American Struggle Page 18

  Nellie agreed with the simple plan and directed Midnight to follow John’s pony. They followed an animal path that meandered beside the river. Nellie watched the ground for eagle feathers, but her watchfulness strayed to the tall trees that bordered the river, some with trunks so wide, it would take several men with their hands linked to form a circle around them. The cloudless blue sky held three big birds soaring on the warm air currents. But they were hawks, not eagles. A blue jay chattered on a low branch ahead of them and flew off when they came near.

  “Eagles build nests in trees, not always in cliff alcoves,” she said, giving information she had learned last night from Old Rivers.

  John looked up as they passed under the heavy branches of a massive oak tree. “I don’t think I could climb a tree like that. Too high.”

  “I wouldn’t climb it either,” Nellie said, “but there would likely be eagle feathers beneath a tree with a nest.”

  She looked out on the river and saw a tree limb floating by, moving oddly fast, for the smooth surface didn’t hint at the currents in the depths of the water. This wonderful peaceful place was still on Cherokee land. Or it was once Cherokee land.

  Not long ago, Cherokee land stretched even farther north, Edoda had told her. The white government had taken more and more land with their treaties and unfulfilled promises, but the one that forced her family on the wagon train was the ultimate false treaty. The Cherokee had adopted so many of the white man’s ways. Their lives were nearly identical to those of the white settlers in many ways, except there was a deeper connection between the Cherokee and nature.

  “This is our land,” Nellie said aloud, although she didn’t really mean to say it to John. He cast a sly look at her. “Why do you say that?”

  “It’s so beautiful. The river is deep and broad. The sky is blue and endless. A Cherokee wind brings a coolness to take away the heat of the sun. And now we are forced to leave this land. My heart is sad.”

  “We are not leaving,” John said with a fierceness in his voice that she had never heard before.

  “Of course, we’re leaving. When our turn comes, we’ll cross the river. Your wagon is three behind ours.”

  “Yes, but we are not going. My edoda says this is the time to make our escape. We will unload furniture from the wagon to make room for all of us inside. My grandmother, my aunt and uncle, and my cousins. And then we will drive to yonder hill before the Light Horse can stop us. They will be busy keeping order on the other side of the river.”

  “But the soldiers that rounded us up said—”

  “Yes, rounded us up like cattle. Well, we are not going across the river.” His eyes widened as if he realized he had said too much. “Nellie, you can’t tell anybody. Promise?”

  She hesitated. Was keeping this silent the same thing as lying, which she knew was wrong? “Nellie! Promise?”

  Edoda had once told her that she could be an example to others but not a controller of other people’s lives. This must be an instance of that.

  “We are going to the new land, even though we don’t want to.” “And we are not. Promise, Nellie?”

  “I will tell no one, but I think it is wrong.” As soon as she said the words, she regretted them. That was being judgmental, and she knew that was not the way of a friend.

  “Doesn’t matter. My edoda has decided. Now, let’s ride back the other way and see how many wagons have crossed. I don’t see any signs of eagles up here.”

  They rode southwest along the river, with Nellie’s mind full of John’s secret. Would Edoda think she had done the right thing to promise silence?

  At the ferry, the Starr wagon was nowhere near the front of the line. Edoda was standing by the oxen but was not on the wagon. She could easily go ask him what she should do, but wasn’t that breaking her promise?

  Instead, she waved and motioned that they were going farther downstream. Again, John’s pony led the way, and she followed on Midnight.

  “We may not find any feathers,” Nellie said in a voice loud enough for John to hear. “Old Rivers said this is where eagles come in the winter, and it is not yet time. But there could be some early birds.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” John said. “We know there are golden eagles near our home. And even though the white men have taken our house, we will find a place to live where eagles soar.”

  “But how will you live?”

  “My edoda says we will live by the old ways of his forefathers. We will hunt and fish, and we can clear land to plant.” “Where will you get seed?”

