Cherokee America, page 8
Lizzie stopped, stunned. Then fell to the ground in a heap. She buried her face in her skirt. Started sobbing. Check shouted, “Lizzie, we’ve gotta get you out of those clothes!” Lizzie raised her head. Check said again, “We’ve gotta get you out of those clothes!” Lizzie jumped to her feet. Started pulling her blouse off over her head.
Check waved both hands in the air. “No! Not yet! The men’ll see ya!”
Lizzie stood stock-still. Tightened her fingers into fists and bawled.
Check didn’t really want to get closer. She took tentative steps and tried to breathe through her mouth. When she got to Lizzie, she gulped in air and mustered her sternest voice. “Stop that noise, Lizzie! Follow me.” She turned and marched, her dressing robe swishing.
Check led Lizzie to a tub behind Puny and Ezell’s cabin. It was surrounded by a small clump of saplings, and next to it was a large, flat sandstone. In front was a bucket and a round sandstone hearth, circling ashes. Check told Lizzie to get in the tub and throw her clothes out. Then she picked up the bucket and walked to a pump close to the kitchen. She was pumping water with vigor when Clifford wandered over and stood too close to her shoulder. He said, “I feel sick. Do we have’ta do lessons today?”
“Get out of my way, Clifford. It’s no time for discussion.” The water spilled over the lip of the bucket.
“What’s gonna happen to her? Where’s the baby?”
Check straightened up. Brushed her hair back from her face. “Clifford! I’m warning you. Don’t mess with me.”
Clifford said, “I was just trying to help.” He hung his head. Slumped away.
Check hauled buckets of water to the tub, muttering under her breath, “ᎩᎶᏊᎢᏴ ᏱᏥᏯᏓᏫᏓ ᎢᎦ ᎠᎩᎿᎸ,” something she’d often heard her mother say when dealing with skunks. Once she got Lizzie bathed and into different clothes, she carried the skunk-sprayed ones on the end of a pole to the trash-burning can. She stood downwind and set them on fire. Gave herself the luxury of watching them burn. They were her own clothes; she’d given them to Lizzie after Ezell had doused her in slop. They didn’t make a big fire. But as Check watched the flames, she plotted.
She’d studied the ways of animals. Every day, she saw hawks patrolling their territories. Knew that creatures, even in packs, fiercely defend their space. But when pulled away, they’re thrown off balance. Check knew, too, it’s possible—she’d done it with dogs, horses, and boys—to force animals into getting along. So she didn’t go to the summer kitchen to talk with Ezell. She asked Otter to bring Ezell to the study. And she was at the desk, writing in a ledger, her glasses perched low on her nose, her hair pulled tightly into a bun, when Ezell stopped in the doorframe. She said, “Got something on your mind, Miz Singer?”
Check looked up from her books and sighed. She was wearing a blouse with a high collar. Her locket lay between her breasts. Her sleeves were rolled up. She said, “I’m afraid so. Come have a seat.” She gestured with her pen towards a chair in front of the desk.
Ezell said, “I’d rather stand. I got work to do.” She patted the scarf that held her hair.
Check smiled. “Don’t worry about your work. I’ll put in a word with your employer.”
Ezell expelled an audible breath. She walked to the chair and took a seat.
Check stuck her quill in its holder. “Ezell, we have a situation here. Puny got Lizzie in a family way, and now he’s gone. Do you have any idea where he went?”
Ezell shook her head.
“Well, we’re sending Coop off looking for him. And for the baseborn baby. But in the meantime, we’ve got dying going on. Mr. Singer’s the only reason any of us have a roof over our heads. He can’t get a moment’s peace in the middle of a big ruckus. Do you catch my drift?”
“Send her away,” Ezell said.
Check had anticipated that. “I wish I could. But she’s sort of family. And if I did, she’d come creeping back. Any woman has a right to know about her baby, no matter how it got here.”
Ezell shrugged.
“I can’t leave her on the porch, either.”
Ezell’s eyes went to slits.
“The way I see it, there’s only one place to put her for now.” Check leaned forward in her chair. Clasped her hands on the desk. Furrowed her brow. “We’re going to have to lodge her with you.”
Ezell popped out of her chair. She pulled herself to full height. “I’ll leave if ya do.”
“So be it. I’ll put her in your cabin. She’ll be there alone when Puny shows up. Her mother was an excellent cook. I’m sure she’s learned something from her.”
