CHAPTER 2
When The Ridge and his companion saw the militia officer come scuttling out of General Jackson’s tent, they said nothing, but they did exchange a little smile. Some of the Creeks had already started calling the American general “Sharp Knife,” and The Ridge was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long before the Cherokees who were Jackson’s allies would be doing the same.
The smile faded soon enough, however. When it came to the Americans, there wasn’t much for Cherokees to smile about.
Many Creeks, and a fair number of Cherokees and Choctaws, would explain it on the simple grounds that the Americans were white people; and, as such, a fickle and treacherous race by nature. But The Ridge didn’t think even the Red Sticks really believed that. Maybe in the north they did, where Tecumseh himself had come from. The Ridge didn’t really know that much about those tribes, even though the stories claimed the Cherokee themselves had come from the north, long ago. Those stories were probably true, he mused, since the Cherokees spoke a language that was similar to the Iroquois.
But racial explanations didn’t make much sense to The Ridge, and never had. He was himself mostly a full-blood, yet all he had to do was look around him to see the extent to which “the Cherokees” had long ago begun to change, on that level which the whites called “race.” Even the name Cherokee was of white origin. The term the Cherokee themselves used was Ani-Yunwiya, which meant the “Real People” or the “Principal People.”
All he had to do was look at the man squatting next to him, in fact. Young John Ross.
To all outward appearances, John Ross was a white man himself. His skin was as pale as any white man’s; his hair was red; his eyes were blue. Nor was that a freak of nature. Measured by blood, John Ross was a white man. The Ridge didn’t know him well yet, since he’d only just met him on this campaign, but he knew the man’s ancestry. Seven of his eight immediate progenitors were white people, mostly of Scot extraction. Only one of them, his great-grandmother Ghigooie of the Bird Clan, had been a Cherokee.
But, the way the Cherokee measured such things, that made John Ross a member of the clan. The fact that he looked like a Scotsman simply didn’t matter, so far as they were concerned. The Ani-Yunwiya traced lineage through the mother’s line, not the father’s. The white man’s concept of “race” was an alien one. The people whom the Americans called “Indians” actually belonged to a wide variety of peoples, who spoke different languages and had different customs.
The Ridge wasn’t really an Indian, except insofar as white people placed him in that category—and thus he had to deal with it because he had to deal with them. From his viewpoint, though, he was Ani-Yunwiya because he belonged to one of the seven Cherokee clans. The Deer clan. Beyond that, he recognized kinship with many other tribes, because Cherokees often married outside the seven clans.
That was how John Ross looked at things also, The Ridge knew. Even at his youthful age, Ross had already acquired a reputation among his people, and was emerging as a Cherokee leader. Certainly no one doubted his loyalties to the Bird Clan.
Things were no different with their Red Stick enemies. Somewhere in the distance to the south, the Red Stick faction of the Creeks had forted up on a bend of the Tallapoosa river to withstand Jackson’s coming assault. Their loyalties to their own leaders were fierce, but had little to do with race. Their central war chief was a man who, like most Indians of the time, had two names. Red Eagle, and . . . William Weatherford.
Like Ross, Weatherford had more white than Indian ancestors. That hadn’t stopped him from leading the successful attack on Fort Mims, although rumor had it that Weatherford had tried to prevent the massacre of the fort’s population that followed. But The Ridge was quite sure that race had nothing to do with the massacre either. Most of the people massacred at Fort Mims had been Creek half-bloods, just like Weatherford himself and many of his Red Stick followers. The different ways in which white people and red people measured difference to begin with was just one of the many problems they had faced, separately and together, for over two centuries now.
The Ridge had seen the sea, several times since his youth, and had never forgotten the inexorable power of the tides. They couldn’t be stopped, certainly. But perhaps they could be channeled.
Perhaps.
John Ross was somewhat in awe of The Ridge, and so he took his cue from his older companion’s countenance, and his still manner of watching things.
“Stoic,” white Americans would have labeled The Ridge. The word wouldn’t have meant anything to The Ridge himself, since he spoke no English and was basically illiterate. But John himself was fluent in English—more so than he was in Cherokee, in fact—and he was a voracious reader.
Still, John was a Cherokee, and he thought like one. So he knew that “stoic” was a misnomer. The Ridge’s manner did not derive from the ancient philosophies of the Romans, whom the Americans saw as their political forefathers. John Ross had read some of those Roman texts in school, but he was sure The Ridge had never even heard of them.
No, The Ridge’s manner came from the traditions of his own people. The stillness of hunters waiting for prey; the patience of the river bottoms where a people grew its beans, squash and corn.
The Ridge was now in his early forties. He was well-known among the Cherokee as an advocate of finding workable compromises with the whites, and even adopting many of their ways. But, in other ways, he was something of a throwback. One of the great ancient ones, John Ross liked to imagine, come back to life in the Cherokee time of need. The Ridge wasn’t entirely a pure-blood, since his mother’s father had been a Scot frontiersman, like most of John’s own ancestors. But there was no trace of that ancestry in his form and figure. The Ridge was as dark-skinned as any Cherokee, with the dramatic nose and cheeks to go with his powerful build. He’d been named for his hunting prowess. “The Ridge” was an English translation of the Cherokee Kahnungdatlageh, which meant “the man who walks on the mountain top.”
He had been a blooded warrior at the age of seventeen, killing one of the white Tennesseans who had been allied with the Unakas. By the time he was thirty, he was one of the Cherokees’ most influential chiefs. He was often referred to as asgá siti. The term was usually translated into English as “dreadful,” although for Cherokees themselves the connotations were more that of “terrifying” or “formidable.” Still, The Ridge had for at least a decade been the principal voice among the Cherokee advocating an end to the ancient Blood Law which kept the Cherokees, like most Indian nations, continually embroiled in clan feuds.
