Runaway

by Donna Cooner

  His heart seemed to sink within the cavity of his chest.

  “What do you think is happening?” Robert asked.

  “We both know what is happening,” Jarrett responded tonelessly, feeling ill.

  War. War had broken out with the Indians.

  Well, he had left with uneasy feelings. He had known the Indians had been buying powder. He had known that Osceola would never forgive Wiley Thompson.

  In truth, perhaps they had imagined what peace there had been between the two factions. Always, always, there had been the raiding. By the Indians against the whites and by the whites against the Indians. The damned Creek War of 1813–1814 had pitted American whites and Indians against English whites—and Indians. Andy Jackson’s Seminole War had been downright brutal against the remaining—or newly created—“Red Stick” factions—factions of the Indians who had still been willing to fight Jackson. Though Jackson had all but cleared out many northern towns by the year 1818, he had made those Indians who remained bitter and hard. And those who had remained unbroken often became fierce warriors.

  Things had actually come to a head in November of 1835, soon after Jarrett had last seen Alligator, Osceola, and Running Bear. Surely Osceola had known when they had spoken that there was no hope for peace then.

  Because Osceola was surely the mastermind behind the murder of the Indian Charley Emathla.

  Of course, to Osceola, it had not been murder. Osceola had surely seen it as the proper execution of a man who had betrayed his own people. Many warriors, disheartened by the constant starvation and pressure upon their people, had seen Charley’s actions as surrender to the whites. And treachery against those who refused to be pressed farther and farther into the corners of land the whites chose for them.

  Emigration west of the Mississippi had long been Andy Jackson’s plan for the Indians, and as the whites had become more and more hungry for Florida land to homestead and farm, the issue had been coming more and more to the fore. Finally, Jackson, now President of the U.S., had sent down an order that the Indians were to be compensated for their land and belongings and sent west immediately. The Florida military officers had determined on the spring of 1836 as the time that this must take place. Whether the Indians protested or not.

  When he had been asked to take his people and move west, Charley had told the whites that he had no right to speak for the Seminoles. Charley was right in his answer—he had been born a Creek, and as the Florida Indians were really composed of so many displaced and surviving tribes, he couldn’t speak for anyone other than himself. He had determined to make his home in Florida rather than go west when many other leaders had done so. Charley had owned a plantation and many cattle in north central Florida, but one day he’d decided that he was weary of fighting the whites—he would go west. He drove his cattle to Fort King to sell them, and on the way home he was ambushed, shot, and killed by militant Indians, among them the rising war chief Osceola. It seemed Osceola had led the party. So Jarrett had heard from friends in the U.S. military at Fort Brooks.

  Osceola was quickly becoming one of the fiercest leaders among the Seminoles despite his keen ability to reason. But then, other than what Wiley Thompson had done to Osceola and the numerous injustices done his people, Osceola had another reason to hate the whites.

  It had happened long ago. Osceola had, to this day, taken two wives, Morning Dew, his first, and Setting Sun. He had taken both wives as a young man, and many years before the recent trouble had begun, Setting Sun had been kidnapped by white fur trappers. Setting Sun was a Maroon, an Indian with black blood in her veins. At the time of her abduction, she had been very young, exquisitely beautiful. And the fur traders had set her upon the slave block at St. Augustine and made a small fortune on her. She had been rescued before Osceola had managed to kill others or get himself killed. Jarrett had been with the well-dressed and -spoken party of whites and half-breeds, including a very passionate Running Bear, who had carefully negotiated with the planter who had purchased Setting Sun for her freedom. All had seemed well. Many officials in the territory knew nothing about the incident.

  Jarrett was certain that Osceola had never forgotten it, even though Jarrett was equally certain that Osceola had gotten his revenge. The fur trappers who had kidnapped Setting Sun had disappeared while hunting one day.

  That was in the past. But now, tensions, always at a high, had soared after the murder of Charley Emathla.

  Jarrett should never have left.

  What difference could he have made? He didn’t even know what had happened yet! Something was going on. Both the fort and the fledgling town were battening down as if they expected an attack.

