by Donna Cooner
“While I what?”
“I will start doing as I damned well choose!” she assured him.
“You choose to keep running. You will not do it!”
She inhaled sharply. “Me!” she accused him. “Well, you cannot move forward, so it seems. You are living in the past with a dead woman, for all that I can—”
She broke off, a strangled gasp escaping her, for he was suddenly across the room, and she was in his merciless grip, her feet off the floor. A second later she was flung down upon the bed and she struggled up, desperately searching for words as she met his now icy gaze.
“I don’t wish—”
“I don’t give a damn what you wish! You don’t want to be touched, but you do want the security of someone near, a body, flesh and blood, preferably well armed with gun and knife. I don’t need to force anything on you, Mrs. McKenzie, nor do I wish to do so. Yet, I hope you’ll remember the promises you made, and all the warnings I gave you before we married.”
“Threats?” she inquired breathlessly.
“Promises! To be a damned good wife.”
“I am trying,” she whispered.
“Trying to run!” he shot back quickly. “Afraid again, running again.”
“You make no effort to reassure me. If you would only explain to me—”
“Why should I explain anything to you when you refuse to tell me anything?”
“I haven’t dragged you into my life, forced you to live within my past and with whatever problems—”
“And since I know nothing about your problems, how could I possibly know if and when your past might catch up with the two of us?” he demanded heatedly.
She’d been about to answer in kind, but instead went dead still. She stared at him, eyes brilliant and wide. Dear God, she could never explain anything to him, not the way that he felt about her. He would never believe her.
“There’s a war on now,” she said at last.
“Not on these grounds!” he told her angrily. “Not on these grounds!” He walked to the bed. For a moment she expected some violence from him, but he stopped just at her side, staring down at her still.
“Whatever the hell else,” he warned her, “don’t leave this room. It is my room; you are my wife. And it is where you sleep.”
And with that he spun around and left her.
And it wasn’t until many hours later that she finally did sleep, miserably aware that though she was to sleep here in his room, he did not return to lie beside her.
Chapter 9
Coming home had been a far more tumultuous event than Jarrett had imagined it could be. What he and many others had dreaded for months—years, perhaps—had finally come to pass.
He had never intended to spend their one night in Tampa away from his wife’s side. But he’d been compelled to go into the fort, speak with the commanders, and then visit the one wounded, weary, heartsick soldier who had made it back from the Dade massacre, Ransome Clarke.
In bed, scarcely able to lift his head, Ransome had still greeted Jarrett warmly. The territory was as yet a small enough place that most of those who loved it—or were bound to serve it—eventually met, under some circumstance or another. He had entertained most of the military here at his home, and he came and went from port here so often that he was a regular. He’d met young Ransome Clarke several times.
Ransome told him how most of the officers had died in the first volley of fire from the Indians. The men had tried to form something of a line behind their downed horses and the scrub brush around them. The attack lasted several hours, but it had been a losing proposition for the white soldiers after the first shot was fired. When the battle ended Ransome had managed to pull himself into the bushes, out of sight. Then the Indians’ Negroes—many of them doubtless bitter against old masters—had come in to finish off the wounded men, mutilate their bodies, and scalp them.
The firsthand account of the attack was gut wrenching to the core, and when Ransome had finished speaking, Jarrett was silent for several minutes.
“You’ve got to take care,” Ransome told him earnestly. “They say that though Osceola was busy killing Wiley Thompson while Dade was being slaughtered, he was the mastermind behind the attack. They’ve burned down a few plantations already. You never know, Jarrett, you just never know. Those Indians, from what I understand, think more of you than of any other white man alive. But remember—old Charley Emathla is dead, and he was Creek-Seminole.”
“My land is neutral ground; Osceola gave me that promise himself.”
“What happens if Osceola loses power?” Ransome asked gravely.
