Tallapoosa Read online

  Tallapoosa

  A novel

  Larry Williamson

  NewSouth Books

  Montgomery

  NewSouth Books

  105 S. Court Street

  Montgomery, AL 36104

  Copyright 2013 by Larry Williamson. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by NewSouth Books, a division of NewSouth, Inc., Montgomery, Alabama.

  ISBN: 978-1-60306-029-5

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-60306-317-3

  Library of Congress Control Number: 201047240

  Visit www.newsouthbooks.com

  For my mother

  Lena Willis Williamson

  (1904-1997)

  A marvelous, humble lady of the Tallapoosa

  Acknowledgments

  I must thank my legion of readers/critics. I was too stubborn to accept all their advice, but the corrections and suggestions I did use made the work much better. Thanks and hooray to Helen Blackshear, W.C. Bryant, Dell Catherall, Joyce Franz, Dianne Greene, Kurt Maurer, Catherine McLain, Pat Moran, Barb and B.J. Taylor, Francis and Mary Alice Tucker, Gina Vaughn, Murry Williamson, and Mrs. Wilton and her fifth graders at Wrights Mill Road Elementary School. A special cheer for Carolyn Buchanan, Norman Davis, Ora Maurer, Bill Robinson, Dennis Hale, John Frandsen, Charlotte Miller, and all the other creative talents from Mary Carol Moran’s Novel Writers Workshop at Auburn University, and for Mary herself, the world’s greatest writing teacher. — L.W.

  Contents

  Character Index

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Character Index

  Listed in order of first appearance.

  indicates historical characters.

  * indicates characters who are mentioned in the story and are important to the historical events but don’t actually appear in the book.

