Sword of Vengeance (23 page)

He glanced around and decided he was alone. The sounds of the village were muffled by the densely intertwined branches. A breeze stirred the tree limbs and a flurry of leaves showered about him thick as snowflakes. Kit was determined to be walking, unaided, before winter.

The lieutenant paused by the creek to study his reflection in the placid surface. He saw a changed man. His face was leaner now. And though he’d regained his normal ruddy color, there were wrinkles, like crow’s feet at the corners of his piercing eyes. He was dressed in buckskins like a Choctaw warrior. His pistols, the “Quakers” Raven had saved for him, were tucked in a belt adorned with shells and glass trade beads, another gift from Raven. But the most important gift of all had been his life. Deep in his memory, often at morning just before rising, he could dimly recall fragments of his rescue. He could almost taste the black water. If he concentrated, he could produce a mental image of himself floating, drowning, and feel hands beneath him, lifting his head out of the water, dragging him to the safety of the riverbank.

There were other images, too brief at times to fully comprehend, sometimes just the sound of a voice, the rocking of the dugout in which he lay, the smell of the wood and the stink of infection, and the moments of pain as if his leg were afire. Another memory lingered as well, of a tender touch, warm eyes in a woman’s face, sweet face, coppery skin and lips like wine and a voice to cling to when the fire returned and the darkness of death came to claim him. But he had refused. He had clung to a voice and black hair and green eyes, and the longing that became the desire to live and deny death.

He leaned his crutch against a plum tree. Kit’s left leg was free of the wood splints he’d worn for the past eight weeks. It was tightly bound with deer hide straps that had been soaked and then tightly wrapped about his calf and thigh. They allowed for a little movement yet provided adequate support for his healing limb.

Kit chanced a step, followed it with another. His leg began to ache by the time he’d traversed thirty feet, slow and steady. He started back toward the plum tree and had covered two thirds of the distance when his feet slipped in the muddy bank and he toppled into the creek with a yelp.

He spat water and sat upright, the creek flowing over and around him. But the cold bath was far easier to take than the laughter drifting toward him from the forest. He recognized Raven’s voice and scowled. He tried to stand, but his stiffly bound leg kept slipping in the mud.

Raven walked down to the creek, and wearing a look of resignation, she retrieved his cane and held it out for him to reach. He caught hold, she pulled him upright, and he hobbled out of the creek.

“It appears you’re called to keep me from drowning.”

“Then I had better stay near you,” Raven replied as he joined her on the creek bank. “But if you break your leg again, I shall let Blue Swallow set it. He can be as gentle as a wounded panther.”

“No, thanks. I’ll be careful.”

Kit was familiar with the Choctaw medicine man. Blue Swallow had straggly silver hair and a filmy gaze, and the fingernails on his hands were long and clawlike. He had come from a village on the Yazoo in Mississippi, to work his magic against the Creeks. Kit doubted the aged shaman would affect the outcome of a war one way or the other. Still, the lieutenant intended to stay in good standing with the healer, just to be on the safe side. There had to be something to his powers, for it was Blue Swallow’s medicine that broke the infection in Kit’s leg.

Kit leaned against the tree. Its branches had been picked clean of fruit by the denizens of the forest, both feathered and furred, not to mention the women and children from the Choctaw camp.

“Raven,” the lieutenant began, searching for the right words. So much had happened over the past months. He had expected to find trouble in the territory and had been prepared for whatever shape or form it took. But Iron Hand’s daughter was something else again. Nothing had prepared him for Raven. “I grow stronger every day, thanks to you and all you have done,” he continued.

The young woman stood before him, willowy as a wood nymph, with eyes so warm and inviting a man could lose himself in her gaze and never care,

“My heart is filled with gratitude.”

She nodded, waiting, perhaps even expecting more. He was struggling to speak what was really within, what had become a part of him since meeting her.

“No, my heart holds more than gratitude,” he managed to say.

He looked up at the sunlight filtering through the branches, turning them into a latticework of gold. Scissor tails darted and dipped into the creek, spattering the amber surface that flowed peacefully on. The morning was drenched in this lazy, quiet beauty. What better place to speak his heart than paradise?

