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—”
“I have been there!”
“James!” Jarrett warned. “Once they come, Tara and I can buy you some time, but my God, you’ve got to let us try to get out the truth of all this.”
“Go!” Tara pleaded.
Teela’s eyes were on his, brilliant, determined. He thought that he would always remember her as she stood before him, hair wilder than any flame that had burned in the territory, her pride greater than that of any commander in the field of battle, her heart stronger than that of any warrior. Her beauty like that of the land, vivid as the sunset.
He took her hand.
“Let’s get the horses!” he said. He glanced to his brother and sister-in-law, lifted a hand good-bye.
And together he and Teela began to run.
Chapter 27
It was nearly dawn when they left, and though James was worried about the strain he was putting on Teela, he knew that he had to put some distance between them and the city before full daylight.
He rode inland at a swift but controlled speed toward Palatka, determined to pick up supplies from caches along the way before heading farther south. He found a cabin that had been deserted early in the war, one out in a pine barren that could be reached only by those who knew the trails through the marshland. He told Teela they would rest there during the day before heading southward once again. A clear spring provided them with plenty of drinking water in a pretty, shaded copse.
When they had bathed their faces and drunk their fill, James told Teela that he’d fix her a bed in the old cabin where she could sleep until it was time for them to ride again.
She placed a hand on his arm. “James! I’m all right.”
He shook his head, wincing. “I already know that this is madness. I shouldn’t have brought you. You’re not all right, you’re expecting a child.”
“Indian women have children.”
“They are used to running.”
“James!” On her knees she came to him, brought his hand to her heart. “Feel it! Feel the beat of it. It’s strong, James. I’m strong.”
He wound his fingers with hers, his hand still against the swollen softness of her breast. “Today we have shelter, and sweet, pure water. But we will travel where the mosquitoes vie with the fleas for bites of human flesh. We’ll travel through swamp and slush, places where the water rises to our knees, where the horses will bolt, where—”
“James, I’m not afraid.”
“You never seem to have the sense to be afraid,” he reminded her.
She smiled, hesitating. “James, I am alive when I am with you. This life is more precious than any safety. I am with you, I am not afraid. And at the moment I am not tired. James, you said that you love me! You did, remember?”
He nodded, a slow smile brightening his face despite the situation. “I remember.”
“You did mean it.”
”I did.”
“Then… show me.”
“Teela…” He frowned, lifting his hands. “Teela, we’re in flight. You’ve cast your fate with a renegade, a murderer—”
She placed a finger against his lips. “James, he would have killed me, our child, and you, given the chance. He stole everything of my father’s. His cruelty brought about the deaths of countless others. I don’t want to speak about him ever again. I want to forget cruelty and hatred. I want to discover love.”
“But, Teela… the babe!”
She stood, walking to the water’s edge. With a slow, leisurely sensuality she sat upon a rock, removing one boot, then the other. Then her stockings, very slowly. She glanced back at him, lips curving in a secret smile. “Is the Indian boy McKenzie not quite the man he thinks?”
He found himself on his feet, wondering at her ability to provoke him.
And arouse him. Her clothing was making a pool at her feet. Sturdy skirt and bodice, more fragile chemise, petticoat, and pantalettes falling atop them. He paused, even as the fire burned through him, staring at her as she stood tall, totally naked and uninhibited by the spring’s edge, as if she belonged there. Despite the porcelain quality of her flesh, its very white perfection, she was strong. And changed, of course, far rounder than even he had realized until now, yet somehow all the more sensual for it. She did appear the epitome of health, she was radiant. Her pregnancy seemed to add to both her strength and her beauty.
“The Indian boy may just manage all right,” he drawled, and started moving toward her.
Teela smiled and executed a swift dive into the water, delighting in the feel of it. The weather was perfect with fall, warm without being brutal, the water cool from beneath the earth’s surface, refreshing and exotic against her flesh. She cut across it swiftly, glad that she had learned to swim with such graceful ease, grateful that in this element she was James’s equal.
Yet as she reached the center and spun around, seeking him, she frowned, for he was nowhere in sight. She cast her face up to catch rays of light striking through the green leaves of the trees above. She felt a hard tug on her feet, inhaled deeply, and went slicing downward through the water, only to meet James beneath its surface. His body slid along hers, hot as a flame, hard as rock. His mouth formed over hers, his kiss a deeper heat. His hands began to move over her. Touching her. Her breasts. Her hips, rounding around them, pressing her closer. His mouth lifted from hers, allowing her to shoot above the water’s surface once again to breathe, to drag in air …
Yet he stayed below the surface, his kiss a liquid flame that undulated with the wave and twist and movement of the water, touching her. Here… lower… there… everywhere.
