Alaina shook her head. “You’re spying on me.”
“I’m trying to help a friend,” Risa said. She frowned suddenly, as if listening to something. “I wonder what—”
“Oh, Lord!” Alaina gasped, suddenly knowing why her horse had bolted. She had disturbed a batch of eastern diamondback rattlers.
“Move!” Alaina cried, springing forward, pushing Risa out of the way. Then, despite herself, she screamed.
Risa was in the clear, but even with the volume of her skirts, Alaina had been struck. The sudden pain was electrifying, and she staggered to her knees.
Risa flew into action, dragging Alaina quickly from the side of the trail and the offending snake. To Alaina’s astonishment, she heard a sudden blast of gunfire. She realized that Risa had been carrying a gun—and that the snake was dead.
In the clear dirt center of the trail, Risa knelt down by Alaina. “You’re a fool, getting bitten for me!” Risa told her, ripping up her skirt for a length of cotton with which to make a tourniquet.
Alaina, shaking, drew up her skirt and ripped her stockings, finding the ugly fang marks. “We need a knife.” she began weakly, but Risa apparently knew what she was doing. She moved quickly to her saddlebags and came back with a huge Bowie knife. “Are you going to save me, or slit my throat?” Alaina asked.
Startled, Risa glanced briefly at the knife. “You never know who or what you might encounter,” she said flatly.
Alaina smiled, fighting the pain, leaning back. Risa knew what she was doing. Alaina braced herself as Risa slashed the wound, then leaned over her calf to start sucking the poisoned blood out of Alaina’s leg, spitting it to the side. Despite Risa’s efficiency, Alaina felt first as if she were on fire, then she felt a numbness.
“You shouldn’t have done this!” she heard Risa say between spits.
“I’ve been bitten before, twice,” Alaina told her. “Remember, I come from the true savage swamp! I guess I’ll be sick, but you…”
She was dimly aware of Risa leaning over her.
“I might have died, right?”
Alaina closed her eyes. And passed out.
The night was ominously dark as the small boat made its way, silently streaking through the water, beaching against the sand.
Ian immediately heard the sound of a rifle being cocked, followed by the demand, “Who is it?”
By the dim moonlight, he saw where his uncle stood. Behind James, also armed, were a number of Teddy’s old grove workers. Ian hesitated briefly, his heart heavy. “It’s Ian, Uncle James.”
“You’re not welcome here, Ian,” James said flatly, but even in the darkness, Ian could see that his uncle lowered his weapon. James wasn’t going to shoot him down in cold blood. James saw, however, that Ian wasn’t alone in his boat. “You’re not welcome, Ian, nor are your people.”
“I’ve got Jennifer.”
“What?” James demanded harshly.
Ian stepped from the boat, his cousin held tenderly in his arms as he approached her father.
Risa managed to get Alaina back to St. Augustine and under Dr. Percy’s care. Percy assured her that she had done an exceptionally fine job, and that he was quite certain Alaina would come out of the ordeal all right. They’d just have a bit of a rocky road ahead of them.
Put to bed in her guest house, Alaina spent about twenty-four hours in which Risa, along with Lilly and Dr. Percy, diligently fought the fever that plagued her. Risa tended Alaina, watched the baby, and paid heed to all Dr. Percy’s instructions.
That night, Alaina went through a spell of sweating, chills, and fever again. She talked and talked, talked to Ian, to Percy. “It’s all right, it’s all right, it’s going to be all right,” Risa assured her.
But Risa was heartsick. She was good at listening, and she’d listened very carefully to Alaina’s ramblings. And she wondered if any of it would ever be all right.
By nightfall of the second day, Alaina’s fever broke completely. She was weak as a kitten the day after, then she seemed to make a miraculous recovery. Rising, bathing, and doing up her hair, she seemed especially well and in good spirits. Happy to be alive. “You brought me back, and you sat with me for days. Now you look exhausted, just like hell,” Alaina told Risa with a smile. “Thank you.”
