Thirty
As dawn's first light streaked across the dark sky, Tess knelt beside Raven on a beach on the Chesapeake Bay and washed her face, letting the droplets of water trickle down her chin to dampen the bodice of the torn gown she wore.
Tess turned and smiled at Raven. She still couldn't believe he was alive. Alive! She brushed her knuckles against his bare arm in a caress. "How could I have ever doubted you? You said you would come for me. How could I have thought you were dead?"
He took her hand, planting a lingering kiss in her palm. "This man is only sorry he did not come sooner. Your uncle would never have brought you water. You could have died, Tess."
She touched his cheek. "But I didn't. You saved me. You did your duty to your people and to your men, and you saved me, too." Tess looked out at the water to see the sun's first rays glimmering off the glassy surface. Seagulls circled overhead, crying mournfully.
Tess felt so dirty, dirty not just from days of being unwashed, but dirty from the touch of Myron and her uncle. Dirty from the touch of English manake.
Tess stood up and began yanking at the back buttons of the gray gown Myron had given her.
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like I'm going to do. I'm going to take a bath." She pulled the shoulders of the gown down and shimmied out of it. Next came the stays.
"Now? You bathe now?"
She laughed feeling freer than she ever had in her lifetime. The air smelled of the salt of the bay and the release of confinement. "I am. Give me a bath and then I'll face the world. I'll fight the whole damned English army if you want me to. But first I'll have a bath." She pulled her shift over her head and ran down the beach naked. "Going to join me?" she called over her shoulder.
In a moment Raven was running beside her, his nude, suntanned body as sleek and muscular as a wild cat's. His shiny black hair rippled down his back, whipping in the salty breeze. Tess threw back her head, running faster. "Catch me!" she dared.
Raven caught her arm, and locked in an embrace they fell into the shallow water. Tess laughed and splashed, spitting and sputtering. She slipped out of his arms and swam out a ways. Standing in waist-deep water, she pulled handfuls of sand off the bay's bottom and scrubbed every inch of her skin until it tingled. As she washed in the Lenape way, she watched Raven.
As his hands glanced over his own flesh Tess began to imagine, to remember, what it was like to touch him. Her heart fluttered and she felt a familiar warmth spread in her loins. Slowly she walked toward him, her eyes only for him.
"Raven," she whispered.
He held his hand out to her. "Tess."
Reaching him, she threw her arms around his neck and he pulled her tight against his hard frame. Their mouths met with such a fierceness that it frightened Tess. It frightened her to think that she loved this man, so different than herself, more than she loved life itself.
"Love me," she whispered huskily in his ear. "Touch me, husband. Take away the pain of our enemy, of our future that's unknown."
"Tess, Tess," he crooned. "Heart of my heart." He covered her face in soft fleeting kisses, caressing her back, her buttocks, her long legs. Bay water splashed against her skin, the cool of the water blending with the heat of his touch.
Tess threw back her head as he kissed the pulse of her throat. His hands, his mouth, they were everywhere, soothing her, tantalizing her.
Tess stroked the thick corded muscles of his shoulders and back. She sucked on one male nipple until it was hard in her mouth and she heard him groan with pleasure.
Raven slipped his knee between her thighs and she rubbed her groin against it, sighing, moaning. He ran his fingers through her wet hair as she covered his chest with fervent kisses.
A seabird soared overhead, calling to its mate, but Tess barely heard the sounds of the gulls or the wash of the tide on the beach. She was lost, lost in the sensation of Raven's touch, lost in the true sense of what it was to love.
"Talk to me," she murmured. "I want to hear your voice."
His laughter was rich and throaty. "I love this place," he whispered, kissing the hollow of her shoulder. "And this place." He closed his mouth over one pert nipple and she arched her back, crying out in delight. "But this place, this place . . ." He ran his finger down her belly to the bed of red curls at the apex of her thighs. "This is the place most sweet to this man."
Tess laughed, running her hands through his wet, thick hair as he knelt in the water to bring his mouth to that secret place she would share with no man but him.
"You'll drown yourself," she teased, tugging at his shoulders. "Let's go up on the beach."
