by Janet Dailey
"I understand that." There was a hint of regret in his eyes. "I'll give Grandfather your regards." He turned and walked from the room.
The sound of his retreating footsteps seemed loud in the silence. Temple heard the front door open, then close. She wanted to call him back, but her son wasn't a little boy anymore who would do what his mother said. He was a man.
As hard as it had been to remain neutral in the feud that had once so severely divided her family, she wondered where she would find the strength to accept this new development that affected her so personally.
By the middle of July Lije was appointed to the Light Horse patrol in his local district and given the rank of lieutenant and the command of four men. He spent most of his first month learning procedures, refamiliarizing himself with the area, and handling petty offenses.
Three days before his grandparents and Susannah were scheduled to leave on their trip back East, a full-blooded Cherokee on the extreme corner of Lije's district caught a man stealing his horses. Shots were exchanged. The owner fell, mortally wounded, and the thief got away.
Lije arrived on the scene, accompanied by one of his men, Sam Blackburn, shortly before the owner died. After doing what he could for the victim, he got a description of the three stolen horses from the man's wife. One was a brown-and-white paint with one glass eye; the second was their good buggy mare, brown with a white snip on its nose; and the third was a flashy bay gelding with four white stockings and a full blaze on its face. None carried a brand, but one horse had a chipped shoe on its right hind hoof that left a print plain enough for a blind man to read. They set off after the thief, following the trail he left.
They tracked him for two days. On the evening of the second day, Lije spotted the three horses, ground-tied in the middle of an open meadow. It had the smell of a trap.
Cautiously, Lije circled one side of the meadow while his partner circled the other side. Halfway around, Lije found the tracks of the man's horse where he had exited the meadow. He followed the trail until he was satisfied the thief hadn't doubled back, then returned to the meadow for the stolen horses.
A note was tucked under the paint's halter. It read:
"Hear's them horses I stoled. I never ment to shoot nobody. It were self-defence. When he blasted at me with that shotgun and peppered my hat full a holes, it got me riled up. Never shot a man in anger afore. Never figure to do it agin. Hope he din't die."
"Look at this." Lije shook his head in amazement and handed the note to Sam. "The fool signed his name at the bottom. 'D. Russell.'"
Sam shook his head and grinned, giving the note back. "I guess he figured if he returned the horses and promised not to shoot anybody else, we'd quit his trail."
"He figured wrong." Lije scanned the hills ahead of them. "He can't be more than an hour or two ahead of us. Let's push the pace. After two nights of cold camps, I have the feeling he'll build a fire tonight. If we can get close enough before darkness falls, we might see the glow of it."
Two hours later they spotted a pinpoint of light in a patch of trees. They left the horses tied and approached the camp on foot. They found the man's horse hobbled in a grassy area alongside a creek. Its sides were still damp with sweat.
The campfire was a small one, tucked well back among the trees. Moving with silent care, they crept closer and halted when they reached the deep shadows of the hidden campsite. A man sat close to a small fire, his body hunched forward, his head resting in his hands in a pose of weariness and defeat.
Lije motioned for Sam to cover him, then stepped soundlessly into the circle of light, gun drawn. "Are you Mr. Russell?"
The man's head came up with a jerk. "I am." He scowled at Lije, half-bidden in the shadows. "Who are you?"
"My name is Stuart—with the Cherokee light Horse."
"God damn you." The man lunged for his rifle.
There was no time to think, only react. Lije fired. The bullet struck the man in the right shoulder, spinning him around. Even as he fell, the thief stretched toward the rifle. But Lije was already moving. Reaching it first, he kicked it beyond the man's reach. The man sagged back to the ground with a grunt of pain. Sam Blackburn came out of the shadows and retrieved the rifle.
Lije kept his revolver pointed at the thief, hammer back. "I thought you weren't going to shoot a man in anger again."
"Hell, it weren't anger." The thief pressed a hand to his bleeding shoulder wound, breathing in deep, panting breaths. "It were pure fear. I knowed you were figuring to take me back and hang me. I ain't never favored the idea of meeting my Maker at the end of no rope."
