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  "No, sorry to disappoint you, but he survived, and now, since you've made sure my son is dependent on you, I guess I'll have to take you along with us. Because if I don't, he'll hate my guts as long as he lives."

  Bethany gave him a contemptuous look. "Why should you care about that? You haven't come back since he was three years old. Why did you come back at all?"

  Something moved in the clear green depths of Luke Randall's eyes, something that almost frightened Bethany. "I don't give a damn what you think of me, but for the boy's sake, I'm going to take you down-river with us. Then, I'm going to feel great pleasure in turning you over to the law, and I hope they throw away the key."

  "Really? You're bringing me with you?" Bethany asked, overjoyed to be going with Peeto, even if a jail cell awaited her in New Orleans.

  Luke looked down into Bethany Cole's big silver-gray eyes, so wide and innocent and appealing, and realized for the first time that she was very, very young. And pretty enough in a tomboyish sort of way, he thought, as his eyes moved over her tanned face with the few freckles on her nose. But, he wasn't foolish enough to trust that innocent look, not for a minute. The young girl standing in front of him had nearly killed Hugh with a poker before she abducted Peeto, and he would see her in prison for it just as soon as he could manage it.

  Chapter 2

  Luke only gave them time to collect their belongings, and he was careful to keep a tight hold on Bethany Cole's arm as they left Valerie Goodrich's stables and walked down Silver Street, the muddy, unpaved main thoroughfare of Natchez-Under-the-Hill. He rested his other hand on one of the two flintlock pistols he always kept in his belt, as they passed the saloons and brothels lining the street all the way to the main river landings. The small strip under the Natchez bluffs was not a place to let down your guard. Among the thieves, gamblers, whores, and cutthroats, murder was committed as regularly as dawn lit the morning sky. It was nowhere for Bethany Cole to have brought his son.

  Luke glanced down at the top of the girl's pale blond head. She barely reached his shoulder, and she had one arm close around Pete, as if to protect him. Luke's eyes moved to the boy. He had grown so much taller and stronger since the last time that his father had seen him, and he was brave. Pete had not hesitated to take on his father in order to help the girl.

  "We're going in that?" Bethany asked in surprise, as they stopped on a planked dock alongside a heavily laden birchbark canoe.

  "That's right," Luke answered. "Don't worry, it's safe enough."

  Bethany had seen enough canoes during her youth on the Ohio River to know that much, but with a giant of a man like Luke Randall aboard, she wasn't sure the fragile craft could stay afloat, much less bear the three of them all the way to New Orleans. She started to say as much, then decided against it as Luke swung Peeto into the canoe, helping him get settled on a thick, furry buffalo hide spread out near the bow.

  Bethany didn't wait for Luke to assist her; she threw in her cloth valise and Peeto's small suede satchel before she stepped in to sit as close as possible to Peeto. She watched closely as Luke walked around the canoe, checking the supplies and gunpowder pouches packed in its midsection. Despite his height and powerful build, he moved with smooth masculine grace, as if he planned each footfall in advance. In that way, he reminded her of an immense, dangerous jungle cat-a black panther, perhaps, with his shaggy black hair and watchful jade eyes. She shivered. Many men would fear him, she had no doubt of that.

  When Luke was satisfied that everything was in order for their journey, he lowered himself into the stern and pushed away from the dock with the end of his paddle. The canoe glided out into the swift river currents, and to his surprise, Bethany Cole picked up the other paddle, dipping an expert stroke into the water.

  Luke ruddered their course, and with Bethany's steady paddling, they soon floated past the last gray shanty of Natchez-Under-the-Hill and entered the long stretch of the river that wound in a serpentine course to the Gulf of Mexico. A long-legged blue heron took startled flight from a downed log near them, and Luke watched it skim low over the surface of the water, wings outstretched in a six-foot span, before it banked upward to disappear over the forest lining the opposite shore.

  Peeto had watched the bird's graceful flight as well, and Luke's eyes rested on the boy's fine profile. It was hard to believe that this child was his son. A boy he hardly knew; a boy who regarded him with hatred from eyes identical to Luke's own. But, his face was very like Snow Blossom's.

