Tennessee Bride

by Rosanne Bittner

  “No, wait.” Emma’s mind swam with confusion, all reason beginning to leave her. She felt suddenly angry and contrary, and she argued about removing her bloomers. She pushed at River and told him to leave her alone, and another pain came. She started to cry out, but River quickly clamped a big hand over her mouth, firmly and forcefully, so that in her deepest moment of pain she could think of nothing but Tommy’s attack on her. Tommy! Tommy had come for her, and had found her! She began fighting River so that he had to turn her back to him and keep one strong arm firmly around her chest and arms, while he kept his other hand tightly over her mouth.

  “Emma, it’s all right!” he whispered hoarsely. “It’s me, River! Nobody is going to hurt you. And if you just relax, the baby will be all right, too.”

  Mary managed to get the bloomers off in the dark, then wrapped part of the blanket around Emma’s legs as Emma began to relax again. Reality returned for the moment, but that was no better than her imagined danger. Reality was that she was having a baby. How many babies had her mother lost?

  River’s chest hurt from the effort of holding her to keep her from screaming. He realized that the screaming probably helped. A woman should be allowed to do anything she wanted in such a time, if it helped relieve the pain. He slowly took his hand from her mouth so that she could breathe in the short pants again, and with every breath she whispered, “River.”

  “I am right here, Emma. Soon those men will be gone and we can get you up to a bed.” He heard someone above scream, and rage burned in his soul. How much longer must his people put up with such abuse?

  The worst part was that he was certain it would only get worse, until all of them agreed to leave Tennessee. Perhaps every Indian from the Smokies to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic would have to leave before it was done. It made no sense. They were bothering no one and they lived well.

  Already there were rumors of men in government working on a federal policy that would remove all Indians east of the Mississippi River to Indian Territory. It was food for much discussion over Cherokee supper tables. How could the white men just decide what to do with people, as though they were ruling gods? This was the Indians’ home. They had a right to stay here if they chose. They were industrious and bothered no one. None of them could understand the white man’s thinking.

  But River knew the new policy would probably become law. After all, they had already received news that a Bureau of Indian Affairs had been established, as part of the War Department. Why part of the War Department? It could only be because the government intended to remove all Indians to the west by force if necessary. And as much as the Cherokee loved these mountains, force probably would be needed.

  But none of the government’s decisions warranted these raids by the local whites. The men who did these things should be arrested. They had no authority, and their only motives were hatred—hatred of a people they would not even try to understand, hatred of the color of someone’s skin—and a jealous desire to have the land that the Cherokee occupied. After all, that was thousands of square miles of good farm land, and a few Cherokee had even found some gold in the mountains of northern Georgia. To the white man, gold was an incentive for anything, including murder.

  Now, because of the prejudice and hatred of the men outside, Emma had to lie in pain and agony, unable to have her baby in her own bed. Even though both he and Emma were white, they must suffer because they had befriended the Cherokee. He thought again about Texas, but perhaps after this last search the raiders would give up looking for him and Emma, if that was why these men had come. Besides, they were safe at least for the winter after this. His instincts told him this would be an extra-bad winter in the mountains. The white men would return to their warm homes below and wait until spring before coming back.

  Gray clouds began spitting sleet as again the white men ransacked the Cherokee cabins. And again the red-haired, freckled white man was with them, his blue eyes blazing, his face slightly crooked, his fist hard when he hit a few old men in an attempt to get them to tell where River Joe and the white girl were. But again, no one in the village seemed to know anything about River Joe.

  Tommy turned to Deek and the other young men he had brought with him this time. An old Cherokee man lay on the ground, bleeding badly from his mouth and a cut under one eye.

  “There ain’t nothin’ here but a bunch of old men and useless old women,” Tommy complained.

  “A woman’s a woman, Tommy,” one of the other young men answered, eyeing Grace. “And that one there ain’t so old. She’s a looker.”

