Sword of Vengeance (15 page)

Wolf Jacket wasn’t going to take her alive, not this time. Her resolve was firm. Another twig snapped. Did the Creeks hold her in such disregard they were careless in their approach? She would teach them the price of cornering a Choctaw woman, mixed blood or no.

Her heart began to pound in her chest. Her breathing was ragged; she sucked in air through her clenched teeth. Suddenly a Creek warrior stepped past the hickory, a British rifled musket carried in the crook of his arm. It wasn’t Wolf Jacket, but he’d do. Raven wanted the man’s firearm. She was a crack shot, and a gun would sure lessen the odds against her.

The man spied Raven as she swung the club with every ounce of her strength. He tried to raise his short-barreled gun to protect himself. He moved too slow. The branch caught him full in the face, cutting short his warning cry as he choked on a mouthful of his own teeth and blood. The warrior flew backward into the underbrush and discharged his British flintlock into the air.

He tried to shove himself upright, but Raven bludgeoned him again. She broke the club against his skull and then grabbed for the wounded man’s rifled musket and tried to drag it free from his grasp. But even dying, he managed to cling to the weapon, his finger tightly curled around the trigger.

Raven didn’t have much time. The shot would bring the others. She tugged and pulled, and the Creek flopped toward her, his eyes filled with hatred beneath a mask of blood from the grievous wound she had dealt him. Dying, he denied Raven her prize.

A lead slug clipped the branches overhead, and a second thudded into the hickory she had hidden behind. She released the rifled musket and raced off downslope, losing herself in the mist.

Wolf Jacket emerged from a cluster of trees and approached his wounded companion at a dead run. He was quickly followed by four other Creek warriors.

They were all men of average height, well muscled, with their black hair cropped short and their faces streaked with the crimson and yellow markings of war. Each man carried a rifled musket of British origin and a finely honed tomahawk whose iron blade had been forged in the furnaces of Blackwall outside of London.

Unlike the buckskins of his companions, Wolf Jacket’s attire included the red coat of a British officer. He had adorned the garment with the pelt of a red wolf he had killed. The coat’s brass buttons were dull now and the scarlet fabric faded. Still, the coat was Wolf Jacket’s mark of authority, and he wore it proudly. Among the people of his village stronghold, the word of Wolf Jacket was law. He had proven himself a wise and cagey leader, utterly fearless in battle. And as he hated his enemies—the Cherokee and Choctaw and the white Americans who continually encroached on the Creek hunting lands—so did he love his own people.

He knelt by the side of the man Raven had killed and placed his hand on the dead warrior’s chest.

“Sleep well, my brother,” said the war chief of the Red Sticks. Of all the Creek nation, the Red Sticks were the most warlike and the fiercest in battle. Death was no stranger to them. Still, Wolf Jacket was full of grief. He and Yellow Knife had played as children, hunted together as young men, fought side by side along the warrior’s path.

“Your great heart is stilled. Your strong life is taken by the half-breed whelp of Iron Hand.” Wolf Jacket reached over and took the dead warrior’s tomahawk. “With this you will be avenged. She will die by your own ‘hawk.’ I have spoken.”

He straightened and turned to his companions. The man closest to him was a dark-eyed warrior whose lower jaw had been cruelly ripped by a ricocheting slug during the attack on the Choctaw village three days past. The wound had crusted over but would leave a frightful scar. His name was Runs Alone, an ambitious warrior, who was dutifully loyal to the red-coated brave as long as it suited his purposes.

“Take the gun of Yellow Knife and the medicine pouch from around his throat. Bring these things to his mother, that she might weep for her son.”

“It will be done,” Runs Alone replied.

Wolf Jacket turned to the other three warriors. “We will hunt this half-breed down and bring her head back on a pole so that when Iron Hand comes to free his people he will lose heart.”

“There is no trail. She must have run into the creek,” said Little Badger, the youngest of the three. He was anxious to prove his worth to Wolf Jacket, a warrior he held in the highest esteem. The man had continued down the slope for a few yards, following the runoff. Farther downhill the spring’s flow branched off into two directions. Raven might have followed either of them. Little Badger began to reload his weapon.

