Swimming With Serpents

The day had finally arrived. Lyssa felt his approach though she knew he was miles away. Her thickly lashed violet eyes sparkled in the morning sun with her excitement, her straight glossy, blue-black hair lifted with the soft breeze drifting up the Hobuckintopa Bluff above the Tombigbee River lazily winding its way down to join the Alabama and then on to Mobile into the big waters beyond. From the shadows of the pine thicket she would watch her "Boy" as she continued to call him arrive on the Choctaw side of the Tombigbee.

Beauty whinnied her objection to their stillness, indeed to Lyssa’s whole plan. They’d been in position since before daylight watching, waiting. "Shh," Lyssa whispered leaning over to stroke Beauty’s graceful snow white neck. "I know your feelings about this. But, it is the right thing to do." Beauty shook her mane as if to say who are you trying to convince, me or you?

"Besides, it is too late to back out now," Lyssa said as much to herself as to Beauty. When she and her little brother Lance had planned this it made perfect sense. Now, with the knot in her stomach and the lump in her throat she was not quite so certain. "Lance is prone to being impetuous," she muttered to herself. Beauty snorted. Beauty knew who the impetuous one was. "Shhhh!" he’ll see us. Of course, he was nowhere in sight, but Lyssa had heard enough of Beauty’s opinion of her endeavor.

Besides, sound carried over water. She did not want anyone to see her until her plan was accomplished. A slight motion of her hand kept Samson and Delilah, bull mastiffs and her ever present companions, on guard. She sighed deeply.

Her thoughts drifted to the first time she had seen Cade Kincaid. Beauty, Samson and Delilah, and the Opossum Ophelia, who had upset her father by stowing away, had come with her from the Savannah trading post that had been her family’s home for the first eight years of her life. Then ten years ago after her mother was nearly raped in their fields by men who took exception to the successful squaw man and his beautiful Indian wife, her father decided to take his wife’s grandfather, Chief Pushmataha, up on his offer to help set the family up in Choctaw country. He parlayed trading with his love of horses and started the Pebble Spring Jockey Club near his friend George Gaines’ Choctaw trading post in St. Stephens set on the rocky shoals of the Tombigbee River.

Jacob Rendel, the handsome black haired, green-eyed, son of a Virginia planter who had come to America to seek his fortune leaving his father and older brothers to their English titles and estates, had fought in the Revolution in the Savannah area and decided to stay, much to his mother’s and father’s dismay. Until he took his Indian wife, they’d had plans for him to come home and accept his rightful place in Virginia society. After Lyssa’s father had realized his family would know a respect in their Choctaw heritage they would never know growing up in the white world, so he uprooted his family from the Savannah trading post he’d set up, owned and operated.

He would never forget the day when he had glanced up from counting hides brought by what he thought was just another group of Indians and saw the beautiful Choctaw princess who had come with members of her tribe to trade at his trading post on the Savannah River. It was her first trip away from her grandfather’s village. Her companions were so fascinated by the wares available at Rendel’s post, silver mirrors, fabrics, pottery that that they had never seen before, that they did not notice the instant attraction between their beautiful princess and the shopkeeper.

Jake was adept at the ligua franca needed for successful trading and communication was not difficult for him to talk trade to the many different tribes who frequented his post. Her mother’s playful, sweet spirit and grace had struck him as he watched her interact with her girl friends. Then she lifted those warm dark chocolate colored, almond-shaped eyes to look straight at him. The shy smile she gave him lit her face and warmed his heart so that suddenly for long moments it seemed that only he and she existed. Shaken by his reaction to this young woman, a feeling he had never before known, it took several questions from his servant to get his attention back to the job at hand. He was thirty-five and what he thought was a confirmed bachelor, a hardened veteran of the Revolution. Malee was nineteen and with one look he was smitten.

They had fallen in love, married at Christ Church in Savannah before his family or her grandfather could object, and lived happily, content and complete in their own company and that of their daughter who for eight years was their only child. Then came that fateful day when Malee had been saved only because Lyssa had seen the seen the smelly fur traders that had made her so uncomfortable the day before with their rude comments and leering looks lurking near the barn where she’d gone to take Beauty an apple. She’d eluded the nasty men when Samson lunged and growled at them and had run to find her father. By that time they could hear her pregnant mother cry from the field. That near rape and her parents’ realization that Lyssa was growing and becoming more beautiful and vulnerable by the day decided them. They waited until after the birth of their son, Lance, and then Jacob Rendel moved his Indian wife and their children to the safety of her grandfather Pushmataha’s Six Village territory.

It was on that trip down the newly cut Three Notch Road in the relative safety of Twiggs pack train through Creek country into Choctaw country when she first met Cade Kincaid and recognized him as hers. Though she was only eight years old at the time and he only ten, it took just one look for her to know that boy was hers…whether he wanted to be or not. Others thought it odd, her instant attachment to the boy, but Lyssa had always been different, born with a sixth sense, a sensitivity that put her in tune with other living creatures. Special her mother said. Precocious, her father said with pride. A seer, her grandfather and the village shaman said. They made her "gift" sound positive and special. But then, they all loved her.

That was until the son of the headman of a nearby talwa recently had decided to make her his against her will. Small as she was she knew she had little to fight with and so… she threatened to wither his man parts with her evil eye. Much to his (and her) surprise Straight Arrow had suddenly become Bent Arrow and her virginity remained intact. She’d heard to the delight of the women he had harassed that his arrow remained bent. That was just fine with her. Why, she had performed a public service. But when old men started blaming her for their difficulties, life which had never been easy because of her differences became even more difficult. She could not raise her eyes when she walked in public or she might accidentally gaze upon some male…young, old, middle aged…whatever. They shielded their man parts and quickly headed in the opposite direction. If she’d known how sensitive men were about those man parts, that she would have just kicked his breech-clouted package and been done with it.

