It was at this point, when the Cherokee had summed everything up, when Abe was ready to give the man whatever he asked, that Isadore burst in, his hands flying through the air in gestures of welcome to the Cherokee and in warning to Abe, that one might be becalmed until they’d talked and the other quieted before he gave away the store. Without delay, Isadore demonstrated his experience in dealing with unhappy customers by affecting an air of cordiality and formally introducing himself, then introducing Abe as his son, and lastly, with a little bow before settling in the chair Abe vacated, he asked, with humility and respect, “And I have the pleasure of speaking with whom?”
The Cherokee, who was by now becoming impatient, lifted his hand long enough from the butt of his pistol to shake the one the elder Sassaporta extended. “I am Edward Redhand,” he said. “Eldest son of Chief Redhand, whom you may know as the neighbor once upon a time of Theodore Rupert, who took over my father’s land after the death of his son, William, as recompense.”
Abe paled, swayed on his feet a little, but the others did not notice. Inside his skull, the Cherokee’s words reverberated. The man before him was none other than Marian’s brother.
“Yes,” Isadore said while Abe struggled to recover himself, “I recall that incident. Very unfortunate. I recall your people appealed to the courts on the land issue and, after some years, were denied. You removed yourselves, as I also recall, to the Unicoi mountain peaks, no? Yes. A small contingent of your people remained here, I think, until recently, when for some reason you came down from the mountain and collected them. I heard you did this in anticipation of the Removal Act. This is what I heard.”
Abe wondered how it could be his uncle knew so much and he so little about the movements of his departed lover’s family. Had Isadore any idea that Edward Redhand’s sister was the wanton Cherokee sprite his mother reviled? New torments afflicted him. His mouth went dry, his head swam. His heart left his belly in a single leap to reassert itself in his chest where it pounded like a steel hammer against his rib cage. He sunk onto the stool next to the desk, the one Isadore stood upon when he needed to reach the highest levels of shelving behind him. What would the Cherokee say if he knew the young man sitting there, his back pressed against the wall that he not keel over, was the catalyst of his sister’s death? Worse, what would he do? Did Edward Redhand even know she was dead? It was well known that news traveled swiftly through the mountains from Indian village to Indian village, at rates and by methods no white man fully understood. Surely by now it was common knowledge among her people that she’d disappeared. Surely they at least must presume her dead. He had time to think these questions over while the Cherokee repeated to the older man his tale of what happened to the tribal rubber and his stepfather responded to his visitor’s demands, time enough for Abe to come to a thick fog of acceptance for whatever might come next, whether ruination of the family business or his torture, perhaps death, at the hands of an avenging brother. When Isadore finally spoke his name, he turned his head to him expressionless, numbed to fate.
“Abrahan, I want you to travel with Mr. Redhand to his village in the mountains and assess the damage that’s been wrought in this most horrible manner. You understand, Mr. Redhand, that I must have a witness to the destruction you describe before we settle on compensation.” Marian’s brother shrugged. Of course you shrug, Abe thought, you’ll have me as hostage. Not that I deserve less. “In the meantime, I will communicate with Mr. Goodyear in Boston. It is his product, and in the end, it will be him what pays!” Isadore slapped his hands on the desk with finality and everyone stood. He shook the Cherokee’s hand once more. “Let the lad bid goodbye to his wife first,” he finished. “He is newly wed.” At this, the Cherokee lifted an eyebrow. “Hmph,” he said. He went outside to wait for Abe and ready his men for the return trek.
As soon as he was gone, Isadore’s congenial manner evaporated. He grabbed Abe by the shoulders and, spittle flying, said in a quiet, urgent voice, “Inspect every inch of his land! Closely! Draw maps, take notes! Interview the purchasers of the melted rubber! I need to determine if this will happen to all my rubber, or if somehow the Indians got hold of a rotten batch. I need enough evidence to threaten Goodyear with a lawsuit, and oh my, I need to cancel that reorder, which is probably as we speak on its way south by train. Dear Lord, this could ruin us. Ruin! Quick, go say fare-thee-well to Hannah and be off!”
