John Ross held his eyes. “He claimed your father had been to a meeting and meetings are illegal, which is true. He claimed your father preached against removal, which is also true. He said he had to set an example for the rest of us to stop meeting and to stop advising others to fight removal.”
Adam looked around the room, slowly scrutinizing every man there, his eyes resting on Boudinot for a moment, then turning back to John Ross. “And how did the militia know about the meeting, and what my father said? They haven’t camped in our town. Someone informed them of what is happening—one of our own!”
Ross looked at Boudinot, then at Adam. “We’ve already thought of that. We just don’t know who it might be.”
Adam’s eyes hardened even more. “Then I will find out my own way. I will find out, and when I do, he will be a sorry man!”
Boudinot started to speak. “Adam—”
“No! I do not want to hear it! I may not be able to take my vengeance on the militia, but there is no law that says one Cherokee cannot go after another! Whoever sent the militia is just as guilty as the men who attacked my family! When is our next meeting? I trust you have not let this stop you from getting together. I’ll find the son of a bitch who sent the militia after my father!”
“We’re laying low for a few days, but we will meet again. Now that everyone is back from the North, we have no choice. We must get things settled before making another trip to Washington.”
Adam looked at Andrea, who was being helped to her feet. He suddenly realized what a horror this was for her, and how afraid she must be that Douglas Means would come after her. He walked over to her and embraced her, holding her tightly. “When did it happen?” he asked, as he cradled his wife and son in his arms.
“About four days ago. And that isn’t the only bad news. About a month ago several missionaries in other villages were hauled out of their homes in the middle of the night. They were beaten and arrested for preaching against removal. We got them released on the grounds that their work is partially funded by the federal government, but believe it or not local representatives of the federal government declared that they were not protected under federal laws, as they were not considered federal employees unless they worked directly for a federal establishment, such as a post office. We got them released, but only after a stiff warning that they had better leave Cherokee country or face being arrested again by the militia and confined for a good long time. Most of them refuse to leave. Our own Reverend Jessup is ready to stand up to anything they throw at him, and I suspect it won’t be anything good. They roughed up the first ones pretty badly, and they’ll do a worse job the next time. They’re out to set examples. Margaret Jessup is scared to death for her husband.”
“My God!” Andrea whispered. Adam turned then, keeping an arm around her. “They would actually beat missionaries? Their prejudice runs that deep?”
Ross ran a hand through his hair, as others muttered among themselves. “I’m afraid so, Andrea. From now on no one is safe and nothing is sacred. I think you and Adam should stay right here in town, and we should all team up, two families to a home, if possible. It will be strenuous, but it’s necessary. I think Margaret Jessup would want you to stay there. God only knows how long it will be before her husband gets hauled away in the middle of the night, and then there will be no man with her.”
“You’ll have to find someone else,” Adam quickly declared. “If there is danger they will come for the reverend, and it will probably be Douglas Means who comes. I don’t want him to find my wife there. It would be too dangerous for her. We must stay with someone more obscure, someone who draws no attention. If they come for the reverend, then we can move in with his wife and children. They would already have what they want, and Andrea would no longer be in danger. My mother and sister should also be taken out of there.”
John Ross nodded. “I understand. You’re right. There are plenty of frightened families who would be glad to move in with the Jessups. I’ll find someone else. How about if the two of you stay a couple of doors down, with Martha Bluecrow, the widow.”
Adam ran a hand through his hair, confused, his insides screaming with grief. “I guess for now. I don’t know. I have to think.” He sniffed and swallowed. “Where is my father buried?”
“We took him to the foothills beyond the house. It’s a nice place.”
“I want to go there.”
“You’d better take plenty of men with you. We never know where the militia will roam next.”
“Let them come! I intend to see my father’s grave.”
“I want to go, too,” Andrea sobbed.
“No! It would be too dangerous,” Adam said quickly. “You will stay here in town.”
Their eyes held. “But I loved him.”
