Chapter 5
Mingo stood stiffly in his new restrictive clothing. His Cherokee vest, leggings, and soft leather boots were gone, destroyed. The tight cotton shirt inhibited the free movement of his arms, fabric shackles around his slim wrists. The trousers buttoned at his waist and knees made it impossible to leap and run comfortably.
The boy sighed as he realized that leaping and running were joys of the past, his Cherokee past. Most uncomfortable were the stiff, heavy brogans that encased his feet. They symbolized everything about his captivity. Painful, heavy, unwelcome. The trip overland had been miserable, the breach between father and son widening with each traveled mile.
Though humiliated by the loss of his hair the boy reached out to his father as the one familiar person remaining in his life. Thinking to please the man, Mingo sought the responsibility for the raw-boned red mule. He appreciated the animal's living presence.
In the moments when his father ranged far ahead Mingo talked to the mule, all his anguish pouring from his throat in the words of his mother's people. The mule would swivel his long ears as he listened to the soft syllables drifting through the hot summer air.
Every evening as his father hunted for game Mingo cared for the weary mule, the animal the boy's only connection to affection. John stayed away as long as possible, seeking escape from the admonishment he could see residing deeply in his son's large dark eyes.
The meals were eaten in complete silence as both the man and boy remembered other meals together in the company of Talota, long years ago. Neither could reconcile the person across the fire with the image in his mind. So as the season neared its end the gulf between the two was too wide to ever overcome.
The arrival in Philadelphia was uneventful. The day before they entered the bustling city John slipped into town and bought clothes for his son. He also bought a pair of shears to complete the barbering of his son's hair. Mingo made no effort to run, having accepted his father coming for him as inevitable. The deep vein of fatalism that had hidden in his boy's heart was forced to the surface by his father's presence. Mingo sat watching the flocking birds, their free flight a mockery of his shackled existence.
Now he stood before the large glass window in the well-appointed inn. He appeared no different from any other boy of his father's class, except for his large dark eyes, black hair and brown skin. Before him passed the life of the colony in all its variety. Travelers, teamsters, cotton merchants, English officers. In all those hundreds of people there was no one in whom the boy could confide. So he carefully bottled all the rage, all the hurt, all the puzzlement inside his aching heart.
He looked down at the speckled rock clutched in his hand. Within its dark core the rock carried all the boy's memories of his mother. It was living in a way his father could never understand. Mingo ran his fingers over the smooth surface and prayed to the Creator that he would one day take the rock home to its people. The fervent prayer left his eyes moist with tears which he could not blink away in time. His father came through the outer door and saw them.
"Mingo! There is nothing to be gained by tears. Stop it and come here. I want to talk to you."
The boy slowly advanced across the room to his father's rigid side, slipping the stone unnoticed into his pocket. The tall man did not bend to his son but rather placed his hands behind his back and began to pace. Mingo watched fascinated as the handsome white hands lovingly caressed each other.
"I have booked passage for us. We will leave tomorrow. The voyage will not be an easy one as the season is late, but we should arrive in Bristol before the winter. I have entered your name as Edmund Murray. That is how you shall be addressed from this moment on. You are Edmund Kerr Murray, the son of Lord Dunsmore. You will conduct yourself accordingly. If at any time your comportment is less than I desire, you will be punished until you decide to behave. Do you understand?"
Mingo's dark eyes bored into the blue eyes before him. His lips were tightly compressed in anger. John saw the anger and thought he understood the reason. He stepped toward his son and gripped the boy's shoulder painfully.
"You are my son, and you will do as you are told. You have a duty to the family and you will perform that duty. I will spend the entire time on the voyage teaching you what you need to know. Your days of useless indolence are over."
"Am I permitted a question?" The boy's voice dripped with disdain. His father colored brightly but nodded. "When I wear this new name will it blind others to the color of my skin and hair? Will the name of Murray suddenly erase my mother's blood?"
John Murray's blush deepened as rage flooded his face. The boy's question gave voice to all his own doubts and fears. He knew what the reaction of his peers would be to this child he'd fathered. Shame welled inside his heart.
All his family's careful positioning over the generations was threatened by the duty he felt to a dead Cherokee woman. The years of promiscuous romping, his selfish disregard for the family was bundled into this one arrogant boy. John raised his hand and slapped Mingo across the face, hard.
The dark eyes never left his face. A thin trickle of blood escaped the corner of the boy's mouth. He raised a slender hand and touched the red stream. Then he reached out his hand and smeared the blood onto his father's cheek. Involuntarily the tall man recoiled.
"I give you back your blood. This is all of you that is in me, this thin stream of blood. I am your prisoner now. But I will not always be. I will one day again be free." Mingo turned his back on his father as the rapid breathing of the tall man echoed in the silent room. The boy walked slowly to the window and looked out on the street scene before him.
"Talota, this is not how I dreamed for it to be. How have I managed to muddle it all up so badly?" In his mind John Murray talked to his silent Cherokee wife. But though he waited in the slowly darkening room, her voice gave no answer. The English father closed his eyes as the doubt and sorrow pulled at his heart. He suddenly spun and slammed the door behind him, leaving the boy alone before the window.
