Sarah Ridge
Running Waters
June 1832
W
atched over by clear blue skies, we tended sheep. Honey cut the fleece with sharp shears while Peter held the docile two-year-old ewe against his chest. The sheep had a pleasant expression on her woolly face, enjoying cool freedom from her matted mess. The wool we cut today would take two days to wash and the same number of days to dry before Clarinda and Rollin could brush it through. Marz, Sunflower, and I would fill quiet summer evenings, spinning the fleece into yarn.
In the field, Rollin and Clarinda danced with last winter’s lambs. Sunflower held Susan’s hands and lifted her by her arms through the tall grass. Each time Susan flew, the grass tickled her bare feet. She laughed with her entire body, as only young children can. Susan’s delightful squealing led us all to mimic her laughter.
A wagon lumbered up the road. A somberly dressed Sophie Sawyer drove the horses. While her attire was never extravagant or store-bought, she wore a dress of black and a matching bonnet. For her to make such a trip alone, wearing the darkest dress she owned, I feared she brought no good news.
I held my hand up to shade my eyes when Sophie stopped the horse and shifted the brake. She climbed down the wheel and began her short ascent to our front door.
She wouldn’t see us in the fields. I called, “We’re just here.”
Recognizing my voice, Sophie followed the beaten-down grass to the fence gate and closed it behind her. She’d only made it halfway before I gathered the four corners of the quilt, keeping the wool in place, and met her near the oak.
“Good afternoon, Miss Sawyer. I hope you are well?”
“Yes, thanks to God.”
“Come inside out of the sun.” I gestured to the house.
Whatever reason brought her so far from Worcester’s and the school, I expected we’d be far more comfortable in the private light of the parlor than standing under June’s sun. I wiped the sheep’s lanolin from my hands and untied my apron to appear more presentable.
After I opened the door, Sophie said, “Such unlikely color companions.” When I gestured for her to enter the parlor, she said, “Such comfortable furnishings. I have not seen the likes since Vann’s picnic.”
“Thank you. Most afternoons, toys and slates, shoes and caps are usually scattered on the floor. But since we’ve been in the fields, the hardwood is free from hazards. Please sit and make yourself comfortable. What brought you from school in the middle of the week?”
“Most children don’t attend school this season with fieldwork requiring all hands. Besides, my work is in vain, with no one to offer examinations. However, I didn’t come here to complain. Sad to say, I come to tell you of Brainerd Mission’s recent heartbreak.”
“Has something happened to Reverend Sam and Doctor Butler in prison?” Most expected it and that would account for her dark clothes. Elias told me that despite the Supreme Court ruling, Georgia’s governor had not yet pardoned or released the ministers from Milledgeville prison. I prayed Governor Lumpkin would listen to the public’s pressure to free the missionaries. Even the newspapers said it was past time for him to send the men home to their wives.
But if Reverend Sam passed, I could only imagine the insurmountable grief Ann would endure. Seven months passed since I’d seen John’s face. Letters were no substitute for having him here. But I recognized God’s blessings on our family. My worries were few compared to Ann Worcester, who each day couldn’t help but imagine her husband in chains, like Job, sleeping on a bare floor.
Sophie ran her hand along the soft surface of the sofa between us and pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve. As if mustering power to tell me her news, she nervously gathered the embroidered white cloth in her hands, stretching it between short-nailed fingers.
“Worcester and Butler live. No, the news I bring may cause you personal distress. Arch passed and is now with our Lord and Savior.”
Shocked to stand, I couldn’t believe it. The further my heart sank, the more my words mumbled, and I said them aloud to believe them. “How could that be? He was well when last I saw him. He’d often check in on us and stay for dinner.”
“He suffered from dropsy since February, with only a brief reprieve from the illness earlier this spring. His body swelled horribly, and as a result, his skin tightened, and his limbs ached because of all the fluid. His head ached so, but in the end, it was his heart that stopped. He died on the evening of the 18th, surrounded by Mr. Chamberlain from the mission in Athens, Tennessee, and his mentor, Reverend Butrick. They both spoke so eloquently at his funeral.”
I wish I had known. Mother Susannah might have eased his pain. Sudden grief stopped my words. I stuttered, “Wh-what did they say?”
“Reverend Butrick called him the Cherokee’s shepherd. The flock relied too much on him. Bringing Cherokee to the Lord’s plentiful table would be more difficult without him. Minister Chamberlain spoke of the man’s piety. His Christian character contained no stain of vanity or pride.”1
Many would feel his loss. But in my selfishness, all I could think of was my own. It was true; Arch was a shepherd. Those following his crook remained ever in his protection.