Pressing a kiss to the triangle of wet curls, he stood facing her. Raising both hands to hers, instinctively she clasped them, their fingers entwining. His gaze met hers and held her spellbound. "For all time this man declares his love for this woman," he said, his voice ringing in the still morning air. "I did not take my vow seriously the night our Shaman married us. But I make this commitment here, now, before no one but you and the mighty Creator."
Tears stung Tess's eyes. "I love you," was all she could manage.
Raven swung her into his arms, and she looped her hands around his neck. Their gazes locked, he carried her to the shore and laid her gently on the beach.
Tess put out her arms to him, the need to feel him inside her so strong that she trembled. "Love me," she said, raising her hands to him.
Raven lowered his body over hers and with one gentle motion, he took her. Tess looped her arms around his neck, and letting her eyes drift shut, began to move to the rhythm of the music in her head, the same music she knew Raven heard.
Later, when their desires were fulfilled, their breathing steady once again, Raven sat up. He picked up a clam shell and hurled it into the water. "I wish that this man could stay here with you for many days. It would be good to be alone with you. To fish with you, to hunt, to make love on the beach."
Tess sat up beside him to look out on the bay. The sun was up now, bright and bold in the blue sky. It warmed her heart as well as her face. "But we can't, can we?" she said softly.
He shook his head. "Your uncle vowed to retaliate. He says he knows where the village is. I fear for my people."
"Maybe he's lying," she offered hopefully.
"Perhaps, but you and I know we cannot depend on that. We must return to the village and prepare for battle."
Tess glanced at Raven. "I can't go."
He looked at her. "What do you say?"
She covered his hand with hers. "Sky. I have to find Sky. I'm hoping she's right in Annapolis with Marty. But wherever she is, I have to find her." She looked away. "Raven, I found out that my sister is dead. Abby is dead, and she's been dead for a long time."
"This man is sorry."
Regaining her composure, she went on. "I know I can't bring Abby back. But this makes it even more important that I find Sky and care for her. Your mother says nothing is coincidence. Everything is laid in the stars before we're born. All along I thought I was supposed to be taking care of Abby, but maybe it's Sky that I have to be here for." She took Raven's hand in hers. "So I want you to go on to the village. I'll go back to Annapolis, find Sky, and I'll join you. I can find my way back to the village; I know I can."
Raven pressed a kiss to the pulse at her wrist. "This child is that important to you? You love her in your heart?"
"Yes. Yes."
"Then this man loves her as well. If you want the child to take into our lodge as your own, then I want her as my own. I will be as good a father to her as to the child you carry in your womb."
Tess made a face. "The child I carry in my womb? What are you talking about?"
Raven smiled. "Dream Woman says you carry our first born."
Tess brushed her fingers over her bare, flat stomach. Could it be true? She laughed, giddy with the idea. Raven's child . . . "But how could Dream Woman know?" she asked suspiciously. "I haven't even missed my courses yet."
"She is the Woman of Dreams. She knows, my Tess."
"A baby," she whispered. "We're going to have a baby?" She lifted her lashes. "And you don't mind?"
"Of course this man does not mind. It is every Lenape man's desire to have a child by the woman he loves. But this means that I must get you safely to our village where our child cannot be harmed." He sprang to his feet offering her his hand. "So let us return to the evil 'Napolis, find the child, and then we warn our Lenape brothers."
Tess squeezed Raven's hand, making the strength of his determination her own strength. "Let us warn our Lenape brothers . . ." she echoed.
The following evening Tess, Raven, and Sky rode into the Lenape village on the backs of two fine mares. Tess could not believe their good fortune. After all the bad things that had happened, after all the bad luck and misfortune, it seemed as if suddenly her life was blessed. She and Raven had found Marty's father's cabin on the outskirts of Annapolis. Not only did Marty turn the child over to her safely, but she gave Tess two horses as a gift. Tess and Raven made it back to the village quicker than they could have if they had not taken the time to return for the child.
Marty had wished them Godspeed and urged them to run for their lives. As they spoke, Albert MacElby was already forming a group of men to attack the Lenape village. He had vowed to take revenge on the savages who had kidnapped his dear niece not once, but twice.
At the edge of the village Tess and Raven dismounted. Tess pulled Sky down off the horse; the little girl's face was beaming. "This is our home now," Tess signed. "We are Lenape, you and I."
