Gradually, the rope relaxed. Luke wiggled and shrugged his shoulders. The sunset faded, and the rope sagged downward. It continued to slide over the blood and sweat on his chest. He renewed his frantic prayers and fought the bindings.
The rope piled around his waistband. His chest was free. By working his tied hands around to the side and pushing downward, he made the coils of rope slip over his midsection to his thighs—to his knees—to his bare feet. Elated, he stepped out of the rope and laughed.
“Thank you, Holy Father!” he shouted heavenward. He ran to the horse with his hands still tied. “Whoa—it’s all right,” he murmured to the jumpy horse.
Luke untied the reins and walked away—leading the horse with bound hands up on one shoulder. He broke into a weary, awkward jog and followed the faint horse tracks. Sweat poured into his eyes, but he couldn’t wipe it away. He had no plan. He only knew he must follow Jesse, and get there before complete darkness settled in.
Halfway across the wide-open, damp land, filled with shadowy cabbage hammocks, he sensed something behind him. He whirled around in the enshrouding dusk. Wiley’s young mare came at a trot, saddle bags flapping against her sweat-stained sides. The big gray threw up its head and whinnied, urging the muddy survivor closer. The black horse came to a stop beside Luke, a jagged gash on her withers. He grabbed the reins.
“Knife, got to be a knife!”
He worked his bound hands through the leather saddlebags. In the second one, a knife was stashed. He laughed, thanked God, and wiggled the sharp blade out of the sheath. He twisted it around so he could hold it in his fingers and saw at the bindings. The old hemp frayed.
The dry rope broke—he was free.
“Praise you, Lord!” He rubbed his raw, bleeding wrists and stuck the sheathed knife inside the waistband of his pants. After tying the black horse to the gray’s saddle, Luke adjusted the stirrups, stepped into the saddle, and rode at a gallop. He pushed the horse until he got close to the clearing.
He brought the two horses to a halt, slid to the ground, tied both to a tree, and limped through the shadowed pines leading to the back of the cabin. He soon reached the point where he could see the cabin and barn, barely discernible in the growing darkness. Raised voices caused him to break into a sprint. He covered the distance to the rear of the cabin and came alongside the right side of the building. As he crouched out of sight, he heard Samuel’s slurred voice coming from inside the cabin.
“Let her go. There’s no need to take her. You got the slave you wanted, now leave Ella Dessa here with her children.” The door stood wide open. The lantern’s yellowed glow lit patches of the narrow porch. The light revealed Samuel’s discarded whip, duplicating a snake’s coils.
“I think you better shut up, one-handed man,” Jesse said. “You want the sweet children to see their pappy drilled with a bullet? Sit, man, before you faint. You’re dripping blood.” The slave catcher chuckled. “Too bad you didn’t die.”
“Samuel, watch the children.” Ella’s plea was heartbreaking.
Jesse chuckled. “He can’t take care of himself. But do as she says and don’t come after us. Because if you do, I’ll put a bullet through her freckled face and unattractive neck. Your actions will determine if she lives or dies. I’ll send her back to you—later. Stay on the bed. I’m taking the lantern. Don’t budge or little wife will die.”
Luke heard faint sobs coming from the loft. In anger, his fingers plowed the gritty sand.
Footsteps on the porch and the bouncing light meant Jesse stepped outside.
As the door bumped shut, Luke heard Ella whimper in pain. He crouched and crept forward until he reached the side of the porch. He crawled in the dirt, trying to see through the cracks between the planks and spot Jesse’s boots. In the light slanting through the gaps, he saw Wolf stretched flat on his stomach in the sand. The dog’s head was on his paws, but his one eye gazed upward.
When Luke reached the end of the porch and peered around the corner, he saw Jesse set the lantern on the lowest step. The man waved a pistol at Ella and shoved her toward his horse tied to a small oak, fifteen feet from the porch.
Her light-colored hair flowed around her shoulders and to her hips. It caught the lantern’s light and shimmered. Jesse prodded her with the pistol, but her chin stayed high in defiance. She wasn’t cowering.