Rather than staying in her grandfather’s village, her father had moved the family to their home near the Pebble Creek Jockey Club about a mile from St. Stephens, the seat of government for the Mississippi Territory, home for about 3000 citizens and the site of the Choctaw Factory run by her father’s friend George S. Gaines. She now spent most of her time at the race track with her father in the barn tending his horses. That was just fine with her. Horses made better companions than people most of the time. Sometimes, however, she found herself admiring the stylish clothing of some of the young women her age and some strange longing would take hold of her to feel the soft fabric and rustle of silk petticoats against her own skin. One day before a race as she admired the bright colors and intricate hairstyles of a group of stylish dressed young women she overheard Sally Carson bragging about how she was going to bring Cade Kincaid around to asking her to marry him.

"Everybody talks about how handsome William Weatherford is," Sally said. "But he is old! Cade got wounded when he was with my father at Burnt Corn and still helped him find those lost in the swamp before allowing the wound to be tended!" Sally clasped her hands melodramatically to heart.

Cade Kincaid? Her Cade Kincaid? Her Boy! Wounded?! About to be snared by Sally Carson!! He was in danger and here she was hiding away in a barn. Suddenly her future hit her in the face.

She felt like she had been kicked by a mule. This would never do. Her dream was about to be shattered. The one thing that had kept her going through all the years of isolation was that one day, her boy would come. She could no longer sit back and wait for him. Lyssa set about on her mission. She’d waited long enough for Cade Kincaid to fulfill his youthful promise of coming to get her. She’d go get him.

Of course, that was easier said than done. Her father kept a close eye on her. But…Lance. Now, nearly eleven years old, her little brother had the full freedom of the forest. He could go places she could not. Always ready for an adventure, Lance jumped in with both feet in devising her plan.

Lance successfully enlisted the young men of their clan to participate in their intrigue. The plan was to get Lance "captured" and handed over to their friends the Potts who remembered Lyssa fondly from their trip from Georgia to the Tombigbee. Nicey Potts’ romantic soul was fired up about getting Cade and Lyssa together again. She’d worried about Cade from the moment he and Samuel had come into her home and her heart ten years ago. Samuel frequented the race track often enough for Lance and Lyssa to have kept informed on Cade’s whereabouts and so they managed to get Lance "captured" in time for Cade to be about the Pots plantation so that Mrs. Potts could request his assistance in getting the "poor little Choctaw boy," captured in a raid, back to his people before he got killed.

The plot was believable because of the raids by some of those renegade Indians getting stirred up in Creek country by Captain Isaacs, the "prophet" under the influence of Shawnee prophet Seekaboo, brother of Tecumseh. Tecumseh had come in September of 1811 to enlist the southern Indians in a concerted rebellion against the white man who had taken their lands. He promised they would feel the earth shake when he stomped his feet upon his return to his home on the Great Lakes and they would see a sign in the sky. When an earthquake occurred making the Mississippi briefly run backwards and a comet appeared in the sky, many Creeks became believers and responded to Captain Isaacs claimed to have gone swimming with serpents and having had visions through which he had acquired supernatural powers. Many Creeks had "taken the talk" of Tecumseh and become his followers, but Pushmataha had used his influence on the Choctaw and they remained "a friend" to the Americans.

The men of her mother’s clan readily agreed to assist in the plan because they would be accomplishing two good deeds, getting Lyssa married off and getting out of her village where she would no longer be a threat to the man parts of the men of the village. Her parents would not be apprised of the plot until after the "deed" was done. When "the deed" was done it would confirm to all their superstitious concerns were wrong and stupid. Just because she could read books, speak five different languages, run columns of numbers in her head, and talk to animals didn’t mean she could level curses upon people like one of those witches in Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Lyssa had always struggled with being so different. That was part of the reason her parents had decided to move west. Her Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) educated father had taught her Latin at age four. The Iliad and the Odyssey were her bedtime stories and she was reading Cicero’s works by six. She read Shakespeare for pleasure, getting so lost and distracted in his stories, Samson and Delilah had their work cut out for them herding her from danger while she wandered with a book in her hand. Her vocabulary set her apart from the other children. She was so quick with mental calculations that she was helping her father keep the books at the post by the time she was seven. The sight of her sitting on the high stool behind her father’s counter quill in hand set queer on the minds of many. Most folks couldn’t write their name, yet the little breed could not only read, write and calculate, but she could talk the birds out of the trees, literally.

Lyssa had watched other little girls come into the Savannah post arm in arm with their friends. She’d quit smiling at them learning early the pain of their quick cut, encouraged by their parents who didn’t want them "’sociating with breeds." She didn’t need them anyway when she had Ophelia, her pet raccoon, Samson and Delilah, gifts from her father’s favorite sister in Virginia, the only thing from that family he kept, Beauty and Beast, the horses and her father raced, and whatever else wandered around on four legs. She was content. But her father and mother looked at one another over her head and their hearts ached recognizing her isolation and loneliness.

"Remember, Delilah, the first time we saw the Boy?" Lyssa said, forgetting her own admonition about being quiet. It was clear as day in her memory. She remembered it being as hot that August day ten years ago as it was this day in August ten years later.

"Good Lord, Delilah, Hades must have its windows open," Lyssa remembered saying. Delilah licked her leg with her wet tongue in response. Yep, that meant in abbreviated doggie language. Lilah didn’t waste words. Day was fading. Lyssa was heading with apples for her horses, snow white Beauty and ebony Beast, both thoroughbreds, her father’s most valuable investments.

"Samson, come back here. Leave that squirrel alone," she called. Samson slowed only to look over his shoulder at her causing him to stumble in a gopher hole and tumble over his big feet. The squirrel chattered expletives and scampered up a tree. Samson recovered and barked his menacing version of "I meant to do that" before returning to Lyssa’s side. The silence of the packmen, around whom the air was usually blue with their infamous loud talk, foul language and obscenities caught her attention. She turned to see what they were watching.

