Citizens Creek (8 page)

“I send three to Fort Brooke and only two return. Both Creeks. Black Creeks. At final count we had the main chiefs, the war near over.”

“Osceola took my ear,” said Cow Tom. He fought the assault of the general’s withering gaze. “Sir. I’m serving the right side. I serve you.”

The general calmed a bit and paced the room. Cow Tom didn’t think the matter finished, but Jesup appeared to have moved on.

“We had them. We had most all in one place waiting for the damned boats!”

“Osceola brought hundreds of braves.”

The general fixed Cow Tom with a stony stare. “So he forced them. Osceola forced the Seminoles to break pledge?”

“Micanopy maybe would stand Removal, but found his advisers primed to join Osceola. So all followed, except a handful.” Cow Tom judged the moment right. Now or never. “They were angry their Negroes were separated from them at Fort Volusia, and the agreement broken. It might be helpful to send me to Fort Volusia to sense the mood there.”

The general didn’t respond. “And my soldiers at Fort Brooke?” he asked.

“We buried eleven before we left,” said Cow Tom. “One from measles, the rest at Osceola’s hands.”

The general continued his pacing of the width of the small room.

Cow Tom made one last attempt. “Some of the Negroes at Fort Volusia lived alongside Osceola and Micanopy for years. They’d know hideouts, habits. I could learn much.”

The general didn’t bother to disguise his distaste, suspicion written plainly on his face. “I’ll never trust the word of an Indian again,” the general said.

Cow Tom could have pointed out that both the general and the Seminoles had broken trust in equal measure, but the general was in no mood to listen. Did he include Creeks as well as Seminoles in his new resolve against all things Indian? And what about Cow Tom himself? Did the general consider him Creek or Negro, or did his classification vary depending on circumstance?

“The sooner we get every Seminole loaded on boats west,” the general said, “the better.” His voice turned cold. “With or without the Negroes. That’s my job. Measles or no, we tighten security on all forts. We will find Osceola and Micanopy and the rest, and when we do, we’ll burn their camps to the ground until they have
nowhere else to turn. Most sold their horses and cattle to us before they played their little trick, so their livelihood is gone. Mayhaps this time they drew some months’ rations, stole government supplies, and left me an empty fort, but I promise, that will not repeat.”

There was nothing more to say. Of one thing Cow Tom was sure. The general had been humiliated, and someone would have to pay.

Chapter 11

LESS THAN SIX
weeks after the Osceola affair, in a routine roundup of a dozen starving Seminoles in the woods, mostly women and children, one of the smaller captured boys threatened that warriors “from the big village by the lake” would rescue them. Cow Tom’s further interrogation was fruitful.

“I might have found Micanopy’s camp,” Cow Tom reported to the general. “Inland. West of Fort Brook, deep in the heart of the Everglades.”

“Did the boy call him Micanopy by name?” the general asked.

“No, but he called him the fat chief. My bet is Micanopy.”

The general played with the idea in silence. Cow Tom’s ear, or what remained of it, was on the mend, at least enough that he wasn’t scratching or rubbing or thinking about the itchy nub every minute, but it bothered him now. Still, he waited patiently. A capture this large would surely win back the general’s trust, and he could search for his mother in the camp.

“Worth the gamble,” said the general. “We take a contingent and ride out in the morning.” He didn’t hide his scrutiny of Cow Tom. “Can you scout us there solo?”

Harry was already assigned as translator elsewhere, upstate. Cow Tom would have welcomed his friend’s company and counsel, but in truth, a part of him was greatly relieved Harry wouldn’t witness his bald attempts to please the general.

“No issue,” said Cow Tom.

They traveled for days, soldiers and horses and scouts, to get to the area the boy described, through scattered pinewoods and intermittent swampy ground. On the night of the third day, the rain came in force, and they camped out under dripping palmettos, only to rise early the next morning for a predawn start. The sky was clear, and a cutting wind from the northeast brought cold and foreboding. They tromped through shallow puddles from yesterday’s downpours, and miles of fresh, gummy mud sucked at their boots, slowing their forward progress to almost a crawl in the worst of the swampy stretches. After three miles of marching, they approached a wide stretch of boggy marsh, and just beyond, elevated, a dense cypress hammock. They led their horses in.

