Heart's Surrender

by Rosanne Bittner

  He groaned then, spilling his life into her in surging, uncontrollable pulses, grasping her hips and pushing deep. He felt victorious, almost as though he had conquered an enemy. In a way he had, for he had conquered the enemies who had tried to keep them apart. Let them come now! Let them try to take away his Andrea!

  He pulled away from her then, to lie down beside her and pull a light blanket over them both. When she curled up next to him, he held her close.

  “I did not intend to…I didn’t mean to do it that quickly,” he told her. “Are you all right? Did I hurt you?”

  She broke into tears against his chest and he held her closer, alarmed. “Andrea? Did I hurt you? God, I’m sorry.”

  “No! I’m just…so happy. I still can’t believe we’re here…together.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief and kissed her hair. “Nor can I.”

  “Tell me it was good, Adam,” she whispered. “Did I please you?”

  He laughed lightly then, rubbed at her back. “What do you think, you silly thing? I let go of myself almost right away, like a young boy who doesn’t know what he’s about. There is only one thing that makes a man so quick.”

  When she smiled through her tears, sniffed and wiped at her eyes, he sat up on one elbow, gently running a hand across the gauze over her ribs. “Are you in pain?”

  “Some. But it was worth it.”

  Their eyes held and he kissed her gently. “You rest,” he told her. “I will help you wash and I will make us something to eat. Then we will just sit here under the tree and talk, and later we will do this again, only not so quickly next time.” His eyes were glassy with desire and passion. “I want to enjoy every beautiful inch of you. I can’t get enough of you. And this is our time, no matter what happens afterward, to us, to the People. This is our time, Andrea Chandler, our tree, our private moment. Nothing can ever take this from us.”

  Their eyes held in promised love. “Nothing,” she whispered in reply.

  It was a golden time, a day and night of splendor, during which it seemed no one else in the whole world existed. It was their true wedding night, a night of discovery and joy, a night of reunion, a night of giving and taking with pure abandon. They were husband and wife, friends and lovers. Both knew many problems lay ahead, but they would weather them together. Time and distance had not made their love die. If anything, it was stronger than ever. The golden oak spread its protective branches over them, hiding their naked bodies, shrouding their whispers and groans of passion, sheltering them from all dangers with its golden splendor. They would have this moment. There would be time enough to go back and face the problems that lay ahead, and they would face them together. Let the storm develop around them. They lay beneath the sheltering arms of the old oak tree, in their own little heaven.

  Part II

  “…situated as they are now, and where they are, there can be no rest for the sole of an Indian foot…”

  —Wilson Lumpkin, Georgia Congressman

  “I informed the Indians inhabiting parts of Georgia and Alabama that their attempt to establish an independent government would not be countenanced by the Executive of the United States, and advised them to emigrate beyond the Mississippi or submit to the laws of those States…”

  —Andrew Jackson, President

  Chapter Thirteen

  They rode side by side, the Reverend Jessup behind them, as well as Adam’s father and several more Cherokee men. It must be done. Andrea’s parents must be told. Adam and Andrea had been married for a month now. They would be told and that would be that.

  Andrea sat, rigid and afraid, on her horse, preferring always to ride rather than use a carriage. She did not want to see her parents, and would not have come at all were it not for her desire to see the looks on their faces. She wanted to hurt them, for they had hurt her in the cruelest way. Because of them her baby son was probably forever lost to her.

  Adam watched her with concern. She was holding the reins so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Andrea, one of the men can take you back if you prefer.”

  She stared straight ahead. “No. I want to be there.”

  He sighed, concerned. Perhaps it was too soon. She’d been through so much. He hated to think of her being hurt. She was still too thin, but she looked ravishing in her blue velvet riding skirt and jacket, a matching feathered hat perched seductively atop blond curls. His wife was beautiful and elegant, a full woman now, compared to the near child he had taken so long ago.

  As they approached the farm, Andrea’s stomach hurt. Her parents had always been stern, but she had felt loved. Never would she understand why they had sent her away for so long. Surely they had known what was happening to her. They must even know about the baby, their own grandchild! Yet they had let the school send the child away. She would not forgive them for that.

