Authors: Lalita Tademy
“We put improvements back to the land, and the land before our comfort,” her grandfather went on. “Took our headright money from Fort Gibson and saw it to good use. This ranch ate up $150 in cash and trade, building that herd, improving the dwellings, managing the fences.”
They did work hard. But Rose also knew luck was on their side in the favorable weather of the last two planting seasons and a chance encounter with an old cattle trader her grandfather dealt with before the flight to Fort Gibson. The trader staked them a good deal on two steers and a dairy cow in exchange for almost every cent of their early monthly allocations distributed through the Creek government. If these agents had seen them then, ragged and gone hungry to feed the livestock and buy seed in hopes of a future, they’d sing a different tune.
The agents nodded their approval. “What kind of tools you using?”
Rose tagged along as Grampa Cow Tom toured them around the vast storage shed near the cotton field, more spacious than the farmhouse, eager to show his cache of seeds and assortment of farm tools.
The agents walked the shed, remarking on the crops, the carding machine, Gramma Amy’s spinning wheel, fingering the tools and the spent corn around the mortar and wooden pestle. Far from the nearest mill, they pounded their own corn, ginned the cotton with their fingers, and carded by hand before Rose and the other women spun.
“You work at a disadvantage,” the tall agent finally said. “In our travels, we see farmers nearer the States use more modern tools. Cherokees and Quapaws especially.”
The other agent nodded in agreement. Rose began to wonder if the short man had a tongue to speak at all.
“Can you deny results?” asked her grandfather, defensive. “Does modern beget taller corn or better payout of cotton? What fool bellyaches about old tools that yet yield bumper crops when the newfangled is not on hand or comes only with unneeded cost?”
The agent gestured toward the old plow in the corner of the storage shed to make his argument. The wrought-iron plow point, from constant filing, was worn all the way to the moldboard. “This puts more work on both steer and man,” he said. “Might break the soil, but difficult to cut the furrow deep enough for seed without another go-round. There’s easier ways now, a Wood Patent plow, iron, with parts that interchange.”
Her grandfather seldom flared for strangers, but his offense took root.
“Easier isn’t always possible,” he said. His voice rose. “Easier isn’t always better. The prairie needs breaking up, and that old bull-plow does the breaking.”
It seemed as though the tall agent intended to go one better, but then he changed his tone entirely. “You have single-handedly worked a miracle here,” he said.
Her grandfather calmed himself in the ensuing silence. But Rose knew Grampa Cow Tom as they did not, and where they saw a tetchy family patriarch, she saw the idea of a plow that could till a furrow without a broke back at the end of the day fix in his mind.
“Time to move along to supper,” her grandfather said. “My wife awaits us.”
They adjourned to the ranch house, the agents now full of flattery and small talk. Rose shifted easily into her role of preparing food and serving, doing her best to avoid Ma’am’s gaze and stay out of her reach, and shepherding Elizabeth around the kitchen, helping her with her tasks. Her sister was recovered, excited by the visitors, as if the burned
sofki
never happened.
The corn stew came out fine, thick and seasoned, with chunks of chicken, and Gramma Amy prepared cha-cha and Indian bread, followed by strong, black coffee.
“Quite a place you got here,” said the quiet agent. “Good food, stable household.” He paused. “I’m wondering about another helping of that stew.”
Rose served him up another plate, and the agents continued their probing, including a few questions by the shorter man, who found his voice after all, perhaps loosened by his third helping. The agents complimented the household, the neatness of the hand-stitched quilts on every bed, the sturdiness of the tables and chairs, the cleanliness of the farmhouse, the harmony of several generations under a single roof. They were pleased to hear of the nearby schoolhouse, where her grandfather paid for the teacher’s salary from his own pocket, and were impressed when Gramma Amy’s potion calmed the quiet man’s stomach upset, with no physician nearer than Fort Gibson, thirty-three miles distant. Her grandfather’s earlier temper evaporated.
“This Wood Patent plow, you happen to come across any in these parts, used?” Grampa Cow Tom asked.
“There’s a few around. North Fork. Muskogee. Don’t know whether they’re wanting to sell or not. Creek agency village be a good place to start.”
“Might look into that,” her grandfather said. “We’re waiting on our share of Creek tribal money, supposed to pass on to us any day now.”
