Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
“The Wachenas may try to claim her, but she will be loyal to you.” Cow Tom went off script. “She is my mother, and must be claimed. None need know that connection. The great Chief Yargee must begin again, on new land. She’d be of use, can take Sarah’s place, skilled in cooking and sewing. Or work harvest.”
“I’ve no appetite to get in the middle of ownership for someone belonging to another,” said Yargee in Mvskoke.
Cow Tom could still read the man. Chief Yargee was cautious but not immovable.
“I do all talking with officials,” said Cow Tom, “in translation.”
Yargee grunted, considering, the pot not yet sufficiently sweet.
“If money held for my own freedom is safe,” Cow Tom added, “it goes toward my mother.”
Chief Yargee pondered, now fully engaged. He wasn’t a greedy man, but perhaps considered the tribe’s needs for replacement cattle, for seed, for tools, for Cow Tom’s sweat in working the new place. Maybe he was just tired of so many months surrounded by Wachenas without Cow Tom as buffer. “Some cattle were stole, but gold and paper are with me still,” he said.
Cow Tom had nothing left to bargain. Chief Yargee held the future now. He remained silent, letting the chief come to his own mind.
“I’ll not turn her in, but won’t argue claim should another submit a case.”
“Good enough,” said Cow Tom.
Chapter 21
BY THE FIRST sundown at Pass Christian, Bella warmed to her role as the girls’ companion, and sat in the dirt with Maggie and Malinda playing a child’s game. The girls developed an instant fondness for her, trailing after wherever she went, and Bella, among the filth and squalor, blossomed with the attention.
In private, Cow Tom took Amy aside and described who Bella was, and his mother’s strange blankness. He left nothing out. In all their years, he’d told Amy the barest minimum of his beginnings, but if there was risk to take, he thought it fair she know now. He laid out his plan, dreading Amy’s reaction to his proposed gamble, her worry for the rest of them should Bella be caught out in the masquerade.
“Whether she knows or not, she’s family,” Amy said. “We must try.”
Cow Tom let out a long breath he scarcely knew he’d been holding. “I guess some families are trickier to be part of than others,” he said.
Amy didn’t try to hide her surprise at his rare attempt at lightheartedness. And when she chuckled softly, he believed they had a chance at carrying out the scheme.
“We got to make Bella and the girls ready,” Amy said.
They found the threesome behind the jury-rigged blankets. The dim gloom of encroaching night had closed in, the wind a-howl, and Cow Tom drew close to make out Bella’s features. She sobered at his proximity.
“We’re taking you to Indian Territory,” he said. Bella’s eyes went wide. “You mustn’t speak except by demand, and from now, Sarah is your name. Only answer to Sarah, no matter who or what. Chief Yargee is your master.”
Bella dropped her head. She wouldn’t look at him.
“Understand?”
She nodded.
“Any strangers come round,” Amy told the girls, “keep behind the blankets with Aunt Sarah.”
Cow Tom tucked his mother away with the others in the cramped space, out of sight behind the rude tangle of branches and wood-bark roofing and strings of blankets and mud. He slept the night in the frigid cold, despite the brutal bouts of rain, all of them now a part of Chief Yargee’s entourage.
By the following day, he’d fallen into the rhythm of the camp at Pass Christian, organized around ration retrieval, idleness, eating, sleeping, and dying. He waffled between thankfulness and gripping fear. Thankfulness for reunion with Amy and his girls and Chief Yargee, thankfulness for future transport by boat, allowing more time for Amy’s foot to heal before the marching sure to come, thankfulness for Schoolboy having turned a blind eye as Cow Tom separated Bella from the Seminole Negroes. But more often, Cow Tom obsessed on the slavers prowling the camp.
There were only a handful of them as near as he could tell, rough, low-class white men armed with pistols, and they lounged near the food- and supply-distribution points, or by the dock. Cow Tom made several trips round the encampment, assessing the situation, once catching sight of Schoolboy across the distance and tipping his hat, once seeking out Harry Island for a brief visit, but he was afraid to be gone for too long, and hurried back.
