by Sarah Bird
“Hush, hosses, hush,” Favor said.
The horses quieted down. I eased forward, took a deep breath, gathered my courage, and chunked Vikers’s pot hard as I could into the middle of the herd. It clanged and clattered with a fearsome noise that would of given me away, except that the horses started whinnying and churning about. Favor was so occupied heading off a complete stampede that he didn’t notice even when I stood, passed among the milling animals, and retrieved what was left of the stolen pot.
As I’d hoped, it was trampled but good. The gooseneck spout hung on by the thinnest of welds. As soon as I was in the clear, I popped it loose. The spout was exactly the length I needed. Six inches. I worked it down into my drawers and between my legs and secured it so that it wasn’t poking me.
I slipped back into my bedroll and slept as easy as a babe in the cradle. I was filled with the kind of peace familiar to those who place their faith in Jesus and turn loose the reins on their lives. My faith was in my Iyaiya. She had made a way for me and I had no doubt that it would lead me out of the sorry place I now found myself in.
Chapter 49
Shrieks of a pitch to raise both the quick and the dead woke me the next morning. The discovery that he’d spent the night with a rattlesnake had Vikers dancing about in the predawn light, waving his hands in the air, and squealing like a hysterical girl.
“It’s dead,” his bunkies repeated a dozen times, to no avail, for, as Iyaiya must of known, Vikers had snakephobia bad and he had been driven out of his senses. This was better than I could of ever hoped for in the way of cutting the man down. I gulped down three cups of coffee, eager for the next act of my play.
Vikers quit shrieking around the time my bladder threatened to burst. I strutted off to the edge of camp and faced out toward the line of blue mountains, streaked along the top with orange where the sun was peeking up.
Trying to think of a song that’d get everyone’s attention, I recalled a ditty we’d learned off of a stomper who worked in a cotton gin back in Hempstead. Though the man coughed constantly, as, like most of them there, he was dying of cotton lung from breathing in clouds of lint all day, he managed to teach us the words that I bellowed out now.
There’s a yellow girl in Texas
That I’m going down to see
No other darkies know her
No darkey, only me
She cried so when I left her
That it like to broke my heart,
And if I only find her,
We never more will part
When I opened up and really sang, I had a voice that could make water tremble in a horse trough. It was a voice you felt in the pit of your gut. Like me, whether you thought my voice was pretty or not didn’t count for much, it would get the job done.
And the job then was to get every trooper’s attention. Which it did. They shifted their stares from Vikers, who had collapsed into whimpering trembles, to me. I hawked and snorted and spit before commencing the main act. Having gotten bushels more schooling than I ever cared to on how to pee like a man, I took my stance, spreading my legs as though extra bracing was required to counterbalance the magnificent weight being pulled forth, before I dug into the fly of my britches and took hold of what I’d planted there. Then, although there was no one at my side, I performed a maneuver I’d seen the less endowed among the men use and covered up what little of the spout I allowed to protrude with one hand. The other I rested on my hip in the manner of the jauntier troopers. And then, standing straight up, I turned loose of all that used coffee. Though but a dribble, it did squirt out from roughly the right place.
“Hoo-WEE!” Lem said, startling me, as he took his place at my side and unbuttoned. “Thought we already done crossed the Mississippi.”
Though Lem was happily occupied in unloosing a majestic arc, I turned away.
“Oh, sorry, Bill,” Lem said. “Thought you was over your bashful spell. No disrespect intended.”
“None taken, Lem,” I answered.
More hawking and spitting covered any telltale clanks of the spout against the pewter buttons of my fly as I tucked my equipment back into its kerchief holder, closed the fly, hitched up my suspenders, and turned to face Vikers. Though he tried to glare back at me, it didn’t work as he’d gone the color of cold ashes and his hands were trembling.
I sauntered his way and, when the only sound was the far-off chittering of prairie dogs barking out their good mornings to each other and warning us not to come any closer, I said to Vikers, “Next one’ll be alive.”
