by Vella Munn
"Will you go with them?" he asked.
He wouldn't try to stop her; she already knew that. "I don't know," she said when it was much more complicated than that. She could have told him she'd rather die than be back in Reddin Croon's hands. She could have whispered that leaving him would kill her, but it wouldn't.
"What do you want from me, Calida? To beg you to stay? To tell you I will walk away from my chief and my people for you?"
"No. No." She didn't dare go on touching him, because if she did, the storm of love she felt for him would drown her and what she had to say would remain trapped inside her. "I know what you have to do. I'd never ask you to change who you are."
"And I would never try to change who you are."
What she was was a runaway pursued by a possessed master.
"Go."
"Go?" she echoed.
"There will only be a few of you. You can move swiftly. Gaitor will provide you with meat. Before the army knows what has happened, you will be far from here."
You don't want me to stay? Please don't say that. "You—I don't know..."
"Even Reddin Croon cannot search all of Piahokee," he pointed out. "And if Osceola and the other chiefs and I are here, this is where the army will remain."
"What are you saying? That you'll sacrifice yourself for—for me?"
He didn't answer, and she lost herself in the silence. The storm was building, tightening the air until it had to explode. When the time came, maybe she'd explode with it. "I can't let you do that."
"Do not speak of this, Calida. My head is full of things I do not want. We have tonight; tonight is all I want."
Was he wise beyond her comprehension or afraid to look at the future? Wise. Wise. The answer drummed through her until her own head felt full to the bursting. "I wish it would rain," she moaned. "This waiting—" When lightning briefly scarred the night, she stared up at the energy and felt it arc through her. "Everything we do is determined by the world around us," she mused. "In the summer I feel more dead than alive because it's so hot. Even in winter, it seems as if the sun never lets go."
"Calida?"
"What?" she asked when she wanted him to remain silent.
"This time is for us. I need to know what is in your heart."
"My heart?"
"Don't," he warned and clamped his hand over her leg. "You are like a butterfly, Calida. You flit close to me. Sometimes you rest on my flesh and I feel great peace. Your life enters me and I tell myself you won't fly away again. But you have always kept a part of you separate from me. Why will you not trust your heart to me?"
His words were killing her, ripping her open when she needed—needed what? To curl into a tight and safe and lonely ball? She'd hurt so long, and now...
"No more silences, my wife. I have not given you marriage gifts because I cannot promise you the kind of home a warrior should give his woman, because I do not know if you would accept my offerings, but you sleep by my side and you have given me your body."
I know. Oh, how I know.
"Why does your heart remain apart?"
"Panther. Please—" She tried to slip away, but he sat up and gripped her around the waist. Before she could stop him, he pushed her down. She lay looking up at him, seeing lightning explode behind him, and when it died, she remembered his powerful silhouette. His hands pressed against her shoulders, and he brought his face so close that she felt his breath.
"If you leave with Gaitor, I will never know you."
"Never know? I—I'm your woman."
"It is not enough."
No. It wasn't. It was night. He couldn't look into her eyes and find the anguish, the pain she knew lay there. "I'm afraid of you."
"Have I ever hurt you?"
No. What he'd done was give her a reason and a place to live. More than that. "I'm afraid of what I feel for you. I never wanted—never wanted to feel vulnerable around a man."
"And you do with me? Why?"
"Because you're my life, and I don't want it that way." Horrified, she tried to take back the words, but it was too late. Besides, it was the truth.
"Your life?" It started to rain. The fat, heavy drops plopped on the roof and ground and insulated them from the rest of what remained of the clan. "I am your life?"
"Yes," she whispered. She wanted to sit up and bury herself in his chest, but he still wouldn't let her move. Maybe he was afraid she would run if he didn't hold her captive. "I didn't want—I never wanted..."
"Calida?"
She had to tell him, now, with rain threatening to bury her words with its noise, before she left with Gaitor and Winter Rain. "I'm carrying your child."
