Sword of Vengeance (18 page)

She returned her attention to the deer trail faintly visible among the trees. She started along the path and disappeared among the tall timber. About twenty-five yards from camp she located a small spring bubbling out of the ground, a pond no larger than six feet across. The cool, sweet-tasting water was ringed with animal tracks. A fawn darted into the brush as Raven stepped around a tree and out onto the trampled leaves and grass. Removing her shirt she knelt by the spring and cupped the cold water to her breasts. When she had washed, the young woman redressed and settled back on her heels.

A twig snapped, announcing Kit’s presence. From the look on his face Raven suspected the man with the flame-red hair might have been standing back in the woods watching her.

He seemed to read her thoughts but wasn’t about to admit his guilt. Yes, Kit had stood off among the shadows, uncertain whether or not he should intrude on the young woman’s privacy. Then Raven had partly disrobed and he had done the gentlemanly thing … and slowly turned away.
My God
, he had thought,
it’s like stumbling upon Eve in Paradise
. The sight of her left him breathless.

Now that he stood before her, damned if he wasn’t as tongue-tied as a schoolboy at a church social. He doffed his broad-brimmed hat and knelt by the spring. “Pardon me. I thought I’d just fill my water flask.”

“But you don’t have it with you,” Raven told him. Her sharp eyes missed nothing. And she was not about to let him off the hook. It amused her to see this cocky intruder wriggle in discomfort.

“I must have left it on my horse,” Kit offered lamely.

“Then drink of the living water while you can,” Raven said. “For you will not be able to carry it with you when we leave.”

Raven stood and skirted the edge of the pool as he drank. Her limp was less pronounced now. She had ridden the dun mare throughout the day and her ankle was rested.

“I am grateful for the use of your horse today,” she said, drawing up alongside Kit.

Kit straightened and stood. “The animal is yours for as long as you wish.”

“A generous gift,” Raven replied. “But mine are a proud people. We always reciprocate, worth for worth. Now, what could I give you in return?” A faint smile touched her lips. Her striking green eyes seemed to twinkle like twin stars.

Kit gulped and was about to make a suggestion when Iron Hand O’Keefe barged into the clearing, noticed how close Kit and his daughter were standing, and shattered the idyllic moment with a brusque clearing of his throat, a noise as melodic as a toppling tree.

“Well, bless my soul, the resiliency of youth. Even in the face of tragedy and bloodshed the young find time to sneak off together!”

Kit jumped back, color in his cheeks. Even Raven seemed to be caught off guard, but she handled it better than Kit. Then again, being headstrong and unhampered by propriety, she felt no need to defend her behavior. This gallant, flustered stranger awakened her interest, and she wasn’t ashamed to admit it.

Raven wasn’t blind, however. She could read the look in her father’s eyes and knew he wanted to talk with Kit and wanted to talk alone. The young woman held her ground. O’Keefe fixed the girl in a stare as icy as the spring-fed pond, but it failed to dent her resolve.

“By heaven, lass, you’ve too much of your father in you,” the Irishman muttered. He shrugged and waved a hand toward the trees and Young Otter joined them, along with Stalking Fox, who had been among the new arrivals, and a powerfully built older warrior named Abram, who had been baptized by a missionary up on the Tennessee. The aroma of roasting venison trailed the men out of the woods along with the noise of playing children.

“We will hold our council here, and you may stay and listen, daughter, but try to keep that tongue of yours still for once.”

Kit hooked his thumbs in his belt while the other warriors slaked their thirst at the spring. O’Keefe lit a pipe. Stalking Fox, who also recognized the white man, had made no overture toward Kit. He did not give his trust so easily as Young Otter, whom he considered a foolish man.

“All right, McQueen.” O’Keefe puffed on his pipe as the other men squatted in the trampled grass a couple of yards from the water’s edge. The glade was not large enough to accommodate the entire war party, but it would do for this council. “Now, tell me why you’ve come to our hunting lands.”

Another man might have lied, fearing to turn friends into potential enemies. But Kit McQueen owed Iron Hand O’Keefe his life. More than that, he owed him the truth.

“I am a lieutenant in the army of the United States,” Kit answered. “And I have been sent to bring you back a prisoner or see you dead.”

Stalking Fox reached for his tomahawk. The other warriors stiffened at Kit’s reply. Iron Hand O’Keefe nodded sagely and continued to smoke his pipe as if nothing had happened. He exhaled a cloud of smoke that billowed between him and the red-haired officer.

