NO WORD FOR GOODBYE
Author: Mignon F. Ballard
First Edition
Trade Paperback
Retail: $11.95US; 174pp
ISBN 978-1-62268-165-5 print
ISBN 978-1-62268-166-2 ebook

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no WORD for
GOODBYE

Author: Mignon F. Ballard

Chapter One

I didn't want to go there. And then, I didn't want to leave. Neither did any of the others.
     But they had no choice.
     Looking back on that time I remember the creaking and bumping of wagon wheels on the furrowed road to New Echota, the choking swarms of dust that invaded our hair, our clothing. Even the food tasted of grit. But most of all, I remember the great hurtful lump wedged just below my heart.
     My name is Nell Kiziah Webb, and this is how it began.

***

It was all the fault of the Willinghams' cat. If that cat hadn't teased our dog Gulliver, then Gulliver wouldn't have chased him, causing Papa's horse, Liberty, to rear. Papa wouldn't have ended up with a broken leg, and I wouldn't have ended up a million miles away—or at least that how it seemed.
     What if it was only a dream? Maybe if I thought long enough, hard enough I would be in my own yard, pebbles crunching under my feet as I ran the familiar path that circled the garden, Lucy calling to me in her warm apple pudding voice to hurry and wash my hands for dinner.
     Closing my eyes, I thought of the rose, the pink climbing rose that hugged the trellis over the back door. My mother had planted it before I was born and its velvety scent sweetened the air from May through autumn. Before I left, I had buried my face in its petals and breathed so deeply and so long it almost made me dizzy. The rose was a part of me, a part of home. I couldn't take it with me, but I could remember. I had to remember.
     The wagon rocked and jolted over a rut in the road and I covered my nose against the dust. Behind us Aunt Sadie's milk cow Mabel let out a bellow to let us know she was ready for her supper and a place to rest for the night. So was I.
     "I know, old girl, but it shouldn't be long now," Uncle Amos called back to her. "We should pick up the Hightower Trail at Etowah before dark." He pulled the two mules, Jenny and Old Sue, to the side of the road so I could climb down and untie the cow to let her graze. We had left home almost two weeks before but she still smelled of the warm stable and sweet-scented hay she left behind. I patted her ruffled brown neck while she foraged the dusty weeds beside the road. We had replenished our water supply along the way whenever we came to a stream or a spring. Miles back at Hickory Log we filled our barrel from the well and drank our fill of its icy sweetness, but I didn't know how much was left of that.
     Although I was in no hurry to get to our destination, I hoped we would soon reach the Etowah River where Mabel and the two mules could drink. If we were lucky, Uncle Amos might catch a few fish for Aunt Sadie to coat in corn meal and fry for our supper.
     Dusk came earlier now in late October and soon darkness would creep in from either side. I drew my cloak about me, dreading another night in this strange wooded place where frogs, owls and other forest creatures called to each other. At least I hoped they were forest creatures. We had left the protection of the Federal Government when we entered the Cherokee Nation at Vann's Ferry days before, and although the forest pressed around us for much of our journey, in daylight I could see my surroundings. In the dark each curious sound became a threat.
     Papa had said the Cherokees were a civilized tribe and I had no need to worry. The tiny village of New Echota was modeled like some of our own, he told me, where the people gardened, raised their own livestock, and lived in the type of home I might find familiar.
     But I had read Mr. Cooper's The Last of the Mohicans and knew the stories of settlers being scalped, kidnapped, and massacred. How could we be sure the Cherokees weren't like that too?
     And I was going to live among them.

