by Shirl Henke
Her head still swam with all the names she had to put to new faces. There were four of Alex's siblings and their husbands, including six lively children and a new baby, not to mention Quintin and Madelyne and three of their five offspring with attendant grandchildren.
Alex's family was indeed large and boisterous, the very sort of warm, welcoming group to which she had always dreamed of belonging. But they were intimidating, too, so brashly open and informal. Joss was certain that her British sense of decorum had made her appear stiff and reticent. She wanted so desperately to belong, yet felt like an outsider, a fraud entering the family under false pretenses. She was not truly Alex's wife—never had been as far as he was aware. After her wretched indisposition aboard ship, Joss was certain he could never desire her.
As yet they had had no chance to discuss sleeping arrangements. While Alex remained downstairs with his father and uncle Quint discussing the tense political situation, she hurriedly readied herself for bed. His large, masculine bedroom had an oversize bed obviously designed for a tall Blackthorne male. He could sleep in it. She intended to make use of the big leather sofa next to the fireplace. When he came in she would be swaddled demurely in blankets a dozen feet away from him with all the candles doused.
She had observed Alex laughing and playing with his nieces and nephews that afternoon. Small wonder he had so easily charmed the children at her school. He'd certainly had a lifetime of practice, surrounded by little ones. Did he never dream of having children of his own? Or would he one day regret his precipitous arrangement with her and wish for a real marriage?
If only things could go the way Barbara believes they will, she thought wistfully, staring at her reflection in the mirror. Who was the woman in the glass looking back at her? A stranger she scarcely recognized, attractive enough, she supposed, thanks to Barbara, yet obviously not the woman for Alex.
Alex stood in the doorway, transfixed by Joss. His wife, yet not his wife. Elusive. Beautiful. Distant. When had he started to think of her in those terms, she who had been his faithful companion, as comfortable as a pair of old shoes?
His mother had wrought a marvelous physical transformation in her. She sat with that magnificent tawny mane of hair spread over her shoulders, partially concealing the body of an Amazon queen, slim and strong yet generously curved. In spite of the heavy brocade robe she wore, he remembered only too well her body silhouetted by candlelight. But for all the unwelcome lust her appearance evoked, his discomfort with her was much more profound.
She had changed, Joss herself. She was aloof and tense, withdrawn from him. The only member of his family she seemed attuned to was his English mother. Had it been a mistake to bring her to America? In England he'd been the carefree rake, a lovable scoundrel for her crusading Methody soul to reform. But here he was the Sun Fox, a Muskogee mixed blood. God, he could still see the expression of horrified incredulity on her face when she'd first laid eyes on Pig Sticker.
What does that make me—a mongrel to shrink from—or the sort of exotic savage who appeals to women like Cybill Chamberlain ?
He did not much care for either alternative, but that was of no immediate consequence. He would be leaving in the morning. Angrily he strode into the room and closed the door.
Joss whirled around, startled from her reverie, clutching her hairbrush to her breasts. "Oh, Alex, I did not expect you so soon. That is—I had planned to be in bed—er, not in bed but—"
"Planning sleeping schedules again, eh, m'dear?" he said as he slipped off his jacket and began unbuttoning his waistcoat.
"I had thought to take the sofa and leave the bed for you...if that is all right."
Just bloody lovely, he wanted to shout. Instead he took a deep breath and said, "The bed is quite large enough for the two of us." What insane impulse had made him blurt out such an untenable idea! He'd meant to chivalrously offer her the bed and take the sofa himself.
"I don't think that would be a wise idea," she equivocated, her mouth gone dry at the prospect of actually sleeping in the same bed with him again. She looked away as he continued to shed clothing, tossing waistcoat, boots and hose, then his cravat and shirt helter-skelter. Soon he'd be as naked as that Pig Sticker person!
"Wise idea?" he echoed. "We're married, Joss. It would be a deal more remarked upon if we did not sleep together. Remember, the servants will come in tomorrow to gather up the linens."
"Oh, I had not thought of that," she said in a subdued voice. Why are you making this so difficult, Alex?
