American Dreams (39 page)

When Cassie served from the last of the dishes, Eliza dismissed her with a nod. She took a bit of food from her plate, then laid her fork down and hid her hands under the table so Nathan wouldn't see the rough calluses on them. She pretended to be interested in what he was saying, but she kept thinking this was all a farce. She sat at the foot of the table, directing her Negro servant, and acting like she was mistress of some great plantation when nothing could have been farther from the truth.

Why was she trying so desperately to convince Nathan that everything was fine? Nothing was fine.

Will sat at the head of the rectangular table, as befitted the master of a plantation. Eliza watched as he methodically ate the food on his plate, taking a bite, chewing it slowly, and taking another bite. When Will had selected this plot of land located a few miles from the Stuarts, Eliza had thought they were putting the past behind them and starting over, just as Shawano Stuart had done with Temple and The Blade's help.

In some respects, they had accomplished a great deal in three months, but Eliza knew a lot more could have been done. They had a roof over their heads, something to sit on, and vegetables in the garden, but no fields were plowed, no crops planted, no livestock bought except for some chickens. And Will didn't care.

He had changed. That's what hurt. In the past he had rarely smiled. Now he never did. Once, having a visitor at the table would have meant lively conversation. Will would have asked endless questions about conditions elsewhere, the latest news, the current political or economic situation. Yet he had barely said ten words to Nathan since he had arrived.

In the beginning, she had blamed his lethargy and indifference on the trail, aware that it had drained them all, physically and emotionally. The memory of that terrible ordeal would always be there. She didn't expect him to forget it. She knew she couldn't.

Eliza had tried to be patient and understanding. Black Cassie and Shadrach had helped her dig up the soil for a garden, plant the seeds, and hoe the weeds. She hadn't asked Will to join them. Shadrach and Kipp had cut the wood, hewn it into planks, and built the crude table and chairs. Eliza had tried to make do and not press Will to improve their circumstances. She hadn't uttered one word of complaint when he sat for hours on end staring into space while she saw to it there was food on the table and clothes on their backs.

But she didn't know how much longer she could endure. She was his wife, and she was becoming the very thing she had sworn she would never be—a man's drudge with no freedom to call her own. What good was her education if she spent the rest of her life standing over a kettle of laundry, patching ragged clothes, and cooking meals—not just for him, but for his grown son and two black slaves?

"How is Temple?"

Belatedly, Eliza realized that Nathan had addressed the question to her. "Fine," she said quickly and wished he hadn't mentioned her, fearing it would set Kipp off on another of his vindictive diatribes against those who had signed the treaty forcing them to this place.

"On my way here, I passed their fields. They have a fine stand of corn growing," Nathan remarked.

"Why should that surprise you?" Kipp challenged. "The traitors claimed all the best land for themselves when they came here."

"Kipp," Eliza murmured in warning.

But he wouldn't listen. He never did. "It's true," he insisted bitterly. "They sold our land, then came here and took the best of this for themselves. They killed my mother, my baby brother, and my sister as surely as if they had plunged a knife in their hearts. They are the reason we lost everything, and why we are living like this today. They did this to us!" Kipp pushed his chair back and stormed away from the table.

Eliza glanced at Will, but he didn't call his son back and insist that he apologize for his rudeness. Awkwardly, she tried to cover for him. "Kipp blames the treaty party for everything. He has been consumed with hatred since we arrived here."

"I understand." Nathan smiled gently.

She didn't. . . not any of it.

As soon as Will finished his meal, he excused himself from the table and wandered off. Probably to sit somewhere and stare, Eliza thought as she watched him walk away. She felt the smoothness of Nathan's fingers slide onto her wrist and press lightly, offering comfort.

"Eliza." His voice, his face, held pity.

She wanted to cry. But she refused to give in to the threatening tears. There were already enough people in this family feeling sorry for themselves.

"Are you finished?" She forced a lightness into her question, not caring that it might sound brittle. "Let's go for a walk. Cassie can clear the table." She knew she was playing the role of the idle grande dame, trying to appear carefree and intent only on entertaining her visitor.

"I would like that."