The mud and water were knee deep, with sharp, rank saw grass growing five or six feet high. Unless they found a different way, less marshy, the horses were a liability in this terrain, bogged to their bellies after a few steps and useless. They needed to leave their horses and supplies behind, all save guns and knives. There was no way to get the horses through the swamps, and the general ordered them pulled back to firmer ground. The soldiers dismounted, awaiting orders.

The general chose two raw volunteers for horse detail, along with Cow Tom. “Stay back with the horses,” he ordered. He prepared to slog ahead on foot with the rest of the military men.

“I can survey,” Cow Tom quickly offered. Cow Tom wanted the credit for finding the Seminole village, and an acknowledgment of his loyalty from the general, and how could he get that guarding horses and baggage? But the general seemed unmoved. “The boy put the village in the middle of the hammock,” Cow Tom added. “But could be a trick. No need to risk all without a further look.”

The general nodded, but assigned two kersey-wool-outfitted dragoons to shadow Cow Tom, an advance party of three. All these months of faithful service, Cow Tom thought, and still the general doubted him.

Cow Tom was first to plunge into the knee-high sludgy waters, and quickly, the mud shifted under his feet until he was almost up to his waist. He held his muzzle-loading flintlock musket and powder container aloft over his head, so heavy that a sharp burst of pain shot through his arms and shoulders, but he pushed forward with as much speed as he could marshal. He was well aware that his musket was only good for close-in combat, less accurate than what most armed Seminole braves carried, their smaller-bored rifles better for marksmanship at long distance. Unlike the Seminole braves, only one in twenty of the soldiers had rifles—men of rank like the general—but there would still be hell to pay for giving even a musket up to carelessness. Cow Tom slogged his way slowly through the slimy black ooze and muck of the swamp, at one point able to gain purchase only by putting one foot precariously upon a clump of saw grass roots and feeling ahead for another such clump. The going was slow and exhausting, but the three men made their way up the slanted slope to the hammock.

Once on the surer footing of the raised ground, Cow Tom took the lead, with the two dragoons on his heels. He was a decent tracker, not the best, not the worst, but as they drew farther into the cypress hammock toward higher ground, the Indian signs would have been unmistakable even to a novice. Grass and mud pounded by moccasins, hides and bones of slaughtered cattle, footprints going hither and thither. The hammock was only three or four hundred yards long, and opened to a prairie, fairly dry, with both cattle and Indian ponies grazing. In the distance was the smoke of multiple campfires. For so many cattle and ponies to graze, there had to be another entranceway to the village.

Cow Tom stuck to the dense trees, a dark line of shadowy cypresses, where gently swaying Spanish moss was the only moving thing. The settlement seemed large, several hundred at least, and bringing so many in for Removal would be a challenge for the relatively small number of military, but Cow Tom was satisfied he’d
found the community. He swung wide of the village, and within the hour, found another swamp on the far end, but not so deep, passable for horses and men in either direction. They’d entered on the back side of the village, and the advance party set out to return to the general with the news, following the higher ground out and across the prairie, circling around until they rejoined the military party from behind.

“I found the village, sir,” Cow Tom reported back to the general, “and there’s a better way in, over drier ground.”

The general looked to the dragoons for corroboration.

“We saw it too, sir,” said one of the soldiers.

The general regarded Cow Tom, his eyebrows knit in assessment, although the hardness of his features remained intact. “Well done,” he said. He turned to the rest of the men. “Mount up,” he ordered. “Follow Cow Tom. We take the village.”

Cow Tom made his face a mask as he rode to the front of the phalanx of soldiers, processing the while his surprise. He’d received a rare compliment from the general, in front of the other men. Maybe his favored status could be restored.

On horseback, Cow Tom led the men away from the deepest swamp and through the woods abutting the prairie. They made good time, both cavalry and army together, picking their way through the wooded terrain, until they were at the lip of the tree line, still providing cover, but within sight of the village.

“Torches,” called the general.

