“Aye-aye, sir!” Lloyd mumbled to Brent’s command. “Do we pull her out now, Captain? Upriver, or open sea?”
“Upriver—” Brent began, only to stop short when a warning rang down clear and excited from the crow’s nest.
“Yankee flag on the horizon! Schooner, heading in from the mouth, sir!”
“Damn!” Swearing lightly, Brent bolted to the rigging and climbed up to the nest. A schooner, about the same size as the Jenni-Lyn, was making the turn into the narrow estuary.
Nothing larger could come after them, Brent was certain. A man had to know the river well or risk being wrecked on the shoals that littered its mouth.
He grasped the glass from his lookout and stared at the ship, trying to decide quickly whether to fight or run. It was possible that they could sink the enemy and thus block the river behind them.
“All hands on deck. Gunners to their stations. At the ready!”
The quiet deck awoke to the scramble of tight-lipped, efficient sailors. Brent shimmied back down the mast and stood beside Lloyd, ready to give the order to fire.
He waited. The ship had to move in close enough to give them a decent shot, but not so close as to be able to fire on them first.
A weary McPherson was at the helm, maneuvering the Jenni-Lyn smoothly.
Brent clenched and unclenched his fingers as the schooner moved into the river. Not yet. Not yet. Five, four, three, two....
A spout of water suddenly rose to their port like a gusher, and the Jenni-Lyn rolled in its wake. The first Federal shot had gone astray.
Brent’s waiting game had paid off. Now it was his turn.
“Fire!” he roared out as sea spray rose and fanned over the deck.
“Fire one!” Lloyd bellowed out the order to the four gunners at the first cannon.
The Jenni-Lyn shuddered and groaned with the repercussion of the shot. But her crew sent up a cry—a Rebel yell of triumph—as the ball tore a hole in the hull of the schooner.
“Reload one, number two at the ready!”
“Reload!”
“Number two at the ready!”
“Hold fire!” Brent commanded, raising a hand as he watched the foundering Union vessel.
Their blow to the enemy craft had been mortal; there was no doubt she would sink. They could blow her out of the water, but the only accomplishment would be a rain of death.
“Captain, look!” Lloyd suddenly pointed toward the wounded ship. “She’s sending a boat out, sir. Three men aboard, waving a white flag.”
Brent narrowed his eyes as he saw the small boat approach. Two seamen were rowing; an officer stood in the bow of the dinghy, holding the flag. He was a brave man, Brent thought, daring such an approach when it was more than likely that the Jenni-Lyn’s guns would roar again.
“Hold all fire,” Brent commanded. “We’ll see what the Fed captain wants.”
“Could be a trick, sir,” Lloyd advised.
Brent shook his head. “I don’t think so. We’ve got the advantage; his ship’s sinking fast. I think it’s a bold move to avoid a slaughter.”
“As you say, sir.”
“Help ’em aboard. The Jenni-Lyn honors a white flag and a noble surrender.”
A moment later Brent was facing a young U.S. naval lieutenant with a handsome display of tawny whiskers running from his sideburns and culminating in a neatly clipped goatee. The lieutenant saluted crisply. “Sir, United States Navy Lieutenant Bartholomew Greer.”
Brent, concealing with effort a trace of amusement at the man’s rigid posture, answered the salute. “Captain Brent McClain, Lieutenant. What’s on your mind?”
“Sir, I’m surrendering to you. Applying for mercy on behalf of my crew. Another shot on the Yorkville will serve only to take life needlessly. She is no longer any danger to you.”
“I can see that, Lieutenant,” Brent stated easily. “And I’m afraid your sacrifice was unnecessary. We didn’t intend to fire another shot”
The young man relaxed perceptibly, and Brent was strangely touched. The gallantry of the Yank’s gesture was as noble an act as Brent had seen. He thought of his conversation with his sister. Honor did come in both blue and gray.
The lieutenant stiffened again, as if horrified at his momentary display of relief. “I admit, Captain, I counted on your mercy. We know, sir, that you were responsible for the destruction of the Marianna. But not a man died, sir.”