  He shrugged. “From all around us. It is there for the taking, the drying, and the planting. And we brought some with us to use in the new land.”

  He held a low branch for her to pass under and waited for her to ride alongside him where the animal path was wider.

  “Then this is a new plan? You meant to go all the way to the new land when we started yesterday?”

  He sighed deeply, just as he had yesterday morning when their journey began. “The sorrow is too much,” he said simply.

  “It is for everyone,” Nellie said. “Don’t you want to be with your people?”

  “Many of our family will go back with us. We will not be ordered off our ancient lands by intruders.” His words sounded like those spoken by an older person, and Nellie figured he was quoting his edoda.

  “Did you have a family council?”

  “Last night. It is decided, Nellie. There is no turning back now.” The stubborn set of his jaw told Nellie that it was true. She could not influence him to change his family’s mind. “Then I hope you find peace.”

  They rode along in silence, the Cherokee way. Speak little and listen big, Edoda always said. But John wasn’t talking, either.

  No eagle feathers could be found along the river. No nests sat high in the trees. But Nellie’s thoughts were not on eagles. She was losing a good friend. She would never see John again after this day.

  The bitterness she felt against the white men who had forced them on this march intensified. She tried to rid her heart of hatred, but instead her heart felt heavy and angry.

  “Let’s go back,” John said. “It’s no use to look further.”

  They rode back to the ferry in silence. What was left to say?

  The supply wagons were being transported across the water, and the Starr wagon had been pushed farther back in line, Edoda told them when they arrived back at the wagon train.

  Light Horse patrols still directed the transfer to the other bank. Nellie could see some of the Cherokee policemen on the other side of the river.

  She rode back to the Deerborn wagon with John. Several family members had unloaded some furniture.

  “We need to repack,” John’s edoda said in a loud voice, loud enough for the Light Horse nearby to hear. “We will make room for someone else to ride.”

  “Is the plan going forward?” John whispered to his edoda when the Light Horse moved on.

  “Yes. As soon as they move a few more wagons, there will only be one or two Light Horse left.”

  “I’ll be back,” Nellie said. She rode to the Starr wagon to see if Etsi needed anything. She had been out gathering mullein and lamb’s quarter to put with her healing herbs.

  “It could be another hour before we can cross,” Etsi said.

  Nellie looked across the river. The last wagon to leave the ferry was headed up the bank incline. It would join the others as they moved on down the road a few miles before nightfall. So each ferry load had to catch up with the train. That would space out the long line of Cherokee on the trail. And it would be much later after they made camp when their leader, Reverend Bushyhead, found out that the Deerborn wagon wasn’t with them.

  To pass a little time, Nellie tied Midnight to the wagon and sat on the tailgate with her writing supplies. She wrote about the first day of the journey. She did not mention John’s plan. What if it didn’t happen? What if the Light Horse made them stay in line?

  “Nellie.”

 
; She looked up from her writing paper. John sat on his horse beside the Starr wagon.

  “It is time. The Light Horse have been called across the river.”

  Nellie looked toward the ferry. The last of the mounted Cherokee police were nearly to the other side.

  “We will wait until the ferry is back here and is loading. I just wanted to tell you good-bye.”

  “May God be with you,” Nellie said.

  “And with you,” John said.

  He turned his horse back to his wagon. Nellie put away her writing materials and climbed on Midnight. She rode from the line of wagons to a small rise so she could see the Deerborn wagon clearly.

  She expected a dramatic scene—a cry to the oxen from John’s edoda and a race to the hills where the family would disappear. Instead, the Deerborn wagon moved quietly out of line and went toward the river but veered north as if they were looking over the area for something. The last Nellie saw of the wagon, it was following the curve of the river. John lifted his hand, not in a big wave, but in a quiet gesture of farewell. Nellie held her hand to her heart. So this was a final good-bye to a lifelong friend she had thought she might one day marry.

