“Teela, you—”
“I’m fine.”
“Our child?”
“Fine. Please, James, don’t kill him! You didn’t cause the massacre or kidnap anyone. You don’t stand condemned now. But if you kill Warren, you will be hunted for murder. Please, James, he’s not worth it! I tell you, he isn’t worth your spit, and he’s not worth the rest of our lives.”
He stood, dragged to his feet by her. He stared down at Warren, still seized by that consuming, heated anger.
“For you,” he whispered, tenderly setting his hands upon her shoulders, kissing her forehead. “For you, he lives.”
“For us!”
Yet even as he pressed his lips quickly against her forehead once again, the door to Teela’s room suddenly burst open. Soldiers streamed quickly into the room, all of them with rifles aimed at Teela and James.
“The savage has done in the major!” a young man shouted.
“Not—done in!” Warren gasped, trying to rise. Men rushed forward to aid him. “But the savage surely did try to finish me off!”
“We’ll have him in custody, sir—” another of the men began.
“Custody, hell!” Warren raged. “We’ll hang him here and now, out on the oak. Take him!”
Teela screamed, trying to grasp James as the soldiers rushed in on him, but even as Teela was dragged away, James fought. He punched, kicked, gouged, threw his fists again and again. The men fell back, injured. Wailing.
But they kept rising. They kept coming. He kept fighting.
Then he heard a shot, fired into the ceiling. He stopped fighting, because Warren had a Colt repeater pressed against Teela’s skull. “Her or you,” Warren said flatly.
“Sir!” began one of his men.
“Silence! Her or you!” Warren raged.
James didn’t trust the man not to put a bullet through her skull, even if it did mean he would pay with his own life. James went still. He lifted his hands in surrender. Soldiers surged around him again, grappling him by the arms.
Jarrett was somewhere, he thought, not believing that he could die here. Lose the sweet taste of life to a man so wretched and treacherous as Warren. Warren could not get away with this atrocity.
One of the soldiers pressed the muzzle of his gun against James’s throat. “Your hands, Mr. McKenzie,” the man said. He was shaking. He was afraid of James.
“Mr. McKenzie!” Warren spat. ”Running Bear, breed. He is no ‘Mr.’, son! Now bind his hands and be quick about it.”
Maybe the young soldier was every bit as afraid of what he was doing as he was of James.
James had no choice. He offered up his hands. The soldier was still shaking as he tied James’s hand behind his back. The man did a poor job of it. James was not at all securely tied. However, it wasn’t his place to let his captors know it. He remained still, staring at Warren.
“Let’s head for the oak,” Warren said.
“No!” Two of the men had taken Teela’s arms and pressed her to the wall across the room. She shrieked with a wild fury, freeing herself from the soldiers to throw herself at Warren, scratching, clawing, slamming against him. “No, you’ll not get away with this. You’ll—”
Warren whipped his Colt against her head. She fell to the bed with barely a whimper. James started to surge forward. The gun muzzle pressed against his Adam’s apple.
“Did you want her to watch you die, eh, injun?” Warren inquired. He tried to wipe the blood from his face. His nose was smashed. Tomorrow he’d have two huge black eyes. The whole of his face would be swollen and bruised.
Pity I won’t live to see it! James thought.
And Teela had offered Warren mercy!
Well, he might die himself, James determined, but if he did so, Warren was going with him. Teela was going to be free. And she would love their child, and Jennifer. And there would be a future for the three of them, at least.
“Let’s go!” Warren barked. He was obviously still in great pain.
The men began to usher James toward the door, down the hall, and toward the stairs.
He found his brother at last, and realized that Jarrett had never been given a chance to come to his aid. He lay slumped down on the bottom step with Tara kneeling over him. A soldier stood over her, gun aimed at her. She gasped, looking up as she saw James coming down the stairs. Tears were streaming down her face. ”You fools! You’ve already injured my husband, and I swear, you’ll have the devil to pay. Stop this, stop this!”
