Calling Crow Nation (The Southeast Series Book 3)

by Paul Clayton

  Samuel waved to Calling Crow to come forward. “Come,” he whispered hoarsely, “it is all right.” He pointed to the front of the church, at what looked to Calling Crow and Red Feather like tall straight golden trees growing against the wall. “The organ,” he said, “it is only the organ.”

  “It is war cries!” said Red Feather. He looked around them, sure an attack would come at any moment.

  Calling Crow stared at the golden trees. A deep-throated bellow of a voice reverberated in the stone church, and he realized that it was the voice of the English god.

  The people stared at Calling Crow and Red Feather as the sound grew louder, seeming as if it would shake the very roof off the church. Calling Crow started forward, but Red Feather gripped his shoulder painfully and would not move.

  Little Catherine slid off the bench and walked back down the aisle. Smiling shyly, she looked up at the two towering men and took each of them by the hand. Wordlessly, she pulled them along and they sat on Samuel’s and Frances’s bench.

  Chapter 21

  Samuel sat on the bench before the fire in the large kitchen eating a bowl of porridge with a wooden spoon. He had one of Calling Crow’s deerskin shirts on the bench beside him. The garment, which was of a uniform tan color, had a multitude of tiny pearlescent shells stitched to the sleeves, making a geometric pattern, all of it Calling Crow’s wife Green Bird Woman’s handiwork. Samuel’s brother, John, stood leaning up against the warm bricks of the hearth. Elizabeth, the serving woman, swung a blackened, steaming kettle away from the flames, then stirred it quickly with a spoon before swinging it back. She brought a bowl of water and a cloth to Samuel and he washed his hands and lips.

  “Do you really think they will loan you the money for the muskets?” said John.

  Samuel frowned pensively. He ran his hand over the shirt beadwork. “After I show them this, they will.”

  John shook his head. “Barrister and Langley are wool merchants, brother. They care not about skins.”

  Samuel folded up the shirt. “A gentleman by the name of Wilbye will be there. He owns a large tanning and dyeing works in Plymouth. He will sway the others. I am sure of it.”

  Samuel stood. “Well, John. Frances has awakened by now. I will tell her goodbye and then I’ll needs be off. When will I see you again?”

  John shook his head. “I will see you in church, brother.”

  “Very well.”

  John walked out to the courtyard and Samuel climbed the stairs. The humidity and heat in his wife’s bedroom were oppressive. Despite the opened window, no air entered. Samuel stood behind Frances as she sat before the dresser on the only chair in the room. Her servants had already dressed her and she gazed into the mirror, a hairbrush in her hand. She hung her head disconsolately. He noticed that the milky skin of her neck was reddened by both the heat and her mood.

  “You must give this business up, Samuel,” she said. “I fear for you.”

  He said nothing and she looked at him, waiting for him to reply.

  “I am sorry,” he said finally.

  Frances’s eyes welled with tears. “Sorry? Do you know what it was like for me while you were gone? Do you know how much I worried?” Her look grew angry. “Do you?”

  “Of course,” he said.

  “And you still pursue this?”

  He said nothing, instead, turning at what he thought was the sound of one of the house servants.

  “You have grown odd from your stay in that hot place! Forget Barrister and the others, and give up this crazy business.”

  “Frances,” he said in exasperation, “one of these gentlemen has come all the way from Plymouth. If I’m to get money for the muskets, I must go to them.”

  She turned to him. “No, forget the muskets. Your brother John is in no hurry to go back there. Why don’t you show some sense, as he does?”

  Catherine’s happy, staccato laughter came through the opened window, then Calling Crow’s steady voice, then the voice of Anne, little Catherine’s nursemaid.

  “I cannot forget them, Frances,” Samuel said. “I must take Calling Crow and Red Feather back.”

  “Why?” she pleaded. “They’d be better off here than they would running naked through the forest! Teach them the language. Then they could work in the fields and make their own way.”

