Chapter Fourteen
June 1862
The greatest travail of the war for those left behind was the anxiety of waiting and the tedium of day-to-day life.
Kendall had taken to spending the mornings helping Amy with the livestock and gardens, and the afternoons riding the trails and beaches.
Summer was hot, unbearably so, but in the numerous coves and strips of palm-shaded white sand, the sea breezes could be cooling. And she liked haunting the shores of the bay; somehow it made her feel closer to Brent.
It had been a shattering disappointment when he had not returned after his assignment to the Gulf. All the more bitter because he had accomplished nothing. New Orleans had been closed up tighter than a drum, and Pensacola remained in Federal hands. Brent had carried desperately needed Florida salt into the wilds of the Louisiana bayous, and could only hope that the militia had managed to disperse the precious substance to the slaughter yards where it could be used to preserve meat for the fighting forces of the Deep South.
Brent had been sent on to London where a shipment of morphine had been promised him. There hadn’t even been an extra afternoon that he might have given her. As the war raged on, not even the numerous Confederate victories could brighten the plight of the wounded soldiers. With the blockade winding ever tighter, the Confederate Armies suffered ever more severely from lack of supplies. In the letter Brent had sent her he had spoken with an eloquent despair about the fate of the wounded. One of his gunners had taken a shell in the leg at the mouth of the Mississippi. There hadn’t been a drop of anesthetic to give him, not even a drop of brandy or bourbon to ease his pain when the limb had been amputated. He could only imagine the plight of the soldiers on the field.
Morphine was vital.
Kendall understood, but still the waiting was hard. She read and reread every precious newspaper that made its way to the settlement, and gloried along with Harry at news of the southern victories. General McClellan’s hesitant tactics had made something of a disaster of his Peninsula campaign; Stonewall Jackson, Jeb Stuart, Old Jubal Early, and the dignified Robert E. Lee were running their troops ragged with sheer audacity and, as always, superior strategy. McClellan was such a procrastinator, Harry told Kendall, that Abe Lincoln had made a number of dry witticisms at his general’s expense—one being, “If McClellan is not using the army, I should like to borrow it for a while.”
McClellan, it was assumed by both sides, would shortly be replaced. But for the time being, his army was taking no great victories.
But no matter whether North or South took the day, death took its toll. And there were injured to suffer the stark agony of battle wounds.
Kendall halted her filly on the sand of the cove where Brent had taken her that day so long ago. She tethered the mare to a seagrape, stripped off her shoes and stockings, and tucked her skirts about her to run her toes through the sand and surf.
A frown knitted her brow. Although the armies on the eastern front were doing well, the Confederates in the western arena had suffered a number of serious blows, the loss of New Orleans among them. General U. S. Grant was fighting battles in Tennessee, Kentucky, and along the Mississippi. He had led successful campaigns against Fort Henry and Fort Donelson in western Tennessee, and although the Union had suffered very heavy losses at Shiloh, the Confederates had been forced to withdraw. Another of Lincoln’s famous quotations referred to Grant: “I can’t spare this man—he fights.”
The question that had plagued her since she had first voiced it to Brent came back to pierce her mind.
What if the Union wins the war?
Kendall pressed her hands over her eyes. She couldn’t bear the thought. Something, some vague thing that was irreplaceable would be lost. Forever.
She pulled her hands from her face and stared out over the water and frowned again, then placed her hand over her eyes to shield them from the sun’s glare. Her heart seemed to catch in her throat for a moment as she saw a ship heeling lightly before the wind—not five hundred yards out.
It was a schooner, well supplied with guns. Four that she could see on the port side, like those on many of the ships she had seen at Fort Taylor.
And the Stars and Stripes waved from the mizzenmast.
In panic Kendall started to run from the surf, but then she paused, turning back to stare at the ship again.
The schooner wasn’t at anchor. And its movement was erratic, as if the vessel were unmanned, a ghost ship playing upon the surf.
It would shortly run aground, Kendall surmised shrewdly. Straining her eyes still further, she saw that the masts were charred and the sails tattered.
It is a deserted ship, Kendall thought with a little thrill.
Harry . . . she had to run and get Harold Armstrong, Kendall thought logically. But again she paused. Although grievously wounded, the schooner still appeared to be maneuverable. And it wasn’t far away. In fact, it had been veering closer and closer.
Kendall bit her lip and stared back to the seagrape where the filly was contentedly searching out the few clumps of grass that grew from the sand. She stared back at the ship.