Luke smiled. He admired her spunk, but his smile vanished when Jesse jerked her toward him. He wrapped his gun arm around her and crushed her mouth with his. But a strangled yelp came from him, and he slapped her.
“You bit me!”
With the silence of a panther, Luke bounded upright. His naked feet made no noise on the cool sand. He hit Jesse in the back of the knees, tackling him and overpowering the man with his heavier weight and size. He was aware of Ella falling, knocked sideways.
He grabbed Jesse’s arms, pushed him face down, and wrestled the handgun from his grasp. Within seconds, he bounded to his feet.
Jesse rolled to his side and swore.
“Stand.” Luke pointed the gun at the man’s heaving chest.
Unhurried, Jesse reached for his squashed hat and stood. In the flicker of the lantern, his chestnut-brown eyes reflected disgust.
Filthy words about heritage poured from Jesse’s mouth.
The vocabulary made Luke grind his teeth, but he didn’t respond to it. The gun in his hand stayed steady. “If you move, I’ll kill you. Ella Dessa, stand up and come here.”
With a dazed expression, she stood and shoved tangled hair out of her face. A purplish-red spot marred her right cheek. Her blouse, ripped down the front, gaped open. The welted scars on her neck and over the swell of her left breast showed in stark contrast to the white skin below the tan line around her neck.
Jesse lunged for her.
But a streak of snarling fur bulleted into view. Wolf’s jaws clamped on Jesse’s upper right arm. The dog’s attack forced the man sideways, but the momentum of Jesse’s fall knocked Ella to the dirt.
Jesse shouted obscenities, jerked a knife from his boot, and stabbed the dog. Ella, hampered by her long skirt, tried to crawl away, only to have Jesse lift the knife into the air above her unprotected back.
There was a loud crack. Jesse’s shriek filled the night air. A snake-like strip of dark leather had ripped apart the knife-holding hand.
The blast of a gun accompanied it.
Jesse’s body fell on Ella, legs sprawled. The knife was gone—fingers gone—life gone.
Sobbing in hysterics, she struggled to extract herself from under his dead weight. “Get him … get him off!”
Luke shoved the body sideways and lifted Ella to her feet.
Her hands pressed against his chest. “I thought you died! He—he said hogs tore someone apart!”
“No. We’re all alive.”
“Ella Dessa?” Samuel stumbled into the lantern’s circle of light. “Are you all right?” Blood dripped from a bandage tied around his head and ran down his neck. The uncoiled whip trailed from his left hand to the porch steps.
“Yes, we’re all alive.” Luke made sure Ella stood steady on her feet. Blood from his rope burns now splotched her torn blouse. He felt her fingers dig into his bare arms.
She backed away, the shock in her eyes lessening as the seconds ticked by.
“Go to your young ones. They need to see you’re safe,” he said.
She gathered her dirty skirt and went up the steps, but paused long enough to reach out and cup her hand against Samuel’s left cheek.
“Thank you.” Her fingertips lingered, and then she slipped into the cabin.
“Luke, how bad are you hurt?” Samuel’s whip dropped to the porch, and he clung to a porch support with both hands. His hoarse voice revealed weakness.
“Battered up, but I’ll survive. You?”
“Not good,” he whispered. “I got huge regrets. I wish … I wish I had wrapped the whip around that man’s neck and took off his head, instead of his hand!”
&nbs
p; “I believe you could’ve.”
The rope marks and scrapes on Luke’s upper body stung. His feet burned like fire from the spears of cactus driven deep into the soles, and his bruised lungs refused to draw a full breath.
“What do we do with him?” Samuel asked.
“I’ll take care of it. I don’t think you can walk very far. By the way, remarkable aim with that whip.” He shoved Jesse’s pistol into his waistband. “I’ve a grave to dig and will use a horse to drag his body to it so we don’t have to carry it. But right now, I have a dog to tend to.”
With an uncontrolled groan of pain, Luke struggled to lift the limp, bleeding dog in his arms. He stared straight ahead and walked to the barn, but it wasn’t the dog’s fur he felt brushing his face, it was Ella’s soft, sun-scented hair. God, I’ve killed a man—a white man—a low-down snake of a man, and I don’t regret it! I’ve no feelings about it, but this other feeling ... it’s going to kill me.
