by Mez Blume
“You mean you stole him?” Jim Weaver asked, giving me a hard, squinting stare.
I hadn’t meant to say as much, so I didn’t say anything.
“Is that why you were chased up here? ‘Cause you stole somebody’s horse?” There was anger in his voice.
“Nn… no. It was Black Fox. He followed me. I was worried he’d kill the horse. I shot him with a poisonous dart. That’s how I got away.” I was beginning to wonder if I was making any sense at all. Whatever I’d said, it seemed to make an impression on the mountain man. His face darkened.
“Black Fox, you say?”
I nodded.
“What the devil’s Black Fox doin’ up on my mountain? He knows better’n to come up here.” He scowled towards the window, his jaw twitching. “And you say you shot him with a poisonous dart? Well, he’ll be out there somewhere feeling rougher’n you do right now. That’s fer sure.” He squinted at me again. “How’d you go and get on ol’ Black Fox’s bad side anyhow?”
“It’s Governor Blunt whose bad side I’m on. I think Black Fox is just working for him.”
A light flashed in Jim Weaver’s eyes as soon as I mentioned the Governor, and deep lines appeared in his leathery forehead. “I’d trust the bear that gave me this scar before I’d trust Blunt. But what bone’s he got to pick with a little girl like you?”
“He’s arrested Wattie.” With a stab of panic, I remembered Imogen. “And my cousin’s been kidnapped. They might’ve already sold her to somebody!” How could I lie there when Imogen was in the hands of kidnappers? I tried to kick off the blankets so I could get to my feet, but my legs got tangled up.
“WHOA. Whoa, now.” The mountain man was standing over me with his hands out like a traffic policeman. Ka-Ti braced my shoulders again.
“What’d you say your name was?”
“Kk.. Katie,” I said, trying to steady my breath. “The Cherokee call me Katie Fire-Hair.”
“Right. Well I’m Jim. You already know Kingfisher here.”
Didn’t he hear me? This was no time to make introductions. “I need to find my cousin tonight,” I said, flailing frantically until I almost fell out of the bed.
“Now look here. You ain’t goin’ no place tonight,” Jim said as Ka-Ti hurried away to the fire. “Now just you calm down and tell me what all this is about, the Governor kidnappin’ and arrestin’ people.”
A blinding pain forced me to lie back, gripping my sore head.
Ka-Ti was back. She handed me a bowl of some steaming liquid. It smelled like the blueberry tea she had served me before. I took a sip and felt my muscles relax, then another, and the throb in my head seemed to ease up just a little.
“If I tell you everything, will you help me?” I asked the mountain man.
“Well I reckon I can’t tell you that until you’ve told me why it is you need my help.” He struck a match and lit up a pipe, clearly planning to sit right there until I’d explained the whole story.
“All right,” I said, giving up. I started with the stampede on our first day in Cherokee Country and all the events that had led us to our journey to Hiwassee. I told him about the peddlers and Imogen’s disappearance, and how Lovegood had arrested Wattie. I told him every word I’d overheard between the Governor and the Lieutenant. When I got to that part, I remembered something. “He mentioned you. Governor Blunt. He said he had to remove Joseph McKay the way he’d removed you … something about the Cherokees liking you too much.”
To my shock, Jim Weaver actually laughed, though it sounded bitter. “That’s Blunt all over. Can’t stand to see nobody else going up in the world without feelin’ he oughtta club ‘em down.”
“But why did he have to remove you? Remove you from what?” I asked.
Jim Weaver whistled. “That’s a looong story, little lady.”
“Well, you said I’m not going anywhere tonight.”
The mountain man frowned, finding himself cornered.
With a quiet smile, Ka-Ti got up and went to the door, her long curtain of black hair swishing behind her.
I looked at Jim Weaver, waiting for him to speak. He was still frowning, deep in thought.
“I told you my story,” I reminded him.
“All right,” he said gruffly. “I’ll tell you what happened. But it don’t mean nothin’. It’s all in the past now, understand?”
I nodded.
