American Dreams Trilogy

by Michael Phillips

  It is clear now that photography will stand at the vanguard of the future when it comes to the representation of the news to the public. It is a field that grows more exciting by the day. It is my sincere hope that you will want to be part of it. I do not think it will be long before we are capable of reproducing photographs in printed newspapers.

  It would be more convenient of course if you were to relocate to Boston. But if that is not possible or does not fit in with your plans, I think we might be able to make it work, as we have for the last four years, by courier and rail if you choose to remain based at your home in Virginia.

  Please give my best to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, and to Miss Waters.

  I hope that you will use this opportunity to consider the benefits of a future in the Herald’s employ.

  I am,

  Sincerely yours,

  A. McClarin, Boston Herald.

  Sixty-Seven

  The next afternoon Cherity saw Chigua walking alone outside. Cherity had noticed that she had been unusually sober and quiet since Cherity and Seth had returned. Something seemed heavy upon her mind.

  Cherity left the house and walked out toward the woman who, along with Carolyn and Cynthia, had become her dear friend.

  Chigua heard her coming and turned.

  “You seem… preoccupied,” said Cherity. “What is it?”

  Chigua smiled. “Does it really show?”

  “Something is on your mind. I am afraid you cannot hide it. Are you sad about something?”

  “No, not sad… just thoughtful.”

  “I have two willing ears,” said Cherity.

  They walked a minute or two in silence.

  “I have been thinking recently about my Indian heritage,” said Chigua at length. “I have—”

  She stopped and looked down.

  “It is too unrealistic an idea even to speak aloud,” she said. “Though I have told Sydney.”

  “What is it?” asked Cherity. “You needn’t tell me if you do not want to. But if you do, I am interested.”

  “What I was about to say,” Chigua went on a little sheepishly, “is that I have been harboring a dream, ever since reading about the Cherokee chief Stand Watie.”

  “A dream?”

  Chigua nodded. “I want… to visit the Indian Territory… to see if I might find some of my own people.”

  “Oh,” exclaimed Cherity, “I think that is a wonderful idea!”

  “You do?”

  “Of course. What could be more exciting than discovering your heritage? It is something I have wanted to do too.”

  “But… do you not know all about your family?”

  “I know next to nothing,” said Cherity shaking her head. “I never knew my mother—she died when I was born. My father is now gone and I know nothing about his past. He never spoke of it when I was young. I did not even think to be curious. Once he was gone, I realized how much had died with him. I have two sisters of course, and everyone here and all the Davidsons are wonderful to me. But deep inside I sometimes feel very alone. I also wonder where I came from.”

  “And your sisters know nothing of your father’s people?”

  “They know as little as I.”

  “I suppose in that way we are very much alike,” said Chigua. “I knew my family when I was young. But that was so long ago that I find it hard now to remember. My parents died and it was my grandfather who took care of my sister and me.”

  “I wish I could go with you, but such a long trip hardly seems realistic for two women like us.”

  “And me with a family,” nodded Chigua. “Have you ever been to the West?”

  “Once, with my father. I was only eleven—we went by stagecoach most of the way.”

  “The train goes all the way to Memphis now, I think. That’s almost to Kansas. I wouldn’t be afraid if you went with me. You’re so confident about everything.”

  Cherity laughed. “My father did instill confidence in me—that I could do anything. Maybe that’s why I went off looking for Seth. I knew I could find him… although I almost didn’t!”

  “But you did. And the way you use that gun Mr. Davidson makes you carry! I think you really could do anything you set your mind to!”

  As he recovered, Seth too became quiet and reflective. The letter from his editor had prompted his own thoughts about the future. And also his lengthy deathbed talk with James Waters lay heavily upon his heart, along with the promise he had made to Cherity’s father.

  The discussions between Chigua and Cherity had not escaped his notice. Seth knew that Cherity’s roots were not nearly so deeply buried as she supposed.

  When to tell her what he knew was the question plaguing him. When was the right time? It was a question that had been on his mind throughout the entire course of the war. Perhaps the time for revelation was nearly at hand.

  At last he went to his father.

  “Dad,” said Seth. “Remember that packet I gave you for safekeeping?”

  “Of course,” nodded Richmond. “It’s in the safe.”

  “I think the time has finally come when I need to take some action on it.”

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  Father and son walked upstairs to Richmond’s study. Richmond opened his safe, withdrew the packet, and handed it to Seth. “I almost opened it myself not long ago,” he said.

  Seth glanced at him with a curious expression.

  “I wondered, whatever this was about, if it would fall to me by default.”

  “I’m sure you would have handled it… no doubt better than I will be able to,” smiled Seth. “But as it was given to me to do, I have to try to do it as best I can.”

  Richmond nodded. “I understand.”

  They turned to go and Seth paused.

  “Dad, do you mind if I ask you a question?” he said.

  “No, of course not.”

  “How do you… I mean, how can you tell when something is right—when you’re supposed to do something? I mean, how can you be… sure?”

