American Struggle

by Veda Boyd Jones

  “I have something for you, too,” Lewis said. “You did not bring your treasure.”

  Old Rivers sat up straight; his eyes filled with wonder. “I did not think.”

  “My edoda is sick,” Smoke Cloud said. “I sat him on the wagon, and I packed, and I did not remember.”

  “You told me once that your treasure lay behind the stone that moves. I pulled and pounded on every stone in the chimney until I found the one.” He pulled a small pouch from his pocket.

  Old Rivers took it in shaky hands. Slowly he pulled the string that tied it shut, and then he shook the bag until something shiny dropped into his hand.

  “What is it?” Nellie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lewis said. “I didn’t look.” Old Rivers did not answer but stared at his hand. “It is a cross of pure gold,” Smoke Cloud said. “It belonged to my etsi.”

  “Pure gold?” Nellie asked.

  “When my edoda found gold flakes in the creek, he saved them until he had a good amount, and he had this made for my etsi. She wore it always.”

  “It is indeed a treasure,” Etsi said. “It was treasured by Moon Silver because it was given in love. It is treasured by Old Rivers because she loved it so.”

  Old Rivers put his shaky hand on Lewis’s shoulder. “Thank you for remembering.”

  Lewis nodded with a beaming smile. “I have also brought your farm tools.” He flicked the blanket from one side of the travois to reveal a hoe, a rake, a saw, and a small one-horse plow. “Men were at our house, so I could not save ours,” Lewis told Edoda.

  “Thank you for our tools,” Smoke Cloud said. “I was not allowed out to the shed. I was fortunate to get the few things I could grab before we were forced onto the road.”

  Edoda, Lewis, and Smoke Cloud loaded the tools onto Old Rivers’s wagon. Nellie and Sarah helped Etsi build up the fire for the stew of boiling greens and ham, thickened with finely ground cornmeal.

  The evening meal was a festive occasion with the family whole again. Edoda asked the blessing and thanked God for returning his son. After they had eaten and cleaned up, the entire Starr family walked to the evening worship service held by Reverend Jesse Bushyhead.

  Several preachers were in their midst, but the Starr family knew Reverend Bushyhead, who rode a preaching circuit and had come to town several times to hold camp meetings.

  His worship service was similar to those meetings. He called the Cherokee to come to the Lord. He called for the Cherokee to free their slaves, and he drew a straight line to the treatment of the Cherokee by white men and the treatment of black slaves by both the Cherokee and the whites.

  Nellie didn’t know if his preaching did any good on that point. Many slaves stayed with their masters in the camp. Morning Sun’s family had three slaves who helped in the fields and one who helped out in the house. The slaves were going to the new land to help there. As far as Nellie knew, Morning Sun’s slaves were treated well, just like family. But enslavement was enslavement. And she agreed with Reverend Bushyhead. It was wrong.

  CHAPTER 6

  The Long Summer

  Early the next morning, Reverend Bushyhead held morning service, and the Starr family attended. Somehow, Reverend Bushyhead had managed to pack several hymnals written in the Cherokee language, so the voices of at least a hundred Cherokee people united in harmonious worship. Their songs did not compete with the songs of birds, which had mostly deserted the area of the large camp that spread out around the fortification.

  Etsi stood in a line to get food rations from the soldiers, and meals were prepared over the open fire. Nellie was tired of the same old stew, but without a cookstove, baking was impossible.

  “We must go back to the old ways of cooking,” Old Rivers said. He showed Etsi how to make an oven by heating a pot and turning it sideways in the fire and closing up the opening to keep the heat inside. Corn bread was added to the meals.

  The days fell into a pattern. By late morning, the sun scorched the earth, and by afternoon the heat drained the energy from even the adventuresome Lewis. The water level in the Hiwassee River dropped, and the rumor Edoda had heard of no more wagon trains west until the weather broke became true.

  “We must prepare for a long summer,” Edoda said. The government hadn’t provided enough tents for all the Cherokee, and he had gotten permission from the soldiers to build a hut to live in until the next batch of travelers were sent to Indian Territory.

  “A house, like our old house?” Sarah asked.

