Citizens Creek (15 page)

“Who she belong to? This Bella?” Amy asked.

Bella squatted in the dirt with the girls, eyes on him the while.

“The story is long, for later. Maybe she belongs to us.”

Amy didn’t push.

“You look fed,” she said to Cow Tom. “And mostly whole.”

“Florida was a trial but I am returned,” he said. “How came you to be here?”

“Whites came sniffing round not long after Chief Yargee sent you away. We tried to wait for the warriors to come home from Florida, to Remove together, but settler gangs weren’t agreeable. They raided us, drove us off the land, and the army walked us to the hellhole at Mobile Point. And nowhere near Indian Territory yet. Between runaways and sickness on the march, for each five we lost one.”

“Who is lost?” asked Cow Tom.

“Chief Yargee kept us together, but Sarah the cook is gone, exhaustion, and Peter’s gone, fever.” Peter was Yargee’s youngest son by his youngest wife, a frail boy since birth, but the chief’s favorite. “Couldn’t do nothing for neither, slipped past my herbs’ power to remedy or ease. We buried them both by the trail, barely time to add stones to the graves to feed the spirits of the dead.”

Cow Tom revived, latching on to a grim possibility in this sad piece of news. He wondered if Yargee losing a member of his family would make his case easier or harder to argue.

“Mobile Point was sickness and death from the start, even before the yellow fever,” continued Amy. “We struggled for months, scratching to stay alive. When the military finally let us break camp, we were ready, anything better than staying put and waiting to die. They told us we’d go by boat, to be on the wharf ready to leave the same night, so we brought the sick on litters. But for two days, a storm blew and the boats couldn’t lay alongside the wharf. The military ordered us to return to the old camps, but we said no. We wouldn’t go back, none of us. Malinda was too sick to move. Everyone with a taste of dysentery or fever. Creeks. Military. Officers. Agents. Negro. Once the boats could land, we set sail.”

“And then here?”

Amy nodded. “Pass Christian, Mississippi. Better than Mobile
Point. The whites don’t raid, yellow fever mostly passed, and rations flow, but we can’t stay on here. We been waiting for the Arkansas River to get high enough for a steamboat.”

“Did Yargee save anything? Cattle? Seed?”

“Alabama’s gone, but they say Chief Yargee hangs yet to a bag of the tribe’s money from selling the cattle to the government,” said Amy.

She set her jaw in the manner he knew well, but something was different. She’d lost a tooth.

“Part of that is my freedom money,” Cow Tom said. There was little time to waste. “Is Chief Yargee here?”

“Yonder.” She pointed. “He wouldn’t Remove until his braves came back.”

“Your foot?”

“Too much walking, carrying the girls. It’ll heal, given time.”

“I got business can’t wait,” said Cow Tom.

He left her with Bella and his daughters, she favoring one foot over the other, and Bella buzzing about them all, making them comfortable, as if she’d found a role she could understand. Without turning round, he was aware of Amy looking after him as he disappeared into the darkness, but there was nothing for it but to try to spin his plan.

Chief Yargee wasn’t hard to find, now they were in the right section. The chief sat with one of his wives inside a cowhide tepee. Cow Tom stood before him, waiting to speak.

“War went on so long, thought none of you might come back,” said the chief.

Only a year gone, but Chief Yargee looked much older than when Cow Tom had seen him last, his braid dull and sloppy, his shoulders stooped.

“My service with General Jesup is finished,” Cow Tom announced. “They take us all to Fort Gibson now.”

Chief Yargee nodded.

“Not all returned.” Another of Yargee’s linguisters perished in Florida, and Cow Tom detailed the movements of those he knew about, braves and Negroes, a bearer of new information.

“Months they kept us waiting here,” said Chief Yargee.

“Today’s tide is high, and soon as everybody’s mustered out, they plan to set to sea again before the week’s change.”

“So we move on,” said Yargee.

“There’s opportunity here,” said Cow Tom. “A special case.”

Chief Yargee’s wife brought him a pat of tobacco and his pipe. He looked weary, not eager but not indifferent either. Cow Tom talked on.

“As your linguister, I bear the brunt of dealings with Wachenas,” he said. “My loyalty is always to the tribe.”

Chief Yargee nodded, patient.

“I know a woman who can become part of the tribe.”