Once Abe turned to leave, Isadore grabbed him again. “But don’t take too long. The last thing we need is parties of angry Cherokee riding into town, scaring away all the customers. If we are to mitigate their losses somehow, keep them peaceable, the Cherokee must be at the front of the line. If the farmers hereabouts start complaining, that may be hard to do. Yes, yes, son. Whatever it takes, I will try to make this right. I’ve worked too hard and too long to win the confidence of my neighbors that I’ll not end things as ‘that Jew who stole our money.’ Ruin or not. The Quakers are good people, but they too will want a piece of our hide.”
Abe collected Hannah and led her to the livery that he might tack up Hart. She’d had her ear to the back room and knew everything. As soon as they were alone, she said, “This Edward Redhand is the brother of that Dark Water we spoke of! Remember? The one my father warned you of, the one I spied, hatter mad, as a child! Oh, the nightmares I had of her!” Hannah shuddered and grasped him around the waist from behind while he tightened Hart’s girth. “He may well be as savage as she, no matter how he dresses or how well he speaks. Please, be careful, my love. I swear, I’d rather have you poor and whole than rich and mutilated by a Cherokee brute!”
Abe felt as if his head were already on a spike. Impending punishment for his sins threw in stark relief all the wrongheaded ideas he’d entertained since he’d arrived in America. Fresh awareness washed them away as surely as a deluge cleanses a gully of loose rock and refuse. He knew now he’d lived the past years inside a mist of whimsical thought and naïve feeling while all along harsh reality nipped at his heels, getting ready to bite. There were signs of calamity everywhere, yet he’d blathered along, utterly unaware. What was he thinking? Could he ever have been so young? Why had he ever been so sure Marian would love him? What blind dreams he’d entertained on her behalf! Her world and his, while overlapped, were as far apart as London from New York, and Lisbon from both. Why had he thought he’d never love another when this dear woman whose tears wet the back of his shirt had so effortlessly delivered to him a month’s worth of nightly bliss despite his broken heart? In a matter of minutes, he was to march off into the unknown with a suited, shirtless Cherokee who had every reason to hate him and every opportunity for cruel revenge at his disposal. Envisioning a dark and justifiable fate, deadened by guilt, he told his wife, yes, he’d be careful, and gave her an embrace that, while long and lingering, felt empty and hopeless to him.
Abe rode around to the street where Edward Redhand waited in a two-horse wagon, his slaves sprawled about its bed, catching a rest. “Hitch that horse to the backboard, and sit up here with me,” the Cherokee said, and Abe did so.
Their trek into the mountains was arduous. Abe knew the range they traveled was known by the Cherokee as the Unicoi, or White, Mountains for its thick fogs. Often, it was near impossible to see clearly as far as one’s outstretched hand. Their progress was slow. Abe grew anxious and tried to engage his companions in conversation to ease his nerves. Edward Redhand was not terribly convivial, preferring silence to Abe’s chatty attempts. He tried also to engage the black men in the wagon bed, but these were no more forthcoming than their master, giving him only the yessirs and nossirs slaves are wont to employ when a freeman not their master addresses them. They talked among themselves both in Cherokee and an island patois Abe did not understand, so it was possible their comprehension of English was limited. When they stopped for the day, Redhand hunted for small birds and mammals, and one of the slaves roasted the game over the fire. One of the birds wasn’t consumed by
the men, but instead Redhand raised it to the skies in offering and then incinerated it. After dinner, he and Abe slept in their bedrolls, while the others slept on the bare ground. At breakfast, the slaves heated up round cakes made of cornmeal that they carried with them. One night, Redhand scraped a length of bark off a walnut tree, crushed it, and placed a walnut powder in a nearby stream to drug the fish that they might be more easily caught in the morning. Abe awoke just after dawn to the sounds of slaves splashing about in the cold mountain waters, catching dull-witted trout with their bare hands. That morning, breakfast was a feast. When they were three days into their trip, the heir to Sassaporta and Son found himself lulled by the pure air, the breathtaking vistas of green woods, rushing springs, soaring mountains, and his companion’s silence. He reasoned that if Edward Redhand knew his sister was dead, he could not possibly know his lie had driven her to it. Abe would have been long dead and the fact that he was not gave him confidence. He found Marian’s brother admirable on many accounts. He seemed much like his sister. He wished they could speak openly to each other. That they could talk about Marian, share their memories. He could not help himself. He brought her up, in a way.