  Chapter - Character

  1 - Saul Murph, settler

  1 - Soosquana Murph, Saul’s Muskogi wife

  1 - +*Benjamin Hawkins, Indian agent

  1 - +*Tecumseh, Shawnee chief

  2 - Cal Murph, settler

  2 - Adelin Holman Murph, Cal’s wife

  2 - Bess Marie Holman, Adelin’s sister

  2 - Daniel Holman, Adelin’s father

  2 - Zack Holman, Adelin’s brother

  2 - Mrs. Holman, Adelin’s mother

  3 - + President James Madison

  3 - + Secretary of War John Armstrong

  3 - +*Tennessee Governor Willie Blount

  3 - + Secretary of State James Monroe

  3 - +*General Ferdinand Claiborne, Mississippi, militia commander

  4 - Pokkataw, Muskogi warrior

  4 - Naupti, Soosquana’s father

  4 - + Seekabo, Shawnee prophet

  6 - + Hopoithle Miko, Muskogi chief

  6 - Suanji, Muskogi Warrior

  7 - +*John Hunt, settler

  7 - +*Leroy Pope, land speculator

  8 - Henry Murph, Saul’s and Cal’s father

  8 - Mary Murph, mother

  8 - Pauline Murph, sister

  8 - Nathan Murph, brother

  8 - Mary Murph, sister

  8 - Ev Stang, Knoxville citizen

  10 - Thad, militia recruit

  10 - Oscar, militia recruit

  10 - + General John Coffee, cavalry officer

  10 - + General Andrew Jackson, militia commander

  10 - +*Jesse Benton, Nashville citizen

  10 - +*Thomas Hart Benton, Nashville citizen

  11 - Sergeant Mordecai Barnes, militia soldier

  11 - +*General James White, militia general

  11 - +*General John Cocke, militia general

  12 - + Congressman John Sevier, Tennessee

  12 - Ora, White House maid

  12 - Carrie, White House maid

  14 - Lieutenant Titus Alderman, militia officer

  14 - + General John Floyd, Georgia militia commander

  14 - +*Red Eagle (William Weatherford), Red Stick war chief

  15 - Tolokika, Soosquana’s brother

  15 - Ettepti-lopa, Soosquana’s brother

  15 - Hakkali, Soosquana’s brother

  16 - Jeb Worthington, militia soldier

  16 - Lester Kevenhall, militia soldier

  16 - Silas Monck, militia soldier

  16 - + Colonel Billy Carroll, General Jackson’s adjutant

  18 - Anna Murph, Saul’s and Soosquana’s baby daughter

  19 - Colonel Patrick Highsmith, militia officer

  21 - + David Crockett, military scout

  21 - + Lieutenant Armstrong, artillery officer

  21 - + Private Constantine Perkins, cannoneer

  21 - + Private Craven Jackson, cannoneer

  23 - + Chief Justice Hugh Lawson White, Tennessee

  23 - + Colonel John Williams, Regular Army commander

  23 - +*Melinda White Williams, Colonel Williams’s wife

  25 - + Major Lemuel P. Montgomery, Regular Army officer

  26 - + Tustunnuggee Thlucco (Big Warrior), Muskogi chief

  28 - + General Thomas Johnson, militia general

  28 - + General George Doherty, militia general

  28 - Virgil Tom Ottis, militia soldier

  28 - *Elsa Ottis, Virgil Tom’s wife

  28 - Ethan, militia soldier

  30 - + Menawa, Red Stick war chief

  31 - + Monahi, Red Stick prophet

  33 - Meeskapa, Muskogi warrior

  35 - + Ensign Samuel Houston, Regular Army officer

  35 - + Lieutenant Jesse Bean, militia officer

  35 - + Captain Eli Hammond, militia officer

  35 - + Colonel Gideon Morgan, Cherokee soldier

  36 - Corporal Poole, militia soldier

  37 - Hromarii, Muskogi warrior

  Epilogue - + Tsunulahunski (Junaluska), Cherokee warrior

  1

  The Tallapoosa River, early October, 1813

  The clap of a musket shot split the soft rumble of the river shoals.

  In the cabin atop the bluff, Saul Murph splashed the dregs of his coffee into the banked hearth fire. “Damn! What’s that?” He grabbed a musket, checked its charge, and handed it to his wife, Soosquana. “Stay here, Soos. Get over in the corner.” He motioned to the cranny beside the fireplace and against the back wall.


  Saul slung his pouch of powder and shot across his shoulder and reached for a second musket. At the door he listened, then peeked out. Hearing and seeing nothing, he slid from the cabin, crossed the porch, and sprinted to the giant oak at the edge of the bluff thirty yards away.

  Another musket shot. Seconds later, another. Saul peered over the bluff in time to see lingering smoke from the last shot. It wafted above and behind five young Indians running from upriver along the opposite bank, at places splashing through the water’s edge. Red Sticks.

  Saul searched downriver to his right. A hundred yards ahead of the pack ran their prey, another young Creek, but not a Red Stick. The pursued man darted in and out of the forest, keeping a shield of trees at his back while he searched for the safest escape route. As he approached the bend of the river, he darted sharply left and raced up a steep ridge. A final shot missed as he disappeared over the top through a thicket of pines and hickories.

  Saul knew the Red Sticks could not catch the man now. He probably had come from a downriver village, perhaps Ipisoga or Saugahatchi, and had wandered too far upriver while hunting. Or maybe he came up purposefully to create mischief.

  The warriors, decorated with red body paint, had stopped directly below Saul, giving up the chase. They waved their prized muskets and bright red war clubs and screamed curses after the evader. As they wheeled to return upriver, one man glanced toward Saul and the wisp of smoke rising from the cabin’s chimney. He scowled, then followed his companions.

