Once the purchase was done, Man-Killer got to his feet and went on another high-pitched, formal rant, which McGilliveray translated into short, pithy phrases now and again, the upshot being that he didn't know much about this young white man, but he would be considered “of Man-Killer's fire,” which seemed a grudging sort of honor short of actually becoming Indian, more specifically of the Muskogee Wind Clan, since everyone Creek knew that they were the best people on the face of the earth, and they wouldn't adopt just
any
upstart as a Real Person until he had proved himself a superior sort of being, perhaps on par with a Seminolee or Apalachee, who at least could speak something like Muskogean. Man-Killer also grudgingly allowed that since this strange white man had bought the girl Rabbit from him at such a damned good knockdown price, he would allow her to remain in the Wind Clan and in his lodge as “daughter” instead of slave after the white man went back where he came from, so the offspring would be raised Muskogee, which Man-Killer thought would be the best for all concerned. He didn't like the way white men raised their children, anyway, with all that spanking and beating, which broke the spirit.
“At least the little bastard's going to be spared tutors and algebra,” Alan sighed.
All through these preliminaries, the Indian women of the clan and the
huti
had gathered their sisters from the other
hutis
to witness the ceremony. Through it all they had yipped and whooped with delight, eager as harpies discovering a newly slain corpse to feed upon.
Finally, they brought Rabbit out. She had bathed and drawn her raven hair back into a single long braid, adorned with beads and a few feathers other than eagle. She wore a new, richly embroidered and beaded deerskin skirt, a little longer than her usual style, with a new upper garment much like a match-coat or bed-sitting coat, tied under the arms, which still left her right breast free.
“How much ritual does it take for her to get ready?” Alan asked as she was paraded before her new “sisters” of the Wind Clan. “I'd say this was arranged a long time before I heard about it. Well, damn their pleasures, I say!”
“More to the point, blessin's on yours, Alan,” Cashman replied, sobered by how lovely the girl was, and by the solemnity of the moment, no matter how absurd it was. “If they were
forcin' me to wed her, I'd think myself lucky. Damn shame you can't take her with you when you leave tomorrow.”
“Oh, for God's sake,” Alan groaned. Still, she was tricked out right handsome, even he had to admit that, and had been fawn-pretty before.
A way was cleared, and she knelt down before him on her knees, her eyes swimming with tears even as she beamed at him with happiness so open and adoring it silenced even the most cynical of his crew.
Man-Killer read the rites, which were simple to the extreme. He offered her the platter of venison, and she took a bite to accept him. She offered him a bowl of
sofkee
and an ear of corn still in the shuck, which he tasted. Then she was allowed to come sit beside him and link arms with him, pressing her young body to his side and gazing up at him in shuddering reverence.
“Now what?” Alan asked, putting an arm around her shoulders in spite of himself.
“That's it, you're married,” McGilliveray said, and Man-Killer and the women said pretty much “amen” or “here, here,” which raised whoops and shouts from all present. “Give you joy of this day, Lieutenant Lewrie. Go, take your bride to your new home yonder. It's only a summer
chickee
, but private enough. I helped built it yesterday.”
“Damn your eyes, McGilliveray!” Alan said, unable to do anything other than smile as people crowded around to congratulate the “happy couple.”
“Go forth, be fruitful, and multiply,” Cashman called with an exaggerated bow. “Though you've a fair start on that, hey?”
It was expected that the newly-weds would retire immediately, and Rabbit was almost dragging him, so he finally allowed himself to be led off to a new and fresh-smelling
chickee
back towards those fatal corn-cribs, near the rear of the family
huti.
They climbed up onto the mat-covered floor and pulled the split-cane wall mats down for privacy. Almost before the last mat had fallen in place, Rabbit was on him like a ferret, dragging him to the floor. Taking heed of her lessons in passionate deportment from Alan's earlier teachings, she flung her arms about his neck and showered him with kisses, babbling away softly and rapidly in Cherokee/Creek/English, all the while tearing at his clothes.
“Ah-lan,” she crooned, besotted with love and trembling with happiness at her freedom from slavery, and at her marriage. “You me!”
“You are mine,” he corrected between kisses. She practically
ripped his breeches open and rolled to sit astride of him. She took his left hand and rubbed it over her firm belly and purred like a very contented kitten, stirring her loins against him. “Baby,” he said.
