An Undisturbed Peace (30 page)

The next day, Beatrice did not come to work. Abe went down to the servants' cabin of his old neighbors' spread to check on her. Neither Beatrice nor Mr. Broken Branch was there. All their personal effects were gone. It was mystifying. No one in the town had seen them leave. A few days passed and they did not return. The family might have put their sudden disappearance down to the sometimes odd behavior of Indians, except for what happened the following week.

Abe was in his office working on the payroll account when the sharp roll of military drums came to his ears, at first faintly, then louder, then louder yet, until the rappity-rap-rap commanded he leave his seat and look out the window. A column of armed irregulars made their way down Laurelton's main street led by a trio of threadbare drummers, scrawny boys, none older than twelve. Behind them were thirty or so men who marched, and behind those, thirty or so men on horseback. Both marchers and riders were slumped over, filthy, trail worn. Some wore caps, some hats with chewed-up brims, others kerchiefs tied up in the manner of Caribbean sailors. They were in buckskin and homespun. Rifles were slung across their backs at cockeyed angles. Only their boots looked uniform and by the looks of some, a good pair of boots may have been their primary reason for joining up. The horses moved at a desultory clop, undirected by their riders. They wandered from side to side of the street at the slightest distraction. More than a handful were swaybacked. At the head of this motley procession was an army man in US blue, but his jacket was too dirty for Abe to be sure of his rank. He wore a misshapen felt hat, mustard-colored, with a long eagle's feather trailing out the side. A lieutenant, Abe surmised, for no reason at all. When they'd achieved the center of town, the drummer boys beat their drums at a faster pace. The leader raised a gloved hand. “Company, halt!” he said, and both drummer boys and irregulars did. Abe went outside to join his neighbors on the sidewalk and wait for whatever came next. People stood, staring, three and four thick. The lieutenant braced his toes against his stirrups, stretched himself upward in his saddle, and looked over the townspeople crowding the sides of the road. He spoke in a loud voice.

“I am Lieutenant Robeson, of the US Army,” he said. “My men and I are on our way to Cherokee country to round up them Injuns and take 'em to the place from whence they will go west. Every last one of 'em we're after, and their slaves too. Those what refuse will be taken by force. Those what flee will be hunted down. I do not know how the great state of North Carolina will dispose of their property, but I might suggest to you that those who want it take it and the law will have to answer to you later. All Cherokee who are with you, residents out of the borders of the nation, and I see a few of 'em in among the people here, will have to prove to me that they are US citizens or vital to the interests of those for whom they work if they wish to avoid marchin' with us to Tennessee and from thence to the future what awaits 'em.”

He sat back in his saddle. He reached in his breast pocket and pulled out an envelope frayed at the corners and fringed in dirt.

“Now. I have detoured to your town on an errand of some importance to certain folk in Washington,” he said. “Is there a Mr. Abe Sassaporta here?”

Murmurs rippled through the assembled. People looked around for Abe. They looked to the right and the left of themselves without success, as he was in the back of the crowd and not a tall man. He pushed through shoulders and approached the lieutenant. “Here I am,” he said. The army man gave him the envelope, tipped his hat, and kicked his mount a bit in the sides. “Walk on, Barney,” he said, guiding the horse toward O'Hanlon's stables, where a cluster of Georgian Cherokee refugees stood about. On the lieutenant's approach they silently walked forward and queued up behind the drummer boys, though O'Hanlon himself burst through their ranks to deter them, leaving the Irishman robbed of voice and scratching his head. The Indians were told they must produce any weapons carried on their persons, and each one silently offered up a hunting knife. “You'll get 'em back at the place all you all are goin',” Robeson promised. The drums rolled. The soldiers marched off in a cloud of dust with their first group of Cherokee in tow. Soon enough, they were gone.

A vague disquiet settled on the main street of Laurelton while the significance of what had just happened sunk in. After a few
Oh my
s and
What was that
s, someone suggested they form a party to follow the soldiers for the purpose of staking claim to what the Indians left behind. “Better us,” he said, “than some government agent who'll give it all to Lordy knows who.” More than a dozen men gathered around, making plans.

