Tho i be mute, p.9
'Tho I Be Mute, page 9
At the close of council, Creek Chief McIntosh arrived with six other chiefs. He was equal to my father in rank and status, a leader of our southern neighbors, the Lower Creek people. While Ross appeared to bore McMinn and Campbell, the two-faced men welcomed this latecomer, their friend, McIntosh.
“Beloved Brother,” McMinn said.
My stomach flipped at the greeting.
McIntosh was broad and well-fed, draped in a red and white plaid tartan lined in yellow silk. He wore a Muskogee Creek crown, plumed behind his ample head with a red-tipped feather. Those going with him were traditionally dressed in skins and furs covering buckskin breeks. McIntosh’s warriors circled around him with protective premeditation. Creek warriors smirked as if some plan, built in private, once made public would unveil their masked purpose. I knew McIntosh thought of selling Creek’s land to the government, ensuring his power in the white world. Father believed McIntosh’s ambition stemmed from personal greed not out of concern for the welfare of his people.
Talking stopped for a time while the men stepped closer to the fire, exchanging strained pleasantries. No one spoke directly of what I feared: McIntosh’s Creeks had already bitten Campbell’s treacherous bait. If that were true, it would explain Campbell’s cockiness, thinking that the same strategy might work again against the Cherokee.
Chief McIntosh preached. “The white man is growing. He wants our lands; he will buy them now. By and by, he will take them, and the little band of people, poor and despised, will be left to wander without homes to be beaten like dogs.”
I listened to his words, translated them, understanding all the hidden fright under each syllable. Those listening Cherokee appeared apprehensive to McIntosh’s declaration and resignation. To me, McIntosh appeared to be a legless chief, fighting on horseback from behind volley after volley, and then, knowing he would lose, sought allies on both sides. His schemes lay in wait behind the mix of tartan and feathers he wore.
After McIntosh’s warning, Ross stood before our aged leader, Chief Pathkiller and handed me a letter to translate. This letter was from Chief McIntosh who had offered Ross a bribe of two thousand dollars should Ross concur with the Creeks, agreeing to a new treaty that would sell Cherokee’s fertile land to the state. Now that the truth has been read, we would all be forced to witness the consequences.
Father stood from beside Pathkiller, his trusted friend He held his arms wide to quiet the indiscernible chatter. Featherlike light sealed Father’s words, making them ancient and binding.
“As Speaker for Cherokee Nation, I now address the Honorable Council.” I repeated his words in English. First, Father spoke of the ‘sacred trust,’ we hold for those not present, Cherokee and Creek in homesteads who farm and hunt, who weave and rear children, those who sit at home, unknowing of the words passing tonight. Father said McIntosh betrayed the trust of those who allowed him to speak on their behalf.
“I cast McIntosh behind me. I now divest him of trust. I do not pretend to extend this disgrace in his own Nation. He is at liberty to retire in peace and resort to the bosom of his family, to spend his sorrows and revive his wounded spirit. He has been the concern of my warmest friendship and still carries my sympathies with him.” Father waited for my translation before turning his back to McIntosh. Pathkiller and Ross and the other Cherokee elders present followed Father’s gesture.
In disgrace from the shun, the Creek mounted their horses and rode with impressive speed into the night, humiliation tainting the dust flying behind their horse’s shoes. At that pace, the horses would die of exhaustion. They kicked hard with the rightful fear that Cherokee retribution might follow them home.
Father vowed “. . . not one more foot of land.” Mighty Zeus had spoken. And I, like Apollo, repeated his father’s prophecy in two languages. I believed McIntosh’s bribe gave credibility to the Cherokee’s honest negotiation. How could the commissioners who observed our integrity not understand Father’s view of McIntosh’s immoral behavior?
The state and federal agents left the council in haste with their bribery money still bulging from their saddlebags. They spoke words of gratitude that opposed their side-eyed looks. They had failed. And from that failure, in our united stance, we were victorious, for however brief a time that achievement might hold.
