[Continuing chapter eight]
HELENA, MISSOURI
CANADA
“Can you tell me why we’ve stopped so soon?” Charles Stewart asked the waiter who’d brought him his drink. “We’ve hardly left Memphis.”
“Sorry, sir. It’s supposed to be the briefest of delays. We’re picking up some diplomatic personages.”
Diplomats? To whom? “Canada is sending diplomats down the river?”
“Strictly speaking,” the waiter said, “I believe it is the Cherokee Nation that’s sending the diplomats. And they’re going down the river and then around the coast, sir, so you’ll probably be keeping them company if you’re still bent on going directly to Texas.”
Of course they’d be going to Texas. Things aren’t already messed up enough in that blasted place. He took a sip of his drink. “I hope they have a pleasant journey,” he told the waiter, who smiled and nodded as he turned to go.
“This is proving to be a most enlightening day,” Stewart murmured into his glass. At least it had also proved a more comfortable day than any he’d spent in the past two weeks. He hoped he wasn’t being unpatriotic in cursing the Confederacy for its horrible internal communications. Bad as it had been trying to find Generals Davis and Lee at the end of April, that journey had had nothing to it to compare with the discomfort he had endured since accepting General Lee’s commission to go to Texas and do what he could to foil what he now thought of as Uncle James’s Filibuster Plot. In fact the three days he’d spent on horseback, riding from Chattanooga to Memphis, had been the least uncomfortable part of the journey. It was the seven days he’d spent on a variety of railroads, all of them spent sitting on unyielding wooden benches, on which it had been nearly impossible to sleep, that had convinced him railroads were never going to serve to unite the country. He was drinking in this saloon in the hope a pint or two of whiskey would put him to sleep for the two days it would take to reach New Orleans.
He was going to need the sleep if he was to have his wits about him when he reached Washington-on-the-Brazos, the Texas republic’s half-built capital.
Stewart had finished his drink—his first drink, he reminded himself—and had just gestured to the barman for another when the door to the saloon banged open. He turned in his seat, and instinct brought him to his feet.
The man who’d appeared so suddenly wore a white cotton shirt, worsted trousers and waistcoat, and low-cut boots whose leather could have stood some polishing; judged by his dress alone, he’d have been a yeoman farmer from any of the Confederate states walking out in his Sunday best. The man’s thick, black hair and copper-colored skin, however, were a sharp and vivid contrast to his civilized costume.
“Good afternoon,” the man said. “Pardon my intrusion. Is it true, sir, that you’re a representative of the Confederate States government?”
“After a fashion, yes,” Stewart said. “I’m a soldier, on a diplomatic mission to the Republic of Texas.”
“So we were told the truth,” the man said with a hearty laugh. “Wonderful! My name’s Sam Jolly. I’m a grandson of Chief John Jolly—Arl-tek-ka—may he rest in peace. And I’m the adopted son of Coloneh, chief of the Cherokee Nation.”
“Uh, Captain Charles Stewart.” What kind of a name for an Indian chief was John Jolly? What kind of Indians were these?
“A pleasure to meet you,” Jolly said. “We don’t get many visitors from the Confederacy. My chief is curious to have speech with you.” He smiled, showing large and very white teeth. He leaned back out the door and said something Stewart couldn’t hear.
“I don’t know if I should be having speech with anyone,” Stewart said.
“Afraid to tell tales, are ye?” a big voice boomed from behind Sam Jolly.
“Uh, my purpose in going to Texas is somewhat sensitive,” Stewart said, tilting his head to look. Then Sam Jolly stepped all the way into the saloon, and was followed by a man wearing the look of self-confidence and possession that made it clear he felt himself master of any situation. But how could he be this Coloneh? He was no more Indian than Stewart.
“Ah,” the man said. “I’ve a sensitive interest in Texas myself. But I wasn’t proposing to talk with you of that.” The man strode toward Stewart’s table. He was round-faced, with a receding hairline. But while his skin had been tanned like so much leather, there was no doubt that beneath the sun-burnish he was a white man. He was even dressed like a successful planter, with good high boots and an embroidered vest over a crisp white shirt. As the man came closer, Stewart realized with a start that he’d seen the man’s face somewhere else.
“Good day to you, sir. I am Coloneh, chief of the Cherokee Nation.”
Stewart allowed Sam Jolly to introduce him, allowing another moment to study Coloneh’s face. He knew he’d never met the man, so he must have seen the face in one of Father’s magazines. But what periodical would publish the portrait of an Indian? Even if the Indian did look like a white man; looks didn’t matter so much as did blood.
Then he remembered. He could see the woodcut in his mind’s eye, the stern chin and dark, sad eyes looking past the artist and out into space. The story was an old one, the woodcut one he’d seen in childhood. Father had talked of it around the fire during winters spent teaching his sons about the forms of government of the states and the Union.
“Governor Houston?” he asked.
* * * *
Coloneh stopped in the middle of a sentence Stewart hadn’t been paying attention to. At first his eyes narrowed. Then, seeing the expression on Stewart’s face, his own visage softened, and he smiled thinly. “Haven’t heard that name in a while,” he said. “Didn’t think anybody from the old land remembered me anymore.”“Most of us don’t, I’m afraid,” said Stewart. “People my age, at any rate. I was told about you by my father.”
“You’re right enough,” Coloneh said. “I used to be called Houston. Sam Houston was my birth-name. And, yes, I was a governor—of Tennessee. Not for long, mind. Now I’m the chief of a greater nation.”
“You left the governorship of a state to become an Indian chief.” Stewart thought about how Cleburne would have reacted, and decided he’d be as excited as a child meeting King Arthur or Ivanhoe. “I know people who would love to be you.”
“Maybe.” Coloneh shook his head. “Not if they had to live the life I’ve led, I’ll bet.”
“You seem to be—comfortable,” Stewart said, inclining his head toward the sweating pitcher the waiter had set in front of the chief.
“Did your father not teach you about The Trail of Tears?”
Stewart froze for a moment, the first thought in his head wonder at what could have made a white man want to forswear his own kind for a life of hardship with the Indians—even if everything he knew about Indian Removal had come in the form of bragging tales told by older men. Men, he realized, of Uncle James’s stripe.
“My apologies to you, sir,” he said. “I admit to knowing very little about what happened to—to you and your people. But I should not have been so facile in my judgment of you.”
“That was a human mistake,” the governor said. “And by no means the worst that’s been done to me.” The chief poured himself a glass from the pitcher; the scent of lemons hit Stewart’s nostrils and he realized the Cherokees were drinking lemonade. “Why don’t we just enjoy our drinks,” the governor—Coloneh—asked, “and perhaps you can tell me how things are in your homeland? I’d be grateful for any news you might have of—of the old country.”
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Chapter Eight
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