The rifled muskets of the Creek braves were short-barreled weapons that the Red Sticks found to be excellent for use in the thick forests of northeast Alabama. A man did not need a long gun so much as a gun that was easy to carry, maneuverable in dense foliage, and simple to care for. And with the success of the raids on both the Choctaw camp and the looting of Hope Station, Wolf Jacket had plenty of furs, pelts, and stolen silver and currency to bring to the gunrunners who supplied his people with the British-made firearms.

Wolf Jacket stood aside as Runs Alone unfastened the medicine pouch from around Yellow Knife’s throat and tucked it inside his buckskin shirt. He also removed the dead warrior’s powder horn and pouch of rifle balls. He straightened, nodded to Wolf Jacket, and started up the hillside. If he was lucky, Runs Alone might even be able to catch up to the main war party before they reached the Tallapoosa River.

Snake, an elder warrior who had remained silent throughout the pursuit, at last spoke up as Runs Alone headed south over the ridge.

“Wolf Jacket, this is a foolish quest. One Choctaw woman is of little importance. We ought to follow Runs Alone and rejoin our people.” Snake squatted in the dirt and fished a chunk of pemmican from a pouch on his belt. The invisible fingers of a breeze tugged at his silvery hair. Age enabled him to criticize Wolf Jacket without incurring the war chief’s wrath. Snake had been a warrior as long as Wolf Jacket had been alive. His counsel was often sought, for there was much he had seen and done, and his travels had taken him throughout the land of the Mississippi and the Tennessee. But his counsel was not sought today. And Wolf Jacket as much as told him so.

“Raven is the daughter of Iron Hand. With her in my lodge, the Choctaw chief will be like a mad animal and lead his people to ruin.”

Snake listened. But he was careful to read between the words of the war chief. Perhaps what he said made sense. Still, a man could have his doubts. A man could also lose his head by expressing those doubts. Snake was no fool. He had voiced his concern, and if his arguments did not sway Wolf Jacket from his intended course, then there was nothing more to be said.

Wolf Jacket knelt by the spring and cupped a handful of the bubbling, cold water to his lips. He was thirsty and tired from the chase. But the ’breed girl had shamed him. His pride was wounded. She had escaped him, and by all the sacred spirits, she would pay. He studied how the watercourse widened as it meandered downslope. She was clever to keep to the water. But he was a relentless hunter and had never returned to the Red Stick village empty-handed.

Wolf Jacket took a steel-bladed hunting knife from his belt and dug the point into the tip of his thumb until the blood flowed. Then he placed his thumb in the water and watched as a ribbon of his blood blended with the stream. His features impassive, his gaze dreamlike, the war chief began to softly sing in a monotone:

“Water spirit, hear me.

This is my blood.

I give it freely.

Blood of the earth, now we are one.

Guide me. Lead me.

Bring me to the one I seek.

Do not let me walk in shame.

I will be your drink.

Now I am wounded.

Bind me with the one I seek.

Iron Hand’s daughter.

Water spirit, hear me.”

He straightened and stood, and there was a glimmer of triumph in his eyes. The magic was made, it was finished. He could sense the power.

“Little Badger will go with me. We will follow the right fork of the stream below.” He indicated the spot where the stream branched off in two directions, divided by a fallen tree. Farther below, sunlight glimmered on the surfaces of twin streams that wound their way through the oak and hickory forest. “Snake and Blue Kettle will follow the left fork. Fire a shot if you discover where she has left the stream. We will do the same. If we have not found her by nightfall, we will start back.”

Wolf Jacket hefted his rifled musket, checked the load, and then motioned for Little Badger to come along. The young warrior was only too happy to comply. He beamed with pride at being chosen to accompany the war chief.

He flashed a grin at his companion, Blue Kettle, a sullen-faced warrior who shrugged and busied himself with his own rifle. Blue Kettle had fired the first shot at the Choctaw. But he had been off balance and had wasted the shot. In retrospect, Blue Kettle was glad he had missed. Wolf Jacket seemed to have a personal interest in the ’breed, and killing her might have cost Blue Kettle his life.

As for honors, let them fall to Little Badger. Blue Kettle wanted only to rejoin the war party. There were plenty of other women. But all the pretty ones might be claimed before he and the other warriors returned to the village at Horseshoe Bend. Blue Kettle kept his feelings to himself until Wolf Jacket and Little Badger had started down the hill. Then he turned to Snake, who began his descent along the watery path. Blue Kettle quickly fell into step alongside the Red Stick warrior.

