A Dark and Lonely Place (20 page)

Price leaned back in his chair, sucked his cigar, and stared through the smoke. “They marched out of Fort Brooke on December twenty-third, 1835. One hundred and six miles across rivers, creeks, swamps, and pinewoods, straight through the heart of Indian country. Indians stalked ’em from the start, itching to attack. But Osceola, who’d planned the ambush, and Micanopy, another leader, had important business.
Osceola had raced ahead on horseback to kill General Thompson at Fort King. Thompson had thrown him in irons that summer and Osceola was seeking revenge for what they’d done to his young wife, the daughter of a slave. The descendants of slaves were considered slaves too, back then, so white officers took her.”

Laura gasped.

“Osceola planned to ambush Dade and his men but had to settle the score with General Thompson first. It was a matter of honor.

“Dade helped build the road between Fort Brooke and Fort King, so he knew the land, for God sake, and he knew the Indians.” Price’s voice rose indignantly. “He had advance and rear guards and flankers, all on the alert for Seminoles, but after he crossed the forks of the Withlacoochee River into open pine and palmetto country, Dade withdrew his scouts. His interpreter, a sharp-eyed mulatto slave, kept pointing out signs of Indians, but the major ignored ’im, argued that Indians never attacked in daylight in open country.

“Dade’s column marched across open land at eight o’clock in the morning on December twenty-eighth. The weather had turned cold, just like today. Chilly rain kept falling, so Dade ordered his men to button their bulky overcoats over their muskets and ammo boxes to keep ’em dry.” Price paused. “He did not send scouts out to sweep the sawgrass. Seminoles hid in the pines and palmettos and watched the troops march by like ducks in a shooting gallery.

“When Micanopy arrived, the soldiers had made it two-thirds of the way to the fort. He and two other leaders, Alligator and Jumper, assembled their warriors at Wahoo Swamp, five miles west of Major Dade, and decided to attack. The soldiers had finished their rum rations the night before and were hungover. Dade’s romance with rum was well documented. He’d nearly been court-martialed before for being drunk and keeping sloppy records. He’d escaped it because he wasn’t worth the trouble and had Washington connections.”

“We never heard that,” John said. “In school they called him a hero who fought bravely to the end.”

“Don’t believe everything they tell you in school.” Price shrugged. “Dade’s interpreter, that mulatto slave, warned him again and again, but the major turned a deaf ear. Said they were already in white man’s territory.
Didn’t know that Indian country is wherever the Indians happen to be. He thought he made it. Major Dade left the column—only officers had horses—and pranced up to ride point. Shouted to his men as he passed. Promised ’em three days of rest and a belated Christmas celebration at Fort King.

“He was still shouting to them as Micanopy took aim, then shot him dead off his horse. The fusillade that followed killed or wounded half the command, cut down before they could wrestle their guns out from under their bulky, buttoned coats.”

John sighed and shook his head.

“The surviving troops panicked as the Indians fell back to regroup. But”—Price’s forefinger jabbed the air—“remember the captain’s gravely ill wife? She’d made a miraculous recovery. Her husband had been riding all night to rejoin his men. He arrived during the attack, took command, and ordered the survivors to chop down pine trees and build a fortification.”

“Instead of taking cover in the woods?” John said. “You’re kidding me!”

“No, I’m not.” Price’s voice resonated in the frigid shadows of the room, as the fire crackled and sizzled. “They wanted to survive and worked as fast as they could. But the logs were only stacked knee-high when the Indians launched a second wave. They killed their last soldier by two p.m. One hundred three soldiers dead; five of them were West Point men. The captain died too. But his sickly wife lived another sixty-one years.”

John reached for Laura’s hand as she shivered in the cold.

“That mulatto guide, who’d warned Dade all along, survived along with four soldiers. The guide was welcomed into the Seminole nation on the spot. One of the four soldiers was caught and killed as the survivors fled back toward Tampa Bay. The last three made it to safety and said they’d been attacked by four hundred to a thousand Indians.

“The truth was,” Price leaned forward, his voice a hoarse whisper, “the Indians had a total of one hundred and eighty warriors, three dead, five wounded. It was one of the Indians’ most decisive victories over our soldiers. And it took place four years before the birth of George Armstrong Custer. Every schoolboy in America knows General Custer’s name. But outside of Florida, nobody knows or cares about Major Dade,
though the shot that killed him set off the Second Seminole War. Hope we never fight one like that again. Long, unpopular, and never won!” He slammed his glass down on the table.

