American Struggle

by Veda Boyd Jones

  “We can’t compare now to then,” Edoda said, even as he complained about the price of the ox, which wasn’t an equal physical match to his first one. “We are blessed that we have the money to buy one. I should not be so loud in crying foul.”

  Nellie thought he should shout it. He was being cheated by a white farmer. Once again the white man was taking advantage of them.

  Finally, the journey began again.

  But the outrages against the Cherokee continued. A ferry demanded an unheard of amount as a crossing fee. Sometimes supplies were late, and when that happened, the large group went hungry. Lewis and Smoke Cloud continued to hunt game, but many times, they came back empty-handed.

  When supplies were early, Reverend Bushyhead asked folks to leave some of their belongings behind to make room for the extra supplies. He explained before the nightly prayer meeting that it took twelve wagons to carry enough food for three days for the people and the livestock. If suppliers met them early, there had to be a place to carry the supplies.

  Lewis helped Edoda unload Nellie’s trunk. He sold it for a fraction of its cost to a white man, but Nellie kept the clothes she had packed inside. They took up less space if they were just wadded up and stashed between other items. She could wash and iron them when they arrived at the new land. Even with extra food stuffs stacked at the far end of the wagon, Nellie kept her writing tools handy. She had been too tired to write the last week, but she intended to get back to her journal very soon.

  CHAPTER 11

  A Dark Heart

  Midnight!” Nellie screamed. She and Lewis had run from one end of the campground to the other this cold morning, but Midnight was gone.

  “Did you stake her good?” Lewis asked for the tenth time. “Of course. And even if she had pulled up the stake, she would not have wandered off. Someone stole her!”

  They reported back to the Starr wagon. Edoda had already hitched the oxen to the wagon, and Etsi and Sarah sat on the seat. Camp was breaking up, and wagons and walkers were falling into line.

  “Anything?” Nellie asked, tears blurring her vision.

  “Your edoda will be right back,” Etsi said. “He was looking—

  “I’m back,” Edoda said, coming around the wagon from the other side. “I found nothing. She’s gone.”

  “Who could have taken her—except the white men, of course?” Nellie felt like screaming at the top of her lungs that she hated the white men. Who else could have taken her pony but someone living near where they’d camped? The white men had already taken their homeland. Why not take a girl’s pony?

  Old Rivers came up behind her. “I don’t have proof of this, but I think I know what happened.”

  Nellie whirled. “Did you find Midnight?”

  “No. She’s gone. But I believe she was traded for liquor.”

  “What? Who?” Nellie couldn’t make sense of what he said.

  “Someone said that Running Deer gave Midnight as payment for bottles of alcohol.”

  “Who said? Who did he give her to?”

  “No one I can name. People are afraid of Running Deer when he has been drinking.”

  “Old Rivers, where is Midnight?” Nellie asked.

  Old Rivers was climbing onto his wagon. “I don’t know, but I suspect she is many miles down the road.” He pointed the opposite direction the wagons were heading. “She will soon be traded for something else. Do you want to ride with us?”

  “No. I’ll walk,” Nellie said. She stomped alongside the Starr wagon, her anger growing with every step. She wiped tears as the realization of her loss sank deeper into her heart.

  She told Etsi she was going ahead to talk with Morning Sun, but it was not as easy on foot as it had been on Midnight.

  It took a long time to reach Morning Sun’s wagon. She was walking beside it, since the oxen were pulling it up another hill.

  Nellie explained about Midnight’s disappearance—how she hadn’t heard a thing in the night, not a single neigh had awakened her. But this morning the pony was gone. She told what Old Rivers had heard about the trade.

  “How horrible,” Morning Sun said. “What can you do?” She coughed, as if the words had irritated her throat.

  “Nothing.” Nellie covered her face with her hands. Her dear pony, gone. Just like that.

  Morning Sun put her arm around Nellie. “It’ll be all right. You can get a new pony in the new land.” Again, she coughed. “It won’t be the same.”

  “No, it won’t be the same. Nothing will be the same.” They walked on while Nellie cried, and Morning Sun cried with her. Finally, Nellie dried her tears.