John’s own ruminations were interrupted by new movement at the entrance to the general’s tent. Two more American officers were emerging.
The Ridge was already studying them. One of them, rather. The one on the left, John Coffee, was already well-known to the Cherokee. It was the young officer that The Ridge found himself interested in.
Physically, he was certainly impressive. Very tall, broad-shouldered, and with a muscular physique. But The Ridge could outwrestle almost any man he’d ever met, so he focused on the young officer’s face.
That had possibilities, he decided. The blue eyes looked to be intelligent, and the mouth seemed to be one that smiled easily. Better still, one that could tell jokes.
“Is that the one?”
John Ross nodded.
So.
The adopted son of Oolooteka, “he who puts the drum away”—or John Jolly, as he was often called. John Jolly was a fairly minor chief among the Cherokee, but his older brother Tahlonteskee wielded great influence. He was mostly a bad influence, The Ridge thought, since Tahlonteskee was the most prominent advocate among the Cherokee of moving the tribe to the west. Indeed, Tahlonteskee had already done so, leading a thousand people in his own clan across the great river into the region the Americans called Arkansas.
At best, The Ridge thought the decision had been premature. But Tahlonteskee wasn’t the only one who was advocating that course of action. His younger brother John Jolly did so as well, although he hadn’t yet made the move himself. Their position was especially influential among the pure-bloods.
So.
“I think we will talk to him,” The Ridge announced.
John Ross started to rise. The Ridge placed a hand on his forearm and drew him gently back down. “Not now. After the battle.”
Ross shot him a questioning glance. The Ridge allowed himself another little smile. “Whatever else is different about Americans, one thing is not. They prize courage as much as we do. So. After the battle. He will be a great deal older then than he is now, once that day is over, and everyone will know a great deal more about him.”
Finally, Sam couldn’t keep the question from bursting out.
“He was faking it?”
As they walked away from Jackson’s tent, General Coffee gave the young ensign a sidelong stare.
“I have known Andy Jackson for ten years, both as a friend and a business partner. I married his wife’s niece and I fought a duel with Dickinson’s friend McNairy two months before Andy killed Dickinson. I know him as well as anyone does. Andy Jackson doesn’t fake anything.
“It’s just . . .”
Coffee looked away, as if gathering his thoughts. “It’s a little hard to explain. Let’s just say that the General is a lot smarter than most people think he is.”
Something in Sam’s face must have made clear that he wasn’t satisfied with the explanation. Coffee issued a little chuckle.
“All right, then let me put it this way. With Andy Jackson, you just never know. He does, in fact, have a temper that can shake buildings. And he can be as cold-blooded and ruthless as anyone you’ll ever meet. You heard about the time a company of militiamen tried to march back to Tennessee last November, because their term of enlistment was up? Andy rode out on his horse, planted himself in front of them, and leveled his rifle at them. Said he’d shoot the first man who took another step.”
Sam nodded. By now, the story was famous—notorious, more like—all over the frontier. He’d even heard that it was stirring up a ruckus in Washington, D.C.
“And the story that when Hall told Jackson his brigade was planning to desert—this happened at Fort Deposit a month later—that Jackson had two cannons trained on them? Then mounted his horse and swore that he’d have them fired on, despite the fact that he and his horse were right there in front of the cannons, too?”
Sam nodded.
“Well, both stories are true. In every detail. I was an eyewitness to the first one myself. And I can tell you there wasn’t a single one of those militiamen who doubted for a minute that Andy would pull the trigger. They don’t call him ‘Old Hickory’ for nothing.”
They walked on in silence for a moment, negotiating their way around a group of soldiers who were squatting at a campfire. After they were past, they found themselves picking their way a little more slowly now that the sun had set. Coffee spoke again.
“You just never know, that’s the point. And that’s the way Andy likes it. Did they tell you when you were a kid that bullies are always cowards?”
Sam laughed softly. “Yeah, but I didn’t believe it, even then.”
“Smart lad. It’s pure horseshit—and Andy Jackson is the living proof of it. He’s a ferocious bully, and he’s a sneaky conniving bastard who won’t hesitate for a second to trade on that reputation. But he doesn’t have a cowardly bone in his body. Even his fingernails have guts.”
Coffee stopped then and turned to face Sam straight on. The general was as big as Houston, so their eyes were on a level. There was still enough light shed by the sundown to enable Sam to make out his features. Coffee’s round face was surmounted by a mass of black hair and centered on a prominent nose. He had very dark eyes. Despite the natural solemnity of the face, Sam thought he detected a trace of a smile playing across the general’s lips.
“And I’ll tell you what else is true, young man. The British probably will beat Napoleon. And if they do, they’ll send their crack units here—Wellington’s veterans—to crush the only republic left on the face of the earth.”
Same thought that was probably a bit of an exaggeration. The Swiss republic might survive the fall of Napoleon. But . . .
He wasn’t inclined to argue the point, since he understood what Coffee was saying. The Swiss had been around for centuries, and weren’t any sort of threat to the aristocracies that ruled Europe. The United States, on the other hand, really stuck in their craw.
“If they can get away with it,” Coffee continued, “don’t think for a moment that the British wouldn’t love to throw our little revolution here into the waste heap. If they can land and seize control of the Gulf and the mouth of the Mississippi, they’ll have us by the throat.”
He stopped talking for a moment, cocking his head questioningly.
Sam nodded in agreement, and firmly. He’d already come to the same conclusions.
“Okay, then.” Coffee turned and resumed walking. “So here’s what else is true. Just be damn glad that conniving, way-smarter-than-he-looks, bullying son-of-a-bitch Andy Jackson is in command. We’ll need him, before this is over.”