“You spoke the truth, old one. I heard your words, and they were good counsel. We should abandon this chase. Let the girl go. She is unimportant. If Iron Hand comes against us, we will destroy him. Our guns are many, and his are few.”

Blue Kettle glanced at the man alongside him to see if his words were having any effect. Snake continued on in silence. He seemed oblivious to Blue Kettle, who only echoed the older brave’s earlier sentiments. Blue Kettle sighed in despair and ceased to protest. What was the use?

His mood turned black as they entered the emerald shadows of the forest. It was there, where the spring-fed stream branched and one fork was lost from view of the other, that Snake unexpectedly halted. Blue Kettle continued on alone for a few paces before he realized what had happened. He turned and found Snake stretched out against the trunk of a weathered sassafras.

The old warrior had broken a twig from a low-hanging branch and was proceeding to fill his pouch I with the tree’s mitten-shaped leaves. He took care to add pieces of root bark to the mixture. Dried, it would provide a nourishing tea. He crushed one of the leaves in his palm and inhaled the fragrance. Blue Kettle’s shadow fell across him. The old brave did not bother to look up.

“Rest,” Snake said. “Even the young need rest. And our village is many days’ walk from here.”

A broad grin spread across Blue Kettle’s face. Suddenly the world seemed brighter.

“Truly you are the wisest of all,” the younger man said.

“Take care that Wolf Jacket does not learn of my ‘wisdom.’ Else our heads will hang before the gates of our village and our bones rot beyond the walls,” Snake warned. He stretched out his legs, closed his eyes, and allowed the weariness to seep from his limbs. He fell asleep reliving the raid on the Choctaw village and the wholesale slaughter of men, women, and children. Snake saw the faces of those he had killed and then a parade of the women and children taken captive. He saw one woman in particular, a fiery-tempered, black-haired ’breed with startling green eyes. Ah, yes, Raven. She who had escaped. But she was only a woman, unimportant. Just one woman.

What could she do?

R
AVEN O’KEEFE HAD NEVER
thought about dying until now, on this rain-washed afternoon, when she came stumbling out of the shadows of the stately oaks lining the banks of flood-swollen Turkey Creek, a tributary of the Coosa River. Raven gingerly hobbled to the water’s edge. She had twisted her ankle earlier in the day but had continued on in a desperate effort to reach Hope Station. The settlers there were on good terms with the Choctaw, and she could count on sanctuary within the station’s stockade.

All that had changed now, and her hopes faded as she hobbled out onto the creek’s sandy bank. For almost an hour Wolf Jacket and Little Badger had played cat and mouse with their quarry, herding Raven with well-placed shots that sent her stumbling through the rain toward the impassable creek.

Healthy, with two strong ankles, she could have easily outdistanced her enemies. Hampered as she was with her injured ankle, Raven was soon at the mercy of the Red Sticks. As she paused, a gun fired off to her right, shattering a nearby limb. She slipped and slid down the mud-slickened walls of a ravine. Another gunshot, and a geyser erupted from the rain-covered ground barely inches from her leg as a slug carved a furrow in the earth.

Toying with her, yes, and driving her on, wearing her down until the woman stumbled out of the trees and staggered toward Turkey Creek. With Hope Station just another couple of miles away, all Raven had to do was ford the creek and follow a deer trail east through the trees for another hour at the most and she’d be safe. She’d have a place to rest and recuperate before setting out to find her father and the other warriors he had taken with him to the council houses of the Cherokee.

Raven’s hopes faded as she stared at the torrent that blocked her path. There was no crossing Turkey Creek until the flooding subsided. To attempt such a crossing was akin to suicide. And yet, such a death might be preferable to capture.

She stared at the raging waters where once a placid stream had gently ambled among the emerald hills, and in that moment rejected self-sacrifice even as Wolf Jacket stepped out from beneath the draping branches of a willow. He parted a leafy curtain and approached his cornered captive.

Raven knelt and scooped up a chunk of shale bigger than her fist. Wolf Jacket snapped off a shot and blasted the rock from her grasp. She half spun and cradled her arm and numb fingers. Then the woman faced him again. Hurting, yet undaunted. Wolf Jacket didn’t bother to reload. He tossed aside his rifled musket and pulled a tomahawk from his beaded belt. Rain had begun to mottle his war paint, transforming his features into an even more grotesque mask. He held out the weapon he had taken from the lifeless body of his friend Yellow Knife, the warrior Raven had killed.