Bold Crossings

PROLOGUE

Deep Roots Beneath the Walls

When they arrived, I watch them park along the fence line near the gate. Young and old, wearing their Sunday best, stretched as they climbed out of their cars and squinted into the dappled Texas sunlight. After nearly 200 years of hatred and distrust, this day had been a long time coming. The adults quickly found comfort among their own but the children were curious … more social. For some, the racial compass barely moves even after centuries. For the young, there is no compass.

This is a historically segregated cemetery: slave graves are outside the back fence, Hispanic graves are crowded in their own area, and the Anglo graves are in the largest section shaded by big oaks. The fourth group of visitors this morning are Comanche, most traveling from Lawton. Their ancestors hadn’t marked graves in this fertile river bend, not like the others, yet they’re around us—unseen but represented.

I’d arrived early. As the dew rose with the sun, before anyone would see my homage or judge my actions, I set a shiny hand-forged horseshoe on the ground against Malcolm’s headstone and scattered Blackfoot daisies over the fence for Wukubuu. Now it was time to give my speech. The cemetery was quiet. That just made me more nervous…

"I’ve practiced this speech about a million times. My wife says I give it in my sleep. All that practice and I’m still not sure I will make it through the whole thing. I guess that’s because it’s not really my speech; it’s yours.

"For me, this all started with a few photos, a settler boy’s journal and the tape- recorded reminiscences of an old Comanche woman. They changed my life.

"This morning, here in this sacred place, each of you will have a decision to make as to how this day will end. Will it change your lives? Will we work and eat together or walk away on the same separate paths we’ve walked for centuries?

"Regardless of how we enter this life, regardless of the color of our skin, the language our ancestors spoke, the way we worship, or the way we view the land that we live on, we all share one certainty: our end. Therefore, it seems appropriate that we start here, here at the common end, the resting place of your ancestors. Death, you see, is the great equalizer. But do we have to wait for death to be tolerant of each other, to make peace? Do we have to wait for death to know that we share hopes, desires, and ambitions just as we share sorrow, grief, and heartbreak?

"Why do we wait? Why do we choose to let death rule our lives like this? Imagine the abundant richness of lives well shared. Imagine the power of common interests, concerted efforts, and a collage of creative endeavor. Aren’t we choosing to live less than a whole life when we insist on exclusion, when we cut ourselves off by choosing hatred or disdain?

"After so many years, in this sacred place, can we break through past choices that have limited our lives? In this sacred place, can we choose to be more inclusive, to break down walls that divide us, to listen to those who we have traditionally pushed away? In this sacred place, is it time to recognize the value inherent in every person, and in so doing, find more value in ourselves?

"Since humans first roamed the earth our motivations have driven our behavior. Despite culture, creed, or philosophy our motivations are the same: to live, love, and thrive. Our point-of-view colors our reality, not our inherent human qualities. One man’s farmland could be another’s favorite place to hunt; it is still soil. A woman’s child could be her investment in the tribe’s future or a legacy to carry a family name from across the sea; the child is still a son or daughter.

"We are more than branches in family trees. At the far end of our roots, we are distant cousins with every other human on the planet. Most of you have ancestors buried in this great bend in the river. Surely, that lessens the distance between you. Surely, your ancestral roots in this fertile soil bind you in a way that makes you stronger together than apart.

"I close with this thought from Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.: ‘He or she who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.’

My friends, your next steps are entirely up to you. When you’re ready, our forewoman will have her team help us finish opening the spaces in the fence and build the new stiles over the walls. And when we are done, we can dine together here at this table as one family in honor of your ancestors and, most importantly, with hope for future generations and their power to love.

ONE

Dark Dreams

December 26, 1829 – covington county, Mississippi. Ma gave me this book-o’-pages for Christmas. I don’t know how I’ll ever fill it. There ain’t that much in my head.

Ma says I need the writing practice. Maybe. She says when a man writes, his soul is in the ink. There ain’t a lick of sense to that, but I don’t cross her on it. She says the Lord guides my hand. I don’t see that neither. They’re my hands— cuts, callouses, dirt and all. Mostly they just hurt from farming every day. Why would the Lord want that?

Had one heck of a dream last night.

I was down in a box-shaped hole. Dirt piled up around me, smelling black and moist. I hate dirt. I ain’t touched, I swear it, but my dreams come on strong and this one was bumfuzzling, to be sure. I raised out of that dark place and found myself walking in a village. No sign of a living thing, ‘cept for a light coming from the blacksmith shop. My name was on the wall of the shop in big white letters, all straight like they’s on the cover of a book saying, Malcolm M. Hornsby.

