American Dreams (23 page)

"Many of our people seek the stupor it will bring them, but they still must wake from it."

"True." The short breath The Blade released contained a silent, humorless laugh that twisted his mouth into a cold smile. "It never changes the view. It only clouds it for a time."

"What is it you see?"

Slowly, The Blade turned his gaze to his father, his head cocked at an angle that both challenged and defied. "The end." He smiled at Shawano's brief start of surprise. "One way or the other, it is coming. Can't you see it? Or are you blind, like John Ross and Will Gordon?" Deu frowned at the disrespect in The Blade's voice. He had never heard him speak to old Master Stuart like that.

"The whiskey works on you," Shawano observed sadly.

"I wish it did." The Blade glared at the glass, then set it down, its fresh contents untouched. He slowly rose to his feet, exhibiting in that movement the same taut control that had governed his thoughts for months. "Will Gordon's sister and her family will not be the only ones forced from their homes. They were just the beginning. Every time the lottery wheel spins, more will come to usurp our homes. And more and more and more."

"They will be stopped. When the Supreme Court hears the suit being brought before it, the judges will order Georgia to comply with its previous verdict."

"The judges can issue orders until the sun stands still in the sky and it will change nothing. They have no power to enforce them, and Jackson won't ask for it."

"Ross has gone with the delegation to Washington to meet with Jackson himself."

"Does Ross truly believe that he will be able to persuade Jackson to come to our aid when all the others who have gone before him have failed?" The Blade mocked derisively. "Jackson won't help us. I heard his words. I saw his face. He is committed to the removal of the Cherokee from this land. And it is like the grip of a mortally wounded man; he will not let go of his decision. Why should he? He has succeeded in obtaining new treaties with the Choctaws, Creeks, Chickasaws, and even the Seminoles, treaties that trade their lands for territory in the West. The Cherokees alone continue to defy him. We are a thorn he is determined to remove."

"We are not without friends in Congress," Shawano reminded him.

"They have no more power than the Court does, especially now that Jackson has swept the elections." The Blade picked up the whiskey glass again and walked over to the fire. He gazed at the flames for several long seconds, then bolted down a portion of the liquor. "I know of the dream Ross seeks to propose, to have the Cherokee Nation admitted into the Union as a state. Jackson will never allow that to happen. Ross is a fool if he thinks he will."

"John Ross is our chief." Shawano tightened his grip on the silver handle of his cane.

"But does that make his way the right way?"

"It pains me to hear such words coming from my own seed. When you aligned yourself with John Ridge and his followers at the October council and tried to have a delegation sent to Washington for the purpose of discussing treaty terms, I thought you would see your error when the great majority of the council voted against you. The stand of John Ross against treating is the stand of the Cherokee people."

"The Cherokee listen to Ross, but he will not tell them the whole truth. He refuses to allow the
Phoenix
to print anything that presents the benefits that might be gained from removal. I don't blame Elias Boudinot for resigning as editor of the news paper. How can our people decide what is best if all dissension is silenced? Is it fair if they only hear one side?" The Blade demanded angrily. "Ross intimates that any who would advocate removal are betraying their country. I say that to deceive them into believing there is hope when there is none is an even greater betrayal."

"How can you say there is no hope?" Doubt flickered in Shawano's eyes for the first time. "The land is ours. Our rights to it have been acknowledged. We have but to endure."

"For how long?" The Blade challenged. "Daily our people are beaten, robbed, cheated, and humiliated. The Georgians are no longer content with taking our homes, our land, and our property. They take our pride and our dignity as well. John Ross says we must remain united and hold on to the land. But at what cost, Shawano? What price are we prepared to pay for that victory? The destruction of our people?"

"You believe we should give up our land and go west." Shawano spoke in a monotone, as if mulling the thought over in his mind.

"It is our only choice if the Nation is to survive. We must negotiate a treaty
now,
while we can still obtain the best terms possible."

"No," Temple whispered from the doorway, arriving in time to hear the last part of their exchange. "You are wrong."

