Runaway (17 page)

“It—”

“Home,” he murmured. “Florida. But then, I’ve watched much of it grow. Imagine, it takes fifteen to twenty-odd days to sail from Pensacola to St. Augustine. So far west, to so far east, and the peninsula so different up and down the length of it! The territorial delegates used to alternate years, meeting in Pensacola, west Florida, one year, then in St. Augustine, east Florida, the next. It was troublesome for the gents to take such long journeys, and once a shipload of lawmakers was wrecked at the tip of the peninsula. They were, needless to say, quite exasperated. That’s when they decided they must meet in the middle, and Tallahassee became the capital.”

Tara remained silent, enjoying his musings. She could inhale the rich, masculine scent of his bare flesh, savor the gentleness of his touch.

It had seemed forever since someone had made her feel so secure, touched her so tenderly.

“Tallahassee. It’s an—Indian name,” she murmured.

She felt him stiffen. “It is.”

She shivered.

“What?” he asked softly, the strangest edge to his voice. “Do you so despise Indians?”

“I—fear them,” she admitted.

He was silent again. After a moment she felt his hands moving in her hair. A gentle touch.

The ship moved rhythmically. She closed her eyes, and in time began to drift. Deep, deep in the recesses of sleep she realized that he was touching her still. She lay upon her back, and he was straddling her, naked now, smooth, sleek, the length of him golden and copper.

“Tara?”

“Yes?”

His lips touched hers. She discovered the white gown being quickly slipped over her shoulders. She might have slept again except that his lips and hands moved over her, touched her. Hot mercury followed each caress of his mouth, and each grew more intimate, touching her here, there, again.…

She cried out at the sudden intimacy of his touch, cried out at the searing fever it evoked. Then she found herself within the strength of his arms, within the wild, raw rhythm of his passion. Again the fires created so deep within her seemed to swirl and rise, ignite to greater heights. She didn’t think that she could bear any more of the agony-ecstasy, and then it seemed that the sky burst into daylight above her, and the sun radiated a savage but delicious heat throughout her, and she lay again in wonder that anything could feel so wonderful, cause such a hunger, grant such sweet, sweet burning beauty.

She buried her head against him when it was over, embarrassed that she should become so eager at his touch. She felt the pounding of his heart slowly ease and lay very still.

“Tara?” he whispered.

She feigned sleep.

If he knew that she was doing so, he did not force the issue. His fingers moved gently over her hair once again.

In time her sleep was real.

A
lmost home, Jarrett thought, calling out an order to bring in the sails and cut hard to port to bring the ship around to the docks at Tampa Bay. Almost home. He still had to travel along the river to reach his plantation. But tonight he could introduce his wife to these “wilds” in the company of other men and women, friends—military and non—who lived here in this post that was still considered somewhat remote.

What had begun as the military base Fort Brooke at Tampa Bay was now a city as well: in fact, it had become “Tampa” just last year.

The place wasn’t exactly what might be termed elegant or even particularly civilized. It was still primarily a military base, and many men sent here felt as if they had been condemned to the bowels of hell.

Others loved it. They loved the clean white beaches, the azure color of the water in the bay, the balmy breezes that swept around them, even in the height of winter. Only a few days each year could actually be considered cold, when even in Jacksonville and Pensacola there could be, upon rare occasion, snow.

It remained a rough town. Where soldiers went, women usually followed. Some of them were the kind who liked to make a good living off the government—through
the soldiers. But military men brought sutlers along with them as well; sutlers sometimes had wives, wives had children, and thus towns—rough as they might be—did arise, filled with a little bit of everything and everyone. Tampa was such a place now. The fort, with its high wood walls, was the predominant structure, while all manner of wooden buildings seemed to trail from it, almost as if it were the head of a comet. Docks and wooden sidewalks had been built to accommodate the skirts of the ladies in some areas; in others there was no choice but to walk in the mud after a rainy day. But each year the town grew. There were establishments where ladies might stay, and establishments where a man might want to go when the last thing he wanted was a lady. There were barbers, doctors, dentists, apothecaries, and mercantiles. Chickens squawked, a cow was tended here and there, and along the roads handsome horses moved quickly, most of them now being ridden by members of the military.

“A lot of activity, don’t you think?” Robert, standing behind him with a spyglass, asked quietly.

Jarrett nodded, reaching for the glass that Robert offered him. Through it he could see that the base did indeed seem exceptionally busy. Over rough wood fences he could see that the soldiers were moving about quickly, groups of them responding to drills, single soldiers rushing from building to building, as if carrying messages of great importance. Even as Jarrett watched, a company of about twenty men mounted and started out from the enclosure at a brisk trot, men with a mission, so it appeared.

His heart seemed to sink within the cavity of his chest.

“What do you think is happening?” Robert asked.

“We both know what is happening,” Jarrett responded tonelessly, feeling ill.

War. War had broken out with the Indians
.

Well, he had left with uneasy feelings. He had known the Indians had been buying powder. He had known that Osceola would never forgive Wiley Thompson.

In truth, perhaps they had imagined what peace there had been between the two factions. Always, always, there had been the raiding. By the Indians against the whites and by the whites against the Indians. The damned Creek War of 1813–1814 had pitted American whites and Indians against English whites—and Indians. Andy Jackson’s Seminole War had been downright brutal against the remaining—or newly created—“Red Stick” factions—factions of the Indians who had still been willing to fight Jackson. Though Jackson had all but cleared out many northern towns by the year 1818, he had made those Indians who remained bitter and hard. And those who had remained unbroken often became fierce warriors.