He might have muttered something; she couldn't tell because the rain now sounded like thousands of feet pounding against the earth. "I didn't—" Her mind shattered, and she couldn't remember what she'd been going to say.
"My child?"
"Y-es."
His hands on her shoulders gentled. One trailed down her body to rest over her stomach. His fingers sought, gentle as a butterfly, to reach his baby. He leaned down and kissed her, a lover's kiss, a husband's kiss. "My child," he repeated. Despite the storm, she knew he was, for the moment, at peace with himself and touched in ways he'd never been before. "A son. I will have a son."
"Or a daughter."
"A daughter. She will look like you, have your eyes. You will teach her how to read, and she will be ready for a world I may never understand. I want..."
"What do you want?" she asked despite the terrible danger to her heart.
"To hold our child. To watch it at your breast."
She'd only missed one bleeding. Except for being more tired than usual and her breasts swelling slightly, there'd been no change, but she knew. Oh sweet Jesus, she knew. There was a child inside her. And it wasn't the first.
Turning her head from him, she fought her inner storm, but it was no use. Sobs tore at her; she was drowning in them, being killed by them.
"Calida? What is it? You are thinking that this war—"
"Not the war." She couldn't keep her voice even, could barely speak.
"You believe we will not be together when it is born?"
How hard it was for him to say that; she sensed his agony in every line and curve of him. "Not—that," she was forced to tell him, although that too added to her agony. "Not that."
She thought he'd demand more from her, but maybe he knew she'd said all she could. He pulled her into his arms and held her while she fought emotions she didn't understand. Or maybe the truth was, she understood all too well. She couldn't think about the past. She couldn't! If she did—"My—my mother said she had no control over her emotions when she was carrying me. I—I'm the same."
He nodded, and she prayed he would be satisfied with that explanation. He whispered something about her going to an old woman who knew whether babies were boys or girls before they were born. She tried to tell him that the old woman had been wrong twice since she'd come to the Egret clan, but she might start crying again if she spoke another word. She shouldn't have told him tonight. She should have waited until she was stronger. But would she ever be?
"I wish your mother was alive," Panther said.
"My—mother?"
"A woman with child needs the wisdom of another woman. Pilar could tell you many things."
What Pilar had done was tell her how to destroy two babies, not because either woman wanted that, but what life was there for an infant torn from its mother's breast and sold like cattle? Remembering that horrible, desperate time, Calida's sobs began again. Panther had called her a butterfly. That's what she was, a butterfly caught in a violent storm. Only, the storm was inside her, shattering her, killing her.
"Calida! What is it?"
"I'm not—I'm not worthy."
"Of having our child? No."
She shook her head to let him know he was wrong, but she couldn't speak. Her head pounded. Her throat felt raw. Her eyes burned and ached, and if Panther hadn't been h
olding her, she might have exploded into a thousand pieces. Even with him here, she lacked the strength to fight.
"Calida, Calida. Your heart is breaking. Why?"
Why? Tell him. Tell him, because if you don't tonight, you never will. "My babies."
"Babies? The others," he said softly. "The ones who came before. That is what you are saying?"
She nodded.
He stroked her hair, stroked and held and rocked her. "Tell me."
"You—know."
"Not enough. They are still inside you. They still live in your heart. I know that but no more."
They still live in your heart. Burrowing as tightly against him as possible, Calida tried to lose herself in Panther, but she couldn't because there was too much pain.
"Calida, listen to me. This is our child. It will know life. It will never be torn from your side; I promise you that."
He couldn't guarantee that; neither of them knew what the future would bring. But until she felt stronger, she would believe him. "I'm not worthy," she whimpered. "Not worthy of you."
"You are!"
"No. I—I destroyed..." She couldn't go on.