  Jarrett turned around and discovered his crew all but lined up behind him, and all eyes were on the activity at Fort Brooke. “Let’s bring her in, men, shall we?” Jarrett said. He was answered by a number of grim nods, and the men turned back to the task of docking their vessel. Tampa Bay was good and deep, with plenty of dockage, and his crew were quickly able to bring her to a crude berth offered by the cruder settlement.

  There was excitement onshore. Barricades were going up, windows were being boarded. But beyond the activity he could see that many of the townspeople were milling around the docks to see what he was bringing in—and perhaps to inform him about the military bustle now taking place.

  He could see a woman waving. Nancy Reynolds, and beside her, her husband Josh. Old friends, good friends. Others milled around. Naturally, he had brought salt and sugar to New Orleans and had returned with French stockings, soaps and perfumes, crawfish, spices, and news. He was always eagerly awaited.

  He had called out the last of his orders and was standing ready to jump ashore when suddenly he heard Tara behind him, softly voicing a strangled question.

  “This—is where you live?” There was a hint of alarm in her voice. That didn’t bother him. If that had been all he heard in the question, he would have tried to reassure her.

  But there was much more than alarm in those words. He was certain that he heard contempt. That she was horrified by the very strange Eden that had, since Lisa’s death, become all that he had loved. Indeed, the territory was everything to him. All that he wanted to fight for, even die for.

  Spinning around, he stared at her. He’d been so eager to touch land that he had planned to do so first and then come back for her.

  The tight smile curled into his lips. Her beautiful face was pale as she stared at the shore.

  Tara was, at the moment, completely unaware of his anger. She didn’t know what she had expected to find when they reached his home, but not … this! The buildings were so very crude. So poor. They lacked paint, they lacked architecture, they were little more than boxes. They absolutely lacked beauty.

  She clenched her jaws tight, feeling as if her teeth would chatter if she did not. The city she had left had been so refined! The people there had not feared the elements around them. Here, it seemed that men and women were rushing to a squat fort, that they were terribly afraid. This was nothing like the rolling green hills she had once left for a better life. Nothing like the majesty of the well-established city she had fled.

  She silently chastised herself. Who was she to judge? She was a runaway, and she should be grateful for this haven, any haven. If she looked around herself, there was beauty. She had seldom seen water so beautiful, so aqua, so glittering beneath the sun. The air was balmy, touched by the warmth of the sun, when in the north the day would have been frigid. If she let it, that warmth could caress her, envelop her. The place was new, raw. That’s why the buildings seemed so crude. She had to look past them.

  The buildings were crude, but not so ugly, she told herself. The land that bordered the town was beautiful as well, touched with green, with traces of wildflowers, even in winter. It was different, so different. But intriguing. It could be beautiful, if only …

  If only she didn’t feel the fear. She told herself that fear wasn’t tangible, she couldn’t feel it. But
she could. She could feel the fear in the little town of Tampa just as surely as she could feel the warmth of the sun as it touched down on her flesh.

  Just as she suddenly felt Jarrett’s heat as he stood beside her. She tried not to blink, not to speak, not to betray herself more. What a fool. She shouldn’t have let him see her dismay in this place. He wouldn’t understand, she wouldn’t be able to make him understand.

  Jarrett didn’t understand. Streaks of the anger she so quickly managed to ignite within his soul sizzled through him. She was appalled—and so far she’d only seen Tampa! He’d warned her, damn, but he had warned her! And during the days of their voyage he had come to feel incredibly possessive regarding her—no, damn it, entwined with her. Now he was certain she was regretting her hasty marriage with a vengeance.

  And they hadn’t even stepped ashore yet.

  The intimacy they had shared aboard the ship seemed to melt away. The smoldering jealousy he had felt as well—and tried to deny—added fuel to the tension that was rising within him. It was almost as if he could feel a fire burning within his body. Nothing had changed about her. She was still beautiful. Very regal and elegant this morning. Her hair was swept up off her neck in a neat knot, her eyes were as rich and lustrous a blue, her delicate face seemed still more exquisite, perfect.

