Sword of Vengeance (22 page)

The clatter of boots on the walkway outside the door cut short the moment as the men on guard hurried toward the ship’s stern. Cries of “Fire! Fire!” drifted through the walls.

Tibbs looked toward the door.

“What have you done, you bastard?” he exclaimed.

The burst of activity brought Kit out of the past and back to the uncomfortable present. He was aboard a riverboat that at any moment might blow sky high.

“You’re coming with me,” Kit said, and waved his pistol in the direction of the cabin door.

“I don’t think so,” Tibbs snapped, a look of malevolent triumph glittering in his dark eyes. He inadvertently glanced past Kit.

Kit sensed the danger and heard the click of a gun being cocked. He lunged to his left, dropped and spun, and hit the floor shoulder first.

He fired at the same time as Arturo Gomez. The Spaniard was propped against the bed, a small-bore pistol in his hand.

The simultaneous gunshots boomed with deafening effect in the confines of the cabin. Kit felt a searing tug at his left sleeve and a flash of pain from a flesh wound. His own shot struck Gomez high in the chest a few inches below the throat and flung the smaller man against the bedding, then dropped him forward in a twisted contortion, where he lay still and bleeding to death.

Tibbs roared and overturned the table. Kit rolled and freed his other pistol as the captain’s table came crashing down upon him. The whiskey bottle shattered near his face. He grunted, worked his legs beneath the heavy piece of furniture, and squirmed free. He sat upright, pistol leveled, in time to catch a glimpse of Bill Tibbs disappearing through the open doorway.

Kit scrambled to his feet and, leaping the rubble, gave chase. He lunged out into the night air, which wasn’t so dark as it had been before. The stern of the
Alejandro
was engulfed in flames, the paddle wheel, the entire aft section of the riverboat, completely ablaze.

Several men had already abandoned ship, and more followed, leaping over the side. A few of the crewmen in the shallows opened fire, shooting toward the shore, only to be answered by rifle fire that dropped two of their number and silenced the guns of the other crew members.

Kit turned and headed toward the bow. “Tibbs!” he shouted.

The hurricane deck was empty. Kit ran to the stairway leading to the main deck and took the steps two at a time. He paused at the bottom of the landing and looked back toward the flames. A heavyset man clad only in a pair of canvas trousers emerged from the crew’s quarters. He carried a rucksack of food over one shoulder and brandished a cutlass in his right hand.

“Save yourselves, mates,” he yelled, wiping a forearm across his soot-smeared features before he clambered over the rail and dropped to the sandbar. The boatman began wading across the shallows to the riverbank.

Kit tied a kerchief around his nose and mouth to filter out some of the smoke, then started to work his way toward the bow of the ship. Where the hell was Tibbs? Had he jumped over the side? The stench of smoke and burned flesh filled his nostrils. The breeze shifted, blowing thick, black clouds across the bow, cloaking the walkway in a lung-searing fog. Kit staggered past the sternwheeler’s cabins, rounded the corner, and headed for the bow. The deck tilted where the boat had hung up on the sandbar. The incline was just enough to keep a man off balance. Kit managed to stumble to the bow.

His eyes streamed tears and his lungs felt like he’d choked down live coals. He could see no one on the river and turned to face the flames and shout.

“Tibbs! It isn’t finished!”

A tall, grim figure materialized out of the smoke like a demon summoned by the sound of Kit’s voice. This spectral figure, nigh mad with rage, roared out in a cry more beastlike than human, and with scimitar raised, Tibbs charged his foe.

Kit raised his second pistol, sighted on his attacker, and squeezed the trigger. Nothing? Kit, dumbfounded, stared at the pistol in his hand while an old adage replayed in his mind. Keep your powder dry. The damned river …

“Oh, shit!”

Tibbs swung the scimitar. The blade sliced down in a mighty arc. Kit braced himself, vainly attempting to parry the sword with the pistol in his hand. There came a blinding flash, and Kit thought for a minute he was dead. He tumbled weightless, hurling through the air with all manner of debris.

The thunderous clap came almost as an afterthought as the gunpowder in the hold ignited and the
Alejandro
exploded in a mushrooming column of fire and smoke that rained debris over the entire channel. The force of the blast that blew Kit off the bow tossed him like a smoldering rag doll into the cooling waters of the river.