"When you came to Gordon Glen, we used to go for walks all the time. Remember?" The instant the words were out of her mouth, Eliza realized that she, too, was guilty of clinging to a past that was gone.

"Yes, I remember." But he seemed vaguely troubled by the memory.

"How was your trip east? You have hardly mentioned it at all." She thought to change the subject, but judging by the frown on his face, her choice wasn't the best one. "What's wrong?"
 

"Nothing."

"Yes, there is." Eliza wasn't fooled by his denial. "You might as well tell me."

"I didn't want to. I guess that's why I have avoided talking about the trip, in case I accidentally mentioned ..."
 

"Mentioned what?"

"I went back to Red Clay with Dr. Butler to help him pack his belongings and bring his family here." Again he paused as if reluctant to continue.

"I know that much, Nathan."

"I was curious, I suppose, to see what things were like, so I took a tour through the area. I went to Gordon Glen." Tilting his head, he looked up to the sky, his Adam's apple jutting out like a large knot in his neck. "Dear God in heaven, I wasn't prepared for what I found."

"What?" Unconsciously, Eliza stiffened, bracing herself against his answer.

"It is so ironic, Eliza," he murmured. "I went there expecting to see ... It doesn't matter." He shook off the thought. "Weeds had taken over the fields. The house . .. the house was empty. It was the same at farm after farm. Deserted. Abandoned. The Georgians took them and then—they left them. They were so determined, so ruthless about wresting the land from the Cherokees. Now they have it and it lies fallow. It's insanity."

Stunned, Eliza remembered the hot, dry summer they had spent penned in the camp and the chain of graves that marked the long trail they had walked. "Why?" she whispered.

"I was told some of them packed up and moved west to find out if this land was as rich and filled with plenty as the government assured the Cherokees it was."

"No." The protest was little more than a moan.

"Yes."

In her mind, she kept seeing Gordon Glen as he had described it—rundown and abandoned, the black eyes of the mansion's windows staring out over a lawn choked with weeds.

She recalled a line of Wordsworth's: "Dear God! the very houses seem asleep, / And all that mighty heart is lying still!"

"I shouldn't have said anything," Nathan said.

"It is so wrong ... so unfair. But it's done. We cannot change that. I suppose that is the hardest part to accept." She discovered the tears in her eyes and blinked quickly to clear them. "It is futile to keep crying over what has been lost. We must go on."

"Then it is still 'we'?"

"Yes."

Several seconds went by in silence, then Nathan ended it. "I don't know what is the matter with me. I meant to give this to you earlier." He removed a square package from the side pocket of his black frock coat and handed it to her. "I bought it for you while I was east. A wedding gift. Not a very practical one, I'm afraid."

"A book." As soon as she touched it, she knew.

"Emerson's
Nature.
I am told it is quite good."

She ripped off the brown paper that concealed it. The instant her fingers came in contact with the finely grained leather cover, they began to lovingly caress it. "A book. It has been so long since I touched one." Eliza clasped it to the bodice of her apron and gazed at Nathan, her eyes blurring with tears. "It is the perfect gift, the most precious thing in the world. Thank you." Her voice wavered badly, choked by the welling emotion inside.

"I.. ." He glanced back at the shack. "I wish it were more. I wish—"

But she couldn't let him say it. "Will is going to be so happy when I show it to him. This will be the first volume in our new library."

Quickly, Nathan masked his look of skepticism that they would ever have a house with a library. "Of course." He hesitated, then added, too casually, "I fear I have tarried here longer than I should. It's time I was on my way."

"I suppose it is." Eliza avoided his gaze, aware of the awkward tension that made both of them choose their words so carefully.

"If there is ever anything I can do, you have only to get word to the mission and ..."

"Thank you. I will remember that."

When they returned to the clearing, Eliza sent Shadrach to fetch Nathan's horse. Neither Will nor Kipp were anywhere around. Nathan left without telling them good-bye.

Watching him ride away, Eliza recalled that long-ago day when he had proposed to her. She couldn't help thinking how different her life would be if she had married him. She would still be teaching instead of working from dawn to dusk trying to keep food on the table and clothes on her back. Tears burned her eyes, tears of resentment and frustration.

