Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy
Last night after supper, her grandfather spoke to the children, an infrequent treat, all gathered round him at his feet as he recited the story of How Rabbit Fooled Wolf. First in the ancestral language, Mvskoke, and then in English. In Rose’s opinion, the English version didn’t sound as powerful. She liked the guttural sound of Mvskoke better, deep in the throat where language belonged, but Gramma Amy said English speaking brought great benefit to the entire family, and insisted all the children learn that language as well, even though Gramma Amy herself seldom spoke anything but Mvskoke or Hitchiti. Everyone had their place, that’s what Gramma Amy said, both wolf and rabbit. If a character was open for the picking, Rose would choose rabbit. Clever, sly, fun loving. But that wasn’t her lot. Hers was to be a mother of sons, and her sons could be rabbit, outsmarting and outlasting all the obstacles of the world.
Rose carefully packed the herbs in the basket, laid a large leaf of maidenhair spleenwort on top, and made her way out of the woods back to pastureland. The fields were miles of tall hay. Once again, she ran, but stopped, thinking better of her lack of caution so far from the ranch, setting off toward home at a walk. About halfway, she saw a flash of color in the field. There was a large patch of sage, stiff and prickly, but in the center, close to the ground and almost hidden, was a bed of wildflowers, spindly branches intertwined with its sage host. One double-lobed flower bloomed, a bold blue that made Rose’s heart race, a blue to rival the most perfect sky of an Indian Territory summer day.
She’d seen this flower before, when out harvesting with Gramma Amy. Blue mouse ears. She picked her way through the sage, brushing aside the thorny growth to get to the supple branch holding the blue flower aloft. She knew she was foolish, but couldn’t resist. The flower would neither serve useful purpose for her grandmother’s herbal table nor at the serving table, but Rose loved the color and shape best of all the plants growing wild along the plains. She held the flower for a long time, admiring, savoring the bright blue, imagining herself surrounded by an entire field of beauty such as this.
She was still caught in reverie when she heard the hoofbeats of ponies. The grass was waist high, and she dropped to her knees, folding herself as small as she could, hoping she was hidden. They passed close enough for her to register a swish of the faded gray wool pants leg of a Confederate uniform as they rode beyond her toward the woods.
She didn’t dare lift her head. The horses stopped a ways from her, and she heard cooldown snorts as they began to graze.
“We wait,” a male voice said in Mvskoke, and dismounted. Rose heard him slide to the ground and walk in the opposite direction, followed by another man, who grunted his acknowledgment.
Two ponies, two men. The men spoke fast Mvskoke to each other, punctuated and hard. Not old but young men by register and tone. She couldn’t catch all their words, but they bantered back and forth while she crouched, frozen, and she wondered who or what they waited for and how long before they moved on. Whether safer for her to stay or try to make her way back home.
“Before the sun sets, the black man’s ranch and cattle are ours.”
“We wait for Little Eagle. Then wash our hands in Union blood.”
Rose hesitated, unsure, her heart a hammer. She began to inch along on her hands and knees, picking her way free of the sage, careful to make no sound. She was patient, as her grandfather taught her, moving along at an irregular pace, neither too fast to attract attention nor too slow to get back to the ranch, keeping clutch to her basket of herbs. Just two weeks ago, the sandy-haired lieutenant in charge of Fort Gibson cautioned her grandfather to leave the ranch, and not for the first time. The Confederates had become more brazen, not less, since losing the Battle of Honey Springs. Maybe her grandfather was wrong. Maybe they should have abandoned the ranch two years back when Uncle Harry pleaded with Grampa Cow Tom to make a run for Kansas, a free state, alongside him and his family.
She remembered her uncle’s words exactly, angry and despairing at the same time, flung at her grandfather as they stood toe to toe in this very pasture.
“Don’t be a fool. You’re grown too large in your own mind. The war will find you in the end. And you with nothing but women and girls and old men here.”
Rose continued her winding path through the tall grass, listening for pursuit, but after the first cautious scans, the men’s voices receded. The sounds that remained were familiar and everyday, of birds flying overhead, of animals in the pasture, of a coyote in the distance. She dared stand, still covered by the height of the hay-like grass, and peered out. No men in her sight.
