by Donna Cooner
Tara started walking along with Nancy. Nancy began saying inane things about the weather. Jarrett turned back to see that their belongings were sent to the tavern for the night, and then he met Robert’s eyes. “I’m sorry, Jarrett,” he murmured. “We have seen it coming.”
Jarrett nodded. The wars, the killing, the hatreds, had been going on for years. The wars didn’t begin and end—it seemed that the times of peace did.
“Argosy is waiting for you,” Robert said, referring to the soldier in the wide-brimmed hat who stood just outside the crowd at the dock.
Jarrett nodded. “Take Tara on to Mrs. Conolly’s. I’ll be right along.”
He strode up the incline to where Tyler Argosy patiently waited. He offered a hand to Jarrett, and Jarrett took it, clasping it firmly. “You’ve heard the news already, I imagine. It’s bad. There’s widespread panic inland. Plantations have been burned. The whites want all-out revenge. Total deportation to the western territories of all Florida Indians. Most people don’t want a single red man left behind.”
Jarrett paused, shaking his head. “We’re in for it, Tyler. You don’t know how tenacious the Seminoles are. They’ve been running a long time. We’ve lied, we’ve betrayed them. And they know this territory far better than we. They can fight it well with a third of our military numbers. It will be long, bloody, and fierce, I imagine.”
“The local militia is already on the move; we know there will be help from Washington,” Tyler told him. “But we need men like you. You know the swamps and the bogs and the hammocks. If you were to accept a commission and take up arms against some of the really bad factions—”
“Can’t do it, Tyler. Can’t do it. You know that I can’t,” Jarrett told him.
Tyler inhaled and exhaled, looking out to sea. “Well, I kind of knew that, but our own brand of chiefs wanted me to approach you quietly.”
“Ask me again when there is something that I can do. Don’t ask me to go to any of the chiefs with lies. But any honest negotiation that needs doing, I’ll be your man.”
Tyler nodded. “We’ll need you in the future. Not to wage war, but to talk.” He hesitated a minute. “There are plenty of white men who don’t understand your position. A lot of hostility could come your way now.”
“A lot of Indians probably hate me, too, Tyler. It doesn’t matter. I can only follow my own conscience on this.”
“No man can do more.”
“But, Jesu, I hate the killing. I’ll talk to anyone at any time, that I can promise you.”
Tyler nodded again. “You heading inland anyway?”
“I’ll be fine inland. My property is neutral territory.”
“Let’s pray it stays that way.”
“Osceola is an important war chief at the moment. If he’s calling the shots, I imagine my property will remain neutral. Besides, the men with me—red, black, and white—are all men of their word, and I’ve never broken any trust with the Indians.”
“You fought against the Red Sticks in the Creek War. As a mere lad.”
“Different time, different circumstances. The Red Sticks attacked close to my home. There are different alliances now. I’ve kept my friends and made my peace with my enemies.”
“You may be forced into battle again. This is going to be a hard time to straddle a fence.”
“It’s never easy to straddle a fence.”
Tyler shrugged and looked up to the sky. “Well, I guess I knew what you’d say. And I give you my word, I won’t be asking you to make any negotiations that aren’t honest.”
“I’ll be there for you,” Jarrett said.
“You bringing a wife home?” Tyler asked, indicating the party, which had now disappeared down the street toward Mrs. Conolly’s tavern.
“Yes.”
Tyler smiled. “Lots of ladies thought they were in line for that position, once time enough had passed. She’s a beauty,” Tyler told him. “A rare beauty! She might be nervous about the Indians, but then again, she might be in greater danger from a few rivals in these parts! Damn! Where did you find such an elegant creature?”
Jarrett was tempted to admit he had acquired her in a game of chance, but he shrugged instead. “New Orleans,” he said simply.
“A southern girl? Impeccable family, I imagine.”
“Right out of New Orleans,” Jarrett said. He wasn’t about to admit that he hadn’t the least idea. He reached out, shaking Tyler’s hand again. “I’ll be home. Call when you need me and I can actually help you.”
“Right. And congratulations. On your marriage.”
“Thanks!”