If the schooner wasn’t quickly steered into the deeper water of the channel, it would definitely run aground, and possibly be wrecked on an underwater rock near the shore. It was a large schooner and certainly couldn’t be sailed by one person alone for any distance. But the weather was fair; the breeze light. There was enough canvas left to a number of the ragged sails to catch the wind . . .
I have to be mad, Kendall thought. Maybe the ship only appeared to be deserted. If she swam out, she could be plunging into disaster. Asking to be raped or murdered or, at the very least, captured.
She waited, as seconds ticked by. But then a heady excitement gripped her with the potency of a drug. All she ever did was wait. Wait—endlessly. And here was a chance to do something.
She was always dictated to by the whims of men. John Moore. And even those who loved her sought to direct her. Travis, Red Fox—and Brent. When Brent was with her, he assumed full command. And when he left, it was as if he could calmly place her into a cubicle of his mind, assured that she would be where he had left her while he turned his thoughts to the war.
Kendall glanced hurriedly about her, then waited no more. She tore her gown over her head and dropped her single crinoline to the sand. Standing in pantalettes and chemise only, she took one deep breath and flung herself into the water.
She wasn’t an experienced swimmer; she had learned to keep herself afloat, however, while she lived with the Indians. And as she moved to the bluer depths of the bay, she suffered stabs of fear, which she fought furiously. Sharks sometimes plagued these waters. And there were all sorts of other vicious little sea creatures. Devilfish, jellyfish, barracuda . . .
And there might be creatures even more vicious aboard the schooner. Men. She would be vulnerable indeed when she rose dripping from the sea clad only in sheer white cotton.
Kendall kicked more vigorously against the warm surf. Her arms began to flail at the water and she was suddenly gulping for breath. She was panicking, she realized.
She halted, treading water and drawing in a long breath. A wave came to lift her and shower droplets over her head, but she didn’t go under. And when it had passed, she had calmed herself. If she met with trouble, she would meet with trouble—but she would be damned if she would allow herself to foolishly drown because she was a coward.
Kendall made her strokes sure and smooth. In just minutes she reached the schooner. Once there, however, she faced another problem. How to get aboard. She forgot that the bay might be host to hungry sharks as she swam around the schooner in perplexity. But at last, along the bow, she discovered a spot where the hull had been severely damaged. Planking was ripped away almost to the water line. By gripping the starboard gunwale, she could hurtle herself upward and onto the deck.
For a moment she paused there, feeling the sun beat down on her sea-salty flesh. Dizziness swept through her as she blinked furiously. Had she truly been an idiot? What had happened to the schooner’s crew? What if they had died from disease? Was she now contaminated?
She clutched the gunwale to steady herself, and then winced as a splinter tore into her palm. Mechanically bringing her hand to her mouth to bite down on the injury, she looked about her.
The schooner wasn’t as large as the Jenni-Lyn, but she was graceful and compact. Across the deck Kendall saw a lifeboat suspended from the rigging with the name of the schooner painted on its stern in black: U.S.S. New England Pride.
“All right, New England Pride,” Kendall murmured, moving slowly across the deck. “Let’s see if we can make you the C.S.S.—something!”
As she gingerly walked to the wheel, Kendall became more and more convinced that, for whatever reason, the ship had been deserted. Possibly it had been engaged in a battle, and its crew had simply left her.
But the schooner hadn’t sunk, and relentless currents had carried it here.
Kendall strained and puffed to take the schooner about, and she almost gave up in despair and frustration as her strength didn’t seem to be equal to the task. But just as she cried out in fury against her own helplessness and buried her face against a sweaty arm on the wheel, the wind gave a sudden shift—and with it the schooner gave in to her command.
Once the ship had submitted to Kendall’s handling, it became as docile as a lamb. The ragged sails took the wind, and the vessel floated across the bay. But as she neared the mouth of the deep-water inlet, Kendall suddenly realized that she was approaching a secret harbor where Rebel ships sought shelter—and she was flying the Union flag! Praying that the ship would hold the course, Kendall scrambled around to the mizzenmast and fumbled with the knot in the rigging that worked as a pulley for the flag. She turned her teeth to the task, and at last the weathered knot began to give. Heedlessly Kendall kept working at it, wearing the flesh of her fingers raw as she tugged at the hemp with teeth and hands. At last it gave, and a sturdy jerk pulled the Stars and Stripes from their proud whip in the wind.
But the schooner began to heel dangerously to port, and Kendall made another mad dash back to the helm. The ship responded to her touch this time as sweetly as a kitten.
