LeClerc 03 - Wild Savage Heart (6 page)

Nodding her head slightly, she lifted her skirt and climbed into the back of the wagon. As Hawk watched her disappear from sight he felt a surprising sorrow for the necessary loss of her innocence. He turned to meet Adam’s accusing gaze.

“Perhaps we should continue this trip without your aid,” Adam said quietly.

“Do you really think you’re ready to be on your own?”

“I don’t know what I think, Nathan. But I’ve seen the way you’ve changed as we get deeper into the wilderness and I’m not sure that I know you anymore.”

“I am the same man that I’ve always been,” Hawk replied. “Perhaps you never looked past the clothes to see who I truly am.”

“Perhaps , . . I just don’t know.” Adam watched a bird flitter from one tree branch to another, his thoughts a tangled web of doubt and uncertainty. “I’ve always known that you were a Shawnee Indian but maybe I’m just beginning to understand exactly what that means.”

Unemotionally, Hawk waited for Adam to arrive at a decision. His stoic countenance gave no hint to the myriad thoughts running through his mind. He knew he had damaged his friendship with Adam, perhaps irretrievably.

“Not surprisingly, I’ve discovered that I can’t bear for Molly to be hurt or abused. I agree that your lessons are a necessity; but I must disagree with your method. It seems to me that there must be a better way to get a point across than the way you did it today.”

“It is my way,” Hawk stated. “I know of no other. You can tell a child to stay away from a fire or he will be burned. But it’s just words that the child hears until he is burned, then he understands. The only thing you can do is watch that the burn is not too severe.”

“You would let a child get burned just to teach it a lesson?” Adam asked incredulously. It wasn’t necessary for Hawk to reply, Adam saw the answer in his dark face.

“I suppose you’d let it get bit by a snake, too, to learn a lesson!”

“Such lessons would be fatal. Some things must be accepted. You and your wife must learn, one way or the other.” Hawk let no emotion show in either his voice or expression. “I killed the snake to protect Molly but I forced her to overcome her fear enough to leave the water. Other lessons will be just as difficult, but I won’t deliberately let either of you face death just to learn.”

Adam ran a hand through his brown hair then rubbed the back of his neck. “I just don’t know you anymore, Hawk. Or maybe you’re right, maybe I never knew you.

“We need your help, I’m the first to admit that. I don’t know how to go about finding a suitable homesite or how to erect a cabin once I find the place.”

Inside the wagon Molly changed into dry clothes and listened to the conversation between the two men. She knew that Adam was speaking more from emotion than from common sense and she feared that he would say something that would force Hawk to leave. Now that she was calm she better understood Hawk’s reasons for teaching her to handle her fear.

She still hated him with an intensity that amazed her, but she accepted his lesson.

Molly climbed from the wagon and walked over to the area designated for the evening fire. Earlier in the day Hawk had killed a couple of rabbits that would be their evening meal. Ignoring the two men — they had stopped talking at her appearance and now watched her every move — she picked up the rabbits, grabbed a knife and headed for the river.

Forcing herself to choose the exact spot where she had bathed earlier, she laid the rabbits on the ground and knelt to begin the process of cleaning them.

“Once we get settled I’ll not eat a rabbit again for six months,” she mumbled to herself as she deftly cleaned the first one. She rinsed it then reached for the second. When she noticed a pair of moccasined feet beside her, she continued talking to herself and ignored her uninvited companion.

Hawk realized immediately the significance of the spot Molly had chosen and he felt an unexpected flash of pride for her. He knew it had not been easy for her to face the scene of debilitating terror so soon after the event. For her to have done so proved her ability and desire to conquer her fears.

He watched with satisfaction as she cleaned the rabbits. Her every move was calculated and practiced. The skin now came away from the body in one piece rather than small clumps. In fact he had nearly enough skins to make a coat and had planned to show her how that was done when the weather turned bad and there was time enough.

