Spirited by Nancy Holder Read Free Book Online Page A

gently. He lowered his head. “He will deliver us from evil.”
    She closed her eyes. “Amen.”
    The Indian who was leading her father jerked on the rope, and Dr. Stevens staggered forward. Isabella grabbed his bound hand and tried to help him.
    “Mahwah”
    It was the tall brave. He had stopped walking; his body shifted toward her, he gestured at her with his hand.
    “Do as he says, girl,” her father urged her. “Don’t move him to anger.”
    “I have no wish to be parted from you.” Her voice cracked with anxiety.
    “Nor I you.” His glance ticked from her to the tall Indian. He took a breath and said, “But be obedient to him. I sense that you are his personal captive.Their customs are different than ours, Isabella.” His cheeks reddened; his eyes broke contact. “According to their traditions, he may… he may do with you as he pleases.”
    “Papa”
she said, stricken.
    He took a ragged breath. “He speaks English. It may be that he’s a gentleman.” Then he turned back to her and said, “You know that I would die rather than see you harmed in any way.”
    “Please, no, I beg of you,” she said, taking his hand and putting it against her cheek. Her blue eyes spilled with tears. “Please, Papa, don’t speak of dying. I couldn’t bear it. I’m so fearful, Papa.”
    “I shan’t go without a fight,” he assured her. “Remember, Isabella. We are British. We must behave like civilized people.” He stared at the tall, handsome man. “Even if others do not.”

Chapter Five
     
    What shall I do with her? Wusamequin wondered. And why have I spared her and her father? All the others that we could kill, we have killed. The ones who ran are being hunted down and put to the blade.
    My family is avenged, and I may walk with honor through the village. I am Wusamequin, medicine man of the People of the River. Now my wife and son will leave the Land Beyond and walk the Road of Stars.
    He gazed up at the sky.
    Where the Road of Stars will take them, I cannot know for sure. But I do know it will be a more wonderful place than even the Land Beyond. They will dance with the spirits. They will become spirits.
    I have accomplished my deeds this day, for them. My life as a man and as a warrior is redeemed.
    The price was light. Tashtassuck was wounded, but only by shot. He is able to walk home. But Great Bear, walking in this world, was slaughtered. I should kill these two for his sake. Why do I stay my hand?
    Why had he stopped Sasious from savoring the spoils of victory?
    It was her courage. She fought like a woman of my people
,
not a weak Yangee. I could not let her spirit be shamed.
    He shook his head. Now who was being weak?
    He glanced at Sasious, who had a shallow flesh wound from the white skin woman’s knife. He was glowering from the insult.
    I
have probably made an enemy. That was foolish of me.
    He scanned overhead, seeking signs. A hawk wheeled in the newly cleansed heavens. Passenger pigeons fluttered away, warning one another of the threat.
    Two deer paused in the underbrush as he and Sasious led the party toward the cliff where, twenty feet behind them, the waterfall rushed and burbled. Three moons ago—Buck Moon—he had had a dream that told him that upon occasion, his wife visited him in the world wearing the guise of a deer. Perhaps the second deer was his son, whose name he also did not mention, in order to ensure his easy journey on the Road of Stars.
    He signed greetings and love to them. The two deer calmly watched, then turned tail and trotted into the forest.
    The white woman beside him watched their progress as well.
    Sasious started up the steep path that had been cut into the cliff. Wusamequin paused, indicating that the woman should go ahead of him. She hesitated, then did so, looking behind to catch sight of her father. After she assured herself that the grayhair was still there, she took the first foothold. He couldsee her exhaustion and admired her attempts to conceal it. He