On This Long Journey

by Joseph Bruchac

  I nodded. It seems that everyone knows of my journal now. I have been teased about it often. Such gentle teasing, though, means that people approve of what I am doing.

  The sound of galloping hooves approaching came from around the bend. We stepped to the side, climbing over a rail fence just in time to avoid being run over by a company of white soldiers on horseback. Their faces were grim, and the sun glinted off their guns and bayonets. They seemed to take no notice of us and they soon disappeared, leaving nothing behind but the choking clouds of swirling red dust.

  Standing Turkey and I returned to the road, clouds of red dust rising from us as well as we brushed ourselves off.

  “They seem determined,” Standing Turkey said. “But Kooweeskoowee will defeat them.”

  May 17, 1838

  Despite the general uncertainty, livestock still must be fed and farm chores done. Corn is now knee-high. Napoleyan escaped his stall this morning and went into the cornfield. I was sure he had trampled the corn or at least eaten some, but he had not. I believe he just did it to irritate me. He seemed to be laughing at me as I led him back to the barn. Mules!

  Too busy to write during the day and now too tired this evening to write more than this.

  May 25, 1838

  Finally a day of rest. Yet I find it hard to put pen to paper. The hardest part of writing is finding words. It is like trying to catch fish in the river with your hands. Just when you think you have it, there is a sudden flash of fins and the quarry darts away.

  I have a new book to read. It was provided me by Reverend Elizur Butler, who is both physician and missionary. He and his wife, who is expecting a child, invited me to visit them. Upon my departure, he placed this book in my hands. Though enjoyable, Reverend Butler assured me that it is not at all frivolous. For it is based upon a true story and shows how a man placed in great trouble and danger may yet overcome terrible odds and survive.

  The book is Mr. Daniel Defoe’s story of a castaway, Robinson Crusoe. His ship is destroyed by a sudden and unexpected storm, and he is cast naked upon a desert isle. Reading this tale may help me escape for a time from the deep cares that burden all.

  May 26, 1838

  Have just wakened to the sound of thunder. It is not yet full dawn, so I write this by candlelight. Now I hear the crack of lightning. No, it is not! It is gunfire, and the thunder is the sound of hooves pounding the roads. Now someone is shouting words of command. A fist is pounding upon our own door!!!

  June 4, 1838

  I now have so much to tell that I cannot dip my pen into the ink fast enough or make my fingers catch up with my words. Even though I am still sick and weak from the loss of blood, I must write. It is a miracle that I still have this journal and that I have ink and pen to use to write.

  I am now one of the many held prisoner by the armies of General Scott. We are crowded like hogs into a sty inside a high wall of timbers. No roof above us but sky and what few blankets can be spread to make shades from the sun. Few blankets, indeed. Most here have no blankets at all. Indeed, many have almost no clothes on their backs. Like my mother and my sisters and I, they were dragged from their homes before sunrise and shoved at bayonet point into the night and made to run before the soldiers down the dark roads. I must pause for a moment, for I feel about to faint.

  Fainting spell has passed. I was writing of that night. I pray that I shall never again experience such a night. The darkness was lit not only by the torches carried by the soldiers, but also by the brighter light of barns and houses burning. Whether by accident or design, many of our Cherokee homes were set on fire as we left them. Perhaps it was done by the soldiers. However, I remember seeing other men darting into our homes. White men, following the troops to take whatever they might steal as soon as we were gone. I do not think our own home was set on fire, but a roughly clad man with a gray beard tried to shove past the blue-eyed soldier escorting us off our porch.

  To his credit, that soldier grabbed the man by the scruff of his neck and hurled him from the porch onto his backside. The would-be looter glared up at him and then scuttled off toward the barn like a gray rat.

  The soldier turned to my mother. “Your husband here?” he asked.

  My mother shook her head. Emily and Ruthie peered out from behind her, glaring at the soldier.

  “My mother does not speak English well,” I said.

  The soldier turned to me. “But you do,” he said. Then he looked back over his shoulder at the sound of a ruckus from the barn. Hooves banged against wood, and a man shouted in fright. Lit by the torchlight, a large shape came bucking and kicking toward us. It was Napoleyan, dragging the terrified gray-bearded thief whose hand was caught in the halter. One final kick caught the man in his side, propelling him over the fence. Then the mule was gone, galloping off into the night.

  The officer sighed, reached into the pouch at his side, and pulled out a pencil and paper.

  My head spun like a top. He was now asking me to write down a list of our personal property — furniture, implements, beef cattle, fodder, machinery, horses . . . mules. Was this a dream, one the Feeler could drive from my head by the burning of tobacco and prayers to the fire? Somehow I managed to give some accounting of all we owned. He wrote it down and handed me a copy, telling me to keep it as a record since government collectors would come to gather up our property and care for it.

  Then he turned to my mother and looked down at her and my sisters, still in their nightdresses. “Clothing, ma’am,” he said. He pointed at their feet. “Shoes, too. But be quick about it.”

