American Dreams (31 page)

"Hello, Temple." The Blade stopped in front of her, his greeting almost casual in its indifference.

"How did you know we were here?" Her voice was barely above a whisper.

"I didn't. One of your field darkies told Deu the soldiers had taken you and the others. I have been riding from camp to camp ever since."

"Is Phoebe with you, Miss Temple?" Deu inquired hopefully.
 

"Yes."

"Is she all right?"

"She's fine." Temple tried to smile at him, but her glance kept going back to her husband. "What are you going to do now?"
 

"Stay here ... with you and my son."

Jed bristled protectively beside her. "That is not for you to decide, Mr. Stuart," he asserted, for the first time drawing her husband's glance to him. It probed every inch of his face.

"Parmelee, isn't it?" The Blade remembered.

"Yes."

"Why do you want to stay?" Temple asked.

"So we can travel west together." In his pocket was a letter he had carried with him for more than a year, intending to show it to Temple each time he saw her. Dictated by his father, it described the forested highlands, the clear, sparkling streams, and the fertile bottomlands of the new western territory.

She had to realize emigration was inevitable now. No longer could she cling to a past that was gone. She had to look to the future. Maybe she would finally see that it wasn't his fault their people were herded into pens like animals, deprived of their meanest possessions, abused and degraded. Maybe now she would put the blame where it truly belonged, on John Ross, who had given them false hope and urged them to ignore all other authority. Maybe now everyone would see that and stop regarding him and the rest of the treaty party as outlaws.

"Lije will be happy to see you," she said.

Was she? The Blade couldn't tell. Her expression was closed to him. He felt a riffle of irritation—frustration—and clamped his jaw on it. Patience he had never possessed in an abundant supply.

"Then you want him to stay?" Bewilderment and doubt were in the frown Jed directed at Temple.

"He can stay or go, as he pleases," Temple replied.

For one hot instant, The Blade wanted to take her in his arms and kiss away that coolness. The woman underneath was far from indifferent to him and he knew it. But no, he would wait. He knew that pride of hers. She wouldn't thank him for forcing her to admit she still loved him.

"I have two saddle horses and a pack mule tied at the rack. With your permission, Lieutenant, I will get my belongings."

"Granted" was the grudging and clipped reply.

Twenty minutes later, laden with saddle gear and pack and escorted by a guard, The Blade and Deu entered the log pen. Deu didn't have a chance to set anything down before Phoebe flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck, kissing him and crying, murmuring his name over and over in a tear-strangled voice.

The Blade received no such welcome, nor had he expected it. He lowered the saddle and packs to the hard ground, his glance sweeping the enclosure, taking note of everything and everyone. Temple stood silently next to the center post that supported the crude roof covering half of the pen. In the far corner of the roof's patchy shade, her mother lay on a feather mattress, the only bedding he saw other than a couple of blankets. Xandra knelt beside her, the palmetto fan in her hand now motionless. The youngest Gordon child, Johnny, sat hunched against the log wall of the pen, staring back at him, hollow-eyed and pale. Closest to him was Kipp, his black eyes glaring their hatred of him. On his left, Black Cassie and Phoebe's brother, Shadrach, waited anxiously to greet Deu. Eliza moved to stand next to Temple. That small lump behind her was his son, curled fast asleep on the hard ground.

For an instant, The Blade was warmed by the sight of the boy lying there. Then the obvious lack of some of the most basic necessities asserted itself. From what he could see, they hadn't chosen wisely in their haste to gather belongings to bring with them. Except for the blankets, a bundle of clothes, and an iron kettle for cooking, it didn't appear that they had thought in terms of survival but of worth, sentiment, and comfort for Temple's invalid mother.

"Here are some cooking utensils and supplies—coffee, beans, hominy meal, cornmeal, some dried fruit, and jerky," he said to Temple, indicating the pack at his feet.

"We don't want it or need it." Kipp spat out the refusal. "My father has gone to get our own things. You can keep yours."

"Don't be foolish, Kipp," Eliza reproved sharply. "Your father won't be back for three days or more, and your mother needs something more nourishing than boiled salt pork."