If he'd heard her silent question he could not have answered it. "It will only be for one night, Joss. I'm leaving at dawn for the Muskogee towns."
Startled by his casual announcement, she forgot her quandary over the sleeping arrangements. He was leaving her alone in this strange new country! "But we've only just arrived—your family—"
"Papa is going with me. Pig Sticker has already started ahead. We have to see if Tecumseh is really returning to Muskogee land."
"Who is this Tecumseh?" she asked, stumbling on the foreign name.
"A great Shawnee leader from far to the north—the land of the Great Lakes. He has dreams of a vast confederacy of Indian tribes stretching from Canada to the gulf. A noble idea, but one which is doomed to fail. The United States government will use the rebellion as an excuse to slaughter Indians and take even more of their land."
"And the British are merely exploiting your people for their own political aims," she ventured, wondering if in spite of what he'd said back in London, he blamed her for being English.
"Your mind is as keen as ever, Joss," he said with grudging admiration. "Uncle Quint has learned from his agent in Virginia that an American traitor is planning to rendezvous with the Red Stick leaders, supplying them with guns. We mean to stop him."
"Will this be dangerous?"
He shrugged. "The Red Sticks—they're Muskogees who favor a war to drive out the whites and mixed bloods who live like whites—their faction has been violent, but my father has considerable influence with the Muskogee leaders. He's been a government-licensed trader among them for thirty years. Many of them will listen to him rather than Tecumseh."
The sleek bronzed muscles in his shoulders rippled as he flexed his arms and stretched. She could not tear her eyes away, much as she knew it was prudent to do so. He was so splendid to look upon.
He glanced over to her as his fingers began to unfasten the top button of his fly. "I would suggest, Joss, to preserve your maidenly modesty that you douse the candle and climb into bed like a good girl, for I intend to sleep at once. I'll be leaving before dawn and it will come all too quickly."
She blushed fiery red, remembering all too well that he slept without a nightshirt. "I shall wrap one of the sheets about me and you may have the other... so our, er... limbs do not touch," she said, scrambling to rearrange the covers.
Alex chuckled in spite of his frustration. "My ever practical and always resourceful Joss."
* * * *
The night was hellishly long for both of them, lying stiffly and silently alongside each other, afraid to move, virtually afraid to breathe, lest the acute and uncomfortable awareness humming between them trigger a reaction neither could control. Joss hugged one edge of the large bed with her slender body. Alex, in spite of his much larger frame, clung to the opposite side.
True to his word, he slipped from between the sheets at the first faint light of false dawn. His keen night vision enabled him to dress quietly and gather the items he needed for his journey. He was just about to open the door to the hallway when Joss's voice whispered, "How long will you be gone, Alex?"
He stopped and turned to her as Poc, awake and watching him, jumped onto the bed with his mistress. "I can't say for certain. There are scores of towns on the streams that catacomb the land from Georgia to the gulf. That's why the whites named us Creeks. Months perhaps."
"Oh, so long," she replied, taken aback. He was distancing himself from her physically now, as well as emotio
nally. That's why the whites named us Creeks. He was one of them and she was ...who? Alex's wife, or a lonely Englishwoman deserted in a foreign land? "I shall miss you, Alex."
Her voice sounded so forlorn, he fought the impulse to go to her and give her a fond brotherly buss upon the forehead as he used to do. Somehow that no longer seemed appropriate. "I shall miss you, too, Joss," he replied in a strained voice.
Then he was gone. She sat, hugging Poc as the tears she'd been holding back for so long began to fall.
By the time Joss came down to breakfast, Barbara had finished reading all the letters that had arrived in her absence and was again perusing the last one that Pig Sticker had brought to her from Coweta, her mother-in-law's village. She looked up at Joss and took in her tear-reddened eyes and listless manner.
Damning her foolish son for his willful blindness, she smiled and gestured to the chair next to hers. "Sit down and let me ring for some breakfast. You look as though you need a good fortifying cup of hot black coffee."
A servant quickly appeared, bearing a large pot of fragrant coffee and two cups. After accepting the coffee and ordering enough food to satisfy the appetite of all the climbing boys in London, Barbara turned her attention back to Joss. "I would venture that you've had no more sleep than have I...but with far less pleasant reasons for being deprived of it."
