Captive (29 page)

“You do the same.”

Her throat was choked; tears threatened. She turned quickly and headed along the dock to reach the sloop where her father waited.

Joshua leapt forward to help her. He lifted her to the deck, steadying her as she landed.

She turned back. The McKenzies were together. Jarrett, tall, dark, so imposing, had his arm around his wife. The baby was cradled in her arms. Jennifer stood before them, and Jarrett’s free arm rested on her shoulders. She lifted a hand to wave to them, and tears did blur her eyes.

The ship moved away from the McKenzie docks, along the river, inland.

She heard a voice from behind her. “We’ve a day on the river, girl, then we march inland. And I’ve little to say to you now that should be heard by this company, but I promise you, Teela, I’ll have plenty to say once we’ve taken up our march on land.”

He left her. The men on the deck rushed about with the business of sailing the ship.

The McKenzie dock slowly faded and disappeared around the bend of the river.

T
he army moved quickly.

On their second day of travel, the last transport vessel—a fishing boat “borrowed” from a Tampa fisherman—reached the landing whence they were to start on their eastward march. There were two hundred soldiers in the movement, with Michael Warren in command. Fifty-five mounted men, one hundred and forty soldiers on foot, some militia, some regular army, some marines and navy men, loaned by their own commanding officers for land duty.

They made a sweep through what had once been thriving Indian lands, clearing the way, carrying supplies that had arrived at Fort Brooke. They brought with them rifles, haversacks, and tents—wall tents, common tents, hospital tents. Huge sheets of rubber cloth, sheepskins for many uses, saddle blankets, halters, harnesses. Horseshoes, kettles, tools, food. Bags of rice and corn meal, astringent wines, foods that would survive the wretched heat that assailed the party day after day.

Jarrett had often described the life of the Indians to her. She could have told him now that it was almost as bad for the soldiers who had been sent out to track them down. But Jarrett would have known that as well.

The soldiers themselves were a strange lot. Many were immigrants who barely spoke English. Many were, strangely enough, men who had trained for other walks of life, such as the ministry or law. But the whole of the country had been suffering from hard financial times, and some men had joined the army just to feed themselves
and their families. Teela had found some friends among them.

She also accrued a few enemies, specifically regular army men who were her stepfather’s elite core.

On the third day of their march across the peninsula, they discovered a small band of Yuchis, and one company of Warren’s men was sent in to take care of them.

There hadn’t been more than fifty Indians, perhaps twenty warriors with their women and children.

Teela knew that because the rest of the party was forced to march through the Indian camp after the soldiers had gone in. In all her life she’d never been so shocked, so horrified. Bodies lay everywhere. The bodies of warriors.

The broken, battered, bloodied bodies of innocents as well.

She wasn’t the only one who was appalled. She heard some of the soldiers riding with her whispering, and she heard what they said. It wasn’t necessary, what had been done. God could never condone such murder, even if the Indians were heathens.

Teelarode rigidly, barely aware of the tears that streamed down her face.

But toward dusk, they stopped at last by a stream. Teela dismounted slowly while the men much more quickly broke up to make camp by the water’s edge. Teela saw Tyler giving orders not far from where she stood and walked slowly to him. “Captain Argosy?”

“Teela?”

“Who led the attack on the Yuchis?”

“Teela, you can’t involve yourself—”

“Tyler, who?” she demanded furiously.

A young soldier stood by Tyler. “Why, it was Captain Julian Hampton. He’s right down there by the stream, ma’am,” he said helpfully.

“Soldier, see to the tent!” Tyler commanded, but it was too late. Teela was already headed to where the young captain had come to bathe his face and drink from the cool water.

He stood as Teela approached, a handsome man with a fine curling mustache, hazel eyes, and a rich crop of mahogany hair. Teela walked straight toward him without stopping. When she reached him, she struck out at him instantly, taking him by complete surprise. Her fury was so great that her simple assault sent him flying back into the water.

He was quickly up, staring at Teela with disbelief, stroking his wounded cheek with his hand. Teela started toward him again.

