Part 3

There on the bank was Eve (her Indian name was Akaluka, which signifies “a whirlwind”). Overpowered with curiosity as to the arrival of the boat, she had repaired to the scene. Being as elaborately appareled as on the preceding evening, it is fair to conclude that the two handsome strangers had not been altogether forgotten. They were now, however, far from her thoughts. Like a frugal female, she was wholly absorbed in anxiety,--not lest an awkward landing should endanger or submerge many pounds of precious gunpowder, a princely gift from the French government to its secret friend, the important municipality of Great Tellico, especially at that time and in this region, but there were in the cargo sundry trifles originally intended as presents to individuals for the personal propitiation of certain warriors, and she was solicitous as to the fate of one of these gauds. It was a scarf of thin silk, a deep red, with a golden glimmer of broidery, and it had fallen over the gunwale as the Choctaws, no great boatmen at best, awkwardly shifted the cargo in the imminence of the peril of the precious freight. All unheeded, the scarf, escaping from its flimsy wrapping, was now floating away to deck the insensate wave.

Standing on the peak of a high rock, and distinct against the blue sky, like some delineation in white crayon, arrayed in her white, dressed doeskin garb, her white buskins, the white quills in her black hair, she shrieked again and again to the laboring Choctaws, as they wearily trimmed the boat, seeking to acquaint them with their loss, and adjuring the rescue of the property. They heard her, doubtless; but if they understood they did not heed. Their freight of gunpowder, meaning much to the Cherokees of valiant alliance, and even the hope of emancipation from the rule of the hated British, and always to all Indians the equivalent of money, of food, of life itself, rendered infinitely unimportant the gewgaws of the cargo, such as the red scarf so rapidly floating away on the steel-gray water. Flesh and blood could no longer endure the harrowing sight,--at least the flesh and blood of Eve. She suddenly held up both arms above her head, the palms pressed together; she brought them downward in a great, sweeping curve, as she bowed forward, and with an alert spring plunged from the crag into the deep water far below.

Push-koosh noted the resounding plash and held his breath for a moment, so daring the feat seemed to the unaquatic Choctaw. He watched half skeptically the successive silver circles elastically expanding over the spot where the gray water had closed over her head, as if he scarcely expected to see it rise again. Presently he caught a glimpse of it, very black and glossy still, but far out toward the middle of the river. She was swimming strongly in the silver gray floods and approaching the red scarf, that had now a wanton wind astir in its folds and threw up a curving edge like a sail. She carefully intercepted its course on the current, and holding it aloft out of the water, began to swim with one hand, still strongly and deftly but more slowly, toward the pettiaugre.

Push-koosh’s dark, sombrely lustrous eyes followed her with admiration. This method of progression seemed no longer the exercise of frogs. She lifted her head and her body half out of the water as she swam almost under the bow of the pettiaugre, and held the scarf aloft that one of the Choctaw boatmen might take it. The one nearest at hand desisted from his work and looked over the gunwale at her in surprise. Then suddenly he lifted his head, for a sharp halloo came from the bank. He understood the words shouted to him, recognized the authority of Push-koosh, and giving the woman only a shake of his head, by way of refusing to receive the bauble, fell once more to working the boat, and Akaluka, with the rescued scarf still in one hand, was obliged to paddle smartly to keep from being drawn under the pettiaugre by the suction, as the craft once more drove swiftly forward, cleaving the sunlit waves.

There was nothing further for the Cherokee girl but to swim for the bank. She was bewildered, a little startled, full of wonder, for she had just perceived the presence of Push-koosh upon the scene. She laid her course for a point distant from the rock upon which he had been standing while shouting his command to the boatman to refuse to receive the scarf, but when, still swimming with one arm and holding the delicate fabric out of the water with the other, she came alongside a ledge above a deep, still pool, he was here, waiting for her, and gazing down at her.

She threw her head far back as, all clad in white, she lifted her body half out of the water, and looking up at him held up her arm and offered the scarf.

He made no motion to take it. “_Ook-kak!_” (Swan!) he said. “_Che awalas!_” (I shall marry you!)

He said no more, and walked away instantly. She scrambled out of the deep water and stood on the rock, looking after him for a moment with the scarf still in her hand. Then with it still in her hand she ran home,--ran so fast, that with the wind and the sun and the speed, her hair and garments were almost dry when she reached her house, and but for the trophy there would have been little to confirm the details of this strange event when she recounted it to the man who said afterward, “You must blame the woman!”