Chief Yargee sat upright on his worn deer-hide floor pelt, listening and smoking. He was interested.

“The Wachenas may try to claim her, but she will be loyal to you.” Cow Tom went off script. “She is my mother, and must be claimed. None need know that connection. The great Chief Yargee must begin again, on new land. She’d be of use, can take Sarah’s place, skilled in cooking and sewing. Or work harvest.”

“I’ve no appetite to get in the middle of ownership for someone belonging to another,” said Yargee in Mvskoke.

Cow Tom could still read the man. Chief Yargee was cautious but not immovable.

“I do all talking with officials,” said Cow Tom, “in translation.”

Yargee grunted, considering, the pot not yet sufficiently sweet.

“If money held for my own freedom is safe,” Cow Tom added, “it goes toward my mother.”

Chief Yargee pondered, now fully engaged. He wasn’t a greedy man, but perhaps considered the tribe’s needs for replacement cattle, for seed, for tools, for Cow Tom’s sweat in working the new
place. Maybe he was just tired of so many months surrounded by Wachenas without Cow Tom as buffer. “Some cattle were stole, but gold and paper are with me still,” he said.

Cow Tom had nothing left to bargain. Chief Yargee held the future now. He remained silent, letting the chief come to his own mind.

“I’ll not turn her in, but won’t argue claim should another submit a case.”

“Good enough,” said Cow Tom.

Chapter 21

BY THE FIRST
sundown at Pass Christian, Bella warmed to her role as the girls’ companion, and sat in the dirt with Maggie and Malinda playing a child’s game. The girls developed an instant fondness for her, trailing after wherever she went, and Bella, among the filth and squalor, blossomed with the attention.

In private, Cow Tom took Amy aside and described who Bella was, and his mother’s strange blankness. He left nothing out. In all their years, he’d told Amy the barest minimum of his beginnings, but if there was risk to take, he thought it fair she know now. He laid out his plan, dreading Amy’s reaction to his proposed gamble, her worry for the rest of them should Bella be caught out in the masquerade.

“Whether she knows or not, she’s family,” Amy said. “We must try.”

Cow Tom let out a long breath he scarcely knew he’d been holding. “I guess some families are trickier to be part of than others,” he said.

Amy didn’t try to hide her surprise at his rare attempt at lightheartedness. And when she chuckled softly, he believed they had a chance at carrying out the scheme.

“We got to make Bella and the girls ready,” Amy said.

They found the threesome behind the jury-rigged blankets. The dim gloom of encroaching night had closed in, the wind a-howl,
and Cow Tom drew close to make out Bella’s features. She sobered at his proximity.

“We’re taking you to Indian Territory,” he said. Bella’s eyes went wide. “You mustn’t speak except by demand, and from now, Sarah is your name. Only answer to Sarah, no matter who or what. Chief Yargee is your master.”

Bella dropped her head. She wouldn’t look at him.

“Understand?”

She nodded.

“Any strangers come round,” Amy told the girls, “keep behind the blankets with Aunt Sarah.”

Cow Tom tucked his mother away with the others in the cramped space, out of sight behind the rude tangle of branches and wood-bark roofing and strings of blankets and mud. He slept the night in the frigid cold, despite the brutal bouts of rain, all of them now a part of Chief Yargee’s entourage.

By the following day, he’d fallen into the rhythm of the camp at Pass Christian, organized around ration retrieval, idleness, eating, sleeping, and dying. He waffled between thankfulness and gripping fear. Thankfulness for reunion with Amy and his girls and Chief Yargee, thankfulness for future transport by boat, allowing more time for Amy’s foot to heal before the marching sure to come, thankfulness for Schoolboy having turned a blind eye as Cow Tom separated Bella from the Seminole Negroes. But more often, Cow Tom obsessed on the slavers prowling the camp.

There were only a handful of them as near as he could tell, rough, low-class white men armed with pistols, and they lounged near the food- and supply-distribution points, or by the dock. Cow Tom made several trips round the encampment, assessing the situation, once catching sight of Schoolboy across the distance and tipping his hat, once seeking out Harry Island for a brief visit, but he was afraid to be gone for too long, and hurried back.