“Ma’am, are you plumb out of your mind?” Hampton demanded.

She was out of her mind, she thought. She didn’t care. She was ready to strike him again, but suddenly someone was holding her gently but firmly from behind. Joshua Brandeis was there, keeping her from Captain Hampton.

“How could you?” she raged. “How could you—murder babies?”

“Teela, come away,” Joshua insisted.

“Teela!” Tyler Argosy had made it down to the stream as well. His hand firmly on her arm, he tried to lead her away.

“Wait!” Hampton cried. “Tyler, just wait with her one minute. Miss Warren, you see what you want to see, and you haven’t seen the whole of it yet! White babies have been murdered, too. White women, young women, like yourself. You’ll understand one day. You just wait until you’ve had one of those redskins standing over you with one of his knives, taking that red hair for a prize.”

Hampton squashed his waterlogged hat back over his head and walked away.

“It’s true, Teela, such things happen,” Joshua Brandeis told her.

“I know that, but does it make it right for us to murder children?”

“No,” Brandeis said after a moment. “It does not.” He lowered his voice. ”But you can’t battle the whole
of this army, my girl. And it’s your stepfather giving the orders here. Come away, forget it.”

“I’ll never forget it.”

“Come and have a good swallow of whiskey now. Go to bed, get some sleep.”

Teela did that. Shaking, she drank whiskey with Joshua. When the tents were pitched, she retired to her own. She slept a troubled sleep. When she woke up in the morning, Michael Warren was standing over her.

He wrenched her to her feet, speaking before she could protest.

“We’ll take this outside of the camp, daughter!”

She gritted her teeth while he half led and half dragged her through the field of tents. Most of the camp still slept. The soldiers on guard duty saluted Michael, and he and Teela hurried on until they were far downstream, with the breeze carrying their words away from the camp.

“Don’t you ever interfere with my officers or my orders again, do you hear me, girl?”

“You ordered men to murder children.”

She cried out as he suddenly slapped her with such a stunning blow that she was sent staggering down to the wet mud by the water’s edge, her ears ringing, her vision blackening.

“You don’t know anything about this war, or about right or wrong. All you know is what you’ve learned from being a little tramp with a half-breed. But I’ll warn you on this, the next time you think to make a fool out of me, girl, I’ll take a horsewhip to you in front of the entire army.”

“Fine! Do it!” she cried.

He’d started to walk away, but at her words he paused, walking back to her. She leapt up, backing cautiously away from him, hatred burning in her eyes.

“You’re out of Cimarron now. And Jarrett McKenzie and his half-breed brother may have their influence in this peninsula, but I tell you, the army is powerful, too, and I’m a powerful part of it. And do you want to know
why? White folks in Boston may bleed a little in then-hearts for a poor noble savage, but white folks in the South want to move on down into this peninsula, and they want the Seminoles out. The white politicians need men who can accomplish that feat, and Teela, I am a soldier above all else, a man to get the job done. And to me, a half-breed is a breed, an Indian. James McKenzie’s almost as much trouble as that Osceola himself, and I’d just as soon shoot that bastard breed as look at him. Give me cause, Teela. Just give me cause, and I’ll hunt him down. I have hundreds of men behind me. I can turn him into the worst criminal in the territory. I can hunt him like a cougar. Just speak to me rudely once, defy me one more time …”

“I’ve obeyed your orders. I am engaged to John Harrington—”

“And John Harrington is fighting in the field to the south, girl. You’re not his wife yet. You are my daughter still. You speak to me politely, obediently. You know, Teela, the soldiers are taking scalps as well now. Not officially, of course. But they are taking scalps. And if you embarrass me one more time, I will have James McKenzie’s, girl. If I have to call out the whole of the army to do it. I ask you—are we understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, we are understood.”

“Yes,
sir
, we are understood.”

“Yes,
sir
, we are understood.”

Michael Warren smiled, and he turned to leave her. Beneath the shimmering sunshine she shivered. She was stronger than he was, she told herself. She would be stronger. She wouldn’t falter or fail, and somehow she’d best him in the end.