  Tommy turned and looked her over, walking closer. Grace eyed him squarely, understanding better Emma’s terror of this cocky, cruel young man. He started to open her jacket.

  “Go ahead, fire-hair!” she spat at him. “But you would not enjoy it much. I have just had a baby. I have always heard trash like you picked only virgins. Perhaps it is because you are so small that no other kind of woman can please you—or take pleasure in you.” She sneered the words.

  Tommy grasped the front of her jacket, jerking her closer, and Red Wolf stepped away from the rest of the men, wanting very much to defend his woman. But they all knew that each of these visits from the white men was designed to create a stir in the Cherokee, an effort to make them fight back, so that the government could declare war against them. Still, Red Wolf knew he could not hold himself back if Tommy hurt Grace.

  One of the other white men aimed his musket at Red Wolf, while Tommy’s and Grace’s eyes held challengingly. Then Tommy shoved her hard, making her fall on her rump. “I got no desire for no woman who’s all used up,” he said disgustedly. “I reckon your husband will be lookin’ for a nice, new young wife now, won’t he?” He laughed and turned away. He had come here for Emma Simms, and had again come up empty-handed. His frustration and anger over that obliterated his sexual desires.

  Finding Emma had become an obsession with Tommy Decker, his fantasies of finding her and raping her overwhelmed any desires for other women. It was Emma or no one.

  “Let’s go home and call it quits till spring, Tommy,” Deek complained. “It’s freezin’ cold up here and now it’s startin’ to snow and sleet. You ain’t gonna find that River Joe. Hell, he’s probably run clean away from here. Maybe he’s up north someplace. He’s white. He can go anyplace he wants.”

  Tommy mounted his horse, scowling at his luck. “I told Sam Gates I’d find that girl!”

  “And maybe you will. He don’t care if it’s now or next summer. Come on. Let’s go.”

  “I’m for that. Let’s get down where it’s warmer,” said another of Tommy’s men. “I’m tired of chasin’ these damned Indians around. I want to go back to Knoxville and find me some good whiskey and good women—white women.”

  Tommy glared at Grace for a moment, then turned to his men. “There’s only one white woman I got a yen for. And I’m gonna find her if I have to kill every goddamned Cherokee to get to her!”

  “Now, Tommy, you know you can’t go around killin’ them. That just gives them more to fight with as far as their own rights. You have to hassle them,” one of his men answered. “You have to knock them around a little—play with their pretty girls—get them good and mad.”

  Tommy moved his eyes over the group of Cherkee before him. Grace stared back at him, wondering if they would ever leave. Each moment was a risk, with Emma lying in the hole in labor. One scream and it would all be over. It seemed these white men had been here for hours, when actually it had been only about thirty minutes—thirty minutes of hell.

  Tommy wondered where all the young women were, but the fact that there should have been more than this one, who had just had a baby, didn’t seem to register in his mind and he turned his horse.

  “Come on, let’s go home,” he grumbled. He heard a strange cry then, like a woman’s scream, or perhaps the cry of a bobcat. It carried strangely on the cold, biting wind. Tommy held up his horse and shivered, listening intent
ly, while Grace felt nearly faint from dread.

  “Shit, Tommy, let’s get the hell out of here,” Deek said. “These mountains give me the jitters this time of year. You hear that bobcat? Next thing you know we’ll get attacked and ate up around our campfire before we get home. Them animals do strange things in winter when food is harder to come by.”

  Sleet stung Tommy’s face. He agreed—it was time to go home. He headed out and the others followed. As soon as they disappeared into the trees, Cherokee scouts began quietly to follow. They must make sure before the others came out of the hole that the white men were really leaving.

  Emma was being lifted again, this time in a slinglike contraption, for she could not climb the flimsy ladder and River could not hang on to her and climb it at the same time. As soon as she was out of the hole, men took hold of her and hurried with her, while she kept screaming for River. She felt the warmth of her cabin then, the softness of her bed.