Now this personage was one of the “mad young men” of the Cherokee Nation who always craved war,--which, however, seems to be the normal attitude of mind of the young officer even of civilized armies and accounted sane. He perceived propitious signs in the evidently impending proposition of a Choctaw-Cherokee alliance. This combination aided by the French government would indeed be able to strike a crushing blow to the British power in the Indian country. The experiment was obviously to be made. Intermarriages would strengthen the Choctaw-Cherokee bonds of amity. “You love the present,” he said in definite affirmation.

But Eve, ever the woman, tossed her head. Was there no man in all the Cherokee Nation to marry her, she asked in laughing mockery and coquettish humility, drawing the scarf back and forth through her hands, and looking far more beautiful than her wont with that curious embellishment of beauty which a realization of admiration confers,--no man at all, that she must needs marry a foreign Choctaw who spoke no language that a sensible person could understand, and who lived far away, who could say--indeed, where?--in the moon, perhaps!

Whereupon this mad young warrior, who was of her own kindred, the house of Ahowwe, the Deer family, told her that she spoke as a fool, since she was already committed, for she had taken the Choctaw’s present, a sign that she loved it, which was according to inflexible etiquette an acceptance of his suit.

Then she grew grave and a little frightened, and very voluble. She explained that she had had no intention of taking his present, and had kept it only because he would not receive it again, and she had no words that he could understand. But she would not marry a man to whom she could not speak her mind (one of the noblest prerogatives of a wife) and live with him in the moon!

As she said this, she looked upward with her great, dark, liquid eyes to the moon, still white in the western sky, but lace-like, tenuous, a most unsubstantial presentment of a dwelling-place.

The young man of the house of Ahowwe would not follow her wandering gaze as they stood together under a tree in front of her house,--no longer her dead husband’s war-pole marked its entrance, the peeled sapling, on the boughs of which the weapons of the warrior were hung until the stake rotted in the ground and fell. The young kinsman was experiencing a sudden and extreme agitation because of her perversity, for if it became necessary to explain the misunderstanding to the Choctaw at this crisis, before the proposals of the French authorities were made to the headmen of Tellico, it would doubtless greatly anger Mingo Push-koosh, and might frustrate the full disclosure of the measures of his embassy. Essential details might be perverted or entirely withheld in malice or revenge. And thus the French alliance, long sought by both nations, might fall to the ground. It was a complicated train of reflection that he followed, but he said quite simply, and with a cheerful air, that after all it was no great matter. To be sure she should have laid the scarf at the feet of the Choctaw chief, as he did not receive it when offered, to show him that she did not love his present and that his suit was rejected. But it was likely that Mingo Push-koosh had half forgotten it by now; he was of so great esteem in his own country, a prince and a most valiant red warrior! He was even sent to the Cherokee nation by the great French father with a splendid French officer as his interpreter! Such a man as that would not care--he had too much to think of. He himself, her young kinsman, would make it all right. He would see Mingo Push-koosh and return the scarf, and explain that she was only one of those stupid people who did not understand aught, and he would also lie and say that she was shortly to be married to a man who had no war-title and had never taken but a single scalp. Mingo Push-koosh would not care for her after such a description as that!

As he offered to lay hold on the scarf she drew back, shook her head, breathed very fast, and finally burst into tears. Whereupon this wise young man, who was only called “mad,” demanded of her in affected surprise why she wasted her tears. Surely she did not want to live in the moon and marry a Choctaw chief, even though he had achieved the distinction of a dozen “warrior’s marks” for his prowess in battle! Why did she not give up the scarf?--he, her kinsman, would return it for her, and the great chief would not care; for he would tell Mingo Push-koosh of a handsomer squaw than she, and younger by four years, more appropriate to make a splendid marriage such as this. Then Eve gave herself to argument, as she always does, and smartly demanded to be told the name of this squaw more beautiful than she, and most pertinently required of him to disclose the reason, since her attractions were so easily eclipsed, that the two strangers, the French officer as well as the Choctaw chief, must always gaze at her in the merrymaking last night,--why did not their eyes seek those younger and more beautiful squaws, as all were present? She declared, moreover, that she would not give her scarf to him. He doubtless desired to make himself fine in it for the horse-races (in fact, it had never been designed as a gift to a mere woman, but as propitiation for some goodly warrior, to rivet his affections to the French interest, and to be worn as a sash, or scarf, or turban, or in any way that his savage fancy for decoration might dictate). As to the scarf, she averred that it was hers, and she would keep it, and she would hear no more of his sharp speeches, which made her heart very heavy. The day was wearing on and her work was awaiting her. So she seated herself on the protruding roots of the great tree in front of her dwelling, giving the final deft touches to a large mat which she had been weaving.