And then she saw Her Boy. Her heart stopped. She knew him. Not that she’d ever laid eyes on him before in her life. But she knew him. Not from dreams or visions or anything but … she…knew…him….That was it. Totally and completely. And suddenly she was hit with the most excruciating pain and knew it was his pain she felt. Her Boy was being lashed with a whip by his own father. Cade Kincaid, staggering, ice blue eyes glazed with fever, had thrown himself between the man with whip poised to strike and the tall boy with gentle doe’s eyes scrawny to the point of emaciation, who lay prone upon the ground with his arm upraised in anticipation of the coming strike. Not a whimper escaped Her Boy as the lash ripped through the suppurating lashes already on his back, the cause of the glazed eyes and fever flushed face Lyssa knew. The onslaught of total awareness of another human being left Lyssa shocked into an unaccustomed inaction. She watched as the boy staggered, then regained his balance bracing to receive another lashing.

Delilah, the female bull mastiff her doting father had trained to guard his careless and impulsive daughter, moved closer to her and began to growl, catching Samson’s attention. Samson, being young and male sometimes forgot his responsibility. But Delilah’s reminder brought him back to Lyssa’s side.

Suddenly a woman’s voice shrilled through the night, "Teach those breeds a lesson about respect for their betters." Lyssa’s heart clenched and she felt the pain, greater than that of the lashes raining down on the boy wavering before her. The boy looked into his father’s eyes and she recognized the shame he felt, not at the woman’s words for the woman meant nothing to him, but that his own father shared that horrible woman’s judgment of him.

The men who ranged about there by the river hobbling their horses for the night were obviously disturbed by what they were witnessing. But, they hung back, unwilling to involve themselves in what was perceived as a family affair, a man disciplining his sons. "Kincaid", she heard them whisper in explanation and exasperation. The whip whistled through the air. Lyssa had heard the women gossiping about James Kincaid and his children. Kincaid’s methods might be offensive, and they might have to turn their eyes, but his right was unquestioned.

Lyssa had been listening to the women talk while she watched her nine month old brother so her mother could tend to her chores. She had heard the women speak of the way those two boys, sons of Fleet Fawn of the Creek clan of the Wind, the most prestigious of all the clans, were being treated by her widowed husband and the Leslie woman who’d joined Twiggs’ pack train going alone to join her Leslie relatives at Panton and Leslie in Mobile. Those boys had just been rescued from being held in captivity by the cruelest of all the Lower Creek, Savannah Jack and the self-styled emperor of the Creeks William Augustus Bowles. That made Lyssa shiver. Her mother equated Savannah Jack to the meanest of the mean, the cruelest boogey-man she could conjure to make Lyssa stay close and do right. Their father had made a trade to get the boys back that cost him his trading territory and with the death of his wife, his entrée into the village. His double loss sent him further into the Territory to find another village with which to set up a trading station and into an emotional tailspin.

Mary Leslie, spinster, latched onto the vulnerable man with the infant baby girl and two boys, the women whispered, and managed to convince him all his losses, including the death of his beloved Fleet Fawn, were because those two boys of his managed to get themselves captured by his two biggest enemies. She’d whipped up his hatred because she was jealous of the beautiful Fleet Fawn, the love the man she wanted had for his lost wife, and the beautiful children she had given him, including the infant she held in her arms, the baby Fleet Fawn had died delivering. She promised him family connections to the powerful Panton and Leslie company, appealing to the lust for fortune that had caused him, a third son of a Scottish family impoverished by the British, to come to America.

The boldness with which Cade faced his drunken bully of a father was an image Lyssa would never forget. Nor would she forget the contempt in the voice of his father’s woman when she urged him to beat some respect for his betters into that "half breed." son of his.

"Move away, Samuel," Cade ordered his bleeding brother. His brother’s eyes flickered with pain on the verge of passing out. He weakly struggled to rise, refusing to leave his brother to take the anger of their father alone. "I can take it Cade. You’re sick with the fever. Go. Tend the horses. I can take it!" Samuel’s eyes rolled back in his head and he hit the ground unconscious. Their father barely took note of his son’s condition. He only heard the words "half breed" that the woman had uttered and let the whip unfurl.

She felt Her Boy’s despair at the contempt of his own father, knew his emptiness at the loss of his loving mother, and sensed his determination to protect his family, including the baby girl in that woman’s arms to whom his eyes continually flicked to assure himself that she was in no danger, no matter what the threat to himself. His ice blue eyes stared steadily into eyes the identical color, those of his father whose arm drew back to unfurl the black whip once again to cut into the already scarred flesh of his son’s body. His unwillingness to cower before his father’s anger stirred his father’s blood lust further. Samson and Delilah growled ominously at her side. Lyssa prepared to launch herself onto the drunken man when her father’s hand grabbed her by the shoulder and his commanding voice stilled her.

"Strike that boy one more time, Kincaid, and you’re a dead man," Jacob Rendel called in a voice of accustomed authority, chilling with its calm. "I’d sure hate to have to break in my new Baker rifle putting a hole in you. When did the hero of Cowpens become the bully of little boys?" he asked.

As the words sunk in through his alcohol sodden brain, James Kincaid, sank to his knees and bowed his head in a grief that was hard to watch as he looked from his sons to the tall angular Scotswoman who held his baby against her bony chest. His eyes held a lost faraway look of such longing that it would break the heart of even the hardest hearted. But the condition to which his madness had brought his sons wiped away any compassion Lyssa might have had for the tormented man.

Motherly Nicey Potts, also of the clan of the Wind, had rushed to the boys and had her big bear of a shaggy bearded husband Herman carry Samuel back to their wagon. Jamie refused all help and, staggering, followed his brother.

Nicey’s salves had healed the physical wounds, but Lyssa knew his soul still bore the bruises. Lyssa allowed her mind once again to drift back .

The next morning after Cade and Samuel had been taken into the Potts custody, fat little hands had patted Lyssa’s cheeks and juicy kisses followed as Little Lance carried out his only duty, aggravating Lyssa awake. She grumbled and pulled him to cuddle with her under the blanket in the welcome cool of the early morning, begging him to go back to sleep for just a few minutes more. Samson decided to help Little Lance and licked her cheek with his rough tongue to Little Lance’s vast amusement. Samson sat back smiling his pleased doggie smile while Lyssa wiped the slobber off her face with the back of her hand, her eyes squinched shut. "It’s too early, go away," Lyssa complained and gave Lance a gentle push. Ophelia scampered out of the way of Little Lance’s rump as he tumbled back and giggled.

