Citizens Creek (16 page)

A military man finally made the assignment, and Yargee’s group was given the
Borgne
. They joined hands or grabbed hold of tunics so as not to be separated, and Cow Tom pushed them all toward the gangplank. The night had grown darker, the moon encased in clouds, and the constant drizzle of the day turned to rain so heavy, dangerous waves smacked the sides of the
Borgne
like thunderclaps.

There he stood, a lone figure at the base of the gangplank of the
Borgne
, as if indifferent to the gale, a flash of lightning revealing the path of the rainwater through the curl of his brown beard. The slaver examined each dark face as best he could, but the night was dark and foul, and the crowd impatient to get out of the storm. Cow Tom saw his opening. He put himself on the side closest to the slaver, with Bella farthest away, and began a surge forward, pushing until all around him pushed too. The crowd turned unruly, stumbling, some even falling, following suit, all of a body at the gangplank at a pace too chaotic for the slaver to manage. Cow Tom lagged behind then, against the people tide, in the slaver’s way for precious seconds, hoisting the heavy sack close to his face to block Curly-beard’s view until he saw Amy had hold of both girls and Bella, and they had passed up the gangplank.

“’Scuse me, sir,” Cow Tom said. If he’d had his hat, he would have doffed it.

He headed up the plank, where they waited on him. His legs shook so badly, and his heart pounded so violently, he had to stop and rest for a moment before he could make himself go on.

Cow Tom led them all to a lower deck, where they could huddle dry and out of sight. As relieved as he was that they’d made it this far, he feared their luck might not hold for the next transfer in New Orleans. He barely slept, trying for some better plan to protect his mother, and in the morning, when they climbed toward the fresh air of the main deck, he saw New Orleans spread out before him, and heard the grumbles from the military handlers about the yellow fever epidemic raging there.

The ferries emptied, their tired human cargo rushed by the military handlers across the portage from Lake Pontchartrain to the Mississippi River, where three large steamboats waited—the
John Newton
, the
Yazoo
, and the
Monmouth
. There was no need for hiding or deception this time. No slave catchers prowled, scared away by the epidemic. Yargee’s party was assigned the
Monmouth
, a decrepit boat with sagged boards and rotted wood, and just before nightfall, they boarded in another frenzy of storm, unimpeded.

Cow Tom had learned much on the inbound trip, and remembering Schoolboy’s distaste for their quarters near the boiler room, this time he staked out a prime place for Yargee and his people near the wheelhouse, the group much larger than he’d looked after on the
Paragon
. They were safe, all of them. And Bella was aboard, no questions asked.

When Cow Tom thought no more could possibly fit above deck or below, still they herded groups aboard, drenched and frightened, and again voices pleaded to wait for morning to sail. Seven hundred packed on the
Monmouth
before they called a halt to boarding, where there had been two hundred on the
Paragon
. At one point, Cow Tom saw Harry Island above deck, rejoined now with his master, as was Cow Tom, and an acknowledging gesture had to
suffice, the boat too crowded to do otherwise, the relative freedom of Florida something distant. He lost Harry in the crowd, and attended to his own. His heart still raced, and although he was afraid of setting sail in such a storm, he wanted nothing more than to leave the dock.

Finally, the whistle blew, and they pulled away from New Orleans in the black, driving rain, up the Lower Mississippi en route to the Red River and beyond to Indian Territory.

Chapter 22

CREW AND OFFICERS
returned often to the great stacks of boxes containing whiskey bottles, in relief from the raging storm or to gain courage to push on, Cow Tom didn’t know, and the overloaded boat chugged its way north.

Cow Tom peered out on a river so wide as to appear to be open sea. In the distance all was inky black, the curtains of water assaulting the ship and obscuring even the lantern in the wheelhouse, the only light aboard, throwing out scant illumination beyond a few feet. He feared another ship from the other direction, neither seeing the other in the night. After the voyage from Florida to Pass Christian, and across Lake Pontchartrain to New Orleans, he was used to the feel of the sea, the swells of water and unpredictable currents turning his stomach inside out. But this was different, as if the ship ran in loopy circles.

