Captive (53 page)

“Yes,” she whispered. “James?”

“Please… remember, it is Christmas. You be careful. Let your life be your present to me, please!”

He held her again, then helped her up within the tree, hurrying to his horse immediately before he could delay further. About a half mile from Teela, he tethered her horse in a pine copse. Then he followed the trail of hoofprints until he came to a clearing where he halted, suddenly aware of just what they had stumbled upon.

In the whole of the theater of war as he had known it, nothing had ever appeared so big; nor had Indians ever prepared so carefully for battle. The lake was to the rear, a high hammock just in front of it. In front of the hammock, mud, mush, and saw grass stretched in all directions. Some of the saw grass had been mown down to allow for clearer rifle fire. Even as he stared at the field before him, he saw movement to his left. Dismounting from his horse, he silently pursued the movement, catching up with a breech clout-clad Indian and tumbling him to the ground. Straddling the young warrior, he saw that it was Racoon, a young man of Coa-coochee’s tribe.

“Running Bear! You’ve come to fight!” the boy exclaimed with surprise. “I thought you were a solider. I am to lead them here. There are many. Another commander comes against us. Zachary Taylor. Wildcat says that he is the general that he will best!”

“Wildcat fights, who else?” James demanded.

“Arpeika—you know, Sam Jones. And Alligator is here with his warriors. We are nearly five hundred in number.”

Startled, James arched a brow. “What of the white troops? I know they’ve come this way. How many?”

“Over a thousand, we believe. But it doesn’t matter. We will kill them as they cross the swamp. Blood will mingle with the mud.”

James crawled off the boy, helping him up. He looked at the sky in time to see that the sun was already up. It had to be around noon.

He heard the sudden sound of fire and turned.

They were coming, indeed.

The soldiers were making a frontal attack despite the swampland and saw grass they would have to traverse. Guns were loaded, guns were fired. Horses couldn’t possibly navigate the swamp, and the men came on foot.

Out of the hammock the Indians responded. They fired their weapons in return.

They let out their terrible war cry.
Yohoehee … yo-hoehee
…

The sound of it was enough to make skin crawl. “Get out of the line of fire, Racoon!” James commanded the boy.

“I’m not afraid—”

“Then live to be free!” James commanded him. “Go!”

The young man started slipping through the saw grass. James saw the first ranks of the soldiers draw in, fall back, regroup.

Another regiment was brought forward. Traversing the swamp. Firing, stopping, reloading, firing, stopping …

Falling, bleeding, dying …

James fell back, watching the action, hurrying for his horse. He mounted, moving more quickly as he realized that another regiment was being sent in to attack on the right wing.

Watching the way that the soldiers moved around, James realized that there would be hand-to-hand combat all around the hammock.

Even in the high ground where he had left Teela.

Teela heard the first gunfire and nearly leapt down from the oak. James had told her to stay. He knew how to fight. He knew how not to die. She had to obey his command in this.

Yet the fire came closer, closer. She heard men shouting, first in Muskogee. She had learned some words but not enough to begin to understand what was being said. And the voices were excited, fast …

Screams. There were screams as bullets found their marks. There seemed to be quiet for a while, and then…

More fire. And the awful, hair-raising shrieks of the warriors as they cried out before an attack.

Near her, she suddenly heard English.

“Careful now, men, we’ve been cut off. To the high ground, use the trees for cover. Reload and prepare to fire at my command!”

To her amazement, she knew the voice, knew it well.
She knew the tall, harried, muddied, dirtied, even bloodied young man who suddenly led a dozen men into the copse directly beneath her.

John Harrington.

His men quickly scampered into position, pausing to load their breech-loading weapons with uncanny speed for the action required, teeth ripping into powder bags, the slide of metal against metal as they tamped down their shot.

Suddenly, the Seminole war cry was let out again. Teela nearly froze in her tree, then gasped back a scream of horror as naked, painted Indians came flying toward the hammock.

She heard a roar of fire; three Indians went down. Another roar of fire …

Three Indians behind the first to arrive had awaited their chance to fire.

