by Janie DeVos
“Hello, in the cabin! Is anyone home?” I shouted. I waited a moment, then rode around to the back. Again, I shouted a greeting, but there was no response. Just as I was pulling the reins to turn Maggie back toward the west to continue traveling along the river, I heard a deep, familiar voice.
“Well, well. Little kaccv hokte.” It was Max, and he was cresting the bank of the Silver carrying a string of bass. He wore no shirt but had on a pair of cut-off canvas breeches, and his shoulder-length black hair was not covered with the usual black felt hat but was tied back instead. Seeing him half-undressed and looking relaxed was strange and made me feel awkward, stopping me from saying anything for a moment. He walked toward me until he was close enough that I could see the water droplets clinging to his bronze skin and the amusement on his face as he took in my boyish outfit.
“Why are you here?” He walked past me toward the racks and smokehouse.
“I need your help,” I said as I reined Maggie around to follow him.
“To do what?” He didn’t look at me but threw his fish onto the butchering table and began cleaning them.
“To find Ivy.”
His knife stopped in mid-stroke for a second before he continued. “Where’s she gone?”
“Mr. Harjo, if I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking for your help, now would I?”
“And with a smartass answer like that, you’re not going to get it, now will you?” he replied without taking his eyes off the fish.
I knew he was right. I took a deep breath. “I’m sorry, Mr. Harjo. I’m just worried about her. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve got to find her, and I’ve got to hurry about doing it, or she’ll be killed.”
Max stopped cutting and looked at me. “Who wants her dead?”
“Our father.”
This time, Max set the knife down, then turned and walked toward the cabin. “Come with me,” he said over his shoulder. “You can tell me what’s happened while I grab some gear.”
“Oh, thank God,” I softly said. “Oh, and thank you, Mr. Harjo!” I said more loudly.
Max grunted a reply and walked into his cabin. After I dismounted from Maggie, I followed him in. His cabin was sparsely furnished but as well kept as his grounds were. On one side of the cabin was the kitchen, with a wood-burning stove and a small but beautifully made oak table with two chairs. On the other side of the cabin was his sleeping area. His neatly made bed sat next to a large window, and a thick dark brown animal hide lay across a quilt rack in the corner, obviously waiting for the return of colder weather. I could feel him watching me. Embarrassed, I quickly turned around to face him as he grabbed a bar of soap from the kitchen counter and began washing his hands in a large bowl of water.
“Sit down,” he said, jerking his head toward the table. “And start at the beginning.”
Chapter 20
The Journey Begins
The first thing we did after leaving Max’s place was head for the Haileys’ home. Unfortunately, we had to backtrack to get to their place, but we did so by using a well-worn trail that Max had cut over the years. Though it ran parallel to the route I’d taken to his cabin, I’d not seen it through all the dense underbrush, and I was relieved to find that the going was much less difficult and faster.
When we rode into the Haileys’ yard, Emmitt immediately came out on the porch, and his worried expression told us that he knew what was going on.
“Emmitt, Ivy was here, wasn’t she.” It was a statement, not a question.
He nodded. “Guess ’bout an hour and a half ago. Said Hap’s crazy mad. Said he knows about the baby. Hell, he knew before Mayoma and I did. We didn’t know nothin’ about nothin’ until then. Moses grabbed some things, then got on Flint—his horse—and off they flew. It was a good thing they did, too, ’cause not an hour after that, your daddy come ridin’ in here with Alfonso Kite. Hap says, ‘Emmitt, don’t try to protect ’em. They done wrong, and there ain’t no denyin’ that.’ Said, ‘As Ivy’s daddy, I got to do the right thing now, and you’re gonna do right by tellin’ me where they’ve gone. And if you don’t know, then you tell me which way they headed.’ And I told your daddy that they headed east, even though I knew they headed west. He stared at me real hard for a minute, like he was gaugin’ whether or not to believe me. When he saw I wasn’t budgin’ on tellin’ him anything more, he and Alfonso headed out, goin’ east. With all the tracks from my family comin’ and goin’ east to the docks, that’ll keep ’em busy for a while. But it won’t throw them off forever. That Kite fella knows somethin’ about trackin’, and he’ll put ’em on the right track before too long.”
