Savage Journey Read online

  SAVAGE ~ JOURNEY

  A Native American

  historical romance series by

  Jessica Leigh

  Copyright 2014

  By the original author and publisher

  Jessica Leigh

  Savage Journey

  "With her dual heritage, the mixed-blood woman possessed the ideal qualifications for a fur trader's wife: acclimatized to life in the west and familiar with Indian ways, she could also make a successful adoption to white culture" (Van Kirk)

  Chapter 1

  Lachine, Southern Montreal, 1647

  A meaty arm clamped around his neck with the force of an iron collar. The shop-keep’s hairy forearms were as thick as ham hocks. His fingers were cold and bit hard into his flesh. The boy kept his face expressionless, although the lack of air was causing his vision to blur. He would not cry.

  “I should kill your worthless, dirty hide an’ throw it in with my pigs out back. That pelt you stole from me was worth way more than your life, you stinking, little thief.”

  The boy glanced down at the beaver pelt at his feet, dirty and soiled now in a swirl of mud. When the shop-keep had grabbed him, it had fallen from where he had stuffed it minutes ago. There was simply no way to hide his guilt. The pelt, had he succeeded in its theft, would have fed him for a month. Maybe more. Merde. Shit.

  The shop-keep turned abruptly and dragged him back inside the building. Alarmed, the boy struggled, tugging at the man’s iron fingers, but a swift clap to the side of his head with an open palm left his ear ringing and numb. He could feel the socket of his eye throb and begin to swell at the impact.

  “What are you, about thirteen or so?” questioned the man. He was known as Louis Pouille to those in Lachine, the southern end of the port city of Montreal. Pouille was not a man admired for his good humor.

  “You are quite large for your age, I see. Going to be a hearty, strapping man, aren’t you, boy?” The man laughed harshly. “That is, if I don’t chose to kill you now. Bet you’re the little shit who’s been stealing from me for months on end.”

  The boy was pushed roughly into a wooden chair and forced to sit. Still, he stared back at the shop-keep, expressionless and waiting. What the man said was not a lie. He stole, he lied, and he cheated. Many times, from this merchant, and from others too. He had no family. He simply survived. The boy lifted his chin and looked the man in the eye, boldly and without regret.

  “Tough one, eh? That’s good, then. You will work for me now, you little thieving mule’s arsehole. There is a group that I paid for leaving today, heading right on down the big old St. Lawrence. You owe me. So you will be my engagé and join their company.”

  The term brought a coil of dread to the boy’s core. Engagés were indentured servants, with contracts upwards of three years. They paddled canoes deep into the wild interiors to receive and return pelts gathered from the trappers of New France’s booming fur trade. It was endlessly laborious, and wickedly dangerous, even for men twice his age, bulk, and cunning.

  The hostile interior of the New World was filled with every kind of danger known to the French. They faced the utmost of weather extremes, sicknesses before unheard of, and predators of every kind, from giant bears to scalping Natives.

  He thought about bolting. He was strong and quick for his age, and could win any footrace. But when his eyes shifted to the door to assess his odds, he was dismayed to find it already blocked.

  The room was filling with men, large, rough, dirty, and of varying ages. Their eyes were hard, and showed no trace of emotion. A red-headed one grinned at him then, showing a missing tooth, and spat on the floor near his foot. The boy couldn’t keep the stark fear from his face at that moment. Voyageurs.

  Louis Pouille was grinning at him now, savoring his obvious terror. “What’s your name, boy?” he guffawed.

  “Nicholas Belline.” His voice cracked embarrassingly. He would not cry.

  “Well then, Belline, let us get you geared up. It’s time for you to sink or swim with these fine, brave men here. We will see whether you are a man, or just a worthless little squirt of whore’s piss.”

  The merchant’s vise-like fist jerked him back to his feet, and the wooden chair tipped over and clattered to the floor behind him.

