Captive (51 page)

“Teela—?”

“These big, brave men treated her the same way.” The soldiers had come again and were tugging his shoulders, dragging him back to his feet and toward the door. One ran by him, quickly exiting the house and securing rope and a horse. A noose was hurriedly fashioned. James stood calmly in the center of the soldiers, watching as Warren stepped forward, slipping the noose over his head. He stared at Warren with undisguised hatred.

“One more dead Indian,” Warren gloated. “One, and then another, and another. And finally all the Indian boys will be dead. And you’ll just be forgotten dust, a bad dream. Beaten to the core.”

James shook his head. “You’re wrong. Kill one of us in front of you, and another will appear. Chase us until there is no land, and we will fight in the swamp. You cannot beat us. In the end you will die and go to hell, and we will remain undefeated.”

“You’re going to die now, boy. So say your prayers
to whomever you call God, and be quick now. Bring the horse!” he roared.

The horse, a well-fed army roan, was brought up. Except for the two soldiers who were to be his executioners, the men, along with Warren, remounted their horses for the show. James was thrown atop the horse by the two men, hands still tied behind his back. The end of the rope was thrown over the oak and quickly secured.

“Make your peace with your Maker!” Warren cried, coming closer to him. He smiled. “I want to see those blue eyes of yours bulge out of your head as you die, boy. Everything in the kidneys goes, too, after a hanging. Smells bad, real bad. You won’t be such a good-looking Indian boy then, huh?”

He spat at Warren, but the man edged his horse back just far enough to avoid the insult.

James fought to control his temper. He had but one chance and he knew it, and that chance was slim. He had to free his hands to catch the noose, and use the very rope that would have hanged him to make a bid for freedom. There were no guns upon him now. All the soldiers had lowered their weapons, laid down their guard, to watch him hang. Their rifles were back in their saddle holsters. Their knives were sheathed.

“You know, Warren, I don’t think this is legal, do you?” James said, working at his hands.

“This is war against the Seminoles. You’re a Seminole! You led an escape from the Castillo, and then you tried to murder me in cold blood. I am justified in my actions, and I am surrounded by witnesses!”

James had worked the ropes around his wrist entirely free. If he could only catch the noose before his neck was broken …

“Hang the red bastard!” Warren shouted.

She had come to with a murderous pounding in her head. The pain, in fact, was so intense at first that it clouded her mind.

Then she remembered.
They’d taken James
.

She leapt up, racing to the window.
They were going to hang him. Oh, God, at any second now, he was going to swing
…

She tore down the stairs, reaching the landing just as Tara was helping Jarrett struggle to his feet.

“They’ve a rope around his neck!” she cried. She flew past Jarrett to the hallway closet, aware that he kept a double-barreled shotgun there. Jarrett had lived in a raw, new land for far too long not to keep such a weapon ready and close. She dragged it out, only to find Jarrett already at her back, plucking the weapon from her grasp.

“Give me the damned thing, it’s loaded—”

“He’s about to hang!” she cried tearfully. She spied a Colt repeater hanging from a holster by the door and drew it out. John Harrington had always said it was a weapon that might misfire.

She didn’t care. She grasped it firmly in her hand and turned to fly after Jarrett.

Even as she did so, she froze.

Shouts were rising from the front of the house. Oh, God, he might have already …

She nearly passed out. She ran instead.

James heard the sound of a switch slammed hard against the roan’s haunches. So hard that the animal let out a pitiful whinny before rearing high and racing off into the night.

It was the horse that saved him, he thought. That, and the cruelty of a man who would strike an animal with such fervor. When the horse reared up, the noose and rope loosened, and James had the split second he needed to seize hold of the noose.

When the rope pulled taut, he was able to swing his body toward Warren before escaping the noose. Warren didn’t have time to move his horse back fast enough. James’s weight caught him, slammed him off his horse. Warren shouted, seized his knife from the sheath at his side, and tried to plunge it into James as they rolled.

“Major!” One of his men shouted, but James and Warren were already rolling, engaged in a battle to the death, and if the soldier had a rifle, he couldn’t possibly have aimed it with any precision at James.