Brent shrugged, his eyes narrowing. “Killing is a part of war, Yank. But we try to keep it to a minimum.”
“Yes, sir,” Lieutenant Greer said stiffly. “But I would have blown you out of the water if I could have, Captain.”
“That’s all right, Lieutenant. I would have blown you sky-high if it had been necessary.”
The lieutenant looked about him suddenly—at his own two seamen standing silently, at Brent’s crew silently listening to the exchange.
“Sir,” he said quietly to Brent, “I’d like to have a word in private with you.”
Curiously Brent inclined his head. “My cabin, Lieutenant.” He turned to Lloyd and indicated the two Yankee seamen, uncomfortably awaiting their fate. “We move upriver, but take care of our . . . guests. Give them a cup of coffee and some tobacco for their pipes. They might spend the rest of this long war in a prison camp. We can’t wait around to pick up any others. If they’re any kind of sailors, they can swim to shore.”
Ten minutes later Brent was facing the Yankee across his narrow desk. Lieutenant Greer was filling his pipe, a touch of awe in his features. Apparently it had been a while since the men of the Yorkville had enjoyed any luxuries. The North was suffering shortages, too.
Brent waited until the Yankee officer had lit his pipe and exhaled a long plume of smoke. Then he repeated his question. “What’s on your mind, Yank?”
The lieutenant stiffened and hesitated, then eyed Brent directly. “Like I said before, Reb, you fight a fair battle. I’m in your debt. I’m going to go off the book a bit and give you a warning.”
Brent’s eyes narrowed, and he felt his muscles stiffen. He had the same strange sense of dread he had felt when he rode toward South Seas and knew . . .
“Go on, Lieutenant.”
The Yank shuffled a bit in his chair. Brent knew he was fighting a little battle of conscience. The rules on one side—a private desire for justice on the other.
“You’ve got quite a reputation, Captain McClain. I’m sure you’re aware of that. Your home was about the only thing we burned between St. Augustine and Jacksonville.”
Brent said nothing. He lifted a brow as a signal for the Yankee to continue.
“Some things aren’t done quite right on either side,” Lieutenant Greer muttered, staring at his pipe and then at Brent again. “It’s rumored, Captain, that you’re friends with some Indian tribe that’s been pushed into the swamp. Some of those Indians stole the wife of a Union officer stationed at Fort Taylor some time back. There are those who say you had something to do with that, since the lady was a southerner. There’s another rumor about, Captain. The lady’s husband was murderin’ mad. I was off the Keys not a week ago, Captain. Seems that Lieutenant Moore is trying to pull orders to go into the swamp after her. He should be able to get them. The captain at Fort Taylor has been advised that the Indians have been running supplies to the lighthouse keepers along the southern coastline. If the Indians have joined the Confederacy, then it won’t be out of bounds for the Union to go to war against the Indians.”
Brent hadn’t said a word during the speech; he hadn’t moved or shifted. He had barely blinked. But he felt his reaction. Cold, savage fear worked its way along his spine and through his limbs. Fear and dread and a terrible certainty.
He would be too late. Too late. Too late. The swamp was a long distance away . . .
He had endangered Red Fox. That realization caused him far greater pain than even the loss of South Seas. Shattering panic and anguish clutched his heart in a vise. Kendall . . . She had been here that fi
rst night. Right here in his cabin aboard the Jenni-Lyn. He could remember how she had looked. Eyes large and luminous and seductively compelling. He could remember the sound of her voice, how she had moved, how he had touched her and she him . . .
He bolted from his chair and threw open the cabin door. “Charlie! Order the helmsman to go about! We’re going to maneuver past the Federals and run the port. Full sail, heading south, Charlie! Call the orders!”
He paused for a moment by the door, listening as Charlie roused the men, unquestioningly repeating his orders.
Then he turned back to the Yankee who was staring at him with naked trepidation in his eyes.
“Don’t worry, Yank,” Brent said softly. “We’ll leave you and your men off somewhere down the coast. You don’t deserve to rot or die in a prison, Lieutenant. We can say we dumped you because we couldn’t take the time to turn you over to the land authorities.”