“That may be easier said than done. But may I ask why?” The Irishman looked up at Kit. The younger man had made no move toward his pistols. There was obviously something more to what the lieutenant had to say.

Kit ignored Stalking Fox’s open hostility and knelt by O’Keefe.

“The army thinks the Choctaw have allied themselves with the British and are responsible along with the Creeks for these attacks on the Alabama and Tennessee settlements. Even now Andrew Jackson is in Nashville putting together a force of militia. When he’s ready, Jackson will head south to wage war against the tribes he thinks are working for the British.”

“Working for the British? Me!” O’Keefe exclaimed. He held up his hook. “They took me away from home and hearth! They cost me my youth and my good left hand.” The Irishman snorted in disgust.

“That’s why I’m here,” Kit said. “I came to warn you. And to find out for myself just who is supplying the Red Sticks with their weapons.”

Iron Hand O’Keefe sized up the smaller man. He had to like Kit, for his courage and his brash resolve. But before O’Keefe could ask just how the lieutenant planned to accomplish all this, Raven interrupted them, for she too had information to share.

“The
Alejandro
,” she said.

The men all turned to her, wondering why a young woman would speak in council.

“Wolf Jacket is expecting to rendezvous with a boat called the
Alejandro
where the Tallapoosa joins the Alabama. I heard him brag about the many guns he would receive, enough for every Red Stick who follows him.”

Kit smacked his fist into his open palm. His eyes burned with excitement. “Well done!” he exclaimed. She beamed at his compliment. Kit squatted alongside O’Keefe. “I’ll beat the Creeks to their rendezvous if I can by heading downriver. All I have to do is find the boat, sneak aboard, and capture the British agent.”

“Is that all?” O’Keefe grunted. “That ought to be a romp in the tulips for a fire rocket like yourself. Maybe I’ll send a few of my men along just in case you need help.”

“They might come in handy.” Kit grinned. “I’m unfamiliar with the country along the Alabama.”

“I know the way,” Raven spoke up.

O’Keefe puffed himself up. “Now, see here, daughter—” he sputtered.

“None of the other warriors here have traveled the length of the Alabama,” Raven explained to her father. “Only you and I. And you must gather our people at Willow Creek. That leaves me.”

“I should never have taken you to Mobile,” O’Keefe said with a sorrowful wag of his head. He glanced at Kit. “I just figured to give her a taste of civilized culture and such.” He emptied his pipe, tapping it against his hook. Then he tucked the pipe back in his possibles bag, a leather pouch that held flint, lead balls, patches, and his pipe and tobacco.

“I don’t know …” Kit began.

“That’s right,” Raven said. “But I do. I remember the way. There are marshes and swamp farther south. A person could easily get lost.”

“I also shall go,” Young Otter blurted out. He was eager for adventure. Kit turned and clapped Stalking Fox on the shoulder. “Join us, my brother?”

The dour-looking warrior fixed his brooding gaze on the white man. His features were dark with mistrust, his brows knotted in a frown. Then he nodded in agreement, but the look on his face made it clear he was going along more to keep an eye on Kit than to raid a riverboat.

Kit didn’t give a damn how the man felt toward him as long as Stalking Fox knew which way to point his rifle in a fight.

“So be it,” Iron Hand O’Keefe said. He held out his hand to Kit, who clasped it firmly. “I’ll gather my Choctaws and keep clear of Colonel Jackson and his volunteers. For as long as I can.” The Irishman frowned, and his voice took on a tone of warning. “But there is bloody war a’coming, lad. And we might yet find ourselves staring at each other through smoke.”

M
ILES TO THE NORTH
of the Choctaw hunting grounds—just outside the settlement of Nashville in the Tennessee country—an army of militia had settled in along the banks of Fox Creek. Choosing an abandoned farmsite on land recently purchased by their commander, more than a thousand volunteers had erected makeshift shelters, log cabins, and tents. They impatiently bided their time, enduring days of boredom and inactivity while more frontiersmen and farmers came into camp, eager to join up with General Andy Jackson and wipe out the marauding savages down in Alabama Territory once and for all.

Dominating the center of the encampment was a ramshackle farmhouse whose log walls were in dire need of rechinking before the winter winds began to blow. Andrew Jackson had commandeered the house for his headquarters.

