Runaway (56 page)

He never completed the threat. Tara herself was startled by a savage cry that suddenly seemed to rip through the wind and the trees. She managed to twist around and saw Jarrett.

He was coming through the trail of pines, running like lightning, his eyes a black and lethal blaze, his bronze contorted features a warning of sure death.

Clive Carter swore, shoving her down, drawing out his pistol.

Tara screamed.

The shot was never fired. Jarrett was upon Clive before he could even pray to get off a shot. It seemed that Jarrett flew into the air and landed right on Carter, flattening the man beneath him. Carter instantly tried for a knife at his calf, but Jarrett wrenched him around, and the men went rolling into the river.

They stumbled to their feet.

Carter drew the knife and raised it over Jarrett’s head. But Jarrett caught the man’s arm. Carter bellowed out in rage; the knife dropped into the water. Jarrett eased his hold. He drew back a fist and caught Carter squarely in the jaw. Carter stumbled back in the water, falling.

Jarrett went for the man again.

Tara leapt up, running for the water. But before she could reach the two men, a shot sounded in the air.

Tara spun around.

They were surrounded.

There was Tyler Argosy, mounted on a bay, in his military uniform, surrounded by a company of perhaps twenty men, all in uniform.

And all armed.

Jarrett hadn’t even heard the shot, he had been so incensed with Clive Carter. He reached into the water for the man, dragging him up.

Tyler fired off another shot. “Jarrett!”

Jarrett, soaked, black hair plastered to his head, holding Clive Carter out at his side by a shoulder, paused at last. But he didn’t release the man he held.

“Jarrett!” Tara cried. “We need him—alive!” she pleaded. “Jarrett …” she said and trailed off miserably.

“Shoot this man!” Carter demanded.

“Mr. Carter—” Tyler began.

“Shoot him! I have an arrest warrant for that woman, and she’s not his damned wife, she’s mine! I’m taking her back, and you can see that he’s a savage maniac, that he’s trying to kill me. Shoot him!”

“Mr. Carter, I’m not shooting a man down in cold blood and I don’t care how many pieces of legal paper you have on you! And if you don’t shut up, Jarrett McKenzie just might strangle you and be damned with the consequences!”

That apparently made sense to Carter. “Make him let me go!” he enunciated icily. Then he shut up.

Tyler looked at Jarrett, pure misery in his eyes. “Jarrett, I’ve got to ask you to let him go.”

Jarrett’s teeth clenched so tightly in his mouth, Tara thought that they would crack.

He released Clive Carter.

Carter started out of the water—and toward Tara. Jarrett
was back behind him, thrusting him far out of the way and grasping Tara’s hand to pull her behind him.

“My hands are off him, Tyler,” Jarrett said, still staring black fury at Carter. “Now you get him away from me.”

“Jarrett, Tara has to come in,” Tyler said very quietly. “Damnit, Jarrett, you’re one of my best friends! Do you think I want any of this? But you’ve got to turn Tara over to me. Come along yourself—”

“The hell with it!” Clive Carter bellowed. “He doesn’t come, I’ve got a damned wedding certificate—”

“Mr. Carter,” Tyler said, very impatiently, “your marriage license doesn’t mean that you’ve got any right to this woman, not when it’s disputed. Your arrest warrant we’ve got to honor, but—”

“You’re not taking her, Tyler!” Jarrett said.

“Jarrett, don’t make me force this!” Tyler pleaded. And even as he spoke, his company of men lowered their rifles, straight upon Jarrett and Tara.

“No!” Tara cried suddenly, trying to step around Jarrett. He tried to shove her back. “I’ll stand trial!” she cried to him. “You’ll be with me, Tyler said—”

“Tyler,” came a cry from across the clearing, “is going to let us all ride away. Else there’s going to be one hell of a savage Indian fight out here!”

Tara and Jarrett both spun around. Tara gasped loudly in disbelief.

James had come. That was not so unusual—she and Jarrett had not returned from the stream.

But he had not come alone. To Tara’s amazement he was surrounded by Seminole warriors, some on war ponies, some on foot, some painted in bright colors, some very European in plain breeches and multicolored shirts. And at the head of them, at James’s side, the Seminole currently feared more than any other.

Osceola.