Chapter 28
Monday, March 13, 1848
Though the sun wasn’t up, Ella’s eyes flew open. Her body still felt sore, and bad dreams had plagued her for two nights. She kept jerking awake to the sensation of Jesse’s long-fingered hands unpinning her hair. His nasty laugh echoed through her senses, and she could hear the sound of her blouse ripping.
And the worst was, she knew her children heard the dreadful exchange inside and outside the cabin. Near bedtime, they still whimpered to be held. Darkness shook their bravery.
Samuel slept beside her in the bed. Ella didn’t have the heart to ask him to stay in the barn or suggest he make a bed on the drafty floor each night. His presence and even the task of changing the dressing on his head wound comforted her. It reminded her they had survived the episode of human brutality.
Time would put the horror behind them.
Ella stared at the underside of the roof. She still felt Jesse’s hand hitting her. She wondered why she failed to pull the concealed knife from her skirt pocket. Would she have been capable of stabbing him?
Samuel mumbled in his sleep and rolled toward her. His left knee pressed against her thigh, and brought a rush of heat to her cheeks, but she didn’t jerk away. Through the material of her long nightgown, she relished the warmth of his presence. But tears came easy. Thoughts of Jim wrapping his arms around her in the mornings and murmuring her name surrounded her with pure physical longing and lonesomeness.
Oh, Jim, I miss you so!
With the constant hazards and chores surrounding them, she felt her grief over Jim’s death had faded into the shadows—not allowed to expose itself. And now she was wed to his brother. But, it was comforting to remember the past, when Samuel was her constant companion. Their relationship had been relaxed, neither one of them having to pretend.
Her fingers gripped the top edges of the two quilts draped over their bodies. Their weight restored familiarity to the beginning of another day. Her broken-nailed fingertips traced the line of threadwork—a remembrance of past mountain friends who helped with the quilting. A contact with old memories. A perfect treasure.
But when would their new life be a treasure? Danger continued to tighten its sinews around them.
Ella pulled one arm out from under the covers and extended her hand toward the ceiling, her fingers splayed and reaching.
Dear Lord, hear me! Please! I want to thank you for protection. You spared our lives one more time! I cain’t go on without you. Please, stay close.
As she braced herself for the rush of cold air, she lifted the quilts and slipped off the sagging bed. She snatched up a faded brown dress and dropped its long length over her head, and then tugged the nightgown off her shoulders. Her arms slipped into the bodice of the dress, while her feet kicked aside the nightgown. Her fingers fumbled with the buttons.
With her gown hung on a peg and boots on her feet, she drew a thick wool shawl about her shoulders. She stooped to stir the fire to life. Tiny flames responded to the hunks of moss she wedged between the coals. A layer of oak sticks and slivers of pine fed the smoky flames.
A rustling movement told her Samuel sat up.
“Good mornin’,” she whispered.
With a groan, he laid his hand against the padded bandage on the side of his head. He wore one of Jim’s loose muslin nightshirts. He squinted at the faint hints of daylight coming through the cracks in the window’s shutter and laid back down.
“Another quiet night?” he muttered.
“Yes.” She laid aside a stick and stood. Her loose hair fell about her shoulders and back. “God keeps givin’ us a new day—another day toward recovery for you.”
“Thank you for sharing your bed the last two nights. I think the barn would’ve been the end of me.”
“I hope the pain will soon stop.”
“The throb has lessened.”
She glanced toward the quiet loft. “I’m slippin’ outside for a moment.”
“Take the gun. Be watchful.”
“I will, but I’m sure Luke is already hiking the edge of the woods.”
Darkened splotches still showed on the porch, where Samuel had lain and bled three days ago. She stared at the stains. I could’ve lost my best childhood friend. With a shudder, she went down the steps and headed for the outhouse.
A few minutes later, Ella came back to the porch, leaned the long-barreled gun against the wall, and lifted a wooden bucket. She meant to drop it in the barrel of water, but the cracking of a twig made her whirl around.
