by Mez Blume
“And Dilli can be mine,” Grasshopper offered, wiggling his eyebrows at Imogen as if to tempt her.
Imogen leaned away and made a sarcastic sound. “Um, thanks, but I don’t do quail dancing.” But Ulma was already bent over and lifting the hem of Imogen’s skirt, strapping a pair of turtle shells to her shins.
“No, really, I don’t…” Imogen tried to protest, but an eager Little Beaver already had her by the hand and was tugging her up on her feet and off towards the Stomp Ground.
Imogen gave me a pleading look over her shoulder. I smiled and waved as Ulma fitted turtle shells to my shins.
She nodded. “Now you dance, Katie Fire-Hair.”
With every step towards the dance ground, the beans in the turtle shells under my skirt made a rattling sound. The sound echoed around the square as more girls and women fell in line to dance. Then a man standing in the middle beside the fire mound raised a hide drum in one hand and started to beat it with a stick in the other. Keeping a steady beat, he raised his mouth and started to sing: “Wo hi ye hi ye, Wo hi ye hi.” Someone in the men’s line gave an ear-splitting shout which was echoed by everyone on the dance floor, and the quail dance began.
As I joined in, shuffling my feet backward and forward and waving my arms like chicken wings, I thought of the prim, graceful dances I’d learned last summer for the King’s Banquet at Otterly Manor. If only the French dance master could see me now,” I thought with a laugh. Cherokee dancing was certainly not graceful. It was wild and wonderful. All the dancers whooped and laughed and looked to be having the time of their lives. I glanced over at Imogen and could hardly believe my eyes. Her smile was nearly as big as Little Beaver’s as they flapped their wings together, laughing.
After the quail dance came the bear dance, then the buffalo dance and the corn dance, where the men circled outside of the women and tossed corn cobs into our aprons. It was such great fun, no one seemed to notice the sun go down and the great, yellow full moon rise up.
Nobody even noticed the three men on horseback until they rode right into the middle of the Stomp Ground. Then the music stopped. Everyone moved back, clear of the panting, stomping horses, and several women screamed and ran to find their children. I grabbed Little Beaver’s hand and Imogen took the other as we pressed against the frightened people, every one of them gazing up at the proud figure sitting high on a grey steed.
14
Flight to the River
The spell was broken. For a little while, I, like everyone else at the Stomp Dance, had forgotten Nickajack’s troubles. Now here they were, standing right in front of us in the shape of Lieutenant Lovegood and a couple of backup officers.
“I’ve come with an announcement from Governor Blunt,” Lovegood shouted out in a voice that suggested he had better things to do.
Somebody pushed me from behind, and I looked up to see Wattie with a look that could curdle milk on his face. He was pushing his way towards Lovegood.
“No, Wattie, don’t,” I whispered and grabbed his arm. I’d seen just how reckless that cold-hearted man could be.
He yanked his arm out of my grip without a word, but the next second another hand reached over my shoulder and caught Wattie’s arm in a much tighter hold. Mr. McKay shook his head at his son, then walked calmly into the clearing to face Lovegood. I could hear Wattie breathe as he stewed beside me.
“Lieutenant,” Mr. McKay’s voice was casual and welcoming. “So good of you to stop by for our little gathering. To what do we owe the honour?”
Lovegood looked annoyed to have to repeat himself. “As I said, I have an announcement from Hiwassee Garrison.”
Mr. McKay, still smiling good-naturedly, replied in an almost apologetic tone, “I’m sure you’re merely acting out of misinformation, but I should tell you this is not really the time or place. You see, you’re trampling on sacred ground here. Unintentionally, I’m sure,” he added.
Lovegood just smirked. “What better time and place could there be? The Governor wants the whole village to hear this.”
Mr. McKay tried again. “Why don’t we go to the Council House? We can discuss the Governor’s message there. After all, it’s customary for the Chief and the Council to hear it first.”
“No time, McKay,” was the flat answer. He moved his horse forward, forcing Mr. McKay to step out of the way. “Listen,” Lovegood shouted to the crowd once again. “The Governor has heard of your troubles here in Nickajack. He wants to help.”