I sat, exhausted. My right hand covered in ink ached from interminable nights of scribbling and re-dipping my quill to write another request and transcribe its refusal. Ross undid the tie around his neck. Father turned to us both, and said, “We must go to Washington and go now. The time has come.”
Time had come, and my fate appeared to me, scribed on stained hands. In Washington, I, Skahtlelohskee, would stand for the sacred trust of my friends and brothers, with my will bearing their weight while suffering no pain at all.
Chapter 10: Knocking
Sarah Bird Northrup
December 1823
Cornwall, Connecticut
D
uring the last few nights, I had a recurring nightmare. In it, I stood facing a crowd of strange women shrouded in pale winter’s light, escorted by the arms of frigid wind. Without a home, without a husband, I walked beside these unknown women who dressed in beaten colors bordered by ragged hems, all shuffling in a mass. Snow wrapped them while they protected loved ones with guarding hands. One young girl tried to keep an old dog close, prodding his snout, directing him with a stick. An old, hunch-backed woman couldn’t raise her head from the ground. Mothers struggled in perpetual motion trying to quiet crying babies. I stood mute and still among them, watching.
I tried to help, but my words escaped soundlessly in a steamy breath. I reached for a crying child, but my hand became translucent and passed through the baby unfelt. Without purpose, not knowing where we were traveling, I felt compelled to move forward beside them. I felt a part of these women. We journeyed together. We had no choice. I looked behind me, in front of me, eyes seeking familiarity and orientation, but found none. In unresolved dread, the feeling of abandonment held my hand through the blinding snow. And in such panic, the sightless night came fast.
Unsettled, I awoke in the dark. Once my eyes opened, I thought about why these women and children would make this exodus to unknown places, pushed by the will of unseen enemies. Villains in this dream were not monsters with horns and malice; instead, quiet played the antagonist. As I woke, the dream remained, and I lay cold and haunted by feelings instead of spirits. Sunlight rose and spilled through the bottom corner of my room’s curtained windows. Jane knocked and entered. I rolled away, binding my time under blankets.
“Sarah, time to wake for the day.” Jane bustled, trying to ease the pall of morning. She filled the basin with water to wash and laid out petticoat, pockets, skirt, stockings, overlay dress, and shoes from my wardrobe. But all I felt was tangible guilt for the luxuries draped across the end of my bed. The dream still shadowed me, anchored me in solitude and shame, shame for warmth. The fears of the women from my dream lingered. Abandoned together, in distress together, together in the agony of each step, we became lost to nowhere certain.
“Would you like my help?” Jane inquired.
“No. I will be fine.”
“Dress, my dear. Your mother and father left for school. Harriet will be by to take you into town today.”
“I did not forget.”
Jane nodded and retreated, clicking the door’s latch closed behind her rolling exit. Since my return from New Haven, Jane’s footsteps were quieter. Brief and chosen, her murmurs talked around me yet seemed more empathetic.
After returning from my grandparent’s home, my parents worried I contracted consumption, and soon, the sickness would force them to quarantine me away. I had not inhaled that awful disease. The coughing never came. So, I found peace alone, ate again, but with little to look forward to and little to do. It had been two months since I last had words from John. My tears for him turned into quiet moments of absentia, living among my family’s constant claims to love me.
Arriving today was Harriet Gold, my friend from childhood and one of eleven children born to Colonel Benjamin Gold and his wife. Harriet was one of those girls who talked incessantly but said little. She enjoyed laughter, but it unwound in triteness. Her purpose was to pray thanks to God for her abundance, but to resist hearing the troubles of the souls surrounding her. She did not care, only talked of the need to do so. She did not feed those who were hungry, only prayed God would provide for their needs. She was a young woman of great belief but little practice.
But today, we would while away an hour in Kellogg’s Mercantile browsing fabric bolts. She would talk of patterns and ribbons, and I would follow behind her, listening with half-attention. Interested in nothing, this momentary distraction from home served Harriet’s purposes of helping those less fortunate, counting myself among her ranks.
