He pulled up on his horse to watch the crackling blazes stretch skyward in height and intensity, and scanned the village for dark faces. Of a sudden, a black Seminole brave stood on the ground on his other side, an egret feather in his cap, bare-chested, dressed only in breechclout and leggings, a long rifle pointing at Cow Tom’s chest. Behind the man were two boys, eyes wide in terror, the same age as Malinda and Maggie were when he left them back in Alabama. The black man’s lean, dark face was accusation laid bare. He was not that much younger than Cow Tom, no more than twenty-five, with a deep mahogany sheen to his skin. A long, silent moment passed between them.
Cow Tom didn’t know what to make of the wordless exchange, but registered both anger and disgust from the man. He wished he could stop and explain to this black Seminole how he came to be holding that fiery torch, burning the village, threatening his sons, following orders he knew were wrong, when all he wanted was to get back to Amy, and his girls, and his tribe. The seconds stretched long, until Cow Tom had the presence of mind to throw the torch toward the man’s feet, scramble off his horse, and roll to the ground. He sprang back up in a defensive posture. Only Cow Tom’s quickness prevented the bullet from finding a home in his chest instead of ripping through his breeches and merely nicking his thigh. There was a sting, but barely any blood, and Cow Tom still had his senses.
The brave set about shoving in another load, methodically, expertly, but the tight rifling of his superior gun meant a slower reload, and in the chaos and noise all around him, Cow Tom grabbed his own musket from the horse’s saddle, loaded and already primed, and pointed it toward the man. But the brave never let up his reloading rhythm, except to bark an order in Miccosukee.
“Find Mother!” he said, and pushed the boys away from his body, out of this particular harm’s way, and they were off in a flash, bare feet slapping the mudded hammock, running toward the center of the burning village, away from him.
“Don’t,” said Cow Tom to the brave, in Miccosukee.
The brave’s hands started to shake, whether from fear or nerves or frustration, Cow Tom didn’t know.
“We don’t have to do this,” Cow Tom shouted. “Give up. Remove.”
The black brave paused this time, the muscles in his face rigid but the deep brown of his eyes bottomless and fierce, and what Cow Tom saw was a free man, on his own land, with no intention to Remove. Not for Cow Tom, not for the general, not for the government, not even for his sons.
Buzzards circled overhead, and in the distance, a single flat pop of an American musket was answered with a sharp ring of an Indian rifle. The acrid smoke of burning gunpowder and the dense black smoke of palmetto aflame married and made it hard to breath. A turkey-bone whistle shrilled, drums beat, and human voices, both high-pitched and guttural, reached the two men at a standoff. A solitary keening chant that seemed of no beginning also had no end. The bugler began his play again.
It was as if only the two of them inhabited the hammock, young black fathers caught up in the making of life in a hostile world. They could be brothers, one free, one slave. Suddenly the Seminole fumbled, his grip loosed, and his rifle slipped from his grasp onto the ground. He looked from Cow Tom to his rifle and back again to Cow Tom, but he didn’t stoop to pick up his weapon.
Cow Tom wanted an end to all this. He brought his musket to his shoulder and fired, point-blank. The force of the blast sent the brave backward, and he went down, sitting in the mud, a stuttered pattern of expanding red exploded across his chest and belly. Even as his life drained, he didn’t look surprised, only resolute until the last, when he crumpled to one side, dead.
Cow Tom squatted in the mud next to the body, for how long he wasn’t sure, but all shooting had stopped, and the hiss and crackle of the fires seemed louder than all other sounds. Finally, he rose, straightened the brave and arranged him on his back. He left him there, and led his horse to the roundup.
The smoke made it difficult to see and to breathe now, from thick, choking fires and gunpowder residue both, but most of the villagers huddled together waiting, corralled and defeated, watching the flames take the last of their homes, as always happened at the end of these raids. There were some injured, but only one dead, the black Seminole, lying where he’d fallen.
