Chapter One
August 1759
Somewhere in Penn's Colony
Mackenzie Daniels stared up into the tree limbs overhead, fascinated by the patterns of light and dark that poured through the dense foliage and swirled on the forest floor in a kaleidoscope of colors and textures. The warm wind blew in her face, and the smell of honeysuckle was strong in her nostrils.
Her horse moved rhythmically beneath her at an easy pace. In front and behind her rode a dozen British soldiers, her escort to Fort Belvadere. Her father, Franklin, brought up the rear in his wagon, which was filled with trading goods and her precious art supplies.
"We can stop and rest if you're tired, Mackenzie." Joshua Watkins met her gaze with those cow-brown eyes of his.
She loosened the reins in her gloved hands, encouraging her mount to pick up the pace.
She sat astride a man's saddle, rather than sidesaddle because Major Albertson, the commander of Fort Belvadere, had ordered it so. He had warned her father that it would be easier for her to escape in case of an Indian attack.
Indian attack . She shuddered at the thought.
"Mackenzie? Did you hear me? I said that if you're fatigued—"
"I'm not tired." Mackenzie met Josh's gaze again. She'd completely forgotten him. "I'm fine."
Rather than being flattered by his attention, as her father suggested she should be, she was annoyed. She didn't care if Joshua was the only man interested in her. She didn't want a man. What did she need a husband for when she could ride, shoot, fish, chop wood and skin out her own deer? "I told you I was fine half an hour ago, Josh," she continued. "And I told you an hour ago."
"I . . . I know. I was just checking. It's been a hard journey."
She frowned. He was just trying to make her feel womanly again, as if she were his delicate flower. Glancing at her clothing, she snickered at the thought. She wore a blue tick skirt and her father's shirt with a pair of men's leather riding boots made by the saddler. In clothes like this, she wasn't exactly a picture of femininity.
"Oh, it has not been hard. It's been nothing like you and Father tried to warn me." She tugged off her straw bonnet by its flat ribbon and shook her mane of auburn hair. Then she looped the reins over the pommel and passed the hat to Josh to hold while she swept loose strands from her face and secured them in a ribbon at the nape of her neck. "I've quite enjoyed the journey. I've seen none of the dangers you warned of."
She held the ribbon in her teeth as she tugged on the unruly handfuls of hair. "The birds, the deer, those foxes we saw yesterday. The rivers, the clouds, the moon at night. It's all grand, Josh, just as I imagined. I haven't seen a single redskin since we left the Chesapeake." She caught a stray lock of hair that blew in the breeze. "I swear, I'm beginning to think you men made up this whole story of hostile Indians so that you could traipse off into the forest with your guns and sit around at night and drink and spit and scratch."
"You might not believe it now, but just you wait 'til we reach the fort," he responded anxiously. "The soldiers say the place is swarming with the devils."
"I'm not afraid of Indians." She lied. She was afraid. Her father's whispers behind her back had made her afraid.
"Which is just why I don't think you belong here, Mackenzie. With the fighting all over the colonies, it's too dangerous. You don't know enough to realize when you're in danger."
"My first commissioned portraits," she scoffed, "and you think I should have turned Major Albertson down because a few scalps have been taken?" She drew the ribbon from her teeth and wrapped it around the thick ponytail of hair. "That's just why it will never work between you and me, Josh. This is a perfect example of why I could never marry you."
He looked behind them to see if anyone had heard her. "Shhhh." He lowered his voice. "I thought we weren't going to talk about that. I thought we were just going to see how things went on this journey."
She took her bonnet from his hands and slapped it on top of her head. "You and Father made those plans, not me. I already gave you my answer, Josh." She whipped the ribbons through her fingers to tie the hat down. "I'm not marrying you. I'm not marrying anyone. I just want to—"
Gunfire erupted from the forest and her horse shied and danced in place.
"Indians!" a soldier shouted.
Mackenzie grabbed her reins tightly, keeping control of her horse. The soldiers immediately formed a tight circle around her. She crouched and stared up into the trees waiting for the Indian attack.
Joshua drew his musket from his leather saddlebag, his face pasty with fear. "Oh, God. Oh, Jesus God. I knew we were going to be massacred." He shook. "I knew it."
"Get a hold of yourself, Josh," Mackensize snapped. She jerked her mount around and faced the nearest soldier. "What's happening? Are we under attack?"
"Don't know, ma'am." The soldier checked the prime on his pistol. "It's Lieutenant Burrow's weapon that discharged up ahead. He must have come upon something, but I don't 'ear Indians. They usually hoot and holler when attacking."
Mackenzie glanced over her shoulder, craning her neck to see her father. He was still pulling up the rear in his wagon, but his musket now lay across his lap.