“Bebby, you me,” she parroted. “You ⦠ahr ⦠mine.”
“Ours,” he said, tapping her stomach. “God help me.”
“Ahrs, go'hemmy,” she said, beaming, with tears of joy cascading down her smooth young cheeks and splashing on her upper garment and breast. Alan reached up and undid the knot that held the little match-coat together, and it fell away, revealing both of those delightfully springy young orbs. She slid further down his belly as his hands caressed her breasts and nipples, and in moments her vagina was slick and moist on his skin. She slid further down, reached and found his throbbing member. Press-ganged into marriage or not, she was still a damned attractive and nubile young piece, he decided. She steered him into her and rocked back to drive him deep inside, making them both gasp at the velvety pleasure of the first stroke of insertion, and it was as good as the first time they had coupled in the corn-crib, just as full of wonder and discovery. For her perhaps it was even better, for she was fulfilling her life's role as wife and mother-to-be, and her inspired exertions communicated inspiration to him.
There was no fire for her to tend that night, no more errands to run for others now she was a freedwoman, so they could exhaust themselves totally and fall asleep together. She cuddled to him in the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder and one downy thigh flung across his belly, her breath stirring soft against his cheek and neck. Every movement he made was responded to with an unconscious hug, some little whimper of joy. She woke once briefly, sated beyond measure, and only kissed him, repeated his name and her few words of endearment in English, and sank back into sleep in his arms.
Â
Alan woke just before dawn as it got a little chilly, and drew a red trade blanket over them. He looked down at her and snuggled to her cozy warmth, worn down to a nubbin and barely awake, savoring the last few minutes of closeness.
“Damme for a fool, but this marriage nonsense don't feel half-bad right now,” he muttered. Long as it's over today, he thought. Being a daddy, though. That cuts a bit rough. Not that I'll be around to listen to the little bastard bawl, so that's not so bad. Feels good, this.
In his entire experience with women, he had rogered mop-squeezers and country girls, tumbling with them in the dark at the top of the stairs, across un-made beds, or rolling behind a hedge in the summers at the edge of a field, all quick and furious. He had lain at ease with whores between bouts of “the blanket horn-pipe,” but for the life of him, as he lay there gradually coming awake, he could not actually remember
sleeping
with a girl. Usually his time was governed by being furtive, or the commercial nature of the transaction; on, off, and just where the hell's my hat?
This, though, this closeness and peacefulness of being in bed with a woman who wanted you as much as you wanted her, who smelled so good and intimate under the blanket, who snoozed away so trusting in his arms, and who would respond with affection to any sign of affection on his partâwell, this was something else again.
Pity I
can't
take her with me, he decided silently, though it was a forlorn wish. She would not fit in anywhere he went, most especially aboard
Shrike
. It isn't that I really love her that much, he thought, but for now, she's a sweet thing, a girl with a good little heart.
As he came more awake, and listened to the sounds of the Creek town beginning to stir around their
chickee,
he was filled with an out-of-character sadness, not just because he had to leave her behind and probably never see her again. There was sadness regarding the whole Indian way of life, too. From all that McGilliveray and Cowell had said, there was little hope that the Creeks could retain their ancient traditions. The Rebels, who styled themselves Americans now, would press against the borders, the rum and whiskey and trade goods would contaminate the old ways. If there was unity of purpose for now between the Creeks and Seminolee and the fragments of other tribes, then it would not last long, and they would face their future uncoordinated, prey to any outside aggression. Even if Cowell and McGilliveray could convince the Shelburne government to commit troops and money to retake Florida with Indian help, the Indians would still wither away in the face of white civilization, nibbled to death instead of going out in one brave battle. There was no place for them to run, no lands further west that did not already have owners. They could survive by imitating white ways of living, but at what a price, and how much suffering and degradation?
And this dear little girl sleeping so soundly beside him would
be doomed to be a part of it, one of the losing side, and, God help him, so would the child she carriedâhis child. Nobody had ever come back on him with a bastard and a belly-plea for support (so far, anyway), and he began to worry about what he might do, what he might be able to leave behind, some legacy or something of value to improve Rabbit's life, and the child's life, against the bad times to come.