Cow Tom scanned the listless crowd of captured Seminoles, guarded by several dragoons. Most of the military attention went to Micanopy, the fat chief, recaptured at last. But of the thirty or so Negroes gathered, none was his mother. He recognized the two small boys from earlier. They stood with a rail-thin black woman, on either side, with her hands on their backs pulling them near, claiming them. The boys stared at Cow Tom, and then whispered something to the woman, and she pressed them closer to her body as she squinted against the sun and the smoke as if to memorize his features. They each looked to him then, mother and sons, as if he was the devil incarnate, and Cow Tom couldn’t deny their judgment.
“Linguister!” called the general.
Cow Tom, mind a-churn, responded, his debrief chores at their beginning.
He had done this. His own mother could have been in the captured camp. He had taken pride in delivering up an entire village of people to turn them off their land. He was the only one in the raid to steal a man’s life, another black man, and rob these boys of a father. Rob the mother of her husband.
No one must ever know the part he played today, he thought. Not Harry, more clever, who would have figured some way to avoid this outcome. Not Chief Yargee. Not his children. But especially not Amy, should they reunite, who would surely see him as less of a man.
No one must ever know.
Chapter 12
A PART OF Cow Tom never rose from the mud of that Seminole village, side by side with the dead brave. He couldn’t shake the last look of contempt from the mother and her two fatherless boys. But he continued his work. What choice was there? He tracked the treacherous Florida Everglades, led the general and his soldiers through muck and mire and ambush, and concocted Miccosukee arguments for defeated chiefs to persuade them to abandon their native land. In vivid dreams, he strangled the general and left his body for the swamp’s disposal, but in light of day, he knew that wouldn’t stop the assault of innocents, or deliver him home to Amy. And so he rode alongside the general on more early morning raids, and watched the wrenching scatter of helpless Seminoles as their homes burned to the ground around them. He performed whatever was asked of him, torching and shooting with others. He always searched for his mother among the surrendered, but he expected little. Better to concentrate on the real, the possible, getting home.
“You are needed no longer,” the general said in September.
Cow Tom wanted nothing more than to get shed of this Seminole War, but the sting of the loss of his position surprised him.
“Am I to reassign or detach?”
“The remaining Creek warriors will muster out, and you as well.”
No more early morning raids on Seminole camps, the smell of scorched earth after torch set camp to blaze. No longer defined or defiled by the general’s foul moods and suspicions.
“Am I dismissed to Alabama next week with the Creek warriors?”
“A ship of Seminole slaves leaves for Indian Territory this week.”
“But my wife and daughters will be with my chief, wherever they hold the warriors’ families.” Hostage, he wanted to add. Wherever they’d been holding the warriors’ families hostage. He’d hoped as long as Amy stayed close to Chief Yargee, his family would stay whole. Yargee could prove ownership, so they wouldn’t be subject to slavers. “Might’n I sail with the Creeks next week?”
“In the end, they Remove to the Creek partition in Indian Territory. You meet them there,” said the general coolly.
The set-aside partitions were divided between different tribes, so Cherokee didn’t have to live among Choctaw, or Comanche with Creek, and each received their own swaths of la
nd. If Creek and Seminole were forced to mix, there would be trouble every day, with memories of the Florida wars too fresh to forgive.
Cow Tom’s mood plunged. The general’s heart, such as it was, remained closed against him. But this was the last he would ever see the general, and he wanted to be heard a final time.
“The linguisters served you as well as we were able,” Cow Tom said.
The general looked to him with renewed interest, as if he were a tiresome pet that had suddenly risen from four legs to stand on two and spoken aloud.
“When do I leave?” Cow Tom asked simply.
The general cleared his throat, twice, in the throes of decision, staring at Cow Tom the while.
“The other boat docks in a week. You and the other linguisters ship out with the last of the Creek warriors on the Paragon,” the general answered. “We’re almost done with Florida.”
