Judith E French by Moonfeather Page A

hair as the animal reared up again, then turned and lumbered back across the stream.
    “Palli aal!” Leah shouted. “Go away! Get!”
    The bear stopped and looked back at them, rearing up and giving a final snort. Then the animal lowered himself to the ground and ran off into the woods.
    “N’gagelicksi!” Leah seemed to be laughing, and crying at the same time. “We did it! We saved the deer! Did ye see machk run?” She clapped her hands and twirled around Brandon. “I thought he be Matchemenetoo, the devil beast, but he wasna. ’Twas only a bear.” She threw her arms around Brandon’s neck and kissed him full on the mouth.
    He dropped the torch and tightened his arms around her, clinging to her warmth, meeting her eager kiss with his own.
    “Ach, Brandon—” she began.
    A twig snapped sharply beside his head, and a feathered shaft buried itself in the tree beside him. With a cry, he shoved Leah to the ground, protecting her with his own body. Stunned, they lay still.
    “Get off me,” she protested. “Ye be crushin’ me.”
    “Shhh, listen.” He strained to hear, but there was no sound other than the wind in the trees. He rolled aside and pointed silently to the arrow over their heads. She nodded, pointing toward a patch of thick brush.
    They crawled into the thicket and hid there until dawn. When the first rays of morning light lit the forest floor, Leah wiggled free of Brandon’s embrace and ventured out of the undergrowth. Cautiously, he followed her.
    The buck lay half in and half out of the water, where the bear had thrown it. There was no other sign of life, human or animal. Even the birds seemed strangely hushed. Brandon noticed that the musty scent of bear was still strong in the air.
    Leah went to the tree and examined the arrow. She tugged at it, but the arrowhead remained firmly wedged in the wood. She pointed to the feathering at the end of the shaft. “Seneca,” she said.
    He grunted. “I was afraid at first that maybe it was your bear devil come back to finish us off.”
    She sniffed. “A small war party. One warrior, one arrow.” Snapping the arrow in two, she rolled it between her fingers. “A small, stupid war party—one that would nay finish off two unarmed enemies.”
    “Doesn’t make much sense, does it?” Brandon spied Leah’s broken bow on the ground a few yards away and went to retrieve it. The strong hickory had been splintered in two.
    “Save the bowstring,” she called. “The bow is useless.” He glanced at her questioningly. “The bear. He came at me too fast to get off a shot. I beat him off with the bow.”
    For the first time, he remembered the blood on her face and arm. “Are you hurt?” By the light of day, he could only see a few dried smears of blood, nothing fresh.
    “Only a scratch. I maun care for it. Machk ’s teeth be bad medicine. The old women say demons live in his mouth.”
    “Why didn’t you let him have the damned deer?”
    “’Twas ours, not his. Let machk hunt for himself.”
    “By the wounds of Christ, I’ve never seen anything that big.”
    “Aye, but ye showed courage for an Englishmanake.” She smiled up at him, and he saw a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “Ye showed courage for a Scotsman.” She unsheathed her knife and tossed it to him. He caught the handle. “Skin the buck,” she said, “whilst I check for signs. I want to see what I can find out about the war party that attacked us last night.” She pursed her lips. “Ye do know how t’ skin a deer, do ye not?”
    “After a fashion.”
    “Good. Leave the head. As a rule, we use every wee bit o’ the beastie, but we maun travel fast this day, so we will take only the choice meat.” She smiled at him. “And when we reach the camp, ye must scrape your face again. I dinna care for the porcupine quills sproutin’ there. Yellow it may be, but ’tis not human for a mon to grow a pelt on his chin.”
    Leah crossed the stream and followed the bear trail long enough