It was fully mid-day before he returned, the night of careless debauchery plain on his whiskered face, the odor of stale liquor surrounding him like a mist. The boy's nose wrinkled in disgust. His empty stomach growled in hunger as his father grabbed his arm and pulled.
John shoved the boy out the door, paid a laborer to load the trunks, and pulled Mingo behind him into the carriage. They arrived at the departure wharf in only minutes and disembarked. Their trunks were loaded into their small stateroom as the boy stood on the dock, trembling. He realized his time on the American continent was near its end.
Grabbing the boy's arm again, John pulled his son up the gangplank and into the small stateroom. He shoved the boy onto one of the narrow beds, then turned and left the room. Mingo heard the sound of the key in the lock. Hungry, frightened and alone he sat huddled on the bunk. Misery beamed from his large brown eyes. There was no one to see, no one to hear the gasping sobs that tore from his throat.
"E-du-tsi……E-du-tsi." The Cherokee word for uncle escaped his heart and floated softly past his lips into the small stateroom. But Menewa was far away over the mountains and could not hear. Alone and abandoned, Mingo curled into a tight ball and rocked himself to sleep.
Awakening from a light doze he realized the room was bucking. His empty stomach lurched with the ship's motion. Nausea gripped his body and he held his arms tightly across his middle to help the pain. The slow minutes passed and the rocking became more intense. Swallowing rapidly the boy fought a losing fight with his stomach.
Suddenly he could contain the bile no longer and he vomited a thin stream of bitter liquid onto the floor. Then, moaning softly, he lay back on the heaving bunk, bracing his slender body with his strong legs. But the nausea only worsened and he spent the next hour heaving dryly.
John found him leaning over the bunk, gagging. The mess on the floor oozed back and forth with the ship's motion. The stink was overpowering. Bellowing in rage, the English lord called for a crewman to clean up the vomit. Soon the cabin was clean but the sour odor remained.
"I will not stay in a cabin that stinks this badly. You will remain alone until you stop this vomiting. The faster you stop, the quicker you will have company. It is your choice." Slamming the door behind him John Murray climbed onto the deck and spent the next hour in the fresh, cold sea air. The choppy seas caused his own stomach to roil, but he gave no thought to his wretched son below decks as he himself leaned over the railing to empty his dinner into the sea.
It was three days before Mingo could lift his head to take any nourishment. When he did, his rebellious stomach refused the warm soup and threw it back up. Another day passed before a strong hand pulled the thin boy upright. He opened his eyes to look into the bearded face of the captain.
"Get up, boy. I'll help you. You get out into the air and I think you'll be alright. Steady now, one step at a time." Mingo was puzzled at the look in the older man's eyes. Blue as the sea, stormy with anger, the eyes beckoned him. Instinctively the boy knew that the strong man was not angry with him. He sighed deeply and leaned against the warm, strong body of the ship's captain. His trembling legs would not support his thin frame and the captain nearly dragged him up the ladder and onto the deck.
The sea had calmed and the bright sun sparkled on the gentle waves. A steady breeze billowed the sails and Mingo blinked in the bright sunlight. The clean sea wind cleansed his nose of the foul odor of vomit. The captain continued to support his halting footsteps up the short ladder to the wheel. There the strong man sat the quivering boy in his own sea chair and draped a heavy blanket around his thin shoulders. He spoke a few words to the sailor at the wheel, then stepped quickly down the ladder. The sailor turned and smiled at the forlorn boy huddled turtle-like in the brown blanket.
The captain returned in only a few moments with a small mug of thick warm potato soup. "Eat this slowly, son. Take one small bite at a time, let it settle, then take another. Eat only as much as you want, one bite or twenty, it's no matter." The captain squeezed Mingo's thin shoulder and left him alone with the young sailor at the wheel. The sea breeze was cool but very welcome after the stale and stifling air in his closed cabin.
After he'd eaten a few bites Mingo looked around the deck for his father. The tall red-haired Englishman was nowhere to be found. A few other passengers walked slowly around the deck, one or two glancing at him still huddled in the blanket. One young man leaned over and whispered to the young woman at his side, then pointed at Mingo. The young woman giggled and stared. Mingo colored in embarrassment though he wasn't sure why.
An hour later the captain came for him and helped him back to his bunk. The small porthole had been opened and the cabin cleaned. The man closed the porthole and pulled the blanket tightly around the thin boy's shoulders. Though heavy with sleep, the boy's eyes held an expression of intense gratitude. The captain smiled and patted the thin shoulder.
"Any time you want to come on deck you let me know. I'll see to it you get time topside. Hear me? Any time, son."
Mingo nodded and closed his heavy eyes. The gentle rocking of the ship awoke memories long hidden and he fell asleep being rocked in his mother's warm and loving arms. The boy known as Mingo would waken into the world of Edmund Murray.