14
Wreckers’ Cay
December 1839
During our morning lessons, Andrew had a new topic of fascination: Indians. “Why do people keep warning you about them?” he asked one day. He’d been aware of coalescent tribes in Georgia but knew little about their history. Of our unrest in Florida, he knew nothing.
“It’s because of the recent Seminole War.”
“What’re they ?ghting about?”
“Land. The government has been removing Indians east of the Mississippi to reservations in the West for some time. About ten years ago, the Indians in Florida were told to move out and go to western reservations.”
Naturally, Andrew related this to the movement of slaves over the seas. “Well, nobody can blame them for ?ghting to stay!” he said.
As usual, when our discussions turned di?cult in this way, I tried to maintain a neutral attitude. “I couldn’t say.” I shrugged. “I know very little about it.”
In truth, though, I’d been following stories of Indian raids in the issues of the Enquirer that Captain Lee and Al?e brought me. The early, native tribes, like the Calusas, were reported to have been savage, piratical salvagers, who often brutally killed off the crews of ships unfortunate enough to wander into their territory. When they died out, the coalescent tribes—mostly Creek Indians—had come together under the Seminole name, and these tribes were far less dangerous. But even so, just being Indian at that time inspired fear. Since the Indian Removal Act of 1830, some eastern tribes had grudgingly accepted their fate and left. But the ?erce, intransigent Florida Seminoles stood their ground. The result was a series of bloody encounters that became known as the Seminole Wars.
The incident that frightened everyone most was the massacre of the Cooley family in January 1836 at their New River plantation. The Indians had killed Mrs. Cooley, three of her children, and their tutor. Mr. Cooley had been absent at the time. Later that same year, in July, Indians attacked the lighthouse at Cape Florida—a remote place just like Wreckers’ Cay.
Though I abhorred these deeds—and here on the island, I was secretly terri?ed of being attacked, or, worse, abducted—after the way the government had removed my own family from our land, I could empathize with how the Indians must feel.
As I’d said to Dorothy, the Seminoles’ territory tended to be farther north and well east of Wreckers’ Cay. Our lighthouse was out of the way for them. But still, I worried.
“I’ve decided to teach you to shoot guns,” I told Andrew one day. “That is, if you’d like to learn.”
He seemed intrigued. “You think I need to?”
I related the story of the Cape Florida lighthouse, and his eyes widened in alarm. I worried he might lure me into another discussion about the government’s injustice toward the Indians—and by association, slaves—but he just looked intently at me; then a smile broke out on his face. “I reckon I just better learn to shoot!”
We began training twice weekly. Martin’s guns had been well cared for, but dust and salt air could affect their e?ciency. It was time to remove them again from their locked cabinet to clean them. Timothy, Andrew, and I carefully went over each weapon, taking them apart and cleaning them. Then we set up targets and practiced. Under Martin’s tutelage, Timothy had become quite pro?cient with ?rearms. Now he assisted me in teaching Andrew, who learned quickly, soon hitting all the targets with great accuracy. He loved shooting from the moment he picked up one of Martin’s Spring?eld ri?es, and watching Timothy and Andrew practice for hours, I thought how this skill—so distasteful to me—could be so largely appealing. Was it the noise? The smoke? Or was it that men instinctively enjoyed the power it gave them?
Around that time, I learned I had more to fear than Indians: I’d suddenly stopped feeling life in the baby I was carrying. The charging and kicking of an active child had quieted down to a weak ?utter, and one evening, while lying in bed, I prodded my stomach in a panic. I no longer felt anything. To make matters worse, I was experiencing blinding headaches and dizziness. My back was subjected to severe pain, and I heard a constant ringing in my ears. Nothing like this had ever happened to me during pregnancy before.
At dinner the next day, I began to bleed. I excused myself quickly and rushed upstairs, curling up in bed, trying not to scream, for my abdomen was cramped in knots, turning on itself, and I was shaking with chills. Soon I heard Martha knock softly at my door, calling my name, but I was too weak to reply. I could see lightning strikes behind my eyes, as if the lamps from our tower were blazing in my head. I felt I was on ?re, like I might perish from thirst. I saw creatures ?ying through my window, misshapen birds of prey that grew larger as they ?ew toward me, approaching so closely that I screamed, thinking they would engulf me. Indians crept through my mind in snatches, morphing into black slaves shooting at my grand-parents. My dreams brought up visions of Eurydice—once dressed like an Indian—and then Martin, Captain Lee, and Al?e Dillon, circling the island, and my husband calling out for me to get up and look after the children. “Emily, Emily,” he called. “They need you. You must get up!”
In this state, one day passed into the next. I do not remember lifting my head. I occasionally heard mu?ed voices around me, but they seemed far away. I felt ?rm hands pressing lightly on my abdomen, causing severe pain. I remember sips of water, warm tea, fruit compote, and soup, as well as cool compresses on my forehead. Nights melded into days; nightmares became strange daylight dreams. And through it all, the only constant memory was the light from the tower at night.
Suddenly, it was over. I awoke one morning in a clean, dry bed, wearing a freshly laundered nightgown. A hygienic cloth had been placed between my legs. I probed my quiet, ?at abdomen and knew that the baby was gone. Daylight slanted in gloriously through the windows. I thanked God that I was alive, though I lay in bed for a long time, feeling a deep sadness for the child that was gone.
When I sat up, I realized the bed had been turned around, which confused me. A little gris-gris bag pinned onto a cord encircled my neck. I tried to stand but felt so weak, I sank back down onto my bed. I heard Hannah outside, playing fetch with the dog; I could hear birds twittering, and Martha practicing a sad hymn on the piano. My family seemed to have carried on, despite my illness, and for this, too, I was grateful.
