Citizens Creek

by Lalita Tademy

  The storage area was packed from ceiling to floor, with foodstuffs and blankets, wooden crates and burlap sacks, and loose medical supplies in baskets—adhesives, sponges, Epsom salts, castor oil, a corkscrew, a spatula, a dental tooth key, even a pair of forceps. While the military man located a stack of wool blankets against the far wall, Cow Tom fixed on the contents of a poorly constructed crate on the floor, the top pried off and askew, as if someone had recently taken inventory of what was inside. Manacles. Chains. A metal nightmare of iron cuffs and shackles. He hadn’t carried this crate on board, Cow Tom knew that for certain; he would have buckled under the weight, heard the rattle. He stared at the crate, unable to avert his gaze, as the military man returned with the blankets.

  They locked eyes for only an instant, and then both looked away. Cow Tom made a show of fixing now on the blankets, the bins of corn, the bags of flour, anything but the crate. The military man said nothing. Cow Tom expected no different. Cow Tom was, after all, one of over a hundred Negroes here, and he had heard before of ships headed west where they chained not only the slaves but the Indians as well. He thanked the military man, and, a little awkward under the bulk and weight of blankets now his to distribute, set out to put distance between himself and the storage area, before any change of mind.

  He tried to shake off the image of the chains, instead putting his mind to work calculating how most fairly to hand out blankets. They were small, but adequate, of a fairly coarse wool, a bit moth-eaten, but decent quality. Good enough to wrap the upper body against the wind and cold, good enough to use as a pad beneath a sleeping head, good enough to warm cold legs and feet, but not all of those at once. Cow Tom had only additional blankets for one of every ten of the Negroes aboard the Paragon. Some, such as himself and Harry, already had sufficient covers, and some from the wooded camp brought along both adequate and inadequate blankets in various stages of disrepair. All would want additional warmth if they could get it, especially as winter inched closer. Cow Tom was king of the blankets, an awkward position, as he hadn’t met many of the new people. He had neither an understanding of their individual circumstance nor knowledge of who might be a leader among them capable of making decisions of this kind.

  But he did know where he wanted the first blanket to go. He sought out the young mother he’d seen earlier when she first set foot on the boat, the tall woman with three small children and only one threadbare blanket between them. He warmed to her at once, envious of the tightness of their family. She reminded him of Amy, not in physical presence, but in her determination. He remembered how she made a place for herself without wavering, a place to keep vigilant watch over her children. She had a sharp, pinched face and bony frame, and she was filthy from head to foot, but she gave off an air of toughness, a strength born of protectiveness. She was barefoot, as were the children.

  “A blanket for you,” said Cow Tom in Miccosukee. “And the little ones.”

  She didn’t hesitate, snatching the blanket from his arms. After a small nod in his direction to acknowledge her good fortune, she rearranged herself and her brood to accommodate the unexpected gift. Her oldest, a boy about five, lightly touched Cow Tom’s jacket. The boy’s longing look made him uncomfortable, as if the child carried around some hollowness he expected Cow Tom to fill. The way Cow Tom supposed he had looked toward Old Turtle when he himself was small. The way the two small boys had looked to their black Seminole father before Cow Tom shot him.

  “Thank you, mister,” the boy said in English.

  Cow Tom caught the gaze of the mother again. Her face softened.

  “I’m Ilza,” she said.

  “Cow Tom.”

  “Like my oldest,” the woman said. “His name is Tom too.”

  The boy followed his every move, eyes wide.

  “Tom Too,” said Cow Tom, and the boy beamed, as if given a present.

  “We all thank you,” Ilza said.

  He saw resolve on her dirty face. He’d seen deference to this woman by the others, and befriending her could prove prudent.

  “Cooks are needed,” he said. “A woman at the galley pot is sure to be in a better position to get a fair share for herself and her children.”

  He watched her internal struggle, weighing the benefits of a guaranteed meal against the requirement to leave her children behind, alone. In the end, food proved the greater inducement.

