by Janie DeVos
“Mr. Harjo, can I ask you something? How is it that you and my sister became such good friends? I mean, obviously she talks to you quite a bit about our family.”
“We spend a lot of time together at the landing. You can learn a lot about people while standing around waiting to sell deer meat and medicines. It’s a way of passing the time, I s’pose. And I guess we kind of both feel like outsiders—like we really don’t quite fit in anywhere.”
I dropped my eyes so that I was looking at my coffee cup. I was ashamed. As hard as it was to admit to myself, I knew I’d helped to make my sister feel that way, as if she was the black sheep in the Stewart family. After a moment, I looked up at Max. “Did you know about her and Moses?”
“I had an idea.” He glanced up at me to weigh my reaction to his admission.
“Just an idea?”
“Listen,” Max said, setting the net aside and resting his forearms on the table. “Not everyone in this white world of yours thinks that Ivy and Moses being together is such a terrible thing. I’ve known quite a few white men who are considered pillars in their community, and they go home and beat the hell out of their wives a couple times a week just because. And they also prefer sleeping with anyone other than their wives—men and young girls included. Moses is a good man—Negro or not—who treats your sister with the kindness and respect that she deserves.”
He was judging me, and I didn’t like it one bit. “That may be, Mr. Harjo, but it’s still not right!”
“So says the white lady.”
“The white lady who is trying to chase down her sister before their father murders her, her colored boyfriend, and their baby!”
“Why are you getting so riled up, Eve? Have I hit a nerve?”
“Of course not! I’m not like my father!”
“Is that so? Then let me ask you this: How do you feel about Moses? Honestly.”
“I hate him.” I could hear the venom in my voice, but that was the way I felt at the moment.
“Why?”
“Because he’s ruined my sister. He’s ruined our family!”
“No, he hasn’t, Eve! Your father has!”
“Go to hell!”
“I’m sure I will in the end, but for now, I’m going to sleep.” Picking up his horse blanket and rifle, he walked out to sleep on the front porch, giving us both a little room to breathe, as well as giving me some privacy and the one cot in the cabin.
Though I was bone-tired, I knew I’d lie awake for a long time. I stood a better chance of getting some sleep with a swarm of mosquitoes swirling around my head than with Max’s words swirling inside it.
In many ways he was right. My family often judged folks on the color of their skin and the kind of blood that ran through their veins instead of on the kind of thoughts that ran through their minds or on what was truly in their hearts. To Papa, especially, it was far better to be white-skinned and blackhearted than to be black-skinned and kindhearted. I was afraid that the apples hadn’t fallen far from that bigoted tree. It shamed me to think that my brothers and I had gone along with that sort of thinking all our lives, never stopping to think about the fact that it was so terribly hurtful, and could even turn deadly.
I had failed Ivy. No matter what, I should have stood by her through the years, respecting the type of work she chose to do, and in her choices of friends…and lover. I realized I didn’t have to always agree with her, but, as her sister—especially her twin—I should have always stood by her. Always.
Sometime in the middle of the night, the storm picked up in intensity. Lightning streaked across the sky like electric fingers reaching down from the heavens, followed by booms that sounded as though a canon had been shot off. The blowing rain and the possibility of being struck were enough to chase Max back inside. When the darkness was interrupted by another flash, I saw that he had settled down on the other side of the tiny cabin, closer to the nearly cold wood stove.
“I’ve truly been my father’s daughter, haven’t I?” I said to him. It was easier to do so in the blackness of the room than to have to watch Max’s deep blue eyes judging me. “I’m ashamed.”
“Hanging on to guilt is like hanging on to bitterness, kaccv hokte. It doesn’t change the past, only the future.”
His response wasn’t judgmental or chastising. This is a kind man, I thought, and a very wise one, too. I said a silent thank-you to God that Max had been a friend to Ivy. And I suddenly realized that I wanted him to be one to me, as well.
“Good night…Max,” I whispered, not thinking he’d hear me.
