Chapter Fifteen

A soft voice spoke, calling her back to the land of the living. "Rebecca. Rebecca, wake up."

Becky blinked and opened her eyes. Then she gasped and struck out wildly, seeking to escape not only the flames, but the evil creature that held her tightly in its grasp. "No! No, let me go!" she cried.

Strong hands caught her wrists. "Rebecca, listen to me. It is Mingo."

"No, I…." She blinked again. The watercolor face that washed before her was deeply tanned and had black – not white – hair. Becky drew a deep breath to steady her nerves. "Mingo? Is it really you?"

"Yes, Rebecca, it is I. You are safe."

"But the fire…. That man!"

"The fire was nearly extinguished when we departed," he assured her as he helped her into a seated position. "The settlement is safe as well."

Becky shoved the copper wave of her hair back over her shoulder and glanced around as Mingo rose to his feet. The bare white world made it impossible for her to get her bearings. She shivered and nodded her thanks as Mingo bent and drew the cloak she wore closer about her shoulders. Someone must have wrapped her in it after she fell unconscious. Meeting Mingo's gaze, she asked, "Where are we?"

For a moment he just stared at her; his dark brown eyes troubled. Then he turned toward the horizon. "Not far from the Place of 1000 Spirits."

"The cave in Shawnee Territory? But Mingo, that's at least day's walk on a bright summer morning…. Oh." Becky swallowed over a substantial fear. "He brought us here, didn't he?."

Mingo didn't look at her. "You will be home soon, Rebecca. That is a promise."

There was something in his tone. A sense of defeat. As if he had given himself over to the inevitable. "Mingo, what have you done?"

"Why, he has agreed to dance with the Devil, my dear."

Becky pivoted sharply to find Lucien LaCroix watching them. The white haired man was standing no more than six yards away. For a second, she couldn't comprehend his meaning, but then she remembered the conversation she and Nicholas Knightsford had had the night she discovered what he was. General LaCroix wanted Mingo for his evil schemes. She didn't completely understand why, though she knew being Lord Dunsmore's son had something to do with it. Whatever the reason, she knew if LaCroix won, Mingo would be condemned to the same kind of hell Nicholas daily walked in.

"Mingo, no!" she breathed, gripping his arm with her hand. "You can't do this."

He turned to look at her; his aspect tormented. "What I cannot do, Rebecca, is allow you to die. You and your children. Daniel…."

"Death is better than damnation," she countered in a terse whisper.

"How droll," LaCroix sneered, hearing it anyway. He studied them a moment and then moved closer. "Take it from one who is damned, Mrs. Boone – there is nothing better!"

Mingo stepped between them. Becky noticed that he limped and was breathing hard, worn out by all he had endured. "You have me, Lucien. And you have my word that I will not run. Take Rebecca back to the fort."

The evil creature pursed his lips and considered it. Then he scoffed. "Your word? The word of a mortal. What is that to me?"

"It is everything you are not, and everything I might hope to be," a voice cried out. The man who spoke was hidden behind a blanket of falling snow, but she knew him anyway, and so it was no surprise when Nicholas Knightsford's slender form appeared. "Honor. Truth. Nobility."

"Ah, Nicholas. I thought you might be joining us." Lucien LaCroix opened his arms and gestured broadly. "We'll just be one big happy family, now won't we? Isn't that right, Janette?"

Becky had not noticed her, though she supposed she knew she had been there all along. At LaCroix's word, the Frenchwoman appeared from out of the white stuff. Snowflakes frosted her dark hair and powdered the shoulders of the mantle she wore. Janette was restless. Her fingers picked nervously at the beribboned edge of the cloak.

"LaCroix, I grow bored. Can we not simply leave?" she pleaded in petulant tones.

"Patience, my dear," he answered, "we are almost done. Now, if you would be so good as to escort Mrs. Boone a little ways away so I can speak to Mr. Murray, here, that would certainly expedite our departure."