“The Seminoles fought for seven bloody years.” His voice rose. “The government finally sent forty thousand soldiers to fight fifteen hundred Indians! Cost us twenty million dollars and fifteen hundred dead soldiers, the most expensive, in lives and money, of all our Indian wars.”

“Did Osceola ever make it to the fight?” John asked.

“No.” Price grinned. “But he did what he set out to do. While Dade and his soldiers were being scalped, Osceola surprised General Thompson and a lieutenant as they walked outside Fort King to smoke cigars. He killed and scalped ’em both.” Price pensively studied his own cigar. “That was three days after Christmas.”

“Did Osceola ever find his wife?” Laura asked softly.

“No.” Price shook his head. “He led his nation in battle for two years of the war. His guerrilla tactics baffled our troops; he was hailed as a military genius. When they couldn’t kill or capture him, our leaders invited Chief Osceola to peace talks under a flag of truce. They guaranteed he wouldn’t be arrested.

“They lied.

“Osceola arrived on horseback under a white flag, to seek peace for his people, was arrested and thrown into a dirty, wet dungeon, where he soon died mysteriously, at age thirty-four. His cause of death was variously described as malaria, pneumonia, or tonsillitis.”

“Or a broken heart,” Laura said solemnly.

Price smiled at her. “Chief Osceola was far from stupid,” he said. “He refused to be treated by the white doctor the government sent. His instincts were right. That doctor displayed Osceola’s head at traveling carnivals and used it to frighten his children when they misbehaved.

“The war ended in 1842, without a treaty, and most of the Seminoles relocated west of the Mississippi. Several hundred hid deep in the Everglades and survived. Their descendants now paddle canoes to the beach, string beads, and rassle alligators at tourist attractions during the season. Rest of the year they hunt, fish, and trap. But they haven’t forgotten that white men lied and cheated their fathers. That Andrew Jackson forced them out so speculators could profit from their land.

“That is among many reasons why this beautiful county should not be named in honor of Major Dade, a dangerous, pompous misfit.”

When Laura shivered in his arms that night, John thought it was the cold and tried to keep her warm, but she woke from a bad dream before dawn. “I’m afraid,” she whispered.

“Of what?” he murmured sleepily. “I’ve known you all your life, girl. You were never afraid of anything. Wait, you were afraid to have sex when we were kids, but thank God, you got over it. But you never flinched from bullies, crack the whip, or leaving Edgar. When you stood with me against his so-called posse, I was so proud. What could scare a girl like you?”

“Bad dark days to come. I don’t know and that’s why I’m so afraid,” she murmured. “The devil you know is better than the one you don’t.”

“I know what’s wrong,” John said confidently. He kissed her and folded his arms around her. “That poor woman who died of fright, the old lighthouse, and all those bloody war stories Price told in the dark. They’d spook anybody. But it’s ancient history, darlin’.”

He rubbed her back, kissed her shoulders, turned her over, and ran his tongue around her nipple. “Things like that don’t happen now, not in our lifetime.”

He gasped as she clutched his hair and roughly pulled his mouth to hers.

She seemed better in the morning, on the last day of their stay, so they went to the ocean beach off Miami.

“Oh, John.” She looked radiant with anticipation. “Whatever else our house has or hasn’t, we must have a verandah. Don’t you agree?”

“Absolutely.” He caught her hand as they strolled the shell-strewn shoreline of the island, a deserted mass of mangrove, palmetto, and tangled jungle rimmed by silky, sandy beach.

“A house is not a home without a verandah. I’ll build ours big and wide so when we’re old and creaky, we can sit out there in our rocking chairs, side by side.”

Her nose crinkled and she laughed aloud at the image of them as doddering lovers. They had come by boat, and the entire ocean beach
belonged to them that day. No other soul in sight for miles. Crashing waves glittered like diamonds in the sunlight, then foamed, swirled, and eddied at their feet.

“Here, I’ll show you.” He picked up a stick, sharpened it with his pocketknife, then outlined in wet sand the house he envisioned, as she knelt beside him.

“Here is your verandah.” He sketched it in with broad strokes. “On chilly days I’ll drag our chairs into this sunny spot where we can warm our bones, smell salt breeze, and watch the world go by.”