Then Lyssa’s sleep encrusted eyes jerked open. Today was special. Her Boy was nearby and she would see him. She stumbled to the water cask and splashed some water on her face and then, followed by her motley crew, made her way to the bushes while her mother kept Little Lance who squalled in anger at not being allowed to follow. Lyssa blushed as she glanced over the bush to see Samson, Delilah and Ophelia circled about in front of the bush watching her intently and, of course, alerting anyone who glanced that way of the personal business she was attending to. Please let the Boy not be watching!

Her mother was heating the sofkee, a traditional cornmeal porridge, and offered the spoon while she handed Little Lance over to Lyssa. Lance immediately ceased his earsplitting yells and planted another wet kiss on Lyssa.

"Feed Little Lance, too," her mother said as she set about gathering up their blankets and baskets into the bundles to load again on their horses. Her father was already gathering the packhorses. Impatiently, Lyssa obeyed her mother.

Day had not yet totally decided to crest the horizon and already the curses the rough backwoodsmen directed toward the stubborn beasts of burden that had to be caught filled the air. The pack-horses were small ones, raised in the Creek nation, but were capable of sustaining heavy loads and of enduring great fatigue. A peculiarly shaped saddle carried three bundles, each weighing sixty pounds. Two of these bundles were suspended across the saddle, and came down by the sides of the pony, while the third was deposited on top of the saddle. The whole pack was covered with a skin to keep off the rain. Thus the pony sustained a load of one hundred and eighty pounds.

Even liquids were conveyed in the same manner. Taffai, a mean rum, was carried on these horses in small kegs. Indeed, these hardy animals transported everything for sale; and even poultry of all kinds was carried in cages made of reeds strapped upon their backs. A pack-horseman drove ten ponies in a lead. He used no lines, but urged them on with big hickories and terrible oaths. Accustomed to their duty, they, however, seldom gave trouble, but jogged briskly along. At night, the packs were taken off, piled in a heap, and covered with skins; the horses were belled and turned out to find their food, which consisted of grass and young cane. It was usually late the next morning before the horses were collected and packed

Those who traveled with the traders knew that the Indians so desired the cloth, beads, mirrors, salt, binding, petticoats and tafia rum, goods the traders brought to the different villages, that their safety was almost assured, but with renegades like Little Warrior on the loose you could never be sure.

The path Twiggs led them down was the Lower Trading Path toward Hawkins’ Agency to procure passes through the Creek country. She’d heard her parents talking and realized that they should be at Hawkins’ post by evening. Her father was looking forward to seeing his old friend again. She knew her father was concerned about the epidemic of distemper, or "yellow water," that had killed many of the Indian’s horses last year and the growing dissension with the Creek nation over the increasing numbers of whites encroaching on Creek lands and traveling through the lands. He wanted to discuss the danger of taking his own thoroughbreds into the territory because of contagion as well as the danger of having them stolen by Indians desperate to replace the horses they had already lost.

Lyssa glanced over at Mr. and Mrs. Potts camp, looking, of course, for Cade and Samuel, all the while knowing Samuel had probably rousted Cade early to go and tend the animals he was so concerned about. She was surprised to see Cade lingering at the edge of his father’s camp talking agitatedly to the Indian woman who tended the strange baby. Lyssa grabbed Little Lance just as he was about to latch hold of Ophelia’s tail and settled him onto her hip as she stood back watching the interaction. Cade had obviously snared a rabbit and cooked it early that morning to bring to the slave girl tending the baby. There was a heated debate with the slave girl attempting to refuse the food.

She heard Cade say, "There’s nothing to argue about Sarilee. If you keep making a racket out here that Leslie woman will see me here with this rabbit that I refuse to eat and she will take it for herself. Eat this to give you strength to feed the baby. I am the oldest. It is my responsibility to care for my brother and sister. I will provide the food for you and the baby my father stays too drunk to think about."

Lyssa looked at his scarred scrawny body and admired the spirit that remained untouched despite his father’s lashings. Pride was evident in the fierce look in his eyes and the nobility of his bearing. Sarilee took the rabbit and hid it within her cloak where she cradled the child. She then headed for the privacy of the trees. They needn’t have worried. Mary Leslie remained curled in the blanket sound asleep in spite of the bustle around her. Lyssa watched the boy fade away into the woods, undoubtedly heading back to help Samuel load the packhorses.

From then on, throughout the days that followed, like a wraith in the forest, Lyssa trailed Cade whenever she had a moment free from watching Little Lance. She was too shy and scared of rejection to make her presence known.

Although Lyssa thought she was undetected, Cade was aware of her every move. He hadn’t been mentored by one of the best warriors and trackers in the Creek nation for nothing. Saying that High Head Jim was stealthy and undetectable was the truth; but the real accomplishment was that Jim accomplished this in spite of his amazing size. He was 6’8", strong and well-built, and extremely handsome if the soulful looks all the women sent his way meant anything. High Head Jim took the time to teach Cade and Samuel things their father could not. Cade had been an excellent student, much more so than Samuel who was constantly distracted by his empathy with the animals they were tracking.

The skinny little girl reminded him of Samuel. How she thought she could be undetected followed as she was by two giant bull mastiffs and a chattering raccoon amused and irritated him at the same time. He fought the feeling she engendered within him of fond amusement and protectiveness. Didn’t she know it was dangerous to wander around alone? Many of those who had joined the Twiggs train were renegades from the states, a rough and tumble lot. So, he allowed her to follow him so he could keep an eye on her. He’d spotted her father watching her from afar and gave him a nod to let him know he realized what she was doing and would also keep an eye on her. Meanwhile, Lyssa naively believed she was expertly camouflaging herself and her little entourage. It was all Cade could do not to chuckle at the four sets of eyes, two mastiffs, Lyssa, and Ophelia, lined up, peering out of the shadows as he tended his father’s horses.