“I love you,” he said. The words hung on the stillness like the petals of the last wildflower, clinging to these final days of autumn, this healing time.

In reply, Raven stepped forward and put her head against his shoulder and her arms around his waist.

Her mother had taught her the Choctaw way. The man calls you to his blanket, the two becoming one ceremony, the warrior who is broken by what is in his heart so that the woman may make him whole.

But Kit McQueen was not a Choctaw and the words of her mother’s people were not his. He had followed his own path, and it had led him to her side.

“When all this trouble with the Red Sticks is over, I will not leave without you,” he warned. He nuzzled her black hair and kissed her on the forehead when she looked up at him.

“I will go with you,” Raven said, a hint of a smile upon her wine-red lips. “If only to keep you from drowning.”

“Aaahh …” Kit growled, and pulled her to the ground, where they lay together, laughing. They made love, on this last sweet morning, lulled by the sighing wind and the singing creek.

The sun burned high overhead when Kit awoke with Raven nestled at his side, one arm stretched across his stomach.

Raven stirred, yawned, and, sensing he was awake, rose up on her elbow, one coppery brown breast brushing his arm. She smiled and began to trace circles in the rust-red ringlets matting his chest. He covered her hand with his.

“Now, none of that,” he cautioned, and then chuckled. “I’ve yet to recover my full strength, remember.”

Raven pouted, then resigned herself to the reality of the moment, rolled away from his side, and slipped into her buckskin dress. “I can wait till you are healed,” she replied.

Kit kept his comments to himself. One thing for certain, he was going to be in for a pretty wild time of it. He’d need all his stamina. The lieutenant dressed hurriedly. He imagined bringing Raven home to the Hound and Hare Inn on the Trenton Road. His mother would be …

He glanced at Raven, seeing in the Choctaw woman many of Kate McQueen’s own qualities. Both women were strong and determined and fiercely courageous. Yes, Kate would approve. And as for Esther Rose—she would be delighted.
One day I will bring her there
, Kit resolved silently.
But we will not stay.

Raven was a woman of the frontier. The wilderness was her home, not some drawing room or parlor in Pennsylvania.

Kit looked around at the shuddering branches, the climbing bittersweet: he breathed in the fragrances of the forest and reveled in the serenity. He knew, in that moment, the wilderness was his life as well, for the freedom it offered and the love he had known.

He reached down and cupped the medal lying against his chest. The coin felt warm in his hand, and the longer he stared at it, the more he began to understand how love and freedom had a price, that the peace he had experienced must sometimes be defended, bought with sacrifice. Such was the duty his father, had accepted and the legacy he had passed along to his son.

“Where are your thoughts now?” Raven asked, her hand upon his arm.

“Our time together slips through my fingers like grains of sand. Soon I must make the journey to find General Jackson. And somehow convince him not to make war on your people.”

“Your words are true. Jackson will see your heart and know it is good.”

“I don’t think the general works that way, looking into people’s hearts and all.”

Raven was about to offer further encouragement when she noticed her father following the creek toward them. Man and woman exchanged looks of relief. If O’Keefe had chosen to find them any earlier, there might have been a lot of explaining to do.

O’Keefe’s ruddy features held none of his usual good humor; indeed, his square-jawed countenance was almost grim as he hurried toward them. He seemed oblivious to the surroundings and the sheepish expressions on the faces of his daughter and Kit. Kit rubbed the back of his neck as a chill crawled up his spine.

“So there you be,” O’Keefe said as he lumbered up from the creek bank by an old hollow log. “Your ‘friend,’ Stalking Fox, just brought the news. Jackson’s finally on the move. He’s crossed into the territory, set up a fort on this side of the Tennessee, and is coming on south. They burned a Hillabee village. I don’t understand. The Hillabees have always been on good terms with the white settlers.” Iron Hand fixed the lieutenant in a smoldering stare. “I been with these people many a year. I think more like a Choctaw than I do white. If those Tennesseans march against us, by my oath, I’ll see them dance in rivers of blood before they bring me down.”

“Jackson won’t march against you,” Kit said. He leaned on his crutch and looked from Raven to her resolute father.

“What’s to stop him?” O’Keefe replied somberly.

