Rollin Ridge
Marysville, California, Tennessee, and Georgia
Spring and Summer 1856
T
o avoid practicing law, I used what renown I’d gained from my novel to accept a position as editor of the California American, a revamping of the financially destitute Tribune. Despite my new title, my office was no larger than a closet with one window and a sill only wide enough for a small man to lean. Large enough to hold a chair and desk, but small enough that I had to turn sideways to inch my way between it and the wall. All day I’d slashed through blasphemous verbosities from eastern ‘slang-whangers’ hoping to expand their platforms to the Pacific. Their only proficiency was to talk a donkey’s hind leg off.
There was a knock on my closed door. My apprentice, Beatty, didn’t wait for me to answer. He squeaked the hinges and let in the tang of ink rolled over type followed by the sounds of twisting iron handles and grunts from the man working the press.
Four-eyed Beatty was one of my typesetters, still a juniper in the news, not yet knee-high to a lamb, skinny as a barber’s cat, with his clergyman’s collar buttoned to the top and his suspenders pulling his pants too short. The young man was plum stuck between hay and grass. He’d never jump the broom and find a piece of calico shorter than him. But I didn’t hire him for his stature. The young man wrote better than a hickory above a persimmon, but talked as though he were translating Latin.
I didn’t look up from my work, just extended my hand to accept the submission letters and newspapers from him.
He said, “My quest was delayed momentarily at C Street, at the Pony Express office, while transporting your piece to General Allen.”
“Did someone try to bed you down?”
Beatty took off his glasses. “What sir?”
“Air you? Run you through?”
“No sir. General Allen requested that I wait while he absorbed your prose.”
“Glad you’re still above snakes. And?”
“And what? Oh, Allen. Yes, sir. He replied that your rendition of events was poignant and most proficient.”
I looked up, shook my head, rolled my eyes, and put my head in my hands. For someone so adept, Beatty couldn’t hit the ground with his hat with three throws.
“You can do better. To write the news, you must find the sweet spot between how people should talk and how they do. Use their voice to get them to understand yours.”
Then Beatty, sensing my disappointment, sighed. He took off his glasses to ready himself for battle. After my last attempt to teach him to be a newspaperman, he went home and read Aristotle. Perhaps today, I’d let Beatty win and give the philosopher the night off.
He undid the top button of his shirt and cleared his throat. “Fine. He called you a word-slinger, a sure enough man to ride the river with.”
I leaned back in my chair and put my hands behind my head. “The man’s a rusher for sure. Thinks he’s the biggest toad in a puddle.”
“An utter flannel mouth.” After such an insult, Beatty covered his mouth with his hand to mask a spurt of escaping laughter.
The paper’s owner and proprietor, General James Allen, caused a sensation wherever he walked. He had eastern ties in Pennsylvania and led Marysville’s Know Nothings, the secret name for the American Party. They advocated popular sovereignty after the Kansas-Missouri Act negated states’ rights. To Congress, none of it mattered if they maintained their corrupt balance of power.
When I took this job, I knew the paper was Allen’s voice for his secret society, despite his claims of ignorance. Before I could go to print, Allen insisted on reading every political piece, assuring himself that his paper advocated for the Union against any attempt of Southern Democrats to overthrow it. He opposed political fraud, (as if there is any other kind), and demanded construction of a transcontinental railway.1 With those guiding principles, and with pay enough to build Lizzie a house, how could I refuse?
I said, “I’d rather ride smiling and pick flies out of my teeth than read anything more about railroad contractors bargaining over the price of steel. It’ll only take a week before the deals are nailed to the counter, after the politicians realize how much it’ll cost to build a railroad without slave labor.”
With a lifetime of blood and sweat shed beside Wacooli and empathy for Spencer Hill, I recognized slavery as an appalling institution. Native nations understood captivity as whites could not. But regardless, I could not vote for politicians who insisted the federals had the right to dictate policy instead of allowing the states their constitutional rights.
Beatty stared out the window watching for gunslingers. “We’re living in times of vigilante shecoonery, for sure. Here and in Washington.”
“If we believe the Sacramento Journal, California’s Know Nothing Governor just ordered General William Tecumseh Sherman to lead the militia to enforce the law. From what I’ve seen, if Sherman mounts his horse from the left, the crack shots throw their legs Indian side and kick dust. They evade him at every turn. You know, I won’t let Lizzie come to town without arming myself to the teeth.”
Beatty pointed to the townsfolk walking the street and said, “The politicians are hypocrites. They know if they hire the Irish or the Chinese to build track, it’ll cost them double. That’s why they want to buy steel so cheap. They sit in Washington all down but nine. Doesn’t matter. That dog won’t hunt. Natives will never allow the whites close enough to build the air line road across the prairie. Not if the tribes keep pulling up the telegraph wires.”