Chapter 50
Fort Clark, where we stopped for a week of rest, barely merited being called a fort, yet it seemed like Paris, France, to our saddle-sore company as we’d had naught but the stars overhead for a roof and the hard ground beneath our bones for a bed for weeks. The one characteristic that distinguished the ramshackle collection of weather-beat jacales and half-burned barracks was, unlike any other fort you’d ever ride into anywhere in the entire country, this one had no flag flapping above it.
The flagpole was nothing but a black stump poking up out of a weedy parade ground for it had been burned down by the Union commander when the Rebs overtook the fort in the first year of the war. Though that Yankee commander surrendered without a fight, he was bound that the Confederate Stars and Bars flag would never fly above Fort Clark. So he set the flagpole on fire. As well as the barracks and whatever else he could torch before clearing off.
Beyond putting the fires out, the Rebs didn’t do much with the fort and withdrew entirely a year later to march north as the Secesh intended to capture the Colorado gold mines and California ports for the Confederacy. These conquerors of the American West made it as far as Glorieta Pass, New Mexico, which is where their fancy plan went to smash.
It is not certain whether they were defeated on account of a commander who was a rum soak or because no one out West wanted them there to begin with. Either way, the Rebs vacated that country, headed south, back to the swamps and marshes that are more hospitable to their species, and Fort Clark sat deserted through the rest of the war. Union forces had barely moved back in by the time we arrived. The barracks were still charred and Old Glory was not yet flying.
The unburned parts of the near-empty barracks were already set aside for whites. The second lieutenant who met us flapped a weary hand in the direction of a moderately scorched building and allowed as how we could bunk there. It had been constructed of cedar stakes set vertically the way the Mexicans did to build their jacales. Daylight shone between the upright stakes as the long-ago builders had set them when they were green and they’d dried up and shrunk away from whatever chinking might once have separated what was indoors from what was out.
After batting away years of spiderwebs, we entered and encountered a lavish menagerie of critters. Swallows flew from one end of the large space to the other, escaping out through the large gaps in all four walls. The mice squeaked at us, protesting our intrusion. A loud rattling from a dark corner sent Vikers bolting from the place.
Allbright planted himself in the gloom. As he studied the interior, I was taken by the way the stripes of light peeking through the stakes glinted through the cloud of dust that whirled about him like handfuls of gold dust were being tossed his way. The light outlined his broad shoulders and shot out in rays, making a halo around his wide-brimmed hat. “Any of you men,” he said, “who’d rather camp outside are free to do so. Mulberry Springs is a quarter of a mile north, northwest. The water there is clear and abundant. That is all.”
As soon as I had Bunny groomed, and turned loose in the fort corral, I made for Mulberry Springs. It was a vision of paradise. The spring water bubbling up was clear as glass and cool as a slab of polished marble. It flowed for miles along a limestone bed. As far as I could see, the stream was overhung by thick stands of oak and pecan trees, making the blessed waterway into a tunnel of green cutting through that dry land.
I wasted no time in seeking out the most isolated, most priv
ate spot I could find for I hungered for one thing more than food or air at that moment: a bath. I followed the creek for so long that I couldn’t hear even the memory of a trooper hawking up trail dust. That was where I bivouacked. The cool water against my naked skin was almost more bliss than I could stand. The feel of it touching all the soft, round places brought tears to my eyes. I hugged myself the way I would a friend who’d been gone too long. One I missed more than I ever thought I would.
I lathered up with the bar of soap that had been handed out before we left Jefferson Barracks. Having done no shaving and very little bathing with my ration, I had near a full bar left and sudsed up aplenty. My drawers and britches, socks and kerchiefs, were next. Though I’d never have believed such a thing would happen in this hot, dry land, I was shivering by the time I stepped out and dressed quickly.
The sun set and dark came on fast. While I was spreading my wash out to dry, a voice came to me from some distance away, echoing down along that green tunnel. It was Allbright, and, wonder of wonders, the man was singing exactly the tune I had been earlier.
