Captive (33 page)

It was strange, but so often now he would remember the past. Think back to his boyhood.

Things had been so much different then.

He had been born a Creek, in the Upper Creek town of Tallahassee. He had first been known as Billy Powell, for his father, an Englishman. A white man.

Whites, he knew, debated his parentage. Was Powell his father, or had the man simply been married to his mother? It didn’t matter. Powell had been a good man, but in the Creek wars now long ago, Powell had returned to Alabama while Osceola had come south to Florida with his mother’s clan. Theirs was a matriarchal society. A son was of his mother’s clan. He often learned from his mother’s male relations, and it had been from an uncle of his mother, a man called Peter McQueen after her own Scots grandfather, that he had learned he must spend much of his life fighting for his very way of living it.

He had been a boy during the Creek wars. Young but
growing when Andrew Jackson had come to Florida. The wars had come, the battles. The “First” Seminole War. But it seemed that he could still remember peace. Waking in the morning to the warm caress of the sun, listening to the sound of the breeze that drifted through the
talwa,
the village. He could remember hunting with his bow and arrow, learning to shoot the plentiful game in the forest. Their way of life had been so defined then. The
mico
had received town guests, issued invitations, presided over the meetings. His aide, the
mico apokta,
had helped him in all things, while other men, the
micalgi,
had guided and counseled each village as well.

In times of battle, usually with the whites or hostile Creeks, the war speaker, the
holibonaya,
came before them all, shouting, gesticulating, preparing them for the fight. Young men longed to fight. The women cooked and performed most domestic tasks, while a young man was given such trivial chores as collecting sticks for firewood, tending pigs, or gathering roots and berries. He gained his prestige through a show of courage in either the hunt or in battle, and so young men longed for the chance to prove that they were brave and powerful and worthy of warrior status.

Many villages, many clans, many chiefs and their people, met every May for council meetings and then again in the summer for the Green Corn Dance. All things could be settled then. Marriages were sanctified, claims were settled. Young men and women played games, some together, some separately. They flirted, laughed, fell in love and in lust.

No Seminole was ever confined or chained, but crimes were punished. Adulterers were sometimes beaten; sometimes their noses or ears were clipped. Some crimes were minor, punishable by exclusion from tribal rites and rituals. Murder was severe, and many men decided upon a murderer’s fate, sometimes a heavy payment, sometimes banishment, and sometimes execution. Sometimes life was harsh, sometimes good. But it had always followed a special way, a special path. Now each day
seemed scattered, unpredictable. Their very independence hurt them at times. Battles took place, then warriors hurried home. They searched for food. They tried to plant crops even while they ran and hid. Warriors kept dying. Children perished.

He had known that they would have to fight. He had never been a hereditary leader like Micanopy; he had earned his station. The whites accused him of murdering Wiley Thompson after having befriended the man at times. They didn’t understand. A Seminole could not be chained. Wiley had thought to break him. Wiley had not understood that you did not chain a Seminole.

There had been good days. He could remember so many good days …

Now, too often, they all proved their fury and their power in battle. They died with it.

He had spoken with Wildcat, with others. They were all aware that their situation was grave. Osceola did not know if they could endure another year of fighting. He was ready to negotiate with the military again, under one of the white flags General Jesup had given them. Osceola was well aware that since the failed peace of March, Jesup was a sad man, now fighting a war of extermination since he did not feel he had a choice. He did not blindly hate the white men. Indeed, his relations with the military that March had been so good that he had slept in the tent of Lieutenant Colonel William S. Harney while some of the negotiations took place.

He had fought when it had been right to fight. He would still fight when he had to do so. But it was necessary that they talk again.

He heard footfalls behind him. They were almost silent upon the soft earth, but he could hear the quietest of footsteps. He turned around.

Otter stood there, his face as hard as if it had been cast in stone, so bronze, his eyes black and seeming to burn with an obsidian light.

“I have come to tell Osceola that I am riding with my men to my own
talwa
with the dawn.”

