Jack Iron (10 page)

“You have seen the white men. Their numbers are great. We must learn to live as they do or we will surely be buried by them.” He raised his right arm, holding aloft a war club. “Today we fight alongside the Americans. General Jackson will not forget what we do. By making our stand with him, we will earn his gratitude and use it to protect our way of life.”

“General Jackson does not even know we are here.”

“You’re wrong about that!” Kit called out. Most of the Choctaw braves in the center of the camp turned to watch Kit and Iron Hand ride up to the council fire and dismount. Raven and Johnny Fuller were only a few paces behind. Several of the younger men instantly took note of Raven. She was the only woman who had accompanied the war party south to meet with the Tennesseans and Kentucky militia outside the city. The half-breed sensed their hungry glances and tried to ignore the undue attention many of the lonely men were giving her.

Raven had refused to remain in the Choctaw village with the other women and children and had cautioned her father that she sensed her place was in New Orleans. O’Keefe was superstitious and loath to doubt his daughter’s intuitive skills, but he exacted a promise from Raven that she would remain well away from any fighting and keep out of harm’s way.

Actually, Raven had stretched the truth. Kit had been her real reason for tagging along with the war party—not to mention a desire to enjoy Olivia LeBeouf’s hospitality once again. But as the days of siege wore on, she began to suspect there was more at work than her own harmless ruse. A premonition began to nag at her thoughts. Perhaps fate indeed had a role for her to play in the outcome of these unfolding events. But as to the nature of her part, she could only guess.

Kit dismounted from horseback, winked at the eight-year-old who had ridden out from New Orleans with them, and strode purposefully up to the council fire, taking care to see that Iron Hand O’Keefe preceded him into the circle of warmth cast by the blazing logs.

“You have no place at this council,” Strikes With Club cautioned, and flanked by a pair of braves, Spotted Owl and Yellow Leaper, he moved to block Kit McQueen’s entry into the camp. Despite his imposing size, O’Keefe moved quicker than the three men and intercepted them.

“Let him have his say. Kit fought alongside us against the Creeks and killed Wolf Jacket in hand-to-hand fighting. I reckon the lieutenant has earned a listen or two from us.” O’Keefe glanced at the men around the fire. He knew almost all of them by name. Long ago he had come among them as an outcast, but his courage had won their respect and his cunning had gained him a place among the chiefs. “Or am I no longer welcome?” He centered his gaze on Strikes With Club as if silently daring the younger man to commit himself and chance repudiation for his boldness from the tribal elders who continued to hold O’Keefe in high esteem.

Strikes With Club wavered and lowered his gaze. He tried to capture support from his companions, but they had business elsewhere and were already in retreat. “We will hear the soldier.” He followed his companions to the perimeter of the circle where he stood shoulder to shoulder with the Turtle Clan, all of whom seemed to be noticeably lacking in firearms. O’Keefe happened to glance over his shoulder and saw Johnny Fuller watching him with renewed respect. The Irishman’s chest swelled with pride. The lad was seeing O’Keefe in his element, as the war chief of his adopted people.

Kit didn’t begrudge Strikes With Club his displeasure. The unhappy brave had lost a friend on his last sojourn with McQueen when they had narrowly escaped capture by British marines. Kit knew what it meant to lose a friend.

“I have spoken to General Jackson, and in his own words he has said that there is not a man who can match the courage of the Choctaw,” said Kit. His words rang out across the clearing. They rode the cold air above the crackling flames. “He has said the United States owes the Choctaw a debt he can never repay. But when the British are driven back into the sea, your chiefs and I will sit down with the general and help him find a way.”

Nate Russell beamed triumphantly, vindicated by the lieutenant’s words and the murmur of approval he heard rippling through the crowd.

“How do we know the British will not destroy us? They have more cannons, more soldiers, more everything.” said Yellow Leaper. He was an earnest-looking man of nineteen who had fought at Horse Shoe Bend when the Choctaw and Cherokee had destroyed the Creek Confederation. But the British were something else entirely, and the rumble of their cannons and whooshing rockets filled him with dread.

“Not everything,” Kit corrected. “They do not have the Choctaw.”

“Yet they are like a great storm that sweeps up from the Great Water and tears down the trees and floods the land and is our destroyer,” said Yellow Leaper. His voice betrayed his deep pessimism at the inevitable disastrous outcome.

