Sweet Savage Eden

by Heather Graham

  It was too late, for the two Indians had set upon the guard already. He battled them with a vengeance.

  Still atop the nervous and rearing horse, Jassy looked toward the inner working steps of the palisade, those leading to the bell alarm and the cannon facing westward.

  The cannon would do them little good. The enemy had come at them from within.

  She had to reach the steps, and she had to sound the alarm.

  Then she had to get home; she had to get back to her house. Daniel lay sleeping there. Elizabeth was there, and Amy Lawton and the girls. She had to get home, and she had to find a way to warn Lenore and Robert.

  A man wearing a hastily donned shirt of chain mail came bursting wildly out of the guardhouse. Jassy saw that it was Robert Maxwell.

  “Robert!”

  He didn’t hear her at first. He was looking sickly at the dead man with the knife protruding from his gut, below his half-armor. He stared at him, the knife he carried himself held in a white-knuckled grip, his features as pale as new snow.

  “Robert!” she called again. He still didn’t hear her. He was in shock, she realized. “Robert!” Jassy urged the horse over to him. Still, he did not look up. She leapt down and shook him. “Robert! We have to sound the alarm. People have to know; they have to prepare. They have to fight back. We have to reach our houses.… Robert, the alarm!”

  She slapped him, hard. He looked at her at last. “Oh, Jassy!” He was falling apart, she realized. He would be no help to her. She gave him a fierce shove. “Go, hurry! Warn them at my house, and hurry on to your own. I’m going to sound the alarm.”

  At last he moved. He looked back and saw the single guard still trying to fight off the two Indians. Jassy wondered if she should help him first, then she realized with a curious numbness that she might be killed, and if she were killed, she could never sound the alarm. She pushed away from the horse and went racing to the steps. She tore up them to the roof tower.

  Just beyond the top step, at the tower door, stood one of the Indians. His chest was naked, and his well-muscled arms were laden with various tattoos. He wore only a breechclout, white goose feathers in his hair, and a necklace with a rawhide cord. He looked at Jassy and smiled slowly, awaiting her. She looked beyond him. Another of their armed men lay dead. He had been bashed on the head with a cannonball.

  The murders were certainly not isolated incidents, Jassy thought furiously. The Indians had come to kill the white men. They were killing the settlers with their own weapons. They were killing them with anything at all that they could find at hand.

  And the man at the tower meant to kill her.

  Screams were rising now, near the gate. Soon everyone would know. Soon they would all realize the treachery … soon, as they lay dying.

  “No!” Jassy screamed in a frenzy. She hurtled herself at the Indian with all her strength, and they toppled to the ground together.

  Her attack upon the man had been a mistake. The warm, brown body that fell over hers was hard and powerful and relentless. She bit and she kicked and she struggled fiercely, but to little avail. The Indian was young and wire-sinewed, proud of his health and strength and entirely in his prime. She was strong, too, she knew. She clawed and scratched and caused him some injury, but she really had no chance, not from the very beginning.

  He pressed his knee into her midriff, and all the air went out of her. Almond-dark eyes met hers with a glitter of amusement, and she knew that her fight was such a feeble one that he was enjoying the whole of it. He reached to his ankle, producing a knife from a rawhide sheath. He took hold of a strand of Jassy’s hair and stared upon it for a moment, bemused. Jassy realized that she was about to be scalped.

  She screamed, twisting and fighting in renewed fury.

  Suddenly there was the soft and curious sound of a sickening thud. Blood spilled over Jassy’s beautiful spring dress.

  The amusement left the brave’s eyes. He stared at her blankly, and she saw that a knife shaft protruded from the center of his bare chest. He grasped for it, his fingers convulsed, and then he went dead still and toppled over on her. She screamed, shoving him aside, and then she looked down the length of the ladder.

  Jamie was there. His booted foot rested upon one of the steps, from where he had so swiftly and accurately sent the knife flying to kill the Indian. His eyes met hers, and despite the bloodshed, she trembled. He was solid like rock, as agile and stealthy as the Indians who knew their land so well. He was there for her, tall upon the steps, dark and fierce. He would never panic; he would always meet what came his way with dignity and undauntable courage. She had come to recognize and love the man that he was … perhaps really too late.

