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Read by Angelica Robotti

CHAPTER ONE

The man moved across the vast flatland with the ease of an animal. From time to time he paused, staring about him, his black eyes alert for the slightest movement. He saw only the grasses stirring under the slight wind which swept across this section of Florida.

There was unease in Jackson Devereaux.

He could not account for that sense of disquiet, yet it persisted. The long-barreled Kentucky rifle which he held in his right hand was primed, ready to shoot, but it was no animal which caused him this discomfort.

It was an inner thing, a vague emotion which caught and held him, making him sniff the air, to stare across the grasslands, to glance at the priming of his gun and make certain it was ready to fire.

He was a big man, broad across his muscular shoulders, lean-waisted where his belt was tight, supporting a long hunting knife. Clad in buckskins, he wore moccasins that bore the tribal markings of the Seminole Indians. Red hair hung past his shoulders, rippling where the breezes caught it.

"Gettin' like an old lady," he muttered beneath his breath. "Like as not to get the shakes before the day is over."

He did not know what a prophet he was.

He walked on, treading with that panther-like ease which marked the hunting man, alert always to the slightest change in the direction of the wind, to the faintest trace of movement. As far as he could see, there was only these grasses, with an occasional island of trees and bushes thrusting up, the hot sun glinting off bough and leaf.

When he came to that woody island, he stepped in between the bushes and sank his length to the soft ground. Lying flat, he waited with the patience of a wild animal.

Once he thought to see movement, off to the south, in the direction from which he had come, but it was too far away to be certain of what that movement might mean. There were horses there, and men, or so he decided, but they were no concern of his. Jackson Devereaux was after food.

The sun rose higher in the sky. It grew hotter, until the sweat came out and made him uncomfortable. Yet he never moved. He waited with his rifle across his forearms so that he could lift and fire it almost in one motion.

Then he heard the sound for which he had been waiting It was a muffled grunting, the tread of hooves on dry grasses. He eased his head up slightly, glancing about him. There were wild pigs near here, he knew that from the sounds they had been making.

The pigs were in no hurry, they took their time as they rooted for delicacies half-buried in the ground. One of them caught a rodent, worried it, then killed it.

Jackson Devereaux slid his rifle forward slowly, carefully. He made no sound. His breathing was slow and steady. His eyes were fastened on a fat sow which stood broadside on to him, at a distance of slightly more than a hundred yards.

The sow came closer, intent only upon feeding its voracious appetite. It gave no thought to danger, the taste of the bulbs it rooted up made its mouth water, and it was more concerned with satisfying its hunger than with anything else.

Closer came the sow, closer.

The man rested his cheek against the stock of his rifle. His finger curled about the trigger. Very carefully, he drew that finger back.

The crack of the rifle was sharp, whip-like.

The sow staggered, took two steps and collapsed. Off to one side the rest of the wild pigs squealed and grunted and began a headlong dash to safety.

The man rose up, poured powder and wadding and a round lead bullet into his rifle muzzle. He tamped them down with his ramrod. Only then did he leave the little island of trees and bushes and begin his walk toward the sow. As he strode along he drew out his hunting knife.

The sow was dead, but then he had been certain of that when it fell. Jackson Devereaux did not miss with the long rifle which was almost a part of him. He had been using that rifle to get food since he had been ten, when his father had died.

He was the sole support of his mother and his younger brother. He thought nothing of it, he was a born hunter, he loved these grassy stretches where he could see for uncounted miles. The vast sky above, blue and flecked with clouds, and this sea of high grasses: this was his world.

He knelt now and began to rip open the sow, disemboweling it. He ought by rights to have a fire and a keg of water in which to dip the hog to loosen the hair, but he would wait until he got back to the cabin for that. Enough now to take out the entrails, slice the jugular vein, and then prepare to carry the sow those many miles back to where his mother waited.

In time, he was done. He lifted the sow, hoisted its carcass over a shoulder, and rose to his feet. Rifle in hand, he walked away. The sow was heavy, but Jackson Devereaux had carried sows like this for many miles, even when he hadn't been much bigger than the hog itself.

