Tho i be mute, p.15
'Tho I Be Mute, page 15
Her voice was slow, but she spoke in accented English as she examined my face without touching me. Then, her hands found my own. My thumbs felt the back of her hands, wrinkled from years of scalding water and lye and knotted with age from twisting concern for her husband and her sick and distant son. The skin was thin from plunging them into rocky dirt to harvest crops and calloused from sewing and weaving. This woman sustained this family. Her mind was quiet to me, while I found myself searching her face for hints as to whether I met or did not meet her expectations. I could not know what she thought as she examined my young, white hands.
“God be with you, Say ge,” she said, speaking in recited and broken English. She returned her gaze to my face.
I responded at the same pace, “And also with you, Mother Susannah.” I am not sure she understood my words, but her eyes opened wide, another expression I recognized from her son. It waylaid my nervousness temporarily. Time would reveal whether my fears were genuine or mere stories enriched by my imagination.
She looked at her son, and a tear came, just a single drop of joy after seeing his face. I imagined every time he left and returned, her happiness doubled, as would mine. He would have to leave too soon. I knew my joy at his future travels and returns home would be with similar solemnity. She touched his face with both hands and pulled his height lower, so she could kiss his forehead. He bent to her, well-rehearsed from many trips home from schools far from her land.
“Are you well, my son? How is your hip? Crossing the land is difficult for you.” She spoke her native tongue with faster rhythms.
John spoke to me alone, “She asked about my hip, but I don’t want to talk about that, not when I am this hungry.”
“The pain is bearable, Mother. We are hungry and dirty and tired, but we are here.” He responded to her with a gesture to his leg and a wink to me. I assumed his meaning, trusting him.
She embraced him then, took him in tow to the door of their home, and left the Ridge to escort me with the sunlight warming our backs. John stopped at the bottom of the stairs but held her hand as she continued up the stairs. She looked down on him from the top step, questioning without words. He returned her look but did not move. His pause was not one of manners but one of love and respect for me. I knew him well enough to know he did not want to go in without me as I did not wish to enter without him. We exchanged that understanding, meeting at the foot of the stairs. Between us, Major Ridge passed, breaking our concentrated gaze.
“It is as you told me so many times,” I whispered.
“You did well, Sarah. With them . . .” he reassured.
“Did I?” I questioned it myself as I let the air blow from pursed lips, relaxing before we crossed the threshold.
After leaning back, he said, “Very well.”
“We will see. She didn’t say much.” Worry crept into my tone again.
“Neither did you, but it was enough. It was exactly enough.” His faith in me was all I needed to take the first step.
The house was narrow and divided into rectangular rooms. The entryway was brief, and to the left, opened a dining room framed by a fireplace with warming ovens built into the stonework. Sunlight streamed through glass in gold, lighting dust particles over a table set with blue pearlware on a white tablecloth. Rich aromas of stewed beef and carrots salted the air. Log walls were aged and smooth from aromas from repeatedly serving the family’s favorite stews. The house comforted while keeping its distance, respecting the formality of greeting someone new.
My parents’ home in Cornwall was never one where warmth was a word I’d use to describe it. Instead, while my old home was comfortable, seeing John’s home here, my Connecticut house seemed pale in comparison. My eyes took in color everywhere, baskets beside the fireplace woven with thin lines in geometric patterns, purples and greens of dried flowers lofting from the floor of the second story above the table, matching the pattern on the dishes. New, early, yellow jonquils bounded from a clay vase at the center of the table. Candles flickered in shadowed corners with dancing shadows on rough walls smelling of sap and stain.
Major Ridge gestured for his wife to sit, and then John and I followed from the other end of the table. Last, Major Ridge sat at the head of his plenty. He bowed his head in prayer without speaking, and John’s mother spoke what I could only guess was thanksgiving to God for bringing her son home. I wonder whether she included me in her gratitude. My mother would never have led a prayer at dinner.
The family’s formal etiquette was not what I was expecting. The table’s fare was not what I was expecting. Unchipped plates in swaths of indigo held patterns I had only seen in the finest shops in New Haven. Blacksmiths had engraved the silver cutlery with the family’s scripted ‘R.’
Although hungry, I took small bites of the stew and listened to exchanges of laughter and concern from each speaker in turn. John tried his best to include me in their conversations, but distant I remained, hearing summaries rather than each speaker’s words as intended. Were they talking about me, knowing I would not understand? Was John editing his parent’s judgment of his new wife?
Mother Susannah interrupted my musings by passing a plate of cornbread glazed with honey. Major Ridge gestured to me but spoke to John.
I took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. John stretched to reach for my hand atop the table and rubbed circles on its back. He reminded me to trust him, not hiding the gesture at all.
“Father asked if you’d like to see our land tomorrow. Would you like to go?” Everyone stopped eating as he spoke English, waiting for me to respond, holding full spoons in the air.
I answered him with another question. “Are we walking?”
John laughed, but Major Ridge looked appalled, furrowed brows with pursed lips.
His answer did not surprise me. “Probably not.”