“I’ve sold goods to this Rupert family who won your father’s land,” he said. “I only know rumors about what happened between them and your people. I’m sure you were probably in the right, no matter what townsfolk and settlers say.” He moved his head side to side philosophically, in imitation of every wise old man he’d ever met. “I’m telling you, money and power make men perverse. Over to the Rupert plantation, even the house slaves have airs.”
Edward Redhand pulled the wagon’s team into a dead halt, securing the reins. He turned and looked at Abe with narrowed eyes, mouth and jaw sternly set. Abe swallowed but held his gaze. “What do these townsfolk and settlers say?” Redhand asked. Abe hemmed and hawed until he thought of something to report, then spit it out. “They say a slave belonging to your father murdered the Rupert son, who was a spoiled boy growing quickly into a bad man. This slave—a Jacob, I think?—then took refuge at Chota.” His chest heaved with excitement at his recklessness, but the other man did not react, either to his condition or his evocation of the name Jacob. His eyes remained narrowed, his voice slow and deep. “And why would this Jacob,” he asked, “this slave of my father, murder the boy if he had not yet finished becoming bad?” Abe responded without hesitation. “That’s the part I’d love to know,” he said. “I heard it had something to do with a Cherokee woman, perhaps the slave’s lover.” Redhand’s mouth pursed. He cocked his head and looked at Abe quizzically, as if well puzzled. “Do you know her name?” he asked. And Abe, telling himself in for a penny, in for a pound, looked up at the blue sky as if searching there for his memory. “I think it was … let’s see now … I think it was Dark Water. Or—and I know this sounds crazy—but maybe … let’s see, an m name … maybe Marian too.” Edward Redhand reached forward to unwind the team’s reins from where he had secured them on the wagon’s brake post. He lifted them with one hand and took up a whip with the other. “Dark Water?” Abe pretended to think. “Yes, I’m sure that’s it.” The Cherokee raised his whip. “Or maybe Marian?” Abe wrinkled his brow. “I think so.”
Crack! The whip sliced the air and landed not on the horses’ flanks but on the side of the wagon wheels, its sound nonetheless driving the beasts off at a wild pace through rough woodland paths. The cab and bed bounced dreadfully as it sped over rocks and crashed through puddles, which sprayed upward wetting the men as high as their shoulders. The black men held on to the sides of the bed for dear life. Abe held fast to the edges of his seat. Behind them, Hart’s lead snapped at the sudden jolt forward, yet he galloped alongside fighting to keep up. All the while, Redhand laughed like a madman. “Ha, ha! Ha, ha! Dark Water, I think!” he cackled over the terrible sounds of the wagon racing over unruly ground. “Ha, ha! Maybe Marian? Ha, ha!” They coursed through a rut that was deeper than any of them surmised. The wagon listed to one side so far it nearly tipped over. The men in back rolled with the list to land in a mass of legs and arms against the cab’s right side. Abe twisted so far he banged a knee, when sheer momentum twisted him back or surely he would have been thrown off the vehicle and landed against stone and tree. At last Edward Redhand had had his fun. He slowed the wagon. Abe and the slaves suffered coughing fits from the dust raised by a riotous ride. The Cherokee breathed normally.
“Oh, titmouse, titmouse,” he said. “My sister named you well.”
Abe struggled to catch his breath before dissembling.
“Your sister? What are you talking about? And why should this sister know me or name me thus?”
“Hmph. Don’t you remember me, titmouse? I remember you. You sat in front of my sister’s cabin on a stool plucking birds. You were covered in turkey feathers. It was the day I came with my friends to collect her and bring her up to the mountain peaks. She would not come. She was not ready. Not yet.”
Not yet. The words came loud to him. They rang in his ears more intensely than the revelation that Redhand knew who he was. Not yet. Not yet. That could only mean that Marian was still alive. He sat back against the bench of the cab taking in the revelation.