But to her dismay, her stomach churned. Her vision blurred again. She stooped down to the water, dousing her face with its coolness, praying the nausea would leave her. At last it did.

And she stood, determined again that she would be
the stronger of the two of them. And she didn’t give a damn what war they were fighting.

In the end, she was going to win.

There were many chiefs and many warriors who had come together in the grove southwest of St. Augustine. They had gathered from the various places they had been fighting, not many from the north now because the soldiers had so efficiently removed them from most of the fine ground just south of Tallahassee, the white capital, ironically named for the Indians who had abided there for thousands of years. They had been pushed east of St. Augustine, west of Tampa Bay, south of Ocala. Even the “good” Indians, the Spanish Indians north of the Peace River, were being attacked and pressed into the battle.

Since the massive escape of the warriors from the detention center at Fort Brooke, General Jesup himself, often a reasonable man if not a kind one, was rumored to have declared that no Indians could behave honorably. He Liked to say that Osceola was a renegade who made agreements when he chose to for gain, then reneged upon his word.

There were many important warriors here tonight, drawn together around the bright yellow and orange light of their campfire. Some were alone; some were with their wives and family. There were no neatly hewn log cabins for them anymore. They built lean-tos and shelters—hooties, as they called them. Simple structures of pine branches and cabbage palms, whatever could give them some comfort against the elements. They had to be built quickly and with little effort because the white soldiers would soon come and push the Indians out and burn down whatever they had constructed.

Osceola was not a hereditary leader, but tonight, when they discussed the war, life and death, and simple survival, he held a very important position. He did, however, gaze into the fire remorsefully, waiting for James
to read a letter taken from the bedroll of a fallen white soldier by a small band just days before.

James looked around the fire. Alligator was there, old Micanopy, Coweta, and Coacoochee, or Wildcat, the son of King Philip.

James glanced at the paper again and then told them, “The soldier was writing to his uncle. He asks about his family, then talks about General Jesup. Apparently, Jesup has asked the government for help against an Indian problem. Jesup wants help in recruiting other
Indians
to fight against us. He wants Shawnees, Delawares, Kickapoos, Sioux, and Choctaws.” He looked up at the group around him. He never lied when he spoke with the Seminole leaders, even when he thought that a lie would sit better.

“General Jesup wants the U.S. government to pay these Indians to fight us as traditional enemies. He feels that they will kill the warriors without thought and take captive and enslave the women and children.” Wildcat let out a sound of disgust.

“Running Bear, tell us the rest,” Osceola insisted quietly.

James shrugged. “That’s all there is. He says that his rations are sad, his pay is poor, and that he will not reenlist.”

“We will fight and kill the Sioux and the Choctaw and any other enemy as we kill the white soldiers!” Coweta said angrily.

“We will kill them, and more will come,” Osceola said.

“We will kill them!” Wildcat cried.

“And more will come,” James said quietly.

Wildcat was suddenly on his feet. He was a tall man, young, powerfully built, with strong, handsome, and ruggedly scarred features. He had gained his name from an entanglement he had survived with a panther he had inadvertently disturbed as a child. He stared at James, his fingers clenched into fists. “You speak as if you were
one of them. As if you would have us all surrender to their demands.”

James shook his head, rising carefully to lock eyes stubbornly with Wildcat.

“I have never betrayed a friend. I have never fought against any of my people. I have done my best to bring terms and carry back demands in turn. I—”

“You don’t understand, Running Bear, because your blood is not pure and your mind is tainted.”

James narrowed his eyes at Wildcat. “Osceola has blood that may well be ‘whiter’ than mine. Within our generation many men carry white blood. Don’t challenge me because of that fact.”

“Your heart often lies with those of white blood.”

“My heart lies where I see others who are in pain.”

“You don’t see!” Wildcat shouted. “You seek too much good in the whites. Listen to me. They want us gone. They want to remove us. If they cannot remove us, they want to exterminate us.”

“Not all white men wish to do so.”