Before long, Harriet met me in the foyer, hurrying me through cloak and bonnet. We walked arm in arm along, prattling down the dirt on the side of the road, smiling at others who sought similar distraction. It had not rained or snowed in several days, and the roads were not wet, nor were they dusty. Leaves and remnants of snow guarded the edges of dead flowerbeds surrounded by brown grass. Yet, on this brisk day, the distant clouds did not hide the sun.
Through town, a beautiful rig led by parallel horses pulled down Bolton Hill Road and turned left toward the inn. I wondered who was expecting such fine company. My days of meeting strangers seemed at an end. Everyone was family by blood or marriage in the entire population of Cornwall.
The bell rang as we opened the door to the store. Mistress Kellogg met us, inquiring about our needs. She was a woman who didn’t look as though she belonged in Cornwall. She had the thickest hair of any woman in town, cascading brown curls around her face. She dressed in royal colors, jeweled, with never a stitch out of place. As the finest seamstress in town, I was in awe at her craft. Her beauty and skill taught me envy.
“Excellent day, ladies. Can I help cut you some dress fabric?”
Harriet responded with mocking surprise and covered her open mouth with her gloved hand. “How could you have known?”
Mistress Kellogg winked at both of us, saying, “If I didn’t notice Harriet, Mister Kellogg might send me to the back to New York.”
“Good day, Mistress Kellogg,” I said with polite distance. I didn’t have Harriet’s ability for informal courtesy.
“Sarah, so nice to see you out and about.” Mistress Kellogg showed nothing but concern. In truth, she was interested in why I’d spent months in New Haven. Well, let her wonder, I thought. Few knew of my attachment to John, save my parents, Jane, and my grandparents. Father decided it was no one’s business, and he commanded everyone in that circle to hold their tongues. I knew if I told Harriet, everyone in Cornwall would be apprised of my situation.
Harriet said, “Mistress Kellogg, may I see the new purple satin you told me about last Sunday after services?” Harriet’s distraction and Mistress Kellogg’s potential sale lured both from my presence.
“Of course,” Mistress Kellogg preened, “right this way.”
People crowded into the confines of Kellogg’s General Store. Children in shoes too big climbed under tables laden with bolts of multi-colored gingham and calico. They were playing with invisible muskets braced into their shoulders, aiming and firing. Their targets ducked, then, pretended to die in horrific ways. Their mothers strolled casually through the aisles while the children darted and hid with few able to stop them.
One boy of eight or nine years shot his younger brother. Then, with his legs over his victim’s arms, he pretended to unsheathe a large knife and scalp his enemy on the floor. It alarmed me in every way, but I couldn’t pull my eyes from their pretended slaughter.
I backed into a rack of ribbons lining the wall, trying to find air and compose myself. Harriet glanced at me and then to Mistress Kellogg with a look of alarm and distracted the unknowing shopkeeper with chatter of the incoming poor weather and difficulties with travel. I found my way around benches and shelves, avoiding the stretched tongue of the victim on the floor.
“I’m stepping outside for some cooler air, Harriet,” I called, interrupting their conversation. Mistress Kellogg looked up from her hand running over the softness of some exquisite purple satin, stocked now for June weddings.
I couldn’t think about bridal gowns. Far too much took place in this overwhelming space. Mistress Kellogg turned a pitying glance at me and returned to her admiration of the amethyst sheen and potential sale. To my knowledge, Harriet was not marrying anytime soon. Unfortunately, neither was I.
I rang the bell a second time in exit and stepped into December’s morning with sunlight’s deceiving warmth blazing beyond the shop awning. Mister Kellogg and Mister Copeland stood on the porch. Steam from their coffee cups mixed with their breath as they spoke, unnoticed by anyone, save myself.
“See that carriage pass by earlier?” Mister Copeland remarked.