Sky nodded, slipping her small hand into Tess's.
Side by side, Tess and Raven walked into the village, the villagers gathering around them in excitement.
"We must gather in the Big House," Raven called out. "Summon our great chief and the mighty Shaman. There is danger at our door, brothers and sisters."
Dream Woman met Tess halfway across the compound. She threw her arms around Tess, tears running freely down her cheeks. "My daughter, this old woman feared she would never set sight of your face again!"
Tess hugged her mother-in-law tightly. "I'm so glad to be here, Dream Woman. So glad to be home." She pulled back a little, looking into her eyes. "Raven told me about Taande. I'm so sorry. I know you loved him. And Raven's sorry, too. Raven loved Taande, no matter what he might have said."
"This woman knows, she knows." She smiled sadly. "I miss him, but I must be glad for the time we had together." Dream Woman looped her arm through Tess's. "Come let me take you to my hearth and give you food while my son speaks to our people in the Big House."
"No." Raven laid his arm on Tess's. "My wife will join me in the Big House. She is one of us now, and she has a right to speak her thoughts, as much right as any of us."
Tess looked up at Raven who stood over her shoulder. "You . . . you want me at the council meeting?"
"Take the child, Mother. Have one of the old ones care for her. She does not hear our words, so you must speak with the handsigns we speak to other tribes with."
Dream Woman took Sky's hand, and with a little encouragement from Tess, Sky went off with Dream Woman.
Less than twenty minutes later, every able-bodied man and woman had gathered in the Big House. After a quick prayer by the Shaman, Polished Stone, the chief, stood. "Friends, we gather here because our war chief, Raven, tells us he has grave news from the white-hair village of 'Napolis." She indicated him with a sweep of her hand. "I will let him speak."
Tess listened as Raven explained in his native tongue how he had found Tess and how her uncle had threatened to attack the village. As his story unfolded, Tess was amazed that not a single villager stood up to express distaste for her because she had brought this upon them. She had passed some rite of fire at an unknown point in the last few weeks, and now suddenly they considered her one of their own.
Several of the men stood up with suggestions as to how to defend the village. Then, hesitantly, Tess lifted her hand.
"Let her speak," She-Who-Swings, recognized Tess. "I will hear the wife of Raven."
Tess stood, a little a nervous, but determined she had to say what she felt in her heart. She spoke in Lenape, substituting English words when necessary. "This . . . this woman understands why you feel you must defend your village, but . . . but there is another choice." She scanned the crowd of quiet men and women, all their black eyes on her. "Even if we beat these men, they will come again. They are evil; my uncle, and the man I almost married. Tomorrow, next week, next year they will come again. The village is too close to the English villages. I do not truthfully know how you've managed to stay here this long and live peaceably."
"What do you say, then?" asked a young woman with a red feather earring.
"I say, I suggest, that we should consider packing our belongings and going to a place where there are no white men, where no one will ever harm us again."
"Go?" a man called. "Our people have been here for a thousand years. We cannot go."
Dream Woman lifted a finger. "Tess speaks wisely. This is not the first time this has been brought up, brothers and sister of the Lenape. We have talked before of moving as the other Lenape have moved. Perhaps it is time to follow the path of our destiny."
Raven's gaze fixed on Tess. "We can beat them, the English manake."
"I know you can," she answered Raven directly. "But didn't you once tell me that the position of war chief was not just to lead men into battle but to know when to fight and when not to fight?" She shook her head. "This is not the time to fight, husband. If we win today, we cannot win tomorrow. Men will die, women and children will die." She fought tears. "I am afraid for your people's survival, people who have become my people."
Raven was silent for a long moment. The entire village was silent. Raven looked from Tess, to the villagers, to She-Who-Swings-From-The-Stars. "What say you, great chief?"
"What say you, llua? "
He turned back to Tess. "I say that my wife is a wise woman. I say that she knows the white-hairs. I say we move north, north into the French Canadas where no one will ever harm our people again."
A murmur of excitement rippled through the crowd.
"What say you, men and women of the Lenape?" She-Who-Swings asked.
"Aye," they called one by one. "Yes. Kehella."
The chief lifted her hands heavenward. "Our people say we go. So lead us, brother Raven. Tell us what we must do to prepare for our enemy's arrival, and we will fly away into the night."
