Page 79 of Freedom's Kiss
Chapter 32
Florida, 1835
“What we gonna do now?” Temperance sat cross-legged on the raised floor, her infant daughter suckling at her breast.
Her eldest son and Otter had been sent out while their parents and family members talked. Later Winnie and Nokosi would explain all to their son, but Winnie wanted to protect him for as long as she could.
William leaned against a nearby tree, chewing on the stalk of a sugar cane and spitting out the grainy fibers. He seemed disengaged at first glance, but if anyone were to venture a closer look, they would see a man deep in thought.
Asa stood with feet braced and arms crossed against his chest. Nokosi laid a hand to Asa’s shoulder. “As a people, we have two choices. We can join Charley Emathla at Fort Brooke and board the ships that will take us west, or we can follow Micanopy of the Alachuas and the young warrior Osceola and resist the whites’ insistence that we be removed from our homeland.”
“Ain’t no choice, if you ask me.” Asa’s eyes burned with anger.
William pushed off the tree and chucked the sugar cane into the far bushes. He wiped his hands on his buckskins. “Have you met Osceola, Nokosi?”
Winnie’s gaze swung to her husband. The male members of her family did not often speak so plainly to each other in her or Temperance’s presence, and she didn’t want to alert them that females sat among them now.
Nokosi nodded slowly. “He has experienced his own pain at the hand of white men from his past. Though he is friends with the agent Wiley Thompson, I do not think even that friendship will stop him from raising his hand and fighting. Already they have stoked a fire in him by refusing to sell guns and ammunition to him and our people, claiming doing so treated him like a slave.” He looked out over the horizon. “I heard him claim that he would make the white man red with blood before they made him black.”
Asa ground his teeth while Nokosi sent Winnie and Isaac a fleeting look of apology.
“So he means to fight.” Isaac interjected.
“And strike first,” Nokosi affirmed. “President Jackson and his agents have already threatened force. Osceola and others do not want to wait until the snake strikes. Better to cut off the head before the poison of venom is in our skin.”
“Does he have a plan?” William asked.
“The warriors have been talking, though I have not heard it from his own lips. Small skirmishes have already broken out on both sides. One report claims more soldiers are marching into Florida every day. The snake knows his enemy is closing in and is coiling in preparation.”
Asa slammed a fist into his open palm. “We should attack before they get more men and weapons. Or we got no chance of winnin’.”
William agreed.
“I do not think Osceola will wait long before he doles out punishment, both to those he finds traitors among his own people and those who wish to erase our way of life.”
Winnie found her voice for the first time since they’d started talking. “What would become of us?” Already they’d been forced from land that yielded to their hand. The inhabitable space left to the south were rivers of grass guarded by alligator and the razor teeth of yucca and saw palmetto plants. The marshes would not be hospitable to seeds of squash and corn. She feared starvation more than capture.
“Though a fire in the forest can destroy all in its path, still life can flourish. The heart that beats inside you and all our people is that of a survivor. We know this land, for it is in our blood. It will not turn its back on us in our hour of need.” Assurance shone from Nokosi’s gaze. “And if need be, the land itself will hide us from our enemies.”
“But what about the treaty of Payne’s Landing?” Temperance lifted her daughter to her shoulder and gently pounded on the baby’s back to release air from her tummy. “Didn’t the seven chiefs agree and sign the truce?”
“By force.” William tilted his head down to look at his wife. “And they didn’t have the power to decide for every band and tribe.”
Temperance broke eye contact with her husband and kissed the downy head next to her own. “Wouldn’t it be better though? We’d at least still be alive and together.”
William squatted in front of her. “Would we? You think they’d let us get on that boat? Only place we’d go would be back to slavery and then the grave.”
“What then?” Soft and breathy, her voice filled with fear. Winnie reached over and squeezed her sister’s arm.
Asa’s hands fell to his side as he slapped at his thigh. “I didn’t risk everything to get my family out of slavery just to give up without a fight.”
Isaac stepped closer to Asa. “I agree.”
Winnie watched her husband. His face remained impassive, as if the conversation flowing around him didn’t touch his own life. She knew the flood of emotion the man held in firm check. Had felt it in his kiss and embrace. Seen it as he watched his son practice with a bow or play a game of stickball with other children.
Slowly he nodded before meeting Winnie’s gaze. “What is the saying that your friend Martha likes to repeat? The one about the seasons.”
A small smile softened her lips. “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up.”
Only his eyes reflected that anything moved within Nokosi. “Just as the autumn winds blow and bring about a season of change, the time to fight has come.”
Temperance tightened her hold on her daughter, tears sounding in her voice, though her face remained dry against the emotion. “I’m scared. I can’t bear for our family to be torn apart again.”
Winnie shifted beside her sister and drew Temperance to her side. “Sometimes we get a say in life, and sometimes we don’t. Being born to Master Rawlings, ain’t no one asked us if we wanted that. But we broke free, and now we get a say. Not just for us”—she laid her hand on the baby’s back—“but for our children as well.”
Temperance glanced down, her cheek caught between her teeth. Winnie pressed on. “Either way, we’re leavin’ these children a legacy. The say you get is, do you wanna leave them a legacy of slavery and fear or a legacy of freedom?”