"Your audience is in place, Cade," Samuel teased under his breath.

"How do you know she’s not watching you?" Cade countered.

"You’re the ladies’ man in the family," Samuel said grinning.

"Am not," Cade said, not wanting to be anything like his father in any way.

"Are too," Samuel said.

"Am not!" said Cade jumping Samuel and wrestling him to the ground. The struggle would have continued if they hadn’t heard Twiggs’ whistle to head out. Mary Leslie had finally stirred and rode past the boys clucking and sniffing her disapproval of the two heathens rolling in the dirt. Cade unconsciously looked back to where he’d last seen the girl but she and her cohorts had disappeared.

He shook his head. She wasn’t any of his business. He had enough to take care of without adding a skinny little waif of a thing, more eyes than body.

Lyssa had seen the Leslie woman ride past toward Cade and Samuel. Mrs. Potts had told Lyssa that Mary Leslie, regardless of her posturing, was merely a poor relation come to trade on a distant family relationship with her prosperous relatives of Panton, Leslie & Company. William Panton was a Tory merchant who had owned extensive estates in Charleston and Savannah before the Revolution. Forced to leave the United States after the Revolution he set up a post in Spanish Florida on the St. Mary’s River, associated himself with the Spanish and became influential in the Creek nation. Panton cultivated a close relationship with Alexander McGillivray whose own father had also been dispossessed by the Americans of lands that would have been McGillivray’s heritage. Panton was now in Pensacola and was partnered with John Leslie forming the Panton, Leslie & Company. Apparently Cade’s father was impressed and thought to elevate himself through some relationship, however tenuous, with the powerful Panton, Leslie, & Company.

He must not have gotten much sleep at all last night what with tending the horses, setting traps and then cooking the rabbit he caught. Lyssa felt guilty for feeling so put upon for just helping her mother with Little Lance. Suddenly she desperately wanted to give her mother a hug, something Cade and Samuel would never be able to do again. She turned quickly…and tumbled over Delilah face first, hitting her head on a rock.

Did the girl break her neck? Cade thought when she didn’t immediately get up and broke into a run. By the time he got to her "hiding place." Lyssa was sitting up holding her head in her hands, elbows propped upon her knees.

She looked up. Omigosh he saw her. And was running toward her!

"Little Girl, are you all right?" he said as he gently felt her neck and head. Lyssa was so embarrassed she started crying. "Aw, now, does it hurt that bad?" Cade asked. "Can you stay right here while I run and get your father?"

He saw her! Omigosh, he saw her! She tried to shake her head but the shooting pain inside her skull made her groan. "I’m all right! Don’t go…" She was going to say "…get my father." But right then he put his arm around her and she lost her breath. Not because he was holding her too tightly, but because his stormy blue eyes were less than a foot before her face and she just couldn’t breathe.

"Breathe, little Girl. Did you fall that hard?" She couldn’t breathe and she couldn’t quit staring into his eyes. What was happening to her? She’d never, ever felt like this before. "My name is Lyssa. Not Little Girl!" she said with what little breath she had.

She knew she had dirt on her face, but she couldn’t wipe it off and she couldn’t spit the dirt in her mouth out, because it was bad enough she had fallen on her face, and bad enough that she thought she was hidden and he knew she was there all along or he wouldn’t have seen her fall, and bad enough that she couldn’t breathe and suddenly there were black spots in front of her eyes, and….then… everything started spinning and she…threw up. All over him. Oh, God. Maybe she would just pass out and …die.

Covered in puke, he picked her up, squashed her scrawny body against him and ran with her back to her mother with Delilah growling and nipping at his heels.

"Back dog," Cade yelled. "Can’t you see I’m trying to help her?" By then her father had seen what was happening and was jumping off his horse running to him by the time her mother had slid off her horse with Little Lance. At last, Lyssa was breathing again, appalled by what she had done and by the fact that her face was smashed against his bare puke ridden chest. Puking in your hero’s face was enough to shock you into breathing again. Her father’s face spun around before her as he reached for her and lay her upon the ground.

"She fell, sir. Tripped over that big dog there." The big dog was pushing herself between Cade and Lyssa and was licking Lyssa’s face where a big, blue knot was growing big as a goose egg on her forehead. "Move Lilah. That hurts!" she said, slapping Delilah away. Lyssa rolled on her side more mortified than in pain, although the pain was now to a level that mortification was about to take second place.

Mrs. Potts came running with one of her little cups of remedies. "Drink this, dearie. It’ll help the pain." To her mother she explained. "It’s made with the bark of the willow tree. It helps with pain and swelling."

Her father held her to take a swig and she prayed she wouldn’t throw up again. She just couldn’t even look at Cade now, she was so embarrassed. She didn’t even open her eyes or say thank you or anything when she heard Mrs. Potts tell him to follow her and she’d clean him up a bit.

She just closed her eyes and nodded off. After a few minutes of just watching her breathe and making sure it sounded normal, her father lifted her up in front of him on his horse. The sun was setting when her father rode back down the line to point out the cluster of buildings ahead of them to her mother. Lyssa was mortified when she jerked awake to realize her mouth had been hanging open and she’d actually drooled against her father’s chest, held as she was straddling her father with her head against his chest! What if the Boy had seen her! She felt the knot on her head and grimaced. Her head still hurt, but, her father’s excitement at being at Hawkins’ Agency made her forget about her embarrassment and, to her mother’s relief, she shifted in her father’s arms so she could see.

There before her was the gate to Hawkins Agency, an impressive sight. The Agency was intended to be a model of how successful animal husbandry and land cultivation could actually be. Lyssa knew all about this model of progressive agriculture because her father had dwelt upon the subject of his friend, Ben Hawkins’, admirable leadership throughout their journey.