"Maybe, but I'm not touching anything of his."

Eliza ignored Kipp's acrimony and smiled hesitantly at The Blade. "Thank you."

"I only wish there was more." He picked up his saddle and blanket roll and carried them over to an unsheltered corner of the pen.

The Blade could have told them that his father-in-law would return virtually empty-handed. He had been to Gordon Glen and seen the empty stalls and pastures, the charred remains of the Negro quarters, and the sheds stripped of their stores and equipment. The main house had been thoroughly ransacked; the basement storeroom emptied of its food supply; chandeliers ripped from the ceilings and sconces from the walls. Furniture, clothing, dishes, books, all of it had been hauled away by looters. The only things he had found in the house had been a broken spinning wheel, some pieces of a chair, and feathers from a mattress covering a bedroom floor. Not even the small family cemetery had been spared, the graves unearthed by thieving rabble looking for any gold or silver trinkets that had been buried with the dead. No, he would leave the telling of the spoliation to Will Gordon.

 

Three days later, Will Gordon returned to the camp. All he brought back was a large basket of vegetables from the garden. The family thronged around him, but The Blade stayed in his small corner of the enclosure, keeping to himself as he had since he arrived.

After Will Gordon had related the destruction he had found, Temple walked over to him. "You knew, didn't you?"
 

"Yes."
 

"Why—"

The Blade didn't let her finish. "You wouldn't have believed me."

 

The following week, General Winfield Scott ordered the postponement of the removal deadline until autumn, due to the drought. The upper Tennessee River was no longer navigable. The third and last contingent of captive Cherokees to make the journey west had been forced to travel one hundred and sixty miles overland to Waterloo, in western Alabama, before they could board flatboats to begin the water trek. Five had died on the way to Alabama. The scarcity of water made the overland route equally impossible, especially with summer's fever season upon them.

The new September 1 deadline was both a blessing and a curse. The Cherokees were forced to remain in the crowded camps with inadequate sanitation, usually stagnant drinking water, and subsistence fare of salt pork and flour. The unhealthy conditions and heavy concentration of people bred disease and sickness. Epidemics of whooping cough, measles, bilious fever, and dysentery swept the camps, with disastrous results.

July came, and with it more scorching heat. Darkness brought little relief from the sweltering temperatures. The hard ground held the day's heat long after the sun went down.

Drenched in his own sweat, The Blade lay with his head on the baked leather of his saddle, listening to the low moans of the ill and the cranky wailings of feverish children, one ear tuned to the faint moans of pain coming from his own enclosure.

Thunder rumbled in the distance. He opened his eyes and stared at the bright stars overhead. Another groan, louder than the previous ones, came from the roofed half of the pen. Silently, The Blade rolled to his feet and picked his way through the fitfully sleeping figures scattered about. He crouched down next to the pallet that held young Johnny Gordon. He was curled up in pain, his arms wrapped around his stomach, his knees drawn up, the putrid smell of dysentery rising from him. His eyes were sunken into their sockets and his skin looked dry. When The Blade felt his forehead, it was burning to the touch. On the other side of the boy, Eliza squeezed excess water from a rag and proceeded to bathe the child's face.

"His fever is worse," he observed.

"I know." She nodded, then remarked idly, "I thought everyone was asleep."
 

"I sleep light."

"It is so hot I don't see how anyone can rest. I wish it would rain." Pausing, she hunched a shoulder and wiped the perspiration from her mouth on the sleeve of her dress. Exhaustion marked her posture and her every gesture.

The Blade reached for the rag. "Let me do that and you lie down for a while."

"No." Ignoring his outstretched hand, she moistened the cloth in the tepid water and wrung it out again.

"You know you are tired. If you keep pushing yourself like this, you will be the one who is sick. Then what help will you be to the rest of them?"

"I will sleep later," Eliza insisted irritably, then sighed. "I am supposed to wake Will up in another hour or so anyway. He will sit with Johnny until morning. I can rest then."

