“You were?” Twila asked, her eyes widening. “How did you know…?”
“It’s quite a long story, and one that I’ll tell you later,” Joshua said.
He looked past her at the two young braves, whose faces were pale with guilt. He thought about Lavinia, wondering if he would ever hear the sweetness of her voice again, or her laughter. If she dies, he thought, those boys the same as killed her.
“Let’s just get Lavinia where she can be seen to,” Joshua said, putting the boys from his mind as best he could. “I just hope we be in time.”
“Where we goin’, Pappy?” Twila asked, looking ahead and into the darkness.
“To Mystic Island, tha’s where,” Joshua said. “And we’re almost there. The shaman at Mystic Island will care for Lavinia. He’ll make her well again. He’s de one who saved your pappy from de arrow wound.”
“You do seem well,” Twila said. “I thought you were dead. Massa Hiram said that you were.”
“Yep, I imagine tha’s what dat man thought,” Joshua said sarcastically. “But as you can see, I’se well.”
“How’d you get wounded, Pappy? By who?” Twila asked.
“It’s bes’ that I tells you later, Twila,” Joshua said thickly. “Lavinia is all tha’s important for now. We must get her to de shaman so that he can save her.”
Feeling eyes on her, Twila looked over her shoulder at the two young braves, who suddenly lowered their eyes again.
“Pappy, why did those two boys come with you and Chief Wolf Dancer while you were lookin’ for Dorey?” Twila asked, gazing at her father as he looked over his shoulder at her.
He saw that she would not rest until she knew why the boys were there, so he proceeded to tell her. “De boys stole her away and put her in a tree house.”
Twila gasped, looking over her shoulder again at the young braves, who continued to avoid her eyes by looking down at the floor of the canoe.
“A tree house,” Joshua repeated. “Dey built a house in a tree and took sweet Dorey there. They had planned to keep her there for a while.”
“Why would dey do dat?” Twila asked.
“Because dey were all confused in their heads, dat’s why,” Joshua grumbled. “But somehow she got herself free, and dat’s why we’re looking for her. Now hush, Twila. I must put my mind on this paddling and getting the canoe to de island.”
“I be quiet,” Twila said softly, oh, so glad that her pappy had found her and Lavinia.
But it saddened her that Dorey was still out in the swamp somewhere all alone, in danger.
Twila was afraid that no one would ever see sweet Dorey again.
“Twila,” Joshua said, breaking the silence this time. “I was gonna come for you and your mammy soon, but until now, I didn’t have enough strength to do dat. I’m glad you’s safely away from Hiram Price. You’s never goin dere again. I’ll go soon and rescue yore mammy from the tyrant, too.”
Twila suddenly broke into tears. “Pappy, you cain’t do that,” she sobbed. “You cain’t go for Mammy. She ain’t alive no more.”
Josuha flinched as though he had been shot. He froze. His heart seemed to have suddenly been wrenched from his chest. “Yore mammy…is…dead?” he gasped, then seeing Wolf Dancer coming up quickly behind him in the other canoe, he continued on toward the island.
“Massa Hiram killed Mammy,” Twila cried, then went on and told him how she had died, and why.
Joshua cursed beneath his breath, swearing that he would see to that evil man’s death.
“He’ll pay, Twila,” Joshua swore. “Daughter, he’ll pay for that sin against yore mammy. I’ll see to dat, personally.”
Twila wiped the tears from her eyes just as she saw a glow of orange in the sky. It came from the outdoor fire in the Seminole village, which burned high and bright.
She was a little afraid, for she had heard ghastly tales of what the red men did to people they hated. But she made herself remember that neither she nor her pappy had done anything against these Indians, to make the Seminole want to harm them.
In fact, she had came face-to-face with their chief and she believed him to be a man of kindness.
No. She wasn’t afraid, only anxious. She longed to see Lavinia awake and smiling again!
Oh, how badly she wanted to see Dorey!
Chapter Fourteen
Be mine, as I am yours,
Forever.