God, what a bloody mess I've made of things, he thought, railing against his nature. If she wasn't pregnant, I could ride out of here without a backward glance, I think. Knowing our politicians, they'll not want to put out a penny more than needed, which means nothing Cowell dreamed up will ever be put into action. Rabbit'll be just another victim we've lied to. Oh shit, if this is growing up and acting like an adult, then I don't care for it, thank you very much.
He clasped his arms tighter about her and she nuzzled to him deep in sleep, her soft, satiny-smooth flesh warm against his, maddeningly sensuous and comforting. He breathed deep of her aromas of hair and flesh, clean woman-smell and hint of sweat, the faint scent of their love-making, her exotic muskiness of burned pine and loamy earth, of deer hide and cooking, native greases or oils with which she had been anointed for the marriage ceremony, and the foresty smell of the
chickee
and the green wood and mats around them.
“Ah-lan,” she cooed, coming awake as he held her too tight.
“Dear little Soft Rabbit,” he whispered back, brushing her cheek with his lips, feeling an almost fierce desire to protect her from all that would come.
“Ah-lan ⦠mine,” she said, drawing his face down to her hot round breasts inside the blanket, stroking his head and hair and making pleased noises as he sprang into sudden, overful arousal, willing as any bride for another proof of love before dawn. She rolled onto her back and stroked his back, drawing him between her open thighs.
“In for the penny, in for the bloody pound,” he told her with a shaky laugh. “One for the road, old girl?”
“Ah-lan mine!” she giggled.
T
here had been a lot more room in the boats on the journey back down-river. The man Tom/Red Coat had come along, just to see the coast region once more, and get a share of rum, most likely. While the Creeks and Seminolee went overland with pack-horses and mules, the men from
Shrike
were alone with their own kind for the first time in over two weeks, and it felt odd.
Not totally alone, even so. McGilliveray, still dressed Indian fashion, was with them, and Cowell in his new deerskin clothing, and three of McGilliveray/White Turtle's younger male kin and their traveling girls. And Rabbit.
At the last, Alan could not bear to leave her, and she could not bear to let him ride away on a spotted Seminolee horse and never be with her new husband again, and against his better judgement, he had let her accompany him. She rode as well as he did, it turned out, and she and the traveling girls did all the cooking for their party, delaying the day the soldiers and sailors had to fend for themselves again.
Not that he had minded the night on the trail, or the night in a Seminolee
chickee
at the lake where they had left their boats, for she had left him wheezing after their passion. She had never been in a real boat before, but adjusted quickly, and sat aft with him at the tiller of the twenty-five-foot launch, treating the whole trip like a honeymoon jaunt, and full of wonder at the life in the swamps, which she had never seen. And when Cony or Andrews fetched her an egret plume or some flamingo feathers she was as delighted as any miss just given a ruby bracelet. The hands treated her as deferentially as they would have a proper officer's wife, and she had begun to feel like a queen, or a chief's bride.
“You
talwa
!” she exclaimed, after McGilliveray had talked to her about what Alan did in the Royal Navy.
“Not a chief, dear,” Alan laughed. “My captain is chief. I am his
mikko
. Tell her, McGilliveray.”
With Soft Rabbit by his side, he felt charitable enough to accept the whole world, even McGilliveray and his ponderous lecturing.
“And an
imathla lubotskulgi,”
McGilliveray informed her to her great delight. “A little warrior, too young to be an
imathla thlukulgi,
a big warrior chief. But he has killed many foes, haven't you, Lewrie? How many, do you think, so that I may praise you to the skies to her?”
“Well, I've fought two duels, cut one and killed the other. With swords, mind, not pistols at twenty paces,” Alan bragged. “Damme, maybe a dozen more in boarding melees.”
“Most impressive.”
“And God knows how many with artillery,” Alan concluded.
Soft Rabbit was thrilled that her man was such a bloody-handed warrior, and her awe of him, which was already considerable, went to new heights of reverence after McGilliveray translated that to her.
“She says she is honored to be the wife of such a brave young man, and is sure that your son shall be a man-slaughtering Hector as well, she'll make sure of it. Man-Killer will be his father and will teach him to be a warrior.”
“Man-Killer? He'll be her husband when I'm gone?”