  “I can cook,” she said.

  Cow Tom nodded. “Go down belowdecks to the galley. Tell them Cow Tom sent you.”

  Ilza delivered quick directives to the oldest boy, wrapped her children against the cold settling in as the sun disappeared, and left them.

  Cow Tom continued on, but already the word had spread that he controlled additional blankets. As he passed among the Seminole Negroes, he found three other women to report to the cooking area. At every step, reaching hands pulled at him, voices pressed, and soon he lost his ability to distinguish between them. He gave out the next few blankets to those with the loudest claim, or most pitiable plea, until he had only one left, and went back to the military man to ask for more.

  And then he saw her again. The woman with the printed scarf. Although he hadn’t seen her face, he remembered the scarf’s distinctive swirl pattern and was sure she was the one who disappeared into the crowd the day before when the slave hunter came to the boat. She sat alone amid the press of people on the open deck, her back to him, a thin swatch of cloth that looked like the tattered remnants of a flour sack pulled around her small frame, oblivious to the wind that drove gusts down the ship’s broad deck. She seemed delicate, but not altogether defenseless, and Cow Tom was drawn to whatever her story might turn out to be. There were so many tales that could be hers, so many variations—flight and escape from a cruel master into the swamps of Florida and adoption into the Seminole tribe as a young woman, or born among the Seminoles, second- or even third-generation free, with no memory of any other way than living off the land, or marriage to a Seminole warrior and half-blood babies. But here she was now, alone.

  Cow Tom clutched tighter to the blanket, for a moment unwilling to speak or draw attention to himself in the uncertain silence. But she seemed to sense him standing there, and when she turned to face him, her profile, dark and sculpted, was as familiar to him as the missing piece of rawhide braid on his knife handle, as the veins crisscrossing the backs of his own hands, as the small mole on the right side of his wife’s face. The woman had a splash of color along her temple, a dullish port-wine stain from hairline to cheek, and it took every fiber of his being not to reach out to rub the pebbly texture of it.

  She didn’t betray any knowledge of him, but she didn’t draw back from his frank stare either, meeting his gaze with an equal mix of vague curiosity and wariness.

  Cow Tom swallowed hard.

  “Do you not know me?” he said.

  She focused on his face, as if in trance, but there was no recognition there. Her eyes were moist and sable brown, but with a flat blankness, and for a moment, Cow Tom questioned what he thought he knew. How could it be?

  “I’m Tom. They call me Cow Tom now.”

  She barely blinked, casually searching the planes of his face. She seemed a cipher, a ghost, levitating on a pocket of air, almost oblivious to her surroundings. A change came to her eyes then, small but distinct, both a softening and a new focus, as if she were returning to a long-abandoned homestead after an exhausting journey, only to find a stone-cold fireplace and tangles of dandelion weeds in the neglected yard. She seemed almost shy.

  “Tom?” she repeated. “Where’s your ear gone, Tom?”

  He sat down directly in front of her so they would be on the same level. “Gone,” he said. He reached out for her hand. She drew back from his touch, settling her hands in her lap in a tight, interlaced grip.

  “Ma’dear?” Cow Tom said.

  She stiffened her back, turned her fa
ce away, and stared out at something in the distance. A bird flying overhead? A monotonous strip of white-sand beach at the shore? The rare sparkle of November sunlight on the water’s churning surface? Her features set themselves back into vagueness, a disengagement. She’d left him behind. Again.

  He tried another approach. “Are the slave catchers after you?” he asked. He kept his voice smooth and unchallenging.

  She gave a small shudder, and turned back to face Cow Tom. “Yes,” she said. “And he won’t give up. He won’t ever give up.”

  “Mayhaps I could help you,” said Cow Tom. Much as he wanted, he was careful not to lean too close, or to try again to touch her.

  “Slave to slave. There’s nothing we can do against them,” she said, her defeat apparent. “They’ll have their way in the end.” She paused, as if piecing together a difficult puzzle. “Why would you risk on a stranger?”