Jarrett left him and strode to the tavern, absently returning greetings to those who hailed him, yet moving so quickly that none would stop to detain him. When he entered the tavern, he found that Josh, Nancy, and Robert were seated at a table. Tara was nowhere to be seen.
The beams were low, the room was smoky. A fire burned warmly from a hearth, and despite the somewhat shanty appearance of the place, the aromas within it were pleasant. Jarrett ignored both the slight haze of smoke and the pleasant scents and hurried toward the table. “Where is Tara?” he asked, annoyed at the harshness in his voice. He couldn’t help the suspicion that she might have already tried to discover a way to run away. Again.
“Mrs. Conolly has given you two the large room up the stairs to the far rear,” Nancy told him. “Tara just wanted to wash up for a moment. She’ll be right back.”
He didn’t sit. He was too tempted to run up the stairs and find out if she was, indeed, within the room they had been given for the night’s stay.
But at that moment his wife appeared at the top of the stairs. Swiftly, gracefully, she descended.
Her eyes didn’t touch his as she smoothly came around to take the chair at Robert’s side.
Jarrett managed to be there in time. The gentlemen rose, but he pulled back her chair and saw her seated. He then took his own chair, hailing plump Mrs. Conolly, wiping her hands on her apron as she hurried to the table behind Tara. “Jarrett McKenzie, but ’tis good to see you back, sir! And with such a fine new wife! Ah, but the lasses will be pining here, and still, such a beauty you’ve acquired!” Her smile faded. “We’re so dreadfully sorry about what you’ve come home to.”
“Thank you, Peggy Conolly,” Jarrett said, flashing her a quick smile. “Anything is fine to come home to—as long as you’re still cooking your magnificent roasts.”
“I’ve a fine supper coming for you and Robbie Treat and your friends and fine new lady!” She flashed him a smile in return, easily distracted when the flattery was about her good cooking. “Ah, here’s Sheila with a spot of tea for the ladies, and good stout ale for you gents. Bread will be right along, and then your roast with plenty of the world’s finest mashed potatoes, greens, and yams!”
Mrs. Conolly stepped back as her serving girl, Sheila, stepped forward, her strong slim arms laden down with a heavy tray. Sheila cast Jarrett a long glance, as she placed the tea things first and then the ale.
She was a curious woman, brown, slim, and exotically pretty. She was an orphan of various races, and the widowed Mrs. Conolly had taken her in years earlier. Mrs. Conolly insisted on Sunday school for her charge. Sheila obligingly went—and seduced all the boys in her classes. She was wild in her ways, but honest and blunt spoken, and she and Jarrett had known one another well for years.
“Welcome home,” Sheila told him huskily.
“Thank you.”
“You’ll not be scared by all the talk!” she said approvingly.
“The talk is bad,” he admitted, drinking his ale. Sheila smiled and left the table. Jarrett felt his wife’s eyes on him and he smiled. Again, he could not help but be glad that she seemed to be feeling a bit of irritation—if not jealousy. He seemed to be constantly suffering so himself.
He lifted his cup of ale to her. “Welcome home, Mrs. McKenzie,” he said softly.
“Aye, welcome to you, Tara!” Nancy said enthusiastically. Her husband
echoed the sentiment, and Tara smiled, sipping her tea.
“What a place!” she murmured, her eyes telling Jarrett exactly what she meant, even if her tone did not.
“What did Captain Argosy want?” Nancy asked. As she did so, Mrs. Conolly and a very tall black man arrived, setting down trenchers with roast beef and vegetables and breads. In seconds the sturdy hardwood table was heavy laden. Sheila arrived to serve, even as Jarrett gave his answer.
“He wanted me to take a commission. To lead troops.”
“But you—you won’t, will you?” Nancy murmured.
Jarrett shook his head. “I can’t, Nancy. You know that.”
“Will you negotiate if they ask you?” Josh asked him.
Jarrett nodded grimly. “I will do everything in my power to end this with as little bloodshed as possible,” Jarrett assured him.
