We hopped out and gathered in a small group, glad to remove the moss we had used to protect and conceal us. If there were Indians here, I figured there was no harm in it—we would be dead already. I took my covering and placed it back in the boat while watching several others do the same.
“Why are we stopping so close to the bastards?” Red asked.
“Yea. There’s no reason. What if they come after the treasure?” another commented.
“You can do what you want. I’m not leaving here without Rory.” I had figured this was going to happen and had no other answer.
“Boy’s got a case of it, I guess. What about you, Rhames? You’re awfully quiet over there,” Red said.
Rhames was still covered in moss and only the occasional flash of moonlight reflecting off the metal rifle barrel revealed his position. I made a note to tarnish the steel of our weapons. We watched him, wondering if we were indeed safe or should replace the moss we had taken off when he came toward us.
“Someone’s been here,” he said, as he took the moss from his head and sat on the bow of one of the canoes.
He looked sick, and I remembered the pained look on his face before I took the watch and discovered the trader. We had been moving nonstop since then, and I had failed to check on him.
“Looks like about ten men camped here,” Red said. “There’s a firepit, cold now, but the embers are still there, so they were here after the rain.”
I thought back to the rain and realized it was only a handful of days ago. “Why would a group camp here when the main village is only an hour or so away?”
“Now you’re thinking,” Rhames said, but stopped trying to mask the pain on his face.
I started running scenarios in my mind. Had the party been made up of Indians from the village close by, they either would not have camped here or would have built the fire on the open beach. There were rumors that the Army was rounding up the Indians in the north to secure them on reservations out west, and those who chose to fight were fleeing south and taking refuge in this area. But Army scouts would have left no trace, and a larger company would have been well armed and had no need to conceal themselves.
Suddenly, we looked up and found we were surrounded by a dozen men with rifles cocked. Before we could react, a dark-skinned man dressed in once-fancy pants, a dress shirt, and bowler hat moved forward to take our guns. As I looked at the group, they were all dressed in similar fashion; the only native clothing was the moccasins on their feet. European blood was clearly evident in their features—a mixture of Creek Indian and whoever was hunting, trapping or trading on their lands at the time.
One man moved forward. “Who leads you?” he asked in English, clearly his native tongue.
I moved forward.
He laughed. “A boy?”
I looked at him and realized we were of the same age. “And you look no older than me.”
He ignored the comment and shocked me when he extended his hand in the fashion recently made popular by Thomas Jefferson. “I am Osceola.”
I gave him my name, moved toward him, took his rough hand in mine and squeezed. “Are you the Seminoles?” I asked.
“We are. I lead my tribe. And you look to be outlaws or pirates,” he said.
I saw his eyes move toward the boats lit in the moonlight and followed his gaze, thankful that we had left the moss covering the chests. He looked back at me.
“And what is a bunch of white pirates doing so far inland?”
I told him briefly of our escape from the Navy and the run-in with the tribe just downstream. For the time being I kept the rescue and abduction of Rory to myself, not knowing how they would react.
“You run from Andrew Jackson as well?”
So we were allied in that regard. I had heard the name, but didn’t know how it applied to us. “Yes. The Navy is after us.”
The Indians still held their rifles, but they lowered their weapons. Several of the men were grouped in the area where Rhames had found the fire, and I saw the spark of a flint. “No fires,” I said. “We just had a run-in with the Indians downstream.”
“Interesting. From what I have heard, they wouldn’t want trouble from a small band of white men. They would let the land deal with you.” He looked at me.
“Truth be told, we stole these canoes from a band further downstream and rescued a woman they had hostage.” There was no use lying to him. I suspected that we would need their help if we were to rescue Rory.
He left me standing there and went to his men by the fire. Our group came together whispering questions to each other, as we watched the Indians gather and do the same. They knew nothing of the treasure, or we would probably be dead, broke, or both already. What we shared, and the reason we might still be standing, was we had a common enemy in the United States government. Somehow, I needed to work this to our advantage. Before I had an answer, they broke their huddle, and Osceola came toward me.
“We will help you get the woman back. It seems we have more in common than avoiding Andrew Jackson.”
Before I could ask, he explained.
“This land here, where the river meets the big lake, is the only habitable spot that we can both protect and thrive in. The tribe that lives here has rejected our offers of peace, and we were on our way back to wait for our war band. We have no choice but to deal with them if we want to survive. They claim to be original Calusa, with pure bloodlines, and look at us as outcasts with mixed blood. I have tried to explain that we are the same and share the same enemies, but they rejected us. Now we must do what we need to survive.”
I understood his plight, being from mixed blood myself. Although my family claimed to be Dutch, we had a line of Semitic blood that forced us to immigrate rather than be persecuted. I suspected Osceola shared the same fate with his mixed heritage. “But how can we help? We are just a handful of poorly armed pirates.”
He slapped my back, “My new friend. We will see.”
19
Osceola sent scouts on foot both up and downriver to see if the other tribe was stalking us, but both groups came back several hours later and reported no sign of the other tribe. Apparently the abduction of Rory had satisfied them, and they were content to let us go. Osceola had no answer for whether the tribe from who we stole the canoes and liberated Rory, and the tribe that held her now, were related. I suspected they were, as this was the first we had heard of Seminoles this far south. It also made sense that they controlled, traveled, and traded along the length of the entire river, meaning we would not only have to deal with them to free the girl, but also to gain access to the big lake.
We started several fires after Osceola’s men returned to cook and keep warm. The temperature had plummeted, and I noticed a haze around the moon, a sure sign the weather was about to change. He told me of his struggle with the Army, and I recounted the tale of our escape from the Navy, as well as our plans to head south through the river of grass to the Keys.
At this, he laughed. “You pirates are going to stumble your way into the mouth of a waiting alligator. Not one of you is a tracker or guide.”
I gave him an odd look. “All we have to do is head south, and we will end up at the tip of the peninsula.” I pulled the map from my pocket and showed him our intended route.
He took the parchment and studied it. “You have no idea what lies between here and there.” He pointed at the map. “The Indians here say there are miles and miles of pointed grass they call sawgrass and water. No landmarks. There is talk that no one has ever made that journey and lived to tell of it. I fear if you go that way alone, there will be six fewer pirates in the world.” He laughed again.