Say You Love Me (13 page)

Luke described how they had come upon a small patrol of soldiers. The soldiers did not see them, so Luke, wanting to avoid trouble, signaled to his braves to stay hidden and let the soldiers pass unharmed. Black Serpent, however, had wanted to show off. He had also wanted to make coup. So he had attacked the four soldiers, who immediately ran from the advancing, screaming man. He had run one down, killed him, and taken his scalp.

Iris closed her eyes against the image of such horror. "Oh, Lord, why does it have to be this way? Why can't there be peace?"

"One day, perhaps there will be. Till then, we can only try to avoid fighting. That's why I have decided to take Gold Elk and Sharp Knife and keep an eye on things at Bird's Fort for a while, to try and head off trouble. We'll join you at winter camp later."

"And what about Black Serpent? With you gone, he'll try to take over our band."

"We don't have to worry about him anymore. I banished him."

"Oh, no. How many went with him?" She knew there were some men who sided with Black Serpent in his lust for blood.

"A few. But it's just as well. I don't want their kind, and I can't have a warrior who won't follow orders. To allow him to stay weakens me in the eyes of my people. I couldn't let that happen. He was just waiting for an excuse to take his followers and go off on his own."

Iris had been so happy to see Luke and listening so intently to everything he was saying that she had not noticed how he was dressed. Now she realized he was wearing a skin shirt, which puzzled her, because the men went bare-chested in warm weather. Then she saw the dark stain below his shoulder and cried, "You're bleeding."

He shrugged it off. "A small wound. It's nothing."

"Let me see." She opened his shirt over his protests. With skilled fingers she removed the poultice of weeds and grass he had packed in the wound to try and stop the bleeding. Relieved to see it was not deep, she said, "Black Serpent cut you, didn't he? I'm surprised you didn't kill him."

"I gave him a worse fate—having to live with the scar my knife left on his face. You know how vain he is."

She knew, as everyone did, that Black Serpent considered himself very handsome.

"It's not serious, I tell you," Luke protested when she brought out her herbs and bandages to treat and dress the wound properly.

"And we will see that it heals, but it is going to leave a scar."

"To go with the others." He grinned. Through the years, Luke had had his share of injuries from combat with both man and beast. "You women are lucky your scars are few."

"Oh, some of us have many. But we carry them in our souls, where they aren't seen."

He became silent as she fussed over him, and when she was finished he put an arm around her affectionately and said, "I don't like to think of the scars you carry on
your
soul, Mother. I wish I could turn back time and take away the sorrow you've had to live with. It would never have happened if my people had thought then as they do now."

They had spoken of the terrible thing that had brought them together only rarely. It was something Iris had tried, without success, to forget. Now she wished she had not said what she had about scars within, for it triggered the painful memory for both of them.

"I don't like to think of how you came to me," he went on, "but I'm glad that you did. You've taught me so much. Without you, I would never have learned to cherish peace, because we both know my father only allowed me to go away to school due to your influence. Now I can't wait to take all my people there come spring. We're going to have a good life. You'll see."

"You know, if you keep scouting instead of spending time with the young women, you aren't going to find a wife. I shouldn't be the one to worry constantly about you and take care of you."

He laughed. "You don't mind. And as for worrying, you'd do that, anyway. Besides, why do you think I prefer the forts? The women there are all married to soldiers. I don't have to worry about losing my freedom."

"One day it will happen," she warned him happily, "When you least expect it. Love can be found anywhere, my son. You just have to open your eyes so you can see it."

Closing his eyes, he pretended to stumble around blindly. "Then I'll keep them shut, because the last thing I need is another woman telling me what to do."

Laughing, she chased him from the tepee, all the while thinking how the lucky girl he eventually chose for a wife would have herself a fine man—and how proud she was to have been a part of making him so.

Chapter 10

In the twenty years since the forced march of the Indians that fateful winter of 1838-39, new trails had been forged by Cherokee slipping away to return to their beloved Great Smoky Mountains. Though skirting around impossible heights was necessary, as well as crossing unchallenged rivers, Mehlonga was determined he would not lead Jacie on the original and lengthy Trail of Tears. Mehlonga wanted to reach their destination before the onset of winter.

They raised few eyebrows when they passed through a settlement town, looking like a father and daughter traveling west. Jacie had convinced Mehlonga they could avoid trouble from Indian haters if he replaced the bandanna around his head with a straw hat. Reluctantly he agreed, and nothing else about his costume gave hint he was Cherokee. He wore an old black coat, trousers and a dingy white shirt.

The weather was good most of the time, so they camped in the open. Rain drove them to seek shelter in caves or beneath rocky overhangs. Occasionally they happened upon Indian farmers, who welcomed them and gave them the chance to wash their clothing, sleep in a real bed, and eat a home-cooked meal.

But Jacie liked the camping nights best. During the day, riding behind Mehlonga, there was no opportunity for conversation. At night, however, after a meal of dried corn and, if luck was with them, a roasted rabbit or squirrel, Mehlonga would light his pipe and settle back, and Jacie would listen eagerly as he spun the tales she found so fascinating.

One night when they had been on the road nearly two weeks, Mehlonga recounted the stories that had filtered back from Indian Territory of how his people had joined four other tribes—the Creek, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Seminole, all of whom had also been forcibly removed from the Southeast by the government in the 1830s.

Nearly fourteen thousand Cherokee had died, Mehlonga said. "So they should have been a broken people. But from all I have heard, they rallied, and they have built a prosperous society.