  “Good-bye, John,” she whispered and held her hand up toward the sky. For a brief moment she felt defiance toward the white men, and she was proud John would remain on Cherokee land.

  She turned Midnight and rode to the Starr wagon. When it was their turn, she urged her pony onto the ferry. Edoda had already driven the team onboard the flat wooden surface.

  As the ferry moved slowly across the Tennessee River, Nellie stood beside Midnight and stared into the muddy water. She wished she could see the future. She wished she could see where John’s family would go. She wished them peace and happiness. But could there be happiness for any of them?

  She looked back at the line of wagons awaiting their turn. Then she turned to watch the landing of the ferry and led Midnight off the ramp onto the other shore.

  CHAPTER 9

  The Trail Westward

  On the west side of the Tennessee River, Nellie’s heart sank like a stone in the water. She didn’t know if she was now off ancient Cherokee earth, but it felt like it. It felt like she had crossed into the unknown.

  She rode Midnight beside the wagon. “Etsi, do you need something, anything?” “Do not worry, Nellie. I am fine.”

  Her etsi was not yet large with child, but Nellie could tell through Etsi’s dress that the baby was growing. In less than four months, she would have a new brother or sister. In less than four months, they would be in the new land.

  She’d heard the men talk about the trip. It should take less than three months if everything went well. If they made the miles every day that they made yesterday, they could easily do that. A journey of eight hundred miles could be broken down to walking ten miles a day, and they had made more than that yesterday. It was three miles from home to the mission school, and it took her about an hour when she walked, much less time on Midnight.

  By doing simple arithmetic, she worked it out to less than four hours a day of movement should put them ten miles farther down the trail toward the new Cherokee land. Of course, the old ones could not move as fast as she, and there seemed to be a large number of old ones walking, carrying heavy burdens. But they had traveled much longer than four hours yesterday. And she was sure they would do the same most days.

  They had been delayed enormously today with the ferry crossing. Waiting hours to move forward took its toll on the mind. But that was over. They were moving forward now, trying to catch the wagons that had crossed the river before them.

  Yes, even with delays like this one, and even if they didn’t travel on Sunday as Reverend Bushyhead told them last night, they would still be in the new Cherokee country before the baby was born.

  Nellie rode past the Starr wagon just to see what was ahead. The land varied when the road passed through forests and when it passed through cleared land. She saw few houses along the road and, so far, no real towns. There were hills, though, and the oxen and horses slowed down as they pulled the heavily laden wagons.

  She passed more walkers than she did wagons. Not for the first time in her life did she realize how fortunate she was to have a pony. Edoda had commented many times about the differences in the poor and the wealthy, and how there were not many Cherokee in between the two extremes. It was the same with the white men, he said, and although the Starrs had the new house and the store, he said their family was not really in the wealthy class. They were part of the few families in the upper middle. He said he sometimes felt bad that the store was doing well. It made him feel more white than Cherokee.

  He believed the Cherokee thought more of living and the white men thought more of getting. Yet the Starr family lived very well and had gotten very much. They worked hard, but they enjoyed play, too. Many times, Edoda had said that real wealth was in things that feed the spirit. Beautiful things. Things that brought joy like a field of daisies dancing in the wind or the music of a stream gurgling over stones.

  Ahead, Nellie spotted Morning Sun. Her friend, family members, and their slaves were walking alongside the wagon to lighten the load as the oxen strained to make the hill. Nellie got off Midnight and walked beside her friend.

  “This journey is taking a long time. Are we there yet?” Morning Sun asked with a laugh.

  Nellie laughed, too. It was an odd sound to her ears. She had not laughed much lately, and it felt good.

  She could see how Morning Sun got her name. She was joyful like the morning sun. Oh, sometimes she could be like the sun on cloudy days, but more often she was bright and happy and smiling.

  “I think we have a few more days on the trail,” Nellie said. “We should make it in less than three months.”