“Yes, sir.” Cow Tom turned to leave the smoky room, eager to share the news with Harry and compare notes over a flask.
“Say,” the general called to him. Cow Tom faced him square on.
“Times of war call for extraordinary sacrifice. We can’t always follow rules.”
Cow Tom waited for something more. Did the general apologize for blaming Cow Tom and Harry for Osceola’s raid at Fort Brooke? Was he defending his orders to burn Seminole camps from one end of Florida to another? Expressing regret at faulting the conscripted Creek warriors for their lack of enthusiasm in chasing down Seminoles? Cow Tom waited, but the general went back to his cigar, his lips firmly clenched around the soggy base.
“Yes, sir.”
Cow Tom left as quickly as he dared. He was going home. Home to earn money enough to buy himself freedom or die trying. Home to purchase his family one by one, however long that might take. He was no longer a green recruit familiar only with tending cows, but a proven man who had survived a war, escaped a scalping, and for a time, influenced a general of the United States government. But he was also the man who looked into a black Seminole’s eyes and killed him nonetheless, and broke his family. Who burned entire villages to the ground day in and day out. He’d have to carry that secret shame home with him.
This phase of his life was almost over, but the question still remained.
Where and what might that home be?
Chapter 13
BELOW PARAGON’S DECK, Cow Tom and Harry Island passed the flask between them, on the quiet. For Cow Tom, the relief of whiskey was a newly acquired habit since leaving Alabama, but neither could swill enough of the contraband to get mercifully drunk. Their stomachs churned off tempo with the boat’s heave as they inched along the Florida coast. In the next few days, they were scheduled to stop at their first inlet destination at Tampa Bay, and the old, small 135-ton steamer had plenty of excess room for this beginning leg of the long trip home.
The Paragon carried a mishmash of evacuees—one of the last detachments of Creek warriors mustered out of the general’s service and away from Florida, black translators being returned to their rightful owners, military men dispatched to maintain order and deliver the Creeks on board out of the United States and deep into Indian Territory, a pair of Seminole braves in dotage—as well as a few heavy-bearded civilians hitching a cheap ride westward, the ship’s captain and assorted deck and engine room crew, and a lone doctor, white, middle-aged, disheveled, and only minimally sober from the time the ship left port.
Cow Tom and Harry kept to themselves. None of the handful of returning black translators sprinkled among the fifty or so returning Creek warriors was bound or restrained in any way, not yet anyway, and the two thought to spend most of the boat trip in an alcove behind the boiler room, apart from the others. They’d made themselves as comfortable as possible among the choke of steamed heat and the stacked cords of split sycamore logs still lousy with Florida’s spiders and other pests, storing their few belongings in the room’s far corner.
They went mostly unseen at their post near the boilers, and could sip unchallenged the whiskey Harry had bought from the vendor selling cheap spirits before they boarded. No doubt Harry lied to the shore vendor, a rotten-toothed and bearded man, and said he purchased alcohol at the behest of one of the Creeks, or one of the military men, but in truth, the vendor was unlikely to care one way or the other. As long as the coins proved good and came into his pocket, it wouldn’t matter to him how Harry came by them.
The disadvantage of their location was the constant heat, noise, and damp from the boiler room itself, as the crew shoved pine knots and wood splits into the roaring fire, and sprinkled rosin over the coal to raise more steam. Despite the chill in the air elsewhere, the two firemen stayed stripped down to shirtsleeves, both arms and cloth streaked dark and muddy with a disagreeable mix of sweat and coal dust as they tended the boilers. The firemen possessed an entire barrel of whiskey for themselves, from which they drank often and freely, and they quickly proved to be a quarrelsome pair, full of loud and meaningless argument to pass the time.
“Could be worse,” said Harry.
“Always could be worse,” said Cow Tom. “How so?”
“Leastways no shackles.”
“Guess they figure if we had a mind to run, we’d have tried already in Florida. Besides, they got our families somewhere.”