James grappled Warren’s arm, fighting to loose the knife from his fingers. He slammed Warren’s wrist against the ground. Warren twisted, and James caught his jaw, ramming it hard against the earth.

He heard a strange crunching again, and at first, in the desperate fight for his life, he didn’t recognize the sound. Then he realized that Warren had ceased to fight, that the knife had fallen from the man’s fingers. And then he knew.

Something else had broken.

The man’s neck.

His first thought was that Teela was free.

He didn’t realize his own continued danger then, but closed his eyes in misery.

Now he was damned.

He’d had no choice. No choice at all. But any hope he’d ever had of finding his own peace, a place between the world of the Indian and the white man, seemed doomed.

“
Jesu
, he has killed the major this time!” someone shouted.

“Up, up, Indian, get off the man before we fill you full with bullet holes!” cried another soldier.

He started to rise, slowly. He might at least get a military trial now, a chance to see his daughter and Teela once again.

“Kill him!” one of them shouted. “Kill him. He’s killed Major Warren.”

Rifles were lowered. He was ready to make a diving drop, roll and run, and somehow pray to evade a score of bullets.

But then he was startled—just as startled as the soldiers before him—as a resounding shot was fired over their heads.

Jarrett was standing in the front door, Tara at his side.
He held a double-barreled shotgun in his hands, aimed at the fellow who had last spoken. “Gentlemen, I want you off my property now. You’re trespassing. You had no right to become a lynch mob.”

“The major is dead! The savage—your brother killed him, Mr. McKenzie!” one of the men sputtered.

“The man half killed his own daughter first! This hanging was illegal in every way, shape, and form, and I swear that I will see to it that every man jack one of you pays if you don’t turn around and ride away now! You want my brother? Yes, sir, one of you can shoot him. But I guarantee at least two of you will have big holes for guts before your bullets make their mark!”

Before anyone could reply, a second voice called out from the porch, feminine but incredibly fierce.

“Your bullets will never, ever reach their marks, I guarantee it!”

He almost smiled. Teela had come to the porch as well. She stood on Jarrett’s other side—and she was aiming one of his brother’s repeating pistols at the soldiers. She was still in her white gown. Her hair was a fire-red mane about her shoulders. She stood very tall, proud— and barefoot.

“Mr. McKenzie, Miss Warren!” It was the young officer who had been shaking so badly when he’d tried to bind James’s hands. “There will be no shooting here tonight. There’s plenty of fight and danger left for all of us, boys!” he cried to the men before looking gravely back to Jarrett. “We’re not savages.” He glanced at James and added softly, “I been out in the bush nearly two years now, and I admit I ain’t never seen no one so savage as Major Warren. And tonight—savage against his own daughter. We’re riding out. Men, we are riding out!” he insisted.

“Take your major’s body with you. It isn’t wanted by his next of kin,” Jarrett suggested.

Warren’s body was duly thrown over the back of his horse. The soldiers started down the street, with the young man at the head of the group.

But the fellow who had so nearly been James’s executioner wasn’t ready to give it all up so easily. He twisted in his saddle, calling back to them. “Jarrett McKenzie, you’ll go to jail for this as well! Wait till Jesup hears what’s gone on here tonight! There won’t be no rest, no place to hide.”

“I won’t be hiding!” Jarrett called.

The young soldier suddenly rode back to where James stood. “My name is Noonan, sir. You need a witness, you call on me.”

James smiled slowly. Nodded. “Thanks, Noonan.”

“Your brother and your, er, Miss Warren can’t hold soldiers off forever, McKenzie. You’d best hightail it quick.”

“Thanks again.”

Noonan smiled, saluted, and turned his horse, quickly catching up with his retreating company.

In a few minutes, the sounds of hoofbeats faded. James turned to his brother. “Thanks. And I’d thought they’d really cracked you in the head. You’re a damned good brother. You came back to consciousness in—in damned good time!”

“Almost too late.” Jarrett halfway grinned. “I have never seen anyone escape a hangman’s noose before.”

James shrugged. “They tied lousy knots.” He smiled at Teela.

“Now, you … you are surely the fiercest fighter I have yet to come across. She could maybe end the war, don’t you think, Jarrett?”

