American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  Cherity was awake long before daybreak and out walking through the fields surrounding her beloved Greenwood.

  She remained quiet all morning. Her whole life had been turned upside down by what Seth had told her. What she had always thought meant by the words Cherity Waters was no more. Everything was new. The old Cherity Waters had passed away, to be replaced by someone she had yet to come to know… someone called Cherokee Waters, and, from what Seth had said, maybe not even Waters.

  The thought of the change was both exciting and fearsome. So much suddenly made sense… so many questions remained unanswered. And what did this ring she now wore on her finger mean for her future?

  What did it all mean?

  Every time she thought of Chigua, with her brown skin, strange new feelings of kinship swelled in her heart, not merely for Chigua herself but for an entire race of people. It was a kinship she realized she had always felt even without knowing why, from her love of horses to her fascination with the West.

  Now for the first time it was truly part of her… or she was part of it.

  Seventy-Two

  Stand Watie arrived in the small village of Bluejacket without incident midway through the afternoon. He led his small party through the cluster of houses, then reined in and dismounted in front of one of the smaller among them. He waved a hand to his men and they continued around to the barn and stables behind.

  He dismounted, approached the building, then ducked low and entered through the small door of the wood frame house. The very air inside was filled with solemnity. In the dim light of a fire in the hearth and one small window, only the outline of a man seated on the floor was visible in front of him. Slowly one thing, then another, came faintly into view—several skins on the floor, colored blankets hung upon the walls, spears and a bow and quiver of arrows leaning against one corner.

  Watie sat down on a light tan skin, presumably deer. “It has been some time since we saw one another face to face,” he said.

  “I have been expecting you, my cousin,” said the old man in a low and solemn voice. “A change is coming. I have sensed it.”

  “I only wish the circumstances were less urgent.”

  “The times are perilous. The end of the war has not brought resolution to the strife of the Cherokee.”

  “The times are more perilous than you realize. We are both in grave danger. I have come to warn you, and to urge you, if I can, to leave the territory for a season. You must gather what you need. My men will accompany you safely to the border. Where you go after that, it is best I do not know.”

  The hint of a smile came to the old man’s wrinkled lips in the dim light.

  “It is as I foresaw,” he said. “The wait is over. My return is at hand.”

  Even as they spoke, the distant thunder of many horses could gradually be heard galloping toward them.

  Stand Watie jumped up, ran to the door, and peered out. What looked to be thirty riders were coming hard amid billowing dust and the faint shouts of war cries.

  “The danger was closer than I knew!” he said, turning hurriedly back into the house. “They have followed us!”

  “How many men do you have?” asked the old man, now also rising.

  “Only four,” said Watie. “We will be no match for them. Quickly—gather what you will need and hurry to my men. They are waiting at the stables. They will get you into the hills and away. I will go out and keep them away as long as I can.”

  Watie raced outside, rifle in hand, and ran on foot toward the approaching war party. The renowned general of the Confederacy was about to face the most dangerous challenge of his life… and face it alone. Inside the house, the old man, however, after gathering a few things for a journey, did not, as Watie had supposed, run out to his waiting men. Instead, he took down from the peg where he kept it an ancient chieftain’s robe of white.

  Seventy-Three

  With the courage of his race, Stand Watie hurried from the village, well knowing that he could be running straight into the jaws of his own death. He met the approach some hundred and fifty yards from the outer houses.

  Black Wolf rode in front of the others, bare from the waist up, chest and cheeks streaked in red war paint. Watie knew immediately who he was. He had long anticipated the day they would meet again, and had silently cursed himself a dozen times for not putting a bullet between his eyes when he’d had the chance.

  The young warrior reined in as dust flew about him from more than a hundred hooves, then cantered the final few yards alone, looking down upon the old chief with undisguised disdain. He pulled his horse to a stop.

  “I am here for one called the wise man,” he said in a commanding voice. “He is brother to the traitor Swift Water. I demand him by tribal law. His blood is forfeit for his treachery against the Cherokee nation.”

  “The blood for that grievance was spilled long ago, Black Wolf,” said Watie calmly, addressing the young warrior by name though he knew him only by reputation.

  “Not all of it!” spat Black Wolf. “There was one who fled like the coward he is. My father saw him with his own eyes. Now I demand him in satisfaction of the ancient decree. I will show with his scalp that the blood law must be satisfied.”

  “You will not lay a hand on him, Black Wolf.”

  “Who will stop me? I intend to kill you along with him!”

  He turned to the warriors behind him. “Take him!” he commanded.

  Two of them burst into a gallop, jumped from their ponies, and grabbed Watie viciously by both arms.

  By now Watie’s four men, hearing the commotion, came running from around the house. Seeing the standoff, they hurried toward the scene, guns poised, and waited for Watie to give the order. Every one of the four had followed him into battle wearing the Confederate gray, on a few occasions facing worse odds than these. They would not hesitate to give their lives defending him.

  But their blood would not be spilled on this day.

