Cat-O'nine Tails

by Julia Golding

  I said nothing, watching a fish flail against the odds up to a higher ledge. Its tenacity was awe-inspiring, chiming with something inside me.

  ‘Picturesque, isn’t it?’ he commented ironically, waving his hand towards the lip of a particularly long fall. ‘That’s what your fine folks would say if they were here. But no need for us to get our feet wet – there’s a path of sorts down this side.’ He gave me a shove in the back. ‘You go first: I don’t want you tripping and tumbling on top of me.’

  ‘Will you untie my hands?’ I asked, not liking the look of the rocky path he expected me to climb down.

  ‘No. You take your chance as you are. I don’t want you running off now.’

  I didn’t bother to protest, but began to descend. The stones were wet and slippery. Inevitably, I lost my footing and slid to a broad ledge jutting out over the fall. I would have gone over had I not been jerked to a stop by the rope he still held.

  ‘Idiot!’ he bellowed, leaping down after me and hauling me to my feet. My legs and back were grazed and I had twisted my ankle. The spray from the waterfall fell around us like fine rain, soaking us both.

  ‘I need my hands! I can’t climb without my hands!’ I shouted back over the noise of the thundering water.

  Just then an arrow skittered to the ground at our feet. Maclean sprang round as if he had been stung.

  ‘Damnation! Indians!’ he cursed, ungallantly pulling me in front of him as a shield.

  Unheard and unseen until the very last moment, my Creek family emerged from the trees. Kanawha already had another arrow fitted to her bow. Tecumseh stepped forward.

  ‘You take my sister without leave,’ he said sternly. ‘Let her go.’

  Maclean felt under the skirt of his long jacket and pulled out a pistol, another purchase from the trading post that he had kept quiet about. He levelled the gun first at Tecumseh, then, thinking better of that, at my temple.

  ‘I told you, Indian, the girl’s my business. One step nearer and I’ll kill her.’

  Tecumseh hesitated. His eyes flicked from me to the fall behind us.

  ‘We cannot let you take her. She is family. That is our law.’

  I braced myself, planting my feet firmly on the ground. If only that pistol was not at my temple, I would put my rash plan into action; but move now and I’d be dead before I had a chance.

  Maclean felt me shift and pressed the barrel even closer into my flesh. ‘But just at the moment, it’s my law that matters and I say I take her or I take her life – an easy choice, Indian. Do you prefer the girl alive or dead?’

  Kanawha had her lips pressed close together, trying to get a clear shot at Maclean.

  ‘Tell your Amazon to put down her bow,’ continued Maclean. ‘You must retreat.’

  Tecumseh met my eyes; I think he intuitively understood my thoughts. I wanted no one to die; there would be other opportunities. He nodded and put a hand on Kanawha’s shoulder. She lowered the arrow.

  ‘Ayaah!’ With a war cry of pure fury, a third Indian leapt from the other side of the stream across the waterfall, landing on the ledge behind us. Maclean spun me round in surprise and discharged the pistol at our attacker. Little Turtle clutched his chest and tumbled down from the rock, landing on the shelf below. I screamed in shock and fury. I didn’t want this for me – not bloodshed.

  ‘Very stupid!’ Maclean shouted, throwing the now empty pistol aside and dragging the wooden-handled blade out of his belt. He held it out in front of us. ‘Attack again and she dies.’

  Tecumseh made to go to the rescue of his brother, who was groaning on the rock below.

  ‘Don’t move!’ warned Maclean, shuffling backwards.

  That was my chance. I used the backwards momentum and pushed hard, catching him unawares. His arm still across my chest, we tumbled over the edge into the waterfall. I can remember the sensation of freefall – the brief, terrifying exhilaration of letting go of life with no hope or expectation of surviving. My hands were bound – I couldn’t swim, but at last I had had it in my power to make a choice and I’d chosen to be free.

  Perhaps the fact that I am able to write this has told you that my tale has not quite come to its end. I owe you, Reader, an account of what happened next even though it pains me to do so.