Abe took the envelope into his office, locked the door, and opened it. It was a letter from Chief John Ross. “As I am sure you are aware by now,” it read in part, “the battle for our country has been lost. We are all of us aggrieved mightily, our hearts are riven, our tears flood the ash heap of our hopes. But between tragedy and tragedy, there is no rest. A new battle has begun, the struggle to transport my people to the West in peace, health, and security. To this end, I am on the threshold of securing primary authority to arrange the method, route, and supplies required for their journey. My brother, Lewis Ross, will be the chief purchasing agent for that endeavor although we both admit that the assistance of under-agents who can be trusted will be essential. As we discussed this yesternight, your name came immediately to mind. …” There followed a summary of the goods the Cherokee would need, the budget agreed to by the United States for same, and a request for a list of what Abe thought he might be able to supply. Ross estimated 645 wagons; teams of oxen, mules, and horses to pull them; plus victuals and dry goods amounting to $65 per head for 18,000 people would represent a good beginning.

The very idea of such a project was staggering. In the three years since the removal treaty had been signed by the Ridge family, the three years since Chief John Ross fought to prove its illegitimacy to the US government, who among them truly envisioned the scope and complexity of a nation's expulsion? To see its details outlined in even a preliminary manner made Abe's head swim with figures, details, and facts. Of these 18,000, how many were children, he wondered, how many old, infirm? How many were strong, how many spoke English, how many could read? How many could eat a white man's diet and not perish of intestinal disease? If their weapons were confiscated, how would they hunt along the way for those foods more hospitable to their bodies and minds? He considered the eagle's feather that sprung from the lieutenant's mustard-colored hat. Was Robeson aware the Cherokee held the eagle sacred? That it would be an affront to their very souls to march behind that feather to their uncertain fates? Then O'Hanlon was at his door, knocking insistently and calling for him. “I know you're in there, lad,” he yelled. “Open up! We must do something about this!”

“In a minute!” Abe yelled back. He'd got to the end of the letter. The final paragraph stunned him as if icy fingers had grabbed his heart and squeezed. “Finally,” the letter said, “it would seem our friends and their son were among the first taken. They await deportation at the government stockade near Ross's Landing, where my brother requisitions what is needed for the transport of our multitude. My guess is that the child was held hostage. Otherwise, I cannot believe either of them would leave their aerie home in Tennessee without a fight. He is a handsome little child, I am told, but with a weakness of lung. If you accept my proposal and take supplies to that place, I would ask that you give them my regards and offer in my name any assistance I may be able to provide.”

As he read, tender feelings that Abe had long suppressed warmed his blood and sped through his veins, turning the cheeks of his face and the tips of his ears a deep red. His eyes watered. The thought of Marian in a jumble of people awaiting deportation was inconceivable. And soon she would be on the march! His mind conjured a flood of ghastly scenes based on O'Hanlon's report of the Choctaw catastrophe, in which Jacob, Marian, and their little boy—who must be past five by now, like Judah—played the principal roles of martyrs steeped in like tortures. “Open up, lad!” the stable master continued to insist, but both his booming voice and hammering at the door were like a far-off thunder. Enveloped in his sorrows, Abe was deaf to him. When he opened the door at last to stumble home in a fog of distress, he bumped into O'Hanlon's waiting chest. He looked up. The Irishman looked down. Abe handed him the letter and waited while he read. When he finished reading, O'Hanlon said, “You must go and save them.” Abe said, “Yes, I guess I must.”

In the days that followed, Abe faced down two major challenges. One was collecting enough supplies to fill a wagon he might take to Ross's Landing as a preliminary gesture of goodwill and introduction to the chief's brother, Lewis. Such a trip was completely unnecessary, but it would give him an excuse to travel there without delay to seek Marian and her family out. O'Hanlon agreed to canvass the farms and tradesmen in and around Laurelton for whatever might be had quickly. At first he put up some opposition against Abe's stratagems, arguing that, based on the Choctaw experience, he'd decided the removal of Indians from their ancestral lands was not only wrong in principle but despicable in practice. “I thought you were out of the death-walk business,” he said to Abe with the kind of haughty bluster in which Irishmen excel. “I am. The business at hand is for the singular purpose of finding Marian and her family. But I object to your overview. The current transportation of Cherokee will be managed not by greedy and cruel government agents,” Abe countered, “but by their own principal chief. Because of that, it will not be the abomination the Choctaw suffered.”

