Rafe (39 page)

The pitbucks held their fire a moment longer as if fascinated by the soldiers' attempts to ride free of the fallen man. Rafe dropped the musket and raised one of the horse pistols. “Shoot!” he yelled. “Shoot!”

The slaves at the barricade opened up and guns exploded to either side of him as Rafe fired, then rammed, primed and fired the horse pistol once again, fired his second horse pistol and then, McKim in one hand and cutlass in the other, leaped to the top of the wagon and charged.

The front line of horsemen slowed and the attack crumpled back as men pitched from horseback to lie wounded or dying in the mud. The milling horses and screaming men barred the line of attack for the soldiers coming from the rear, causing them to bunch dangerously in the center of the path. Sudden gunfire erupted from the trees to either side of them. The blunderbuss boomed, sending a load of shrapnel into the cluster of soldiers, blowing three of them from their saddles. The enfilade added further to the tumult and confusion.

Rafe, at the head of the charging pitbucks from the barricade, glared frantically through the thick haze of powder smoke toward the brush where Crissa had disappeared. Every passing moment brought her closer to death. Ezra might have caught her; she might have been hit by a stray musket ball. A dragoon on horseback suddenly loomed out of the smoke, his saber raised. Rafe grabbed at the horse's bridle, pulled the unsuspecting beast's head down and ducked under to come up on the other side, cutlass swinging. Steel bounced off steel and the cutlass sliced into the soldier's forearm, severing muscles and tendons, knocking him out of the battle.

Ahead of him, Rafe could see Steve on his feet and screaming for his men to dismount and fight afoot. Their horses made it impossible to maneuver in such a tight position. To his right he caught a glimpse of Jomo charging out of the swamp with his men, charging into the milling soldiers. Dingo would be doing likewise on his left.

The dragoons were not without training nor experience, but their great numbers worked against them as they had in the grove. Some of the more experienced formed into tight circles, sabers and pistols drawn and in hand, and as Rafe and the pitbucks charged into their midst the soldiers fired as one, for the most part shooting into a cloud of choking smoke, trusting pure firepower to wipe out most of their attackers. Two of the slaves staggered, wounded. Bess was slammed back into the mud. Trinidad leaped to her side, cradled her in his arms and, ignoring the gunfire around him, rocked her gently back and forth, crooning her name over and over again, holding her close so she couldn't see the great fount of blood spilling from the gaping hole in her chest. Bess stared at him, her eyes wide with pain and fear. She whispered his name once, shuddered and slumped to one side.

The dragoons attempted to reload but there was no time. The pitbucks were among them. Rafe parried a feeble saber thrust with the barrel of the McKim, slid it down the blade and fired point-blank over the hilt into the soldier's belly. The soldier spun from the impact of the lead ball that tore a fist-sized hole out his back. As he dropped, a companion leaped over him, cleaving the air with his saber. Rafe stepped aside and impaled him on the cutlass, flung the badly wounded man away and searched for another victim.

To his right Trinidad had gone berserk. Tears streaming down his face, screaming curses at the men in front of him, the youth brandished a pitchfork and charged half a dozen grouped soldiers. Crazy with anguish for his lost Bess, he used the wooden pole as a quarterstaff, ramming the butt into the gut of the first soldier then switching and slashing with the tines. The pitchfork whirled in his hands. He poked again with the pole, stabbed with the vicious prongs. Sabers opened a dozen wounds on him but the raging fury in his blood kept him upright and maiming and butchering all he could.

Minutes passed as seconds and the swirling, desperate carnage continued. Many of the soldiers were seasoned campaigners, determined fighters who had survived the recent war with England. Some were professionals who knew no other life but the charge, the clash of sabers, and fields of coiling powder smoke. In spite of Steve's warnings to the contrary, many made the assumption this battle would be no more difficult than the one they had just fought in town. The assumption was a fatal mistake and they underestimated their enemy and found themselves in battle with a veritable handful of demons. These were no ordinary field slaves, but black men trained and kept in the peak of condition to fight and kill. And there was one further and even more important difference. They were no longer fighting for Ezra Clayton. They were fighting for themselves, for their own freedom.