—Robert Graves
As soon as the canoes touched the shore of Mystic Island, Wolf Dancer gathered Lavinia in his arms and ran through the thick vegetation.
He couldn’t believe that the gods had crossed his path with hers in such a way. He had thought about her so often, and so badly wanted her to be his.
He knew her snakebite could be lethal, but he would not believe that he had just received her into his arms only to lose her to death’s grip. He had lost his precious bride to the jaws of an alligator after they’d spent only one night together as man and wife. He would not even consider losing this woman.
As soon as he reached the outskirts of the vil lage, Wolf Dancer took Lavinia to Shining Soul’s hut.
He hurried inside with his precious unconscious burden still snugly held against his powerful chest, his muscled arms holding her securely.
Joshua and Twila ran into the lodge behind Wolf Dancer, but stopped just inside the door when they saw Shining Soul rise to his feet.
“She is suffering from a snakebite,” Wolf Dancer explained. He gently placed Lavinia on a thick pallet of furs near the softly burning fire in the center of the room.
“What is her name?” Shining Soul asked as he reached for his bag of medicines, stopping only long enough to put on his magic owl hat. He would need all the magic he could conjure up this time, for the woman looked as though she might already be too near death to save.
“Lavinia,” Wolf Dancer said. “Her name is Lavinia Price. She is the mistress of the huge, pillared white plantation house that I told you about. The woman and her husband moved into it not so long ago.”
“If she has a husband, why did you not take her to him?” Shining Soul asked, casting Wolf Dancer a half glance as he positioned himself beside Lavinia. “Would not her husband have wanted to care for her?”
“Her husband no longer lives,” Wolf Dancer said thickly. “But were he still alive, I would still have brought her to you for your special medicines. I do not believe a white man’s medicine would be able to save her from such a bite as this. I have faith in you, only you, Shining Soul.”
“I will do as my magic allows me to do,” Shining Soul said, already preparing powdered sumac leavesand the root of the pallaganghy together in one of his wooden vials.
He poured some warm water into the mixture and stirred, then gently began applying the concoction to Lavinia’s open wound.
Not planning to leave the side of the woman anytime soon, Wolf Dancer sat down and folded his legs before him. He wanted to be there should she awaken, to make certain she was not afraid of her surroundings.
His eyes never left Lavinia as he watched for movement beneath her lids that might be a sign she was awakening. It was important for her to awaken soon, or she might not wake again, ever.
He worried when she continued to sleep soundly, and he noticed how pale she had become since the snakebite.
Although she was a white woman with golden hair and pale skin, when he had first seen her he had observed that she had been slightly tanned by the sun. Obviously she often worked outside beneath the sun in her garden of flowers.
He had noticed those brown dots across the bridge of her nose that he knew whites called “freckles.” He found them fascinating and thought they seemed to make Lavinia look more innocent and beautiful.
Joshua and Twila stood just inside the door. Joshua gently clasped Twila’s small hand.
“Pappy, why does that strange-looking Indian wear an owl on his head?” Twila whispered only loudly enough for her father to hear. “And look at hisstrange rob
e. It looks like something made by magic with drawings of things you only see in the sky.”
“As for the owl, I sees it as a magic owl,” Joshua whispered back as he leaned down closer to Twila’s ear.
He did not want to disturb the magic of the shaman, magic that had worked very well on Joshua himself.
“I was told by Wolf Dancer, when I asked him about the owl hat, that the owl is the Seminole symbol for a doctor,” Joshua explained. “Just watch him, Twila. You will see a man of infinite wisdom and patience. I have never felt a touch as gentle as Shining Soul’s. If anyone can save our Lavinia, he’s de one.”
“You do think Lavinia is going to live?” Twila asked, still seeing how quietly her mistress lay.
Twila’s eyes widened when she saw what the old shaman was applying to the wound. It looked like the chalk that she and Dorey had used when they played school.
Dorey. Tears sprang to Twila’s eyes to think she’d never see her best friend in the world again! She hated the thought of those two boys mistreating Dorey!