  “I just want to go home,” Nellie said. “But you can’t.”

  “I guess home now is a wagon.”

  “I guess home is where your friends and family are,” Morning Sun said. This time she bent over with a cough that sounded deeper than before.

  “Are you sick?” Nellie asked.

  “I’m okay,” Morning Sun said. “Just a cold.”

  The cough didn’t sound like the deep whoop and wheeze of whooping cough, and Nellie had heard that enough to know the sound, so she was reassured by Morning Sun’s words.

  They crested the hill, where woods bordered both sides of the road. Nellie decided to sit in the warmth of the sun on a downed log and wait for her wagon. No sense in walking downhill to meet it and then climbing back up.

  Nellie watched the Cherokee plod by. They had been on the move for nearly two months, and the endless journey and time and weather had taken their toll on her people. The faces she saw were shadows of their former selves. The old seemed older, more lines on their faces, deeper frowns on their lips. They no longer held their proud heads aloft. They wore downcast, dejected looks.

  The funeral for She-Who-Sings had been the first in a long line of funerals. There had been days when they had buried more than one body along the trail.

  Sickness was everywhere. Nellie had been so upset about Midnight’s disappearance that she had shirked her duty as nurse to the sick man carried in Old Rivers’s wagon. Well, with two children in there now along with their mothers who would not leave their sides, that man would get looked after. Still, it was her job.

  There was a break in the parade of tired and sick people passing by. Probably a wagon broken, holding up the rest. The others would get it to the side of the road, and then they would pass by, always walking west.

  They had passed Nashville recently. There had been more supplies there, and some of the barefoot Cherokee received shoes. There were more blankets, too. And they needed them for protection against the frigid days. Some mornings, they had crossed creeks with ice along the banks where the flowing water slowed.

  And tents. The Starrs had received a tent, which did not do much to keep out the cold. But it helped to keep out the rain. Two days earlier, they had awakened to a thin blanket of snow on the tent and on the ground.

  “An early winter,” Old Rivers had said.

  Just what they needed. Nellie sighed. She had railed against the harsh sun of September before the drought had broken, and now she sought the warmth of the sun as October turned to November.

  The parade started in front of her again. More sad people. Sad like her. Finally, the Starr wagon topped the hill. Etsi was walking with Sarah, and she looked older, more tired than Nellie had ever seen her. As soon as Etsi saw Nellie, her expression changed. Not exactly a smile lit her face, but something like encouragement shone from her eyes.

  That was what they were all doing. Putting up a better front to encourage each other. No, not all. Many of the Cherokee were so despondent, their eyes did not light up at anything.

  Old Rivers’s wagon crested the hill, and he waved to Nellie that he wanted to talk to her. He stopped the wagon, and she climbed on. Smoke Cloud was walking beside the wagon, and he continued walking.

  “Hee-yah!” Old Rivers called to the team, and they started downhill, with the old man carefully holding on to the brake.

  Nell
ie waited for him to say something. The silence bothered her, and she wondered if she was getting more like the white men who rushed to fill silence instead of letting it settle around them.

  “You looked very sad sitting on the side of the road,” Old Rivers finally said. “You are allowing your emotions to take your inner peace.”

  It was Nellie’s turn to be silent. Yes, her emotions were in turmoil. She didn’t know if she could identify them all. Anger at losing Midnight. No, she was distraught at losing Midnight. She’d had the pony for three years, and Midnight had become her best friend. She could talk to Midnight, and Midnight listened. Extreme sadness was mixed in with her feelings. And hatred was mixed in there, too.

  What was missing was joy, happiness, and her inner peace.

  “How do you capture the peace again?” Nellie asked.

  “There are many ways,” he said. “God gives us time, which heals our wounds. And you must drive out fear.”

  “Fear?” She had not thought that she was afraid. She trusted Edoda and Etsi to take care of her.

  “Fear of the unknown. Fear of arriving at our new land and not finding it the place we had hoped for. Fear for your etsi and her baby. Fear is the destroyer of the human spirit. Ask God to help you let go of the bad voices of fear and hate in your mind, the bad thoughts that say how bad things are, and let peace settle in again.”