Cow Tom wasn’t the only one to notice, drawn into the fray as linguister when a Creek brave, Timbochee, conversant with protocols at sea, begged the officers to stop until morning. Timbochee stated outright his belief the men charged with steering could not control the ship and keep on course, zigging and zagging. They didn’t listen, more intent on their card game and bottles. There was no one of Schoolboy’s caliber in authority for appeal.

They passed onshore lights, and someone called out the name Baton Rouge, but they quickly put the town behind them, thrust
again into darkness. They were to approach Prophet Island Bend within the half hour.

Several on the
Monmouth
saw the ship coming at them, including Cow Tom. Not one but two shapes, maybe the latter in tow, the first vessel draped in a hazy luminescence of muted light, but not the second. Boats going upriver were to stay in the quiet waters close to the banks and, at the bends, cross to the far banks where the water moved slowest. Downriver boats were expected to follow the river channel out toward the middle, where the current moved fastest.

Suddenly, as if from one throat, cries went up.

“Stay to one side! Stay to one side!” Timbochee yelled. “Let the night ship pass!”

A shrill sound pierced the darkness from the wheelhouse.

“Don’t you see it?” the pilot shouted.

The first thundering crash was followed by a sickening series of grinding scrapes and shaking apart as the unlit boat struck the
Monmouth
.

At the rail, Cow Tom saw bodies by the dozens from the lower deck spill into the dark river, swept out and away, while the upper deck of the
Monmouth
listed and dipped closer to the water. The other steamboats reversed to stop against the current. Amid the terror of screams and shouts, he fought his way back to Yargee’s party. Amy clutched Maggie, the small girl’s arms around her neck, and Bella held Malinda, and the rest of Chief Yargee’s retinue clustered round him. Cow Tom closed the last few yards, pushing against the tide of Creeks trying to come up from below by the stairway connecting upper deck to lower, while quick and confusing shouts were drowned out by the constancy of the distress whistle, projecting its ear-piercing call into the dark night.

“Wait for the boats!”

“It’s split in two!”

“We’re sunk!”

“Swim to shore!”

“All drowned!”

Amy saw him, and reached her hand. Fortunately, they clung to one another, his family, holding firm, and Cow Tom propelled them all as one toward the rail. They stayed on the listing deck as long as they could. Those belowdecks, at least those not already pitched into the water, fought for higher footing, but the
Monmouth
was fast sinking, the deck already wet with Mississippi waters at their feet. Better to take their chance with a pick-up boat. In the water, those Indians not immediately swept away struggled desperately for something solid to grasp on to. The other army steamers from New Orleans circled around and men picked up what survivors they could.

They were almost level with the water now, and Cow Tom prepared to hand his girls to rescuers in a waiting boat. They were terrified, but Amy whispered something to them both and his daughters gave themselves over to him. He had Malinda by the waist, in midair, when he heard another creaking groan. The cabin of the
Monmouth
broke off, and thrust them all downstream alongside crew and hundreds of other Indians.

Cow Tom pulled Malinda back in close to his body, but they moved in a different direction now. He wiped spindrift from his eyes. The rescue boat had disappeared. He watched the new swirls of water, the fresh crop of bodies washed far from shore, but he was still elevated above the surface, still connected to a major piece of the boat beneath his feet, his family still around him. Amy brought Malinda back to her arms, holding both girls now, and Cow Tom tried to get a fix on where they were. They floated some distance, adjusting to this new reality, as if suspended in time. But then the cabin broke in two parts, as had the boat, and spilled them all into the river with the speed and force of a racing stallion.

The water was frigid, and in the suddenness of the upheaval, he got separated from the others. Shouts punctuated the night air, both screams of fear and calls for help, and Cow Tom heard yells in the darkness from several directions promising rescue.

“We’re coming,” a few strange voices called out, and a frantic chorus responded from different points all around him. “Here.” “Over here.” He recognized one of the voices as Amy’s.

Cow Tom saw his wife, always a strong swimmer, drag Maggie toward a jagged piece of broken-off debris in the river and get her bearings, and was relieved to see a small rescue boat with a single lantern rowing in their direction. Close by was Malinda, but she was too far for Amy to reach without letting go of Maggie. Bella was nowhere in sight.

