The mustached captain gave an impatient wave. “They told us to clean out the Indians, didn’t they?”
“Mrs. McKenzie, with all due respect,” he said to her, yet his eyes flashed, and there was no respect intended at all, “hand over those children.”
She clutched the little girls tighter against her and stared at the blue-clad soldier on his horse. “These children are staying with me.”
“We don’t want to hurt you, ma’am.”
“Then you had best not.”
“I’m an officer with the United States Army.”
“Then perhaps you should behave like one. I don’t recall the murder of children being among the duties of army officers!”
The captain sighed, truly aggravated. “Sergeant Dicks, get down, and take these little vermin from the lady.” His eyes narrowed. “And if she isn’t careful, she’ll find that she is pleading for herself!”
She felt a shiver race up her spine. He wouldn’t dare touch her! But he had that look about him, she thought. He was a cruel man, and his uniform allowed him to vent that cruelty.
Thank God it seemed that Dicks was no fool. “Captain, I cannot wrestle with a lady!” he said.
The captain swung around. “You’re disobeying my orders?” he demanded of Dicks.
“No, Captain!” Dicks said with dismay.
“Move on!” he suddenly told the company. “Move on. I’ve a few more words to share with Mrs. McKenzie, then I’ll be with you.”
Dicks looked to Tara unhappily. He was a young man, barely shaving, she thought.
“Move on!” the captain roared.
“Sir—”
“That’s a direct order.”
Dicks and the other mounted men began to move past them. Tara was tempted to run, yet she thought that perhaps against this man alone, she might have a chance.
Besides, she couldn’t run with the children. She could barely hold their weight any longer.
In a matter of seconds the cypress forest was silent.
“Now!” the captain said. “Hand them over, lady.”
She shook her head slowly. “These children are my husband’s blood.”
The captain seemed surprised, then he sneered at Tara. “He’s got you, and he likes a bit of red as well—he keeps a Seminole mistress?”
Tara fought her fury. “They are his nieces.”
“Give them to me. Perhaps if you do so swiftly enough, I won’t be tempted to hurt you to get them. Nor to hurt you in getting what I want after I get them!”
“You have to be insane!”
“Lady, one way or another …”
She drew herself up as tall as she could, thinking desperately now. She was stunned. He meant to kill the children—and rape her!
She forced her voice to stay level. “Perhaps I cannot stop you from hurting me to harm them, but Jarrett McKenzie will tear you limb from limb if you do!” she threatened.
“Well, he’d have to know what happened here to do that, wouldn’t he?” the man demanded.
He was still a good ten feet away. She had one chance, at least to save the girls.
She dropped instantly to her knees, whispering as quickly as she could. “Into the cypress, run! As deep into the trees as you can get.”
“But Aunt Tara—” Sara began.
“Go!”
When their little legs touched the dirt, they were off. The captain swore, drawing his gun, but Sara and Jennifer had long traveled the cypress trails and could swiftly disappear down them. Before the captain could shoot and possibly hit a running child, Tara ran and threw herself at the captain and his weapon.
His shot went into the earth.
He swore, shaking off Tara’s hold. He raised the butt of his gun, ready to strike her head. Now, instead of plunging at him, she was desperate to escape him. She ducked low, avoiding his blow. Then she sprang into a reckless run, heading down a trail opposite that which the girls had taken.
He was in swift pursuit.
She was fast; she was beginning to know the trails. And she might have escaped him, except that her shoe caught in a root, and before she knew it, she was flipping into the air and then falling, landing flat on her back. She tried to scramble up. He was behind her, slamming into her back so that she fell again. Her arm was wrenched. She was thrown over. Her head slammed against the root, and she saw stars.
She felt the army captain with the sharp face and cruel eyes crawling on top of her. His hands were on her face, on her cheeks. “You cost me the brats, witch! So let’s see just what you’re worth yourself.…”
She fought the blackness that filled her head; she tried to kick and lash out. She heard the sudden rending of the fabric at her bodice, felt his fingers on her flesh. She started to scream, certain that no one could hear her, yet so very desperate.
“You’ll pay!” she cried out, wrenching wildly beneath him. Sweet God, his hand was on her thigh as he thrust her skirt higher and higher. She was flailing, scratching! He swore at her. His hands were on her throat, squeezing. She slammed her fists against his chest, and she thought that she was going to die. Either he was going to kill her and rape her, or rape her and kill her, and it didn’t seem to matter very much to him which came first.
She couldn’t even scream anymore. She hadn’t the breath with which to do it.
Suddenly her throat was freed. The world was spinning in black whirls, but she could gasp for air, and she did so, gulping in huge breaths. She blinked furiously.
The captain was being wrenched off her. He was all but flying through the air. He landed on the ground with a whoosh, and Tara became aware at last she wasn’t alone in the cypress forest.
Some dark-haired figure, clad in doeskin breeches and cape, was now reaching down in a fury for the captain. Tara tried to stagger up. The captain had drawn a knife. He was thrusting it at the man. A roar echoed chillingly from the newcomer’s lips. As Tara watched, the knife the captain was trying to direct into the other man’s chest was deflected with a furious blow.