  A moment later, Saul tensed anew as the man screamed and ran back along the river bank and leaped onto the first boulder at the head of the shoals. He shook his club wildly above his head and skipped across several other rocks. His friends had taken his cue and followed him onto the slippery surfaces, stepping as agilely as he and echoing his curses and threats. They all stopped in the middle of the river, balanced precariously on crags inches above torrents rushing to a raging froth, and taunted the bluff above them. They cursed, screamed, waggled clubs and muskets. One aimed his piece, flintlock at full cock, at a point above the bluff and pulled the trigger. The flint smashed against the strike and pan with a loud clatter, clearly heard even above the roiling water, but no explosion followed. The warrior had not reloaded since firing at the fleeing man. He roared at his joke.

  After several minutes the youths tired of the exercise and hopped back across the boulders and lightly jumped to the bank. Again they started upriver, laughing and celebrating an imagined victory.

  Saul relaxed his grip on the musket, fell back to rest on one hip, and allowed himself to breathe again. He suspected that the warriors had not seen him, but their interest frightened him. They knew he was there, he and his Indian wife and his brother Cal. They had been good neighbors atop their bluff for more than three years, since the spring of 1810. But now it was early October, 1813, and the Red Sticks were angry — angry at their more tolerant Upper Creek brothers from down the river, angry at the American agent Benjamin Hawkins and the Lower Creek villages on the Chattahoochee River he had won over, and certainly angry at the push of settlers from the north and east. Each new incident heightened tensions. Raids and counter-raids by both factions of the Creeks, some reliably reported and others rumored, had become more frequent. Once welcomed by their native neighbors as the only whites within days of travel, Saul and younger brother Cal had grown more vigilant and worried. They were now perceived by militants as precursors of a massive wave of hated invaders onto sacred tribal lands.

  Americans called these Indians Creeks for their tendency to live on the banks of creeks and rivers. The natives rejected the name and instead proudly referred to themselves as Muskogis, the identity inherited from untold generations of ancestors. The spoken language was, therefore, Muskogean. English-speaking settlers and travelers found the language exceedingly difficult, perhaps because no tradition of writing existed.

  All violence to date had been Indian against Indian, the Red Sticks who opposed white encroachment onto ancestral lands versus those Muskogis, especially of the Lower tribes, that seemed to condone it. The Red Sticks — so called for the red war clubs carried by the dissident warriors — resented the Indian agent Hawkins, who seemed to have most villages on the lower Tallapoosa under reasonable control. The more excitable of the militants followed the counsel of the great Shawnee leader Tecumseh, who prodded southern tribes to banish Americans from all Indian lands. The memory of Tecumseh’s rage during his visit two autumns ago still drove them into frenzies. The threatened Creek civil war that had simmered since July could blow up any day and it could jeopardize white settlers. The Murphs felt the danger. They just wished to be allowed to remain at peace.

  “Be glad when Cal gets back,” Saul muttered. He chastised himself for being slow to start work this morning. At an hour past dawn, he should have been at the new cabin construction long ago. He spat forcefully and turned to cross the yard back to the cabin. He froze, startled. Across the way, at the edge of the clearing, stood a fully armed Red Stick.

  2

  Somewhere in the Alabama wilderness, Mississippi Territory, early October, 1813

  Callister Murph cursed again, first to himself and then aloud. The wheel had gone wobbly right after he left Turkeytown yesterday at dawn.

  “I’m sorry, George,” he said to the mule pulling the two-wheel cart loaded with provisions, new tools, powder and shot, and miscellaneous goods to keep the little Murph compound going for the next year. “It ain’t your fault. Hang on. We’ll get the damned thing fixed at the Holman place.”

  Cal and George and Cal’s horse, Tom, lagged a good half day behind schedule. Tom, tethered to the backboard, followed the cart while his master kicked at the cursed wheel. The condition of the faint, seldom-traveled road didn’t help. The track beyond the Holman farm into the wilderness was even rougher and at places nonexistent, so the wheel had to be fixed or replaced. The farm lay nearly halfway to the Tallapoosa from Turkeytown, a Cherokee village on the upper Coosa River with a scattering of white settlers and a trading post. The Holmans had settled at the edge of the white man’s reach into Indian lands. Only the Murphs had dared to venture farther and succeeded.