I said, “Well, if the Know Nothings don’t stop squabbling among themselves, they’ll never beat Lincoln and elect Douglas… or get enough senators in Congress to vote to build the transcontinental anyhow. All just a lick and a promise.”
Beatty put his hand on my shoulder. “If Allen and his Know Nothings chew gravel, we’ll all be rowing up a salt river. Allen won’t have a tail feather left to fund the paper, and I’ll be out of a job.”
I returned to my desk and looked at the pile I still had left to read. Beatty made for the door, hanging his head in assumed defeat.
I stopped his egress. “Beatty, you’re my wheel horse. Always have a job with me… Write your story about the Irish and the Chinese. But for God’s sake, if your grandma doesn’t use the phrase, don’t write it for the American.”
“No offense sir, but you don’t know my grandma. She shoots back a doud for breakfast before punchin’ dough. She whales away, airin’ her lungs. Quite a dabster herself. She’d say no matter how old she gets; she’s still aces high. Don’t think I learned it all from you, do you?”
With a new mission, pleased with himself and proud of his grandma, he wrapped the end of his glasses behind his ears.
Returning to my desk, I tossed away newspapers and any letters with unrecognizable handwriting. Before the door shut, I laughed, saying, “Don’t get cocky, Beatty. Make hay while the sun shines.”
When I looked up, he grinned and clicked the latch, perhaps standing a bit taller.
The first letter I opened was from Stand. He said, “The Treaty Party has become the Knights of the Golden Circle.” So, I thought, Stand established his own branch of Know Nothings. He said, “Cherokee Nation can’t feed its people, let alone overcome our economic disparities without slavery.”
But that wasn’t his only reason. I knew Stand refused to allow Ross’ government to demand anything not voted in by a majority. He wrote, “Either our people enjoy popular sovereignty, or they don’t.” In Stand’s mind, there was no gray middle. What began as Ross’ four-year term in ‘28 continued, with my people suffering under his tyranny for another twenty-eight years.
I sat in my chair, reminded of Uncle Elias, Papa, and Grandpa’s wish. If Stand and I could see Cherokee Nation admitted into the Union as a state, then I would be satisfied. Until then, whether I won laurels as a writer in this distant land or whether I toiled in the obscurity of some mountain village over the dull routine of a small practice, I would win my way by slow and painful steps to the purpose in my heart of hearts. And if I failed in all I undertook and lay down to die with this noble purpose unfulfilled, my last prayer would be for its consummation and the consequent happiness of the Cherokee people.2
I ran my hand through my hair, hearing Lizzie’s voice. She’d say I could do nothing about it today. Better to focus on pressing matters and not to take a drink over problems I couldn’t see to solve.
I laid Stand’s letter aside and flipped through the other mail. On the bottom of the stack was one from Arkansas. I turned up the wick on the oil lamp and read.
Brave Brother,
Mother passed yesterday morning. AJ stopped the clock at ten. Pneumonia. She’d suffered for nearly a month. I tried everything I knew to do. Sassafras to purify her blood, snakeroot for chills, mint to clear her lungs, and elm tree bark for coughing and swelling. No white or Indian medicine can hold a soul to the earth when it yearns to pass beyond. After waiting to join Papa for so long, I must believe they are together again.
When it became too difficult for Mama to speak, she signed. She asked you not to come home. She didn’t want you to put yourself in harm’s way. She worried Ross’ men would lie in wait for you at her funeral. You and Lizzie wouldn’t be able to arrive in time, regardless.
I wish you could write her eulogy. Your words would do Mama’s sacrifice justice. Susan’s husband says he’ll speak to what a Christian woman she was. How she suffered her quiet battles alone. We all know, after Papa’s death, she bore a dead heart in a living bosom.2
Susan decided we should meet you and Lizzie in Memphis, Tennessee in May. I hope her choice gives you and Lizzie time enough to travel. In the meantime, I’ll care for your daughter. She grieves Mama as only children can, separating sorrow from playful joy. I wish that part of our innocence remained with us after we grow tall. Alice needs her Mama and her Papa now. Her arms chill without Mama’s warmth. Until you and Lizzie come, I’ll hold onto her.
Your loving sister,
Clarinda
I knew nothing of grief without revenge, pairing both emotions in my mind. I couldn’t think past such loss. Selfish anger struck me first, like molten lava, and I dragged my arm across the desk, sweeping all the newspapers and letters to the floor. I gripped Clarinda’s message in my fist and lost my balance. My back hit the corner of the office, and I slid to the floor. Holding my head in my hands, I balled both fists and screamed.