Wattie and I exchanged a look as a hopeful-sounding murmur went through the crowd. But he and I were both thinking the same thing. What on earth was Lovegood playing at?
“Governor Blunt has applied to the President,” the lieutenant continued, “and can guarantee that the United States will grant five acres of land in a settlement on the Western Frontier to any man who wishes to sell his property here and move.”
The murmur rose and became anxious.
“This land is our home!” someone called out.
“Why should we move?” asked another person.
“Yes. Why should we?” This time it was Terrapin Jo who spoke. He stepped into the firelight to face Lovegood beside Mr. McKay. “You were sent by Washington to keep lawbreakers out of Cherokee Country. Why should we leave our homes because you have not done your job?”
Lovegood just stared at Terrapin Jo a moment, then his mouth curled into the same sneering smirk. How I wanted to smack that stupid smile off his face. To my surprise, Imogen made a snarling sound to my other side. Apparently, she felt the same urge.
“And you think none of that lawbreaking is done by the Cherokee?” Lovegood leaned over his knee and lowered his voice so only those close enough could hear. “As long as you people are here, there will always be trouble.”
Terrapin Jo’s expression remained hard as a rock. “No, Lieutenant. As long as you are here, we will have trouble.”
Lovegood leaned back in the saddle, smiling as if he’d just heard a joke. “I’d like to see you prove that,” he said, almost chuckling.
“My son Crow Feather is proof enough.”
For the first time, Lovegood’s arrogant smile faltered and a shadow of fear crossed his face as he mouthed the name Crow Feather. Then, inexplicably, his narrowed eyes shifted about and landed on me. My heart leapt, but I forced myself not to look away. His cold blue eyes bored into mine ― he looked as though he was trying to recall a memory – then, as if the moment had never happened, he snapped out of the staring contest as his smile returned. Taking the reins of his horse, he called out once more over the crowd. “You have three days to consider the Governor’s gracious offer. If you choose not to accept it, you’ll have to live with the consequences.” He raised his white-gloved hands up by his face. “My hands are clean.” And with that, he gave his giant steed a nudge and, with his two cronies behind him, galloped off into the night.
“We should have told the village,” Wattie said angrily as his father turned back to our huddle amidst the now jostling crowd. “Then we might have taken him on, right here and now. We could’ve ended it tonight.”
“No, son.” Mr. McKay’s friendly manner had vanished. He looked dangerously angry as he raised his finger in Wattie’s face. “That is not how we do things. We will act according to the law. Do you understand?”
Wattie looked away, fuming, and gave one short nod.
“I have to speak to the Chief,” Mr. McKay said, and scooping up Little Beaver, he disappeared into the crowd.
Wattie watched him go, then turned back to Imogen, Grasshopper and me. “We leave now,” he said.
Grasshopper nodded, then disappeared.
“Where’s he going?” Imogen asked.
“To ready the canoe. We’ll meet him at the river. First, we need to get some supplies from my father’s store.”
“Are you sure about this?” I asked. As much as I wanted to go, I was beginning to worry our plans could cause a real rift between Wattie and his father.
Wattie
looked at me with his eyebrows furrowed in an intense glare. “You heard Lovegood. Who knows what he’s planning in three days’ time? We won’t stop him by waiting around while the Council has more meetings.”
I nodded. “In that case, lead on.”
The chaos caused by Lovegood’s unwelcome announcement made it easy to wind our way through the crowd and slip off unnoticed across the meadow, that is, once Imogen and I shed our turtle shell rattles. Wattie stayed low and ran almost silently down the dirt road while Imogen and I did our best to imitate.
The sight of the Lieutenant seemed to have fired Imogen up about our journey to Hiwassee Garrison. She kept up a whispered tirade behind me: “That jerk… the nerve to show his face here… not get away with this… so unfair!” To my surprise, Imogen’s every word expressed how I felt about it. Sure, I’d read about things like this in history class – native Americans forced to leave their homes unfairly and all. But now it was happening to real people … people we’d danced and laughed with … the McKays and Grasshopper’s family. For once, I felt Imogen had the right of it: Lovegood had to be stopped.
