Captive (35 page)

General Jesup set a supporting arm around Teela, but Brandeis apparently did not see the action, or chose to ignore it. He came behind her, catching her by the hand. “Come, quickly.”

She followed him, or more accurately, was dragged by him to where the captain stood, supported by the others. Brandeis quickly lifted the man’s head and looked into his eyes. “Sir!” he said to General Jesup. “This man needs care promptly.”

Jesup stood very tall and straight. “Indeed,” he said quietly. “Captain, you are a brave man. Our prayers are with you, and your fine men.”

Joshua pushed open the door, urging Teela and the men supporting the captain to hurry along behind him. They strode along the wood decking that led to the door into Joshua’s surgery and hospital, and carried the captain into the back room where Joshua removed bullets, sewed up sword slashes, hatchet and knife wounds, and amputated destroyed limbs. He ordered the captain laid down.

“Teela, carefully clean the head wound. Get the sulfur. Have we ether?”

“Yes, we’ve a little left.”

“Good, it seems his main wound is there, on the side. Open my bag, get me my scissors.”

Teela hastened to obey him, her heart beating hard as the soldiers who had supported the captain stepped back, wide-eyed, looking as if they might be sick at last. Teela set out the bag with Joshua’s instruments, quickly handing him the scissors so that he could rip open the
captain’s homespun shirt and hunting jacket. She started to order one of the soldiers to bring her hot water to bathe the poor captain’s scalpless head, but Joshua glanced up and saw a bottle of whiskey on the table near his instruments and handed it to Teela. “This will do fine. Pour some on his head, then into his belly.”

In the savage wilderness where supplies were sorely lacking, whiskey was a fine medicine. Except that Teela was convinced the captain could use a good swallow before feeling the sting of the alcohol upon his head.

He looked into her eyes with his own fine powder blue ones, read her mind. He reached for the bottle and consumed a good quantity in one long, hungry swallow.

He gritted his teeth, but didn’t cry out when she then bathed his head with it. Amazingly, after all she had learned to do in the surgery, she felt tears stinging her eyes. She liberally applied sulfur to the wound, then helped remove the fragments of cloth from the captain’s shirt. Joshua quietly requested her assistance, and she quickly gave it. Thankfully, the captain had not been riddled with bullets.

He had been slashed in a long line up and down his side. The whiskey wouldn’t be enough. They did have ether. Joshua administered it; there were a few minutes of waiting.

The captain looked up at Teela with glazed eyes. She tried to smile, taking his hand. “Nothing will hurt you in a few minutes, captain.”

He smiled. “I will hurt forever!” he said softly, then moaned. “My boys, my poor boys …”

She glanced at Joshua. He inclined his head toward the captain.

“Sir,” she said softly. “Think on this, that they are gone now, in no pain, and abiding with God. They were volunteers, soldiers who knew the danger, glad to follow you, brave men. Captain, surely, you did all that you could!”

He closed his eyes, nodding. “All that I could …”

His eyes opened again. “But I have lived to see an angel, they have not.”

“They are dancing with real angels now, sir!”

Once again the captain’s eyes closed. His fingers squeezed hers. “Bless you …”

His eyes didn’t open again. Joshua nodded and inclined his head toward the needles and silk thread they had been lucky enough to receive in their last shipment of supplies.

Nearly a hundred stitches were required.

She sat with the captain until it was very late. About two in the morning, Joshua came and looked at the captain, the whiskey bottle now in Joshua’s hands. He pulled a long swig of it.

“He will make it, I believe. As long as no infection sets in. We tended him quickly enough. Come on, come into the office. Have a drink yourself. You need a drink, and you deserve one. Good, stiff whiskey, no sherry or the like.”

Exhausted, Teela followed him into the small cubicle that served as his office. There were shelves loaded with books and medications. The desk was littered with supply forms, discharge papers, letters, and reports. He swept them to one side as he sat behind the desk, indicating that Teela take the chair before it. He opened the bottom drawer of his crude desk and drew out a glass, filled it with whiskey, and thrust it across the desk to her.

She took a sip of it and shuddered slightly.