Osceola nodded. “Our strength lies in our ability to fight and withdraw, and go so deeply into the swamps and hammocks that the soldiers cannot follow us.”

“I don’t withdraw!” Otter said fiercely. He slammed his fist against his bare chest. “I don’t withdraw.” He was nearly naked, wearing a breech clout only. The Seminoles had learned their ways of going into battle. They purged themselves with black drink often, and avoided the diseases of the bowels. They fought nearly naked because they had learned that bullet wounds sometimes brought threads and fabric ripping into flesh as well, and that such wounds often putrefied. Otter was shiny with bear grease. His plaited hair was a sleek ebony with it. He was ready for battle at any minute. No warrior had been more brave. Or more furious. More vengeful. His wife, infant son, and daughters had burned to death in a raid on his village. He wasn’t afraid of death himself. Osceola thought that he was afraid of life.

“None of us here has given up the fight,” Osceola said.

Otter gritted his teeth together, letting out a sound of disgust. He waved his hand in the air. “Osceola sees what he wishes to see. Many are giving up the fight.”

“Many are weary.”

“You have fought and killed not to give up the fight!”

“I am weary.”

“You—!”

“Not weary enough to give up the fight,” Osceola interrupted angrily, the old power in his voice. “But now the soldiers do not know where we are. I am hunting, I am making new weapons of war. I am gathering strength. And I am waiting to see what move the white man makes next.”

Otter shook his head. “I will fight with you again, Osceola. But I am war chief of my clan, and I will make battle as I choose.”

“It is our way,” Osceola agreed. He was sorry for Otter, but weary of his anger. That was one advantage the white soldiers had. Discipline. Osceola knew that he
was a leader in this war. But it was true that warriors chose to fight, sometimes chose to go home, and sometimes waged new, unwinnable battles on their own.

“You grow weak!” Otter cried.

“I grow more sensible. I seek to fight when I can win. I seek victories, not slaughters.”

Otter slammed his fist against his chest again. “I seek death for the white men!” he cried.

“Remember, we seek our lives here. Our land. Our children. A future for them.”

“It will not be allowed us.”

“We will seek it until it is ours. Otter, you are a fierce and valiant warrior. We are all in your debt. Remember that we are all waging the same war!”

Otter stood very stiffly. “I remember,” he said. “But even now white soldiers gather at the fort. More and more of them. They seek to find me. To find Osceola. I will find them. I will find Warren, and I will have his scalp. I will take the lives of all the men who leave the fort.”

He inclined his head, respectful despite his words, and spun silently on his heel and disappeared into the line of pines beyond the fire.

Osceola turned back to the flames. He closed his eyes. He had fought, yes, he had fought! With fury, savagely, with cruel precision and wild abandon. He would fight again.

But tonight …

He was cold. So very cold.

Far from the fire, laid against an old, moss-draped oak, slept Riley Marshall, an old black man who had made his way south to Florida. Riley served the warriors and was protected by them. In good times he had worked for his Indian masters, but he had been allowed his own plot of land as well. He had been free to join the Negro Indian bands at any time, but he had been an old man at the war’s beginning, and he had stayed close to Osceola’s band.

Now Osceola woke him. “Ask Running Bear if he will come to me.”

“Running Bear left to study the new fort.”

“He is here tonight. He brought back a deer for the people to eat.”

Riley did as he was bidden. Moments later, James McKenzie emerged silently from the darkness to walk toward Osceola where he stood by the fire.

Osceola had taken such a hard line himself so many times with others that both whites and Seminoles wondered at the friendship he shared with the half-breed. But there were things he knew about James that he could not say he knew of other men. If they were attacked, James would fight with them until his own death. The words that James spoke would be the truth. He would not betray a confidence, and he would not turn from his own people. Nor would he wantonly commit murder for any man. He would not attack whites, settlements, farms, plantations—or even soldiers. But he would bring food to various bands when none was to be had. He would share what he had to his last morsel. He would not lie; he would not cease to defend his brother and other white men of his ilk. He would fight until he fell to defend his position—or what was his.

