Heart's Surrender

by Rosanne Bittner

  She whispered his name, and he met her lips, tenderly now, parting them gently, drawing out her passions and needs. Her breathing came in long, deep sighs of pleasure, and he felt her relax totally, knew she wanted whatever he could give her. She lay limp and willing as he caressed her intimately, arousing her passion. No man but Adam could make her feel this way, yet she sensed an apology in his movements, a desire to somehow make up to her for all the absences, all the worry, and for taking her so quickly and cruelly that first time after the birth. But if what he’d done had led to the way he was touching her now, it was worth it as far as she was concerned.

  Now no danger existed. There was no heartache, no militia; there were no new laws designed to strangle the Cherokee into death or migration. There was only this—this quiet morning, birds singing, her baby fed and sleeping, her husband making love to her. Yes, she lived in luxury and comfort. But that was not why she had married Adam Chandler, and if she had to give up everything to stay with him, she would do so. She would go out to Indian Territory with him, live in a tipi if she had to. But she would not abandon him. How could she live without Adam, without moments like this? They were still young and in love, and they would not allow outside problems to keep them from enjoying these moments. She knew that even in their aging years, they would see one another with young eyes, feel this same passion, know this same joy.

  He was inside her then, gently joining with her in slow, rhythmic movements that made her arch up to him, her inner muscles pulling at him, taking him in in sweet abandon. He hung on this time, forcing himself to give her all the pleasure he could before exploding into his own desires.

  It was all done quietly, gently, with not a word spoken, and then it was over and they were both asleep again. When she awoke later in the morning, Andrea found herself wondering if it had really happened. Surely it was just a beautiful dream. But she lay naked beside him, still in his arms, one leg still wrapped around him. She pulled the covers up over them, and lay there a long time just watching him sleep.

  “John Ross still believes it’s possible to reverse the Congressional decision on the Indian Removal Bill,” Adam told her at breakfast. He held Jonas in his arms, toying with the child’s tiny fist. “There’s a hell of a lot of sympathy out there for us, Andrea, a lot of people willing to help. Church groups and missionaries all over the North are speaking in our behalf. We’re planning to make a tour of the North, to speak at churches and explain what is happening to the Indians down here.”

  She turned from the stove to pour him some coffee. His father was already outside working on the harvest, and his mother had not yet come downstairs.

  “Let me go with you, Adam, when you go North. I hate it when you’re gone, and if you go on some kind of tour, it will be for weeks and weeks.” She met his eyes pleadingly. “Please let me go with you. I’d be safer in the North with you than I would be down here anyway. Wouldn’t that make you feel better?”

  He sighed and looked her over, wanting her already. It had been so long. One night was not enough. He would want her every night for a while. He looked down at the baby. “Why not?” he answered. “Maybe having a white wife along, and a little baby son, would just build up sympathy.” He looked into her happy eyes. “Besides, I miss you so damned much when I’m gone I can hardly stand it.”

  “Oh, Adam!” She bent down and hugged him. “Oh, it will be so much better than sitting here worrying about you, waiting, lonely, worrying about the militia and Doug—” She stopped herself, kissed his cheek, and turned away. “Do you want some pancakes? I told the cook to do what she wanted. I wanted to make your breakfast this morning.”

  “Andrea.”

  She turned to face him.

  “I’ve not seen Douglas Means anyplace on Cherokee land. I think he’s over in Mississippi helping herd up the Choctaws. Georgia sent some men over there to help, if you can call it that.”

  She turned away and began to mix some batter. “He’ll be back. When he finds out Georgia has given permission to overrun this land—”

  “Don’t think about it, Andrea. Pretty soon we’ll take a trip together and get out of here.”

  She sighed deeply. “That means more meetings first. Georgia has forbidden you to meet, or even go to church together. Soon they’ll send the militia to New Echota to make sure you’re obeying those laws.”

  “We’ll meet all we want. They won’t do anything about it right away. They’re waiting to see if the new laws will scare us out. But they’ll soon discover that it takes more than a threat to get rid of us. And it will take more than sending in the militia and burning our homes.”

  She beat the batter vigorously, swallowed a lump in her throat. “I miss being in our own little house. We lived together there such a short time.”

  He bent down and kissed his son, then set him in the cradle they kept in the kitchen. “Someday this will all be over and we’ll live like normal married people again. I promise.”

  She smiled lovingly at him. “I know.” She sighed deeply. “I’m so glad you’re home, Adam. And thank you for letting me go along next time.”

  He stretched, then sipped some coffee. “It will be good, having you along. I think John Ross would agree.”

  His father came in then, and walked directly to Adam, who rose. The two men hugged. “Thank God you are back, son. I was asleep when you came in last night.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t get up early to help with chores, Father. I was pretty exhausted.”

  “Ah, and not just from your trip, I’ll bet,” the man answered, with a wink and a nod to Andrea. Andrea blushed deeply and Adam laughed lightly. Then the two men sat down and Jonas sobered. “How did it go?”

