American Struggle Read online

  The plan was made. Around thirteen thousand people would be divided into groups of about a thousand each to make the journey.

  “Which group will we be in?” Lewis asked.

  “I don’t know,” Edoda said.

  “When will we go?” Nellie asked.

  “Not until autumn. Not until there is a break in the weather,” Edoda said.

  July turned into August. The council, lead by Chief John Ross, decided it was time to prepare. The first group left near the end of the month. The second group left the first of September. Then it was time for the third group to depart.

  “We are in the third group, led by Reverend Bushyhead,” Edoda told them. “It is time to go.”

  CHAPTER 7

  The Journey Begins

  On September third, the Bushyhead group—950 men, women, and children—departed from Rattlesnake Spring. Edoda had retrieved Nellie’s black pony from the soldiers but not Sarah’s, and Nellie rode alongside the wagon. Lewis rode Blaze near Old Rivers’s wagon, which fell in line right behind the Starr wagon.

  As they started off, a cry was heard, a low moan coming from the women. Young children waved good-bye to the mountains. Nellie felt tears slide down her cheeks, and she made no move to stop them but merely turned her face away from her family so they wouldn’t see her cry. She wanted to be brave, to be a proud Cherokee, to be a person who could look forward to change instead of mourning the past.

  But it felt so wrong, so very wrong, that the white men were taking their land, her father’s business, and their wonderful home with her room overlooking the long lane to the house. The white government promised to pay the displaced Cherokee for their losses when they reached the new land, but Nellie wondered how they would measure the loss of her heart. She had sat by that window in her bedroom and looked out on the distant mountains and dreamed of the day she would have a home and family of her own. She had gazed at the lower foothills and the green pastures, at the trees swaying with the wind, and she had listened to the birds sing their happy songs, and at night the …

  A sob broke from her throat, and for a moment she held her hand to her mouth to keep more sobs inside.

  This was the trail where her people cried. She glanced at the wagon and saw Etsi cover her face with her hands. A tear rolled down Edoda’s cheek. In the next wagon, she saw Old Rivers sitting tall and proud, his head held erect as he gazed straight ahead. But there was a tear on his cheek, as well. This truly was the trail where even the strong men like Edoda and Old Rivers showed how their hearts were broken by leaving their homeland.

  She lifted her hand in farewell to the mountains, to the sky, to the trees, to the earth where her parents had played as children and her grandparents had played as children and their grandparents before them.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered. “Good-bye.” She turned her head to the front and followed the ponies ahead of her. John Deerborn was three wagons ahead, and she wiped her tears and nudged Midnight forward.

  John looked as bad as she felt, and she could tell he was struggling not to cry while she was beside him.

  “Let’s keep a sharp eye out for eagles before we get too far out of the mountain regions,” she said. “We must look to the future. We’ll find some feathers for you to pass down to your grandson.” He sighed, a huge sigh from deep inside.

  “You are right,” he said. “Our grandparents are our past and our future. They are what we hope to become someday. So I will look for feathers to give to my grandson.”

  “The wagons roll so slowly, we could ride off if we saw any likely places for an aerie and easily catch up with them later.”

  “You are right again,” he said. A hint of a smile just tugging at the edges of his mouth showed that he had turned his mind from sorrow to hope.

  “Call for me anytime you spot a place we could look,” she said and turned Midnight out of the way of the wagons to wait for her parents.

  “Anything you need, Etsi?” she asked when they pulled alongside her and she urged Midnight forward again.

  “No, nothing,” her etsi said, but there was a catch in her voice, and Nellie could see her eyes were red from crying.

  The wagon jostled and creaked as it rolled along the trail. Maybe riding her pony would be easier on Etsi and the unborn baby, but when Nellie suggested it, Etsi waved it aside.

  “I am where I need to be now,” she said. She rested her arm on Edoda’s shoulder, and Nellie figured she needed the comfort he gave.