“If I could only be in two places at once,” Kendall murmured to the ship, “I think I would actually have a good chance with you on the open sea!”
But she couldn’t be two places at once—and just as she had realized she was sailing into a settlement with the Union flag flying, she remembered that she was sitting at the wheel with her chemise and pantalettes plastered against her. She might just as well be naked.
“Damn!” she murmured.
Again she leapt from her place at the wheel, hurrying to bring down the tattered sails. The task was a labored one; weathered and scorched rigging battled her fiercely. But at last she brought down all but the jib, then scampered about the deck as she sought out the anchor crank. Miraculously, it was in decent shape. Too late she realized that it would be far easier to cast anchor than to weigh it. But despite all the humiliation she had already endured in her life, she had been raised with a keen sense of propriety. She hadn’t minded stripping to save the ship, but she certainly wasn’t going to greet society practically naked. There had to be some piece of clothing in the crew’s quarters. And although she wasn’t exactly in the inlet yet, she was beyond the first stand of mangroves, hidden from any other ship that might wander into the bay.
Despite her determination to garb herself, Kendall felt a sweep of fear once again as she approached the steps to go below deck. It was like stepping into a void of the unknown, and her hands trembled as she touched the rail. But the sun was shining through a multitude of portholes, and Kendall shook off her fear. If there were any Yankees aboard the ghost vessel, they would have appeared by now.
Still she hesitated in the narrow hallway that apparently led to the officers’ cabins. Horrible visions of cruel, leering deserters filled her mind. Impatiently, she forced herself to move forward and approach a door. If she was such a pathetic coward, she should have never swum out to the ship. As it was, she had to do something.
Kendall breathed a sigh of relief as she pushed the door in and found the dim cabin empty. Her assumptions about the crew deserting had to be correct. The Pride was definitely empty.
She discovered quickly that she had stumbled into the captain’s cabin. A ship’s log lay open on a desk, and a navy frock coat with a captain’s bars lay tossed over the chair before it. Curiously Kendall ran her fingers over the last page of the log, reading the words written in a handsome and flourishing script:
Tears stung Kendall’s eyes. The page didn’t read at all as a ship’s log should—not after 1300 hours. It was not blunt fact. Not just a chronicle of happenings.
She would like to have known Captain Julian Cuspis Smith. He was a man incapable of being a war machine.
Kendall breathed a silent prayer that the captain had lived as she flipped through the previous pages of the log. The New England Pride had been commissioned into the U.S. Navy in June of 1860. Her keel had been laid in Boston the previous year. She had been involved in the blockade of Charleston, and had recently been ordered to join a patrol outside Mobile.
Nothing really worth knowing, Kendall thought pensively. Still, she would carry the log ashore and turn it over to Harry.
Kendall picked up the captain’s blue frock coat and the log and left the cabin, closing the door behind her. She slipped the frock coat over her shoulders as she climbed to the deck once more, pensively chewing at her lower lip as her mind clouded with the tragedy of war. She walked up to the deck with a suddenly weary heart. She wished she had not read the log; she wished that she had never known Travis. War was so much easier to endure when you could hate the enemy without question.
“Well, well, well. What have we here?”
Kendall started violently and stared across the deck. A man stood by the helm. His short-waisted cavalry coat was of an indiscriminate color—possibly because of fading or possibly because of dirt. His trousers were blue, but that told her nothing, for many Rebels wore blue pants beneath gray or butternut jackets.
He was of medium height and stocky build. His hair was dark, his beard rough and matted with the stains of chewing tobacco. A leer spread across his features.
“My, my, my, what do we have here!” he breathed again, walking toward her.
Kendall clutched the log tightly against her chest for whatever protection it might offer.
“Who are you?” she snapped with a forced bravado. “How did you get aboard this ship?”
He paused, obviously surprised by her angry demand. But he merely hiked up shaggy brows and laughed. “Little Reb’s got a bit of fight in her, huh? That’s all right, honey, I like my women with spirit.”
Kendall ignored his insinuation, staring him down while she desperately wracked her mind for a course of action.
“Are you a Yankee, then?” she demanded, not able to pinpoint his accent or his clothing.
“Reb—Yank—what’s the difference. The army ain’t no place for old Zeb.”
“You’re a deserter.”
“Nah, honey. Just a sharp man.” His black button eyes narrowed shrewdly upon her. “And I’m going to take this ship and hightail it outta here, little lady. It’s shore gonna be mighty nice to have you with me honey. Yeah, mighty nice.”