“The British will not conquer us,” Raven said from the edge of the clearing. It was unthinkable that a woman should address the council, for this was war talk and obviously a man’s work. Defying tradition, Raven left Johnny Fuller’s side and joined her father and Kit by the fire.

“Go on back to your lodge, woman,” Strikes With Club called out. Many of the men around him shared his feeling. But an old warrior with stringy gray hair and skin like worn leather held up a hand for the complaining to cease. His name was New Moon Fox and he had joined the tribe after their victory over the Creeks. His people lived further north, between the Mississippi and the Yazoo rivers. O’Keefe knew him from earlier times and held him in respect.

“Let her speak,” said New Moon Fox. His grainy voice was barely audible, yet everyone heard him. “She is the daughter of Star Basket, the medicine woman. The Great Spirit often whispered in her ear, taking the shape of smoke or a mourning dove and giving her that sight which is beyond seeing.”

His hand lowered and the gathering grew silent. Even Kit and O’Keefe stepped aside for the woman, amazed at her conduct and awed by her sudden mantle of authority as she addressed the gathering.

“Last night I walked in a dream. All around me there were the dead and dying. The cannons sounded like thunder. The sky was streaked with smoke and fire. The ground ran red with blood. And then the veils of powder smoke drifted apart and I beheld the might and strength of the British army broken and scattered like leaves in the time of the harvest moon. And the air was filled with the stench of death and the sound of weeping from the camp of the redcoats while among the Choctaw there was chanting and celebration and we stood among the soldiers and the Baratarians as equals, like a strong cord woven of many strands from which it takes its strength. These things have I seen. And I know them to be true.” Raven finished, and without so much as a “by your leave” she returned to the horses where Johnny Fuller, his jaw slack, handed her back the reins to her mare.

“How can such a thing be?” Strikes With Club finally spoke out, though he was obviously affected by Raven’s words. “Of what use are we to General Jackson? How can we stand as equals when he does not even give us the guns he promised?”

“Perhaps he wants us to kill the redcoats with our war clubs while they butcher us with their rifles and cannon,” said Yellow Leaper. Raven’s dream to the contrary, he still had his doubts. “If General Jackson does not trust us with the rifles he promised, then we will never be equal to his soldiers and we can expect nothing from our alliance with the white man but our own destruction.”

“You will have guns,” Kit said, defusing the man’s argument in a single stroke. O’Keefe appeared startled by McQueen’s pronouncement and drew close to the lieutenant and caught him by the arm.

“Boy-o, what the devil are you up to? We’ve nary a spare musket between us. And Old Hickory has even less to offer.”

“Jean Laffite and Cesar Obregon have a warehouse hidden in the bayous south of the city,” Kit said. “They often cache their smuggled goods outside of New Orleans. Madam LeBeouf knew the location and drew a map for me. We’ll take Nate Russell and some of the others and help ourselves to the Baratarian’s stores. I should imagine we’ll find rifled muskets aplenty the way Laffite continues to trickle the supply to Jackson. The freebooter raises the price for each load of flints and gunpowder.”

“Laffite? Obregon? It’s Jackson’s own orders you’ll be disobeying. He told you to keep clear of Cesar Obregon. There’s enough bad blood between you two that the next time you meet you’re bound to spill more’n a drop, mark my words.”

Kit pulled free of O’Keefe’s grasp, and faced the council of elders. He was determined to keep the Choctaw in the alliance. They were the eyes and ears of Jackson’s army, constantly ranging the woods and the bayous and probing the perimeters of the British lines without ever attracting the attention of the redcoats.

“The lieutenant promises us guns,” said Strikes With Club in a derisive tone of voice that momentarily captured the attention of his companions. “When?”

The question was a gauntlet hurled in McQueen’s face, a challenge he refused to allow to go unanswered. Kit ignored O’Keefe’s cautioning glances and attempts to dissuade the lieutenant from committing himself to a course that courted disaster. Kit knew what had to be done, no matter what the price.

“Today!” he said.

Behind the soldier in buckskins, O’Keefe groaned and wiped a hand across his grizzled features. “Stealing guns ain’t exactly the army’s way,” he grumbled, knowing full well his warning would go unheeded.