“Where’s Mayoma, Emmitt?” I felt like I was playing a mental game of chess, and I needed to know where all the pieces were on the board.
“In Ocala. After church, she drove her wagon over to tend to a sick friend who lives there. ’Sposed to be back later today. I’m glad she wasn’t here to witness this. I know she’d do somethin’ to try and stop it, but your daddy is lookin’ for blood. He can’t see straight right now, but I know damn well he can shoot straight, and I wouldn’t want her in the line of fire.”
“Emmitt, would Moses know how to get to where Mayoma is?” Max asked.
“Naw. Moses ain’t never been to Judith’s house before. He wouldn’t have any idea how to get there, and he sure as hell ain’t gonna stop folks and ask for directions.”
“I want you to think hard, Emmitt. Where might he go that would be a good place to hide out for a while—especially with a woman expecting a baby?” Max pressed him.
Emmitt squinted, which knitted his eyebrows together, and gazed off in the distance as he took a moment to think long and hard. Max and I waited.
“Don’t rightly know,” he finally answered, focusing his eyes back on us. “He’s got an aunt up at Orange Springs, but I don’t believe that’d be far enough away to make him feel like he could breathe.”
“What about rivers, Emmitt? Does he know any of them well enough that he’d be comfortable navigating them?” Max spoke calmly enough but there was no disguising the urgency in his tone.
“He knows a bunch of the rivers pretty good, but none of ’em real good—not like the Ocklawaha.”
“Okay. Does he have a boat stashed somewhere? Say a canoe?”
“I know he had one. And if he doesn’t still, he sure knows how to make one. He’s got Seminole blood in him.”
“Why would they need a canoe when they’ve got two good horses?” I looked at Max, and then Emmitt.
“Because two sets of horse tracks show up a whole lot better than no tracks left from canoeing down a river,” Max replied.
I turned to Emmitt. “Where’s the first place you’d look for them?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me if they tried to put some miles behind ’em before tryin’ to pick up a river somewheres. Everyone knows ’em on the Ocklawaha, so maybe they’d head for the Suwannee River to the north and take it to the Okefenokee Swamp. That swamp can shore hide a person who wants to drop outta sight. Ain’t no one in their right mind gonna try to track anyone into that gator- and snake-infested black-water hellhole.”
“My father’s not in his right mind, Emmitt,” I grimly reminded him.
“Let’s go,” Max said, reining his horse around.
“Sweet Jesus,” Emmitt said under his breath, “protect these children.”
“Amen,” I whispered as I reined Maggie around, too. “Amen.”
Chapter 21
Making Tracks
Max and I followed their trail west; then contrary to what Emmitt had told us, we headed south. “He tried to throw us off, too,” Max said, crouching over the fresh tracks leading south instead of north, where Emmitt had said they’d most likely go.
“Why do you think they changed their minds about going north?” I asked.
“I don’t think they did,” he said,
standing up and looking off to the south. “I think Emmitt told them to go south but is tellin’ everyone else they’re going north. He’s not about to help anyone find them, including us. At this point, Emmitt doesn’t trust anyone. Not a soul.” He placed his black felt hat back on his head and instructed me to ride behind him rather than beside him so that we didn’t disturb any more of the ground than we had to.
It was important we be as quiet as possible, which was not a hard thing for me to do. I was wrapped up in my thoughts, upset about the fact that Emmitt didn’t feel as though he could trust Max and me enough to tell us the truth about where my sister and Moses might go. I realized that deep friendships and family ties had been severed. It hurt me to see the ease with which relationships could be shattered because it was taboo for two people from different races to fall in love.