The lieutenant closed his eyes and shivered almost imperceptibly.
“Thanks, Reb,” he whispered.
“Not at all, Yank. I’m much obliged.”
Brent left his prisoner in his cabin. There were no secrets of war to be discovered among his charts.
He hurried out on deck. They were going to have to sail through Jacksonville harbor with their guns blazing. And maneuvering past the sunken Federal ship was going to be tricky.
But navigation problems were barely on his mind now. He would do it. He was determined to get through because there was so very much at stake.
Red Fox, a man who lived by a code of ethics more rigorous than that of either North or South, a man who had risked much for the Confederacy. It had been his choice; he would accept no payment or reward for his actions, just as he would accept no consolation if those actions brought him to a tragic conclusion.
But even deeper than his inner cry for the Indian who had taught him the meaning of friendship was the despair that racked his body when he thought of Kendall.
She had touched him so briefly, and yet from her he had learned the meaning of love. She had set down roots that wound about his heart and pulled him back even when he was free to go.
Kendall.
He could see her. Stormy indigo eyes, hair like a cloak of honey to spin about her in splendor and wild disarray.
She was beauty and grace. She held the same intangible spirit as the South. That which they fought to hold and preserve. The evasive soul that bound them, dirt farmer and planter, to fight and best a stronger enemy. It went further than the slavery question. Further than King Cotton. The spirit was perhaps intangible, but Kendall was not. She was alive and vital, and in her warmth and beauty he could touch what he so craved to hold . . .
All that he fought for. A Rebel’s pride, his honor, his glory, and his boundless, unwavering love.
Chapter Nine
“‘Oh, I wish I was in the land of cotton. Old times there are not forgotten. Look away, look away, look away, Dixieland. ’” Kendall laughed as she finished her song with its strangely accented chorus, and tugged on little Chicola’s hair. “Kah-ton, Chicola. Listen to me. Sounds like kah-ton! And you should see it at harvest time! It stretches forever and forever, like a field of endless clouds!”
“Endless clouds,” Hadjo—Chicola’s senior by less than a year—repeated solemnly, looking up at the sky and pointing. “Clouds.”
“Yes! Perfect. Now, ‘Oh, I wish I was in Dixie, away, away. In Dixieland I’ll make my stand, to live, to die, in Dixie! Away . . . away . . . away down south in Dixie!’”
The two little children sang along with her, giggling, eyeing her expectantly when the sounds of their voices ebbed away into the high pines from the small, dry clearing where she took them each afternoon to play and learn. They weren’t far from the main camp, and often other women besides Apolka would bring their children to the clearing to listen to the strange white woman who seemed so happy in their midst.
And she was happy. Strangely content. She received no news from the outside world, but it was impossible to believe that things could be going badly. And she could spin dreams as endless as the fields of cotton she had envisioned. She would be safe anywhere south of the Mason-Dixon Line once the Yanks had been beaten back. Safe to pursue a divorce and then . . .
Brent McClain.
Her dreams were a bit foolish, she realized in the few rational moments she allowed herself. She’d spent one night of her life with him. And of course that brief hour aboard his ship over a year ago. But she had been dreaming of him ever since then . . . and when the dream came to life in flesh and blood it had shattered her senses. He was constantly on her mind. She was in love with him.
But what of him? He had known she was married. His quest for her had been one of vengeance. He had assured her he would never return her to her husband, and he had promised that he would come back to her. But was that a manifestation of the code of honor that ruled him despite his warnings that he was no gentleman? Or did he plan a future for them? He was a Confederate hero; he was also arrestingly male and very experienced with the opposite sex. It was not just likely but probable that he had a dozen eager women in a dozen ports, some much more suitable than she to be the wife of such a man.
Kendall’s eyes clouded for a moment, and she compressed her lips. It was strange, but it didn’t seem to matter at the moment. She was married, and she knew that the legal ties binding her didn’t mean a thing. All she wanted was to be with Brent McClain. She would be happy with him anywhere.
“Kendall.”
