Empire of Unreason (39 page)

But a few moments seemed to prove McPherson right as, across the
ford, a number of Indians assembled on the bank in plain sight, as
if waiting for them. No more shots were fired.

“Okay, fellahs,” McPherson said, motioning forward. “Let’s go.

Keep brave faces.”

Two at a time, McPherson and Franklin first, they sloshed into the
stream. Franklin wiped his salty brow. The temperature had been
climbing all day, and now it was a steam bath. His horse’s neck was
weltered with sores and bright beads of blood from the fierce, often
huge flies. Ben’s own exposed flesh wasn’t much better off.

The Indians watched them come. Under their scrutiny Franklin felt
like a shooting target, with a great red circle over his heart. His
pulse beat in his temple, and his throat was dry.

He concentrated on studying the Indians. Like those he had seen
before, they were dark, copper tinged, most of them naked save for
loincloths. They were tattooed with wavy lines, suns, animals, and
fabulous monsters. Most had thick, squarish features, though the
leader was somewhat foxy faced.

Like the Cherokee, they did odd things with their hair, plucking
most of it out to leave long locks in strange places. Some wore
earrings or gorgets made of shell or silver. Most had visible scars.

They shifted restlessly on the bank, as if being motionless was a
chore.

“Are they Cowetas?” Franklin asked, sotto voce.

“Oconees, I’d say,” McPherson replied.

“Are they part of the Coweta empire?”

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McPherson chuckled.

“What?”

“Only somebody as has never been amongst ‘em would call what
the Coweta have an empire.”

“You mean it’s not?”

“If it’s an empire, I don’t know who the emperor would be. The
fellow we’re headin‘’t‘ see, Chekilli—he’s the
mikko,
which some
folks might call a king, of sorts. But he ain’t, really. He’s more a
demagogue—he tells his people what to do. They do it or ignore ’im
as they please.” The ranger swatted absently at a horsefly.

“Likewise these so-called provinces—like this Oconee we’re comin‘

up on. They’ve got their own separate chief and government an’ all,
but they cozy up to the Coweta an‘ mostly do what they say, because
the Coweta are
strong
and this is dangerous country. A little tribe
doesn’t have much of a chance on its own, not with war parties
everywhere and everyone out for what they can grab.”

“So it’s more an alliance, then? And these Oconee are part of it?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Then they have the idea of a confederation between
sovereign states for the purposes of mutual protection. We’re
proposing nothing more than that.”

“It’s nay
that
simple. It’s nay a strange idea to them, no. But these
Cowetas are an arrogant lot. For thirty years they’ve clobbered
everyone has come against ‘em, but good; and the English and
French colonies have practically kowtowed to ’em to have ‘em on
their side. Don’t let ’em fool you. These are sharp customers, and
they’re used to lookin‘ for the best deal.”

“Well, I hope I can offer them one. So this bunch—these Oconees—

are they a welcome party?”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

McPherson twitched a grin at him. “Looks like a war party to me,
but this greetin‘ says they’ll parley. Otherwise, they’d of just stayed
at distance until they could attack us to best advantage.”

“You mean, for instance, while we’re crossing a stream?” Franklin
asked nervously. He was close enough to see their features well,
now, which seemed to him to express mostly a sort of haughty
anger mixed with disdain.

“Yes, I’d thought of that. I have a feelin‘ about it, though, and out
here that’s sometimes all y’ get.”

They made it across; and the foxy-faced fellow—who was sitting a
pony not much bigger than he was—came up, rasping and trilling in
his own language.

McPherson replied in the same tongue, a bit more tentatively. After
that they spoke—or maybe argued—for a few moments. Finally,
McPherson gestured for one of his men, who brought a pistol and a
silver, crescent-shaped gorget from his saddle packs. McPherson
presented them-to foxy face, pointing now and then to Ben.

Franklin blinked, smiled, tried to look important. After a few
moments, the ranger turned back to him.

“This fellow’s named Fixco, and he’s a war leader of the Oconees, as
I thought. He says he will take us to Coweta.”

“How much further is that?” Robert asked.

“From what he says, I’d guess about forty miles, so we’ll overnight
between here an‘ there. He also said they were told to keep an eye
out for you.”

“For me by
name
!”

McPherson turned and posed the question. Fixco replied; and
Franklin heard his name in the answer—or guessed he did—though
from Fixco’s mouth it came out “Falakkan.”

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McPherson confirmed his suspicion.

“Who told him?”

“His chief, who got a message from Coweta.”

Ben frowned. “I did schreibe that I was coming, but had no reply
from them. I assumed their aetherschreiber was broken. I guess it
isn’t.”

“Like I said, they’re something arrogant, the Cowetas.”

“I dunno,” Robert mused. “That’s odd—not answering a schreibed
message, but sending out this party.”

McPherson shrugged. He didn’t seem particularly worried.

They started back along the trail. Most of the Oconees— there
seemed to be five or six of them—vanished, slipping into the woods.

Franklin was used to that. It was how the rangers rode normally:
spread out, hunting and foraging as they went, often not together
again until time came to camp.

But by contrast, the rangers were pulled together now, almost in
formation. It made Franklin nervous. McPherson’s words said
everything was fine—his actions suggested they were in danger.

Nevertheless, at first opportunity, Franklin lagged back with
Robert. McPherson and the other rangers were chattering.

“I don’t like this, this not knowing what’s going on,” Franklin
confided.

