Eyes of Eagles (15 page)

“
Seven!
”

Moses was astonished and could not hide that emotion. While the runaway slave liked and trusted the young man, no more than a boy, really, he found his calmness in discussing his killing of seven men disquieting and disturbing.

Jamie's eyes were cool and calm on Moses. “They came after me, Moses. They were to bring me back alive, if possible, or kill me and cut off my head and bring it back in a sack as proof. I could not wound them and let them return to Olmstead and Jackson. They would have sent more men after me. They probably will anyway, but this way they don't know where I am. So what choice did I have, Moses?”

The ex-slave thought about that for a moment or two. He slowly nodded his head in agreement. “None, young Jamie. But... let me ask you this: do you feel anything about the deaths of those men?”

“No,” Jamie was quick to reply. “They came after me, Moses. I'm not going to drape myself in sackcloth and ashes and flay myself over the deaths of hired killers. You've got to overcome your natural, and understandable, fear of the white man, Moses. If not your distrust; for which I certainly can't fault you. We both have a chance to start over here. I think we can have a fresh start and live out our lives here, and prosper, to some degree. I have no desire for great wealth, and I know you don't, either. We both want basically the same things: a roof over our heads that doesn't leak, a warm snug cabin, clothing for our backs, food for our families, and peace. You can probably attain the latter. I think that will never come for me.”

Moses was silent. He cut his eyes to Jamie, waiting for an explanation.

“Texas will fight for independence someday, and I think I shall be a part of that fight. I believe that is why Smith and Fontaine befriended me at the trading post. At least part of the reason.”

Moses said nothing. His own life as a slave had been brutal and sometimes savage, but he could clearly remember having a childhood, even though he had to work. He still had time to play, go fishing, swimming, attend worship services, and listen to the old people tell stories in the cool of the evening after the work in the fields was over. Jamie had missed all that. One day he was a boy, the next day he was thrown into adulthood, forced to use all his wits to survive. Moses had never been savagely beaten; he'd seen very little of that on the Virginia plantation where he'd been worked and played. Only a very foolish white man would pay hundreds of dollars for a strong slave and then mistreat him to the point where the slave could not work. Moses Washington, ex-slave who would be hanged or horsewhipped to death if ever found, suddenly realized that he felt sorry for Jamie Ian MacCallister. Moses realized that, in an odd way, he was more free than Jamie.

Kate and Liza and Sally came out to join the men. They brought coffee and cups and little cakes just baked. Robert and Jed were over at Moses's place, seeing to chores. Before Jamie could tell them what had happened on his journey, Kate unexpectedly said, “Someday, Jamie, you might have to kill my father and probably my brothers, as well. It does not matter. For they are all long dead in my mind. My own brothers tried to rape me during your absence, Jamie,” she finally admitted something that Jamie had suspected all along. “Several times I had to run away from them and stay gone for days. Twice I slept in the woods with the beasts. I assure you, I much preferred their company to the company of my family. Now I'm sure my father has disowned me. They are all vile, evil people. We won't talk of this again.”

Jamie had brought back some real sugar, and they all savored the sweetness in their coffee, sitting quietly together, enjoying each other's company, amid the beauty and silent grandeur of the Big Thicket.

All around them, events were slowly taking place that would lead to, in less than ten years time, thirteen days of a standoff in an old mission that would become a part of world history. But the fugitives in the dark reaches of the Big Thicket knew nothing of that now. They were cognizant only of the day-to-day survival that faced them. Of them all, only Jamie really knew in his heart that Olmstead and Jackson would never give up. Kate thought that he might, someday, have to kill her father and brothers. Jamie knew that just as surely as the sun rose in the east that day faced him. There was no “might” or “perhaps” about it.

One of the twins began to cry for attention and Kate and Sally rose to see to the child. Moses looked at Jamie. “Another slave family come into the area while you were gone, Master Jamie,” he said.

“Stop calling me master, Moses. I'm not your master. Have you met them?”

“Yes. They're of high color. They ran away because neither world would accept them.”

“That's stupid. People are people. We all bleed the same color. You're telling me they have white blood in them.”

“A lot of white blood.”

“Is that supposed to make a difference to me?”

“I didn't know how you felt on the subject.”

Jamie really didn't either. He knew only that if two people of different color wanted to marry, that was their business. But he knew that both those people had better understand what kind of price their children would have to pay in a world that frowned on such things. He said as much.

“Then we think alike,” Liza said. “It ain't fair to saddle the children with such a burden. Not now and probably won't never be.”

“Woman...” Moses said.

“Don't woman me,” his wife warned him. “Eagles don't mate with sparrows and bears don't mate with bobcats. God made it that way. White man takes up with an Indian woman, given time, most whites will accept it. Won't never accept black and white. Not now, not never. Only a foolish or uppity nigger thinks otherwise. Them poor children over yonder has got a terrible burden to bear.”

