LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart (38 page)

“I don’t remember asking your permission.” She pulled herself free and threw the bedroll and pack to Mark. Turning to her husband, she placed a gentle hand on his chest. “I’ll go with you or I’ll follow along behind, either way, you aren’t leaving me here!”

Hawk pulled her into his arms and closed his eyes when her body leaned against his. “No,
ain jel ee,
I can’t let you go.” He raised his eyes to Bear. “You’ll watch over her for me?”

“Of course,” Bear replied quietly.

Molly turned and stared at her father-in-law. “You won’t keep me here.”

“Not against your will,” Bear agreed, his dark eyes brightening with a smile.

“So,” Molly turned to her husband. “Go ahead and leave. I’ll be right behind you. If I get lost I’ll ask some friendly trapper which way you went.”

Hawk moaned at the thought of her alone on the trail. “Don’t do this to me, Molly. I have to go!”

“I know you do, Hawk,” she replied quietly. “But you don’t have to go without me.”

“And our son, madam, what about our son?” Sorrow drifted over Molly’s face. “Linsey has agreed to keep him until he is older and we can come back to get him. He won’t be the first baby she’s raised who wasn’t her own,” she reminded him.

“You would leave your son?” Hawk asked increduously.

“Not easily, Hawk.” Her eyes showed the torment of her heart. “I will miss him every day, wondering if he’s hungry or sick, knowing he’ll call another woman Mama and that he won’t even know me the next time I see him.

“But Hawk, as long as I know he’s safe, I can live without my son. I can’t live without you.”

Hawk buried his face in her hair and breathed the sweetness he’d come to know as hers. Relief flowed through him as he realized she’d left him no choice. He only prayed to her God and to his that he wouldn’t regret the decision.

“Go get our son, Molly.”

As if on cue, the kitchen door opened and Linsey walked into the yard carrying the baby in her arms. He wore a gown yellowed with age but soft as velvet. A design of flowers and Vines worked in red trailed around the neckline and down to the hem. His tiny feet were covered by moccasins intricately ornamented with beads.

“Many years ago I worked to make a gown for a baby yet to be born,” Linsey said softly. “When I realized how plain it was I used some of my own hair to embroider the design on it.”

She handed the baby to Hawk. “Your mother saw how poorly it was constructed but she also saw the love I felt for her in every stitch I had sewn for her unborn child. The moccasins show the gift she had. They’ve always made my poor gown seem so much worse, but you wore it until it was too small. It was her intention to resew the gown as you grew, so that you’d always have it as a talisman but I put it and the moccasins away, hoping that someday you’d have a child who could wear them.

“None but you has worn it, until today. There were some beads that your sister made but they’ve become lost over the years.”

“They’re not lost,” Hawk said hoarsely. “I’ve carried them with me since the first time my father came to take me back with him.”

“When she knew she was dying, your mother asked me to love her children.” Linsey’s warm green eyes went drifting past Hawk to Quiet Otter. “I have, like they were my own.” She reached up and softly caressed his cheek. “I’ll miss you, son.” She kissed the baby in his arms then turned to Molly.

“This cradleboard was made to fit your husband, I hope it will hold his son.” As she handed Molly the decorated cradleboard, a smile of understanding spread over her face.

Quiet Otter took the baby from Hawk’s arms and slipped him into the cradleboard. He carefully adjusted the laces, then strapped it on Molly’s back.

“How many children do you have, Quiet Otter?” she asked out of curiosity.

“Nine,” he answered proudly.

“How many wives?” she asked.

“Two.”

Molly hugged Linsey and Luc. She hugged each of her large brothers-in-law, then turned to her husband. He helped her mount the horse, supporting the cradleboard until she adjusted to its weight.

Molly reached down and grabbed his hand. Her face grew stern, but love for him filled her honey eyes.

“One wife, Hawk,” she cautioned adamantly.

“One wife,
ai’n jel ee,”
he agreed with a smile. “Nine kids?”

“If you deliver them.”

Hawk shuddered as he climbed onto his horse. “That is something we’ll have to talk about,
nee wah.”

“We have time … unless last night …”

AUTHOR’S NOTE

One of the fun aspects of writing is discovering strange facts, new places and wonderful people.

It has been documented that settlers crossing over the newly opened lands west of the Appalachian mountains sometimes lived in the hollowed out trunk of a dead tree until they could construct their cabins. These trees, usually sycamores, were of massive size and provided adequate, if not comfortable, temporary living space.

The waters of the impressive Cumberland Falls create the magic of the moonbow. It is visible only during a full moon and can be found nowhere else in the western hemisphere. Cumberland Falls is located in the Daniel Boone National Forest, twenty miles southwest of Corbin, Kentucky.

Shawneetown is in southeastern Illinois on the beautiful Ohio River. I would like to thank Betty Head, Librarian at Shawneetown Public Library and Lucille Lawler, local historian, for their friendliness and help.

Pamela K. Forrest

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