"Is that a book?" Shadrach stared at the bound volume clutched to her apron-covered bodice.

"Yes." Absently she stroked it, conscious of the smoothness of the leather and the roughness of her hands. "It has been so long since I held one. It seems like a lifetime ago. What has happened to us, Shadrach?" Eliza murmured.

"You are tired. Why don't you go rest?" he suggested gently.

For an instant she was tempted to give in to the weariness that claimed her body and soul, but she shook her head. "There is too much work to do. Where is Will? I wanted him to stop up that hole in the coop before raccoons get any more of our hens."

"I think he went down by the river."

"Go tell him—never mind, I will tell him myself. Here, put this in the house for me." She shoved the book into his hands and set off for the river, anger simmering just below the surface.

She found Will sitting on the bank, leaning against the trunk of a cottonwood, his arms listlessly resting on his upraised knees, his hands dangling while he stared indifferently at the murky, red-brown water. He barely looked at her when she walked up.

"Nathan left. He said to tell you good-bye." When she heard the kindly pitch of her voice, Eliza became irritated with herself, and tired of being patient and understanding. "You were supposed to repair the coop this afternoon. If all you plan to do instead is sit here, at least you could catch some fish for supper tonight."

"I forgot about the coop," he said. "Have Kipp—no, he left."

"He left? To go where?"

"To the council meeting at Takatokah."

"But—" Eliza frowned. "I thought—aren't you going?"

"No."

"Why? You've always attended the council sessions in the past."

"That was before."

The lethargy in his voice was more than she could stand. "But this is the first meeting here, the first time the western Cherokees have met with you in council since they emigrated here nearly thirty years ago. How can you miss an occasion like this?"

"It doesn't matter." He stared off into the distance.

"How can you say that? Of course it matters."

"There will be others to take my place." A hint of impatience crept into his voice at her persistent prodding.

"But how many of them will be like Kipp, filled with hate for the treaty party? You know as well as I do the hostility that abounds here, the enmity that has surfaced everywhere since we arrived. How long do you think John Ross can stand alone against the calls for vengeance? What has happened to you?"

"Eliza, I am tired."

"So am I! I am tired of watching you feel sorry for yourself day after day. Do you think you are the only one who has suffered? Thousands of others buried family members on that horrible trail, including John Ross. His wife died of pneumonia after she gave her blanket to a sick child. Oh, Will, why can't you see that the time for weeping is over?" Eliza demanded angrily. "Now is the time to begin again, to build a new home—"

"Build for whom?" Will finally looked at her, his brown eyes dark with pain. "Do I build for little Johnny? We buried him at the camp. Xandra's grave lies near the Mississippi. Victoria's dead, too. So tell me, for whom should I build again?"
 

"For us! For our baby!"

His stunned expression dissolved almost immediately into one of regret. "Eliza, no," he murmured.

Stunned by his reaction to the news, she turned and ran for the shack. All the way, she listened for the sound of his footsteps behind her, hoping against hope that he would come after her and tell her that he truly wanted this child. But there was nothing, nothing but the rustling of the tall grass in the wind and the
ka-leep, ka-leep
of a scissortail in the meadow.

The emotional pain was real and deep, but Eliza wouldn't let herself cry. To cry meant to admit that she was as weak as he was. She wasn't. She would never be. She was going to have this baby and see that it had a good home, with or without his help.

She approached the shack and saw Shadrach sitting on the rickety stoop reading the book Nathan had given her. With so much work to be done, his idleness infuriated her.

"What are you doing with that? I told you to put it away. I didn't give you permission to read it." She snatched it from his hands, blind to the startled and hurt look on his face. "Go find a stick or something and repair that coop. When you get that done, go hoe the weeds in the garden. I will not tolerate any more of this sitting around." She pushed by him and stormed into the shack. When she saw Cassie standing in front of the dishpan, she stopped abruptly. "Haven't you finished washing the dishes yet? Am I surrounded on all sides by sloth and laziness? Must I do everything myself?"