The “mad young man” flung away, secretly satisfied, but with a discontented and affectedly scornful mien, after the manner of his kind, and meeting presently a congenial spirit he paused to detail the demonstration of the Choctaw chief and its reception by the woman. The listener, too, was of the Deer family, and not insensible of the value and distinction of the proposed matrimonial alliance. But he forthwith freely stigmatized the ambassador as a “mad young man” to be thinking of women and marriage in a crucial national crisis such as this. As he contemplated the political juncture, he could not sufficiently applaud the wisdom of the other’s course in preventing the return of the scarf and the consequent affronting of the Choctaw chief, for since the present had been received his suit was accepted according to etiquette. They agreed that she must marry him,--as at heart she was no doubt willing to do, but must needs affect reluctance after the tiresome fashion of women, and talk about living in the moon! And with a scoff at such feminine follies, which they declared made their hearts weigh[5] very heavy to contemplate, these “mad young men” separated, each going his own way cheerfully,--neither of them being threatened with a doom of living far away, among strangers in a foreign tribe, in a speechless marriage.

As Akaluka sat under the tree and worked at her mat her own heart grew heavier still, and in fact she hardly knew what to make of it. Now and then the realization of the admiration of her suitor brought a curve of pride to her lips, and then her eyes would fill with tears in doubt, and dismay, and anxiety,--all those troublous vacillations of sentiment which a woman naturally experiences in such circumstances; for she was, perhaps, not the first woman, and certainly not the last, who has accepted a suitor without intending to marry him, and cannot perceive definitely how to recede from an engagement that has become unexpectedly binding.

The man in her thoughts suddenly passed,--the Choctaw chief with the French officer. Both paused as their eyes fell upon her. She was tremulous, perturbed, appealing as she looked up from her lowly posture. A mottling of darkness and sunlight was about the verges of the shadow of the great, wide-spreading tree, but only a dim, green, subdued atmosphere where she sat and in her white attire and with her fishbone needle in her hand wrought an added embellishment of embroidery in the borders of her painted mat.

Both men perceived her agitation. The officer, unaware of the incident of the morning, did not comprehend it. With that suave Gallic civility, always solicitous of the _entente cordiale_, he exclaimed aloud in Cherokee his admiration of the fabric. It was one of those carpets, described as “two fathoms long,” woven of the wild hemp, and painted with indelible dyes and designs of the figures of beasts and birds, always the same on both sides. Laroche expressed an interest in the plan of its barbaric decoration and effort at delineation, while Push-koosh stood and silently looked on. Here Laroche traced out a lion (the panther or American cougar), which evidently signified strength, and here were feathers, many and various, so dexterously imitated that he declared they seemed real, which suggested softness, and love, and nesting,--the symbolism was of the guardianship of home,--truly an appropriate mat to lay before a hearthstone! Secure in his interpretation, he looked straight at her with a smile in his handsome brown eyes. She must needs speak in response; yet with Push-koosh loftily looking on she sought by her phrase to include them both as, gazing up, she faltered that she had kept it quite smooth despite its complicated design,--it was quite smooth to walk upon.

It was too pretty to walk upon, the Frenchman declared in facile compliment, and as she drew out the roll flat, to exhibit its smoothness of texture, he dropped on one knee and tried its sleek, evenly wrought fibres with his hand. But Push-koosh, turning away, walked across it with a lordly air like a husband, and as the Frenchman rose from his kneeling posture and joined him, Akaluka looked after them both, with the fishbone needle motionless in her hand, extended to the limit of its hempen thread, and destined to be very idle that day. She was best accustomed to the attitude of mind of the Indian,--and yet the Frenchman, how quick of interpretation he was!--how well he understood all things! Strange, strange, that there should be such difference in men! She would not have been afraid to go with him--to the moon.

They conducted themselves at the horse-races that day like other “mad young men;” they shouted, and bet more than they could afford to lose, and argued much, and talked very loud, and were tumultuously and heavily self-important. But that afternoon, seated in secret conclave on buffalo rugs on the floor of the council-house, with half a dozen chiefs of the towns of the vicinage summoned to join Moy Toy and the headmen of Tellico at the conference, they seemed to have experienced a sudden recurrence to sanity, a lucid interval, and each deported himself much like a man of this world.

