Captive (25 page)

“You’ve got to leave him—”

“I cannot leave him. He is Yohola, Thomas Artaine to the whites, and he has sworn that he would rather die than leave his homeland.”

“But—”

“Your good military doctor will patch him up and ship him west against his wishes. Leave it be. Now, what the hell are you doing out here?” The question was so sudden and furious that she was taken aback.

“I told you to leave here, leave Florida!”

“It’s not so simple—”

“It’s damned simple!” he hissed. “What game are you playing? This skirmish occurred by sheer accident; the soldiers did not seek it, nor did the braves. What do you think would happen to you in a major engagement? Especially if the Indians were to massacre the soldiers around you?”

“I came to help—”

“Damn you! You cannot help! You are not a part of this. Go home!”

“You wish to stay,” she said stubbornly. “Perhaps it is my determination as well.”

“You will go home!” he insisted.

She shook her head, then realized that their voices were rising.

“You’ve got to go!” she told him.

His mouth moved into a bitter curl. “Yes, I understand I helped some seven hundred Indians escape after abducting a white girl and doing God-alone-knows-what with her.”

She gritted her teeth, fighting the rise of her temper. “No one believes it—”

“Someone does.”

She couldn’t argue with him now. “You’ve got to go!” she pleaded, knowing full well that he was right.

But he didn’t move. He leveled a finger at her.
“You’ve
got to go. And damn you, I will see to it.”

“Shut up! James, don’t be a fool. Don’t be caught in the midst of this action!” she cried softly.

“But I am in the midst of it,” he said smoothly. “And we are on opposite sides here, so it seems.”

“James—”

“Brandeis!” he called out suddenly, loudly.

“Sh!” Teela gasped. “What is the matter with you? Someone
will
come!” She leapt up and spun around to see how many soldiers were ready to come running at the sound of his voice. None of them had heard, so it seemed.

She spun back. He had hefted the fallen warrior over
his shoulder. He was purposely goading her, trying to show her the very narrow and deadly fence they walked between two worlds.

“Your friend needs help!” Teela insisted angrily.

“I will tend to him,” James said.

Then she nearly screamed aloud as he took a step toward her, his free hand falling hard upon her upper arm, fingers a vise. He held her against him. She lowered her eyes quickly, not wanting him to know that she felt a glad weakness surge through her just to feel his heat, his warmth, his strength. To know he was alive and well. She lifted her eyes.

He was very angry. His grip was a brutal one. It definitely seemed as if he despised her.

“Let go of me. Go tend your warrior!” she cried out.

His grip tightened unbearably.

“Indeed, I’ll tend to him. And I will tend to you as well, Miss Warren. Damn you. You keep your lovely little white behind at Cimarron, or you get it the hell out of the territory altogether, or I will tend to you. I promise you. Don’t be caught at a battle site again.”

“Damn you, James—”

“I’m warning you! The whites don’t always win the battles, and I won’t always be around. The right—or the wrong—Indians get a hold of you in a battle or skirmish, and they’ll kill you, you little idiot!”

His fingers fell from her arm. His eyes seemed to blaze the threat of his words into her own.

Then he turned, silently striding through the shelter of the trees.

And then she was alone. It was as if he had never been there at all.

T
eela realized even as the sloop pulled in at the dock at Cimarron that she had behaved rashly once again. Tara was at the dock, nearly hysterical. Jarrett held his wife, who all but engulfed Teela when she stepped off the sloop—blood and all.

Jarrett McKenzie was not quite so quick to forgive. “Teela Warren, what, shall we keep you under lock and key?” he demanded angrily. “We’ve sworn to keep you safe, and you risk yourself so recklessly that my word of honor becomes nothing more than a mockery. You frightened us until we were half mad with worry.”

“Oh, God, I am sorry!” Teela said remorsefully, railing against herself inwardly for being such a coward, since she was glad to keep Tara between herself and Jarrett. She pulled away from Tara at last. “I am sorry, I was just so frightened myself—”

“So frightened that you ran straight into a battle?” Jarrett demanded.

“I—I had to see …” she mumbled.

Apparently, Jarrett realized that she had been terrified she would find James in the midst of the battle.