“No, you misunderstand. It's more important to Muskogee who your mother's relatives are,” McGilliveray went on, happy to find an opportunity to preach. “The husband and father is not of the mother's clan, where she shall live. She's Wind Clan now, a very important clan in our way of life, and Man-Killer and all the males are her uncles, so to speak, and they fill the role of the father when it comes to rearing the child. You are only of their fire,
anhissi,
which means friend. What clan you are doesn't matter, as long as you weren't Wind Clan. Marrying into your own clan is a sin.”
“She'll be well-treated, won't she?” Alan pressed.
“Do you really care, Lewrie?” McGilliveray asked, almost mocking him.
“Damme, yes I do care,” he shot back, putting an arm around her, which she understood more than words, and she came up from her pad of blanket between the thwarts to sit at his side.
“Yes, she shall be well-treated,” McGilliveray finally softened,
after taking a long moment to consider Alan's fierceness on the subject. “She will have an honored place in my mother's
huti,
and in the clan. I suppose, technically speaking, she could never re-marry as long as you are alive and could come back to claim her. But since we both know that you shall never see her again, it would best if she used your absence at the next Green Corn Ceremony as proof that the marriage didn't take. Love-matches can be repented then, if they aren't working out, even if children have already resulted. Being with child will make her more desirable as a wife, since it proves she is fecund and able to bear children. She could do right well.”
“I'd like to leave something for her, something to help her in future. What do you suggest?” Alan asked in a soft voice, and some of his concern and sadness must have communicated to Rabbit, for she tucked her head onto his shoulder and hugged him back, eyes downcast.
“As a sop to your conscience?” McGilliveray snapped.
“Damn you to Hell, McGilliveray, I've had it with your bitterness at being born only half-white or half-Muskogee. What passes between us is no matter, though, as long as the girl prospers. And my child.”
There, I've said it, he thought with sudden wonder. I've claimed the brat as mine, and her as my responsibility.
“And what do you want for your child?”
“I'd like him to grow up English, frankly, with proper schooling and all. There's no bloody future in growing up Indian.”
“Hardly possible unless our mission is successful. And that after he's been raised Muskogee for his first few years. Best let him be what he'll be and let it go at that, Lewrie. I'll be staying on with the tribe, though, and I'll see that he knows who his father was, and what his legacy is. I am truly sorry for you about this.”
“Then give me a little help here,” Alan demanded.
“Blankets and such for the present. Make her a rich little girl when she goes back to the White Town. Her own skillets and pots and all the needles and thread you can, that sort of thing. Any spare shirts you have. Maybe some sailcloth you can spare. For the future, I can tell her the value of money, and you could leave her some. Small coins would be best, pence and shillings, so she can buy from the traders who will come. Could you come up with about twenty pounds in change?”
“Yes, I could.”
“At five pence here and a shilling there, it will keep her and her babe in style for years,” McGilliveray promised him.
“Good, then,” Alan said, giving her another assuring hug.
The next noon found them at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River, in the long narrow inlet between the two arms of swamp and marsh that formed the hiding place for the Guarda Costa sloop
San Ildefonso.
It was too soon to expect the sloop to be there, but they were close enough to deep water to have a good view of the ocean beyond and could spot her arrival when she appeared.
They made camp on the east bank, though it was not much to look at, given a choice. Their new Muskogee and Seminolee allies would be coming down the east bank, so they had to suffer in silence. The ground was half-marshy, half-sand-spit, strewn with sea-oats and dune grasses, saw grass and palmettos, and cypress and pine inland to their rear. It teemed with biting flies, mosquitoes and gnats, and but for the sea breeze would have been uninhabitable for very long. They pitched lean-tos of cane and palmetto fronds for shelter and settled down to wait. Cashman sent some of his fusiliers out on picket, and the young Creek warriors went off to hunt silently with bows and arrows, and to scout the ground.
While Soft Rabbit and the other unmarried travel girls set up their pots and gathered firewood, Alan and Cashman went to the shore and found a place to spy out the sea.
“By my reckonin', this is the day you wanted the boat to come back for us,” Cashman said. “If she makes it.”
“Should have been safe as houses out there, out of sight of land,” Alan said, extending his telescope and patiently scanning the horizon.
“Well, Red Coat ⦠Tom ⦠was tellin' me that when they took Fort St. George at Pensacola, Galvez fetched a fleet of sixty-four ships from Havana for the job.”
