American Dreams (11 page)

"I like it fine." Deu quickly took his first bite of it, his teeth crunching through the crisply fried batter that enclosed the spiced apple mix. After a couple of hurried chews, he washed it down with another drink of cider. "How have you been? I haven't talked to you in a while. Lately, every time I've been here your mama's had you busy at something."

"There's been lots of work to do, what with the apples and all."

"I get the feeling sometimes that your mama's glad of that. I don't think she likes me much." He finished the rest of the fritter and wiped his hand on the leg of his pants, still thinking about her mother.

"She likes you fine. It's just that. .. well..." She was reluctant to tell Deu that her mother blamed him for her interest in book-learning. "I guess you could say she's got a case of the grumps. She and Pa've been going round and round, and that's made her sharp with just about everybody."

"I'm glad I'm not the cause of it."

"Did you hear Master Will is letting me and Shadrach go to school in the mornings?" Phoebe saw his glance of surprise, and smiled proudly. "We's—we're learning how to read and write and do our numbers, and about geography and things like that. I can read real good, and I can write my name, too. I'll show you." She picked up a twig from the ground and, bending forward, began to write her name in the red clay at their feet, printing the letters with painstaking care as she spelled them aloud. "P...
H.
..
0... E .. . B . .. E.
Phoebe." She straightened to study the drawn furrows faintly visible in the light from the house windows, then turned her head to look at Deu, almost bursting with pride at her accomplishment. "See?"

He leaned closer to look at her name. "That's very good, Phoebe." He nodded approvingly. She was almost certain that when he glanced at her, there was a new respect in his eyes. She wasn't a dumb nigger anymore; she was smart, like him. "Can you write
my
name?" he asked.

Phoebe faltered for an instant. "I don't know how to spell it. But I could, if I did."

"I'll help you." Deu crouched down on one knee and smoothed a long patch of dirt with his hand. "Come here."

She hesitated briefly, then knelt beside him, trembling and half sick with excitement. "The first letter is
D
," he told her. Phoebe desperately wanted to impress him with her knowledge and skill, but when she tried to draw it, her hand shook, making the first line squiggly. Hurriedly, she wiped away her mistake, conscious of Deu shifting his position and moving to kneel behind her right shoulder. She was about to start again when his hand closed around her fingers, tightening her grip on the stick.

"Your hands are as cold as a mountain stream in winter."

"I know," Phoebe whispered, but they didn't feel cold to her. His hand covering hers felt like a fire shooting up her arm and heating her skin. He was close, so close his body almost touched hers, his breath sweet with the smell of cider. She felt weak and all aflutter inside, afraid to move and afraid not to.

"It goes like this." Although she continued to hold the stick,
 
he guided it.
"D...E... U... T.
      
R
...
0... N.
..
0...M... Y.
Deuteronomy.
J... 0... N... E ... S.
Jones. Deuteronomy Jones." He leaned back, and Phoebe could feel him looking at her. "It's a long name."

"I'm glad," she said softly, surprised by her own boldness, and at the same time aware that his hand still loosely gripped hers. She liked the sensation and wanted it to go on and on. Slowly, she turned to look back at him, aching with the wish that he would feel the same way.

Deu stared at her rapt face. The longing in her beautiful dark eyes was more than he could stand. A tightness constricted his throat, making it impossible for him to swallow or breathe. The tightness spread, gripping the rest of his body, knotting him up inside until he thought he would die with wanting her. His gaze inadvertently shifted to her lips, soft and innocently inviting. The sight pulled him.

He didn't remember moving. He didn't remember anything until he felt the tentative pressure of her lips, warm and tantalizingly eager, against his own. He hadn't meant to kiss her, but now he couldn't stop himself. Hungrily, he tasted the ripe curves of her mouth as it melted against his like wild honey on the tongue.

Deu felt the touch of a hand sliding inside his coat. The contact seared through his shirt. He stiffened, discovering that his fingers held the stick alone. An instant later, he felt the press of her body against his—and the childishly small mounds of her breasts. Abruptly, he pulled away and shot to his feet, hot with shame and guilt.

"Deu?" Her questioning voice sounded small and faint. "What's .. . what's wrong?"