Oh, I’m going now to find her
For my heart is full of woe
And we’ll sing the songs together
That we sang so long ago
We’ll play the banjo gaily
And we’ll sing our sorrows o’er
And the yellow Rose of Texas
shall be mine forever more.
In a moment of silly, girlish dreaming, I lost all sense that his words were being sung or that they had ever been uttered before. That “sweetest girl of color” was me and I would be his forever more.
I made my way to his encampment, and stopped there in the shadows beyond the globe of light cast by his fire. I watched as he arranged his blanket by the fire. I noticed how his movements seemed lightened, now that he was freed from the weight of command, and realized that the Sergeant, too, was burdened by the necessity of putting on an act. He settled himself on the blanket next to a pile of pecans he had collected and started in cracking those plump nuts between a couple of rocks. Even now, all these years later, if I want to calm my spirit, this is the memory I call up. Him cracking and eating those nuts and humming all the while about his yellow rose.
The happiness must of deafened us both, otherwise the intruders never would of snuck up the way they did without either of us hearing the twig that must of snapped, the frogs that had stopped croaking, or the owl that hooted a warning about the invaders. But we didn’t and, all of an instant, they were there, five of them, strolling into the safe circle of the Sergeant’s campfire light.
One second I thought the intruders were Indians. The next, I was certain they were black men. A moment later, I knew them to be Mexican. Mostly, though, they were invaders who, sneaking up on the Sergeant in the dark, clearly meant him harm. I had not brought my carbine and the Sergeant’s was leaning up against a tree, out of reach.
Though I knew those black Mexican Indians would lay me out cold, I burst from the shadows and went for the rifle. The savages reacted to my jumping into their midst, then pulling a cocked rifle on them, with no more notice than they’d of given a tumblebug rolling a tidy dab of shit past their feet.
Their leader looked me up and down, gave a little grunt of dismissal, and said to the Sergeant, “I am John Horse. Are you hungry? We have antelope. Backstrap. The best part. Leave the nuts for the squirrels.”
He nodded at me, and added, “Your friend is also invited.” Then they all vanished back into the woods.
Chapter 51
The strangers slithered through the woods along the creek quiet as ghosts. Compared to them, Allbright and I sounded like a pair of buffalo. In this way, I was certain that, whatever the exact color of skin, fullness of lip, broadness of nose, or wiriness of hair, they were Indian. This fact became undeniable when we fetched up at their camp and I saw the whole band of around eighty or so men, women, and children of what I learned were Black Seminoles.
Either out of good manners or a strange lack of curiosity, only the children stared and pointed at the Sergeant and me as we stepped into their midst. They motioned for us to sit down, and brand-new, U.S.-issue mess tins were placed in our hands by a couple of flounced and beaded women. On the tins were chunks of boiled antelope and a sort of doughy bread that tasted like it was made from yams and vulcanized rubber.
I ate and gawked at the band.
If God ever put a more handsome group of human beings on this earth, I have yet to see them. These black Mexican Indians had extracted the best from three races and assembled a tribe of people with walnut skin, long black hair either straight or with a bit of crinkle to it, high cheekbones, full lips, and every brand of nose you can conjure. Might even have been a button or two amidst them. The men wore full muslin shirts and moccasins. A few old birds sported turbans made of a plaid wool.
Most impressive of all was their chief, a tall, powerfully built man with straight, black hair that fell to his shoulders, dark skin that had a coppery cast to it, and eyes angled up in Chinaman fashion. He was dressed in a muslin tunic that extended to the middle of his thighs. A vest decorated with Mexican pesos pounded flat and rows of beads was worn atop the tunic. Deerskin leggings covered his legs and moccasins his feet. About his neck was a strand of beads made from iridescent shells interspersed with more flattened pesos.