Things had actually come to a head in November of 1835, soon after Jarrett had last seen Alligator, Osceola, and Running Bear. Surely Osceola had known when they had spoken that there was no hope for peace then.

Because Osceola was surely the mastermind behind the murder of the Indian Charley Emathla.

Of course, to Osceola, it had not been murder. Osceola had surely seen it as the proper execution of a man who had betrayed his own people. Many warriors, disheartened by the constant starvation and pressure upon their people, had seen Charley’s actions as surrender to the whites. And treachery against those who refused to be pressed farther and farther into the corners of land the whites chose for them.

Emigration west of the Mississippi had long been
Andy Jackson’s plan for the Indians, and as the whites had become more and more hungry for Florida land to homestead and farm, the issue had been coming more and more to the fore. Finally, Jackson, now President of the U.S., had sent down an order that the Indians were to be compensated for their land and belongings and sent west immediately. The Florida military officers had determined on the spring of 1836 as the time that this must take place. Whether the Indians protested or not.

When he had been asked to take his people and move west, Charley had told the whites that he had no right to speak for the Seminoles. Charley was right in his answer—he had been born a Creek, and as the Florida Indians were really composed of so many displaced and surviving tribes, he couldn’t speak for anyone other than himself. He had determined to make his home in Florida rather than go west when many other leaders had done so. Charley had owned a plantation and many cattle in north central Florida, but one day he’d decided that he was weary of fighting the whites—he would go west. He drove his cattle to Fort King to sell them, and on the way home he was ambushed, shot, and killed by militant Indians, among them the rising war chief Osceola. It seemed Osceola had led the party. So Jarrett had heard from friends in the U.S. military at Fort Brooks.

Osceola was quickly becoming one of the fiercest leaders among the Seminoles despite his keen ability to reason. But then, other than what Wiley Thompson had done to Osceola and the numerous injustices done his people, Osceola had another reason to hate the whites.

It had happened long ago. Osceola had, to this day, taken two wives, Morning Dew, his first, and Setting Sun. He had taken both wives as a young man, and many years before the recent trouble had begun, Setting Sun had been kidnapped by white fur trappers. Setting
Sun was a Maroon, an Indian with black blood in her veins. At the time of her abduction, she had been very young, exquisitely beautiful. And the fur traders had set her upon the slave block at St. Augustine and made a small fortune on her. She had been rescued before Osceola had managed to kill others or get himself killed. Jarrett had been with the well-dressed and -spoken party of whites and half-breeds, including a very passionate Running Bear, who had carefully negotiated with the planter who had purchased Setting Sun for her freedom. All had seemed well. Many officials in the territory knew nothing about the incident.

Jarrett was certain that Osceola had never forgotten it, even though Jarrett was equally certain that Osceola had gotten his revenge. The fur trappers who had kidnapped Setting Sun had disappeared while hunting one day.

That was in the past. But now, tensions, always at a high, had soared after the murder of Charley Emathla.

Jarrett should never have left.

What difference could he have made? He didn’t even know what had happened yet! Something was going on. Both the fort and the fledgling town were battening down as if they expected an attack.

Jarrett turned around and discovered his crew all but lined up behind him, and all eyes were on the activity at Fort Brooke. “Let’s bring her in, men, shall we?” Jarrett said. He was answered by a number of grim nods, and the men turned back to the task of docking their vessel. Tampa Bay was good and deep, with plenty of dockage, and his crew were quickly able to bring her to a crude berth offered by the cruder settlement.

There was excitement onshore. Barricades were going up, windows were being boarded. But beyond the activity he could see that many of the townspeople were
milling around the docks to see what he was bringing in—and perhaps to inform him about the military bustle now taking place.

He could see a woman waving. Nancy Reynolds, and beside her, her husband Josh. Old friends, good friends. Others milled around. Naturally, he had brought salt and sugar to New Orleans and had returned with French stockings, soaps and perfumes, crawfish, spices, and news. He was always eagerly awaited.

He had called out the last of his orders and was standing ready to jump ashore when suddenly he heard Tara behind him, softly voicing a strangled question.

“This—is where you live?” There was a hint of alarm in her voice. That didn’t bother him. If that had been all he heard in the question, he would have tried to reassure her.

But there was much more than alarm in those words. He was certain that he heard contempt. That she was horrified by the very strange Eden that had, since Lisa’s death, become all that he had loved. Indeed, the territory was everything to him. All that he wanted to fight for, even die for.

Spinning around, he stared at her. He’d been so eager to touch land that he had planned to do so first and then come back for her.

The tight smile curled into his lips. Her beautiful face was pale as she stared at the shore.

Tara was, at the moment, completely unaware of his anger. She didn’t know what she had expected to find when they reached his home, but not … this! The buildings were so very crude. So poor. They lacked paint, they lacked architecture, they were little more than boxes. They absolutely lacked beauty.

She clenched her jaws tight, feeling as if her teeth would chatter if she did not. The city she had left had
been so refined! The people there had not feared the elements around them. Here, it seemed that men and women were rushing to a squat fort, that they were terribly afraid. This was nothing like the rolling green hills she had once left for a better life. Nothing like the majesty of the well-established city she had fled.

She silently chastised herself. Who was she to judge? She was a runaway, and she should be grateful for this haven, any haven. If she looked around herself, there was beauty. She had seldom seen water so beautiful, so aqua, so glittering beneath the sun. The air was balmy, touched by the warmth of the sun, when in the north the day would have been frigid. If she let it, that warmth could caress her, envelop her. The place was new, raw. That’s why the buildings seemed so crude. She had to look past them.