  He moved and came racing up the steps toward her. He wrenched her to her feet. “What are you doing? What the hell are you doing! You should be back at the house, safe with Daniel!” His voice thundered; he was shaking with anger. He bent and retrieved his knife from the dead brave. He wiped the blade on his trousers and shoved the knife back into the sheath at his calf.

  She was stunned, Jassy realized. As slow and as worthless as Robert. “The alarm! Someone has—”

  He stepped by her and pulled hard on the bell cord. The sound began to peal, loud and strong. “Come on!” Jamie urged.

  He dragged her down the steps into the compound. Three of the Indians were at the foot of the ladder. Like the Indian at the tower, these men were barely clad. They did not notice the cool breezes of the spring morning. One of them wore paint over his cheeks. They all stared at Jamie, tensing and bracing themselves for the fight.

  It would be with knives. Twisting their blades in their hands, they stared at Jamie.

  Jamie, warily keeping his eyes upon the Indians, shoved Jassy behind him.

  “Get away! Hide! Find somewhere safe and stay there!”

  “No—”

  “Jamie!” came a booming male voice behind them. Sir William! It was Sir William Tybalt, alerted by the alarm! Jamie would no longer face their enemies alone.

  “William!” Jamie said. He shoved Jassy quickly toward his friend. “Get her out of here.”

  “No! He must fight with you—” Jassy protested.

  “William, take her. You are sworn to obey me, and I order you to take her out of here.” He stared hard at Jassy. “When it starts, run from behind me. Get to the house. Get Daniel and Elizabeth and the others and make your way to the church. It’s the only building of brick, and it is fortified. There are muskets in the back pews, and swords in the deacon’s benches.”

  “I can’t leave you.”

  “Come, my lady—” Sir William began. He had a firm grip upon her. He was Jamie’s man, and would defend and obey him until the very end, that much she knew.

  “I can’t leave you!” she screamed again to Jamie.

  “You have to leave me!”

  “Jamie!”

  She tried to hold on to his arm as they faced the Indians. Sir William pulled her away. Wetness streamed down her cheeks. She wanted to talk to Jamie. They were facing death, and there was no time to say anything, and she was choking on the tears that tasted of blood and metal in her mouth.

  “Jamie—”

  “Go!” he screamed to her. “For God’s sake, Jassy! Do you think that I can concentrate on a fight with you behind me? Get out of here, get Daniel, now! William, for the love of Christ …!”

  Sir William tugged hard upon her hand. Staring at Jamie, Jassy swallowed down hard on a sob, and blindly led by Sir William, she turned and ran at last. They stumbled along a fair distance, then, blinking furiously, Jassy pulled back and stopped.

  “My lady!” Sir William urged her.

  “Please, wait!”

  “He knows what he is doing, Lady Cameron!”

  Still, she had to see. The first Indian had already rushed Jamie. Jamie moved as quick as light, his knife blade reflecting the sun. The Indian came up taut against Jamie. He had been met with the knife in his loin. The two of them were face-to-face. Th
e Indian breathed his last and fell. Now there were only two of the warring Pamunkees left. It was a far more even fight.

  Jassy heard a scream behind her. She whirled around. Mary Montgomery, the blacksmith’s stout wife, was laying a fire poker upon an Indian who had attempted to attack her with her own bread board.

  Sir William rushed to help her, but Mary, on her own, did all right. She laid the poker flat upon the brave’s head, and he fell without a sound. She looked at Jassy with satisfaction. “Another heathen gone to hell.” She stared at the blood covering Jassy. “Lady Cameron, are you all right? Come in, Geoffrey and me will see to your protection. Sir William, you may well leave her with us.”

  “Thank you, good woman,” Sir William said, but he didn’t need to go any farther, for Jassy was shaking her head.

  “I cannot stay. Daniel … my son. I have to get my child.” She was already moving. Men were rushing by her. They were grim-faced and determined, trying to reach the gates where Jamie had fought alone. There were bodies strewn all about. Some of them belonged to the white men. And women. And many of them belonged to the Pamunkees. She stepped gingerly over the open-eyed corpse of an older brave. “I have to find my son!”