She tried to struggle, tried to drag him to her. Finally she shot beneath the surface again herself, catching him, dragging him back against her. He slipped an arm around her, pulling her back to the grass and mud embankment, barely bringing them out of the water before he was atop her again, his intimate kisses stoked by the breeze that waved over the slickness of their wet bodies, creating erotic sensation atop erotic sensation. He teased her unmercifully, tantalized, until she cried out in their strange, abandoned pine haven, and still he stroked, kissed, teased … cherished her. And when she thought at last that the searing fires within her would never be satisfied, he rose above her, brushing her lips, whispering, “I love you, I love you, I love you, Teela, I love you …”
Just that and nothing more.
And it was everything.
He was gentle, gentler tha
n she had ever known him to be, yet making love had never brought her a greater, sweeter satisfaction. He lay with her long past the time when the fury of climax had seized them both, and his words were still soft, tender.
“I love you, Teela.”
He wanted her to sleep, to rest. She did so. When she awoke, twilight was almost upon them. To the west the sun was setting, a giant orb in crimson, crashing into the earth with rays spilling from it in fantastic colors. Teela rose upon her elbows, just watching the colors. She realized that James was awake beside her, watching it as well.
“My God, it’s breathtaking. The most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen.”
“The world itself is simply more beautiful today,” he told her.
She flashed him a quick smile.
“Oh, God!” he exclaimed, and she looked into the crystal blue fire of his eyes, smiled, and found herself drawn back into his arms, the heat of his body, fierce now against the coming of night. His lips bathed her breasts, the tip of his tongue laving over her nipples, creating sensation she could scarcely bear. His mouth then hovered over hers.
She caressed his face, lowered her hands down the lean muscle and sinew of his body. Stroked his sex. Met his lips again.
Dimly, with her peripheral vision, she was aware of a great blue heron suddenly shooting out of the water, toward the sunset. She felt that she flew with it, that she felt the red and the gold and the fire of the sunset.
And with it she sweetly burned.
As he had warned her, the days grew harder.
Sometimes they passed Indian lands, and he would not light a fire lest they draw down the wrath of the Seminole bands.
Worse, sometimes he was convinced that they were near white troops. Upon occasion he would leave her resting in a copse and ride out.
When they had been on the trail a few weeks, he returned one afternoon to tell her that he was afraid they were following a large body of Indian troops—as well as a large movement of soldiers.
“Jesup has been planning a pincer movement. We’ve known that. I’ve known that, the Seminoles have known it. Fortunately, the army regulars are the least familiar with the terrain down here,” he said. He’d caught a rabbit that day and determined that it would be all right that afternoon to light a cooking fire.
Though Teela had admittedly found the trail harder and harder—one afternoon the mosquitoes had been so bad that she pleaded that they ride rather than rest— she had also learned to manage rather well. There were many abandoned Indian camps, and occasionally there were crops to be discovered that had never been harvested.
There were the ruins of plantations as well. They offered cooking utensils, salt, sugar, and spices upon occasion. Sometimes they discovered blankets, bullets, and medical supplies. She knew how to fashion a bed at night from a simple tarp that would keep her warm and dry and, for the most part, the insects away.
Sometimes they traveled ground where even James was wary of dangerous snakes.
Yet though it was hard going, Teela was amazed to discover just how happy she was. If only they could live without the fear that he could be hanged at any time, she didn’t think she’d care if she ever had more than what they did simply traveling with each other.
That would change, of course, with the baby.
She was fascinated more and more by the movements their son or daughter made, and though James would smile and laugh with her, he would often seem his most worried after such occasions, lying on his back, staring up at the sky. He would talk about Jennifer then, about how he missed her.
And how he had wronged her.
And Teela would tell him, naturally, that he had not, that Jennifer was well, a loving child. If she suffered from the world around her, she did so because she was very mature for her tender years. They wove dreams about a place where they would live one day, all of them, Jennifer, the new baby, James and Teela.
“Jennifer is more Seminole than I am, and this baby will hardly have Indian blood at all, yet …”
“Yet?”
He rolled to her. “One drop of Indian blood can create a red man—less a man—to many whites.”
“But there are those who know that there are no barriers between men, and they will be our friends.”
“You live in a fantasy world.”
“There is no other.”
Now, after he had scouted the countryside for both soldiers and Seminoles, and snared the rabbit, he told her that he was convinced that they were riding parallel with a large body of the army and several bands of Indians.
“Should we stop and let them pass us?” Teela asked. She could expertly skin a rabbit, and she was proud of herself as she spitted the nicely plump creature and roasted it slowly and evenly over James’s fire.