Benjamin Hawkins had been a prosperous landowner and state senator from North Carolina before accepting the job as Agent to the Creeks. When he accepted the position of first general or Principal Agent for all four southern nations of Indians in 1796, he brought his slaves with him from North Carolina to the Agency. They had cleared and fenced rich fields and planted orchards as examples to the Indians of what could be planted and grown. Hawkins even had a cotton gin at the Agency. One of his favorite projects was teaching Indian women to spin their own cloth out of the cotton they grew, thereby decreasing their dependence on credit at the factory, the government operated trading post. This gave women something they could trade, rather than being totally reliant upon the skins their men provided. That didn’t set well with the men…stirred quite a few of them to violent actions.

Shrinking lands had severely cut back the amount of hides the men could bring home from the hunt in addition to the fact that the demand for deer skin had decreased which meant they needed more credit to buy the goods they needed at a time when the cost of goods was going up. This concept of the changing value of a good relative to the demand of the good was very difficult for Indians to understand. Unfortunately, her father told her, the men considered working in the fields women’s work. The traditional sex roles were rigid. The white man’s ideas of civilization and domestication provoked traditionalists whose voices grew stronger and Hawkins was having a hard time convincing the Indians otherwise.

Twiggs guided the packtrain to the field beyond the village, just outside the enclosure to camp for the evening. Otis, her father’s ostler organized the nine other packmen who tended their many packhorses, while Lyssa’s father led her and her mother and brother into the Agency. Lyssa thought she was prepared for the Creek Agency, but the sight was more than she could have imagined. After entering the gate to the fort and crossing the causeway bridge with low wet land to the left, garden, tents and smokehouse to the right they came to a street lined with a Hatters Shop, Blacksmith Shop, Negro houses for the slaves Hawkins had brought with him from North Carolina, Indian Tavern, Joiners Shop, Weavers Shop and right before coming to the office and Kitchen, was Hawkins’ two story white-washed frame home with wide front porch and his assistant, Limbaugh’s home across the street to the south. The street ended at the ferry across the Flint where they would pick up the path to Pensacola and New Orleans should they continue to its end. While the organization and beauty of the fields and orchards was impressive, it was the throng of visitors and hangers-on that crowded the streets, stores, office, and the porches of his home that truly amazed her. People, red, black and white, milled about everywhere.

Her father helped her mother and brother down from Beauty and they all mounted the stairs to the white house presumed to be Hawkins’. Long windows that could swing open like doors, covered with lace curtains, lined the verandah. A child crawled between the curtains and the window and peered out at Alyssa when her father knocked at the front door. A tall, graceful woman with dusky complexion and dark hair plaited and pulled into a coronet around her head greeted them with a baby upon her hip.

She led him down an ebony stained hardwood floored hall with whitewashed plaster walls. The woman opened the door to reveal a private study where the craggy faced Hawkins sat, quill in hand writing a letter, oblivious to the noise and activity that poured in through the window open optimistically to catch a breeze. Right outside on the verandah a group of old men sat cross-legged passing a pipe and watching the women’s activity behind the house at the kitchen and washhouse.

"Is it always such a madhouse, Ben?" her father asked.

Hawkins immediately stood pleasure wreathing his face and embraced his old friend. Lyssa was prepared to be impressed with the man who had assumed such a thankless job, leaving home and family to serve his nation by attempting to bring peaceful change in such a cauldron of culture clash. But being actually in his presence, Benjamin Hawkins evoked an even stronger emotion with his bearing. Hawkins was a handsome man, well-built, clean-shaven, with blue eyes bright with warmth and intelligence. His voice was deep and cultured, his handshake firm and strong.

"Unfortunately, yes. You see, I travel frequently throughout the Nation and receive quite generous hospitality. It is only expected that I should return that hospitality. My home always has visitors. And yes, it is quite wearing at times," he said. Jake Rendel noted the lines of worry and fatigue in his friend’s face. He knew Hawkins suffered frequently from gout and the rigors of sleeping in the elements out in the open on the trail exacerbated his ailment. Jake could tell the responsibility of the job was wearing on Hawkins’ usually optimistic outlook. Hawkins caught a glimpse of Lyssa as she pressed close to her father, her thumb in her mouth the knot on her head evident. A smile wreathed his face.

"My, my, what a beautiful little girl. Looks like you’ve had an accident," he said noticing the knot on her forehead. Lyssa shyly hid her face behind her father.

"She had a little fall and gave us a scare, but everything seems to be all right." Jake looked around for Malee who only moments before had been right behind him. "Ben, I would like to introduce you to my wife and my children." Malee hung back, her shawl shielding her and Little Lance. "Here is my wife with our son, Little Lance," he said, pulling her into the shelter of his arm. "And this is Lyssa, our daughter."

Lyssa felt her father tense as Hawkins quickly assessed their situation. "So this is your lovely wife and your son. My what a beautiful young lady," he said leaning down and chucking her under the chin. Lyssa grimaced. Hawkins chuckled. "Lance, you lucky man. What a beautiful family!"

Malee smiled shyly at the man about whom she had heard so many good things. He was a great man amongst the Creek Nation with a powerful voice that had been heard by the Great Father Washington by whom he had been appointed to this position and was heard by the new President, John Adams, in Philadelphia. While she had not been tutored as had Lyssa in academics, one could not be married to Jake Rendel without absorbing history, politics, and current events. He read the newspapers he could acquire in Savannah and Charleston aloud after dinner at the table while she sewed or nursed the baby. Often he had Lyssa read aloud to them while he carved or wove hemp into rope for use on the post.

"So, why have you left your post near Savannah, Lance?" Hawkins asked.

Rendel related the incident that had led to their removal to the west. Hawkins nodded, glancing at Lavinia and the child on her hip. "Malee is the granddaughter of Pushmataha. They will be safer closer to his protection and influence," Rendel said, looking at his wife and children with love glowing in his green eyes. Her mother smiled back with just as much love and affection but shifted Lance upon her hip reminding Hawkins that he had left them standing without offering refreshment.

"Forgive me. Where are my manners?" Ben turned to the woman who had greeted them at the door. "Lavinia, may I present my old friend Jake Rendel, his wife Malee, their daughter Lyssa and son Lance. This is my housekeeper, Lavinia Downs. And these two scamps are Georgiana and Muscogee. She will make sure you are comfortable."