  “He’ll be all right, milady. Bless us! Those treacherous devils! We’d all be dead if the alarm hadn’t sounded!”

  Jassy nodded, and kept stumbling along the muddy streets to her house. The sounds of the fighting continued. Sir William followed behind her.

  Then suddenly an Indian jumped down from a thatched roof before them. Jassy screamed, and Sir William pushed her forward. “Go, milady, you are almost home. Run!”

  The Indian fell upon him. Sir William drew his sword, and battle was engaged. “Run!” he shouted again to Jassy.

  Daniel. Her innocent, vulnerable child lay at her house. Elizabeth and Amy and the other women waited there. Sir William would fare well enough without her. She nodded jerkily, and then she turned and ran once again. She could smell smoke. Some of the houses were on fire.

  Bodies continued to line the way. Blindly choking, sobbing, she stepped over and around them.

  She reached her own door at last and shoved it open. “Amy! Elizabeth!” No one answered her. She came tearing up the stairs and burst into her own room, where she had left Daniel in his cradle.

  She stopped short in the doorway, her hand flying to her open mouth.

  Daniel was still there, fast asleep. Elizabeth, ashen and terrified, was backed into a corner, held there at knifepoint by a young Indian. Another of the Pamunkees stood over the cradle, shaking his head. He looked at Jassy, then he fingered the little amulet that Opechancanough had sent the baby as a gift. It looked as if he meant to touch the baby next.

  “No!” Jassy screamed. She tore into the room and swept the baby up from beneath his eyes. She held him tightly against her. “No, no, no!” She narrowed her eyes and said the Indian chief’s name. “Opechancanough! Opechancanough!”

  The two Indians looked at one another, and then at her. Jassy flipped out her own amulet, the gift once given to Jamie by Pocahontas. Both Indians paused, then the first Indian indicated that she must put the baby back in his cradle. Daniel, awakened and sniffing his mother’s scent, began to cry.

  “No!” she screamed. She cradled her son closer to her. The Indian came to her. She stared into his eyes, but like Elizabeth, she found herself backed to the wall. “No! Opechancanough.”

  He came to her at last. He pressed the blade of his knife threateningly against Jassy’s throat. She lifted her chin, tears stinging her eyes. Where was Jamie now? Was he alive or dead? Had Robert ever come to warn them here? Sir William! Surely he would come to her rescue at any moment.

  There was a sudden sound of movement in the doorway, and Jassy quickly looked there with fervent prayers of rescue.

  It was no rescue. It was Hope who stood there. Jassy wondered bitterly if she had known about the attack all along. Had she slain the whites who had taken her in?

  Hope stepped warily into the room. She was dressed in European fashion, with a mass of petticoats holding out her skirts. She looked at Jassy with her curious green eyes, then spoke to the Indians in their own tongue. She was very quiet and very calm. The brave moved his knife away from Jassy’s throat and spoke to Hope insistently.

  “He says,” Hope told her, “that the baby has Opechancanough’s protection. He may stay. You are to come with him.”

  “What?” Jassy repeated. “But I am protected.…”

  Hope looked at her with wide, greedy eyes. “But you are a woman. You are to come with them. You, and her”—she pointed to Elizabeth—“are his hostages, and you will get him out of the fort. You should leave your son.” She hesitated. “They sacrifice their own sometimes. It would be wise to leave him. You must come.”

  Jassy shook her head. She glanced quickly at Elizabeth in the corner. Her sister seemed to be in shock, her blue eyes wide, open, and staring.

  “I will not come,” she said firmly.

  Hope spoke to the Indian, and the Indian shook his head firmly, flashing a white, malicious smile. He spoke to her, and Hope looked to Jassy again. “If you do not come, he will slice out her heart and make you watch, and then he will kill you. He will do so immediately. It is your decision.”

  Elizabeth gasped and sank against the wall.

  Jassy trembled, feeling the blood seep from her face. It took her several attempts to form words with her dry lips and speak. “Tell him that I will come.”

  “Both of you,” Hope murmured. She offered Jassy a peculiar smile, and Jassy realized that it was one of concern. “I will come with you too. Do not be afraid. I will not let them kill you.”