At times her mother-in-law sounded indelicately American. Joss felt her cheeks sting with heat. "Alex showed no more interest in me last night than he did aboard ship or in London. 'Tis quite useless to persist in this folly, Barbara. He does not want me."
'Twaddle," Barbara said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "He wants you quite desperately. Why else do you think he's been such a grumpy old bear since the night we sailed?"
"The thought that he heartily detests being saddled with an accident-prone, seasick wife did cross my mind," Joss replied dejectedly.
"Honestly, you are as blind as he," Barbara exclaimed in aggravation. "But that is of no moment."
"No, it certainly does not matter what I believe, for he is gone and I shall not see him for months."
"You will see him in a few weeks, perhaps less."
Joss set her cup down, sloshing coffee onto the snowy white tablecloth. "What do you mean?" she asked uneasily. Barbara had a gleam in her eye that Joss had learned usually meant mischief.
Barbara rustled the pages of the letter sitting beside her plate. "This is from my mother-in-law."
"Alex's Grandmother Charity?" The Indian lady.
"Yes. She is a dear soul. You shall adore her just as I do."
Visions of a female version of Pig Sticker, tattooed and shaved, flashed into Joss's mind, but she reminded herself the woman had been educated by Methodist missionaries. Surely they had taught her to dress modestly! "But...I thought she lived with the Muskogee." Already Joss was not liking this.
"She does. In the Lower Creek town of Coweta. Dev and Alex will use it as a base from which to make trips to other key towns up and down the river system."
"So you are saying if we go to Coweta, we will find them?" We will live in a Muskogee village deep in the snake-infested wilderness!
"Charity is most eager to meet her only grandson's new wife. She has invited us to come spend the rest of the summer."
Chapter Eighteen
Alex and Devon rode for days, through teaming mosquito- infested woodlands, across steep ridges and down into overgrown brush. All was lush from summer's verdant rain and heat as they forded the hundred small streams and swift-flowing rivers that gave the inhabitants their name—the Oconee, the Ocmulgee, the Flint and the Chattahoochee. Then they struck deep into the territory of the Upper Creeks, the towns held by the Red Sticks between the mighty arms of the Tallapoosa and the Coosa rivers.
Devon smoked with the miccos at every town along their route and spoke before their councils, attempting to show them the dangers of casting their lot with the northern tribes, who were already at war against the Americans. All listened politely, for that was their way. Some heeded his plea, others withheld commitment until they could consult with the prophets from the North and the great Tecumseh himself. Most believed that the Shawnee leader would make a second journey south to sway the Creek Confederacy to his dream.
"We need to have a face-off with Tecumseh," Alex said in frustration after a long night of speeches and feasting in the idalwa of Kulumi.
Devon, stripping off his elaborate ceremonial feathered turban and copper jewelry, replied, "That, my son, is becoming painfully obvious. My guess is that he will strike for Sawanogi or go up the Tallapoosa to Kailaidshi."
"His first stop coming south through Tennessee would likely be Black Warrior's town on the Tombigbee," Alex said, spreading out a water-stained map on the hard-packed dirt floor of the summer brush arbor they had been given for sleeping. He pointed to a small x far to the north.
Devon grunted. "A hell of a ride, and our mounts are all but played out from the riding we've already done. This land is made for canoe and portages, not horses. We must convince old Timpoochee to lend us a canoe and several warriors to help us portage between the rivers."
The steamy dawn saw them on their way up the Coosa River with two powerful young Muskogees paddling along with them. The long, monotonous journey gave Alex more time to brood about his relationship with Joss. They simply could not continue the way they had been, he thought, remembering the hellish night in bed with her in his parents' house. One more time such as that and he'd fall upon her like a ravening wolf.
Echoing his thoughts, Devon said, "Is the honeymoon not going well, son?"
Alex sighed. "Is it that obvious?"
"I'm afraid so. You looked as if you'd not slept the night before we left." He grinned then and added. "Neither did I, but I suspect the reason was different."