As striking as he and the rest of the men were, it was their women who stole my breath away. Let me describe the one I took to be the chief’s wife, though she may only have been a sweetheart for the headman always seemed to look to one old gal for the final word. In any case, when I gazed upon this young woman, I felt as though I was staring into the face of my grandmother back when she was one of the Leopard King’s Amazon warriors. Back before the filthy Portugee got hold of her or the cursed Americans locked an iron collar about her neck. Back when she was free.
This beauty gazed at me directly from beneath a frame of short, straight black bangs that curved around her face. The rest of her hair was pulled up into a tall hair hat decorated with a band of red beads woven through it. Her neck, from just below her chin down to the tops of her shoulders, was circled with alternating strings of yellow and red beads. The choker gave her a regal appearance, her head resting high and noble above the garland. A fantastic cape, trimmed across the top with Mexican peso coins beat down to broad, flat discs, covered her upper arms.
Of a sudden, the old gal who I figured might be the chief’s wife appeared to notice me for the first time. She was a shrunk-down, wrinkled-up, potbellied copy of the young beauty. A smile played across her queenly features as she nudged the other women around her, pointed at me, and whispered. They all commenced then to studying me, scowling and grimacing as though I were a hard problem they had to cipher. Then they, too, went to smiling, nodding, and beckoning me to join them. With horror, I realized that they had all arrived at the same conclusion: I was one of them. I was female. A female warrior.
I looked away, but my constant fear of exposure had risen into a full-blown panic. I would of jumped up and bolted right then and there except that the smiles and waves stopped dead the instant that the headman stood before the gathering and said in English, “We welcome the sergeant who leads his men into this land where we will fight side by side.”
Though this comment mystified me, there was a muttering and heads nodding in our direction. Then they all fell silent and the chief went on speaking to Allbright. “I am John Horse, headman of the Black Seminoles. I led the only successful slave rebellion in the history of this country. Three times I defeated the Army of the United States of America in the swamps of Florida and kept my people free. Have you heard my story?”
For the only time I knew of, the Sergeant stumbled before answering, “No, sir, I have never before heard of people of color defeating the U.S. Army.”
John Horse shrugged. “Of course not. We did what our enemies fear most. Why would they share the tale? Three times the army came into the swamps of
Florida to claim us. And three times we beat them back. I will tell you of my people’s victories, Sergeant, so that you will know who John Horse and the Black Seminoles are. So that you and your Buffalo Soldiers will come to fight beside us. No matter who the enemy is.”
The Sergeant gave him a suspicious look.
Horse continued, “I went to Washington two times to speak to the President and tell him that the Black Seminoles would slaughter the whites who try to make us slaves. You must know that, again and again, we were betrayed by generals who promised freedom then imprisoned us when we surrendered. The last time I was tricked this way, they locked me inside the fourteen-foot-thick walls of Castillo de San Marcos. With me was the great chief Osceola and the fiercest warrior to ever fight the white man, Wild Cat, who we call Coacoochee.
“Inside those thick walls, all we saw of the freedom we had been promised was a nine-inch-wide opening fifteen feet above our heads. Though our women wailed, lamenting our lost home, Wild Cat made us strong with his words, saying, ‘They may shoot us. They may drive our women and children night and day. They may chain our hands and feet, but the red man’s heart will be always free.’ We, his allies, some of us his blood kin, were red men. Not the black slaves whose grandparents had escaped bondage.
“We watched the nine inches of sky and we fasted and we waited. We made rope from our bed sacks. And, on a night when the moon did not enter the sky, we escaped. We gathered our bands and took back the swamps. We fought the white man, and again, no general, no army could defeat us. Again, we drove the masters to the bargaining table. And, yet again, promises were made if we surrendered. We were promised our own land in the Indian Territories. Because our children were dying of hunger, we accepted. And, a third time, we were betrayed.”
A slave rebellion? Red men and black men fighting together to defeat white men? Escaping out a nine-inch opening fifteen feet overhead?
Could this be true?