Citizens Creek (29 page)

At Fort Gibson, by the end, she walked chin high around the fort, inside and outside the gates, acknowledged as the African Creek chief’s granddaughter, the one he so often brought with him as he went about his duties. She couldn’t witness the Micco ceremony when Chief Sands, the big chief over the Creek tribe, officially bestowed the title her grandfather had already claimed. No women were allowed, but Grampa Cow Tom’s added prestige and respect from that day was like healing water, running downhill to cleanse her as well. And her uncle Harry was the official translator for all the Creeks. Rose was somebody by connection.

And then, not long after her grandfather was named a Creek chief, the war was officially over. They were declared on the winning side and told to strike off into the wilderness to make a new home for themselves. If this was winning, Rose couldn’t imagine how it felt to lose.

The family endured a painful separation from Harry Island, who decided to head toward Grand Fork. Cow Tom led them all
south, deeper into Creek territory, with a few iron pots, some hides, an ax, a shovel, the ragged clothes on their backs, and a thin stack of headright money issued by the government to get them started. What they carried in greatest supply was hunger—an unquenchable hunger for food, hunger for peace, hunger for someplace where the family could settle and rebuild their lives. Both Gramma Amy and Ma’am were clever with roots and herbs, and the farther they traveled away from Fort Gibson, the more they were able to forage from the forest and even hunt game. They headed toward the last place they’d called home.

But the closer they came to their old ranch along the Canadian River, the more a dull pain burrowed deep in Rose’s chest. None of them could know what they’d find at their old homestead, but all Rose could think of was Twin, whether he was still there, and what he might do.

They approached the familiar land from the north side, where the gristmill used to be, and Rose was pulled to the past, when the family gathered so long ago, just before their flight to Fort Gibson, waiting in the tall grass for Grampa Cow Tom. She expected a surge of longing for the place she’d been born to, where she’d grown up, but none came. She bit at the inside of her cheek as the group walked along the Canadian, passing her grandfather’s favorite thinking spot. The bois d’arc tree still reached in a delicate arch over the river, and she remembered the exact curve of the river where crappies used to run in abundance, though the stream looked narrower than she remembered. There was a small Indian boy there now, Creek, his pole in the water. When the boy saw them, he ran in the direction of the ranch house.

By the time they reached their old house, the group mood was sour. The log cabin itself was half a house, most parts burned completely or at least charred, left to seasons of neglect, as well as wind, snow, and rain. A majority of the stones of the central chimney still held, but the roof was caved or gone completely. An outdoor cooking fire blazed, with a large black kettle suspended on a tripod
of branches. By the looks of the people about and the newness of some sections of the house, several families, all women and children of assorted age, had claimed this land, and begun the work of restoration, splitting trunks of pine for logs, hauling large branches, replacing missing stones with substitutes dragged from the river. The area around the house was free of weeds, and the dirt was swept. A small patch of corn was already put to ground.

The new occupants gathered as one in front of the ruined ranch house, the small boy to one side. There were eighteen.

“We can’t house any more here,” one of the women said. She was taller than the rest, and burly, like a man. She had a rifle by her side, though she made no show of using it. But still.

Grampa Cow Tom stepped forward. “We lived here. Before the war.”

“The land was abandoned. We took it up.”

“This was our home.”

“Everyone was somewhere before. And starts again now,” she said. “We start here.”

Rose thought of all of her secret hiding places and the familiar pastures. She imagined them now, either overgrown or in the hands of others.

Her grandfather must have made the same calculation.

“If you were men, I’d challenge,” he said.

She nodded, unfazed. “And we plan to have the place ready for our men when they return.”

“There are those who’ll come looking for us, now war is done. Tell them Chief Cow Tom is downriver. Still along the Canadian.”

Just that quickly, her grandfather had bargained away their old ranch. Rose was relieved. This place wasn’t what she remembered, no longer what she wanted, somehow spoiled.

“We don’t have much, but you’re welcome to share from the pot before striking off,” the woman said.

It was odd, being hosted by these people who took their land,
but Rose was grateful for the thin soup, hot and flavored with the flesh of some small animal.