Malee had noticed the woman watching Hawkins as he and Lance had talked. She might call her housekeeper, but the tender way she looked at him when he was not watching betrayed her true feelings for the man and the way the child whose face she had seen at the window on the porch pulled at his trousers and held her arms up to be held betrayed the man’s relationship to the children. Malee followed Lavinia aware of a bond they had in common…their love for men forbidden by their own cultures to love them in return. Malee’s own husband had found no barrier there, but Hawkins was apparently still battling an inner demon.

Lyssa lingered in the library awed by the number of books on shelves and stacked by chairs and on the desk. There must be over a hundred, some with which she was familiar but many she’d heard of but never seen…and one she had longed to read by Jonathan Swift. Hawkins noted her interest.

"She looks hungry for that book, Jake."

"She has been reading since she was four and can read and write five languages," her father said with pride.

"I’m impressed, but hardly surprised, with a scholar like you for a father," Hawkins responded.

"Well, it hasn’t made her life any easier. It’s only been another barrier to friendships, as if she didn’t have enough to contend with," he said noticing the three pair of eyes staring in at them from the library window. Hawkins followed his look.

"What do we have here?"

Jake explained, "Lyssa has this ‘gift’ with animals. Those are three of her most faithful followers. Samson and Delilah are bull mastiffs, gifts from my sister, the only family member I have that did not treat my family with disrespect and contempt when I took them to Virginia to introduce them to my parents. The other is Ophelia, the raccoon I thought we had left in Savannah with the rest of the menagerie only to find she had stowed away and didn’t reveal herself until it was too late to send her back."

Lyssa now sat cross-legged on the floor leaning against the bookshelves and the book open after receiving a nod of permission from Benjamin Hawkins and her father. Not even the arrival of the silver tea tray laden with sweet cakes and sandwiches could distract her.

Hawkins offered Rendel a brandy and Rendel readily accepted. The men sat in the two federal rocking chairs with the tea tray between them.

Knowing Lyssa was oblivious to everything going on around her while she was reading, said to Hawkins, "Lyssa is lonely and has no friends," Rendel continued. "The whites call her half-breed. She is growing and soon those boy’s clothes she insists upon wearing, will not hide the fact that she is just too pretty for her own good"

Hawkins observed the girl’s ebony winged brows that framed her violet eyes with thick dark lashes against her creamy skin, her rosebud lips pursed with concentration, and her thick black hair flowing over her shoulders. He also saw the potential for great beauty in the little girl with the classic shaped nose and heart shaped face and nodded.

"She doesn’t understand that she might be in danger from anyone or anything because it is in her nature to see only good in people. I had to get them away from there. They deserve so much better." Hawkins could see his friend’s dilemma. Her own mother was just an indication of the great beauty this young one would one day become.

"It is much more of the tradition for the Creek to assimilate others into the tribe," Hawkins commented. They sipped their drinks in the comfortable silence only good old friends can enjoy.

"You’ve built and impressive site here, Ben," Jake Rendel finally commented, awed by the vigor and activity of the Agency, its organization and productivity.

Hawkins shrugged, "Sometimes I feel like Don Quixote, tilting at windmills, Jake. They are like little children who will not look to tomorrow. They do not understand so many of the concepts that govern the white world, like land ownership. They laugh at the white man’s belief that land can be owned. It is like air, a gift from Yahola they tell me. There is so much of it, why would one want to stay forever on one piece? Unfortunately, they are now beginning to feel the pinch as settlers now encroach from the north and east and settlers in increasing numbers are traveling down the federal road through the Creek country to settle in the Tombigbee area. The War Party is gaining strength."

Jake told Benjamin about the boys in their party who had been kidnapped by Savannah Jack and William Augustus Bowles and then tracked by Little Warrior.

"I didn’t realize they were with this train. We sent out trackers to find them before Little Warrior did. He is so filled with hate, their lives would have been worthless had he found them. You heard what he did to that family at Little Canyon."

Rendel nodded. "I must admit to having quite a bit of trepidation about bringing my family into the Territory at this time. Twiggs gave us a fair sense of security. Do you think you can enforce peace, Ben?"

"The young resist the encroachment of civilization. They long for the past of their grandfathers. The old have seen much and accept more readily what they have seen come and been unable to resist. The young think they can do without the things they have become so accustomed to. Even the bullets with which they shoot the deer are a part of that which they so despise. Yet, they are not ready to return to the bow and arrow in their hunting. They cannot understand how the shift in demand in Europe and the states affects the value of the hides they bring in to the trading posts."

Jake said, "Yes, I have had the same trouble myself on my post. A pound of deerskin can no longer be considered the equivalent of twenty-five cents. With the shift in demand, I could no longer sell those deerskins at that price. Yet my Indian suppliers still make the same number of moccasins from that skin and therefore cannot understand my saying it no longer has the same value."

That got them to talking about how vocabulary represented ideas and how important in communication it was to understanding precise meanings of words. Since both of them were linguists, Hawkins had actually been a French interpreter for George Washington during the Revolution, Hawkins showed Rendel the Comparative Grammar and Dictionary of the Muscogee or Creek Language he was writing at President Thomas Jefferson’s request.

Lyssa’s father and he stayed up late into the night talking of the friends and interests they had in common. When Lyssa started yawning Hawkins realized how tired his guests must be and insisted they spend the night in one of the bedrooms he kept for guests there in his home. Lavinia knowing Hawkins propensity to get carried away in discussion when someone of like education and interest arrived had already guided Malee and Lance to one of the guest rooms where Lyssa tumbled onto the trundle bed after carefully closing the book and placing it reverently on the mahogany dressing table. Hawkins had assured her she could borrow the book and he would retrieve it at his next visit to St. Stephens. After making sure Malee and the children were comfortably settled, Hawkins and Rendel returned to the library.

