1812: The Rivers of War (24 page)

Turning her head, she saw an arrow plunge into the river, not
more than five yards away. A second later, another one did the same, even closer.

Looking up, she could see several Chickasaw warriors on the north bank of the river. They were armed with bows. The traditional weapons were too awkward to use well in a canoe, so they must have given their few guns to the men who’d be carrying the attack onto the river.

They weren’t awkward to use on land, though. And “traditional” didn’t mean the same as “ineffective.” They were within bow range, too, even if at the extreme edge of it.

Tiana had seen the results of wounds inflicted by arrows. Worse than gunshot wounds, usually, since it was impossible to draw out the barbed arrowheads. They either had to be cut out or pushed all the way through the flesh. Removing the hideous things often caused more damage than the initial wound itself. They
had
to be removed, too. Bullets, dull and blunt, normally did little further damage once they were lodged in a body. And they tended to work their own way out, over time.

Not arrowheads, with their sharp edges. They’d keep cutting up flesh every time a person moved—and the barbs would make them work their way still deeper.

James was obviously of the same mind. Instead of staying as far away from the enemy canoe as possible, he steered directly for it. The enemy warriors on the shore wouldn’t dare fire at them, right next to one of their own canoes. Although they were still within bow range, they were far enough away that the Chickasaws on the shore couldn’t aim very carefully.

“Get ready,” he hissed. “There’s still two of them left in that canoe.”

Three, really, since the man Sequoyah had wounded wasn’t completely out of the fight. In fact, he seemed to have the only remaining unfired gun. A pistol, which he could use even with one shoulder maimed. If he was tough enough.

He was. Tiana could see him raising the pistol, grimacing like a madman. At the point-blank range James was bringing them into, he couldn’t possibly miss.

“Here!” she heard John cry out. Still blinded from the splinters, her brother had been coolheaded enough to follow the progress of the battle by hearing alone. He was holding up his musket, thrusting it in her direction, gripping it one-handed by the barrel.

Even if Tiana had had the time to reload Ross’s rifle, she wouldn’t have had the strength. But the musket was already loaded. All she had to do was shoot.

She brought it quickly to her shoulder. But then she realized that James had already brought their canoe almost even with the enemy’s.

The Chickasaw canoe was on her right. Tiana was right-handed.

She didn’t even think to shift the butt to her left shoulder. That would have made for an awkward shot, but still an easy one to make, at such close range.

Instead, from reflex and excitement, she twisted and rose to a crouch. Brought the musket up.

“Tiana!” James shouted.

She fired the gun. The Chickasaw with the pistol went over the side of his canoe, spraying blood everywhere. The bullet had struck him in the neck, just above the chestbone.

Tiana went right over the side of her own canoe, almost capsizing it. Her brother’s musket had been as heavy a caliber as Ross’s rifle. Half standing as she’d been, poorly balanced, the recoil had sent her sailing.

But she didn’t let go of the musket. Tiana was almost as good a swimmer as her brothers, so she had her head back above the water within seconds. This time she’d remembered to close her mouth, too. She shook her head vigorously, to clear her eyes.

Unfortunately, that shook loose her turban, which must have starting coming undone somewhere in the course of the fight. Tiana’s hair was long, and black—and she never tied it back when she was wearing a turban. So, at the same time that she shook water out of her eyes, she shook her hair into them.

By the time she clawed the hair aside, the two canoes were side by side. James was now standing, his legs spaced and maintaining his balance. He held his paddle as easily as a war club.

One of the two remaining Chickasaws swung his own paddle. James parried the blow easily and then batted the man off the canoe. It was almost a gentle swipe. James simply wanted to clear him aside so he could concentrate on the second warrior, and he didn’t want to risk losing his own balance.

Fighting in a canoe was … tricky. As Tiana had just discovered.

The Chickasaw turned his plunge off the canoe into a fairly
graceful dive. He landed in the water not far from Tiana herself. But she paid him no attention, since her eyes were riveted on the battle between James and the last warrior in the canoe.

James would win it, she was sure of that. She’d been told by old warriors that James was as good with a war club as any they’d ever seen—and a paddle makes for a pretty fair improvisation.