He gulped water and fought his way to the surface, feeling the tug of the current as he struggled to stand. His feet sank into the muddy river bottom. The battered lieutenant gasped and took his weight off his left leg. He stared at his arms as if they were appendages belonging to some stranger.

He saw that his right hand, if indeed it was his hand, still clutched the pistol that had misfired. He frowned, another concern coming to mind, and searched for the medal beneath his shirt. Kit’s hand closed around the British crown dangling against his chest, and he experienced a rush of intense relief.

Except for the fact that he was deaf, near blind, bleeding from the nostrils and the arm, had a broken leg, and had patches of his hide singed off, he was none the worse for wear.

Kit smiled, satisfied, and toppled face forward into the river.

I
N A CLEARING ALONG
both sides of Willow Creek, the Choctaw gathered. From the hills to the north they came, the survivors of the Creek raid, and from the west where the tribes had settled in the delta country of the Yazoo. They came from the rich, black prairie land where their crops had flourished. They came from dense pine forests where game was plentiful and the berries sweet. The war belt had traveled across the territory and to all the Choctaw villages.

The camp by Willow Creek was arranged like any other Choctaw settlement, ordered on a cleared square of ground. Houses, framed with stout poles, with sides of cane woven tightly into a solid wall, then covered with clay and grass, served as dwellings for the warriors and their families. A public square in the center of the village was dominated by a low-roofed ceremonial house whose floor, three feet below ground level, had been dug out of the rich earth. Here the chiefs sat in council, to listen to the young braves talk of war and the elders’ wish for peace.

It was the middle of November, the time of the Leaf-Falling Moon. Some mornings the air was crisp, but beneath the sun’s steady glare the temperature lost its edge and became quite pleasant, although on overcast days men and women donned leggings and buckskin shirts for comfort. Food was brought into the village, edible roots were harvested from the forest, and the supplies of corn, beans, and squash brought from the delta were pooled together and stored in common grain houses. There were common smokehouses for the storage and preserving of meat to ensure that no family would go hungry, even if the men of that family fell in battle.

These were the days of a war in which hardly a battle had been fought. Under the leadership of the chiefs—Iron Hand, Little Elk, and Crow Path—the Choctaw waited and watched, uncertain of General Jackson’s intentions, wondering whether or not the Tennessee Volunteers were at war with them. As for Wolf Jacket and his Red Sticks, a few Choctaw hunting parties had skirmished with Creek raiders, but nothing worthwhile had been achieved for the lives lost.

Alabama Territory had become a theater of war, the principle players primed to take their places upon the stage.

These were the worries plaguing Iron Hand O’Keefe in the final days of Indian summer as he stood outside his lodge and watched the children at play in the village square. He thought of Star Basket, the woman he had loved, mother of Raven and mother too of the son he’d held in his arms, stillborn, during the long night that had cost the woman her life. Raven was his joy, but he had also longed for a son.

Iron Hand puffed on his pipe and watched a young boy toss a deerhide ball from one player to the next. Each player held a yard-long cane pole with a reed cup at one end in which they could carry the ball. Two oaken posts had been set ninety feet apart at each end of the playing field, a trampled patch of earth. The two teams engaged in a free-for-all, working the ball up the field and down, accompanied by a pack of yipping dogs that now and then entered the fray to nip at the heels of the players. The object of the game was to strike the opposing team’s post with the ball.

Iron Hand smiled, observing how much like their fathers these brown-skinned children were, for just as many fights were breaking out during their game as when the adults took the field. But for a tragic twist of fortune, one of those lads might have been his.

He shifted his stance, inhaling the strong tobacco.
A cup of hot chicory root coffee would go down mighty good right now
, he thought. O’Keefe lowered his pipe and sniffed the air. He breathed in the aroma of the cornmeal porridge Raven had laced with dark honey and cooked over an open fire. And when she emerged from around the corner of the lodge, holding a wooden bowl with steam curling over the top and a cup of strong, bitter tea, O’Keefe’s stomach started to growl. He sat on the tree stump outside the door, and his big, ugly face split in a grin.

“Now, there’s a proper daughter, bringing her father his morning meal.” He tapped the ashes out of his pipe and returned it to his pocket.