"Lieutenant?" one of the soldiers called into the forest. "You all right, sir?"
"I've got him," came a shout out of the trees. "I got the bloody, horse-thieving bastard!"
Mackenzie's heart pounded and her hands were sweating inside the calfskin gloves as she and the soldiers rounded a bend in the road. Were they under attack or not?
She spotted Lieutenant Burrow holding his musket on a red man. She took a second look. The Indian was just a boy.
"He the only one?" one of the British soldiers called as he looked up into the trees suspiciously.
The other soldiers dismounted and ran toward the prisoner, their muskets pointed at him.
"I believe so," the lieutenant answered, his perfectly pronounced speech seeming out of place here in the Colonial wilderness. "I caught him riding out with Major Albertson's horse. I believe we ought to hang him right here. Cassidy, get me a rope."
"Hang him?" Mackenzie jumped down from her mount.
The Indian was less than five feet tall, dressed in buckskins with sea shells tied into his long ebony braids. He looked to be about ten, the same age as Josh's younger brother. The Indian boy appeared frightened, yet he was brave enough to glare at the lieutenant with defiance in his black eyes.
"Mackenzie, come back here!" Joshua shouted. "He's dangerous."
"Dangerous?" She gave a little laugh, though she was still shaking from the scare. "Dangerous? He's a boy." She left her mount's reins dangling and marched toward the child.
One of the men grabbed the boy by a hank of his hair and shoved him onto his knees.
She walked right through the middle of the soldiers. "You men afraid of this little boy?" she dared, irate at their handling of him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
"I must ask you to stand back, Miss Daniels. My men and I are trained to," the lieutenant cleared his throat, "deal with the enemy."
"Leaping apes in hell! He's a boy." She lifted her hand. "Children can't be enemies." Then she spotted blood on the sleeve of the boy's buckskin tunic. She stared at Lieutenant Burrow. "You shot him?"
"He stole the major's horse. He was trying to get away."
Mackenzie glanced at the bay casually nibbling on a bush. It was bridled with rough leather straps and saddled with a deerhide blanket. There were Indian symbols painted across its haunches in red ochre. It didn't look like a soldier's stolen horse to her.
She turned back to the Indian and reached for his arm, but he pulled back, saying something in his foreign tongue.
Mackenzie looked into his eyes, speaking slowly. "It's all right," she murmured. "I won't hurt you. I just want to look at your arm."
He relaxed a little, his gaze locked onto hers.
"That's right," she soothed. "I only want to look." She peeled back the blood-soaked leather of his sleeve. To her relief, the sun-tanned skin had only been grazed. It was an ugly, bloody wound, but clean, with no lead embedded in the flesh.
She called over her shoulder. "How do you know he stole Major Albertson's horse?"
"That's Major Albertson's horse, indeed." Burrow nodded. "I would know it anywhere. It has the white star on its forehead."
She snatched a water can from a soldier's saddle, opened the lid, and poured some of the water on the boy's arm. She hiked up her cotton tick skirt and knelt in the deep leaves to get a better look at the wound. "The major's horse is missing and you're certain this is it?"
"It's missing now, isn't it, Miss Daniels?" The lieutenant's tone was sharp and belittling. "Now please, if you will just step back and—"
"This man did not steal," the Indian boy said so softly that Mackenzie wasn't certain she heard him.
She looked up at his face, startled by the thickly accented English. "What did you say? You spoke English. I heard you."
He stared right into her face. "This man no steal soldier horse. Uncle's."
She blinked. "You didn't steal the horse?"
He stared at her with his black eyes. Her father had taught her to fear the redman. To avoid him. Now up close to one, the Indian boy seemed no different to her than a white boy. His blood ran the same color: red. She saw the same fear as white men's in his eyes.
"This man not steal," the boy repeated softly. "Take horse to fort. Uncle's horse."
"All right," she whispered so that only the boy could hear her. "I won't let them kill you. I swear it." Mackenzie reached under her skirt to tear a strip of muslin from the hem of her shift. She tied the muslin strip tightly around the boy's arm, speaking loudly. "Which way was he headed, Lieutenant?"
"Miss?"
She rose from her knees and whipped around to face the English officer. "The question was simple enough."
"Mackenzie, please. It's not our place to interfere," her father warned as he pushed his way through the crowd of soldiers.
She had done it again. She'd stepped over the line of female propriety. She could hear it in her father's voice. Yet she didn't care—not when she was all that stood between the boy and death. Mackenzie ignored him. "Lieutenant, I want to know which direction the boy was headed when you came upon him. Was he headed north toward the fort, or south toward us?"
The lieutenant avoided eye contact with her. "You do not know these scurvy red rats like I do, Miss Daniels. They can be rather crafty."
