American Dreams (29 page)

"Cherokees! The president of the United States has sent me with a powerful army to cause you, in obedience to the treaty of 1835, to join that part of your people who are already established in prosperity on the other side of the Mississippi." Scott spoke firmly but not unkindly as he addressed the gathering.

Jed glanced sideways at his commanding officer, taking in the man's plumed hat, lavish gold braid, and polished saber. The general's excessive fondness for military pageantry was well known. Old Fuss and Feathers, his men called him, but they also knew he wasn't to be taken lightly. A dominating presence at six feet four inches tall, the general from Virginia had directed the campaign against the Seminoles.

Last month Jed had arrived in Washington to begin his new assignment as an aide to General Winfield Scott. Cecilia had been overjoyed at his new post, and plans had once again been set in motion for their wedding, a wedding twice postponed—first by the orders sending him to Florida, then by battle wounds. By the time Cecilia and her mother had reached Washington, General Scott had been appointed to command the military operations aimed at enforcing the removal treaty with the Cherokee Nation. They would depart the city within days. The wedding had been postponed again.

"The full moon of May is already on the wane," Scott declared. "And before another shall have passed away, every Cherokee man, woman, and child must be in motion to join their brethren in the Far West."

The treaty had set forth the deadline of May 23, 1838. By that date, all Cherokees must be in motion westward. In the two days since their arrival at the military headquarters, Jed hadn't seen any indications that the Cherokees were preparing to leave. On the contrary, when he had ridden through the country, most of the Indians had been in the fields tending their crops, as if they believed they would be there in the fall to harvest them.

"The desire of every one of us is to execute our painful duty in mercy," Scott stated. "Will you then, by resistance, compel us to resort to arms? God forbid! Or will you, by flight, seek to hide yourselves in mountains and forests, and thus oblige us to hunt you down?"

Silence. Jed scanned the crowd, trying to gauge their reaction and get some sense of what to expect. He briefly glimpsed a familiar face in their midst and sought to locate it again. There, the man in the back, taller than the others, with the gleam of red in his hair. It was Will Gordon.

Jed suddenly realized how hard he had tried not to think about her, tried not to remember she was here. But the thought that he might see her again had been there all along in the back of his mind. Temple. The image of her was strong and clear before him, the sultriness of her dark beauty as real to him as it had been the last time he had seen her.

"I am an old warrior," the fifty-six-year-old general offered in conclusion, "and have been present at many a scene of slaughter; but spare me, I beseech you, the horror of witnessing the destruction of the Cherokees."

With the general's warning plea ringing in his ears, Jed stiffened at the thought of what his orders might mean to Temple and her family. After the Cherokee leaders were dismissed to carry Scott's message back to their people, Jed took the opportunity to seek out Will Gordon. The man had changed little in the last six years. His face remained relatively unlined, though the haunting sadness that had always lurked in the somber brown of his eyes was perhaps more pronounced. Despite some graying of his hair at the temples, he looked like a man in his prime.

When Jed called him by name, Will Gordon turned and frowned. "Yes?"

Forcing himself to relax his military stance, Jed smiled. "I don't know if you remember me, but we met some years ago in Washington. Payton Fletcher is my godfather. I'm—"

Recognition flashed in his eyes. "Lieutenant.. . Parmelee, isn't it?"

"Yes. It is good to see you again, sir. I only wish we were meeting under other circumstances."

"We would both prefer that," Will Gordon agreed, a somber-ness returning to his expression.

"Your daughter ... I hope she is well."

"Temple? Yes, she is in good health." He smiled faintly, a trace of pride shining through. "She presented me with a grandson last year."

"Congratulations." Jed fought down the wave of envy and jealousy that tried to surface. Already he regretted the impulse that had prompted him to seek out Will Gordon. "I know you want to be on your way."

"Yes, I have a long ride ahead of me."

"Please, give my regards to your family, and I hope the next time we meet, it will be on equally friendly terms." He hesitated, then warned, "General Scott stated the army's position quite plainly, sir. We have our orders. Any attempt at resistance would bring tragic consequences."