Risa looked at her. “You threw me away from the bite—and wound up the victim yourself.”
Alaina smiled. “But I knew I had an immunity.”
“It was still incredibly brave—and quite a strange thing to do for me!”
Alaina shrugged. “It’s war. We find strange enemies, and even stranger friends.”
Risa nodded. “Still, I might have died. Thank you.”
“Risa, are you watching me for Ian?” Alaina asked her bluntly.
Risa shrugged. “Actually, Alaina, I’m trying to watch you for yourself!”
Alaina walked to Risa and hugged her tightly. “Whatever the reasons, you’re a good friend.”
“Whatever the reasons, you are, too,” Risa assured her.
“Go home. You’re exhausted.”
“I’m going.”
Alaina hugged her one more time.
When Risa was gone, Percy arrived.
“Will you be all right?” he asked her worriedly.
“I’m fine.”
“You gave us quite a scare… but you do seem to have an immunity. You’re due to sail. Can you make it?”
“Yes.”
“Perhaps we could postpone—”
“No. I’m going now. I’m going for medicine…. This time. I may not go again, Dr. Percy.”
Percy nodded. “I understand. You have done your part.”
He didn’t understand. She loved her homeland, loved the ideal of freedom, and loved the gallantry that was supposedly a part of her South.
But she had also seen too much.
She would sail.
One more time.
It was time to go, and Ian stood with his uncle on the beach. He felt himself trembling along with James as his uncle embraced him. Three of his men waited in the small boat.
“Thank you,” James told him. “Thank you.”
“The ship’s surgeon aboard the Regard assured me that she’ll have few ill effects from the hanging,” Ian said, “but she was suffering from malnutrition and a serious cold before it all happened, so it may take her a while to recuperate. She’s not out of danger, and it will probably be quite some time before she can actually talk.”
James nodded, his eyes filled with pain. “Teela and I won’t leave her side.”
Ian nodded. “I’ll try not to come back and put you in an awkward position,” Ian assured him quietly.
James drew away, staring at him with eyes as dark a blue as his own: his grandfather’s eyes. McKenzie eyes.
“Ian, quite frankly, I have had it with war. I hated soldiers in blue, and I had a right to. But I’m not so sure about embracing those men who changed from blue to gray. I’m weary. I haven’t seen my brother in well over a year, and whatever the sides in this, he has always been my brother, and if I have forgotten my own blood, by God, I am sorry. Ian…” He lifted his hands. “Well, we are still at war. But…” He hesitated a long while, staring at Ian, then he sighed softly. “I understand that Jen is still in danger, but you saved your cousin’s life, and I will die grateful for that fact. So it seems that…” Once again, he seemed to have trouble finding the right words.
Then he stared firmly at Ian.
“There’s been word that a ship is coming in south of here, next Wednesday night to be exact. The ship won’t be able to come in too closely, of course, but it’s supposed to carry… the Moccasin.”
Ian felt cold fingers clamp around his heart.
Orders were clear regarding the Moccasin.
And if his uncle was actually giving him information regarding the spy…
“Thank you,” Ian whispered.
James, studying him intently, nodded with a painful jerk of his head.
> The two men embraced one more time.
Then Ian stepped into his boat.
The Panther and his men slid back out into the darkness of the night.
It was time to catch a snake.
Chapter 28
May 1862
The night was eerie.
A full moon rode the silken black sky, casting an iridescent ivory glow over the landscape. But there were clouds that night, puffy, billowing monsters that drifted along invisibly until they covered the moon and pitched land and sea into a darkness so deep it was like an ebony void.
And in the darkness, supported by his men, Ian waited.
And prayed that he was wrong. His uncle had warned him about the Moccasin in exchange for Jennifer’s life, though he surely knew that Ian’s love for his cousin demanded no payment in return.
But Ian was afraid.
Afraid that Alaina was guilty of espionage. Afraid that he wouldn’t catch her.
That someone else would.