  She wore one of Lisa’s gowns. Blue velvet with a fitted bodice and a chemise and underskirt in white lace. It cinched in tightly at her waist, flared fully at her hips. The bodice just exposed the alabaster rise of her breasts and the ivory length of her throat.

  He suddenly wanted to rip it off her, shake the cool blue superiority from her eyes, and remind her that, though innocent in her fashion, she was just a tavern wench who had so seduced his curiosity—and hungers—that he had legally wed her as a way of coming to her aid. She wasn’t really his wife. Lisa had been his wife, in all ways that the word could mean. Though Lisa was dead, somehow she was still his wife.

  No, he thought painfully. Tara was now his wife. He had made the commitment just as she had. And he had found that the heat of his desire for her rose anew each time his passion should have been sated. And still he knew nothing about her. And now, when he saw that trouble was savagely spreading its tentacles out over his precious land, he realized that more tempest than he had ever imagined was awaiting him and must be weathered.

  Tara hated his Eden. And she hadn’t even stepped foot upon it yet.

  “No, this is not where I live,” he told her, adding, “it’s much more barren where my house lies. This is like—London in comparison!”

  If anything she went a shade paler. But her eyes were hard on his, narrowing at his tone. Her stare continued to condemn him, and for a moment he was sorry. Had he, in a matter of seconds, destroyed their chances here? Perhaps, he told himself wearily, he had already done so, admitting as well as demonstrating to her that he did have the ability to be a tyrant.

  Then again, perhaps their pasts could not be left behind. Perhaps they had been doomed from the beginning.

  She didn’t say a word. She continued to stare at the land.

  Impatience—and perhaps a bit of shame—brought heated words quickly to his lips once again.

  “I told you where I was taking you!” he reminded her harshly.

  “Ah, Mrs. McKenzie!” Robert called, stepping cheerfully toward her from around Jarrett’s back. “Your first view of our beautiful Tampa Bay! See the water, Tara? The shade is like your eyes. The beaches are magnificent. Ignore the look of the buildings—Mrs. Conolly at the Bay Tavern makes the most wonderful meals, and she has big, clean rooms with beds that don’t rock in the waves!”

  As Jarrett watched, his wife smiled. Robert, it seemed—most irritatingly—always had the ability to make her happier. Her lips curled into their perfect, full, rose-colored smile and Jarrett felt a tug within his soul once again.

  Would she have been happy in this wilderness if Robert had brought her into it?

  But what of Robert himself? His charm was quickly going to fail them all, for once they reached shore, there would be no way to hide the truth that Tampa was preparing hard for an attack.

  They would soon discover why.

  He squared his shoulders, swearing silently at himself. It didn’t matter. Tara hadn’t said anything, she hadn’t done anything. And they were here.

  “It sounds—wonderful,” Tara murmured in response to Robert.

  Truly impatient then, remembering that all his thoughts about his wife had been swept away in his concern about events since his absence, Jarrett stepped forward and took his wife’s arm. Robert would be doing so any second if he didn’t step in, Jarrett was certain.

  He took hold of her more roughly than he had intended. She didn’t pull away, but he felt her stiffening beneath his touch.

  “Let’s move, then, shall we?” he asked. Once again he sounded curt. He didn’t seem to be able to help himself.

  He escorted her quickly down the plank that brought them to the dock. Even as they reached the shore, Nancy was rushing forward, Josh right behind her. Nancy threw herself into his arms, giving him a sound kiss on the lips, then quickly pulling back, holding him still, heedless of her huge husband lumbering behind her. “Oh, Jarrett, you cannot imagine how good it is that you are home! Perhaps you can do something where no one else can!”

  “Nancy,” Josh protested, “you’re about to push him right back into the bay. Give the man some breathing space. And watch it, you’re stepping on the young lady you just shoved from his side.”

  “Oh! Oh!” Nancy exclaimed. “I’m so dreadfully sorry!” she told Tara, but then she saw Robert and kissed him too. Jarrett couldn’t help but feel a slight tinge of pleasure at the quickly masked look of unease that had swept through Tara’s eyes at Nancy’s fond embrace.

