Citizens Creek (23 page)

Gramma Amy motioned for Rose to bring the basket. She removed a green sprig and chewed until just soft, spitting out the juice and dividing the pulpy remains into pieces. “Rub this on the baby’s gums and let her suck to keep her quiet,” she instructed Rose. “Everybody else get ready to move.”

Not too far away, the grass moved. Gramma Amy held up her hand for silence, turning her good ear first one way and then another to identify direction. After a moment of stillness, there came the sound of low-toned moaning.

Cooah, coo, coo.

Knife blade in front and ready to strike, Amy replicated the mourning dove’s call.

Cooah.

The echoing response came closer. Rose set down the basket with her grandmother’s medicines and put one finger to her lips to caution Elizabeth to stillness. The girl’s almond eyes were wet with fear, but she didn’t move or make a sound. Rose drew out her knife and tightened her grip around the handle.

The tall prairie grass parted, and Grampa Cow Tom stepped through the wild, damp pastureland, followed by the old cowpuncher who lived in the bunkhouse.

Rose bowed her head in thanks. Her grandfather carried his hunting rifle and a powder flask at his hip, and the cowpuncher waved a small pistol. They came on foot, which meant they’d had to leave the horses behind. Even if larger numbers made the group easier to track, more people were better.

Her grandfather took everything in at a glance, the drawn knives, the hasty supplies, the tall grass that would keep them hidden but not cover the direction of their escape once someone caught their trail.

“Hurry,” he said.

Chapter 31

THEY HEADED NORTH,
toward Fort Gibson, falling into routine for the first few hours. Grampa Cow Tom kept to the front, determining the path, always in the tall prairie grass, never on the trail in the open, and Gramma Amy guarded the rear, making sure no one fell behind. As the sun moved lower in the sky, they walked at her grandfather’s pace. He never once slackened, refusing to be slowed by the fading stamina of the children or even Granny Sarah. One or another adult picked up a child if the little one couldn’t continue. No one talked. Aunt Maggie put her infant daughter to breast, and the rest passed
puska
and gourds of water down the line, but still they moved forward.

There were twelve of them, men, women, children, babies, ranch hand, and Rose lost any sense of where they might be. The world had become dim gray sky above and mile after mile of spongy mud below. Wet grass slapped against her face and chilled air forced its way inside the woven blanket around her shoulders, and her ears filled with the steady footbeats of the others. Every step took them farther away from Twin.

At one point, they were forced to a narrow single file, and Elizabeth finally dropped Rose’s hand. From then, Rose kept Elizabeth directly in front of her, or carried her, Elizabeth’s arms in a sprawl around her torso. Rose was a good walker, but she was tired, and hungry, and feared they would never stop, but she trudged on, as did everyone else.

Just before nightfall, when the light was weak but they could still see, Grampa Cow Tom led them out of the pastureland and
down an embankment to a stream. The water slipped over the rocks near the shore, frigid-looking and frothy.

“We cross here so they can’t follow in the night.”

The stream was at least as wide as two full lengths of the corral back on their ranch. There was no telling how deep. Rose could swim, if need be, but what about the baby? What about their supplies? What about Granny Sarah and Elizabeth?

Her grandfather handed his rifle to her grandmother and splashed into the water first, testing the bottom, and walked until the water reached his waist. He was less than halfway across. He inched his way carefully, his body disappearing a bit at a time until, midway, he was almost completely submerged, the water up to his neck. Still he pushed on, and with the next few tentative steps, he began to reappear. First his shoulders, then his chest, then his waist, and finally, he was whole again on the other side of the stream. The light was close to fading completely.

“Maggie, Malinda, Amy,” he called on the other side. “Supplies first. Keep the guns and blankets dry.”

He plunged back into the water toward the larger group on the opposite shore, taking up a waiting station at the deepest part of the stream. Five waded in and staggered positions, holding guns and food and blankets over their heads, handing them daisy chain as they went back for more. Once there was a pile of reasonably dry items on the other side of the stream, they ferried the children across, one by one, and floated the cradleboard with the baby to safety, passing from hand to hand.

“I don’t want to,” whispered Elizabeth to Rose as they waited their turn, and Rose stayed with her as Cousin Emmaline and Cousin Lulu, her precious beaded doll clutched tight in one hand, forded the stream. Each time Rose thought Elizabeth ready, the girl panicked, and she let someone else take their place until they were the last two on the shore.

