American Dreams (37 page)

Once the caravan had regrouped on the other side of the Mississippi, north of Cape Girardeau, it was learned that the game and winter fodder along the more direct southern route through Arkansas Territory had been severely depleted. They were forced to travel the more northerly route across Missouri.

A frigid wind out of the arctic north swept across the rolling prairie, blasting the beleaguered travelers and sending the temperature plummeting. Weary and ill-clad, weakened by the hardship and disease they had already suffered, the exiled band now faced the ravages of exposure.

There were times when Jed's legs were so numb with cold, he could barely stay in the saddle. He lingered long in front of each fire built by outriders in advance of the caravan, then rode on, passing the plodding, stumbling, laboring Cherokees, to reach the next.

Every day, he rode past more graves, some in the process of being hacked out of the frozen ground and others with the sod freshly turned. After each bitter night, there seemed to be another body to be buried in the morning. Yet every morning, there was The Blade tied on his horse and swaddled in blankets, often with Temple behind him, holding him on.

It was rare for the caravan to cover fifteen miles in a day. Ten miles was average, and anything in between was considered a good day's travel. For days it was the same—an ice blue sky, a bitter wind. Jed was never sure whether it was the wind's moans he heard or those of the sick, the dying, or the mourners. But the sound haunted the trail from Cape Girardeau through Jackson, Farmington, Potosi, Rolla, and Lebanon to Springfield, Missouri. There, the trail turned southwest and the rains started falling, sometimes changing to sleet, but always very cold.

Few offers of food or a night's dry shelter came from the white inhabitants of the towns and isolated farmhouses along their route. Not that Jed entirely blamed them. By now, the Cherokees were a ragged, sorry-looking lot, riddled with contagious diseases and without funds to pay for a night's lodging or food.

And Missouri was the frontier, newly wrested from the grasp of the warring Plains Indians. The word
Indians
conjured up images of savages. Few could believe the Cherokees knew little of war. They were farmers—some, like the Gordons, owned large plantations, and others worked small plots of corn, cotton, or tobacco, eking out a living from the soil, as many of the Missouri farmers did.

Ignorance bred mistrust. And there wasn't anything Jed could do about it.

 

With her clothes and blanket completely saturated by the falling rain, Temple wrapped her arms tightly around The Blade and tried to absorb the shivers that continuously shook him. Every time she thought he was getting better, he would have a setback. She wasn't sure he could endure another night sleeping in wet clothes on wet ground.

A croupy cough punctuated the steady drum of the rain. Temple glanced at Eliza, plodding through the mud alongside the horse, a blanket draped over her head and body. That large hump on Eliza's back was their son. Lije, too, desperately needed dry clothes and a warm place to sleep. With this rain, there wasn't much chance of either.

Leading the horse, Deu glanced back at her. "They're making camp for the night just ahead, Miss Temple. I can see a couple tents."

When Temple looked for herself, she spied a curl of white smoke rising from the chimney of a farmhouse ahead of them. Near it stood a sturdy barn. Without hesitation, she slipped off the horse's back into the mud and hurried forward to take the reins from Deu. Clicking to the horse, she pulled it after her and left the trail, heading straight for the farmhouse.

"Temple, where are you going?" Eliza called.

"All of you, come with me," she shouted back and ignored the bewildered looks from her family. She hadn't the energy to expend in explanations. She was too cold, too tired, and too wet.

When she reached the front porch of the farmhouse, she dropped the reins and moved quickly to the saddle. She fumbled briefly in her initial attempt to untie the small bundle hanging off the left side. Then it was free. A dog bounded out from under the porch, barking furiously in warning, when she approached the steps. Forced to stop, Temple glared in frustration at the door, wondering if she dared approach it. The dog's barking grew more ferocious when her father and Eliza came up behind her.

"Temple, it's no use," her father began.

"You don't know that," she accused angrily.

Just then a man stepped out of the house and swore at the dog. The barking immediately dissolved into a whine of submission as the animal turned and wagged its tail at its master. The instant Temple took a step forward, the dog blocked her way again, a menacing growl rumbling from its throat.

