Into the Wilderness
Page 170

"Let me show you what Ton will do for a beaver pelt," said Lingo. "I think you will find it most instructive. If the smell of him doesn't choke you first. And then I will take my turn and demonstrate to you that I am very capable of settling my own scores."
"Nathaniel and Hawkeye will track you down," Elizabeth said, her voice faltering.
"The north woods are very large," said Lingo. "And we know them as well as your men. Better."
"But think," Elizabeth said softly. "Am I worth the last chance you have at your gold?"
His smile startled her. In the firelight, his pale eyes seemed totally without color. "Perhaps," he said. "Just perhaps you are. I have the idea that you are a screamer, madame. A weakness of mine, you see, that I indulge on occasion." He was tossing more wood on the fire as he said this, and there was a swoosh as it caught, and the crackle of resin. An explosion of sparks flew up and into the darkening sky; Elizabeth watched them scattering like malevolent spirits.
He lifted his hand as if to salute her. The rope that bound them together jumped to life. It had been lying coiled to one side of the fire, but now she watched him loop it around his wrist, once, twice, until it stretched high across the fire between them. The first tug Elizabeth was able to resist without moving. She held his eye, and lifted her chin.
He jerked harder, and she rose awkwardly. Another yank, and she fell forward onto her knees, directly before the fire. She scrambled to her feet.
Lingo stood and gathered the rope in both hands. Realizing that he intended to pull her into the flames, Elizabeth began to struggle in earnest, leaning back with all her weight.
"Stop," said Dutch Ton quietly.
Lingo laughed breathlessly. "It won't kill her," he said, jerking again so that she stumbled half into the fire. "Just a scar or two in payment for that mouth of hers."
The skin on Elizabeth's wrist had peeled away, but she was too concentrated on the fire to take note of that, or of the blood. She struggled for her footing, sliding forward two inches for every inch she regained. The toes of her moccasins were singed. Tossing her head back in an effort to keep her hair from the flames, she saw Dutch Ton towering over her. His large, placid face was creased in concentration.
Coming up next to her, Ton closed his fist over the rope in front of her own two straining hands. For a single strange moment Elizabeth was reminded of childhood games with her cousins. Then Ton grunted, and pulled. With a shout of rage Jack Lingo was hauled through the fire, scattering burning wood and embers everywhere.
They had stumbled backward together, and Elizabeth stood heaving for breath, watching while Lingo bellowed and hopped, slapping at himself. There were burnt spots on his hunting shirt and breeches, and a livid red welt on his hand.
And then he looked at her, and she knew that the unholy tales Nathaniel had kept from her about Jack Lingo were all true, and more, and worse. He grinned, and she moaned.
He pulled the rope up again, and producing a knife from its sheath at his belt, he cut it with a single movement. Then he launched himself at Dutch Ton.
Elizabeth backed away. The men circled each other slowly, Lingo lithe and winding; Dutch Ton much like a bear, all hulking muscle. She could hear the sound of Ton's breathing, even above the steady stream of curses in French and English. With a scream, Lingo rushed the bigger man and threw his weight at him.
Without stopping to think about the outcome of this fight, Elizabeth circled the fire to the jumble of provisions, keeping her eyes on the men while she searched with shaking hands. Her knife, her pack, her musket, these she grabbed up and turned away, and then turned back. There was no time to look for her wedding ring or the silver hair clasp that he had taken from her, and no time for regret, either. After a split second's hesitation, she took up Lingo's rifle, too, and she ran into the woods.
* * *
In the meadow there had been enough of a moon to cast a weak shadow, but once the woods closed around her she was in total darkness. Elizabeth stopped, closed her eyes, and forced herself to breathe deeply.
There was a fluttering above her in the trees, and she looked up in time to see the faint glimmer of a wide white breast. Then the owl called, and her pulse slowed.
He would be after her, if he survived the fight. And Elizabeth feared that he would survive. Dutch Ton had drawn Lingo's anger on himself and given her this opportunity; he would most probably pay dearly. She could not find it in herself to be thankful for this, not right now. All she could think of now was getting away, of finding Robbie.
Her vision was adjusting slowly to reveal the faintest outlines of trees.
Blue—eyed people are at an advantage in the night woods, Nathaniel had told her once while they made camp on a moonless night. He had winked one hazel eye at her and drawn her into the darkness of the balsam—branch shanty where there had been only Nathaniel and no thought of anybody but him until the sunrise. She had not feared the dark then. She had never feared it before. But Jack Lingo had looked at her over the fire, his pale blue eyes promising things she did not want to contemplate.
Elizabeth stifled a small hiccup of fear and began to sort through the weapons. As she tucked the musket into her belt she realized that she had neglected to pick up the powder horn.
Instead, she had Lingo's rifle. In the afternoon she had watched him clean it, polishing the walnut stock lovingly. A Kentucky rifle, he had told her with some considerable pride in his voice, in spite of her studied lack of interest. She ran her hands over it in the dark, familiarizing herself with its dimensions, touching the trigger lightly. It was primed, but to shoot it accurately and hit a moving target would be a miracle.