Cherokee America Read online

  Contents

  * * *

  Title Page

  Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Cast of Characters

  The Coming of the Owl

  More Than She Came For

  The Search for Gold

  The Rescue Story

  Justice

  The Marshals Come to Town

  Author’s Note

  Acknowledgments

  Sample Chapter from MAUD’S LINE

  Buy the Book

  About the Author

  Connect with HMH

  Copyright © 2019 by Margaret Verble

  All rights reserved

  For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.

  hmhbooks.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Verble, Margaret, author.

  Title: Cherokee America / Margaret Verble.

  Description: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2018006352 (print) | LCCN 2018011255 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328494238 (ebook) | ISBN 9781328494221 (hardcover)

  Subjects: LCSH: Cherokee Indians—History—19th century—Fiction. | Cherokee women—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Historical. | FICTION / Literary. |

  GSAFD: Historical fiction. | Epic fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3622.E733 (ebook) | LCC PS3622.E733 C48 2019 (print) |

  DDC 813/.6—DC23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018006352

  Author photograph © Mark Kidd Studios

  Cover design: Michaela Sullivan

  Cover photograph © Trevillion

  v1.0119

  For Fannie Anderson Haworth, my grandmother,

  who loved me unconditionally, slipped her culture

  to me indirectly, and who, on a hot summer’s

  evening in the kitchen, told me

  about Aunt Check.

  Cast of Characters

  The Singers

  CHECK, family matriarch

  ANDREW, Check’s husband

  Their children

  CONNELL

  HUGH

  CLIFFORD

  OTTER

  PAUL

  Hired help

  PUNY AND EZELL TOWER

  LIZZIE, daughter of Check’s mother’s cook

  BERT AND AME VANN, orphans from Arkansas

  COWBOY AND BOB BENGE, cousins to the Singers

  The Corderys

  SANDERS, Check’s (more) Indian neighbor

  NANNIE, his wife in the bottoms

  Sanders’ children

  TOMAHAWK, married to Mannypack

  COOP

  JENNY

  JOE

  GEORGE SIXKILLER, child of Sanders’ best friend

  SHERIFF BELL ROGERS, Sanders’ first cousin

  FOX, Creek medicine man

  The Bushyheads

  DENNIS, National Treasurer of the Cherokee Nation

  ALABAMA, his wife

  GRANNY SCHRIMSHER, Alabama’s mother

  JOHNNY ADAIR, Alabama’s son by Lafayette Adair

  MAY GOSS, Lafayette Adair’s first cousin and Sanders’ aunt by marriage

  DOVE, Alabama’s cook

  Other Characters

  NASH TAYLOR, town merchant

  JIM MURRAY, Nash’s assistant

  SUZANNE TAYLOR, Nash’s wife

  FLORENCE TAYLOR, Nash and Suzanne’s daughter, and Connell Singer’s girlfriend

  SAM GARRETT, postmaster

  JAKE PERKINS, whiskey seller

  CROW COLBERT, rowdy Indian

  CLAUDETTE, lady of the bawdy house

  DOC HOWARD

  ROB FORECASTER, janitor turned preacher

  WILLOW STARR WATSON, friend of Hugh Singer’s

  TURTLE SMITH, well-witcher

  COX, saddlery owner

  LOUIE GLAD, carpenter

  HANK, Ross family hired hand

  JUDGE ISAAC PARKER, US District Court for the Western District of Arkansas

  TOM RUSK AND BILL BOWDEN, deputy marshals

  1

  The Coming of the Owl

  More Than She Came For

  Check had bought everything she’d come for, but frowned at her list and pursed her lips. She glanced at the scales on the counter. “I’ll take another three pounds of coffee, Mr. Taylor.” She folded her paper to a square and slipped it into her skirt pocket. Focused on bolts of cloth over the merchant’s head while he scooped the beans. The plinking of her purchase against the brass of the scales reminded her of hard rain on her tin roof. The sound provided some relief.