Her basket lay at her feet. Her grandmother wouldn’t have sent her from the ranch house unless she truly needed those herbs, so she scooped up the basket and broke into an all-out run, keeping to the tallest grass. She passed the corral and the bunkhouse and cut across the far north pasture, where she found her grandfather down in the clearing, his back against the thin base of a bois d’arc whose broad canopy overhung the banks of the Canadian River. Not far, five rawboned spotted cows grazed on the short grass near the lip of the clearing.
“Grampa,” she cried, hardly able to push the words out, so relieved she was to find him.
She fought back her tears. Her grandfather looked up in alarm, his face more lined than she remembered. He was old. Over fifty. Too old to join the Union army, but he would know what to do about the Confederate Indians. Everyone said they looked alike, grandfather and granddaughter. Full mouth slightly crooked under a broad nose; ears overlarge, though her grandfather had only a close-to-the-scalp stub on one side while she enjoyed both her flaps; brown eyes small and buried deep; wild, coarse hair framing a heart-shaped face. Like his, her skin was startlingly dark, but not for her the smooth, taut ebony her baby sister possessed. Her complexion was mottled, a random mix of coffees and chars and nut browns.
“The Confederates are yonder,” she said, before he could speak. Her breath came hard, but she forced her story. “Just over by the south pasture. They’re coming for us. I heard them.”
Cow Tom’s dark face, naturally unyielding and severe, hardly changed expression, but his eyes grew harder, and his cheek scar seemed to come alive. “How many? How long?”
“Two men, I think. But expecting more. They said they’d wash in Union blood.”
Cow Tom didn’t lose a moment. “Tell Amy to clear everybody out. Wait for us in the north hay field by the gristmill. We make for Fort Gibson.”
Rose knew of Fort Gibson, the nearest supply town, thirty miles away. She’d never traveled that far, but her grandfather often talked about the fort. Because the Old Chief refused to learn English, Cow Tom regularly went there as Chief Yargee’s translator. On horseback, the trip took a full day or even two. Were they supposed to walk?
Rose stood for an instant, waiting for more instruction, but her grandfather had already turned from her, headed for the bunkhouse.
“Git!” he ordered over his shoulder.
Chapter 30
ROSE BURST INTO the smoky kitchen, the basket still clutched to her chest. She would remember that moment of calm for the rest of her days, more clearly than hiding in the tall grass, or the men’s voices, or her grandfather’s command—Gramma Amy’s ladle arrested in midair over the stew pot, Ma’am setting wood plates on the long, communal pine table for supper, Granny Sarah’s white fluff of hair as she slept, chin to chest, in a chair by the fire, Aunt Maggie breast-feeding the smallest of the household’s babies in one corner, her younger sister, Elizabeth, playing quietly with a corncob doll wrapped in strips of leather in the opposite corner, Cousin Emmaline and Cousin Lulu ferrying warm bread to the table. All eyes riveted to Rose. The comforting odor of stew meat bubbling in the pot over the fire consumed the kitchen and reminded her how hungry she was.
“Grampa says run,” she said, her breath coming hard.
She repeated her story of the men in the woods, fast as she could.
Amy sprang to action first, organizing their escape, the long ladle clattering against the side of the pot where she dropped it, snapping her orders.
“Gather the children.”
There was no debate. Each woman in the kitchen stopped midtask and demanded their children to their sides. Those old enough to understand moved quickly and waited obediently by their mothers’ skirts. Rose smelled fear in the room, but there was something else she couldn’t quite grasp that hung heavy in the cold air. Ferocity.
Ma’am grabbed a blanket and began to wrap as many kitchen utensils inside as she could.
Everything and everyone seemed suddenly in motion. “Only what you can carry at a run,” Amy cautioned, and Ma’am abandoned all but the blanket. Rose thought to bring her bow and arrows, crafted by Grampa Cow Tom specially for her size and strength from bois d’arc branches, but they were awkward to carry, and she wasn’t yet a good enough shot. She abandoned the idea. She had her knife.
