A Skein of Words

>Washington, DC
May 29, 1838

The wind was coming from over the sea when they put Thomas Smith’s body in the ground. The waters of Washington Bay were stirring, and banks of fog came off the Atlantic, rank upon rank. The carriage came up, drawn by two horses, one with a rider, one without, and stopped by the gravesite in the midst of the National Cemetery. Thomas’s mother, Liberty, stood there cold and thin and pale as the dead; she gripped her husband’s hand with such fierce strength that her fingers were pressed bloodless. Thomas’s father, Daniel, was a large man, and usually a happy one; but his face was drawn and his hands were limp, and he seemed stricken and confused. Thomas’s younger sisters, Courage and Unity, both in their early twenties and still unmarried, held hands and watched the casket with no expression, occasionally glancing towards their older sister, Freedom. Freedom only watched the casket.

Behind them were the rest of Thomas’s kin — specifically his uncle, George Pledger, and his wife and children and their families. They stood silently. They did not know Thomas well, so their sadness was more distant. George had seen a lot of danger and death in his own military service, and was most concerned for his sister Liberty; he had never seen her this way before.

The chaplain and various officers exchanged salutes, and the flag-draped casket was lifted off the carriage and brought to the grave. The flag was adjusted and straightened. The chaplain spoke.

“In the Bible,” he said, “God is often called the Lord of Hosts. Today we are gathered to return to God one of his soldiers…”

All during his talk, Daniel listened, and took what comfort he could from the well-worn words. Liberty’s gaze flickered back and forth between the chaplain and the open grave. Freedom stared only at the casket.

“God gives the strength of soldiers to few men,” said the chaplain. “They so love their home, that they travel far away to fight for her. They so love freedom, that they give up themselves to servitude so that others might be free. They so love self-sufficiency and self-worth, that they give up themselves to their nation. They so love life, that they ready themselves to die. God gives such strength to few men. Thomas Smith was one of those.”

At last Freedom’s eyes left the casket and looked around, as if she were awakening from a dream. Her younger sisters looked at her in surprise, but she didn’t notice them.

“Jesus holds soldiers dear to him. Did he not tell the Roman centurion, ‘I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel’?”

Meanwhile George’s son, Zeb, ran his finger around his collar. He was uncomfortable. He did not know Thomas particularly well, and could not imagine a military life for himself; and he knew that Thomas had died during the military’s removal of the Yakut Indians — one of the Civilized Tribes! It was an atrocity. Not that Thomas deserved to die, of course…

He shuffled his feet and looked at his wife Abigail, who appeared to be staring at her hands, listening intently. He knew she had been hesitant about coming to this funeral, since she had never even met Thomas, and while Thomas’s family had always been polite to her, she was unsure of their true feelings, since she was half-black. But Zeb had insisted — they lived so nearby, it would be rude not to come.

Zeb risked a glance at Abigail’s mother Placid. She was a tiny woman, dressed in black with white lace, buttoned up and taut, her black shiny skin gleaming in the gray light, her eyes laid piercingly on the chaplain. Technically Zeb owned Placid, but that was just until he could get the paperwork of her release finished. In reality no one had ever owned Placid, except possibly Jesus.

Zeb’s sister, Purity Dare, had her head on the shoulder of her husband John, her eyes closed, her hands folded. She was pregnant again, and far along this time; perhaps she would bring a baby to term at last. John Dare was staring out to sea.

“But this is not his true body. As Paul said, ye know that if our earthly housing, this tabernacle, were dissolved, we still have a building of God — a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Freedom now looked restless and excited, as if she’d had some tremendous idea that could barely be contained. For a moment she seemed as if she was ready to dash off at that moment, but then settled herself quietly again. She looked back at the casket, but she was smiling now.

“Lord,” said the chaplain, giving his closing prayer, “we seek Your strength in the coming days as we come to accept the loss of Thomas Smith. We know You will walk with us. We obey You though we do not understand Your timing or purpose. We thank you for the privilege of Thomas’s brief time on Earth, and we thank You for the promise of life eternal through Your Son, our Savior, the Lord Jesus, in Whose Name we pray, Amen.”

The chaplain stepped back. The honor guard fired its gun salute. Arms were presented, and the rifle volley given. The bugler played as the flag was removed from the casket, lovingly folded, and handed to the chaplain, who handed it out toward Liberty. Liberty released her death-grip on Daniel’s hand and took the flag with tremendous tenderness. Daniel cried silently, but Liberty did not.

Silently the family walked down the hill towards their waiting carriages, each with their own thoughts. As they reached them, the smell and sweat and sound of the horses, and the light talk between the carriage drivers, and the sun breaking through the fog, broke the spell of the funeral, and they began to speak of tea and family gatherings and what a good ceremony it was. Even Liberty smiled when John Dare offered to help her into the carriage, though she clasped the folded flag to her chest like a child. And Freedom turned to her sisters and said, “I have had a fantastic idea. Listen. We are going to have the most amazing adventures.”