  “These voyageurs can decide whether or not you are actually worth your weight to me. If not, they are free to go ahead and feed your thieving carcass to the wolves along the way.”

  ~~~~~

  Lenni Lenape Village, Northern Pennsylvania, 1647

  It came in the deepest hour of the bitter, mountain night. Although it was the first day of April, a wintry snap of wicked storms had swarmed the Wolf Clan, encampment in rapid succession, filling it with a final blanket of thick, white snow.

  As the first cramping pain clamped over her swollen abdomen, Jenna felt the stark iciness of fear. This brand of terror was much worse than the frigid, forest night outside of the lodge. It ran across the nape of her neck and down her backbone, and lingered at the base of her spine.

  How would she ever survive childbirth in the Lenni Lenape village? Everything she knew about medicine and the art of healing had fled her mind with that first gripping spasm. Jenna drew a heavy wolf-pelt cape across her shoulders to ward off the trembling that had beset her. She had tumbled so quickly from the tribe’s veneered Medicine Woman to a quavering child.

  Her movement spurred her sleeping mate, and she heard him push off his bedding pelts and rise quickly to her side. “Jenna?”

  “It is time, Running Wolf,” she whispered. She began to shiver, even with the warm cape about her. There was no escaping what would happen next.

  “I will go to fetch Nkahesana, our mother.” Running Wolf pulled on his outer bear robe excitedly. “She will help you to the birthing hut with Blue Feather.” He lit a torch, and Jenna could see the broad smile on his handsome face. “Shewaha!” he exclaimed in excitement.

  “But I am frightened, my husband,” Jenna admitted, placing a restraining hand on his arm. Another pain rippled across her belly, even stronger than the first. “And you will not be with me to lend me your strength.”

  It was Minsi, or Wolf Clan, tradition that women gave birth alone, or with one or two close female attendants. Males were not permitted to witness the birthing process. Jenna had attended many births as Medicine Woman, and had witnessed the fiercely inevitable pain that each Native woman had to bear. And they did so, quietly and with great dignity.

  Jenna herself was of Swedish ancestry, and not of Native Lenape birthright. In her moment of need, she found herself lacking the calm certainty that the Minsi women inherently possessed. Back in the Dutch-controlled harbor settlement of New Amstel, along the Delaware River where she was raised, many women died in childbirth. Horribly, and in great anguish. Her own grandmother, Katarina, had perished in such a manner, leaving her father Lucas Ulfsson to grow to manhood without her nurturing love.

  Running Wolf chuckled in Jenna’s ear, bringing her back to the moment. “Lend you strength? Any more power and no man, warrior or other, could handle you, wife. Ktahchinxki. You are very stubborn.”

  Jenna managed a wry grimace at the mention of her headstrong nature. She certainly couldn’t deny the statement’s validity, but she had no wish for banter now. Running Wolf would not have to endure the birthing. He need only wait for his baby to arrive, and then rejoice. “Hurry,” she gasped in return.

  Willow Plume was soon at her side, and her mother-in-law’s gentle face was both soothing and encouraging. With Blue Feather on one arm, and Willow Plume on the other, the three women made their way ponderously through the cold and thickened snow to the sacred hut. It was prepared for the event with bountiful furs, bowls of fresh water, and a fire pit laden with dry k
indling.

  Blue Feather helped her to swallow a warm tea infused with wild cherry bark that would speed the delivery. Jenna gulped it gratefully as the fire sprang to life and warmed the little room. They helped Jenna to her knees. The Minsi did not lay down to give birth, but allowed gravity and the natural strength and shape of a woman’s pelvis to aid in delivery.

  The pains were coming faster, and much closer now. She hardly had room to catch her breath between them. “Let them come, embrace them,” Willow Plume counseled. “This is a good thing, for the birth will come quickly for you now.”

  Her mother-in-law’s words were prophetic. Although her face grew red with the fierce strain of her labor, Jenna managed to bear down both quietly and determinedly. Before long, she was staring in amazement at the little, wizened face the women quickly cleaned and bundled in the softest of white, snowshoe rabbit furs.

  “Nkwis!” Willow Plume announced, joy wreathing her face. “See your son.”

  Jenna had but a moment to gaze upon his shock of beautiful black hair when a new pain wracked her body, worsening still, causing her to cry out and double over. She felt a different wrenching agony inside. “What’s wrong with me?” she gasped.

  Willow Plume was instantly at her side, feeling her belly and reaching down between her legs. “Another one comes,” she whispered in amazement. “I feel the head.”

  The searing pain of the second delivery turned her mind blank and dark with a thick panic anew. Somehow, she managed not scream. Willow Plume held her from behind to keep her upright, while Blue Feather worriedly cradled the first child, who was beginning to cry in hiccupping little squeals.

  “You can do this, Jenna. For Knichan, your daughter, who comes now,” urged Willow Plume. “You are strong.”

  Finally, mercifully, Jenna heard the second child’s mighty squalling, much louder and more forceful than her older brother. She could no longer feel her legs, and her vision was blurred.

  Nichan. Daughter. Kwis. Son.

  “By the Creator, we have been twice blessed,” whispered Willow Plume.