He sat back, eyes fixed out the window, took a few puffs of his pipe and began. “I was a fur trader as a younger man. Travelled all across the frontier, met with all manner of dangers.” He tapped the scar on his cheek. “While I was out Oklahoma way, I met a beautiful Cherokee woman.”
“Ramona?” I asked, and thought I saw a slight wince at the name.
He nodded. “Sounds like you heard some of this story.”
“Wattie told me a bit,” I admitted.
“She’d come from Cherokee Country originally, but her family’d gone west when the government bought up the land she called home. She was the only one of ‘em left when I met her. The others’d all caught disease or some such. She’d taken to paintin’ as a little girl, and made a livin’ of travellin’ around sellin’ her craft to other tribes, traders and the like, so she was used to the wanderin’ life.” He gnawed on his pipe and looked out the window again. Though I had questions, I held my tongue. I could tell the words caused him pain.
He set the pipe in his lap and carried on. “I married her and took her out West with me on the trade route. It was a rough life for a man, let alone a woman. But my Ramona never let that bother ‘er. She was happy. We were happy. But it was no place to raise a family, of that you may be sure.”
“You mean Ka-Ti?” I asked.
He nodded. “When we found out Ramona was on the nest, we decided it was time to settle down. She wanted the baby to grow up knowing Cherokee ways, so it seemed the best place was right here, in the old country. So here’s where we came. It wasn’t easy at first for Ramona. She’d never been like the rest of the Cherokee wives, staying put in one place. But she kept up her paintin’ and looked after the baby, and helped me get a good trade going among the Cherokee. Horses mostly. Ramona’s got a real way about her with horses. They come to her — even the wild ones — and do whatever she bids ‘em. You ain’t never seen nothin’ like it.” The slightest hint of a smile made the whiskers twitch at the corner of his mouth.
“I wish I could meet her,” I said quietly.
He looked at me a moment, then cleared his throat. “Me too.”
“But what did Governor Blunt have against you and Ramona? You were just earning a living, minding your own business …”
“Well now we come to that,” he said, straightening his shoulders which had become slumped over during the course of his story, as if he’d been bearing a heavy weight. “The American government decided to send an agent down to the Cherokees to help ‘em learn agriculture and husbandry and such.”
“And they sent Governor Blunt?”
He shook his head. “He wasn’t Blunt back then. And he wasn’t ‘governor’ yet neither. They sent a fella called Meeks. A good man. Cared deeply about the Cherokee and always tried to do right by ‘em. But he didn’t understand ‘em at first. Couldn’t communicate with ‘em.”
“That’s where you came in?” I asked.
“Yup. I helped him as much as I could, translatin’, mediatin’. Even travelled up to Washington with him and a handful o’ Cherokee delegates to meet the President. That’s when I got made an official delegate of the United States of America to the Cherokee.”
“So what happened to Meeks?” I asked. My head was clearing, but my stomach ached. I could smell the stew boiling on the other side of the cabin where Ka-Ti was cooking. But I was just as hungry to hear the rest of the story.
“He died,” Jim Weaver said plainly. “He was an old man when he started the job. Then Washington named a young land prospector the new Indian Agent and things changed.”
“Blunt,” I said, a
nd he nodded again.
“Blunt never got on very well with the Cherokees. Problem was, he didn’t want to understand ‘em. He hated it when they’d come to me with their troubles and complaints that he was chargin’ ‘em too much for the goods the government had sent ‘em. I told ‘em I’d make their worries known to the President next time I was in Washington. Well, Blunt got word of it. Said I was trying to turn the Cherokees against him … that I was more Cherokee than white man and was therefore not fit to represent the interests of America. Of course, the thing that really got his goat was that I was competition. I got right in the way of his dirty business deals.”
“So he had you sacked?” I asked.
“He tried to, but the President refused to give me the boot. So Blunt took matters into his own hands.”
“What did he do?” I was leaning forward on my knees now.
“He did just what he accused me of doin’ to him. He contrived a way of turning the Cherokees against me.”
“The Uktena Stone.” The words left my mouth before I could think.
Jim Weaver sat back with a shrewd grin on his face. “Sounds like you already heard the next part of the story too.”
My cheeks went hot. “Only that you were accused of taking it and causing all kinds of bad luck for the Cherokees.”
