Runaway

by Donna Cooner

  Jarrett shrugged. “You don’t know that, Jim. I can’t see why any of the Indians would have any disagreements with you and Jill.”

  “Maybe not,” Jim said. His pale green eyes lit on Jarrett. “Maybe not, but I sure felt sometimes like we were being watched. I’d hear a rustling in the palms now and then, and I’m certain you heard it, too, though you never let on. Indians were watching us all the while. What might have happened if you weren’t with us isn’t nice to think about.”

  “There was no danger out there,” Jarrett said. “I’m certain.”

  “You think it was your brother’s men, watching over us?” Jim asked.

  Jarrett nodded. “Yes, that’s what I think,” he said with a smile. “Come on, let’s finish this! I’ll bet Mrs. Conolly will have something on for dinner far superior to the straggly rabbits I’ve been catching along the way.”

  “And her muffins are going to be a heap better than those hard ones Ma packed!” came a cry from one of the wagons. Jarrett eased around, a hand on the back of his saddle. Caleb, five now, a skinny little ragamuffin with his mother’s light eyes, straight platinum hair, and never-say-die spirit, leaned out of the wagon, grinning at all of them.

  “Don’t you go insulting my muffins, young man!” Jill called back to him, but she was smiling too. Jarrett was startled by the sudden stab of envy he felt. Jim and Jill had worked hard, right to the bone, to give their family a good home. They had raised a real nice passel of kids, and every one of the children had been polite and cooperative, working hard along the way as well.

  Caleb and Josh, though, with their identical urchin faces, had always been Jarrett’s favorites, though he tried not to let on. It was because they were the youngest, maybe. The closest to what his own child might have been, had she lived. He felt his heart beat a little harder. He’d wanted children, but at the time he’d barely felt the loss.

  He’d been grieving for Lisa.

  “I’m so sorry we took you away from your new bride, Jarrett,” Jill said, studying him. “She must be very upset. Oh, not with Cimarron—Cimarron is beautiful. But I’m sure she must not be happy there alone.”

  “I’ll be back soon enough,” Jarrett told Jill.

  “Come on,” Jim told his wife. “Let’s get in. Then Jarrett can get some rest and start home.”

  “Right, let’s get the wagons moving again,” Jill agreed, and the two turned back, Jim taking the lead wagon this time, Jill heading toward the second.

  Jarrett let them both go by and stood still for a minute. They’d come to one of the military log trails, so it would be easier going on the way in.

  He listened and didn’t hear a thing. They’d left him, he thought. Jim had been right—there’d been a Seminole escort along with them most of the way.

  He was anxious to return home again, but rather than returning immediately he thought he would take the time to go and visit with his stepmother, his brother, and his brother’s family. He wondered for a minute if it was his own reputation, James’s determination—or Mary’s insistence that nothing should ever happen to him—that kept him from the dangers that threatened others.

  He might never know.

  There was a crowd to greet them as their wagon came into Tampa. Tyler Argosy rode out with other men to help take some of the load off the Pattersons. With the family all offering him their thanks once again, the Pattersons then moved on to such luxuries as baths and good hot meals, and Jarrett found himself in the pub room of Mrs. Conolly’s, drinking with Tyler, and learning that they were in for a good hard war with the Seminoles. General Clinch, who had expected to be packing the Seminoles west, had wound up in battle with them, unaware of what had befallen Dade. More men had been wounded and killed. Word had come from Jacksonville that a farm had been attacked just south of the city, the farmer killed, and his wife scalped and left for dead. Minus a patch of hair, however, she had survived and had described in vivid detail all the Indians who had attacked her. Fear, bitterness, and hatred were spreading faster than the plague. It seemed that Tyler could go on and on, telling him about one disastrous occasion after the next.

  “You might want to have a few words with James,” Tyler warned Jarrett gravely, striking a match against the stone of the fireplace to light his pipe. “Pretty soon there isn’t going to be a white man left who won’t shoot first and ask questions later.”