  Mr. Taylor tipped the scale. Slid the beans into a burlap sack atop ten pounds already purchased. He retied the string and set his hand on a large spool of twine. “What else, Mrs. Singer?”

  Check moved towards a barrel of nails. She should’ve brought Puny in with her. He’d know if they had enough. But she didn’t want to take chances. She plucked a nail from the quarter circle holding the longest. “Give me five pounds of these, please.” She looked into the dark back of the store to avoid Mr. Taylor’s eyes. He was a close friend of her husband’s, and there wasn’t anything to say about Andrew that hadn’t already been said.

  Mr. Taylor came from behind his counter, scoop in one hand, burlap sack in the other. “If you need anything else, I’ll have Jim bring it out to you.”

  “Yes, I know, thank you.” Check moved away from the barrel and back to the counter. She ran her fingers over ridges of wear. Was thinking she’d never noticed them before when she caught a streak of light in the sides of her eyes. She turned as sunlight and a young man in a blue shirt burst into the store together.

  “She’s loaded, Aunt Check,” he said.

  Check Singer was related to many people in the Nation. But not to that particular youth. His people, she thought, were from somewhere like Maryland, or maybe Vermont. Being called “aunt” by anyone other than kin made her feel old. She responded, “Thank you. But I’m not your aunt, Jim.”

  “No ma’am, Mrs. Singer. But she’s loaded anyways.” Jim pressed his hands down the front of his pants. “I didn’t mean disrespect.”

  Check shook her head. She knew she was irritable. But words to tamp her reactions were dammed off inside her. She tried to soften her face with her eyes. She liked Jim. He was long-legged and a worker. His lopsided smile and sandy hair would soon catch the eye of a girl. But not one of Mr. Taylor’s. His eldest, Florence, was being sparked by her oldest, Connell. How that would develop, Check didn’t know. And didn’t have time to think on. But all three of the Taylor daughters would marry improved land. Jim, a white, couldn’t improve any land without stealing it. And Suzanne Taylor would never condone that. Check turned back to Mr. Taylor. “I’ll send Puny if I need anything. And either Connell or Hugh will be around with a checkbook at the end of the month.” She hesitated, then added, “No matter what.”

  “Don’t worry about sending Puny. Get me word, and I’ll get it there. We want to help as much as we can.” Taylor hoped Florence would marry Connell. The Singers paid with money drawn on an Ohio bank, not with produce or specie certificates. And Check Singer was a Lowrey, and the daughter of Colonel Gideon Morgan.

  “I know. Thank you, Mr. Taylor.” Check turned towards the door and Jim.

  “Mrs. Singer?”

  She turned back around.

  “He’s in good hands, Check.” The storeowner’s stubble of new beard made him look more like a drunk than an affluent merchant. His head bobbed awkwardly, but the informality of address was an attempt to conve
y the depth of his feelings.

  “Yes, Nash. I know. Thank you.” Check turned again, nodded, not directly at Jim but at the blue shirtsleeve holding the door. She walked towards the bright morning. Behind her, Nash barked, “Pack Mrs. Singer’s coffee and nails.”

  Check staggered, overwhelmed with sunshine. It was still early in the planting season. The front of the store faced south and west, where the weather came from. She looked at the planks to get her bearings. Her ribcage was penned to a funnel by her corset; she feared for a moment she wouldn’t be able to breathe. She gulped, and reminded herself to take deeper breaths. That winter was over, and bodies need fresh air like houses and rugs. Jim slipped past her and was putting her last purchases into her wagon when she heard steps on the planks behind her. Words came in a shout before she turned. “You through, Mama?” Clifford was on her.

  Check stepped back. “Yes, get the reins.”

  The boy pulled himself to full height. He hopped towards the hitching bar. Helping his mother was a treat.

  Check glanced at Cliff. His hair needed a wash. Children get dirty. She reminded herself that’s their nature. “Clifford, where’s Puny?” she asked.

  “Visiting in niggertown.” Talk about Puny wasn’t what Clifford wanted. He wanted to show off for his mama. He unwrapped the reins.