Becky shoved past Mingo and planted herself between him and the man who promised his destruction. "You'll have to go through me first," she declared.

LaCroix's only reply was an eager smile.

It was Mingo's turn to take her arm. "Rebecca," he pleaded, "think of your children."

She glanced over her shoulder at him. "Mingo, no…."

"He is right, Rebecca. You must think of yourself."

Becky pivoted. Nicholas Knightsford had appeared from out of nowhere. He stood, just within the cast shadow of a brace of trees.

"Nicholas, you tell him. Tell him he cannot do this," she pleaded.

For a moment, he did nothing. Then the blond man approached them, his feet dragging as if his shoes were made of lead. When he reached her side Nicholas hung his head. "Rebecca, I fear there is nothing anyone can do. LaCroix is too powerful." He lifted his chin and looked at the baneful creature that hovered some fifteen feet away. "Should Mingo flee, it is doubtful he would make it to the trees. Though, once past them, I doubt even LaCroix could track him through this storm." Nicholas' jaw grew tight. He shuddered, and then turned to look directly into Mingo's eyes. "My friend," he said, his voice curiously quiet, "you must listen to me. Fly, Cara-Mingo, flee into the white night!"

As he spoke Nicholas whirled and, flying faster than she could see, launched himself at LaCroix. The unexpected action took the older man by surprise and he was knocked off his feet and into Janette who tumbled to the snowy ground with him. As they sorted themselves out, Nicholas rolled to his feet and sprinted toward her. Becky gasped as his strong arms caught her waist and he pushed off of the earth, rising with her into the air.

Terrified, Becky glanced down just in time to see Mingo vanish into the trees.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Janette winced. She could hear LaCroix's bestial growl even above the howling wind. Their master was nearly 2000 years old, but at times like this – when he was momentarily thwarted by Nichola – he behaved like a petulant child. Janette glanced at LaCroix where raged in competition with the storm. A pout did not sit as well on his face as it did on hers.

With a shrug, Janette turned back to the horizon where the earl's son had vanished. Though their sight was keen – and LaCroix's keenest of all – it was nearly impossible to track anything upon the blank page of snow. Even if he could find the mortal's heartbeat, there was nothing to give him any bearing. And in all likelihood the chase would prove futile. Mingo was weak. Most likely he would not survive an hour in the cold. He had no cloak or coat; only a thin linen shirt and breeches.

Someone would find him but it would not be until the spring. And then there would be nothing left of her songbird but his fragile bones.

Well, at least Nichola's action had taken her off the hook. She had not been comfortable with the bargain she had made with Henry Pitcairn's shade. This released her from it. Janette narrowed her eyes, scanning the white field before her. Was the Englishman out there? If he was, and Henry Pitcairn found his victim along the way and took matters into his own ghostly hands, then what was it to her?

Why, it was nothing, of course.

Turning back, Janette glided across the glistening crust of snow and ice to her master's side. Once there she waited until he noticed and turned to glare at her.

Making a fist, he declared, "I will have them both! Nicholas and Lord Murray's son! They shall not escape me!"

"Nichola is already yours, you know that. And you know Lord Murray's son will never be content at our side. He is too disgustingly good His fate is sealed now," she finished. "He will be dead soon."

"I can find him…."

"Oui, you could. With much effort and trial. But why bother?" she cooed, drawing close to him and linking their arms. "Think of all we are missing by remaining here in this bucolic borough. There are balls in Philadelphia. Gaiety. There is that invitation from Lord Howe…." Janette wet her lips. "There are many earl's sons in the capital city."

LaCroix's peevish pout returned. "But I wanted this one."

"He is very handsome," she agreed, "and he would draw the ladies, but I think, in the end, it would not be worth the trouble. You would simply have another Nichola on your hands."

"They could be miserable together," he suggested.

"Oui," she laughed. After a pause, Janette asked softly, "Can we not go now? Can we not leave this place?"

