UNTAMED

  UNTAMED

  PAMELA CLARE

  PROLOUGE

  Fort Carillon (Ticonderoga)

  New France

  July 8, 1758

  Amalie Chauvenet straightened the gold braid on her father’s gray uniform, trying to hide her fear. “I will be fine, Papa. You’ve no need to trouble yourself on my behalf.” In the distance she could hear the dull thud of marching feet and the scrape of metal against metal as thousands of British soldiers surrounded the fort’s landward side and prepared to attack. Certain les Anglais would capture the fort in a matter of hours, her father had come to escort her to the little chapel where he felt she’d be safest.

  “If the fort should fall, stay close to Pere Francois.” Papa’s dear face was lined with worry. “I will come to you if I can. If aught should befall me, Pere Francois will take you to Montcalm or Bourlamaque. They will keep you safe.” “Nothing will happen to you, Papa!” Her words sounded childish even to her own ears—a measure of her fear for him. It had become the custom in this accursed war for both sides to shoot officers first, in hopes of leaving the enemy leaderless and confused. But Amalie could not abide the thought of her father in harm’s way, a mere mark in range of some British soldier’s musket.

  Papa lifted her chin, forced her to meet his gaze. “Listen to me! You are an officer’s daughter, Amalie, but in the rush of victory, even disciplined soldiers are wont to rape and pillage. Do not allow yourself to be found alone!”

  She heard her father’s words—and understood the unspoken message beneath them. She was an officer’s daughter, but she was also metisse, her blood a mix of French and Abenaki. Though most French accepted her, the British were not so kind. In their eyes, a woman of mixed blood was little better than a dog. If the fort should fall, her standing as a major’s daughter would not keep her safe without a high-ranking officer’s protection.

  “Oui, Papa.” Dread spread like ice through her belly. “Is there no chance that we may yet prevail?”

  “The British General Abercrombie commands a force of at least fifteen thousand, easily double our number—and MacKinnon’s Rangers are with him.”

  Amalie’s dread grew. Everyone knew of MacKinnon’s Rangers, There were no fiercer fighters, no warriors more feared or reviled throughout New France than this band of barbaric Celts. Unmatched at woodcraft and shooting marks, they had once crossed leagues of untamed forest in the dead of winter to destroy her grandmother’s village at Oganak, ruthlessly killing most of the men, burning the lodges, and leaving the women and children to starve. The French had put a bounty on the MacKinnon brothers’ scalps—but the Abenaki wanted them alive so they could exact vengeance in blood and pain. Some among her mother’s people said MacKinnon’s Rangers could fly. Others claimed to have seen them take the forms of wolves or bears. Still others claimed they feasted upon the flesh of their dead. The stories about them were so astonishing that some believed these MacKinnon men weren’t men at all, but powerful chi bai—spirits.

  But there were other rumors, stories of Rangers sparing women and children, tales of priests and nuns whom they’d shielded from British Regulars with their own bodies, accounts of mercy shown to French soldiers and enemy Indians alike.

  But which stories were true?

  Amalie did not wish to find out.

  “Why did you not stay at the convent?” Her father’s brow folded into a frown. “At least there you would have been safe.”

  She smoothed a stray curl on his gray wig. “I came because you needed me, Papa.”

  She’d journeyed all the way from Trois Rivieres in April to care for him when he’d fallen ill with fever. He was her only true family. Though she had cousins and aunts among the Abenaki, she barely knew them. Her mother had died in childbed when Amalie was not yet two, and her father had parted ways with his wife’s kin, preferring to shelter his only child among the Ursulines than in the wild. And although Amalie was grateful for the care she’d received at the abbey, she had long chafed at the strict rules and rigid routine that shaped convent life, yearning to see the world beyond the abbey’s stifling walls.

  At Fort Carillon, her father had let her speak her mind, even encouraged her to do so, never chastising her for asking questions, as the Mere Superieure had so often done. She’d come to know him as a father, to admire him as a man, to respect him as an officer. She’d come to love him.

