The King`s Commission

'Just as long as we get safely out,' Alan replied, looking at all the Indians who had congregated to watch their arrival. 'Goddamn, Kit, do you see 'em? Look at all those bouncers, will you! Not one stitch on above the waist! Oh, Jesus, I'm in love with that'n there!'

'Never let it be said you let a solemn moment cramp your style,' Cashman drawled.

'You conquer what you want, and I'll conquer what I want.'

'I doubt the Royal Academy would hang that sort of heroic portrait of you in Ranelagh Gardens. Besides, if you keep ogling all the girls, your men will get out of hand. Set an example,' Cashman ordered. 'For now, at least.'

'Eyes to your front!' Alan barked over his shoulder.

The street they paraded was wide as any in London, wider than some in Paris, lined with what seemed to be a definite pattern of buildings. There was a fence of sorts surrounding each plot, an insubstantial thing of dried vines and cane. Behind each fence was a two-story wood house much like a chickee, with plaited mats hung from under the eaves, some open and some closed. A more substantial house of thickly woven cane walls daubed with mud sat in each plot, along with one, two or three smaller out-buildings, and each plot featured a home garden of some kind.

But, grand as it looked, the place was rough on the nose. They might bathe every morning, Alan thought, but something stinks to high heaven. It smells worse than London, that's for sure.

The plots were laid out in a rectangular pattern, so many of the plots to each… he was forced to call them town blocks, with narrower lanes leading off at right angles from the main thoroughfare. Up ahead was an open area, and what looked like a gigantic plaza raised several feet above the town's mean elevation, upon which sat a large wattle and daub structure, and beyond it a collection of open-sided sheds. Beyond that, there seemed to be a war going on.

Several hundred Creek warriors were whooping and storming from one end of the plaza to the other, all waving some kind of war club, and flowing like waves on a beach, swirling left and right in pursuit of something. It had to be some ritual war, Alan decided, by the way the clubs were raised on high and brought down on the odd head. Now and then, the shrieks and cries surged to a positive tumult as the mob congregated around a tall central pole. The mayhem was so fierce he expected to see bodies flying in the air.

One thing that amazed their party were the many people who looked almost white compared to the run-of- the-mill savage. Not just white men and women who might have gone native while on a trading venture, but a great many scarified tribespeople who sported blue or green eyes, blonde hair, or other signs of European origin. There were also lots of people much darker than average who appeared to have been sired by Blacks, or a few men and women who could be nothing but Black.

Once they stacked their goods by the winter town house and had a chance to look around, Cowell asked McGilliveray about this phenomenon.

'Runaway slaves, sir,' McGilliveray said with a smile. 'And men from the Colonies who found our way of life more agreeable than slaving for a harsh master. Or the Army.'

'Or deserters run from a King's ship?' Alan asked.

'Possibly, Mr. Lewrie.' McGilliveray laughed, at ease among his favorite kind. 'Captives taken by war parties, too. Our life is hard, make no mistake of that, but it is much less hard than white man's ways. There are many captives who eventually prefer to stay when given the chance to escape. Talk to them, find out for yourself. Every child wants to play Indian, but no Indian child wants to play white man, or go willingly to live among your people. The ball game will go on for hours yet. I shall go find my mother's people, and tell her we are here. You rest here in the shade. Do not raise your hand to any man, or give any offense, I warn you now. Keep your goods safe in the center of your group, and don't wander too far. You are safe, so there is no call to brandish weapons, I swear it. One thing, though,' he warned as he left, 'don't show any liquor until you are safely housed.'

There was nothing for it but to gather their boxes and chests together and use them for furniture. They sat in the welcome shade and fanned flies. Some of the men might have been tired enough from their marches to sleep, but the swarming activity of a whole town full of savages kept them awake and near their weapons.

The Creeks walked by without a care in the world, laughing and pointing to the white party now and then, calling out what seemed to be friendly greetings. Some scowled at them and made threatening gestures from a distance, but the White Town was supposedly, according to McGilliveray, a place of sanctuary and peace, where grudges could not be acted out.

'We should have waited outside the town walls until tomorrow,' Cashman finally mumbled, almost asleep.

'Why is that, sir?' Cowell asked.

'We're bein' made to wait, sir,' Cashman said. 'Coolin' our heels in the ante-room. Best they got their damned game over and been ready to receive us at once, with no excuses. We lose authority by being kept waitin' like this. Devilish shabby way to treat an embassy.'

'Desmond knows best, surely,' Cowell complained.

'Oh, perhaps he does, sir,' Cashman grunted, too sleepy to argue about it. He pulled a pipe out of his pack and started cramming tobacco into it.

'Hullo,' an Indian boy said, coming up close to them while Cashman got out his flint, steel and tinder for a light. The child was only about five or so, as English in appearance as any urchin on a London street.

'Hello, yourself.' Cashman grinned. 'And where'd you spring from?'

'Here.'

'Before,' Alan prompted, not too terribly fond of children, but willing to be friendly, as long as he had to be.

'Before when?'

'Before you came here?'

'Tallipoosa town,' the boy said, pointing north.

'Before you were a Creek,' Alan asked.

'In belly.' The child grinned widely. 'What is Creek?'

'Muskogee,' Cashman said.

'Me Muskogee!' the boy crowed proudly.

A youngish white man in breech-clout and head band came over to them, and spoke to the boy in Muskogean. 'He botherin' you, sirs?'

'Not at all, sir.' Cashman smiled, now puffing on his pipe. 'I was askin' him what he was before he was Muskogee.'

'He's always been,' the man replied, squatting down in their circle cross-legged, fetching out a pipe of his own, this one part of a tomahawk he had in his waist thong. Cashman shared his pouch of tobacco with him. 'Ah, 'tis grand, this is, sir, the genuine Virginia article. Beats kinnick-kinnick, it does, thankee kindly. Now what would be bringin' a English officer into these parts?'

'An embassy to your mikkos,' Cashman allowed grudgingly, and Cowell woke up enough to huff a warning to keep their business close to their chests.

'Not seen English about since Fort St. George went under down to Pensacola in '81,' the man said, having trouble with his English from long dis-use.

'And how did you know he's an officer, fellow?' Alan asked.

'Same way I knows you are, sir.' The man beamed with good humor. 'I was a soldier meself, back five-six year ago, at Mobile. I run off. Not much you gonna do about that, is there, sir?'

'Enjoy your honorable retirement, sir,' Cashman said laughing lazily. 'Good life among the Muskogee, is it?'

'Better'n fair, sir. I was once called Tom. Now I'm part of the Muskrat Clan, me name's Red Coat. Got me a Muskogee wife, and the boy, o'course.'

'So what's the life like, Red Coat?' Cashman drawled.

'Oh, Injun men work, sir, don't let nobody tell ya differn't,' Tom/Red Coat allowed with a shrug. 'Got to hunt, fish, build things now an' agin. Keep a roof over yer heads, food in yer belly. Help with the harvests, though the wimmen tends the fields. Fight when t'other tribes stirs up a fuss. Say, you wouldn't be havin' no rum ner whiskey, would ya, sir?'

'Clean out of it, I'm afraid, Tom.' Cashman frowned.