Citizens Creek (33 page)

Cow Tom wasn’t nervous, even when he was led into the cavernous room to testify, even when he saw the collection of white men, somber and forbidding in their dark suits at the front of the large space,
and he and Harry were led to sit behind an opposing table, as if facing accusers. It all came down to this, and he was ready. He had been making himself ready for fifty-eight years. He’d practiced his arguments for several days, consumed by laying out an irrefutable case, but a sudden single image crowded out all else. His mother’s port-stained face, and her insistence that he was special. This was his moment.

“We come to talk about Article Two of the 1866 treaty between the United States government and the Indian nations,” he began.

One of the senators on the panel had a horn trumpet to his ear, and a colleague at his elbow repeated almost everything Cow Tom said, as soon as he said it. It reminded Tom of his linguister days, but here it was translation of English into louder English.

“Can’t say I ever heard of an Indian of African descent,” the senator with the ear trumpet interrupted in a booming voice. He was a very large man, wearing a light-colored suit, barely able to fit in a single seat.

“That’s why we came to Washington, sir, so you can see with your own eyes,” said Cow Tom. “We exist, there are many of us, we’re citizens of the Creek Nation, and we’re part of the treaty you already approved.”

Cow Tom’s boldness elicited a chuckle, even from the almost-deaf senator, once the remark was repeated to him.

In the more respectful silence that followed, Cow Tom made his case for treaty violation, point by point, and ended with the statement Senator Harlan insisted would surely get the Radical Republican majority on their side.

“We assert that presidential appointees are helping the Confederate Creeks to deprive us of our promised funds,” Cow Tom concluded.

He heard murmurs of outraged whispering as he returned to his seat. They were excused from the room, and Senator Harlan saw them out to the hall while the committee decided whether to take up their claim.

“You did well,” he said. “Now we wait.”

It was only then that Cow Tom’s nerves started in, once his testifying was done and they sat on a bench in the drafty hall.

“Leastways this time you didn’t have to give up a body part,” Harry joked.

Two hours passed before word came out that there had been a unanimous vote.

“The senator from Kansas brought a resolution before the Senate,” Senator Harlan told them, “that the secretary of the interior must inform the Senate, as soon as possible, why a large number of persons registered as Creek Indians by the Creek agent in the spring of 1867 were stricken from said rolls and payment of their per capita dividend refused.” He clapped Cow Tom heartily on the back, and then Harry, his delight too big to hide. “Let President Johnson try to ignore that.”

The pronouncement was only the beginning of a long process—Cow Tom knew that—but he and Harry had exposed the Confederate Creeks’ trick to the light. They had done all they could here, and needed to get back home. They might be caught in the middle of a bigger battle being waged in Washington, but they’d fought for what was theirs.

Cow Tom only hoped it was enough.

Chapter 46

THE MORNING PASSED
slowly, full of the usual chores and necessaries on the ranch, but long before noon, someone set the triangle bell to ringing. It was too early for the midday meal, but whoever continued to work the triangle, long and insistent, intended everyone to come to the house. Rose was in the henhouse, her apron full of the day’s collection of eggs, and she came running. Her grandfather was at the triangle, a smile so wide on his face she dialed back her alarm.

Her grandfather had been off to himself all morning, some mystery afoot. Yesterday, he’d disappeared to meet with the Indian agent, but when she tried to talk to him, he waved her off, in the highest of humor.

He stood tall by the long wooden table in the kitchen, Gramma Amy beside him, and beckoned them round. Rose emptied her apron of the eggs in the kitchen. There was a great drying of hands on smocks and questioning looks, and Uncle John picked at a clump of mud from the pasture stuck to his moccasin. Once family was accounted for, all seven of them residing under one roof, her grandfather held up his two-fingered hand, as if calling a meeting to order. His hair had gone completely gray now, yet he seemed an overeager young boy with a secret too big to keep to himself.

“Last year, Harry Island and I went to Washington, DC,” he began.

All eyes were on him. Rose knew the look well. He waited in silence until satisfied everyone had shown proper respect, and finally pulled an envelope from the inside pocket of his old cotton work
jacket.

“Seventeen dollars and fifty-seven cents,” Grampa Cow Tom announced.