  Getting the wheel repaired wasn’t the only reason Cal wanted to reach the Holmans. Adelin awaited. He had admired her since he and big brother Saul met the Holman family when they first immigrated to the Tallapoosa three years ago. Adelin, at twenty-four, was three years older than Cal. Saul couldn’t understand why younger sister Bess Marie, Cal’s age and prettier than Adelin, had not caught Cal’s eye. No, it had to be Adelin. Perhaps her rugged nature, her independence, her intelligence set her off. Cal didn’t know why he preferred Adelin, but on his way to Turkeytown last week he had somehow summoned the fortitude to ask Daniel Holman for his daughter.

  Holman had seemed stunned. “Son, you want to marry my daughter? Adelin?” He looked as if he should have added, “ . . . and not Bess Marie?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what does she say?”

  “I don’t know, sir. I ain’t asked her; I wanted to talk to you first. I hope she will have me. We talked a bit about it last year, that’s all.”

  “Then let’s call her and her mother in and see what they think.”

  Mr. Holman left to gather his family while his guest fidgeted. He found the girls and younger son Zack in the barn caring for Tom and George. His wife came in from the back-porch kitchen.

  “Adelin,” announced her father, “I believe young Mr. Murph has something he would like to ask you.” He looked from his daughter to Cal, now frozen and ashen. “Cal?” Cal didn’t move. “Cal?”

  Cal shook loose great courage. “Uh, uh, Adelin,” he stammered. He cleared his throat. “I was wondering if, I mean, I was asking your father, uh, . . . . Uh, aw hell, if you would like to go back to the Tallapoosa with me? I mean, as my, as my, uh, wife. Uh, would you? What, what do you think?” Cal exhaled.

/>   Mrs. Holman and Bess Marie stared open-mouthed. Adelin stood expressionless. “Mr. Murph,” she began, “I’m flattered. And honored.” A long, excruciating pause. She finally smiled. “I will travel to the Tallapoosa with you.” Bess Marie squealed. “As your wife.”

  So it was settled. The wedding would be ready for Cal on his return. Daniel would send with his daughter her good saddle horse, a dozen chickens, and anything else of use they could take. Cal had told the Holmans about Soosquana’s coming baby and the new cabin they had built for her and Saul. Cal would get the old cabin. It would be Adelin’s new home.

  Mrs. Holman had insisted they take with them her best nanny goat as a gift to Soosquana. “That little mother-to-be needs lots of good goat’s milk,” she asserted. “And when the little one is born, there is nothing better. My three grew up strong on goat’s milk.”

  Cal didn’t know how Adelin really felt about him. He supposed she liked him well enough, though he was sure she didn’t share his deep feelings. But he knew he had the advantage. The Holmans were stuck on the frontier and the girls’ chances to find husbands were not great. They almost had to take the first offer. Also, Adelin’s parents had to have been concerned that Adelin was twenty-four years old! She was almost beyond marrying age. Since Mr. and Mrs. Holman seemed to regard Cal with fondness, he congratulated himself that he was doing them a great favor.

  That was the good part of Cal’s journey. The bad part was that he would now have to tell the Holmans the wedding was off, or at least would have to be postponed. The news at Turkeytown had been gruesome, much worse than anything that had happened yet in the entire Mississippi Territory. In the south, whites had ambushed and killed a party of Creeks in late July. A month later, Indians attacked a white settlement called Fort Mims just north of the Mobile seaport and massacred more than two hundred fifty — possibly five hundred! — and kidnapped many women and children. Americans in the State of Tennessee were shocked and frightened. There was talk of the government sending regulars and volunteers down from Nashville through Big Spring, and from Knoxville, to fight the Indians. Settlers around Turkeytown referred to the Creeks as savages, usually with a sneer or a forceful splatter of tobacco juice.