Alex looked at the two Muskogees paddling the canoe. Neither understood English. He could speak freely to Devon. His father waited, leaving the choice open. He could vent his feelings if he wished, or not. Growing up, Alex had always appreciated Devon Blackthorne's way. Now he felt guilty for his deception.
"Everything is all tangled up inside of me. I don't even know myself what I feel for Joss anymore, Papa. When we wed...well, it seemed simple, but now..."
"Is it the war? Does she resent coming to live in the camp of the enemy?" Devon asked, hoping this was not the problem, for he liked the Englishwoman, who in some ways reminded him of his wife when she was young.
"No, she chose to come with me to America. Joss cares about people, not politics."
"Perhaps it's just a lovers' spat. Your mother and I fought like owls and crows when we first met. By the time we return to Savannah, she'll have cooled down."
Cooling Joss down was not the problem, Alex wanted to say. Cooling his own lust for her was, but he volunteered nothing, staring out over the gleaming silver ribbon of water, thinking of his wife....
When they finally drew near the Black Warrior village, there was an air of excitement among the people. The powerful Shawnee leader had returned! Dev seldom journeyed so far to the northwest, and the leaders of the Black Warrior town were suspicious of the two mixed bloods whose golden hair proclaimed them more white than red. Yet the laws of hospitality combined with Devon's longstanding position as a fair and honest trader gave him and his son entry to the meeting that night.
They sat in one of the four open-fronted assembly boxes that faced the public square, watching uneasily as the Shawnee prophet Sickaboo and a group of his Red Stick Muskogee followers did the Dance of the Lakes, an eerie, supposedly supernatural demonstration. The dancers, naked and fearfully painted in red and black, began to tremble and moan, howling at the starry night sky like demented creatures. As the frenzy built with the accelerating pace of the drums, they eventually fell to the ground in convulsions, rolling about.
Observing the awestruck and often frightened reaction of the audience, Alex whispered to his father, "Pretty impressive."
"Last year wh
ile you were away, Tecumseh predicted the approach of a comet, even an earthquake."
"And they both occurred?" Alex asked, amazed.
Devon nodded. "Exactly when he said. Pretty scary business. He's had enough contact with whites to have learned about the comet but no one predicts earthquakes."
Alex's expression was at once grim and rueful as he asked, not totally in jest, "Are you certain we're on the right side?"
"Not always," Dev replied wearily, "but it is the lesser of two evils, especially considering what I overheard from Bear's Paw. An American working for the British has been moving down the Tallapoosa, arming the Red Sticks with British Brown Bess muskets."
"It's Wilbur Kent." Alex cursed. "I knew I should have slit his gizzard while I had the chance."
"He must have escaped from prison," Dev speculated.
"More likely Cybill Chamberlain somehow secured his release," Alex replied. "We have to stop him, but how?"
Before Dev could reply, the micco stood up and walked toward the fire as the last dancers were helped from the square. He began to orate about the famous Shawnee visitor who waited in the shadows between two of the assembly boxes. When the micco finished his speech, Tecumseh strode to the center where the fire seemed to lend his fierce, handsome visage a mystic quality. He was a tall man, powerfully built, in the prime of his years, seasoned by war yet filled with youthful vigor.
His ceremonial cape flowed behind him as he walked, wearing only a breechclout and beaded, fringed leggings. On his bare tatooed chest a massive silver gorget gleamed in the firelight, as did his armbands, bracelets and heavy copper ear bobs. His massive head was bare of turban, shaved smooth but for the central comb, en brosse in front, in back long and splendidly adorned with feathers, quills and gemstones.
Yet for all his daunting appearance, the man's real power was only realized when he began to speak in a low rich voice that held the assembly mesmerized.
"Your blood has become white. Your tomahawks have no edge. You have buried your bows and arrows with your fathers. Brethren of my mother," he cried, his voice rising, reminding them of the blood ties he shared with the Muskogee people, "brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery. You must strike vengeance for your country. The time is overdue. The bones of our ancestors bleach on the hills. Is there no son of these brave men to strike the palefaces and quiet these complaining ghosts?"