Citizens Creek Read Online Free PDF Page B

scorching sun. He’d waded rivers, marched burning sands, crossed impassable swamps, been subjected to malaria, dysentery, alligators, and venomous snakes. He’d served as interpreter and government mouthpiece for countless treaties, even though he knew them full of half-truths and outright lies on both sides.
    “Damned Seminoles!” the general exclaimed. “Millions of our money lost here, and for what? To gain this barren, sandy, swampy, and good-for-nothing peninsula? Sometimes I think it better to leave the Indians here in Florida, where God placed them.”
    The white man looked more haggard with every passed day, and as his forced accomplice, Tom could predict the man’s frameof mind before the general himself knew he’d brewed up a temper. This latest had gone on for days, more than the usual swings of mood or fatigue from spilled blood or breathing fetid air while traipsing through the muck of Florida swamps. Hunting down Seminoles in their camps, carrying out orders from a headquarters so removed they didn’t understand the realities of the field, and striking Capitulation treaties with rebellious and uncooperative Seminole chiefs took their toll.
    Cow Tom said nothing. After ten months of service, he knew it was better to wait the general out when he got like this. He took his mind instead to the rolling hills of Alabama, absent here in Florida, and tried to fix an image of Amy tending the home fire, and Malinda and Maggie, fed and thriving. He wondered who looked after the herd in his absence, if there was still a herd to tend. They’d thought the war and his stint of service would be over months ago, a short-term rental before relocation to Indian Territory with his family by February, in time to resettle and plant for the new season. And here it was June, yet dragging on. Where were they now, Chief Yargee and Amy? Creek families were held as hostages for the good behavior of Creek warriors sent to Florida, but where? In a holding camp? At a military fort? Now all he wanted was to get back to Amy and his girls before the general got him killed.
    “I tell you this,” the general said. “By my hand, by the hand of the United States government, they will Remove. Every last Seminole in Florida.” He thrust a stiff finger in the air to punctuate his point. “I’m tired of Seminole resistance, tired of stubborn chiefs and conniving counselors and bloodthirsty warriors and tricky black translators and antagonistic slaves, ready to die before honoring Capitulation.”
    Cow Tom could have pointed out that Seminoles were only defending their family land, but the general was too wrapped up in his righteousness. The United States government was determined to move the Seminoles west, and the Seminoles were equally resolved to hold to the Florida ground of their ancestors.
    “I want you to go to Fort Brooke,” the general said. He relit the stump of his cigar and drew in a long breath before exhaling. The smoke coiled in lazy loops around his dark curls, and the sharp tobacco smell made Cow Tom long for a smoke of his own. “And report back any unusual activity.”
    Last year, when Chief Yargee rented Cow Tom out for his translator skills, sending him east alongside seven hundred conscripted Creek warriors to fight for the Federals, Cow Tom was assigned to the general. He’d arrived at Fort King green, a novice, amazed by every sight and sound and smell. The fort housed military and military hangers-on, men of both horse and foot. He saw men of prayer side by side with the profane, scholars and dolts, swaggering men of rank, youngsters new to gun and blade, fat men and lean, temperate and drunk, the bootless and idle watching the busy. Cow Tom followed behind the general from one such fort to another, and came to understand what a determined military man he was, ruthless, competent, and capable of deceit.
    And now Cow Tom was the interpreter General Jesup trusted most, right hand to the man in charge of the