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 ca
mpfire. 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.”
“White policy demands that the soldiers do so. You fight with us only when a knife is but inches from your heart!”
“I will not attack plantations!” James responded, reckless, angry. He swept a hand out, indicating the many war chiefs. “I am told about the plight of our children. Women smother their infants so that they do not starve. Soldiers crack in little skulls, horses trample screaming young ones. Well, I promise you this—my white brother will not pick up arms, he will not fight alongside men who injure Seminole children. His one surviving niece is a Seminole child. My white sister-in-law once risked her own life for my family. My brother and his wife believe that my daughter who lives with them is innocent, trusting, loving. Beautiful. It is the same for me. My one nephew is white. I will not take part in raids in which white children die, whether from malice or careless accident. I have cradled a white child in my arms. My white brother stayed with my Seminole wife and child as they died, while others fled the fever. All that I am, all that I will and will not do, I have always stated it honestly. Would you call me a traitor for that?”
Wildcat, despite his occasional outbursts and ferocity, was learning to be a leader. He listened, then replied without haste. “I will not take this time to argue with your convictions, Running Bear.” He slammed his fist suddenly against his chest. “We must fight to survive, to save our way of life. We must fight for our children, for a place for them. For their survival.”
“We fight,” Osceola said firmly, “and we continue fighting. When the soldiers follow us, we split and go in what directions we must go in to avoid them. We have come thus far because they cannot follow us into our secret hammocks. They have not won because we are an enemy capable of fighting and then disappearing. We mustn’t forget that.”
“Sometimes we must talk,” Coweta argued. “Jesup has sent his messengers with great amounts of white cloth so that we may approach his chiefs in safety when we wish to talk.”
Osceola stood up. “At this time we’ve nothing to say. Let General Jesup plan his great campaign. We will watch and wait. And fight on. As for me, when Running Bear comes to me asking that I allow certain women and children to capitulate to terms, I will not turn against those who are desperate now. I remind you, though, Running Bear, that there are those who would slay their families before letting them bow to the white men. Take care with what arrangements you make with the white soldiers—they may turn against you as well. That is all. If you come to me asking to talk to the soldiers, I will talk. But you should know this. I will fight until I can fight no more.”
He wore a blanket that he wrapped tightly around his shoulders as he strode from the circle.
His words had been fierce, James thought. But Osceola still did not look well. In the middle of the summer he clung tightly to the blanket.
The group began to disband. James continued to stare into the fire, weary of a war that showed no hope for an end, and weary as well of defending himself. At least the other men at this council knew whom they fought. Half the time he fought just to stay sane.
Long legs clad in bright red leggings came to a halt before him. He looked up. Wildcat stood before him, then hunched down.
“We were boys together,” Wildcat said. “Friends a long time.”
James nodded. “I am not your enemy now.”
“Sometimes I am angry because you can see so much. Other times I know that you come to us to offer what wisdom you have when you might have turned your back on the people and lived the life of a white man yourself.”
“I don’t always know my part in this,” James admitted. “I try to make all men see reason. It is a losing battle.”
“No, my friend, you have not lost. Because you still see where you are trying to go.”
“I hope you are right.”
“I am right. But this loneliness is not good for you. Sunflower is now the widow of my cousin, Bird-in-Flight. As her husband’s closest relative, it is my right to release her from her years of mourning. I will do so for you, Running Bear. Bring her the marriage gift. It will be returned, and your nights will not be so bleak in the hard days to come.”
James looked up at Wildcat, who spoke so earnestly now. “Wildcat, I thank you, but—”
“She is very young and very beautiful,” Wildcat said. He sounded indignant.
“Yes, and that is why I would not hurt her. She has suffered enough.”
“There is rumor about you and a white woman. Do you turn Sunflower down because she is not white?” Wildcat demanded, his tone somewhat angry.
James kept his voice level. “You know that is not so. Naomi was Seminole, and I loved her with all m
y heart and being.”
That seemed to mollify Wildcat, but his curiosity remained. “What about the white woman?”
“What red fool would love a white woman?” James asked, barely masking a trace of bitterness in his voice.
“One with white blood running beneath his red skin,” Wildcat said. “And one who has come close to Warren’s red-haired daughter, a rare beauty of her kind, like an exotic bird among sparrows.”
Startled, James came to his feet, studying Wildcat’s face. “What do you know of her?”
Wildcat smiled. “She is Warren’s daughter. There are certain warriors who will care nothing about beauty or youth or innocence.”
“Tell me, what do you know about Warren’s daughter?” he demanded.
“Her hair is like flame. Gold and red and shimmering in the firelight. Very thick and rich. It’s tempting to the hand to touch, even if she is white. She is slim as the reed in the field, yet with the curves of a woman. Her eyes are a green like the meadow after the rains.”
He had to control his temper and his fear, James thought. It wouldn’t help anyone’s cause if he were to leap at Wildcat and go for his throat.
“Where have you seen her?” he asked firmly. Then, “Damn you, where?”
But Wildcat was determined to taunt him. He started to laugh. “I have described her well. You didn’t know that others among us might know of her?”
“Wildcat—”
“She is lush, yes?”
And James did leap.
He caught Wildcat off guard, caught him with both fury and determination. His leap brought them both plummeting to the ground. Wildcat was no weakling. He bucked and tried to throw James; then the two men rolled together. The contest was in deadly earnest as Wildcat got a grip upon James’s throat. James broke his opponent’s hold and then rolled again. When they came to a halt, James had his thighs like a vise around Wildcat’s. He slammed a solid fist against Wildcat’s jaw, and was ready to strike again when Alligator suddenly came from the brush, angrily striding toward them.
“The soldiers will kill us soon enough!” he raged. “We do not have the white numbers, we need our warriors alive. The people need you both. Get up, get out of the dirt. You are not boys!”
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