Rafe heard the roar of the blunderbuss brought into action once again. Soldiers loomed out of the smoke around him. He ducked past them, driving a rock hard fist to the groin of one, carving the leg of another. A blade struck sparks against his cutlass. He stepped inside the soldier's guard and rammed the cutlass through his side, kicked the wounded man away from him and into the pistol of a companion to his rear. The confused dragoon pulled the trigger and shot the wounded man in the back, killing him. A second later Rafe was flying through the air over the falling body. His cutlass clove at the uniformed shoulder and the dragoon dropped to his knees, groaning in agony as Rafe freed the blade. To his left he caught a glimpse of soldiers retreating. The attack was broken, the worst part over. He had to find Crissa.

An eddying breeze revealed a portion of the trail and Rafe leaped over bodies sprawled in death, the mark of Jomo's axe on three of them. Yelling for Jomo to take over and regroup behind the wagons, he ran to the relative safety of the trees. His eyes smarted from the stinging haze clouding the path, but as his vision cleared he made out more of the soldiers heading back up the trail.

Crissa.… Sudden panic overwhelmed him. He heard the whinny of a horse among the brush ahead and followed the sound to a small clearing. Ezra had picketed the animal, unable to ride among the overgrowth and soft mud. Crissa's flight and Ezra's pursuit were obvious. Rafe began to run, his long powerful legs carrying him swiftly into the swamp. The impulse was to tear through the underbrush and call for Crissa at the top of his lungs but he knew too well the man he stalked—a vicious, rabid animal whose appetite for cruelty recognized no bounds. A dangerous man who, if Rafe was not careful, could turn the tables yet. And Crissa was out there alone with him. How far? How long had he been in battle? His eyes ever watchful, he followed the footprints and broken branches his quarry had left in their wake. And then from the depths of the swamp, a pistol shot followed by a horrible scream.…

Crissa had read the murderous intent in Ezra's eyes as he galloped toward her and her only recourse had been the brush, for she had gone too far to get back to the barricade. When her stepfather continued his pursuit into the woods she had had no alternative but to press on. Suddenly the heavy foliage thinned and she found herself in the eerie twilight gloom of the great cypresses, brown stagnant water covered with green algae all around her. Always irrationally afraid of the swamps, she was now terrified. Vines grabbed at her, whipped her face, caught at her ankles and sent her stumbling into the evil-smelling muck. She crawled to solid ground and plunged again through the creepers, clawing her way through curtains of moss, fleeing from the violent sound of battle and the destruction awaiting her at the hands of Ezra Clayton.

She was lost, uncertain of the river's whereabouts. Ezra was screaming her name. He would be upon her soon. She continued her headlong plunge deeper and deeper into the swamp. Direction ceased to matter. Flight was all. She wallowed through a muddy course, sinking up to her knees. Her father's warnings of quicksand flashed to mind and a heart-thudding, icy fear gripped her as the ooze sucked at her legs. She managed to reach for and grab hold of a cypress root angling out of the muck and pulled free of the muddy trap, scrambling frantically under some concealing foliage. Ezra appeared, pistol in hand, stopped at the lip of the bog and peered intently around him. Crissa backed away as soundlessly as she could, rose and continuing to crouch low, retreated still deeper into the darkness, desperately keeping a large cypress between her and Ezra.

Suddenly the brush thickened again and she could go no farther. She was trapped on three sides by water. Behind her she could hear Ezra beating his way through the foliage. The stream in front of her meandered slowly, barely ten feet in width. It looked only a few feet deep at most but she couldn't really tell, so murky was the water. She could hear Ezra laugh and call to her. He was hard on her trail and she had little time left. A massive, ungainly bough hung across the stream. Reaching up she steadied herself on it and stepped into the stream. A shape glided toward her foot, a sinewy rope like shape followed by another and then a third. Water moccasins! The stream was alive with them. She jumped back with a squeal, glanced over her shoulder. Ezra was closing in fast. So little time. The bough.…

She swung up to the limb and, straddling it, edged her way to the opposite bank. If it failed to hold her weight.… All her life she had carried the memory of the striking reptile that had almost taken her life in the pecan grove and now she was dangling a few feet above a stream full of them. The bough shivered, the wood creaked and she wriggled the remaining yard and leaped to the bank, stood there exhausted, unable to run any farther. Ezra had destroyed everything: her home, her mother, her own dreams. His rapacious greed, his perverse and insatiable delight in blood and pain stunned her, left her filled with untempered disgust. She had tried to stand firm before him and failed. She had run from him and failed. Now she was through running and faced death. A whisper of sound behind her. She turned in time to see another snake slide into the water. I should have let them have me, she thought. Better them than.… Her breath caught at the boldness of the plan. Would he?

