Apalachee

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

was Caesar who came striding up to him. The war leader looked up at him with a smile. ‘‘You come with me now?’’ asked Caesar, speaking in rough Muskogee. ‘‘You come with me to Tugaloo,’’ said Isaac. ‘‘We will help them finish Brims.’’ Caesar shook his head. ‘‘You have men enough. I go to the Creek villages. Before their warriors return.’’ ‘‘It would be better for you to come with me,’’ said Isaac. ‘‘Let Colonel Moore give you your orders.’’ ‘‘I need no orders from your colonel.’’ Isaac nodded and looked away. There was no reason to hold him back any longer. 378 chapter forty-five Lucia lay awake listening to the wolves in the fields beyond the town. Their thin, tremulous howls sounded like grieving. They came every night now, the cold making them so hungry and daring that some had been coming up to the very yards of the houses to nose about for food. They seemed to know the men were gone. She turned over and closed her eyes, pulling her blanket over her head to muffle their wailing. She wanted very much to sleep, to shorten the long night and quiet her gloomy thoughts. She lay absolutely still, her breath warm in the blanket pulled up about her face, her eyes determinedly closed. For a long time she tried to empty her mind, to let it settle and open itself to sleep. But the thoughts would not stop, and finally she pushed aside the blanket and sat up, the wolves still howling like lonesome, hungry things. Pulling her blanket with her, she got up and went to the fire and put on more wood and then sat down close to the flames, her knees pulled up and her blanket wrapped around her. It had been five days now since Carlos had gone with the others into the town of Tugaloo. Five days by her reckoning , assuming all had gone well on their journey there. But whether it was exactly five days ago or not, the deed was surely done by now. Whatever was going to happen had already happened. Either they had gone into Tugaloo and been successful and the Cherokees had risen up against the English, or else they had gone in and not been successful and . . . She brought up her hands to her face and tried to stop those thoughts, but they were loose now, like the wolves wailing their grief into the night. If they had not been successful, they were dead. Carlos dead. She shook her head, pushing her fingers into her hair, her eyes closed tight, her throat swelling with grief. ‘‘Stop this!’’ she told herself suddenly, jerking away her hands and opening her eyes. She looked determinedly about, trying to make herself stop thinking, looking at the mats on the wall, the baskets and pots scattered about, everything as it always was. But her throat still hurt, and as she picked up a stick to poke the fire, the pain swelled unbearably and she dropped the stick and put her hands to her face again and began to cry. In that moment it seemed it would all break loose, all her grief pouring out, as if the news itself had already come. But the news had not come, and little by little she got control of herself, rubbing her face and stopping her tears until finally she sat quietly by the fire, feeling drained, her chest hollow and sore. Her thoughts were stilled now, the gloom lifting. She got up from the fire and went out into the night where she stood and looked up at the stars and felt the cold winter air on her face. The wolves were like singers at a dance, like old women singing together with their high, wavering voices, shuffle-stepping in a circle around a fire. She smiled. That was better. Dancing women with turtleshell rattles on their legs and merry eyes. She would think of the wolves that way. The cold air made her feel stronger. She stood there a while longer, breathing deeply until the cold was all through her and bed seemed a welcome place. Then she went back in and lay down, her blanket close and warm about her, the fire still burning and quietly crackling. Sleep came softly and pulled her away. She awoke to gunfire and shouting. Then war whoops, the alarm going up from every side. Terror seized her and she lay stiff...