  Adam shrugged. “Like always. Some of the Congressmen would speak to us and read our petitions. Some wouldn’t. And, of course, President Jackson won’t even consider our arguments. He can’t do one damned thing without Georgia screaming that the federal government is infringing on state’s rights—not that Jackson would do anything to help anyway. If someone were president who sympathized with our cause, we’d be in a lot better shape. But Jackson cuts us down on every front.”

  Jonas nodded. “It is bad. I am told that the effort to get the Choctaws underway is one big, confused mess, just a mess. Whites have swarmed in like bees over honey, taking over some homes before the Indians are even completely moved out of them. Everything is unorganized. There are not enough supplies. I fear there will be a lot of hunger and death for the Choctaws on their journey, Adam. It will be bad.”

  Their eyes held, both men realizing the same fate could come to the Cherokee, but not without a fight. Adam rubbed at his eyes. “John says there are rumors that Georgia is setting up a secret fund with which to bribe some of us to leave, Father. They will pay extra money to any Cherokee who promises to go now, and give him a nice, soft journey.”

  Jonas noticed his son glance at his wife, and knew the torture he was suffering. The man reached out and touched Adam’s hand. “When we think of our loved ones, it is tempting. But what would happen to our pride? And how much would our families love us if we took the easy way and deserted those who choose to fight?”

  Andrea turned and looked at Adam. “I would never allow you to leave that way, Adam. It isn’t in your heart or in mine. I love this land as much as you do, and I love you. Don’t ever speak of leaving under such circumstances.” She knew he was only tired, remembered how he had wept the night before.

  Adam looked back at his father, sighed deeply. “I just think about it sometimes, only because of Andrea and my son.”

  “Do you think I don’t think about it? Some of us have already been secretly approached, Adam. I will have none of it. I intended to talk to John today and tell him what is happening when he is gone. We must be careful even among our own now, Adam. There are some who are taking these bribes, and some who will spy for the militia, in return for money and a promise of a safe and comfortable trip west. Georgia will want to know everythi
ng that is happening here, what goes on at our meetings, our next move—everything. There is only one way for them to find out, and that is for our own kind to tell them.”

  Adam’s eyes widened. “Traitors? Among our own?”

  “Some have lived too long in comfort. When this is over, Adam, there will be much bitterness among our own people. I see it coming. And there is one more thing. The Georgia legislature has passed yet another law designed to stop the missionaries from helping us.”

  Andrea turned away from the stove, her first thought being of the kind Reverend Jessup and his family. “How can they stop them?” she asked in surprise. “They aren’t even Cherokee. They’re white.”

  Jonas looked at her. “Indian haters also hate any whites who are our friends, even good ones like missionaries. A new act has been proposed, stating that after next March no whites are permitted to reside in Cherokee country without a special license from the governor; to get that license, they must swear an oath of allegiance to Georgia, meaning they must swear to uphold Georgia’s Removal and promise not to aid the Cherokee in their fight. They must agree to preach Removal and to urge us to leave.”

  The room fell silent. Andrea turned away then. Reverend Jessup! And the doctor! Dr. Cunningham was white, a missionary as well as a doctor. Who would tend to their sick if he left? What about their own son? What if she had another baby?

  “Devils!” Adam banged his fist on the table. “Devils, all of them! They think of everything!”

  “What worries me is that some missionaries, like Reverend Jessup, are very loyal friends. It would be like them to face imprisonment before they’d succumb and take such an oath. And Georgians are ready to use them as examples! They are using everything possible to break us, Adam. We must be ever alert now for raids. I think that soon we will have to move in closer to town and abandon the farm all together.”

  “Abandon the farm!” Adam rose and walked to the doorway. “If we leave here, they will come. They will loot the house, burn it and the outbuildings. We must stay and guard it.”

  “You are gone half the time, Adam. I am thinking of your mother, and of Ruth.”

  Adam nodded. “I know,” he said, his voice husky with emotion. He took a deep breath and sniffed, and Andrea knew he was struggling with his emotions. “I…uh…I’m going on a tour in the North with some of the others. We’ll travel to churches and Northern towns to raise funds and support for our cause. I’m taking Andrea and Jonas with me this time. I’m tired of always being away from them.”

  “Fine. That is a good idea. And we need any funds we can come up with. Our income is dangerously low, Adam. We cannot sell our land outright because Georgia says it is already theirs, and we have no access to the gold that has been discovered on our land. The money we had coming in from treaties has been cut off, yet we are forbidden to tax our own citizens. Suddenly no one on the outside will buy our crops or our cattle, and—”

  “Stop it!” Adam hissed. “I don’t want to hear anymore!” He charged outside. “I am going riding.”

  “Adam!” Andrea rushed to the door.

  “Let him go,” Jonas told her. “It will be good for him to go riding. He has always liked riding alone. There are many things weighing him down.” He blinked back tears. “For me it is not so bad. But he has his whole life ahead of him, and he sees all his plans being destroyed.” He rose and went to Andrea. “He is strong, much stronger than he knows. Someday this will be all over, Andrea. And when it is, wherever you two end up, you will still be together and in love. You’ll make it. Adam is a very intelligent young man. He’ll find a way to rebuild and be successful.”