"We always felt we were cultured," he went on to say. "We lived in log cabins. We wore homespun clothes. We tended livestock and plowed fields with oxen. Some of our people even married whites, and tribal leaders could read and write English and comprehend the law. So it was not surprising to hear that the survivors of the march restored their way of government.

"Once"—he smiled with pride—"I even saw a newspaper they had printed at their capital in Tahlequah. It was in English, as well as our own language. It was called the
Cherokee Advocate.
They have schools there, too, for both men and women."

Jacie had eagerly learned what was known as the Cherokee syllabary, a script used for writing the Cherokee language. It had been devised by a half-Cherokee named Sequoyah and had spread rapidly. In a short time, she was able to write it fluidly but kept her knowledge to herself. Her parents would not have liked it, and neither would Michael. His mother would have succumbed to the vapors to know her future daughter-in-law was scholarly in the Indian way.

"What do you think you'll do when you get there?" Jacie asked.

Mehlonga stared into the fire for a few moments, then said with resignation, "Die."

"Don't say that."

"And why not? To die is only to go from one place to another. I have no fear of dying. No Cherokee does. But until the spirits call me, I will do what I can for my people with my medicine. And I will try to find my relatives. A brother may still be alive, and my sister. If they have gone ahead of me to that other place, then I will find their children. I will have family again. And so will you," he said with a confident nod.

Jacie's heart skipped a beat, like always, to think her mother might still be alive. "You think I will find her, don't you?"

"Not many have eyes like you. Not many white women live among the Comanche, at least not in favor. They make slaves of prisoners, but they must have treated the white woman well or she would not have returned to them willingly."

"Tell me what you know about the Comanche."

"They are fierce. And deadly. But there is a story about how they befriended the great Sequoyah. He was in their territory looking for a remnant of the Cherokee, and his party's horses were stolen by Tewockenees Indians, so they built a raft to cross a river. Comanche saw them, and because they were wearing caps, thought they were Texans and were going to kill them. Then someone noticed they had feathers in their caps. So they helped them, gave them food, horses, and sent them on their way. So the Comanche are not all bad.”

"I want you to promise me something," he went on. "If there is no one at this place called Bird's Fort that will help you, I want you to go home. It is too dangerous for you to stay and search on your own."

"I won't make such a promise," Jacie said stubbornly. "I didn't make this trip to turn around and go back without doing everything possible to find out the truth, Mehlonga. You know that."

"I suppose I do. That is why I have decided to give you this." He drew a knife from inside his coat and held it out to her. "I will teach you to defend yourself."

Jacie stared down at the wicked-looking blade gleaming in the fire's glow. It felt heavy in her hand, and unnatural. She decided she was afraid of it, and her hand began to tremble.

"You will learn to hold it with a steady hand, just as you will learn to use it with skill and cunning. Every night from now on when we stop to make camp, I will teach you. By the time we reach Fort Smith, I will not worry about leaving you to go my own way."

Jacie did not want to think about the time when they would part, but Mehlonga had made it clear that he would go no farther with her than Fort Smith, Arkansas. He would make sure she had an escort to take her on to Bird's Fort, while he continued on to the Cherokee capital known as Tahlequah, where he hoped to find whatever was left of his family.

"You will be as good as any warrior with the knife," he predicted.

"Do you think I will need it against the Comanche?"

"Be prepared to defend yourself against anyone who would do you harm, my child. Look not at the color of his skin but to his eyes, where the evil in a man's heart is revealed."

It was already dark, but Mehlonga showed her the way to grip the knife, how to strap it to her leg beneath her skirt to conceal it, and then how to whip it out at a second's notice. When she was skilled at that, he would teach her how to cut—and kill.

"I want you also to have this." He handed her a piece of soft deerskin that had been folded into a tiny square, hardly bigger than her thumb. Inside she found small seeds, hard and black.

"Seeds from the blue flower called the morning glory. Should you ever have enemies, they will make a nice potion to make them very sick. They will become dizzy and see visions, as well as vomit and be afraid. Since it would be hard to get them to eat the seeds whole, you must mash them into powder and then mix the powder in liquid for drinking."

Jacie was amazed. She loved morning glories. She had even planted some next to the porch at the cabin and enjoyed seeing their green vines grow to wrap around the posts, shading the porch with large, heart-shaped blossoms. But never had she thought they could be used to poison.

"As I told you," he said, "I want you to be able to take care of yourself when we are no longer together."

Looking from the knife she held in one hand to the poison seeds in the other, Jacie murmured, "I just hope I never have need of either of these."

"As do I, my child," he agreed solemnly. "As do I."

Jacie took her bedroll and lay down on the other side of the campfire, but she was too restless to sleep. After a time, she heard Mehlonga's even breathing and only then did she reach for the baby blanket she had not opened since they had left ten nights ago. Wanting to look at the daguerreotype once more, she felt along the hem for the telltale bulge, which oddly seemed larger and heavier than she recalled.

Her fingers crept inside, and she swallowed a startled gasp to find, along with the locket, the diamond and amethyst necklace. But she had left it on Michael's desk, next to the letter she had written. So how...

Sudie.
She must have been inside the closet while Jacie was writing the note to Michael and saw her leave the necklace on the desk. Evidently she had also seen her take it out of the hem of the blanket earlier so she had returned to the cabin and put it back inside, thinking she was doing Jacie a favor.

Jacie could do nothing about it now. She snuggled down to rest as weariness washed over her. Sudie meant well; Jacie knew she would just have to be extra careful not to lose the necklace. After all, Michael was going to be angry enough as it was. He would never forgive her if she lost something so dear.