After the briefest hesitation, The Blade swung around to confront her. "Why? Because I don't agree with your father? You have known that for some time."

"But I never guessed you were a traitor!" Her voice vibrated with loathing and contempt.

The Blade stiffened, the accusation ringing in his ears. Turning, he angrily hurled the whiskey glass into the fireplace; its shattering crash broke the taut silence. When he glanced at the doorway, Temple was gone.

"Many will say that," Shawano warned.

"Yes." The Blade acknowledged that truth, his voice coming from deep in his throat. "But what man wants to hear it from his wife?"

Shawano wisely didn't comment as The Blade turned and left the room, moving with long strides that quickened as he followed the sound of Temple's footsteps down the hall. He climbed the steps two at a time, entering their bedroom only seconds behind her.

The shock was gone. She stood before him, her dark eyes ablaze and her lips firmly set.

"What do you want?" she demanded, then immediately ordered, "Get out! I have nothing to say to traitors."

"How unfortunate, because there is much I want to say to you." Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a movement. A wide-eyed Phoebe stood next to the tall chifforobe, clutching Temple's pelisse to her bosom. Her glance ran apprehensively from one to the other. The Blade took a step backward and held the bedroom door open wide. "Leave us, Phoebe."

"Yes, go." Temple seconded the command.

Phoebe carefully laid the pelisse on a chair, then edged cautiously toward the door. He closed it on her heels.

"We are alone. That is what you wanted, isn't it?" Temple challenged his silence. "You are free to shout at me, to strike me and beat me—"

"I have never once touched a hand to you in anger in my life!" he exploded. "Although, by all the gods, you tempt me. You know I am no more a wife-beater than I am a traitor."

"I know no such thing, not anymore," she retorted, the accusation still in her eyes. "I never believed you would seek to sign away our lands. But I was wrong. How could you even consider giving away the land of our fathers?" Pain as well as anger was in her voice.

"Do you think I don't love it? Do you think I want to leave these hills and valleys that have been home to us for nearly all of our nation's memory?"

"It cannot mean much to you or you would not want to see us give it up."

"It doesn't mean as much to me as our people, Temple. That is what the Cherokee Nation is—people. It is not a piece of land, however precious it might be to us. I can stand by no longer and watch our people whipped and abused like animals, degraded and humiliated in front of their families, with little or no hope for relief. They are already demoralized and despondent. How long before their spirit is broken as well?" He tried to reason with her, but he could see she was deaf to his arguments. Abruptly, he turned, his right hand clenched in a fist. "This is your fault, Temple."

"Mine?" she protested incredulously.

"Yes, yours. I got involved in these politics because of you, my father, your father. I wanted nothing to do with the council or the negotiations. But the three of you subtly pressured me into assuming responsibilities for the Nation's affairs rather than continue in my solitary endeavors. Now that I am involved, you are not liking it."

"You have always looked for the easy way to do anything."

"The
easy
way." He laughed at that, then came over to stand directly in front of her. "The woman I love looks at me with hatred and contempt and brands me a traitor. I am viewed with suspicion and mistrust by nearly all our people. Already, veiled threats have been made against me. If I wanted the easy way, Temple, I would side with John Ross."

Her gaze wavered, then fell under the steadiness of his. He smiled faintly, the anger gone from him as he sensed it was also gone from her. She knew he had spoken the truth.

"Temple." He hooked a finger under her chin and lifted it so he could see into her eyes. They peered back at him warily, still a trace of hurt in them, and confusion. "You are free to disagree and to argue with me all you like, but don't let this come between us. I love you."

"I love you." A hint of tears glistened in the wells of her eyes. "I just wish that—"

"Shhh." He lowered his head to claim her lips in a long and tender kiss.

But he didn't take her in his arms. That decision was hers. It had to be. Slowly, he straightened, watching and waiting, needing confirmation that she was as determined as he not to let this drive them apart.

"Blade." The ache in her voice spoke of love as her hands slid up his coat and curved around his neck to force his head down.