  She rode next to Lewis for a while and talked in a loud voice with Old Rivers about the eagle feathers for John. “Where can we find some?”

  “They are everywhere if you are looking,” he said. His voice was not loud, and she had to study his lips as he spoke to make out the words.

  Nellie looked around. She saw no eagle feathers, just a dusty road churned by horses’ hooves and people’s feet and wagon wheels. Rocks jutted out at places, and deep grooves marked where heavy wagons had journeyed before them, both requiring Nellie to watch the road carefully so Midnight wouldn’t stumble.

  “Where?” She rode as close to Old Rivers’s wagon as she thought was safe so she could better hear his words.

  “Wherever the eagle soars. Where he looks for food in the river.”

  Nellie knew an eagle had thousands of feathers, so it was bound to lose a few most days, but the bird was not seen every day like the sparrow. Nor had she spotted any when they were camped near the Hiwassee. But the king of birds wouldn’t want to fly around people.

  “Around water?” she asked.

  “Around big water,” he said.

  “Thanks.” Nellie rode back up to John and told him they should look closely when they came to big water.

  “We will cross the mighty Mississippi,” he said.

  “Then that’s where we’ll find them for sure, but we will cross the Tennessee River tomorrow,” she said. “I heard Edoda talking with the others. We cross at Blythe’s Ferry.”

  Now John’s smile stretched wide. He nodded. “We will keep an eye open.”

  As the sun climbed, the day grew hotter, and the sun tortured both those walking and those riding. Etsi insisted Nellie put on a bonnet, and Nellie was glad of the shade for her eyes.

  Nellie dropped back at least ten wagons to talk with Morning Sun, who rode in the wagon with her older brother and etsi. She climbed on Nellie’s pony for a little while, and the girls rode back and forth between the Deerborns’ wagon ahead of the Starr wagon and then back to Morning Sun’s wagon, where the family slaves walked alongside. They helped Morning Sun climb back into the family wagon.

  “We’re going to cross the Tennessee before nightfall,” Lewis told Nellie after hearing the news from other boys, who rode from the front of the wagon train to the back.

  We are making good time today, Nellie thought. She rode along awhile longer, then slipped off Midnight to give him a rest. Besides, she felt guilty for riding when other people along the wagon train were walking. The white government provided wagons for those without, but they were limited to one wagon for every dozen or so people. Twelve people couldn’t fit inside a wagon when it was reserved for belongings and provisions. Nellie figured half the people on the wagon train were walking. Elderly and young children walked alongside those in the prime of their years.

  The creak of wagon wheels and the neighing of horses could not drown out the moan of the Cherokee who mourned this leaving of the homeland. As far as Nellie could see forward and as far as she could see on the road behind her were wagons and ponies and people walking along. The faces of the women looked as if they would never smile again.

  Many others turned around like Nellie and looked back at the land they were leaving. They revered the land, these wooded hills and mountains, because of what was there before them. This land was a link with their ancestors. Nellie thought about the little grave of her dead infant sister. Etsi put flowers on the grave in the spring. They had left that grave behind. And the recent graves of h
er father’s parents were left behind, too.

  The wagon train came to a shallow creek, where water gurgled and bubbled over white stones. The crossing was slow. Nellie filled the water bucket with fresh water flowing above the crossing place that was muddied from so many horses crossing before them. Edoda let the oxen lower their heads to drink in the middle of the creek. Nellie’s pony drank his fill, and then she climbed on his back, and they rode across the creek. It was Old Rivers’s turn to let his team drink.

  Old Rivers had recovered from his cold, and praise the Lord, he had not caught one of the many diseases that had claimed so many lives at the stockade. Almost everyone on this wagon train was healthy. Some who had sick family members had left them in the care of others to await a later wagon train. But Nellie knew that some of them would not be making the journey to the new land.

  And the ones who had brought their sick ones with them, well, how could they survive riding in a wagon that jarred them with every turn of the wheels?