  We hit the water with stunning force. Maclean let go of me, intent on his own survival. I sank, pulled down in the boiling currents of the pool. All was confusion. My lungs burned, crying out for me to breathe. Things brushed past me: rocks, fish, debris. I could see nothing, knew nothing.

  Then one touch firmed into a grip. I was hauled upwards and broke the surface to take a gasp of wonderful air. Another hand seized the back of my shirt and hauled me to the side. I lay there, coughing water; it was enough to feel rock under my cheek.

  ‘Cat!’ Kanawha slapped my back, dripping water over me as she leant forward and cut my ropes. I guessed I now knew who had leapt into the pool to save me.

  ‘I’m all right. Little Turtle?’

  She did not reply, but ran back up the rocky path at the side of the waterfall. Having helped haul me on shore, Tecumseh had already rushed to his brother’s aid. I could see the two Indians cradling Little Turtle, Tecumseh rocking to and fro in grief, his clothes stained with blood. Kanawha let out a cry that echoed through the forest, louder even than the roar of the waterfall.

  Struck in the heart by Maclean’s bullet, Little Turtle had bled swiftly to death. A red stream trickled from his body and dripped over the edge of the fall to the water.

  The Creeks found Maclean as he attempted to escape downriver in his boat. He was brought back that night to Chickamauga and locked in a granary as his case was not to be heard until the clan had paid tribute to the fallen warrior. I watched from the edge of the circle of torches as everyone else from the village gathered around the totem in the centre, grieving loudly for a man who had been well liked for his shyness, modesty and loyalty. Kanawha was inconsolable. Grandmother Bee’s face was set, betraying only fierce anger as yet another of her kin was claimed by death. Tecumseh led the ceremony with rigid dignity, though I could see he was holding back a storm of emotions.

  As for me, I was numb. I had been prepared to risk my own life, but I had never meant to be the cause of someone else’s death. I knew that no one blamed me – their anger was saved for Maclean – but I blamed myself.

  My eye was caught by the two Americans, standing like me at the edge of the circle. Davies was taking notes, Stuart was sketching the litter on which they had placed Little Turtle. I marched over and ripped the pad out of the artist’s hands before he knew what had hit him.

  ‘Have you no respect?’ I hissed at him, tearing the drawing into confetti.

  Davies tucked his notebook in his pocket before that too shared the same fate.

  Stuart shrugged. ‘It’s only an Indian.’

  Whack! I slapped him hard around the face. Stuart was too astounded to react.

  ‘He may be only an Indian to you, but to me, he was a friend, a brother.’ I turned to glare at Davies, who was eyeing me with interest. ‘And don’t you dare put that in your book, you, you vulture!’

  ‘And how do you propose to stop me, young woman?’ he asked arrogantly. He seemed amused rather than angry at my intervention. ‘Do you not know that the conquerors always write the history books?’

  ‘Conquerors?’ I spat. ‘All I see is a white man who thinks he knows it all.’

  ‘You are English, aren’t you?’ Davies noted.

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, you might like to reflect that it was your nation among others that brought this civilization down. I am merely riding in the wagons behind that conquering army. You are looking at the last of a great race.’ He nodded at Tecumseh, Killbuck and the other men who had now shouldered the litter to take Little Turtle into the forest. I bowed my head as they passed.

  ‘You see, my dear,’ Davies continued, ‘there is no changing the outcome. America belongs to the white man now. You c
an do nothing to alter that.’

  ‘Perhaps not. But there is something I can do,’ I muttered as the men disappeared into the trees.

  Davies gave me a patronizing smile. ‘But what can a girl do against the forces of history?’

  ‘You’re not the only one who can write.’ I turned on my heel and left the circle of torches.

  Maclean’s trial took place the following morning. The men of the village sat in a circle; Maclean was forced to kneel in the centre, his arms bound. He looked ashen: he knew that the Indians had it in their power to execute him and doubtless he was imagining all sorts of horrible ends. I have never shared my fellow Londoners’ love of a good hanging, but for once I could understand what drove us to take a life in revenge. It was a cold kind of satisfaction that did nothing to heal the grief, but it was all the living could offer the spirits of the dead.