Jarrett smiled. “I also have nearly a hundred people living and working at the plantation. And Robert is nearby with another fifty. And I’m damned well armed. I’m respected for my relationship with the tribes, but I think, as well, that it’s known Cimarron is well protected. At the moment I’ve got nothing to fear.”
“Pray God it continues that way!” Ransome said, his young face earnest again.
Clutching the young man’s hand Jarrett had asked if there was anything he could do for him. He’d left soon after, and made his way back to Mrs. Conolly’s, and then he’d found himself spending the rest of the night staring into the dying embers of the fire in the public room.
The world, his world, had really gone right to hell.
And he had brought a wife into the middle of it all.
An unhappy wife at that. One who looked at him as if he had dragged her into the very bowels of hell.
And one who fascinated him more now than ever, one who seemed to have wrapped some strange kind of delicate tendrils around his soul. Robert had been right—Jarrett had needed a wife. Now, he had acquired one. He had never imagined finding himself wedded to a mystery woman who didn’t intend to enlighten him in any way. Nor had he imagined how dismayed she would be when they reached his home. The accusation in her eyes after her dream aboard the Magda!
The fights that sprang up between them each time they talked now. The way that she fought him.…
The way that he fought himself, suffering the pains of the damned when he forced himself away from her.
Perhaps she had every right to her fears—and he hadn’t been able to swallow his pride enough to try to explain anything to her. They had come home to pictures of sheer horror, and all described in terrifying and vivid detail.
This morning he had awakened alone once again despite the fact that he had a beautiful and extraordinary new young wife. He had awakened at the crack of dawn, breakfasted quietly with Robert, and felt his friend’s silent reproach all the while. When Robert rode out, the roil of emotions in Jarrett’s heart and mind had sent him quickly to the stables. He’d called out to Peter that he needed no help and bridled his roan stallion, Charlemagne, himself. He’d eagerly leapt upon the spirited horse, riding bareback, feeling the movement of the animal, as his father had taught him. He’d been so eager to race with the wind, as if the wind could blow the cobwebs from his head and soothe the wildness within his soul.
He’d torn down the long, elegant drive of the plantation, then across his far-reaching fields, into lands that were still his, but nearly virgin, offering nothing more than horse trails through the wilderness. Stately oaks grew tall upon the hammocks here, with pale green moss wafting ethereally from them. Creeks and streams crisscrossed the hammocks, and wildflowers grew here and there in abundance. He’d barely noted the scenery. He’d known exactly where he was heading, to a hammock of pines where the tall branches shaded the earth, where wild orchids grew, where the ground was carpeted in soft needles from the trees, and where a slim bubbling brook of fresh water flowed through the quiet beauty of it all. It had been his favorite place since he had first bought his property. It was a stretch of land adjoining territory that had been ceded to the Seminoles in the treaty of 1821.
Even as they raced, Charlemagne seemed to know where they were riding in such a reckless hurry. The great horse slowed as they reached
the hammock, coming to a halt at the water. Jarrett slipped from the animal’s back and hunkered down beside the horse to douse his face in the cool water, to sip from it. He watched now as the water rippled and waved from his touch, distorting his image.
He closed his eyes for a minute, squinting them together tightly, wishing he could blink away all of the pain.
Closing his eyes was a mistake.
He heard the whoosh of air behind him just a second too late. Arms swept around his hunched shoulders, bringing him and his attacker flying into the water.
It was cold, damned cold. If he hadn’t been awake and wary when he had so suddenly been rushed, he was very much awake now. His blood raced through him in a wild fever to offset the cold. He leapt to his feet as quickly as possible, spinning around in the water to meet the combatant who had managed to take him so humiliatingly by surprise.
The man was already up, posed, knees slightly bent, feet wide apart, eyes sharp on Jarrett.
His Indian ancestry was quite obvious in the dead-straight hair that just fell past his shoulders and in the burnt bronze color of his face. His high black boots were European, as were his dark blue breeches. Even his colorful shirt, with full, bouffant sleeves, was of European style, one that had been adopted by many of his people.