There was a timid knock on the door. “Come in,” I said. Andrew appeared with a tray of tea and a small bowl of mango preserves.
“You’re awake!” he exclaimed. He set the tray down on my blanket box and ran out, shouting the news to Martha and Timothy. They all scurried up to my room, with Hannah bringing up the rear.
“Mama!” called out Martha, and she threw her arms around me. I hugged her and fought back tears of gratitude. Timothy hesitated, but I could see the relief on his face; then he, too, came to my bedside and took my hand. I kissed his cheek and ran my hand through his hair. “We shall have to give you a haircut soon,” I said with a smile.
“How are you feeling, Mother?” he asked me anxiously.
“Better,” I said weakly. “Much better. But I seem to have trouble getting up and walking.”
“You shouldn’t be up walking around yet, especially without help,” Andrew said. “And you need to eat. Here, drink up this tea. Martha will give you the fruit. I’ll go down to the cookhouse and make you a proper breakfast.”
“I’m not very hungry,” I protested.
“You must eat! You haven’t had a proper meal in about ten days.”
I looked at him in astonishment. “Ten days?” Had it been that long? Ten days! My eyes fell upon my thin wrists and arms. Ten days of my life had just evaporated away?
“We thought you were going to die,” whispered Martha.
“Who has been looking after me?”
The children looked at Andrew.
“Well, we took turns,” he said. “We all looked after you.” He lowered his voice and added, “Miss Emily, I’m afraid the baby’s gone … a little girl.” I nodded. “She was born dead,” Andrew continued. “I pressed your belly to make sure the afterbirth was out after she came.”
Again, I was astonished; I blushed to think of Andrew acting as my midwife, seeing those parts of me that only Martin and Dorothy and their helpers had seen. I ?ngered the grisgris bag nervously. “How did you …”
“I helped with plenty of babies back in Georgia. And I saw one happen like yours did. It’d been dead awhile.”
“We buried the baby in the grave the captain and Mr. Dillon dug,” Timothy said.
“We wrapped her in a blanket,” added Martha, to assure me that all had been done correctly.
I nodded. “Thank you. All of you.” I smiled up at Andrew. “You moved my bed and placed this gris-gris bag around my neck?”
It was his turn to look embarrassed. “The bed has to be parallel to the edge of the ocean for the charm to work.”
I managed a weak laugh.
It was a few days before I was strong enough to handle stairs easily. I had shed a lot of weight, and my energy disappeared with it. I tried to eat as much as I could, and like a ghost returning from a phantom underworld, I wandered aimlessly from room to room, trying to focus on spaces and shapes.
My children appeared happy and well cared for after my illness. The house had clearly been well tended. Hannah, who had probably been the most upset by my absence, now demanded my full attention. She rushed often into my room, and I spent many hours nuzzling her in my bed as I napped, soothing and reassuring her. I took short walks around the island with her, breathing the fresh salty air in great gulps, luxuriating in the sun’s warmth on my skin. I marveled at the wind through my hair, the sand glittering around my feet, and the ospreys, gulls, and pelicans tracing circles above us. The lighthouse still stood guard, piercing the sky, and I could not help but recall its bewitching welcome when we ?rst arrived. I yearned for the strength to climb to the top of its glass enclosure once again. How grand it is just to be alive, I thought, to savor the day and the simple joys around me as I hold the eager hand of my sweet child.
We visited my baby’s grave and laid wild?owers over the earth that covered it. Hannah just vaguely understood these gestures, but she was eager to help, picking the ?owers and patting the dirt around the grave site. “I’m sorry,” I whispered sadly to the baby. “I never even got to see you …”
I’d risen from my bed just in time, for Captain Lee and Al?e arrived soon after. As Brandy’s bark announced them, Andrew hastened to the playhouse. Everything was back to normal. To make up for my strange behavior on their previous visits, I made the effort to appear at the dock as soon as they stepped off the tender and secured it. “You’re just in time,” I said. “I have some homemade biscuits fresh from the oven. Come to the veranda when you’re through.”
They beamed. “That sounds mighty ?ne,” replied the captain.
He handed me my mail and Al?e began to unload the containers of oil. While the men worked at stowing my supplies, I opened my letters to see if they required immediate attention. There was one from Dorothy, reporting all the latest news from Key West and saying how much she was looking forward to coming over again for the birth. I felt my sister should know of my loss, so she could cancel her plans. Tired as I was, I wrote her a note in French, telling her of my ordeal. Then I sealed the envelope securely and handed it to the captain to deliver.
“You’re looking a mite peaked,” remarked Lee. I knew I looked terrible: I had circles under my eyes, my hair was thin and limp, and I’d lost a great deal of weight. “I have been a little tired of late,” I admitted. “I’ve been down with some kind of grippe.”
He shook his head. “Miss Dorothy said you’re working very hard out here.”
I had to smile. “Yes, but as you can see, we are still managing.”
The captain was staring at my bosom in a peculiar way. “You practicin’ magic out here, Miss Emily?” he asked. He had spotted my little gris-gris bag.
I blushed. I’d planned to remove it while he was on the island, despite Andrew’s warnings that it had to stay on until the full moon.
“I heard tell you folks from New Orleans are into that … voodoo stuff,” he ventured cautiously.
Hannah chose that moment to run up to us, and he saw that she, too, was wearing her gris-gris pouch. I could just imagine the gossip he would take back to Key West this time. That mad woman out at the Wreckers’ Cay lighthouse, practicing black magic! What would Gran and her friends say?
With absolutely no reasonable explanation prepared to offer him, I simply laughed. “Hardly, Captain. It’s just a little project I have been doing with the children. Shall we have some tea and biscuits?”