Merline Lovelace Read Free Page A

hauled loose rocks to mound over the Frenchman’s body. He was sweating beneath his buckskins and buffalo coat by thetime he cut and stripped two small branches. Tying them with a bit of rawhide cut from the fringe of his hunting buckskins, he planted the crude cross on the mound of rocks.
    He thought about gutting the cougar and hauling the carcass back to camp, but there wasn’t enough meat on the creature’s bones to feed a flock of crows, let alone eight hungry men. He left it for the scavengers.
    Except the claws. Those he decided to take to Chartier’s boy. The lad might want to make a necklace of them, take medicine from the fierce spirit of the cat that killed the trapper.
    Dropping the claws into his leather cartridge case, Daniel gathered Chartier’s musket and hunting knife and started back down the ridge. He no longer had either the time or the desire to view the supposed Viking marks that had lured him up the bluff.
    What he did have, he thought grimly, was an unexpected charge. What the devil was he going to do with the boy? He was still pondering the best way to honor his vow when he approached the Frenchman’s camp for the second time.
    The lad was still down at the stream. He appeared hard at work, but the faint crunch of boots on snow brought his head whipping around. He crouched there, the bloody skinning knife clutched in his fist. His eyes narrowed to slits as they took in the two muskets Daniel carried.
    “Où est Henri?”
    Approaching slowly, Daniel searched his mind forthe few French phrases he’d picked up over the years. “Henri is mort. Fini. ”
    Under the bulk of his wolfskin cap and buffalo robe, the lad went still. The fingers clutching the knife turned white at the knuckles.
    “A mountain cat got him.”
    Still the boy didn’t move. Propping the two muskets against the bale of furs, Daniel curled his fingers into talons.
    “Puma. Panther.”
    He raised an arm to rake a hand across his throat in a grotesque pantomime of the trapper’s death. Before he could complete the gesture, the boy’s lips curled back.
    “Muerte!”
    Spitting the word like a curse, he launched himself through the air much as the cougar had up on the ridge. His buffalo robe tumbled away from his shoulders. His wolfskin cap flew off. His eyes blazed with fury.
    In the space of mere seconds, Daniel made two startling discoveries. The boy’s eyes were blue, a deep, sapphire blue. And he looked very much like a she.
    Daniel formed a fleeting impression of glossy, waist-length black hair. Of high cheekbones and a pointed chin. Of small, proud breasts molded by a doeskin tunic.
    Then he, like Chartier, went down under the weight of a snarling, spitting she-cat.

2
    D aniel landed flat on his back, felled by a hundred pounds of feral fury. Only his hard-learned combat skills kept him from receiving or inflicting real pain. Not an easy task while dodging sharp knees to the groin, elbows to the windpipe and a well-honed skinning knife. It took some doing, but he managed to catch his assailant’s wrists in a tight grip.
    “Enough!”
    She—yes, it was definitely a she—ignored the sharp command and butted her head forward.
    Daniel took a solid whack to the nose. Swearing, he transferred both of her wrists to one hand and grabbed a thick hank of hair. A vicious tug brought her head back and her chin pointed at the sky.
    Still she fought. Her lips curled away from her teeth. Her body contorted atop his. She got a knee loose and damned near unmanned him.
    Grunting, Daniel blocked the vicious thrust with his thigh, dug a heel into the ground and rolled them both over. His weight squeezed the breath right outof her. Squashed into the snow, she squirmed and gasped and jerked.
    “Enough, I said!”
    He didn’t know whether it was his angry bellow that finally stilled her struggles or his dead weight crushing her into the snow. Whatever the reason, she went limp. Unmoving except for the quick, tortured rise and fall of