“We can never be friends, Mr. Hawk,” Molly said quietly.

“Because I am Shawnee?” he asked but knowing instinctively that wasn’t her reason.

“It has nothing to do with you being an Indian.” She moved back to the river and rinsed the other carcass. She grabbed both of the rabbits by their hind legs and stood, stretching the kinks from her back.

Her action unknowingly tightened her blouse, making Hawk remember her surprisingly full breasts covered by the wet cotton that had teased instead of hiding. He wondered why he had once thought her too thin and rather plain. Her hair, eyes, and skin all had the golden glow of honey. Hawk forced his thoughts away from wondering if she tasted as sweet.

“I do not like you, Mr. Hawk,” Molly continued. “You are unrelentingly cruel and selfish.” She paused a moment, then shook her head. “No, that’s not fair,” she corrected, “you are not selfish, or you would never have agreed to help Adam. However, your cruelty seems to know no bounds.”

“It was not my intention to be cruel. It is the only way I know to teach you.”

“There must be another way rather than your method. I have several nieces and nephews and I’ve never found it necessary to resort to torture in order to teach them.”

“I’m sure their lives never depended on what you taught,” Hawk replied quietly. He watched the lazy flow of the water as he fought to find a way to make her understand and accept his method of teaching. She was the wife of his best friend and he had come to respect and admire her. He wanted her to be as safe in her new home as possible, to know that she wasn’t dependent on anyone for her protection.

“If I had killed the snake and then gone into the water and carried you out what would you do the next time it happens?”

Her brow wrinkled in concentration as Molly gave his question serious thought. “I would probably stand there screaming for someone to come help me,” she answered fairly.

“What will you now do next time?”

She wanted to smack him on the side of the head with the dead rabbits for forcing her to see his point of view. “I will look for a way to get away from the snake, Mr. Hawk.” Her voice was low and full of anger. “I will then wade to the bank and will probably shake for an hour or so before returning to my chores and waiting anxiously for the next lifethreatening adventure to come my way!”

“The simplest thing in the wilderness can quickly become life-threatening, Molly. Often you have no one but yourself to depend upon to prevent death — your own death. You have much to learn in the next few months and there is no time to ease you gently through the lessons. If my way seems cruel, so be it. You, however, will benefit.”

“Thank you, Mr. Hawk.” Molly raised her head and nodded graciously. “I will endeavor to learn as quickly as possible. But that will not change the way I feel about you. As I said earlier, I don’t like you!”

“Liking me isn’t a necessary part of survival. Knowing how to handle a given situation at a given time, however, is.” Hawk folded his arms across his chest in a position Molly silently labeled his “tolerant Indian” stance. She was already beginning to hate it.

“You’re moving to a part of the country you’ve never seen before. You will be faced with decisions that you’ve had no experience with and you must be prepared to handle anything that comes along. Adam won’t always be there at your side. You’ll spend a lot of time alone in your cabin — your nearest neighbor will be several miles away. Isn’t it better to learn now, while someone is available to teach you, than to have to learn later when it might be too late?”

Molly sighed and nodded in agreement. “Everything you say is true, Mr. Hawk, which makes it damnably harder to accept.”

Hawk’s stern face gave no hint of the smile he felt lurking just beneath the surface. She had spirit and a sense of justice. She would make Adam an admirable wife. And for the first time in his life, Hawk was envious of a friend.

“Hate me if you must, Mrs. Royse,” he said quietly, “but learn everything I can teach you. Perhaps your anger at me will make some of the lessons easier to accept. You can pretend it is my head you are separating from my body the next time you prepare a rabbit for the stew pot.”

“What a delightful thought,” she agreed soberly. “I may never object to skinning a rabbit again.”

“It appears that I would do better not to supply you with more rabbits. Maybe some fish or a wild turkey would make a nice change.”

“It’s a shame your mother didn’t drown you when you were born,” Molly muttered to herself as she moved past him.

