Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (37 page)

      
He paused for dramatic effect and his dark eyes swept the four crowded boxes with hypnotic intensity. Then he spoke.

      
"I will tell you first that all the great Tecumseh has spoken about American treachery is true. How could I deny that the settlers steal our land and that the Father in Washington allows it to happen?" There was a surprised murmuring at this, for the people had expected the mixed-blood trader to disagree.

      
"Many of you know me. I have lived and worked among you all of my life. I am Wind Clan. And I was once as Tecumseh is now, the English king's man. In the last war between the English and the Americans I fought for the English because they promised that our ancient homelands would be preserved, our women and children would be well fed and safe from harm.

      
"But that did not happen. Instead the Americans defeated the king's army. And the English climbed into their canoes and returned far across the water from which they had come. They left us alone and at the mercy of the Americans."

      
Alex sat listening to his father, proud of Devon's spellbinding oratory, yet even more proud of him for sharing such painful memories from the past. He knew it could not be easy for Devon to describe his years as a King's Ranger, to remember his fallen comrades, their lost cause, the cruel backlash that followed on the heels of the British retreat from Georgia in 1781.

      
Alex looked around the assembly to see if the speech was swaying people to consider the consequences of another alliance with Britain. The Red Sticks in their vermilion and black war paint would never reconsider. The fanatic light of hatred burned in their eyes. But many of the more thoughtful, especially the calmer and wiser old men, might prevail. They remembered the last war. That was all he and his father could hope for in these perilous times.

* * * *

      
"Whatever do you mean, you cannot ride a horse?" Barbara asked incredulously. "Jocelyn, this is no time for jest!"

      
"I do not jest," Joss replied over the lump of terror forming in her throat as she looked up at the equine behemoth standing before her. "The only time I've ever been on a horse was when Alex was holding me."

      
"Well, that does strike a facer to my plan, doesn't it," Barbara said with a rueful laugh. "We could go by canoe, but it would mean long walks through swampy lands when we have to portage—and between here and Coweta we'd have to portage a great deal. How do you feel about quicksand and snakes?" Barbara asked.

      
Joss shivered. "I like them even less than horses."

      
"We're making progress then. Capital. You shall learn to ride in route."

      
"A baptism by fire, I believe Papa used to call it," Joss said dubiously.

      
"Do you wish to see Alex before the year's out or not?"

      
Joss sighed in capitulation and reached for the reins of Sugar Baby. The white gelding shied, sensing her nervousness. Doggedly she held on, letting the groom assist her to mount. The horse carried a regular man's saddle. Shockingly, Barbara insisted they ride in the manner of Muskogee women. Astride, she said, one had a more secure seat in the rough terrain.

      
The women wore mid-calf-length voluminous skirts of lightweight cotton to enable them to straddle their horses, and knee-high deerskin boots to protect their legs from scratchy brush. Joss felt anything but secure or protected as she looked down at the great distance to the ground. If she had not loved Alex Blackthorne so damnably much, she would never in this lifetime have climbed on a horse again. Ever.

      
"Once we reach Coweta, I promise you shall believe it worth the ride," Barbara assured Joss, kicking her heels against her sleek chestnut's sides.

      
Thinking of teetering atop this bouncing behemoth for two hundred miles across swamps filled with snakes, fording swift-flowing rivers and then reaching a cluster of mud huts filled with tattooed, naked red Indians did not sound at all worth the ride to Joss. And she had yet to confess to Barbara that she did not know how to swim.

      
Poc, however, was eager for the adventure, although it took a bit of cajoling and some very stern admonitions from Joss before he deigned to stay in the wicker hamper lashed to one of the packhorses. Quicksand and snakes, not to mention wild boars and alligators, were as deadly as they were unfamiliar to the London-bred terrier. This was a time when his fearlessness could well be his undoing.

      
The four youths who accompanied them were mixed bloods who lived white and worked for Devon's trading company. Barbara carried on a lively conversation with them and Joss was drawn into it gradually as her terror at being on horseback abated. Other than being bitten by mosquitoes and sweltering in the intense heat, she made it through the first day without calamity.

      
Until she tried to dismount that evening. The pain in her derriere, which had been steadily growing, blossomed into a screaming fiery ache that shot down her legs, enveloping her knees and calves, which buckled under her the moment she tried to take a step.

      
Swallowing a frightful blasphemy, she clung to the cantle of the saddle until she could bring her rubbery legs back under control. Making a mental note to chide Alex for allowing his vocabulary to rub off on her, she let go of the saddle and took one step gingerly, then another toward the merrily crackling campfire that promised some small respite from the carnivorous insects feasting on every exposed inch of her body.

      
"The soreness will pass in a few days," Barbara said cheerfully. "In the meanwhile, try rubbing this on the regions that pain you." She handed Joss a vial of salve.

      
Joss opened it and gagged. Her eyes watered at the horrid smell, which was much like a combination of London sewer and offal from hospital surgery. "You cannot expect me to put this on my body," she exclaimed.

      
Barbara shrugged. "Think of it this way—'twill keep the mosquitoes at bay while it soothes your bottom."

      
The trip became a routine of weary monotony—other than Joss's narrow brush with drowning when she slid from her horse midstream in the Altamaha River. Lemuel their guide and Poc rescued her. After confessing that she, too, had been unable to swim when she was shipwrecked on the Georgia coast, Barbara undertook teaching Joss whenever they made camp near a suitably safe body of water.

      
Unfortunately, during the first lesson she sank like a rock, but with more practice, she did manage to master a somewhat clumsy dog paddle. Even her horseback riding skills improved markedly as they neared Coweta. She no longer clutched her gelding's mane so tightly she tore hair out of it, and she could dismount without her knees buckling and her posterior throbbing. She had learned to endure the stink of Barbara's salve.