Beatty opened the door.
“Get out,” I bawled.
Minutes turned into hours. In disbelief, I drifted aimlessly through such obscurity, with nothing to grab ahold of, to root myself, wandering. Present thoughts jumbled into memories, one intersecting another before the previous finished. Mama had been my constant, a star whose point remained steadfast, enduring, a light never dimmed. She calmed when I raged. When I fought, she steadied. When I hated her, she loved me more. Guilt forced me into the role of a worthless son. I whispered aloud in prayer. “Forgive me, Mama.”
I held such animosity to her face, abusing her heart, reminding her of her sin. Mama never stopped reaching, begging me to stay close. Her consistency allowed me space and time to find peace.
The window’s daylight turned into evening’s amber as I envisioned Mama’s face, pictured it in death. For the horror and terror my imagination brought, my anger receded like the tides. I had to trust what Clarinda believed. Mama’s soul found what it’d sought each day for twenty whispering years. Papa.
I rolled a fallen pencil toward me with my foot. I uncrumpled Clarinda’s letter and scribbled on its empty back.
Pale lies she now before me,
Whom late, I scorned with bitter sneers,
What spell is this comes o’er me,
That all mine anger disappears?
My yesterday was clouded
With thinking of her cruel wrong—
But white in death thus shrouded,
I only know I loved her long!3
Beatty opened the door. He’d fetched Lizzie. And I was not alone.
L
We boarded a steamship from San Francisco and traveled a month and a day to reach the murky air of New Orleans. From there, the ocean’s blue turned muddy brown when we boarded another steamboat, ironically named the Mayflower, and made our way north on the Mississippi River toward Memphis.
When we disembarked near the dock, a voice cried out, “Mama.” A bouncing five-year-old girl wove through the strangers to reach Lizzie and me. My wife left my side, scooped Alice in her arms, and spun her around in the air, kissing our daughter’s cheek.
When I reached them, Lizzie said, “Alice, you were only a baby when your father kissed you last. Will you let him do so now? He’s missed you as much as I have while we’ve been away.”
Braids hung over her shoulders, a smooth wave back from her forehead. She had Lizzie’s eyes and a more feminine version of my nose. Her lips were thin with a tiny aperture underneath, the only indentation to her oval face. I knew nothing of being a papa, kneeling beside my daughter. She offered me her hand as though meeting a stranger.
“Alice,” I said and touched her cheek with the back of my hand.
“Papa.” She pointed toward the crowd behind her. “Uncle Anee and Wacooli said they found gold with you. Is that true?” Her tone implied she didn’t believe my brothers.
Hearing Alice call me “Papa” was one of my life’s most remarkable and saddest experiences, for both the joy and the memories the title brought. How easily time escaped a young man’s grasp, caring not for his excuses when he attempted to halt its constant traipse to bind it still.
“It is true,” I said. “But you, sweet Alice, are rarer than any gold I ever found.” She was petite in her blue dress but deceivingly solid. “You look like a bluebird stopping to rest, taking a breath, perching on my hand.” Alice blushed, and I scooped her from the ground and held her close. But, in my mind, I spoke to Mama. “I promise to be Alice’s constant. Stand still, so she’ll know where to find me.”
One by one, my brothers and sisters came into view, walking as a mass rather than individuals. None still wore mourning attire. Susan was dressed in spring yellow and her husband, wearing his minister suit, looked like a magpie. Aeneas’ blue suit matched the dress of a brunette on his arm. A weather-beaten hat shadowed Wacooli’s face, but I’d know his gait anywhere. My youngest brother, Andrew, wore a lawyer’s tie. Herman looked as though he’d only stepped from his cornfields to drive the family’s wagon from Fayetteville, in his red homespun shirt, buttoned to the neck, with suspenders covering his shoulders. My youngest sister, sweet Flora, wore a dress covered in her namesake and held Clarinda’s hand, whose native dress forced several gawking strangers to step aside. Lumbering behind them was Clarinda’s hound.
At our family’s reunion, I recognized the dichotomy of joy and grief. I couldn’t hold both emotions simultaneously in my hands. I had to let go of one to grip tightly to the other.
Susan said, “You both must be hungry. We have rooms at a hotel here. Let’s eat together.” She put her arms around me. “There’s nothing more Mama would want.”
Susan became the Ridge family matriarch, leading the rest of us across the bustle of the street. When one mother passed, it only took moments before another filled her role. With Ridge men causing so much trouble, we needed a matriarch. Susan was ever the responsible one.