Yet there his concession to white ways ended; a band of red cloth was tied around his forehead. Two eagle feathers rose from the band at the back of his head. A deer hide sheath at his calf carried a long knife, the type they were calling a “Bowie” knife in honor of the frontiersman. It was a wicked weapon. He was no youth, but a warrior in his prime, near Jarrett’s own height but for perhaps a half inch, and as muscled, taut, and sinewed as a man might be. His features were arresting and intriguing, with broad cheekbones, large wide eyes, clean, well-defined brows.
Startling, striking blue eyes.
Jarrett knew those eyes all too well, eyes that belonged to the Seminole Running Bear.
The warrior smiled suddenly and made a lunge for Jarrett, and Jarrett found himself pitching over again, hitting the ground hard. A grunt escaped him, and every defensive mechanism in him rose to the surface. He made it up again and this time charged the Indian, catching him dead in the belly with his shoulder and throwing them both down to the ground again. This time he was on top, and took advantage of the situation, straddling his attacker, trying to force the man’s hands down to the ground above him and pin his wrists. The Indian bucked, Jarrett went flying, but he returned quickly. A minute later they were interlocked tightly with one another in a wild contest of strength, each trying to wrestle the other to the ground, each determined on rising from the action the winner.
But the Indian suddenly slipped from Jarrett’s hold, walked five feet away, doubled over, and inhaled deeply, staring at Jarrett, a smile still on his face.
When he spoke today, he spoke in English—slightly accented with a southern drawl—the easy English of one who knew two languages equally well. “Damn, I thought I had you that time,” he said.
Jarrett, stretching his back to ease the soreness from it, inhaling on a gasp, arched a brow to him. “You damned near did, little brother,” he said. They both grinned, then they were silent for a second. Together they stepped forward, embracing, then pulled away to stare at one another.
“Damn, but it’s good to see you!” Jarrett said, his emotion rich in his voice.
“I’m glad you’re home. Who the hell would ever have thought it would come to this?” the Indian said, a note of rich sorrow in his voice.
The Indians called Jarrett’s half-brother Running Bear. He had been named James McKenzie at birth, and it was a name James retained with pride in addition to his Indian name, for he had loved his father, and he never pretended to anyone that it had been otherwise.
“It was always coming to this,” Jarrett said. “We were the blind ones, you and I. We didn’t want to see it. Tell me, when we met last, did you know all of Osceola’s plans?”
James shook his head. “Those who say that Osceola simply has a grudge against all white men are sadly mistaken. He would not include me in his plans, for he knows all too well that I have white blood—good white blood, in his opinion—and that my ties to you are close.”
“He’s got white blood himself,” Jarrett commented.
“You’ve known him a long time now,” James reminded him. “And as I said, you know that he does not simply despise all white men.”
“You’ve heard of the massacre?”
James shrugged unhappily. “Indeed, I’ve heard. But you must bear in mind, Wiley Thompson dealt badly with the Indians and you—”
“Major Dade did not.”
“Major Dade was a military man, and, brother, you will recall that white military men are quite capable of slaughtering Indian braves—and women and children—without a moment’s hesitation.”
Yes, he knew that well enough. Too often it was all-out war.
“If the whites would keep just one damned treaty—”
“James, there were so many men massacred! Ambushed. It was a brutal attack. You can’t think that the group who did it was right.”
“And the whites?” James asked.
Jarrett lifted his hands. “We both know,” Jarrett said harshly, “that whites have cruelly attacked Indian villages. We also know that many long to live in peace. You said that Osceola knew that all whites were not bad, and, James, of all men, you can perhaps turn some of the tide of absolute hatred against the whites—”
James interrupted him with a groan. “Of all men, Jarrett, you must know that I pray no harm comes to many a white man. Nowhere was there a greater man than our father, farseeing, giving, eternally granting all men their rights! But, Jarrett, you have to see it yourself. He was a rare man, and though there are surely good white men settling here, we have met so far with mostly the cruel and treacherous!”