When supper was over, the agents made faces at the baby until she smiled a gummy smile, enjoyed a smoke with Grampa Cow Tom and his son-in-law while Rose and the other women cleaned up, and retired to the storage shed, where they slept the night on hay, covered by hand-turned quilts.
The agents left the next morning, and Rose tackled her day with new resolve. After so many hardscrabble years, first in Fort Gibson and then starting anew, she imagined a breathing space. They were doing fine, and with the Creek payout soon to come, the family could put money away in reserve in case fortune turned her back on them with failed crops or animal disease or poor weather.
The only nagging botherment was recalling the white man’s words, that her grandfather had worked a single-handed miracle. Without question, they could not have come so far without Grampa Cow Tom, but he was often absent at the ranch in his role as linguister, traveling for days and weeks and months at a time, particularly in that first year after Fort Gibson. It was the women who put so much sweat into the ranch, who kept everything going, whether household or crop or cow or trade, always in attendance. It was Gramma Amy, and Ma’am, and the aunts, and yes, Rose herself, her hands calloused, her skin burned and bruised from whatever needed doing.
Their ranch might be a miracle, but it was not single-handed.
Chapter 44
ROSE EXAMINED THE
four-year-old cow, dewlap swollen just above her front legs, matching lumps the size of small grapefruits on both sides. Their cow didn’t present sick, still eating and drinking.
Her grandfather waited alongside her in the corral, leaning against the split-rail fence. He’d barely paid attention all morning, every movement stiff and slow. After the agriculture agents left, he’d caught a lingering head cold and slept away most of four days. Today was his first day back to working the herd.
“Separate her out for a day or two and keep an eye on her?” Rose asked.
“That’ll do, then.”
Grampa Cow Tom didn’t offer up anything more, no advice on how to dose the animal, or a guess how long before she could rejoin the herd.
“You feeling well?” Rose asked. She’d heard Gramma Amy and Ma’am talking about her grandfather, how easily he tired now and how his legs pained him in his sleep. They worried he’d come to the point in life of feeling his years.
“As good as I got a right, I guess,” he said.
“Still thinking on that plow?”
“My back is past working furrows, but it’d be great relief for the sons-in-law. No more filing down that metal point that can barely
hold an edge, no more reforging the broken wedge, no more coaxing furrows from first-pass ground nicks. Yes. I surely would like to retire that old bull-plow.”
“We have money enough?”
“Central Creek Council holds $200,000 from Washington for the tribe. Money should flow through the chiefs in the next day or so to all Loyal Creek citizens according to the Dunn roll. Then we have money enough.”
Every member of her family was on the roll of Negro Creeks eligible for payments. She wanted to see her name for herself, Rose Cow Tom, officially printed, but her grandfather assured her he’d studied it with his own eyes.
A light rain fell, and the fields were mudded. She led the ailing cow toward the barn, and halted as a hacking cough seized her grandfather. Two horses pulling a buckboard suddenly appeared and bore down on them at a gallop. The wagon, sturdy and late vintage, was most likely Ketch Barnett’s, who favored the fancy in his women and his transport both. Uncle Harry yelled her grandfather’s name the while.
“Cow Tom! Cow Tom!”
There were four in all, Harry Island, Ketch Barnett, Monday Durant, and her uncle John, all four a-scowl. Rose and her grandfather waited on them to cover the short distance.
“They stripped us from the roll,” Uncle Harry said. He planted himself in front of her grandfather as if daring him to turn aside. “Gone, like smoke to the heavens. There’s to be no money for freedmen.”
“That can’t be,” said her grandfather. He wiped at his forehead with his kerchief. “I saw the list myself, last week. Almost two thousand African Creeks.”
“And I saw the telegram last night,” said Uncle Harry. “Sent by special messenger from Fort Smith, from Commissioner of Indian Affairs. Freed people excluded from payout.”
“Agent Dunn himself prepared the roll. He’s on our side,” he
said. “Two hundred thousand dollars to sell the western section of Creek lands to the United States, divvied up per head to all on the Dunn roll, full-blood, mixed-blood, or freedman, no distinction. Equal.”
“Agent Dunn isn’t here. The money’s to be distributed tomorrow against treaty, while Agent Dunn is in Washington. Those buzzards expect us to lay down without complaint while they throw dirt over our face.”
“We can appeal,” said Grampa Cow Tom. Her grandfather dropped his kerchief in the mud, forgotten now, and Rose retrieved it. “Creek Council . . .”
