Wicked Angel (Blackthorne Trilogy) (36 page)

      
True to his word, he slipped from between the sheets at the first faint light of false dawn. His keen night vision enabled him to dress quietly and gather the items he needed for his journey. He was just about to open the door to the hallway when Joss's voice whispered, "How long will you be gone, Alex?"

      
He stopped and turned to her as Poc, awake and watching him, jumped onto the bed with his mistress. "I can't say for certain. There are scores of towns on the streams that catacomb the land from Georgia to the gulf. That's why the whites named us Creeks. Months perhaps."

      
"Oh, so long," she replied, taken aback. He was distancing himself from her physically now, as well as emotionally.
That's why the whites named us Creeks.
He was one of them and she was ...who? Alex's wife, or a lonely Englishwoman deserted in a foreign land? "I shall miss you, Alex."

      
Her voice sounded so forlorn, he fought the impulse to go to her and give her a fond brotherly buss upon the forehead as he used to do. Somehow that no longer seemed appropriate. "I shall miss you, too, Joss," he replied in a strained voice.

      
Then he was gone. She sat, hugging Poc as the tears she'd been holding back for so long began to fall.

      
By the time Joss came down to breakfast, Barbara had finished reading all the letters that had arrived in her absence and was again perusing the last one that Pig Sticker had brought to her from Coweta, her mother-in-law's village. She looked up at Joss and took in her tear-reddened eyes and listless manner.

      
Damning her foolish son for his willful blindness, she smiled and gestured to the chair next to hers. "Sit down and let me ring for some breakfast. You look as though you need a good fortifying cup of hot black coffee."

      
A servant quickly appeared, bearing a large pot of fragrant coffee and two cups. After accepting the coffee and ordering enough food to satisfy the appetite of all the climbing boys in London, Barbara turned her attention back to Joss. "I would venture that you've had no more sleep than have I...but with far less pleasant reasons for being deprived of it."

      
At times her mother-in-law sounded indelicately American. Joss felt her cheeks sting with heat. "Alex showed no more interest in me last night than he did aboard ship or in London. 'Tis quite useless to persist in this folly, Barbara. He does not want me."

      
'Twaddle," Barbara said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "He wants you quite desperately. Why else do you think he's been such a grumpy old bear since the night we sailed?"

      
"The thought that he heartily detests being saddled with an accident-prone, seasick wife did cross my mind," Joss replied dejectedly.

      
"Honestly, you are as blind as he," Barbara exclaimed in aggravation. "But that is of no moment."

      
"No, it certainly does not matter what I believe, for he is gone and I shall not see him for months."

      
"You will see him in a few weeks, perhaps less."

      
Joss set her cup down, sloshing coffee onto the snowy white tablecloth. "What do you mean?" she asked uneasily.
      
Barbara had a gleam in her eye that Joss had learned usually meant mischief.

      
Barbara rustled the pages of the letter sitting beside her plate. "This is from my mother-in-law."

      
"Alex's Grandmother Charity?" The Indian lady.

      
"Yes. She is a dear soul. You shall adore her just as I do."

      
Visions of a female version of Pig Sticker, tattooed and shaved, flashed into Joss's mind, but she reminded herself the woman had been educated by Methodist missionaries. Surely they had taught her to dress modestly! "But...I thought she lived with the Muskogee." Already Joss was not liking this.

      
"She does. In the Lower Creek town of Coweta. Dev and Alex will use it as a base from which to make trips to other key towns up and down the river system."

      
"So you are saying if we go to Coweta, we will find them?"
We will live in a Muskogee village deep in the snake-infested wilderness!

      
"Charity is most eager to meet her only grandson's new wife. She has invited us to come spend the rest of the summer."

Chapter Eighteen

      
Alex and Devon rode for days, through teaming mosquito- infested woodlands, across steep ridges and down into overgrown brush. All was lush from summer's verdant rain and heat as they forded the hundred small streams and swift-flowing rivers that gave the inhabitants their name—the Oconee, the Ocmulgee, the Flint and the Chattahoochee. Then they struck deep into the territory of the Upper Creeks, the towns held by the Red Sticks between the mighty arms of the Tallapoosa and the Coosa rivers.

      
Devon smoked with the
miccos
at every town along their route and spoke before their councils, attempting to show them the dangers of casting their lot with the northern tribes, who were already at war against the Americans. All listened politely, for that was their way. Some heeded his plea, others withheld commitment until they could consult with the prophets from the North and the great Tecumseh himself. Most believed that the Shawnee leader would make a second journey south to sway the Creek Confederacy to his dream.

      
"We need to have a face-off with Tecumseh," Alex said in frustration after a long night of speeches and feasting in the
idalwa
of Kulumi.

      
Devon, stripping off his elaborate ceremonial feathered turban and copper jewelry, replied, "That, my son, is becoming painfully obvious. My guess is that he will strike for Sawanogi or go up the Tallapoosa to Kailaidshi."

      
"His first stop coming south through Tennessee would likely be Black Warrior's town on the Tombigbee," Alex said, spreading out a water-stained map on the hard-packed dirt floor of the summer brush arbor they had been given for sleeping. He pointed to a small
x
far to the north.

      
Devon grunted. "A hell of a ride, and our mounts are all but played out from the riding we've already done. This land is made for canoe and portages, not horses. We must convince old Timpoochee to lend us a canoe and several warriors to help us portage between the rivers."

      
The steamy dawn saw them on their way up the Coosa River with two powerful young Muskogees paddling along with them. The long, monotonous journey gave Alex more time to brood about his relationship with Joss. They simply could not continue the way they had been, he thought, remembering the hellish night in bed with her in his parents' house. One more time such as that and he'd fall upon her like a ravening wolf.