  Despite his own feelings of illness and anger over the bloody Indian attacks, Jarrett felt defensive on his brother’s behalf.

  “You know James didn’t kill anyone, but he’s told me right out that he can’t condemn the warriors who do, not after the way they’ve been treated.”

  Tyler chewed on his pipe. “The white men want the Indians out. It’s that simple.”

  “Some of them will never go. And they’ve got miles and miles of swamp to retreat into, Tyler, you know that.”

  “President Andy Jackson is determined to round them all up.”

  “Then he’s going to have a long, long war on his hands.”

  Tyler nodded for a minute, then said softly, “Give James my warnings, will you?”

  Jarrett nodded. Tyler stood. He set a hand on Jarrett’s shoulder. “Thanks for bringing in the Pattersons. It must have cost you one hell of a lot to leave home. I know that I’d about have died before managing to do so—under the circumstances.”

  Jarrett arched a brow at him.

  “Your wife?”

  “She’ll be there when I get back,” Jarrett said. She’d better be. They had a lot to settle.

  Tyler grinned. “It still had to be damned hard to leave.”

  “It was,” Jarrett agreed frankly.

  “The boys are still smitten,” Tyler said. “Why, they all but think you’ve gotten yourself a fairy princess. Tell her that if she ever needs—”

  “Tyler, go away before I start wondering just what you’re getting at, and if I should be trying to flatten you to the wall!”

  Tyler laughed, lifting his hands. “I’m going. It’s just that if she ever needs anything—”

  “Go, Tyler.”

  Tyler saluted him sharply, grinned again, and left. Jarrett sat sipping on the shot glass of whiskey before him. He closed his eyes. He was tired. He hadn’t slept much during the trip; he’d spent his nights listening. When he had managed to sleep, he’d been tormented by dreams. Seeing her face. Almost feeling the long tangle of sun-gold hair around him. Staring into the incredible blue of her eyes, reaching out.

  Only, she’d be running again. Running and running. And he’d be trying so hard to catch up with her, reach her, but no matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t quite reach her. And yet, the closer he came to her, the greater he knew her danger to be. She was running into it, away from him, and into the darkness and shadows of an unknown danger.

  He swallowed down the last of his drink. He was damned anxious to get home. He had to have some sleep, but at the crack of dawn he’d be on his way. She’d be waiting. She’d damned well better be waiting.

  He’d taken a small room upstairs, and what with the Pattersons and other folks heading in, he was lucky to have it to himself—much as he loved the kids, he wasn’t up to sleeping with a pack of them snoring in his bed. He was so trail worn that he’d also ordered a hot bath, and it was while he was leaning back in it, his eyes closed, that he became aware that he wasn’t alone in his room after all. Half opening an eye he saw Sheila standing over him, her lips curved in a pretty smile, the sparkle in her eyes downright lewd. She meant to surprise him with a dive right into the tub, but his eyes shot open wide, and he caught her wrists when she reached for the side of the tub.

  “Jarrett!” she protested with a pout.

  He sighed. “Sheila—”

  “I’m not a child anymore,” she protested. He liked Sheila, but even in his wildest days he had kept his distance from her. First because she had been too young, and second because she was as tenacious as a damned octopus with eight tentacles.

  “I�
��m a married man,” he told her.

  She sniffed. “I never said you had to marry me. I won’t marry any man, white, red, or black. I want to make you happy.”

  “I’m already ecstatic,” he told her.

  She pouted again, kneeling down by the tub. She was wearing only a thin white shift and her dusky skin was smooth, the peaks of her breasts dark rouge beneath the flimsy fabric, and she was definitely a grown woman now, erotic and seductive. She fluttered her long lashes at him and stared at him with her tilted eyes.

  “You never meant to come with a wife; she is trouble. She is something you have somehow acquired, and I don’t care at all that you have her.”

  He arched a brow at her. Sheila wrinkled her nose. “She’s white like marble, cold like marble. She doesn’t love you. She’s your duty—I am trying to be your pleasure.”