Ezell pursed her lips like she had eaten a persimmon.
Check said, “Think about it. You decide.”
Later, after more wrangling, and when Ezell was finally out of the house, Clifford led Lizzie down the hall. Her head twisted, taking in the wonders of the pictures on the walls. When she got to the study’s threshold, she saw the big desk, the sideboard, bookshelves, and mounted antlers over the hearth. The whites of her eyes expanded to egg size. She stopped in the doorframe.
Check said, “Thank you, Clifford. Go see if Jenny needs help minding Paul.” Cliff made no effort to move. She added, “Now!”
Lizzie stepped aside to let Cliff slip out, but didn’t budge past the doorway. Check said, “Lizzie, I want you to come into the room.”
“I’z all right here, Miz Singer.”
Check pinched the bridge of her nose. “I’d like to speak softly, Lizzie. Mr. Singer is trying to rest. He’s ill, you know.”
“Yes’um. I’z sorry.”
“Come in, then. And take a seat. I’m not going to bite you.”
Lizzie said, “No, ma’am,” but did as she was told. She sat, dropped her head, and looked at her hands.
Check felt tender towards the girl. She couldn’t be over fourteen, and was, no doubt, still weak from giving birth. Her baby was surely dead, and she’d been attacked by both Ezell and a skunk in the past twenty-four hours. Check said, “Did the vinegar help?”
Lizzie raised her right arm and sniffed it. “Yes’um. I think so.”
“Did you have any trouble with the porch?”
“No’um. I wrenched it twice.”
“Well, we can always open some stewed tomatoes and throw them on there if we have to.”
Lizzie nodded.
Check took a handkerchief from her pocket and patted her brow. It was the hot part of the day and warm in the room. “We can’t leave you out on the porch tonight. Ezell has agreed to let you sleep with her.”
Lizzie started shaking. That unsettled Check. She blinked several times and went on. “She’s promised me she won’t hurt you. But you have to do your part. Ezell’s legally married to Puny in a Christian marriage. I was at the ceremony myself. Naturally, she’s upset.”
Lizzie raised her head. Her eyes brimmed over. Tears rolled down her cheeks. She nodded.
“I want you to help her with her work. She’s a busy woman. And I’ll pay you like I do the rest of our hands.”
Lizzie nodded again.
“You do what Ezell tells you to do, and mind her.”
Lizzie pursed her lips.
“Do you understand?”
Lizzie didn’t say anything for a moment. Then she sat up straight and said in a fairly loud voice, “Where’s my baby, Miz Singer?”
Check had anticipated that. And felt guilty for not having an answer. She’d turned her actions over in her mind, examined them carefully many times. If she’d left the child with Lizzie in town, she would’ve surely starved there. If she’d brought her to the farm, it would’ve been over Puny’s protest. And, on top of Andrew’s dying, there would’ve been the baby to tend to under Ezell’s nose. If she’d brought Lizzie, too, Ezell would’ve . . . well, no telling what.
Check had also mulled over her own dead infant daughter. Her child’s little fingers and hands. Her soft, smooth skin. She thought of her again. Her breath knotted in her chest. The heat in the room closed in. Check said, “Lizzie, your little girl was at heaven’s door when I found you. You must understand, it’s most likely she’s dead and buried.”
Lizzie started sobbing. She hid her face in her hands. Shook from her head through her body.
A hollow space opened in Check’s chest. Spread to her shoulders. Her breath fled through that hole into a past that she didn’t want coming back. She opened her mouth for more air. Fingered her locket. When her breathing steadied so she could move without crying, she got up, walked around her desk, and stopped at the arm of Lizzie’s chair. She held the girl’s head against her skirt. Rubbed her shoulders. Let her sob.
An Uneasy Evening
That night, Ezell pointed to the maple table Puny had built back in Tennessee. She said, “Girl, get under there.”
Lizzie murmured, “Ain’t no dog.” But pulled a quilt closer to her shoulders, dropped to her knees, and sat. The cabin was nice by her standards. It had a puncheon floor, a sandstone fireplace, and two glass windows. A spinning wheel sat close to one window; a feather mattress and rope bed was pushed against a wall. Next to the bed was a coal oil lamp and a small table. At its foot was a large trunk with a curved top. Two rocking chairs and two straight-backed ones provided places to sit. Bowls, plates, and eating utensils lay on the shelves of an open-faced cabinet, and clothes hung on pegs on the wall. Lizzie looked to the bed and said, “Can I have a piller?”
