He didn’t answer her.
And, Abagail sat so still, she wondered if she might ever again feel free to run and move about. Glancing down, she saw one of the dogs sniff around their maple tree. She caught her breath, and the dog looked around as though he had heard her. But, the animal didn’t look up.
Then, after a few heart-stopping moments, the men and the dogs moved along. Abagail breathed out a silent sigh of relief.
Again, leaning down toward her ear, the man behind her murmured, “Do not move. We stay here until we are certain they are gone.”
Again, Abagail dipped her head in a brief nod. After a while, she closed her eyes. Her wounds no longer hurt, and sherelaxed a little. Indeed, somehow, in this man’s arms she felt safe, protected, and so, at last, she closed her eyes to imbibe of a well-earned rest.
She awoke to his voice saying, “They return. Do nothing. No motion. No words.”
His hold around her waist tightened.
She heard the scrambling of the dogs and the men before she could see them, there below the tree.
Then one of the men spoke softly, and although his voice was low, she heard him say distinctly, “Where could the lass be, now? We dare not return to the inn without her. But, I be thinkin’ we might be havin’ no choice. Even the dogs have lost the scent. Do thee’ons believe she might have fallen over the falls?”
“I reckon she might have,” was the reply from one of the men.
“Well,” came the retort from another voice. “I be thinkin’ we best get back to the inn. I fer one be hungry.”
“I, too,” said another voice.
“This be a fool’s errand,” said another. “Let us return to the inn.”
And, then the men and the dogs simply walked away.
Abagail sighed, and because the man behind her no longer held his hand over her mouth, she opened her lips to speak, but the young man placed a single finger over her mouth. Then, when she glanced up at him, he shook his head and mouthed the words, “We wait.”
But, why? She soon learned the wisdom of this young man. Looking down, she saw the men had gone only a little distance away and then had stopped.
She and the hero behind her sat as motionless as possible, and after a while, Abagail leaned back against this man who had rescued her, and once more, she closed her eyes.
Skenandoah held tightly to the woman in his arms. She was a delicate little thing, and, despite her ragged clothing, she was quite pretty. Night had come to the land of the Oneida at last and, even now, the stars overhead were reflecting down upon the long length of the woman’s dark-brown hair, causing it to glimmer. The colors of brown and the gleaming white of the light fascinated him.
There had been a white cloth tied around her hair. But, it had come loose in her sleep, and it now hung from around her neck.
He remembered her eyes being a deep fawn color of brown, reminding him of his sister’s dark-brown eyes. But, this woman was not in any other way like his sister.
This woman in his arms was in trouble. But, what kind of trouble? And, who was she really?
Oddly, he was quite taken with her, although why this was so, he didn’t know. There were many beautiful women within the different clans of his tribe, but he couldn’t remember being as attracted to them as he was to the woman he was now holding in his arms.
Was he fascinated with her because his arms were around her and her head was on his shoulder? It could be. After all, the warm scent of her femininity tickled his nose, and he thought it odd that here, within a large maple tree and amid deep trouble, he was becoming enchanted with a woman so foreign to him.
Yet, he didn’t even know her name, let alone who she was nor what she had done to deserve this kind of fate.
The dogs and the men hadn’t yet left. They were not within his view, but he could smell their fire and hear their deep voices. Now and again, a dog yelped at something.
Why hadn’t they left to retrace their steps to the inn? Was it because the woman who ran the inn for Mr. Wilson was as mean as the day was long? What had the one known as Miss Stockenridge threatened to do to these men if they didn’t return with the girl? And, why was it so important they catch her?
The girl whose name he hoped to soon discover moved about a little and he tightened his hold upon her. It wouldn’t do for her to fall from the tree. As her head was leaning back upon his shoulder, he experienced a delightful sensation, one which swept over the whole of his body.
Delightful? The emotion confused him.
True, his eye had often caught and held on many of the beautiful faces of the Oneida women. But, he’d not felt the urge to take any one of them as his own. Indeed, from his viewpoint, his journey within his life was to become renowned within the tribe. He had always assumed he would not marry until he was older and well-established as a man of his people.
He didn’t know this woman, and yet he had committed himself to see her safely to Fort Stanwix, a fort run mostly by his own people, although more recently the Americans possibly numbered more than the Oneida. And, he had pledged himself to the task of taking her safely there, unknowing at the time of the personal danger she would present to him: the risk being the peril of his attraction to her.