Despite the darkness he could feel the curiosity of her boring gaze. "Why have you stayed all this time? You could be out west with your father instead of in this awful camp," Eliza said.

"Why do you stay?" he countered. "All you have to do is call one of the guards and tell him you are white, and you would walk out of those stockade gates a free woman within an hour."

"I... can't—for a lot of reasons, but mostly because they are like family to me."

"I love my wife and son, too."

"Mama," the boy moaned plaintively.

"Shhh, now." Eliza hurriedly began to bathe him again.

"Johnny?" In the far corner of the pen, Victoria Gordon pushed herself onto one elbow. "My baby, is he all right?"

"He is running a fever," Eliza admitted. "But not to worry, Victoria. I will stay with him. You—"

But he called out for his mother again. "He needs me. I have to go to him." As Victoria tried to crawl off the mattress, she started coughing.

The Blade moved quickly to her side, supporting her and lifting her back onto the mattress. "There is nothing you can do."

"No. He wants me." Although weakened by her debilitating cough, she tried to fight him. "I have to go to my baby."

A figure sprang from the darkness. "Take your hands off my mother," Kipp snarled. "Get away from her."

"Enough." Will stepped between them, throwing a warning look at his son.

The Blade suppressed an angry retort and returned to the small area of the enclosure that he had staked out for himself. Victoria Gordon continued to insist that her place was with her ailing child. No amount of persuasion from Will could convince her otherwise. Finally, Will carried his youngest son over to her and laid him on the mattress beside her.

She cradled him in her arms and crooned to him, stroking his hair and kissing his forehead, repeatedly thwarting Will's attempts to bathe him and give him water.

Shortly before dawn the next morning, Victoria screamed, "Johnny!" But he couldn't hear her. Young Johnny Gordon was dead.

 

He was buried in a makeshift graveyard outside the confines of the camp. Back in their pen, Victoria sobbed uncontrollably. When Will tried to comfort her, she turned from him and clutched at Xandra, wanting only the flesh of her flesh near her. Will moved away to stand by himself, his head bowed with the weight of a father's grief.

After a moment's hesitation, Eliza walked over to him and stood quietly at his side. As Temple watched, she heard the soft words Eliza spoke. "Remember that afternoon at the creek, Will? I still see him laughing and squealing with glee when you went splashing into the water after him."

A low, anguished groan came from her father an instant before he blindly reached out. Eliza's hand was there, closing around his to hold it tightly.

 

Three days after Johnny Gordon was buried, word reached camp that John Ross had finally returned from Washington. All his attempts to get the treaty negated had come to naught. There was no more hope. They would be removed from the land of their fathers. All the suffering and hardship, all the abuse and humiliation they had known—and still knew—had been for nothing.

Yet not one angry voice was raised against John Ross. They had been driven from their homes at the point of a bayonet, herded into pens like cattle, and detained as prisoners in their own land. But no blame was attached to Ross for their troubles. They held Elias Boudinot, John Ridge, his father, Major Ridge, and the other members of the treaty party responsible for everything that had happened to them.

The Blade had thought once John Ross acknowledged defeat, he would be vindicated. It was his opinion that John Ross had been the one who betrayed the Cherokees by offering them hope when there was none. That wasn't the way Ross's followers saw it. If anything, they hated The Blade and all the other treaty advocates more than before.

Each day The Blade had with his son became more precious. And each day that Temple avoided his gaze became more agonizing.

 

 

 

26

 

 

Temple pushed her way through the crowd of women at the well who were waiting their turn to fill their containers. Sickness, despair, and July's enervating heat showed on all their faces as they stared disinterestedly at her. But not one of the women there was Xandra.

Temple swung around to scan the long, slow-moving line in front of the camp's storehouse. People waited to receive their week's ration of food. There were her father, brother, Eliza, and Shadrach, but not Xandra. Where was she? She had left more than an hour ago to fetch water for them and had yet to return. Was it possible Xandra had walked past without Temple noticing her? What other explanation could there be? The guards would never let her out of the compound and her gentle, pacific sister would never attempt anything so bold as an escape. Temple started back to the long row of pens.