John Ridge
High Falls Tavern, Middle Georgia
February 1830
O
ur party arrived at Indian Springs to the sounds of a gristmill cascading water over the large river rocks beneath. In the center of town, McIntosh’s Inn stood, famous for its medicinal waters. Guests paid a steep price to soak in hot baths during the day any play cards, billiards, and drink brandy each evening, defeating the day’s healing with nightly intoxication.
In his eagerness, Chewoyee pulled his reins beside me. He said, “Are we all going inside?”
Behind him, Rattling Gourd shook his head no. He said, “If the man you seek is at the inn, his whiskey wagon will be nearby.”
Waggon asked, surveying the open landscape, “Where would he hide it?”
Despite little sleep, my mind reeled with clarity. “Someplace high. Wandering thieves are less likely to spot it there.”
Vann said, “We will look for flat rock under shallow river water, hidden under tree cover. It’s where I’d hide it.”
Waggon asked, “Whiskey isn’t illegal in Georgia. Why not just keep it at the inn?”
Vann said, “If it’s worth stealing, it’s worth hiding.”
I pointed north. “Ride the high paths. Investigate anything unusual. Sleep in turns if you must. You know how important this evidence is. Vann, find me in the tavern when you’ve got it.”
Mills said, “Even if we find the wagon, we won’t be able to prove it is his. If the cargo is so valuable, there will be guards.”
Chewoyee said, “John, even if you could get him to confess to owning it, all he must do is deny it later in court. Cherokee cannot testify against a white man without white witnesses.”
Chewoyee wasn’t the only one worried about the many contingencies in this plan. Best scenario, we arrive home with evidence and jaded guards ready to testify. Worst, we didn’t make it home at all. I said, “I’m hoping his white guards won’t take kindly to not being paid if Crowwell doesn’t return. There are our witnesses.”
Mills looked at me and shrugged his shoulders. “If the guards move it, should we let them go?”
Mills, more so than the others, was eager for blood. But more likely, he tested the differences between my command and my father’s. I said, “Yes, but follow them if you can. When Crowwell comes for it, he will follow the same road we traveled, back to the village, to pick up the stolen ponies.”
Rattling Gourd asked what the others thought. “Then what was the point?”
“Information,” I said, “and evidence worthy enough to convict the Crowwells, or at the least, terrify them into bartering to escape consequences.”
Rattling Gourd said, “This will come to nothing if we don’t find the wagon.”
Chewoyee asked, “What will you say? Bluff him? Convince him we have it already?”
I didn’t know what I’d say and didn’t offer any answer. Given the circumstances, the five in my charge had the easier task.
When I approached the hotel, my first thought was its opulence, and the expenses needed to build such a fine establishment. I learned from Yoholo that McIntosh funded it with shady deals with white politicians he called cousins and friends. In ‘25, McIntosh’s signature, penned in the treaty room at this very hotel, sold Creek land to the federal government without unanimous tribal consent. Afterward, the government felt emboldened to evict the Creek and encroach on Cherokee land.
The tavern was grand, with a wrap-around porch extending off its clapboard white walls. Slave quarters lined the back behind two stables as white as the house. Lit tavern windows revealed movement within the front parlors. Shadows of passersby dimmed the kerosene lamp light which brightened after as they passed. I hoped one silhouette belonged to Thomas Crowwell.
I entered and paid my fee for the night, although I didn’t plan to sleep under any roof built by McIntosh. Invited into a back parlor by the evening’s host, he escorted me down a paneled hallway to a brighter room. McIntosh’s portrait hung above a lathed fireplace mantle. In the painting, McIntosh’s signature smirk flashed between a plumed crown and a chest covered in tartan plaid. I recognized the artist. Charles King painted McIntosh a decade before I sat for a similar portrait. King had put a quill in my hand, painting me in occupation. Too bad King didn’t have a color on his pallet that would reveal a man’s deception. If such had existed, McIntosh’s portrait would have been monotone in hue.
At the tables, finely dressed white men sat smoking cigars and lifting brandy snifters to their noses and lips. Passing slaves refilled glasses beside long-fingernailed women of the evening trailing their hands over the shoulders of men whose naïve wives slept upstairs.
To be sure, this room was enemy territory. Few noticed me, which gave me uninterrupted moments to observe the many receding hairlines gambling in the room. I recalled the features of the man who dashed our chess match, the same man who chased young Peter through the woods after shooting his only remaining family.
I checked my pocket watch. More than an hour had passed since our party separated. I hoped my men searched in the darkness with as much awareness of their environment. If the Georgian Guard captured them, we’d lose all we’d wagered.