  “No,” he said firmly. “They have families! I have promised that I would take them.”

  “But that was before the Spaniards stole your cargo. You are no longer beholden to them.”

  “But I am,” he said emphatically, “because I have given them my word!”

  “Samuel,” she said, “you are not making sense.” She looked at him as if he’d been struck with brain fever or possessed by the devil.

  “I am sorry,” he said.

  Frances turned away. “And so am I, my dear. So am I.” She sobbed into her hands.

  Samuel took the reins of his horse from his lackey, Robert, and hoisted himself up into the saddle. Little Catherine waved goodbye from where she sat on the lawn with Anne. Calling Crow and Red Feather sat nearby. Catherine had become quite taken with the two natives, and they with her.

  Samuel rode through the gate and turned down the road to town. Frances’s melancholia had affected him and he felt as if he were in a state of somnambulism. She would realize how important this all was at a later time when his present efforts would bear fruit. For now, he must try to be understanding of her fears, but carry on just the same. The flower-sweetened air pushed down on him like molasses, slowing all movement. It seemed as if things would soon stop. Samuel was already tired of the tranquil pace of his old, reclaimed life and he felt that if he was not soon off he would never go. He would become immobilized, suspended like a spider fallen into a glass of treacle. To throw off his lethargy, he remembered his thrill at escaping the Timucua. He remembered the deep greens reflected in the black water ponds of that lovely, wild place. He remembered the excitement of hunting deer and turkey with Calling Crow. Another remembrance pushed against his consciousness. Despite his black feelings of guilt, he let it in. It was the memory of the willing, girlish face of Bright Eyes, the memory of her Eve-like, innocent nakedness. He tried to tell himself he was going back because of the promise he had made to Calling Crow, not for her. Yet, memories of her still filled his head; the wanting look in her eyes, her beautiful brown limbs, the feel of her beneath him.

  Frances wiped her eyes with her handkerchief. She heard a noise at the door. It was John. “I told you he would not be talked out of it,” he said.

  She glared at him. “Who put these wild notions in his head, John?”

  “Not I, Frances. It is none of my doing.”

  Laughter floated in the little window. Frances went over and looked out. Catherine and Anne sat on the lawn across from the two savages. Frances felt a twinge of fear. She would talk to Anne about this later. She did not like Catherine getting too close to them.

  John joined her at the window. “Catherine is charmed by them.”

  “Ugh, please! If they would only go away, all this madness would stop!”

  “They’ll not go anywhere on their own,” said John. “They’ll need some encouragement.”

  Frances’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”

  “They’ll need some inducement to go away. Perhaps I can provide it. I have a business proposition for them.”

  Frances held up her hand. “Don’t say another word, John. I don’t want to hear about it. I only want them gone and my husband back. That is all” She started crying softly.

  John smiled. “I understand, Frances. Just as I want my brother back. We will speak no more of it.”

  Red Feather looked down in confusion at the tiny child. “What is she saying?” he asked Calling Crow.

  “I am not sure,” said Calling Crow. “She wants her and me to do some kind of dance, and she wants you to be our pole, maypole, she said.”

  Red Feather took the two long strips of red cloth Catherine gav
e him, the other ends falling to earth. Catherine took one and laughingly handed it to Calling Crow, then picked up the other. “Tell him to hold his hands up to the sky,” she told Calling Crow. He told Red Feather of Catherine’s request. “I think it is another of their prayer rituals.”

  Red Feather’s stoic face was unchanged as he raised his long arms up to the gray sky.

  “Go around, go around,” the child cried with delight as she began dancing about Red Feather’s tall unmoving form. Calling Crow followed her.

  “Ring around the rosy, pocket full of posies,” the girl sang.

  Red Feather turned slowly as he held on to the cloth streamers. It was then that he spotted the sickly white face of Samuel’s wife looking down at them. She looked close to death and Red Feather understood why the Englishman was looking for another wife. Still, Red Feather’s anger returned; Samuel should have looked elsewhere. Samuel’s brother’s face appeared at the window beside her.