The Haileys and the Stewarts had been friends for many years. It was a given that the families could count on each other, and the Haileys had been there for the Stewarts too many times to count. And, to a certain degree, the Stewarts had been there for the Haileys, as well. I had to admit that they had helped my family far more than we had helped them. However, in the south, where white folks depended on black folks for so much, it wasn’t surprising.
What was surprising was that the Haileys seemed to hold no bitterness toward us, and seemed to love us without judgment or resentment. There was no doubt about the fact that they took a far higher road than we did, and I had to ask myself if I would have walked that same higher ground. At the moment, I couldn’t answer. In the eighteen years of life that I’d lived, I’d accepted things the way they’d always been. Though I didn’t always think it was fair, it was just the way it was, and I’d never objected to the status quo—not aloud, anyway.
We’d traveled approximately fifteen miles by sundown. It was too dark to follow any tracks, and too dangerous to continue moving through land filled with deadly creatures when we couldn’t see, so we set up camp. The sky was clear so Max decided that we didn’t need anything more substantial than a blanket lean-to. After lashing a cross pole between two large pines, he attached two smaller saplings to each end of the cross pole. The simple framework was all that was needed to tie his horse blanket to it, providing a slanted roof of sorts.
If it did begin to rain, we could quickly lay thatching materials, like palmetto fronds, on top of the blanket to keep us from getting drenched. Both dry weather and wet weather had their pros and cons. Obviously, the dry weather was more comfortable to travel in, but had the ground been damp, it would have been far easier to follow the tracks. However, Max was a well-seasoned hunter and able to read the dried, broken pine needles that covered much of the ground, as well as the broken branches.
From those alone, he was able to tell that riders had come through and stayed the course. We could only hope that the riders were Ivy and Moses. Max was fairly confident it was the fugitives, though, because the route didn’t lead to much of anything, so there was little, if any, traffic. And so far, we’d only seen the two sets of tracks. If my father had determined that Ivy and Moses were actually headed south, then at least he was behind us.
We didn’t dare light a fire after we finished setting up the lean-to. Though it would have been a comfort in the blackness of the thick piney woods, and a hot meal would have been welcome, we didn’t want to give our position away. Fortunately, Max had brought a small supply of deer jerky and smoked fish. I was too worried to feel hungry, but the weariness I’d begun to feel since the sun set reminded me that to keep going, I needed to refuel my body.
“How far until we reach the Withlacoochee River?” I swatted at another mosquito, thinking that the night was going to seem endless. Once the biting insects had discovered us, they went after us with a vengeance. We’d moved into the lean-to, but there was nothing to stop them from following us in.
Max ducked back into the lean-to after checking on the horses. “Probably about ten miles or so.” He removed his hat, slapped at a mosquito on the side of his neck, and leaned back against one of the pine trees that supported our lean-to. I was resting against the other. “We’ll break camp as soon as there’s daylight, so we’ll be there before noon—if we actually get that far.”
“Why? What do you mean?” A mosquito flew into my mouth. Pushing myself up, I stuck my head out of the lean-to and spat. “Excuse me,” I said, humiliated. As I settled back against the tree, I realized that the normal rules of etiquette did not apply right now. My greatest concern was not whether Max Harjo thought I was a lady but whether we could reach Ivy and Moses before Papa and Alfonso did. I had to warn Ivy and Moses not to come back. But I had no idea where they could go that would be safe enough for them. A colored man with a white woman would stand out no matter where they went. It was a dangerous world they’d created for themselves, and I had absolutely no idea where they would have a chance of surviving together.
“My gut tells me they’ll ride the Withlacoochee all the way down to the Green Swamp, and maybe beyond that,” Max said, shifting his weight so that he was lying on his right side facing me, propped up on his forearm. “The two of them might survive for a while in the swamp but not a newborn. My guess is that they’ll travel all the way to the south end of the swamp, then continue on to the ’Glades.”