She could feel his trembling. “Do you think I don’t know that? But he would understand, Andrea. And I have enough to think about now. Just do what I say.”
She hung her head, then wept against his shoulder. He looked at John Ross. “Just send the doctor to the reverend’s house. She will need him more than I do. We will go there now. I should see my mother and sister right away.”
“And you won’t do something foolish, like ride into a militia camp?” Ross asked. Never had he seen more hatred than he saw in Adam’s eyes now.
“I won’t…for now.”
“Staying put and not fighting is just as much a defense as going after them, Adam, perhaps our strongest defense. I told you once they will do everything they can to make us retaliate. Your father told you the same. Out of respect for his wishes, don’t try to take revenge.”
Adam scanned the room. “I will not take my revenge—this time. But there are traitors among us, informers, stinking bastards who would sell out their own mothers! I will find out who they are, and I think we all have a duty to let them know what we think of them! They are lower than snakes!” He urged Andrea along then, heading for the outside door. John Ross looked at Elias Boudinot, and he realized that more and more Boudinot was contemplating heading west while he could still get out with his belongings and family in one piece.
“Don’t look at me that way!” Boudinot told Ross. “You have seen Ruth and Rose Chandler, the burned homes! We must think seriously of what is truly best for our people. I would not be a traitor, and that you well know. I have fought as hard as you. But it is a losing battle, John. Perhaps we should just go.”
“It is because of Ruth and Rose Chandler and others like them that I will fight to my last breath, in every court in the land if necessary!” Ross retaliated. “We must stand together. We must! That boy just came back from a long tour, bringing many signatures, many letters, money to help our cause. He has paid the supreme sacrifice. I will not let him down, nor any of the others who love this land that is sacred to our hearts! You have lived with wealth too long, Elias; you are growing too much like the white man.”
He stormed out behind Adam and Andrea, and the others mumbled in confusion. Their two greatest leaders had quarreled. Which way should they go? Surely John Ross’s way, for he was their President and a man of iron strength, a clever man who knew the law and how to use it advantageously. He was their greatest leader. They would follow John Ross.
Adam and Andrea walked on weak, shaking legs toward the Jessup house, dreading what they would find. A black bruise was swelling on Adam’s right cheek. Their happy, relaxing trip was over, and Andrea could not help but wonder if things could ever be sweet and happy between them again.
Chapter Seventeen
Andrea looked up to see her mother-in-law coming into the small kitchen of Martha Bluecrow’s house. The home was small but comfortable, and it had four bedrooms on the upper floor, though they were not large. Until the raiding had begun, Mrs. Bluecrow had lived there alone, her children grown and gone. Now Rose and Ruth occupied one room, Mrs. Bluecrow her own; and Adam and Andrea occupied a third. The fourth was reserved for little Jonas. Martha Bluecrow was a patient, generous woman who enjoyed th
eir company, but she was unhappy about the reason the Chandlers had come to stay with her. She fussed and fumed about the whole tragic event, and worried over more raids. Now she was outside watering her flowers. Andrea sat in the kitchen alone, wondering what to do about poor Ruth, who sat just staring most of the time, her eyes lifeless, her face and arms still badly bruised. Thinking about what had happened to the girl gave Andrea the shivers, and it made her worry about what could happen to herself and her family. Being abused by strange men would be bad enough, but to her it was more horrible because one of them was Douglas Means. She hated him even more than she hated the militia.
“You shouldn’t be up,” she told Rose, her heart breaking for the woman. Rose had lost weight, and her eyes were hollow and dark from too much crying, too much worry, and too much grief. She fussed with her robe, walking slowly, the cuts from her whipping still raw and painful.
“How does one sleep?” she answered quietly, going to the coffee. She picked up the kettle with a shaking hand and poured a cup, then set it back down on the iron stove. She picked up the cup, but her hands shook badly so Andrea got up and took it from her.
“Let me carry it for you.” She set it on the table, and Rose just stared at it a moment.