“Stop!”
I halted so suddenly that Imogen rammed into the back of me. Apparently, we’d both been so caught up in our thoughts, we hadn’t even noticed Wattie leave the road. He waved from behind a row of bushes growing up beside a cabin with a swinging sign hanging from the porch that read Trade Store followed by some swirling Cherokee letters.
Once we’d crouched down behind the hedge, Wattie gave orders. “I’ll go first and unlock the door, then whistle once for you to follow.”
“Ok,” I whispered. A second later, the whistle came, and Imogen and I tiptoed up the steps to the porch and darted through the shop door. Wattie closed it quietly, then spun around, his eyes bright in the moonlight beaming through the window.
“Katie Fire-Hair, with me. Dilli, stand guard at the window and watch to see if anyone’s coming down the road.”
Imogen rolled her eyes, but did as she was told without even complaining about the nickname.
I followed Wattie around a long counter covered in furs and fabrics. He took a piece of some kind of animal hide and threw it out flat on the floor. “Put the things on that.” He nodded towards the hide, then started rummaging through barrels, baskets and crates along the shelves that lined the store’s back wall, handing me the oddest assortment of things, from gunpowder to hollowed gourds. “Oh yes, I almost forgot.” He reached under the counter and pulled out a narrow, woven basket, about the length of a soda bottle, and offered it to me.
“What is it?” I asked, taking the basket from him and holding it up to the moonlight to appreciate the red and green zig-zag designs woven around its middle.
“It was my first dart quiver. My mother made it for me when I was just learning to shoot.”
“She made it?” I said impressed. “It’s really lovely.”
“The blowgun’s inside. Only a small one, but useful. It’s yours now, sharp shooter.”
I looked up, not knowing quite what to say. “Mine? But … I couldn’t …”
He grinned crookedly. “’Course you can. I’ve moved on to bigger guns.” He patted the rifle sling on his chest. “I bequeath it to you as your teacher. You’ve earned it.”
I smiled. “Well then, you’d better show me how to use it properly.”
He took the basket from my sweaty hands. “You sling it over your shoulder, like so.” He looped the strap over my head and I situated it across my chest, feeling somehow taller with the quiver on my back.
“You’ll make a good warrior, Katie Fire-Hair,” he said with a sharp nod.
Before I could thank him for the gift, Imogen gasped. “Oh my gosh, it’s him. No, it’s both of them!”
“Who?” Wattie and I asked in unison, both dropping everything and hurrying over to the window. The window had a view of the road and the thicket on the other side of the road where an unmistakable officer sitting on an unmistakable grey horse was having a conversation with an enormously tall, broad-shouldered Cherokee man. If the size of him wasn’t giveaway enough, his long, black hair and the glinting tomahawk dangling from his belt brought the terrible memory back sharp as a knife edge. The man who’d come out of the shadows in the cave. Black Fox.
15
The Fox and the Stone
We kept throwing glances over our shoulders as we followed Wattie through the village, across some vegetable patches and into a dense forest of cornstalks. Only when we were deep into the maze of tall, swaying stalks did I feel I could breathe again. Wattie wound his way through the rows and rows of corn, following a path only he could see, and at last brought us out onto a river bank.
Grasshopper was waiting at the water’s edge beside a long canoe that looked more like half a hollowed-out log. He greeted us with a low bird call. “What took so long?”
“Ambushed,” Wattie said, and explained how we’d watched Lovegood and Black Fox from the shop window until we were certain they’d gone and the coast was clear. “You know Black Fox,” Wattie added. “He can make himself invisible when he wants to.”
That thought sent a shiver down my spine, and Imogen started casting her eyes around frantically.
“He didn’t follow us,” Wattie said reassuringly. “But best not to linger here and give him the chance.”
He and Grasshopper loaded the rolled-up tarp into the canoe, then grabbed hold of its sides and pushed it into the water. Wattie kept a foot on the stern, keeping it steady. “You navigate first,” he said to Grasshopper, clearly waiting for his cousin to climb into the canoe. But Grasshopper didn’t budge.