The bucket banged her knees. “Oh!”
“I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“I think we’re all jumpy.” She set the bucket down.
Small traces of fresh blood stained the front of Luke’s shirt. His rope burns and scabs weren’t healed, and the shirt hung loose about his hips, much like the Seminoles wore them.
He placed a rolled bundle on the porch. “The water-filled sinkhole is good. Not so many trips needed for river water.”
“Hmm, I guess I never seen sech a wide-mouthed well.”
“It’s a flow of some sort. It comes up and stays. It’s steady.” He rolled his shoulders and grimaced. “My back and arms still hurt from being pulled off the horse. Feel like I rolled down a rocky mountain.”
“Tell me.”
“No. It’s best … left unsaid.”
He came up the steps, took the bucket, and pushed it down into the barrel. She tugged her shawl tighter about her hunched shoulders.
His amber eyes searched her face as he set the full pail by the door. “You didn’t sleep?”
She shook her head. “No. Still havin’ dreams—awful ones. Tell me what happened to you,” she whispered. “I want to know.”
He avoided her gaze.
“Wiley died by crazed hawgs?”
“Yes—if you must know. The whole horde vented their short tempers on his fat body. I heard that type of thing happens but never saw it. He didn’t have a chance to pull a knife.”
She shuddered. “That reminds me. I have your knife.” She took it from her apron pocket and held it out, blade down. “Just so you know—I planned to stab Jesse once I got him away from the cabin and the children.” She met his shocked gaze. Her lips quivered and a sob caught in her throat. “I—I decided to do whatever it took … to save my babies.”
Luke slipped the knife under a rope he wore around his waist and changed the subject. “I could use a swim in the river, so I’ll be gone for a short while. It might soften the scabs on my back.”
“Isn’t it a mite cool for swimmin’?”
“I think I’ll enjoy it.” He gave her a rare smile.
“Yes. I wish I could build a cabin beside the river an’ plant myself like a tree. Dig my roots in. I’d like to sit an’ watch the water flow past. Never get up. Peace—that’s what the river represents, calmness of the soul, body, an’ mind.”
“Gators would eat you alive.”
“Hmm, no—mosquitoes would.”
He chuckled. “You might think you
want to sit by the river. But the river floods … goes high up on the trees during summer storms and spreads wide. Come a bad storm, we might not be able to ride the trail to it, and gators would be swimming around you.”
“Well, you sure can spoil a nice idea!”
“This is as close as it gets to peace—for me. I live with the risk I’ll be captured any day. But I can’t let worry rob me of inner peace.”
She took a ragged breath. Luke’s words hit her hard. Is that it, God? Is it me? Have I lost my right to Your peace?
“Luke, won’t you let me tend to your rope burns?”
“No. They’re healing, creating new scars. I’m sore and stiff. Like I said, the river will feel good.” He shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t break anything.”
“How’s Wolf today?”
“The wound to his front shoulder is improving. He’s moving around in the barn. This morning, I cleaned the cut running down his back leg. It’s weeping fluid where I sewed it with sinew.”
“Infection?”
“Perhaps, but he’s licking it. That’s the best medicine. We’ll wait and see. He seems to like it in the barn, and Amos keeps checking on him. Plus, I saw Hannah go in there yesterday with your biscuits in hand.”
“Oh, that’s where the biscuits went!”
He grinned and reached for the bundle on the porch. “Thought I’d bring this to you. I ripped the front jerking it over my head the other day.”
“I’ll mend and wash it.” She rolled it back in a ball and held it to her chest, along with the corners of the shawl.
Luke sighed. “I laid awake last night, thinking how to prepare for leaving at a moment’s notice.”
The door opened, and Samuel stood with one hand on the door frame.
“It’s good to see you on your feet,” Luke said, grinning.
Samuel’s eyes glinted with a hint of his quick humor. “Thanks for helping me the other night—even though you were in bad shape. It’s hard to crawl with a stub for a hand.” He cleared his throat. “On a serious note—what do we do if someone asks if we’ve seen those men?”
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