Cow Tom swam hard in the direction of his daughter, arm over arm, fighting the pull of the river. He came up to get his bearings, and struggling to see through the frigid spray and the driving rain and wind, watched as Malinda, panicked, began to thrash wildly. Bella’s head appeared from beneath the water mere inches from his daughter, and within seconds, his mother had the girl propped up and her arms pinned back so she couldn’t take them both down. Cow Tom took another deep breath for one last effort to reach them, and when he surfaced again, Bella had already pulled the girl close to the rescue boat, Malinda still fighting the while. Cow Tom could see Bella’s fatigue, but they were at the boat, and he and Bella pushed Malinda up and over the lip of the side, and hands from inside reached out and pulled her in to safety.

“We got her. We got her.” Amy’s voice.

Exhausted, every muscle in his body aching and the frigid cold beginning to numb his mind, Cow Tom took a moment to orient himself in the water as he clung to the side of the boat, half in, half out of the torrent. Amy and Maggie were safe. Malinda was safe, and Bella had saved her. But where was Bella? The pelting rain made visibility almost impossible, but Bella had been right beside him just seconds before.

He dove under, but the water was so dark and there was so much debris, he made out only outlines and shifting shapes. But then he bumped Bella, her body a limp curl, spiraling downward in a loose fall. She had released herself to the water, tiny bubbles
floating upward as she drifted down. He made his way to her and snatched at her shirt, making good contact on the second try, and pulled her up to the surface as quickly as he could, getting her head above the flow before he drew in air for himself. She was still, heavy and lifeless, but then her body bucked, and she began to gasp for air, sputtering and coughing, greedy for breath.

Cow Tom called out until he grew hoarse, as so many others were calling.

“Over here!”

Not one but two rescue boats raced toward them, at cross purpose to one another, and for the second time that night, Cow Tom experienced a moment of inescapable clarity as the inevitable collision came directly at them.

He hadn’t come this far to see his mother hurt again, and he shifted position, spinning Bella out with one arm as if a dance partner, hopefully removed from harm’s way, and jammed his hand in between the two boats, absorbing the brunt of the impact. The pain wasn’t as much as he expected. He had the clearness of mind to puzzle out that the icy water lessened what would surely bring greater pain later, but even so, he felt the pincerlike pressure on his left hand and up his arm, and was certain of broken bones and escaping blood. He refused to go into the rescue boat until Bella was safely aboard, and once he saw her pulled up, he allowed them to bring him in too.

“Where is she?” he demanded, over and over, until they cleared a path in the small boat so his mother was in his line of sight.

Bella was slumped over, wrapped tight in a blanket, shivering, a little stunned, but seemed free of injury. She stared at him, her breath coming in short bursts. Cow Tom could no longer hold on to himself, and the next he knew, someone carried him to land.

Hundreds of Creeks lined the shore, both dead and alive. Bella refused to leave his side. He balked at staying put, and struggled to his feet to find Amy, despite the blood and his mangled hand, but Bella pushed him back down and wiped at his gory fingers with a
strip of her tunic. When done, she helped him stand and took the lead, pushing him forward in the search, acting as his eyes and ears. Amid the dark and confusion, they came across Amy ministering to the deep leg gashes of a young Creek boy who had lost both parents to the water. The girls were at her heels. Amy didn’t bother to blink back the tears when she saw Cow Tom, and threw her arms around him. She discovered the mess of his left hand.

“So much death,” she said.

“You all right?” he asked his wife. Not back a full week, and she’d almost slipped from him again. Her arms were heavily bruised, whether from boat or water, there was no telling.

“We survived,” Amy said.

She inspected his hand and unwound Bella’s rag to use as a bandage.

“No way to save the fingers,” she said.

Cow Tom heard her through a fog, his head once again betraying him. He had to sit. “How many?” he asked.

“You still got seven,” she said. She rewrapped his hand, and as horns and whistles and bells pierced the night, he couldn’t prevent himself from falling into a deep sleep.