Heart's Surrender

by Rosanne Bittner

  Now Luke Cloud sat listening, his dark eyes sly. Adam had already decided it was time to dispense with those who worked against the cause and fomented doubt and fear. The men present were talking among themselves now about the reverend and the doctor, for the news was not good. All talked in low voices, fearing a raid. Women had ceased coming to the meetings, for they all knew that at any time the militia could ride in to break them up. If women were present, they would be arrested along with the others, and all knew what would happen to them. He worried about Andrea and the strain she was under from being in constant danger. It was early October, and her stomach had suddenly mushroomed so that she seemed almost too big to be only six months along.

  John Ross banged a gavel to bring the meeting to order, and the men quieted. Then Ross stood up, slowly scanning the crowd of faces, some sad, some angry, all afraid.

  “You’ve all heard the rumor,” he announced. “I can tell you now that it is true. Reverend Jessup, Dr. Cunningham, and the other missionaries arrested last July have been tried and sentenced to four years at hard labor.” There was a general mumbling, and Ross fought to control his own feelings. It was difficult for him to speak, for tears kept threatening to come. He held up his hand for more silence. “They have been sent to the penitentiary at Milledgeville, and our sources tell me that they are being treated badly, often abused and fed very little. They have also been denied any visitors, so there is no use in any of us going there to see them.”

  The murmuring became louder, and there were angry whispers, clenched fists. “They can’t do that!” one man argued, standing up from the bench where he sat. “Surely the federal government can step in for them.”

  “We’ve tried that before, Charles,” Ross replied. “We can see more and more that the federal government is not about to go against anything Georgia does. All they say in reply to any of our petitions is that they cannot interfere with state affairs. We all know it’s a farce, but Andrew Jackson is still president, and as long as he is in office, every avenue we take will be blocked. The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions has been in contact with us and plans to petition the President themselves, but I have little hope that they will get any farther than we have. We’re getting strong support from the North, and even a few people in Georgia are repulsed by what has happened, but Georgia won’t bend, and the federal government won’t interfere.”

  “So what do we do now? We live every day in fear of raids, of our homes being burned, our women being abused. Is there any use to keep fighting?”

  “We must keep fighting,” Adam replied. “For our Cherokee pride, if nothing more. I have lost my father, my home; my mother and sister were brutalized by the militia, but I am still here, and here I will stay. This is our land! It is beloved and sacred. It belonged to us long before the white man ever stepped foot on this continent.”

  “We still have a lot of support,” John Ross assured them. “We are putting the federal and state governments to every test, embarrassing them in every way possible, because they know we are right. Our constant battle, our refusal to give up, and our commitment to nonviolence has them puzzled and grasping for anything they can use to make them look right. So far they’ve come up with nothing truly convincing, but I have some top men advising me on their every move—men like Jeremiah Evarts and Daniel Webster. And we have found a sympathetic law firm willing to represent us right here in Georgia—Underwood and Harris. They’re very good, and we continue to get support money from the North to help defray expenses. If and when our case is carried to the Supreme Court of the United States, we will be represented by William Wirt. You can’t ask for much better. Wirt served as attorney general under Monroe and Adams, and he was special prosecutor at the treason trial of Aaron Burr. I am also happy to say that an attorney from Pennsylvania has volunteered his services for free—a John Sergeant. He is a great speaker. I assure all of you that we still have a mighty sword to wield. We have involved the President, Congress, the church, educators, writers, the Supreme Court, lecturers, practically every political entity one can name. There are many great and influential people fighting for us. We cannot—we must not—allow the random attacks of the militia to make us give up now. We must hang on, for we will win in the end. They won’t stop with the militia. They’ll invent yet more laws to crush us. They will try to bribe us, they will do anything and everything they can to make us just leave quietly and make no more fuss. But they are finding out just how intelligent, educated and strong the Cherokee people can be. United we can win this battle.”

  There was a general feeling of relief and new hope among the gathering of men. Elias Boudinot rose then to speak. “We all know that right now there is a battle going on between Governor Lumpkin and Chief Justice John Marshall. This can only be good for us. Georgia is fighting with the Supreme Court over the court’s right to tell the state what to do. Lumpkin has brazenly disobeyed court orders in the past, but this only makes Georgia look bad, and it fuels the determination of the Supreme Court to demonstrate their power, making them more likely to rule in our behalf. We seem to have a friend in John Marshall, who presides over the highest court in the land. We can only take great hope in this.”

  He sat down and Adam rose and the crowd quieted as his eyes moved over them. They respected Adam Chandler, in spite of his youth. He was a well-spoken young man who worked hard for the cause. He was highly educated and very intelligent. He would some day be a great leader. Finally the young man’s eyes rested on Luke Cloud, who scowled back at him.

  “Our only hope, in spite of all the help we receive from men in power, is to stay together,” he told those gathered, his eyes still on Luke. “We cannot afford dissension, and we cannot afford to have…traitors…among us.”

  A silence hung in the air, while Luke Cloud’s face darkened.

  “I am calling you a traitor, Luke Cloud,” Adam said calmly.