  “I just want him to be happy,” she replied in a near whisper.

  “Of course you do. And as long as he has you and Jonas, he’ll be all right.” He sniffed. “Do I smell something good, like pancakes?”

  “Oh!” She hurried to the stove and removed the pancakes from it. Putting some on a plate for her father-in-law, she set them on the table before him, then glanced at Adam’s empty chair. Their moments of happiness and laughter were becoming rare. She wondered how soon the day would come when there would be no laughter at all. She glanced through the door to see him riding off, a young man who was as much a part of this land as the trees and the very soil. When a tree was uprooted, it died. When soil was turned up, it blew away. What would happen to Adam Chandler and the others if they had to leave their beloved Cherokee country?

  Chapter Sixteen

  The winter of 1830 was one of calamity for the Choctaws. Suddenly torn from their homes and put under guard, they were hurried and shoved by agents and contractors, herded along like cattle to their new, desolate destination. To move thousands of people out of their homes and into a new land quickly was a monumental task, one which neither the state nor the federal government was prepared to undertake with any kind of order and discipline. Federal soldiers were sent to help, but not many. Yet their aid was the only sign of sympathy for the Indians, for the young men who were sent, many from the North, cried out against the way the Choctaws were being treated. Some even risked their careers by protesting to their superiors about how the movement was being handled, and a few used their own money to help some of the Indians who had lost everything. Such a gigantic undertaking was a round-the-clock project, and many of the Choctaws had to walk their way westward. Since there were not nearly enough wagons and horses for everyone, the wagons were reserved for the feeble and for children. And hunger was rampant. No one in charge had thought to store up food, and the Indians had been caught unprepared. Corruption was also rampant. Private contractors were hired to help with transportation and food, but they overcharged the government and provided less than satisfactory services to the Indians. The government, responsible for providing food through the contractors, withheld the food appropriation until the Indians had spent nearly every last cent of their own money on the open market to keep from going hungry. This served two purposes. The Indians were bled of their savings, making them more helpless; and the government spent less money on feeding its charges.

  The migration was monumental, both in size and in bad organization. Steamboats were taken, were overcrowded, which caused many accidents. Indeed, a great number of Choctaws died for a variety of reasons as they worked their way through swamps and forests and rivers toward the arid West, leaving behind the warm, green climate to which they were accustomed. En route, the weather turned colder, and the Choctaws, not used to raw winters, had an insufficient supply of blankets and clothing. Some froze. Others lost limbs to frostbite, and great numbers died of lung diseases and from a cholera epidemic. The entire venture was a horror, and was deemed a disgrace to the federal government; and in the North, the cries of sympathy for the Indians grew louder.

  The wind howled outside the hotel window, and snow blew in every direction. Andrea watched, remembering another time in the North, when she watched the snow through a tiny, barred window, wondering if she would ever see Adam Chandler again. It made her think of that first baby. He’d be over three years old now. Poor baby! Poor, poor baby! Where was he? How was he? She shivered and walked to the bed, where Adam lay sleeping, little six-month-old Jonas beside him.

  Never would she tire of such a sight—Adam, her beautiful, tender, loving Adam, sleeping beside her equally beautiful son. Was their first son as handsome? Surely he was. She studied her husband, so driven, so dedicated. But he was tired, and she sometimes wondered how long he could keep going. She, too, felt tired, but he carried the extra burden of being Indian, of knowing his life’s blood was threatened, of leaving his beloved mountains. Sometimes she wanted to scream and scream, and then weep until she died. She never dreamed her own government could be so unfair and callous. Every day they heard tales of the horrors of the Choctaw removal, and every day the fear grew that the Cherokees would suffer the same hideous fate, the same unnecessary suffering. Envisioning whites crawling over Adam’s beautiful land, taking over their home and farm, invading New E
chota, she shuddered. What hope did they have if this journey through the North to win support for their cause did not work?

  It had to work. Day after day they preached and begged at town halls and churches and schools. Their own delegation of five was matched by other delegations traveling other Northern areas, collecting signatures, money, pledges of letters to Congress—anything that could be used to reverse the vote for Indian Removal. Andrea herself had spoken many times, impressing people with her beauty and her beautiful baby, convincing them with her own testimony of the civilized, advanced, peaceful state of the Cherokee Nation; stressing the intelligence of her husband’s people, their determination to remain nonviolent, their utterly amazing progress over the past fifty years.

  Would it work? It had to. Adam’s leather business case was packed with petitions and signatures, letters and money—money he would not touch because it belonged to the People. It would be taken back to Georgia and used to pay white attorneys to fight for their cause.

  The wind rattled the window, making her jump. Again the black memory of her years at the hated school rushed over her, and she quickly crawled back into bed. She had just fed some wood into the pot-bellied stove in the room, but the fire in it didn’t seem able to match the bitter cold outside. She snuggled next to Adam, needing to remind herself that he really was there. He sighed deeply and pulled her close.

  “Good morning, agiya.”

  She kissed his nose. “It isn’t really morning yet. And it’s too cold to get up, so you might as well go back to sleep.”