Heart’s Surrender
Rosanne Bittner
Copyright
Diversion Books
A Division of Diversion Publishing Corp.
443 Park Avenue South, Suite 1008
New York, NY 10016
www.DiversionBooks.com
Copyright © 1988 by Rosanne Bittner
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
For more information, email [email protected]
First Diversion Books edition February 2016
ISBN: 978-1-68230-333-7
It is true that the building of America is a great and proud story; that it took strong, courageous people to develop such a great and powerful nation. But there are chapters in the history of this growth that have been quietly left out of the story we learn in school when growing up. One of those chapters belongs to the Cherokee Indian. Perhaps that chapter was left out because of the shame and embarrassment it sheds on our forefathers, and the guilt still carried by the descendants of those who so cruelly and heartlessly exiled a noble, educated, civilized people from their beloved homeland. This story is dedicated to the Cherokee Indians. I hope by the telling of it, people who were formerly unaware will know the truth, and will weep themselves as they go back in history and walk the Trail of Tears.
—Author
Historical events in this novel involving the persecution of the Cherokee Indians are true, as is my depiction of the wealth and education of the Cherokees in northern Georgia in the 1820s and 1830s. However, my basic story and main characters are fictitious, although there are a few references to people who really did exist and were involved in Cherokee removal during this time period. Dialogue given to characters who did exist at this time is not direct quotation, but is merely supposed, according to factual printed records of these events. All such records are available to the public. My primary source of information for this book is from a book entitled Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian, by Dale Van Every (William Morrow & Company, New York, 1966); with some further factual information taken from Creek Mary’s Blood by Dee Brown (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, 1980).
Other than my references to historical fact, any resemblance of the author’s fictitious characters to actual persons, living or dead, or of the author’s fictitious events to any events that may have occurred at that time, are purely coincidental and are the product of the author’s imagination.
Part I
“Resolved, that the Committee on Indian Affairs be instructed to inquire into the expediency of providing, by law, for the removal of the various tribes of Indians who have located within the States and Territories of the United States to some eligible situation, west of the Mississippi River…”
—Resolution introduced into Congress on December 13, 1827 by Wilson Lumpkin, a Georgia congressman, in an effort to get the federal government to help Georgia remove all Indians, by force if necessary, from its territory.*
*(Disinherited: The Lost Birthright of the American Indian, Dale Van Every)
Chapter One
Andrea led her gray pony up the steep embankment. It was late spring in northern Georgia, and the soft, rolling Appalachian Mountains were alive with green forests of oak and pine, walnut and tulip trees, and with wild rhododendron, daisies, and violets. She took a deep breath to enjoy the sweet smell, and a brown thrasher flitted out of a nearby bush and flew away.
Andrea looked up then, studying the top of the ridge before gazing down at the lush, green valley below, where her father’s farm lay. She was not supposed to come this far, but, at fourteen, how could one reasonably argue against curiosity? Something lay beyond this ridge, and she wanted to see what it was. Her father had just bought this farm, having moved north from another farm that was sold at a loss, its soil used up and no longer yielding good crops. He had heard talk of better land in the north, with a possibility of someday being able to buy up Indian land, the value of which was steadily growing as more and more people flooded into the state. Some folks even talked of going farther west, perhaps beyond the Mississippi River and into unsettled territory.
The girl picked a daisy and twirled it in her fingers, smelling it and getting yellow pollen on her nose. She decided she would not ever want to go to the strange land in the West, where rumor was there were no green forests and lush soil like here in Georgia. But she wondered, too, how her father or anyone else thought they would get to buy Indian land. Everyone talked about how the Cherokee had been in those mountains for hundreds of years, maybe longer. They had already been pushed out of other parts of Georgia and now had taken a firm hold in the north, with their own government and schools and farms. She didn’t really understand it all, except that some grown men complained that the Indians had no right to consider themselves a separate state and to think they had full rights to any land in Georgia. As far as Andrea was concerned, if they were nice people, why shouldn’t they get to live wherever they chose?
She climbed higher. Somewhere on the other side of this ridge was Indian land. Her curiosity had plagued her for days after her father had bought this farm right on the border of Cherokee country. She’d never seen a Cherokee. Did they wear regular clothes like her father and brother? Or were they half-naked savages? Everyone knew they were once a violent, fighting people that had done unmentionable things to the white settlers who’d first come to Georgia. “You can never truly tame a bloodthirsty savage,” her father had grumbled. “But as long as we’ll be living right next to them, if they are as peaceful and settled as folks say, we might as well try to get along with them. Maybe someday they’ll move on and that land will be up for grabs.”
Was it true? Were all the Cherokee really bloodthirsty savages? Her father had talked of going visiting soon, perhaps inviting the nearest Indian family to supper, as was often the custom along the border. A few of their neighbors actually considered some of the Cherokee their friends.