  “That is a long time,” Morning Sun said.

  “Yes, but there is nothing we can do about it except go forward,” Nellie said, echoing something Old Rivers had said.

  “One foot in front of the other and switch and switch and switch,” Morning Sun said in a singsong voice. Morning Sun linked arms with Nellie, and they walked, skipped, and danced forward. They didn’t dance in a spiral like the stars overhead, in the traditional Cherokee way of dancing, but they danced forward.

  “You girls are silly,” Morning Sun’s brother said as he plodded up the steep hill.

  Although breathless from climbing the road, Morning Sun said, “We are going forward. Like it or not, that’s what we’re doing. So we might as well enjoy doing it.”

  Her attitude matched the attitude of Old Rivers, and Nellie liked that. Too many times lately, she had asked what crime the Cherokee had committed to be thrown off their land. There was no answer to that question, but there was no use fighting what had happened.

  “One foot in front of the other,” Nellie sang with Morning Sun. Her heart was lightened, and it had been so heavy after John’s family left. Nellie walked with Morning Sun until they crested the long hill and Morning Sun could ride on the wagon.

  On the ride back to the Starr wagon, Nellie looked around for joyful things to feed her spirit. She heard an owl in the woods calling whoo.

  “Why are you not asleep?” Nellie called to the owl. He answered with another whoo.

  Blue flowers bloomed on the bank of a ditch. She wanted to pick one for her etsi, but with no vase to put it in, no table to set it on to brighten a room, she did not. She wouldn’t harm a flower for a moment’s joy, just to watch it wilt and die.

  She rode beside the wagon until they reached the long hill. Then she insisted that Etsi ride Midnight. Nellie walked alongside Sarah, while Edoda drove the team. Their wagon was so full that it was a laborious pull for the oxen.

  Once they crested the top and Etsi and Sarah climbed on board for the ride downhill, Edoda said, “We may have to double team with Old Rivers to make the next hill.”

  And that’s exactly what they had to do. With both teams of oxen hitched to the Starr wagon, it was still a hard pull. Then Edo
da unhitched the oxen and drove the two teams downhill to hitch them to Old Rivers’s wagon.

  Nellie, Sarah, and Etsi sat on the ground in the shade of the wagon.

  “At this rate, it will take us forever to get to the new land,” Nellie said.

  “I have heard that Missouri does not have the glorious mountains of Tennessee,” Etsi said. “It is flatter, and it will be easier travel.”

  “Glorious mountains,” Sarah said slowly, as if the phrase rolled deliciously off her tongue.

  Etsi smiled for a brief moment. “They are glorious mountains, and I will miss them,” she said, and then she cried.

  Sarah cried with her, and Nellie couldn’t hold back her tears. What a day of conflicting emotions. One moment she was dancing on the road with Morning Sun, and the next she was crying at the side of the road beside a stalled wagon. She’d felt defiance toward the white men when John’s family rode away, and now she felt bitterness toward them because they were taking the glorious mountains from her people. She knew both feelings were wrong. She should turn the other cheek, as she had learned from the Bible. She should forgive those who trespassed against her, but her heart and mind warred in turmoil, and she was incapable of forgiveness.

  They were still wiping tears when another double-teamed wagon grunted to the top of the hill. Those folks unhitched, and a man drove the teams downhill to get another wagon. At least a dozen women and children traveled with the other wagon, and Nellie struck up a conversation with them. When Sarah repeated the phrase “glorious mountains,” the entire bunch wept.

  Edoda, Old Rivers, Smoke Cloud, and Lewis made it to the top of the hill.

  “What’s this?” Edoda asked.

  “We’ve lost our glorious mountains,” Nellie said.

  “But we have not lost each other,” Edoda said. “We have much to be thankful for, so let’s not dwell on what we have lost.”

  He helped Etsi and Sarah onto the wagon, and the wagon rumbled downhill. Nellie followed on Midnight.