Spirited by Nancy Holder Read Free Book Online

was tied around his neck. His face was drenched with blood and one eye was swollen shut. But he was alive.
    And he had his hair.
    “Papa!” she cried. She pushed through the circle of savages and raced to his side. Carefully she raised on tiptoe and placed her arms around his neck. The Indian who held the rope tugged on it, forcing her father to stumble. Isabella turned her head toward the savage and shouted, “Leave him alone!”
    All the braves laughed, except for Isabella’s rescuer. He stared at her with his dark, unblinking eyes. A muscle jumped in his cheek. Then he left the circleand walked toward her. As he drew near, she held onto her father.
    “No!” she screamed at him, then at the others. “No! Don’t touch him!”
    “Poppet,” her father rasped through cracked and bleeding lips. “Do not provoke them.”
    “Leave us alone!” she railed at the tall, handsome man. “Leave us!”
    The man held up his empty weapon hand. He said gently to her, “Father lives.”
    “You speak English!” she cried. Relief swept through her. “Then certainly you are civilized.” She bobbed a curtsey, though she had to force herself to bend her knee to these barbarians, who had butchered over two dozen men. “Sir, we are on a mission of mercy. We carry medicines to men who are very ill. We—”
    “Silence,” he snapped. Then he turned on his heel. His back to her, he rejoined the cluster of men.
    “Sir!” she called after him. “I beg of you! Allow me to parlay with you!”
    He ignored her. As she stared after him, the circle broke up and the men began to amble down the path.
    She took up her station beside her father. She held onto his torn uniform coat like a child clinging to a cloth doll. They stumbled through the mud. She was dizzy and sick with fear.
    “My dear, did they harm you?” her father murmured under his breath. He scrutinized her, frowning with dismay. “Your cheek bears a bruise.”
    “The tall one, he saved me.” Then she caught sight of the Indian who had struck her and said, “That one, he … he was no gentleman.” She choked back a sob and added hastily, “But I am all right, Papa.”
    “These monsters. We carried a flag of truce,” he spat. “They shall pay, by God.”
    “Papa… is everyone else … did anyone survive?” she asked, darting a glance at the carnage in the glade. She thought of Ben Schoten, scalped and bloody, and felt her gorge rise afresh. “If there are wounded, perhaps they will allow me to care for them.”
    “That’s not the Indian way,” he said harshly. “If they meant to take any man prisoner, he would be with us already.” He looked away. “Three warriors remained behind when they took me, and they are dispatching the wounded now.”
    “Oh, Papa,” she groaned. “Oh, dear heaven.”
    “Courage, girl,” he urged her. “While we are alive, we have hope.”
    “Papa, to kill wounded men …” She was near speechless from this new horror.
    “It is the way of war, sometimes.” His face hardened. “Not the British way, however.”
    She swallowed and tried to nod. Her knees were rubbery. Her body felt uncommonly light, as if she had left it.
    “I did see some men take to the forest,” he added, with a note of hope. “I can only pray they will make their way to Fort William Henry, and alert ColonelRamsland of our plight. But the Indians have sent men after them. Of that I’m certain.”
    “Was Major Whyte among them?” she asked.
    “Aye.” Her father’s voice was sharp. “He was one who … ran.”
    For a moment she was so shocked she couldn’t speak. “You mean … he
deserted
us?”
    He clamped shut his mouth, which was answer enough. Her father was not one to speak ill of anyone, least of all a fellow officer. She thought of how Major Whyte had looked at her; it was nearly impossible to conceive that he could have left her to die.
    “What is to become of us?” she asked brokenly.
    “Trust in God, my dear,” her father answered