Seventeen, thought Rose. Her age, at least for six more days until her birthday. She thought for a moment he meant to recognize the coming of her eighteenth year, but this was something larger, more significant than that.

He placed a small stack of money on the wooden in front of him, smoothing each bill as he gave it its own space on the tabletop, placing coins beside the bills in an exaggerated flourish. The bills were still crisp and uncreased. He held up the top paper certificate.

“This one is worth ten dollars,” her grandfather said. He was careful to handle the bill by one edge.

All of them crowded closer. Elizabeth reached out to touch the money, but one quick swat on the arm from Gramma Amy stopped her, and she drew back, pouting. Rose interlaced her fingers with her sister’s, and Elizabeth settled down.

“Who is that man?” Rose asked, pointing to one of the bills. A stern-faced man dominated the left side of the note.

“Same question I asked the Indian agent.” He held up the bill. “That one is Mr. Daniel Webster. He’s dead.”

“Who is Mr. Webster?” Gramma Amy asked.

“I don’t know,” her grandfather confessed. “But the white man thinks he’s important.” He held the bill for closer inspection, though no one was allowed to touch the tender except him. “And the woman here is an Indian princess, Pocahontas.” Her grandfather pointed at what looked like an eagle beginning flight at the bottom. “This is a funny one. Turn it upside down and the eagle becomes a donkey. The Indian agent called it the jackass note.”

He performed the trick a few times until everyone seemed satisfied they had seen an eagle turn into a floppy-eared donkey, and he moved on to the next piece of currency, a crisp five-dollar bill with a scowling white man in one corner and a pioneer family and hunting dog in the center.

“This is one of the white man’s presidents,” Grampa Cow Tom said, pointing to the small portrait of a caped man with a sour face and unruly mane of wild white hair. “Andrew Jackson. No friend to the Indian, that one. He’s dead too. I asked for Abraham Lincoln instead, but the Indian agent said it didn’t work like that.”

Her grandfather laid out a two-dollar bill, of odd greenish-brown color, unnatural, different from the five-dollar note. It featured a sharp-nosed Thomas Jefferson in profile and powdered wig. He turned the bill over to the other side to show a white building on the reverse.

“This here is where Harry Island and I traveled,” Grampa Cow Tom said, “where they make the white man’s laws.” His eyes grew wet. “Washington.” Rose had never seen him so shaky, at least not since Fort Gibson. Her grandfather usually had control of himself, but he seemed suddenly overwhelmed. “We stood up, we argued our case. It took time, but at last, they honor the treaty between the white man’s government and the Creek Nation. This is back pay for what we, as citizens of the Creek tribe, are owed. They couldn’t strip us from the rolls forever.”

Silence grew until Elizabeth began to fidget. “Can we see the donkey again?” she asked.

Rose pinched her arm. “Hush,” she said.

Elizabeth glared at Rose and then her mother in appeal, but Ma’am gave her a warning look and Elizabeth pouted in silence.

Her grandfather continued on, producing a silvery round coin, a piece worth half of a dollar, depicting a seated woman in a flowing gown. Again, the family was allowed to look, but not touch.

But Grampa Cow Tom saved the best for last. He fanned the stack of pennies out, one at a time, until each lay flat and nested in its own copper puddle. He called everyone in the room forward by name and handed them one of the pennies, seven in all. Rose didn’t know exactly what she was supposed to do with the coin. She studied the reddish-brown profile of a young woman in a headdress, a band of spiky feathers that looked almost but not quite like
a proper war bonnet.

“Miss Milly?” Gramma Amy asked. She brought the coin near her face, inspecting the image more closely, and ran her finger along the small rise and fall of the coin, back and forth, as if expecting it to rub away. “A Creek chief’s wife on the white man’s money?”

Rose also caught the resemblance to Chief Yargee’s youngest wife, at least what she looked like in profile when still very young.

“No, that’s not Miss Milly. They call her Lady Liberty. Liberty, like freedom,” Grampa Cow Tom said, voice aquiver. “Each keeps a coin of your own, so you remember who you are.”

Rose had never touched money before, and gripped her coin in a tight fist. Gramma Amy dropped her penny into the pocket of her apron. Elizabeth flipped her penny in the air to try to catch before it hit the ground. She missed, and scrambled under the table to retrieve the spinning coin, and when she reemerged with a scuffed knee and endearing grin, she held the penny overhead in triumph.