“Promise?”

“Cross my heart.” He traced a cross on his left chest.

“I will hold you to that,” she said gravely. “And my memory is very long.”

“It had better be.” His eyes locked on hers, the color of the crashing sea and brittle blue sky that surrounded them. “Because I will never forget. I want you beside me, always.”

“I will be,” she said, as solemn as a vow. “Always.”

After a long and tender moment, he continued to draw. “We’ll plant shade trees here, here, and here, and I’ll line up Australian pines like soldiers to keep the wind off our avocados and pineapples. We’ll grow eggplant, onions, tomatoes, and cabbage too. Those we don’t eat ourselves, we’ll sell to hotel kitchens, then take the rest to the packing house to ship north.”

Her lips curled into a smile. “Where will the flowers be?”

“Everywhere,” he said. “In the garden, along the path, in the window boxes I’ll build, and in your hair.” He lifted her to her feet and swept her up into a long kiss as the ocean roared its approval and the seabirds swooped and squawked overhead.

“I love to hear the ocean and the seagulls,” she said, eyes closed, arms tight around his waist.

They stood for a time, studied the drawing of their dream house, then strolled on down the beach, collected seashells, and paused to embrace. Backs turned, they never saw the wave that washed it all away in an instant, leaving only wet sand, smooth and pristine, as though nothing had ever been there.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

A
bout to head home from Miami, John stopped at Burdine’s Trading Post. He asked Laura to wait, he’d just be a minute.

He wore a grin when he returned. She smiled, but asked no questions. Christmas was just around the corner.

The day was cool, the sun bright, with just enough wind to whisper secrets in the treetops, as if sweeping messages, knowledge, and memories up into the low-hanging clouds and on up into the universe.

A group of Indians stood beside their wagons near the natural bridge. John nodded and waved. They all stared. None returned the greeting. Laura rested her hand on John’s knee as they passed, then looked back. The Indians still stared. She trembled, moved closer to John, and rested her head on his shoulder.

“Did you see how friendly Sheriff Hardie, Mr. and Mrs. Price, and the Fishers were?” he said, happily. “We won’t be moving to a strange city, Laura. It’ll be a homecoming. We’re already welcome. Remember when I said, ‘Everybody will know our names’?”

Their return to the Ashley homestead was like an early Christmas. They unloaded the supplies from Miami—new boots for Joe, household items, groceries, and dry goods for Leugenia—along with several mysterious packages John locked away until Christmas Eve. As the women prepared for the holiday, John left on a brief hunting/trapping trip with a secret detour to Miami to pick up the blue silk he’d ordered for Laura.

Why not? he thought. She deserved it as much as the rich man’s teenaged bride.

John loved being in the wilderness, alert for predators, at one with nature, he reflected and mapped out his future beneath starry night skies. He stopped to make camp at dusk his third night out and heard
faint, far-off voices carried on the wind that whistled through the pines. He quietly investigated and found Indian trappers camped nearby. Ordinarily, he’d remain alone, but he recognized DeSoto Tiger, along with several other Cow Creek Seminoles his brother Bill had befriended.

The Indians liked seeing Bill, who operated the family’s moonshine still. So John ignored his initial instinct and stepped out of the shadows to greet them. The Indians welcomed his company. They’d trapped about eighty otters along the sloughs where the furry creatures fed on fish and smaller animals. Some of the males were as big as five feet long and more than thirty pounds, with pelts so thick and sleek that they’d bring as much as ten dollars each in Miami.

The trapping had gone well, but Tiger was impatient, eager to return home to Flora, his baby daughter born just before he left. Often, after accumulating a large number of pelts, the Indians would leave them for safekeeping with Captain Fowey, a trusted friend who operated a nearby dredging operation, so they could continue to trap. That night they agreed that Tiger would take their hides to the captain at dawn while they broke camp to return home for Christmas.

As morning mists rose from the water and a pink dawn streaked the sky, Tiger stacked the hides in his dugout canoe and shoved off. Moments later, John Ashley called out, his voice echoing across the water, and asked Tiger if he could go with him. Tiger agreed and poled back to shore, where Ashley, tall and husky, shouldered his Winchester and stepped into the canoe. Then they glided away across mirror-bright water and disappeared into the mist.