“Go!” she heard shouted at her. She couldn’t go. She couldn’t stand; she couldn’t walk.
Then he spun around. Her heart skipped a beat, and she thought that she’d pass out again.
It was Jarrett, black eyes blazing. He wasn’t really clad like an Indian, he just had on the doeskin breeches, one of his own white cotton shirts, and the fur cape against the cold. Yet even as he turned to her, the captain was up—with another knife.
“Jarrett!” she couldn’t scream; she choked out the warning. He turned in time to deflect the second blade.
Tara heard the distinctive sound of the captain’s arm breaking. She heard his anguished cry, and the fall of the knife with which he had meant to kill her husband.
She choked out a cry of horror, yet the captain’s agony didn’t tear at her heart or soul. The fury in Jarrett’s eyes frightened her more than anything, and she was terrified for him and for their lives, and their future together.
He had turned on the man, his hands now going for his throat, his attack filled with lethal intent.
“Dear God, Jarrett, don’t kill him! You’ll go to trial for murder, he’s white!” she gasped out. She didn’t think that he had heard her. She ran forward. “Jarrett!” she cried, trying to pull him away. She tugged on his arm. He came up, turned, and stared at her through a black cloud of fury.
“Jarrett!” she gasped. “Don’t kill him! He’s a white army man. They could hang you for murder, the army—”
She broke off as she heard the sound of a gun being cocked. Jarrett instantly thrust her behind him, turning to stare at the incensed captain with his one dangling arm—and the good one that held an army-issue pistol on them both.
“Right in the heart, you Indian-loving bastard!”
Tara screamed, falling to her knees as she heard a shot. But Jarrett hadn’t been hit—the captain let out with another shriek of agony.
Then went still.
He’d been shot by som
eone behind Tara. She twisted around and saw a party of five Indian warriors, Osceola at the head.
Osceola, silent and dead still upon his mount now, had shot the captain. His rifle still smoked.
She stared at the Indian, and continued to stare as he urged his horse closer and closer to her. She felt Jarrett’s hands on her, lifting her.
She didn’t even protest when she found that her husband was handing her over to the Indian. She was too shocked, too numb.
But her thoughts were her greatest anguish. Jarrett might have been killed, and it would have been her fault. Once again he had bested her enemy for her. And an army captain now lay dead.
“Take her to Mary, please,” Jarrett said.
“Jarrett …” she managed to whisper.
“I’ll be along. As soon as I’ve—done something with him.”
Osceola’s pony began to move. She could smell bear grease, feel the warrior’s taut strength. Her teeth were chattering.
“You saved us both,” she murmured, looking into his dark eyes. “But you don’t speak English, do you? You don’t know what I’m saying, but I thank you, even if you have murdered other people horribly … oh, God!”
He smiled suddenly, staring down at her. “I understand much,” he said, “and then there are those whom I do not wish to know that I understand their language.”
“Oh …”
What had she said? She’d called him a murderer!
“You are safe from me,” he told her.
“Because I am McKenzie’s wife?”
“Because you wished to trade your own life for that of the children. Seminole children.”
“My nieces,” she reminded him. “And besides—I never thought that he’d dare kill me!” she admitted huskily. Her throat still hurt. Lots of her still hurt. She was badly bruised, she realized. And her neck seemed to hurt more and more every minute.
He smiled down at her, and she knew that he had killed white men and women, that he had burned plantations.
That he was at war with her kind.
But there was a deep, almost anguished wisdom in his eyes. When he smiled, his face became an intriguing and very likable one.
She was finally losing her mind, she thought. Swamp fever, perhaps.
“You’re very brave,” he told her. “You’re the White Tigress. A fitting wife for such a man as McKenzie.”
“Thank you,” she whispered. She remained in pain. She allowed herself to close her eyes, and she either dozed or passed out because when she opened them again, she had come to the village, and Osceola was letting her down into Mary’s arms. James suddenly rode in hard behind Osceola, leapt from his own mount, and came forward to take Tara.
“The children?” she asked, clinging to him.
“They are here, and fine. Hush, let Mother care for you; your throat is nearly purple.”
“Jarrett—”
“Jarrett will come soon.”
“You don’t understand. There’s a dead soldier—”
“Jarrett will manage.”
Tender, caring hands were upon her. She was sinking down into the softness of furs. Cool water bathed her forehead, her throat.
She sipped from a bowl, some bitter brew that nearly choked her anew, but Mary made her drink it.
Then blackness descended again, but it was gentle, and good.
Chapter 19
The problem with sleep was that sleep brought dreams.
At first it was night. Darkness and shadows lay all around, and the fog was thick and chill. The black muddy water of the Mississippi surrounded her on a dark New Orleans night. She was running. She could hear the sharp click of her shoes against the street. The sound seemed to echo and to grow, like the sound of her breath, gasping and dragging as she ran. There was a beat to go with it all, and that was the desperate pounding of her heart.