"You shouldn't have shot a man and stole his horses then." With Sam Blackburn on hand to keep the thief covered, Lije bolstered his revolver and went to tend the man's wound.
"Hell, there's a lot a things I shouldn't a done," he declared, then sucked in a sharp breath, grimacing with pain when Lije probed around the wound. "Shoulder's busted, ain't it?" he said through his teeth.
"Could be." Lije nodded. "Looks like the bullet might have ricocheted off the bone and come out the top of your shoulder. There's an exit wound anyway." Lije set about bandaging the man's shoulder.
First light the next morning found the trio on the trail, the thief tied to his saddle and the stolen horses in tow. Lije chose a route that took them past the new settlement of Kee-too-wah, formerly Fort Gibson. If luck rode with him, Lije thought he might get there before the riverboat departed, taking his grandparents and Susannah on their journey to Massachusetts.
By midday the buildings of the old fort were in sight. As Lije lifted his horse into a canter, the hoarse blast of a steam whistle came from the landing. It was the "all ashore" signal that announced the riverboat was beginning its preparations to get under way. Lije called to Sam to stay with the prisoner and spurred his horse into a gallop. The big bay leapt forward with a fresh burst of speed.
When he topped the rise where the ground sloped to the ledge rock, Lije saw that the gangway was still in place. A short distance to his left, his mother and Sorrel stood by the family carriage. Lije pushed the bay horse down the slope, winding his way through the clusters of onlookers.
Deckhands moved to haul in the gangway. He was about to curse his luck when he caught a glimpse of a woman in a dark gray traveling suit talking earnestly to one of them.
He reined in short of the gangway, and there was Susannah running to meet him. "You made it." She grabbed the bay's bridle, holding the horse while Lije swung out of the saddle.
"You didn't think I would miss the chance to wish my favorite auntie Godspeed on her journey, did you?" he teased, catching up the reins to his restless horse, excited from its run.
"I am too young to be your aunt." Even as she made her standard rejoinder, her expression softened. "But I think I would have regretted it if you hadn't called me that."
"I know." He smiled, then tipped his head to scan the upper decks. "Where are Grandfather and Eliza?"
"On the second deck." She pointed to them. "You should see the way they've been acting," Susannah declared. "They are like a couple going off on a belated honeymoon. It's really been quite touching."
"They've been looking forward to this trip."
"They have," she agreed, then paused, her hazel eyes softening on him again with pleasure. "No one else thought you would make it today. Temple said you were off tracking down some murderer. But I knew you would be here."
"I almost didn't make it."
"True."
A captain's mate stepped up, claiming Susannah's attention, a look of poorly disguised impatience on his face. "Begging your pardon, miss, but we're ready to shove off now. If you're going with us, I suggest you come on board."
"Of course. Right away." She turned back to Lije with regret. "I have to go now. You better write to me, Lije Stuart."
"I will," he promised.
She hesitated a split second, then asked, "Is there any message you would like me to take to Diane?"
His exp
ression instantly hardened. "Give it up, Susannah. It's over."
But she caught the flicker of pain in his eyes that he wasn't quick enough to conceal. "For your sake, I hope not." In a rare display of affection, Susannah pressed a quick kiss to his cheek and whispered, "Be careful, Lije." Then she gathered up the front of her skirts and hurried up the gangway onto the boat.
Lije watched for a moment, then swung onto the saddle and backed his horse away from the loading ramp. With a last wave to Susannah and his grandparents, he reined the bay around and rode back up the slope to the family carriage.
"You were late," Sorrel declared with a haughty little lift of her chin. "You almost didn't get to see them before they left."
"It was close." Lije dismounted, his spurs making a small clinking sound when he stepped to the ground.
"Are you all right?" Temple ran her gaze over him, a mother's concern in her eyes. Behind her stood his uncle Kipp and his cousin Alex, but there was no sign of his father.
"Yes."
With that worry disposed of, her attention turned critical of the dust and sweat that caked him. "Lije Stuart, you are as ripe as one of our workers after a day in the fields." She raised a scented hankie to her nose to combat the rank odors coming from him.
