Free Judith E French by Moonfeather Page B

worked with red, blue, and silver beads in an intricate floral design. Copper disks dangled from his ears, and a small cap woven of turkey feathers crowned his receding hairline.
    “What you say is so, daughter of a peace woman,” Tuk-o-see-yah admitted finally. A small girl-child wiggled into his lap, and he bent his head to kiss the back of her neck. The child’s mother called her away, and Tuk-o-see-yah focused on Leah again. “The Seneca may not be a Seneca at all.”
    “What if it was not a man?” Tahmee called, gathering her small sons into her arms. “What if the bear was really Matchemenetoo in the skin of a man?”
    “Woman’s fancies,” a grizzled warrior muttered. “Let us seek out this Seneca, I say. Let us ask him why he has brought violence to Shawnee land.”
    “Manese speaks true!” another woman shouted.
    “Yes! Yes!”
    “Find the Seneca!”
    Tuk-o-see-yah raised his wrinkled hand for silence. “Iroquois or demon, we will seek out this intruder and drive him from our hunting ground. Women, cease to frighten your children with tales of Matchemenetoo. Men, sharpen your spears and tighten your arrowheads. We are Shawnee. We fear nothing that walks by day or flies by night. Is it so?”
    “It is so!” Amookas answered stoutly.
    “We are Shawnee,” echoed another woman.
    Gradually, the crowd thinned. Families went to their own wigwams and young braves to their guard posts. Leah remained seated on the ground near the old sachem and Alex the Scotsman with her aunts, Amookas and Tahmee, beside her. Leah’s son, wearied by all the excitement, had fallen asleep in her arms.
    “Does Tuk-o-see-yah speak English?” Brandon asked Leah.
    “The sachem understands your tongue,” she replied quietly, “but he won’t speak to you.” She sighed and glanced at Alex for help.
    “Tuk-o-see-yah canna see or hear ye,” Alex said, taking a puff of the sachem’s pipe and passing it back to the old man. “Ye be a captive, the lowest form of life.” The Scotsman grinned. “He wouldna recognize a Mohawk prisoner. ’Twould gi’ him status, ye ken. And as an Englishmanake . . .” He shrugged. “Ye would need t’ rise a great deal to coom equal wi’ an Iroquois warrior.”
    Brandon scowled. “I’m a lord of the realm, a viscount, and, if I live long enough, I’ll be a belted earl.”
    “And Tuk-o-see-yah is a sachem of the Shawnee. Were he born English, he’d be a prince or a king. This old mon is general, ambassador, judge, and ruler. If he nods his head, he can set ye free or ha’ ye chopped into wee bits for fish bait. Tread lightly, me haughty English laird. If ye insult Tuk-o-see-yah, Leah canna save ye.”
    “I had no wish to offend your . . . their chief. I just wanted to ask—”
    “Shhh,” Leah said. She shook her head. “Amookas, would you take him?” The older woman lifted Kitate into her arms and carried him inside the wigwam. “Honored sir,” she said, addressing the sachem in Algonquian. “My husband made no attempt to escape. He showed courage against the bear and against the man who attacked us. I would make of you two requests, first that he be permitted to carry weapons, and second that I might seek out a sponsor to adopt him as a member of our tribe.” Leah laid a hand on Brandon’s arm and repeated in English what she had said.
    “Just don’t expect me to be his foster mother,” Amookas said as she emerged from the entranceway. “I’ve no use for Englishmanake, and I’ll have none at my campfire.”
    Leah chuckled. “No aunt, I’ll not ask you. For if you ‘gave birth’ to my husband, he’d be my clan brother. If I wish to share my bed with him, he must be adopted by a woman of another clan.” She glanced meaningfully at Tahmee.
    Brandon’s eyes clouded with confusion.
    “Tahmee is not my mother’s sister.” Leah explained. “She is the sister of Amookas’s first husband, my aunt by marriage. All the women of my mother’s blood, including me, are