feet to a lilting skip and began to sing. “‘In Scarlet Town where I was born/ There lived a fair maid dwellin’/ Made every lad cry well a-day/ Her name was Barbara-’’’
“Stop it!” he snapped, his massive hand catching her arm and whipping her around to face him. “Do you want me to gag your mouth, tie your legs and drag you along the trail?”
Clarissa gulped back her fear, forcing herself to meet his blazing blue eyes. “Well, at least that might save some wear on my poor blistered feet!” she declared saucily. “Yes, indeed, why don’t you try it?”
He shot her a thunderous scowl. Then the breath eased wearily out of him, and Clarissa knew she had won a victory, however small. “Sit,” he ordered her gruffly.
“There?” She glanced toward a toadstool-encrusted log.
“Sit anywhere. I don’t care. Just keep your mouth shut while I tend to your feet. We still have a lot of walking to do.”
“How much walking?” Clarissa sank on to the log, exhausted to the point of collapse but determined not to show it. “Where are you taking me?”
“To the place where I left my canoe.” He crouched on one bent knee, his heavy black brows meeting in a scowl as he lifted and examined the bruised, blistered sole of her foot.
“And from there?”
“To my village, far down the river.”
“And what will become of me then?” Clarissa’s voice dropped to a choked whisper as the gravity of her situation sank home. This was no game, no idle contest of wit and will. This was a battle for her life.
He was bent low, his craggy features compressed into a frown as his fingers picked away the thorns and tiny rocks that had embedded themselves in her tender flesh.
“You didn’t answer me,” she said, feigning boldness. “What will happen when we reach your village?”
“You will be brought before the council,” he said slowly, his eyes on his task. “And you will be tried.”
“Tried?” Clarissa’s body gave an involuntary jerk. “Tried for what?”
He glanced up at her, his eyes the icy blue of a frozen lake in winter. “To see if you are worthy,” he answered.
“Worthy?” Clarissa could feel her heart fluttering like a trapped bird inside her rib cage.
“Yes,” he answered in a low voice. “Worthy to live.”
Wolf Heart caught the subtle widening of her eyes. He saw the terror that glinted in their clear green depths. He felt the tension in her slim white foot where it balanced on his bent knee. The girl had courage. Perhaps too much courage for her own good.
At first, when she had defied him, even teased him, he had thought her merely foolish. Now he saw that she was well aware of her danger. Even so, she hid her fear, masking it with boldness.
“Tell me,” she demanded, fixing him with a brazen gaze. “What is your name?”
“In your tongue, my name means Wolf Heart,” he said, bending close to twist a stubborn thorn from her heel. She winced as it came free, the small wound oozing blood. How could she have walked so far on those sore, tender feet without a whimper of complaint?
“I mean your real name,” she persisted annoyingly.
He froze, scowling up at her. “I just told you my real name.”
“All right, -then, your old name. Your Christian name.”
“Seth Johnson.” The long-forgotten syllables were hard to form. They left him wanting to rinse out his own mouth for having spoken them.
“My name is Clarissa. Clarissa Rogers,” she said lightly, as if she were meeting some swain at a party. “May I call you Seth?”
“No.” Wolf Heart carefully brushed the last of the dirt and twigs from her left foot, wishing she would be quiet and leave him alone. But, he sensed she was formulating more questions, and he knew that she would allow him no peace until she had her answers.
“Since you’re bound to ask, I was adopted by the Shawnee when I was eleven years old,” he said. “They raised me as one of their own. I am Shawnee, and my true name is Wolf Heart.”
A quiver passed through her fragile body as he lifted her right foot, cradling it, for the space of a heartbeat, between his big rough hands.
“And did the Shawnee try you as they will try me?” she asked, lowering her voice to a taut whisper.
“Yes.” He worked a small, sharp stone from the ball of her foot and used his finger to stanch the bead of crimson blood it left behind.
“Tell me about it,” she said. “I want to be ready.”
“When you need to know, then I will tell you.” He gazed down at her bruised, bleeding legs, trying not to think of the gauntlet and what it would do to her pale flesh. At that moment, he wished with all his heart she could be spared the ordeal. But that was not the Shawnee way.
“Are you hungry?” He spoke into the gulf of silence that had fallen between them.
“I could probably force myself to eat a bite or two.” Her eyes glittered defiance. “Untie my wrists, and I’ll help myself to whatever you’re serving.”
Wolf Heart hesitated, then shook his head, knowing he could not trust those swift hands of hers unfettered. “First I will finish with your feet,” he said decisively. “Then I will feed you myself.”
He drew his own steel hunting knife and saw her shrink back from him, her eyes as startled as a doe’s. Without speaking, he seized a handful of her ragged petticoat and began slashing a strip as wide as his hand from around the hem.
Her spunk returned as she realized what he was doing. “You owe me for one fine English petticoat!” she bantered.
“I’ll pay you in food.” He finished cutting the strip and began wrapping it in tight layers around her foot. The cloth would wear out rapidly, but at least it should protect her bleeding soles long enough to reach the canoe.
The girl watched him in tense silence as he worked. Clarissa. His mind toyed with her name, turning it over like a glistening river stone. It was a flower name, a name that whispered of pink satin ribbons, dancing slippers and tea in thin little china cups. Clarissa.
“What happened to your family?” she asked, the question pushing into his thoughts. “Did the Shawnee kill them?”
He shot her a glare. “No. I was an orphan. Even that is more than you need to know.”
“I’m an orphan, too,” she said, studying him with those disconcerting eyes. “My brother Junius sent me to Fort Pitt to find a husband.”
“And did you find one?” He had finished wrapping her left foot and started on her right. He was looking down as he spoke and, thus, was totally unprepared for the responding tinkle of laughter. It was a musical sound, as light as the trill of a bird. He glanced up at her, halfstartled.
“Find a husband? Gracious, no!” she exclaimed, her pale cheeks dimpling. “Unless, of course, you’d be willing to fill the job. Junius isn’t fussy. He just wants me out of the way.”
Wolf Heart bent his attention to the wrapping of her foot. Shawnee girls could also be bold and saucy. That he knew all too well. Yet this fragile creature, bruised, starved and probably frightened half to death, was the most impudent female he had ever met in his life. Her spirit moved and astounded him.
But he could not soften toward her, Wolf Heart admonished himself.