Her master's hand caressed her dark tresses. "Soon, my dear. Soon. But Father has a lesson to teach his recalcitrant son first."

Janette squirmed. She knew that tone.

"He has interfered with my plans. I must mete out some sort of punishment. Must I not?"

"Punishment?" she echoed. While LaCroix might track Mingo only with difficulty, five centuries familiarity bred many things – including an uncanny knack of knowing where Nicholas was and what he was about.

"Chastisement then, shall we say?" LaCroix removed her arm from his and took a step back. "Why don't you return to the settlement and gather up our things – don't forget the soldiers – and wait for me in the woods nearby. As soon as Nicholas and I make amends, we shall indeed leave this place for finer, fairer pastures."

"What will you do to him?" she asked.

He touched his finger to her nose. "Don't you worry your pretty little head about it. I would never do anything to Nicholas to hurt him – permanently. You know that."

"Can you sense him, in the midst of all this white?" she asked, hopeful that he could not.

The snow was swirling about him, so hard that LaCroix nearly became one with it as she watched. From the heart of the white whirlwind a pair of ice blue eyes gone sickly green blazed with the thrill of the chase.

"Oh, yes…. But not because I have tried. Nicholas, I fear, has a scheme of some sort." A sneer quirked the corner of LaCroix's thin pallid lips.

"It is he who calls me."

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Rebecca had drawn a breath to scream as Nicholas lifted her into the air. She didn't release it until Nicholas placed her feet once again on the ground. He studied her a moment and then stepped back, as if giving her room. She thought she had come to grips with what he was, but she had been wrong. What he had just done – flying – flew in the face of everything she had ever believed possible. Becky shivered. As she did – gracious as ever – he removed his cloak and flung it about her shoulders. Then he moved away again and regarded her with a wry smile.

"I apologize if I frightened you. There was no other way to remove you from what was an immediate danger."

"What about Mingo?" She could see him still, disappearing into the trees and the storm that buffeted them.

"I shall return to the wild to hunt him as soon as I know you are safe."

"Where are we?" she asked as she shook snow from her hair. They were in a cave, but it was not the Place of 1000 Spirits. It was smaller and, surprisingly, smelled of smoke and roast rabbit. As her mouth watered and her stomach growled in concert, she wondered aloud. "Who in the world could have been here?" When Nicholas made no reply, she turned to look.

He was gone.

Moving quickly to the cave mouth, Becky called him. There was no reply other than the roaring wind. She opened her mouth to call again, but as she did someone spoke, startling her. It was a man's voice and came from behind her – from within the cavern itself.

"Rebecca Boone! If you aren't a sight for a man's sore eyes…."

It took no more than her name. She knew the voice and the man. Whirling, Becky gasped as she watched her husband emerge from a chink in the cave's rear wall. "Dan!" she cried, overjoyed, "Dan!"

In a second, she was in his arms.

"Dan, how?" she asked after a dozen kisses.

He was laughing. "I was about to ask you the same thing, Mrs. Boone."

Becky glanced back at the cave mouth. "Nicholas brought me," she answered, praying he would not ask how. When Dan said nothing, she added, her voice tinged with sorrow. "Dan, Mingo's out in this somewhere. Nicholas went to look for him."

After a moment, Dan said thoughtfully, "Seeing how Mingo's Cherokee, it only seems right."

She frowned. "What does that mean?"

"We've come full circle, Becky. This all started with Mingo lost in the snow, seems only fittin' it ends that way too."

"Dan…."

He stopped her with a touch of his fingers on her cheek. "I ain't used to standin' by while others solve things, Becky. You know that. But this LaCroix…." He paused and then suddenly brightened. "Still, I ain't been standin' around twiddlin' my thumbs, you know?"

"Never thought it for a minute," she grinned. "So what have you been up to, Daniel Boone?"

He nodded. Thankful for her backing. "Do you know where you are? Where we are?"

"A cave?"

