1812-The Rivers of War Page 6

  But he just shrugged it off. He was a big man, there was a lot of meat and muscle there, and the wound wasn't spouting the way it would if an artery had been severed. It was, quite literally, nothing but a flesh wound.

  Besides, Sam had far more pressing concerns. Sprawled across the wall the way he was, his head was now within reach of the enemy—and, sure enough, a Red Stick was trying to brain him with an atassa.

  Frantically, Sam brought up the sword. By sheer good luck more than any conscious intent, the blade intercepted the haft of the club. There wasn't enough power in that awkward parry to do more than deflect the club, but deflected it was. Off balance, the Red Stick stumbled past.

  Seeing nothing else to do, Sam threw himself off the wall and landed on his hands and knees on the enemy side of the barricade. Instantly, he came to his feet, feeling a rush of relief greater than anything he'd ever felt in his life. Whatever happened now, at least he'd be standing up to face it.

  What was happening now was that the same Red Stick was trying to brain him again. For the first time since the battle began, Sam got angry.

  That bastard was trying to kill him!

  Stupid bastard, too. Most white men didn't really know how to handle an Indian war club up close. Guns and knives were a white man's weapons. But Sam had been trained in wrestling and hand-to-hand fighting by his Cherokee friends John and James Rogers. James, in particular, was a veritable wizard with a war club.

  His reflexes took over. A sword wasn't quite as handy as a war club, but close enough. Sam parried the strike and returned the favor.

  Then...

  He discovered that a sword had both an advantage and a disadvantage over a war club.

  The advantage was that it had a blade.

  The disadvantage was that it had a blade.

  Sam was strong, even for his size. He'd brained the Red Stick, sure enough. And now he had a sword stuck in the man's skull.

  No time to work it loose, either. Two more Red Sticks were upon him, and still more were aiming their bows his way.

  There was nothing he could do about the arrows that would be coming. He left the sword where it was, drew his pistol, and fired it at point-blank range into the chest of one of the two Red Sticks. Then, threw the pistol into the face of the other and grappled with him.

  A good hip roll and the warrior was slammed into the ground with enough force to wind him and jar the war club out of his hand. Sam dove for it, eager to have a usable weapon. He didn't even notice that the headlong plunge took him out of the path of three arrows that sank into the wooden barricade behind.

  He came up with the atassa just in time to see dozens of Thirty-ninth Infantry soldiers pouring over the wall. With their blue coats, they looked like a wave crashing over a too-flimsy dike.

  The Red Sticks at the wall reeled back from the assault. Sam charged forward to place himself once again at the lead.

  "Follow me!" he bellowed again, waving the war club.

  Even at the time, he thought it was a silly war cry. He had no idea where he was leading them, after all. It just seemed like the right thing to do, under the circumstances.

  When he was excited, Andrew Jackson's high-pitched voice was often unpleasant, even shrill. But it was a piercing voice on the battlefield, able to cut through almost any din of shouting and gunfire.

  It was certainly doing so now. From his vantage point atop the hill, Jackson had acquired a perfect view of the storming of the barricade. There'd been a sharp pang of grief, of course, when he saw his good friend Lemuel Montgomery killed. But, as always with Jackson, grief would have to wait its turn when more pressing matters were at hand. Whatever else, the man was a fighter first and foremost. And, for him, the excitement of battle would always override anything else at the time.

  He was excited now. Excited enough, even, to lapse into profanity.

  "Goddamn me, but that's a soldier!" He snatched off his fancy hat and waved it like a sword. "Go for 'em, lad! Give the savage bastards Jesse!"

  The men standing around him matched his grin. Most of them were artillerymen, and they were out of the battle now, so they had plenty to grin about anyway.

  Jackson jammed the hat back on his head. Then, still grinning, he turned to one of his aides.

  "Do remind me, however, not to call them savages in the presence of that fine young fellow. He might take umbrage, and I do believe he'd be dangerous in a duel."

  The aide grunted. "Especially if he had the choice of weapons."

  Jackson's grin became wider than ever. Wider, and more savage than any of the men killing each other on the field below, of whatever color.

  Leading, Sam soon discovered, was pretty much indistinguishable from chasing. Once their fortifications were overrun, the Creeks seemed to have no idea what to do. Not surprising, really. It was unusual enough for Indians to have built such an impressive line of defense. Sam would have been astonished to discover that they'd prepared lines of retreat, as well.

  But they hadn't, as he expected. The Creeks reminded him of the Icelandic clansmen he'd read about in Sturluson's stories, based on ancient Icelandic sagas. Endless clan feuds which produced a race of hardy, resourceful, and ferocious warriors.

  But not soldiers, really. Certainly not in the modern sense of the term. They just didn't have the ingrained customs and habits that produced ranks of disciplined men who formed what could properly be called an "army."

  Sam knew that it would have taken all of Chief Menawa and William Weatherford's authority and political skills to have gotten the Red Sticks to build that breastwork at all. There was no chance they would have gotten them to build a secondary line of defense—or even, for that matter, have developed a battle plan that provided clear contingencies in the event that the fortifications were overrun.