  “Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”

  Catherine fell backward and burst out laughing, distracting Red Feather. Calling Crow joined her in her mirth, laughing as he sat down upon the grass. Red Feather looked up at the window again but the two faces were gone.

  Catherine’s slave ran out of the house. “It is almost noontime, child, time to sup.”

  Catherine turned away from the woman to Calling Crow and Red Feather. “Almost noon,” she cried excitedly. “Come and see! Come!” She took Calling Crow and Red Feather by the hand and pulled them toward the house. Red Feather balked at the steps.

  “Quickly,” Catherine cried. The woman looked at Catherine worriedly then went inside.

  “Let us go inside, Red Feather,” said Calling Crow. “She wants badly to show us something.”

  Red Feather relented and followed Calling Crow into the house. Catherine led them to the biggest room in the house. She pulled them to a thickly padded bench near the wall and indicated that they should sit.

  She then pulled herself up between them and pointed to a large wooden thing not far away. The thing had a round face and a wooden tail that wagged back and forth. There were two arrows on the face. The shorter arrow already pointed straight up to the sky, and the other, longer one was moving to join it in little steps. With an almost imperceptible click, the large arrow joined its smaller brother in pointing up at the heavens and the thing erupted in song and music. Red Feather leapt backward over the bench as Catherine clapped her hands together happily.

  “Ring around the rosy,” she sang again, “pocket full of posies.”

  Calling Crow joined in. “Ashes, ashes, all fall down!”

  Behind an alehouse, three men sat at a table in the dappled shade cast by a trellis full of roses. The alehouse wall behind them was completely covered with curled and age-browned postings and handbills. John Newman leaned back against the wall and propped his booted feet up on a cask beneath the table. He calmly arranged the playing cards in his hand. Across from him, Warren Hopkins, the fat owner of the alehouse, pinched his chin, a mere U-shaped stitch in the fat of his neck as he studied his cards. To his left, Hugh Collier, a bear of a man with a bald head and a large, bushy gray beard put down the deck of cards and picked up his own hand. Collier owned a fair that traveled the countryside, wintering in Hartford. An old acquaintance of John’s, he was here because of an offer the recently returned adventurer had made him. It concerned the purchase of two “wild men” to exhibit at his fair. John had said they might get a chance to see them this day.

  As Collier studied his cards, the muted hoof beats of passing horses filtered through the trellis roses.

  “I’ll give you fifty pounds each for them,” said Collier, “sight unseen.”

  “No,” said John calmly. “I’ll not sell them.”

  “What?” said Collier, laying his cards down. “Then what in Hades did you bring me up here for, anyway?”

  John continued to study his cards unperturbed. “I’ll not sell them. I’ll rent them to you, for a percentage of your receipts.”

  “Ha!” said Collier. “You must be crazy.” He picked up his cards.

  Drunken singing burst upon them from the opened back door of the alehouse.

  “Egads,” said John in annoyance, “no more spirits for them, Hopkins.”

  Hopkins looked over his hand without concern. “Ha! I’ve heard worse singing in the theater.”

  John smiled. “I’ve heard worse in church.”

  “Aye,” said Hopkins, “so have I, especially when it’s my wife’s turn to solo.”

  John and Collier laughed softy.

  “So, what do you say, Hugh?” John said.

  “I already said it,” Collier said, “you’re crazy.”

  Another drunken chorus erupted from inside, degenerating into hoots and guffaws.

  “Soon they’ll be dancing on your new tables, eh, Hopkins?” said John.

  Hopkins’s fat face grew pink. “They wouldn’t dare.” Still, he turned round to look worriedly inside at the dimly visible figures.

  A boy ran in from the street and went up to John. “Sir,” he said with great excitement.

  John looked up from his cards.

  “Your brother is coming in his carriage. The savages are riding up with the coachman.” The boy ran back outside.

  Hopkins threw down his cards. “I want to see this.” He quickly went out through the arched entryway in the trellis.