  “Not at all. This will be a simple brush shack that will shelter us from the harsh heat of the summer sun and from the rain, if we are so fortunate as to get another shower.”

  Lewis enthusiastically helped saw straight limbs, using the tools he had rescued from Old Rivers’s tool shed. Nellie dragged limbs to the area beside their wagon and held them upright while Edoda drove them in the ground to form two rows a foot apart. Between the rows, they stuffed limbs with leaves and dry grasses. The roof was made of poles with limbs interwoven between them.

  “It’s like the hideout the boys and I made in the woods,” Lewis said, “except we used standing trees for the walls.”

  “Since we don’t have any trees close to the wagon,” said Edoda, “this will do nicely. Nellie, would you carry that heavy pot for your mother?”

  The pot was no heavier than normal, and Etsi had managed it many times, but Nellie hurried to help.

  Edoda and Etsi exchanged a look that Nellie didn’t understand.

  “What is it?” Nellie asked Etsi. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing is wrong,” Etsi said and cast a quick glance at Edoda. He nodded, and she said, “We’ll talk about this tonight.”

  They finished the shelter by late afternoon. It wasn’t large, merely some eight feet by eight feet, and it was fully enclosed only on three sides with about half the fourth side closed, leaving a wide doorway. It gave a place to sit and sleep for the five Starrs. They unloaded a few things from the wagon for easy access during the day. The dishes and cooking utensils were stored in one corner. Blankets to be used as mattresses were piled in another corner.

  After supper and another evening service, which was becoming the routine, Nellie asked Etsi to explain what she had meant earlier.

  “Let’s all go in the hut,” Etsi said, “and prepare for bed. Then we’ll talk.”

  Nellie knew Etsi was about to say something important, and she quickly spread out the bedding.

  “Hurry, Lewis. Sarah, lie down,” Nellie said.

  As soon as they were all lying quietly in the dark, with only the flicker from fireflies around them and the dying campfire for light, Nellie said, “Etsi?”

  “I’m going to have a baby,” Etsi said. “You’ll have a brother or sister.”

  “Wonderful,” Sarah said. “A real baby to play with!”

  “When?” Nellie asked. “Is it well?”

  “In the winter. Around Christmas,” Etsi said, but she did not answer Nellie’s second question.

  “She will be a Christmas gift,” Sarah said.

  “Or he,” Lewis said. “I could use a brother. We have two girls, but I’m the only boy.”

  “Please, is it a girl, Etsi?” Sarah asked.

  “No one can tell you before it’s born,” Etsi said. “But whichever it is, it will be God’s miracle given to us in the new land.”

  “We will all help you,” Nellie said. “Won’t we?”

  “Yes, we’ll do everything,” Lewis said in a strong voice, and Nellie thought he remembered three years ago as well as she.

  “I can help, too,” Sarah said in her lilting way. From Sarah’s tone of voice, Nellie was just as sure that she did not remember what had happened. Sarah would have been just two when Etsi had given birth to a tiny little girl. The baby had come early, and she had died just minutes after the birth. Etsi had cried. Nellie had cried. When the midwife sent Nellie in search of Edoda and Lewis, who had gone outside, she found them both with red eyes and wet
cheeks.

  “This baby will be fine,” Edoda said. “He will bring with him a new beginning for our family.”

  “He?” Etsi’s tone was as light as Sarah’s. “You are so sure we will have another son?”

  “I have a good chance of being right,” Edoda said. Nellie heard him kiss Etsi in the darkness. “And he will be fine.”

  The next morning at breakfast, Sarah told Old Rivers and Smoke Cloud about the baby.

  Smoke Cloud looked away from Etsi, but Old Rivers spoke up. “This is good. Very good. It makes us look to the future. All of us were born in this land, soon to be our old land. The new one will be born in the new land. That will be a new beginning.”

  “You and Edoda speak the same words,” Nellie said.

  “Both are very wise,” Smoke Cloud said.

  The day stretched out much the same as the day before. And the day after was the same. Waiting, always waiting.

  Lewis played near the wagon because he was not allowed to hunt with his bow and arrow. He had hidden it on the travois but could not reveal it in case the soldiers took it away. Each day, he gathered firewood. Sarah carried her two dolls around and played much to herself. Nellie was allowed to see Morning Sun, but she was the only friend who came to the area. Etsi was very afraid that the sicknesses that were everywhere would come to her family, and she wanted her children near her and away from the sick ones.