I walked the room’s perimeter to avoid attracting attention. A man sat across the room, scratching a hound dog. He turned his face into the light. It was Thomas Crowwell with his scar-pitted pale cheeks. Long salt-and-pepper sideburns, shaved close, touched the corners of his lips, masking most of the cheek’s defects. Crowwell revealed an As Nas hand to a gentleman seated across from him. Three As, aces, queen high. With a chuckle, he gathered the substantial pot across the walnut table.
“It is a game of chance, not skill,” Crowwell remarked with a relaxed grin, exerting only enough energy to smile from one side of his mouth.
The gentleman who’d lost the wager scratched his chair legs against the hardwood floor. Even after Crowwell’s consolation, the loser left the table, not inclined to play any further hands.
My memory of Crowwell’s sarcasm returned after hearing him speak. I was certain he was the man I sought.
As Nas required little skill beyond that of a stoic face. When we played at the Foreign Mission School, there were always four players with others huddled close by, awaiting their turn. Each player was dealt cards and risked coins to bet whether they held the highest-ranking hand. I learned to play the Persian game from the only Hindu student in our class. Abdul’s family traveled to America via France. His parents spoke Arabic and guttural French, so he struggled to make English phonetic sounds. Regardless, he had little difficulty staying awake all hours, teaching us the game and its characteristic phrases. Despite the language barrier, exclamations from winning and groans from losing crossed oceans, and all sounded the same.
Because he lacked another player, Black Crow finished the brandy in his snifter. So accustomed to liquor’s numbness, he didn’t react to swallowing the firewater.
He saw me standing by the window. “Latecomer,” he said, “fancy a game?”
I turned from the window and said, “Don’t you need four players to play As Nas?”
“So,” he said, “you are familiar with this game?” He stood, helped by his resting hand on the tabletop and, with the other hand, gestured to the cards piled on the table. “Join me?” It was the invitation I both hoped for and wanted to avoid.
I nodded and took the offered seat. I could play him for information, only if he didn’t recognize me from our chance encounter in the Creek’s woods. My best tactic was to delay long enough for Vann to let me know the men discovered Black Crow’s contraband.
“It has been quite some time since I played. Sir, please remind me of the rules.”
“I’d be happy to assist your memory—after your initial contribution to the pot.” He drew a half-cent from his vest pocket and slid it across the smooth table surface with the “liberty” side facing upward.
The cost was not much compared to what I could learn. I could afford more if it purchased evidence of his crime, its origin and means. And if his substantial brandy consumption assisted such talk, so be it. I was content to pay to listen.
“Where did you learn to play?” he asked, studying my resting hands more than my face.
“From a foreign classmate. He was originally from Persia and spoke terrible English, but he adored this game.” Keeping to the truth might help me keep the lies clearer.
He spread the cards face up to reacquaint me with the deck. “See here? The artist depicted the four As with a horse and a mountain lion locked in the throes of battle.”
I asked, “Who might win, do you think, in a true battle of such beasts?”
“The wild cat, surely.”
How poorly acquainted Crowwell must be with how ruthless a startled horse can be.
“Next are the kings sitting on their thrones. Look. Each representation has subtle differences.”
The artist had elegantly painted the four kings, absent of any other obvious demarcation. The second king’s card carried a smirk the first didn’t have. A scepter was present in the third but was absent from the fourth.
Underneath the row of patriarchs, he flipped the queen cards over, with her regal crowned head holding a young prince seated atop her lap.
“Beautiful artistry,” I said.
He placed the last four cards in a row closest to me.
“Soldiers in various formations of battle,” he remarked.
“Correct me if I am wrong, but I remember there is the fifth row depicting, shall we say, ladies of the evening?”
“To add in the whores, we’d need two more players.”
I nodded as he retrieved his cards, bridged a shuffle, and dealt both of us two cards facedown. He returned the remaining cards to the table and raised the corner of his overturned cards. Overly confident, he retrieved another liberty dime from his pocket and put it on the table. Then, hestudied my face to see whether he’d dealt me beast or man. I didn’t reach for my cards. My hands stayed on the Windsor arms.
He cleared his throat and asked, “There is something familiar to your face, sir. No doubt you are native, but I asked you into this game since you dress as a gentleman of worth.”
I leaned forward and offered him my first thought. “Is a man’s attire the only depiction of his savagery?”
“His talk reveals his true nature as well.” Black Crow adjusted his posture, more erect than before. He coughed as a distraction. Finally, he asked whether I would look at the cards in front of me.
