by Janet Dailey
It had been months since he had seen her. At first, when the threats against his life had escalated to an alarming degree following the ratification of the treaty, he had stayed away out of fear for her. But the arrival of the federal troops had negated much of that. After that, he wasn't sure why he had stayed away. It had seemed best for her and the baby yet to be born, yet perhaps it had been pride that kept him away. Maybe he had wanted her to come to him and admit he was right. Or maybe he had hoped he could forget her. But time hadn't given him any immunity from the pain.
Did she remember that it was his connections, his influence, that had kept Gordon Glen out of the lottery? Did she know she had him to thank for the roof over her head? Did it matter?
"Master Blade!" Deu rounded the corner of the store, his dark eyes unusually bright.
"Where have you been?" The Blade snapped irritably, in no mood to hear any news Deu might have gleaned from the trader's black. He walked briskly to the hitching rack where their horses were tied. "I have been out here for ten minutes."
"Master Blade, wait." Deu grabbed his arm, then quickly released it when he felt the bunching of muscles. "Old Gato just told me the baby's come. You have a son, Master Blade."
Silence. Then he slowly turned. "A son! Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir."
"Temple—"
"She's fine, sir. Just fine."
The Blade gave him a slapping shove toward the horses. "Let's go!" He sprang into the saddle and wheeled the horse from the rack before Deu got the reins to his untied. The Blade didn't wait for him, taking off out of town at a hard gallop.
Victoria lay on her side and gazed adoringly at the blanket-wrapped infant nestled in the crook of her arm. With the tip of her forefinger, she traced the curve of the tiny fist. "He is beautiful, isn't he?" she said, glancing at Eliza.
"Indeed he is." Eliza stood close to the bed, watchful for any signs that Victoria was overtiring.
"He is big for only three days old." She gently smoothed the bushy down of black hair on the baby's head. "It will be so good to have a baby in the house again," she declared, then struggled to swallow back a cough.
"Let me take him now." Eliza stepped forward and tunneled her hands under the sleeping infant, picking him up. "I think Mama would like to have him back for a while."
"Which mama?" Will inquired. "The boy has three of them. Four, if you count Xandra."
"At least no one can say he won't be well cared for." Eliza smiled as Will walked over to inspect the grandson she held in her arms.
"Father, you spoil him as much as they do," Temple accused from the doorway.
"Temple." Eliza turned in surprise. "You should not be out of bed."
"I can't stay there forever." She walked into the room, exhibiting only a slight gingerliness in her movements. "Especially, it seems, if I want to spend any time with my son. Every time I close my eyes, someone runs off with him."
"Your mother wanted to see him," Eliza explained as she transferred the baby into Temple's arms.
"I know."
"Miss Temple." Phoebe barged into the room, then paused, lowering her voice the instant she saw Temple holding the baby. "Master Blade's here."
"Here." Temple breathed the word.
"Yes'm. He's outside. He wants to see the baby."
"Well, of course he can." She beamed. "Tell him to come in."
"He ..." Phoebe hesitated, regret flickering in her eyes. "He won't come in. He wants me to . .. bring the baby outside."
Temple stared at her, too frozen inside to speak. "Of course," she murmured at last and drew the blanket more tightly around her sleeping son. "It is cold out. Be sure to keep him covered." She gave the baby over to Phoebe.
As Phoebe left with the infant, Temple pulled her shawl up around her shoulders, then turned and went to the balcony doors.
"Temple, you aren't going outside?" Eliza protested.
She paused with one hand on the brass latch and said, without turning, "I want to see him." She opened the door and stepped out into the crisp January afternoon.
His horse snorted and impatiently stamped a foot as The Blade centered his entire attention on the mansion's baroque door, waiting for it to open. When Phoebe came out carrying a blanketed bundle in her arms, he unconsciously strained forward, every muscle tensing in anticipation.
"Here's your son, Master Blade." She held the small bundle up, offering it to him.