“Or start up another one,” Jarrett teased gently, then sobered. “Now, will you listen to me this time? You really do have to get out of here.”

James nodded. He stared at Teela. “The fear will be over,” he told her softly, then turned back to his brother. “Teela and the baby will be safe,” he said.

“Of course they will be. But I’m not real sure about your status at the moment, baby brother, and I know I can’t shoot the whole army. Will you please get the hell out of here?”

Tara suddenly came running down the steps, hurrying toward James. She flung her arms around his neck and kissed his cheek. “James, he’s right! Dear God, you’re alive, you’re safe—and in danger again! Get out of here like he says before they come and arrest you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I will.” He hugged her quickly in return. “Jennifer—”

“You haven’t time to see her. Trust me, we love her and will keep her well.”

“Teela—”

He broke off, staring at the porch, realizing that she was gone. “Where’s Teela?” he asked.

Jarrett swung around as well, unaware that she had disappeared until that moment.

“James, you mustn’t worry,” Tara assured him. “We love her, too—”

“James!”

He stared back to the porch. Teela had returned. Red hair a cascade that seemed to fly in the wind behind her, she came hurrying down the steps toward him. She had changed from her frilled white nightgown and now wore a gingham day dress and riding boots.

She ran to James and threw herself at him, holding him. She crushed his head between her palms and kissed him with a wonderfully savage, hungry, passionate splendor.

He caught hold of her. “Teela, I’ve got to run—”

“I know.”

“Have you realized that your father is—”

“My
stepfather
is dead. James, you’re alive!”

“Then you realize, I’ve got to go—”

“I’m coming.”

“What?”

“I’m coming with you.”

“Teela, the road for the time being will be very rough. You’re carrying our babe. You—”

“I’m as tough as any road, James McKenzie. I have told you many times, I can survive much, but after this
I am afraid to see you go. I can survive anything but losing you again.”

“Teela, you don’t understand—”

“James, I do understand.”

“But our babe …”

“James, I’m strong. Our baby is strong. I know it. I wouldn’t endanger a life I cherish so desperately!”

He cradled her against him, looking over her head to Jarrett and Tara helplessly. “What do I do?”

“Seems to me Teela knows her own mind,” Jarrett said.

“And she is darned tough,” Tara said.

“Amazingly so,” Jarrett commented wryly.

James grabbed Teela by the arms, holding her from him, searching out the startling beauty of her eyes amidst the flaming sea of her hair.

“We may have to run night and day. We may starve. We may not be able to come close to any civilized society for years. We’ll live and sleep in the woods and the swamp. You would do this … to be with me?”

She nodded.

“James, the more time you take …” Tara warned.

“You’ve got to hurry—one or both of you. Go around the back—take horses from the stables and ride quickly, for God’s sake!” Jarrett said.

James took Teela’s hand. “Well?” he challenged softly. Did she mean it? Would she run with a renegade, cast all hope of comfort and peace aside?

Perhaps not, for she was suddenly very still, holding pat when she might have followed him.

“Teela, I don’t expect this of you!” he whispered quietly. “You are finally free of Warren. I will come back when I can. I will love our child—”

“Then say it to me.”

“What?” he queried, confused. “I’ve just said I will love our child—”

Her chin lifted; her head was proudly high as she interrupted him. “Not the child, James. Me. I will go anywhere with you, James McKenzie, Running Bear. I will
sleep in any forest, any swamp, and do so gladly. But just once, say it! Say that you love me!”

He offered her a very slow and crooked smile. He felt the breeze stir, and his heart suddenly lighten.

“I love you, Teela,” he said softly. “I’ve been so afraid of the way that I love you, but I do. With all my heart, for all time. More than anything in the world. More than hatred, more than war, more than any of the pain that has blinded me. I love you. I need you. And I am not so sure that I can survive any more without you.”

She smiled at last, closing her eyes in sheer bliss. “Oh, God!” she whispered. “I would follow you to hell were you to ask!”

“It might well be hell!” Jarrett said, interrupting the moment. “If you two don’t get going.”

James caught her hand, shaking his head once again. “Teela, still, you can not imagine the wilderness—”