He'd stopped rocking her, but now he began again. She smelled the rain and even her closed lids weren't enough to keep away all of the lightning's impact. Thunder made the earth beneath her dance. She didn't know where she left off and where Panther and the storm began. Maybe everything had been thrown together.
"Calida, tell me. When you forced them from your body, did you cry for them?"
No. I didn't dare.
"Did you?"
She shook her head, hoping that would be enough for him, knowing it wouldn't.
"Why not?" he asked.
"I—" She could tell him she'd been terrified Croon would find out and that terror had overruled every other emotion, but she didn't want to lie to him tonight or ever again. "I couldn't."
"Why not?"
"I killed them. Tears wouldn't take away my sin."
"Sin? Is that how you see it, sin?"
"Yes!" Her throat burned; if only she could stop crying. "I—I did—"
"Calida, quiet! That was yesterday. We have today, tonight. Maybe only tonight. Listen to me. Mourn them. Say good-bye to the children you will never have. Let them know you loved them."
She was already doing that; didn't he know they were the source of her tears and heartache? "I—wanted to cry. I felt as if I'd been killed when... I was afraid that if one tear fell, I would never be able to stop."
"And so you buried what was in your heart, a mother's heart. Only, the love you felt for them didn't die, just as their memory didn't. And tonight that love, that loss has returned."
He was right.
"Cry," he encouraged. "Cry as long as you need. I am here. I understand."
"Pa-nther?"
"Hush. I'm here. Say good-bye to the past, my wife. Think of the future. Of the child you will one day hold. I understand."
He did. And that's what made her love him.
* * *
Dunlawton Plantation south of St. Augustine consisted of little more than a few blackened timbers. Although the Seminoles had set fire to it nearly two years ago, the stench still clung to the area. Reddin would never understand why General Hernandez had decided to bivouac here for the night—unless he hoped the sight would fill his troops with indignation. The way Reddin looked at it, the plantation was a painful reminder of everything that had gone wrong since this damnable war began.
Still, he had much more to think about than what the main house had once looked like. General Hernandez sat to his right. John Philip, head nearly dragging on the ground, knelt before them. The once militant slave's hands were tied behind him, and a burly private held the end of a rope snaked around John Philip's neck. Taking a long draw from his pipe, Reddin drew out the moment. Victory. How damnably good it felt!
"You're not holding back anything?" General Hernandez asked. His tone was so gentle that one would have thought he and the miserable slave had been talking about what they were going to have to eat. "You've shown us everything?"
John Philip lifted his head a few inches. "That's all, massa. I swears it is."
"Hm. I'll know in a couple of days whether you're holding out on us."
"A couple of days," Reddin interrupted. "Damn it, he's drawn the maps. Hell, I was with him this morning when he led us to where Coacoochee is staying."
"Coacoochee is only one chief. He isn't Osceola."
Or Panther. In his eagerness to bring the savages to their knees, Reddin had almost forgotten that. However, armed with the nigger's maps, it wouldn't be long before he was aiming a musket at Panther's miserable head, and this time he wouldn't miss. Content to simply listen, he smoked while the general went back over the details with John Philip. Yes, the nigger kept insisting, every clan had accompanied him when Osceola decided to return to their ancestral grounds. Although they were staying in different spots, runners could quickly take news from one clan to another.
John Philip didn't know where the Egret clan was staying; no matter how much he'd been "persuaded" to improve his memory, he continued to contend that Panther kept his location secret from all but a trusted few. What the hell did that matter? Once Reddin had his hands on one of those "trusted few," that would change.
Chapter 25
Waves of helpless rage erupted through Panther. He wanted to whirl and plunge into the wilderness. Instead he stood and listened.
"They must have heard nothing," the exhausted runner said between deep breaths. "Otherwise, they would have defended themselves. Everyone was asleep. They woke to find their hiding place surrounded. Too late. It was too late."
"No one was killed?" Gaitor asked.
"None. The army men were most happy to discover they had captured King Philip. I heard them laugh. I understand enough of their words to know they made much fun of the chiefs nakedness."