  She could not bear to lose him.

  She pressed her palm to his cheek. “If the strength of our army should fail, it will not be long before the British reach Trois Rivieres and Montreal. Then abbey walls will make little difference. I would not trade these months with you for something so small as safety.”

  His gaze softened. “Ah, my sweet Amalie, I do need you. You have brought such sunshine to my life. If I had but considered it, I would have taken you from the abbey long ago. But if the breastworks cannot withstand Abercrombie’s artillery . . .” His voice trailed off. Then he smiled and drew her close, surrounding her with his reassuring strength and his familiar scent—pipe smoke, starched linen, and brisk cologne. “It is in God’s hands.”

  And so Amalie went to await the outcome of the battle in the chapel, swallowing her tears and forcing herself to smile when her father took his leave of her to return to his duties at the breastworks.

  “Be safe, Papa,” she whispered as he walked away, so smart in his gray uniform.

  She knelt down with her rosary beside Pere Francois and had just begun to pray when the battle exploded. Like thunder, it seemed to shake the very ground, the din of cannon, musket fire, and men’s shouts almost deafening. She’d never been near a battlefield before, and her hands trembled as she worked her way through each bead, fighting to remember the words, her thoughts on Papa—and what might happen to all of them should the fort fall.

  The soldiers would be imprisoned. Her father and the other officers would be interrogated and traded for British captives. And the women . . .

  In the rush of victory, even disciplined soldiers are wont to rape and pillage.

  “Notre Pere, qui etes aux cieux . . . “

  Our Father, who art in heaven . . .

  She hadn’t been kneeling long when Pere Francois was summoned to the hospital to comfort the wounded and anoint the dying. Impatient to help and mindful of her father’s warning not to be found alone, Amalie asked to go with him.

  “Are you certain, Amalie?” Pere Francois looked down at her, doubt clouding his green eyes. “This is war. It will be gruesome.”

  She nodded, braiding her long hair and binding the plait into a thick knot at her nape. “Out, Father, I am certain. I have seen death before, at the convent.”

  But she’d never seen anything like what awaited them at the hospital.

  The dead were so numerous that there was no room for them inside. Their bodies lay without dignity in the hot sunshine, moved hastily aside to make way for those still living. The wounded lay on beds, on the floor, against the walls. They muttered snatches of prayer, groaned through gritted teeth, cried out in agony, waiting for someone to ease their suffering. Monsieur Lambert, the surgeon, and his men worked as swiftly as they could, but there were so many. And everywhere, there was blood, the air thick with the stench of gunpowder and death.

  Surely, this was Hell.

  Amalie thrust aside her childish fears and her tears, donned an apron, and set to work, doing what the surgeon asked of her. Outside, the battle seemed to come in waves, building until she feared the very sky should fall, then fading to silence, only to begin anew.

  A soldier clutched at her skirts with bloody fingers. She took his hand, sat beside him, and knew the moment she saw the wound in his chest that he would perish. If only she could give him laudanum to ease the pain of his passing, but there was not e
nough. She’d been told to save it for those who at least stood a chance of survival.

  He seemed about to speak, struggled for breath. And then he was gone.

  About her age, he’d died before she could utter a word of comfort, before Pere Francois could offer him Last Rites, before the surgeon could tend him. She swallowed the hard lump in her throat, muttered a prayer, then drew the soldier’s eyes closed.

  Another blast of cannon shook the walls of the little log hospital, making Amalie gasp.

  “Those are French guns, mademoiselle.” The soldier in the next bed spoke, his voice tight with pain. “Do not be afraid. As long as they fire, we know the breastworks stand.” Ashamed of her fear, Amalie covered the dead soldier with a blanket, a signal to the surgeon’s attendants to remove his body. How could she, who was safe behind the fort’s walls, allow herself to cower at the mere sound of war when all around her lay men who had braved the full violence of the battle?

  “It is I who should be offering you comfort, monsieur.” She moved to sit beside him and checked beneath the bloodstained bandage on his right arm. The musket ball had passed through, but it had broken the bone. Monsieur Lambert would almost certainly have to amputate. “Are you thirsty?” “You are the daughter of Major Chauvenet, are you not?”