  One of Nellie’s chores was carrying the heavy water bucket, and she was dismayed when day after day she saw the water line go lower and lower. She and Etsi cooked for the family and Old Rivers and Smoke Cloud. The two Cherokee men soon seemed like members of their family.

  Edoda learned that his sisters and their families were in other stockades. Etsi’s parents and brothers and sisters were in still different stockades. They heard reports from time to time that the conditions elsewhere matched the conditions in their camp.

  Death and dying were constant companions. The graveyard on the edge of the campground grew. One morning, Nellie and Morning Sun counted ten burials. Even more dead were buried in the afternoon. Reverend Bushyhead conducted many of the ceremonies, but sometimes a shaman led a funeral procession.

  Etsi frowned when Nellie told her they had watched a shaman shake his rattle and lead a grieving family to the cemetery.

  “Let’s not dwell on the funerals,” Etsi said. “You need to help me with herb gathering.”

  The soldiers who guarded the camp perimeters let them go to the woods with a canvas bag to gather greens to boil and herbs for cooking and healing. Morning Sun followed behind Nellie, who walked behind Etsi.

  “I’m not sure what we’re looking for,” Morning Sun said.

  “Just pick when Etsi says to pick. Or scrape bark. Or dig root,” Nellie said over her shoulder.

  Etsi stopped here and there, and the girls picked greens and stuffed them in the bag. They collected cedar bark to mix with oils to make a potion that would keep bugs from biting, a necessary thing since the putrid smells of death and the unsanitary conditions in the camp brought flying insects by the thousands.

  “This looks like something we need,” Morning Sun called from a nearby clearing. “Huckleberries.”

  In the midst of the woods in a small area free of trees grew a huckleberry patch.

  “Etsi, we’ll pick some berries,” Nellie called to her etsi, who had headed in a different direction into the woods.

  “Good,” Etsi said. “We can have them for supper.”

  Nellie loved the sweet blue berries and picked some for her bag but ate more than she saved. The low bushes were heavily laden, and she was surprised that they had not already been picked by other Cherokee—but perhaps the soldiers had not let others outside their pickets.

  She dropped to her knees and crawled among the berry bushes. She was so intent on eating the sweet berries, it took her a moment to smell something that made her freeze.

  Cucumbers! Etsi raised them in the garden, and Nellie knew them well, but this was not the good smell of a vegetable. This was the smell of a copperhead.

  Only her eyes moved as she searched the ground ahead that the low bushes didn’t cover.

  “Nellie!” Morning Sun called from a distance of several feet.

  “Stay there!” Nellie whispered. “A snake!”

  A movement caught her eye. It was not just one snake that Nellie had disturbed, but a nest of copperheads, six of them. And they were not on the ground ahead of her; they were inches from her left hand, which rested on the earth beside a bush. She was amazed that her brain counted the snakes because her heart pounded so loudly she could hear it in her ears.

  Ever so slowly, she backed away, leaving her hands in place, bracing herself. One knee, then the other, another few inches. Slowly, slowly. She moved her right hand and was pushing off with her left hand when a snake latched onto her hand below her little finger.

  She stood up and backed out of the thicket of huckleberry bushes with the snake attached to her hand, its fangs sunk into her flesh. She grabbed its head, forced it off, and threw it on the ground.

  “Etsi! Etsi!” she screamed.

  “Nellie! Are you all right?” Morning Sun stood rooted to a spot in another thicket of bushes. “Where is it?” “I’ve been bit. Back out. Now!”

  But Morning Sun didn’t move. Her eyes were huge, and the color drained from her face.

  “Etsi!” Nellie called again to her mother. She had lost sight of her when they had started picking berries. “Etsi!”

  “Nellie?” Etsi called and ran from the woods toward her. “What is it?”

  “A copperhead bit me.”

  “Nellie! Where?”

  “In the bushes. There’s a whole nest of them.”

  Etsi had nearly reached her now. “Where?”