  No sooner had I thought this than the conviction formed in my breast that Little Turtle would not want to be honoured in this way. He had loved music, dancing, jokes, his family; an execution would have saddened him.

  Most of those gathered, however, were after Maclean’s blood. The charges were listed against him: murder, abduction, violation of a sacred place. Seeing him cowering before Chief McGillivray, I wondered what had driven Maclean to be as he was? His cruelty had been so implacable from the beginning, yet he also showed signs of being an educated man; how could he have become the savage that knelt before all these good people? I remembered that Mrs Foster had told me that he had once been in training to be a priest but had been forced to sea by poverty. Had this soured him, turned him from his beliefs in a loving and compassionate God? Or maybe he had never truly believed what he was to preach?

  Trying to put myself in the shoes of my enemy was making my head spin and complicating my feelings. It was easier to hate, much harder to understand.

  The chief raised his hands and the talk died away. He pronounced his judgement in English for the benefit of the prisoner.

  ‘Mac Clan is guilty of murder. The penalty I leave to the family to decide.’ He turned to Tecumseh and handed him an axe. ‘It is your right to take his life. Or you can demand compensation.’

  Maclean bent his head, expecting the blow to fall. At least he was taking his sentence with dignity, something I had not expected.

  With a whooping cry, Tecumseh brandished the axe – and threw it into the earth in front of Maclean.

  ‘My brother is gone and no death can bring him back. But his loss must be honoured: I ask that Maclean serve our clan for the rest of his worthless life.’

  McGillivray nodded. ‘Your words are wise, my brother. A white man’s death would bring vengeance on us no matter what his crime. He will be taken to the clan grounds on Smoke Ridge and will work for us there.’ He turned to the purser. ‘Do not think to escape. It is far from any village and we will hunt you down if you run.’

  I remembered Tecumseh’s words as to the three alternatives facing captives: death, adoption or slavery. Maclean was about to taste the bitter fate of the slave; it was no more than he deserved.

  The trial over, Maclean was led away. As he passed me, he spat at my feet, but he had no power over me now and such gestures were futile. I did not doubt he was still hoping for some last-minute reprieve but I could not see where help would come from. He could hardly appeal to Davies and Stuart; his part in the American wars had made him no friend of theirs. If they found out who he really was, he would be facing jail in white man’s territory as well as here. He would have to be content to be a footnote in Davies’ book on the administration of Indian justice.

  Serves him right.

  ‘Approach, Girl Cat.’

  My thoughts were broken into by McGillivray’s voice. My heart skipped a beat. What had I done wrong? I had broken my fast unwillingly but maybe the violation had to be punished?

  ‘Do not fear,’ the chief said, seeing the panic on my face. ‘We have to discuss your future.’

  I stumbled into the centre of the circle and sat down at Tecumseh’s side.

  ‘We have some things to say together, Girl Cat, and some decisions to take.’

  I nodded. After the fall into the water, I had given little thought to tomorrow. I still wanted to get away but the possibility was more remote than ever now that I owed Kanawha and her brothers my life. I might not be officially a slave like Maclean, but I felt I had a debt to repay.

  ‘First, the ancestors have shown us your spirit guide. Puse Fo say that your willingness to throw yourself into the water, and the fact that you survived, means that it is the leaping trout.’

  A murmur of agreement went round the circle. McGillivray bent forward and placed a leather thong round my neck. I grasped the necklace in my fist, feeling the wooden fish that hung from it. The carving fitted snugly in my palm.

  ‘But like the fish I fear that you only come upstream for a brief time before returning to the ocean,’ McGillivray continued.

  What was this?

  ‘Your intended mate is dead but no other warrior will wish to wed with the girl with witch-words, fearing you are ill luck.’

  Tecumseh put his hand consolingly on my back, but I could hardly contain the explosion of relief inside me. If I understood rightly, I didn’t have to marry; I didn’t even have to ask to leave: they were throwing me out.