He shook his head. “I was thinking of getting past them,” he told her.
She agreed. They ate. They lay together watching the stars.
It poured that night. A violent rain with slashing lightning and pounding thunder. It was barely midnight when the weather became so vicious that they dared travel no farther. There was no way to keep dry.
James sought shelter, but there was little to be found. He quickly built a hootie with what supplies he had, but after a few hours, the ground began to flood. He took to the trees, holding Teela against him. Toward morning, the rain stopped. She slept against his arms.
There were vicious bug bites against her neck and breasts. She never mentioned them, she never complained. Her flesh was warm. He was afraid the rain had given her a fever. He laid his head back against the tree, damning himself for having brought her with him. She awakened, her eyes bright, her smile warm. “I love you,” she told him.
He smiled. Kissed her. “I love you, too,” he whispered, and damned himself again. He loved her, but he risked her very life with every day that they rode.
“Do you know what?” she asked him softly.
“What?”
“It’s Christmas.”
“And you are in a savage wilderness where there is no belief in Christ.”
“It is the first Christmas in years in which I will be able to awake completely happy.”
“And sick,” he worried as she sneezed.
“James, I have been sick in Charleston as well.”
“I have nothing to give you.”
“At this moment I have everything.”
He eased her from him, leapt from the tree, and helped her down. “We’ve traveled too slowly so far. I’ve been afraid to go faster,” he told her. “Jarrett and I have kept cabins on the bay property my father left us. If we can just reach it …”
“Fine. Well, move more quickly.”
That afternoon, they came around a trail that skirted Lake Okeechobee. James reined in his horse, looking around uncomfortably.
“What is it?” Teela demanded.
“Indians.” He pointed at hoofprints she could barely make out before them. “Horses … unshod. Lots of them. Then, there … prints from skin boots. There are a lot—I mean a lot!—of Seminoles very near us.” He stared at her suddenly. “I’m taking you to the copse right up there. Stay there, no matter what, until I come for you.”
“But, James—”
“Teela, you must. I don’t know what we’ve stumbled upon. Please, no stubborn action, listen to me this once. Swear it.”
“I—swear it. But where will you—”
“I’ve got to find out what’s going on.”
For once Teela didn’t argue with him. He found her high, secluded ground within a hammock near the lake, and in that ground he found an old oak with perfect, sprawling branches where she could await him. He kissed her lightly when he prepared to leave her; she drew him back, clinging to him.
He took a silver amulet from around his neck, setting it around hers. “I am not in danger here, but you may be. I’m taking the horse away so that no one will find you, though this piece of silver should keep anyone who wished you harm from hurting you. But, Teela, if you sta
y in that tree and are not seen, I can promise that no one will harm you, so do as I say.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “James?”
“Please… remember, it is Christmas. You be careful. Let your life be your present to me, please!”
He held her again, then helped her up within the tree, hurrying to his horse immediately before he could delay further. About a half mile from Teela, he tethered her horse in a pine copse. Then he followed the trail of hoofprints until he came to a clearing where he halted, suddenly aware of just what they had stumbled upon.
In the whole of the theater of war as he had known it, nothing had ever appeared so big; nor had Indians ever prepared so carefully for battle. The lake was to the rear, a high hammock just in front of it. In front of the hammock, mud, mush, and saw grass stretched in all directions. Some of the saw grass had been mown down to allow for clearer rifle fire. Even as he stared at the field before him, he saw movement to his left. Dismounting from his horse, he silently pursued the movement, catching up with a breech clout-clad Indian and tumbling him to the ground. Straddling the young warrior, he saw that it was Racoon, a young man of Coa-coochee’s tribe.
“Running Bear! You’ve come to fight!” the boy exclaimed with surprise. “I thought you were a solider. I am to lead them here. There are many. Another commander comes against us. Zachary Taylor. Wildcat says that he is the general that he will best!”
“Wildcat fights, who else?” James demanded.
“Arpeika—you know, Sam Jones. And Alligator is here with his warriors. We are nearly five hundred in number.”
Startled, James arched a brow. “What of the white troops? I know they’ve come this way. How many?”
“Over a thousand, we believe. But it doesn’t matter. We will kill them as they cross the swamp. Blood will mingle with the mud.”
James crawled off the boy, helping him up. He looked at the sky in time to see that the sun was already up. It had to be around noon.
He heard the sudden sound of fire and turned.
They were coming, indeed.
The soldiers were making a frontal attack despite the swampland and saw grass they would have to traverse. Guns were loaded, guns were fired. Horses couldn’t possibly navigate the swamp, and the men came on foot.