He walked steadily, intent on the long trail before him which would bring him, in a few hours, to the cabin. There was spring in his legs, he went on untiredly for a long way. Only when the sun began to lower did he pause to drop the sow, to cut a length of meat from it and, making a small fire, cook that meat. He sat beside the fire, the strip of meat on the tip of his hunting knife, and he let the anticipation of sinking his teeth into that meat sit comfortably within him.

He seemed at ease, yet he used his eyes always, scanning the grasslands over which he had come and had yet to travel. They were empty. He saw no signs of life, yet he knew that there might be life there.

Seminoles, for instance. A Seminole might be within a dozen yards of him and show no sign of his presence. Still, he did not fear the Seminoles, for all that they had been driven—most of them, at least—from their homeland only short years before.

He had grown up with the Seminoles, or just about. He had known Osceola, he had been half in love, puppy-dog like, with his beautiful wife, Che-cho-ter, the Morning Dew. Thinking back on it, he chuckled, realizing that Osceola had known how devoted he was to Morning Dew, and making a great joke of it.

Osceola was dead now. The Americans had seen to that, at Fort Moultrie, permitting him to die of the fever.

Yet there were Seminoles still here, still living in the Everglades to the south. Jackson Devereaux had seen them, had talked with them. They would not come out of the Everglades to be sent, along with the other Seminoles, to distant reservations. They would stay and fight and die, if need be—amid the watery desolation of their homelands.

He ate slowly, chewing and relishing the taste of the hot pork. He would have liked a biscuit or two, but he could make do without biscuits. I here would be hot biscuits tonight at the evening meal. From his canteen, he drank water, and then he was ready to go on.

He walked for hours, until the sun was almost setting to the west, beyond the harbor the Spanish had named Espiritu Sanctu. He moved out of the grasslands and into a little forest, and now he walked more carefully, for while he could see for many miles on the grasses, here he could scarcely see beyond the next two trees.

Jackson Devereaux came out of the trees and stood a moment, feeling the weight of the slaughtered hog. He was tired, it would be good to sit down at the table and rest while his mother cooked the pork and brought those steaming slices to him.

He could make out the cabin from this distance. It was not a large cabin, it consisted of one room with hides hung about his mother's bed, with beds for young Jamey and himself set back against the walls. It had been home ever since he could remember, it had been here that his father had come to stay, bringing his bride, where he and his brother had been born. He knew no other home.

And yet—

As he watched that cabin, he frowned. No smoke rose from the stone and clay chimney. His mother should have the kettle on, to have boiling water for soup, for the sassafras tea they would sip. He hoped his mother would have made a rhubarb pie.

Jackson Devereaux felt uneasiness stir in him, that same disquiet he had known earlier. It was not like his mother to be lax. His eyes roved the little clearing, saw water glinting off the river as it swept past the cabin, saw the stone well with the bucket resting on the edge.

Jamey ought to be chopping the wood piled there beside the cabin, right about now. His mother should be heating water.

He shifted the hog across his shoulder, moved down the slope. He walked as he had been walking, showing no signs of tiredness, yet he was tired. It had been a long tramp today to find those hogs, they moved about in their eating, they never stayed at one place.

As he came closer, the silence touched him, drew him into the quiet. Uneasiness became alarm. Yet he went on, the rifle in his hand ready to fire if need be.

Then he saw the print of the horseshoe in the soft dirt. Instantly the hog slid off his shoulder and he was moving catlike toward some bushes, the Kentucky gun up and pointing.

"Ma? Jamey?" His voice was a lonely sound in the utter stillness.

Like an animal, warily, he eased himself toward the cabin. There was no other living thing near here, he was certain of that. Just himself, alert and uneasy.

He saw more marks of horses when he came into the cabin yard. There had been many horses here, at least five or six, and there were boot heels, too. He waited, calling out again.

The cabin door was open. It seemed that something was in the way, preventing it from closing. As he peered more closely, walking forward, he thought to see a small foot.

A coldness came into his middle.

He knew that foot, that small moccasin. "Jamey," he whispered, and his big hands tightened on the rifle.

To the doorway he came, and with the barrel of the rifle he touched the door. It did not swing inward, something was blocking it. Jackson Devereaux moved forward.

His brother Jamey lay across the doorway, his small body seemingly shrunken inside the few rags that served him as clothes. The boy was dead. He knew that, even without seeing the blood on his back, caking now on his coarse homespun shirt.