“Not seeing, I have seen,” I said, just as Abdul taught, and matched his bet.
“It appears your memory of the game has returned. Have we met before this night?”
“I do not know. Do you spend much time in Cherokee Nation, sir?”
The twitch of his eyelid marked his response, and his following gesture attempted to rub the annoying muscle smooth again.
“When I must. My brother is a colonel and runs a fort in Alabama. Crossing through Indian territory is a necessary evil.” He grabbed the deck again and dealt two more cards facedown, adding mine to an array I’d yet to touch. “I wouldn’t call it a nation, no matter what documents their Chief Ross has written. I have business dealings on both sides of the Cherokee’s invisible lines. Easier to go through than around.”
Under the circumstances, his vagaries were not a confirmation of guilt. Many white men traveled through our land rather than spend days to take the lawful detour. Black Crow sipped from his brandy glass while a servant with a carafe stood by, waiting to refill his glass. He gestured to me, implying she should also bring me a snifter. But I waved her off. He watched her leave as I asked, “Do you find your travels dangerous?”
He didn’t answer the question. “I cannot shake the familiarity of your face. Are you Cherokee or leftover Creek?” Dealing another round, he examined his new card, leaning back in his chair, resting his hands on the sides, and adjusting his stocky frame in the seat.
My hesitation made him nervous. Again, Black Crow asked, “Aren’t you going to look at your cards?”
“Not seeing, I have seen.” I reached into my pocket and felt the first coins that touched my finger. I placed two liberty dimes in the pot and raised the stakes.
Black Crow declared, “Either you have some assurance of luck, or you are foolish beyond belief.”
“So I’ve been told.”
He met the bet and dealt one last card to each of us. He smiled and gestured to the unrevealed cards in front of me. “One last opportunity to know your fate.”
My response stayed the same. “Not seeing…”
At that moment, Vann stepped out of the dark hall into the tavern room and whistled, calling the hound, who rose from Black Crow’s feet and lumbered to greet him like an old friend.
“… I have seen.”
Black Crow recognized Vann at once and placed us both in his memory. I looked quite different now, dressed in a white man’s finery. I spoke English, clearer than most. “Weren’t dress and speech your two requirements for civilization?” I asked.
Vann joined us, pulling a chair from under the table. “White men are too concerned with appearances,” Vann said, petting the dog as he had done when Peter covered himself in manure to avoid Black Crow’s whip.
Black Crow was cornered, and none had yet to reveal his hand.
More confident with Vann by my side, I asked, “Sir, if I may ask, how exactly do you run whiskey, pony clubs, and slaves across Cherokee land, Mister Black Crow?”
In reaction, he stuttered with spit-filled sounds and no understandable words.
“Perhaps a side wager?” I wove the fingers of both hands together, and with them, covered my mouth and chin. “If I win, you answer my question.” I lowered my hands to rest on my unseen cards. “If I lose, we leave. Keep your confession and the pot to yourself.”
“I’ll take that wager. Without evidence, it doesn’t matter. It isn’t as if you can testify against me. Besides, your chief wouldn’t allow you to try.”
His last remark took me aback as I tried to squelch my reaction to his taunt. What could he mean? Did Black Crow know Ross?
With a deep chuckle, he returned to his cards and revealed one at a time from the sprawling fan face down. His first card was a king, followed by another. Then, a soldier, another king, and an As. Three kings, As high. Black Crow’s hand was lucky, that was certain. But I’d watched the man closely and didn’t suspect him of cheating, regardless of his other exploits.
“Excellent hand.” I nodded to him, conceding my probable defeat in this wager.
Fate might offer me three lowly soldiers, the lowest-scoring cards within the deck. To best his hand, I would need to hold the unlikely trio of three As.
Vann cocked his pistol under the table, pointing at Black Crow’s overly large belly. After hearing it, Crowwell’s expression changed from arrogant to sinister, neither expression showing any intimidation.
I turned one card over. It was As. Next was a lowly soldier. The third, a queen, the fourth, an As. If the fifth card were the last remaining As, the last ace in the deck, tonight would have been worth every deception. I overturned the last card.
His mouth hung agape, staring at my hand, and then, he returned my smirk with a bitter stare.
He hastily stood, eager to remove himself as Vann’s target. He shrugged his coat over his shoulders. I thought he’d leave without answering, but a smile spread across his face. Before departing the table, he said, “I travel freely with my cargo across Cherokee land because Chief Ross earns five percent from every sale. The Cherokee Light Guard, led by a man named Foreman, directs his men on patrol the other way.”