She reached into the pocket of her dress, pulled a weather-beaten book bound with a leather strap. “One of Arch’s last wishes was that I deliver this to you.”
Arch had written a spelling primer, in syllabary and English. On the inside of the cover, in pencil scratch, it read, “For Little Spider’s children, present and future.” After reading his dedication, a tear escaped my eye. Even from the grave, God’s shepherd led the lambs. I had no words.
L
Several days later, in mid-afternoon, I sat with Rollin and Clarinda at the kitchen table with their slates and chalk, absorbed in Arch’s book. Short Bible verses taught the children to spell. “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.”2 As they practiced, Peter opened the door and angled a heavy trunk through the frame.
Peter said, “He looks like rain clouds dumped their wares all over him.”
Rollin stopped writing and signed to Clarinda, “Papa’s home!” The children broke their chalk when it rolled to the floor. They sped through the open doorway to the stables. I didn’t follow. I hurried up the stairs to gather Susan from her nap. Brushing black hair from her closed eyes, she barely woke when I picked her up and nestled her head under my chin. “Papa’s home.”
I hurried around the corner of the hothouse. My husband stepped into the sun from the barn’s shade. Rollin sat high on John’s shoulders while he gripped Clarinda’s hand. I heard him before I saw him. He asked Rollin, “Where are your mother and baby Susan?”
Rollin replied, “Susan isn’t a baby anymore. She runs wherever she goes. Mama’s making my brother in her belly. He’ll run faster than she does.”
“How could you know if it will be a brother or sister?”
Rollin’s sternness was unmistakable. “Because it isn’t fair. I already have two sisters. Time to even things up.”
John laughed and said, “Fairness has nothing to do with it, Yellow Bird.”
Susan burrowed into my neck to keep her eyes from the light. John lifted Rollin and set him to his feet. Without words, he stretched his free hands to hold Susan. She looked at him and, absent any fear, reached back. Susan’s calm demeanor waylaid my fears. I worried she might cry, thinking her papa was a stranger. John missed the end of her infancy.
He removed her tiny white cap and cupped her black hair. “She still smells like my baby.”
He stepped closer and put his cheek against mine. He whispered, “I dreamt of you. You sent me a lock of your auburn hair woven in hemp tucked inside a blue ribbon. I wore it on my lapel. Then, the vision was replaced by us walking through an unfamiliar cornfield.” He stopped rubbing Susan’s back and pointed toward the tasseled stalks. “We pulled husks from some of the first fruit and roasted ears for the children.3 I have so much to tell you of the world, but my poor education lacks words enough to put the thoughts into words.”
I brushed the hair from his face, held his cheeks in my hands, and kissed him. “Talk about the world later. Let’s see if the corn is ready.”
We did as John’s sleeping imagination dictated. Honey and I prepared roasted chicken with vinegar and tomato marinade sweetened with honey from Running Water’s beehive. And after supper, we roasted corn ears next to a bonfire. John winked at me when he took Rollin and Clarinda to the barn. In no time, the three rode out. Clarinda on her mare, Rollin on his Appaloosa pony, and John atop Saloli. They sped down the hill toward the cow pastures and sunset.
When they returned, John and Peter spoke as if their separation had been days instead of half a year. John eased into conversation with Walking Stick, bantering about the new heads of cattle and sheep. Laughing Water and Will gave John a map of the crops planted last spring and shared their anticipation of the harvest’s abundance. Each gave John a report fuller than I could have. He listened, eager to hear from each of our tenants. He said, “You all have worked so hard. I’m grateful.”
Walking Stick said, “Not as hard as your wife. She planned, we just helped with the labor.”
Then, Sunflower took John to meet Marz.
I said, “Quatie brought her. I couldn’t turn her away. Georgian Guards burned her mountain cabin and whipped stripes across her back. She slapped a guard for setting fire to her house.”
In his mind, he lifted his nose and must have smelled the smoke. Heard, in his head, the cries of the elderly woman cowering before the whip gripped in the soldier’s fist. John took her hand and said, “Sacred mother, I am sorry for your loss. You are safe here.”
Sunflower cared for Marz like she would have her own mother. Understanding one another was easier now that Sunflower adopted Clarinda’s signs. Marz learned them too. The two sat in silence and weaved cloth for all those living at Running Waters.