  Cloud jumped to his feet while others mumbled. John Ross rose and grasped Adam’s arm, but Adam jerked it away.

  “Prove your words, Adam Chandler!” Cloud growled.

  The crowd quieted again, waiting for Adam to speak. Now Adam’s calm was fading, fury was building in his hot blood. “I have watched you for many weeks, ever since I heard that the night my family was brutalized you and my father argued heatedly about Indian Removal. Three times I have seen you ride off after a meeting, to disappear into the night, over the ridge! Where do you go, Luke Cloud? To the militia? What other reason is there for a Cherokee man to go riding off into the night after a meeting?”

  There was a clamor of voices then, and everyone stared at Luke Cloud, who suddenly could not think of a thing to say.

  “Tell us, Luke Cloud, how it was that the militia knew exactly where Reverend Jessup and Dr. Cunningham lived, how they could so quickly invade their homes and take them away? They did not stop to ask where they could be found. They already knew! How did they know, Luke? Maybe you told them!”

  Adam was over the table then. He knew by the man’s eyes that he was right, and his furious need for vengeance knew no bounds. He charged into Luke Cloud before the others realized what was happening, and although Cloud was a huge man, known for his strength, he was no match for the angry Adam Chandler who had lost his father and had lived with the shattered remains of his mother and sister.

  Men moved out of the way as Adam and Luke tumbled into the benches. Adam paid little heed to the pain of landing against the hard wood. He felt nothing but hatred as he jerked Luke Cloud up and landed a big fist on the man’s face. Cloud flew backward and started to get to his feet, but Adam kicked him hard in the middle and then in the face. Blood flew from Cloud’s mouth and nose, and Adam bent down and picked him up as though he were a small child. The men watching were circled now, cheering for Adam, their young hero; for many others had wondered about Luke Cloud’s loyalty, and it seemed, through Adam, they were satisfying some of their own need for vengeance.

  Over and over Adam dealt shatt
ering blows to the stunned Luke Cloud, who had never even had a chance to hit back. Adam picked him up again, shoved him against a wall. Cloud grunted from the jolt, and reached inside his jacket. Adam did not see the move. He made ready to, again smash his fist into the bloody mass he had made of Luke Cloud’s face, when suddenly he felt a piercing pain in his side. His eyes widened and he stumbled backward, blood pouring from his lower left side. Men gasped and quieted, while Luke Cloud waved a knife at all of them.

  “You…stay away…from me!” he grunted. He backed toward the door while others just stared. Then he disappeared into the dark. John Ross was immediately at Adam’s side, supporting the young man as his legs began to go out from under him.

  “Help me get him to Martha Bluecrow’s house,” he ordered the others. “We have no doctor now. We’ll have to do the best we can.”

  Adam felt himself being lifted. He didn’t care that he’d been stabbed, didn’t mind the pain. He’d hurt Luke Cloud badly, he would have killed him with his bare hands if it weren’t for the knife. At least now everyone knew the man was a traitor.

  Andrea watched in quiet terror as Martha Bluecrow cleaned her husband’s wound and sewed it up. She had wanted to do it herself, but no one would let her, afraid the strain would be too much. Adam lay abed, drunk from whiskey given him for the pain. He laughed off and on, talking over and over again about how he’d given Luke Cloud what he had coming, expressing a wish that he had killed the man and a determination to do so. Andrea could only hope she could talk some sense to him when he was sober, for if he killed Luke Cloud, the Georgia Militia would arrest him. The Cherokees were no longer living under their own laws, but the laws of the state. One Cherokee who had killed another earlier in the year had already been arrested and hung.

  He called for her then, and when she rose from her chair and leaned over him, he grasped her hand and kissed it. “I did it…I found him!” he mumbled, his words slurred. “I found the traitor, Andrea…I beat him good. It was the next best thing to…getting my hands on Douglas Means. But I will Andrea…someday…I’ll kill that bastard.”

  “Adam, don’t talk that way,” she said quietly. “You know you can’t do that. In the meetings you speak for nonviolence, just like the others. You know that to kill a militia man would only ruin the Cherokee cause and destroy all our efforts.”

  “A man…has to stand up…for his loved ones.”

  “Of course he does, darling.” She bent down and kissed his forehead. “God knows you have the strength and skill to do it. But the bigger fight has to be fought with words, Adam, not fists and knives.”

  “He…deserved it,” he moaned, suddenly saddening. His eyes teared. “The…son of a bitch…deserved it! I should have…killed him! Because of him…they singled out my father.” He choked on a sob then. “I…miss him, Andrea.”

  “I know you do. We all miss him. But just think—he won’t suffer anymore. He’s free of all this worry and warring. He’s at peace, Adam.”

  He met her eyes then and reached up for her. “Don’t go away from me, Andrea,” he begged. “Don’t ever…go away. We have to…go sit under the oak tree. You…remember the oak tree…don’t you, Andrea?”

  She smiled and smoothed back his hair. “Of course I remember the oak tree. How could I forget?”