“Good night, Eve,” he softly responded.
He not only had excellent eyesight; he had excellent hearing too.
Chapter 25
Crossings
Max gently nudged me awake before dawn. We needed to get moving as soon as it was light. I was immediately greeted by the smell of coffee and fried fish. Max had gotten up earlier to light the stove and put coffee on, and then he went outside to cast the net a few times while scanning the area around us for any other glimpses of someone’s campfire or lantern.
Considering the size of the cabin, I was amazed his activities hadn’t woken me. I asked him why he didn’t get me up so that I could help him. Assessing me from head to toe, he wryly answered that from the looks of things, he should have let me sleep until noon. I knew I must have looked like something chewed up and spit out because my aching body told me so. I wasn’t used to riding all day while living off jerky and fish like Max was.
“Other than the fact that you’re tracking two-footed animals instead of the four-footed kind, this is just like another workday for you, isn’t it?” I asked him while stuffing yesterday’s dried-out clothes into my satchel.
“Yes, but I’ve done this before. I was a bounty hunter for a while in Louisiana.”
I was surprised. “You’ve done a lot in not a lot of years, haven’t you?”
“When you have to fend for yourself, and especially when you’re young, you have to do a lot of things you don’t like doing before you’re big enough and smart enough to do the things you want to.” He took a last swallow of coffee, then walked over to the door and opened it. “You ready?” He was anxious to get going.
“As I’ll ever be.” I grabbed my satchel and walked outside.
The dawn sky was the color of cement, but at least the rain had stopped. I scanned the land around us, looking for any sign of my father. I never thought there’d come a day when I prayed that my father was still drinking, but that day had arrived. That alone would slow him down. So, it was just a matter of whether he wanted Ivy and her baby dead worse than he wanted a drink. If the former was the case, then he’d try to stay away from the bottle. But if the cravings got to be too much, then the whiskey would win out, hands down.
“Eve, let’s ride down the trail a little ways and see if there isn’t an easier place to cross. The river’s gotten higher and faster from all this rain,” he said, taking Sampson’s reins and mounting him. Looking out at the swiftly moving current, I realized that the river had become a much stronger opponent than it had been the night before.
We went about a half mile before coming to a narrower place in the river. Though it was still wide enough to be very dangerous, it was better than the spot where Ivy and Moses had crossed. Undoubtedly, the river had been slower moving and lower then. Either that or something had forced them to cross it at that point.
“How experienced are you at crossing rivers?” Max asked.
I told him I’d only ridden Maggie across streams, and once across the Ocklawaha, when the water level was at the lowest I’d ever seen it during a drought.
“Eve,” Max began as he dismounted. “I’m going to ride out there and see how deep it is. If I get to the point where Samson can’t touch the bottom and he starts to get panicky, I’m getting off him so that he can swim across without my a
dditional weight. Once we’re across, I’ll know what we’re dealing with. I’m gonna go ahead and tie a mecate rein to Maggie. It’s a long lead rope that attaches around her muzzle, and I’ll take the other end of it across the river with me. If the river is too deep for the horses to walk across—and I’m sure it is—then once I’m on the other side, you ride Maggie on in but hang on like hell. You’re small, so your weight won’t matter to her, but she’ll still be scared with the current running the way it is, and especially when she has to start swimming. When horses are spooked, there’s no tellin’ what they’ll do, so you’re going to have to hang on to her as best you can. I’ll be pulling her to keep her headed in the right direction. But if you should fall off, or you throw yourself off because she’s goin’ wild, I’m letting go of that lead rope and swimming out to you. I know you’re a good swimmer, but it’s going to be a real tricky current. You come before Maggie. I’m not going to shout any directions to you from the other bank. If anyone’s within earshot, they’ll hear me. As soon as I get to the other side, you come on.”