"Make that nearly three days and you'll be closer to the truth." Belatedly, Lije slapped at the legs of his trousers, raising little puffs of dust. "It's nothing that a bath and clean change of clothes won't cure, which will be the first thing on my agenda when I get home tonight." He glanced beyond them in an idle search. "Didn't Father come with you?"
"He had business in Fort Smith. He plans to meet the boat when it docks there."
"What happened to that horse thief you were after?" Kipp wanted to know, a touch of smug challenge in his question. "Did he get away?"
"No. We caught him last night." Catching the clatter of hooves on the hard-packed ground, Lije looked back as Sam Blackburn rode in, leading the prisoner and the stolen horses. He halted close to the carriage, nodded first to Lije and then to the others, but didn't speak. "We're on our way to the district courthouse with him."
Kipp stared at the prisoner. "I heard the man he shot died the next morning."
"He did." When Lije glanced at his uncle, he caught a flash of metal on the man's coat lapel. It was a small lapel pin, fashioned in the shape of two crossed pins. Lije instantly had a nagging feeling that the pin had some significance—that it had been described to him before. He couldn't recall when, or by whom, or what it represented. But there was an identical pin on Alex's lapel.
"What will happen to him?" Sorrel asked, all round-eyed.
"He will be kept under guard until his trial, which will probably be tomorrow or the day after." The Cherokee Constitution guaranteed that every citizen of the Nation would receive a speedy and fair trial.
"Will they hang him?" she asked in a near whisper, showing a child's mixture of morbid curiosity and apprehension.
Lije hesitated, searching for a way to spare his little sister some of the harsher realities of life. But Alex, feeling no such compunction, interjected, "If he is judged guilty, he will likely be hanged the same day."
"Is that true?" She looked at Lije and unconsciously moved closer to their mother.
"He has to be found guilty of stealing and murder first." But in the Cherokee justice system, sentences were carried out as swiftly as the trials.
The rasping toot of the steam whistle collectively turned their attention away from the prisoner to the riverboat as it maneuvered away from the landing, seeking the river's channel. Arms waved in farewell to its passengers.
With the departure of the paddle wheeler, there was no more reason to linger. Kipp and Alex were the first to say their goodbyes, leaving Lije with his mother and little sister.
"We will see you tonight then?" his mother said after Lije had assisted her into the carriage.
Lije nodded. "Have a bath and a hot meal waiting for me."
"I will."
"Can't you come home with us now?" Sorrel protested.
"He has to take the prisoner in," Temple explained for him. She cast one last, smiling glance at Lije, then signaled to their Negro driver to proceed.
The driver flicked his whip over the backs of the team and urged them forward with the reins. Lije stepped back from the carriage's wheels and waited for it to rumble past, then looped his reins over the bay's neck, and climbed into the saddle once more.
"Ready?" Lije said.
Sam Blackburn nodded, but the prisoner simply looked at him, a little pale and glassy-eyed with pain and despair. Lije took the reins to the prisoner's horse, and they set out. Nothing more was said until the settlement was a good mile behind them. "If you met a man wearing an insignia of crossed pins on his coat, what would it tell you, Sam?"
Sam shot him a quick, measuring glance, then looked straight ahead. He took his time answering. "It would tell me the man has joined the Keetoowahs."
"The Keetoowahs?" Lije frowned.
"It's a secret society. Its members are mostly full-bloods, but it is led by the missionary Evan Jones."
"The abolitionist." Lije now recalled hearing that the insignia of crossed pins indicated the wearer belonged to an anti-slavery group operating within the Nation. At the time he had been troubled that the Northern movement to free the slaves had spread into the Nation. He knew firsthand how zealous some of its believers could be. But that wasn't what troubled him now. "It makes no sense that my uncle Kipp belongs to it. He cares nothing about Negroes. In fact he owns several field-workers himself."
"The members also claim they seek to preserve the old traditions of the Cherokee."
There were many old traditions in the Cherokee culture, but Lije could think of only one that Kipp would seek to keep alive—the Cherokee Blood Law, which called for the death of any Cherokee who signed away tribal lands—as Lije's father had done all those years ago. Alex would naturally go along with his father.