Silence. His intense eyes stayed glued to my face as he took slow puffs of his pipe. I felt suddenly hot and fidgety. Keen to get the conversation back in motion, I cleared my throat. “It’s just a story, right? About the monster snake and the magic stone? I mean, it can’t be real.”
The sly smile came back. “Oh, the stone’s real enough. The Cherokees kept it hidden for generations in a sacred cave just over’n them hills.” He nodded towards the view out the window. “’Til it got stole.”
I waited another fidgety moment before getting the nerve to ask, “And … did you …?”
“That’s common belief, Miss Fire-Hair. But there’s more to the story than what you’ve heard, and that’s ‘cause there ain’t nobody ‘at knows it ‘cept for me and Kingfisher.”
I looked over my shoulder. Ka-Ti had just come over to join us, a smile on her face and a painted tray with three steaming bowls. My stomach gave an audible rumble as she handed me one of them.
“Good,” Jim Weaver said, taking a bowl from his daughter. “Maybe this’ll hush you up long enough so’s I can finish this story.”
I flinched and took a quiet sip of the stew.
“All that’s left to say is that Blunt cooked up a way to frame me for stealin’ that stone. And no, I didn’t never so much as lay eyes on it, let alone steal it.”
“But I don’t see why your Cherokee friends, like Terrapin Jo, would believe Blunt’s story over yours.”
I saw the scowl on his face and bit my lip.
“As I was sayin’,” Jim grumbled, “they never found the stone, but Blunt used his power to have me arrested by the Tennessee militia. I served three years in prison. Ramona and Ka-Ti were on their own. Meantime, Blunt started a rumour that Ramona had the stone hidden. That she was using it for some kind of …” he hesitated, and I felt Ka-Ti stir beside me. “For somethin’.”
I sat up, ignoring the stew that sloshed onto my dress. “You mean the stone didn’t have anything to do with Ramona?”
Jim gave me a hard look before answering. “’Course not. She didn’t give a monkey’s uncle ‘bout that old rock.”
Could it be true? I wondered. The stone was just that – a plain old piece of rock?
Jim’s voice broke into my thoughts, deeper and softer than I’d heard it before. “Ramona had to leave due to Blunt’s rumours. When I got out of prison, Kingfisher and I had to leave Cherokee Country for good. So we set up home here in the mountain, away from everybody, whites and Cherokees alike, but close enough for Kingfisher to have some knowledge of her land and people.” After a pause, he turned his attention to his bowl of stew.
A question remained burning on my mind, but did I dare to ask it? I cleared my throat and, in a voice rather smaller than my usual, said, “I still don’t understand why Ramona had to leave.”
The hand holding the spoon he had just lifted to his mouth dropped back down into his bowl. His whiskery jaw twitched a minute before he answered gruffly, “Because she had to.”
I didn’t dare ask any more questions about Ramona after that. Oh, I had plenty more coming, but at that moment, there were more pressing matters than the Uktena Stone … even more pressing than getting home.
I sat quietly and waited for the mountain man to finish his stew. Only when he’d set down the bowl and wiped his mouth across the back of his arm did I dare to ask one and only one question. “So I was wondering … Seeing as we’ve got the same enemy, will you help me?”
27
An Unlikely Ally
Jim Weaver didn’t answer for what felt like a long time. He seemed to be struggling with himself as he sat there, puffing his pipe and blowing smoke rings. Meanwhile, all I could think was how Imogen was out there at that very moment, no doubt scared out of her wits. The shadows in the cabin grew longer as the sun sank below the windowsill. I couldn’t wait much longer.
A glance at Ka-Ti told me that she too was holding her breath to see what her father would say.
“Right.” Both Ka-Ti and I jumped slightly when Jim Weaver spoke, breaking the silent tension. “Here’s the thing, Miss Fire-Hair.” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his muscular thighs. “This mountain? This is my kingdom. If your cousin’s captors are anywhere near my mountain, I’ll help you track ‘em. If they’ve gone on further, which I doubt since you said they was drunk, but if they have, then I’ll set you on course, give you rations, weapons, whatever you need, but then yer on yer own.”