"How can we resist, Lieutenant? We have already surrendered our fowling pieces, and long ago we abandoned our bows and arrows and tomahawks. We have no weapons. We are at your mercy." The sadness in his eyes was heartbreaking. "But you must understand—this land is ours and we will never willingly surrender our homes. Would you?"

The gentle question haunted Jed for days.

 

 

 

24

 

 

Gordon Glen
 

May 26,1838

 

Eliza cast an inspecting glance over the table, then walked out of the dining room. Temple came down the stairs, carrying the meal she had taken up earlier to her mother. "Did she eat anything today?" Eliza asked.

Temple shook her head, her dark eyes mirroring Eliza's concern. "She drank all of the broth."

Eliza sighed, well aware it was barely enough to sustain Victoria. "Has your father come in yet?"
 

"I think he is in the library."

"I'll let him know dinner is ready. Will you tell the others to come to the table?" Taking her agreement for granted, she crossed to the library doors and knocked once, then paused by the door. Will stood at one of the windows, his back to the door, his hands clasped behind him in a pensive pose, seemingly unaware of her presence. Eliza stepped inside.

Outside, the sunlight beat down on the lawn, already parched by the scanty spring rains. Meteor showers, solar eclipse, unusually severe winters—Eliza hoped this wasn't the presage for a dry summer.

"Dinner is ready," she said. Will turned to face her, his expression still troubled and distracted. Eliza sensed immediately it wasn't the weather that worried him. "It's the waiting, isn't it?" she guessed. "The deadline has passed. Yet nothing has happened."

"You know me very well, don't you?"

She smiled and reminded him, "John Ross is still in Washington. Maybe he succeeded in renegotiating the treaty or getting it reversed and we have yet to receive word of it."

"Maybe. I know he continues the fight."

"And everyone is united behind him." Not quite everyone, Eliza thought to herself. Not The Blade. He had come to Gordon Glen a handful of times to see his son. Not once, to her knowledge, had a single word passed between Temple and him. Temple refused to talk about him. "The human spirit can endure a lot when it knows it isn't alone."

"No one knows that better than I."

"The family is in the dining room," she told him.

"We had better go then," he said.

When one-and-a-half-year-old Lije saw Will enter the dining room, he stood up in Xandra's lap and held out his arms to him, his fingers clutching and unclutching in a grasping plea. "Ganpa, Ganpa," he cried excitedly.

"There's my boy." Will walked over and scooped up the black-haired toddler. "Are you going to eat dinner with us today?"

"He insisted." Temple smiled indulgently at her son. "And Xandra volunteered to look after him."

"Lije is going to be a good boy for Aunt Xandra, isn't he?" Xandra crooned, tugging affectionately at his foot, the action stretching the bodice of her red blouse and revealing the voluptuous fullness of a woman's figure in the fifteen-year-old girl.

"Goo' boy," Lije repeated earnestly, eliciting a chuckle from Will before he gave him back into Xandra's care.

 

The three-story brick mansion stood atop the slight knoll as if it had been born out of the clay-red earth that held its foundations. Jed reined in his horse to stare at the imposing structure, for a moment allowing himself to admire it.

"I'll go to hell," muttered one of the soldiers near him. "This must belong to one of them rich Cherokee bastards."

Jed felt like cursing too, and had ever since Scott ordered him to the Third District to take part in the rounding up of the intransigent Cherokees and ensure his directives were followed through to the letter. This mass effort was being carried on throughout the entire Nation, squads of soldiers fanning out from every military outpost to seize and bring back all the Indians they found, wherever they found them.

He had already had a morning's worth of watching men being taken from their fields at the point of a bayonet, women and children dragged from their homes. The weeping, the wailing, the screaming, the pleading to be allowed to take some few of their possessions—it would live with him forever. That and the sight of the looting rabble that followed them.

Orders. With his jaw tightly clenched, Jed growled through his teeth, "Surround the house."