She slipped on a rock and fell, getting a red scuff on her boot from the clay soil, but she got up and hurried on until she reached the top. Then she tied her pony and walked farther out of the trees to look, pulling her woolen sweater closer around her neck. Although it was nearly always warm in Georgia, it was cooler up here, and still damp, for she had left very early in the morning, in those still-misty hours between the cool of night and the heat of day. The branches of the trees hung heavy with dew, and her hair felt wet as she grasped its long, blond strands and pulled them back behind her shoulders. She wished she knew how to fix her hair in pretty ways, but it was straight and fine and very stubborn, and she usually ended up just brushing it long and loose, or braiding it.
The morning sun glowed against her freckled face, as her blue eyes scanned the green valley below. Far in the distance she saw what must be a town. Was it New Echota, the center of activity and government for the Cherokee? A river meandered in and out of hills and valleys, the Coosa River, her father had said it was. Scattered here and there were homes, some very fine brick ones, with large, red barns and neat outbuildings. Cattle dotted the entire valley, and all looked peaceful and lovely, hardly any different from the white men’s farms and buildings on her own side of the ridge. Perhaps she was looking at the wrong thing. Perhaps the Cherokee were many more miles away. The people moving about below were dressed just like her own people, but they were too far away for her to tell if they looked any different, if their faces were shaped differently, if their skin was darker.<
br />
She sighed with disappointment. She dared not go any farther, and was not even supposed to be this far away from the house. She puckered her rosy lips and scowled, untying her pony and turning. It was then she saw the old oak farther to her right, a great, gnarled tree that had surely been on that ridge top for a hundred years, maybe two hundred. She had been so curious about what she would see on the other side of the ridge that she had not even looked around and noticed anything else as she’d headed to the top. She stared in awe at the oak, whose branches reached out for many feet sideways before turning upward to meet the sky.
Hurrying over to it, she tied her pony and then walked even closer, touched the curled, gnarled bark. She leaned her head back to look up into the splendid branches, their light green leaves beginning to grow larger now that they had budded out.
“Oh, great tree, how old are you?” she spoke aloud, running her hands over its bark.
“One hundred and fifty years.” The voice was deliberately lowered to make it sound like the tree talking.
Andrea’s eyes widened and she felt a chill as she stepped back from the tree and looked up in the direction of the voice. A young man of perhaps sixteen or seventeen peeked around the huge trunk behind which he had been crouched. “Hi!” he said in his natural voice, smiling warmly. His teeth were clean and even, his dark eyes danced teasingly. “Who are you?”
She backed away more. Was he one of those Cherokee Indians? Surely he was! His hair and skin were so dark. But he dressed like any other boy, with leather boots and dark, cotton pants and a red checkered shirt that was clean and neat. His face was surprisingly handsome, the cheekbones high, the lips finely etched against smooth, brown skin; his eyes were large and dark, and his dark hair, looking clean, was neatly cut and fell in gentle waves to the collar of his shirt.
Should she run? He reached out for a branch and began to climb down. She stood frozen, watching him. “Not going to talk, huh?” he said, coming farther down and then grasping a slender branch and hanging from it. Then he dropped to the ground, no more than five feet from her, still smiling, his dark eyes looking her over. “I’m Adam Chandler.”
She swallowed. Adam Chandler? That didn’t sound like an Indian name. He frowned then, and leaned forward a little. “Do you speak?”
She backed away a little more. “I’m Andrea. Andrea Sanders. I…we live down there.” She pointed to the valley below, but nothing could be seen through the forested slope. “My father just bought a farm here. We’re from southern Georgia.”
He nodded, grasping a branch again and swinging from it. “I live on the other side. My father farms, too. In fact, I’d better get back home pretty quick. I’ve got chores to do. I come up here early every morning to say hello to my tree.” He jumped down and stepped back then, looking up at the mighty oak. “How do you like it?”
Andrea followed his eyes and studied the tree again herself. “It’s a wonderful tree. I’ve never seen one so big.” She looked back at him. She had only recently become infatuated with boys. How different they were. She wondered sometimes about the things men and women did to get babies, though she was hardly able to imagine what it might be like to be kissed by a boy. But there was one boy she hated—Douglas Means. He was eighteen, and whenever he got the chance, he said bad things to her and he was always after her to go to the woods with him. She had hoped to get rid of Douglas when her father moved, but the Meanses were good friends of the family, and they had moved also, buying land not far from her father’s. Never had she known such disappointment as when the Meanses had come along, except that she could at least keep one good girl friend, Douglas’s sister Mary, who was the same age as Andrea. The two girls had grown up together and were best friends. Andrea was glad Mary had come, but wished Douglas had been left behind. Still, the boy she was looking at now was nothing like Douglas. He had a kinder look in his eyes, and he was most definitely more handsome.
They watched each other awkwardly for several long, strained seconds, Andrea’s face reddening as she struggled to find something to say. He folded his arms then. “You are wondering if I am a Cherokee.”