  Bitterness crept into her heart. Bitterness against the white men who were forcing them to leave this beautiful land.

  Nellie turned back and watched Old Rivers drive his team up the bank of the creek.

  “Hee-yah!” he called to the oxen, and his wagon was out of the creek bed and the next in line quickly took his place.

  This day of travel was just like the trip they had made when the soldiers had forced them from their homes back in June, except this was a much larger group than then. And the dust was thicker, and the sun was hotter.

  “Nellie!” Etsi called from the wagon. “Here!”

  Nellie stretched out her hand and took corn bread from her etsi. She had never eaten while riding Midnight. Eating a meal had been a ritual, a time of thanking God for the food, and a time of fellowship with her family. Now she whispered a prayer of thanks and greedily ate the corn bread while keeping her balance on her pony.

  “Keep on going,” a Light Horse said as he trotted his horse past the Starr wagon toward the front of the wagon train. He kept yelling encouragement to the people as he passed different wagons. Other members of the Cherokee police walked their horses on the edges of the long parade of walkers and wagons, keeping order.

  At the stockade, they had tried to keep white alcohol merchants from peddling their whiskey to Cherokee men. Edoda said it was a hard job, since many a Cherokee brave had lost heart and thought he could find release and escape from the life of waiting in the heat through a bottle of whiskey. Now on the trail, a few Cherokee men dropped out of the line as the wagon train came upon a white trader with bottles to sell. He plied his trade out of a wagon stopped broadside next to the road, so that those coming toward it could see it from a long distance.

  “A disgrace,” Edoda said from his perch on the wagon seat, reins in hands, but he said it loud enough for Nellie to hear, and she figured he was saying it for her benefit.

  She nodded her assurance. Of course, she would stay away from anyone who touched alcohol. Edoda had lectured her plenty of times about the harm alcohol could do. To show she understood, she dropped back, motioned for Lewis to follow her, and cut between their wagon and Old Rivers’s wagon to ride on the side opposite the alcohol peddler.

  “Edoda on the warpath again,” Lewis said.

  Nellie grinned at Lewis’s little joke. How amazing it felt for her mouth to form a smile. On a day when her heart cried, it was wonderful to grab a bit of happiness. Not that she was happy to see the alcohol merchant, but it was good to hear Lewis’s joke about Edoda.

  “We have picked up some families from the first wagon train,” Lewis said as he paced Blaze alongside Midnight. “Their wagons broke down—wheels, I think—and they are just now able to get back on the road.”

  “Where do you get all your information?” Nellie asked.

  Lewis laughed. “I am all ears. And if I don’t hear what Reverend Bushyhead tells the others, one of my friends hears it and tells me.”

  “Are we still crossing the Tennessee today?”

  “We are making good time, but today is the first day, and everyone is strong.”

  “But getting more tired by the minute,” Nellie said. She had mostly ridden, but she had walked awhile, and she couldn’t imagine having to walk the entire way.

  “We have also lost some members of this group,” Lewis said. He took his hat off and slapped it against his thigh, wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his hand, and replaced his hat. “Some have run off when the Light Horse aren’t nearby.”

  “Where are they going? What will they do?”

  “I don’t know. I guess they’re going back in the mountains if they can hide from the whites.”

  The road was lined with woods now, and Lewis turned to stare through the trees. “I bet I can get a squirrel for supper.”

  “But there is to be food brought to the night camp, isn’t there?”

  “Supposed to be, but the people who joined our train say that so far it has been salt pork and salt pork and more salt pork. We might as well have something different to start the journey.”

  Lewis called to Edoda that he was going to hunt. “I’ll use Smoke Cloud’s blowgun!”

  “Ask Smoke Cloud to go with you!” Edoda responded.

  “I could do it alone,” Lewis said, but only for Nellie to hear. Just the same, he dropped back a wagon and talked with Smoke Cloud, who climbed from the wagon seat and fished his blowgun out of the back, all the while the wagon moved forward.