"But not just any cave." He pointed back the way he had come, to the narrow fissure in the wall. "I noticed this tonight, after…. Well, after I got here. This cave is one of a series in the area. You remember the Place of 1000 Spirits?"

How could she forget?

"It's not far from here. In fact, I think this cave is connected to it. You remember how it had those passages at the back?"

"And you think we should go there?" she asked.

Dan's lips pursed in the way she loved before he nodded. "I'm bettin' that's where all of this will end – at Henry Pitcairn's feet." His green eyes sought hers. They were filled with regret. "I was wrong, Becky. We shouldn't have saved him."

That profession shook her almost as much as the presence of their supernatural guests had shaken him. "Dan, no."

"Nothin' but evil has come of it."

"But a man's life is a man's life," she answered softly. "We couldn't turn him over to the Shawnee to be butchered and burnt. We would have been no better than him." Becky took her husband's hand in her own. "You did what was right. God will make the rest right now. Have faith, Dan."

He stared at her for a moment, and then leaned down and kissed her. "I have faith in you," he said softly, and then added with his usual grin, "Mrs. Boone, would you accompany me on a short journey?"

Becky stared at the narrow fissure in the cave wall. What would they find at the end? Henry Pitcairn, as Dan suspected, alive and returned from the dead? Or his spirit, doomed to wander the earth. Would there be a Cherokee witch as Mingo feared? Or maybe the evil that they knew – Lucien LaCroix.

Or maybe only Mingo's frozen corpse.

She shivered and nestled against her husband as he pulled her close.

"Wither thou goest," she breathed, meaning it.

And followed him into the darkness.

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

By the time Mingo became aware again, he was adrift with no bearings in a world of white. The cold burnt its way up through his feet, into his legs and reached for his heart, threatening to bleed it of warmth and cause it to cease to beat. There was no hope of rescue, he knew that. No prospect of warmth or shelter. And yet, as he lifted his face to the pale gray sky, he smiled.

With awareness came the knowledge of who, and just what he had escaped. Lucien LaCroix would not have his way. Nor would his father. He would not become the pawn of another man. He would die – and would remain free for eternity.

Or so he thought. Then he heard a tune carried on the frigid air.

"Musha rig um du rum da, whack fol the daddy-o. Whack fol the daddy-o…

There's whiskey in the jar..."

Mingo halted thigh-deep in the cold white stuff. Before him a long, lean man in a British officer's coat slouched against a tree glazed with snow. When Henry Pitcairn saw him, he straightened up and began to walk toward him. Pitcairn moved as if unimpeded – as if the white dunes were not even there.

"And so we meet again," he said as he came to rest before him.

Mingo's sigh was resigned. "What do you want of me?"

"On the contrary, animal, I think there is something you want of me."

There was no strength to shake his head. "I want nothing from you."

"Not evenlife?"

That roused him, if only a bit. "A dead man offers life?"

Pitcairn's lips twisted with a knowing smile. "You are lost, are you not?"

"That depends on the destination I am headed for," he answered, utterly weary.

"If it is death, then by all means lay down like the animal you are and die, Cherokee," Pitcairn snarled. Then he made a fist. "But if it is life, I can help you there!"

"How?"

"Take my hand." Pitcairn extended it. "Join with me! I know the way to shelter and have the strength to bring you there."

Mingo was trembling so hard now with the cold he could hardly stand. Alone, he would die. There was no question of that. "Is that not just another death? Surrendering who I am? Becoming you?"

Pitcairn's hand remained. "Perhaps. But have you really any choice?"

Mingo looked up, to the place where the One Who Dwelt Above awaited him. "I can choose to die."

The British officer nodded in the direction he had come. "Yes. If he will let you. But I do not think he will."

So there it was. With Pitcairn he stood a chance. He had broken free before. But with Lucien LaCroix….

For a moment Mingo remained very still. Then he stumbled forward and took Pitcairn's hand, gasping as the ghostly fingers closed over his own.