“Daughter, we bes’ leave now,” Joshua said, his eyes wide as he watched Shining Soul.
The shaman was cleaning the roots of reeds and mashing them into a pulp. He then placed the pulp on Lavinia’s wound to draw out foreign substances from it.
The sumac leaves and roots of the pallaganghywere taken in equal parts and crushed separately again until they were almost a powder.
These were mixed with sumac berries, then all of this was placed in a small pot in the flames of the lodge fire. The mixture would simmer until it was ready for use later.
Joshua knew that in time the shaman would also take another root called the ouissoucatcki and grind it into a thin powdery substance. Shining Soul had given it to Joshua to increase his strength, and he would give it to Lavinia when she was finally awake. He would place this mixture in warm water for her to drink.
“Do we have to go, Pappy?” Twila whined as she looked up into his dark eyes. “I’se so worried about Lavinia, I don’t think I could stand bein’ away from her.”
“We aren’t needed here, Twila. It’s bes’ that we go to my home and wait to hear how Lavinia is doin’,” Joshua said, already taking Twila by the hand and leading her outside.
“Pappy, you have a house here on Mystic Island?” Twila asked, her eyes wide as they walked away from the shaman’s lodge. “A house of yore very own?”
“Yes’m,” Joshua said proudly. “And it’s a mighty fine one, Twila. You’ll see. It’s a home like ours back at the plantation nevah was. I wished your mammy could be here to live in it with us.”
“And Dorey,” Twila said, sobbing. “Where is she, Pappy? Where can Dorey be? Those boys! They should be punished, that’s fo’ sure.”
“I’m certain they’re in a mighty bunch of trouble,” Joshua said, walking onward with Twila.
Inside the shaman’s lodge, Wolf Dancer continued to sit silently by as Shining Soul worked his magic on Lavinia. As he watched, he vowed that after Shining Soul made her well, Wolf Dancer would never let her go!
He doubted that she would want to return to the danger waiting for her back at the plantation. Its new owner was a man who had killed her husband in order to have her!
That man would never be allowed to get near her again.
Surely she would not want to go there after she discovered the truth about her husband’s death.
The only person she had left to care about was her daughter. And Dorey was lost in the swamp.
Lavinia was lying somewhere between life and death because of the young braves who had made plans to abduct a white child for their own entertainment. When he and Joshua and the boys had reached the tree house earlier that evening, they had found it empty. Somehow their prisoner had escaped.
He would make sure Running Bear and Deer Shadow understood the wrong they had done, but his main concern now was seeing that Lavinia was alright, and finding the lost child.
Tomorrow he would resume searching for the daughter named Dorey. He would make certain many canoes of warriors were sent out to hunt for her, and he would instruct some of these warriors to go on land and search there, too.
He did not want to think that Dorey might have been swallowed up by the treachery of the Everglades.
He would not think of that possibility. He would believe that the child would be found, just as he believed that his shaman would work a miracle on the child’s mother.
He sat quietly by as Shining Soul continued to minister to Lavinia’s wound. As he watched he was convinced that this woman was the loveliest on this earth, and she deserved far better than what life had thus far handed her.
She deserved to be happy.
She deserved to have her daughter with her again.
She deserved a husband who would never let her down, in any respect.
And she deserved to see the man who had killed her husband dead.
Wolf Dancer had assigned himself her protector, and he would not let her down.
Now if only she would survive to accept him as such!
Chapter Fifteen
There is a fullness of all things,
Even of sleep and of love.
—Homer
Dorey stood at the door of the garita. She had been awakened by a commotion in the village. Afraid that it might be something that would put her in danger, she had crept to the door and peered outside.
The moon had slid behind clouds just as she looked out, making it almost impossible to see.
But the glow from the huge outdoor fire had at least given her a view of a tall Indian carrying a woman to a lodge.
She had seen others, as well, but it was too dark to make anyone out.
She could only conclude that someone in the village had been injured, or had become ill.