  Luke wondered if Peeto could remember anything about his mother. A clear vision of her rose in Luke's mind, a day long ago when they were still children, when she was six and he was twelve. She had shot his bow, then laughed when her arrow hit the center of the target. Another, less happy memory swiftly followed the first, the day Snow Blossom died. Luke heard her scream again, heard Peeto's cries as she fell. Determined not to relive that day, he thrust his paddle into the swirling eddies, hoping the boy had forgotten. Peeto had been only three, hardly more than a baby. Perhaps, he was not haunted by the memory as Luke was.

  "Watch the planter yonder," Bethany Cole suddenly called out from the bow. "You best rudder us clear."

  Luke knew that a planter was an uprooted tree that the current had pushed along until its trunk became braced on the bottom, causing its upper branches to lie treacherously hidden just below the surface to wreck unskilled boatmen. But, as he picked out the planter's telltale ripples on the surface, Luke wondered how Bethany Cole knew about them. He ruddered a wide path around it, and regarded the girl with new interest. For the first time, he wondered about her background. Hugh had told him little other than that she was one of the servants Anne had hired out of a charity orphanage.

  In the fortnight he had been searching for her on the river, Luke had never once envisioned her as being so young. Her innocent appearance didn't fit at all with his image of the conniving abductress who had taken his son. Most likely, though, her youthful look had worked to dupe Anne and Hugh into trusting her. Still, she hadn't been clever enough to elude his pursuit, and that made him wonder…

  Half a dozen boatmen along Laclede's Landing in St. Louis had remembered her. Several had even recalled her boarding the Mariette with Peeto. Then, in New Madrid, a town on the Mississippi seventy miles below the junction of the Ohio River, he easily learned that she had brazenly entered the major trading post to buy peppermint candies for Peeto.

  In Natchez, it had taken Luke a little longer to pick up her trail since the Goodrich stables were off the beaten path. Luckily, the constable had recognized her description from Luke's warrant. It seemed strange to Luke that she would abduct the boy, then make no attempt to hide her tracks.

  Nevertheless, she had made sure Peeto was devoted to her. A massive frown drew Luke's straight black brows together. It would be hard to separate them, but he would have to find a way. He would see her in jail, just as he had told her.

  The September afternoon was beautiful, with a clear blue sky stretching out in a dome above the river, while sunshine dappled the trees overhanging the banks. After several hours of paddling, Luke began to look for a place to stop and stretch their legs. When he saw a sunny sandbar a short distance down-river, he ruddered the canoe in that direction.

  "We'll stop there on the sandbar for a while," he called out to the girl, and she angled her paddle toward the narrow beach without comment. The canoe had barely scraped the bottom when she was out with one agile leap, pulling the craft farther up onto the sand. While she lifted Peeto out, Luke picked up his long-barreled rifle and the sack of food that Val Goodrich, during her tearful farewell, had insisted they take.

  Bethany and Peeto stood close together, watching Luke with distrustful eyes while he walked a short distance up from the water to have a look around. Thick forest hugged both sides of the Mississippi River all the way to New Orleans, and the woods were inhabited mostly by Indians, mainly Choctaw and Cherokee. Luke knew full well that their favorite prey were the keelboats and f
latboats that tied up for the night all up and down the river. This place, however, looked safe enough with its rocky bluff just behind the strip of beach. The trees were sparse enough for him to spot even the stealthiest of the red warriors.

  "Go on, sit down," he told them, annoyed by the frightened, accusing expressions on their faces. They were acting as if he were the criminal instead of Bethany Cole, and it irked him.

  They obeyed at once, sitting together on a driftwood stump, and he dropped the sack of fried chicken and buttermilk biscuits in front of them, taking his own portion a few steps away. He leaned back against a weeping willow tree, from which he could keep an eye on them.

  The wind from the river sent the drooping fronds waving to and fro, creating patterns of sunlight over the girl's hair, and Luke watched the pale blond curls glint like gold. She didn't wear her hair as long as most women did, but it swept her shoulders, thick and silky, with soft, wispy ringlets.