“Sixty-four?” Alan scoffed. “They've not ten decent sail of the line in the entire West Indies. Damn few useful frigates, either. Most were merchantmen, I'll wager. You can depend on my captain to come back for us, you'll see.”
“Two weeks, three weeks, is a long time to lay out there and kill time, though. Seriously, if he doesn't come, what could we do?” Cashman pressed.
“Sail off in the boats, I expect. I did it once before up in the Chesapeake, and that was with river barges never meant for the
open sea I could do it again, a lot better than before, with the launch and the gig.”
“It's a devilish long way to Jamaica, though, ain't it,” Cashman grunted, pulling off his moccasins and spreading his toes in the dry white sand. “What, two days' sail to Tampa Bay, another two to the Keys?”
“Let's not go borrowing sorrow so quickly,” Alan replied. “If things go that badly, it might make more sense to borrow horses from the Creeks and go overland to Charleston. If traders can do it, then there's a chance we could, with some help from our new allies. Tonight's the night Svensen was due back with the sloop. If he doesn't make it, then we might have to change our plans, but I'd give him at least two days' grace before I started worrying for real.”
“'Nother thing that bothers me ⦔ Cashman began.
“God, but you're a fountain of joy today, Kit.”
“Notice we didn't come across any Apalachee on the way back?” Cashman droned on full of caution. “We gave 'em some muskets and truck, they got the drift of what we're doin' here with White Turtle and the Seminolee with us. I know they're a shattered lot, compared to the Muskogee, but you'd think they'd come out of the woodwork and give us a cheer or two, maybe try to cadge a free sip of rum'r somethin'.”
“Hmm, have you asked McGilliveray about that?” Alan asked, now sharing a worry with the infantryman.
“Not yet, but I'm goin' to, right now,” Cashman replied. “Never thought I'd be the one to say this, but I'll be tickled pink to see the sight of our Creeks and Seminolee show up with 'nough weapons and men.”
“I'd like it, too,” Alan agreed, putting down his telescope after deciding that not even an errant whitecap could be mistaken for a topsail on the horizon. “If the sloop comes inshore tonight and anchors here in the inlet, and our Indian friends are not here to take delivery of the guns, we'll be forced to wait for them with a target no patrol could miss.”
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“De sloop's heah, Mista Lewrie, sah!” Andrews hissed at the front of Alan's lean-to, where he had been sleeping with Soft Rabbit, after staying awake most of the night awaiting the arrival of
San Ildefonso.
He had barely lain his head down, it seemed, to sleep the morning away.
“I'll be right out,” Alan said, groping for his shirt. It was the first night he had slept with her that they had not made love, or
even removed their clothing. Soft Rabbit had gone to sleep without him hours before, after sensing that his duty took precedence over her.
“Ah-lan,” she coaxed as he started to leave what little scrap of privacy they had in the lean-to with a blanket hung over the front.
“Got to go, Soft Rabbit, like it or not,” Alan said. He gave her a quick hug and a kiss, then darted out into the dawn. It was not foggy on their sand-spit, though fog hung thick as the Spanish moss on the trees to their rear and inland. By the light of a few smoldering coals in the cook-fire from the night before, he could see that his watch read about half past four in the morning. It was false dawn, and the soft breezes coming off the sea were chilly. Waves rolled in and broke on the beach with a soft, continual hissing.
There was barely enough light to see where he was walking as he made his way down to the shore by the river.
“Where away?” he asked in a soft voice.
“Deyah, sah,” Andrews said, pointing out to sea to the southwest. “Mustah missed de river in dah dahk un' come 'long de coast.”
San Ildefonso
ghosted out of the river fog, hardly a ripple of bow wave under her forefoot, and her sails hanging almost slack with the last gasp of the pre-dawn sea breeze. For a moment, Alan was worried she might have been a
real
Spanish Guarda Costa sloop, but he recognized several patches on her outer jib, and caught a lick of color aft on her mains'l gaffâthe blue, white and red of a Royal Navy ensign.
“That's her, alright,” Alan breathed with relief in his voice.
“If she's in the right hands,” Cashman said at his elbow, which made Alan's full bladder jolt with alarm. “I'm keepin' my troops hidden 'til we know for sure.”