      
Echoing his thoughts, Devon said, "Is the honeymoon not going well, son?"

      
Alex sighed. "Is it that obvious?"

      
"I'm afraid so. You looked as if you'd not slept the night before we left." He grinned then and added. "Neither did I, but I suspect the reason was different."

      
Alex looked at the two Muskogees paddling the canoe. Neither understood English. He could speak freely to Devon. His father waited, leaving the choice open. He could vent his feelings if he wished, or not. Growing up, Alex had always appreciated Devon Blackthorne's way. Now he felt guilty for his deception.

      
"Everything is all tangled up inside of me. I don't even know myself what I feel for Joss anymore, Papa. When we wed...well, it seemed simple, but now..."

      
"Is it the war? Does she resent coming to live in the camp of the enemy?" Devon asked, hoping this was not the problem, for he liked the Englishwoman, who in some ways reminded him of his wife when she was young.

      
"No, she chose to come with me to America. Joss cares about people, not politics."

      
"Perhaps it's just a lovers' spat. Your mother and I fought like owls and crows when we first met. By the time we return to Savannah, she'll have cooled down."

      
Cooling Joss down was not the problem, Alex wanted to say. Cooling his own lust for her was, but he volunteered nothing, staring out over the gleaming silver ribbon of water, thinking of his wife....

      
When they finally drew near the Black Warrior village, there was an air of excitement among the people. The powerful Shawnee leader had returned! Dev seldom journeyed so far to the northwest, and the leaders of the Black Warrior town were suspicious of the two mixed bloods whose golden hair proclaimed them more white than red. Yet the laws of hospitality combined with Devon's longstanding position as a fair and honest trader gave him and his son entry to the meeting that night.

      
They sat in one of the four open-fronted assembly boxes that faced the public square, watching uneasily as the Shawnee prophet Sickaboo and a group of his Red Stick Muskogee followers did the Dance of the Lakes, an eerie, supposedly supernatural demonstration. The dancers, naked and fearfully painted in red and black, began to tremble and moan, howling at the starry night sky like demented creatures. As the frenzy built with the accelerating pace of the drums, they eventually fell to the ground in convulsions, rolling about.

      
Observing the awestruck and often frightened reaction of the audience, Alex whispered to his father, "Pretty impressive."

      
"Last year while you were away, Tecumseh predicted the approach of a comet, even an earthquake."

      
"And they both occurred?" Alex asked, amazed.

      
Devon nodded. "Exactly when he said. Pretty scary business. He's had enough contact with whites to have learned about the comet but no one predicts earthquakes."

      
Alex's expression was at once grim and rueful as he asked, not totally in jest, "Are you certain we're on the right side?"

      
"Not always," Dev replied wearily, "but it is the lesser of two evils, especially considering what I overheard from Bear's Paw. An American working for the British has been moving down the Tallapoosa, arming the Red Sticks with British Brown Bess muskets."

      
"It's Wilbur Kent." Alex cursed. "I knew I should have slit his gizzard while I had the chance."

      
"He must have escaped from prison," Dev speculated.

      
"More likely Cybill Chamberlain somehow secured his release," Alex replied. "We have to stop him, but how?"

      
Before Dev could reply, the
micco
stood up and walked toward the fire as the last dancers were helped from the square. He began to orate about the famous Shawnee visitor who waited in the shadows between two of the assembly boxes. When the
micco
finished his speech, Tecumseh strode to the center where the fire seemed to lend his fierce, handsome visage a mystic quality. He was a tall man, powerfully built, in the prime of his years, seasoned by war yet filled with youthful vigor.

      
His ceremonial cape flowed behind him as he walked, wearing only a breechclout and beaded, fringed leggings. On his bare tatooed chest a massive silver gorget gleamed in the firelight, as did his armbands, bracelets and heavy copper ear bobs. His massive head was bare of turban, shaved smooth but for the central comb, en brosse in front, in back long and splendidly adorned with feathers, quills and gemstones.

      
Yet for all his daunting appearance, the man's real power was only realized when he began to speak in a low rich voice that held the assembly mesmerized.

      
"Your blood has become white. Your tomahawks have no edge. You have buried your bows and arrows with your fathers. Brethren of my mother," he cried, his voice rising, reminding them of the blood ties he shared with the Muskogee people, "brush from your eyelids the sleep of slavery. You must strike vengeance for your country. The time is overdue. The bones of our ancestors bleach on the hills. Is there no son of these brave men to strike the palefaces and quiet these complaining ghosts?"

      
He went on to outline the long history of broken treaties, the promises that the Americans had made regarding the red man's lands—lands that the white settlers encroached upon and stole. He described the killing of Indian women and children, driving the once great natives of the northern and southern confederacies farther and farther toward the Father of Waters in the West, even beyond. He spoke angrily of the treachery of the Indiana territorial governor William Henry Harrison, who had burned Tecumseh's own town while he was away in the South the preceding year, killing his brother and enslaving all those he could capture. If ever there had been an opportunity for peace, it was forever gone.

      
"Only the great king across the water will aid us. He brings us food and blankets for our families, guns and bullets for us to fight the Americans. Let us join together in a holy war and build a nation of our peoples that shall stretch from the Great Lakes of the North to the gulf waters of the South!"

      
When Tecumseh had finished speaking, several of the other leaders rose and addressed the people. Then Devon Blackthorne, the Golden Eagle of Coweta, was allowed to have his say. Alex watched in rapt attention as his father strode deliberately across the square, circling the fire so its flickering light reflected brightly on his elaborate ceremonial garments, a high red silk turban adorned with eagle feathers, a vermilion cloak of rich velvet and shirt and leggings of butter-soft white buckskin painstakingly embroidered with silver quills and crimson and blue beads.