"It's late ... and it's cold. You better get yourself home before your mama comes looking for you," he said curtly. The hurt in her eyes made him feel worse. "Don't look at me that way. Don't you understand, Phoebe? I shouldn't have done that."

She scrambled to her feet, catching at the trailing ends of her shawl as she moved toward him. "But I wanted you to."

"You shouldn't have." Deu was angry with her for saying that, angry because it made him want to kiss her again. "You're just a girl, Phoebe. Too young to be ... letting a man near you."

She stood before him, innocent and trusting, and so beautiful he wanted to groan with the ache he felt. "My mammy was only a year older than me when she had her first baby."

He did groan. "Phoebe ... don't."

"Didn't you like kissing me, Deu?"

The simple question unleashed a whole new torrent of feeling. "You know I did," he murmured thickly.

A wide smile split her face, revealing a set of teeth white as pearls. "So did I."

When she swayed toward him, he started to reach out—to check her movement or to take her in his arms, he wasn't sure which. Before he could find out, a deep-voiced summons came from the front veranda of the big house. "Deu. Deuteronomy!"

Recognizing the voice of Master Blade, Deu swung instantly toward the sound, a part of him relieved by the interruption. "Here, sir," he called in answer and cast one last glance at Phoebe before breaking into a run away from her.

When he reached the bottom of the side steps leading to the columned veranda, he saw The Blade at the top. "Fetch the horses. It is time to leave." Behind him, the front door opened and Temple stepped out, a shawl draped over her head, one end flung over her shoulder.

"Yes, sir." Deu backed up a couple of steps, then turned and headed off across the lawn to the stables.

The Blade watched him disappear into the night's shadows. Although aware of Temple's presence behind him, he resisted the impulse to turn and continued to stare into the darkness instead. Breathing in the crispness of the air, he felt that old restlessness return, the urge for action, something that would challenge both his brain and his muscles. More than once this past summer he had toyed with the idea of returning to the gold fields. It wasn't the gold that lured him. It was the game of danger, pitting his skills and cunning against the Georgians. He missed it.

His father wanted him to stay. He had openly encouraged him to see Temple. But The Blade wasn't sure he was ready to settle down to the tame life of a planter and the responsibility that came with it. As for marriage, a wife and a family, it sounded equally restricting.

Still... there was Temple. She aroused, stimulated, and challenged him as no other woman had. He wanted her more fully, more deeply, than any woman he had known in the past. After the monotony of a day spent supervising the work of the field slaves, it would be consolation to think of Temple in his bed at night. He smiled, conscious of the stirring in his loins at the mere thought.

"What are you looking at?" Temple's low-pitched voice came to him at almost the same instant that he breathed in her lavender scent. She was very near him.

Yet The Blade didn't turn. Instead, he lifted his glance to the diamondlike stars sprinkled over the dark cloth of night. "The sky. See it," he said, nodding faintly. "It has the blackness of your hair and the brightness of your eyes." Slowly, he swung to face her, feeling the heavy thudding of his heart.

"You have your father's eloquence." She smiled.

The Blade took half a step toward her, then paused. "And your father, where is he?" His glance flicked to the front door beyond her.

"With Mother. She started coughing again. I told him I would give his good-byes to you."

Even before he reached out to take her in his arms, Temple saw the desire in his eyes and anticipated his action. Too few times were they alone, away from spying eyes. She stepped into his embrace, impelled by her own needs more than the commanding pressure of his hands. Tilting her head back, she kissed him long and hungrily, thrilling to the caress of his hands on her spine and the demanding ardor of his lips. Straining to get closer, she pressed her body tightly against his hard frame and wound her arms around his neck, dragging her mouth across his cheek to nuzzle the lobe of his ear.

"I wish you didn't have to leave," she whispered.

"Are you afraid I won't come back?" he teased, then realized she never asked when he would be coming back—as if never doubting for a moment he would. It irritated him that she was so confident of the hold she had on him.

She drew her head back to look at him, her lips all swollen and soft from his kiss. "If you didn't, I would come after you," she declared.

"Would you?" The Blade stared, distracted by the sensation of her body thrust firmly against his hips.