“No putting us on half rations. Sick on all sides, but we both come out healthy.” Because of Cow Tom’s and Harry’s proximity to the general, even as slave, even when out of favor, their grim duty year had left them lean but fit.
“You. Linguister.”
A military man with bushy, dark whiskers covering half his face and an oiled, fancy mustache stood at the doorway. Cow Tom didn’t recognize him, but Harry did.
“Yes, sir,” Harry said.
“The doctor needs talking to a sick Indian. Follow me.”
The military man led Harry away. Cow Tom retreated to his corner and his dark thoughts, closing his eyes against the thought of those two black Seminole boys growing up fatherless. Drinking seemed the best idea, and he took another pull. He grew more morose than before, restless. He couldn’t affect the speed of the steamer, or the number of stops along the coast to pick up more people to transport or the capricious weather, and his translation duties, for the moment, were at an end. He was relieved to put Florida behind him, but had to admit that there had been excitement, an unexpected thrill in worming his way into the general’s confidence for a time. But he couldn’t wait to reunite with Amy and his daughters.
Cow Tom went topside, up the narrow stairs, gripping with both hands the cold metal rails, careful to coordinate his movement with the rolling of the ship. Two Creek warriors hugged the side of the long topside balustrade that wrapped around the length and breadth of the ship, their heads hung over the side, retching to the point of exhaustion. Drunk or sick, Cow Tom couldn’t tell. On sad display on deck were the last of the conscripted Creek warriors sent back from Florida, none sure where their people might be. All they knew for certain was that their tribes and their families were no longer where they left them.
Cow Tom quickly returned belowdecks and tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come. After a time, Harry also found his way back to the nook and sat cross-legged on the floor adjacent.
“Bloody flux,” Harry said. “We got bloody flux on the boat.” He held out his hand and Cow Tom passed over the flask. Harry shook the container, holding it gently by the throat, noting the deficiency, but he said nothing, just tipped it back and drained the rest.
They passed time in silence, but after almost an hour of calm seas, the boat began again to buck and pitch, as earlier that morning. Cow Tom made his way again to the deck on unsteady legs, pushing past small, listless groups of Creeks. He stood on the lee side for a few moments, patient, and finally emptied the contents of his stomach over the rail, holding on tight and leaning his body out as far as he dared. The wind behind him served to cl
ear his head a bit, and restore his spirit, but also brought back the cruelty of his situation. He left the railing, and when he got back to Harry, his friend produced a full flask. Harry drank deeply, and offered the container to him.
“Where’s it from?” Cow Tom asked.
Harry inclined his head in the direction of the firemen’s barrel. Both of the crewmembers dozed, backs to the wall and chin to chest, and Cow Tom didn’t push further as to whether they had given or Harry had taken.
The brown liquid burned going down, and Cow Tom relished the punishing jolt when it reached his stomach. Thank goodness for Harry.
“What do we drink to?” he asked.
“Getting out alive,” said Harry.
“Alive,” said Cow Tom. “And no more Florida.”
“To no more alligators.”
“No more sand fleas.”
“No more treaties.”
“There will always be more treaties,” said Cow Tom.
They passed the flask between them for another round at the truth of it.
“To going home,” said Harry.
Cow Tom grunted, the sadness returning and claiming its rightful place. “We don’t have a home,” he said.
They both let the thought linger. He’d had no definite word of Amy and the girls, whether they were still with Chief Yargee. Or if Yargee himself was alive or dead. He could only hope the rumors were true, that they waited for him in one of the holding camps. Or were already in Indian Territory, waiting there. Harry took another long pull on the flask and handed it over. One of the firemen stirred and shoved more logs into the fire before falling off to sleep again. The clanging from the boiler room made it harder to think a thought all the way to the end, and so Cow Tom gave up and drank instead. The boat chugged forward at a steady pace.
Citizens Creek Page 7