I was born for smithing. Crave doin’ it most every day I work this darn farm. A blacksmith don’t feed the stock, don’t shovel manure all day, don’t mend fences, and ain’t got a thing to do with no farm dirt. If I was looking for my soul, I’d more likely find it bending a red-hot rod of iron to my will than in writing words, but in my dream everything was muddled. My hammers, tongs, the anvil—them things was all there, but I couldn’t touch ‘em. My hands wouldn’t move. I was cold, stiff, and floating above it all, lonelier than I ever been.

Then, for a minute, there was a young girl in the shop with me. I couldn’t see her face, but I could hear her crying, quiet, like when they’re burying folk. She sounded a lot like Ottilee Jameson, a girl I fancy from down the road. Can’t swear by it, though. Then the lamps dimmed and, sure enough, I was back in that hole in the ground pushing black dirt out of my face as fast as I could.

My pa woke me. Though I dreaded his words, it was good to hear his voice, good to know I wasn’t really, well, you know, passed on or something. Pa whispered, Malcolm, get yourself out of that bed and tend to the hogs, boy. Can’t sell ‘em hungry. Then get back in here for your breakfast. We’ve a full day before us. Won’t be long now, you going to wake up in another country. I sat up in the bed I share with my little brothers and wondered which is worse: slopping hogs or bad dreams.

Tarnation! How’s a man gonna make a choice like that?

I don’t know my age for sure in your years. The way of Taiboo to write everything on paper was not the way for us. We walked on the land in flesh, but we lived in memories. I do know this. I am older now than anything or anyone I have ever loved. I am still a healer among the People, but behind my back they laugh at the old ways. Today, here in Lawton, they call me the Winter Woman, but before I had a name given by my father.

You say that others here remember little of the long-ago days. I remember much. My visions have always been strong. My stories come easy. I remember often as a young woman I would not sleep well because of my dreams. One morning after such a night, the pink sky held me. The smoke, fog, and smells comforted me. Father said it was a seer’s dream. He stomped his foot and nodded as if to say, Daughter, this is a sign.

In the dream, I rode hard, at first among all the Penatuka, the elders, warriors, and children. Older horses pulled supplies. Dogs ran beside us. Our dust was thick. People and animals faded in and out of the pink darkness, but soon they disappeared and I rode with the dying sun to my shoulder in the cool night air, alone, away from our Great Clear River.

My little brave bird, said Father, yours was a dream of a kaheeka, one who would tell stories ... perhaps a healer of the people ... and a good wife. I shook my head, but just a little so Father wouldn’t see. The dream frightened me. Being a wife frightened me more.

I pulled the buffalo robe tighter around my shoulders and watched our morning fire, let its warmth and light cover me, let the dusty dream swirl and dance like the smoke until it vanished into the red sky. Only then did I speak. Father, little birds do not tell stories.

Perhaps, Wukubuu … you have not listened. When you listen, you will hear what others cannot and you will be a kaheeka.

So since you have asked, I will tell you these stories. I will paint with the cedar smoke and the memories it brings. So you know who I am. So you know the People.

December 29 – trail to vicksburg. Hard day. Worse than most. At least we are nearing the end of this. I blame it on my pa. It’s his fault we’s moving these young’uns to a most dangerous place. When I think of it, I start to boil. Find it calming to write about it in a poem. Maybe that’s what Ma meant before about my soul in the ink?

For one-hundred miles, we’s forced to roam

Carry a baby brother on my back

Family slog beside me all the way from home

Boots near pulled off by mud deep black

For one-hundred miles, we smell wild meadows

The damp muck of forest floors

Crossed tree limbs rub and bellow

Night winds whistle through absent tent doors

For one-hundred miles, we wear scratchy wool shawls

No match for the razor frost

Little brothers hide their faces when they bawl

All feeling in their skin is lost

For one-hundred miles, we walk on half-frozen peat

From Covington to Vicksburg, Missisip

Seven days and six nights with a schedule to keep

A steamboat to catch, no time to let slip

For one-hundred miles like so many ‘round us

We Hornsby’s on a westerly tack

Can’t see the gain ‘cept a strong reason to cuss

Fighting thoughts to turn and head back.

We must be quite a sight on them trails. The oldest of us children is my high-handed brother at fourteen, the youngest my baby sister just shy of one year—between them four more brothers including me.