Ezra, his clothes torn and grimy, one boot missing, burst from the foliage across the creek and stopped at the water's edge. Crissa lay on the opposite shore, cringing against a huge old cypress knee. Not fifteen full feet away. He couldn't have asked for an easier shot. Ezra smiled, cocked the pistol. Crissa whirled at the sound, her eyes wide with fear. Her shirt was torn, the front ragged and open, her breasts nearly totally exposed, lovely despite the mud covering her. Ezra hesitated. Too bad, he thought.…

“Ezra.… Please, no!” Crissa pleaded, tears streaking her face. “Oh, please don't!”

Ezra laughed openly. He had waited two months to see her spirit broken, to hear her plaintive voice acknowledge his mastery. “You're going to die, Crissa Elizabeth. First you and then that nigger, if Steve and his soldiers don't beat me to him.”

“Oh, God, Ezra. No. No, don't.…” He aimed the pistol. “I'll do anything, but please don't kill me, Ezra. Anything. You always wanted me,” she rushed on, her voice filled with panic. “I'll be yours. It'll be good. You'll be the first, but I can make it good for you, I know I can. Please don't. Here … take me here. You'll see. The ground is soft, better than a bed.”

A virgin.… Her breasts were beautiful. He had wanted her. And now she was broken. Frightened enough to do anything, to plead for him to put it in her just as he'd imagined. Why not take full satisfaction? Ream her and then put a bullet through her skull. Why not?

The pistol lowered. Ezra stared at the sensuous curves of her flesh, the trim, tight thighs beneath her ragged trousers. His smile changed to a leering grin and he stepped into the stream. Even as he took the first broad stride a change seemed to come over Crissa. A chilling look of triumph where seconds before there had been supplication and the promise of debasement. He took another step.…

“Crissa?”

She looked up. And saw Rafe. In the silence between them, Ezra's body was already turning black from the venom of a dozen strikes. The plantation lord had fallen with his head on the bank. His body extended into the water, feet waving gently in the sluggish current. He had fired into the water as the first set of fangs hit him, then thrashed and fought his way toward Crissa, cursing as the maddened reptiles struck over and over again at his limbs, torso and face. A water moccasin glided close, darted against Ezra's cheek, hung there a moment then slipped back into the water and disappeared beneath the surface. Crissa sighed low and long. It was finished.

“You ready, Captain?”

“No. Not yet, Sergeant.”

“There can't be more'n a handful left behind that barricade.”

“There weren't many more than that from the start. Count the darkies you see out there. Those behind the barricade are heavily armed. I can see that from here. No telling how many we'd lose before we took them. There's got to be another way.”

Captain Steven Bennett stared at the battered remnants of his command. Over half his force dead or wounded. A straight-on charge would be near suicide and he had neither men nor time enough to infiltrate through the brush and take them from the sides. They'd be on the raft and across the river before his men could get close enough. There had to be another way. And what of Crissa? Hopefully Ezra had found her and the two were safely making their way back through the brush. He'd have to chance a wait.

Next to him the sergeant winced as he flexed his wounded arm and spat onto the moist earth. “I never seen the like of such niggers. Hell, I emptied four pistols into that darkie with the pitchfork afore he give up an' died. Lucky for us the British didn't fight like that when Andy Jackson generalled us at New Orleans. We'd still be runnin' instead of them.”

“Captain,” a youthful private called, handing him the glass. “Look there, comin' out of the trees.”

Steve put the spyglass to his eye and studied the brush by the wagons. Crissa! And the niggers' huge, damnable leader, Rafe.

“Sheeit,” the sergeant cursed. “Now we can't touch 'em. Not with a woman prisoner. Wonder what happened to Clayton?”