"I see." She swept off her bonnet to wipe the sweat from her forehead. "They're so crafty, these Indian boys, that they can be riding one way, but make it look like they're going another?" Her sarcasm was so thick that several of the soldiers snickered.
Lieutenant Burrow flushed. "Miss Daniels—"
A soldier approached them. "I got that rope ye asked for, Lieutenant. You want us to string 'im up right here on the road so the other redskins can see we're serious when it come to horse thievin'?"
Mackenzie took a big step backwards putting herself between the Indian boy still on his knees and the soldier with the rope. Her bonnet fell to the ground, but she left it where it lay. "You hang this child, and I'll have you stand trial for murder," she threatened.
The soldier glanced at the lieutenant. The lieutenant looked at Franklin Daniels, as if to ask why he couldn't control his own daughter.
Franklin cleared his throat. "Mackenzie, honey, step back and let the soldiers do their job."
"Do you hear yourself, Father? You sound just like them." She pointed at him. "We don't know if this horse is Major Albertson's or not."
"Mackenzie, I'm certain that Lieutenant Burrow has more experience with these matters than you or I do. He's lived in these woods. He's dealt with these hostiles."
"You always taught me to stand up for what I believe, Father." She stared him down. "I won't let them kill this boy for theft without a trial. We don't even know if that is the major's horse!"
She grabbed the Indian boy's hand and backed away while still remaining between him and the soldiers. "There's no reason why the lieutenant can't wait until we reach the fort to sort this matter out. Major Albertson can witness for himself if this is his horse. If so, than I agree the boy must be punished, but I doubt our friend would agree to hanging a child , Father."
Franklin studied her for a moment, then reluctantly turned to the lieutenant. "Ed, she's right. We'll be at the fort in a few hours. If he stole the horse, what's the difference if you hang him now, or at sunset?"
The soldiers waited for the officer to respond.
The lieutenant frowned, silent for a moment. "Cassidy," he shouted. "Tie the redskin up to your saddle. Let him trot a few hours. We'll give our major the satisfaction of hanging the little bastard himself." He walked away.
Mackenzie let out a sigh of relief. "They're not going to hang you," she told the boy quietly. "They're going to take you to the fort. Do you understand me?"
The soldier called Cassidy pulled the boy roughly to his feet and bound his hands together in front of him.
The boy looked at her, his ebony eyes filled with both fear and relief and gratitude. "My uncle will speak the truth. His horse. Gift from English manake soldier many moons. This man no take the horse."
She smiled grimly. "We'll get to the bottom of this, I swear we will." She gave Cassidy a rough push on the shoulder. "Easy there. That's tight enough. You'll cut the blood off to his hands if you make those knots any tighter."
"Mackenzie," Joshua called as he lead her horse toward her. "You'd best mount up." He kept his gaze lowered as if he were embarrassed by her forward behavior.
Not that she gave two snaps.
"I'm not riding." She snatched her hat up off the ground and beat off the leaves clinging to the straw.
"N . . . Not riding?"
She shook her head. "No. The boy walks. I walk. If I don't, you know they'll move too quickly. They'll be dragging him behind a horse in less than an hour's time." She walked away before he had time to think of an answer.
As she approached Fort Belvadere Mackenzie could smell raw sewage and unwashed bodies.
The fort itself seemed rather unimposing here in the middle of such a grand wilderness. The fifteen-foot palisade walls were cut from nearby gum and sassafras trees. As big around as a man's forearm, the tree trunks had been sunk into the ground with the bark still attached and sharpened to points on the top.
A lookout high on the wall cried a warning and the gates swung open to allow the group inside. Mackenzie walked beside the Indian boy, her eyes and mind taking in all she saw and smelled and heard.
Inside the walls, one large, two-story log building ran east to west, its rear wall attached to the palisade. Smaller, even cruder buildings were scattered in the muddy yard.
Men in red uniforms hurried back and forth through the filthy compound. Pigs and geese ran freely, turning the entire yard into a slop pit. She nearly gagged at the smell of refuse that was piled everywhere: rotten cabbage, rancid meat, bean shells—all just tossed into the yard on top of animal droppings. Yet she was fascinated at the same time.
Her father's tavern and trading post saw some activity during the traveling months, but there were never more than a dozen people there at a time. Here, there had to be nearly one hundred soldiers, all milling about, most appearing bored.
Mackenzie felt trapped as the gates of the fort swung shut behind them. She understood the walls were for protection against the warring Indians, but she wasn't sure they made her feel any safer.
"Franklin! You're here at last. Mackenzie, dear." Major Albertson rushed across the compound, his arms outstretched to hug her.
Instead of looking at the major's familiar face, her gaze was immediately drawn to the man who strode beside him.
A redman.
A savage.
The most glorious man she had ever laid eyes on.