  She saw her father then, running from the barn, ordering two hired hands to stay put. Her mother came to the front door then, curious about the sound of so many horses. The woman’s eyes widened in surprise, and she walked onto the porch and grasped a post.

  “Andrea! We’ve been looking everywhere for you! What in God’s name—”

  “And have you spent any time searching for your grandson?” Andrea interrupted, swallowing back an urge to scream at this woman and then beg her to love her. She detected a hint of remorse and a spark of love in the woman’s eyes, but then her father was there, pushing her mother back.

  “What is this!” he roared.

  “We’ve come to tell you that we are married,” Adam declared. “Andrea has been with me for a month now. I married her the very day she returned.”

  Harriet Sanders pressed her lips together in an effort to keep still, and her husband turned red with anger.

  “Your effort to make me forget Adam didn’t work, Father,” Andrea stated coldly. “If anything, it made me love him more. Do you know what they do to girls up there, Father?” She turned her eyes on her mother. “They cut off their hair. They whip them. They nearly work them to death, and they keep them imprisoned. And they”—she choked up—“they take away their babies!”

  “Andrea…” Her mother started to go to her, but Morgan Sanders shoved her back.

  “Shut up!” he roared. “Look at her! They lied to us! They all lied! All the while we were searching for our daughter, she was right there with them, living in sin with this heathen man, sleeping with an Indian like a common harlot!”

  Adam started to dismount at the remark, his dark eyes on fire and murder in his heart.

  “No, Adam!” the reverend put in. “It would be your worst mistake!”

  Adam’s breath came in quick, angry gasps. “What kind of a man are you!” He glowered at Sanders. “You turn your own daughter over to a place like that! You turn out your own grandson! Where is he! Where is my son!”

  Sanders haughtily put his hands on his hips. “Even if I knew I wouldn’t tell you. But I don’t know. Not even the school knows what happens to them after they’re taken.”

  “Then tell us the name of the place where Andrea was kept. My God, man, she’s your daughter! She wants her son!”

  Morgan Sanders looked Andrea over as though she were dirt. “She’s not my daughter. I owe her nothing! I’ve done enough for her by raising her and pretending to be her father!”

  Silence hung in the air then, and Andrea felt her blood turn cold. She met her mother’s eyes, but Harriet quickly hung her head. Then, breaking into tears, she ran into the house. Andrea turned terrified eyes on her father.

  “What are you talking about?” she asked in a near whisper.

  “Look at you, girl! Then look at me and your mother. How could we have birthed a child with light hair and blue eyes?” He smiled then, seeing the hurt in her eyes. “You look much more like a salesman who came by our old farm about eighteen years ago, while I was in town late on business!” His smile widened at the stricken look on her face. “Now do you understand? Your mother laid in sin, girl, and now you’ve
laid in sin, too. Like mother, like daughter! We thought there might be hope for you, but you’ve got the wild seed of your worthless father in you. You’re a bastard child who bore a bastard child, and now that I see how hopeless you are, I want nothing more to do with you! Go on with you! Go back home and spread your legs for your Indian boy, slut!”

  Adam was off his horse then. Not heeding the reverend’s shouts, he lit into Morgan Sanders, no longer a boy trying to hit a man, but a strong, hard-muscled man in his own right, and much younger than Morgan Sanders. He knocked Sanders to the ground and hit him twice in the face with a hard fist before some of the other Cherokee men could drag him off the man.

  Adam resisted furiously. It took four men to hold him back. “Let me go!” he roared. “I’ll kill the son of a bitch!”

  The unexpected and horrible news she’d received had brought a sick feeling to Andrea’s stomach. She barely saw the fight, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to get away. She whirled her horse and rode off. While Adam continued to struggle against those who held him, and Morgan Sanders rolled to his knees, coughing and choking, his lips and nose bleeding profusely.

  “Let me go!” Adam growled again as Andrea rode away. “Andrea! Let me go after her, damn you!”

