"You talwa!" she exclaimed, after McGilliveray had talked to her about what Alan did in the Royal Navy.
"Not a chief, dear," Alan laughed. "My captain is chief. I am his mikko. Tell her, McGilliveray."
With Soft Rabbit by his side, he felt charitable enough to accept the whole world, even McGilliveray and his ponderous lecturing.
"And an imathla lubotskulgi," McGilliveray informed her to her great delight. "A little warrior, too young to be an imathla thlukulgi, a big warrior chief. But he has killed many foes, haven't you, Lewrie? How many, do you think, so that I may praise you to the skies to her?"
"Well, I've fought two duels, cut one and killed the other. With swords, mind, not pistols at twenty paces," Alan bragged. "Damme, maybe a dozen more in boarding melees."
"Most impressive."
"And God knows how many with artillery," Alan concluded.
Soft Rabbit was thrilled that her man was such a bloody-handed warrior, and her awe of him, which was already considerable, went to new heights of reverence after McGilliveray translated that to her.
"She says she is honored to be the wife of such a brave young man, and is sure that your son shall be a man-slaughtering Hector as well, she'll make sure of it. Man-Killer will be his father and will teach him to be a warrior."
"Man-Killer? He'll be her husband when I'm gone?"
"No, you misunderstand. It's more important to Muskogee who your mother's relatives are," McGilliveray went on, happy to find an opportunity to preach. "The husband and father is not of the mother's clan, where she shall live. She's Wind Clan now, a very important clan in our way of life, and Man-Killer and all the males are her uncles, so to speak, and they fill the role of the father when it comes to rearing the child. You are only of their fire, anhissi, which means friend. What clan you are doesn't matter, as long as you weren't Wind Clan. Marrying into your own clan is a sin."
"She'll be well-treated, won't she?" Alan pressed.
"Do you really care, Lewrie?" McGilliveray asked, almost mocking him.
"Damme, yes I do care," he shot back, putting an arm around her, which she understood more than words, and she came up from her pad of blanket between the thwarts to sit at his side.
"Yes, she shall be well-treated," McGilliveray finally softened, after taking a long moment to consider Alan's fierceness on the subject. "She will have an honored place in my mother's huti, and in the clan. I suppose, technically speaking, she could never re-marry as long as you are alive and could come back to claim her. But since we both know that you shall never see her again, it would best if she used your absence at the next Green Corn Ceremony as proof that the marriage didn't take. Love-matches can be repented then, if they aren't working out, even if children have already resulted. Being with child will make her more desirable as a wife, since it proves she is fecund and able to bear children. She could do right well."
"I'd like to leave something for her, something to help her in future. What do you suggest?" Alan asked in a soft voice, and some of his concern and sadness must have communicated to Rabbit, for she tucked her head onto his shoulder and hugged him back, eyes downcast.
"As a sop to your conscience?" McGilliveray snapped.
"Damn you to Hell, McGilliveray, I've had it with your bitterness at being born only half-white or half-Muskogee. What passes between us is no matter, though, as long as the girl prospers. And my child."
There, I've said it, he thought with sudden wonder. I've claimed the brat as mine, and her as my responsibility.
"And what do you want for your child?"
"I'd like him to grow up English, frankly, with proper schooling and all. There's no bloody future in growing up Indian."
"Hardly possible unless our mission is successful. And that after he's been raised Muskogee for his first few years. Best let him be what he'll be and let it go at that, Lewrie. I'll be staying on with the tribe, though, and I'll see that he knows who his father was, and what his legacy is. I am truly sorry for you about this."
"Then give me a little help here," Alan demanded.
"Blankets and such for the present. Make her a rich little girl when she goes back to the White Town. Her own skillets and pots and all the needles and thread you can, that sort of thing. Any spare shirts you have. Maybe some sailcloth you can spare. For the future, I can tell her the value of money, and you could leave her some. Small coins would be best, pence and shillings, so she can buy from the traders who will come. Could you come up with about twenty pounds in change?"
"Yes, I could."
"At five pence here and a shilling there, it will keep her and her babe in style for years," McGilliveray promised him. "Good, then," Alan said, giving her another assuring hug.
The next noon found them at the mouth of the Ochlockonee River, in the long narrow inlet between the two arms of swamp and marsh that formed the hiding place for the Guarda Costa sloop San lldefonso. It was too soon to expect the sloop to be there, but they were close enough to deep water to have a good view of the ocean beyond and could spot her arrival when she appeared.
They made camp on the east bank, though it was not much to look at, given a choice. Their new Muskogee and Seminolee allies would be coming down the east bank, so they had to suffer in silence. The ground was half-marshy, half-sand-spit, strewn with sea-oats and dune grasses, saw grass and palmettos, and cypress and pine inland to their rear. It teemed with biting flies, mosquitoes and gnats, and but for the sea breeze would have been uninhabitable for very long. They pitched lean-tos of cane and palmetto fronds for shelter and settled down to wait. Cashman sent some of his fusiliers out on picket, and the young Creek warriors went off to hunt silently with bows and arrows, and to scout the ground.
While Soft Rabbit and the other unmarried travel girls set up their pots and gathered firewood, Alan and Cashman went to the shore and found a place to spy out the sea.
"By my reckonin', this is the day you wanted the boat to come back for us," Cashman said. "If she makes it."
"Should have been safe as houses out there, out of sight of land," Alan said, extending his telescope and patiently scanning the horizon.
"Well, Red Coat… Tom… was tellin' me that when they took Fort St. George at Pensacola, Galvez fetched a fleet of sixty-four ships from Havana for the job."
"Sixty-four?" Alan scoffed. "They've not ten decent sail of the line in the entire West Indies. Damn few useful frigates, either. Most were merchantmen, I'll wager. You can depend on my captain to come back for us, you'll see."
"Two weeks, three weeks, is a long time to lay out there and kill time, though. Seriously, if he doesn't come, what could we do?" Cashman pressed.
"Sail off in the boats, I expect. I did it once before up in the Chesapeake, and that was with river barges never meant for the open sea. I could do it again, a lot better than before, with the launch and the gig."
"It's a devilish long way to Jamaica, though, ain't it," Cashman grunted, pulling off his moccasins and spreading his toes in the dry white sand. "What, two days' sail to Tampa Bay, another two to the Keys?"
"Let's not go borrowing sorrow so quickly," Alan replied. "If things go that badly, it might make more sense to borrow horses from the Creeks and go overland to Charleston. If traders can do it, then there's a chance we could, with some help from our new allies. Tonight's the night Svensen was due back with the sloop. If he doesn't make it, then we might have to change our plans, but I'd give him at least two days' grace before I started worrying for real."