Hawk let her take several steps before he replied. “My mother died before my birth, but you are free to complain to either of my stepmothers should you ever meet them. I’m sure they’ll both agree with you that I am not always easy to get along with.”

Blushing with embarrassment that he had overheard her, Molly slowly returned to camp. She sighed, knowing this would not be her last encounter with him.

It was only much later, after dinner had been eaten and they had settled down for the night, that his words returned to her and she wondered how his mother could have died before his birth. Surely he meant at his birth, not before. It would be many months before she had the nerve to ask him to explain.

As Molly set out the lunch several days later she listened as Hawk patiently explained to Adam how to identify different trees by their bark. He called it “reading” a tree.

“Why learn the difference in the bark when I can always look up and tell what kind of tree it is by its leaves?” Adam asked.

“Winter,” was Hawk’s one word reply.

Feeling slightly foolish that he hadn’t remembered that trees lose their leaves, Adam grinned and nodded in agreement. “Birch makes good bowls and spoons,” Hawk continued the lesson. “Your best fence posts come from chestnut, it last forever because it doesn’t rot. Use hickory for axe handles, wheel spokes, things that take a lot of stress. The bark can be split for chair bottoms and while you’re working you can chew on it. Tastes pretty good in a dry mouth. When you burn it save the ashes, they make the best lye for soap.

“Use maple for furniture. We’ll try to find enough good-sized poplar to make your cabin. We’ll skin bark off of some elm branches and make waterpipe so that Molly doesn’t have to walk to the river for water. Look for —”

“Whoa!” Adam held his hands up and grinned. “I appreciate the lesson, Hawk, but I’m never going to remember all of that.”

“It takes time, but you’ll learn.”

Molly realized that now both she and Adam accepted Hawk’s way of teaching. She was relieved to notice that the rift in the friendship between the two men was slowly healing. She didn’t want to be the cause for a friendship of long standing to be destroyed.

“How would you like to ride a horse for a while this afternoon?” Adam asked later. He rested against the wheel of the wagon, watching her graceful movements as she cleaned up from their noon meal.

“With you?” she asked dubiously.

“Of course with me, sweetheart,” Adam replied with a chuckle. “Hawk’ll drive the wagon and I’ll ride his horse. I’ll saddle mine and you can ride it.” Adam’s horse remained tied to the tailgate of the wagon most of the time, since he usually drove the team. Molly was delighted at the idea of freedom from the wagon.

She hurriedly finished her chore while Adam saddled his horse. She saw the two men in serious discussion but ignored them. She was determined to let nothing, including an argument between Adam and Hawk, disturb her day.

Tying the bonnet ribbons firmly beneath her chin, Molly walked to the back of the wagon. She saw instantly what must have been the cause of the latest confrontation.

“Adam, that’s not my saddle,” she pointed out calmly.

“I know, sweetheart, but Hawk feels a sidesaddle would be too dangerous in the wilderness.”

“I wonder if he’ll consider a broken neck dangerous when I fall off because of that saddle,” she mumbled to herself as she eyed it.

“I’ve never ridden astride and I don’t believe this dress will allow for it,” she said to the waiting men as she tried to hide her disappointment. “Perhaps we can have our ride another time.”

“Riding astride gives you more grip and better control over your mount,” Hawk said as he walked up beside her. Grabbing the sides of her waist he easily lifted her onto the saddle. He adjusted the stirrups to the correct length while ignoring her attempts to protect her modesty as she pulled down her bunched skirt.

Adam’s lips thinned into a tight line as he fought not to comment on Hawk’s rough handling of Molly. He handed the reins to her and mounted his borrowed horse. He had seen her ride once at a park in Charleston and knew that she was an able horsewoman. However, that had been on a sidesaddle.

Hawk watched her intently for several minutes as she accustomed herself to the saddle. After sliding from side to side several times she seemed to get the hang of it and managed to control herself and her horse. Nodding with satisfaction he turned to Adam.