Ezell’s eyes narrowed. “Be thankful for what ya got.”
“Can’t sleep with my head on wood.” Lizzie’s lip trembled.
Ezell was in her rocker. “Get it yer own self. I ain’t waiting on ya.”
Lizzie rose from the floor, went to the bed, and grabbed a pillow. She went back to the table, got down on the floor again, put the pillow under her head, and pulled the quilt over it. She rolled over and faced the wall.
Ezell kept rocking. Her chair faced the fireplace, and an oil lamp on the mantel provided more light to sew by. Her hair was loosened, and sprang thick from her head. She bent over a blouse and listened to the girl’s breathing. But she’d run out of steam thinking about Puny being with her. To get some relief from her torment, she turned her thoughts to their life before the girl had appeared. Puny had been a good husband. Wasn’t one to lay out. Normally, not one to chase a skirt. He drank only when work was done. And was pleasant, not mean, in his cups.
They had dreams. They’d talked about finding the gold, about leaving together, going back to Ohio. To Cleveland, where their people had schools of their own, lived in neighborhoods, and owned businesses. The newness of the Nation had worn off for them both. They recognized that in it, life was dangerous for people of every color. The food was plentiful, and the air filled with the aroma of turned dirt and bloom, but there was no law for anybody at all who wasn’t an Indian. The federal judges appointed to oversee Indian Territory had, everybody knew, been a series of drunkards and thieves. And Indian law applied only when the parties were of the same tribe. The US government was trying to fix that by setting up a new judge at Fort Smith. But he probably wouldn’t be any better than the previous ones, and the Cherokees were trying to block him. Ezell wasn’t in the right circles to even guess who’d win that fight, and thought it probably didn’t matter. She did know, though, that killings were as common as yellow dogs; and criminals and adventurers were streaming into the Nation, squatting on Cherokee land, carrying out meanness. Her greatest fear at the moment was that Puny had come to a bad end at the hands of one of them.
She tried to work her mind away from that. Told herself Puny was big and could take care of himself. But she didn’t think he’d found the gold and run off; he would’ve returned, even a rich man, and stayed until Mr. Singer died. He was beholding to him, and he was a man who paid his debts. Ezell looked over at Lizzie, asleep, or pretending to be, on the floor. Puny had run off because of that girl and her baby. That was it.
That he didn’t take the girl with him gave Ezell hope. However, if he showed up again, which was likely, she would lay claim to him. She could bear children. And the question Ezell had held in her bosom for years was answered: it was her fault they were childless, not Puny’s. That realization burned into her soul. A tear fell onto the blouse she was making. Not wanting to cry in front of the intruder, she laid her sewing aside, got up, and went out the door.
Out in the dark, Bert was alone on the ferry, studying the milky arch of stars over his head. He saw them as cornmeal dropped from a dog’s jaw, and felt his mother’s arms around him. He was holding on to that memory, feeling the rare comfort of it, when he was bitten by an insect. He slapped the back of his neck. Got the villain. But, startled and irritated, he couldn’t conjure his mother again. He lay back and turned his thoughts to his brother. Ame was working the fields and sleeping in the bunkhouse with the rest of the hands. The two weren’t used to being apart, but it’d made them better friends, and the rest of their arrangement was pleasing to them. They were going to get wages; and Bert had already pocketed tips from three wealthy people appreciative of his care with their cargo. At night the ferry was stopped, but he slept on it to make sure it wasn’t sunk or stolen. Mr. Connell had given him a tick of feathers, a quilt to sleep under, and a rifle to discharge if he needed help. The ferry was tied securely, but not directly, against the bank, in a little cove that protected it from the current. Because of the cove, the roar of the river sounded more distant than elsewhere on the shore. Bert listened to the lap of the waves hitting the wood, and drifted on their beat almost to sleep until a large fish jumped and slapped back into the water.
Bert rose up and looked around. On shore, he saw the light of a lantern and, in it, a woman’s skirt. At first he thought Miz Singer was coming to give him an order. But, on a closer look, the woman was too tall to be her, and her head appeared gigantic. It was the darkie who’d been around asking after her husband. The lantern light rocked closer to the water and then stopped. The woman sat down on one of the rocks. She pulled her knees to her chin and, in the circle of light, buried her head and giant ring of hair in her skirt. Her shoulders shook.