“No, it’s my way,” Kit replied.

He knew Old Hickory was probably going to be furious and Obregon and Laffite even more so. Raven’s father was just looking out for him, and Kit was grateful for the big man’s concern. But O’Keefe ought to give it up. Some things just naturally went together, like powder and flint, thunder and lightning, winter and cold… or a McQueen and trouble.

“N
OW WHAT?” SAID IRON
Hand O’Keefe in a scolding tone of voice. “I could have told you something like this was bound to happen.” The Irish-born war chief waited on horseback in the shadow of the woods about seventy-five yards from the solid-looking warehouse that dominated the clearing. The Baratarians had concealed their smuggled goods within a veritable blockhouse built of heavy oak logs laid one upon the other and chinked with mud. The walls were dotted with gun slits, and what few windows allowed sunlight into the interior could be closed and shielded by heavy-looking shutters that like the walls sported cross-slit gunports. Under siege, the warehouse would afford its defenders ample protection.

Today, however, the clearing in the forest was the scene of much activity as Cesar Obregon had his crew in the process of loading a couple of wagons with rifled muskets and gunpowder liberated from a Spanish frigate by the privateers and hidden for just such an occasion. Jackson was desperate to arm his recently arrived Kentuckians, and a handsome profit awaited the entrepreneur who arrived in the American camp with a shipment of firearms.

Kit McQueen sat astride his mare alongside O’Keefe and counted the crewmen milling about the two mule-drawn wagons arranged in front of the warehouse. There were at least a dozen privateers as best he could estimate. He glanced behind him at the seven Choctaws—Nate Russell on a farm wagon and Strikes With Club included—who had accompanied Kit and O’Keefe from their encampment to the north. Nine men in all and among them rode the boy, Johnny Fuller, and Raven O’Keefe. The medicine woman edged past the warriors to see for herself just exactly what had upset her father.

“You need to stay back,” Kit complained. “Your ‘dreams’ aren’t going to protect you if the lead begins to fly.”

“Which will certainly happen if I don’t ride with you.” Raven spoke with surprising certainty. Kit was intrigued.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Meaning… my brick-top Highland lad… I doubt that Cesar Obregon will surrender a single flintlock. He’ll never deal with you. But he might with me.”

“I don’t like it,” Kit scowled.

“Of course.” Raven’s green eyes flashed and she patted his arms. “You aren’t supposed to. However, if you want the guns…”

“Come on, then,” Kit replied. Her logic was sound. And he needed everything in his favor he could get.

“Whoa! Hold it now, the both of you,” O’Keefe protested. “Don’t I have a say in the matter?”

Kit and Raven turned as one. “No,” they said, and walked their mounts out of the shadows across a stretch of marshlike earth and onto the narrow winding wheel-rutted path that wound between patches of quicksand and led right to the warehouse.

It was a quarter past noon and the freebooters had paused in their efforts to reward themselves with a swallow or two of rum before resuming work. Despite the cold, the crew of the
Windthrift
had worked up a sweat. Their respite came to an abrupt end as the party of intruders appeared on the trail.

Honeyboy Biggs had just shouldered a barrel of black powder onto the wagon bed when Angel Mendoza, standing by the mules, bounced a pebble off the gunner’s bald head. Biggs came up glaring and began to curse the ship’s physician, but the white-haired man arched his eyebrows and jabbed a thumb in the direction of the newly arrived visitors.

“Hey, Biggs!” Reyner Blanche exclaimed as he approached with an arm full of muskets.

“Looks like we have company,” a third crewman by the name of Keel Longley spoke up. A man of average height and build, Longley’s scarred features bespoke a violent and quarrelsome man. Years ago he had decided St. Peter would slam the pearly gates smack dab in his face for the crimes of his youth. At thirty-two years of age, Longley expected to spend eternity with the devil and could see no reason to repent or change his ways.

“I see ’em,” Biggs muttered. “Reyner… you run and fetch Captain Obregon. Tell him we got trouble.” The youngest of the crewmen instantly obeyed and took off at a dead run. In a matter of seconds he had reached the open double doors and vanished inside the warehouse. “All right, pretty bastards, you’ve had your rum, now let’s see you stand by your guns.” Biggs tugged a pair of flintlocks from the waist of his striped breeches.