A dragoon quickly produced five torches, branches wrapped in cloth and soaked in kerosene, and awaited his orders. This was the part that disturbed Cow Tom most, watching helpless as the general’s men burned down Seminole villages. He usually hung about on the fringes, back turned, waiting for the deed to be finished. His usefulness came afterward, in translation duties with the victims, newly homeless, stunned, and defeated. He explained the terms and mechanics of Removal to them in Miccosukee as they stood or squatted in the midst of scorched, choking air, their homes now
nothing but smoldering ash. After, he rounded up confiscated cattle and ponies to drive back to the fort.

Cow Tom backed away, separating himself, closer to the tree line, and waited.

“Formation,” ordered the general, and the men lined up, ready for the charge to storm the village. They needed little instruction, having played out the scenario many times in the last few weeks.

The general called out the two dragoons who’d accompanied Cow Tom in the advance party, and two others selected at random, and he scanned the other men around him. His eyes, bright and filled with purpose, settled on Cow Tom.

“You found them,” the general said. “You burn it down.”

This wasn’t part of the bargain. Cow Tom wanted recognition for finding the settlement, not responsibility for destroying it. His own mother might be in there. But the general’s unyielding gaze was upon him.

He accepted one of the torches from the dragoon, and several sulfur friction matches, but didn’t let go of his musket, a clumsy undertaking. Cow Tom had seen this process enough times to know the sequence, but he’d never before set flame. They made a quick plan, who would take which part of the village, and mounted, the five of them, and set the torches alight. Cow Tom dug his heels into his horse’s sides and they were in motion. He rode at something less than a gallop with his blazing torch, and peeled away from the others toward his assignment, the southwest corner, all the while plotting a way out, how not to be a part of burning the village down. Out of the general’s sight, he would go through the motions, he promised himself, nothing more. He dallied as much as he dared.

The settlement was larger than he initially thought. In scouting, they’d skirted around only half of the periphery, but there were hundreds living here, a hut city of open-sided housing on stilts, with raised platforms and roofs thatched with palmetto leaves, supported by poles. On horseback, Cow Tom watched two plumes of dense, dark smoke, one crosswise to his position and
another off to his right. The other dragoons had done their work, flames beginning to rise above the palmetto roofs. It sickened him, the transformation, the village alive with upheaval, like a disturbed anthill. Panic let loose, Seminole women in tunics running, confused children wailing, already alert to the destruction even before the general’s scream of “Charge” and the sharp bugle blasts behind him.

He pulled up on his horse to watch the crackling blazes stretch skyward in height and intensity, and scanned the village for dark faces. Of a sudden, a black Seminole brave stood on the ground on his other side, an egret feather in his cap, bare-chested, dressed only in breechclout and leggings, a long rifle pointing at Cow Tom’s chest. Behind the man were two boys, eyes wide in terror, the same age as Malinda and Maggie were when he left them back in Alabama. The black man’s lean, dark face was accusation laid bare. He was not that much younger than Cow Tom, no more than twenty-five, with a deep mahogany sheen to his skin. A long, silent moment passed between them.

Cow Tom didn’t know what to make of the wordless exchange, but registered both anger and disgust from the man. He wished he could stop and explain to this black Seminole how he came to be holding that fiery torch, burning the village, threatening his sons, following orders he knew were wrong, when all he wanted was to get back to Amy, and his girls, and his tribe. The seconds stretched long, until Cow Tom had the presence of mind to throw the torch toward the man’s feet, scramble off his horse, and roll to the ground. He sprang back up in a defensive posture. Only Cow Tom’s quickness prevented the bullet from finding a home in his chest instead of ripping through his breeches and merely nicking his thigh. There was a sting, but barely any blood, and Cow Tom still had his senses.

The brave set about shoving in another load, methodically, expertly, but the tight rifling of his superior gun meant a slower reload, and in the chaos and noise all around him, Cow Tom grabbed his own musket from the horse’s saddle, loaded and already primed,
and pointed it toward the man. But the brave never let up his reloading rhythm, except to bark an order in Miccosukee.

“Find Mother!” he said, and pushed the boys away from his body, out of this particular harm’s way, and they were off in a flash, bare feet slapping the mudded hammock, running toward the center of the burning village, away from him.