Samuel parted ways with Aidan, and shortly he was knocking on the door of the cabin he discovered on the land that was now his in the eyes of the United States government. It was the cabin where Micco lived. Samuel was pleased to see this farm up and running, but when he knocked on the door of the cabin to evict the occupants, something about Micco gave him pause. Samuel knew nothing about Micco’s lineage—about the red hearts of his ancestors—but the younger man’s heart had no color. He had never used a weapon and he did not know how to kill. His only resources were his beauty, charm, and ability to manipulate. So he smiled and introduced himself and decided to wait to act.
That next morning, Aidan arrived at Micco’s cabin as well. He introduced himself and asked, could Micco help him to build a cabin? Samuel greeted Aidan as if they were just meeting for the first time, giving him a quick wink. There was a general air of friendliness, even when Aidan said he owned the parcel of land to the north of this cabin. Samuel corrected him, telling him no one owned anything, except this man Micco, right here.
Aidan tilted his head in confusion. “Well, now, that’s not right at all—”
At that, Samuel cut him short, and asked him if they could talk outside. When Samuel returned, he told Micco that the other white man had been confused, and he had set him straight. Micco had not smiled, but his face had softened at the loyalty of the strange-eyed newcomer who sat at his table, not knowing that when Samuel had walked Aidan outside, he’d told him, don’t talk about ownership. Not yet. Samuel needed to ease this Indian inside the cabin into the notion that the land wasn’t his anymore. They didn’t want any trouble and have to kill these savages in their sleep. It was fine to kill the man, but there was a woman and little girl in the cabin. That wouldn’t be Christian, now, would it?
When Aidan returned a couple of days later, he was still friendly, and labeled himself a squatter. Micco seemed completely at ease, and, as usual, Mahala brightened in the presence of a white man—until Aidan mentioned that he was planning to build his cabin with a view of territory, right on top of the flower-covered mound. Mahala gasped, and Micco reached behind himself, clutching for a chair. He took a breath and informed Aidan that he was so sorry; he could not spare his time. He offered Aidan tools, though. They were a gift, Micco said. Don’t bother bringing them back, and he smiled and nodded again, when Aidan said, that was right neighborly.
When Aidan left, Micco invited Samuel to sit longer and poured more coffee. He leaned into the ways of his people, carefully talking. He told Samuel that he learned the manners of white men and had adapted. In fact, Micco’s own father was a Scotsman. Instead of only hunting for his meat, he now kept cattle and pigs. He wore clothes of cotton and wool, instead of deerskin. And Creek towns had changed, too, for now there were many places that no longer contained women-lined clans, but rather, clans that traced lineage through the men. Yet Micco told Samuel that what Aidan was suggesting—building upon the mound—went beyond adaptation into a matter of the grotesque. The mound was sacred, Micco said. Long ago, high-status people had lived on the mound, but no one who was alive, nor their parents nor their grandparents, remembered that time. In the village, the mound was untouchable. One did not climb upon the mound or pick its flowers. One only revered it from afar. To break that taboo was to court death.
Throughout Micco’s quiet speech, Samuel was silent. He wanted to laugh at this savage’s superstition, but he couldn’t tip his hand.
As Aidan Franklin began to build his cabin on top of the mound, he was cheerful. This optimism would remain some months, as the finished cabin was a fine structure. Within two years, however, Aidan would set fire to the cabin, after his wife and eleven of his twelve children died of a contagion that did not touch anyone else in the territory. Along with his family, Aidan’s cheerfulness died. He became a bitter man, as he tried to eke out a living on the other acres in the shadow of the mound. The day that he set fire to his cabin, the red and blue flowers of the mound shriveled in the heat, as the wood of the cabin popped and sang. When recounting to Samuel, Aidan would say that, when he woke in his lean-to shelter with his remaining son, the flowers and grass on the mound had grown back overnight. This only living son was named Carson, and his father’s loss of optimism in the face of tragedy would transfer to his son, and his son’s offspring, along with a resentment of the mound.
Before Aidan died, he would not be able to make a living on the two hundred and two acres that he had won in the Georgia land lottery. Over the years, Aidan would sell acres to Samuel piecemeal, for half of the usual price per acre. It gave Samuel pleasure to dupe another white man, as if he had dug up his father’s bones, animated them, and spelled them back into dust. He bought twenty-five of Aidan’s acres, and then forty of Aidan’s acres, and so on, until Aidan did not own any more land. Then, with a smile, Samuel offered Aidan and his remaining son the use of their own cabin, the second one they had built, far away from the mound. Samuel told them they could live in this cabin gratis, if Aidan would serve as his overseer. He needed a white man to keep his slaves in line.