On the second day, the tide was high enough to allow the release of some of the Alabama Creeks from Pass Christian, Mississippi. Cow Tom followed along behind the commotion, as two hundred from the holding camp were selected, rounded up, and led to the dock. They’d chosen the Paragon for the initial departure, and Cow Tom’s heart flagged when he realized that Schoolboy would sail without him on the first ship as it chugged its way up the mouth of the Mississippi. Yargee’s party would be left behind to wait their turn on the flotilla of ferries on the next leg of the journey toward Indian Territory. He had counted on Schoolboy’s sympathetic presence should things go wrong.
Worse, he watched the slavers spring to action once the Paragon began to load the Indians and their property—their Negroes and other assorted goods. No more lounging. The slavers insinuated themselves near the gangplank, checking each dark face as they trudged onto the boat. There was a fair amount of natural jostling in boarding, even pushing and shoving, and from his vantage point Cow Tom realized how difficult it would be to slip Bella undetected through that gauntlet when their time came. Difficult, but not impossible. They’d need luck.
That’s when he saw the curly-bearded man from Tampa Bay who’d tried to board the Paragon. The man Bella feared. How he’d made it to Pass Christian so quickly, Cow Tom didn’t know, but here he was, asserting his claims again. Cow Tom watched in horror as the white man plucked a small, dark woman from the mass of people before she could set foot on the gangplank, and separated her from the others, roughly yanking her by her arm, off to the side. No one stopped him this time.
Cow Tom ran all the way back to Yargee’s camp, relieved to find Bella and the girls out of sight behind the blankets, at play. He was unsure whether to tell Bella about the slaver or no. She was skittish enough already, and he decided not to spook her further. When he described what he saw at the dock to Amy, she agreed. They needed a better plan.
Each passed day was a torment. Cow Tom made sure Bella stayed hidden, and spent hours on end with Amy. He pressed her for more detail of their ordeals in his yearlong absence, not only to understand what they’d been through, but also to hear the steady stream of her voice. He thought to find Harry again, but refused to leave their little encampment unprotected.
On the sixth day, toward dusk, Yargee’s party was finally assigned to leave. They marched to the dock in a stormy squall, carrying their belongings. Amy leaned on Bella and Cow Tom, Bella’s printed head scarf wrapped around her foot as binding rag. Cow Tom was bareheaded, the driving rain and wind pelting him as they pushed forward. It was Amy’s idea, once Cow Tom told her the story of the Paragon, for Bella to hide any special marker a slave catcher might recognize. Bella pulled Cow Tom’s hat down low on her face to cover the port stain, and wore a dead boy’s leggings and tunic.
Cow Tom couldn’t believe the number of Creeks at the dock when they arrived, and still they came, hundreds upon hundreds. A fleet of ferries waited, small sailing vessels that hardly looked equal to the windblown sea between Pass Christian and New Orleans, their next stop, where they would board larger steamships contracted by the U.S. Army. If they could get past the slave catchers here, Cow Tom thought, then he would worry about New Orleans.
Yargee’s party huddled at the dock—three of his wives and their children, six returning Creek braves and their families, Cow Tom, Amy and the girls, Bella-turned-Sarah, and the family of the other black interpreter killed in Florida. Several slavers buzzed about, bu
Several Creeks around Cow Tom began to complain, afraid, unwilling to start the journey in the dark. Even Chief Yargee grumbled, in Mvskoke, and one official offered up several bottles of whiskey for the passing. The official had partaken himself already, but the bottles weren’t for Negroes. Cow Tom wouldn’t have minded something to take the edge from this night, but he needed his wits about him. Some Creeks on the dock accepted the liquor, some did not. Chief Yargee declined, but dissatisfaction grew louder, until the announcement came.
“We sail tonight.”