“I did. You don’t think that rich Cherokee is back, do you? He has no reason to come since his son left and good riddance. That school attempts to spread the Word. I just wish the missionaries would go to the heathens instead of bringing them here among us good, Christian people. It isn’t safe.” Mister Kellogg’s commentary was one my father countered at select opportunities, only in the right company.
“No matter, even with book learning, those Indians are still savage killers.” I looked back inside the store for the victim and his murderer. They must be Copeland’s sons. Mister Copeland looked to advance Mister Kellogg’s opinion of him by agreeing with the rude remarks, shifting distaste for the native students into slander.
Mister Kellogg said, “Well, I won’t turn away their money. But their kind never seemed suited for proper society. No matter what they learn, naked and wild Indians murder women and children. No cravats or pocket watches will ever change those instincts. They shouldn’t even pretend to be what we are—God’s people.” Confident, both men boosted pride within themselves by dismissing and lowering John, Elias, and the entirety of the original people who saved the settlers’ lives only a century before. Kellogg and Copeland thought no one listening would disagree, so they spoke carelessly.
Unable to catch my breath, I turned my back and coughed while Harriet whisked through the door. She heard the last words of their conversation. She glanced at me and stepped into the aroma of their bigotry, hanging in the air with thick heat only hatred can produce.
“Gentlemen, how are you this fine January day?”
“Fine, Miss Gold. And you?”
“I’m feeling God’s grace upon me and choosing to turn the other cheek to what I just heard spewing from your mouths. Your words sound more savage to me, far more ignorant than anything ever said by the students.” With that, she looped her arm through mine and escorted me down the stairs into the brimming sun. Her hand shook, so I covered it with my own. We crossed the street, unaware of crossing horse or buggy or any walking soul that might pass us accidentally.
Once on the street for home, Harriet hushed, a volume unusual for her. “Never in my life have I spoken to anyone like that,” she said and looked over her shoulder. No one had followed us.
“I’m jealous of your candor, Harriet. Wish I was so bold. To remark as you did, I would have to replay an incident for hours, and I still would not find the right words.”
“May we go back to your house? I’d like to share something with you.” Harriet remarked.
Intrigued and chilled, I replied, “Jane might make us tea. What do you say?”
“Delighted is what I say.” Harriet beamed with the thought of telling me her secret.
We crossed up the stairs and into the foyer, removing scarves and bonnets as we entered Mother’s parlor. Two chairs awaited us by the fireplace. Harriet sat in one, removing her gloves and rubbing her cold and clammy hands together on her lap.
“Sarah, are we alone?” Harriet asked.
“Jane is around somewhere, but Mother and Father are at the school. I’m not expecting anyone.” That realization both hurt and relieved me.
She said, “First, you must understand, I did not expect this, but find it glorious and Heaven-sent. You must not breathe a word of this to anyone. You understand.” She stood, and her skirt brushed dangerously close to the fire. Giddy from happiness, she turned, absent-minded. Then her shoulders signed, and she said, “I just have to tell someone.”
“All right,” I reassured her, but her introduction only made me uncomfortable, expecting trouble with the secret’s inevitable reveal.
Harriet said, “I received a letter last month from a student who once attended the school. He went to seminary in Andover, but has since traveled home because he became ill, a severity of the stomach. Did you ever meet Elias Boudinot?”
“Only a few times. Has he recovered?” She could not learn what happened between Mister Boudinot and me while we cared for John, nor the genuine reason for my months away. She thought my absence was because of illness, thanks to my embarrassed mother and her choir of gossips.
“He wrote to me, and I am so taken with him. I posted a letter back to him last week. No one knows, and you cannot tell a soul.” She sat again, seeking confirmation of my promised silence with her hands grasping mine.
“I won’t speak a word. But how could your affections build so much for him after one letter? He isn’t here any longer.”
“I remembered how handsome and funny he was. He walked into any conversation adding his delightful wit. His smile astounded me then—still does when I imagine it. I never thought he noticed me.”
I asked, “In his letter, did he ask anything of you? Did he mention anyone else?”