The past year had been especially hard on quiet, somber King Philip and his followers. Pursued relentlessly, the Seminoles had seldom had time to hunt. The last time Panther had seen him, he'd been shocked by how haggard, thin, and dirty the chief had looked. The runner, a youth not yet old enough to have had his baby name replaced with his warrior name, had managed to slip away unnoticed. If he hadn't, no one would yet know what had happened four nights ago, or afterward. When Gaitor asked how the army had so easily found the Yuchis clan the night after King Philip and his followers were captured, the youth explained that from his hiding place, he'd watched Tomoka John lead the army to the second camp.
"Was he forced?" Gaitor asked, his lips barely moving.
"No." The youth shook his head. "There were no ropes on him."
Wishing Tomoka John was here so he could plunge his knife into someone who could no longer call himself a Seminole, Panther asked if any of the Yuchis had been killed. The youth had seen an army man fall dead and was afraid several clan members had been wounded, but they had been surrounded by at least a hundred soldiers while they slept. By the time they'd awakened, it had been too late.
"I should have done something," the boy admitted. "Stopped the army somehow. Warned the Yuchis."
"They would have killed you if you'd tried. You said Osceola already knows?"
The boy nodded. After drinking deeply from the water-filled gourd Gaitor had given him, he explained that he'd hurried to Osceola as soon as he felt it was safe to travel. Osceola would decide what to do once he'd talked to the other tastanagees.
"He say whether he gonna fight?" Gaitor asked.
"He is sick. I looked at him and saw that, not the warrior he used to be."
Panther looked around for Calida but didn't see her. The thought of having to tell her this filled him with dread beyond what he felt for the captured Seminoles. He pointed at the closest chickee and told the boy to go there for something to eat. He could stay here until tomorrow before leaving for another clan.
"Two clans captured," he muttered. "They were taken without a fi
ght. Have the Seminoles become wounded deer?"
Gaitor's chest expanded as he sucked in air. "Two," he repeated as if not yet believing. "Prisoners. What's gonna happen ta em?"
Panther couldn't concern himself with those whose weapons had been taken from them. The Egret clan was his responsibility; at the moment it felt as if it had always been his burden. Looking at them, he was forced to admit that although they weren't as beaten as King Philip's clan had been, neither were they the same strong and proud people they'd once been. There'd been too many moons of hiding.
"You know what's gonna happen, Panther. They's gonna be sent to that damn reservation."
The end. It's the end. Angry, he tried to shake himself free of the thought. He was going to be a father. He wanted his son or daughter to grow up knowing the same land he did. He wanted that child's mother—
There would be no reservation for Calida.
"We are like the others, wounded deer," Panther said. He felt the weight of the world on his shoulders.
"No! Never!"
"Saying it is not so does not change the truth." He hated the words, hated everything about the day. "A trapped deer then. That is what I am. Trapped."
"No." Gaitor stalked closer and planted his hand on his friend's shoulder. "The only way you's gonna be trapped is if you lets 'em take you. Come with Winter Rain 'en me 'en the others. Damnation, ya gots to come with us."
"I cannot."
Gaitor's eyes had flashed with exploding emotion. With Panther's words, the light went out of them. He let his hand drop back by his side. "I know," he whispered. "You's tastanagee. You's never gonna turn yur back on yur clan. Whatever happens to 'em, you's gonna be part o' it."
Whatever happens to them. The Egret clan had spent the summer hiding like rabbits. He could order them to do it again, only he couldn't because they were tired of running. Too many would hear what had happened to King Philip and the Yuchis and wait for the army to come for them.
Feeling exhausted, he stared at where he'd last seen Calida. She'd been different ever since the night she'd cried for the children she'd never have. He knew that despite their uncertain future, she was happy to be carrying their child, but it was more than that. It was as if her tears had freed her from the past.