The gleam of fixed bayonets flashed in the sunlight as the squad rushed silently forward. Jed walked his horse after them and halted it short of the front veranda. When he thought of the civilized people inside that home, his stomach twisted in a sickening knot. No matter how humanely they might try to carry out this task, the cruelty of it was still there.

The sergeant moved close to the front door and looked expectantly at Jed, waiting for the command to enter. Swallowing at the bitterness in his throat, Jed nodded.

 

"Ned Rain Crow believes the troops are here to protect us from the Georgians." Kipp took the bowl of
connahinney
from Temple and spooned a large helping of the hominylike corn onto his plate.

"I—" Eliza looked up and saw someone outside the dining room window. "Who is that?" She frowned.

At the same instant she heard the front and rear doors in the great hall fly open, followed by the clatter of a dozen running feet. Will started to rise from his chair as soldiers burst into the dining room, their rifles at the ready, steel bayonets gleaming with threatening menace. Black Cassie screamed and dropped the bowl in her hand. It crashed to the floor, food and shards flying in all directions. Lije began to cry uncertainly.

"What is going on? What do you want?" Will towered before the soldiers, indifferently facing the sharp bayonet tips pointed at him.

An officer stepped into the room and halted abruptly. Temple stared, recognition jolting through her. Jed Parmelee, the young lieutenant she had met in Washington. Her father had mentioned he was in the Nation.

Now here he stood, stiffly erect, staring incredulously back, a slightly different Jed Parmelee from the one she remembered. The change was more than the pale golden mustache and long sideburns he now wore. The freshness of youth was gone from his face. He wasn't the gallant young officer anymore. He had the hardened visage of a soldier. But not quite, she thought, as she caught the flash of profound regret that flickered briefly in his eyes before he turned to her father.

"I am sorry, sir, but you and your family are obliged to come with us," he informed him briskly. "Please don't try to resist or flee, sir. We have the house surrounded. It would be futile."

"Where are you taking us?" Will placed a shielding hand on his youngest son, Johnny, drawing him closer.

"We have orders to bring all Cherokees to the fort in preparation for their departure to their new homes in the West." His crisp explanation was followed by a strident wail from Lije as he stretched out his chubby arms to Temple.

When she took a step toward him, a soldier bristled. Temple paused, her glance arching to Jed in anger and resentment. "May I go to my son?"

He hesitated briefly, then nodded, granting permission. She swept past the soldier and hurried to her sister's side, taking Lije from her and trying to hush his cries. Overhead came the muffled thud of footsteps, spreading through the second-floor rooms above.

"My wife is upstairs. She is too ill to travel," Will protested.

"I hope not, Mr. Gordon," Jed Parmelee replied. "We prefer not to separate families. However, if she is unable to accompany you, then she will have to remain here until suitable transportation and care can be arranged. I will allow one person to stay and look after her. The rest of you will have to come with me... now."

"You cannot mean that!" Eliza cried helplessly.
 

"I do, ma'am."

"We will need time to pack—" Will began.

"You had time, sir, and you chose not to take advantage of it. The general advised all of you to come to the staging areas with your families and belongings. He warned you not to wait until you were approached by soldiers." The words rushed from him, his voice vibrating with frustration and anger. "That day has come. It is out of your hands ... and mine." He muttered the last, partially turned, then paused. "You have five minutes to gather what you can, but your children will have to remain here under guard. As for your wife, it would be unwise to leave her. If you have a wagon and team, I will order it brought around for her. But that, sir, is the best I can do."

"In that case, I have no choice but to accept," Will replied curtly.

"Is there anyone else in the house besides your wife?" he asked, still without facing them.
 

"My blacks."

"What of your husband, Mrs. Stuart?" He looked sideways at Temple. "Where is he?"

She tilted her head a little higher and hugged her whimpering son closer. "I don't know."

"Doesn't he live here with you?"

"No."

He held her gaze an instant longer, then turned completely away. "Five minutes, Sergeant, then I want all of them outside."
 

"Right, sir."