Tonight, Walking Stick wore the new shirt Sunflower made for him. No one spoke of it, but he and Sunflower had begun a friendship. Sunflower’s grief for her husband remained on her face, but she glanced away, hiding it when Walking Stick looked at her. He ran in from his chores, heaping sheep’s fleece over his shoulder, so she wouldn’t have to carry it. Last month, she rode beside him to check on the new calves. The two rode with their free black hair stretching into the wind. Time would tell whether they’d find one another free enough to attach themselves to one other.
Despite his attentions, from her silence, I feared the cloak of mourning still laid heavy across her shoulders. I couldn’t say whether she was ready to find love again, despite it finding her. Walking Stick seemed to sense the same, and remained by her side, unable to ebb his compulsion toward her. If she allowed it, he’d stay.
Even now, Walking Stick sat beside Sunflower, while nearby, Marz’s long fingernails never stopped intertwining a basket from vines. Perhaps Marz saw it as her duty to act as a chaperone. But despite such watchful eyes, Sunflower rested her head on Walking Stick’s shoulder. Wide-eyed surprise dashed across his face, and he stilled, not daring to move an inch.
Our exhilarated but exhausted children fell asleep in our arms. Will carried a limp Rollin. John toted tall Clarinda. I carried baby Susan. In a short time, we three returned to the fire outside.
When Will’s face came into the light, Laughing Water said, “Just a few years ago, you were that small, Will.” Will let his father hug him, uncommon for a seventeen-year-old. Then, the two headed to their deserved rest with the father’s arm gathering his son by the shoulders.
Across the fire, Honey pulled a humming Peter’s hand, forcing him to stand. She rose onto her toes and whispered something in his ear. He shook his head in denial. She stepped behind him and nudged him over to John. Peter looked at her over his shoulder. When he reached John, he stood nearly at attention and cleared his throat.
Peter searched for words and decided on, “Glad you made it home.”
John reached for my hand and said, “Thank you, Peter. At least this return was less dramatic than the last.”
I let go and slid my hand through my husband’s arm, pulling him closer. It wasn’t difficult to predict what Peter’s following words would be. While Sunflower and Walking Stick had just begun to trust one another, Peter and Honey’s conviction was unbreakable.
“This ain’t the right time. But Honey say she won’t rest ‘til I ast you. She right about most things, or believes she is.”
Honey swatted Peter’s arm, and then, with her impatience, gestured for him to continue.
Peter said, “Thing is, I’ve changed my mind.”
John said, “So, you wish to leave us, then?”
Peter shook his head, surprised. “No! Never known a home like this one here.” He looked at Honey, not the house or stables.
John smiled, knowing what Peter meant. John asked, “What’s changed then, Peter?”
“Remember dat time we walked through the woods lookin’ for them lighter knots? Told you I didn’t know what freedom meant. Lovin’ Miss Honey has taught me how to live free, not just free on paper. It isn’t somethin’ you hold in your hand, but somethin’ hidden in your chest, lettin’ a man take a deep breath. If I ain’t bound to Miss Honey, I can’t breathe free.” Peter finished his request. “I’d like to marry her if’n it’s all right with you.”
John said, “You might better ask her father rather than me.”
Peter looked frustrated. “Asked Major Ridge last week, and he said I best be askin’ you when you got back.”
John stepped toward Honey, but he addressed Peter. “You don’t need my permission, Peter. You need hers.”
John took Honey’s calloused hands in his. “Do you love him? Can you trust him as your best friend for the rest of your life? You’re only sixteen or so. You have seen little of the world.”
Honey didn’t hesitate. “Let me be sayin’ this, Brother John, I’ve seen all the world I wants to. With Peter, I won’t go no further by myself, if’n you say it’s all right. Thought no one would want me, but you brought him home, and I’m grateful. Our song is fine.”
John said, “Then it seems we are to have a wedding at Running Waters, our first.”
The quiet audience listened to the exchange. Walking Stick shook Peter’s hand. I took Honey into my arms. I whispered in her ear, “You trust him?”
“Peter know all my truths. Times like they are, many chillern be needin’ a mama and papa. Wasn’t too long ago when I did. Major Ridge and Mother Susannah and you gave me belongin’. We’ll love any of those babies the Lord sees fit for us to find. Sarah, I’m lucky. Peter gives me all his feelin’s and sings me the words.”