“I keep telling myself…out of respect for Jonas’s wishes…I must be strong,” she said in a shaking voice. “I am trying. But I’m not sure I can do it.”
Andrea took her arm and led her to a chair. “Of course you can. I’ll never be as strong as you are. All of you are so strong, so brave.”
The woman smiled bitterly, easing herself into the chair. “That is only on the outside, child. Inside I feel the whip…see those men…hear my daughter—”
“Rose, don’t,” Andrea interrupted, taking the woman’s hand. “Ruth will get well. She has to. James has been coming to see her every day. He still loves her, still wants to marry her. She just has to learn that what happened was not her fault, that she paid a martyr’s price but she can still hold her head up and be a wife and a mother.”
“First she must face what has happened, and she has not done that. She sits…in her own child’s world now…worrying about those dolls. She has not faced reality, Andrea. I am afraid of what she will do when her mind allows her to remember.”
Rose choked, and for all of Andrea’s words of encouragement, she wondered herself how she would react to such horror. She would want to die, she thought. How could she bear such humiliation, bear to be so cruelly abused.
“I wish I knew the answer,” she told Rose. “Sometimes I feel like Adam. I just want to go out and kill every white man beyond our borders. I want to…scream and—” Her eyes teared and Rose squeezed her hand.
“As women we are even more helpless than our men who are struggling to remain peaceful. Even if we could fight we are not strong enough. And the militia will use us again, for it is their clever way of urging our men into fighting. Nothing stirs a man’s desire to fight more than offending his woman. It is worse than taking his land or his money.” She pulled her hand away from Andrea’s and sipped some coffee. “They are smart people, those men who plan our removal. They think of everything, every law and every atrocity they can design to force us to leave.” She met Andrea’s eyes then. “Adam understands this now. Realizing what they are trying to do makes it easier for him not to go out and kill. Remaining peaceful and fighting this through the courts is just as painful a blow to them as physical fighting. They are so sure we will give up.” She sighed deeply, wincing slightly. “But we will not. We embarrass and harass them politically just as they harass us physically. But we shall beat them.”
Andrea blinked back tears. She was prepared to make her own sacrifices if necessary, for she no longer felt white. Her heart was Cherokee. Her son was Cherokee. She had already suffered for loving a Cherokee, and she would do so again if need be. Adam had calmed somewhat, although beneath his façade she knew a volcano was boiling. He was constantly tense and angry, and most of all determined to find the informant who had sent the militia after his family. The happy, gentle boy she had met under the oak tree was turning into a bitter, vengeful man. Yet she could not blame him, and she loved him as much or more than ever. Someday, somehow, he would be her sweet Adam again. They would find peace, find the happy, carefree love they had known as mere children before her father had sent her away, the love that was reawakened when she’d returned and married Adam.
She glanced at her mother-in-law, the proud, once-beautiful woman now haggard and older looking. How could she bear losing her husband? That was probably harder on her than anything else. To Andrea, that would be the most unbearable loss of all. She couldn’t survive without Adam Chandler. Perhaps that was why God sent children, to give a man or a woman something to live for when the mate was lost. Yes, she would have little Jonas, sweet, precious Jonas. And now there was another child on the way. Another child! Yes, that might help bring Adam back to normal. She hadn’t yet told him that she thought she was pregnant. She would save the news for just the right moment. Perhaps tonight would be a good time. He’d be gone all day, mostly at the newspaper office, and he’d welcome some good news when he returned. He needed to hear something positive. His heart was so shattered and full of grief.
“Mother, have you seen my china dolls?”
Andrea and Rose both looked up to see Ruth in the doorway, still in her nightgown.
“I’ve looked all over for them,” she continued in a voice that sounded like a little girl’s. “I saw them sitting along my window ledge not long ago. Can’t we go home and get them?”
Rose swallowed. “No, dear. We…we have to leave them there for now. We have to stay here with Mrs. Bluecrow, and we couldn’t bring any of the dolls with us.”