No further urging was required. He gathered her to him, conscious of the tight wrap of her arms and the fierce hunger of her lips. He understood the fear that made her cling to him now, for he felt it too. They had come close to losing this. How much longer could they preserve their passion and love for one another when their support and loyalty lay in such different courses of action?

 

 

 

PART II

 

 

The soil that gave us birth ... we cling to it because it is our first love; we cling to it because it will be our last....

—John Howard Payne, Cherokee memorial

 

 

 

18

 

 

Gordon Glen
 

December4, 1835

 

The
click-click
of knitting needles accompanied the sound of Eliza's voice as she read aloud from a newspaper. Temple listened without really hearing. She was too busy watching her mother. More than a month had passed since she had last seen Victoria, but in that short time her cheeks had become sunken and there was now a bruised darkness below her eyes. The increasing number of white strands in her once black hair made her seem older than she was. Temple noticed, too, how frequently her mother paused in her knitting, her fingers no longer moving with their former deftness or speed. Victoria used the pauses to observe twelve-year-old Xandra's knitting, but Temple suspected her interest in Xandra's progress was a ruse to cover her own weariness.

" 'Friends,' " Eliza continued, " 'the leafless season of our fate is come upon us. If you forget us, the fires will have consumed the fallen leaves, will kill the trees, too, and to our winter there will succeed no spring!

" 'Our talk is over.'"

Our fate is upon us.
Temple felt chilled by the ominous tone of the phrase. The flesh tingled along the back of her neck at the sound of portent.

"That was beautiful." Victoria's voice was choked with emotion, her eyes, still bright despite her illness, brimmed with tears. "That is how I feel in my heart. My precious babies are buried here. I could never leave this land that holds them in its bosom. I would surely wither and die like the leaves he spoke about."

Her remark followed too closely on Temple's own sense of foreboding. She had to crush them both. "You certainly have no reason to be concerned about that, Mama. We will not give up our land."

"I know." Again, Victoria positioned her needles and curled the yarn around her finger in preparation for the next stitch, but she made only one, then paused to frown at the partially knitted stocking. "Yet I have this awful feeling ... I keep remembering the night the sky was striped with fire. Then last year, when the sun was swallowed at noon and everything was so dark ..."

"Despite what the shamans say, those were natural occurrences, Victoria. Remember, I explained them to you," Eliza chided, making light of them. "The first was a meteor shower. A spectacular one, I agree, but no more than shooting stars you can see any night. And then we experienced a total eclipse of the sun. It happens periodically. You shouldn't let yourself be influenced by the old superstitions."

But Temple knew her mother wasn't alone in her beliefs. Many of the less enlightened of their people had regarded the phenomena as signs of doom.

"Will you play some music for us, Eliza?" Xandra asked.

"I think that is just what we need," Eliza agreed. Like Temple, she feared the atmosphere had become altogether too cheerless.

With the newspaper laid aside, Eliza crossed over to the piano and began to play a well-known ballad. As the notes of the sentimental refrain filled the room, Temple heard the baroque door at the rear entrance open and close with a resounding slam. It was followed immediately by hard, swift footsteps striking the hall floor. Temple looked up from her knitting as her brother Kipp approached the parlor. The instant he saw her, he turned and strode into the room.

At nearly sixteen years of age, he was an inch short of six feet, but his hair and eyes were as black as ever, the latter now blazing with an anger he seemed to have been born with.

"Is
he
here?" He stopped in front of her chair.

Temple winced inwardly at the hatred Kipp managed to inject into what she was certain was a reference to her husband. "No." She didn't ask why he wanted to know—not with her mother present.

"Have you seen this?" He reached inside his coat and pulled out a large, carelessly folded sheet of paper, thrusting it at her.

Forcing herself to remain calm and composed, Temple laid her knitting aside and took the paper from him. It rustled noisily as she unfolded it, making her aware of the heavy silence in the room. She wondered if the song had ended or if Eliza had merely stopped playing.