  My mother needed no translation. She darted back into our cabin and returned with an armful of clothing, shoes for the girls, and several blankets over her shoulders. The next thing I knew, we were on the road in a crowd of people. Shoulders jostling against each other, we stumbled down the road. The blue-eyed officer had vanished. The soldiers behind us cursed and shouted to hurry us along. Some swung clubs at our backs.

  “Move, damn you, move!”

  If anyone fell, they were yanked to their feet and shoved forward. My mother and sisters had vanished in the crowd. I tried to find them, but I could not. Some of the Cherokee faces around me seemed familiar, but I could not be certain who they were. It was not just the darkness and confusion — most of those faces were distorted with fear and grief. All around us was the sound of weeping and moaning, the thud of hooves and angry oaths bellowed at us. The taste of red dust and fear, the smell of burning and sweat and blood make a memory that I fear I shall never forget. Perhaps I will never sleep again without the fear that I shall wake to such terror.

  “Etsi,” I cried out. “Mother.”

  But no one answered me. Too many were crying out the names of their mothers or fathers, children or other loved ones separated from them.

  A soldier has told us that we must now stop whatever we are doing and sleep. I am too weak to protest. I can write no more tonight.

  June 5, 1838

  This is our tenth day in the stockade camp.

  I shall return to the place where I left off as we stumbled down the dark road.

  I am ashamed to say that when I realized I did not have my journal with me, I felt almost as great a fear for it as for my mother and sisters. I had left it behind in our house! It would surely be thrown away or burned.

  I turned back to get it. I tried to force my way back through the crowd. I almost reached the soldiers on horseback. I hoped to find that blue-eyed officer. In my confused state, I believed he would listen to me and allow me to go back to get my journal.

  Suddenly, something came hurtling down at me. It was the butt of a rifle swung by a soldier in the uniform of a United States Regular. It struck me full in the face. I heard the crunch of teeth splintering from that terrible blow that hit me like a lightning bolt. My mouth filled with blood as I staggered back.

  Somehow I did not fall, but continued on
. My hands were pressed to my face, blood dripping from between my fingers. Someone, I do not know who, produced a kerchief and helped me force it into my mouth to stem the flow of blood. The gentle hands of other Cherokee people, as full of loss and grief as I was, reached out with a kindness that somehow survived in the midst of chaos. They supported me, kept me from falling, helped me continue our sad journey. On we went, on toward the darkest dawn I have ever known.

  Once again, I am compelled to stop for things are aspin about me.

  June 7, 1838

  Although my last entry was dated June 4, I must confess I am not certain what the actual date was. Within this prison we have no more access to newspapers or calendars than do cattle. Penned-up cattle, however, are better treated than Cherokees. Hundreds of us are crowded together here. I will take an exact count after I finish this entry.

  Reverend Butler, who has chosen to be here among us, tells me that today’s date is June 7. In three days, it will be the Sabbath. There will be a religious service for those who choose to take part.

  It was Reverend Elizur Butler’s face that I saw when I first woke in this place a week ago. I had no memory of arriving here. The pain and loss of blood had quite taken away my senses. I had lain senseless for nearly three days. At least one soldier thought me dead, asking those about me to carry my body from the stockade to bury outside the walls before I started to rot. His request was refused. From what I hear now, I was guarded no less fiercely than a hurt cub by a mother bear.

  “Jesse,” Reverend Butler said on that day when I returned to awareness. He smiled down on me, a smile both warm and edged with sorrow. “You have come back to us.”

  I reached up to touch the bandages about my face and winced at the deep ache in the side of my jaw.

  In a soft, whispered voice, as if aware that too loud a tone would hurt my ears, Reverend Butler explained that I had lost two teeth there, shattered by the blow. But the roots had come out cleanly, and my jaw seemed not to be broken.

  Gentle fingers then grasped my hands and drew them away from my face. I recognized that touch. My mother’s face appeared above me. My two sisters, Emily and Ruthie, were next to her. It was the sweetest sight I had ever seen. I had feared I would never see them again in this life.

  “Gogisgi,” my mother whispered, holding my hands up to her wet cheeks.

  “Etsi,” I whispered back, my voice hoarse and weak.

  My mother pulled one of her hands away from mine and held it out toward my sister Emily. Something was placed in her hand. She held it so that I could see it, but I did not recognize it at first. Then I realized it was my journal. When my dear mother had gone back into our house, she had wrapped it into one of the blankets.

  I touched the cover of my journal with trembling fingers as my other small sister, Ruthie, showed me what she held. My quills and my ink bottle.

  “Wado, my dear family,” I croaked. Then I fell again into sleep.

  June 11, 1838

  I feel much stronger today. Reverend Butler held services yesterday. He was assisted by Reverends Jesse Bushyhead and Stephen Foreman, two Cherokee men who are preachers themselves. Now more than one in ten of those in Camp Cherokee are Christian. Yet many joined in the singing of hymns in Cherokee. All seemed lifted a little by the preachers’ words of faith and hope. Half a dozen men and women professed their desire to join the faith when the meeting was done.