“Oh, come now, down it in a gulp!”

She arched a brow to him, then did so. She shuddered fiercely, but she felt as if she had been warmed from head to toe.

“Better?” he asked.

She nodded. She set the glass down carefully. “He’s a good man!” she said. “A very good man.” She felt like crying again.

“And you hated the Indians like hell when he came in,” Joshua said.

She arched a brow again and nodded as he poured her more whiskey.

“I hated the Indians. I thought of them all as despicable savages. Just like I hated Captain Julian Hampton the day that he massacred everyone in that village.”

“It’s a damned dilemma, isn’t it?”

She nodded, inhaled and exhaled. “Oh, God, Joshua! I don’t know why, I just keep thinking that I could do something here, but I can’t. I thought that I could change things in some small measure. Oh, what a fool I’ve been! I’m humbled, and I’m tired. And I’m frightened. And I—”

“You don’t want to see James McKenzie dead, and right now you’re not certain you want to see him alive.”

“Oh, dear Lord! Of course, I want him to be alive—”

“But sometimes he is one with those savage creatures who ripped this poor good man to shreds tonight!”

She stared down at her lap and nodded. “Just this evening General Jesup suggested I go home. And I didn’t want to go home. I thought that I needed to be here. But now, so suddenly, I just want to be away. I do want to go home. I—please don’t say anything. I’m going to wait until my stepfather has ridden out. General Jesup has told me that I can come to the military for help. I’ll ask the commandant if I can leave as soon as possible. Perhaps ride north to St. Augustine when a detachment of men is going for supplies.”

Joshua was silent. Teela stared down at her hands. She felt so numb tonight. So tired. So beaten.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a moment. “I’m grateful to you, to John Harrington, to others. Perhaps I shouldn’t go. I owe him, I owe you—”

“You need to go,” Joshua said suddenly, fiercely.

She was startled by his vehemence. She felt her cheeks redden. She knew she was sometimes the talk of the stockade; everyone knew that she had pushed Julian Hampton into the water. Some of them mocked her as an Injun lover.

“If I’ve offended you—” Teela began.

“For the love of God! You’ve not offended me! I will miss you, but I pray that you will go.”

“Will you explain to John for me?”

“John will understand.”

“Perhaps he will be relieved.”

“Teela, do not be a fool. Go on, get out of here, go home. If your fiance does not love you, Teela Warren, I do. If you have lain with a thousand Indians, I don’t care.”

She stared at him, shocked, startled—and again glad of Joshua Brandeis because he was so blunt, because he spoke the truth, because he read into the hearts of men and women, and chose not to judge them. But tears stung her eyes because she was sorry to realize that she meant something to him that he did not mean to her.

“I haven’t lain with a thousand Indians,” she said softly.

“Only one.”

“Joshua, it isn’t that he is a Seminole. It’s—”

“You’re in love with him.”

“It isn’t that he is a red man, or a white man, or both. It …”

“I understand,” he said with a slow sigh, picking up his whiskey bottle and swigging deeply again. “I understand, and I ache for you, and for James. What you cannot see is the unavoidable tragedy of it.” He stared at her. “James McKenzie will not leave his war. Especially since he has been branded all but a true renegade now. Because of you.”

“Because of me—”

“Rumors persist that you were kidnapped by the Seminoles, that James McKenzie abducted you from your brother’s house. It is easier for most whites to believe that you were forced away from your father rather than that you ran away from him.”

“Oh, God!” she breathed. “It seems that I have but added to everyone’s misery.”

“You couldn’t have changed anything, Teela. Neither could he have done so. Many of us know James well.

Those of us who do understand. But if you leave this wretched place, it will be best for us all.”

He set the whiskey down, rose, and came behind her. She felt his hands upon her shoulders. “Life is always ironic,” he told her, as if that explained everything. She sat very still. He kissed the top of her head and lingered behind her just a moment.

“Remember, if ever, now or in the future, I can do anything for you, anything at all, don’t hesitate to come back to me.”