My heart sank, taking my ability to speak with it. I could only manage to stutter, “But … Blunt … how could you … everyone in Nickajack …?”
He stood up, towering over me again. “Because, Miss Fire-Hair, helpin’ people never helped me or the people I care about.” He stomped over to the window and looked out with his back to me, bracing himself with one forearm against the wall. “I don’t like what Blunt’s doin’ any more’n you do. But it ain’t my fight.”
“But how can you say that when he did the exact same thing to you?”
He frowned over his shoulder. “I told ya. What he done to me … it’s in the past. It don’t constitute nothin’ anymore. I can’t undo it. I can’t change what’s happened.”
“But you can make a difference to what will happen,” I said, pleading for him to hear me out. “The past doesn’t just disappear, you know. You can’t run from it and hide away up in your mountain forever.”
He turned around to face me, then slowly circled around the bed. His eyes narrowed so he looked dangerous again. “What do you know about the past? You’re just a little girl. You don’t know nothin’ about losin’ people you love. Well, let me tell you somthin’.” He leaned so close, I could smell the tobacco on his breath. “If yer past ever comes a hauntin’ you, you’ll wanna run and hide from it too.”
As he stomped away, I called after him, “Is that what Ramona would want? To know you were spending your life a coward?” His footsteps stopped. My bones froze. Ka-Ti’s eyes closed in her seat beside me. I had done it now. I’d gone too far, and Old Grizzly would throw me out and leave me to the wild animals and Black Fox. I waited for the rage to break loose, but it didn’t. A second later, I heard the cabin door open and swing shut again.
I pulled on my moccasins and got to my feet to fix my quiver over my shoulder. Even real bears could be tamed into doing circus tricks, but trying to persuade Old Grizzly to do anything was like trying to move a mountain. I had made up my mind the minute he’d walked out of the cabin — I was going alone, and I was leaving tonight. How could I stay another second when people I cared about were out there in danger?
I gathered up the last of my belongings and walked out of the cabin onto the front porch. Ka-
Ti was standing there with a shawl wrapped around her shoulders and a lantern in her hand.
“I need to get to my horse,” I said so Old Grizzly could hear me from where he stood sulking in the shadows of the trees.
“And just where d’ya think you’re goin’?” he challenged, folding his arms.
“To find my cousin, then do whatever it takes to rescue Wattie.”
“Look at you!” he waved his hand and laughed once. “You’ve still got a bandage on yer head. You mighta got lucky with Black Fox, but don’t go gettin’ cocky and think you can take on a whole army of full grown men with that little gun of yers.”
“Well I have to do something,” I said angrily. “They would do the same for me.”
But it was hopeless. Old Grizzly stood there shaking his head when a voice beside me, soft as the wind, spoke up. “I will go with her.”
Old Grizzly’s mouth fell open, and I looked at Ka-Ti with amazement as she put her arm around my shoulder. “She is right, Pa. Wattie would do the same for us.”
The mountain man’s mouth opened and closed several times. He sniffed and turned his head away, wiping his eyes on his sleeve before walking up onto the porch. But in the lantern light, streaks of tears glistened on his cheeks as he looked down at his daughter. “I knew you had a voice, my Kingfisher.” He cupped her face in his big, rough hand, then heaved a sigh and said, “What’re we waitin’ fer? We best be gatherin’ up some supplies.”
Ka-Ti’s face broke into a smile. She threw her arms around her father’s waist as he patted her hair, then hurried into the cabin.
Old Grizzly watched her go. “I never thought I’d hear her again,” he said, almost to himself. “She ain’t spoke a word since her momma left.” He turned to me. “You were right, what you said back there. This ain’t what Ramona would want, me sittin’ up here, keepin’ Kingfisher locked up in a cage when she’s got wings that need spreadin’.” He walked over to a wooden trunk beside the door and squatted down to rummage through it.
I bit my lip, hoping what I was about to say wouldn’t sound too … hollow. “I do know a little about the past … and losing people. My best friend … she’s … well ….” I couldn’t say it, not only because I didn’t want to admit it. It still didn’t feel true.