Convincing Hannah that he must leave swiftly was far less difficult than he'd anticipated and, oddly, honesty was the trick that won her favor. “I have to leave in the next few days for Tennessee to assist in the Cherokee removal,” he told her, and when she crossed her arms over her chest and asked, “Does this have anything to do with that woman?” he could think of nothing to do or say but hand her the letter from John Ross. They were in their bedroom at the time. She sat on the edge of the bed reading while he paced back and forth in front of her, remembering that other time when she'd sat red-faced and angry next to Lord Geoffrey's portrait of Marian, her family, Jacob, and Lulu. When she got to the end of the letter, she picked her head up and looked at him with a soft, kind expression. “My husband,” she said, “I am not the child I once was. I find, both to my surprise and yours also I suspect, that I am no longer envious of—what does the chief call her?—your friend. You have proven your love for me and our children over and over and I am convinced that your fond feelings for your … friend … are but evidence of the goodness of your character and the largeness of your heart. As a mother, I feel for this woman tremendously. Daily, I thank God all my children are healthy. What heartbreak it must be to have a child who is unwell and who must perforce embark on a long and arduous journey! Please go and offer your assistance to that unfortunate family, if you can find them. Perhaps you'll find poor Mr. Broken Branch and Beatrice along the way as well.” Abe fell to his knees and kissed her hands all over.

The next week, he was on his way in a one-horse wagon loaded with blankets, cooking utensils, dried beans, and corn. Between the blankets, he secreted a number of hunting knives. He continued to believe Marian and the other full bloods could not survive long without fresh game. How were they to obtain it without tools of the hunt? His act of resistance made him feel neither a rebel nor lawless, but righteous. It excited his flesh, filling him with determination to—why not?—steal Marian and her family from the stockades and deliver her back to some mountain cave where they could live undisturbed until the War Department considered its removal work well and done. Hart seemed to catch a sense of his fervor. Despite his age, which was not yet old but certainly near it, he hauled Abe and his cargo with admirable speed and good humor.

It was the height of summer. They traveled through hillsides and valleys rich with new growth, dotted with plots of cultivation once the property of Cherokee and now the pride of white men busy with expanding them. For miles on end, the sound of trees being felled, their limbs chopped, then dragged away to hastily built mills that churned loudly day and night, filled air that had once been filled with birdsong. “Progress,” Abe muttered disparagingly to Hart. The horse snorted response. A plague of heavy rain slowed them down a couple of days, but soon after it stopped, they found themselves on a plateau overlooking Ross's Landing, Tennessee, and next to it, the stockade erected just outside the town's limits. Abe took out the spyglass O'Hanlon had given him for the trek along with a new compass. He was just near and high enough to get a good look into the stockade's interior with his instrument. He raised it to his right eye, eager, happy to have arrived at his destination. Within seconds of observation, he went sick. His stomach seized up. He bent over from the waist. His very heart felt crushed, as if someone had dropped a massive boulder from a great height directly onto his chest.

The stockade, even at that distance, was a scene from hell. Hundreds of men, women, and children were huddled in small groups together, many squatting in mud with little space to walk between them. Wagons for those obviously sick were spaced in a circle just inside the stockade gate, and these were impossibly crowded, sometimes so much so that the old lay elbow to elbow on the wagon beds and children lay on top of them as if the old ones were cushions. Beneath and around the wagons were yet more sick. They lay on blankets without so much as a pallet between blanket and mud. Many of the sick were vomiting. Others clutched their guts, their mouths open and groaning. Still others coughed without cease or glistened with the drenching sweat of fever. Nearly all of them had skin covered with red, festering sores. In the center of the stockade, a dispensary for food had been set up. Four giant steaming cauldrons held what looked to be a thin soup. Queues of people with bowls outstretched snaked around them in a spiral four and five persons deep while black-robed missionaries, their arms flapping like the wings of ravens, ladled out the soup. Reluctantly, Abe put the spyglass down and with tremulous hand, jiggled the reins to urge Hart on, thinking, If she can live it, I can see it. Before he entered the cesspool that was the stockade at Ross's Landing, Abe gathered the knives he had secreted. He placed them in a sack, which he hid among his own belongings in the locked box of the driver's seat. Telling Hart that they must hold steady, neither balk at nor flee the loathsome scene below but somehow embrace it, he descended into the arms of nightmare.