He took another step toward her, and Kendall noticed that he had a pair of smooth-bore pistols crossed into the waistband of his pants. A leather thong tied about his thick girth held a leather case with a long and lethal Bowie knife. The closer he came, the yellower his teeth appeared to be, the more loathsome his odor.
“This is my ship,” she stated flatly, coldly. “And you aren’t taking it anywhere.”
“Whoo-whee! Little lady! Old Zeb is gonna have a good time with you! Now hand the book over, baby, and let old Zeb hold you in his arms.”
If she retreated, she would fall down the companionway. If he touched her, she would pass out with the horror.
But he held three weapons while she had nothing but a book.
He snatched the log out of her hands. The captain’s coat she had taken from the cabin fell to the deck, and she stood before the man with her damp undergarments hiding little from his imagination.
“Oh, Lordy, Lordy . . .” he murmured.
She felt herself crushed against him, and at first she did have to fight an overwhelming dizziness as his scent and cruel touch assailed her simultaneously.
She had to think, had to do something . . .
She forced herself to touch him as he nuzzled his coarse beard against the flesh of her throat, greedy lips planting wet smacking kisses on her. She willed herself not to foolishly pit her fists against him in a frenzy.
And she allowed her hands to wander down his back until she found the leather thong . . . and then the case . . . and then the hilt of his Bowie knife.
Once her hand closed over that handle, she couldn’t allow herself to think anymore. In a quick slash of her arm, she brought all her strength into play to drive the blade deep between his shoulder blades.
A bellow of amazement and pain raged from him. He cast her brutally away to claw in a frenzy at his own back, his face turning a mottled purple, his features contorted with stunned fury.
“Bitch! Southern bitch!”
Kendall had fallen to the deck. Hurriedly she jumped to her feet and nervously backed away as he once more came toward her with staggering steps. She screamed when his hand—blunt and squat, the fingernails black with dirt—reached for her, catching the lace of her chemise and ripping it open.
She had failed. And the filthy monster was going to make her wish she were dead a hundred times over before she really was.
She screamed again in primal rage and despair as his hand clawed for the bare flesh of her breasts.
But he never touched her. Suddenly he stopped and stood straight; his eyes widening, his mouth forming an O of disbelief. For countless seconds he simply stood there, suspended. Then he crashed to a heap at Kendall’s feet
She stared down at him in shock and amazement.
And then realized that another knife had joined hers in his back.
Slowly, her shock seeped through her and rendered her mind and body incapable of normal action. She looked across the deck.
Red Fox, silent and dripping wet, balanced on the gunwale. He barely glanced at Kendall, then silently hopped to the deck and approached the fallen man. He pulled his knife from the bloodied, lifeless back and wiped it clean on the sleeves of the man’s short cavalry coat. He repeated the action with the Bowie knife, tucking both into a band about his calf.
Kendall was so transfixed by the Seminole chief’s appearance that she couldn’t even think to pull her torn bodice together. He stood, and his dark eyes flickered over her briefly. He padded silently on bare feet to the fallen navy frock coat and brought it to Kendall, slipping it around her shoulders.
His touch brought her back to life. She hurled herself against him, shuddering, tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Red Fox . . . bless you . . . how . . . where did you come from?”
He held her a moment, then set her away and squatted to pick up the dead man’s legs and drag him toward the railing. Then he stooped again, and heaved the corpse overboard.
He watched as the water accepted the body as it might a sacrifice, whirling, seeming to suck the man under. He would come afloat again, but for now he was food for the fishes. Then he turned back to Kendall.
“I am often near,” he said simply. “I saw you swim for the ship, and I watched as you brought her around. I came to the inlet by land, and so it took some time. I saw that white trash pull a canoe from the trees and approach. I swam.”
Kendall was amazed and touched to realize that Red Fox had been keeping an eye on her from a safe distance.
“Thank you,” she said quietly.
“You did well,” he said, ignoring her words. “The wound you inflicted on him was deep, but not mortal. You have more to learn, Kendall.”
She nodded in silent agreement. “Will you teach me, Red Fox?”
He shrugged. “In time. You should not have come aboard the ship, Kendall.”
She hesitated a moment, lowering her eyes. “But I—we—have her now, Red Fox. She is battered, but she could be made seaworthy.”
Red Fox lifted one eyebrow sardonically. “We have her? And for what?”
“I don’t know . . . yet,” Kendall faltered. But then she felt a defiant determination. An idea that had been a vague cloud in her mind now found full formation. “This ship is mine,” she said. “I found her. I saved her from grounding. She is ours if you wish—but she is most definitely mine.”