"You're part of that bunch of Indians on the road, aren't you?" The man glowered at them from beneath thick bushy eyebrows. Gray hair, peppered with black, framed a worn and deeply lined face, weathered to a leathery brown from years of exposure to the elements. Temple tried not to look at the rifle cradled in his arms. "If you come lookin' fer a handout, you best just keep movin' on down the road 'cause you ain't gettin' one here. Now, go on. Get outta here before I sic my dog on you."

"Please . . . my husband and my son are sick. They need a place out of the rain to sleep tonight. Could you let them stay in your barn?" She tugged frantically at the wet knot tying the small bundle together. "I can pay you." At last she worked it loose and plunged her numb fingers inside, feeling of the bundle's meager contents and finally finding the silver pin. She pulled it out and clutched it tightly for an instant, then held out her hand, opening her palm to show it to him. "See."

The old man hesitated, the scowl turning to a suspicious frown as he moved to the top of the steps. The pin glistened wetly in her hand, the large amethyst in the hilt's crown gleaming a deep purple in the absence of sunlight, the pearls shining like snowdrops.

Eliza gasped when she saw what was in her hand. "No," she protested. "You can't give him that."

But it was too late. The man had already plucked it from her palm to examine it more closely. Temple shut her mind to the thought of losing the valuable heirloom that had been in her family for years. But she would willingly sacrifice it and more for a warm, dry shelter.

"How many of you are there?" His glance shot over them, as if he were counting noses.

"Ten," Temple acknowledged. "My father and brother, my ... cousin"—she hesitated at identifying Eliza—"myself, my son and husband, and our four blacks. Will you let us sleep in your barn tonight? We won't steal anything."

He turned the pin over in his hand. "I reckon it won't do any harm. You're all standing there shiverin' like a bunch of half-drowned pups anyways. Never could stand to see somethin' cold and wet," he declared gruffly. "You can sleep in m' barn." Temple felt her knees start to buckle with relief. Before she could thank him, he went on, "This here's a pretty bauble. My wife woulda liked it, but she's been dead now close to three years. I ain't got no use for such things. Reckon you might as well keep it." He grabbed Temple's hand and pressed the brooch back into her palm, then turned abruptly and walked back to the front door of the house. He paused there, glancing back at them. "I got me a milk cow with a calf on her in the barn. You can take some o' her milk fer your little one."

"Thank you."

He grumped a reply and went back inside the house.

An hour later, he stomped into the barn carrying a basket of fresh eggs in one hand and a bundle of quilts tucked under his other arm. "Don't need these." He set them down beside one of the stalls and left.

Temple ran after him, catching up with him a few feet outside the barn door. "Please, what's your name?"

He ducked his head slightly, rainwater running off the brim of his hat. "Gosgrove. Hiram Cosgrove."

"I am Mrs. Stuart." She offered him her rag-bound hand.

He shook it awkwardly, bobbing his head in a quick acknowledgement. "Mrs. Stuart."

"Thank you, Mr. Cosgrove. I wanted to be able to tell my son the name of the man who helped us. Thank you."

"Out here in the rain and the mud ain't a place to be thankin' somebody. You best git in where it's dry," he declared brusquely.

She lingered a second longer, then turned and ran back inside the barn.

 

Later that night, Temple lay beside The Blade, the two of them half buried in the hay and wrapped in one of Mr. Cosgrove's warm, dry quilts. Their own wet blankets and their clothes were draped over the stanchions to dry. She breathed in deeply, inhaling the hay's strong fragrance and trying to remember the last time she had felt this warm and comfortable. The Blade stirred and shuddered convulsively.

"Are you cold?" she whispered, and immediately turned to hold him, pressing her body to his length to let its heat warm him. "Does that feel better?"

"I don't think I want to feel better," he murmured, a rasp in his voice from days of coughing.

"Don't talk like that."

"Why?" He rolled onto his side to face her, the hay rustling noisily beneath him. "We both know that once I am well you won't be lying beside me anymore. Why would I want to get well when it means losing you again, Temple?"

"You are wrong." She reached up to stroke his face. "I will not leave. You have to get well because I want to be your wife again."