A little hand tugged at her skirt, and she gazed down into Chicola’s troubled face to realize she had been staring into space, brooding. She smiled warmly and hoisted the little boy to her lap as she sat on a broad tree stump. “‘Dixie,’ my little urchin, was written by the son of a northern abolitionist as a minstrel song. And the Confederates picked it right up. What do you think of that?”
Chicola wrinkled his nose, having no idea what she was talking about. “Sing more,” he told her.
“Not today, little one,” she said firmly. “It’s time to get you back home to your chickee. Can’t you see that dusk is falling?”
Two-year-old Chicola and three-year-old Hadjo both nodded at her gravely, and she was about to laugh at their solemn little faces when a prickling at the base of her spine smothered the sound before it could come. Someone was behind her in the trees. She knew it. Just as she kept her part of the bargain, Red Fox had kept his. She had learned the strange, meandering waterways of the swamp, just as she had learned the sounds of all its creatures. And she had learned to listen with her whole body as well as her ears.
Why the feeling gave her such a sense of fear, she didn’t know. They were close to camp. The Seminole were a protective society, and sometimes even the young braves slipped quietly into the trees just to see that everything was fine.
The inexplicable chill of fear became raw panic even before she heard the hammock come alive with thrashing feet—and a mocking chorus of “‘John Brown’s Body Lies a-Molderin’ in the Grave.’”
Kendall sprang to her feet in terror, screaming out a shrill warning as she clutched little Chicola tightly in one arm and hugged Hadjo close to her side with the other.
What had been a peaceful afternoon became in the flash of an eye a maelstrom of strident discord. The hammock seemed to be flooded with men, soldiers in blue uniforms and knee-high boots who thrashed in wave after wave through the trees. And the soldier with hell and damnation in his ice-blue eyes who strode toward her with furious purpose was the one man she had fervently prayed never to see again.
John Moore.
Kendall screamed again and whirled about, dipping low to clutch little Hadjo more firmly about the waist. Carrying the Indian boys like sacks of grain, she began to run, desperate to reach the camp with her Indian charges before . . .
Before John got hold of her.
She ran blindly and instinctively—foolishly.
The Seminole camp was already a pit of s
creaming chaos; soldiers were tearing into chickees with bayonets at the ready, searching out the braves who had remained behind when the hunting and scouting parties left for the day. Kendall tore into the middle of the camp and whirled around in mindless panic.
Red Fox! She needed to find him. To find a harbor in his strength. But even as she instinctively thought these things, she knew that Red Fox was not at the camp, and that if he were, there would have been little that he could have done except to die fighting.
“Kendall! Kendall Moore!”
It was Jimmy Emathla. Kendall saw him and ran toward him. He waited to lead her and the children into the forest so that they could disappear into the swamp.
“Jimmy!” she cried frantically, trusting in the proud brave’s muscled prowess and proud sense of duty. His dark eyes were upon her, encouraging her to hurry to his side so that she might escape with the sons of his chief.
“No!”
She stopped running, and screamed. Jimmy Emathla fell to the ground as a bayonet ripped through his gut. Tears filled Kendall’s eyes; she hadn’t even seen the face of the Union soldier who had attacked the Indian. All she saw was a blur of blue . . . and then the red of blood.
An anguished screech brought her whipping around to face Red Fox’s chickee. Apolka had seen her with the children, and was racing toward her, tears streaming down her cheeks, her pretty features distorted with fear.
What followed was a horror that would remain imprinted in Kendall’s memory forever. The Indian girl was running as blindly as she. A young soldier, backing away from a confrontation with a brave, did not see that Apolka was only a terrified woman trying to reach her children. He only felt her hurtling toward him where he stood between the chickee and Kendall.
The soldier turned. His bayonet ripped into Apolka. The Indian girl’s eyes met Kendall’s over the distance. They widened with the shattering pain; they seemed to plead. Apolka’s mouth worked open, but no sound came. Her eyes glazed, the dazzling deep brown sheen of love and laughter forever gone, and she fell at the soldier’s feet.
Tomorrow the Glory Page 17