  So, now, everything was confusion and chaos. As individual warriors, the hundreds of Red Sticks still at large on the peninsula were as feisty as ever. More so, probably, since desperation had been added to fanaticism and the ever-present Indian courage, to keep them fighting. But they were fighting as individuals, now. Or, at most, in small clusters gathered around the figure of one of the chiefs or war leaders.

  Following that initial heady charge after the retreating Creeks, therefore, Sam called a halt to the pursuit. He also was discovering that battles were incredibly exhausting, something Homer hadn't mentioned in his poems. Despite being in better physical condition than most of his men, Sam was just about winded.

  Houston's voice had none of Jackson's piercing qualities, but it was still a big man's voice—and that of a man who'd never been in the least bit bashful. So when he called out the order, it brought the soldiers up short, quick enough. And, soon thereafter he had their lines reformed. He even took the time to make sure that every soldier had reloaded, and done it properly. In the heat of a battle, it was common for soldiers to forget to reload, or to double-load—and it was by no means unheard of for an excited man to fire a ramrod instead of a bullet. Which left him with neither a ramrod nor the means to reload his weapon.

  That done, he ordered the soldiers forward in a steady march, ready to fire a volley as soon as any cluster of Red Sticks large enough to warrant a volley appeared. They'll do so soon enough, he thought. He could hear the sounds of fighting on the other side of the high ground, and he was sure that by now the Cherokees had crossed the river in large numbers.

  Coffee's cavalrymen, too, perhaps, but Sam suspected it was mostly Cherokees who'd crossed the river. Coffee and his cavalry were probably still on the opposite bank, chewing on the matter.

  John Ross and James Rogers found The Ridge, ironically enough, only by circling around in the chaos of the battle and coming back to the riverbank. Some of the Red Sticks were trying their best to escape across the Tallapoosa, and The Ridge was just as determined to see to it they didn't.

  He was in the water himself, in fact, when they found him. Standing thigh deep in the muddy current and battling it out with a Creek wa
rrior.

  It was an arresting tableau, and for a moment John was transfixed by the sight. Somewhere along the line, The Ridge must have lost his sword—indeed, any weapon he might have been carrying. He was grappling the Red Stick, hand to hand. The Creek was the taller man, though he didn't have The Ridge's width of shoulder and muscular mass, so it was a fairly even match.

  But he was much younger, too, and didn't have The Ridge's experience. In a wrestler's movement too quick for John to follow, The Ridge freed one of his hands, snatched a knife scabbarded at the Red Stick's waist, and stabbed him in the belly with it.

  The Creek warrior screeched in pain and fury. He grappled The Ridge all the harder, ignoring the blood spilling out of his body. He got a better grip on his opponent, since that quick knife thrust had removed one of The Ridge's arms from the wrestling match.

  Despite his terrible wound, John thought the Creek might still have a chance to win the fight. Hesitantly, he raised his pistol. He was afraid to fire, though. He just wasn't a good enough shot, even at this short range, to be sure he'd hit the right target.

  James's hand on his arm brought the pistol down.

  "Wait."

  Rogers had seen what Ross hadn't—yet another Cherokee warrior ready to jump into the river from nearby brush.

  The new arrival went into the water and with three powerful and steady strides came up next to the two combatants. He had a spear in his hand, and the thrust that followed had all the cold and terrible precision of a wasp sting. The blade of the spear sank deep into the lower back of the Creek, well away from any part of The Ridge.

  The Cherokee withdrew the spear with an expert and vicious twist of his wrists. The Red Stick was paralyzed by pain and shock, his back arched like a bow. The Ridge pushed him away and stepped back, leaving a clear target.

  The second spear thrust went right through the man. John, paralyzed himself by the spectacle, saw several inches of the blade protruding from the Creek's abdomen. Blood poured off the spear, adding its burden to water already stained bright red despite the muddy current.

  James's hand went to John's shoulder, and gave it a little shake. "Come on," he murmured. "Let's give him the warning."

  John shook his head to clear the moment's horror. "Yes," was all he could say.

  As soon as he'd gotten out of the water, they told The Ridge of Coffee's plan. He gave the opposite bank of the river nothing more than a quick glance. By this stage in the battle, John realized, the warning was almost pointless. Coffee's cavalrymen were already visible all along the riverbank. They were dismounted, and had brought their rifles up, ready to shoot any Creek who tried to cross.

  And anybody else, most likely.

  But The Ridge seemed more interested in Ross himself. He looked the younger man up and down, slowly and carefully. John was suddenly glad for his scuffled appearance. Even more, for the bruise on his cheek that he'd picked up when James hadn't deflected a war club quite in time. Most of all, for the blood spattered all over his American-style uniform. True, none of it was his; and, true also, the enemy blood had been spattered onto him by the efforts of his companion. Still, it was living proof that he'd been in the thick of battle; and, whatever else, he hadn't flinched.