"Yes." She wiggled slightly against him. He had the feeling that she knew precisely what she was doing. "Miss Hall says I have no shame."

"I am glad you do not." He smiled.

"So am I." She reached up and lightly traced the outline of his mouth with her fingers.

The Blade felt a groan rising in his throat and struggled to contain it as he caught hold of her hand, stopping its stimulating tease. He pulled her closer, intending to kiss her again, but from the lane came the steady clop of horses' hooves on the hard-packed ground. Deu was coming. He muttered a curse in Cherokee, and Temple laughed softly, then pulled away to rearrange her shawl to its former order.

"If you were a man, you would not find it so amusing."

"If I were a man, I hope you would not have this reaction," she said and laughed again, then walked to the front steps that led to the circular drive.

Starlight silhouetted a horse and rider followed by a second saddled horse emerging from the shadows of the trees. Without a word, The Blade walked past her and down the steps. He didn't wait for Deu to dismount. Instead, he took the reins to his horse and swung into the saddle, disdaining the aid of its stirrup.

"Give my respects to your father," Temple said once he was astride. "Tell him to come see us. We have missed his visits."

The Blade nodded, then touched a heel to the big chestnut gelding. It bounded forward, but he quickly checked it to a trot. Deu swung in behind him as they rode from the house along the circular lane. Halfway down the circular drive, The Blade caught a movement among the trees to his right. When he turned, a young Negro girl waved shyly at them.

 

In the parlor, Eliza looked on anxiously as Will Gordon gave his wife a sip of brandy. The pallor of the woman's face worried her. Her skin seemed almost translucent, blue veins showing through emphasizing her ghostly color. Victoria Gordon coughed again as the tumbler was taken from her lips, but it was an involuntary reaction to the strong liquor rather than the onslaught of another attack.

"Forgive me for being such a poor hostess, Reverend Cole," Victoria said, her voice hardly more than a whisper.

"Please do not concern yourself with me, Mrs. Gordon. After the hospitality you have shown today, no one could ask for better," Nathan assured her, his angular features gentled by a caring smile. "Rest is what you need now. And a poor guest I would be if I didn't allow you to take it."

"Rest she will get," Will Gordon declared firmly, setting the brandy glass aside. "I will take you upstairs."

"But I—" Her glance darted frantically around the room, taking in the dirty glasses and the ashtrays filled with charred pipe tobacco.

"Now," he stated. "Temple can see that Black Cassie clears this."

Eliza stood by and watched as Will Gordon carried his wife from the room as effortlessly as if she were their seven-year-old daughter. Instinctively, Eliza trailed after them and paused in the great hall.

"This cough of Mrs. Gordon's ..." Nathan hesitated. "Has she recently recovered from a bout with pneumonia?"

"No. At least, not since I arrived at Gordon Glen," Eliza replied. "She merely has these coughing spells."

"An aunt of mine had attacks like that. It went on for years and years. Slowly, she seemed to ... waste away." He glanced at Eliza. "She had consumption."

A breath caught in her throat. She looked up the stairs, wondering if Will Gordon knew the gravity of his wife's condition and if she should tell him. "Come. I will show you to your room."

Nathan was a step behind her when they started up the staircase. "Will you accompany the Gordons to the annual council meeting in October?"

"Yes."

"I have been assigned to the mission church at New Echota. I will be there too. I enjoyed our long talk this afternoon. Perhaps we will have the opportunity to do it again next month."

"I would like that," Eliza said, and meant it.

 

 

 

9

 

 

New Echota
 

October 1830

 

"Allow me to introduce our tutor from Massachusetts, Miss Eliza Hall." Will Gordon spoke in a voice reverent with respect, addressing his words to the unprepossessing man before her. "Miss Hall, this is the principal chief of the Cherokees, John Ross."

Face to face with the executive leader of the Cherokee Nation, Eliza struggled against a sense of disappointment. After all the talk she had heard about John Ross, she had expected someone with the physical stature and presence of Will Gordon, someone surrounded by an aura of quiet dignity and authority. Instead, she was confronted by a man of medium build and average height, with straight brown hair, a slightly florid complexion, and brown eyes. In short, there was nothing particularly striking about him at all.