Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy Read Free Book Online Page A

terms under which his people would be willing to emigrate. Micanopy leaned heavily on everyone else—his counselors, his lawyer and sense bearer, his Negro translator Abraham—always choosing the path of least resistance. Although surrounded by younger and more reckless Seminoles still possessing the passions of youth, Micanopy’s eagerness for conflict of any kind played out long ago. He preferred talk of peace or whatever the white man wanted to hear so long as he didn’t actually have to do or risk anything.
    “No trouble here at camp?” Cow Tom asked.
    “Trouble? No. But now is a bad time for us to Remove,” said Micanopy. “Better in the fall. Tell General Jesup.”
    The same suggestion he always expressed. No matter when they talked, Micanopy said the right time to leave would be next month, or next year, or five years hence. But somehow Micanopy managed to get young braves eager for revenge to lay down their weapons and surrender. Or more likely, one of his counselors had.
    “Where is Abraham?” Cow Tom asked. “Where are the Negroes?”
    “Taken. To Fort Volusia, down the river,” Micanopy said. “To ship on separate boats.”
    Impossible, this chase. What if his mother wasn’t in Florida after all? Twenty years gone since he’d seen her. Yet already Cow Tom’s mind spun to figure how to get sent to Fort Volusia, to look for her there.
    “Are your people ready to Remove?” Cow Tom asked Micanopy.
    Micanopy concentrated on his bread, stuffing the last piece in his mouth, as if he hadn’t heard Cow Tom speak. He’d lost interest in the exchange.
    His lawyer answered instead. “We need more corn,” Jumper said. He was perhaps forty, small and scrappy compared to Micanopy’s girth. In negotiations, a whisper by Jumper in Micanopy’s ear at the right moment often caused the chief to change course. “We left crops in the field to come here. And weapons. We need weapons to hunt.”
    “Terms of Capitulation are for the government to provide all food until Removal,” Cow Tom said. “And one year beyond.”
    “Terms of Capitulation also say our bona fide property, our Negroes, emigrate with us,” said Jumper. He spoke in English, emphasizing the word property , as used in the treaty, his distaste and defiance both clear. “And where are they now?”
    Cow Tom took his time. He considered telling Jumper they would reunite in Indian Territory, but he himself wasn’t convinced, not since the general failed to inform him the Negroes were already sent away from Fort Brooke. Empty words would do nothing to reassure Jumper. He abandoned the official platitudes so often repeated in translations at the general’s request.
    “The Seminoles are friends to the black man,” he said. “I admire Abraham and his place in the nation. It is best for all if Seminole and Negro stay together.”
    Jumper considered this, without comment.
    “What about Osceola?” Harry asked. “Will he Remove now you’ve turned yourselves in?”
    Micanopy cocked his head, suddenly uncomfortable, and Jumper and one of the other petty chiefs exchanged a quick look.
    “Osceola is his own man,” Jumper said. “Bound by none but himself.”
    “Will he revenge against those who surrender?” Cow Tom didn’t expect honesty, but sought a statement from which he might try to wring truth, something to report back to the general.
    “Osceola is fearless, with many followers in the Seminole Nation,” Jumper said.
    The men in the circle turned inward then and passed the pipe in silence, without offer to Cow Tom or Harry, and the translators took the gesture as dismissal.
    Once out of earshot of Micanopy and his advisers, they speculated as to what the exchange meant.
    “I don’t know,” said Harry, “but just the mention of Osceola set them squirming. I wager you this. Some sort of shecoonery is afoot.”

Chapter 8
    COW TOM AND Harry kept themselves apart from the others, Seminole and military both, and set up bunk outside near