It was a simple life for Micco’s family. Time passed without incident, with the wife cultivating vegetables and fruit, and the husband hunting in the woods with his sons. When they left the territory of what had once been the village—which Micco now called a “farm”—there would be rare occurrences in which they encountered white men, but these white men were never hostile. Perhaps they didn’t even know they were seeing Indians, for Micco and his family no longer dressed in the old ways, and when he and his sons gave greetings, the white men waved back. Then there was a sad time for Micco, when his sons came of age and decided to leave the farm and find their Creek relatives, but he understood. The three of them needed wives, and they wanted to find their mates among the women of their people.
Without his sons, Micco began to fish more. Gradually, the fish had come back to the creek now that the villagers had gone, and Micco liked to let his thoughts overtake him as he placed his hands into the water to grab the fishes’ mouths. Fishing was patient work, and he had memories of Bushy Hair, how his uncle had been so kind to him. There were moments when Micco shed tears of nostalgia over his uncle, but these were happy memories. Yet when his thoughts turned to Dylan Cornell, he pushed that ugliness aside. It was too painful: the moment when Micco had grabbed the chin of his father and pressed a knife against the throat until blood gurgled.
Whenever patricide particularly tormented him, a small man would appear to him at the creek. He said his name was Joe, and he was the height of a child. He had the dark-dark skin and the tightly kinked hair of a full-blood Negro, and he informed Micco that he had known his grandfather, Coromantee-Panther, many years before. That it had been Joe who had guided his grandfather past the mound into the village proper. Though the small man seemed young, Micco did not challenge his word, for Nila had told him the story of Coromantee-Panther’s appearance. Her own mother had told her the same and that “one of the little” was not to be challenged. Yet Joe was friendly and gave Micco ease. At the creek, he would settle upon the bank.
The Arrival of the White Man with Strange Eyes
Owning so much land made Micco largely content, and Mahala was happy, too, once he finally built her a cabin that looked like her father’s, instead of a Creek-style hut. Micco had been lonely. He was glad that Joe had decided to make his acquaintance. A few months later, Micco made another friend as well when a young white man appeared on the farm. He didn’t appear to be looking for any trouble. He only rode up to the cabin, got off his horse, and tied the reins to the post.
The stranger was young enough to be Micco’s son, and he looked somewhat like Micco’s father: he was blond, and his hair shone in the sun. His eyes were strange-colored, changing every moment. Now blue, now green, with hints of orange and gray, too. His sympathetic manner seemed a benediction to Micco.
In the times to come, some would say Lady answered the door, that this white stranger had a conversation with her and fell in love. And that he immediately asked Micco for her hand in marriage. This story about Lady is untrue, however, for she was a toddler when the white man arrived. Yet she’d answered the door, of a manner, since Mahala had been carrying her in her arms.
The Negro named Pop George would say that the moment he stopped praying for making do and started praying for mercy occurred not when the white man entered the cabin for the first time, but when the white man took his first bite of peach. It was summer and he was offered dinner, a savory stew of cured venison, garlic, onions, and turnip roots. For dessert, there were large peaches, grown on the farm. Despite its juiciness, the stone was firmly tucked inside, so the white man used his tongue to slowly coax it from the flesh. He made an injudicious sound.
These are the incongruities of memory. It is hard to hold on to the entirety of something, but pieces may be held up to light.
Micco’s young visitor was named Samuel Pinchard, and the two men became fast friends. Micco offered the old-style Creek hospitality to the young man and let him sleep inside the cabin on one of his sons’ vacant beds. In the dark early mornings, Mahala made corn porridge for both men and poured rich milk into Samuel’s coffee cup, adding spoonfuls of sugar. When Samuel complimented the sweetness of the milk, she was pleased. She was the only one of her family who drank milk from cows. Her husband and daughter—and her sons before they left—could not tolerate it. After breakfast, Micco and Samuel went to work, milking the cows and turning them out to feed. They slopped the pigs that Mahala had insisted Micco purchase. Then they turned to chopping at trees. Micco had told his friend he should stay awhile; he would help Samuel build his own cabin on the farm, along with the assistance of Pop George. The second cabin was built, and once Samuel moved in, he helped Micco and Pop George cultivate more acres. Micco was open to advice and agreed that it was a good idea to plant cotton. During this time, the terrible dreams that he had been having about the murder of his father ended: he took that as a good sign.