  Lewis tied Blaze to the back of the wagon, and the two walked toward the woods. A Light Horse steered his horse toward them.

  Nellie couldn’t hear the conversation, but she watched as the policeman motioned them to go on.

  An hour passed before Lewis and Smoke Cloud rejoined them, each carrying a skinned squirrel. Old Rivers stopped the wagon. Smoke Cloud plunged the squirrels in a pot that clanged against the side of the wagon. With the dipper of his water bucket, he added water, then he climbed back on board. Lewis jumped on Blaze.

  “We had to go quite a ways into the woods,” he said, “or we wouldn’t have been so long.”

  The sun was in the western sky when Reverend Bushyhead called a halt to the first day’s journey. The first wagon pulled off the road in a big pasture. Then the second one followed, went past it, and stopped. The next wagon went past both and stopped and so on until it was the Starrs’ turn to stop for the night.

  “You said we were crossing the Tennessee today,” Nellie told Lewis.

  He had resumed his traveling up and down the wagon train, and he had more news.

  “Forward scouts say we are stalled at the ferry. It will take us awhile to cross, but we will begin at sunup. Reverend Bushyhead wants us to all be on one side of the river for the night, and if we started crossing now, we would have to split up. There is another wagon train ahead of us.”

  Reverend Bushyhead’s helpers directed workers to dig a slit trench for bathroom needs. Fires were lit for cooking, and Etsi cut up and fried the squirrels.

  After the night meal, Reverend Bushyhead held a prayer service, where he thanked God for bringing them all safely through the first day of the journey. Not all the Cherokee attended the service. Some men were drunk and shouting out bad names for the white men who forced them to leave their land. From another part of the campground, Nellie heard the rhythmic sounds of drumbeats and of dancers shaking turtle rattles. Cherokee voices were lifted in echoing shaman chants.

  But in her part of the camp, things were quieting down.

  “Tonight we sleep under the wagon,” Edoda said. “It’s our new roof.”

  “Can I sleep under the stars?” Lewis asked. “If you like,” Edoda said.

  Nellie liked lying on the ground and looking up at the stars, too. As the dancers finished their dance, quiet fell on the camp, and she heard the sound of a woman weeping—a sound that had been with them constantly throughout the day. She blocked it out and concentrated on the stars. They were the same stars she
had seen just last night, miles away. And they were the same stars she would see in the new land. That thought comforted her, and she drifted off to sleep.

  CHAPTER 8

  John’s Plan

  Early the next morning after the first meal of the day, the wagons lined up, this time in the opposite order from when they started out. The Starr wagon was closer to the end of the long line than the front. As soon as they reached Blythe’s Ferry, progress stopped. As a few wagons were taken across the river, the others waited, some impatiently.

  Nellie was one of the more patient ones, for she saw this as the perfect opportunity to help John with his search for eagle feathers. With Etsi’s permission, she and John rode their ponies along the river.

  “I don’t think eagles would be around the ferry. Too many people,” Nellie said.

  “My edoda said they could be around fast water. Eagles are the best fishermen. They go where the fish are.” “So we need the pools before rapids?”

  “Yes. I wish we knew the river.” He looked both upstream and downstream.

  “Well, this has to be the narrow place or the ferry would be somewhere else.”

  “True. But how does that help us decide which way to go?”

  “I think that way.” Nellie pointed downstream. “I don’t know why, except it could get faster. Or that way.” She pointed upstream. “Maybe in the wider parts there are rocks that make white water.”

  “Just like I said, I wish we knew the river,” John said.

  “Well, we’ve got to go somewhere quick, or we’ll run out of time. Etsi said we should cross before the sun is straight up.”

  “My edoda says it could take all day.”

  This arguing is getting us nowhere, Nellie decided. “You want to split up—me go upstream and you go down?”

  “No, let’s stay together.” He clucked at his pony and started upstream. “If we don’t find some in a mile or so, we can come back and go the other direction.”