Lizzie took Alice from my arms, and they moved with my brothers and sisters while I waited on Clarinda. She only approached me once I stood alone. My oldest sister was somber, living in the visual solemnity of her mind. I looked around her, behind her. Surely, I signed too slowly, but it had been five years since we’d spoken face-to-face. “Where is Skili?” I asked, or at least that is what I hoped I signed. Her husband wasn’t there.
She answered. “In the Nightland, Rollin. Two years ago. His heart.”
Rather than say how sorry I was, I hugged my sister tight, trapping her hands against my chest so she couldn’t talk. When I let her go, she signed, “Whenever I conjure the memory of those who’ve passed, all I can see are birds.”
When we joined the others seated at the restaurant table, I asked Susan, “Why didn’t you bury Mama next to Papa in the cemetery at Honey Creek? It is where she belongs.” Lizzie grabbed my hand. We’d discussed this on the steamer. She’d begged me not to ask this very question, but I couldn’t stop myself.
Andrew said, “Susan worried Cherokee would disturb Mama’s body.”
Susan responded by lowering her chin, followed by rolling her eyes. From her reaction, I didn’t believe this was the first time she’d argued her point. “Not only that. I cannot tend Mama’s grave if I must go into Cherokee Nation to do it.”
Aeneas interjected. “Susan has little need for her Cherokee blood.”
“After what they did to Papa and Grandfather, I refuse to breathe their air.”
Clarinda interrupted Susan’s defiance. She touched my sleeve before she asked, “Brave brother, take me home?”
She didn’t need any further gestures to tell me what she meant. After watching her request, the family erupted, all speaking over one another.
Susan said, “Not this ridiculousness again. She knows Rollin won’t deny her.”
Herman said, “No, sister. Stay with me. Help me work my farm.”
Andrew said, “You cannot own land there. How will you live?”
Aeneas said, “What if you are ill? Who will care for you?”
Flora said, “I don’t remember the East at all.”
When they stopped to breathe, I said, “With Mama’s hair, you’ll pass as white. No one will say you cannot stay.”
Lizzie whispered in my ear. “Take this time with Clarinda. Go. Grieve your mother.”
I held Clarinda’s gaze but took Alice’s little hand. Would I break my promise moments after making it? Leave again the moment she called me Papa? As if Lizzie heard my spirit’s vow, she permitted me to make the journey to Ridge land once more. Lizzie leaned against my shoulder. “I’ll pack Alice’s things back in Fayetteville. When you return, the three of us will go home to California.”
L
Once on the road through the Appalachian Mountains, our horses followed a narrow path through walls of stacked shale and granite. Cherokee spirit orbs followed us on horseback. Clarinda sensed them first, signed the word for ghosts, making two circles with her thumb and forefinger, and stretched the circles like dissipating smoke. On this journey home, we’d reversed removal. She and I traveled backward on The Path Where They’d Cried, passing clusters of our people’s gravesites throughout Tennessee. We stopped at each mound or cross and, remembering, offered an apology. Their spectral company departed after each funeral prayer.
Sitting around a campfire near Etowah, the steep mountains kept our firelight close. I threw another log on the fire and scratched a whimpering Digaleni’s head. He descended from Clarinda’s original hound—the same dog we’d slogged with as children over every pasture and stream at Running Waters.
She signed, “These stony hills remind me of when you and I were lost. Do you remember when Papa found us? We hadn’t seen him in months, and suddenly, he was there.”
I said, “I was only six, but I remember fragments, images. It was cold. Wind bent over the treetops, bending the pine tops together. As usual, I stayed up after Mama tucked me in, staring out the window. I saw Marz leave her cabin and walk into the woods alone. I remember thinking how she shouldn’t be outside alone. She wouldn’t be able to see in the dark. She was barely able to see during the day.”
Clarinda looked puzzled and gestured with one hand, gripping air surrounding her face. “I remember what she looked like. Skin like stone, nails like claws.” Clarinda held the same fist up to the firelight and stacked one atop the other. Then, she signed, “No one believed me, but Marz was a shapeshifter, dewa to tsgili. She was the squirrel living in the closet under the stairs.”
Misty fog surrounded Clarinda’s red hair, iridescent beside flames of a similar hue. It wasn’t cold tonight, but I pulled my coat across my chest, remembering that November night’s biting wind. “If Dick, my appy, lowered his head, I could hop over his neck and wiggle around to face forward.”
Clarinda signed, “I watched you mount him from my window. Threw my coat over my gown, snuck to the barn for Equoni, and followed you.”