But he never had to. Another gun went off, just as the Chickasaw was rearing up for a strike. A pistol, by the sound. That surprised Tiana, since—if she remembered everything clearly—by now Sequoyah would have had his musket reloaded.

She looked over at the other canoe and saw that the shot had been fired by Nancy Ward. There was something grim and merciless about the old woman’s eyes as she watched the last Chickasaw topple overboard.

Nancy Ward was almost eighty years old. For a moment, Tiana was frozen by the sight. Half exultant—if she could be like that, at that age!—and half petrified. It was like watching some ancient, terrible creature, rising from its lair.

The voice of John Ross broke the trance.

“Tiana! Lookout!”

Startled, Tiana tore her eyes away and saw that the Chickasaw whom James had sent into the river was now swimming toward
her
.

The half grin, half snarl on his painted face would have been enough to make clear his intentions. Even if he hadn’t had his knife clenched between his teeth so that his hands would be free, allowing him to swim more quickly.

Tiana had been in a lot of fights, the way girls will. A couple of them had been ferocious, with Tiana leaving her opponent unconscious. In one case, the person had received a broken arm.

This had been her first real battle, however, fought with weapons and with deadly purpose. But of all the things that happened that day, this attack was the only one that made her truly furious.

Why is he doing this?

“You idiot!” she shrieked, as the man came up to her. His last breaststroke left his head completely exposed.

Tiana was six feet tall, strong for her size, and a very good swimmer. A powerful thrust of her legs sent her up. She raised the musket out of the water, holding it in one hand.

The Chickasaw’s eyes widened. He hadn’t spotted the musket.

“Idiot!” she shrieked again. Her grip on the musket butt felt like iron. So did the butt strike itself, when it came down on the warrior’s head.

His eyes rolled up. Blood spurted from the corners of his mouth as his jaws clenched on the knife between his teeth.

Tiana brought the butt up for another strike, but by the time she could kick her legs again to get into position, the Chickasaw was gone. She thought she might have felt his fingers tugging on one of her leggings, for just a moment, as he sank beneath the surface.

But she wasn’t sure. As hard as she’d hit him, he’d been too dazed to do anything that wasn’t pure reflex. He’d probably drown, unless someone fished him out.

Which Tiana had no intention of doing. She started swimming back to the canoe. Moving more awkwardly than she normally would have. Whatever else, she wasn’t going to let go of the musket. There were monsters in the river.

James hauled her aboard, none too gently. Just a powerful heave that sent her sprawling into the canoe, while he went back to paddling.

“Next time,” he growled, “don’t stand up to fight in a canoe. Unless you know what you’re doing. Which you don’t.”

Tiana made no retort. She was too busy scrabbling to get her head above the side of the vessel, so she could see what was happening with the other enemy canoe.

Nothing.

It was now at least forty yards off. The three men left in it—she must have hit two of them, after all, with that first rifle shot—were just staring. Then, as if her gaze was the trigger, they suddenly started paddling away.

Sequoyah had never fired again, she realized. She looked over and saw that the lame warrior was just sitting in his canoe, calmly and confidently, his musket ready. He’d been waiting for the enemy to come closer so he could kill one of them.

But the Chickasaws had had enough.

Shakily, but proudly, Tiana realized that this fight on the river was going to become a small legend of its own. Six Cherokees—one of them an old woman—had faced almost twice that
number of enemies. And they’d left seven of them dead or badly wounded, while not suffering a single casualty of their own.

She gloated too soon. The one and only casualty they suffered that day happened two seconds later. An arrow fired from the riverbank almost maimed her. Fortunately, the wicked arrowhead left only a gash on the back of her left hand, before slicing off into the water. If it had struck her wrist squarely, she’d have lost the hand.

“You’re lucky,” Nancy Ward said to her later, once they came ashore several miles farther down the river.

The old woman finished replacing Tiana’s own quick dressing with an expert bandage. “It didn’t cut any of the tendons. You’ll have a scar there, for a while. But I think it’ll eventually fade away.”