For most of today, Pa was nowhere in sight. He and Uncle Moses-Smith rode ahead hoping to hurry us along. Ma drove the wagon. Mattie, our house slave next to her held the baby wrapped in so many blankets it was hard to tell where she was in the bundle. Two mules pulled, two dogs followed. Our male slaves, my friend named Tom and his pa, trudged along with us five boys, every one of us muddy to the knee.

We wasn’t the only frozen shadows on the road neither. The closer we got to Vicksburg, the heavier and noisier the traffic. There was rough, mean-faced drovers with their herds of cattle, sheep, or hogs. These sun-dark men smelled awful, spit tobacco, and swore up a storm. They was cracking their whips so, it sounded like guns in a hunting party.

This is one terrible winter for traveling by foot, but Pa’s urge to move is stronger than the elements. He wants to see around the next bend so bad it’s driving all the family. Not me. I wanted to stay home, to have a trade that would take me away from farm work, but Pa won’t listen. He says, We’re moving to Texas, son. Them high falutin’ dreams of yours will wait.

Behind us, we left belongings that didn’t fit in the wagon and those Pa wouldn’t sell at harbor-town cut rates. We left places we knew and good people we trusted. We left favorite horses, good hunting, and productive soil. I don’t like to talk about it, but we left our granddad and the graves of our two dear young brothers, too.

Then there’s this girl who lives in the big house down the road. Ottilee. She has eyes so warm when she fixes them on me, my legs melt like cheap brass bars. Her dad has the gotta-go fever too, but her ma just had another baby and it nearly killed her, so she won’t travel for a while.

Pa said there was more fertile land at a better price than any ever dreamt. Sure, he said there’d be hardships, dozens, but also opportunities to test a man’s fortitude. Fortitude must be a big word to impress Ma. He held up his fist like a man in a penny opera and said soon we’d be in pure adventure on the edge of the Texas frontier. I never tried that word fortitude on Ottilee Jameson. Didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye.

I hate Texas already.

Some memories are visions, flashes of color or magic. Some, the strong ones, have sounds, smells, and touch. Some bring deep feelings of love, fear, or heartache. All these visions are for kaheeka, but as I am in my winter years, they can leave me breathless.

I remember feeling so small as the earth trembled. It smelled of churned-up soil and trampled bluestem ekasonipu. I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of our buffalo and the warriors’ horses. The wind blew across my bare skin and I shuddered. It was the last hunt without heavier buckskin on my feet, without a blanket. Kwihne, the coldest season, was almost here.

I had run over many hills that morning. My legs were tired, feet sore, moccasins covered in dust. It was my first hunt so close to my father and brother. Before, I had worked with the older women and girls from farther behind, gathering the spoils at a slower pace. Now in my thirteenth full season I was old enough to take the skin on my own and learn the ways of a Penatuka wife, but I was alone and a stone’s throw from hundreds of frightened giants. The bulls’ dark wooly coats bounced and jostled on their necks as they galloped. At the top of their shoulders, they were two hands taller than my father.

In the hunt, I wanted to be brave like my older brother, but was told to sit and wait for my father’s signal. It took too much time. Time to think of the horns. Time to think of the hooves of full-grown buffalo bulls—sharp and dangerous. I worried, What if I make a mistake?

I heard a familiar sound: a small, subtle command to a horse somewhere among the buffalo. I looked over the ridge just in time to see my brother charging an enormous bull only a hundred paces away.

Wowoki was tall and sinewy. He rarely wore a shirt, except on the coldest of days. The other girls said he was tuibitsi, handsome, but to me, he was just an older brother. He would always play too roughly, brag too much, and take too many chances. Worst of all, he called me Huutsúu Kwanaru, Stinky Bird, instead of the name given to me.

Wowoki, Barking Dog, was in his fifteenth full season and nearly a warrior. He seemed to have no fear. He rode as well as any. He would stand in place with a rifle or bow and take a charging enemy with one shot, then yell at the dead or dying for having dared attack. Most of all, my brother hated all that was Taiboo, those with white skin.

On this day in the hunt, I watched him calmly lift his rifle with both hands while riding his horse at full speed among the great wooly beasts. Before I saw the smoke from his gun and heard the shot, before I saw the bull skid and roll in a cloud of dust, I knew my brother would take the kill. He rarely failed.

Wowoki gave out a loud, celebratory whoop and looked in my direction, but my father had been very clear that I should wait for his signal. My brother yelled again and waved his rifle. I looked for my father but couldn’t see him over the grassy hills.

I knew Wowoki would make fun of me. Worse, he may grow angry. His anger was like a fire, burning anyone too close. I spoke in silence to the wind and dark clouds. Why should I wait? After all, I am trusted to skin on my own. I don’t know if I want to be a wife, but until I am, I will learn as I please. I slipped my beads under my shirt and set the skinning knife made of Taiboo steel between my teeth. I looked for my father one more time.