  His thoughts broke in every direction, but he held himself firm. “I want to help you if I can,” Cow Tom repeated.

  She stared at him, without commitment one way or the other, waiting passively for his next move.

  “This blanket is for you,” he said.

  He handed her the last of the blankets, and she draped it around her shoulders, clearly pleased with her new acquisition.

  For two decades, of the countless times in his life since the age of seven he’d spent conjuring up possible images of this day, the thought never once crossed Cow Tom’s mind that if he could ever find his way back to his mother again, their first meeting would be like this.

  Chapter 16

  COW TOM GUIDED her down to the shelter near the boiler room. She didn’t resist.

  “This is Harry Island,” he said.

  Harry shot Cow Tom a look of puzzlement. Cow Tom conveyed a silent plea in return. They had negotiated together long enough to pick up each other’s signals, and Harry played along. He talked to the woman about unimportant and nonthreatening topics, about whether she was hungry, and the chill in the fall air, and although she wasn’t chatty, she warmed to Harry, a little, more quickly than she had to Cow Tom.

  “What name you go by?” asked Harry.

  “Bella,” she said.

  “Pretty, pretty, pretty,” said Harry.

  He rummaged around in his belongings, pulled out his fiddle, and brought it to his chin. He drew back his bow, and made up a fast and catchy tune of trills and riffs, and in a deep voice sang a refrain for a chorus whose single word was Bella, liberally repeated.

  Harry’s music attracted a small crowd on the ship, drawn to the tight space to listen, even one military man. They formed a jagged circle around his notes and his voice, and he entertained Creek and Negroes at large, but he kept his focus primarily on Bella. Cow Tom kept a close eye on his mother, who at first sat on the cold floor, both transfixed and timid. But after a time she clapped with the others, and let the music take her. She seemed stronger, almost as if without worry, and Cow Tom seized the moment to lean closer.

  “Reminds me of a fiddler used to play in Alabama when I was a boy,” he said. He didn’t call Old Turtle by name, trying to go slow, but they had listened together to those plaintive notes strung on the narcissus-scented night air, mother and son, on many a Saturday evening on the plantation after the day work was done.

  She showed signs of agitation, tugging at her swirl-scarf, threatening to go inward, and Cow Tom backed away from his attempt to draw her out. He contented himself to sit alongside without further engagement, stealing a glance at her whenever he got the chance. Harry by then was in full swing, improvising from one tune to another without pause, encouraged to continue by the crowd’s enthusiasm. By the time Harry put down his fiddle and joined them, and the others drifted elsewhere on the ship, she relaxed a bit.

  “Where they taking us?” she asked Harry.

  “Most likely Alabama first,” said Harry. “Then New Orleans. But at the end, all go to Indian Territory.”

  Bella grew quiet. She turned from them.

  Cow Tom couldn’t decide what was best. Try to reassure her? Leave her to her own devices? Continue to let Harry take the lead?

  “He’ll come for me there,” she said. “Alabama.”

  “Who?” Cow Tom asked.

  She shook her head, a quick, evasive gesture.

  “You have people?” Harry finally asked, and Cow Tom tensed.

  “My people are gone,” she said. “All long gone.”

  Pain blossomed along Cow Tom’s right side, as if a wild animal used teeth and claws to get out. The pain always passed, eventually. He drew a deep breath, unable to look at his mother.

  “My man got the fever, and died. So many of us starving, we came in by our own,” she went on. “For food. To stop them hunting us anymore.”

  Before now, he had only considered his side of loss. His boyhood abandonment. His hurt. His confusion. For years, he’d quietly nursed what sometimes came as crippling anger, with no place to go, only exercised in private, if at all. In the far past, he sometimes focused the anger toward the big house on the Alabama plantation, breaking some petty rule now and again if he thought he couldn’t be caught. On occasion, a dark wave washed over him after remembering the horse’s gallop as it rounded the bend of the long road with his mother thrown across the front like a sack of grain before disappearing from view. The aftermath was always the worst, hours of brooding before he could right himself.