Untying a leather bag that was attached to his saddle, he withdrew a wound-up rope, stashed his boots and my moccasins in its place to keep them dry, and slung the bag across his chest. Then he tied the mecate rein on Maggie. Finally, Max climbed onto Sampson, and walked him down the bank and into the river. Even his well-trained horse hesitated for a moment when he first felt the current, but under Max’s expert handling, he stayed calm enough. They went no farther, though, and Max turned to me.
“Eve, I need you to get into the water, too. Just stay right there at the edge. I need to brush away our tracks leading into the river.”
I did as I was told, but Maggie was already nervous just standing in ankle-deep water. Sampson, however, remained in the spot where Max dismounted from him. Knowing he needed to hurry, Max quickly washed away our tracks, then returned, and remounted his horse. “Stay exactly where you are,” he said as he gently kicked Sampson’s sides to urge him into the river. As they rode away from us, Max let the long line feed out behind him.
I watched as the water rose up Sampson’s legs, and then Max’s, until the horse was submerged up to its belly. From the change in the way the horse moved, I could tell that it was no longer touching bottom but was swimming instead. Its head repeatedly jutted forward as its powerful chest and shoulders worked in unison with its legs to propel itself across the river, fighting the current as it did so. But the horse remained manageable, and Max was able to stay on him. About three-quarters of the way across, Sampson’s movements changed again when his feet had obviously connected with the sludgy bottom. Within a minute’s time, both he and Max were standing on the opposite bank. Now, it was my turn.
I guided Maggie into the water, but instead of hesitating slightly as Sampson had done, she backed up and tried to turn around. Jerking the reins back to correct her, I forcefully kicked my heels against her and urged her ahead. She became more skittish as the water deepened, and once she started to lose the bottom, she began to thrash around wildly.
“Get off her!” Max shouted, less concerned with alerting someone to our whereabouts than he was with the possibility of my drowning. Using the saddle horn, I pulled myself up slightly, got my right knee beneath me, and then pushed myself off as hard as I could. The murky green-brown river engulfed me. I tried to swim away from Maggie and was almost clear of her, but her back left foot just caught the right side of my head, stunning me. For a moment, it was hard to see or think clearly. Confused as to which way was up or down, I started to panic, and as I did, I sucked in a breath of river water. All sound started echoing and as my panic rose, so did any chance of thinking clearly. I inhaled more water, and my lungs felt as if they were about to explode. Trashing my arms and legs to try to find the bottom, or the surface, I suddenly felt like letting go. It’s an easy thing to do, I thought. Just let the water take me. All I need to do is stop fighting it, stop moving and—
Suddenly, something took hold of the back of my shirt and yanked me up and out of the darkness into a place of light and air, blessed air…and Max.
He hooked his right arm around my ribcage, just under my breasts, so that he could keep my upper half above water. Then, using his free arm, he made strong strokes through the water, until he was able to stand again and drag me up onto the bank. Lying there, I alternated between throwing up water and trying to catch my breath. It took me a couple of minutes before I could actually fill my lungs to their full capacity and several minutes more before I could actually breathe normally again. As I recovered, Max untied the end of Maggie’s mecate rein from the tree he had hurriedly tied it to so that he could help me, and guided my horse onto the bank.
Returning to me, he helped me stand up. “We can’t stay here. We’re out in the open. We need to move closer to the woods.”
Max took the horses by their reins, and holding on to one of my arms to support me, we moved away from the river. When we were just inside the tree line, he told me to sit and wait for him while he got rid of the tracks from our exit up the bank. He started to walk away but turned around and looked at me.
“You did good, Eve. Real good.” Softly chuckling, he added, “You truly are hadcho—crazy brave—that’s for sure.”
Chapter 26
The Dangerous Unknown
We paralleled the river, staying close to the tree line, following a trail of broken twigs and grasses until late into the day. Fortunately, the sun broke through the heavy gray skies, allowing us to dry out and warm up. Even after changing into fresh clothing after the crossing, I was chilled to the bone. Max said that the scare of almost drowning probably had something to do with it, but no matter what had caused my chill, I didn’t feel warm again until the sun had baked me for a while. It also dried the land around us, which made sleeping in a makeshift shelter far more comfortable.