"Hatred is an ugly thing, Sam. It always starts out small, as a little seed of resentment that is held close and fed with bitter thoughts. If it isn't cast out, it puts down roots and begins to grow. And the more years it's nourished, the bigger it grows until a man is blinded by it—until he can see, hear, and feel nothing but his hatred."
Sam grunted an acknowledgment but made no comment. Silence stretched between them before Sam broke it with a seemingly idle remark. "I heard Stand Watie has asked your father to join the local chapter of the Knights of the Golden Circle."
This was another secret organization that was ostensibly proslavery. Stand Watie was the brother of the late Elias Boudinot, a signer of the so-called Phantom Treaty, just as Lije's father had been. And just as Shawano Stuart had died at assassins' hands, so had Elias Boudinot.
Lije felt this news travel through him like a chill down his spine. Like the American states, the Cherokee Nation was slowly beginning to separate into opposing camps with slavery as their banner. But they were banding together along old lines, ones that had divided Major Ridge and his supporters of the Phantom Treaty from those loyal to principal chief John Ross, who had fought against the treaty right up to the moment of removal, that eventful day the Cherokees were forced to move westward.
A black cloud darkened the sky. In the distance thunder rumbled. A storm was coming. Lije saw it clearly.
4
Springfield, Massachusetts
The First Week of September 1860
The maple trees on the Wickham estate still wore their summer green colors, but there was a slight nip in the air that warned of autumn's approach. As the carriage swung onto the long drive that led to the brick manor house, Susannah sat forward in eager anticipation of greeting her friend Diane Parmelee once again.
She and Diane had known one another for as long as Susannah could remember. As a child, she had looked on Diane Parmelee as her best friend. She still did, even though they hadn't actually seen each other in five years.
Smilin
g, Susannah thought back to the girl she had known at Fort Gibson. Beautiful Diane with her honey gold hair, china blue eyes and a face that could only be described as exquisite was petite and, in short, everything that Susannah was not. Yet she had adored Diane, and the two had seized every opportunity to see each other . . . until that day outside the sutler's store at the fort.
The memory of that incident still sprang vividly into her mind. It stunned her now as it had done so long ago. . . .
Susannah heard a young girl's laugh, rising like the notes of the musical scale. Glancing up from the marbles game in progress, she saw her nine-year-old friend Diane walking toward the sutler's store, holding her father's hand. Susannah's joy was instant.
From the moment Susannah had learned they were going to Fort Gibson, she had hoped and hoped she would get to see Diane Parmelee. Most times she did. The sutler's store was close to the officers' quarters where Diane lived. If the weather was nice, she could usually find Diane playing outside. Excitedly, Susannah tapped Lije on the shoulder. "Look. Here comes Diane."
"I see her," he said without looking up, the shooter marble resting in the crook of his forefinger, his thumb cocked behind it as he took aim at one of Susannah's marbles.
"How could you? You haven't even looked."
"I saw her when she came around the corner with Captain Parmelee. I always see things before you do." He let the shooter fly. It cracked against her marble, knocking it out of the circle.
"Why didn't you tell me?"
He shrugged. "That was your best green marble. Now it's mine."
Susannah ignored the baiting gleam in his eye. The loss of her favorite marble suddenly didn't seem important, not with Diane approaching. Hurriedly, Susannah straightened from her crouched position and waved to her friend. Diane waved back and said something to her father. He smiled and nodded, releasing her hand to let her run ahead.
As the girl drew closer, Susannah experienced a small twinge of envy. Diane was the perfect picture of little-girl fashion. Her dress was pale violet, trimmed with purple ribbons. The delicate lace of her petticoats peeked from beneath the skirt's hem. Violet and purple ribbons trailed from the straw hat she wore. Her hair was curled in shiny gold ringlets, framing a face that always reminded Susannah of a china doll with its big, blue eyes, thick lashes, pointy chin, and perfectly shaped mouth. She knew she suffered by comparison, her rose pink dress hanging loosely on her scrawny frame, her hair a mass of unruly curls, and her arms and legs all bony and thin. As always, when confronted by Diane's undeniable perfection, Susannah lifted her chin a little higher.