"Ma?"

His hand, desperate with tension, shoved the door inward. His mother lay across her bed, and she was naked. There was blood on her breasts, on her belly. The half of a knife stuck up between those breasts.

Jackson Devereaux sobbed.

Just once, that muffled cry was drawn out of him, from the depths of his body. He did not weep, there were no tears in his eyes, yet his lips quivered for a moment at their corners.

Then he was striding into the cabin, his eyes moving from the empty, dead fireplace to the beds along the walls, to the table and chairs that had been pushed back and away from his mother's bed.

Men had been here, had killed Jamey and his mother. Before they had killed her, they had raped her.

He could picture them here, crowded into the cabin, tearing off the few garments his mother wore, letting their eyes rake her nudity...

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

His mother had been a beautiful woman. He had known that, inside him, though he had never given much thought to it. She was in her late thirties, and while her life here had not been easy, yet she had been filled with laughter, with love for her two sons, and no task had ever seemed too hard for her.

His hand lifted a blanket from the floor. He put it across her body, her face. He turned then and stared down at his young brother.

"Jamey," he whispered, and the coldness in him settled into a hard knot.

He went out into the yard and bent to examine the hoof-marks, the prints of the feet. For a long time he studied them, moving here and there, committing those marks to memory. He walked away from the cabin, up the grassy slope, and saw where the riders had gone. Northward, toward Fort King.

Still he did not believe that the men who had done this were soldiers. The boots they had worn were not the sort the Dragoons wore. And no foot soldier would be riding a horse. But if they had not been soldiers, who were they?

He shrugged. He would know that in a few days.

Jackson Devereaux turned and put his face toward the cabin. He had an unpleasant chore before him and the sooner he attended to it, the sooner he would be able to leave.

He dug the two graves beside that of his father. A large one for his mother, a smaller one for Jamey. He would put his mother beside his father and Jamey next to her. She had been fond of Jamey, perhaps because he looked so much like their father. He himself had his mother's looks.

Still wrapped in the blanket, he carried her body to the grave and knelt to drop it into it. He went back for Jamey, and placed him in the ground. He shoveled in the dirt, pausing occasionally to stare about him at the gathering dusk.

When he was done, he stood a moment, head bowed. He knew few prayers, his mother had not been a particularly religious woman. Yet she had taught him the Lord's Prayer, and so he said it now, solemnly.

By rights, there should be a wooden cross above these new graves, as there was one above the body of his father. But he had no time for that. He must be off after those men who had done this. He must come up to them as swiftly as he could.

He turned from the graves and saw the body of the sow. Lifting his hunting knife, he cut strips of meat from the body, and making a small fire in the yard, he cooked and ate the meat.

He ought to smoke that meat, it was wasteful to leave it there. Yet he could carry little but his rifle and his powder-horn and shot-bag with him. He wanted to travel fast, and anything else would only slow him down.

He picked up his shot bag, filled it with the lead balls he had made in the little mold that had been his father's. He took the gunpowder too, filling his powder-horn and then making a small pack in which to store the rest of the gun powder.

There was nothing here that he would need, he told himself, casting his glance about the cabin. He would eat on the trail when he was hungry, he could make do with what the land offered. His knife was at his side, his rifle was leaning against the wall near the door, waiting for him to pick it up.

He paused, then, remembering.

In the bureau near his mother's bed, there was a can non-barreled flintlock pistol that had belonged to his father. His mother had kept that gun as a memento, telling him what a fine shot his father had been with it.

It would be wasteful to leave it here. Besides, he was almost as good a shot with that pistol as he was with his Kentucky rifle. He took it from the drawer, thrust it into his belt.

Picking up his rifle, he closed the cabin door, set the wooden pin in place so that a wind would not open it. He walked across the yard and up the far slope, turning only once, when he had reached the crown of the hill, to stare back at what had been his only home.

He swung away then, and as the moon rose into the sky, he padded lightly along through the grassy flatlands. He could not track those riders by moonlight, but from time to time he could kneel down and feel with sensitive fingertips along the ground until he came to a hoof-mark. Then he would rise up and trot on.

Almost all that night he trotted, knowing no tiredness, no muscular ache. Only toward dawn did he halt and throw himself on the ground, knowing it would do no good to wear himself out. He would have a far piece to travel before he caught up with them.