This afternoon in early September found him reclined upon a daybed that his orderlies had brought out on the front porch. From this vantage point he oversaw the encampment, issued necessary orders, settled disputes between the rough-hewn woodsmen gathered in the meadow, and endured a bout of dysentery and the recurring pain of an old wound. A pistol ball was lodged in his side, the legacy of his most recent duel. The nagging pain had put him in a foul mood.

He’d tried to shift his thoughts and concentrate on something else, like his dear wife Rachel, waiting for him back at the Hermitage. He missed her more than he thought possible.

A horseman riding at a fast clip through the encampment caught the general’s attention. He shaded his eyes and at last recognized Captain Marcus Bellamy. Being born in the “Garden of the Waxhaws” in South Carolina, the same as Jackson, had ensured young Bellamy a place of rank in this army of volunteers. The captain kept his horse at a gallop through the camp, skirting breakfast cook fires and cabins and tents and leaping a makeshift barricade of barrels to the cheers of a trio of buckskin-clad hardcases. They waved to the horseman as he dashed past.

It was obvious that Bellamy was bound for the farmhouse. There wasn’t a militiaman who envied the captain, for it was common knowledge that General Jackson was in an especially ugly mood, what with his poor appetite and the nagging discomfort of his wound.

Bellamy halted his charger in the shade of the farmhouse, leaped down from the saddle, and slipped to his knees in the dirt. He cursed and dusted off his blue woolen trousers, then straightened his short-waisted jacket and adjusted his leather cap.

“A poor dismount, Marcus,” a voice from the porch admonished.

Bellamy’s cheeks reddened, but undaunted by the criticism he hurried up onto the porch. The captain was proud of his uniform and his ranking, though both had been earned not by deeds but by a happenstance of birth. Bellamy was certain he would prove his mettle on the field of battle, given the opportunity.

“General Jackson, I have come from Nashville!”

Jackson raised up on his elbows and stared at the officer he had created. The general was a tall, gaunt man with a bold, unyielding gaze burning from his sallow features. His hair was silver and unkempt. But his voice was steady and cut the air like a whip crack.

“All the way from Nashville, you say? By heaven, Marcus, you
have
had a trip. Let me stir myself from this chair and let you rest your weary bones.”

Jackson swung his long legs around and sat upright. But instead of continuing his charade he poured himself another brandy and managed a tentative sip. “Must be nigh on to five miles.” He took a corncob pipe off the table and clamped the stem between his teeth. A few strikes from his tinder box, and the tobacco was lit.

Bellamy ignored the commander’s caustic sense of humor. He reached inside his coat and brought out a leather packet.

“A dispatch. I encountered the rider in Nashville while procuring supplies for the camp. I left the wagons to make their way at their own speed and hurried this along to you.” Bellamy held up the packet. His boyish features beamed with excitement. “It is from Colonel Gain Harrelson of the United States Army. Perhaps these are the commissions we have been hoping for.” A captain of volunteers was not nearly as prestigious as a rank recognized by the War Office of the federal government. Jackson frowned at the captain’s implication that the commander of the Tennessee Volunteers was in any way anxious to be commissioned. In truth he was, but damned if he intended to show it.

“Well, hand it here, man. Hand it here,” Jackson growled. Then as an afterthought he nodded toward the bottle on the table by the daybed. “Help yourself, if you’ve a mind to.”

“Thank you, General,” Bellamy exclaimed, and hurried to pour a drink before Jackson changed his mind.

The general’s nature was often mercurial—fiery one instant, cordial and polite the next. A man never knew when he might step from the tulips into a beehive around the likes of Andrew Jackson.

The general opened his dispatch and positioned himself so that a ray of sunlight fell across the handwritten page. “What the … this dispatch should have reached here a month ago,” Jackson complained.

Bellamy shrugged and continued to wait in respectful silence, hoping for good news yet uncertain whether he ought to inquire as to the contents.

Andrew Jackson slowly stood, one hand rubbing his abdomen as he continued to read. He walked to the edge of the porch and raised his hawk’s eyes to the encampment, the meadow, and the blue hills beyond. He inhaled the aroma of frying salt pork and cornmeal mush and wondered how long it would be before he could eat again. Jackson seemed an irrevocably lonely man at this moment, an intense and solitary figure poised on the edge of greatness.