  “Not until you promise not to hit her father again,” one of the men yelled.

  “I won’t!” Adam gritted his teeth, sneered at Morgan Sanders. “But I might come back!” The men slowly let go of him, and he stood, towering over Morgan Sanders, fists clenched. “The only bastard here is you,” he hissed. “A bastard and a hypocrite! How dare a son of a bitch like you speak of being a Christian! You’re more full of the devil than any man standing here! I’m glad Andrea isn’t of your blood! If she had your stinking blood in her, she wouldn’t be half the woman she is now, and she most certainly would be ugly, now wouldn’t she?”

  Morgan Sanders looked up, then dove for him, but Adam skipped out of the way and Sanders fell to the ground.

  “Stay there in the dirt where you belong,” Adam growled. He quickly mounted up then. “I’ll find my son!” he roared then, nearly in tears himself. “Somehow I’ll find my son!” And he rode off after Andrea, who was riding hard and fast. It would not be easy to catch up with her, and suddenly he was afraid for her, for he realized what must be going through her mind. Andrea! She wasn’t even well yet, and she was riding wildly and blindly. He dug his heels into his own mount, a fast, sleek Thoroughbred, faster, he was sure, than the gentle mare Andrea had ridden. He must catch up with her!

  Behind him the other men mounted up, turned to follow. Reverend Jessup was the last to leave. He looked down at Andrea’s father sadly. “I’m sorry for you, Mr. Sanders. You have turned away a beautiful daughter and a wonderful young man. You’ve turned away love and happiness, an innocent child who would have loved you as any child would love a father, if you would have let her.”

  Sanders stood up, shaking dirt from his hair. “Get off my property, preacher! We’re tired of your kind coming down here from the North and pampering the goddamned savages! Go back to your precious Cherokees! But you just remember that when we come in and take over, you’ll suffer the same punishment and banishment as they, white skin or not!”

  Jessup’s eyes saddened. “Then I will suffer it gladly before I would desert them,” he answered. “And I and my Cherokee friends will some day be watching from heaven’s gates while they drag you into the fiery pits of hell, Mr. Sanders.” He tipped his hat and rode off, feeling guilty for the remark but unable to stop himself from making it.

  Far ahead of them all, Adam rode hard, his horse getting lathered but gaining on Andrea’s. Her hat had flown off and her hair was coming unpinned. He managed to come up beside her, and noted that her face looked oddly cold and wild. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and her hair was tumbling every which way.

  “Andrea, slow down! You’ll get hurt!”

  She acted as though she didn’t even hear him. He urged his horse in closer then, risking the danger of their legs tangling and causing a bad spill. Then he reached out with a powerful arm, quickly grasping her about the waist. Tugging hard, he yanked her off her own mount, and hanging on with all his might while she fought to get away, he struggled to keep his own horse under control. A man of lesser riding skills would never have held in his mount, but Adam managed to do so, bringing the animal to a stop while Andrea wriggled, struggling to make him let go of her.

  “Stop it!” he yelled, almost falling off his horse, but refusing to let go of her as he dismounted to the right. Her tears were coming harder now, and she made little kittenlike sounds as she beat at him with her fists like a crazy woman.

  “Let me go!” she screamed. “Don’t look at me! Don’t look at me!”

  “Why! Because of what your father said? I’m glad, Andrea! I’m glad you don’t have that man’s damned blood in you!” He grasped her arms and shook her. “Stop it! You’re my woman and I’m ordering you to stop carrying on this way!”

  She put her hands over her face and half crumpled to the ground. Now she understood why her mother had felt she had to warn her against feelings of passion and love. For one night her mother had allowed such feelings free rein, and Andrea was the result, a child born of sin and lust.

  “How can you love me now?” Her tone was bitter. “How can you respect me!”