“We’ll ride for another fifteen minutes or so,” Max said after the sun dipped below the pines, leaving us in tree-filtered fading light. “We’ll set up—”
Suddenly, he pulled back on Sampson’s reins as something on the ground got his attention. All day he’d ridden or walked, watching the ground ahead of us for assurances that we were going in the right direction. But something had just gotten his attention.
“They turned here. Look,” he said as he dismounted, then squatted, and pointed to an area on the ground to the left of the trail we’d been following. I dismounted, too, and squatted down by him. “You see that matted grass there?” He pointed but did not touch it. When I said that I did, he continued. “Let me walk ahead several yards and check, but I bet there aren’t any more tracks to the south. They’re heading east now.” We both stood.
“What does that mean?” I asked. “What’s east?”
“I don’t know, and maybe they don’t either. But I know they’re hoping it leads to some kind of freedom—either that or they’re trying to throw us off, and they’re zigzagging.”
“Well,” I looked up from the tracks, off toward the east, and back at Max. “Then we’ll do some zigzagging, too,” I firmly stated.
Max smiled. “Ah, little kaccv hokte, you’re not just crazy brave; you’re a crazy, brave tiger woman.” His broad smile faded to a softer one as he took a small lock of my bright auburn hair between his fingers and rolled it back and forth as though testing the feel of it. “And the fire that burns inside of you burns all the way to the outside, too. Your hair is the color of flames,” he said, looking at the lock in his fingers and then at my face.
Neither of us said anything as we looked at each other. I started to walk away, to break the moment between us, but Max grabbed my arm to stop me. Gently pulling me back to him, he cupped the right side of my face in his hand and said something in Muscogee, the language spoken by the Creeks. I didn’t understand the words, but I understood what was in his eyes. He must have seen the same in mine, for he pulled me to him and watched my eyes as he lean
ed in and kissed my lips.
I wrapped my arms around his neck, and when I did, he covered my mouth with his so that we could taste each other in the most sacred and beautiful way. I wanted to keep going, to continue down this path he was leading me on, but I knew I couldn’t. Somehow, it felt like a betrayal of Ivy and the promise I’d made to myself not to fail her again. And it most definitely was a betrayal of David, who didn’t deserve it. It had to stop. I had to stop. After unwrapping my arms from around Max’s neck, I placed my hands against his chest and gently pushed him away. Covering my mouth with the back of my hand, I whispered, “I can’t.” I shook my head to emphasize my refusal and repeated, “I can’t. I’m sorry.” He let me walk away from him, but not before I saw the look in his eyes shift from want to anger and hurt as I rejected him. But there was no denying to myself that while my words said one thing, my heart was beginning to say another. And just like Ivy on the eastbound trail, I was afraid I was heading into the dangerous unknown.
Chapter 27
The Soul of Souls
We spent the night in a quickly built lean-to and ate some of the fish from breakfast while avoiding each other’s eyes and any conversation for the remainder of the evening. The uncomfortable silence between us was deafening.
I knew I should apologize to him for allowing this to happen. If I’d been totally honest with him about the depth of my relationship with David, then Max would have known I was betrothed. I mentally kicked myself for the deception, but in my soul of souls, I knew that it had been a deliberate omission. The question I asked myself over and over again as I tossed and turned in the sweltering humidity of the endless night was why.
Why had I left out that very important fact? Finally, that little voice in my soul answered me: I was starting to feel something for Max Harjo that I’d never felt for anyone before—including David. It was an unsettling thought for it was an impossible situation. This was a relationship that was entirely built on raw emotions that were part of unusual circumstances, and once those circumstances changed, the feelings would likely fade, leaving nothing in their place but regret. It was a stressful time, a time when I was grateful to have the help and wisdom of someone as capable as Max, and I was confusing feelings of desire with feelings of deep gratitude. With that realization, my world righted itself once more and blessed sleep finally came.