“The Everglades?” I was confused. From what I knew, it was a no-man’s-land—as bad as the Green Swamp. No one I knew would willingly live in that river of grass—appropriately named because of the saw grass. It could cut you to ribbons, and was worse than the saw palmettos. It was a place of endless grassy waters, intense heat, numerous kinds of biting insects, and just as many biting reptiles and mammals. It was certainly the perfect place to get lost in, if that was one’s intention, but it was also a very easy place to get killed.
“Why in the world would they go to that godforsaken place?”
All the light of the day had vanished, leaving an inky and dangerous darkness in its place. It was impossible to see much detail on Max’s face when he answered me, but I could tell by the tone of his voice that he was a little amused by my ignorance.
“Because, little kaccv hokte, the Seminoles are there. Do you know what the name Seminole means?” He didn’t give me time to answer. He figured I didn’t know, and he was right. “It means ‘runaway,’ so your white sister and her Negro boyfriend will be in good company. Besides, they’re gonna need to go to the ends of the Earth if they plan on spending a long time on it. And the best place to do that is where a whole bunch of different people from different places and of different colors accept each other. They don’t ask a whole lot of questions because none of them want to have to answer any. So that’s why I think they’ll head that way. But the big question is whether or not they’ll be able to actually make it. If I were a betting man, I wouldn’t put a dime down that they will. Hell, not even a penny.”
Obviously realizing that his statement was not what I wanted to hear, he added, “But if I did have to place a bet, I’d put my money on Moses for being as capable as anyone I can think of to make it through that wasteland of a swamp that he’s probably headed for.” When I said nothing in response, he rolled onto his back, covered his face with his felt hat, and told me to get some sleep. But that, I thought as I swatted at a mosquito attempting to fly into my ear, was going to be an absolute impossibility. Daylight seemed like a very long way off, indeed.
Chapter 22
Crazy Brave
We arose at daybreak, but unlike the day before, the sky was overcast and a cool breeze hinted at the threat of approaching rain. We needed to get moving, and we also needed to find water. Though Max had brought water in a pouch that was made from the stomach of a boar, we’d finished that and some jerky for our meager breakfast. It was vital to rehydrate ourselves, as well as our horses, and we knew that Ivy and Moses would need to do the same. None of us could keep riding if thirst became a crucial issue. We hoped that their tracks might l
ead us to water. However, the chance was good that they could easily miss a small source simply by not knowing the lay of the land. So, while Max kept us on their tracks, I kept an eye out for a small creek or spring.
Most of the time, Max and I were quiet, only talking when we had to. It was far more important that we listen for any sound that might reveal my sister’s position ahead of us or my father’s behind us. After traveling for about an hour, I spotted a seep spring about fifty yards off to my right.
“You’ve got a good eye,” he said softly as he dismounted by it. “Better than your sister or Moses. They didn’t stop here, and they would have, had they seen it.”
We allowed our horses to drink their fill then eat whatever they could find near us, which gave Max and me a few minutes to refresh ourselves, and refill the water pouch. Squatting at the edge of the spring, I loosened my tied-back hair and splashed the cooling water over my face and head, finger-combing it through my hair. It was exactly what I needed to clean some of the grit off me, as well as clear my head. Retying my hair, I walked over to Max. He’d rounded up our horses and was patiently waiting for me.
“You know, Mr. Harjo, I was thinking about the fact that my father is drinking again.”
“Okay.” He looked at me askance, unsure where the conversation was going.
“He grabbed a bottle of whiskey when he stormed out yesterday to go after Ivy. There are two things that whiskey does to him: It makes him angry, and it makes him sleepy. Do you know if Alfonso Kite likes the stuff? I was just thinking that, well, maybe if—”
Smiling, he finished my sentence. “That maybe they’ve slept a little longer than we did, and you can bet they’re not thinking as clearly as we are. That’s good, little kaccv hokte. That’s real good. We’re going to make a fine tracker out of you yet.”