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Knowing how uneasy she had felt listening to what had surely been half-truths from Melissa, Alanna couldn't do the same to Elliott. "Please don't share this with anyone, but he was infatuated with Melissa. When he found out she had married Ian, he had no reason to stay."
"Melissa?" Elliott repeated numbly. "Oh no, Hunter couldn't have become another of her adoring beaus!"
"Why should he have been different from any other man? Believe me, it happened, but please don't mention anything I've said about Hunter to Melissa or Ian. She's already embarrassed to tears, and it would only make Ian jealous, when there's no need."
Elliott shoved his hands into his hip pockets. "Damn it all," he mumbled. "Nothing's going right for us. Absolutely nothing."
Alanna hated to see him so badly discouraged. "You're alive and well, and you've not fallen in love with a woman who's married to someone else, so you've more reason to rejoice than be sad."
When stated in those terms, Elliott was ashamed of himself. "Guess I did sound pitiful, didn't I?"
"I've done that, too," Alanna admitted.
Alanna had always understood him better than anyone else in the family, and Elliott started to hug her, but then suddenly grew shy and settled for just squ
eezing her hand. "Thanks for helping Hunter, but if he's ever here again and wants to just up and leave, come and get me."
"All right, I will," Alanna promised, but she doubted they would ever see Hunter again.
* * *
Hunter sold the bateau in Newport News, and then booked passage to New York on the first ship whose captain did not try to overcharge him simply because he was an Indian and was not expected to know the difference. From there he traveled on a barge up the Hudson River to the junction of the Mohawk. He had been gone from William Johnson's trading post for nearly six months, but the trappers who frequented the place remembered him.
"We thought you was dead, Indian," one called out.
"Not yet," Hunter replied. He swiftly discovered being in familiar surroundings wasn't the same as being home. Johnson had work for him organizing the supplies he stocked, but all it required was a strong back, and he completed it in a few hours each morning. He would begin trapping again in the fall, but until then he spent his idle hours building a small long house.
It was easiest to peel sheets of bark from elm and hickory trees in the spring, but he managed it even in late summer. After he had pounded the bark flat with stones, he tied it to the frame he had constructed of logs and poles. Mud filled any crevices in the bark walls, and hides draped over the ends formed the front and back doors. Poles lashed to the rafters added more than enough storage space for his few belongings. He built platforms along the walls to serve for both seating and beds, while the space underneath provided ample storage for the furs he would gather.
Once the house was finished, he considered making a trip home to the southern shores of Lake Ontario, but then lacked the enthusiasm to actually go. His father was dead, and his mother had taken a second husband whom he had never liked. Rather than share his dismal view of their stepfather, his two sisters were overly fond of the man. The whole family was content with the old ways, and ridiculed him for learning English and seeking adventure in the white man's world. He knew he ought to go home once in a while, but he had become so uncomfortable around his family, that he decided to avoid them a while longer.
A loner by nature, he was used to passing a good deal of his time lost in his own thoughts. Whenever memories of Melissa came to mind, he would angrily shove them aside. There were women who hung around the trading post. Women he had once found amusing, but now he saw them for the coarse whores they were, and wanted nothing more to do with them.
He had been spoiled by the dream of love, although it had only been an illusion, and now nothing less would satisfy him. Melissa had never been worth loving, but he now knew there was another young woman who was. Unfortunately, Alanna was no more likely to fall in love with him than Melissa had been, and he fought to suppress the sweetness of his memories, and to forget her as well.
Hunter had just finished stacking sacks of cornmeal one morning, when he heard the sounds of voices raised in an argument coming from out front. Fur trappers were an obnoxious lot and fights were frequent. Curious as to the cause, he went outside to watch. When he found Peter Bright, a young fellow he had always liked, being badly beaten by Ben Murdock, a man twice his size, he didn't wait for someone else to stop the uneven match. He stepped between them and gave Ben a forceful shove.
"Settle the matter another way," he ordered.
Infuriated, Ben pushed back. "Stay out of this, unless you want your nose broken, too!"
Hunter laughed. "Do you really think you can do it?" he asked.
Already in a rage, Ben swung for Hunter, but missed. The dozen or so men standing around began to take sides; seizing the opportunity to get away, Peter Bright ran up the steps of the trading post and hid inside. Hunter had learned how to fight on that very ground, and none of the blood spilled had ever been his. He held up his fists in a taunting pose, but again moved agilely aside when Ben lunged for him.
"Stand and fight!" Ben yelled.
"Like this?" Hunter asked, as he came in close and punched Ben square in the face, before the bully had a chance to react. When Ben started to yowl in pain, Hunter slammed his fist into him again. He then dodged Ben's efforts to wrestle him to the ground, by constantly moving he presented the much slower man with an impossible target, while he landed increasingly brutal punches at will.
His face a bloody mask and his vision blurred, Ben started to stagger. Hunter finished him off with a series of punches he timed to the chorus of cheers from the small crowd. His knuckles would be sore for a couple of days, but otherwise he walked off unharmed. The men who had watched him were too impressed to drift away, and ignoring poor Ben, who lay sprawled in the dirt, they began to plot how a talented Indian might make them all some money with his fists.
"So what do you say, Indian?" they asked him later.
Hunter was ready for them. "I won't fight more than once a week, and I want a quarter of the money won on me."
Ten minutes of hushed debate preceded a grudging agreement on that point. "And what if you lose?"
Thinking that one of the stupidest questions he had ever been asked, Hunter shook his head. "Then none of us will make any money, will we? The first time I lose, I quit. I won't fight again, if I ever get hurt."