“I will,” the lieutenant answered.

Kit noticed the look of disbelief in O’Keefe’s eyes. Even Raven looked a trifle incredulous.

“Trust me.”

As the setting sun streaked the sky with cinnamon wisps of clouds etched in golden light, the throbbing cadence of war drums reverberated throughout the Creek village at the Horseshoe Bend on the Tallapoosa River.

As leader of the Medicine Belt Clan, Wolf Jacket sat in a place of honor. He was silent and outwardly impassive as the other war chiefs began to assemble in the council house of the Red Stick village. All the leaders of the Upper Creeks, “the people of war,” had been summoned to council.

The Fox Clan under Red Eagle, newly arrived only a day ago, fresh from raids that had terrorized settlers from Alabama to deep into Georgia, had stationed themselves in front of the council house while Red Eagle entered the long-walled, low-beamed cabin and joined the other clan leaders who were gathered about the ceremonial fire.

Runs Above, the new leader of the Bear Clan, was present. His shrewd eyes were constantly shifting, as if he were expecting an attack instead of being among friends.

Other chiefs arrived as the night wore on: Clubs the Runner and Tall Willow, famed warriors in their own right. The Hawk Clan answered the call of the drums, and many of them demanded to sit at council. The Hawk Clan was always a problem, Wolf Jacket thought with a sigh. So many of the warriors were young and hotheaded, too eager to rush headlong into battle. Still, Wolf Jacket approved of their courage; he knew how to make the best use of them.

The red-coated chief knew wars were not won by reckless conduct. Each of his own forays had been carefully planned. And now he had another scheme, to draw Andrew Jackson into waging war against the Choctaws. And when the army of Tennesseans was depleted and the volunteers counting their dead, the Creeks would strike hard and fast and in overwhelming numbers.

Wolf Jacket knew the others were waiting for his counsel, to hear what he had to say. Finally Blue Kettle, a swarthy, quarrelsome warrior, glanced at Runs Above, who nodded. As if acting on an unspoken command, Blue Kettle stepped forward and, indicating Red Eagle, began to speak.

“Our brothers of the Fox bring us word of their many victories against the white settlers who steal our land. Songs will be sung of their bravery and great deeds. But what will be sung of we who hide behind the walls of our village? Let us march against this General Jackson and destroy him once and for all. Then the white men in their great village to the north will see that the Creeks will keep their land and not be driven out.”

Blue Kettle looked about and saw that many of the young men, especially among his own clan, supported him.

Red Eagle, a mixed-blood whose clean-cut features were hidden behind his war paint, stood up and waited for the others to cease their comments and be quiet.

“I have fought the white soldiers. They have no stomach for fighting. We have nothing to fear from them.” Red Eagle folded his arms across his muscular chest. His close-cropped hair was adorned with a pair of eagle feathers, which added to his stature. He turned to Wolf Jacket and added, “Still, I will hear the words of he who wears the medicine belt.”

Again there was murmuring among the braves as Wolf Jacket stood and walked to the center of the circle of warriors.

“We are not women who hide from the soldiers who have crossed the Tennessee. Nor are we children who shake our weapons and run to the first sound of rifle fire.” His eyes swept over the faces of the men seated in the council house. He fixed his gaze on Blue Kettle, who lowered his eyes and sat down among the other young men of the Hawk clan. “This is no game for children,” Wolf Jacket continued. “The Red Sticks are strong because our numbers are many. We are many because we do not waste our young men in battle.” Embers in the fire crackled and split apart. “Let the soldiers make war against our enemy, the Choctaw. Let them weaken one another. Then we will destroy them both.”

Jackson may march against us. How do you know he will choose to attack Iron Hand?” Runs Above said, rising to confront Wolf Jacket. As an elder and leader of the Bear Clan, he had a right to challenge the war chief.

“Can you see what has yet to happen?” Red Eagle asked. He too had begun to doubt the wisdom in delaying a strike against Jackson’s army.

“It will happen as I say,” Wolf Jacket stated flatly.

“And will you lead this Jackson and his army against the Choctaws at Willow Creek?” Runs Above said. He thought he had Wolf Jacket caught by his own words. Runs Above was wrong.