  Check thanked Jim as he went back into the store. She said to Cliff, “Don’t say ‘nigger.’ Your father and I don’t like that.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Cliff looked at his shoes.

  “Yes, ma’am, what?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Negro.”

  “That’s good, Clifford.” Check smiled with only her lips. She grabbed the side of the wagon. “We’ll ride down and get him. He’s been quiet lately. Maybe visiting will’ve cheered him up.”

  After they settled on the bench, Check tapped her boot against a quilt hiding a rifle on the floor. She flapped the reins and made a clucking noise behind her teeth. The wagon needed turning to the right to get to the Negro part of Fort Gibson, but mules don’t like right, so Check turned them left and circled wide in the middle of the street.

  The wagon rode better loaded than empty, and Check, who normally used a buggy and who was tired deep in her bones, gave silent thanks for the difference. She engaged Cliff in conversation above the clop of the mules. Talk was a good way to find out what he’d been up to, and had the added advantage of occupying her line of vision, reducing the likelihood of anyone calling to her.

  Clifford was full of things to tell. He could recall minute physical details of any animal, wild or kept. He was focused on roosters that morning, and that was fine with Check. She listened to a description of green tail feathers sprouting from a Leghorn and steered the mules towards a distant group of dark children who were silent and still. They all wore feed sack shirts, but only the tallest wore pants. The garb wasn’t unusual. But that Negro children should be quiet at a distance didn’t seem natural to Check. As she grew nearer, she cocked her head as though that would help her hear words that weren’t being said.

  When the wagon got to within fifty feet of the clump of children, they scattered like buckeyes spilled from a sack. It occurred to Check they’d used a wiser strategy than the one used by quail, which fly up in the same direction before spreading. She reined in the mules before a row of shacks and looked at each one. There was no perceptible difference; all were unpainted wood with tar tops and a single door in the middle. Puny was inside one, but she couldn’t tell which. They were all still, empty-looking, and cave-like.

  While she was trying to decide whether to order Clifford to go inspect, Puny emerged from a shack to the left of the mules. He was tall, muscular, and broad-shouldered. Darker than a fullblood, but not completely black. Check’s parents had owned slaves. She’d known Negroes all of her life. But she’d been taught they were people, not chattel; and she understood why her cook chose Puny over other suitors. A small child crept up and hid behind Puny’s leg. He didn’t seem to notice. But Check was already suspicious. She felt the slump in Puny’s shoulders match the slump in her own. “We’ll be leaving now,” she said.

  The child ran, and Puny turned his head towards the door he’d come from. Then he looked back towards the wagon.

  “Puny, please come here. I don’t like shouting.”

  Puny walked slowly towards the mules. He stopped at the head of the left one. His gaze fell on a fly on that mule’s flank. The mule whipped its tail.

  Trouble breeds trouble, Check thought. “What’s the matter, Puny?” she asked.

  “Don’t know, Miz Singer. The child’s bad sick.”

  “What child?”

  “The one inside.”

  “Is that all you’re going say? Am I going to have to come down off this wagon?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I believe so.”

  Check let out an audible sigh. “Puny, this child better be sick if I get off this wagon. I’m not out here on a Sunday go-to-visiting ride.”

  “Yes’um. I know. She’s awful sick.” Puny looked squarely at Check’s face. Tears tracked down his cheeks.

  Check stiffened, surprised. “Hold these reins.” She added, “Clifford, you stay where you are.” She lifted her skirt and climbed out.

  Inside the shack, Check couldn’t at first see anything past the shaft of light framing her shadow on dirt. She did feel movement in the room at two or three different spots, but stench gave her eyes direction. There was blood in the room, dried and foul-smelling. Underneath that, the sweeter odor of unwashed Negroes. Check turned towards the blood. A small bundle on a mat of straw and rags came into focus. She sniffed deeply, hoping to smell movement there, if not actually see it. Her eyes let in more light. She saw the gray face of a baby in a bundle of rags.