Tiana hoped it wouldn’t, although she didn’t say it aloud. Nancy Ward had been her heroine since she’d been a little girl. And now, Tiana had the visible proof that she wasn’t unfit to travel in her company.

“And don’t get too swellheaded,” Nancy murmured. “
That’s
a much worse kind of wound. Most people never recover from it.”

“I won’t,” Tiana promised.

Nancy patted her cheek. “Oh, yes, you will. Why shouldn’t you? You were very brave, and very good—and you can take that from a woman who knows. Just don’t let the swelling get too big, that’s all.”

Alas, James must have heard the softly spoken words. He had
very
good hearing.

“No chance of that,” he chuckled. “The Raven’ll shrink her head right down. Best-looking girl in John Jolly’s band, and he won’t pay any attention to her at all.”

She scowled at him. That was probably true, but …

Her other brother was grinning at her, too! John had finally washed the splinters out of his eyes. Luckily, there didn’t seem to be any permanent damage.

“What are you looking at?” she demanded. “Now that looking doesn’t do anybody any good.”

John’s grin just widened. “Oh, how quick with a blade she is! What you’d expect, of course, from a great warrior woman. But
you still shouldn’t sneer at your brother, even if his own exploits didn’t match yours.”

Tiana glared at both of them. “The two of you are making fun of me.”

“No, we’re not,” James said. To her surprise, his tone was firm and calm, not jocular. “We’re just telling you the truth.”

“You should find a different husband,” John agreed. “Colon-neh isn’t right for you.”

“Find me a better one, then!” Tiana snapped.

James and John looked at each other. Then smiled.

She’d been afraid they would.

“All right.”

“We will.”

“Of course we had to bring our sister with us,” James Rogers said firmly. “She needs a better education than she can get with the Moravians.”

He shot Sam a sly look. “She’d have been furious with us if we hadn’t, seeing as how she insists that you’re her future husband. But how can she manage that—you being a fancy officer now—if she doesn’t get a proper American education?”

Sam rolled his eyes.

Tiana was the half sister of the Rogers brothers. He’d met her during the three years he’d lived with John Jolly and his people on their island in the Tennessee River. When he’d first arrived, Tiana had been ten years old and more or less oblivious to the sixteen-year-old white boy who’d dropped into their midst. By the time he’d left, however, she’d been thirteen and he’d been
nineteen—and Cherokee girls married young. On the day he left, she’d publicly announced that she’d have him for a husband, when the time came.

Sam would have laughed it off, except … Tiana was ferociously strong-willed. John Rogers
had
laughed, at the time, and Tiana had promptly knocked him off his feet. Even at thirteen, she was a big girl.

In the weeks that had passed while Sam waited at Oothcaloga—even with such an informal party, the Cherokee notables insisted on lengthy discussions and extensive debates—James Rogers had made it back to John Jolly’s island on the Tennessee. As planned, he’d picked up his brother John, who hadn’t been at the Horseshoe because of a broken foot. Nothing spectacular, in the way of injuries—a horse had stepped on it.

What Sam
hadn’t
expected was that he’d bring back his sister, too. But Tiana was here now, sure enough. Packed for travel, and grinning ear to ear.

Her father was off somewhere, on one of his mysterious—and probably illegal—expeditions. So he hadn’t come. Neither had her uncle John Jolly. Sam’s foster father usually didn’t leave the island in the river where he’d created something of a refuge for his band of Cherokees. But it seemed that Jolly was in support of the notion also, even if—for the same reasons as Major Ridge—he didn’t feel it would be wise for him to go to Washington himself. Jolly was a small chief, but he was still a chief.

And, besides, his ties to his brother Tahlonteskee were well known, and Tahlonteskee was a major chief—a status he had not lost simply because he’d led his thousand Cherokees to settle in the land across the Mississippi River. The “Western Cherokees,” as they were coming to be known, were still considered by everyone—including themselves—to be part of the Cherokee Nation.

To Sam’s absolute astonishment, however, Tiana had been accompanied by yet another woman. A woman who was so old that Sam was amazed she’d made the trip at all.