  Before the standoff could reach its seemingly inevitable climax, Black Wolf’s eyes were diverted beyond Watie to a lone figure approaching slowly on foot. The walker spoke briefly to Watie’s men as he passed. As he then continued on, they ran back to the stables, mounted their horses, and then galloped back again toward the scene of confrontation.

  Black Wolf was clearly taken by surprise by their boldness. Before he could act, Watie’s men snatched their general away from his two captors and whisked him away.

  Sitting on his pony bewildered by the sudden move, Black Wolf came to himself to see the hooves of Watie’s small band disappearing through the village into the hills beyond to the east. Some hundred yards away, the Wise Man of the White Feather was walking alone straight toward him. He wore the deerskin robe that had been passed down to him, adorned with the feathers of eagles, a six-foot chieftain’s spear grasped firmly in his right hand.

  Black Wolf let out a piercing shriek, and dug his heels into the flanks of his mount. His war party followed. Within seconds more than thirty horses bore down upon the living legacy of the Cherokee, who now stopped and calmly held his ground as they flew toward him.

  In a fury at having let Watie slip through his fingers, Black Wolf’s first impulse was to send an arrow into the old fool’s heart and to pound the feet of his horse straight over the top of his body.

  But even as he reached for an arrow, he was restrained by an unseen hand. A silent thunder, as of many voices rising up out of antiquity, seemed to settle over the scene like an invisible cloud. But within Black Wolf son of Prowling Bear dwelt the spirit of Dragging Canoe, not that of Attacullaculla. Unnerved, therefore, but not humbled by the plea of his dead fathers, he continued to charge hard, straight toward the figure standing in his path.

  At the last instant, the old man raised his spear into the air toward the charging warrior. His feet did not flinch. Black Wolf’s horse shied sideways to miss him. Seconds later the following riders splintered apart and thundered past on both sides of him.

  Black
Wolf wheeled around to face, as he supposed, his adversary.

  “Where have they gone, old man?” he yelled.

  “Where you will not follow them,” returned the Wise Man in a voice that echoed with quiet power.

  “Tell me or you die!”

  The old man’s eyes bored into those of the young warrior with the commanding gaze of the Chief of the White Feather.

  “You shall not leave this place in pursuit of them,” he said slowly. There was no mistaking that his words were those of command. “It is time for you to lay this vendetta down.”

  “It will only end when you and the other traitors are dead. We represent the old ways, and we will fight to the death to preserve them.”

  “You know nothing of the old ways!” the Wise Man shot back, his anger rising at the presumption of one so young. You are young and foolish and see only what the rebellion in your heart wants to see. The ways of Moytoy and Attacullaculla are the old ways of peace among brothers. In the old days the red feather and white feather walked together as brothers. And so they will walk again.”

  He turned and gazed out upon Black Wolf’s men who were slowly riding toward him in twos and threes after wheeling their mounts around. “You young warriors,” he called out, “you do no honor to the Cherokee nation by following this man who would destroy all that our heritage represents. Return to your homes,” he added deliberately. “Your business here is finished. There will be no killing today.”

  Slowly again he lifted his spear above his head toward them, whether in benediction or threat could not be said.

  “Where I go, you will not follow. Now go!”

  He turned and returned the way he had come. Black Wolf’s men shuffled about on their horses, uncertain. Black Wolf himself sat staring at the slowly retreating figure as if in a stupor.

  Gradually his men began to disband and ride off. By the time Black Wolf came to himself and succeeded in rounding up eight or ten of them to accompany him in pursuit, the old man had disappeared into the hills after Stand Watie and his small band of faithful followers.

  For all his pride as a warrior, Black Wolf was a child in the ancient Indian art of tracking. By the time Watie and his cousin had rejoined and were on their way east, the small group had split apart, doubled back, laid down false tracks, reconnected and split again so many times that Black Wolf was no more successful in following them than a kitten chasing its tail. Once again he had seriously underestimated the wisdom of his Cherokee elders.

  When they were safely out of Black Wolf’s reach, Watie sent his men away to further obscure their trail.

  “Two of you go north to the border of the territory,” he said, “and two south. Hopefully they will pick up your trail and follow you. But do not let them get too close. Black Wolf remains dangerous. Then make your way back to Salisaw. I will meet you there.”

  Watie’s four men galloped off. The rest of the way, the Confederate general and the Wise Man of the White Feather rode alone. Exactly what route they followed would have been difficult to pinpoint even with a map. Through woods and streams, up steep hills and down, backtracking, through dry riverbeds, here and there through a small canyon or ravine, up more hills and through more forests they went until finally they arrived at a farmhouse where dwelt a Watie supporter. All the way they spoke together of the old chiefs and the hopes and disappointments of their tribe.

  The famous general’s final tactical maneuver to get his kinsman out of Indian territory had been successfully waged.

  After a few final words of farewell, Watie left the way he had come, to leave clues and markings that, if he should be followed, would lead Black Wolf on a wild goose chase back in the direction of Salisaw and the south.

  Meanwhile, the old man continued his journey alone. He had much to ponder.

  He crossed the border into Missouri the following day, put away the robe of the ancients in favor of the garb of the white man, and disappeared from sight.

