Thirteen Moons (25 page)
Under such circumstances the result of our observations is that the
great mass of the Indians in this section of the country are decidedly hostile to emigration, and what is to be lamented, the hope of remaining is kept alive by false representation to a degree that is truly surprising. It is, therefore, to be regretted that these delusions of false hopes will only be dashed to the ground at the very period when it will be necessary to carry out the conditions of the treaty, and it is much to be feared that, referring to general principles of human nature, an irritation of feeling may grow out of their sudden disappointment and incite them to acts of desperation. Had the conviction been fully and universally impressed upon their mind that they must go, they would long since have accommodated themselves to the idea and been prepared to meet their destiny.
In regard to the locale of the Indians in the mountain district much may be said in its adaptation to their mode of warfare and for the purposes of concealment. It would appear obvious that if they could provision themselves in these fastnesses of nature, and possessed arms and ammunition, they would be enabled to oppose every formidable resistance to any attempt to dislodge them, for it must be considered that they have the range of not merely the mountain region within the territory now occupied by them but that of a very extensive bed of mountains, so sparsely inhabited by whites as to offer them a secure and inaccessible shelter from invasion and yet a fertile field for their predatory incursions.
It would appear obvious from the nature of the ground, that the most effectual mode of reducing Indians would be by compelling them to come in by the pressure of want and privation. To effect this object it would be necessary to secure the vallies in which their farms are situated and seize at once the grain, cattle & swine they may have on hand, on the slightest exhibition on their part of a hostile intention and the immediate occupation of these vallies could place us in the attitude to carry this plan into effective operation. They would thus be driven to the mountain fastness, where it is true, they would be almost inaccessible to attack, but at the same time they would be destitute of provisions and the necessary appliances of war. They would be
obliged to have recourse to hunting for food and could not therefore embody to any extent and might be met by small detachments whenever they emerged for purposes of procuring the provision by hunting, necessary to their existence.
They are very illy provided with arms and ammunition. It is thought that there are not more than 400 rifles among them, and those for the most part useless or in bad repair. They have bows and arrows and an implement called the blowgun, which they use for the purpose of killing small game, at which they are expert. This might be regarded as contributing some what to their resources in that respect.
I herewith send a sketch of the country above referred to in which the principal points are laid down with accuracy and very different in position from that exhibited on previous maps we have been able to procure.
I am, Sir, with respect
W. G. WILLIAMS CAPT. U.S. Top Ensgn.
THE SOLDIERS FELL
on the land like calamity. Down by the river, on an expanse of flat ground, they razed away a vast canebrake in a conflagration that looked for a short span of minutes like the end of the world. Red fire and black smoke rose to the top of the sky, and for two days grey twists of cane ashes kited on the wind and then rained down on Valley River. For days after that, all you could hear was the ringing of axes as the soldiers cut and limbed pine trees. Teams of yellow oxen snaked the straight trunks out of the woods. When the soldiers had a great heap of timber, enough to build a whole settlement of cabins, they dug a huge rectangular trench and sank the butts of the pine trunks and erected them each by each like a giant pale fence to make a palisade, the logs with the bark still on but white and sharp at the tips as trimmed pencils. Two bark-roofed blockhouses projected from the walls at opposing corners like crude bastions from which you could fire down upon attackers on either of the two sides they each commanded. Loopholes opened high in the walls, which suggested the existence of banquettes inside to stand on and move from one loop to another to fire. A sally port opened on the side of the square they considered the front.
From up the hill at the trading post, looking down across the river, there was a dream geometry to the place. A flat of bottomland cut to red mud by men and horses, the unbroken brown face of a broad river running straight and then curving away, green mountains rising in steep pitches to the four cardinal directions. The log fort sitting dark and squat in the middle like a lump of black wax impressed with the seal of fate.
From that point forward, everything changed entirely in the village. The enlisted men were let out only on rare occasions, and then they would cross the river in rowing boats and climb the hill and pay whatever price was asked for any kind of brownish popskull liquor whatsoever, as long as it was vaguely reputed to be Barbados rum or Tennessee whiskey. The officers, though, seemed to have a considerably greater scope of personal freedom. Most days of the week, they hung about my trading post. The officers drank all the Moët’s and Macallan’s Scotch that could be kept coming by the wagonload up the roads from Charleston. There was, understandably, a considerable markup, and the officers seemed compelled to announce that they could buy it back in New Jersey for half that price. I taught the young clerk minding the till to say, Well, maybe you’d better go back to New Jersey then. At least the wooden wine cases made fine bookshelves when stacked in a staggered fashion along the walls of the store’s sleeping room.
GREEN CORN MOON,
the weeks leading up to the summer solstice, had long been one of my favorite stretches of time. But not that year. From the post I would wake up and take my coffee onto the porch and if it wasn’t too foggy or rainy look down across the river to the fort and watch little groups of soldiers sally forth shortly after dawn to search the mountains and collect Indians cabin by cabin. In the afternoon I watched them march families and old folks into the holding pen that the fort had become. Late afternoons I could smell the smoke from their cook fires rising, and then by dusk the young officers began coming up the hill for their drinks and an evening of conversation.
Many of them were contemptible, but I guess no greater portion than the generality of people. A few, though, resembled actual human beings and seemed shaken and saddened by what they were doing. One of these latter officers was a young lieutenant named Smith. He was a slim blond-headed fellow, gangly and not yet in complete control of his big hands and long feet. A few years younger than I was, but when you’re that young two or three years still seems significant. He would talk as deep into the night as I would listen, telling me about his day and every flicker of thought and feeling that had crossed his mind.
