raven. You understand? I won't go to Annapolis with Boeing. I'll wait for you."
"I do not know how long it will take me to escape. It would be better if you—"
"I'll wait," she repeated fiercely.
He sighed. "Go, then," he urged. "Go, Tess, go safely into the night. Let my love for you protect you as I would protect you with my bare hands were I at your side."
She kissed him hard, wanting him to remember the taste and the feel of her lips on his, and then she ran off into the darkness of the British camp.