A downed log lay near the water. Jarrett dragged his fingers through his hair and sat, staring out at the creek. Yes, there was a great deal that he had to see. He had been seeing it since he had been a very small boy.
Jarrett had been born in Charleston, South Carolina, the son of Irish immigrant parents. His grandfather held the title of Lord McKenzie in Cork, but as Jarrett’s father had been the seventh of eight sons born to the lord, life in Ireland on the McKenzie estate had seemed limited. Sean McKenzie had, at the age of fifteen, left the genteel poverty of his family’s home and come to America just in time to join in with the Rebels near the close of the American Revolution. When the fighting had ended, he had been on the outskirts of Charleston, and that was where he had stayed. A lot of it had to do with a girl—Geneva Tweed, the daughter of a very prosperous Carolinian merchant. Geneva, an only child with a will of her own and a fascinating beauty, had stood him quite a merry chase, warning Sean that she would have nothing serious to do with a cast-off Irishman. But Sean had been determined, and in time Geneva had been won. But soon after the marriage Geneva caught yellow fever. Sean nursed her through it, somehow evading the fever himself. Geneva’s health was never the same. The vivacious beauty became frail and delicate. Sean had always wanted land of his own, and the fur trade fascinated him. But he adored his wife, and due to her health he determined he would remain in Charleston and forget all such vague dreams.
The couple was childless for over a decade. Jarrett was born in 1802 to the great surprise and pleasure of his parents. But Geneva continued in frail health. A few months before Jarrett’s fifth birthday his still beautiful mother smiled at him, held him tight, and kissed his father good-bye. With her smile still curving her lips, her hands still upon her son, she breathed her last.
Sean McKenzie was disconsolate, and in such an abyss of pain that he nearly died himself of a broken heart. His father-in-law, bereft himself, made Sean get up and move on with his life. Sean wanted land. Great, endless acres of it. The fur trade with the Georgia Indians was making many men fabulously wealthy. The Americans were just beginning to deal wit
h the “Creeks” there, Creek Indians being those who lived along the creek.
The move was intriguing to young Jarrett.
There were times when he felt very much alone, since few white men lived among the Indians in those days. But Jarrett was a strong boy, both eager to learn and ready to defend himself. And his father, for the first time since his mother’s death, seemed to be growing content.
Jarrett discovered what only those close to the Creek Indians knew, and that was just how different the Indians were among themselves. There were many tribes, many peoples, many languages. He learned the Muskogee of the Creek and the Hitichi of the Mikasukis. He learned about their corn dances, about the “black” drink.
He learned to understand that the Creek “Confederation” itself was composed of such a variety of peoples because they’d been pushed to where they were—pushed by the continual encroachment of the whites.
On the day he turned six, Jarrett learned something else. He was to have a brother. His father explained that he had fallen in love with a lady named Mary McQueen, or Moon Shadow, an Indian lady of curious parentage herself. On her mother’s side she had white blood, being related to Peter McQueen, a white-Creek leader of the Upper Creeks. Her father had been a Seminole chief from the area around Pensacola in Florida. He had been an old-time Seminole, one of the “runaways” or “renegades” whose family had long claimed the area as home and had interbred with the all-but-obliterated original Indian clans of the peninsula.
Maybe because she was an Indian, part of this very different world, Jarrett had little difficulty in accepting Mary as his stepmother. Maybe it was just that Mary was young and very pretty, kind, and completely loving to Jarrett. Life was much better for Jarrett once he and his father and Mary made a home together in a pleasant log cabin among the People. It seemed that they took the best from both life-styles, enjoying white men’s luxuries and the Indian love of the earth and more basic spiritualism. White traders and those pressing ever farther west were constant visitors. The People were their family.