      
When they approached the Muskogee town where Alex's family lived, Joss found herself even more tense and uncertain than she had been when meeting the Blackthornes in Savannah. With the notable exception of Pig Sticker, everyone there had hair and wore clothes! The aboriginal inhabitants of these teeming swampy woodlands seemed to prefer neither. After two weeks of cooking over smoky campfires and lying awake on the hard damp earth, waiting fearfully for snakes and bugs to crawl inside her blankets, Joss longed with near religious fervor for a hot bath, a well-cooked meal and a good night's sleep in a house with a real bed. She was certain there would be no such luxuries among the Muskogee.

      
But when they arrived she was somewhat surprised. The large town on the banks of the Chatahoochee appeared neat and orderly with real houses made of plastered mud built over sturdy wooden frames with heavy thatched roofs. Many of them were two stories high and all looked quite substantial. Surrounding each small cluster of three or four buildings were well-tended agricultural plots. All the houses were situated around a central square that appeared to have four long, low, open edifices for public seating. At one side of the square stood a huge circular building with a high pointed roof; at the opposite side, a playing field stretched between two goalposts, the chunky arena that Alex had described to her.

      
To Joss's immense relief all the females were decently clad in brightly colored full skirts that fell below the knees and cotton chemises belted at their waists with ropes of beads. Some wore high deerskin boots; others showed bare bronzed legs and were shod in low moccasins. Their hair was plaited, not shorn into scalp locks. Smaller children did run naked, much to her distress, and the men mostly resembled Pig Sticker, although a few wore the rough buckskin clothing common across the American frontier.

      
It was an alien world to Joss. She looked at Barbara, who was smiling and waving to various women as they rode through large open fields at the edge of the village.

      
"These are the common fields. The men break the soil in the spring and help the women plant them; then the women and children tend them until harvest," Barbara explained as they rode by high rustling cornstalks and neat rows of bean plants.

      
"What about the small plots surrounding the houses?" Joss asked.

      
"They are owned and cultivated by individual families for their personal needs. Muskogee life is communal in most respects, but individuality is also encouraged."

      
"You truly admire them." Joss hoped the amazement was not evident in her voice.

      
"La, I thought them utter savages—just as you do now, my dear—when I first came here; but after living among them a few months, I learned to love them and to respect their ways. You will, too. Only give it time."

      
Barbara was English, born and raised the daughter of a baron. If she could adapt, certainly a woman raised in London's seamy East End could do likewise, Joss reasoned. She squared her shoulders and tried to sit her horse with as much grace as she could muster.

      
They rode until they neared the central square, then stopped by a cluster of four buildings, all quite substantial looking. A small birdlike woman wearing a coronet of snowy white braids stepped outdoors, her face lighting with joy as Barbara dismounted. In spite of her European hairstyle, Charity Blackthorne wore traditional Muskogee clothing, including the requisite feathered silver ear bobs and beaded belt. She was thin but her swift light step indicated a wiry strength that belied her seventy-five years. Charity was as bronzed as Alex and Devon. Only the pale amber color of her eyes spoke of her English father. Her high cheekbones, straight prominent nose and high forehead bore the Muskogee stamp.

      
Joss dismounted carefully as Barbara and Charity hugged each other, exclaiming over their mutual joy at being reunited. As their guides led the horses away, Barbara turned to Joss and took her hand, drawing her forward.

      
"Charity, this is Alex's bride, Jocelyn. Jocelyn, this is your new grandmother."

      
"Welcome to my home, child," Charity said, reaching up to embrace Joss. "You look tired by the long journey. Please, let's go in out of the heat and have some refreshment while we become acquainted."

      
Charity Blackthorne's voice had a soft, well-modulated tone to it, and Joss was reminded that the woman had been educated by missionaries. "I am pleased to meet you, Grandmother Charity. Alex has spoken often of you."

      
Charity's eyes danced merrily. "That young man has always been a rascal—so full of devilment, just like his father and grandfather. I wish Alastair could have lived to see his grandson." A wistful remembrance clouded her eyes for a moment, then vanished as she turned and agilely climbed up a ladder to the second floor of the house.

      
The ground level was filled with agricultural tools, hunting and trapping paraphernalia and storage bins, but the second story was obviously a living area with several windows letting in the bright afternoon sunlight. The room contained a blend of European and Indian artifacts. A bouquet of summer wildflowers graced a small table of polished oak, which sat in the center, surrounded by caned chairs. Dishes and cups were neatly arranged on it. Sleeping pallets on thick cornhusk mattresses lay neatly around the walls and backrests made of buckskin stretched over pole frames sat between them. The place was clean and functional.

      
While Barbara and Joss sat down, Charity poured from a china pitcher and handed them each a cup of cool water, which had a slight tang of mint to it. "I suppose you'll wish to know about Dev and Alex first," she said. "At my age I find it best to go straight to the point. After all, I never know how much time I have left," she said, chuckling merrily. "They arrived here several weeks ago, hale and hearty, spent a day resting their horses, then left for the Tallapoosa towns."

      
"Did they hear any word about Tecumseh's return?" Barbara asked.

      
"Only rumors brought downriver by several mixed-blood trappers," Charity replied, going on to explain the dangerous situation in the interior towns of the Upper Creeks. She concluded by reassuring Joss and Barbara that their men had sent word they would return within a few weeks to reprovision. After that, Barbara excused herself to go visit a number of her old friends in the village, leaving Charity and Joss to become better acquainted.

      
Charity asked Joss questions about her earlier life and how she and Alex had met. Joss explained, but did not reveal the circumstances of their marriage. All too soon when Alex returned, she would have to face what was to be done about their future. In the meanwhile it was their problem, no one else's.