  All of a sudden, her hair reminded him of his mother. He could vividly remember a time when she sat very close to him, her arm around his shoulders, just as Bethany was doing with Peeto. That was before Panther Dog had murdered her. Cold, loathing hatred that had possessed him since childhood roared up from the depths of his mind, but he pushed all emotion back with the mental strength he had found within himself even at Peeto's age.

  Bethany looked up as Luke Randall suddenly moved away from the tree trunk and paced down to the edge of the water. What was he thinking as he bent and filled a metal cup with water, then stared out over the wide, turbulent river? His face remained inscrutable, and he looked very much like a fur trapper as he stood there, with his short black beard and fringed buckskins, so big and strong and silent.

  She glanced around the clearing again, searching for a way to escape, but even if they could run away, the forests were wild and tangled with undergrowth, and there might be Indians hiding there with their scalping hatchets. She shivered, her arm tightening around Peeto.

  "I'm thirsty," he whispered.

  "Go down and dip some water from the river," Bethany told him. "Here's a cup."

  Peeto didn't move, looking fearfully at his father's tall, intimidating form.

  "He won't hurt you, Petie," Bethany said. "He is your father, you know."

  Peeto's sunburned face grew harder. "Yes, he will. I hate him," he muttered, but he took the cup and moved down to the water, carefully skirting Luke's position on the bank.

  To Bethany's dismay, Luke strode back toward her. He stood and looked silently down at her, his eyes bright green against his bronzed skin, until she grew uncomfortable. A little afraid of him, she turned her gaze to Peeto.

  "Why did you take Pete?"

  His question came suddenly, and Bethany looked up, not sure how much he knew.

  "Didn't Hugh Younger tell you?" she asked hesitantly.

  "He said you abducted Peeto for ransom, then nearly clubbed him to death when he tried to stop you."

  Bethany could not help her gasp of outrage. "He's lying!" she cried furiously. "I didn't abduct Petie! Not for ransom or anything else!"

  Luke Randall lifted one dark brow in obvious disbelief. "No? Then, tell me what you call it."

  Bethany's initial anger subsided, and she looked at the sun sparkling off the river. "Why should I? You won't believe me over him."

  Luke's eyes didn't waver. "Are you saying you didn't take Pete? And, you didn't hit Hugh with the poker?"

  Luke watched her expression close up as if a shade had been drawn down. She suddenly looked distinctly guilty.

  "Maybe I had a good reason," she said a moment later. "One I'm sure Hugh forgot to mention."

  "Go ahead, mention it."

  Bethany watched Peeto collect mussel shells along the littered sand. She didn't know if she should tell Luke Randall the truth about that night. She didn't know if he could be trusted, or if he was as bad as Hugh. She only knew she had to protect Peeto as long as she could.

  "He was drinking," she said finally. "He was so drunk that he came into the nursery and tried to hurt Petie. So, I hit him, and I knew if Hugh died, they'd hang me or put me in prison, and Petie would be all alone. Petie was scared and wanted to come with me, so I took him and left."

  Luke lifted the cup he held, taking a drink of the water it held before he emptied the rest on the ground. "You're right, I don't believe you," he agreed. "Come on, we've been here long enough."

  For the rest of the afternoon, no conversation passed between them, and Bethany was glad when Peeto fell asleep on the soft buffalo robe. He was so little, and he had been through so much in his short life. For a while, she had thought they could be happy together with Val in Natchez. Then, Luke Randall had shown up out of nowhere.

  Bitterness washed over her. Luke Randall would only abandon Peeto again. He was a cold, hard man, or he could never have left his own child for three long years. She had to find a way to escape before Luke took Peeto back to Hugh Younger. And this time she would be more careful. This time she would change her name, and Peeto's, too! This time Luke would never be able to find them!

  When the sun sank low, painting deep, cool shadows along the shoreline, Luke discovered just the place to camp for the night. A freshwater creek fed into the river next to a sandy, well-protected clearing, and he shifted his position in order to head the canoe in that direction. The river surface at the mouth of the creek was perfectly smooth, and he was caught totally unprepared when the canoe rammed to a full, lurching stop.