“What am I missing here?” Jamie asked.

“Two of the kids is more white than black,” Moses said. “They gonna have to try to pass later on.”

Jamie looked more confused than ever.

“They'll try to enter the white world as white,” Liza cleared it up.

Jamie could surely understand why they would want to try. Blacks received terrible treatment at the hands of many whites. Jamie suddenly looked up, as the faint sounds of hooves reached his ears. One horse. Since he always took different trails to his cabin, and he knew he had never been followed, he had no idea who the person might be.

He looked at Moses. The man nodded his head, but did not seem at all alarmed. “Egg comes,” he said.

“Egg?”

“Head of the Cherokee police. He is Chief Diwali's right-hand man. He is also called the Enforcer.”

“Is he coming to try to arrest me?”

Moses smiled. “The Egg, or The Hawk, as he is sometimes called, does not
try
to do anything, Young Jamie. But no, I do not think he comes to arrest you. For killing seven bad white men he probably might try to give you some award.”

“I gather he knew all along that Kate and me were here?”

“The Cherokee police miss very little, Jamie.”

“The Mexican government allows this?”

“The Mexican government made Chief Diwali a colonel in their army. That answer your question?”

“Yes.” Jamie watched the lone rider exit the timber and ride slowly toward the cabin. “That's the biggest damn horse I think I've ever seen!”

“Wait until you see the man riding it,” Liza spoke.

He was the biggest Indian Jamie had ever seen. Egg, or Hawk, must have weighed two hundred and seventy-five pounds if he weighed an ounce. The horse he rode was a dray animal, and Jamie wondered where he got it. Kate and Sally came out, both with a baby in their arms.

Jamie stood up and made the sign for peace. The huge Indian gave no indication that he understood or gave a damn if he did understand . . . and since the sign was almost universal, Jamie was certain he did. Egg carried a rifle in his left hand, and pistols stuck behind a wide belt. He sat his horse and stared at Jamie. His eyes were unreadable.

“Would you like to dismount and have something to eat and drink with us?” Jamie asked in English.

Egg cocked his rifle and raised it, the muzzle pointed straight at Jamie's chest.

Jamie tensed, but forced himself to continue to stare into the eyes of the Cherokee policeman. Then, to everyone's surprise, Egg began to chuckle. He carefully lowered the hammer on his rifle as the chuckle turned into a deep laugh. He dismounted with that peculiar grace that some big men have and leaned his rifle against the house.

“Man Who Is Not Afraid,” he said, in nearly perfect English. “Is truly not afraid. That is good.” He looked around him and grunted in approval. “You have done well. I thought you would and told Diwali so when I first visited here after you came.” He smiled. “I have been here several times since then. Now, as to the matter which brought me here. I would stay away from those who would try to wrest this land from Mexico.” He shrugged as only a Cherokee can. “But... that is your decision to make. I am here to tell you that you fought bravely and well in the woods north of the trading post owned by Smith and frequented often by Fontaine. Those were bad men who sought you out. They came to do you harm and you did what any warrior would do. That is all I have to say. You might see me again. You might not see me again. I cannot foretell the future. Hello, Moses Washington. Hello, Liza and Sally. Hello, Kate and the babies. Goodbye.”

He picked up his rifle, mounted the huge horse, and without another word, rode out of the clearing and into the timber at the edge of the swamp.

“My word!” was all Kate could say. Then she frowned and looked at Jamie. “
What
fight in the woods, Jamie?”

“Well . . . Kate . . . ah ... I was going to tell you. I really was.”

Moses stood up quickly. “Time to go, Liza, Sally. We've got to be gettin' back to our cabin.”

“
What
fight, Jamie Ian?” Kate demanded, sitting down in the chair just vacated by Moses.

Sally put Ellen Kathleen in Jamie's lap and quickly exited the area with her parents.

“Good luck,” Moses called over his shoulder, as he and family headed for the path that would take them to their cabin. “You're gonna need it,” he muttered.

“Thanks,” Jamie said.

“Well?” Kate demanded.

Jamie took a deep breath. Sixteen or sixty, he thought, sometimes marriage is tough.

* * *

The summer passed uneventfully, the crops were up and looking good, no one was hurt or fell sick to any terrible illness, other than the babies coming down with the croup, which Jamie treated and eventually healed by the use of plants found in and around the Big Thicket, including coltsfoot and licorice root.

Shortly after his return from the coast, Jamie met the newest family to settle in the Big Thicket area, the runaway slave family from Alabama, Titus and Ophelia Jefferson. And Moses had certainly been correct: two of their three children — the twins, Roscoe and Anne — were white. They had absolutely no negroid features. The twins were four. Wells was about Jamie's age.