  ‘But I would not willingly consign a maiden to a life among us without a husband, to an empty hut and no children to make her old age comfortable. So what must we do? The ancestors have spoken to me. They said that when you fell, you died again; you passed through the water and emerged to a new life. This has broken the ties that bound you to us.’

  ‘You want me to go?’ I asked hesitantly.

  He turned the question round. ‘Do you want to go?’

  I bit my lip, thinking of the family into which I had so briefly been welcomed; of course I wanted to go, but it would not be without regrets.

  ‘Yes, I want to swim back to my ocean, but I will leave part of me here.’

  ‘That is as it should be. You are still Girl Cat of the Wind Clan, even if you swim far from your spawning grounds, little fish.’

  That was all very well, but unlike the trout I could not travel to the sea by my own fins. ‘How am I to go?’

  McGillivray smiled. ‘I have spoken to Mr Davies. After some persuasion, he said that he would escort you to Philadelphia, but only if you promise to behave.’ He took a puff of his long-stemmed pipe. ‘It was noticed that Mr Stuart had a bruised cheek this morning.’

  A chuckle fluttered around the group.

  ‘I’ll try to behave,’ I promised.

  ‘Then, farewell, my sister. Like the fish, may your spirit find its way home when your time comes to join our ancestors.’

  My parting from my family was a more private affair, but a painful one. Grandmother Bee gripped my wrist tightly as she gabbled advice to me, advice I could not follow, but I understood that she had taken me into her heart and wished for my happiness. Leaving the clan seemed an undeserved punishment to her – a fate worse than death – and I had a hard time persuading her that I held no grudge for my banishment. She pressed upon me a bundle of medicines, rapidly explaining their uses, evidently determined that I should have a cure for most of life’s ills. Once my pack was full, she then patted my chest.

  ‘No cure for broken heart,’ she muttered in English, wiping away a tear.

  I knew that she was thinking of Little Turtle and so I kissed her on the brow.

  ‘No, nothing can mend that,’ I agreed.

  Kanawha gave me her spare bow and a set of arrows.

  ‘So you do not go hungry,’ she explained, her eyes bright with unshed tears.

  ‘Thank you, sister,’ I replied, a lump in my throat. ‘I owe you my life but I have nothing to give in return.’

  ‘Sisters have no need of payment. You are part of me.’

  I hugged her tight, wondering for the first time if I was doing the right thing by turning my back
on the family I had so long sought.

  Tecumseh’s gift was generous beyond my expectations. The morning of my departure, he led me to the paddock and handed me Sasakwa’s bridle.

  ‘White men go back to their horses at the trading post. You will need a mount for your journey. Sasakwa is yours.’ The pony snorted and bolted for the other end of the field. Tecumseh’s mouth wrinkled into a smile. ‘Or should I say, you are Sasakwa’s. Look after her. Check her feet as I showed you. See to her comfort before yours each time you stop; then I think she will serve you well.’

  He handed me a brightly coloured blanket for her back, sacks of fodder and a brush to groom her coat.

  ‘The blanket belonged to my brother. He would have liked you to have it.’

  My eyes filled with tears at the mention of Little Turtle. I felt overwhelmed by Tecumseh’s kindness. ‘Thank you. You have all been so good to me and I have brought you only trouble.’

  He rested his hand on my shoulder. ‘No, trouble followed you but you are not to blame. We do not regret that our paths crossed. You will always be our sister no matter where your fate takes you – remember that.’

  SCENE 2 – PHILADELPHIA

  It did not take someone with the brains of Newton to work out that the two Americans were not pleased to have me as a third in their little party, but they did not dare refuse Chief McGillivray’s personal request. They had thought they were returning to Philadelphia in triumph with tales of their travels in the wilderness; now they were forced to bring a bit of the wild home with them and were not sure how it would be received. I heard Mr Davies mutter that I made a better impression in a book than in reality: more romantic and less scruffy.

  Harsh – but true.

  Tecumseh led me by forest trails to the trading post while the Yankees made their way by river. At our rendezvous, my brother solemnly entrusted me to Mr Davies’ care.