Citizens Creek by Lalita Tademy Read Free Book Online Page B

the storehouse, sharing the jug of moonshine Harry liberated. The fiery liquid burned, but they drank to the bottom of the jug, and the menace of the fort seemed more distant. They wanted no part of the free-floating hostility permeating the camp, and less of measles. The evening proved thick and warm, but they slept in their clothes, scant protection against the biting sand fleas.
    Cow Tom woke to war whoops. The moon was at its height, full and bright. Harry bolted upright, alert, and Cow Tom held his arm to prevent him from making a sound. They unsheathed their knives, and crept slowly in the direction of the outer wall of the fort, toward the front gate. The lone sentry slumped seated, his back propped against the upright like one of Malinda’s rag dolls, blood at a line on his throat, dead.
    Seminole braves appeared from every direction, some bare-faced, some with faces striped with mud, half-black, half-red, fanning throughout the grounds and weaving in and out of the buildings, pulling the few soldiers they found from their beds. Cow Tom and Harry scattered, but not before Cow Tom saw one young brave goad forward the dragoon they rode in with from Fort King by repeated jabs with a beech club to the small of his back.
    Cow Tom managed to slip behind an upright beam, neitherhidden nor exposed. He’d lost sight of Harry and stayed frozen, trying to think his way out of this mess. But the warriors were everywhere, hundreds, and finally he began to run. He tried to circle around to the stables, but two braves were on him before he’d barely built up momentum and they pinned his arms, pulling him backward toward the open area where rations were distributed. Harry was already there, along with the dragoon and several others. The supply convoy from earlier in the day and all the accompanying soldiers had left the fort before nightfall, and what remained were only the few soldiers permanently stationed at Fort Brooke. The measles outbreak had reduced the number of healthy soldiers significantly, that number less than ten. The diseased were relegated to the infirmary. The camp was more Seminole than military, more sick than fit.
    Detainee Seminoles poured in from the surrounding areas of the fort, great masses of them, abandoning tent and sand and makeshift blanket. Women in flour-sack dresses stood alongside Seminole warriors dressed for battle, corn husks in their hair, faces streaked with red ocher. Cow Tom guessed at least two hundred warriors had descended on the fort, as from nowhere, more surging through the front gate even now as though they owned the entire garrison. Cow Tom waited with the rest of the captives, and the detainee Seminoles whispered among themselves in a loudening buzz. He heard the name from several directions at once.
    “Osceola.”
    His bladder went weak. Until now, his jobs had mostly been physical labor, or thickets of words to translate, or swamps to scout, or foxing the general, or spinning bold strategies to impress. This was life-and-death. He hoped he wasn’t a coward. There were more stories of Osceola than all other chiefs put together, the symbol of the resistance to remove all Seminoles from Florida. One quick glance at Harry confirmed. Harry was as panicked as he.
    The night was bright, and Osceola stepped into the middle of the detention camp gathering, not far from the clutch of prisoners.He was nothing like Micanopy, in temperament or carriage: commanding, even magnetic, average height, and older than Cow Tom, somewhere between thirty and thirty-five. His face, neck, throat, and the back of his hands were streaked with red ocher, and he pulled his scalping knife from his war belt.
    Osceola held up the knife, and the crowd quieted.
    “I am Osceola,” he announced. A guttural cheer went up.
    Cow Tom singled out faces in the crowd. One of the women who pounded coontie root. The brave who refused to talk to Cow Tom and Harry. The brave who fetched a piece of warm bread for the