terror replaced shock she began to struggle. Her bursting lungs drove her instinctively to kick her way upward. A sheet of lightning, distant now, flashed against the dawn sky as her head broke the surface. She gulped a mouthful of precious air and, with it, a choking quantity of muddy water. Bubbles burst from her lips as the current dragged her under again.
Debris from the wrecked boat swirled around her. Clarissa jerked with pain as a big log crashed against her ribs. Miraculously she felt it pushing beneath her, lifting her upward. Clasping the log with her arms, she kicked until she broke the surface once more. The floating log stayed beneath her this time, keeping her there.
Choking and coughing, Clarissa filled her lungs with air. She was alive, but her peril was far from over. The unbridled current was still sweeping her downstream. Tree limbs, boat wreckage and things she could not even bear to imagine bobbed and swirled along with her. In rare moments of calm water, she caught glimpses of the wooded shore. There were no settlements here-no houses, farms or forts. This was wilderness, a land peopled by bears, snakes, pumas and naked copper savages who would kill her for the pleasure of hanging her scalp on their lodge poles. Drowning was a pleasant prospect compared to what might happen to her on land.
By the time the morning sun crept above the trees, Clarissa’s strength was gone. She lay across the log, too numb to hold on to the rough bark. Her red-gold hair streamed like a net m the muddy water, catching twigs, leaves and drowned insects.
Her mind drifted in and out of dreams. She fancied herself back in Baltimore, waking up to the mouthwatering aromas of scones, bacon and porridge. She imagined curling into the warm feather bed to steal one last delicious moment of sleep, then rising, brushing out her hair, slipping into her warm flannel wrapper and pattering downstairs to breakfast. This morning, even the sight of Junius’s sour face filled her with tenderness. She smiled at himA sudden impact jolted Clarissa’s body, shocking her awake. Her log had struck a sandbar that jutted out from shore within a sheltered curve of the river. The current was already washing the sand from around the log’s end. Seconds from now the log would float free again, carrying her with it. There was no time to lose.
Gathering her strength, she dragged her bruised, chilled body off the log and rolled onto the sandbar. For a moment she lay there, gasping. Then, rousing herself, she crawled toward the bank. The sand gave way beneath her weight, leaving hollows of water where her palms and knees had pressed. A small snake-she had no idea what kind it was-slithered across the back of her hand and vanished into the river. Clarissa was too exhausted even to flinch.
Only when the ground felt solid did she allow herself to collapse facedown onto the grassy bank. The earth was cold against her aching body. Icy water dripped from the storm-lashed trees. A magpie scolded harshly from a branch, its call a sharp counterpoint to the chattering sound of Clarissa’s own teeth.
For a long time she lay where she had dropped, too numb to move. Little by little, the sun crept above the trees. Fingers of light probed between the budding branches of birch and chestnut, warming her through her wet clothes. From an elderberry thicket, the song of a thrush bubbled on the morning air.
Raising her head, Clarissa blinked herself fully awake. Threads of vapor were curling upward from the rainsoaked ground. Her skirts were steaming themselves dry in the bright sunlight. The storm had passed, as all storms did, and a new day had begun.
The rushing murmur of the Ohio filled Clarissa’s ears as she sat up and lifted a hand to her matted hair. Finding it hopelessly tangled, she swept the russet mass out of her face and sat clutching her knees, gazing across the sandbar at the muddy current, thinking how it had nearly claimed her. She remembered the storm and the two evil men who had vanished in the darkness. She remembered Tom Ainsworth, whose face she would never see again.
Clarissa slumped over her knees, shuddering in despair. How could a single careless moment so utterly destroy two lives?
At last she forced herself to sit up, pressing her palms to her burning eyes to stop the tears. This was no time for hand-wringing, she upbraided herself. She had no intention of dying in this wilderness. She had two strong legs and was quite capable of walking back to Fort Pitt. If only she knew the way…
Suddenly she stared at the river.
What a silly goose she had been, sitting here feeling sorry for herself! She was not lost at all. The flatboat had come downstream. To find her way back to the fort, all she needed to do was follow the riverbank upstream again.
Setting her jaw, Clarissa staggered to her feet She moved awkwardly, her joints stiff, her bare feet swollen and tender from hours in the water. Ignoring the pain, she forced herself to take one step, then another.
Her mud-stiffened skirts clung to her legs. Her wet petticoat dragged on the ground, hobbling her every stride. She had scarcely gained ground when a sudden misstep sent her sprawling again. The force of the landing knocked the breath out of her. She lay gasping in the mud, biting back tears of frustration.
I will not give up, Clarissa swore. If she had to crawl all the way to Fort Pitt on her belly, she would do it. She would survive to laugh again, to dance and flirt again, to love, marry and bear a house full of happy children. She would survive to grow old and wise, to cradle her grandchildren in her lap one day and tell them the story of her great adventure in the wilderness.
Marshaling the last of her strength, she willed herself to rise. Her right hand groped outward to brace her body-only to freeze in midmotion as her fingertips sensed an odd smoothness beneath their touch.
She glanced down and saw that her hand had discovered a shallow impression in the bare brown earth. Her throat jerked as she realized what it was.
She was staring down at the long, broad print of a leather moccasin.
Wolf Heart watched from a stand of birch as the slender white girl scrambled to her feet. The panic in her wide green eyes could only mean one thing-she had discovered his tracks and sensed he was nearby.
His throat tightened as she hesitated, wheeling one way, then another. Her hair was a tangled cloud of flame in the morning sunlight. Her gown-the fabric too light and fine to be homespun-clung to her willowy woman’s body in mud-stained tatters. She looked as fragile as the wing of a butterfly.
Wolf Heart had seen her clinging to the log as it washed ashore. He had melted into the trees as she crawled onto the sandbar, keeping out of sight as she collapsed, trembling and exhausted, onto the bank. A whirlwind of emotions had torn at him. This ethereal young stranger was part of a world he had long since buried, a world he had grown to despise. She and her kind did not belong here.
The girl spun away and broke into a limping run, headed toward the riverbank. Wolf Heart’s blue eyes narrowed for an instant. As she vanished behind a clump of red willows, he stepped out of his hiding place and glided noiselessly after her.
Shadows flickered over his rangy hard-muscled body as he moved through the undergrowth. In this, the moon of mouse-eared leaves, the willows and birches trailed long catkins in the light morning wind, but the foliage was thin. The girl’s hair blazed like a signal fire through the trees, making it easy to trail her even at a distance. Wolf Heart eased his powerful stride, giving her plenty of room. He had no wish to confront her face-to-face. Not, at least, until he had made up his mind what to do with her.
As he paused for thought, his fingers brushed the small deerskin medicine