  She tried to rise to her knees, but he would not let her. He hung on, wrapping his arms tightly around her so that she could barely move. “Don’t talk stupidly,” he answered. “The woman I married is too intelligent to take the blame for something someone else did. You’re just Andrea—my Andrea. A sweet, beautiful, wonderful woman who loves me and who went through hell to come back to me. How could I not love and respect the woman you are? Who cares how you came to be? God saw fit to put you on this earth, Andrea, maybe for no other reason than to be the wife of Adam Chandler, for you’re the perfect woman for him. Your parents are the guilty ones. You are innocent.”

  She wept bitterly, shaken by deep, wrenching sobs of shock and shame. When the other men caught up to them, Adam motioned for them to keep going. He held her quietly, letting her cry, knowing she needed that much. Reverend Jessup caught up to them then, halted his horse and dismounted. He met Adam’s eyes with his own sad ones.

  “I’m sorry. She probably shouldn’t even have gone.”

  Adam kissed her hair. “She wanted to go.” He blinked back tears. “I guess she didn’t get to enjoy her revenge the way she’d planned.”

  “I’m bad! It must be true,” Andrea declared. “I’m bad! That’s why God took away my baby!”

  “Stop it!” Adam said sternly.

  Jessup sighed and touched her shoulder. “Andrea, the bad ones are those who have deliberately brought you this unhappiness. The bad ones are those who hurt and punished you for loving someone innocently and devotedly. God didn’t take away your baby. They took him away. God let you come back to Adam, and he will give you more children. God loves you, Andrea, and He loves your little boy. And there is no law that says children born out of a questionable situation can’t be good, godly people.” He squeezed her shoulder. “Andrea, I’ll tell you both something.” He took a deep breath. “I never knew my father. My mother worked the streets of New York. She drank heavily and had different men in her bed every night. That’s how she made her living. Only God knows who fathered me.”

  Adam looked at him in surprise, and Andrea quieted. She wiped at her eyes, pulled away from Adam slightly. Taking a handkerchief from Adam’s shirt pocket, she blew her nose and wiped her eyes. Finally she looked into the reverend’s sad eyes. The man nodded.

  “Yes. I am a bastard in the true sense of the word, Andrea, for I can’t even name my father. Does that make me less capable of bringing God’s word to others, less capable of loving, less deserving of the lovely wife and children I have? Does the manner in which I was conceived mean I must always suffer, live a life of sin and unhappiness? God loves all of us, Andrea, no matter
what our origins. It is for that reason I work among the Cherokee. They are no less important in God’s eyes than anyone else, and those who look down on them just because they are Indian will one day have to answer to God for it.”

  “But it makes me feel so…so undeserving,” she choked out. “Adam is special and good and brilliant. He comes from good family, and—”

  “That’s foolish talk, Andrea,” Adam told her almost angrily. He would not let her out of his arms completely, and he tightened his hold on her again. “I fell in love with Andrea Sanders because of the person she was, the goodness in her soul. I didn’t care who your parents were. I only knew you were sweet and beautiful and that I loved you. And in our hearts we were married that first time I made you mine. We did nothing bad, Andrea, and no one will ever convince me that we did. You gave yourself to me out of love, nothing more; and didn’t we make a vow that nothing would interfere with that love, that no man would come between us in any way? Don’t let your father’s cruel words put wrong thoughts in your head. Remember your vows, and remember our love. That is all that is important.”

  “But surely you’re disappointed—”

  “Disappointed? I am relieved! It is over now. We have told them we are married and now we are going home. Don’t you see? It doesn’t matter if your father wants to disown you! It is better for us! Because you are not his real daughter, he will not try to come after you. It is finished. He thinks you are lost to evil, and he is letting you go.” He grasped her face and made her look up at him. “He does not know you are simply lost to love, and that he is letting you go to happiness. You have won, Andrea. And he knows it. That’s why he’s so mad. That’s why he wanted to hurt you. Don’t let him win by making you run from me, by making you hang your head as though you need to be ashamed of something. Don’t ever hang your head around me, Andrea, or I will think it is me you are ashamed of, not yourself. If you think you are bad, then that means marrying a Cherokee man makes you a bad woman. And how does that make me feel?”