  Bethany barely managed to grab the side in time to keep from being thrown into the water, but Peeto was not so lucky. Bethany screamed as the child was flung headlong into the swift, cold current. Panic overwhelmed her as Peeto disappeared under the surface, and she stood up, oblivious to Luke's attempts to stabilize the rocking canoe. Seconds later, when Peeto's head appeared again and his fearful cries for help came to her, Bethany jumped awkwardly into the water, frantic to get him before he was pulled under again.

  The river felt like ice, shocking her whole system to a near standstill until she tried frantically to fight her way back to the surface. She gasped for air, relieved to find that her feet barely touched the bottom. This gave her the stability to reach over to where Peeto was floundering and fighting against the current a few feet away and grab his shirt.

  Struggling with all her strength, she managed to stand against the push of the water long enough to thrust him back into Luke's reach. He swung the boy into the canoe, then jumped out to tow the boat over the submerged sandbar, leaving Bethany to follow. She didn't have Luke's strength, however, and she could not last long in the rushing current. She panicked as her feet were swept out from under her. She swallowed water, terror welling up in her as she was sucked beneath the surface.

  Luke shoved the canoe, Peeto inside, a good distance up onto the sand. When Peeto began to call for the girl and tried to climb out, Luke turned, fully expecting Bethany to be right behind him. He gasped when he saw her several yards away, struggling in panic against the current. He ran into the river, then dove, a few hard strokes enabling him to catch her. He turned her bodily, getting his arm around her chest in a secure hold before he towed her to shore.

  "Why the hell did you jump in if you can't swim?" he yelled furiously as his feet touched bottom. "I would have gotten him!"

  "I didn't know that! I didn't know if you even cared if he drowned!" Bethany screamed back as he dragged her onto the bank. She jerked away and ran up the beach to Peeto.

  Luke muttered an oath when she dropped to her knees and gathered the little boy into her arms. He whirled around as a yell drifted out across the river. He saw a flatboat at midstream, the heavy, lumbersome craft riding low in the water from the weight of hundreds of kegs and crates lashed together on its deck.

  "We be stoppin' downriver a spell. You be welcome to tie up wid us," came the distant shout of a burly-looking man holding the rudder stick.

  Luke lifted his arm in acknowledgment, but he didn't intend to take
them up on their offer. He preferred to be on his own. He knew how to take care of himself, and he didn't trust strangers.

  He walked back toward Bethany and Peeto, well aware that dark would settle quickly once the sun went down. He gathered enough driftwood to start a fire, and Bethany and Peeto moved toward it, drenched and shivering.

  "You better get those wet clothes off him. Yours, too," Luke told Bethany, and she immediately started to undress Peeto, wrapping him in a warm, dry blanket. But, she was not about to disrobe herself, not in Luke Randall's presence, and she stiffened, distinctly embarrassed, as he showed not a trace of modesty, stripping off his buckskin tunic in one swift motion. Her eyes fastened for an instant on his naked chest with its matting of dark hair, broad and brown and ridged with muscles, but it was the masses of oblong scar tissue above his breastbone that riveted her gaze.

  She swallowed hard, wondering what horrible wound could have created such a cruel-looking mark, but even that thought fled as Luke stepped immodestly out of his buckskin breeches. Her eyes darted from the sight of his tall, steel-muscled body clothed in only a brief, Indian-style loincloth as Luke lay his damp buckskins near the flames. Peeto yawned beside her, and glad for something else to do, Bethany made him a bed of buffalo skins and lay down close beside him.

  Peeto slept at once, exhausted from the emotional trauma of the day, but Bethany found it impossible to close her eyes. While Luke sat on the other side of the fire, his rifle across his lap, she lay awake in her damp shirt and breeches, staring downriver at a small flickering in the darkness. It was the flatboat people who had asked Luke to join them. If only she could get Peeto away from Luke, she could go to them. She had seen women and children on board. She knew they would help her.

  A twig snapped in the darkness outside the fire, and she lurched upright. Luke was already in a crouch, his rifle ready. The firelight flickered over his nearly naked body, painting golden shadows across his furred chest and bulging, muscular arms as he scanned the shadowy trees. The sight of him sent a strange sensation racing over her flesh-fleeting, but powerful, and impossible to identify.