  “An age-old question,” smiled Richmond. “And one for which there is no simple answer. The biggest problem with that question is that so few people ask it at all. Just asking what’s right and trying to do what is right—that’s half the battle right there. They say Davy Crockett’s motto used to be, ‘Be sure you’re right, then go ahead.’ But it is easier said than done!”

  “What about knowing when you’re to do something?” asked Seth. “I’m pretty sure I know what I’m to do with regard to this packet… but not when.”

  “It never hurts to wait. God is rarely in a hurry. Not knowing the situation, I would simply say that you have to wait until the sense comes—This is God’s time.”

  “It’s hard, Dad. It’s not easy trying to walk in God’s will.”

  Richmond nodded. “It’s also how spiritual maturity grows. If it wasn’t hard it wouldn’t produce depth of character.”

  PART SIX

  ROOTS

  Spring - Fall, 1865

  Sixty-Eight

  When civil war had broken out in 1861, Black Wolf son of Prowling Bear was twenty-four. He joined and fought haphazardly with a regiment of loyal Cherokee, not to advance the Union cause, or any cause other than his own. The white man’s fight was not his fight. He joined mainly to oppose Stand Watie, “the traitor,” as he had grown up hearing his father call him. To kill Stand Watie was his passion, along with raising the Indian nations against the continued advance of the white man. It was his plan to rise as chief of his people and for the Cherokee to lead a great federation of tribes to retake their land. But he was still a young man. Both objectives had to be accomplished at the right time and in the right way in order to succeed toward the higher hope of Indian supremacy in the West.

  The war gave Black Wolf the chance to test his mettle in the heat of battle. He hoped more than anything for the opportunity to face Stand Watie warrior to warrior. As a Union soldier he carried a rifle, but in his belt he carried a far more person
al weapon. He dreamed of plunging his father’s tomahawk, the very same that had killed Watie’s brother, deep into the hated forehead, with Watie’s eyes looking straight at him, knowing by whose hand his death had come.

  While far away in Pennsylvania armies struggled away from the blood-soaked fields of Gettsyburg, a smaller and little-known skirmish took place between Indian troops in the heart of Cherokee territory. Those who rode under Colonel Stand Watie and Brigadier General Cooper prepared for a surprise attack on Fort Gibson held by the Union. But federal troops caught wind of the rumor and prepared a surprise of their own.

  Among the soldiers quartered at Fort Gibson was a long-haired warrior by the name of Black Wolf. When he heard the orders, the Cherokee warrior glanced down at the gleaming tomahawk in his left hand and sharpened it several times more against the stone in his right. At last, perhaps his long-awaited chance had come! He would find Watie on the battlefield, ride him down, and then cut out the old man’s tongue and send it to Watie’s widow.

  The Battle at Honey Springs quickly became a rout against the badly outnumbered Confederate forces. As Watie realized their danger, he wheeled his horse around and shouted for retreat. But there sat a mounted young Cherokee wearing the Union blue blocking his way.

  Something in the young warrior’s eyes looked evil as they bored straight into his own. Watie knew instantly that this was no mere battlefield encounter but something far more personal.

  With a fearful cry, his tribesman suddenly galloped forward, pulling from his belt a tomahawk and raising it above his head. Watie raised his rifle and aimed. But he could not pull the trigger. He had killed many times before. Yet some impulse prevented him taking the life of this crazed soldier who was trying to end his.

  His hesitation might have cost him his life. In two seconds the young man was on him.

  Watie had but a moment to react. He yanked the reins of his mount sideways with his right hand, and with all his strength swung his rifle in a wide arc with his left. He heard rather than saw the swish of the blade that had killed his own brother miss his ear by inches, just as the barrel of his gun whacked his attacker above one ear and toppled him to the ground. He dug in his heels and galloped away, turning back only long enough to see the young warrior climb to his feet and shriek after him with fist high in the air, “You will die, Watie… you will die!”

  Both knew they would meet another day.

  When the war ended, Stand Watie’s notoriety in the Cherokee nation continued to rise. Proudly mounted on his wall was a statement of commendation from the Confederate Congress, signed by President Davis himself. The defeat of the South caused him to treasure it no less.

  Those vowing revenge on Watie kept their hopes to themselves until after the general’s historic final surrender in June of 1865, going down in history as the last Confederate general to surrender.

  By then Black Wolf, son of Prowling Bear, was a twenty-eight-year-old Cherokee who had already begun to attract notice and gain a following among some of the younger and more radical of the tribe.

  Sixty-Nine

  The youths of Dove’s Landing were slowly returning to their homes and families. But not all homecomings were filled with joy nor every home with happiness.

  Brad McClellan would not be returning home at all. He now lay buried with the rest of the dead at Gettysburg. His younger brother Jeremy was one of the lucky ones to come home unscathed. No one had heard from Scully Riggs in three years. Even his father had no idea where he was or if he was even still alive. Wyatt Beaumont returned quieter and moodier than before, limping from a leg wound. Though he did not broadcast it about, word gradually got around that his brother Cameron had become involved with a group of desperadoes calling themselves Bilsby’s Marauders. No one knew where he was. Wyatt kept to himself that Cameron was wanted by the law.