“Your penny isn’t for spending,” her grandfather said to them all. “Your penny is for reminding. We are Negro, and we are Creek, not one or the other but both, and we share with the tribe. When the tribe gets, we get. It is our right. We payed our dues to the nation, suffering alongside in every Removal, every war, every betrayal.”

Suddenly, her grandfather faded. He’d dealt in words all his life, spoken or unspoken, he’d formed and clarified meanings and agreements and understandings, but at this moment appeared incapable. His sudden silence drove home the import of his gift to Rose, in a way words could not, what it must mean for a man like him to give each member of his family the symbol of his life’s work. She vowed to cherish her penny always, a piece of him, and keep it near.

Her grandmother pulled gently at Grampa Cow Tom’s arm, sensing his changed mood. She urged him into a chair and he sat.

The room stayed silent. Not even Elizabeth made a sound.

“This is celebration,” he finally said. “We’re on the Creek rolls again, part of the tribe. We have received our due.”

“Our due,” Gramma Amy agreed.

“After taking out the pennies, that leaves us seventeen dollars and fifty cents from the back payment,” he said. “We’ll use this money to improve on our land.”

Rose took Elizabeth’s hand. Today’s windfall proved what she’d always known. Her grandfather could conquer anything.

Chapter 47

ROSE DREADED ENTERING
the tepee alone. Grampa Cow Tom demanded they construct a last way station for him distant from the main house once certain he was going to die. What was the use of all of Gramma Amy’s herbs if she couldn’t cure her own husband? What started with the fall off a horse riding to a Council meeting and a broken leg had become this, first the march of gangrene up the leg and now a grim procession in and out of the tepee as her grandfather said his last good-byes to every member of the family, each by each.

He’d saved her for last. Rose breathed deep until her heart’s pounding slowed. She raised the flap and entered. The interior was dark, and smelled of salves and rotting flesh and something damp and musky she couldn’t name. She adjusted her face into acceptance and drew closer. He looked smaller than normal on a pallet on the floor, no longer fierce, the curlicue scar on his cheek sunken in sagged flesh, his missing earflap hidden by the pillow at his head, the putrefying left leg wrapped in bandages to the thigh, his favorite buffalo pelt underneath his body.

He beckoned her forward with his two-fingered hand, and patted the cover thrown over him, expecting her to sit. She’d not thought of it before now, but he favored his bad hand, as if challenging that old injury to try to get the better of him. Gramma Amy nodded to her, as if giving a blessing, egging her forward. Her
grandmother tended him in between visitors, refusing to leave his side. Grampa Cow Tom and Gramma Amy were models for Rose, their devotion to each other palpable whether together or apart.

“Amy, just leave me to talk with Rose alone, eh?” said Cow Tom.

Gramma Amy seemed surprised, but she excused herself and left, lowering the tepee flap behind her. Rose kept her arms to her sides, tight. She was alone with the man she admired most in this world, yet she was ashamed to admit, she would rather be anywhere but here.

Rose didn’t want her grandfather to die. If she could give up her own life for his, she would. He was fearless, important, respected. And what was she? Destined to be a spinster, someone to whom things happened, not someone who claimed their own path, like him.

“Grampa, I am so sorry,” she began.

He waved off her words.

“I ever tell you how you come to your name?”

It was as if something kneaded at her heart like so much dough to shape. She squeezed back tears.

“No, Grampa Cow Tom.”

“Now there’s so little time, I see what I should have done.” He kept her gaze in his. “Rose.”

Her name held promise when her grandfather said it.

“Was me named you Rose,” he said. “A rose of beauty.”

She flinched at the pain of his words, the cruel falsity, and the sting made her speech harsh.

“Elizabeth has beauty. I am plain. A scrawny chicken.” Elizabeth was already shapely, with her dimpled cheek, smooth ebony skin, and flashing eyes.

A change came across her grandfather’s face, a sudden grimace that held for a brief moment before disappearing. In the dim light of the tepee, Rose couldn’t tell whether he was in pain, or angry, or disappointed. But his voice, when he spoke, only sounded sad.