  He had to smile, setting a hand on her head. “Sheila—she is beautiful like marble, but in one matter you are gravely mistaken. She isn’t cold. She’s hot like fire. And she gives me great pleasure.”

  Sheila stood with great annoyance. She sniffed again. “Fine, McKenzie. When she betrays you, remember that I am the woman you should want!”

  With a wicked toss of her head she left him.

  His bath had grown cold. For a moment he wondered if he wasn’t half mad. She doesn’t love you, Sheila had said. And that was damned true. It had been a long ride here; his world was ripping apart with anguishing ease. He’d spent enough nights alone. He should have taken Sheila’s “pleasure” for just that.

  But he didn’t want Sheila. He didn’t seem to want anyone else at the moment. He could still remember her eyes in the shadows, hauntingly big, so darkly blue. Almost naked when she had asked him where he had slept. Her voice, just touched with a hint of anguish.

  She’d been very accommodating that night. Trying to get him to stay? He still wondered if that might not have had something to do with her passion. But then again, he didn’t really care. As long as he could go home, hold her, touch her, touch that passion again.

  His bathwater was cold.

  He rose from it, toweled dry, and climbed into his bed, alone.

  By dawn he and Charlemagne were on the way home. Maybe he would stop by the plantation first. He didn’t know quite why—maybe it was his dream—but he was anxious to make sure that she was all right.

  That she was there, waiting for him. Right where she’d damned well better be!

  Tara was glad she had befriended Peter. She had no difficulty cajoling the boy into saddling her a horse, a pretty gray mare called Celine.

  Nor was she any fool. She packed an extra cape for the journey, in case the weather grew cold or rainy. She slipped into the kitchen as she prepared to leave, packing herself a canteen of water, some dried beef, biscuits, and cheese. If it took her longer to get where she wanted to be than she expected, she’d still be all right.

  When she started to ride, she pretended not to see the various men who were at their points, guarding the plantation—and surely keeping watch over her. She spent some time riding, working with the mare, keeping her field of travel to the docks, to the trees, near the house, and in the same circle again. She waited until she was certain no one would expect anything from her and then she slipped onto one of the trails through the pines that led from the back of the manicured lawn and deeper into the interior.

  She knew exactly where she was going, she was certain. Jeeves had shown her just where Robert’s plantation lay. And it couldn’t be more than forty-five minutes’ ride away.

  Maybe an hour.

  She had a good sense of direction, and she was an excellent rider. She and the mare did very well, right from the start.

  The problem seemed to be with the trail. At first it looked so well traveled! Pine needles lay on the ground, great branches rose high above her. The ground was very dry.

  Then the trail seemed to become swallowed up in itself and the terrain began to change. The mare stumbled, and Tara realized that she was leaving the pine trees behind—along with the hard ground. She had been absolutely convinced that it could not be possible to become lost—Robert’s property should have been straight through the forest of pines from Cimarron. But she wasn’t emerging from a field of pines onto another nearly manicured plantation-house lawn. In fact, she was no longer in a field of pines. The hard ground had given way to marsh. She’d entered into swampland. The mare was wallowing deeper and deeper into the mud.

  Tara reined in, trying very hard to get her bearings and to remain calm. She had only to turn around and retrace her own trail. She wouldn’t reach Robert’s, and she wouldn’t discover the answers to any of her questions, but at least she’d be safe back home.

  The sudden call of a bird caused her to cry out with surprise. She admonished herself in silence, feeling like a fool. It didn’t matter that she had cried out or made a fool of herself—there was no one to see or hear her.

  She took a deep breath and looked around. Across the way the ground seemed firmer. She thought that the trees growing there were cypress. The foliage remained dense, and it looked like a green shadow-land, but she was certain that it wasn’t so marshy.

  She paused in her confusion for a moment, looking around her. She couldn’t stay; she needed to move on quickly. And she was growing uneasy with her surroundings. And still, the very surroundings she feared were beautiful. The sun filtered through the green canopy, and its touch was warm, though the day had remained cool. Ahead of her, in a spray of striking color against the dark green and earth tones of the copse, was a patch of wildflowers, beautiful wild orchids. She narrowed her eyes.