These deliberations, although expected to result in a treaty, were not conducted as a formal council, since the will of the Cherokee nation could only be expressed in a general congress, and much consideration must needs precede so important a step as a renunciation of the British alliance and firmly grasping the hand of the great French father. The pipe was solemnly smoked, and although none arose as usual in addressing the assembly, their habitual courtesy to one another in council was observed, each speaking in turn, and punctiliously refraining from interruption. When a subject was mentioned on which the speaker desired a categorical reply from any one present, he handed that person a small stick, at the end of the paragraph as it were, to keep the remark in mind, and then went on to the other heads of his discourse. When he had finished all he had to say, specific responses to the details of his speech were made in turn by those to whom he had handed sticks.

As Moy Toy thoughtfully canvassed the advantages proposed by the French alliance, he remarked that Atta-Kulla-Kulla--a noted chief not present at this time--had always advocated adherence to the British treaty, since the trade which it provided and protected, albeit a monopoly, afforded the Cherokees a means to keep under arms and adequately supplied with ammunition, which was essential for hunting, and also in view of war; even to enforce against the British with the arms they themselves had supplied the observance of every jot and tittle of the compact with the Cherokees. This advantage the French did not furnish to the Indian tribes under their control.

He paused and solemnly handed a stick to Push-koosh, and then another to Laroche.

It was the fashion, he continued, among the “mad young men” of the nation, to comment upon Atta-Kulla-Kulla’s desire to avoid causes of war with the British, calling him “an old woman;” but the great chief was a wise man, for the object of prime importance was to keep the warriors of the tribe under arms in the European fashion, since bows and arrows were of no avail against powder and lead, and on the supply of guns and ammunition actually depended the continuance of the national existence of the Cherokees.

Push-koosh held his stick, attentively listening as Laroche interpreted these words, and in answering said that it was even for such reason the French father furnished the Choctaw tribe fully with arms and ammunition only in times of war against a common enemy--so that, on other occasions, their own “mad young men,” caviling thus at the superior wisdom of their elders, might not have the means of embroiling themselves and thrusting nations into hostilities when the great warriors and “beloved men” were all for peace. But for chiefs and headmen the armories of the great French father were always open.

He deftly touched the handsome pistols at his belt with a casual gesture, and hardly seemed to listen to the voice of the French officer repeating his words in Cherokee.

The Indian councilors experienced a tumult of excitement, which their faces, however, stolidly repressed when Laroche, replying without regard apparently to the presence of the Choctaw, said, as he held his stick in his hand, that it was by no means the intention of the French authorities to ignore the different status of the Cherokees from the tribes under their control. The Cherokees, as the French government well understood, were in effect an absolute integer in the sum of nations, a free, independent, unified people, and they would be armed and equipped in accordance with that fact. Whereas the Choctaws, and Choccomaws, and others were nearly akin to the Chickasaws, all sub-tribes of the Chickemicas of old; and although the Chickasaws, always adhering firmly to the British and inimical to the French, had often warred bitterly against their kindred Choctaws, still in view of ties of consanguinity, similar customs, and above all a common language, a friendly compact between them at some period, while not probable, was eminently possible, especially when promoted by the machinations of the British. Under these circumstances the French father felt indisposed to keep the Choctaws fully under arms while their brothers, the Chickasaws, held the knife at his throat. Surely the great and wise chiefs could perceive a reason for a difference in his attitude toward the Cherokees.

The great and wise chiefs could and did! They were also moved by a recollection that the most notable of the Choctaws, the great chief Shulashummashtabe (Red Shoes), long entertained designs to detach his whole tribe from the interest of the French, being instrumental in their defeat at the battle of Ackia, where he stood aloof with his own command of Choctaw braves while the French troops charged to the cry of “_Vive le roi_!” and afterward he fled in a simulated panic. He later openly deserted to the English, and a reward being offered for his head by the dear French father, he was treacherously slain by one of his own tribe, during the governorship of the Marquis de Vaudreuil.

The Cherokee chiefs in council felt much as if they were treading on mined ground, as they listened to the French officer’s voice while he rendered into Choctaw his long speech for the benefit of Push-koosh; for as the ambassador was blandly smiling, they must needs be sure that the interpretation tendered him was to an entirely different effect.

The Indians were so crafty that they seemed to love a device for its own shifty sake. They secretly admired this keen double-dealing of the French authorities, without reflecting that a two-edged blade is made to cut both ways. With a heightened sense of the sagacity of the French officer, they all bent an attentive ear to his account of the obstruction to navigation in the _Rivière des Chéraquis_ and his disappointment to find that it was not to be overcome in the manner expected by the French governor Kerlerec,--in fact it was there for all time.