“I have to stay in Nickajack,” he said at last, his eyes falling to his feet.
Wattie looked taken aback. “I don’t understand. We agreed to do this together … for Crow Feather.”
“That is just it,” Grasshopper said, sounding sorrowful but determined. “With Crow Feather hurt, my father has no one to help him. He was once a great warrior, but now he grows old. He cannot bring in the harvest and defend our home on his own.”
The two cousins stared at each other for a moment, both with a look of stern determination on their brows. At last, Wattie held out his hand, and they clasped arms. Wattie spoke up first. “Look after them and my family too. Tell my mother and father not to worry.”
Grasshopper nodded solemnly, then turned to me and Imogen. “Tell the Governor what you saw. Get justice for Crow Feather. For all of us. I believe you have come to Nickajack for this purpose.”
His words hit me like a punch in the stomach. “Do you really think so?” I asked, wanting desperately to believe him.
Grasshopper gave me a crooked smile, which made him look younger and less stern, and pointed to my head. “It is a sign, Katie Fire-Hair. As long as the fire burns, there is hope for the Cherokee.” Next he turned to Imogen. “And that goes for Dilli also.”
Imogen rolled her eyes, but only half-heartedly. “Tell Little Beaver I said goodbye,” she said. “And …” – she seemed to be struggling with herself – “tell her I hope I see her again soon.”
Once again, Grasshopper nodded. “Donadagohu’I,” he said.
“Until we meet again,” Wattie answered.
We watched as the sea of cornstalks swallowed Grasshopper. Then I climbed into the canoe followed by Imogen, and at last Wattie waded out and climbed into the stern.
“Without Grasshopper, we will all need to paddle,” he said, indicating the short-handled paddles in the canoe’s keel between us. I handed one to Imogen, then situated myself so I was sitting on my shins, and followed Wattie’s lead as he dipped his paddle into the dark water.
We didn’t talk, just paddled, watching the shore. I could tell Wattie was feeling deflated about Grasshopper staying behind. I could only guess what Imogen might be thinking. I could hardly believe what she’d said – that she hoped to see Little Beaver again. I was sure she’d wanted nothing more than to leave Cherokee Country far behind and get back to h
er own world. Was it possible she was actually worried about what might happen to these people?
My own mind was churning with a dozen questions about Lovegood and Black Fox and what awaited us down the river. I kept coming back to what Grasshopper had said, that we were here for a purpose. I didn’t know if my red hair had anything to do with it, but I hoped deep down that it was true, that this journey would lead us to the reason we’d come, and then home.
I was startled from my thoughts when the canoe suddenly lurched forward. The water was moving more quickly. The river was getting wider, and up ahead something jutted out across the water with a little, glowing light at the end of it.
Wattie pulled in his paddle and twisted around in his seat. “It’s the ferry crossing up ahead, where this river runs into the Tennessee. Those waters are too treacherous to navigate by night. We’ll just crawl past the ferry, then bank for the night, just over there in those trees.” He pointed to the distant shore.
As we drifted silently closer to the ferry, I could make out the silhouette of the ferryman in the light of his lantern, leaned against a rope barrel. As we edged past, all was quiet except the river lapping against the pier and the ferryman’s snores that carried across the water.
Once clear of the ferry, we put our paddles back in and steered to shore. Once we’d pulled the canoe up on land, Wattie collected up some of the bundles from the keel and threw us each a rolled-up piece of animal hide. “Here. For sleeping on.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Imogen was looking at the furry bundle miserably. “I will never complain about having to sleep in a tent ever again.”
I sat on my mat and watched Wattie work away at trying to start a fire with just a couple of sticks and a little ball of kindling. Neither Imogen nor I spoke while he spindled a stick between his hands, his face screwed up concentrating. Then finally, a little ribbon of smoke appeared. He wrapped the smoking embers into the ball of kindling, held it to his lips, then blew on it gently. After what seemed like a lot of blowing, the first flicker of flame shot out, and in no time, we had a full-grown fire to warm us. Wattie leaned back on his elbow, admiring his work and looking very pleased with himself.