Or find him dead.

“What’s done cannot be undone,” he said wearily. But then John Harrington came down the gangplank, Dr. Brandeis at his side. “John!” Jarrett said with stern reproach.

John Harrington instantly flushed to a fine rose. “Jarrett, I didn’t mean to bring her, truly I didn’t.”

“I was damned glad that we did have her aboard!”
Brandeis said with a sniff, smiling as he shook Jarrett’s hand. ”Miss Warren proved herself to be invaluable. I believe one or two of the poor wounded fellows we have aboard the sloop will survive to tell the tale of this day because her instinctive efficiency allowed me to move so swiftly in the field.”

Jarrett McKenzie’s eyes fell upon Teela, still stern. “If only simple competency could keep one alive here!”

“But it’s over now,” Tara said softly. “Teela has literally been baptized in blood; it covers her still. Come to the house. You can linger in a very hot bath and sip strongly laced tea. John, are you staying?”

He shook his head. “Thank you, Tara. We’ll remain docked till near dawn, securing our wounded as best we can, but then we’ll be making haste toward Tampa Bay, since many of these men need to be taken to the hospital at Fort Brooke.”

“Field surgery is a survival tactic and little more,” Dr. Brandeis said. “Miss Warren, may I say that I find you far more useful in the field than your father?”

John Harrington stamped upon his toe, and the good doctor winced. “You may say it,” John told him softly. “If you are seeking a court-martial or a bullet in your back while we’re within the scrub.”

Brandeis had his own kind of confidence. He shrugged, stepped forward, took Teela’s hand, and kissed it. “Adieu, fair maiden. If you’re ever inclined to aid in the tending of our poor, wounded patients, I shall be most anxious to have you at my side once again.”

“Thank you,” Teela said, very grateful to him, for she hadn’t thought anything about the day would cause her to smile.

“Good-bye, my dear, take care,” John told her, stepping forward. Teela closed her eyes while he set a chaste kiss upon her forehead.

“You’re welcome to come to the house, gentlemen, should you find the time,” Jarrett told them.

“Thank you.” John stepped back and, with Joshua Brandeis, boarded his ship once again.

“Come,” Tara said to Teela.

She allowed Tara to lead her toward Cimarron while Jarrett remained by the dock, staring reflectively at the ship and the river.

Teela was startled to realize that she was trembling now that it was all over, and she didn’t know if it was because of all the horror of death and injury she had witnessed, or because she had come so close to James again before he had disappeared. Perhaps she even trembled because his status had worsened since she had come, maybe
because
she had come. Most whites would not believe him a traitor to any cause. The army men who knew him, the Floridians he had befriended.

But there were always men like Michael Warren’s troops. And they had made an outlaw of James.

They came to the porch, and Tara sat her upon one of the wooden rocking chairs there. “I’ll have the bath brought up,” she told Teela. “Your dress is ruined; nothing will take out that much blood.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Teela said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Tara agreed. “No matter what its cost, clothing is cheap. Life is dear and precious.”

She went on into the house. Teela still sat on the porch, watching the sun fall and create glorious colors over the quiet horizon. Jarrett McKenzie returned to his house, stared at her hard, then walked in. She leapt up, deeply disturbed by the look he had given her, wanting both to apologize and defend herself at the same time.

Not finding him in the breezeway or the parlor, she tapped upon the library door and opened it without waiting for a reply.

He was there, hands folded behind his back as he stared into the cold ashes in the fireplace. He stood very much as his brother had stood the first time she had seen James. He didn’t turn around as she entered. He knew it was she who had come.

“Close the door, Miss Warren,” he told her.

She did so.

He turned around. His gaze swept over her. She felt
a patch of some poor soldier’s blood sticky against her cheek. She lifted a hand to wipe it away, realized it would not go so simply, and let her hand fall.

“Just what are your intentions regarding my brother, Miss Warren?” he demanded.

“Your pardon?” she whispered.

“Are you playing a game? Is that it?”

“Excuse me, sir, but shouldn’t this line of questioning be direct at your brother rather than me?”