  It was all she could think about as they laid her on it now. The mattress. They had not destroyed it this time. Once this baby was born and she was well, she and River could make love again. But no! That might mean getting pregnant again, and she never wanted to feel this pain again. Of that she was sure.

  Her mind seemed to float from terror to agony to sweet love. Never had she felt so many moods—such anger and then again such wonderful love for River. River! Where was he? She cried out his name as she sensed women working over her, pulling off her clothes, wrapping something wonderfully warm around her feet.

  “I am right here,” she heard River say.

  “You should not be in here,” Grace said to him. “This is for the women.”

  “I am staying with her. I promised,” River answered. “Besides, I am a white man, remember? I do not need to leave according to Cherokee custom if I do not choose to do so.”

  “You are as Cherokee as the rest of us and you know it, Joe. Don’t sass me, big brother. I just got knocked on my other end protecting you.”

  Emma sensed the tension in the big hand that held hers. “Did one of those bastards hurt you, Grace?”

  “Hush. We will talk about it later. There are certain names better left unmentioned right now. Emma seems calmer.”

  Someone shoved a towel under Emma’s bottom, and she felt a wonderfully warm, down-filled quilt being tucked around her upper body. Someone pushed her legs apart and probed, and she screamed in pain.

  “Soon, very soon,” Grace said. “The head is already starting to come.”

  “River,” Emma squeaked.

  “I haven’t left, Agiya. It will not be long now. You are doing just fine. The baby is coming.”

  She arched in black pain then, and a terrific tug pulled at her insides, her muscles contracting powerfully, surprising her by the way her body was ruling her now. She had no control over this. The baby was going to come out, and she had no choice but to let it happen. She bore down every time Grace told her to, yet she was not really doing it at all. It seemed as though someone else was doing it—someone with huge, strong hands was pushing at her belly and forcing the baby out.

  Through it all she could hear River telling her how brave she was, how proud he was of how she had behaved in the hole, stifling her screams in spite of the pain. She was lost then in the wonder of giving birth, hardly aware of any of her surroundings or even of the pain any longer. It was as though she had momentarily left her own body and this was happening to someone else, for suddenly she felt almost nothing; and the next thing she knew a baby was crying.

  “A boy! Emma, we have a son,” she heard River say. She felt him close to her. “Thank you, Agiya. You are the most wonderful wife a man could ever ask for. He is beautiful and healthy, just like I told you he would be.”

  “Don’t… let me die,” she groaned.

  “You are just fine, Emma. Grace says everything seems very normal.”

  “She doesn’t really know what is going on at the moment, Joe,” Grace said. “Give her a few minutes.”

  “How is the bleeding?” Emma heard River ask. “Her mother had a lot of problems.”

  “I think she is just fine. In a little while we have to push on her belly and get the afterbirth. You can help. It is important to get all of it.”

  “I’ve cut the cord, Grace.” It was Mary’s voice. Mary, her good friend.

  “Joshua,” Emma whispered.

  “What?” River bent closer. “What is it, Emma?”

  “I want to call him… Joshua. Mary and I… we’ve been reading… that Bible the missionaries left. I remember… that name in the Bible… and God let me have… a healthy son. I want… to call him Joshua.”

  “Then that is what we will call him. Joshua Rivers.” She felt his big hand close around her own. “He is beautiful, Emma. Soon you will feel better and little Joshua will be feeding at your breast and you will forget all this pain.”

  She felt someone on the other side, and something was placed beside her. “Here is your son, Emma,” Mary said tenderly.

  Emma opened tired eyes and turned to look at her new son. River bent over her, pulling the blanket away so she could see better.

  “Don’t let him… get cold,” she said.

  “He is all right. He is close to you.”

  She studied the red, wrinkled infant. His eyes were closed tight, and he squirmed, tiny arms and legs flailing. Fuzzy, sandy-colored hair sprouted from his crown, and he made a little squeaking sound.

  “River! He’s all there—and… not a mark on him,” she said weakly.