>May 23, 1838
Nashville, Orange

Young Thomas Smith was 29 years old and was about to inspire three brilliant military careers, none of them his own.

Smith joined the army ten years back, because he was proud of his country and wanted to serve it in the best way he knew how. He wanted to be just like his grandfather, Arthur Pledger, who was a Revolutionary War hero, and his uncle, George Pledger, who served with Lewis and Clark, and was now a fine gentleman in Boston. His mother told him all about them and their adventures, their patriotism, and their courage. He actually got to meet Uncle George about twelve years ago, when he and his family traveled down from Boston through Washington, DC on their way to Virginia to visit some relatives there. He told some amazing stories of the lands far to the west.

But the real reason Smith wanted to join the army was something he would never have admitted to anyone, mostly because he barely knew it himself. Smith was just four years old when the British invaded Washington, and he and his father and mother, who was pregnant, and his little sisters, Freedom and Courage, escaped in boats in the darkness, paddling across Eel River, while the light of the burning city reflected in the black water. And he heard the pounding of the great guns, and smelled the powder floating out over the river, and heard the shouts of the English soldiers and the screams of the women and children. And he saw his father’s face, red and glistening and scared in the firelight. Thomas Smith, with half-formed four-year-old thoughts and full-formed four-year-old feelings, hated how those soldiers made his father scared.

Dear Mother and Father, and Courage and Freedom and Unity,

I hope you are well. It has been a busy week. We received orders to go down to Yakut lands and help move the Indians out of Orange and Boone and out into the Rio Grande territory. Some people are saying the Yakut agreed to go, and others say they didn’t, but I guess President Jackson signed the order, and that’s the important thing.

Now all those four-year-old things were buried deep down, jumbled up and compressed into the foundation rock of his character, making him proud to be the kind of man who could defend his father, and proud to be the kind of man who could scare his father. Proud to be a soldier.

But this wasn’t soldiering work.

I am not looking forward to it because I don’t like desert jobs because so many of my men die. I do not think the Yakut will do well in the desert either, I haven’t seen much of them but I think they mostly fish in the upper Savannah River, I do not know what they will live on in the desert.

On this day, which was bright with a hot dry wind blowing out of the west, he dismounted and said to Art and Jim, “You two stay here, I’ll holler if there’s any trouble,” just like he did at the last dozen homes. The Yakuts lived in thatch and wood houses down by the water, and usually didn’t have much but handmade clothes, handmade tools, and a few trinkets they got from trading fish.

And books. Most tribes didn’t have books, but the Yakut was one of the “civilized” tribes, and one of them copied the secret of writing from the white man, and lots of their homes had handmade books. Won’t help them much in the desert, Smith thought. This was nasty work.

Anyway it should be a pretty routine job. Some of them have weapons, but I figure they’ll mostly come along quietly.

There was a doorway, but no door, so Smith knocked on the door frame, holding his gun out so it’d be visible. “United States Army,” he called out. “Time to move, folks.” It really didn’t matter what he said; few of the Yakut spoke English.

A woman came to the doorway, blinking in the bright light. She chattered at him, surprised and angry, and disappeared inside again. He heard her talking more inside, children’s voices answering.

Who knows, maybe they’ll like it better out in the Rio Grande territory. They’ll be further from the whites, and closer to the indians of the Moon River Empire, so they’ll be better able to order their own affairs.

“Come on,” said Smith. “Time to go.” He tried to put a note of warning in his voice. He hoped they would come quietly — he really didn’t want to have to go in there. They didn’t usually resist, but sometimes…

“There’s one out on the water, Cap,” he heard Jim say from his horse. “Reckon he’s trying to row off. I can get him, though.”

There is a new man in my company, Jim Halfred — sort of a scrawny fellow but strong. He’s got a sort of twisted up withered arm, but he’s a good shot. Eager and sharp but not good at following orders.

“Jim, no shooting till I give the order. Jim! Jim, you hear me?”

“Don’t worry, I got him, Cap.”

The clap of the gunshot echoed over the water and came back a second later, bouncing off the mountains. The woman in the shack shrieked and the children started screaming.

Anyway, he just needs a little more discipline, and he’ll do fine. He’s just got to learn our ways. You know what they say — there’s a right way to do things, and a wrong way, and the Army way.

“Dammit, Jim, I told you not to shoot!”

“Cap, don’t worry,” said Jim, “I got him no problem!”

Smith turned away from the doorway. “Jim, how am I gonna get these people to come quiet if you just — “

And then Smith died, because the man out on the water had a son in the shack; and this young man, not yet thirteen, saw his father fall into the river, and grabbed his axe from its place by the door, and buried its blade in the back of Smith’s skull. As Smith fell forward, Art put a bullet in the young man’s face. The woman fell by the side of her son, sobbing, and the younger children screamed.

The Army is a funny place, but it’s honorable and gives a good pension, and you can be proud of what you do. Anyway, my love to all and I will write again soon.

Tommy