That Titus did not trust Jamie was plain. He hated whites and did not attempt to hide that. He had been a rebellious slave, and had suffered mightily because of it. Jamie shrugged off Titus's dislike and went his own way. Titus could either accept the help that Jamie freely offered, or he could go to hell. They were all starting over here, and as far as Jamie was concerned, what was past was over and done with.

“He has a right to be bitter,” Robert Washington told Jamie one day, during a break in the hoeing of crops.

“I think I'm going to get very weary of hearing that,” Jamie replied, conscious of the hot look Robert gave him. “My parents were killed by the Shawnee and I was taken prisoner and held as a slave, worked and beaten as much or more as Titus. But I don't hate all Indians. People who hate will always find some excuse to do that.”

“You're white. You don't understand,” Robert said. “Your people weren't torn from their homeland and brought over here in chains.”

“No,” Jamie replied, remembering some of what his father had told him as a child. “That's right. My people were just run out of their country because of their religious beliefs. It's over, Robert. Behind us.”

Robert threw down the hoe and stalked off, his back stiff with anger. They all were working in Moses's fields that day, and Sally brought out a gourd of water for Jamie. “What's wrong with Robert?” she asked.

“Oh, he's angry with me because I won't beg Titus to take my help.”

“That whole family is trouble,” the young woman said. “All except for Wells.”

Jamie hid his smile, knowing that Sally was sweet on Titus's oldest son. He drank the cool water and offered no comment. Titus had thrown together a shack a few miles away and had bitterly and with open hostility refused Jamie's repeated offers of help. Jamie had made up his mind that he would offer no more. He thanked Sally and watched her walk away. She was a good-looking young woman and he expected that she would marry Wells. Wells had quarreled with his father and stormed out of the shack, building — with the help of Moses and Jamie — his own snug and small cabin in the Thicket. Wells was eager to work for Jamie and Moses, and was a fine hand, easygoing, quick to smile and joke, and hard-working.

Jamie finished his row and walked over to Wells, working on the far side of the field with Moses. Moses leaned on his hoe and said, “We might have some trouble comin' our way, Jamie.”

“How so?”

“Wells told me that his pa's gone back east. He didn't know it until this mornin' when he went over to see his ma. He's gonna bring back some slave families that's hidin' out over 'crost the Sabine.”

“That's all right with me, Moses,” Jamie said, puzzled at the ex-slave's attitude.

“You don't understand, Mr. Jamie,” Wells said. Jamie had tried to get him to stop calling him “Mr. Jamie,” but so far had not succeeded.

“I guess I don't,” Jamie admitted. “You know I don't hold with slavery.”

“I know you don't, Jamie. But the ones Titus has gone to fetch are bad ones, Jamie,” Moses explained. “They're followers of Nat Turner.”

“Who is Nat Turner?”

“Well,” Moses took off what passed for a hat and scratched his graying head. “I guess I could say he's just a Virginia slave who wants to be free, but that wouldn't tell it all. He hates all whites. Maybe with good reason; I don't know. But if Titus brings those people in here, you and Kate and the babies will be in danger. But that ain't all. If them runaways come in, the whites will be sure to come after them... then well all be in trouble.”

Jamie leaned on his hoe and thought about that for a moment. “There's more, right?”

Moses nodded his head. “Some slave owners in Mississippi and Alabama has commissioned a group of men to bring back their slaves. For each runaway slave they bring back alive, they're payin' twenty-five cents a pound. You know a good slave sells for five hundred dollars and up.”

“No, I didn't know that. That's disgusting. And where are you getting all this information?”

Moses smiled. “You know the Indians travel and bring back stories. Some are true and some aren't. This one is. Those men who hunt down runaway slaves is under the command of a man named Jackson. And Olmstead has moved down into Southern Louisiana. He's a slave dealer now, and makin' a fortune. Jackson's right-hand men are two sets of brothers, named Saxon and Newby.”

“Oh,
shit!
” Jamie shouted, throwing down his hoe.

“Yassur, master,” Moses mush-mouthed and rolled his eyes and hung his head and shuffled his feet, a twinkle in his eyes, knowing how Jamie hated it when he joked like that.

“Stop that, Moses,” Jamie said. “That isn't funny.”

But both Wells and Moses laughed, knowing that Jamie did not understand black slave humor. The mush-mouthing, eye-rolling, head-hanging, and foot-shuffling was one way the slaves could ridicule their white owners and the slave owners couldn't do a damn thing about it because they didn't know what was going on.

Jamie shook his head and waited for the men to settle down. When they had sobered, he asked, “And what do you propose doing about this situation?”