Ruth scowled. “I don’t see why I couldn’t bring just one. I thought they were here. I’ve looked everywhere.”
“They are not here, Ruth. Now go upstairs and get dressed. James is coming to see you again.”
The girl sighed, pouting like a child. “He comes every day. Why does he come so much? I don’t like playing with boys or even talking to them.”
Rose got up from her chair, and walked over to her daughter, she took hold of her shoulders. “James loves you, Ruth. He wants to marry you. Don’t you remember?”
The girl blinked. “I can’t get married. I’m too young. I just want my dolls.”
Rose pulled her into her arms, patted her shoulder. “You’re eighteen, Ruth. You’re not too young. And stop thinking about the dolls. Think about…about here and now, Ruth…about Adam and Andrea and their baby…about pride and love…about James.”
The girl pulled away. “Where is Father? He’ll go get my dolls if I ask him.”
Her mother took her hands. “Your father won’t be back for a long time, Ruth. Now go upstairs and dress.”
The girl sighed deeply and turned away, muttering that she did not like it where she was and wanted to go home. Rose turned to Andrea, who was wiping at tears.
“I feel like it’s my fault,” Andrea declared. “If Adam hadn’t married me Douglas Means wouldn’t have—”
“Nonsense!” Rose said sharply. “They would have come, Douglas Means or no Douglas Means. He just happened to be the one in charge that night. But any others would have done the same thing, Andrea. That’s the way they are. This same thing has happened all over Indian country. Douglas Means does not lead every expedition. We were singled out as an example. It wouldn’t have mattered which men came that night.”
Andrea burst into tears, covering her face with her hands. In the next moment Rose was beside her, grasping her wrists. “Andrea, I need you to be strong for me. Please don’t do this. I love you like a daughter, and none of this is your fault. You are my son’s wife, the woman he loves, the mother of my first grandson. I don’t want you blaming yourself. It does no good to blame anyone. There is no single person to blame. It’s destiny, Andrea, the destiny of the Indian. But we will not go down in shame and tears. We will
go down proud.”
Andrea hugged her then, and wished they could all just go and live under the arms of the great oak tree, where no one could harm them, where Ruth would be happy again and Jonas would come back to life. And she would lie with Adam. Happy and laughing again, they would share bodies and hearts and love.
Upstairs Ruth began to dress, staring at the bruises on her face and wondering where they came from, not understanding why her stomach and everything down below hurt so much it was hard to walk. She wondered if she should go back to their house by herself and get her dolls since no one else seemed willing to do it.
Again they came. Adam barged into the house, ordering all the women to the cellar. Two months had passed, and Ruth had stopped talking about her dolls. Silent now, she occasionally was awakened by bad dreams, but she never remembered what they were when fully awake. She let herself be hustled to the cellar, oblivious of the reason.
“Adam, what is it?”
“The militia! They’re riding right into town. Stay down here and keep quiet. Try not to let Jonas make any noise.”
When they reached the foot of the steps, Adam turned to go back up. “Adam, no!” Andrea begged. “Maybe they’re coming after you!”
“I don’t think so. Either way I’ll not let John Ross and the others face them alone.” He started up, but she grabbed him.
“Adam!”
Their eyes held. They had not had much time together since returning to find their house burned and Jonas dead. The lovely peaceful time they had had in the North was over, and he was so full of hatred and worked so diligently at fighting for the cause that he was seldom home. He had not even made love to her since their return, and she still had not told him about the baby. In that moment he suddenly seemed to realize how much he had neglected his wife. He bent down and quickly kissed her cheek.
“I’ll be back.” He put a hand to her cheek, then suddenly kissed her again, this time on the lips, a quick, hard kiss of passion. “Stay here,” he told her, suddenly reluctant to leave her. “I’ll put a rug over the door. I’ll go out the back way so they don’t see which house I’ve come from.”
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