In times to come there would be other Negroes who made their reputations, men who contained warriors’ spirits. Who would marry Creek women who birthed strong children and some of those children would prove themselves, men like Ninnywageechee and Black Factor, men with dark-dark skin and bushy hair, who rode hard without fear and spilled much blood in honorable ways.
The eventual wife of Coromantee-Panther was a young woman of the highest rank, from the Wind clan. She had strong ankles, lean calves, and a beguiling space between her top front teeth. Perhaps she was beautiful, though all young women are beautiful in their ways, and this is not that kind of story. Like all offspring she had a name, given by her mother, but we shall call her “Woman-of-the-Wind.”
She caught the eye of Coromantee-Panther by indirection, because she did not place herself in front of him to win notice. Rather, her absence reckoned with his interest and he began to look for her. To watch her cutting meat into strips for drying. Other young women came to Woman-of-the-Wind to tell her that Coromantee-Panther had asked for her. She would look up from pounding dried corn to see him smiling at her. She was self-conscious about the space between her two front teeth; also, she considered too much humor to be a sign of foolishness, but she couldn’t help but smile back at him.
Though the young Negro wasn’t as high of status as Woman-of-the-Wind, she was taken aback by her feelings when he offered her the skin of the bear that he had killed.
“I have much affection for you,” Coromantee-Panther said. His Creek language skills were rudimentary, but he had practiced that phrase with his adopted uncle. When he touched his chest and gestured to Woman-of-the-Wind, she put aside the corn. She took his hand and walked with him deep into the woods to a spot where they lay on the bearskin. He was not an experienced lover, but his sincerity made up for what he did not know. He pleased her greatly that night and many nights to come.
Soon, Woman-of-the-Wind and Coromantee-Panther were married with the blessing of her clan, and he moved his belongings into her family’s hut, as a married Creek man did. At least, that is what happened during those times, before everything began to change.
The Daughter of a Powerful Union
The young woman’s devotion to Coromantee-Panther was strong, but she did not want to hinder him on his journey south. Thus, on the day that he finally left the village—twenty-three moons after he had arrived—when the elders gave him a horse and supplies, and had taught him to read the marks on the sides of the trees to find villages that would be friendly to him, Woman-of-the-Wind did not inform Coromantee-Panther that her womb was heavy with his seed. She only dearly loved the twin babies that she gave birth to, a boy and a girl. The girl’s name was Nila. The boy’s name was Bushy Hair. Both children would have their father’s courageous, red heart, though each would take their own path to claim that mettle.
In time, the twins grew, and Woman-of-the-Wind was courted by men of other clans in the village. Not only was she desired because of her high status, but also, she had been the only mate of Coromantee-Panther, who had loved her dearly. On the day that her husband left, he had clung to Woman-of-the-Wind and wept before she pushed him away, telling him go to the south. Go to his freedom, and she would remember him always, and Coromantee-Panther had slid onto the bare back of the horse the elders had given him for his journey. Woman-of-the-Wind would never marry or mate again.
Surely, such a woman was extraordinary, and when the daughter of Woman-of-the-Wind came of age, Nila had many suitors as well. She was a rarity in her village, beautiful in a very odd way. Nila had her father’s dark-brown skin, his kinky hair, and his warmth. She had her mother’s entrancing space between her top teeth and her high status. Frequently, young men from her village and other surrounding villages came to present Nila with meat and softened deer skins to win her favor, but Nila did not want an ordinary man for her husband. She was arrogant, and her weakness was her vanity. She had been told too frequently how wonderful she was, that, as the child of Coromantee-Panther and Woman-of-the-Wind, there was no one as special as she was. Thus, when a handsome, blond Scotsman named Dylan Cornell began to travel to the village for trade, Nila accepted his proposal of marriage.
Woman-of-the-Wind tried to intervene; she told her daughter that she’d had a bad dream about Dylan Cornell, but Nila would not listen. It was only after she married the white man that the wisdom of her mother’s dream rang. Dylan told her that he would not be moving to Nila’s village, as Creek men did, and that he would only visit every three moons. Also, he revealed that he had another wife, a white woman who lived far on the other side of the Oconee River, in a town where other white people lived. When Nila told Dylan that she would travel with him, that she did not mind sharing his dwelling with another wife so long as they could all live peacefully, he laughed at her. He told Nila she looked like a Negro. The only way he could carry her to the east of the Oconee was as his slave, for when Nila had been a very little girl, the law had changed in the territory where Oglethorpe had landed: Negro slavery was now legal.