The night was almost fully upon them, the gloom settling in among the shadows. Rose thought of the Confederates in the
woods. With darkness, they’d make their attack on the ranch house, and when they found it empty, they might well come after them. There was no going back.

“You’ve been brave,” Rose said. “Pretend we’re warriors.”

Elizabeth remained unconvinced. “Where we going, Rose?” she asked.

Rose looked at her sister. Her small face was caked with grime, her hair tangled, wild, and filthy. Rose assumed she looked the same.

“Fort Gibson so the Confederates can’t get us. They have soldiers there.”

“I want to go home.”

Rose shut her eyes tight, fighting the panic. She wasn’t so much afraid of the water as of crossing a divide where Twin couldn’t follow. They had always communed in the graveyard, and only there, but she tried summoning him wordlessly now. She needed him by her side. One minute passed, and then two, but he didn’t come. She couldn’t feel him at all.

“We can’t go home,” she whispered to Elizabeth. “It isn’t safe at the ranch anymore.”

“I want to go home now.”

“We can’t,” Rose repeated. They could see the others on the other side, wet and cold, wrapping blankets around themselves.

In the weak light, Grampa Cow Tom signaled the two girls to the edge of the stream.

Elizabeth looked as if she would cry. “I dropped Dolly.”

The corncob figure was no longer in her sister’s limp hand, and as drained as Rose was, the sight of her sister threatened to undo her. “Elizabeth, you have to be a big girl now. Just a little longer. We cross the stream and when we get to Fort Gibson I’ll make you a new Dolly. And we’ll go back home once Union soldiers beat the Confederates.”

Rose knew better, but promised anyway. She’d seen the look of finality settled into Gramma Amy’s features when she joined them
by the gristmill. There was no home to go back to.

Elizabeth didn’t answer, but the willfulness abandoned her sister’s face.

“You first, and I’ll be right behind,” said Rose. “Go to Grampa.”

Elizabeth took a few tentative steps, shrinking back as soon as her foot touched the cold water, but Grampa Cow Tom grabbed her by the waist and pulled her toward him and swung her over his head. To her credit, Elizabeth didn’t cry out as she passed hand to hand, and once Rose saw her sister transported safe and mostly dry to the other bank, she rushed straight into the stream herself, wading out as far as she dared. She’d seen her grandfather’s tremble as he’d lifted Elizabeth. Even in the poor light, she’d seen the bluish tint to his skin and the rigidity of the muscles at his jaw, the involuntary chattering of his teeth and the beginnings of glazed eyes. He’d been in the cold water too long.

The iciness of the water penetrated Rose’s moccasins and her bare thighs under her trousers, and then the shock of cold threatened to numb her brain as well as her limbs, but she was determined not to make her grandfather fetch her. He moved slowly toward her, and she began to paddle like a dog, furiously, keeping her head above the water. Her grandfather grabbed her arms to pull her toward the center of the stream, and she tried to help by kicking harder. She was last to cross over, and her grandfather didn’t hand her to the next, but stayed beside her all the way to the other side. By the time she came out of the water, Ma’am had a blanket waiting for her.

Gramma Amy unwrapped the blanket from around her shoulders and bundled Grampa Cow Tom in it, wiping him dry. She ran her finger round the ridge of his nubbed ear, and he tilted toward her, laying his head on her breast for a moment before straightening again. Rose’s blanket was damp, but warmed her nonetheless, and for a few moments, she was lost, unable to move or think, her nonresponsive body attempting to adjust to the freezing night air.

“Elizabeth?” Rose finally managed.

Gramma Amy brought her sister to her, eyes dull, her manner listless. Rose roused herself, and opened her blanket, bringing the girl closer, wrapping them back up together, folding her limbs around her sister.

“I’m hungry, Rose,” said Elizabeth. “And cold.”

“Me too,” said Rose. “Lean into me.”