Gramma Amy disappeared to the back of the house to snatch up herb pouches and her mortar and pestle, and dropped these in Rose’s basket. “To keep the baby quiet,” she said, and handed Rose a small cooking skillet as she scanned the room. “Elizabeth, go with Rose.”
Elizabeth watched as if apart from the rising panic in the house, scooting back farther into the corner, clutching the corncob doll to her tiny chest.
Amy’s quick hands continued to wrap dried jerky in oilskin.
“Come to me, Elizabeth,” Rose said in Mvskoke, but the girl didn’t move, poking out her lip and shaking her head.
Her mother and aunt gathered the other children, quickly bundling them against the cold, snatching up a stray moccasin. Her aunt deftly strapped the baby in a cradleboard, mounting it to her back. Cousin Emmaline and Cousin Lulu waited wide-eyed and silent by her side.
“You want to come with me, don’t you?” Rose asked Elizabeth. She kept her voice steady. “You want to come with me and share my blanket?”
“I want to carry the basket,” Elizabeth said, in a pout.
The medicinal herbs were too valuable to entrust. “I’d rather carry this skillet,” Rose said.
As expected, her sister shifted focus.
“I want to carry the skillet,” Elizabeth said.
“All right.” Rose said. “Put dolly in the skillet and come.”
Rose held her sister by one hand and coaxed her out the back door, afraid to hear hoofbeats. She gave a last look as Gramma Amy dumped the contents of the cooking pot onto the fireplace ashes, leaving nothing for the Confederates when they came. Rose led Elizabeth through the tall grass toward the ranch’s gristmill, aware of every sound, ready to drop and hide if the men came upon them. She took a chance and stopped, crouching to eye level with her little sister.
“Elizabeth. This is important. If I say run, you run and hide. If I say quiet, not one word or sound, no matter what. Like when we play hide-and-seek. Promise.”
“Do the bad men want to hurt us?”
Rose decided not to lie. “Yes,” she said. “So promise.”
Elizabeth considered this. “I promise, Rose,” she said.
They half walked and half ran the rest of the way, and arrived at the gathering spot where most women and children on the ranch waited. Rose tried to get Elizabeth to stand by Ma’am, but Elizabeth wouldn’t let go of Rose’s hand, her tiny fingers squeezing Rose’s until her palm ached. Rose needed her hand free to get at her bark-stripping knife, but one look at Elizabeth convinced her to let her sister hang on. It was the same expression on everybody’s face. Uncertainty. Fear. Panic. No one spoke. They waited a few minutes, not sure what came next, and Ma’am did a count. Eight.
“Gramma and Granny are missing,” Ma’am whispered, and as if by force of thought, Amy materialized from the tall grass, leading Granny Sarah. She clutched a long, curve-bladed skinning knife in her right hand, and parted the grass with the other. A length of braided hemp secured the food-stuffed bundle wrapped in deer hide from the kitchen on her back. Gramma Amy smelled of the stew Rose watched her dump into the flames, and her apron was singed at its lower edge.
“I’d a mind to set the whole place afire,” Gramma Amy said. “Leave them ash. But they’d come looking for us that much sooner.”
Her grandmother surveyed the group, making her own count. “Cow Tom?” she whispered to Ma’am.
Ma’am shook her head.
They all looked to Gramma Amy for a decision.
“We wait,” she whispered. “If they don’t come soon, we head north like Lieutenant Phillips said.”
Almost none of their neighbors remained on the tribe’s land around them. Two weeks ago, several of the last Upper Creek holdouts passed by the ranch, accompanied by Lieutenant Phillips on horseback, a green-eyed white leader in the Union army. Rose had served the lieutenant before at her grandfather’s table, but this time, there were two other heavily armed soldiers, one Seminole and one black Seminole, also on horseback, escorts to Fort Gibson. The military men’s jacket and pants were worn and filthy, several different shades of badly faded and mismatched blue. North, Rose had thought. Union.