  Jassy wasn’t sure that anyone could stop this Indian from killing anyone. Still, ironically, she was very grateful to Hope. “Thank you,” she whispered. She kept her eyes upon the lethal brave. “Hope, please take Daniel and put him in his cradle.”

  Hope shook her head. “I will carry him out. They might fire the house.”

  Hope took the baby from Jassy. He was screaming in raw fury then, his face mottled and red, his little fists waving. Her breasts burst forth in an aching reply, but she dared not touch him again. Tears threatened to spill from her in hysterical measure, but she braced her jaw and held stubbornly to a show of bravado. She edged against the wall, watching the brave, and sinking down by Elizabeth. “Come on, Elizabeth. We must go. We will be all right.”

  Elizabeth stared at her hopefully, her cheeks wet and stained with tears. “Jamie will come for us,” she said.

  “Jamie will come for us,” Jassy agreed. He would come, if he did not already lay dead in the spring mud of the complex. “Come, Elizabeth. We will move slowly. Hope is coming too.”

  Hope lowered her head over Daniel’s forehead. She turned around and started down the stairway.

  The house seemed painfully silent as Jassy followed Hope, feeling the point of the Indian’s blade at the small of her back. She held Elizabeth’s arm, trying to give her sister strength. Elizabeth trembled, and silent tears fell down her cheeks, but she kept moving.

  At the bottom of the stairway Jassy nearly lost control. A sharp cry escaped her as she saw that Amy Lawton lay upon the floor, the victim of an attack made with the dish of an English garden spade. Jassy fell to her knees beside the woman, rolling her over and seeking life.

  Amy’s eyes were open and seemed to mirror the final terror she had witnessed. There was no life left within her.

  The brave behind Jassy growled out some warning and wrenched her back to her feet. They all heard a snuffling sound coming from the servants’ wing. The second Indian started off that way, but Hope caught his arm, and pleaded with him violently, showing him the baby. At length the Indian nodded. Hope gazed at Jassy encouragingly, and hurried down the hallway. She appeared again a moment later, pulling along Charity Hume, who now held the screaming Daniel. “Tell her, Lady Cameron, that she will be all right. She must take the baby and go. They will burn the ho
use.”

  Charity looked numb, and deeply in shock. She saw the Indians and started to shrink away. She was going to drop Daniel, Jassy thought.

  “Charity!” she lashed out, and she knew that she had never spoken before with so much authority as Lady Cameron. “Charity! They are not going to hurt you. But if you harm Daniel in any way, so help me, I will! Take him quickly. Go to the church.”

  Charity stared at her for a moment, hardly believing her good luck that she might escape. She clutched the baby more tightly to her. “I will keep him, lady. I will keep him well. I will keep him—”

  The first Indian was already setting fire to the tapestries and draperies about the hallway. The material caught the blaze quickly and hungrily.

  “Charity, go!”

  The young woman sped from the house. Tears burst from Jassy’s eyes as they filled with smoke, and as her heart was torn raggedly apart by the pathetic wails of her son, slowly fading in the distance.

  She had no more chance for tears or worry or emotion. The first Indian caught her by the hair and dragged her hurriedly from the house. He was taking no more time.

  The streets outside were empty, except for a few strewn bodies. The Indian did not head for the gateway to the palisade but pulled her along toward the rear of the structure. She could hear Elizabeth choking and panting and sobbing behind her, and she knew that her sister was being dragged at the same frantic pace. Her scalp pained her mercilessly, the brave’s hold upon it so strong. But at least, she reminded herself, it was still attached to her body.

  They came to the rear wall. Jassy tried to stagger back. There were other Indians waiting there, about eight of them. When they saw Jassy and Elizabeth and their captors arriving, they began a rush up one of the rear stairways to the parapets and towers.

  The Indian said something to her, jerking hard upon her hair. She was dragged up the stairs. Upon the parapet, she looked over the log wall. A hay cart lay beneath them. The Indian pushed her forward.

  “No!” she cried in panic.

  He lifted her up and tossed her over. Jassy screamed as she fell. She landed upon the hay, the breath knocked from her. She heard an echo of her scream.