There began a process, with military men dividing Indians into groups for the available boats, pointing and shoving. Cow Tom still didn’t see Curly-beard, but there were far more people at the dock than when the Paragon sailed, and he hoped they could get aboard without confrontation. He made sure all of his were accounted for, Amy and his girls and Bella, wanting to be near the front to board the boat as soon as they could, just before Yargee.
A military man finally made the assignment, and Yargee’s group was given the Borgne. They joined hands or grabbed hold of tunics so as not to be separated, and Cow Tom pushed them all toward the gangplank. The night had grown darker, the moon encased in clouds, and the constant drizzle of the day turned to rain so heavy, dangerous waves smacked the sides of the Borgne like thunderclaps.
There he stood, a lone figure at the base of the gangplank of the Borgne, as if indifferent to the gale, a flash of lightning revealing the path of the rainwater through the curl of his brown beard. The slaver examined each dark face as best he could, but the night was dark and foul, and the crowd impatient to get out of the storm. Cow Tom saw his opening. He put himself on the side closest to the slaver, with Bella farthest away, and began a surge forward, pushing until all around him pushed too. The crowd turned unruly, stumbling, some even falling, following suit, all of a body at the gangplank at a pace too chaotic for the slaver to manage. Cow Tom lagged behind then, against the people tide, in the slaver’s way for precious seconds, hoisting the heavy sack close to his face to block Curly-beard’s view until he saw Amy had hold of both girls and Bella, and they had passed up the gangplank.
“’Scuse me, sir,” Cow Tom said. If he’d had his hat, he would have doffed it.
He headed up the plank, where they waited on him. His legs shook so badly, and his heart pounded so violently, he had to stop and rest for a moment before he could make himself go on.
Cow Tom led them all to a lower deck, where they could huddle dry and out of sight. As relieved as he was that they’d made it this far, he feared their luck might not hold for the next transfer in New Orleans. He barely slept, trying for some better plan to protect his mother, and in the morning, when they climbed toward the fresh air of the main deck, he saw New Orleans spread out before him, and heard the grumbles from the military handlers about the yellow fever epidemic raging there.
The ferries emptied, their tired human cargo rushed by the military handlers across the portage from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, where three large steamboats waited—the John Newton, the Yazoo, and the Monmouth. There was no need for hiding or deception this time. No slave catchers prowled, scared away by the epidemic. Yargee’s party was assigned the Monmouth, a decrepit boat with sagged boards and rotted wood, and just before nightfall, they boarded in another frenzy of storm, unimpeded.
Cow Tom had learned much on the inbound trip, and remembering Schoolboy’s distaste for their quarters near the boiler room, this time he staked out a prime place for Yargee and his people near the wheelhouse, the group much larger than he’d looked after on the Paragon. They were safe, all of them. And Bella was aboard, no questions asked.
When Cow Tom thought no more could possibly fit above deck or below, still they herded groups aboard, drenched and frightened, and again voices pleaded to wait for morning to sail. Seven hundred packed on the Monmouth before they called a halt to boarding, where there had been two hundred on the Paragon. At one point, Cow Tom saw Harry Island above deck, rejoined now with his master, as was Cow Tom, and an acknowledging gesture had to suffice, the boat too crowded to do otherwise, the relative freedom of Florida something distant. He lost Harry in the crowd, and attended to his own. His heart still raced, and although he was afraid of setting sail in such a storm, he wanted nothing more than to leave the dock.
Finally, the whistle blew, and they pulled away from New Orleans in the black, driving rain, up the Lower Mississippi en route to the Red River and beyond to Indian Territory.
Chapter 22
CREW AND OFFICERS returned often to the great stacks of boxes containing whiskey bottles, in relief from the raging storm or to gain courage to push on, Cow Tom didn’t know, and the overloaded boat chugged its way north.
Cow Tom peered out on a river so wide as to appear to be open sea. In the distance all was inky black, the curtains of water assaulting the ship and obscuring even the lantern in the wheelhouse, the only light aboard, throwing out scant illumination beyond a few feet. He feared another ship from the other direction, neither seeing the other in the night. After the voyage from Florida to Pass Christian, and across Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans, he was used to the feel of the sea, the swells of water and unpredictable currents turning his stomach inside out. But this was different, as if the ship ran in loopy circles.