Raven skirted his outstretched hands. “I left plenty for you, Father, and you can help yourself.”

“I might have guessed. Bound for the young lieutenant, eh?” he said, jabbing a thumb toward the lodge next to theirs. “It is mighty personal care he’s received, nursed back to health by the daughter of a chief. I hope McQueen appreciates you.”

“Oh, he does.” Raven beamed.

“Hmmm. Well, then, maybe he better not appreciate you quite so much.” Iron Hand glowered. He sensed something in her reply. By heaven, did the two of them think he was blind? He’d been their age and felt the same stirring below his belt. O’Keefe saw the look of amusement on Raven’s face, and try as he might, the Irishman couldn’t work enough bluster to intimidate the headstrong girl. He leaned back and appraised her ripe figure. Aye, she is like a dark, sweet plum bursting with the juices of life and ready to fall. I might just have a son, after all—leastways, a grandson.

O’Keefe propped his elbows on his broad thighs and leaned forward, his massive girth straining his buckskin shirt.

“Well, daughter, you’re too late for him; best you leave that bowl with me.”

“Where has he gone?” Raven asked, her eyebrows arched as she spoke.

O’Keefe shrugged. “He was gone when I looked in on him. You healed him up so well, I’m surprised he hasn’t joined the game yonder, crutch and all.” The Irishman shrugged. “His trail oughtn’t be too difficult to follow. I must admit McQueen moves pretty quick for a fella I figured for dead when you brought him in.”

Iron Hand O’Keefe still remembered the pale, gaunt-looking man Raven had returned with from their venture downriver.

Young Otter and Stalking Fox had hauled the man on a litter all the way from the headwaters of the Alabama across the hills to the village at Willow Creek. The Irishman had hardly recognized Kit. Raven had managed to splint Kit’s badly broken left leg, but infection had set in, and though she had treated the wounds along the arduous trek upriver, the lieutenant was still sick with fever when they arrived at the village. Most men would have succumbed. But O’Keefe had to admit, Kit was different.

Exhibiting the same bullheaded toughness as when he charged the Spanish dragoons armed only with an empty flintlock, Kit McQueen fought for his life. And Raven was constantly at his side, helping to bring him back from death, one step at a time.

Raven stood in front of her father and handed him the food she had prepared for Kit. “I will find him.”

“The women will laugh behind your back. They will say, ‘See how the mixed-blood daughter of Chief Iron Hand chases after the white lieutenant.’” O’Keefe knew well the propensity for gossip among the women. He and Star Basket had once endured the same talk until he proved himself in battle against the Creeks and gained acceptance into the tribe.

“Let them talk. It keeps them from worrying about the Red Sticks. They are even afraid to walk the woods, seeing Wolf Jacket behind every shadow.”

“A little caution seems prudent in time of war,” Iron Hand said, balancing the bowl on his knees and spooning a mouthful of porridge into his mouth. He wiped his forearm across his grizzled features and smacked his lips. “You honor this old man, offering me the food you’d intended for your lieutenant.”

Raven refused to be baited. She turned and walked off among the lodges. O’Keefe watched her leave. She was the best thing in his life. It would be hard to let her go. He returned his attention to the game of
chunkey
, as the Choctaws called it, and noticed Little Elk, one of the chiefs of the tribe attempting to cross the gaming field.

The gray-haired, dignified-looking war chief narrowly missed being pummeled to death as the game swept over him. The elderly chief was a revered figure who enjoyed O’Keefe’s company. But today, Little Elk found himself surrounded by two dozen young men and boys, each trying to scoop up the hardened ball while battering their opponents senseless.

O’Keefe scratched at his jaw with his hook as the muscles twitched along one side of his neck.

“Weather’s fixing to change,” O’Keefe muttered. “Or trouble is on the way.”

Once his armpit had toughened up, the crutch wasn’t all that much of a bother, Kit decided. But he was anxious to be rid of it. Knowing Raven would protest his attempts, he had left the village and followed Willow Creek into a stand of timber, a mixture of oak and hickory and sweet gum trees. Here and there a few plum trees grew wild in the moist bottomland.

It might have been Eden, Kit thought, save for the fact that a man must go armed.