“Did you tell him I couldn’t ride?” I inquired with an embarrassed pull of my hand from under his, hiding both in my lap.
John leaned back in his chair. “Yes. He’s pleased. He hasn’t had someone to teach since Sollee was little. My sister is ten and quite the rider. I need to meet Elias for a while to update him on the situation in Cornwall, but I will follow.”
“How will you find us?” I inquired, preparing myself for his witty retort.
“I will.” Could he track us? Smell me in the air?
With dinner concluded, Mother Susannah escorted me to an adjacent room, closing the dining room doors. Comfortable and well lit, the furniture was golden, broad, and plush, newer than what my parents owned. Two matching vases sat on the heavy mantle, framing a wooden-framed clock chiming seven times. Heavy and elaborately colored draperies hung in red hues to frame the sunset’s purple pallet. Dry and warm from the fire, outside the wind whistled through tree limbs. I heard the front door open and shut after the sounds of footsteps. John and his father must have stepped outside.
Mother Susannah’s slight frame reached beside her sofa. She placed a piece of thick fabric on her lap, white deerskin, bleached, and in the shape of a diamond. She had shells in a small satchel beside her. Some were pearl colored, some tinged with blue. She draped the fabric over my lap and handed me her needle-keeper and thread from her sewing box. I laughed to myself, remembering what John said. ‘We do the same things, just calling them unfamiliar names.’ He was right, again. I would not tell him, though, well, not right away.
Her implication was for me to join her. For several moments, I watched as she threaded her needle and strung beads and shells to attach to the skins, sewing them to the base. She showed me the pattern and gestured for me to follow. My eyes were so tired, and the fine work was slow, but I imitated her skill while she continued beading on her side. The fabric was thick, not one with which I was familiar. My thumbs were not yet calloused enough for this work.
Her silence made me reluctant to speak, but I did so anyway. “My mother taught me to sew. Most girls learn from their mothers, but I never mastered her embroidery skills of French knots. Every time I try, the thread unwinds and pulls through. It is something I need to practice.” Barely a whisper was called for as we shared the same space, and our hands worked at the same time, like two notes in a chord.
The door opened and shut again. I expected John to enter the parlor, but instead, I heard nothing more. We continued, as Mother Susannah did not change her pace after the screech of door hinges. Not wanting to stop before the task was complete, only she could assure me the work was done. I must learn to finish things here on my own.
She handed me three more beads for the last of the pattern, and as I sewed, she finished her part. She leaned against the back of the golden sofa and examined the work by tugging gently on the adornments and measuring the distance between the patterns of shells with her knuckle. I had not thought to do that. I was only working from approximating the distance by sight.
I knotted from the back of the piece. After that, Mother Susannah took my section to examine my work. With an anxious sigh, I waited for either approval or her blade to cut the stitches. I folded my hands together rather than have them shake in my lap and awaited the score for my needlework.
“. . . osda,” she remarked. A slow smile lit her eyes.
“Is it good?”
More affirmative this time, she repeated the same word. I took the word and her expression as confirmation that I did not embarrass myself with needle and knot.
So, I tried, “. . . osda,” and returned the word back to her.
We held a silent celebration between the two of us. She would teach, and I would try, and we would find our way.
Later, I climbed the elegant staircase alone and followed the low railing to the only room with candlelight, the last room on the left. When I cracked the door open, there were rectangular windows, trimmed and curtained in a sheer fabric that allowed the moonlight to pass and beam across the floor. A sizeable bed extended from the back corner. John’s desk stood riddled with broken quills and inkstands left open, cluttering the shelf above the desk’s slope. There was a trunk at the foot of the bed, propped open with books no longer contained within its shell. The room smelled of him, emblazoned by his past in his presence.
He curled on his good side atop woolen diamonds of red and blue. He was already asleep, breathing silently. I watched the rise and fall of his shirt. I laughed inside my heart at my husband’s image, fully dressed, with his hands under his cheek as if his childhood self still existed somewhere here.
Perhaps it was my nervousness at meeting John’s parents, or perhaps I just felt relieved to be somewhere for more than a few hours. Perhaps the day’s stresses had passed and made me weary. Perhaps, I felt overly emotional, but I did not stop myself from sitting beside him and bending to whisper in his ear. I did not intend to wake him, not at all.
“I love you.” It was the first time I said so to him, the first time that I spoke the words to any listener. Words like that, told to sleeping heads and closed eyes are far easier than when one expects a response.
He rolled onto his back, opened one sleepy eye, and said, “Osda,” with arrogant affirmation.
I touched my hand down his face, closing the eye he opened. “Don’t sleep with your boots on.”
He smiled and sat up to grab me by the waist, shifting me to curl in front of him. I squealed, and afterward, we heard similar laughter lofting from downstairs.
It had been the longest day.
Chapter 17: In Strawberry Blossoms
John Ridge
February 1824
Cherokee Nation Territory
I
would not approach and interrupt, so I whistled to stop my horse. Father and Sarah followed the Oostanaula and passed uphill to the ridge. Wind blew in from the west, bringing a spring storm, one I expected this evening.