A boy below Teela shrieked, struck in the shoulder. John swore vehemently, hit in the arm. Another soldier fell without a word or a whimper.

The Indians were all over the copse. The combat was hand-to-hand, the soldiers fighting desperately with bayonets, swords, knives … even using their rifle butts as clubs. The Indians kept coming.

The soldiers fought bravely. Indians and white men fell together.

John stood before the oak, shouting a command to his men. “Retreat, behind me, eastward toward the main body of troops. Men, march!” he roared.

Those still standing did as he commanded. Two of the remaining Indians chased them.

Two of them stared at John, smiling slowly. John, with only one good arm, raised his rifle high like a club. He faced certain death.

He began to waver, then he fell.

The Indians let out one of their hideous, bone-chilling cries, and started for him.

Teela didn’t think, she reacted, slipping from the tree in desperate horror. She threw herself over John’s fallen
body, rising to meet the startled eyes of the two warriors, men she’d never seen before. Terror filled her, and she wondered at her own reckless action, for it seemed that not only would they finish off John, but they would kill and scalp her as well.

“No!” she cried out, leaping to her feet, warily keeping her place in front of Harrington’s fallen body.

John began to come to, struggling up. “Teela! Teela, for the love of God, the savages will kill you! How can you be here? I must be dead already.”

“You’re not dead! Shush!”

She lifted from her chest the amulet James had given her, showing it to them. To her amazement, they paused. Then one came forward, fingering the silver crescent. She held her breath in terror as they spoke to each other. Yet when one voice grew loud and she recoiled, there was a sudden thunder upon the ground.

James burst into the clearing on his horse, leaping from it, surging forward, his knife aimed at the chests of the men who would accost her. He shouted something in his Muskogee language, fierce, commanding. He moved the knife, showing the men they must leave.

His words were so harsh! Yet she felt him shaking as he held her, drew her back, forced her behind him. John staggered to his feet. “James, my friend, get Teela out of here—”

One of the Indians lunged at James. He shoved Teela hard back to John, ducking the blow that was coming his way. He slammed the Indian in the gut, then lifted him over his head, throwing him against the tree. The man crashed to the ground, either dead or unconscious. The second Indian let out a cry and came flying at James. He braced for him, half stepping aside and letting the man’s own impetus bring him down hard to the earth. A fierce knife battle followed with the two of them rolling. Teela grabbed up John’s rifle, shaking as she loaded it, then discovered she was unable to take aim at the moving, confusing target.

But then the battle suddenly ceased with an awful
sound. The warrior let out a howl, and Teela realized that James had broken the man’s arm to force him to relinquish his knife. James leapt up, shouting at the warrior as he dragged him back to his feet, and let him go. After a moment of stunned disbelief, the wounded brave turned, disappearing into the brush.

“You saved my life, both of you,” John whispered, falling against the oak. From there he fell to the ground again, unconscious, almost on top of the fallen Indian.

“You left the tree!” James roared at Teela.

“I had to, James! They would have killed John.”

James fell to his knees beside his white friend. Teela came down beside him. “He was wounded in the arm, then he passed out. He’s lost a terrible amount of blood.”

“Let me rip up your hem …”

“I’ve still some sulfur left if you can clear the wound and we can see the damage.”

James had the strength to rip John’s uniform and clear the arm. Teela tenderly ascertained that the bone hadn’t been shattered or chipped, and between them they fixed a tourniquet to stanch the flow of blood.

“What did you say to them?” Teela demanded. “How did you get them to leave?”

“I told them that the soldiers were coming.”

“How brilliant.”

“How true.”

Teela leapt up, staring from him to John. “Oh, God, what do we do? We can’t just leave him here. What if they do go on by him? What if they don’t find him? He’ll die without immediate care!”

“Yes, he’ll die.”

“But … but we’ve got to go …”

“We’re not going,” he said firmly.