James burst free from his retainers, hurrying toward Tara and his fallen brother. He fell to his knees at the bottom of the stairs, trying to see Jarrett’s face, to ascertain what had happened to him. “Tara—”
“Jarrett will be all right. He’s knocked out,” Tara assured him quickly. “He tried to run up the stairs when he heard the shot, and this big brave soldier here”—she mockingly indicated the man with the gun—”slammed the back of his head with his rifle butt. James, where are they taking you, what are they doing?” “It’s all right, Tara, stay with him.”
”James, what—”
“Tara, stay with Jarrett. See to Teela when you can.”
“Teela—?”
“These big, brave men treated her the same way.” The soldiers had come again and were tugging his shoulders, dragging him back to his feet and toward the door. One ran by him, quickly exiting the house and securing rope and a horse. A noose was hurriedly fashioned. James stood calmly in the center of the soldiers, watching as Warren stepped forward, slipping the noose over his head. He stared at Warren with undisguised hatred.
“One more dead Indian,” Warren gloated. “One, and then another, and another. And finally all the Indian boys will be dead. And you’ll just be forgotten dust, a bad dream. Beaten to the core.”
James shook his head. “You’re wrong. Kill one of us in front of you, and another will appear. Chase us until there is no land, and we will fight in the swamp. You cannot beat us. In the end you will die and go to hell, and we will remain undefeated.”
“You’re going to die now, boy. So say your prayers to whomever you call God, and be quick now. Bring the horse!” he roared.
The horse, a well-fed army roan, was brought up. Except for the two soldiers who were to be his executioners, the men, along with Warren, remounted their horses for the show. James was thrown atop the horse by the two men, hands still tied behind his back. The end of the rope was thrown over the oak and quickly secured.
“Make your peace with your Maker!” Warren cried, coming closer to him. He smiled. “I want to see those blue eyes of yours bulge out of your head as you die, boy. Everything in the kidneys goes, too, after a hanging. Smells bad, real bad. You won’t be such a good-looking Indian boy then, huh?”
He spat at Warren, but the man edged his horse back just far enough to avoid the insult.
James fought to control his temper. He had but one chance and he knew it, and that chance was slim. He had to free his hands to catch the noose, and use the very rope that would have hanged him to make a bid for freedom. There were no guns upon him now. All the soldiers had lowered their weapons, laid down their guard, to watch him hang. Their rifles were back in their saddle holsters. Their knives were sheathed.
“You know, Warren, I don’t think this is legal, do you?” James said, working at his hands.
“This is war against the Seminoles. You’re a Seminole! You led an escape from the Castillo, and then you tried to murder me in cold blood. I am justified in my actions, and I am surrounded by witnesses!”
James had worked the ropes around his wrist entirely free. If he could only catch the noose before his neck was broken …
“Hang the red bastard!” Warren shouted.
She had come to with a murderous pounding in her head. The pain, in fact, was so intense at first that it clouded her mind.
Then she remembered. They’d taken James.
She leapt up, racing to the window. They were going to hang him. Oh, God, at any sec
ond now, he was going to swing …
She tore down the stairs, reaching the landing just as Tara was helping Jarrett struggle to his feet.
“They’ve a rope around his neck!” she cried. She flew past Jarrett to the hallway closet, aware that he kept a double-barreled shotgun there. Jarrett had lived in a raw, new land for far too long not to keep such a weapon ready and close. She dragged it out, only to find Jarrett already at her back, plucking the weapon from her grasp.
“Give me the damned thing, it’s loaded—”
“He’s about to hang!” she cried tearfully. She spied a Colt repeater hanging from a holster by the door and drew it out. John Harrington had always said it was a weapon that might misfire.
She didn’t care. She grasped it firmly in her hand and turned to fly after Jarrett.
Even as she did so, she froze.
