An Undisturbed Peace by Mary Glickman

required to keep up fine estates. He noted smaller homes too, new ones jutting out from the sides of hills cleared of pine. He checked and rechecked his maps, thinking he’d wandered from Indian territory into white. It seemed not, but he was confused. Where were the huts, the tents and longhouses? Where the naked children playing at barbarous games?
    When finally he entered the city of Echota, he nearly fell off his horse from twisting and turning about to take it all in. It was yet another bright sunny day. Glittering mountain light fell upon crisp manicured lawns, cultivated flower beds, clean streets, and immaculate two-story buildings painted in brilliant whites and yellows, arranged not in the haphazard assembly of the ragtag structures of Uncle Isadore’s camp town, but in the kind of precise and dignified order that bespoke thoughtful planning and execution. In the middle of the town was a large public square, landscaped, bordered by a white picket fence, sporting a round, covered platform for public meetings and concerts, also benches and tables for the enjoyment of residents. Riding by him in the streets were Cherokee men with clipped hair, wearing tailored clothes and fine leather boots. They rode mounts under English saddle. Women walking along the well-swept wooden sidewalks wore fashionable dresses, bonnets, and gloves. Were it not for their chiseled faces, the high cheekbones and black eyes, the copper tint to their skin, Abe would have been certain he’d landed in a white man’s town, and a wealthy one at that. Clive Burrows had not exaggerated. The European-styled men who had come to Marian’s cabin, surprising him while he plucked fowl, were not half so finely attired or mannered as the least of these geniuses of imitation. He felt the dirt of his trek to Echota on his skin, heavy as a weight. He decided the first thing he must do was find a bathhouse or a hotel to clean himself up before he approached men better dressed and groomed than he to inquire about a refugee slave.
    While Abe regarded with wonder the best hope of the Cherokee, more than a few Cherokee regarded him. Young boys jogged after him, racing to be the first to come alongside, and when two succeeded he queried them. “Boys,” he said, “is there a hotel in this town?” They shook their heads in the negative. He halted Hart and the boys halted also. “Then where can a man clean up before he conducts his business?” he asked. The boys shrugged. “In the river,” one said. Abe sighed, turned his horse, rode long enough to find a stretch of the river that was more or less private and washed himself in the cold waters of the Coosawattee while Hart grazed. He changed into the freshest of his shirts and brushed his britches with the same brush he used to groom his horse. All the while, he knew he was being watched and knew too it was the same racing boys, who perhaps intended to rob him. For all he knew, they had already.
    Once he was dressed and as polished as he could get on the road, he made a show of going to a line of bushes to pee. He loosed his britches, leaned right, then left as if undetermined of the direction of his stream. The leaves of the bushes swayed in tandem with his movements—or rather against them—despite the fact that there was no wind. Abe smiled, then in an abrupt movement, pushed his hand into the leaves and grabbed a young Cherokee by the collar, hoisting the child in the air. Though the boy’s face screwed up, his mouth twisting at its center, a vortex of discomfort, he uttered not a single sound. A brave one, Abe thought, just before the boy’s compatriots dashed from the bushes to rush at his calves, kicking and biting them until he howled and fell, dropping his captive in his descent. The boy scooted up before Abe hit the ground.
    There, from the dust, he stared up the noses of a ring of five panting, triumphant lads, none of whom were older than nine