  “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Oh, River! We… have a son! Just look at him!”

  Tears stung her eyes at the realization that she really had done it. She was still alive, and the baby was alive and healthy.

  River kissed her cheek. “I have never been so happy in my whole life, Emma,” he said softly, “in spite of the damned raid.”

  She turned to look into his eyes. “We have to protect him. Don’t ever let anybody hurt him, River.”

  He put a big hand to her face. “No one will ever hurt him.”

  “Or take him away from me? Don’t let anybody take him away, River.”

  “No one will take him away. Rest now, Emma. Hold Joshua close and get some sleep.”

  “Help me feed him, River. He’s starting to cry.”

  He helped her turn up on her side, pushing quilts behind her back. He pulled down the quilt that covered her so that her breasts were exposed, then helped her position the baby so he could find his nourishment.

  “Oh, River, this is the happiest day of my life,” Emma said softly. “I never…” The tears wanted to come again and she sniffed and swallowed. “I never dreamed something this wonderful could happen to me.” She smiled as her son nuzzled her. “You’re right, River. I’m already forgetting the pain.” She looked up at him then. “I want more, River. Now that I know I can do it, I want more.”

  He grinned, bending closer and watching his new son feed at his woman’s breast. “I have no doubt there will be more, Agiya.” He kissed her cheek. “Many more.”

  Chapter 16

  “I think perhaps our old enemy the Creek will become a friend in times of common troubles,” Red Wolf said to River Joe.

  Emma looked up from kneading her bread, surprised at the remark. River and Red Wolf sat near the stone fireplace in Emma and River’s cabin, smoking pipes. It had been a long, cold winter for Tennessee. Soon spring would come, and already the others spoke of moving the entire village when going on the spring hunt, for now the raiders knew where they were and would probably return when the weather warmed.

  Emma struggled with mixed emotions. This had been her first home. She did not want to leave it.

  “What did the messenger have to say?” River asked Red Wolf. “Did the federal government pass that law on Indian removal?”

  Red Wolf nodded. “That is not the worst. The Creek in Georgia signed a treaty giving
all Creek lands to the United States and agreeing to leave by the autumn of next year.”

  River lowered his pipe. “I can’t believe it! Why did they do that?”

  “They love this land as much as we. It was their chief who signed the treaty. Most of the Creek disagreed with it, and the messenger says they rose up and killed their chief, calling him a traitor. So now the government has a treaty they will claim is good. They will use it to start forcing the Creek into Indian Territory, even though they do not want to go. This destroys our own cause, Joe. It can only mean more trouble for the Cherokee.”

  River stared at the flames of the crackling fire. “It also means more raiding. Now the whites think they have a hold. It is a bad thing, dividing the people. The white men are good at doing that. They know it makes us weaker. If they have split up the Creek, they will try it with the Cherokee. They will give us even more trouble so that more of the Cherokee will want to leave and will try to talk the rest into going. That means quarrels and perhaps signing a useless treaty like the Creek did. All the government needs is that damned piece of paper.”

  “John Ross will not let it happen.”

  “I am not so sure he can stop it, Red Wolf. Maybe he would never sign or never leave, but what if others decide to go, like with the Creek? Already more have left.”

  Red Wolf sighed. “That place called Texas. If we had to leave, do you think it would be better than the land the government has set aside for the Indians?”

  River shook his head. “I do not know, Red Wolf. I do not know much more about that place than you, but I have heard more because I have been around the whites. They say it is very hot in the summer—a lot hotter than these mountains.” He met Red Wolf’s eyes. “You thinking of going there?”

  Red Wolf studied his pipe absently. “No. Not really. The only way I will leave these mountains is if the government soldiers come and drag me out.”

  River felt a chill at the words. Joshua began to cry, and River got up from his chair, going over to lift the boy from his wooden cradle. “Our son is hungry, Emma,” he said, glad to change the subject. But it hung there in their minds, and both Emma and River felt the same dread of what the future held.