I remember one evening in particular, but I’m not sure why, for it was about like all the others. Smith said they had ridden out from the fort shortly after dawn to go round people up and escort them back to the stockade. Smith rode half asleep with his reins loose and his pipestem clamped between his teeth. A column of four soldiers, if just four could be called a column. The young lieutenant and three enlisted men, boys from Ireland and Philadelphia and Charleston. Their job was to work their way upriver and clean the Indians out of the mountains cove by cove. About all Smith had previously been trained to do was salute, and the three enlisted men had been taught the additional skill of sponging out cannon barrels after they had been fired.
The days were all alike, Smith said. Circle their houses and give them half an hour to collect only what they could easily carry and then herd them down the road or trail to the next farmstead and do the same there. By dusk, they’d have thirty or forty people walking ahead of them, carrying bundles of blankets and pots and precious worthless little objects, portable things to remind them of their former lives. The people all walked away from their homes fearing what their new lives held for them. A very few cried and a few made grim humor of their situation, but mostly they went wordless with their faces composed into an expressionless mask, as if they had placed a large wager on whether or not they could conceal any hint of their thoughts or emotions.
Tagrags and offscourings and white trash followed behind the little column with the attentiveness of buzzards circling a kill. The whole bunch of followers smelled of armpits and ramps. Then, as each farmstead was vacated, they would rush in behind the soldiers to collect livestock and possessions left behind. There was nothing to be done about it. Sometimes the rabble fell upon a place so soon after vacancy that the owners could look back and see them trying to straddle a plow mule or struggling to lead away a reluctant hog by a rope around its neck or flailing about in the farmyard chasing old big-breasted and flightless hens that ran squawking with their wings trailing in the dust. Sometimes out of exuberance the followers would set fire to a place after they’d emptied it. And at the few places that had wells rather than springs, some wag among them would drop his trousers around his ankles and take a shit down the hole to spark general hilarity.
That morning, Lieutenant Smith’s party had ridden up a green cove, their first mission of the day to roust out an old woman, a widow living solitary in a cabin with tied bundles of sage hanging stems-up under the eaves of her porch to dry, the cabin hemmed in by fenced garden plots, corn and beans and squash growing in her fields, chickens scratching in the yard, straw skeps humming with bees, carefully pruned apple and peach trees busy putting out fruit. A bold creek cutting through the middle of the farm, running clear over mossy stones. In every direction, mountains hanging like green curtains from the sky.
This particular old Indian woman had her grey hair pulled back into a fist-sized bun, and she wore a greasy apron over a blue skirt that fell in limp folds from her wide hips. When she saw who they were and what they had come for, she went into the cabin and came out very quickly with two blankets and a little black pot. She spread the blankets on the porch floor and folded some of the herbs and the pot into the blankets, and with a quick knot she fashioned a shoulder sling of the bundle. Then she stopped and insisted on feeding her chickens before she was taken away.
Smith wanted to tell her not to bother. The chickens would not live out the morning but would have their necks wrung and be roasting on a spit for someone’s dinner. But he guessed she did not understand a word of English, and perhaps the longevity of the chickens was not her point of concern but just her stewardship, maintaining it until the last moment. So Smith squatted on the ground with the other soldiers and refilled his pipe and smoked. One of the enlisted boys, an Irishman, said that other than for the hue of her skin the old woman looked much like his last sight of his grandmother when he was a boy. He told how he and his family had been set to sail for America, and they had gone from Galway out past Spiddal for a last visit. The Irishman recalled how his grandmother had refused to acknowledge that the journey meant she would never see any of them again in this life. When they got ready to leave, she had said, Be off with you, then. Said it in a tone as if they would be back in a week or two. And then she started feeding her chickens from grain she held basined in her apron.
The rabble that followed the soldiers to loot the farmsteads stood off at the edge of woods and waited.
The woman moved about the dooryard casting crumbled bits of dry leftover cornbread onto the ground with a rattling motion of her hand and wrist, like shaking and throwing dice. The brown chickens gathered and so did wild mourning doves. The birds mingled together and scratched the ground with their tripartite toes and ate the crumbs of bread, and then the chickens scattered across the bare ground and the doves flew away, their wings beating with a sound of mittened children clapping hands. The woman struck her palms against each other twice, with a hard brushing smack.
It turned out she did speak English, for she said in a loud clear voice, I spit on my past. Let’s go.
And then she shouldered her bedroll and walked off into exile.
Her house was afire and black smoke rose to meet the low clouds before she made the second turning in the trail. But it was all the same to her, for she didn’t look back.
At the end of such days, Smith said he went to sleep with a bitter taste like ash from a coal fire in his mouth.
But at some point, he said, it was just a job. And as with any job, you can become accustomed to it. Six days a week, get up before dawn and go out and beat the bushes for people and dispossess them of everything they have and march them away to the holding pens. Neither Smith nor the boys from Ireland and Philadelphia and Charleston were ever cruel. They marched nobody away with a bayonet point to their buttocks. And what did it matter about burned houses and slaughtered animals? Smith asked. Everything of value was noted down in his ledger. You could do the accounting with your eyes shut, for every place was materially the same. One cabin with puncheon floors and stick-and-clay chimney, one hewed-log corncrib, a bed or two, one table, a few rush-bottomed straight chairs. Various house clutter, basins, spoons, and dippers. A weeding hoe, a shovel plow, a short-handled axe. Hasp and staple, collar and hames. The American Government would pay them for what they lost after they reached the West.
By that point in the night, all the other officers had wandered back down the hill. Lieutenant Smith was left sitting with a flat inch of Moët’s in his flute. He needed something from me, and I was afraid it might have been absolution. But I was no preacher. I’ve always numbered myself among the drunks. Absolution was outside my range of talents or responsibilities.
I said, So the gist of your story is that you worry how many times during your rounds you can note knife cuts in wooden doorframes to memorialize the heights of children at various moments of infancy and still find it poignant?