Sunflower hugged Honey before she and Marz left Walking Stick alone, making their slow way to bed. Walking Stick, in similar quiet, followed Sunflower with his eyes when she passed. When their door shut, he offered us his own good nights and walked the distance to his cabin with his head hung low.
Honey and Peter took one another’s hands and left our light to stroll the stream. John and I were alone with the fire to warm our faces. The smoke kept the buzzing insects from making welts on my arms. They never would bite him.
Leaning against a log, he stretched his legs and held out his hand, pulling me to sit with my back against his chest. John wrapped his arms around our growing child, lifting the babe’s weight from me. When I melted into his chest with relief, he talked into my ear.
“Don’t turn around. I don’t know if I can say what I must if you’re looking at me. But before that, know that I’m so proud of you. You’ve done better than I could, holding this farm and family together. Running Waters has blossomed under your hands.”
I said, “It wasn’t only my hands. I kept an account of the household funds. We will profit in the fall if cotton prices hold.”
“I trust you, Sarah, but that isn’t what I mean. I don’t know where to begin.” He gathered my hands and trapped both in his larger ones, holding us in a moment’s prayer before letting go. Then he pulled a ripped newspaper clipping from his pocket.
“Someone nailed copies to every pine and post down the Federal Road. Georgia’s Congressman Newnan reports to the press that our delegation consented to a treaty with the federal government. It isn’t true, but Ross believes it without asking. He sees this as confirmation we committed treason. He’s using this to blacken my name with my people.”4
He took a deep breath, one lifting my chest along with his. “President Jackson won’t support the Supreme Court’s ruling. Georgia refuses to release Worcester and Butler. Chief Ross subjugates removal by delaying, hoping a change in administration will alter Georgia’s resolution. But it won’t happen. Henry Clay has no chance of beating Jackson in the fall.”
Inside me, the baby moved and stretched. John continued, “As much as it breaks my heart to ask you to leave all you’ve grown. As much as it breaks me to ask our people to leave the graves of their fathers and grandfathers, I must consider removal, Sarah. No. More than that, my intuition tells me it is the only way my people survive.”
After hearing such surreal words, I didn’t look at him but leaned forward to read the flyer in the firelight. “Have you written to your father about your change of heart?”
“No. I needed to tell you first. I knew you’d either argue against it or rally scripture to support me. Either way, I’d be better prepared to tell him after telling you.”
“You give me too much credit. Right now, I have no words. Start over? You’re asking us to abandon all we’ve built and raised? The people and Ross will never concede to removal. Six months ago, you wouldn’t have either.”
“Nothing more we can do. Nothing left to argue. Time approaches when we must go West. Saying so aloud shifted my disbelief into prophecy.”
I raised my voice with little control. “We cannot go now. I am to have another child!”
He continued calmly. “We’ve signed nothing. No agreement has been made. We have time. I will not put you or our children in harm’s way.”
I stared forward at the surrounding stream, fields, and trees known by heart. Their fruits and nuts sustained us. Their grasses fed the cattle and sheep. Their lumber kept our family warm and dry. But my husband changed his mind, knew Georgia’s violence attacked all the Walking Sticks, Marzs and Sunflowers, Honeys and Peters, Laughing Waters and Wills. I had to listen. What he now considered opposed all he ever fought for.
But uproot our young family from this home I loved so dearly, take us away to some unknown place? We couldn’t know whether there was safer than here, whether western land was fertile? Could it sustain our family? Let alone so many Cherokees who’d only known the East as their home.
I said, “Surveyors were here last April. I never heard anything more from them after they left me a copy of their drawing of all one hundred and sixty acres. They did the same to your parents’ land. After that, part of me knew our remaining time at Running Waters would be short.”
“Hmm,” he said, straining the thought. “Perhaps the survey is only an expensive threat. I refuse to allow Georgia to take this land without our consent. Besides, if Jackson wants me to lead a Treaty Party, selling the place where I will do so will not help his cause.” He spoke more to himself than to me. “I must think like the lion and the lamb, both predator and prey.”
So, President Jackson convinced him? I thought he hated the man.
John said, “Only part of what the Congressman said was true. Ross knows it.” I looked at the crumpled page in my hand before John took it, wadded it up, and threw it into the fire. We locked our eyes. Then he looked away. There was more he wanted to say. Did shame keep him silent? Instead of talking, for a moment he just watched the paper burn.
“Ross will attempt to rally my people against me. In their ignorance, it may induce them to assassinate me. Ross teaches them to misunderstand my character instead of viewing me as a friend. He wants them to believe I am a traitor. If they could consider removal, become a happy and civilized people, my blood, if shed, will not be in vain.”5
My first reaction was to say, “Your friends will never let that happen.”