“We have business in the graveyard near the woods,” said Grampa Cow Tom after the food was through, “and then we go.” The woman agreed.

Rose ran ahead to the old family graveyard, and found the entire patch choked with thistle. Weeds and vines tangled in the dirt close to ground. The dull pain in her chest deepened as she cleared them away. Her hands stung with the plant’s needles, but beneath, Rose found the three smooth river stones on Twin’s grave, unmolested.

She waited, stretched tight, afraid of the coming bright blue light that was Twin, and the finality of his presence washing over her, taking charge of her. She heard the rest of her family coming up behind her, and still she waited. There was nothing. Twin wasn’t here in this place.

Ma’am fell upon the grave, as if the thistle was nothing.

“I can’t leave him again,” she said. “I won’t.”

Gramma Amy went to her daughter, lifting her up from the ground to standing, but it was Grampa Cow Tom who spoke with authority, the voice that couldn’t be challenged.

“This place holds nothing for us anymore. We can’t stay. But wherever we go, we make a new family plot, and honor all those who’ve passed over beyond our reach. We won’t forget them. Twin. Granny Sarah. Maggie. Emmaline. Lulu.” He lifted one of the smooth stones, leaving two in their place. “We carry this stone with us for Twin’s new grave.”

Rose kept close watch on her breath. If this didn’t rouse Twin, the taking of his headstone, nothing ever could. Nothing.

Ma’am grew docile, and the family set out again following the Canadian downstream. After the first confusing wave of disappointment and loss, Rose wasn’t as sorry as she thought she’d be. Every travel day they put between themselves and the fort, and away from their old home, the better she felt.

They traveled south following the river until Grampa Cow Tom raised his hand and called for them to stop. There was nothing but prairie grass and dirt and rock and shrub and close-grown trees in a nearby forest, uncultivated, and a narrow creek with slow-running water dotted with cane plants. Her grandfather gathered a handful of red dirt, lifted it to his nose to smell, and tasted a bit, letting the mass play on his tongue.

He planted his feet with purpose and gathered them all round in a circle.

“This is home,” he said.

He pointed out where the house would be, and a barn, and a corral, and where the family plot would dwell. They placed Twin’s stone there first thing, before any of the real work began.

All of them, regardless of age or condition, spent hard months breaking ground and claiming the new patch of land, again along the Canadian River, but much farther downstream, south of Muskogee.

Chapter 40

ROSE WOKE.

Gramma Amy’s gait was heavy on the packed-dirt floor of the temporary tepee at their new homesite along the Canadian River as she shuffled outside into the approaching dawn. Despite the closeness of their bodies, squeezed together like carelessly thrown pick-up sticks atop the hard ground on pallet hides, head to toe or side to foot or knee to back, they were fortunate for shelter at all, the land so stripped and scarred from the war that both timber and cowhide were hard to come by. So her Grampa Cow Tom often said and so Rose believed, having survived the horror of Fort Gibson.

Rose knew it was time to stir, but lay nevertheless, eyes closed. Snores, labored breath, and peculiar coughs punctuated the quiet of the early morning. There were eight of them in all in the tepee when Grampa Cow Tom was there, and Rose could identify the owner of each sound. Most of the smaller children stayed in the other tepee with her mother and aunts and uncles. Older, fourteen now, Rose slept in her grandparents’ tepee, along with four other siblings, including her younger sister Elizabeth.

She heard a thud as Gramma Amy dropped a load of wood collected from the nearby forest, and she imagined the creak of Gramma Amy’s knees beneath her aproned trousers as she coaxed the morning’s flame. She listened for her grandmother’s stoking of
the cooking fire and the responding snap and sputter in the fire pit, blazing of its own accord, and finally the spank of palms as Amy patted the doughy mixture for Indian bread between the flat of her hands.

Dawn was barely upon them, a gentle stirring of all creatures on the land they’d come to settle, and yet Rose resisted leaving her sleeping cocoon, though summer’s tail neared, and even early sun made everything too hot by half. She wasn’t lazy exactly, but in need of prolonging the heady significance of this day. She corrected herself. Actually, yesterday. August 5, 1865. Yesterday was the official day to remember, but yesterday had been too full of rumor and uncertainty as to the truth of the news, and today was the first opportunity to bask in the wonder. So many changes in the last few years, one on the heel of the next.