  Seventy-Four

  Richmond Davidson left the house with a tall glass of lemonade in his hand.

  The day had been a hot one. The air was still warm and sultry after seven o’clock. He and Thomas and Seth and Sydney and Isaac and Aaron and their other hired men had been at work since sunup harvesting a big crop of early summer wheat. They were all exhausted. But it felt good to bring in a crop again! And the rest of the fields were ripening well under the June sun and he had high hopes for what autumn would bring. This was one of the most pleasant times in the perpetual seasons of farming—the planting done, the crops growing, the early fields cut and in and the hope of a good harvest ahead—when Richmond took stock of his life and awaited what would come next.

  God had been so good to them!

  He entered the arbor, walked through the beloved pathways, and sat down on one of his favorite benches. He set the glass down beside him and drew in a long and contented sigh. He loved this season of the year when the earth produced of its bounty.

  “Thank you, Lord,” he whispered. “You are such a good Father to your children.”

  He had brought John Woolman’s Journal with him on this quiet evening. How prophetic the old Quaker had been about slavery! How true it was that it was the slave owner himself upon which the burden of slavery fell with equal weight as upon his slaves. How he grieved for the soul of his neighbor and friend Denton Beaumont—a man at peace neither with himself nor his family, not with God nor with his place in the order of things. Ironic as he would have considered such an observation, it was Denton who was the slave. And the refusal of men such as Denton to face that terrible burden of soul, as well as to face the cruelty of owning another human being, had led to this horrible war and the division in the country.

  Would the nation ever heal completely? Richmond wondered. How long would such healing take?

  His thoughts turned toward Thomas who, with the summer wheat now in, planned to leave tomorrow for Mount Holly to visit Deanna and her family. He had seen a change in Thomas when they had taken Deanna home, almost from the moment they crossed into Pennsylvania. The burden of his desertion, though he had come to terms with it, never entirely left him. The mere fact of being in the South seemed to keep the memory alive. But he had sensed that his younger son was at peace in the North in a way perhaps he never could be here again.

  If only the rebel Confederacy could do what the rebel Thomas Davidson had done, thought Richmond—repented and gone home and sought ways to work toward healing. Yet he feared that the Confederacy, though surrendering its arms, had not laid down its attitude of rebellion. And therefore, like in his poor neighbor, the root causes of the strife still lay beneath the surface. How long would that root of rebellion against equality fester? he wondered. And how much longer would the nation’s blacks have to suffer as a result?

  All through man’s history, he thought, Christians had differed in the responses of their consciences to the conflicts of their times. His two sons had chosen different responses to the war, and yet had at length come to similar conclusions in the end.

  He took a sip from his glass, then opened the book and fell to reading a passage in which Woolman reflected on much the same principle.

  “Orders came at night to the military officers in our county,” Richmond read, “directing them to draft the militia, and prepare a number of men to go off as soldiers, to the relief of the English at Fort William Henry; orders were sent to the men so chosen, amongst whom were a considerable number of our Society. My mind being affected herewith, I had fresh opportunity to see and consider the advantage of living in the real substance of religion, where practice doth harmonize with principle.

  “I have been informed that Thomas à Kempis lived and died in the profession of the Roman Catholic religion; and, in reading his writings, I have believed him to be a man of true Christian spirit. All true Christians are of the same spirit, but their gifts are diverse, Jesus Christ appointing to each one his peculiar office, agreeably to his infinite wisdom.

&nb
sp; “John Huss contended against the errors which had crept into the church. At length, rather than act contrary to that which he believed the Lord required of him, he chose to suffer death by fire. Thomas à Kempis, without disputing against the articles then generally agreed to, appears to have labored, by a pious example as well as by preaching and writing, to promote virtue and the inward spiritual religion; and I believe they were both sincere-hearted followers of Christ. True charity is an excellent virtue; and sincerely to labor for their good, whose belief in all points doth not agree with ours, is a happy state.”*

  Seventy-Five

  Everything had changed for Cherity Waters. She could not fully enter into this wonderful season of harvest with the joyful abandon she once had when she had come to Greenwood with her father so long ago. Her mind and heart were too full of strange new sensations. While the others of the Greenwood family were happily talking about the day’s work, her thoughts were far away. Early in the morning while the others slept, she was out walking alone. Late in the descending dusk of the summer evenings, while Seth and Sydney and the others relaxed on the porch and Richmond read his Woolman in the arbor, she often mounted Cadence and set out into the quiet hills alone.

  Seth watched it all with loving patience, having some faint idea what she was going through, though knowing he could never fully enter into it with her.

  When she needed him, or wanted to talk, she would tell him. Until then, he would wait.

  It was early one Sunday afternoon when Cherity walked down to the LeFleure house. The work of the harvest was stilled for the day. A calm quiet lay over Greenwood. She found Sydney outside with Milos.

  “Hello, Cherity,” said Sydney, looking up with a smile.

  “Hi, Sydney. Do you mind if I borrow Chigua for a couple of hours?”

  “Not at all. She’s inside with Laylie.”