And it seemed that the white woman at the fort was his.

“You have called me, Osceola?” James said. He stood about three feet away, bathed in the firelight. Osceola was of medium height himself. He had never doubted his own appearance as that of a fine warrior and chief. But this half-breed blood brother of his stood over six feet tall, his stance straight. His frame was hard, well-muscled, his shoulders broad. He wore a white man’s form-hugging trousers along with a patterned cotton shirt. A single silver crescent hung from a chain at his neck, and an unadorned red band kept his black hair from his eyes. His bronzed face was taut and lean tonight, still striking but hard with a tension that burned a blue fire in the depths of his eyes.

“You’ve fed many mouths tonight with your fine buck. Such kills are harder and harder to find in the forest,” Osceola told him.

Running Bear arched an ebony brow, a flicker of amusement passing across his features. “Osceola is an excellent hunter himself. He has hardly called me here to compliment a kill.”

“I have heard that Major Warren’s daughter is at Fort Deliverance.”

No expression touched Running Bear’s face. He shrugged. “She is.”

It was Osceola’s turn to feel a certain amusement. “My good friend, you are greatly mistaken if you do not realize that whispers and rumors travel the forest from band to band, borne on the breeze. Whether you abducted the woman or she ran to the shelter of your abandoned cabins is not known; that you have been involved with her is fact. For this reason I have called you. You have seen her? She is at the fort?”

“Yes. I have seen her myself. I moved through the bush with Wildcat, and observed the soldiers and the life at the fort.”

“It is true that there are men and women I will not kill. At the first battle at the Withlacoochee, it was my order that the braves not kill a young soldier named Graham. They will not disturb your brother’s home. There are others. I have commanded that Warren’s daughter be brought here if she is captured. But you must understand, some braves run with hot blood. They have lost their own families. They have seen children lie in the crimson pools of their own lost lives.”

“I am aware of this.”

“Be aware then that you must watch Otter. He will attack any and all soldiers out of Fort Deliverance.”

“I have been warned about Otter,” Running Bear said. “But perhaps I will speak with him. Now.”

Running Bear turned hard on his heel. Osceola watched him go. He wondered at the wisdom of his action. They could not afford to battle one another now.

But if they did not strive to live their lives in their way, with honor and integrity, then why did they fight so hard?

James knew where to find Otter. The Mikasukee
mico
had just returned to his makeshift shelter and lain upon his blanket.

The Seminoles had a tendency not to post guards through the night. James had warned the chiefs time and time again that the white soldiers always slept with a guard, and that nighttime was no deterrent if the whites chose to attack by darkness. But lifestyles were hard to change. When James leapt atop the platform where Otter had slept alone since the cruel death of his wife, he caught the
mico
quite by surprise.

Otter leapt to his feet, stunned, wary, ready for an attack. He saw James, and his wariness did not leave him.

“McKenzie,” he said, spitting out the white name as he addressed James.

“I have been told that you wish to kill all the soldiers at the fort,” James told him.

“I wish to kill all whites,” Otter said flatly.

“There is a woman there who is mine.”

“No white man cared about my woman.”

“But I ask you as a chief of your people to respect my position—”

“As a half-breed?”

“As
mico
of my people. Through my blood right by my mother.”

Otter strode to James, standing directly before him. He was a smaller man; it did not matter. He stared up at him with bitterness and hostility.

“You grew to drink the black drink; you learned the ways of our warriors. You learned to hunt and fight in breech clouts, to shoot your arrows straight and true, to wield a white man’s musket with skill. Men listen to you and follow you. You have great power and great strength. You could lead men to great victories, slaughter
the whites. But you fight with us only when a musket is aimed at your heart. Then you come to me about a white woman.”

“She is mine, and I don’t want her killed.”

“If she is yours, take her from the fort, and the white men there.”