***

Back in the wagon I watched red dust rise in clouds as we bounced over the furrowed road. In our wake, tall yellowing grass nodded and bowed, closing in the trail behind us, shutting me away from the village of Athens and the only home I've ever known. From my seat on Aunt Sadie's trunk, I tied my day cap under my chin in an attempt to shut out the dust. The trunk was filled with quilts tucked around Aunt Sadie's special dishes—the ones with the swirly blue roses that had belonged to her mother.
     Aunt Sadie and her husband Amos aren't really my aunt and uncle, but I've always addressed them that way. The Colliers have been our friends and neighbors for as long as I can remember and are as close as any relatives I know. Now, they were on their way to live near their daughter and her family in Tennessee, and I'm traveling with them until we reach New Echota in the northern end of our state.
     If only Miss Mary Rose hadn't married and gone to live in Augusta, or if Lucy hadn't gotten so old and "down in the back," as she calls it, I could still be back in Athens in our house on Hancock Street. Miss Mary Rose was my governess who had been with us since I was a small child, and I liked her just fine, even though she did take a notion to marry Mr. Everett and leave me to live in Augusta. She wore her shiny brown hair in two braided loops that sometimes came loose and curled in little twists around her ears, and she liked reading fairy stories—especially "Snow White"—almost as much as I did.
     "Just think," Miss Mary Rose reminded me, "not only do the Cherokees have their own alphabet, but their own newspaper as well, and you'll be attending school right there in the capital of the Cherokee Nation."
     But Miss Mary Rose wasn't the one who was going to live in Indian Territory where I was sure to be scalped and chopped into little pieces with a tomahawk. Well, it would serve them all right if I died.
     Although I'd rather not.
     After having me christened Nell Kizia, which is about the ugliest name I can think of, my mother up and died of pneumonia when I was only a few months old. Lucy was the one who rocked me and sang to me, holding me close on her soft lap, the one who taught me my prayers and stayed up nights nursing me when I was sick.
     Papa tried to explain that Lucy was getting up in years, and wasn't able to get around like she used to, but she would still be there in her little house behind ours when I came home again. But would she? Was I ever going to see her again?
     And my poor papa! It took two men to carry him inside after he was thrown from his horse. A neighbor happened to be passing by, and he and Lucy's son Andrew laid him on the big mahogany table in the dining room. Thank goodness Dr. Means lived just around the corner and I pulled up my skirts and ran for him as fast as my legs could carry me. Lucy made me go outside while the doctor set Papa's leg; she didn't say so, but I knew it was because she didn't want me to hear him holler. I went out and sat under the sweetshrub bush behind the barn and held Gulliver on my lap so he couldn't hear anything either.
     Later, after Dr. Means set Papa's leg and tied it to wooden splits with wide strips of cloth, the men moved the chaise lounge into his study from the parlor and made him a bed in there. The doctor said Papa was lucky as it was a clean break below the knee but it was going to take some time to heal.
     I wasn't aware of it at the time, but the thing that seemed to concern Papa most was what to do with me. I don't know why because I wasn't the one with the broken leg.
     A week or so after his fall, Papa called me into his study to tell me he had arranged with my mother's brother, John Wheeler, and his wife Nancy, to have me live with them and attend school until he could find another governess.
     Uncle John was a printer who had been brought to New Echota from Brainerd in Tennessee to assist with the printing of the Cherokee newspaper, The Phoenix. While there, he met and married a Cherokee, Nancy Watie, sister to the editor, Elias Boudinot. He and his wife and baby lived in a cottage not far from the print shop, Papa went on to say.
     Papa's study smelled of candle wax and old books and I had always liked the scent of it, but that day I clamped a hand over my nose and tried not to breathe. Well water ran through my bones and it seemed that somebody else stood there in my place.
     Papa was propped up on pillows with his injured leg elevated on a folded quilt. "Sit down, Bella Nella," he invited me, nodding to a chair beside his bed. And so I did. He hadn't called me by that silly name since I was five—unless I was really sick.
     I was sick now.
     I had never met my uncle John, but a portrait of him and my mother as children hung in an oval frame in our parlor. My uncle, who looked to be about four, had tousled blond curls and wore a blousy blue suit with a big white collar. Mother, three years older, stood beside him in a ruffled white dress with a wide pink sash. She had light brown hair like mine and held a kitten in her arms. I had always wondered what the kitten's name was. Maybe my uncle could tell me.
     But that wasn't what I wanted to hear just then. "Why?" I said. "Why do I have to leave? Why can't I stay here with you and Lucy and Thomas?"
     My brother Tom just turned sixteen and is studying arts and sciences at Franklin College a few blocks away. He could shinny up a tree as fast as a squirrel, mount a horse in midstride, and whittle a whistle out of a willow stick, but now that he's all grown-up he doesn't have time for those things. Or me.
     Papa frowned. "Lucy's not as young as she used to be, Nell. She's not able to do all the things she did in the past, and we shouldn't expect her to. And, as you know, your brother is busy with his studies at the college." He sighed and shifted his position a bit against the pillows. "You'll soon become a young lady, and you're going to need a woman's influence until I can make other arrangements."
     "But, Papa, I don't even know Uncle John. Why can't I stay with Aunt Ida?" Aunt Ida is Papa's aunt who lives just down the road from us and sleeps in her chair most of the time. She claims she's sewing, but I never understood how a person could sew with her eyes shut.
     Sighing, Papa shook his head. "I promised your dear mother I would see that you had a proper education, and I mean to do just that. It won't do for you to fall behind in your studies, and I understand from your uncle that a Miss Sawyer has come from Brainerd to teach in the school there."
     I gripped the arms of the chair until I could feel its imprint on my palms. "You want me to go to school with Indians?"
     Papa turned to face me, and reached out to enclose my hand in his. Although I could tell his leg was hurting him, he smiled and assured me I had nothing to worry about. "Your uncle seems to have high regard for this teacher, and you'll be living with him and your aunt Nancy within walking distance of the school."
     Choking back tears, I turned away. How could he do this to me? "She's not my aunt! She's—"
     Papa's voice was firm but gentle. "Your uncle's wife is from an honorable Cherokee family, Nell, and her brother, Elias, is married to a fine young woman he met while in school in Connecticut. I understand they live nearby."
     Papa looked at me with eyes so sad I thought he was going to cry. "I heard back from your uncle by messenger yesterday to let me know that he and your aunt are expecting you and will be looking forward to your arrival."
     I studied the design in the carpet at my feet where vine-like leaves twisted around some kind of flower. I had nothing to say.
     "It's only for a little while, and as soon as I can find someone to replace Miss Mary Rose, you'll be home before you know it. Please try to understand," he said. "It's not that I want you to leave."
     Then why?
     I turned and ran from the room, past Papa's mahogany writing desk, tall shelves filled with musty books, the plaster bust of Homer with a chip off his nose, and over the familiar carpet with swirly flowers the color of blackberry wine, through the hall, out the door, and across the lawn.
     Lucy sat in her bentwood rocking chair sewing squares of cloth into what would become a quilt, and I threw myself on her lap and cried. She didn't say a word. She didn't have to.

copyright © 2021 Mignon F. Ballard

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