His hands left her shoulders. “I’ll pray for you,” he said softly. “You are a good man, too, Joshua. The best of men. I will be praying for you. And I will miss you.” “Go home. Be safe,” he said softly. Then he was gone, and she was left in his office alone, and in the whole of her life she had never hurt so badly. She hurt for Joshua, and for the good captain who had staggered into surgery tonight, scalped and alive. She hurt for the poor men who had served beneath him and met the savage fury of the Seminoles.

She hurt for the Seminoles. For the children with their wide, trusting black eyes …

For the babes she had seen so mercilessly battered, bloodied, and murdered in the woods.

And she hurt for James. But it seemed that there was nothing that she could really do, except watch the slaughter.

Joshua was right; James McKenzie was a part of the war. He would not leave it, could not leave it. He would stay until the bitter end….

And she would do what he had wanted at last. She
was
going home.

D
espite his better judgment, James had allowed Wildcat to talk him into joining him outside Fort Deliverance when the military commanders hosted their soiree.

They had been there all night. They remained still.

Every time he had come to the makeshift fortress on the hammock with the others, he had assessed the army’s strength. Unlike Wildcat, he was grateful each time to note the thickness of the walls, the multitude of guards. The fort housed numerous soldiers, all of them preparing to ride to battle, of course, just awaiting Jesup’s “pincer” orders, and the words of the spies who came and went, hunting down tribes within hammocks, marshes, and swampland.

From a thick branch of a tall, moss-draped oak, he had watched as the festivities took place. By early evening, a host of soldiers had arrived down the St. Augustine road with a multitude of young beauties. A soldier was not a bad catch for these ladies; just as in all times of war, the male population of the territory dwindled as a crop of courageous young beaus fell in the line of duty. These soldiers might soon perish as well, but the young ladies seemed to have determined one and all that it was better to die a widow than an old maid.

While they observed the party, Wildcat gave him a running commentary on the women, predicting which fair maid would one day be as fat as a house and which would quickly become a shrew. James had paid him scant heed, grunting now and then to pretend he was
listening. Despite Wildcat’s casual chatter, he sought any chink in the wood-and-flesh armor of Fort Deliverance while James sat in a cold sweat, hating himself for wanting a glimpse of her while longing to throttle her at the same time. He’d felt as hot and twisted as iron beneath a blacksmith’s hands, damning her for being where she was.

Even what she was.

He’d seen her at last through the poor windows of the commander’s house. Beautifully dressed, her gown hugging her upper body, cinching her waist, flaring at her hips, her sunset hair pinned elegantly high. She’d danced with a tall, older man, staring earnestly at him at first, growing animated as they spoke, even smiling. The twisted feelings inside him had viciously intensified. It was Jesup she’d danced with. General Jesup, in charge of the entire removal operation now for the territory. Not a bad man, one weary of his struggle here. Anxious to let the Seminoles be, unable to do so because he was a military man, a servant of the United States of America who obeyed orders and did his duty.

Wildcat had suddenly motioned to him, wrenching him from his anguish. There had been a thrashing in the brush across the clearing and beneath them, by the walls that surrounded the fort. Wildcat had been ready to leap down from the tree; James had detained him.

A man, bleeding, falling, half dead, had made his way to the gate. His cry was answered. James had just made out his anguished words. “My boys, my boys, my God, my boys! It was Otter, Otter’s men …”

He was taken inside the gate. Through the windows they saw commotion within; the soldier was taken from the commander’s house to the hospital, Joshua Brandeis and Teela close behind.

For long minutes James had strained to see within the hospital, watching as she moved, talked, worked over the soldier. When all was done for the man, she sat, and sat. Shared a drink with Brandeis.

And sat still.

All through the night, he had maintained his vigil in the tree. As the glorious pink and yellow streaks of dawn that could make the land a paradise began to stretch across the heavens, Wildcat shook his arm. “Look!”

The compound suddenly bustled with activity. Soldiers were racing out to a bugle call; men werge mounting up.

Warren was among them.

James stared intently at the scene, trying to see if Teela remained at the hospital. She did. She came out to the wooden walkway in front of the hospital building and watched the activity as well. Her hair was straying from its pins. She wore a white apron decorated with blood.