  “Nancy!” Robert said, picking up the slim, dark-haired young woman and spinning her around. “Whoops, there’s that bear of a husband of yours,” Robert said, and, laughing, put her down to shake Josh’s hand.

  “Nancy and Josh Reynolds. They own a shop here,” Jarrett informed Tara. By then his crew were spilling off the ship behind them, while others of the townspeople were milling closer and closer around them.

  Just beyond the crowd Jarrett could see that a military man was awaiting him as well. He recognized the golden locks and wide-brimmed hat of Captain Tyler Argosy, an old friend, and an army man to the core.

  “What the hell has happened?” Jarrett demanded, expecting the answer from Josh Reynolds.

  The big man inhaled deeply and sighed. “Hell has broken loose,” he said simply. “Jarrett, Major Dade was bringing some troops a hundred miles north of here to Fort King. He was ambushed by the Seminoles. There were three survivors. One hasn’t made it here, one can’t talk, and the third man has put the almighty fear into each and every one of us! We’re all getting prepared for an attack, every man armed and ready. Soon’s you get a chance, you might want to get to the base and have a few words with that poor battered soldier who crawled his way out of the ambush. The Indians did the killing, then some of their runaway Negroes moved in and scalped and mutilated the bodies. Well, Jarrett, you can imagine. Some of the Negro-Seminoles have been living with the Indians so long, they are Indians. Some of them have been slaves to the Indians and earned their freedom. But most of them have been slaves to white men, and some whites are mighty hard on their slaves. I imagine that once the Seminoles had done the killing, some of their black brethren were mighty glad to go in and rip up the bodies of the dead men. Wiley Thompson, the Indian agent, met with his own end as well. They say that Osceola was the leader there—Osceola was good and angry with Wiley Thompson—hell, Jarrett—excuse me, ladies—”

  “Go on, Josh!” Nancy urged him. “Jarrett has to know what has happened here.”

  “Jarrett, most of us knew good and well that Osceola couldn’t endure what Wiley did to him. You don’t chain a Seminole, you just don’t do it, and if Wiley Thompson had used a lick of sense, h
e would have known it. The Indians caught up with Wiley just outside the fort and murdered him and a few others. It’s going to be real war now, Jarrett. No help for it. None at all.”

  Jarrett was silent, feeling a burning anguish sweep through him.

  “Dear God!” Tara whispered.

  “Ma’am, I’m so sorry,” Josh said. “I didn’t mean to be so blunt. Are you here to visit someone? Dear Lordy, I hope not one of those soldiers who was with Major Dade—”

  “She’s not for any of those poor fellows,” Jarrett said wearily, interrupting Josh’s fervent spill of concern. “She’s my wife.”

  “Wife!” Nancy gasped. Josh, startled as well, gave Nancy a firm glance. Nancy quickly gathered her wits about her. “Wife! Oh, and we’ve just scared the girl to death. Jarrett—you—you should have warned us. We could have welcomed her so much more—”

  “Humanely!” Josh suggested.

  “Oh, move now, you big bear, and let’s get her off the dock. Oh, this is terrible, Mrs.—McKenzie,” Nancy said, tripping over the name.

  “Tara,” Jarrett suggested. “Her name is Tara.”

  “Then let’s get her into the tavern before she passes out.”

  Tara was white. Like a sheet. Her gaze fell upon his with pure rebellion. But she wasn’t going to pass out. Indeed, she looked as if she were ready to strangle him.

  “You needn’t worry. Tara is made of strong stuff. She’s very good at eluding enemies. She won’t pass out,” Jarrett said firmly.

  “Come, dear, anyway!” Nancy said, slipping an arm through Tara’s. “Such cruel news to hear just as you arrive! The tavern is ahead, down the street a spell, easily walked, if you can make it—”

  “She can make it,” Jarrett said.

  “She can also speak for herself,” Tara said, her eyes blue flames as they touched upon him. Her color was returning. He smiled grimly. She did know how to meet a challenge.