  “I want peace,” Nellie said.

  “Peace comes when we ask for it, not when we search for it. You need stillness and serenity, which is hard to find here.” Old Rivers waved his hand at the long line of travelers ahead of them. “A woodland path is good medicine for a weary soul. The aged timber speaks to us.”

  They traveled in silence for a while. The road leveled out, and the wagons settled to a slow crawl. They crossed a shallow creek, and once they reached the other side, Old Rivers stopped his wagon.

  “There is a path.” He pointed to an animal trail. “Walk a bit among the aged timbers, and then come back to the wagons. You will find peace.”

  Nellie climbed down from the wagon and started down the path that bordered the creek. Tall trees crowded the narrow trail. Many had already lost their leaves, and when she looked up, she saw their winter silhouettes pressed against the blue sky.

  Ahead was a downed tree, an aged timber whose time had come. This tree had gone through many changes in its long life. It had cycled through many seasons. Nellie studied the massive trunk. Growth circles told the life of the tree—wide circles for good years and narrow circles for bad years.

  This is a narrow circle year for me, Nellie thought. Or was it a wide circle? Maybe her circles didn’t just measure physical growth, like the lengthening of a bone, but maybe they measured the growth of her mind and her heart.

  She was not the same person she had been before the white men took their land. She was not even the same person she had been when they had begun this journey. Her heart was hardened. Her joy at living had seeped away. What had been light was now heavy. She felt her heart was turning dark. She did not want a dark heart. She bowed her head and closed her eyes.

  “Dear God, help me,” she said in the silence of the woods. “Please help me find inner peace again. Please help me see the world in a different way—in a way that is full of the joy of daily living. Feed my spirit with nature’s delights.”

  She opened her eyes and saw a mouse skitter across the dead leaves on the trail ahead of her. She heard a jaybird’s shrill caw. On the north side of the downed log grew deep green moss. She bent down and examined it. A bug crawled along the bark and disappeared in a hole. The creek gurgled nearby.

  There was life all around her, even on this cold day. Life went on—without Midnight, without She-Who-Sings, without an ancient homeland. And Nellie knew she could be bitter or she could be accepting and go on with her life. It was her choice.

  She did not want a dark heart. She would not let her emotions take her inner peace.

  With this resolve inside her, she retraced her steps to the road and hurried along to catch up with Old Rivers’s wagon.

  When he saw her, he stopped and climbed down. Smoke Cloud drove the team forward, and Old Rivers walked alongside Nellie.

  “Your spirit is lighter,” he said.

  “I do not want a dark heart,” Nellie said.

  “You do not have a dark heart,” he said. “Your heart is as red as a ripe apple in the sunlight. But sometimes an apple gets bruised when it falls from the tree. Or sometimes a worm eats its way inside. And then there are dark spots on the red apple. We must guard against spots on our hearts.”

  “Let go of the bad thoughts of fear and hatred in my mind, and let peace settle in,” Nellie recalled his earlier words. “And I won’t have dark spots on my heart.”

  “Yes. You are a smart girl and a very brave one,” he said. “But you must be on guard against the bad voices, for they tend to return at hard times. Little by little, we get stronger. Little steps take us on a long journey.” He motioned for Smoke Cloud to stop. He climbed on. “Want to ride?”

  “I’ll catch up with my family and walk,” Nellie said. “And I’ll check on the sick man at every rest stop.”

  Etsi and Sarah were riding again. So Nellie walked beside the wagon, feeling at peace. Lewis returned from riding to the front of the wagon train, and he offered Blaze for Nellie to ride.

  “Thank you, but I am fine,” Nellie said. “I don’t mind the walk.”

  She studied the road in front of her. Different-sized rocks jutted out from the dirt. Just like people, she thought. All different sizes with different minds and different ways of living their lives. She thought about the Cherokee man who had stolen Midnight to trade for liquor. She whispered a prayer for him and felt better for doing it. She wanted Midnight back, but that was not a bad voice in her mind, that was a fact. Feeling hatred for the man who took the horse was a bad thought.