  The interview with Stand Watie that appeared in the paper was read with great interest around the table at Greenwood, especially by Chigua who had been thinking much of late about her Cherokee heritage. Seth, too, listened with more interest than he allowed himself to show. His thoughts were on Cherity and her father and what he should tell Cherity of what he knew of her past… and when.

  I caught up with Stand Watie, the interviewer wrote, outside the small town of Vian near Salisaw far to the south in the Indian Territory of Oklahoma. Having been drawn to him because of his singular role in the recent War Between the States, I also hoped to learn more about the division within the Cherokee tribe, which had led to half the Cherokee siding with the Confederacy and the other half with the Union.

  As we spoke of the ongoing dispute, Watie mentioned a mysterious elder of the tribe, his own distant cousin through Dragging Canoe, son of the great chief Attacullaculla.

  “Though he descends from the Canoe line,” said Watie, “known for Dragging Canoe, the warlike son of the great chief, the man I speak of carries within him the spirit of the white feather of Attacullaculla himself.”

  “The white feather… what does that signify?”

  “In ancient times, the Cherokee had multiple chiefs. The chief of the red feather led during war, the Chief of the white feather led during times of peace. The white feather thus came to symbolize peace.”

  “Who is this elder you speak of?”

  “He is called The Man Who Wears the White Feather.”

  “Is that actually his name?”

  “It is how he is known,” replied Watie a little cryptically. “Most simply call him the Wise One. He has been a tireless voice for peace among the two factions. Both sides would sway him if they could—even I have tried. But he will endorse neither. He is respected by and yet occasionally angers those on both sides. He took no position on the recent war and nothing would make him change his neutral stance. He is one of the few still alive from the old times, who knows much of the story of the Cherokee people.”

  “How can there still be such tension between the two groups?”

  “It is worse now than it has been for twenty years,” Watie answered. “My life may even now be in danger. It is a dangerous time. There is at least one young renegade who has vowed to kill me.”

  “What is the essence of the dispute?” I asked.

  “The roots go back to the Ridge-Ross conflict of the 1830s,” replied Watie. “It is no longer about whether to relocate or remain in the East. Some now call it a dispute between the Full Blood party and the Mixed Blood party. When the war broke out, some sided with the North and others, like myself, were on the side of the Confederacy. Those differences intensified the old feelings on both sides and brought everything to the surface again. The Cherokee have long memories. Indian bitterness dies hard. Healing will take longer among the Cherokee. There has not been healing in thirty years, and I see no end to the breach in sight.”

  “That is hardly the civilized approach to conflict.”

  “It is the Indian way,” rejoined Watie. “Wrongs of the past are never forgotten. Forgiveness is not spoken of, only vengeance. And how civilized was the recent war between the so-called civilized whites of the North and South? It is hardly appropriate for such to condemn the Cherokee.”

  “Perhaps. But would it not be for the good of all the Cherokee to lay it to rest?”

  “The ancient Cherokee blood law cannot be forgotten. Many are still alive who vow never to forget the retribution required by the blood law. They will never forgive those of us who agreed to the treaty in 1835 and who sold our lands. Vengeance passes through generations. We are still seen as traitors in their eyes.”

  “And the old man you spoke of—the man who wears the white feather—he can do nothing to resolve the dispute?”

  Watie shook his head. “He is held in high respect by most, but not all. There are some who despise him for his talk of peace. There can be no peace, they say, until all the traitors are rooted out, no matter how long it takes, generation upon generation. From such as these, my life and even the life of the wise man are in danger. They murdered my
brother and uncle and cousin twenty-five years ago. There are some who yet consider the duty of that massacre incomplete.”

  “And so the hostility continues.”

  Watie nodded. “I do not forget the night they were murdered. To avenge them is my duty as well.”

  I sat and listened as Watie drew in a thoughtful breath and his forehead wrinkled slightly.

  “I told you of the young man who has vowed to take my life,” he went on. “He has gained a sizeable following. If the spirit of the white feather lives on in the old wise man of whom I spoke, in this outlaw renegade lives the spirit of the warrior Dragging Canoe. There are those who suspect his mother of Comanche and Kiowa blood. He is stirring up much havoc among some youth who are easily swayed. The rumors surrounding the old man only make it worse for such hotheads.”

  “What rumors?”

  “That he knows where gold is buried. But he has not confided everything he knows even to me. We have known one another all our lives, but he knows that I will never be neutral as he is. I remain a warrior and fighter. He has put the white feather on the back of his head. This difference will always exist between us.”

  Richmond continued to read aloud and finished the article. It fell silent in the Greenwood kitchen as they pondered the solemn content of the interview and Stand Watie’s words. More than he had been able to before, Seth was at last coming to understand James Waters’ concerns about Cherity’s safety.

  The letter that arrived at the home of John Borton, Mount Holly, New Jersey addressed to Deanna Steddings, was met with a shriek the moment Deanna saw the envelope.

  She ran outside to be alone, then ripped the envelope open and pulled out the two white sheets inside. In the distance she heard the faint sound of her father’s hammer pounding on the roof of their new house, where he and her mother and Moses were working at the far corner of the former Borton homestead.