Tara spun again. Tyler Argosy was staring at the group of warriors that had come upon them. He looked ill. Like a man who had always known his duty.

And was about to die for it now.

Suddenly, Osceola left the group, riding forward at a fast pace, throwing a shaft into the ground directly in front of Clive Carter.

Carter paled.

The shaft was decorated with white scalps.

Osceola rode back to the line.

Tara suddenly felt Jarrett’s hands on her shoulders. He was backing toward James and the Seminoles.

“Tyler, let it go!” Jarrett warned.

“Damn it, Jarrett, you’re going to be as much an outlaw as your wife!” Tyler warned.

“My wife!” Clive cried. He spun on Tyler and the army men. “What the hell is the matter with you? You can’t kill these few savages?”

“This is a damned good savage,” Jarrett said. “Asi Yaholo—Osceola. Perhaps you’ve heard of him?”

“Damn you!” Clive raged. “Shoot them!”

As he spoke, the Indians cocked their guns—and aimed them at the army men.

Tara felt weak again. They would fight for her.

And they would die for her. Osceola, the warrior who had caused so much death and destruction! But he fought for his people, and he had never thought that all whites should die, he had judged men, far more carefully than did his enemies!

And he had made a friend of her.

He would die—he, and perhaps many of the men with him. And Tyler might die, and Jarrett and James, two brothers whose real fight had been to stop the violence, to keep the ties of blood and love despite it.

They all might die because of her.

“Wait!” she cried out, and with tremendous effort she pulled free from Jarrett’s hold and ran to stand between the two opposing forces. She turned back to Jarrett, stopping him when he was ready to run after her.

“Jarrett, please!” she begged. “You, all of you!” She swirled in a circle, facing them all. “Please God, in the midst of all the violence here, don’t let me be responsible for more bloodshed. I beg of you all! Jarrett, Tyler will be with us. Clive will never be able to touch me again, we’ll go to Boston, we’ll fight the charges! Don’t die, please don’t die for me, any of you!”

Silence reigned. Terrible, awful silence.

And in that silence she was afraid. These were men who had been fighting a long time. The soldiers in blue had their honor and their pride. The warriors in their feathers and paint had been forced to run a long time, just like Tara.

Today, they meant to fight.

“No, please!” she shrieked out.

She didn’t know what would have happened. Except, at that moment, the savage land itself intervened. Clive Carter gave out a shriek of agony, and fell to his knees.

J
arrett had seen the snake earlier. It had been curled around the limb of one of the gnarled trees that hung over the water. Water was its home, and it was comfortable in it and not content to be far from it.

Jarrett hadn’t thought much of the snake. He knew to leave the creature alone. Anyone out here knew to leave an animal alone and stay out of its way.

Maybe, Jarrett thought, God—or perhaps his stepmother’s Indian Great Spirit—had intervened, for it seemed now that the cottonmouth, disturbed by the fighting and shouting, had come down the branch of the tree.

And dropped onto Clive Carter somehow. For even as the man shrieked out in his pain, the gold-toned snake was trying to slink away back down the embankment again.

It wasn’t to be. A gun was fired by one of the army men. The snake exploded into pieces.

And with the sound Jarrett flew into action himself.

He raced for Clive Carter, catching the man by his hair when he would have fallen.

He remembered that this was one enemy he could not let die.

“I can save you from that bite!” he told the man. “You
know how you die of snakebite? Slowly. The poison seeps into you. It’s agony. You twitch, you convulse. The pain is more than you can imagine and then … death. Anything is easier. A bullet through the brain is easier. Hanging is easier. Anything is less than the agony you’ll soon be writhing in!”

Clive Carter was already feeling the seep of the poison. “Do it!” he screamed. “Do it, damn it, do it, one of you. You have to save me, you bastards, you bloody have to!”

“I don’t have to do anything except watch you die!” Jarrett roared at him.

Everyone was still, around them. Tyler Argosy and his men sat their horses without moving.

The Indians, as well, remained still.

And Clive Carter apparently believed him. “Please, God!” he cried out, his voice rising. “What do you want? Money? What? I’ll give you anything—”

“Give me the truth!” Jarrett said. “The truth, now, here, before witnesses!”

Carter sagged against him. “You had someone else fire the shot that killed your father,” Jarrett said, his tone merciless. “You hired someone, and you carefully planned it to make sure that everyone would be convinced Tara had killed him.”