Cow Tom wasn’t the only one to notice, drawn into the fray as linguister when a Creek brave, Timbochee, conversant with protocols at sea, begged the officers to stop until morning. Timbochee stated outright his belief the men charged with steering could not control the ship and keep on course, zigging and zagging. They didn’t listen, more intent on their card game and bottles. There was no one of Schoolboy’s caliber in authority for appeal.
They passed onshore lights, and someone called out the name Baton Rouge, but they quickly put the town behind them, thrust again into darkness. They were to approach Prophet Island Bend within the half hour.
Several on the Monmouth saw the ship coming at them, including Cow Tom. Not one but two shapes, maybe the latter in tow, the first vessel draped in a hazy luminescence of muted light, but not the second. Boats going upriver were to stay in the quiet waters close to the banks and, at the bends, cross to the far banks where the water moved slowest. Downriver boats were expected to follow the river channel out toward the middle, where the current moved fastest.
Suddenly, as if from one throat, cries went up.
“Stay to one side! Stay to one side!” Timbochee yelled. “Let the night ship pass!”
A shrill sound pierced the darkness from the wheelhouse.
“Don’t you see it?” the pilot shouted.
The first thundering crash was followed by a sickening series of grinding scrapes and shaking apart as the unlit boat struck the Monmouth.
At the rail, Cow Tom saw bodies by the dozens from the lower deck spill into the dark river, swept out and away, while the upper deck of the Monmouth listed and dipped closer to the water. The other steamboats reversed to stop against the current. Amid the terror of screams and shouts, he fought his way back to Yargee’s party. Amy clutched Maggie, the small girl’s arms around her neck, and Bella held Malinda, and the rest of Chief Yargee’s retinue clustered round him. Cow Tom closed the last few yards, pushing against the tide of Creeks trying to come up from below by the stairway connecting upper deck to lower, while quick and confusing shouts were drowned out by the constancy of the distress whistle, projecting its ear-piercing call into the dark night.
“Wait for the boats!”
“It’s sp
“We’re sunk!”
“Swim to shore!”
“All drowned!”
Amy saw him, and reached her hand. Fortunately, they clung to one another, his family, holding firm, and Cow Tom propelled them all as one toward the rail. They stayed on the listing deck as long as they could. Those belowdecks, at least those not already pitched into the water, fought for higher footing, but the Monmouth was fast sinking, the deck already wet with Mississippi waters at their feet. Better to take their chance with a pick-up boat. In the water, those Indians not immediately swept away struggled desperately for something solid to grasp on to. The other army steamers from New Orleans circled around and men picked up what survivors they could.
They were almost level with the water now, and Cow Tom prepared to hand his girls to rescuers in a waiting boat. They were terrified, but Amy whispered something to them both and his daughters gave themselves over to him. He had Malinda by the waist, in midair, when he heard another creaking groan. The cabin of the Monmouth broke off, and thrust them all downstream alongside crew and hundreds of other Indians.
Cow Tom pulled Malinda back in close to his body, but they moved in a different direction now. He wiped spindrift from his eyes. The rescue boat had disappeared. He watched the new swirls of water, the fresh crop of bodies washed far from shore, but he was still elevated above the surface, still connected to a major piece of the boat beneath his feet, his family still around him. Amy brought Malinda back to her arms, holding both girls now, and Cow Tom tried to get a fix on where they were. They floated some distance, adjusting to this new reality, as if suspended in time. But then the cabin broke in two parts, as had the boat, and spilled them all into the river with the speed and force of a racing stallion.
The water was frigid, and in the suddenness of the upheaval, he got separated from the others. Shouts punctuated the night air, both screams of fear and calls for help, and Cow Tom heard yells in the darkness from several directions promising rescue.