“That’s the two of us, then. You think McPherson ain’t bein‘

straight with us?”

“I think he doesn’t want to worry us.”

EMPIRE OF UNREASON

“That’s probably the nub of it. Of course—” He lowered his voice
even further. “Of course, he’s a Scot, ain’t he? They tend toward the
Jacobite.”

“Your uncle trusts him.”

“Aye. He trusts me, too, my uncle, and see how foolish he is there?”

“Well, we can only keep our eyes open.”

“And hope what we see makes sense afore it kills us. Aye.”

The landscape, at least, was kinder than it had been. In the week
since leaving Fort Moore, they had crossed a series of high, rocky
ridges cut up by fast-flowing, difficult-to-ford streams. Now the
land was pretty level, varying from wolds of huge-boled trees to
open savanna and to vast, murmuring forests of cane. Of course,
this lower country brought with it the troublesome flies and greater
heat, but nothing was perfect, Franklin supposed.

They passed through a cornfield, planted in the Indian fashion.

Franklin had seen a few of these near Charles Town, and noted it
seemed a practical way of doing things. The earth was hilled into
mounds about every yard or so, and from each mound grew two or
three stalks of corn. Beans twined around the corn stalks for
support. Scattered rather aimlessly were other plants—sunflowers,
melons, pumpkins of various sorts. It looked rather messy, and was
certainly weedy. Indians didn’t seem to care much what their
gardens
looked
like, so long as they produced food.

They passed a house a moment later. It was essentially a cube with
walls of wattle and daub, though so well plastered it might have
been Spanish adobe. A roof of overlapping cypress-bark shingles
was pitched steeply to shed the rain of fierce southern storms. Next
to it was a summer house—a roof and two walls and not much
more. An old woman and some children sat under that, shucking
green corn. One of the Oconee warriors hollered something at the
old woman, and she laughed.

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The houses and fields grew closer together, and in time they came
upon a town, nestled in the curve of a river significantly larger than
any they had crossed since Fort Moore.

It was a pleasant enough place for a town, shaded by sprawling
oaks, sky-reaching elm, and hickory. The black earth between the
houses was trampled smooth and bare as a ballroom floor by the
people, dogs, chickens, hogs, and cows, all of which seemed to
wander at will. He wondered what kept the cows and pigs out of the
gardens.

Part of the town had a palisade of logs about it. There was no gate
as such, but two sections of wall overlapped to form a narrow
entrance. They passed through that and came to about twenty
cabins arranged about a rectangular plaza. Bordering the plaza
itself were a series of long sheds with covered porches and one
larger, round building at the far end. The buildings were all
plastered white and many of them were painted with hieroglyphic
beasts. Some were recognizable— panthers and bears and such. But
others were chimerical— combinations of snake, bird, cat, man,
and who knew what else. Other figures were purely geometric—

circles and zigzags. It struck Franklin that he had seen most of the
devices before, tattooed on their guides. He wondered if it wasn’t
some primitive form of heraldry.

In the center a tall pole towered some thirty feet over the piazza.

Some boys were tossing a ball at it with odd game sticks, a bit like
tennis rackets with very small heads. Each held two, one in each
hand; and he was amazed at the dexterity with which they caught
the little ball in the air, launched it to strike what looked like a bear
skull on top of the pole, then caught the ricocheted sphere once
more.

Fixco dismounted and spoke a few words to an old man sitting on
one of the porches. Franklin wondered if he was a chief or some
such, but he wore no badges of rank that Franklin could make out,
unless the blue-black tattoos all over his body counted.

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After talking quietly for a moment, Fixco remounted, and they
started off again.

They forded the river of Oconee and traveled on west. The land
beyond, if anything, was richer than before; and Franklin couldn’t
help but imagine how productive it would be if it were all put to
use. It was beautiful, of course, but it seemed something of a waste
that all the rich black soil underfoot should grow nothing edible—

not with the hundreds in the northern colonies going hungry. The
Carolinas were fed, at least—though Franklin was heartily sick of
rice, which was the most part of what they grew. This land here
could probably produce wheat, vast tons of it, and he had already
seen that the canebrakes made for fat horses and cattle.

He wondered, should the alliance succeed, if the Coweta might be
convinced to keep digger herds. They could drive them to market
along the very trails he had traveled from Charles Town, and fetch
a handsome price, benefiting everyone. McPherson had said they
were sharp, with a sort of keen business eye—why not?

And so he spent the rest of the day dreaming of a world united and
plentiful, imagining inventions that might help to make it so. He
scribbled much in his notebook, something he had learned to do
quite well on horseback by now.

They camped near sundown, and Franklin rose early to help catch
the horses. He was eager to see the capital of this empire.

Rounding up the horses always took longer than he liked. They
were hobbled and allowed to forage during the night, and wore
bells so they could be located the next day. Still, some could wander
a considerable distance, even so constrained.

The next day’s riding was much like the first. The sky through the
trees was fiercely blue and pressed on them like a hot iron
smoothing linen when they passed through one of the frequent
open savannas.

Toward evening, crossing one of these, Franklin noticed something
EMPIRE OF UNREASON

odd: a large hill, too perfectly formed to be natural. It was flat on
top and four-sided. It reminded him of a depiction he had once
seen of the tower of Babel and also of Egyptian pyramids.

“What’s that?” he asked McPherson.

“One o‘ them old towns you see now and then.” He spoke a few
words to their guide, who replied at length.