  She didn’t dare just remain here, staring about! she warned herself. But then again, perhaps she shouldn’t do anything. She should just give the mare her head, and the horse would take her home. Surely the mare was well fed and well tended and would know her way back to the stable.

  But the mare just stood, apparently confused herself in the muck beneath her hoofs.

  So much for beautiful surroundings. They could be deadly. She had heard there was quicksand in Florida marshes. The canopy of trees and beautiful orchids might well be a shield for a deadly patch of sucking mud. A prickling feeling at her nape warned Tara that she was on dangerous ground—the muck, she saw, gave way to a narrow canal. There were downed branches and logs, low-flung branches.

  A sudden movement almost caused her to cry out again, but she caught the sound, and for a moment was simply awed by the sight of the huge white bird that stood still in the shallow water, then suddenly took flight. A crane, she thought, magnificent here in the wild. There were more birds. Small white egrets, moving daintily by the water’s edge with their stilted little walk.

  If there were cranes and egrets, there might very well be things that ate cranes and egrets. Like alligators.

  And other awful things.

  Indians.

  Her heart was racing and she fought for calm. “We’ve got to turn around, girl,” she told the mare. “We’ve got to start back!”

  She turned the mare, nearly being thrown as the horse’s rear hoof sank into the mud.

  The idea that there might be quicksand returned to her. She couldn’t panic, she told herself, but she had to get the horse moving.

  “Crawl out of it!” she commanded the horse, and in a minute they were on firmer ground, the canal had disappeared from sight, and she thought that she was on some kind of a trail, moving onto higher ground. She nudged the mare’s sides, still reassuring the animal at a walk, but making it a faster one. She was just beginning to congratulate herself on having begun to find her way out when she reined in hard, terror creating a wall of ice around her heart.

  She had heard nothing, and she was all but surrounded.

  One of them stood dead center in the trail before her. He was copper in color, his hair pitch black. His leggings were as red as blood, and his cotton shirt was adorned with numerous silver ornaments. He wore a fabric headdress adorned with a wi
de variety of feathers and caught up with a silver ornament as well. Soft-skin boots covered the Indian’s feet, perhaps accounting for the fact that he had come upon her so silently.

  A sash about his waist created a sheath for his sword. His rifle was in his hands. A long-bladed knife was secured with leather straps to his calf.

  He made a motion with his hand, and suddenly several warriors fell from the trees like leaves in a northern winter. Some of them were dressed similarly to the first. Some were naked from the waist up, some were painted, some were not.

  Tara screamed instinctively. As the Indians approached her she begin to kick and lash out. To her amazement she caught the first brave right in the chin with her foot. He fell back, rubbing his jaw. She kneed the mare sharply and the horse snorted and neighed and reared high. Tara held her seat. The mare plunged forward, but the Indians were too numerous, all throwing themselves at the mare’s neck, bridle, and haunches. Fighting wildly, Tara nevertheless found herself dragged to the ground. Choking, gasping, swearing, flailing, she continued to fight. Someone caught hold of her arms. Someone else straddled her. She started to scream again in wild panic, but then the sound of a shot filled the air and everyone went dead still.

  She heard something snapped out in a language she couldn’t understand. The Indian atop her rose; the one who held her arms released them.

  Stunned, Tara lay still. Then she realized she was free and leapt to her feet.

  Another Indian had arrived, this one on a handsome bay horse. He was in navy breeches with doeskin boots that covered his calves to his knees. His shirt was colorful, crafted in horizontal line after horizontal line of different fabrics. It lay open at the throat, one as coppery as any she had seen yet. Her eyes rose to his. An uneasy feeling swept over her, almost as if she knew him, as if she had seen him in some dream or nightmare. He was staring at her, slowly assessing her, looking her up and down. She realized suddenly that he was an Indian with blue eyes, that he must have white blood in him. Which didn’t seem to matter. He had raised a hand to beckon her to him.