“And you, married, titmouse? So quickly? She’ll be surprised to hear that. After your eternal pledge.” Edward Redhand chuckled then halted the wagon once more. “Come. Get out. From here, we go on horse and on foot.”
Dozens of conflicting emotions ran through Abe’s body, making him both shaky and confused. He was exhausted, disoriented, terrorized, relieved, overjoyed, guilty, anxious, and irritated. In frustration, he asked, “Why do you keep calling me titmouse? Why does she call me titmouse?”
The Cherokee alighted from the wagon while the slaves unhitched the team and secured Hart. Redhand mounted one of the horses. His men loaded whatever provisions remained on the other. “The titmouse,” Redhand said, “is a harmless little bird. It has a tuft on its head, like the hair under the cap you always wear.”
Abe mounted Hart. His eyes smarted with embarrassment and hurt although he fought not to show it. “So. Your sister finds me harmless and small, is that it?”
“No. It is for the other thing.”
By now, Abe was exceedingly annoyed. “What other thing?” he asked sharply. Redhand raised an eyebrow at his impatience. “The titmouse has a certain call,” he said. “It begins loudly and then fades away so that he may trick his enemies into thinking he has flown away. In the stories we tell our children, he is a deceiver who aids a great witch.”
“I don’t understand.”
The other man sighed in the way fathers do when young sons are stubborn or thick.
“The titmouse is a liar,” he said. “She is calling you a liar.”
“Oh.”
Suddenly, the earth opened and swallowed up the mortified soul of Abrahan Bento Sassaporta Naggar. His spirit descended deep inside the mountain into a fiery pool of shame, becoming smaller and smaller while what was left of him climbed higher up the mountain toward the sun. Hart grew restless sensing his rider’s diminishment. Abe’s legs went limp around him. The horse whinnied in a way that was mournful, distressed. After a time of riding in silence, the only sounds about them the movements of the horses and slaves who walked behind, for even the birds and the creatures of the wood were still, Redhand unexpectedly took pity, although perhaps his pity was more greatly extended to the horse carrying a man whose spirit had left him than the husk who rode him.
“When she calls you titmouse, she laughs,” he said. “It is not said in anger.”
Abe’s head snapped up. His back, though suffering a world of penitential weight, went rigid as his soul returned to it. He asked Edward Redhand the only thing that mattered. “Where is she?” The Cherokee shrugged. Then beneath the bowels of the earth, the mouth of hell opened. Hell itself belched into the atmosphere the scent of all the exhalations of the multitude who writhed w
ithin its tortures. It was the scent that sprung from the pit where what molten rubber could be scraped or shoveled had been dumped.
Abe examined the pit for depth and breadth. Dusk came but the moon was full and there was plenty of light at first. Abe was shown where homes had been abandoned to escape the stench of the black gum puddles the mountain sun had made of that miracle substance before which the financial geniuses of the northern cities had bowed. Cherokee women wept, pointing to ruined gardens and putrid streams. Children scowled at him as he passed. Abe was humbled and stricken with fresh guilt. He asked Edward Redhand to whom he should appeal for forgiveness. Redhand informed him their ghigua, their Beloved Woman, would accept his remorse.
After the horses were relieved and put up for the night, he was taken to a place a short distance apart from the village. A great cloud descended over the mountain, making it difficult to see the way. Edward Redhand and two other men, by their dress and ornament Cherokee of some stature, led him bearing torches that he might see through the thick mist. Still, he stumbled. They came to a cave and halted. The torchbearers entered first, then gestured him to follow. Deep inside the cave down a long corridor of stone was a round, open space. A figure there beckoned him to approach. He complied. Drawing closer, he could see by its shape the figure was female. She sat on a kind of throne made of interlocking tree limbs. Her breasts were barely covered by a gaping, sleeveless robe the color of milk. Her head was down but her hair was dressed so that it stood out on its ends like rays of light. Lit torches were placed in sconces set in a semicircle behind her. Through the gray-and-purple darkness, they were like stars set around the moon. Her head lifted as he approached and he saw she wore a mask, like that of a sorcerer. It was in the shape of a beast he did not know, which unnerved him. When he reached her, he bowed from the waist.
An Undisturbed Peace Page 16