Perhaps the hut the woman had been carried to was the home of the village doctor, or the wife of the man carrying her.
The one thing that puzzled Dorey was that when the Indian carried the woman past the huge fire, it had looked as though her skin and hair were pale.
But Dorey had quickly discounted that impression, for she knew, from having heard it said, that no whites were welcome at the Seminole village on Mystic Island.
That was what frightened her. When she made herself known to the inhabitants, which she knew she must do tomorrow, since she had no idea how to get back to her home, how would she be treated?
Would she be sent away with no guidance as to which way to go?
There were so many waterways through the swamp, she was afraid that one of them might lead her into even more dangerous territory than this Indian village. Was she going to die, alone and afraid, amid the Everglades?
Tears of regret filled her eyes. Why had she recklessly traveled so much farther than her mother ever allowed?
Dorey hung her head, wiped her eyes, and went back to hide inside the food hut again.
She curled up in the warm pelts and blankets that she had found in the garita. She gathered them all around her, shivering when she recalled that more than one mouse had come up and sniffed at the blankets while she was lying there.
She had to place a hand to her mouth to stifle a scream when she had seen a mouse dreadfully close to her face. When the moon was not hidden behind clouds, she had seen the mouse’s beady eyes staring into hers.
She had been so relieved when it lost interest in her and found its way into a storage bin of grain.
So tired, so displeased with herself and the predicament she found herself in, Dorey sighed.
She again closed her eyes and welcomed escape in the black void of sleep.
Not far away, in a hut where soft flames burned in the firepit, a snack of corn cakes was being eaten by Joshua and Twila. Twila sat beside her father, looking slowly around her.
“Pappy, this house the Seminole gave you is so nice, and you say it is yours for as long as you wish to remain on Mystic Island?” Twila crunched on a corn cake, filling the empty void in her bell
y. She had missed the evening meal when she and Lavinia had left the mansion so hurriedly to look for Dorey. “Chief Wolf Dancer is a kind man,” Joshua said. He stretched his long, lean legs out before him; the new buckskin breeches fit him snugly. “He took me to his shaman, who made me well, and he gave me this home and as much food and as many blankets as I want. They are all free, Twila. I doesn’t have to pay anything fo’ them. It’s like heaven, ain’t it, daughter?”
“Pure heaven,” Twila sighed, as she looked around her at a bed made of blankets and pelts, enough for her father to give her some for herself when they were ready to sleep.
There were other things of comfort, too: benches upon which to sit if a person so desired, and mats of various colors spread over the wood floor.
There were eating utensils, and jugs of water.
And there was even a bow and a quiver of arrows! That alone proved how much these people trusted and cared for her pappy!
“I still can’t believe that this is all yours, Pappy, for as long as you wish it to be,” Twila said. She swallowed her last bite of corn cake. “Can I stay with you? Can we be a family again? Or will it be forbidden? Will I be sent away? Will I have to return to that horrible plantation? With Dorey no longer there and Lavinia ill, perhaps too ill to return there herself, I want to stay here with you, Pappy.”
She shivered, then reached for a blanket and wrapped it around her shoulders. “If’n I return to that place where Massa Hiram is in charge of every-thin’, I don’t think I’ll last long, Pappy,” she murmured. “Without you and Lavinia there to protect me, I ’magine I’d not last for long. Massa Hiram sho’ nuff likes his whip and usin’ it on we poh slaves.”
She broke into hard tears. “Oh, Pappy, where is sweet Dorey?” she cried. “Where could she be? Those mean boys. They did this to our Dorey. They should be the ones at the end of Massa Hiram’s nasty whip. I’d laugh while they were bein’ whipped, I would.”
“Now, now, daughter, don’t talk like that,” Joshua scolded. “No one deserves to be at the end of that horrible man’s whip.” He laughed throatily. “But that whip did do one good deed. It took the evil man’s eye, it did. I saw it happen. I had to fight off laughin’ out loud when I saw that eyeball pop from its socket. What a sight. Yes’m, what a sight.”
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