“But there’s more?” she asked.
“Sometimes.” He lathered his face with some soap from a dish. “I suppose that it’s only human nature to become fond of a person one lives with day in and day out. One hunts with members of the band or family, eats and sleeps with them. It’s a very intimate living arrangement.”
She was silent as she watched him pick up the razor and make the first pass through the foam on the side of his face.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “the captive becomes a true member of the family. He may take a wife and even have children by her.”
Beatrice stilled. “Did you take an Indian wife?”
He rinsed the razor in the basin of water and looked over at her. “No. But it wasn’t because I couldn’t have.”
“Tell me,” she whispered.
He tilted his head and shaved the area next to his ear in short, careful strokes. It might’ve been her imagination, but it seemed to Beatrice that he took overlong at it. “After Gaho spared my life for the second time, she became rather fond of me—whether because of myself or because of her dream, I’m not sure. But, in any case, she determined that I should be content living among them, and she knew that if I had a wife and family, I would have reason not to try and escape.”
“She meant to tie you to herself,” Beatrice said.
He nodded and tapped the razor slowly against the porcelain basin. “Exactly. But Gaho had a problem. Both her daughters were already married, and although sometimes men of their tribe would take a second wife, the women never take a second husband.”
“How unfair,” Beatrice said drily.
A smile flickered across his face and was gone. “It wasn’t my idea.”
“Humph.”
He turned back to the mirror over the dresser and said, “I spent that next winter recovering from my illness and injuries. In the spring, Gaho took me and tattooed my face with the image of one of her gods. She pierced my ear and gave me one of her own earrings. In this way, she signified that I was a good hunter, part of her band, and that she valued me. Then she sent word to another band of Indians whom she wanted to befriend. She sought to arrange a marriage between me and the daughter of a warrior.”
She saw the muscle in his jaw flex. “In this way, the two bands would make peace and become allies.”
“Was the girl pretty?” Beatrice asked before she could stop herself.
“Pretty enough,” he replied, “but she was very young, not yet sixteen, and I didn’t want to marry her. I didn’t want a wife and children who would bind me more firmly to Gaho and her band. I wanted to come home—it was the only thing I thought of.”
“What did you do?”
“I found a way to talk to the girl myself. It was forbidden in theory, but since we were supposed to be courting, the elders looked the other way. I found that the girl already had a secret beau, a slave like myself but from another tribe. After that, it was simple. I gave the other man everything of value I had, what furs and little trinkets I had saved up in two years’ captivity. The next night, my prospective bride disappeared with her lover.”
“That was kind of you,” Beatrice said.
“No.” He splashed water on his face and wiped away the last of the suds. “Kindness had very little to do with it. I was determined to escape. Determined to come home and recover the life that should’ve been mine. Had I been forced to marry that girl, it would’ve been easy to relax into that life. To become a member of Gaho’s family in truth. To never see England again.”
He threw down the cloth he’d used to dry his face and looked at her. His eyes were black and stark. “In fact, it was because of me that Gaho and her entire band were slaughtered.”
“What?” Beatrice whispered.
He nodded, his mouth twisting bitterly. “It took me five years to gather enough funds so that when the opportunity presented itself, I could escape. In my sixth year, a French trader began visiting the camp, and little by little, I persuaded him to help me flee, even though it meant risking his own life. We walked for three days through the woods until we came to his camp. And there I heard that Gaho’s enemies were planning to attack her band. I was half-starved and weary, but I tell you I ran back to that village. Ran back to save the woman who had saved me.”
He looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers.
“What did you find?” Beatrice asked, because he had to finish this awful story.
“I was too late,” he said quietly. “They were all dead, young and old, the camp a smoking ruins. I looked for Gaho. I turned over the bodies, looking into each bloody face.”
“Did you find her?” she whispered.
He shook his head slowly and closed his eyes as if to blot out a sight. “When I came to Gaho, I only knew her by her dress. I turned her and her brown eyes were staring up at me through a mask of blood. They were dull and lifeless. She’d been scalped.”
“I’m so sorry.”