There were forty displaced Indians in that group, old men, women, and children, their faces a stunned stare of defeat. Lieutenant Phillips urged her grandfather to join the caravan, but he refused. While the two men argued, Gramma Amy whispered to Rose to bring puska from the storehouse to distribute among the ragtag group. Rose shook clumps of the parched corn powder into outstretched baskets, but one small boy, the same age as Elizabeth, snatched a handful and sucked greedily as if he hadn’t eaten in a long while.
Once Lieutenant Phillips determined Cow Tom wouldn’t dissuade, he sliced the air with two fingers, signaling forward motion to his men, and they spurred their horses and caravan away. The wagons creaked and rolled, come to life again as the mass of refugees plodded forward to the north in a slow march.
Lieutenant Phillips yelled, “Keep up with the Union soldiers,” to the last stragglers in the line, and just as Rose formed the thought that probably none in the caravan could understand what the white man said, the black soldier repeated the warning in Mvskoke.
Later that night, Rose overheard Gramma Amy try to persuade Grampa Cow Tom to abandon the ranch.
“We are no more hid,” Gramma Amy said. “We need to leave this place.”
“Had we left for Kansas with Chief Yargee last spring, might be us massacred by Lower Creeks, not only one of Yargee’s wives.”
Rose had wondered which one of the five wives was killed. Hopefully not Milly, the youngest of three sisters married to the chief, who had always shown kindness. Her uncle Harry made it through to Kansas with his family two years ago, and sent back word conditions were harsh at the army fort there, especially for black Indians.
Grampa Cow Tom refused to leave, and Gramma Amy backed down.
“Twin,” Rose cried, the thought fresh and sharp as they waited in the tall grass. How could she have forgotten him? “I have to tell Twin.”
“Hush now. You stay with us,” said Gramma Amy.
“I can’t leave him,” Rose said. He’d be furious with her. Angry and hurt, no matter the reason.
“They won’t bother with the grave,” said Gramma Amy. “Twin’ll be fine.”
Gramma Amy didn’t understand anything. Of course Twin would be fine. Rose was the one who wouldn’t be fine without him.
Her grandmother turned her attention elsewhere, plotting an escape route, assessing their supplies, checking the health of the babies. Gramma Amy could master anything on ranch grounds, but her grandfather was more familiar with woods and trails, and knew how to speak to military men with their strange talk and stranger manners.
Gramma Amy motioned for Rose to bring the basket. She removed a green sprig and chewed until just soft, spitting out the juice and dividing the pulpy remains into pieces
Not too far away, the grass moved. Gramma Amy held up her hand for silence, turning her good ear first one way and then another to identify direction. After a moment of stillness, there came the sound of low-toned moaning.
Cooah, coo, coo.
Knife blade in front and ready to strike, Amy replicated the mourning dove’s call.
Cooah.
The echoing response came closer. Rose set down the basket with her grandmother’s medicines and put one finger to her lips to caution Elizabeth to stillness. The girl’s almond eyes were wet with fear, but she didn’t move or make a sound. Rose drew out her knife and tightened her grip around the handle.
The tall prairie grass parted, and Grampa Cow Tom stepped through the wild, damp pastureland, followed by the old cowpuncher who lived in the bunkhouse.
Rose bowed her head in thanks. Her grandfather carried his hunting rifle and a powder flask at his hip, and the cowpuncher waved a small pistol. They came on foot, which meant they’d had to leave the horses behind. Even if larger numbers made the group easier to track, more people were better.
Her grandfather took everything in at a glance, the drawn knives, the hasty supplies, the tall grass that would keep them hidden but not cover the direction of their escape once someone caught their trail.
“Hurry,” he said.
Chapter 31
THEY HEADED NORTH, toward Fort Gibson, falling into routine for the first few hours. Grampa Cow Tom kept to the front, determining the path, always in the tall prairie grass, never on the trail in the open, and Gramma Amy guarded the rear, making sure no one fell behind. As the sun moved lower in the sky, they walked at her grandfather’s pace. He never once slackened, refusing to be slowed by the fading stamina of the children or even Granny Sarah. One or another adult picked up a child if the little one couldn’t continue. No one talked. Aunt Maggie put her infant daughter to breast, and the rest passed puska and gourds of water down the line, but still they moved forward.