“A ship! Major, by God, you were right!” old Sam Jones whispered in the night.
Ian felt his heart quicken. His uncle had been right. His uncle had known.
He felt his men shifting in the darkness, amazed that he had known not just that a ship would risk the waters, but when it would do so. Sam, who had been the first man Ian had chosen for his company, probably suspected what Ian feared.
His men were anxious, he realized. He tried to speak calmly.
“Steady, boys, we can’t take a ship right now, and we don’t want anyone getting wind of us and carrying off the cargo. We want the landing party, gentlemen.” He was silent. Then he reminded them, “We’re here to seize the Moccasin.”
Alaina stared at the fast-approaching coastline. Almost home! She was glad, so glad! The war was a wearying effort, more trying than ever recently. More worrying. She didn’t know why she was so uneasy; she had slipped from St. Augustine with no difficulty, and everything had gone extremely smoothly in the Bahamas. Tonight, all she had to do was come home and turn her heavily laden coat over to her contact. Then she could go to Belamar, and sleep in her own bed. And perhaps…
She had believed, so passionately, in the Southern Cause. In States’ Rights. In the battle cry that they were like the fledgling band of the colonies before the Revolutionary War, fighting for the right to independence, for the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness—in their own way. If only others understood …
It was time to quit now. Quit. She had been a good spy, a good ambassador for the South. She had risked a great deal. Times were changing. Too many people knew her identity; too many people were beginning to guess at it.
And…
She wasn’t sure about her convictions anymore. God forbid, she wasn’t sure that the Confederacy was right! Perhaps it would be possible to slither into the water… and disappear into legend and history.
In the small inlet, just before they might have run aground, the ship was brought to a slow, smooth halt.
“Cast dinghy!” Captain Nasby ordered. He glanced at Alaina, and she knew he was worried. He had told her that he had seen the broadsides posted advising that the Moccasin was wanted—dead or alive.
Shot or hanged without mercy at the discretion of the captor.
Alaina didn’t dare think about such threats—or the fact that they would be carried out. Fear made it impossible to function.
She touched the brim of her slouch hat, drawing it lower down her forehead. She drew her encompassing greatcoat with its numerous pockets more tightly around her. The coat was heavy, with gold, laudanum, letters, and Yankee dollars for the purchase of items that had become necessary to the South but that couldn’t be bought with Confederate money. If she had to swim, the weight could drown her. She would have to slip out of it—and retrieve it later. She hoped she didn’t have to swim. She felt that she had recovered entirely from her bout with the rattler, but she was still afraid that she wasn’t as strong as she should be.
She stared at the shore, wondering again why she was so uneasy. She could see nothing amiss. The moon kept creeping behind clouds, but when the clouds parted, a strange yellow glow illuminated the earth. The water, with or without the moonlight, seemed black. Trees were encased in silent shadow. In a sudden burst of yellow moonlight, she scanned the shore. Nothing. Nothing… except…
“Wait!” she cried.
“You see something?” Captain Nasby demanded, frowning and trying hard to peer into the night.
Yes, something. Something had moved in the shadows. Alaina was filled with dread. Twin red lights suddenly seemed to peer from the trees. She felt a tightening grip of panic begin, but then breathed more easily again, nearly laughing aloud with relief.
“What?” the captain asked anxiously.
“A little deer,” Alaina laughed.
“Ah … A deer. You’re certain?”
“Yes.”
“Jenkins, bring the Moccasin in,” the captain ordered one of his young seamen.
“Yessir!” Jenkins said, saluting.
The captain turned to the Moccasin. “Be careful. Please.”
“I will, sir,” Alaina said, smiling.
“Remember,” he told her firmly, “your life is far more valuable than your cargo, no matter how precious it may be. You cannot be replaced. You must remember that.”
“I will!” she promised. Alaina realized then that she wanted it to be over. She wanted to get ashore, deliver her contraband, and be done. “And I must go now.”
The captain nodded. He appeared unhappy, as if he struggled for the words to say more, but could not find them.