Rose heard Grampa Cow Tom roll over on the buffalo hide he’d been presented when named chief, the most cherished possession in the household, and then her grandfather cleared his throat, long and hacking and harsh, a sound she well knew could signal postsleep but maybe only prewake. She waited for him to declare himself further, but he showed no indication to rise. There was a beat of energy flowing throughout their small compound, from grandparents to parents to children, and she decided the time had long passed to embrace her duties. She elbowed Elizabeth awake.

“Come on, sleepy.”

Elizabeth tried to turn over and go back to sleep, but Rose wouldn’t allow it.

“It’s a big day. We’ll have fun,” she promised.

Rose guided her reluctant sister outside, wiping the sleep from her own eyes as they slipped into the open air. Their mother was there already, scraping corn kernels from a stack of cobs for a fresh batch of
sofki
.

“Long past time,” Ma’am said to Rose. “Lazy isn’t likely to ever get you married.”

“Leave the girl be,” said Gramma Amy. “We were all up past
late.”

Her mother motioned toward the corn, jaw hard, and Rose took up the knife in her stead.

Ma’am brushed back the tangles of Elizabeth’s dark hair with one hand. “Come,” she said. “Let’s get some milk from the cow and fight that rooster for some eggs.”

Gramma Amy was about her tasks, rock-pounding corn kernels, adding the maize to the pot, stirring the thick stew. But this particular morning, Rose had no patience for silence. The day was too important, and her mother wasn’t here to tell her to hush, to be seen and not heard.

“When’s Grampa Cow Tom getting up?” Rose asked.

“The man deserves his rest,” said Gramma Amy. “Let him sleep. No one’s to pester him today. No one. Hear?”

Rose nodded, disappointed. She wished her grandfather awake and in a mood to tell this new story. He was so often absent, for hours or days or even months at a time, constantly swallowed up with elders in business dealings and important strategy meetings. He had been gone this last time for three days, and first word delivered to them about the victory yesterday hadn’t come directly from her grandfather, but from a freedman farmer neighbor who made his home on the patch of land next to theirs. Cow Tom hadn’t returned to the compound until the middle of the night, and the sea of bodies in the tepee shifted and rearranged to accommodate him.

“Is it true?” Rose asked. She pushed a stack of spent corncobs into the dirt to save for the shoat and began husking a new pile. Nothing went to waste.

“Appears so,” Gramma Amy answered. “Soon as you’re done with those ears, bring out a jar of cha-cha from the smokehouse.”

“Cha-cha cabbage? For breakfast?” Today truly was special.

“The least we can do on Emancipation Day. Appreciate the import, girl.”

Last night, her grandfather stumbled into the tepee and without bothering to shed tunic or trousers, found his sleeping spot. He
whispered to Gramma Amy, but anyone awake could hear. “They voted us in. Today, forevermore, is Emancipation Day.” His voice was heavy with fatigue, but there was conquest in the delivery.

Though Rose waited for more, she heard only a growing chorus of snores. Often, Grampa Cow Tom sat all day with other men, sometimes red, sometimes black, sometimes white, straight-backed and solemn, talking, smoking, arguing, and once he sat with Rose and tried to explain to her what the men talked about. All those meetings of his, his dreams of living as black and Creek, both at once in equal measure, all those words finally bore fruit.

“Emancipation Day,” Rose repeated.

“Creek Council finally voted us African Creeks full citizens. Colored or red, born slave or free, now we’re members of the tribe.”

“All Creeks?”

Gramma Amy shook her head. “Not the ones went Confederate. Only Loyal Creeks. Now they’re to treat us Indian as anybody else.”

Gramma Amy picked up a discarded ear of corn on the ground for inspecting. Too late, Rose saw the short row of yellow kernels still clinging to the cob. She braced for her grandmother’s rebuke, whether slap or tongue lash.

“Pay attention, girl. Don’t matter whether you black or Creek, no hog gonna eat better than family.” Amy took her knife and scraped the stubborn kernels onto her pile and tossed the cob to the ground. She went back to task with her pounding, humming low.