It was obvious to Jamie that the men had discussed this more than once, for they exchanged glances several times before Moses finally spoke. “We have to stop them from flooding into this area, Jamie. Not the good, decent slaves who are running for their freedom; but the ones who want to start some sort of black-and-white war.”

“That is a war that the negro will never win, Moses. Not now, not a hundred and fifty years from now. Hear me well, both of you. For I know better than you about such matters. There are, or were, far more Indians than whites east of the Mississippi. Look at them now. You either conform to the white man's ways, or eventually, the white man will destroy you.” He turned to Wells. “Are you telling me that you would take up arms against your own father?”

“I don't know that, Jamie. That's an honest answer. But I do know that he has to be stopped from floodin' this place with angry, runaway slaves who want only to kill whites.”

“I see. Yes. In other words, you both want me to do your killing for you?”

“Jamie,” Moses said.

“No!” Jamie's reply was hard. “We're either in this together, or not at all. I'm not some Hessian mercenary with my gun and sword for hire. Now what say you both?”

Wells looked sick and Moses's eyes held a haunted look. Jamie knew the turmoil within them must be terrible; Wells because he was faced with taking up arms against flesh and blood, Moses because he was a man of color being forced to decide whether to fight against his own people . . . and he might have to fight his own son, Robert.

Wells was the first to speak. “All right, Mr. Jamie. We ride together.”

Jamie looked at Moses. The older man slowly nodded his head. “I'll get my guns. Well have to ride out now if we're to catch Titus in time.”

* * *

Jamie rode to an Alabama encampment and told Putting His Foot Down — second name: Man Who Walks On Water — what was happening. “Fear not for your wife and children, Man Who Is Not Afraid,” the elder told him. “I will dispatch men to go there immediately as guards.”

The Indians all around the Big Thicket country liked Jamie, for he knew their ways, had already learned their language, respected the land, and did not interfere with them in any way. The occasional Comanche and Kiowa war parties were quite another matter. So far, they had not yet discovered Jamie's home, but he knew it was only a matter of time. And Tall Bull and his hold-out band of warring Shawnee were just north and west of the Big Thicket country.

But for now, the three men rode to intercept Titus Jefferson. Since Moses and Jamie knew the shortcuts, they were at the Sabine crossing several hours before Titus arrived. Titus did not know this country, and he had, a few days before, innocently asked Moses where the best place to cross was. At the time, Moses thought nothing of it. Now, everything fit.

“On the other side,” Jamie said, lowering a spy glass and handing it to Moses. “About a dozen families are waiting. And they have boats.”

The men had left their horses in the brush and crawled up to the bank. Moses peered through the telescoping spy glass and grunted.

“They seem relaxed enough,” he said. “Surely if they made it this far, they have guards out to watch for the slave-hunters. But this is a known crossing.”

Jamie grew thoughtful for a time and Moses sensed it and watched the young man's face. “Maybe they don't want to catch them just yet. No, I don't think they do. I just learned a few weeks ago, from a trapper, that under Mexican law, no slaves are allowed in this territory. But as the whites settle, many want slaves. So in this territory, any negro that got across would have to be called a free negro. Right?”

“I've heard that, yes. So?”

“So once across this river, they'd more or less be safe?”

Moses smiled ruefully. “I wouldn't exactly say safe, but I still don't see what you're drivin' at.”

“Why go to all the trouble of chasing down a few runaway slaves? Why not let them cross the river, get settled, and then fall in on them all in one bunch. If I've got my facts straight, the slavers will pay someone a dollar to a dollar and a half a pound for slaves, and then turn right around and resell them for as much as a thousand dollars — right?”

“Well, yes. But the slavers would have to have someone on this side of the river workin' for them. They...” He closed his eyes and shook his head, silently mouthing the word No!

“Yes,” Jamie said.

Wells put his forehead on the ground and openly wept. “It all fits now,” he sobbed. “The damn escape was too easy. Daddy knew just where to go all the time. We never oncest was even in no danger. Mama said it was the Lord's will. But I knowed better. I knowed better. I had me a real bad feelin' all the while.” He put his face in his hands and sobbed.

“Boy,” Moses put a heavy and work-hardened hand on the young man's shoulders. “Me and Jamie is just talkin'. We ain't got no proof a-tall that your daddy is up to no good.”

“But he is. I can remember times when he would openly sass the foreman and nothin' was ever done to him. And times when he was called up to the big house in the middle of the night when he didn't think none of us was awake. And ever' time he got whupped, it was done inside the barn and we wouldn't see him for weeks, sometimes. He was recuperatin', the boss man, he say. But he wasn't neither 'cuperatin'. Them whuppin' was a sham. They never happened. He was workin' for the man all them times. My own pa is a damn slaver!”