Red Fox emitted a growl of impatient irritation. “I ask again—for what?”
“To fight,” Kendall said softly.
Red Fox threw up his hands in exasperation and stalked across the deck once more to set his hands and muscled biceps on the anchor crank. Kendall scampered across the deck, following him.
“Red Fox, listen to me—”
“No!”
“We could do something, we could have a purpose!”
He spun around to face her, dark eyes blazing. “Fool woman! I seek to protect you, but you wish to hurl yourself into danger and possible death.”
“Red Fox, I can’t stand the waiting.”
“The Night Hawk would be furious.”
“The hell with the Night Hawk!” Kendall exclaimed, startled by her own declaration yet determined that the Indian would not see her falter. “Red Fox, Brent comes so briefly. Then he sails away. I love him, Red Fox, yet still he is easily able to forget me and turn his heart to the war. He risks his life daily, yet that is expected. I am not property, Red Fox. I am not a slave. My life is my own, as is his. Please, Red Fox, please, listen to me. We could do some good with very little risk. Slip out of the inlet at night and seek out small Yankee blockade ships. We could—”
“Without a crew?” Red Fox demanded skeptically.
“We can find a crew.”
Red Fox sniffed. “Where, Kendall? The men left in the settlement are boys and old grandfathers.”
“Old doesn’t mean worthless. And you have braves, Red Fox.”
“Whites do not fight alongside Indians. They use them in alliance, yes, but they do not fight beside them. And it does not matter. What you suggest is”—for once, Kendall saw Red Fox struggle for a word in English—“ridiculous!” he at last exploded.
Kendall turned her back on him. “I told you, Red Fox, this is my ship. And I will sail her—with or without your help.”
He broke into a fit of what she assumed to be cursing—but he spoke in his own tongue too swiftly and vehemently for her to understand his words. At the end of his tirade she heard him mention Brent’s name again, and she spun around to face him once more, her eyes alight with pleading.
“Red Fox, Brent will never know! He won’t be back for months! We can slip in and out of harbors and give all the ammunition and ships we seize to the Confederacy. Red Fox, I even know something about these cannons. I was”—she hesitated a moment, the brilliance of her eyes clouding—“I was at Fort Taylor long enough to learn something about artillery. These are Parrotts,” she said, gesturing toward the guns mounted on the schooner’s deck. “And if we’re lucky, the shot will still be good. Oh won’t you listen, Red Fox? Can’t you see? We’ll repaint this boat and rename her Rebel’s Pride! We wouldn’t need a crew of more than twenty—ten whites, ten Indians! And—”
“One woman?” Red Fox queried with doleful skepticism.
“Yes,” Kendall said quietly. “I am a good sailor, Red Fox. I proved that when I made it here in a rowboat! We’ll be careful. We’ll test our wings thoroughly before we fly! Red Fox, women on both sides have been spies. They have even donned men’s garb and joined the armies. I’m a Confederate, Red Fox. I have to fight this war!”
“Do you seek to fight a war—or to exact revenge?”
“Does it matter?”
“If you are captured, you know what will happen.”
She met his eyes without flinching. “Yes, I know.”
The anchor thudded into place, and Red Fox spoke again. “I cannot do this to the only white man I can truly call my friend.”
“Then I will do it without you,” Kendall vowed staunchly.
Red Fox released a weary sigh. Apolka’s death had not been mentioned between them, yet Kendall knew that he thought of his slain wife and son.
“The Armstrongs will stop you. They will never agree to this foolhardy plan of yours.”
Kendall lowered her eyes to hide a smile. She knew she had Red Fox convinced. And if she could convince an Indian with a heart and will of steel, she could convince anyone.
The New England Pride was about to become the Rebel’s Pride. They would paint the schooner gray and sail for the Confederacy.
Brent wouldn’t be pleased if he found out, but Kendall hoped he never would.
And she couldn’t afford to think about Brent. Just as she couldn’t dwell on the fact that she had stabbed a man and that Red Fox had finished him off with cold detachment. And she couldn’t allow herself to wonder if she wasn’t anxious to come upon John Moore.
Neither Red Fox nor Brent would ever understand that she needed to fight her own battle with the man who had made her life a hell before there ever was a war.
And Brent had been gone so long. In the endless days and sleepless nights, it was sometimes hard to believe that he had ever held her.
Love was not a tangible substance. And in the present chaos of fraternal bloodshed, she often wondered if she could ever really reach out and grasp it tightly . . .