In the morning he rose up and padded on, ignoring his belly that told him he wanted food. Food could wait.

The trail was easy to follow. Those riders had made no effort to hide their tracks. They must have figured that the woman and the boy were the only occupants of the cabin, that they had no reason to fear pursuit.

He trotted until night darkened the land around him. Exhaustion was setting in then. He knew well enough that it would be foolish to go on when he needed sleep. He was hungry, too, but that could wait. He had drunk his fill of water at the brooks and occasional streams past which he had run. He would eat in the morning.

There was a deadness in him next day when he resumed his trotting. Now the loss he had suffered began to hit home to him. His laughing mother was gone, never again would he taste the fluffy biscuits she made nor that spicy sauce with which she made any fish taste like a special treat. Those pies she had baked from the berries Jamey picked, the tarts, the jams she had prepared they were gone. Never again would he taste them.

And little Jamey! He had been teaching him how to hunt, as he had long ago taught him how to fish. Jamey would have made a splendid woodsman, a wonderful hunter. He had looked forward to taking him on those hunting trips, out there on the flatlands, or in the forests to the north.

He had long since passed Fort Dade, he was swinging wide to avoid Fort King, as well. The riders had not stopped at those forts, and it came to him that they wanted to avoid being seen by the Army just as much as he himself wanted to catch up to them.

He was closer to them now, they had been in no hurry, they had not suspected that someone might trail them up from that cabin beside the river. Soon now, he would see their campfire, he would be able to see their faces.

It took him two more days of steady running, sometimes far into the night. His body felt no exhaustion, he was too angry to permit himself the luxury of tiredness. His legs carried him steadily, almost as fast as a horse might travel unless it were set to a gallop.

And then one evening, as the stars were showing themselves and the moon was a pale crescent in the sky, he saw the wink of fire-flames. Instantly he fell to the ground, moving forward at a crawl.

He could hear their voices before he saw them. They were talking in normal tones, and once in a while, a man would laugh. That laughter grated inside him, he imagined that they were talking about his mother and how they had enjoyed her.

It took him close to an hour, and it was dark when he came within twenty feet of that camp. The high grasses hid his body, no one saw him, or even suspected he was out there, watching as a wild animal might watch.

There were six of them, men wearing fine clothes, claw hammer tails to their riding jackets, riding breeches and black leather boots. They spoke well, their voices were cultured, they seemed arrogant and assured.

With them were two Indians.

They were Creeks, who were related in a sense to the Seminoles. They were strong men, lean, with hard muscles rippling under their buckskin jackets. They were the ones who were preparing the meal, he saw, they had been brought along because they knew this land, having hunted here in the past.

Jackson Devereaux slid his Kentucky rifle forward, yet he did not shoot. He wanted to know more about these men who had raped his mother, then killed her and little Jamey. He listened carefully to their voices, putting the sound of those voices away in his head so he would know them again when he heard them.

Their faces too, he studied, their bodies and their way of walking or moving. One man was tall and rather thin, with a high-pitched voice, another was stouter, with a reddish face and a throaty chuckle; one after the other he made mental notes of them so he would know these men when he saw them again.

Slowly, he eased nearer, until he could make sense out of what they said. Like an animal he lay there, only his eyes alive.

Hugh Bancroft was saying: "I still think we should have pressed on, no matter what you say. We haven't seen a single Seminole, and that's why we came down here."

Another man said, with a hint of laughter in his voice, "But we had ourselves a time, now didn't we—with that back woods-woman? How she screeched when we laid her! How she fought! Raked my cheeks, she did, with those nails of hers."

"Trouble with you, George, is that you're always the polite gentleman. Think you were having a Creole woman in New Orleans, the way you acted."

"Might be you're right, Edward. But she was a woman, all right—once we got her started."

A man who had been sitting with his head lowered, and whom the others had addressed as Lawrence, murmured without raising his head: "Only did it to save her boy."

A thick chuckle was his answer. "Didn't like that. Put a knife into him after I'd had her. Served her right."

Jackson Devereaux listened, and remembered the names by which they addressed one another. Then, as one of the Creeks rose from the fire to announce that the deer-meat was ready to be eaten, he slid the rifle forward.