Recalling the story, my perspective changed. I no longer leaned back against a log under the stars, encircled by Tennessee mountains. Instead, from my child’s eyes, I stared between Dick’s pony ears, captive underneath giant, towering trees. Night owls hooted. Coyote howls chased me. Deer leapt through the brush. “The night was like one of Papa’s stories. When I couldn’t see Marz, I looked behind me, too scared to turn back, afraid I wouldn’t find the path home.
“Marz waited in a clearing. Moonlight made her white hair glow blue. She spoke with a Cherokee man on horseback. He carried a long gun over his shoulder. I tried to be quiet when Marz told the man something about a messenger, a letter from the President. The long-gunned man told Marz how he’d tell War Woman.
“My legs were tired, and I slid from my pony’s back. I grabbed his mane to stay seated. In return, he stamped his hoof. Both Marz and the man reacted, suspicious of the sounds behind them. The long-gunned man rode out of sight. Marz approached me in the dark. She scolded me with her gravelly voice.
“I remember only a little after that, like waking up from a dream too fast. Perhaps that’s all it was.”
Clarinda signed, “No. It wasn’t a dream. I caught up to you when Marz grabbed your foot. Equoni and I hid behind bushes where I could see. I watched her hold her arms out to you, and you reached for her. She hugged you and ran her nails through your hair. After that, you fell limp. She threw you over your horse and led your pony further into the woods.”
Clarinda continued. “She used her magic to build a stone bridge. It sounded like thunder. Dick’s metal shoes clopped over its rocks. I couldn’t understand how you could sleep through such noise. Equoni and I kept our distance. After we crossed, lightning struck the bridge, and all the rocks fell away.” Clarinda’s fists stacked imaginary stones and let her hands fall, imitating how the bridge broke apart.
Clarinda’s signs brought me from the memory. I signed a y-shape with my right hand and slapped it against my left. “Impossible,” I said, and tilted my head with skepticism.
She signed in reply, “Not for tsgili.”
The wind changed direction, and Clarinda closed her eyes when smoke blew into her face. She rolled her head, memories taking hold of her conscious mind. She gestured about a cabin made of stone where a fire burned and stood, showing, with her body, how Marz carried me inside. Clarinda explained how she had tied Equoni to a tree and peeked through the stone cabin’s window. She showed me how the tsgili held me like a baby, sang to me, and ran her long nails through my hair.
Clarinda opened her eyes and signed, “I had to lead Marz away from you.”
I said, “I remember hearing your whistle. It sounded like a chickadee, the tiny bird’s repeating chirps.” I took Clarinda’s whistle from around my neck and returned her talisman back to her.
Clarinda held it to her mouth and made the same sound. She signed, “It was all I had that made noise. Tsgili set you on the floor by the fire and walked outside, searching for the singing bird. Equoni heard the whistle, and broke her rope, running. I kept blowing, hidden in the brush. Its sound carried on the wind through bare trees. Marz searched in vain, never finding the bird and never finding me.
“Walking Stick and Sunflower rode past first and grabbed Marz. Then, Walking Stick shouted back toward the woods. Papa rode fast with a lit torch, slid off his horse, and followed the sounds. He hugged me for the longest time. I needed him to know you were in the stone house. I kept blowing my whistle, pointing. Soon enough, he reappeared in the doorway with you in his arms.”
“If they hadn’t found us, what would Marz have done? Your whistle saved my life, then. It protected me when I shot Kell. I should have returned it to you long before now. I remember leaning against Papa, rocked with the gait of his horse. Knew I was safe when I heard his heartbeat in my ear, smelled him.”
“He smelled like ink and leather.” Clarinda walked to her horse and petted it between its eyes. Then she gathered Mama’s hummingbird sewing box from her bag, took the whistle off, and placed it inside. She signed, “That was the same night the great comet streaked the night, collecting all the stars into a single beam.”
Her fingers pointed toward the sky as she brushed her thumbs together. I walked toward her, joined her gesture. I gathered her hands in mine, and together, we watched, anticipating the comet’s reappearance. She read my lips. I said, “Aeneas was born that night.” I held our palms flat together, swaying them horizontally side to side. “Papa and Mama never stopped carrying any of us.”
Alone, I knew nothing of mourning. But from those hollows beneath mountains of stone, my sister taught me to remember, to grieve Mama and Papa without rage. Under what stars remained behind, I held my sister and stared into the sky through falling tears, imagining how Heaven, the Nightland, peeked through its nocturnal canopy in weightless light.
For mounting from their depths unseen,
Their spirit pierces upward, far,
A soaring pyramid serene,
And lifts us where the angels are.4