There was no sign of him.

December 30. trail is changing now. Almost there. The oaks and cypress look like they’s wearing long gowns of moss. As we came ‘round a bend in the trail, we saw Pa and Uncle Moses in a clearing waving us forward. Pa yelled at us. We’ve a boat to catch, Hornsbys!

Ma flicked the reins with a Get-up, mule! and the rest ducked their heads a little lower into the freezing wind and moved their feet one more step ahead, then another. All ‘cept me. I was bent with the weight of my sleepy little brother over my shoulder. I stopped to look back in the direction I thought was Covington County, back home, back to Ottilee.

That’s when my older brother, Billy, yelled at me. Come on, Mal, you bookweevil. Ain’t time for your regrets. I straightened right up to make myself as tall as possible and whispered under my breath so my ma wouldn’t hear, Tarnation!

I knew I ought to heed my brother, but I fought it. I took a few steps back down the trail toward our farm. It would be a long walk with just a little brother for company. That was when Daniel groaned a little, so I stopped just to be sure he was right.

I glanced back over my shoulder and watched my family moving on without me, a lonesome sight. I whispered to Danny that we’d better think on this a bit. Reckon my looking after him and Ma is above the rest.

I popped up and ran, avoiding both the buffalo and prairie dog holes scattered in the tall grass, but once I neared the bull, fatigue and fear clouded my judgment. I circled the giant and moved toward his belly. I did not see my father’s frantic waving. My brother had spotted another bull and was giving chase in the dust. When I realized my mistake, I froze, stared into the eye of the hulking animal and noticed the sound of his heavy breath. He shouldn’t be breathing. The bull moaned, bellowed and kicked his legs in an attempt to stand.

I heard a loud crack when the bull’s hoof caught the top of my head. I remember dropping to my knees and the feeling of warm blood running down my face. Everything spun around me: the buffalo, the clouds, the hills, even my dog who circled and barked at the big bull. They all seemed to spin in silence. I saw my father racing toward me, but strangely did not hear the hooves of his horse or the sound of his rifle when the gun flashed and the restless bull slumped in death.

As the sky drew darker, I heard my brother calling me by my given name, Wukubuu! Wukubuu! I lifted my head to look for him. It was hard to focus but I am sure I saw a red buffalo calf with a quarter-moon scar just above his eye, staring at me. I reached for the charm around my neck and rubbed the smooth wooden beads.

All went dark and silent.

January 2, 1830 – vicksburg. got a lot to write on this new year. Spent a cold night in a stranger’s barn with my brothers and our horses while Ma, Pa, and the baby slept in a boarding house. Then this morning, had to walk sideways to see around the crate in my arms and avoid patches of ice on the gangplank at the boat. Guess it all piled up on me enough to bring out the devil words: Darn, why don’t we just stay here? Goin’ to Texas is already hell.

I glanced up at Ma at the far end of the upper deck. If she’d heard them words she’d be after me with a switch. Luckily, she and our house slave, Miss Mattie was busy with baby Diana and corralling my brothers, else them boys would’ve wrestled their way into the river, that’s certain.

The port at Vicksburg was a busy, noisy place, even in this terrible weather. Boats and rafts of all sizes bobbed on the river as far as I could see. Why, with a good head of speed, I could have jumped from one craft to another and ended up on the other side, a half-mile ‘cross. The docks was crawling with slaves, cargo movers, crews, passengers, and folks in city or country clothes saying goodbyes or welcomes. The air smelled of river water, burning wood, hot oil, and cooking. I reckon my Ottilee would call it a ladle of life’s stew. I just love the way she talks. Ma says Ottilee can sure turn a word for her age.

Then darn if I didn’t slip on ice the next step. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get my footing. Folks on the upper deck laughed at me in my short muddy trousers dancing a jig. I’m sure my eyes was as big as saucers. The crate was bouncing. I was slipping and stepping as if rolling a log on water. There was a couple of girls on the deck; might have been my age. They ‘bout giggled themselves into the heaves.

Lucky that Tom jumped to the gangplank and caught the crate just as I neared the edge. Of course, he had to shoot off his smart mouth. Whoa there, Malcolm! Ma Hornsby have yer hide if yeh drop this crate in that big water. Couldn’t let him best me in front of them strangers so I said, Tom Walker, you don’t wipe that laughing grin off your face, I’ll have your hide.

Darned if he didn’t put me right in my place. "What yeh