“What?” Teela cried with incredulous alarm. “Oh, you are a madman! We have to figure out something else. You can’t be taken. We must go, we must go—”

A madman? He might be one, James knew, but he had suddenly—and very determinedly—made his decision.

“No, we’re not leaving. I’m sorry, my love. We both
know that we cannot leave John to die. And there is more.”

“What more?” she whispered.

“I’m hurting you, Teela. I’m hurting our unborn child.”

“But—”

“I cannot do so anymore. It isn’t that I wish to make my home anywhere else. I just don’t wish to run anymore. Once I felt that running was my only chance. Even with Osceola gone, the Indian chiefs know that I am not their enemy, and more—they know that I am worth far more alive than dead, and I do not betray my promises. Now I intend to stand my ground with the whites. Warren is dead. And I am innocent of the accusations that have been made against me.”

“But,” Teela cried, “you still remain accused of terrible deeds, and we stand in the middle of a battleground—”

“And I will stand before those who accuse me and show everyone that their words are lies.”

“James,” Teela whispered. “You will still be judged! You can’t know—”

“But I can
believe
,” he told her very quietly. “Because of
you
,” he assured her softly, “I can believe. Believe that there is justice in men, and that the justice in them isn’t dependent on their color.”

She appeared stricken. He pulled her closer. “I will make a life for us, Teela. I will prove myself. I believe, because of you. Now you have to believe in me again. Believe that I can be as strong in your world, against your
civilized
savagery, as I can be in the wild.”

She stared at him and slowly smiled. She came up on her toes to kiss him. “
I believe!
” she whispered. “Oh, God, yes,
I believe
!”

And even as she did so, they heard the sounds of hoofbeats.

Soldiers were coming.

“Call them, Teela!” he commanded her softly.

“I believe!” she whispered again. Then loudly she called out, summoning the soldiers to John’s aid.

T
hough the Battle of the Okeechobee could hardly be called a conclusive victory, the day’s commander, Zachary Taylor, fairly new to the Florida war, would receive accolades for the action, and more—military advancement.

It was one of the largest battles, since the Indians had learned, from the beginning, that they hadn’t the superior numbers, and striking quickly and disappearing into the bush usually gave them far more success. They had thought they had a battleground on which they could win. In the end, however, their flank had been broken. Still, they had caused more casualties to the whites than they had sustained themselves, and therefore, though the soldiers had made quite a haul in captives and Indian cattle, the engagement was at best a stand off.

John had come to in good time, telling those who found him that James had not been among the Indians, but had fought to save his life. Joshua Brandeis was on hand in the field hospital where John was brought. While James’s fate was still in the air, he discovered himself helping with the wounded along with Teela.

He was surprised to find himself treated not just well, but with respect by the majority of the commanders and the soldiers. He met with Hernandez and Zachary Taylor, who assured him he would have a fair hearing in St. Augustine.

“One thing, Mr. McKenzie,” Taylor told him.

“Yes, sir?”

“You might do well for yourself to marry Miss Warren
in a Christian ceremony before coming to a hearing. Do you have a problem with such a ceremony, sir?”

“I? Not in the least. Most especially if the lady is willing.”

Apparently, Teela wasn’t informed as to why she was being brought from the hospital to the command tent, because she entered with a very anxious expression. Her relief was such that when a stern Zachary Taylor asked her if she was willing to marry one James McKenzie, er, known to be the father of her expected child, she began to pass out.

James caught her. “Would you have them hang me on the spot?” he teased her, fanning her awake.

“Marriage… James! We’ll really be married?”

“Once you agree to the ceremony.”

“Oh, I agree.”

The regimental chaplain came in, a lean, kindly man who believed in God’s good will to all men. They were married quietly and quickly, and allowed to engage in a long kiss that brought a swift barrage of applause from all present. Then—under the circumstances—Teela went back to the hospital, and James was again under guard.

Finally, they returned to St. Augustine. And on the day James came before the military commanders for his hearing, he was ready to speak in a way that he prayed would be honest to all that he was, to the mother he still loved and the father he had adored. The brother who would be his ally for life.