Elizabeth collapsed into Rose, and fell immediately into sleep. By the light of the quarter moon, Rose took in the wet, bedraggled group around her. The adults had already begun to shake off the effects of the icy water, reconstituting themselves slowly into a group away from the children and whispering among themselves. For Rose’s part, she wanted nothing more than to sit around a blazing fire, to have a proper meal and not take another step in any direction. She wanted to sleep, like Elizabeth, whose warm breath and clammy skin both comforted and alarmed her. Near the elm tree, Gramma Amy began to distribute shares of
puska
, enough to cut the pangs of hunger but not enough to satisfy. Rose shook Elizabeth awake and forced the girl to eat. Elizabeth chewed listlessly, as if from habit rather than hunger. She tucked herself into Rose and fell asleep again.

“We walk the stream tonight,” Grampa Cow Tom announced.

Rose understood at once. The Confederates were on horseback, and if they followed them to this side of the river tomorrow, their tracks would be too easy to follow. But how could this group continue on throughout the night without sleep, in the dark, wet and cold?

Gramma Amy moved first. She picked through the supplies, assessing as best she could in the dim moonlight what was salvageable and what wasn’t, and when she finished, she strapped her own pouch on her back before redistributing the supplies to carry among the tired refugees. Rose woke Elizabeth again. The girl looked at Rose, her eyes flat, but she stood when Rose stood, and accepted the blanket around her tiny shoulders when Rose enfolded her in it. She tried to grip the assigned skillet she’d carried so far already, but
the pan fell from her cold hands and dropped to the ground, and Elizabeth stared at her feet, confused. Rose picked the skillet up and added it to her own items.

“Hold to me,” she said to Elizabeth, and her sister grabbed onto the damp deerskin of Rose’s tunic. When the group, with Grampa Cow Tom in the lead, started north, Rose kept up as best she could, and Elizabeth followed behind her, hand on tunic, even when they moved into the water near the shore in single file, their feet so cold they could barely feel them. They didn’t walk fast, sometimes sloshing through the stream shin high, sometimes leaping from the exposed tops of rocks partially submerged in the water, but they walked steadily in the near dark, hour after hour, until her grandfather was satisfied they had put enough distance between themselves and the Confederates at the ranch. They filled their gourds with water and left the bank of the stream, and the road became darker than ever, without the water’s surface to serve as reflector for the disappearing sliver of moon.

Rose was barely conscious of walking anymore. She followed single-mindedly, without expectation or thought. The air was too cold for her damp tunic to dry, and the stiff material clung to her with a sickening clamminess that made the piercing chill worse. She abandoned carrying Elizabeth, now in Ma’am’s arms. Rose’s feet were so tender each step pained and her limbs felt like dead weights. But still she trudged on.

At last a thin band of pink appeared along the horizon, so gradual Rose didn’t identify dawn at first, but suddenly she was aware of more than the dark, hypnotic movement of shapes directly ahead, aware that she used her eyes to see as much as her muscles to move and her heart to pump. She forced herself to look forward and
backward, craning her neck, luxuriating in the alien movement. The group was spread out in a ragged line, and she was almost at the tail end, the old cowpuncher up near the front, Gramma Amy, Ma’am, Elizabeth, and Granny Sarah just steps behind. She didn’t see Grampa Cow Tom anywhere. Her knees buckled, and she stumbled, falling face forward into the prairie grass. Gramma Amy was by her side in moments, turning her over onto her back, whistling low for the line to stop.

“Can you get up?” Her Gramma Amy’s voice.

Rose made her legs work, and stood, ashamed she had fallen.

At that moment, Cow Tom came from the east, his rifle slung over one shoulder, his bowlegged walk recognizable even through his new limp. Gramma Amy left her to meet him.

“They can’t keep going,” Amy said to him. She didn’t pull him aside, or whisper, but merely claimed the fact.

Aunt Maggie sat cross-legged on the muddy ground hugging her baby to her chest. Cousin Emmaline’s and Cousin Lulu’s eyes were glazed. Many of the women had taken their moccasins off and were tending to their feet, wrapping and rewrapping strips of cloth striped with red.

“I found us a hiding place,” said Cow Tom. “Not far. We rest until nightfall.”

Chapter 32

THEY PACKED UP
supplies and followed once more into the face of the awakening dawn, limping, wincing with blister pain, shaking from the cold or fever. Those more able helped those less, and all moved forward. Cow Tom led them out of the tall prairie grass into a forested area, where tightly spaced oak trees formed a natural camp, dark and damp.