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[Concluding chapter eight]
“People aren’t as enthusiastic about war as they were last spring,” Stewart said, sipping his second whiskey and enjoying the feel of relaxation beginning to come over him. “But the mood is still good. The Federal blockade’s begun to bite, it’s true. But we know we can whip those people on the battlefield, and when we do the blockade won’t matter.”
“So what takes you to Texas, then, if you’re a soldier?” Coloneh gazed with deceptive serenity at Stewart, who found himself flushing.
“I had thought we weren’t going to talk about our reasons for going there,” Stewart said, levelly. “I am on special assignment from the War Department and the president”—a lie, that, but Governor Houston wasn’t going to know it—“and you’ll forgive me for saying nothing else on that score.”
“And how is Davy Crockett?” Coloneh’s face remained impassive, but there was a hint of forged metal in his gaze. “I always thought he had more imagination than to become a mere president. And especially to hold the tails of John Calhoun’s coat.”
Stewart looked into Coloneh’s eyes. “I’m sorry you and President Calhoun seem to have been enemies, sir.”
“A man takes a stand, he should expect to make enemies,” Coloneh said. “Calhoun wasn’t the only one responsible for what happened to my people. He just talked it up more. Took credit for it, like it was a Godly thing they’d done to us. Made him easy to hate.”
“Please pardon me if I’m rude,” Stewart said, “but give what you’ve been saying, I have to know: Why’d you leave the governorship to become an Indian? You must have known what would happen eventually—losing your land and all, I mean.”
Coloneh favoured him with a sad smile. “No offense taken, sir, none at all.” He tilted his head slightly. “I’m guessing you’ve never been outside Virginia before.”
“This is my second trip,” Stewart said. “But both of them this spring. It’s a big world, all right.”
“Well, when I was growing up the world was a lot bigger. Tennessee was wild country, then—a frontier. People grew or made most of what they needed. And maybe because it was wild land and they were the kind of people who could tame a wild land, people in Tennessee were good folk and looked out for one another.” Coloneh shook his head.
“I ran for governor of the Tennessee I grew up in,” he said. “By the time I’d been a few months in the governor’s mansion, I knew I’d made a mistake. Somehow, while I wasn’t looking, the state changed. Got civilized.”
He spat out a lemon-pip and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “To the folks who called themselves society, civilized meant turning up their noses at the likes of me. I hadn’t changed, you see. I was still a frontiersman. People didn’t seem to like that much. Guess I reminded them of something that just embarrassed them.” Coloneh took a big swallow of lemonade and leaned back in his wicker chair. He looked around at the ornate decor of the steamboat saloon before he resumed speaking.
“I knew I couldn’t be happy in the place Tennessee had become. But I also knew that I had a home with the Cherokees.”
“How did you know that?”
Coloneh smiled, his eyes unfocused as though recalling something pleasant. “When I was a boy I ran away from home,” he said. “The Cherokees took me in. In fact, I pretty much grew up Cherokee. Learned the green corn dance, all the old ways.” He snorted. “These days, people talk about old ways as though they wasn’t of any use anymore. Seems to me that if more of us had been raised to respect people the way Cherokees do, maybe the old Union wouldn’t have come apart the way she did.”
He sat forward in the chair again. “Anyway, when I decided I didn’t fit in with America anymore, there was no question where I’d go. Twenty-two years ago I became a full member of the tribe, even though I don’t got a drop of Cherokee blood in me. Married a Cherokee woman—well, Diana’s only part Cherokee. But she’s a member of the tribe. And my adoptive father named me his heir. So when Arl-tek-ka died, I became chief of the Cherokee nation.”
“But you’ve lost your country,” Stewart said.
“We lost our land,” Coloneh said. “If by country you mean the United States, we were never part of that, were we? A country doesn’t just take the land its citizens have farmed for generations, just because some ignorant cracker decides he wants it and can’t pay for it. A country doesn’t condemn its citizens to march in the snow with poor food or no food, until they die by the hundreds and thousands by the roadside.”
“Have the English been that good to you, then?” Stewart asked. It seemed to him that he and his generation shouldn’t be held responsible for something that had been done when they were too young to have any influence on events.
“Canada gave us a home when the United States was only prepared to give us six feet of earth,” Coloneh said. “We have treaties with the King and with Lord Byron, and so far those treaties have been honored. It’s the same with the other displaced tribes—the Choctaws, the Creeks, the Chickasaws, even the Seminoles. Settlers looking for land have to look elsewhere; this part of Missouri Territory is Indian land. Something I’m going to discuss with the Texans in a few days.”
But which Texans? Stewart found himself asking. Somehow he doubted William Walker was going to see the chief’s point—even if it did seem to have the implied threat of a king behind it. “What do you see in your future?” he asked. “Your tribe’s future, I mean.”
“We call ourselves a nation, not a tribe.” Coloneh smiled. “And my hope is that we’ll eventually be our own nation again, in the full sense of that word. We’ll still be under the protection of the king. But my hope is that we’ll be left to govern ourselves, with full control over who’s allowed to set foot on our lands. So we’ll never again have to worry about having greedy people steal land that’s been guaranteed to us by treaty.” He took a large watch from a waistcoat pocket, squinted at it, then smiled and got to his feet.
“And that’s what I intend to tell the Texans when we meet next week.” Bidding Stewart a pleasant afternoon and evening, he strode out of the saloon, his boots thumping a confident tattoo on the floor.
This has been a most strange year, Stewart decided, following the older man out. White men who are really Indians. Negroes who are secretly clever. A country that we want as an ally which stands opposed to just about everything we hold faith with. Father would never believe this.
Stewart checked himself. Father would have no trouble finding a place for this in his Jeffersonian world. It’s I, Stewart thought, who can’t believe what I’m seeing or hearing.
Though it was only four o’clock or so, he returned to his stateroom, undressed and put himself to bed, letting thoughts of New Orleans and a most talented actress lull himself to sleep.
Next Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six
Chapter Seven Chapter Eight
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