The food had been served. Nancy looked down at her plate. “The stories were just so horrible!” she breathed. “Half Dade’s men went down in the first volley. The Indians ambushed them, hiding in the brush. The wounded screamed and cried out while their fellow soldiers scrambled to bring down the warriors knowing they would soon be mutilated themselves—”
“Nancy!” Josh firmly interrupted his wife.
Jarrett gazed down the table to Tara. She had picked up her fork and set it aside again.
“Come, now!” Sheila, standing just at Jarrett’s rear, said firmly. “Mrs. Reynolds, don’t dwell on it. Eat up, now, all of you. Floridians will need their strength in the days to come.”
“Oh, but Jarrett!” Nancy said, staring at him with round, concerned eyes. “As well as I know you and your abilities and connections, I think I might be afraid to be on that plantation of yours now—”
“I wouldn’t be,” Sheila interrupted, filling Jarrett’s ale glass anew. “Jarrett McKenzie is in no danger. None at all. He is needed by both sides, and his plantation is well defended.”
“Surely,” Tara said, blue eyes sharp on Sheila’s exotic dark ones, “Major Dade was well defended as well!”
“Major Dade was taken by surprise. Jarrett would not be,” Sheila insisted loyally.
“Do you doubt my ability to defend you, my dear?” Jarrett inquired politely, arching a brow to Tara.
She was silent for a moment. He could almost feel the tension crackling in the air between them. She smiled, answering carefully. “I doubt any one man’s ability against countless others, sir.”
Sheila sniffed and left the table. Nancy set down her fork. “I’m not feeling well,” she said quietly.
Tara was quickly up. “Come upstairs then, Nancy. Lie down for a few moments, and perhaps you’ll feel better.”
“Perhaps, yes.…”
Tara had not wanted to admit that she was not feeling so well herself. She offered Josh and Robert a radiant smile, and ignored Jarrett. “Excuse us, will you, gentlemen?” The men rose—Jarrett, bound by society, standing with the others. Tara felt his ebony gaze upon her, but she refused to look his way.
She led Nancy up the stairs and coaxed her into lying down with her head slightly raised on the downy white pillow. “Oh, this is much better!” Nancy murmured. Then she smiled after a moment, watching Tara. “So he came home with a wife! Who would have imagined!” She laughed softly. “Not that he ever really stopped appreciating women, but … well, I had not imagined that he would care enough about one to marry her. He and Lisa were both so young when they married, so alike in a way.”
“What way?” Tara asked, sitting on the bed at Nancy’s side, pouncing on the information.
“Well, they were both in love with the house and the land, the river, and everything around them. It’s strange. Josh was with the army until he took a hard fall and hurt his back. I wanted to move back north, but Josh just loves this area. I mean, really, I do not wish to be indelicate, but the place was filled with women of the lowest, the lowest—”
“Whores?” Tara asked softly.
Nancy blushed. “Yes!” she exclaimed. “And the soldiers can be so rowdy … but Josh insisted that only by decent folk moving in could we make it a decent place. So, we’re trying. And the longer we’re here, the more I love it. I love the winters, I love the sun. The beautiful beaches and the sand, and sometimes, some of the lonely places are the most wonderful. I mean, sometimes, you’re so far away from society, you can forget all the rules. Why”—she paused, blushing furiously—“we’ve swum in the warm surf, buck naked, grown-ups! I was so afraid at first, but, oh! what a time to be telling you such things. I just wanted you to see the good … except now, of course, I’m a little frightened all over again. Some of the Seminoles are so articulate and polite! I’ve seen some of them when they’ve been taken prisoner, half starved, and they tore at my heart! But then again …” She broke off, shivering. “Oh, my God! What happened to Major Dade’s men was so—so wretchedly savage!”
Tara inhaled very deeply. She bit into her lower lip. Surely, things would be different now. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if they could stay here, in Tampa. At least she would be with Nancy and Josh—and the great expanse of the Gulf of Mexico would be at her back. They could sail away when danger approached.
“Poor Jarrett!” Nancy murmured. “He’s in such a difficult position. And now, of course, since Lisa’s death by Indians in the wilderness …”
“By the Indians?” Tara asked faintly.