But regardless, if he thought removal a possibility, I couldn’t ignore the steep precipice. The thought of losing both John and our home devastated me.
He said, “I must ask you not to speak with Quatie anymore.” His words seemed manufactured, produced by a man I didn’t know.
I saw a new firmness in his squinted eyes. I said, “Oh, I cannot. Do not ask that of me. She is my sister.”
“I know, and I am sorry. Something tells me not to trust either of them.”
“You may have lost your faith in him. But I have not lost mine in her.”
“Let me tell you why.” He shook his head, scolding himself in a whisper. “I never should have kept this from you.”
“What? Tell me,” I said.
He talked while circling the fire. “The night we met Peter was the same night Vann and I first learned what was happening. But I knew for certain after the war party removed the Georgian guard from Sunflower’s house. Foreman, at Ross’ request and with his full knowledge, allowed horse theft, whiskey, and slave trading across our land. The guard tortured Sunflower’s husband because of two brothers, one a federal Indian Agent for the Creek. They paid off their gambling debts with stolen Cherokee horses. Ross took a cut of the profits, pretending ignorance of the dealings.”
I couldn’t believe it, wanting to beg him for surety. John never stopped moving long enough to catch him. The more he moved, the more my disbelief grew.
Quatie’s unending friendship surfaced in my mind. John’s request, asking me to snub such devotion and abandon her, extinguished candles lighting dark corners. Without her, I’d be in the dark.
He took my arms in his hands to stop his pacing. He bent low so his eyes could reach mine. “Ross and his brother Lewis profit from the suffering of others. The men who took you and Honey moved the shipments. Either Quatie knows something and is either not asking questions, which I doubt, or knowingly enjoys the fruits of their labors. During the drought, did you see her family suffer? How many slaves does Ross own now? Near fifty? Think about it.”
What he said was true, although I never considered it before. Quatie and Ross thrived while many others, including us, skimped, and saved, hoped for a reprieve from high prices with falling rain. I said, “I overheard them years ago. The day Quatie taught me to fashion candles. One of them mentioned some colonel who wouldn’t allow them out of a deal. At the time, their conversation made no sense. Was that what they talked about?”
“Father told me the same. You were so angry with me for going with the war party. In many ways, you were right. Sunflower wasn’t the only reason I went.” He walked to the kitchen and returned with his coat. He pulled a painted card from its pocket and handed it to me. “I won it from the brother of that colonel. Foreman accepted the money and allowed safe passage for the thieves. Ross doesn’t know I know. That revelation needs to come at an opportune moment.”
We held onto one another. But shock settled in our paired silence, despite our hearts pumping blood in time. Neither of us had words apt enough, unselfish enough to ease such incredulous thoughts. He was browbeaten. I was devastated. There was no light to escape this cave.
John took the card from my hand. “Say nothing to Quatie about what I did to the men who took Honey and hurt you.”
I buried my head in his chest and said, “She knows already or has assumed as much.” To think Quatie would betray my confidences pained me as much as the ropes that burned my wrists. He held my scars up to the firelight.
I asked, “What will you do?”
He took another deep breath and pulled me close. “Not what you may think. First, I must convince my father that removal is the only possibility we control.”
“Control how?” I asked.
“By negotiating the best deal. If we do not, Georgia will remove the Cherokee from the earth, not only the land. They will suffer as the Creek have suffered. I will not put you, our children, or my people in such danger when I have means to negotiate our survival.”
He put his head on top of mine. “If I am elected principal chief, I can stop Ross from any further opportunity to steal from the Cherokee Treasury and negotiate a treaty with Jackson that will serve our people for years.”
“Principal chief?” I asked.
He said, “It is my birthright.”
Fire’s wind blew and shifted the warm June air. I shivered. John felt it too. He caged me in his arms. “I can’t do any of this without you. Please do not see Quatie. Keep my confidence. Trust in me, and do not be afraid.”
Whatever promises John made, I was afraid and said nothing, leaving my arms by my side. John believed Ross would make him a political lamb for slaughter. Then, in place of Ross, Cherokee would blame John for removal.
Instead, John intended to kick Ross’ feet out from underneath him.
Arch came to mind. As Reverend Butrick said, it would be difficult to continue their mission, to convert and educate the Cherokee, without him. With one shepherd gone, the lions came around. John took up the crook.