  Their eyes held and he smiled through his tears. “I loved you…that first day…when you hugged the tree,” he told her. “I knew you loved it…as much as I did…and I loved you.”

  “You can help me wrap him, Andrea.” Martha Bluecrow touched her shoulder. “If he doesn’t get an infection, he’ll be all right. We’ll have to keep an eye on that wound. He’s darned lucky the blade went in far enough to the side to miss his vital organs. And you’re lucky your man is alive. That Luke Cloud ought to be hung.”

  Andrea gently kissed Adam’s swollen hand. Then Rose watched, her arm around a still quiet and withdrawn Ruth, while Martha and John Ross lifted Adam slightly so that Andrea could wrap his middle with gauze. By the time she’d finished, Adam had drifted off into a drunken sleep.

  Luke Cloud quickly packed his immediate belongings onto two mules and then saddled the horses. He and his wife and daughter would leave that night, to head west with the substantial sum of money given them by Douglas Means. He could no longer act as an informant now. He must get out and get himself to Indian Territory. He could barely see because of his swollen eyes, and his pain was almost unbearable. But he had to ignore it and get away, for fear a mob of angry Cherokees would come after him and beat him some more. He smiled to himself as he slunk away in the wee hours of the morning. By the time the rest of them came staggering west after losing their ridiculous battle with the government, they would be poor and broken. He, on the other hand, would be rich and well established in Indian Territory. Maybe Adam Chandler would even have to beg him for help. It would serve him right.

  The little troop of small boys was marched into the strange man’s office. Outside was the noise of machinery, so loud it hurt the ears sometimes. Little Indian turned his wide, dark eyes to the window, to look out at boys not much older than he running machinery. They stood like silent statues, moved automatically; their eyes were hollow and tired-looking, and their bodies were frail. Little Indian, the only name he’d ever been called, wondered why on earth he had been brought here with the others. Life was hard at the strange, cold place where he’d been raised, but that was home to him now and he didn’t like being brought out of it to this strange, new place.

  Big Father, as the man who’d brought them here was called, was now talking to the man behind the desk, a frail-looking fellow with a hard look to his dark eyes, and glasses on his long, thin nose.

  “Some are still a little young,” Big Father was saying. “But you can see already why I brought them. You might wish to pay something down on them now. When they’re old enough, I’ll bring them back—sturdy, fresh young boys to run your machines.”

  The thin man with the thin nose walked around his desk, eying each boy, pinching their arms to see how much meat was on them, looking into their eyes to see that they were clear, turning them around and around to make sure they were whole and healthy.

  “This one has very strong legs,” Big Father said of one. “That one is quick to learn.” “This one here is very intelligent, already reads and writes.” They came to Little Indian, and the thin man looked him over with a scowl. “This one is a Cherokee Indian,” Big Father told the man. “He is very strong for four and a half, one I don’t think you’ll want to let go. He’s a bit too young, but in a couple of years you can put him to work. I think you’ll be pleased. He’s a mixed breed, has the intelligence that usually comes with the mixed ones.”

  “Which one was white?” the thin man asked.

  “The mother.”

  The thin man pinched and poked and then turned Little Indian around. “How did you get him?”

  “Come now, Stuart, you know I’m not authorized to divulge such information. The origin of these children is kept strictly confidential. Most of them are given up willingly anyway.”

  The two men continued talking, but Little Indian again became lost in the wonder of where he came from. Did he drop from the sky? Come from the walls, like the mushroom he’d seen growing once in the cellar of the old house where he’d been raised with the other boys? None of them seemed to know exactly where he had come from. And none of them knew the meaning of mother and father, home and hearth. They had grown up knowing only regimented days of work and very little play, of specific times to do everything, of rigid teaching by stern-faced men and women who showed no sign of warmth. And so none of the little boys there even understood affection or the meaning of love. But there was a strange longing in Little Indian’s heart, a flicker of wonder and curiosity that he could not yet understand or act upon. He only knew that down deep inside him there was an odd longing to know something, and a tiny softness that made him want to cry sometimes, especially at night when he was afraid and
alone. And what was a mother? Big Father had told the thin man that his mother was white. That was the first time the boy had heard any mention of something that had to do with where he came from.

  He looked down at his hand. White? Did he mean like the white people who watched over him at the house where he lived? He’d been told several times he was an Indian, whatever that was, and that because he was Indian, he was born from evil, and he could never live out in the rest of the world like others. He had to stay in that house, and someday he would work in big factories. He must prove his worth by working very hard, and then someday he would be free to go out into the world. He wondered if there were more Indians out there. Were they all born from evil, as he had been? What did being born mean, and how was he born? All he knew about evil was that it was a very bad thing, so he must be very bad, too. He reasoned that therefore he must do all that they told him, for he’d been told that disobeying would mean being thrown into a terrible pit, where he would burn and burn but never die. He was afraid of the pit. He would be good. But maybe someday he would find out if there were other Indians. And maybe he would even find out about the white mother Big Father had said he had, although he wasn’t quite sure what a mother was. Perhaps she was bad, too.

  “I’ll pay something on the Indian now,” the thin man was saying. “He looks good and sturdy.”