  The Ridge grunted, and looked to James. "How is he doing?"

  James smiled, in his easy manner. "Well enough. I think he'll make a better politician than a warrior, though."

  Honesty compelled John to speak, then. "I can't do much worse."

  The Ridge was back to studying him. Then, after a few seconds, he grunted again.

  "You're here," he said softly. "Good politicians are harder to find than warriors anyway."

  For the first time since John Ross had met The Ridge, the older man actually smiled. The expression looked almost weird, on that blocky and fearsome face.

  But John thought it might be the best smile he'd ever seen. He'd never doubted his own loyalties—nor did anyone, he thought—but his upbringing had always left him feeling like something of an outsider in the Cherokee world. In much the same way, he suspected, that the American ensign who was about his own age must often feel among white people. How could an adopted Cherokee feel otherwise?

  Yet, somehow, though none of the blood covering him was his own, nor had any of it been put there by his own deeds, he knew that he had just crossed a final line this day.

  The Ridge had smiled upon him. Every Cherokee knew that The Ridge almost never smiled.

  Chapter 6

  Andrew Jackson found Sam Houston on the high ground, after it had been cleared of hostiles. The ensign was hobbling along in the company of two Cherokees, engaged in what appeared from a distance to be a cheerful and animated discussion. They might have been arguing about a horse race, for all the general could tell.

  He didn't know either of the young Indians, but he knew they were Cherokees. They might have been Creeks, true, since there were about a hundred friendly Creeks participating in this battle on the American side, under the leadership of the headman of Coweta, William Mackintosh. But Jackson, unlike many white men, could see at a glance the subtle difference between Cherokees, Creeks, Choctaws, and Chickasaws. Sometimes even Seminoles, although it was always harder with them. The Seminoles were more in the way of a split off from the Creeks than a truly separate tribe.

  There was no significant difference in the features between a member of one southern tribe and another. But they all had distinctive clothing, accoutrements, and ways of styling their hair.

  White people coming from the long-settled East, when they first encountered southern Indians, were frequently taken aback by their appearance. The general had often been amused by the phenomenon. The southern Indians, except when they painted themselves up for war or ceremonies, or stripped down to loincloths to play the stickball game they were so fanatical about, just didn't look like "wild Injuns." They looked exotic, to be sure, but it was the exoticism of such long-civilized peoples as the Arabs or the Hindoos.

  They wore European-style cloth shirts, often with wide and decorated collars, and leggings that were certainly not European in design but resembled Araby pantaloons more than they did an easterner's notion of "Indian leggings." And their headgear, if they wore any, would be a turban or an elaborate cloth cap. Not the feathered headband everyone seemed to expect.

  In the last few decades, some of those distinctive features had begun to blur and fade—the elaborate facial tattoos of the previous century had almost vanished—as more and more of the southern tribesmen adopted the ways and customs of the white settlers. Many had become Christians, and the missionaries always encouraged the adoption of white habits and economic practices, as well as the religion itself. But even those who hadn't adopted the white man's religion had adopted much else.

  The Ridge, for instance, still adhered to his tribe's traditional religious practices, but Jackson knew he'd been among the first of the Cherokees to erect his own separate log dwelling, in the American style, apart from the traditional Cherokee town. It was said that he had a chimney, in fact, and a well-built one at that.

  He'd also abandoned hunting, despite his own fame as a hunter, in favor of tending orchards and raising livestock—much of the labor, as was true for prosperous whites in the South, being done by black slaves he'd purchased. From accounts Jackson had heard, The Ridge's plantation at Oothcaloga was the equal in size and prosperity to that of almost any white man's on the frontier.

  The Ridge had even placed his oldest son, John, with some Moravian missionaries in a boardinghouse at Spring Place, at the age of seven, so that he might learn to read and write and speak English fluently. His daughter Nancy, too. And he'd convinced his brother Watie to do the same with his oldest son, Gallegina—or Buck Watie, as he was known in English.

  The general had mixed feelings on the subject. On the one hand, he thought that the ideal solution to the Indian problem would be for the savages to adopt the white man's ways completely. He'd already decided that if they did s
o, he'd throw his considerable influence into granting them full rights of citizenship, and not just the limited rights possessed by freedmen.

  For all that he clashed frequently with the missionaries and Indian agents like Colonel Meigs over what Jackson considered their coddling of the savages, he didn't fundamentally disagree with their assessment that Indians might be the equal of white men. As individuals, he'd always found many of the savages to be impressive people. He'd even taken into his household a little Creek boy named Lyncoya who had been orphaned in last year's battle at Tallushatchee, and intended to adopt him legally once the war was over.

  But... that was the problem, when looked at from the other side. Impressive people were also stubborn, independent, and fractious people. Jackson didn't fault them for it—rather admired them, in fact, since he was stubborn, independent, and fractious himself. But what he could admire in an individual, he could not admire in nations that were opposed to his own. Certainly not when the British and Spanish empires he so utterly detested were always ready and eager to foment unrest among the savages, and use them as weapons against his beloved republic.