She walked to her pony, petting its neck. “Not really.”
“Yes, you are.”
“Okay then. Are you?”
He grinned and opened his arms. “Every drop of my blood.”
She started to untie her pony. “I…I’d better be going.”
“Why? Do you think I am some wild thing who will attack you?” He laughed, grabbing a branch again. “I dress and act just like your white boys. I have even finished high school and one year of higher learning at Cornwall.”
She let go of the reins and stared at him, stepping closer again. “You mean…clear up in Connecticut?”
“Sure. Lots of Cherokee kids go to school there. I think I will be a doctor or a lawyer. I don’t know yet.” He dropped down and sat with his back against the great, gnarled tree trunk, his smile fading to concern. “But I am not sure now how I can continue. They say Cornwall will not be reopened.”
She moved a little closer, and he could see that the plain blue cotton of her dress denoted a white girl of moderate means, but not wealthy. His own father was quite wealthy, with many cattle and a fine farm, and he even owned black men who worked for him. He looked up into her pretty face. It irritated him that white girls fascinated him, for his father had warned him to stay away from them. Still, he could not imagine why a man couldn’t be interested in whomever he chose, and he was thinking it was about time he found out how wonderful it was to lie naked with a girl. The Cherokee girls were too chaste, and he’d been strictly warned not to go near the wild white girls on the other side of the ridge, those who liked to visit the haylofts with Cherokee boys. Was this girl like that? Somehow he sensed she was not.
“Why won’t the school be reopened?” she asked.
He picked up a weed and stuck it in his mouth. “If I tell you, you will be embarrassed and run away. Anyway, it isn’t fair, and it makes me very mad to think about it.”
Now her curiosity was chomping at the bit. “I won’t run away. I promise.”
He grinned again and put his head back against the tree. “Promise?”
She nodded and sat down in the grass near his feet, carefully making sure her full dress covered her legs and feet.
He chewed thoughtfully on the weed for a moment. “The white people up there got mad because some of the white girls became interested in Indian boys,” he told her.
Andrea reddened again and looked at the ground. “Is that any reason to close a whole school?”
“They thought it was. One of our people, a wealthy Cherokee called Elias Boudinot, he married a white girl from up there. Even now they live near New Echota, and they are very happy. But a newspaper man in Connecticut, he made a big fuss over it, stirred the people up, wrote bad things about the Cherokee and made it look like a terrible sin for a white girl to love a Cherokee man. The people all got angry and demanded the school be closed.” He shook his head. “My father says it is a bad sign. Those people in the North have always been our friends, supported us. We can do anything we want, except marry their daughters. Yet it is all right for the white men to marry Cherokee girls. It is a strange set of values you people have.”
She toyed with some tiny wildflowers in the grass. “We don’t all think that way.”
“Oh?”
She met his eyes and reddened again, and he laughed. “I am glad. That means we can be friends, right?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know.” She pursed her lips and he wanted to kiss them, just to see what it would be like. “How old are you, Adam?”
“Sixteen.”
Her eyebrows arched. “Only sixteen? And you’ve been to Cornwall?”
“They say I am very smart.”
Her wide blue eyes studied him. “You must be. I am fourteen and have just finished the eighth grade. My father says I can go to higher school if I want, but he thinks it’s foolish for a girl to
go farther than the eighth grade. He says girls don’t need to know anything except how to cook and clean house and have ba—” She stopped then and looked away. “I like to learn and read. I made him promise I could go to school longer.”
He grinned over the fact that she was embarrassed to talk about having babies. “You should go to school longer, Andrea. It’s good that you made your father promise.”
She smiled then, and it made her even prettier. He could see in her young face a woman struggling to show herself, but there was still a lot of little girl there. “Do you really think so?”
“Sure. We Cherokees think education is very important.”
She looked up into the tree, trying to ignore the strange urges he stirred in secret places, gentle, pleasant ripplings she had never before felt. He was so handsome that he seemed almost beautiful. The forearms revealed by the rolled-up sleeves of his shirt showed hard muscle, and the way he’d swung around in the branches, she knew he was strong. “Why do you call this your tree?” she asked, suddenly wanting to talk to him longer.
“I just do. I’ve been coming here almost since I learned to walk. It was my secret place—until you came along. Now I will have to trust you to keep it a secret for me and not tell anyone else about my tree.”
She could tell by the look on his face that he was actually worried.
“I promise not to say a word,” she answered.
He nodded. “Thank you, Andrea Sanders.”
She looked away again, almost angry at the strange feelings he gave her, wondering if he knew what she was feeling. “What’s it like…on the other side where you live?”
He shrugged. “Just about the same as your side,” he answered. “We farm, go to school, all those things. Elias Boudinot is working on starting our own newspaper. We live in houses just like yours. My father’s is a fine brick home two stories high. And he owns black men, who work for him.”
Heart's Surrender Page 1