“Oh! It was nothing like the trouble with Major Dade!” Nancy said quickly, sitting up. “I didn’t mean to alarm you. Jarrett hasn’t spoken to you about her? He can be so quiet on the subject, and yet you’re his wife now, so I simply assumed …”
Even as her voice trailed away, there was a sharp rap on the door.
Tara jumped up, staring at it. “Yes?” she demanded. Dear God in His Heaven, what a time for an interruption!
The door opened. Josh and Jarrett stood there. “We’ve a need to get home, Nancy,” Josh told his wife. “You’re all right, now, aren’t you?”
“Yes, yes, of course!” Nancy murmured, rising quickly. She gave Tara a hug. “We’ve two little ones at home. I hope you get to see them before … well, I hope you get to see them very soon.”
Tara hugged her back, wishing she could swear at both the men and send them back downstairs until she had a chance to learn more from Nancy.
What had Nancy really been about to say? She hoped she’d be able to see her children before—what? Before she left? Before she was massacred? Like Jarrett’s first wife, his beloved Lisa?
“Tara McKenzie, it was our greatest pleasure,” Josh assured her, taking her delicate hand in his huge one. “Jarrett, we’ll have your supplies ready in the morning,” he said, shaking Jarrett’s hand as well. Nancy and Josh left. Jarrett closed the door behind them, then turned and leaned against it.
“What are we going to do now?” Tara asked, backing toward the bed to place some distance between them. She knew that the tone of her voice was shrill, but she couldn’t seem to help it. The vivid description Nancy had given of the Indian massacre remained very sharp in her mind. She suddenly felt that not even Tampa could be safe, and she wanted to board the ship again and sail out far into the Gulf of Mexico now, heading anywhere as long as it was far, far away from the Florida Territory.
It was the wrong question, she realized quickly—no matter how much sense it made for her to be asking it. His eyes narrowed sharply upon her.
“What do you mean, what are we going to do now?” he asked huskily.
She lifted her hands. “Well, we can’t go to that plantation of yours.”
“Why not?”
“Why not?” Tara breathed in astonishment.
“Why not?” he repeated, his tone growing angry.
“The Indians just massacred an entire troop of men. There’s a war on. Didn’t you hear all those horrible things—”
“There’s trouble, yes. There has been trouble for any Indian in Florida since the Europeans first sailed west.”
“The S
eminoles weren’t the ones who were just slaughtered so horribly.”
“Don’t kid yourself, Tara. Wars are fought by two sides. Wiley Thompson betrayed his promises and American treaties time and time again. I’ve seen white troops raid Indian villages and kill women and children. They aren’t doing anything new to us.”
Her eyes widened on him. Then she felt herself growing angrier. “Well, that’s just fine! But I never met a Seminole or Mikasuki in my entire life, and you seem to think that it will be justice for us to be massacred because of promises someone else broke to a bunch of savages—” She broke off with a gasp, stunned and frightened, because for a moment it had seemed that he would strike her. Send his palm cracking across her cheek. He’d stood near the door. Yet even as she had spoken, he had taken a silent step toward her.
He didn’t touch her. He seemed more taut than the strings on a fiddle, hard as rock, barely controlled, his arm raised, palm open. But his arm quickly fell. His lips were all but white and the whole of his body still seemed to threaten violence. She swallowed hard, standing still, staring at him.
“You’re not going to be massacred,” he said flatly at last.
“You’re right, McKenzie,” Tara said woodenly after a moment. “Because I’m not going with you inland.”
“What?” he demanded, the word stingingly sharp.
She stiffened. “I’m not—”
Within seconds he had come even closer to her. She started to back away, but he had moved too quickly. His hands were suddenly on her upper arms, and she was being drawn mercilessly toward him, meeting a tight-leashed and explosive fury in his black eyes.
Her knees felt weak. She should have risked the muddy waters of the Mississippi. She didn’t know which might prove more dangerous now, the savages or Jarrett McKenzie. Desperately she lashed out with words. “I’m not going inland to be murdered by savages.”
“Stop it! You’re not going to be murdered.”
“Those men—”
“You married me!” he roared at her with such passion it seemed her head began to spin.
“Yes, you were helping me! And I thank you, truly. But you don’t have to be responsible—”