Shouts were rising from the front of the house. Oh, God, he might have already …
She nearly passed out. She ran instead.
James heard the sound of a switch slammed hard against the roan’s haunches. So hard that the animal let out a pitiful whinny before rearing high and racing off into the night.
It was the horse that saved him, he thought. That, and the cruelty of a man who would strike an animal with such fervor. When the horse reared up, the noose and rope loosened, and James had the split second he needed to seize hold of the noose.
When the rope pulled taut, he was able to swing his body toward Warren before escaping the noose. Warren didn’t have time to move his horse back fast enough. James’s weight caught him, slammed him off his horse. Warren shouted, seized his knife from the sheath at his side, and tried to plunge it into James as they rolled.
“Major!” One of his men shouted, but James and Warren were already rolling, engaged in a battle to the death, and if the soldier had a rifle, he couldn’t possibly have aimed it with any precision at James.
James grappled Warren’s arm, fighting to loose the knife from his fingers. He slammed Warren’s wrist against the ground. Warren twisted, and James caught his jaw, ramming it hard against the earth.
He heard a strange crunching again, and at first, in the desperate fight for his life, he didn’t recognize the sound. Then he realized that Warren had ceased to fight, that the knife had fallen from the man’s fingers. And then he knew.
Something else had broken.
The man’s neck.
His first thought was that Teela was free.
He didn’t realize his own continued danger then, but closed his eyes in misery.
Now he was damned.
He’d had no choice. No choice at all. But any hope he’d ever had of finding his own peace, a place between the world of the Indian and the white man, seemed doomed.
“Jesu, he has killed the major this time!” someone shouted.
“Up, up, Indian, get off the man before we fill you full with bullet holes!” cried another soldier.
He started to rise, slowly. He might at least get a military trial now, a chance to see his daughter and Teela once again.
“Kill him!” one of them shouted. “Kill him. He’s killed Major Warren.”
Rifles were lowered. He was ready to make a diving drop, roll and run, and somehow pray to evade a score of bullets.
But then he was startled—just as startled as the soldiers before him—as a resounding shot was fired over their heads.
Jarrett was standing in the front door, Tara at his side. He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hands, aimed at the fellow who had last spoken. “Gentlemen, I want you off my property now. You’re trespassing. You had no right to become a lynch mob.”
“The major is dead! The savage—your brother killed him, Mr. McKenzie!” one of the men sputtered.
“The man half killed his own daughter first! This hanging was illegal in every way, shape, and form, and I swear that I will see to it that every man jack one of you pays if you don’t turn around and ride away now! You want my brother? Yes, sir, one of you can shoot him. But I guarantee at least two of you will have big holes for guts before your bullets make their mark!”
Before anyone could reply, a second voice called out from the porch, feminine but incredibly fierce.
“Your bullets will never, ever reach their marks, I guarantee it!”
He almost smiled. Teela had come to the porch as well. She stood on Jarrett’s other side—and she was aiming one of his brother’s repeating pistols at the soldiers. She was still in her white gown. Her hair was a fire-red mane about her shoulders. She stood very tall, proud— and barefoot.
“Mr. McKenzie, Miss Warren!” It was the young officer who had been shaking so badly when he’d tried to bind James’s hands. “There will be no shooting here tonight. There’s plenty of fight and danger left for all of us, boys!” he cried to the men before looking gravely back to Jarrett. “We’re not savages.” He glanced at James and added softly, “I been out in the bush nearly two years now, and I admit I ain’t never seen no one so savage as Major Warren. And tonight—savage against his own daughter. We’re riding out. Men, we are riding out!” he insisted.
“Take your major’s body with you. It isn’t wanted by his next of kin,” Jarrett suggested.
Warren’s body was duly thrown over the back of his horse. The soldiers started down the street, with the young man at the head of the group.