Once the decision to move the village was made, Tess was amazed by how quickly the Lenape men and women moved into action. All through the night they gathered their belongings and built travois to carry them. Foodstuffs were packed into every corn-husk basket and skin bag they owned. Squash and beans were picked from the garden. Strips of dried venison, fish, and clams, were packed into cloth baskets. Lodge poles were dug up and loaded onto travois or burned.
With Dream Woman's help, Tess packed the wedding gifts she and Raven had received. All her household items, stored food, and Raven's weapons were packed, and tied to a skin travois to be pulled by a man or shaggy pony. Of course many things had to be left behind, but after all Tess had been through, possessions meant nothing to her. For years she had dreamed of living in a big house with clothes and dishes and silver, and now all that mattered was being with Raven and the others she'd come to love.
After most of Raven's wigwam had been emptied Tess found a basket under the sleeping platform. From it, she pulled the pair of hard, dry leather slippers she had brought with her. Jocelyn's slippers . . .
Tess fingered the cracked leather, thinking she should just leave the silly things behind, but then she thought better of it. She would take Jocelyn's slippers with her to the new land to the north, and each time she looked at the slippers she would remember the trials she had had to endure to find the happiness she now possessed. As she dropped the slippers into a small reed basket and handed them to Sky to be loaded onto the travois, she thought to herself that perhaps all the pain, all the sorrow, had been somehow necessary, or else how would she have appreciated her happiness as much as she appreciated it now?
Before dawn, the villagers gathered at the communal firepit to pray to the Creator Manito for traveling mercies. After a prayer led by the Shaman, and a brief ceremony, Raven called for the men to light their torches and set fire to the wigwams. By mutual agreement, the Lenape would leave nothing of their village for the English to desecrate.
Tess stood beside Raven and the others as the men lit the homes one by one. And then, with a great cheer, the villagers started out of the village. They would walk west until they were well out of the way of the English settlements and then they would bear north. When Albert MacElby and his henchmen arrived at the village, there would be no one there to attack, there would be nothing left of the Lenape but the smoldering ruins of their homes.
Once the wigwams were set aflame, the Lenape walked out of the village. Small children and the elderly rode on the travois pulled by the young men or by one of the few ponies the village owned. Tess and Raven walked at the rear of the column with Dream Woman and Sky. Warriors, their long rifles primed, flanked the travelers for protection.
Just as Tess lost sight of the burning wigwams she heard a voice calling from behind them. "Have we left someone?" she asked, swinging around to peer into the darkness.
Raven lifted his French musket, brought back from Braddock's massacre. "Who goes there?" he shouted in English.
"Ne nipauwi!" came a male voice. "Wait! Where do you go?"
To Tess's shock, out of the billowing smoke Taande appeared.
Tess heard Dream Woman give a strangled cry as she raced across the forest floor, her arms outstretched. Taande limped toward her, calling her name.
Tears gathered in the corners of Tess's eyes as Taande and Dream Woman embraced, kissing like young lovers. Looping her arm through Raven's she looked up at him. "He's alive," she whispered. "He's alive and somehow he made it back here."
Raven stood beside her for a moment, his face devoid of any emotion. Then, he gently disengaged Tess's arm from his and crossed the woods to his mother and her lover. "Taande," he said softly.
Tess held her breath.
"Taande, this man is glad to see you. We will need a great warrior such as yourself to get us safely to the Canada mountains we seek."
The two men's gazes met for an instant, and then Raven walked away. "Let us hurry, brother! The manake come. This man will explain all that has happened since we last saw your face once we are safe from the danger."
Taande and Dream Woman walked ahead, arm in arm, greeting the other villagers.
Tess fell into step beside Raven at the rear of the group. Suddenly melancholy, she glanced over her shoulder at the village in the distance to see flames shooting into the dark sky, sending columns of smoke heavenward. This was the place she and Raven had fallen in love, the place where she had come to truly know herself, and now she was leaving it all behind.
Raven laid his hand gently on her shoulder. "Do not look back, wife of mine, heart of my heart. Look forward into our future, forward into the future of our children." He threaded his fingers with hers, and kissed her mouth. "Look forward into the future to a day when the red and white men will live under the same sky as one people . . ."