On the second day, the tide was high enough to allow the release of some of the Alabama Creeks from Pass Christian, Mississippi.
Cow Tom followed along behind the commotion, as two hundred from the holding camp were selected, rounded up, and led to the dock. They’d chosen the
Paragon
for the initial departure
,
and Cow Tom’s heart flagged when he realized that Schoolboy would sail without him on the first ship as it chugged its way up the mouth of the Mississippi. Yargee’s party would be left behind to wait their turn on the flotilla of ferries on the next leg of the journey toward Indian Territory. He had counted on Schoolboy’s sympathetic presence should things go wrong.

Worse, he watched the slavers spring to action once the
Paragon
began to load the Indians and their property—their Negroes and other assorted goods. No more lounging. The slavers insinuated themselves near the gangplank, checking each dark face as they trudged onto the boat. There was a fair amount of natural jostling in boarding, even pushing and shoving, and from his vantage point Cow Tom realized how difficult it would be to slip Bella undetected through that gauntlet when their time came. Difficult, but not impossible. They’d need luck.

That’s when he saw the curly-bearded man from Tampa Bay who’d tried to board the
Paragon
. The man Bella feared. How he’d made it to Pass Christian so quickly, Cow Tom didn’t know, but here he was, asserting his claims again. Cow Tom watched in horror as the white man plucked a small, dark woman from the mass of people before she could set foot on the gangplank, and separated her from the others, roughly yanking her by her arm, off to the side. No one stopped him this time.

Cow Tom ran all the way back to Yargee’s camp, relieved to find Bella and the girls out of sight behind the blankets, at play. He was unsure whether to tell Bella about the slaver or no. She was skittish enough already, and he decided not to spook her further. When he described what he saw at the dock to Amy, she agreed. They needed a better plan.

Each passed day was a torment. Cow Tom made sure Bella stayed hidden, and spent hours on end with Amy. He pressed her
for more detail of their ordeals in his yearlong absence, not only to understand what they’d been through, but also to hear the steady stream of her voice. He thought to find Harry again, but refused to leave their little encampment unprotected.

On the sixth day, toward dusk, Yargee’s party was finally assigned to leave. They marched to the dock in a stormy squall, carrying their belongings. Amy leaned on Bella and Cow Tom, Bella’s printed head scarf wrapped around her foot as binding rag. Cow Tom was bareheaded, the driving rain and wind pelting him as they pushed forward. It was Amy’s idea, once Cow Tom told her the story of the
Paragon
, for Bella to hide any special marker a slave catcher might recognize. Bella pulled Cow Tom’s hat down low on her face to cover the port stain, and wore a dead boy’s leggings and tunic.

Cow Tom couldn’t believe the number of Creeks at the dock when they arrived, and still they came, hundreds upon hundreds. A fleet of ferries waited, small sailing vessels that hardly looked equal to the windblown sea between Pass Christian and New Orleans, their next stop, where they would board larger steamships contracted by the U.S. Army. If they could get past the slave catchers here, Cow Tom thought, then he would worry about New Orleans.

Yargee’s party huddled at the dock—three of his wives and their children, six returning Creek braves and their families, Cow Tom, Amy and the girls, Bella-turned-Sarah, and the family of the other black interpreter killed in Florida. Several slavers buzzed about, but he hadn’t yet caught sight of Curly-beard. Cow Tom tried to appear calm. Bella was close to breaking apart, and truth be told, he wasn’t that far behind. They stayed close to Chief Yargee, both because he was their owner and because Cow Tom was carrying Yargee’s sack of gold, their restart stake in Indian Territory. It seemed crazy to set sail in this weather, but the sooner they boarded, the better.

Several Creeks around Cow Tom began to complain, afraid, unwilling to start the journey in the dark. Even Chief Yargee grumbled, in Mvskoke, and one official offered up several bottles of whiskey
for the passing. The official had partaken himself already, but the bottles weren’t for Negroes. Cow Tom wouldn’t have minded something to take the edge from this night, but he needed his wits about him. Some Creeks on the dock accepted the liquor, some did not. Chief Yargee declined, but dissatisfaction grew louder, until the announcement came.

“We sail tonight.”

There began a process, with military men dividing Indians into groups for the available boats, pointing and shoving. Cow Tom still didn’t see Curly-beard, but there were far more people at the dock than when the
Paragon
sailed, and he hoped they could get aboard without confrontation. He made sure all of his were accounted for, Amy and his girls and Bella, wanting to be near the front to board the boat as soon as they could, just before Yargee.