  ~~~~~

  “Running Wolf, stop your incessant pacing,” his mother admonished. “All will be well in time.”

  “But Jenna has not yet spoken,” he worried. He cradled his son against his shoulder, who slept peacefully now in his swaddling furs. Wipèkw, a young squaw who had given birth to a son several moons ago, was nestled in the corner among the fluffy pelts, generously helping to nurse his tiny, but insatiable, daughter.

  “Jenna has lost much more woman’s blood than was natural in her birthing,” Willow Plume explained. “Her deep sleep is needed. Do not worry, for I have been ladling rich venison pottage between her lips each time she stirs. We have helped both babes to nurse off of her, and Wipèkw is assisting with the rest.”

  Running Wolf nodded at his mother’s wise and calming words. Yet still he wished that his mate’s unusual green eyes would open for him, just once. He had nearly lost her so many times in their tumultuous past. This intense and clenching fear was unmanly, yet he could not still the urgent pulse of it.

  His daughter let out a mighty squall, and he saw her tiny red fist raised against the golden fullness of Wipèkw’s milk-laden breast. Running Wolf could not help but grin in that instant; it seemed the child would inherit her mother’s stubborn and sometimes fiery temper.

  He moved to stand over her, while still rocking his sleeping son, who squirmed in resistance to the intruding noise. “Hush, Alawa, little pea, and take of your milk. You will wake your brother should you squall any louder.”

  “If she inherits the tempers of both her mother and father, then the entire Wolf Clan is in for a fierce storm,” Willow Plume added with a roll of her eyes.

  Running Wolf heard her soft laughter then. He wheeled to find his wife’s eyes open, and glowing with their uncanny green warmth. “Jenna!”

  “Your daughter will be as fierce as your son, Running Wolf,” she murmured groggily. “Together they will bring the force of a gale storm.”

  He bent and kissed her forehead, which felt both warm and clammy. “Mother, are you sure she will be well?” he asked worriedly.

  “Show me my babes,” Jenna insisted, cutting off his protests.

  Running Wolf accepted his fussing daughter from Wipèkw and presented both infants formally to his mate. “See how beautiful,” he boasted. “You have done well for me, wife. I am proud of you.”

  Jenna looked upon them both, one tiny and red-faced from her ire, the other quiet and blinking with his large and beautiful eyes. Both had lustrous shocks of black hair and golden brown skin.