He stared down from his horse, gripped by a strange feeling of awe, then awkwardly took the bundle from her, conscious of the squirming wiggle of the baby hidden inside the folded cloth. It was so small he wasn't sure what to do with it, how to hold it. He felt clumsy as he finally positioned the length of it along his forearm and lifted the corner flap of the blanket.
A tightness choked his throat when he saw the little face inside and the blinking, bewildered eyes that stared back at him. Black hair, fine as silk, covered the top of his head and curled over his ears—perfect little ears. Then his son gurgled and flailed the air with tiny fists. A powerful emotion, too new to identify, swelled inside him, bringing tears to his eyes.
"Miss Temple named him Elijah William Stuart," Phoebe said.
"Elijah." The Blade caught one of the fists between his thumb and forefinger and smiled at the little fingers that tried to curl around his thumb but weren't quite long enough to encircle it. "Elijah."
"Master Blade," Deu murmured low to him, his tone telling him there was something or someone he should be aware of.
The Blade instantly sensed that he was being watched. Without hesitation, he looked straight up to the second-floor balcony. Temple looked back, her black hair cascading loose about her shoulders, a shawl hugged protectively around her shapeless white nightdress. She had never looked more beautiful to him. Motionless, an unsmiling statue, yet she seemed to reach out to him.
Then Eliza joined her at the railing, shattering the impression. He looked down at his son, the child she had given him, the living proof of the love they had known together. He caressed the fingers that held so tightly to his thumb.
"Did she teach you to hang on like that, Lije?" he murmured. "You have to learn to let go." His horse tossed its head and shifted restlessly beneath him. "Let go," he whispered hoarsely, and reluctantly lowered the baby to Phoebe's hands.
Immediately, he reined his horse away from the house and the black woman, and forced himself not to look back. He heard Deu ride up alongside him.
"That's a fine-looking boy," he said.
"I will never live to see him grow up."
Deu silently cried for him, a tear rolling slowly down his dark cheek. There wasn't anything else he could do to ease his master's painful loneliness.
From the balcony, Temple watched him ride away, her whole body aching at the sight. She felt Eliza's arm curve around her shoulder, but she found no comfort in it.
"He ... he looked thinner." Temple remembered the way he had stared at her, mesmerizing her with his eyes. She choked back a sob, realizing again that she still loved him.
"Let's go inside, Temple," Eliza urged gently. "He has left."
PART III
... the opinion which is so generally entertained of its being impossible to civilize the Indians in our sense of the word. Here is a remarkable instance which seems to furnish a conclusive answer to skepticism on this point. A whole Indian nation abandons the pagan practices of their ancestors, adopts the Christian religion, uses books printed in their own language, submits to the government of their elders, builds houses and temples of worship, relies upon agriculture for their support, and produces men of great ability to rule over them, and to whom they give a willing obedience. Are not these the great principles of civilization? They are driven from their religious and social state then, not because they cannot be civilized, but because a pseudo set of civilized beings, who are too strong for them, want their possessions!
— George W. Featherstonhaugh
23
Hiwas
see
May 10,1838
In full dress regalia, Lieutenant Jed Parmelee stood at parade rest, facing the sixty-odd Cherokee chieftains and headmen who had been summoned to the agency by General Winfield Scott, the new commanding officer of the federal troops. Jed was no longer the innocent and idealistic young officer fresh from West Point. He had spent the last four years in the Florida swamps campaigning against the Seminoles, losing many of his illusions—including the illusion of the glory of battle.
He had fought and lived while others around him had died. He had stopped asking why. Lieutenant Jed Parmelee was a professional soldier now, a combat veteran who fought because it was what he had been trained to do. He was loyal to the uniform he wore even if he wasn't always proud of it.
The subtropical sun had bronzed his fair skin and bleached the small mustache that grew on his upper lip. His sideburns and darkly golden hair had been streaked by the sun as well. And his eyes were old now with the hardness of experience, as old as some of the Indians' he now faced, old and sharply alert. He watched them, observing their stony faces and equally stony silence as they waited for General Scott to read his proclamation to them.
"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 t
o 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.