He caught hold of her hand and halted its idle caress, surprising her with the strength of his grip. "Don't say that if you don't mean it," he warned thickly.

"I mean it."

Nothing; he said nothing. Instead, he pressed the hollow of her hand to his mouth and held it there. She could feel the faint vibration of his body, a trembling that wasn't from the cold or a fever but came from strong feelings. Temple quivered a little herself, thrilling to the certainty of his love. Then he lowered her hand to breathe in deeply and sigh.

"I have missed you. By all that's holy, I have missed you," he murmured. "Maybe I should accept that you want to come back to me without questioning it, but I can't. Why, Temple? Why have you changed your mind?"

"Because your son needs you, but—more than that—I need you. I love you," she said quietly and moved closer to lay her head on his chest. She could hear the congested wheeze of his lungs and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. "We have both made mistakes, though we didn't think they were at the time. When you signed that treaty, you thought you were doing what was best, but you were wrong, very wrong. And when I left you, I thought I was doing what was best for our child, but I was wrong, too. Much has changed in the last two years, but not the way I feel about you." Temple closed her eyes, conscious of the enveloping heat of his body and the aching tiredness of her own. Part of her wished it wasn't so. "Hold me."

She felt him kiss her hair before a cough forced him to turn his head. The spasm intensified the rasp in his low voice when he spoke again. "I don't have the strength to do anything else but hold you. I love you, Temple. I never wanted you to leave, but I couldn't ask you to stay."

"I know." The decision had to be hers, one made freely, without the coercion of his love. Otherwise she would have resented it. She understood that.

The rain pattered on the barn roof, but they were warm and dry in their soft bed of hay, snuggled closely together. They drifted off to sleep that way.

 

 

 

31

 

 

Fort Gibson, Indian Territory Late
 

February 1839

 

The big bay horse snorted impatiently at the slow pace and strained against the bit, its neck tautly arched by the curbing reins. Jarred by its eager prancing gait, Jed nearly gave the animal its head and let it run off some of that freshness as he rode out of the fort along the military road that stretched between Fort Gibson and Fort Smith. But the sight of tents sprawled along the valley of the Arkansas River checked that impulse. It wasn't an army bivouac, but the final encampment of the caravan.

At Fayetteville, his detachment of exiles had branched west, making for Fort Gibson, although most of the caravans had continued south through the Ouachitas to Fort Smith. Two days ago they had reached journey's end.

He had slept twenty-four hours of those two days, in a warm bed with dry blankets and on an army mattress considerably softer than the cold, hard ground. He had wakened from a heavy sleep with stiff, sore muscles. A hot bath, a shave, a clean uniform, and a hot meal had alleviated a great many of his aches, but not all.

Still, looking at these people who had spent another night outside with only blankets and fires to warm them, who had eaten another meal of salt pork and mush, and who possessed little more than the clothes on their backs, Jed couldn't complain. At the officers' mess this morning, he had listened to the laughter and easy voices. Yet here in the camp, the absence of those sounds was deafening.

When the caravan arrived two days ago, he hadn't seen a single smile or heard one expression of relief that the costly and brutal trek was finally over. The survivors had merely scattered over the river valley in a desultory fashion and methodically pitched their tents.

His skittish bay horse shied at a bird that flew out of the marshy canebrake growing along the riverbank on his right. Jed checked the bay's sideways lunge and settled it back into its jolting prance, cursing the animal in a soft, soothing voice. He almost wished that he had ridden one of the caravan horses instead of borrowing one of the dragoon's mounts. But his horses were as footsore and weary as everyone else's.

He reined the bay off the road and walked it into the large and sprawling encampment. This would be his last time to observe and report. After two days of rest and recuperation for the Indians, he had expected to see some change. But the range of expressions he saw was the same as the day they had arrived: distraught, desperate, sullen, and bitter.

Maybe it wasn't so surprising. The hegira was over, but at what cost? Hundreds had died, in the detention camps and on the long trek. The Trail Where They Cried, that's what Jed had heard the Cherokees call it. He had the feeling he would always hear the moaning of their grief in the wind.