  All the terrible things that she had endured to reach this one moment in her life had been worth it, one thousand times over.

  ~~~~~

  On that bitter April morning, twenty-five men set forth on three, paper-birch canot du nord, or North Canoes, sliding soundlessly into the frigid waters of the St. Lawrence River. Twelve year-old Nicholas Belline had boarded the vessel silently and without resistance, laden with a deer-hide pack of meager provisions and a hard, tattered bedroll.

  He was handed a heavy wooden paddle and positioned between two of the largest, gruffest looking men he had ever had the misfortune to lay eyes upon. They were thickly bearded, much of the hair matted and oily, with woolen caps pulled low over their bulbous ears. Steam rose from their flared nostrils as would the snaking smoke trail of a tobacco-pipe.

  As the vessels pushed away from the Lachine shoreline, leaving the noise and bustle of the sprawling port quickly behind, Nicholas realized there would be no escape. And likely, no return for him, either.

  Nicholas had never felt as alone, even as a garnement, or guttersnipe. At least in the crowded port city, there were others like him, also without family, on a daily mission for food and shelter that included all manner of connivery and cunning. In the coldness of the long nights, they banded together for warmth and shelter wherever it could be found.

  In most cases, young vagrants such as Nicholas were left to their own devices, largely unnoticed or cared for by the general population, unless one was to err and be caught in a theft or ploy. Just as Nicholas had been seized only yesterday. One stupid mistake. He was a mule’s puckered ass. A cul.

  So here he was. With a troop of deadly looking voyageurs, untamed mountain men who braved the interior wilds for coin. Many of the barrel-chested beasts were more than three times his youthful size and smelled like week-old piss pots.

  Still, what was there left to fear? He truly had naught to lose but his life, and what was that even worth? When the first hour passed by, and none of the beefy men had hit him, cursed his name, or even glanced in his direction, Nicholas began to relax. His arms ached from the constant motion of paddling, but he vowed not to slack. He just observed, and held his tongue silent.

  Nicholas learned each man’s name, studied their qualities, and carefully noted their intolerances. He listened to their banter carefully, and to their bawdy stories. It appeared they were on a nearly hundred mile journey down the St. Lawrence to an outpost, or portage, to drop off the supplies they were laden with and gather as many pelts as they could deliver back to Montreal.

  The landscape was breathtakingly beautiful. The river had a song of its own, as the birch canoe, sealed tight with pitch, slipped along the currents and intermittent rapids. The water rushed past and the paddles made a rhythmic, lapping sound that never ceased. Along its banks grew monstrous evergreens, and myriad hardwoods whose limbs appeared swollen with the slightest hint of buds soon ready to bloom with the advent of spring.

  When the cold rays of the sun finally began to sink below the tips of the western trees, the men aimed the canoes for shore. After pulling the vessels firmly up the bank, they turned them sideways and then over, with sheer brawn and joint effort. The wooden canoes would serve as shelter for the night, making the need for a formal encampment against the hostile weather unnecessary.

  Provisions were meager at best, but nothin
g had tasted as heavenly as the thin porridge laden with thick chunks of salt pork and beans Nicholas received. The men laughed at his ravenous appetite. There was even a weak mulled cider to accompany the meal.

  “Don’t get used to it, boy,” chuckled the grizzled, red-haired man who had earlier spat on the mercantile floor. “This is the first night out of our spring brigade. We’re celebrating. We’ll get good an’ lean on down the river. You’ll learn how to hunt from the best.”

  Another man, with a black beard streaked with grey, ladled him a generous second scoop. “You need to build those scrawny arms up,” he added gruffly. “You’re gonna need them.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Nicholas replied gratefully, with a nod of his head. He couldn’t help the speed with which he shoveled the second helping in his gullet.

  The man laughed. “Oh, you can show your appreciation by washing all those pots. And you can bunk next to old Pétant there,” he continued, gesturing toward the grinning, red-bearded man. “He loves his pork and beans too.”

  The night grew so bitter and raw in the wee morning hours, Nicholas did not even mind the near and smelly company of the giant man they had nicknamed Pétant, which literally meant ‘farting’.

  Chapter 2

  Minsi Village, Northern Pennsylvania, 1664

  “Katari!”

  The urgent call made Katari drop the hoe, fashioned from the shoulder blade of an elk by her father, squarely onto her bare big toe. The urgency in her friend’s voice dulled the pain, and she whirled to seek the source, her field chores forgotten in an instant.

  She Who Sings, or Kanti, ran toward her through the freshly worked sod, stepping without any thought on the mounded rows of seeds Katari had planted only hours earlier. She Who Sings was her closest friend, and she could now see that her face was wreathed with excitement, and not alarm.