  “Wait,” John called out to him, “let’s see your hand first.”

  “He had a lousy hand,” said Collier, “that’s what it is.”

  “How do you know?” said John.

  “I looked,” said Collier. He put his cards face down on the table. “Let’s go look at these fellows you think I’ll want for my show.”

  John threw his cards down and got to his feet. He and Collier walked under the arch and out into the dying, autumnal light. Samuel’s carriage was just turning the corner. A swarm of boys ran in the dust behind it, laughing and shouting at the two Indians seated high up on the bench seat. Despite the laughter of the boys, John felt only anger at the sight. The two savages sat bolt upright and looked straight ahead. The sight of them reminded John of all the money he had lost. Damn their heathen souls! He’d recover some of that if he had to skin them and sell their bloody hides. He went back inside the garden to wait for Collier. One handbill on the wall caught his eye. It was Collier’s and announced the coming of his traveling fair. There were plays and acrobats, jugglers--

  Outside, the boys chattered loudly as if they had just witnessed the second coming. Their excitement and wonder was music to John’s ears. Surely Collier would see the possibilities. The savages would bring many, many people into the fair, making its owner richer, and providing a nice income for John Newman.

  Collier came through the archway and sat down. Folding his hands before him, he said, “When can I take possession of the merchandise?”

  For the first time in a long time the shadow of a smile moved John’s thin lips. “Tonight.”

  Chapter 22

  As Samuel’s carriage wound up the curve of Barrister’s drive, Samuel hoped that everything would go well. He had not wanted the two Newlanders to have to submit to this, but Barrister had insisted. The investors all must get a look at the natives and their skin shirts, he said. The carriage lurched to a stop and Samuel got out. As he watched the two natives climb down, he prayed that all would go well.

  Later, Calling Crow and Red Feather stood on a raised platform that had been built for them in the middle of the great room. They did not use the chairs that had been placed there for them. Most of the people had already inspected Calling Crow and Red Feather closely and now clustered in groups near the food-bearing tables, looking up at them occasionally. The room reeked of the pouches of crushed flowers the women wore about their necks and the burnt odor of the many candles that lit the room like a sky of bright stars. Only one man had questioned Calling Crow about his people and his village. The others had simply
passed by, eyeing Calling Crow and Red Feather with curiosity. The evening passed slowly and finally Calling Crow saw Samuel shake a man’s hand vigorously and bow. Samuel started over and Calling Crow could tell by the look of satisfaction on Samuel’s face that they could leave.

  Calling Crow stepped off the platform to meet Samuel, and Red Feather followed him. Many people turned to watch them leave. Outside, the air was cooler and free of the nauseating smells. “It is done,” said Samuel, “they have agreed to lend me the money.”

  When will we get the shooting sticks?” said Calling Crow, “and when can we board the ship and start back?”

  “All in good time,” said Samuel contentedly.

  Calling Crow and Red Feather climbed up with the coachman and Samuel got inside. The springless carriage banged and bounced along the blackened road. Almost an hour later it stopped in front of Samuel’s house. Calling Crow and Red Feather climbed down as the coachman opened the door for Samuel. A servant with a lamp appeared at the door, waiting for Samuel as the carriage rolled away. Samuel turned to the two Newlanders before starting up the stairwell. A hint of a smile colored his face. “We will talk more in the morning. Now it’s time to sleep.”

  Calling Crow and Red Feather walked quietly down the carriageway to the spring house. They spoke softly in their native Muskogee. “Why doesn’t he get us the shooting sticks tonight?” said Red Feather, “then we could begin the journey back in the morning.”

  “It will take longer than that,” said Calling Crow.

  “I don’t like it,” said Red Feather. “Did you see the way they looked at us in the big house? I don’t trust them, especially Samuel”

  Calling Crow’s voice was full of confidence. “Samuel is an honorable man. He will keep his word. You will see. Soon we will be home with the shooting sticks.”