I watched Sarah in green gingham perched atop a broad, brown mare whose white legs mirrored Sarah’s petticoats rising clear from her boots in the stirrups. Father taught her to ride astride. In the distance between us, I could follow the wind in her hair, flung back from her face, framing her against a gradient sky.
Sarah’s loose hair was her most stunning feature, and on this occasion, the sun put her on display, like two stars replicating the other’s glow. Her horse cantered slowly. Father sat on Priest beside her, staring ahead for anything that might disturb her cadence. Then, he rode up beside her, studied her form, and corrected her hands. He pointed to her feet, reminding her to keep her knees above her ankles. It had been so long since he instructed me, I could not recall a similar lesson in posture. Obviously, she was successful, as Father wandered the horses this far from home. This ride would tire her this evening.
She heeled to begin a forward trot. She sat tall and balanced. The mare pulled ahead, distancing her from her professor. Out of character for Sarah, I did not recognize this assertiveness, although I appreciated that it slept within her. She took the lesson, making it brighter, as she constantly seemed to do. I felt guilty for not staying beside her today. With the language barrier, I knew this lesson would be problematic. However, Father asked me last night to provide him and Mother both, time, each in their own manner, to discover Sarah as I had found her. I wondered what conclusions the day’s sunlight brought.
Sarah watched her hands grip the reins, glancing for Father’s approval, which he undoubtedly gave. Then, she bent the reins, and they began their winding descent down, in single file. The horses knew the way. I dismounted and let my horse graze during the time it took them to intercept me.
When we met, Father acknowledged me with a nod, but Sarah did not speak. Immediately, confused by her distance, I mounted again and followed behind. We proceeded into the grove, propelled forward by horse clops and whinnies. But what she was not saying echoed across my mind with constancy.
We arrived at the stable an hour later. Father reached for her waist to support her dismount before I could take my horse to stall. She curtsied to him in gratitude. Like any teacher, when the student found the correct sum or solved a teasing riddle, Father glowed with pride. Wordless, he strode away from the stable shadows. Confused and now consumed by my own questions, I urged her to reveal what she wasn’t saying.
“Nothing is wrong, John. Nothing.”
The opposite seemed true.
Sarah waited for me to remove the saddle. She studied my feet, not my face. She meandered, following the sun’s light to the stable door, eclipsed. Her hands pushed against her back with her fingers spread downward to counter muscles’ strain and turned in the light. Here she found the words to speak her mind.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked with her face dark from the distance of her gaze.
“What did I not tell you?” I replied. What a vague question. Had she not had enough time to find words?
“About the slaves.” My surface rippled from her disturbance.
She left me standing alone, tossing me back in her wake.
Then she walked away to enter our new apartment next to my parent’s house and left the door open. We had not been in this space together yet today. It was a new place for us both. However, our first words here were not of love; they were confusing. This conversation brushed unfamiliar color against new plastered walls. I tried to approach her as I closed the door behind me, but my eyes needed a moment to adjust to the changing light. The room was stagnant. I was blind to whatever tide built against me.
“This morning when I woke, you were gone.” Her back was to me, arms crossed, holding her waist.
“I called on Elias this morning. He sends his greetings and looks forward to seeing you.” Was she mad I left her? “I told you about it yesterday.”
“I remember.” She raised her head and continued. “A dark-skinned girl, ten years old at most, came in with clothes from my trunk to help me dress. In my shock, I had no words to thank her for her help.”
“She is Old Saul’s daughter; her name is Honey. She works beside Mother most days.”
“I met him, too. He was chopping wood outside of their cabin. Your father and I rode past many cabins like it today, some even up the ridge.”
“There are twenty cabins. Father works thirty slaves, last I learned.”
She stopped talking and fled the room. I did not know whether I should follow her. Something shifted, unfamiliar. Trepidation stirred, tainting the air. But rather than let it fester, I followed her.
She demanded an answer. “What could have entered your mind while choosing not to tell me?”
I did not have an answer. Quietly, I sat and stretched out my hip, leaning on the other leg.
She continued in elevated pitches. “How could your family own another person? Other people? Knowing, as you do, the struggles of suffering judgment yourself? How is it possible that your family does the same to others?” She was tense, and her face became a younger version of her mother’s.
After a lengthy pause, I listened while she hurled questions. I answered, although, I should have edited my response. “Sarah, calm down. It is your people’s way, not mine, who invented this kind of slavery. I know nothing else. Although Cherokee have taken slaves for generations after battles fought and won. We all gain in the transaction. Our care sustains and protects them. In exchange, they serve us and our land. Planting crops or reaping the harvest would be impossible without them.”
“It isn’t my people who created this way of life.” Her face flushed.
She denied what she interpreted as an insult to her own race—her own personal character. It was not meant as an accusation; it was factual. I continued, even though I feared burns from her flares by doing so.
I said, “Whites recognize wealth and superiority, displayed by what one owns. We own slaves as an outward sign of that wealth.” She understood that fact already.
“People are not meant to be tools used by others. It is unchristian.” She spat judgment with consonance.