  But his anger spilled to his mother as well. She hadn’t come back for him or sent word of her whereabouts, nothing to muffle the deafening speculation looping round and round in his head for days after, and weeks, and months, and then years. He’d wondered whether she was truly taken to Florida, wondered what Florida was compared to Alabama, if all slave life carried the same constancy, if being owned by a Seminole was different from being owned by white or Creek, whether she’d had another little boy to take his place after leaving him behind. He’d spent so much time on his own wounds he hadn’t given thought to what their separation had done to her. And now he knew. This wasn’t the woman he remembered, the stern but sometimes playful woman he’d preserved as young and vibrant in his mind.

  Cow Tom’s stomach burned. Harry stepped into the silence.

  “I only have my nana from the old place,” said Harry. “She’s old, and no good for travel. I hope she’s in a pick-up camp on the way.”

  Bella absorbed this. “And you?” she asked Cow Tom. She didn’t call him by name. “Your people?”

  Cow Tom forced his words beyond the bitterness threatening to block his tongue. “I have a wife, and two little girls,” he said, “supposed to be in a camp for families of Creeks sent to Florida. If they haven’t already moved west.” He felt he should add something more. “I fix to buy myself, and after, buy them too.”

  She seemed interested then, leaning forward toward him, sharing a secret. “Seminoles act different than Creeks. In the Everglades, we lived free,” she said. “Worked hard, but not to serve.” She lost her moment of animation and leaned back in resignation. “But that’s gone.”

  “Who’s to claim you once off the boat?” Harry asked. “The man from Tampa Bay?”

  “He’s only an agent, holding the paper, sent to bring me back,” said Bella. “He works for a man in Alabama.” She leaned her back against the wall. “Better dead than back there,” she said, her voice small.

  Once again, they settled into uncomfortable silence. Once again, Cow Tom tasted the cruel sting of helplessness. He left them both and went above deck, to see if there was any good he could do there.

  The boat made steady progress on the open sea, but never ventured far from land. Cow Tom threw himself into action, walking the length of the ship, checking the status of the newly arrived. Anything to blunt the dread and confusion he couldn’t control. In his mind, there was only uncertainty on all sides, about Amy, about his daughters
, about his mother, about a new home. He cleared his mind as best as he was able, and went to free more blankets. But this time, he identified four families, all women with small children, and only then, without promises, did he go back to petition the military man he started to think of as Schoolboy, Lieutenant Sloan, a formal-lessoned man from the North.

  They made another trip together to the padlocked room, where Schoolboy allocated not only four additional blankets but also small runs of cloth, several metal needles, and a spool of coarse thread. By the time Cow Tom took the goods to the families, the first wave of boiled hominy was out from the galley belowdecks. The crew ate first, and then Creeks, by order of the Indian agent, and then Negroes last. Some possessed wooden bowls and took their meal in that, but most shaped the corn mixture into their open palms and ate where they stood, or carried portions to others. Before nightfall, everyone was fed, with hominy left for morning. Cow Tom’s biggest fear of hunger-fueled unrest didn’t come to pass. No outcome would be worse than to unleash a lockdown mentality among the military men.

  Bone weary and ready to let go of the day, Cow Tom returned belowdecks. His mother lay asleep, curled into herself in a semi-private corner fashioned from a slight rearrangement of firewood cords. The new army-issue blanket was pulled to her chin despite the damp heat, and her inky black hair splayed around her head like a buffalo’s mane. Harry was still awake, on the other side of the wood line that now separated their sleeping area from Bella’s. He’d liberated more whiskey from the boiler room, and gotten a head start, brightening when he saw Cow Tom and motioning him over.

  “Who is she?” Harry whispered.

  Cow Tom shrugged, loath to loosen the tangle of his secret hurt and hope. “She matters to me.”