  The preachers hope to be allowed to leave the fort, under guard, to take their new converts down to the river for baptism next Sunday. The officer of the camp seems more than a little sympathetic. He and some of the other white officers and soldiers appear saddened by what they have been forced to do. They see that we Cherokees are not wild savages, but human beings who dress and live much like their own families. I think these white men have been led to wonder if the same might happen to them someday. Is it possible that someday an army of strangers will march into their homeland, looting and burning and driving them from their land as we Indians have been driven?

  June 12, 1838

  Reverend Butler tells me that General Scott gave firm orders for his troops to treat the Cherokees gently. Many of his men tried to follow his orders. Not so the Georgia Volunteers. Scott was shocked to hear a group of Georgia soldiers joking about which of them would gather the most Cherokee scalps.

  “What is that you say, sir?” Scott asked one of them.

  “Beggin’ your pardon, General,” a Georgian replied, “But it is well known that them Cherokees ain’t truly human.”

  For his own part, Scott began to doubt that the Georgians among his troops were truly Christians. For that reason, Scott ensured that every Georgian he could find was under his own direct command so that he might keep an eye on them.

  June 13, 1838

  Tried to assist others here in the camp but was told to wait until I was well. So I sit here in our small corner and write in my journal. I shall try to describe what life is like in the camp.

  Also, I must do something else. People have seen me writing and asked what I am doing. When I tell them I am keeping a record of all that has happened, they are often eager for their stories to be told. There are so many that I cannot tell them all. But I will share a few, though I will not mention the true names of any of our Cherokee people, should this journal be read by hostile eyes. Instead I shall make up names for them to protect them. (Save for my own name, the names of white people, and the names of our well-known leaders, this is what I have been doing all along.)

  June 14, 1838

  Stories from the Camp

  Goingsnake, an elder of seventy winters, tells me the troops arrived at his house not at dawn but just as they sat down to dinner. He refused to leave until all of his family members had been allowed to kneel and follow his lead as he prayed in Cherokee. Then, with great dignity, he rose and led his family for the last time from their home.

  Struck by the Bear is — or was — a wealthy Cherokee. He owned a plantation with a dozen buildings, a large herd of beef cattle, ten fine horses, and a gristmill. Forty people lived on his plantation, not including a dozen slaves. He was riding out to survey a broken fence when he heard the sound of gunfire from his home. Coming back over the hill he saw a strange sight. His family and the other Cherokees were huddled behind an overturned wagon while two parties of white men fought each other for the possession of his home. One white man and his brothers had barricaded themselves in the living room while the other white men poured round after round of gunfire in at them.

  It only ended when the soldiers, a party of Tennessee Volunteers, came riding up the road. By that time, two of the white men had killed each other, and three were seriously wounded. All of them were so worn by their pitched battle that they could only limp away without claiming any of the spoils.

  “The Tennesseers came too soon,” Struck by the Bear said. “If they had only waited another hour, those fool white men would have all wiped each other out.”

  Although Struck by the Bear was allowed to take his horses and wagons, which were used to convey other Cherokees too young, too old, or too infirm to walk to Camp Cherokee, he received only a paper accounting for the rest of his property. However, he did come away with some actual coin, having sold the corn in his mill to the army quartermaster accompanying the troops. To the credit of those soldiers, they bought what they might have simply taken. It would be needed to feed the many hungry captives.

  Struck by the Bear’s slaves are not here in the camp. They vanished after he left his plantation. This worries him deeply. He fears they have been taken by white men who will not treat them as human beings the way he did.

  Nancy, a Cherokee woman in her middle years with a family of seven, told me that the soldiers surrounded their house at midday.

  “You must go now,” they said to her.

  “First I will feed the livestock,” she said. Then she did so.


  When she got out back to the hogs, she told me, she unlatched their gate. “Don’t let the soldiers or the Georgians get you,” she said to them in Cherokee. As she rode away she heard a ruckus and looked back to see all her pigs heading for the woods, leaving the white men far behind them.

  With tears in her eyes and a certain pride, another younger woman I shall call Rose told me what happened when the soldiers tromped into the upstairs room where she sat with her grandmother.

  “Ladies,” their lieutenant said. “You must leave now.”

  “I go nowhere,” her grandmother said in English. This surprised Rose, who until then had thought her elder had no knowledge of the language. Then her grandmother simply leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and died.

  This so moved the lieutenant in command that he ordered his men to see that the old woman was buried beneath the apple tree in their backyard before the rest of the family was moved out. He then had the ground smoothed out and leaves raked over it to conceal the grave. He also ordered one man to stay behind for a time to see that the grave was not disturbed in case someone had observed the burial.

  From what John Iron, who was our local Cherokee blacksmith, told me, it is well that the old woman’s burying place was guarded. A rabble of thieves was following the soldiers like jackals behind a lion. Not content with simply stripping the houses of their contents, they were raiding Cherokee graves to collect the silver ornaments buried with our dead. John Iron was with a group of captives who passed by one of our burying places. He saw no fewer than a dozen white men with shovels and picks in that cemetery, digging hard and eager to rob our graves.