But the fellow who had so nearly been James’s executioner wasn’t ready to give it all up so easily. He twisted in his saddle, calling back to them. “Jarrett McKenzie, you’ll go to jail for this as well! Wait till Jesup hears what’s gone on here tonight! There won’t be no rest, no place to hide.”
“I won’t be hiding!” Jarrett called.
The young soldier suddenly rode back to where James stood. “My name is Noonan, sir. You need a witness, you call on me.”
James smiled slowly. Nodded. “Thanks, Noonan.”
“Your brother and your, er, Miss Warren can’t hold soldiers off forever, McKenzie. You’d best hightail it quick.”
“Thanks again.”
Noonan smiled, saluted, and turned his horse, quickly catching up with his retreating company.
In a few minutes, the sounds of hoofbeats faded. James turned to his brother. “Thanks. And I’d thought they’d really cracked you in the head. You’re a damned good brother. You came back to consciousness in—in damned good time!”
“Almost too late.” Jarrett halfway grinned. “I have never seen anyone escape a hangman’s noose before.”
James shrugged. “They tied lousy knots.” He smiled at Teela.
“Now, you … you are surely the fiercest fighter I have yet to come across. She could maybe end the war, don’t you think, Jarrett?”
“Or start up another one,” Jarrett teased gently, then sobered. “Now, will you listen to me this time? You really do have to get out of here.”
James nodded. He stared at Teela. “The fear will be over,” he told her softly, then turned back to his brother. “Teela and the baby will be safe,” he said.
“Of course they will be. But I’m not real sure about your status at the moment, baby brother, and I know I can’t shoot the whole army. Will you please get the hell out of here?”
Tara suddenly came running down the steps, hurrying toward James. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “James, he’s right! Dear God, you’re alive, you’re safe—and in danger again! Get out of here like he says before they come and arrest you.”
“Yeah, yeah, I will.” He hugged her quickly in return. “Jennifer—”
“You haven’t time to see her. Trust me, we love her and will keep her well.”
“Teela—”
He broke off, staring at the porch, realizing that she was gone. “Where’s Teela?” he asked.
Jarrett swung around as well, unaware that she had disappeared until that moment.
“James, you mustn’t worry,” Tara assured him. “We love her, too—”
“Jam
es!”
He stared back to the porch. Teela had returned. Red hair a cascade that seemed to fly in the wind behind her, she came hurrying down the steps toward him. She had changed from her frilled white nightgown and now wore a gingham day dress and riding boots.
She ran to James and threw herself at him, holding him. She crushed his head between her palms and kissed him with a wonderfully savage, hungry, passionate splendor.
He caught hold of her. “Teela, I’ve got to run—”
“I know.”
“Have you realized that your father is—”
“My stepfather is dead. James, you’re alive!”
“Then you realize, I’ve got to go—”
“I’m coming.”
“What?”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Teela, the road for the time being will be very rough. You’re carrying our babe. You—”
“I’m as tough as any road, James McKenzie. I have told you many times, I can survive much, but after this I am afraid to see you go. I can survive anything but losing you again.”
“Teela, you don’t understand—”
“James, I do understand.”
“But our babe …”
“James, I’m strong. Our baby is strong. I know it. I wouldn’t endanger a life I cherish so desperately!”
He cradled her against him, looking over her head to Jarrett and Tara helplessly. “What do I do?”
“Seems to me Teela knows her own mind,” Jarrett said.
“And she is darned tough,” Tara said.
“Amazingly so,” Jarrett commented wryly.
James grabbed Teela by the arms, holding her from him, searching out the startling beauty of her eyes amidst the flaming sea of her hair.
“We may have to run night and day. We may starve. We may not be able to come close to any civilized society for years. We’ll live and sleep in the woods and the swamp. You would do this … to be with me?”
She nodded.
“James, the more time you take …” Tara warned.
“You’ve got to hurry—one or both of you. Go around the back—take horses from the stables and ride quickly, for God’s sake!” Jarrett said.
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