  “Oh!” Nellie realized what her etsi meant. “My hand.” With her right hand, she squeezed her left wrist, trying to keep the poison from spreading, trying to keep it in her hand. Already her hand was swollen around the bite.

  “Put your hand down,” Etsi said. “Walk slowly. Calm your heart.”

  But how could she calm her heart? That was impossible. Or was it?

  She closed her eyes. “Please calm my heart,” she prayed. “God, please calm my heart.”

  “Morning Sun!” Etsi called. “Help me. We must carry her.” Morning Sun finally moved swiftly out of the bushes. “No!” Nellie cried. “The baby.”

  “It is fine,” Etsi said. “Nellie, hold your hand on your stomach. Morning Sun, grab her feet. I’ll get her shoulders.”

  Between the two of them, they managed to get Nellie in a flat position and carried her out of the thicket and into the woods toward the camp. With each heartbeat, Nellie felt the poison move up her arm, and it hurt so bad, it felt as if someone was hitting her arm with a stick. Another heartbeat, another inch higher the poison moved, another hit on her arm with a stick.

  “Help! Help!” Etsi yelled, and Morning Sun screamed, “Help!”

  A soldier rode his horse toward them. “What happened?” he asked as he dismounted.

  “A copperhead bit her,” Etsi said in Cherokee, but the soldier shook his head as if he didn’t understand.

  “Nellie, tell him,” Etsi said.

  Nellie was feeling faint, but she said, “Snakebite. My hand.” “Rattler?” he asked as he stooped and took Nellie from Etsi and Morning Sun.

  “Copperhead,” Nellie answered.

  “Good,” he said. “Not so much poison.” He motioned for Etsi to hold his horse still, and he laid Nellie across the saddle, her head hanging off one side of the horse and her legs off the other. He mounted and sat behind the saddle. “Put your hand down.”

  Nellie obeyed, letting her left arm dangle while holding on to a stirrup with her right hand. Her chin bounced against the saddle as the horse took off at a good pace, and she turned her head and tried to hold it still. She could see Etsi and Morning Sun running after them.

  “We’re almost there,” t
he soldier said in a few minutes.

  He had taken her to the soldiers’ headquarters. “We’ll have Doc take a look at you.”

  “God, please calm my heart,” Nellie whispered as the soldier carried her to a tent.

  “Copperhead bite,” he announced as he laid her on a cot. “Hand.”

  The doctor looked at her hand, poked around the two puncture holes from the fangs, and smoothed on some salve. He held his fingers on the pulse in her wrist. “Slow heartbeat. Good.” Then he wrapped her entire arm from her shoulder all the way to her hand with a bandage.

  “Just stay still,” he said. “Looks like more venom than usual, but you’ll be just fine.”

  Edoda and Etsi appeared at the tent opening as the doctor finished with Nellie.

  “Take her home?” Edoda asked.

  Home? Nellie thought. She could not go home again, and Edoda was surely not calling their little brushy hut by the wagon their home.

  “She needs to be still,” the doctor said. “She can stay here awhile, but if you want to carry her, you can take her to your place.”

  “Carry me?” Nellie asked.

  “Yes,” Edoda said.

  He scooped her up and carried her past wagon after wagon to the Starr camp. Etsi kept up a constant chatter beside her. Morning Sun, Lewis, Sarah, Old Rivers, and Smoke Cloud surrounded her as soon as Edoda laid her on a blanket inside the hut.

  “Want some water?” Lewis asked.

  “Does it hurt?” Sarah asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Nellie assured them, but her hand stung and felt numb at the same time. It looked like the paw of a cat, with no separation of the fingers.

  She did not find the enforced rest an easy time. She wanted to be helping Etsi with the chores. She wanted to walk with Morning Sun. But she stayed still for several days, and the swelling went away. She was left with only two scars as a memory of the copperhead’s fangs.

  As soon as she was up and about, the days fell into a different pattern. Hot and hotter, dry and drier, waiting and waiting longer.

  June quickly turned into a hotter July. Edoda told the family that Principal Chief John Ross had negotiated with the white government to let the Cherokee be in charge of their own removal. They would hire merchants to supply them with blankets and food along the trail. And the Cherokee police, the Light Horse, would keep order.