  Check squatted next to the bundle. Put her fingertips to the baby’s face. It moved a little, twitched. She put her smallest finger in its mouth. It sucked. Check took a breath, and felt deep relief.

  But, suddenly, she sensed movement behind her left shoulder. She turned in her crouch. Her ribcage contracted, leaving a space between her undershirt and stays. The movement was huddled in a corner. A whimper was followed by a wail: “My baby! It’s dead, Miz Singer!” A small head emerged from the darkness. The shaft of sun fell over half a face. The features were wild and contorted.

  Check, still startled, said, “Hush! This baby’s not dead. Don’t kill it with commotion. Who are you, child?” She rose.

  “I’z Lizzie, Miz Singer. You know me. My mama was Beth. After the hard times, your mama brung us visiting to Tennessee.”

  Check studied the girl. She did look like her mother’s cook. She said gently, “Lizzie, what’re you doing here? I thought your family was farming in the Canadian District?” The Cherokee Nation was divided into districts. Part of the southernmost one had been set aside for the Freedmen after the War. It and the Illinois District, where the Singers lived, were named after rivers.

  “I come back, Miz Singer. I been here in niggertown two winters.” Lizzie’s voice sounded like a tight banjo string. It was clear she was frantic.

  Check put a hand on her shoulder to calm her. She shook her head. “You should’ve come to the bottoms. We’ve got a big place. Plenty of work.” Check looked away from Lizzie’s face. Her eyes had fully adjusted to the dark. She saw a broken chair. A few pots and pans. A squat black kettle in the corner. The mat where the child lay. “Lizzie, I’m going to pick this baby up. Take it outside to get a good look at it. You understand what I’m doing?”

  “Yes, Miz Singer. I jist don’t know what to do. It jist came on me. I got no milk. Got no food it can eat.”

  Check, long used to making lists and decisions, thought, First the baby. Then the father. Then the mother. With that, she picked up the bundle, straightened her back, and stepped into the sun. She shaded the baby’s face with her hand.

  Clifford stood up in the wagon and peered over the flanks of the mules. His eyes grew at the sight of his mother. And Check, once hers a
djusted again, noted her son looked like a goose craning its neck. She marched past the mules, Puny, and Clifford to the back of the wagon. She stood between the bed and the sun. Laid the baby on a sack of flour that was flat. Then she again put her finger in its mouth.

  She made a soft clucking noise and pulled the cloth back. A girl. A little mass of gray wrinkles, dirty and stinky. Her suck was weak. Check turned her with her left hand, right little finger still in her mouth. She peered at the base of her spine. No mark there. Then she wrapped the baby back up, and stood so that her shadow shielded its eyes from the sun. She turned her head. “Puny, come here,” she demanded.

  Puny pursed his lips. He slowly approached the back of the wagon. His eyes stayed on the little bundle.

  “Is there something you want to tell me?”

  Puny kept his eyes on the baby. “Yes, ma’am. She’s mine. I don’t have any problem claiming her. She gonna make it, ya think?”

  Check shook her head. “I don’t know, Puny. She needs milk. Is there a fresh woman in this part of town?”

  “No, ma’am. I don’t think so. I been asking around.”

  “With all these little children”—Check nodded towards vanished children as though they were still in sight—“you’d think there’d be a Negro mama somewhere.”

  “No. I done checked while you was in Taylor’s.”

  “How about the Claymakers? They have Negro blood. Their oldest girl delivered last fall.”

  “They’ve done moved out to Manard. Not many folks left in town. Nothing to do.”

  Check felt irritated both by the sick baby and, irrationally, by the migration of the Negro population. “Well, this is a fine pot of soup. This baby needs something in her before I take her to the bottoms.”

  “You gonna take her? I don’t think Lizzie’ll be wanting to give her up.”

  Check sighed. “I’m not taking her for good. I’m talking about getting her something to eat. There’re cows in the bottoms.”

  “I knows that. But Lizzie, she’s attached to her already. And I can’t be wagging no baby home. Ezell’ll skin me alive.”