“Council voted already, persuaded by the Confederate Creeks. Any excuse to keep us out of the tribe. And the superintendent went along too. Now there’s two layers of white men saying no, one here in Indian Territory, and one at Fort Smith. Doesn’t matter what’s right.”
Rose’s mind raced to keep up. These were the most powerful men she knew, all part of Creek Council. Her grandfather was in the House of Kings. Her uncle Harry in the House of Warriors. They represented all five of the Creek colored towns.
“We’re outnumbered,” Uncle Harry said. “And we been outplayed.”
“The treaty—” began her grandfather.
“No need schooling me on the treaty,” snapped Uncle Harry. “Wasn’t I there? Weren’t we all there?”
“I’m talking the Seminole treaty,” said Grampa Cow Tom. “Almost same as the Creek treaty as to freedmen and our right to Washington money. Blazes, they used our wording. Same words, same superintendent, and their freedmen already got their payout for selling Seminole lands to the United States, no argument.” Her grandfather threw up his hands in disgust. “How many times we need prove to be Creek citizen?”
“Many as it takes,” said Uncle Harry. He spit in the mud. “Or should we lay down and die?”
Harry calmed himself and took hold of her grandfather’s arm, gently, as if cradling a baby. “Washington is the only place to right this,” he said. “We come to ask you to go there to protest. Your name still carries currency.”
“An old man past his prime?” said her grandfather. Except for Uncle John, the men surrounding Rose were all old guard, entered the sixth decade of life. “If the distribution comes tomorrow, the hour is already too late.”
“An old man?” Uncle Harry repeated, laying thick his mockery.
“Who else goes?” Grampa Cow Tom asked.
“Two is enough, so long as departure is swift,” said Harry. “The rest stay behind, put up a fuss here, give time to pull Washington in.”
Her grandfather said nothing.
“I’m going,” Uncle Harry volunteered. “Old or no. Have you forgotten the pledge? One last time, brother.”
Rose saw a flicker of a smile play at the corners of her grandfather’s lips. He finally nodded.
“One last time,” he agreed.
To Rose’s ear, her grandfather didn’t sound defeated at all.
What she heard was excitement.
Chapter 45
THE TRAIN JERKED
and gave a mighty heave. It had been a long trip north to the station at Lawrence, Kansas, and Cow Tom relaxed as best he could against the stiff back of the wooden bench. Through grimed windows, he watched the monotony of flat landscape pass, slow at first, then with increased speed, as they put more distance between themselves and home. He still fumed, but Harry, in the adjacent seat, had fallen asleep almost immediately after they’d stowed their bags and settled in the Negro car. Harry’s mouth was open, his breath a whistling monotone, his neck at a precarious angle, his head resting on his own shoulder, and he showed no signs of waking anytime soon.
When Cow Tom tired of the sameness of the outside view, he assessed the interior of the stuffy train, the multiple cigar burns on the wood, the squeaking of the wheels, the acrid smell of smoke from the boilers that drifted into the car from the rear door of the train. They’d been traveling for four days, by horse, and by wagon, but neither Cow Tom’s mind nor body could rest. This was potentially the most important job he’d ever undertaken, bigger than chief of the Creek Freedmen, which was, after all, merely a title, and a title couldn’t stave off a lifetime of work coming unraveled.
His back ached from sitting upright in the uncomfortable seats so long, his fingers swollen and tender, his knees cranky, whether from use or disuse he could no longer tell. He remembered his year of tracking and interpreting in the swamps of Florida as a young man, when he could fall asleep anywhere for minutes or hours and
wake refreshed, when danger meant hostile attacks or disease or, if truly unlucky, scalping. Nowadays danger meant the potential for falling and the breaking of bones, the ever-present aches and pains of age, the tender stomach that craved the blandness of
sofki
rather than a full bowl of rich venison stew.
Still, there was excitement being on the move with Harry, pitting their collective will and wits one final time against the disloyal Creeks trying to cheat freedmen of their place in the tribe. If there was a last stand to make, he welcomed making it with Harry Island. They had both done better than most Creek or African Creek, he with his modest ranch and Harry as interpreter in a store in North Fork, and they were part of Creek Council. Now when they visited, talk turned more toward days of old and shared adventures than current affairs, something missing. It didn’t seem possible the kick of the old days was gone forever.