As if he, too, were suddenly filled with the same sense of dread.
For a moment, Alaina was made even more uneasy by his manner, and felt a strange chill, one as foreboding as the haunting night with its eerie yellow moon-glow.
“Be careful,” the captain said again, gruffly.
“We should move now, sir,” Jenkins said uneasily.
Alaina nimbly scrambled over the starboard side of the ship, following Jenkins down the small drop ladder to the dinghy waiting below. Jenkins quickly slipped the oars into the water, and the dinghy shot across the night-black sea. The coastline loomed ever closer.
“Stop!” she whispered, suddenly certain that all was not well. She felt as if the night was watching; she had the feeling of being…
Stalked.
Something awaited them. The heavy breathing of some great horrible creature seemed to echo in the darkness. The trees were too still. Nothing stirred; no insects chirped.
Jenkins ceased to row. The dinghy, caught by the impetus of his previous strength, continued to streak through the water despite Jenkins’s efforts to position the oars to stop its progress.
Then the trees came to life. The moon was gone, darkness had settled, but the Moccasin heard the sounds as men slipped from the trees, rifles aimed at the dinghy.
And dreaded words in a more dreaded voice were suddenly issued.
“Surrender, come in peacefully, and your lives will be spared, you’ve my guarantee!”
The moon slipped free from the clouds. Eight men in hated Union blue had come from the trees. They were in formation at the water’s edge: four on their knees, four standing, all aiming their rifles directly at the occupants of the dinghy. One more man stood slightly apart from the others. Ian.
Her stomach lurched.
“Lord A’mighty!” Jenkins swore. He didn’t even glance at Alaina, and she knew that he meant to surrender,
But she couldn’t surrender.
“We surrender—” Jenkins began.
Alaina dove into the water. She dove very deep, slipped out of her coat, and swam hard, trying to pretend that she hadn’t seen Ian, that he didn’t suspect that she was the Moccasin. If he didn’t know it was her, he might not catch her. He might swim straight for the boat and find nothing more than the coat she carried resting on the bottom.
She swam as hard as she could, trying to le
t the current help her, then surfaced. Keeping very low, she looked back to see that Ian’s men still seemed far away. She scrambled up around the mangrove roots, certain that she could disappear into the foliage and away from the water, given half a chance.
But as she came ashore, she heard a sudden shout.
“Halt, or I’ll shoot!”
She ran, expecting a bullet to plow into her back at any second.
But no weapon was fired.
Gasping for air, her lungs burning, she continued to run.
Then she heard racing footsteps. Close behind her, so close behind her …
She cried out even as his weight catapulted against her, bringing her down so hard she was winded and inhaled raggedly just for enough air to live, to remain conscious.
Oh, God, she knew it was Ian, knew it.
She wanted oblivion.
She was facedown in the roots and sand. He flung her over, straddling her with a staggering speed.
The moonlight suddenly seemed brilliant. She could see him clearly, so clearly.
He was as soaked as she, shirt and breeches plastered to the muscled hardness of his body. His dark hair was slicked back, his features like rock, cobalt eyes damning and cold and …
Strange. He had become a stranger. A hard, handsome stranger who stared at her now with such heated fury and hatred that she panicked, desperate to escape. She writhed, drawing back a fist to strike out with all the strength she could muster. She caught his jaw—but he barely seemed to notice. She struggled wildly to move him off balance, but succeeded only in winding herself further.
He caught her wrists and slammed her back to the sand with such brutal force that she cried out, panicked into silence. She went dead still and stared at him.
“So you are the Moccasin,” he said. His voice was cold and harsh, and the fury within it increased as he added, “How dare you?”
She was so afraid. And even more heartsick. She wanted to explain, but she couldn’t explain to him.
She could only keep fighting, because there was nothing left for them now except battle.
“And you’re the Panther. The bloody, goddamned Panther. Stalker. Traitor! Dear God, this is Florida!” she cried. “You are the traitor here. How dare you?”