Footsteps followed her. She heard the staccato clack of her own feet. Yet after each footfall came another. And another. And the sounds were coming closer and closer.…
Murderess … murderess … murderess …
She was no longer running. The world was dark around her, and she had gone back to the house in Boston. She was standing there, with the gun in her hand, staring at it.…
She saw the blood on Julian’s shirt. Saw the shock in his face. Saw him fall. Saw the spread of crimson. Saw him die.
And then she looked up. She saw Clive staring at her. She felt the noise, the rustle behind her, and she turned to see the curtain just closing. She looked at Clive again and saw in the eternally pleased gold glitter of his eyes that he had planned the murder, orchestrated every step, and that she was to appear guilty. And then, of course, if she agreed to his lewd proposals—ah, surely much worse ones now!—he would somehow save her from the hangman’s noose. He would prove her innocent somehow. But if she defied him, she would hang.
Oh, God! She was there again. She could hear the cries of horror going up in the room. She could see Clive’s cold, cruel eyes, the hint of a smile that curved his lip.
His father lay dead in a pool of blood. He would have it all now. Money—and freedom.
But he wouldn’t have her! She would hang first; but not if she could escape.
She could see the window, feel the cool breeze touch her fire-heated cheeks. She promised herself that she was quick and young and more agile than any of them, except the other players from the show, of course, and none of them would come for her. Each one of them knew her innocence.
William! her heart cried out. But no one could tie William to this, and William would have Marina by his side. When Tara could, she would write, and let him know that he mustn’t grieve, that she was safe.
But to be safe she had to run. Run.…
She could feel the ground beneath her feet again. She’d run so very hard.
Ah, but no matter where she went, it seemed that she was running again. The neatly manicured lawns were gone, the New England row houses had disappeared. She was running through streets with wrought-iron gates and fences. She could feel the chill of the Mississippi, the dampness of the night. The very darkness of it surrounded her.
Someone was screaming at her again. Murderess, murderess, murderess.
No! No! she wanted to shout out. She wanted to scream with fury that she had been manipulated and used!
Suddenly she could see him.
Someone tall and dark was at the end of the street. Calling to her. Towering there, an ebony silhouette. She strained to see, tried so very hard to pierce the fog and the shadows. She needed to keep running, reach that voice.
Yet it seemed that shadows and fog stretched between them forever. No matter how fast she ran, it seemed he was still so far away …
Run … run … runaway …
The fog swirled. The street was encompassed in blackness. She could hear her name being called over and over.
Jarrett!
He was there. Seemingly at the end of an ungodly long trail. He reached out to her. She could see him almost clearly now in form-hugging doeskin breeches, high black boots, snow-white shirt, ebony hair queued at his nape, jet eyes upon her, handsome bronze features tense.
“Tara!”
She could see his large hand, the fingers so long and strong, reaching out. She just needed to touch him. She just needed to come close enough to touch him, and it wouldn’t matter who was behind her, the danger of the past would not matter!
“Tara!”
Arms were around her. Strong arms, warm arms. Jarrett was calling out to her. It was a dream.
It was not a dream. She opened her eyes. She lay in their cabin in the village. She was held against his chest, rocked within his arms, as he whispered soothingly to her. She saw his eyes, his hard, handsome, well-beloved face, and she cried out softly, throwing her arms around him.
“Jarrett!”
“You were dreaming.”
“Yes.”
“A nightmare?”
“I couldn’t reach you. You we
re very far away,” she told him. “Oh!” she whispered softly, for her throat remained sore. “Such dreams …”
“That bastard all but strangled you to death,” Jarrett said heatedly. “Mary gave you one of her special drinks. Warriors have been known to dream of fighting entire battles under the spells of such concoctions!”
She might have smiled, and she would have been deeply glad of the tenderness in his words, except that she had been harshly drawn from the fading images of her dream to the grim reality of their present situation.
“Jarrett, he’s dead.”
“You can’t fault Osceola for that killing, Tara.”
“Oh, God! I don’t! He saved your life! But they’ll be trying to hang one of us for it, Jarrett! His entire company knew that he was with me.”
“Hush, Tara.”
“But, Jarrett—”
“Tara, I caught up with his company, and a young man named Dicks. I happen to know him rather well, and I told him only that you had escaped with the children and that I had come upon the body of his captain in the woods.”
“But won’t there be an inquiry? Were you so easily trusted and believed?”
He smiled, and she felt a stirring inside. She loved the way his teeth seemed to flash so whitely against the bronze of his flesh. She loved the naturally sensual curve of his lips, the ebony fire in his eyes.
“His entire company was appalled by his behavior. Don’t get me wrong, Tara. A lot of military men—men you might consider decent—wouldn’t think much of shooting down Indian women or children. But Dicks and his fellows had had a bellyful of their captain, and they were worried about you. They consider you a valiant and courageous woman, a very great lady. They won’t have the least difficulty when they bring in his body, and there won’t be an inquiry. There is a war on here,” he said a little wearily, a little bitterly, “and the wretched captain will just be another fatality.”
“Thank God,” she breathed.
He held her for a moment, stroking her hair. She opened her eyes again and found him studying her intently.
Runaway Page 37