  “Oui.”

  “You are just as beautiful as the men say. I have never seen such long hair.” Then his eyes widened, his face pallid. “I hope you take no offense at my boldness. The battle seems to have loosened my tongue.”

  Though she’d been at Fort Carillon for more than three months, she still hadn’t grown accustomed to the attention of men. Uncertain how to respond, she reached for her plait, which had somehow slipped free of its knot, its thick end touching the floor when she sat. Quickly, she bound it up again, lest it trail through the blood that was tracked across the floorboards. Then she pulled the water bucket close, drew out the ladle, and lifted it to the soldier’s lips.

  “Drink.”

  The wounded soldier had just taken his first swallow when there came a commotion at the door and Montcalm’s third in command, the Chevalier de Bourlamaque, was brought inside, bleeding from what appeared to be a grave wound in his shoulder.

  “How goes the battle?” someone called.

  An expectant hush fell over the room.

  Bourlamaque sat with a grimace, his white wig slightly askew. “We are prevailing.”

  Murmurs of astonishment and relief passed through the crowded hospital like a breeze, and Amalie met the injured soldier’s gaze, her own surprise reflected in his eyes.

  “For whatever reason, Abercrombie hasn’t brought up his artillery.” Bourlamaque gritted his teeth as a soldier helped him out of his jacket. “We are cutting down the enemy as swiftly as they appear, and their losses are grievous. Four times we have repulsed them. None have even passed the abatis to reach our breastworks.”

  “Abercrombie is a fool!” one of the soldiers exclaimed to harsh laughter.

  Bourlamaque did not smile. “That may well be—and thank God for it!—but his marksmen are laying down a most murderous fire upon us from the cover of the trees. We have pounded them with cannon, but we cannot root them out.” “MacKinnon and his men?”

  “Oui. Their Mahican allies are beside them.” Bourlamaque wiped sweat and gunpowder from his brow with a linen handkerchief. “The lot of them shift from tree to tree like ghosts and will not relent.”

  “And they call themselves Catholic!” A soldier spat on the floor.

  But Bourlamaque held up his hand for silence. “Listen! They are retreating again.”

  The sound of shooting died away, replaced first by the distant beating of drums, and then by an oppressive, sullen stillness. So many times now the battle had ceased, only to begin again. Amalie dared not hope, and yet. ..

  Barely able to breath, she bent her mind back to her work. Whether the battle was over or not, these men needed her help. She bound the soldier’s wound in fresh linen, gave him laudanum, prayed with him, then moved to the next bed and the next. She’d gone to the back room to fetch more linen strips for bandages when she heard the drums beat afresh. Her stomach sank, and her step faltered.

  “Curse them!” a soldier shouted. “Do they not know when to withdraw?”

  There came a roar of cannon, and again the battle raged.

  More dead. More wounded.

  But not Papa. Not Papa.

  Holding on to that hope, Amalie went where she was needed. She carried water to the injured men who lay on the bare earth outside, cleaned and bandaged their lesser wounds, offered what solace she could. She did not notice the sweat trickling between her breasts or the rumbling of her empty stomach or her own thirst.

  Then the cadence of the British drums changed again, and once more the battle fell silent. And then—was she imagining it?—cheers. The sound swelled, grew stronger, and all heads turned toward the northwest, where soldiers stood upon the walls, their muskets raised overhead, their gazes on the breastworks and the battlefield beyond.

  A soldier ran toward them, his face split by a wide smile.

  “They are retreating! The British are fleeing! The day is won!” Relief swept through Amalie, leaving her dizzy. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, felt a gentle squeeze from the soldier whose hand she was holding.

  “C’est fini, mademoiselle!” he said, a smile on his bruised face. It’s over.