He shook his head, unrelenting. “Perhaps under normal circumstances. But these aren’t normal at all, are they? My brother is a half-breed, caught in bitter times. He could quite easily be dead before it’s over, slain by either side. At best, for the foreseeable future he will abide in the forest, the hammock, and the swamp. He needs to give his full attention to surviving with his body and soul intact. He cannot afford to be distracted by a young woman entranced with some romantic notion of carrying out a minor indiscretion with an intriguing red man. So again, I ask you, what are your intentions regarding my brother?”

She felt herself trembling uneasily, longing to strike out at him, wondering what he wanted from her. Her eyes narrowed, she stood very straight, her chin high. “There has been nothing ‘minor,’ sir, in anything that I have done.”

“Why did you run like a little idiot into the gunfire today?” he demanded angrily.

“Because the shots were so close to Cimarron. Close to where Ja—I had to… know!” she cried back.

“Was it worth it? Worth the fear you caused us, the possible repercussions should your father hear of this. Tell me, did you get your answers?”

“Yes!” she snapped. “Yes, yes! I saw him. I saw him whole and well, and I know that he is alive.”

Jarrett exhaled slowly, watching her. “You saw him today?”

She nodded and spoke very softly. ”The others did not see him. He collected the wounded body of an unconscious
friend and disappeared. But he was alive and well, uninjured himself.”

Jarrett nodded after a moment. He continued to stare at her. “I don’t mean to hurt you,” he said after a long moment. “But he is my brother. I have no choice.”

“He is your brother but a grown man,” she said, groping for the right words. “I have not …”

He smiled. “You have not had this affair on your own. I know. I am just frightened. For you both. I don’t see where it can lead.”

“Perhaps your brother is not interested in leading me anywhere.”

“Perhaps he feels that there is nowhere to lead. And, indeed, have you given such things any thought? Would you be a happy young bride, quite possibly carrying a child, ducking through the foliage and running for your life while soldiers chased you down?” He paused, and Teela felt a sweep of color rush to her cheeks. It wouldn’t matter if James was descended from four grandparents as white as snow if she was still carrying on an illicit affair.

There could be no pretending that she was not deeply involved with James when she talked to his brother; he had found her with James. He had never appeared to judge her; neither had Tara. But it seemed he wanted to be as blunt and brutal as he could at the moment. “Now, if they were chasing you, soldiers might see the red of your hair and hesitate, but I tell you, I have watched this wretched war a long time now, and I have seen how indiscriminately men can kill. For the Seminoles, I tell you, it’s a very hard life. Sometimes the heat in the hammocks and swamps is over a hundred degrees. Sometimes, in the north, it falls below thirty. Sometimes they run through dangerous water up to their throats to escape the soldiers.”

He fell silent, watching her.

Teela willed herself to speak quietly and to try to remain calm and dignified. “I have told you, Jarrett, that
I don’t believe your brother is interested in leading me anywhere.”

“I repeat, my brother feels that he has nowhere to lead anyone at this moment other than down a path to destruction. You need to consider going home,” he told her.

“I will consider it. Am I no longer welcome here?”

He sighed, shaking his head. “You are always welcome here. I’m just trying to make you understand the situation. Again, I fear for you both.”

“I am full-grown as well,” she told him.

He smiled at last. “Full-grown and full of fire, but woefully innocent of the dangers to be found here!” he assured her. “And that danger includes James.”

“Wherever it goes,” she said slowly after a moment, “I seem to have no choice but to follow.”

“You little fool,” he said, but the chastising words were said gently now. “You are in love with him.”

“Am I?”

“So it seems.”

“What of your brother?” she heard herself whisper.

“I don’t know,” Jarrett answered honestly. “He still grieves for a wife and a child. And a nation. And this war comes first with him now. It has to. Until he comes to terms with himself, he can have no life.”

She continued to stare at him, stubbornly proud.

“Go upstairs,” he commanded softly. “Your bath will be ready. The blood of others is not comfortable to wear.”

He turned back to the fire. Teela bit her lower lip, turned, and left the library behind to hurry up the stairs.

Tara was in her room along with two of the household servants, a lean, slim black boy called Jake and another, slightly older young Irishman named Sean. They hauled huge kettles of steaming water to the metal-rimmed wooden hip tub, pouring it in.