Bert had seen a lot of misery. And had felt a lot himself. He didn’t like anybody seeing his. And didn’t feel that he should be looking at hers. He lay back down on his tick and pulled the quilt over his shoulders and head. He knew crying was catching. Didn’t want to be infected. He had a lot to be thankful for. He started counting—a tick, a quilt, a job, coins in his pocket. He didn’t have much more than that. So he counted the same things over and over until he counted himself to sleep.
Coop’s Mission, Indian-Style
Coop couldn’t believe his good fortune. He was riding atop a real saddle, astride Mr. Singer’s bay horse. The horse was admired all over the bottoms, and was the tallest he’d ever ridden. The smoothest, too. He rode at a canter down the Military Road, hoping to run into everybody he knew. And he did see a few. Stopped and chatted, but held his tongue on his task. Connell had told him to, and he wanted a job, like Jenny, with the Singers. But not in the fields, which were bad enough at home, and not any better when planted in potatoes. Coop wanted work with horses, or ferries, or anything that moved in a wider arc than a hoe.
After jawing with a man searching for a lost, or stolen, cow, Coop rode on. A rabbit sprung from the weeds and crossed the road at such a distance The Bay didn’t notice. A moment later, the rabbit scampered back to the weeds he’d come from. Coop whooped. He didn’t believe luck was made by hard labor or bestowed by gods; he believed it blew in on the winds of fate. The zigzag of a rabbit in his path was a fortuitous sign not lost on his mind.
Coop was headed towards Braggs Mountain. His mission was to find his father, the fate of the baby, and Puny. But his brother’s cabin sat on the bayou between the bottoms and the mountain, inland a bit from the river. It was directly in Coop’s course—well, almost. Maybe a little to the side. A straight line as the closest distance between two points never crossed Coop’s mind. However, he was familiar with the idea of making Tomahawk Cordery’s mouth water with envy. So Coop detoured off the beaten road to stop by his brother’s place to show off The Bay.
He crossed a creek at its shallows and rode the tree line next to the stream, watching the ground carefully. The land was rockier than in the bottoms; he didn’t want The Bay to misstep. Past the rocks, he turned into a meadow and approached his brother’s home site in the open, so he’d be seen from a long way away. Ahead in the distance, a deer carcass hung from the limb of the tree shading the cabin. Tomahawk and Mannypack, his wife, were skinning it.
Tomahawk heard the hooves coming, peeked around the deer, and spied the fine steed. He dropped his knife to his side, appreciating its prance. Mannypack said in Cherokee, “Rich man’s horse coming our way.” But when The Bay got a little closer, Tomahawk recognized Coop and whooped. Mannypack screeched. Their baby, Minnie, imitated her mother. And out of the cabin and into that racket stepped Sanders.
A lot of horse talk followed. After that, some horse riding ensued. Then there were the matters of finishing dressing the deer, cooking, eating venison steaks, smoking a pipe, teasing, and giggling. The stars were over the family around the fire when Coop finally meandered towards the point of his visit. He said in English, “Pot’s hot the Singers’. ”
Mannypack said, “Aunt Check’s the boss over there.”
Tomahawk laughed. “Manny, you’re the boss over here.” He was shorter than his father, but muscular. Black-headed, his hair was cut at his ears.
Mannypack said, “Runs in my family.” She tilted her head and touched her braid. She was a Lowrey, too.
Coop said, “Saw yer aunt crying the woods.”
Mannypack said, “She has good reason.”
Sanders, who’d been sitting up, lay back with his head on his hands, face to the stars. He cogitated on why Coop would be riding The Bay. The boy had said no more than “Doing Connell a favor.” Sanders figured the rest would trickle out, and hoped it wasn’t to do with the hole he’d dug in the field. That made him twitchy to think about. He turned his attention outwards. Listened while the young’uns bet on when Andrew Singer would die. That annoyed Sanders; but they were too green not to be foolish, so he didn’t bother to grunt disapproval. And after a while they, too, fell into silence. Sanders hoped that was brought on by a respect for the darkness, and for all that lived and died in it. The night was mild. Insects, attracted by the fire, buzzed and fluttered. Minnie slept in Mannypack’s lap. Wolves howled in the hills to the east and down on the river.