  And what about the white men who took their land? The men who had forced this awful journey on them. Well, one thing at a time, she thought. She couldn’t silence all the bad voices at once, could she? But she would work on it. With God’s help, she would work on accepting change and finding her inner peace. With little steps.

  She wanted to tell Morning Sun what she had felt that day, but the road wound up again, and she felt tiredness wash over her as she climbed. Tomorrow, she could run forward and talk with her friend again.

  But the next day was a day of snow, light all day long, and Nellie stuck close to the wagon to help with still another sick woman who rode in Old Rivers’s wagon.

  The following day, she bundled up in four layers of clothes and ran forward to Morning Sun’s wagon shortly after the group started down the long trail. But Morning Sun wasn’t on the wagon seat.

  “Where is she?” Nellie called to Morning Sun’s brother, who rode next to his edoda.

  “In the back,” he said. “She’s sick.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Morning Sun

  Sick? With the cold?” Nellie asked Morning Sun’s brother. “Sick with a fever,” he said. “Oh, no. Oh, no!” she wailed. Surely Morning Sun didn’t have the bilious fever or whooping cough. “Can I see her?”

  Morning Sun’s edoda pulled on the reins and paused the horses long enough for Nellie to climb on the back of the wagon.

  The inside was dark and as cold as outside. After her eyes adjusted to the dimness, Nellie could see Morning Sun lying on a buildup of wooden boxes that served as a bed. She was shivering, even though she was covered with two blankets. Her etsi squatted on the pile of boxes, her head not two inches from the top of the wagon canvas.

  Nellie climbed the boxes and crawled until she could reach Morning Sun’s hand. It was burning hot with fever. At her touch, Morning Sun opened her eyes. “Nellie?” she said, followed by a racking cough. “Your cold is worse,” Nellie said. “What can I get you? Water?” Morning Sun’s etsi shook her head and pointed at a nearby water bucket.

  “I’ll get Etsi to fix a
poultice. She makes a foul smelling concoction that she puts on a rag around my neck. The bad smell may be what makes the cold go away,” Nellie said with a nervous laugh. “It hasn’t failed yet.”

  “I’ll be okay,” Morning Sun said. The deep cough once again followed her words.

  “Don’t talk. I’ll be back with the poultice.”

  But it wasn’t as simple as Nellie hoped. Etsi said the poultice required brewing, and there wasn’t a fire until the wagons stopped in the late afternoon. As soon as the first fire was lit, Nellie put a small amount of water on to boil and stood at the back of the wagon as Etsi rustled through her herb sack for mint leaves. She had already set out some animal fat and her bottle of pine resin to add later.

  “Etsi.” Sarah was calling from just inside the wagon, where she had ridden all day. Etsi had carved out a little place among the boxes and supplies so she could look out but stay out of the wind’s chill. The last couple of hours she had been asleep.

  “Etsi’s busy. What is it?” Nellie walked to the front of the wagon.

  “I don’t feel good,” Sarah said on a whimper.

  “Sarah!” Nellie scaled the side. “Where do you hurt?”

  “My head and my throat and my all over,” Sarah said and coughed.

  “Oh, no. Oh, no!” Nellie couldn’t stand the thought of both Morning Sun and Sarah sick. “I’m going to make you a bed, Sarah, and I’ll stay with you and nurse you. You’ll be well in no time.”

  “In Old Rivers’s wagon?” Sarah asked. Her eyes were bright with fever, and when Nellie grabbed her hand, it was as hot as Morning Sun’s.

  “No, and not in the tent. I’ll fix us a special place in this wagon. We’ll keep you away from Etsi, so she doesn’t get sick and make the baby sick. This will be our special place.”

  Nellie rushed to Etsi and told her to double the potion. Then she climbed in the back of the wagon and moved boxes around until she made a flat space atop the boxes where Sarah could lie down. Her head was near the canvas wagon covering, but that didn’t matter. “I’m so cold,” Sarah said.