  Amalie opened her eyes, smiled back. “Oui, c’est fini” But even as she said it, she knew it wasn’t true. For the men who lay here and those inside, the fight was far from over, life and death still hanging in the balance. She threw herself into their care with renewed strength, refreshed by the knowledge that no more need die today, and grateful beyond words that her father did not lie among the injured or the slain. But if she’d expected the end of the battle to stem the tide of wounded and dead, she’d been mistaken. Carried on litters or hobbling, they arrived by the dozens, some scarcely scathed, some terribly wounded, some already beyond all but God’s help. Most had been hit by musket fire, holes torn into their flesh by cruel lead. Others had been pierced by shards of wood or burned by powder.

  “Be thankful they never had the chance to use their bayonets or their artillery,” said a young soldier when she gasped at the terrible wound in his shoulder. “Have you ever seen a man with his entrails—“

  “That is quite enough, Sergeant.”

  Amalie recognized Lieutenant Rillieux’s voice and glanced back to find him standing behind her, his tricorne in his hand, his face smeared with gunpowder, sweat, and blood. One of her father’s officers and a tall man, he towered over her where she knelt on the ground.

  He bowed stiffly.

  “I pray you are not wounded, monsieur.” She stood, wiping her fingers on her bloodstained apron.

  It was then she noticed the pity and sadness in his eyes. The breath left her lungs, and her heart began to pound, the sound of her pulse almost drowning out his words. “Mademoiselle, it is with great sorrow that I must report—“ But she had already seen. “Non!”

  Two young officers approached the hospital, bearing her father on a litter.

  Heedless of soldiers’ stares or Lieutenant Rillieux’s attempt to stop her, she ran to him. But it was too late. Her father’s eyes were closed, his lips and skin blue, his throat torn by a musket ball. She didn’t have to check his breathing to know he was dead.

  “Non, Papa! Non!” She cupped his cold cheek in her palm, then laid her head against his still and silent chest, pain seeming to split her breast, tears blurring her vision.

  Over the sound of her own sobs, she heard Lieutenant Rillieux speak. “He was slain by one of MacKinnon’s Rangers during the first assault. He toppled over the breastworks, and we could not reach him until the battle ended for fear of the Ranger’s rifles. You should know that he fought bravely and died instantly. We shall all mourn him.”

  And in the darkness of her grief it dawned on her.

 
Everything her father had been, everything he’d known, everything they might have done together was gone. Her father was dead.

  She was alone.

  ONE

  Ticonderoga

  New York Frontier

  April 19.1759

  Major Morgan MacKinnon lay on his belly, looking down from the summit of Rattlesnake Mountain to the French fort at Ticonderoga below. He held up his brother Iain’s spying glass—nay, it was now his spying glass—and watched as French soldiers unloaded kegs of gunpowder from the hold of a small ship. Clearly, Bourlamaque was preparing to defend the fort again. But if Morgan and his Rangers succeeded in their mission tonight, that powder would never see the inside of a French musket.

  Connor stretched out beside him and spoke in a whisper. “I cannae look down upon this place without thinkin’ of that bastard Abercrombie and the good men we lost.” Morgan lowered the spying glass and met his younger brother’s gaze. “Nor can I, but we didnae come here to grieve.”

  “Nay.” Connor’s gaze hardened. “We’ve come for vengeance.”

  Amalie picked at her dinner, her appetite lost to talk of war.

  She did her best to listen politely, no matter how dismayed she felt at the thought of another British attack. Monsieur de Bourlamaque was commander of a garrison in the midst of conflict. It was right that he and his trusted officers should discuss the war as they dined. She did not wish to distract them with childish sentiments, nor was she so selfish that she required diversion. And if, at times, she wished her guardian would ask to hear her thoughts...

  Her father was the only person who’d ever done that, and he was gone.

  And so Amalie passed the meal in silence, much as she’d done at the abbey.

  “We must not let last summer’s victory lull us into becoming overconfident.” Bourlamaque dabbed his lips with a white linen serviette. His blue uniform, with its decorations and the red sash, set him apart from his officers, who wore gray. “Amherst is not a fool like Abercrombie. He would never have attacked without artillery.”