Unfortunately, they could not linger at the Agency. They were up early the next morning and after being fed a sumptuous breakfast of fried potatoes cooked with onions, ham, eggs, and fresh baked bread, it was time to meet up with the packtrain and cross the Flint to proceed on their journey. Lyssa eyed the fast running river. There had been much preparation for the river crossing and the packtrain was now ready to cross the river to get to the other side.

Already she could see several of the packhorses struggling for footing in the fast running water and felt their agitation. With the sensitivity she had known from the moment she met him, Lyssa sensed danger and knew it was for Cade. Frantically, she scanned the shoreline and the horses bunched along the trail awaiting their turn to cross. She spotted Samuel, his attention focused on soothing his father’s horses, but Cade was nowhere to be seen. Then a shrill whinny captured her attention and to her horror she saw the frightened horse stumble and fall on the slight figure that had tumbled onto the sand still holding the reins. Without a second thought, before others could think to react, Lyssa slid off the back of the horse on which she rode with her mother and dove into the water swimming through the muddy water to the shoals where boy and horse now struggled. Malee screamed, capturing her husband’s attention and could only point to where her daughter had now grabbed the reins from Cade’s hand and spoke as only she could to calm the frantic horse whose eyes rolled in fear. Quickly she had him calmed and standing while Cade lay still in the sand. She dropped the reins as her father approached and knelt beside Cade, pulling his head from the water and laying him across her arm as she pulled his body across her lap to pommel his back .

"Wake up, Boy. Don’t you die on me," she pleaded. When the water gushed from his mouth and he began to cough, Lyssa began to cry and hit him harder.

As soon as his eyes opened, he gasped, "Little Girl, you’ll finish what the river couldn’t do if you don’t quit hitting me."

"If the sand hadn’t been soft here, you fool, that horse would have killed you, don’t you know?" she cried, as if he had planned the fall just to scare her to death.

"Mary Beth saw a snake," he said. Lyssa pushed him out of her lap and with eyes darting back and forth started jumping around in the water.

When her father reached her she jumped into his arms, "A snake scared the horse, Daddy. Do you see it?" Her father chuckled and cradled her in his arms high above the water. While she frantically searched the water about his feet, Cade sat mesmerized in the water by the strange sight of Lyssa’s panic.

"Lyssa’s afraid of snakes. That’s the only critter alive I know won’t wind up a pet, much to her mother’s relief. Nothing else I know of can scare this girl, but just the word snake makes her shake."

"I’m right here," she said regally, still eying the waters cautiously. "You’re talking about me as if I were not here, you know. And you can put me down now."

"Yes, Princess," her father said, the edges of his mouth threatening a smile. He stretched out his hand to Cade and pulled him up. "You all right, Son?"

"Yes, Sir," Cade responded. "I got some bruises for sure, but I ain’t sure whether they’re from Mary Beth falling on me or your daughter pounding on me, " he said, teasing.

Lyssa sniffed and with all the dignity she could muster had her father put her down so she could swim cautiously from the sandbar to the shore and her waiting mother.

"I reckon you’ve noticed my daughter has decided to add you to her orphan menagerie."

Cade looked at him questioningly. "All those animals that follow her around…they’re just a few of those we had back at the post in Savannah. She adopts strays and orphans. Once she becomes attached she never lets go."

Cade’s eyes got big with the implications.

"Just a warning…she’ll be watching out for you. Which means she never sees the danger to herself when she’s protecting her little family. And that means she needs you to watch out for her because she’s careless with her own safety and more than a little clumsy."

"But I don’t want her following me and watching out for me. I do just fine taking care of myself," Cade said plaintively.

"Sorry, Boy. That doesn’t seem to matter to Lyssa. Once you find a place in her attentions, you can’t seem to ever get loose." Lyssa’s father looked almost sorry for him.

Cade took Mary Beth’s lead and continued across the river looking back over his shoulder only once. Sure enough, Lyssa watched his every step from her perch upon the back of her mother’s horse. As if he didn’t have enough to do, he grumbled to himself, taking care of his father’s packhorses, watching out for Samuel and the baby, making sure Sarilee had enough to eat…and now he had to watch out for that little girl who was bound to get hurt watching out for him! He didn’t want anyone watching out for him. He didn’t want anyone caring about him. He didn’t want to care about anyone ever again. As Lyssa watched he seemed to grow taller and stronger as he purposefully led the reluctant horse to the other bank and up the sharp incline. Lyssa caught her breath with the rush of emotion she felt for this boy, this stranger, who suddenly had become so important to her. She hugged her mother tighter, unsure of the strange emotion.

Day after day, she had watched how he kept Samuel and Carrie Joy within his sight. She saw him make sure his father’s horses were hobbled safely near the best grass and freshest water, just as he did the Potts’ livestock, though he steered clear of his father. She knew the play of the long deep dimples in his cheek as he fought the smile she would see in his eyes but he never permitted to play upon his lips. She observed other children watching Cade to imitate his walk, the proud way he stood. She noted the patient way he taught the small boys who crowded about him to lure the fish from their shadows to bite the hook on the end of a length of vine baited with whatever was handy. Leadership was a mantle he wore as naturally and unconsciously as breathing.

Then they reached St. Stephens and their paths had parted when her father took his family into Choctaw country and Her Boy remained with the Potts in Creek country. That was ten years ago. She was now eighteen years old. Lance had heard from Samuel that he’d been wounded at the Battle of Burnt Corn Creek. And he was about to make a big mistake. He was about to marry Sally Carson, the most beautiful girl in the Tombigbee area, with a face as beautiful as a Siren’s song, with a heart as black as the river Acheron. Lyssa knew it was time to take fortune into her own hands and bring the Boy home… to her.

There… at the turn in the river. It was a canoe. Her brother looked up the cliff knowing she would be there and grinned. Only the man before him in the canoe looked nothing like Her Boy. She caught her breath. There before her was no spindly youth but a man fully grown. He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. And there in the canoe was the red material that would bind the two forever.

Copyright 1996  These are my own working genealogy files that I share with you.  The errors are my own.  But, perhaps they will give you a starting point.  All original writing is copyrighted.  Webmaster