Carter said something.

Jarrett tugged at his hair. “What? I didn’t hear you?”

“Yes, for the love of God, yes! She deserved whatever happened to her! She came into my house, she tricked and deceived and seduced my father. She—”

“She was decent to him, and you were concerned only with yourself!” Jarrett spat out. Then he realized—it didn’t matter what Carter wanted to say about Tara. None of them believed it. Tyler knew her, just as his
brother knew her, and his people knew her. Words didn’t matter.

Except those words he needed so desperately.

The confession.

“Damn it!” Carter raged. “Do it, do what you need to do, before God—”

“One more thing,” Jarrett said.

“What? For the love of God! What?”

“You were never married to her. Never.”

Carter mumbled something.

“What?” it was Jarrett’s turn to demand. He dragged up Clive Carter’s head, meeting the man’s glazing eyes. He had to hurry. Cottonmouth poison traveled fast.

“I was never married to her. The certificate is a forgery, Jenson Jones made it up for me, Jenson Jones fired the shot that killed my father.”

There was a sudden cry from within the ranks of the army men. Jarrett realized that Jones was there, with them. “He made me do it!” the ugly little man shouted out. “He forced me, I had no choice at all, no choice—”

Jarrett inhaled and exhaled. He stared at Tara across the damp embankment that separated them. She had never been more beautiful, her blue eyes brimming and violet with tears that did not fall. He smiled.

He looked back to Carter. He wanted to throw the man from him.

Let him die.

But all of his life he had been known for keeping his word. By his white friends; by his Indian relations.

He slipped his knife from the sheath at his calf and bent down to Carter.

Carter started to scream anew.

“Shut up! I have to draw the poison.”

The snake had caught Carter midarm. Jarrett ripped up the sleeve, found the bite, and crossed it with clean
slashes. He grasped the man’s arm and began to suck hard at the blood, spitting it out each time it filled his mouth.

Carter groaned.

And passed out cold.

He would live, Jarrett thought.

He stepped back, away from the fallen man. Tara came running up, throwing herself into his arms. He caught her, crushed her to him, and held tight.

A moment later he looked up. Tyler had ridden over. Two of his men were off their horses, picking up Carter. Jenson Jones was still babbling away, claiming it had all been Carter’s fault. Tyler handed Jarrett a flask of whiskey. Jarrett rinsed the taste of blood and venom from his mouth and spat on the ground.

“My wife isn’t going anywhere with you,” Jarrett told Tyler, returning the flask.

Tyler nodded. “I think we can safely leave you now,” he said.

Tyler looked over Jarrett’s shoulder. James and Osceola still sat their mounts like sentinels before the other warriors.

Tyler lifted a hand to Osceola.

Osceola nodded gravely.

If they were to meet in battle, they would kill one another if they could.

But there would be no battle today.

Tyler lifted a hand to his men, shouting out an order. The army men turned. With Jenson Jones still claiming coercion by Carter and Carter lying over the haunches of a horse, they rode away, one by one.

Jarrett turned. Osceola nodded to him. He and the other Seminole men turned their horses as well, and silent as the wraiths they needed to be, the Indians disappeared, one by one.

Except for James. He dismounted and came to them both, smiling ear to ear. He took Tara gently into his arms and hugged her fiercely.

“Thank you. Thank you!”

“You’re the best sister-in-law a man could have,” he assured her.

“You’re the best brother-in-law.”

He pulled away from her, clasping his brother’s hand. “I think it’s all right to leave the two of you children now, isn’t it?”

Jarrett smiled and nodded.

Then James mounted again and, like the others, rode through the trees, quickly disappearing from view.

Jarrett drew Tara into his arms again, holding her fiercely. “Oh, God!” he breathed.

“Oh, Jarrett!” she replied, and pulled away, staring at him, her blue eyes brimming again. “Oh, Jarrett, I didn’t believe that I could be saved. But you—you—”

“I like rescuing you,” he said.

“Oh, God, I love you!” she whispered. Then her brows knit with concern. “Jarrett, you sucked that poison out of him. You’re going—”

“I’m going to be fine. I was bitten when I was a boy and I’ve gained something of an immunity. I swear to you, my love, I’ll be fine.”