Onlooker
Fiction: A mysterious stranger approaches the Creek town of Pakanahuil
1838
Hasse Ola Oak-fus-ka-Har-jo can see through the trees. Surrounded by a man-sized fort, he is perched atop a massive black oak that stretches well above other types of trees that should be taller than the oak tree acting as their sentinel.
Its mightiest branch extends from a sprawling network of lesser branches upwards, almost inappropriately, as if it is cheating, above all its neighbors.
Every day, Hasse climbs to the top with the help of a rudimentary set of iron steps decorating the most vertical lengths of the branch that soars into the sky.
The tree line he oversees is an outpost to the first barrier surrounding Pakanahuili, a mostly Creek town in the Province of Georgia.
Hasse can identify the smallest change in the canopy. If a bird flies off, he knows why. If several fly off, he knows there are probably people approaching.
After a few moments, he can sense there are at least three horses nearing his station. If they stay on the trail, and they must, they will probably fall to camouflaged ingot spears embedded within the foliage surrounding the trail.
Hasse will signal to the great grey owl of Halona to give weight to the branches that will launch the weapons, then he will put his oliphant to his lips and wait.
He won’t blow his oliphant until he knows a horse has fallen, but not even then, not yet. The oliphant’s bellow can be heard for miles, even over the din of Pakanahuil’s busy streets, so he only blows it when he is certain of trouble. Three bandits, if that is what they are, do not qualify as trouble to a man like Hasse.
Once he does blow his horn, the massive wooden gate of the city will fall shut, armored horsemen will charge from massive redoubts, guards within the city will scramble to quarters with or without their uniforms, constables will pull their rifles from their wall mounts, citizens will prepare water wagons to fight fires, doctors will ready their medicines, and children will be called indoors.
Homes will become small fortresses. The red citadel will fill with prayer. Cooking fires will be extinguished. The clothing stretched across kenaf ropes to dry will be quickly gathered.
The merchants will close their doors and fold up their tents. The town will mobilize.
Pakanahuil considers itself a Creek town, but it is full of people from across North America seeking a combination of its backcountry forest life and rich merchant lifestyle, most of which is driven by the Pakanahuil Creek Methodist Congregation. The congregation has built a powerful business empire that began with the export of corn, squash, and kenaf products to other parts of the continent, but now includes the industry needed to support the first railway from Pakanahuil to Point DuSable.
There are other congregations in the Pakanahuil region, but most of them are farming communities with little interest in industry.
There are Hitchiti people in Pakanahuil, plus Yuchi, and Natchez, and Shawnee, and even some Seminole. There are Afrikers and even a few Europeans. Traders from Comancheria are known to linger along the outdoor stalls to barter with merchants. Singers from the Bight of Benin entertain in the large square in the center of town.
They are all drawn to the Pakanahuil Creek Methodist Congregation because of its money, which enables everyone to live luxurious lifestyles because, unlike among Europeans, money is not concentrated in the hands of a few powerful business titans.
Instead, it is all managed by the congregation and distributed, minus tithes for investments and administration, to the people working the land and the factories that use kenaf to produce oil, paper, fabrics, packaging materials for food distribution, and, more recently, building materials for Pakanahuil homes. Other factories and smelters administered by the congregation build parts for locomotives that pull the train cars across the small but growing network of rail lines within the Carolina Union.
But it isn’t just money the people of Pakanahuil are drawn to. The Pakanahuil Creek Methodist Congregation has adopted a form of Christianity that pays great service to Creek tradition.
The midsummer Busk Festival celebrating the corn harvest attracts First Settlers from as far away as Quebec. The congregation’s two citadels are painted white and red in the old Creek tradition, one to symbolize peace, the other to celebrate victory in war. The priests’ bodies are covered in traditional tattoos.
Given the town’s sophisticated nature, it’s fair to say that Hasse Ola’s role these days is mostly ceremonial. The few rebels who remain, who locals call kolowa, haven't been foolish enough to attempt an incursion across the Chattahoochee since Andrew Jackson’s Free State of Franklin was turned into a tomb in Nashville.
Hasse’s tree sits on the east side of the Chattahoochee River, which was once a border between Creek lands and the Tsărăgĭ of the west. The powerful Tsărăgĭ that now live mostly north and east are friendly. The common enemies of the Muskogee and Tsărăgĭ peoples are the kolowa, who scour First Settler lands looking for opportunities for settlement.
Sixty years have passed since the kolowa lost the cause of their rebellion, but the children and grandchildren of that lost cause still refuse to put down their weapons as they roam the forests in hopes of somehow catching the remains of a dream that died long ago.
But they’re little more than bandits these days. Sore losers with a grudge and a love for a kind of drink that is poison to the Creek and other First Settlers; the kind of drink to be avoided as if demons from below the roots of the great forests were trying to sprinkle it down from the trees.
But the past few weeks have been different. Bands of kolowa have been raiding small settlements along Pakanahuil’s exterior rims as if probing for weakness.
So Hasse is alert as the horses approach.
The midday sun has broken through, shining rays of light along the trail. Hasse unloads an arrow from the black cowhide quiver he wears on his back as he peers ahead. He can’t know his next move without knowing who it is. Three horses is a small number for an enemy who might be on foot this close to Pakanahuil’s outer perimeter. He realizes that perhaps he is too worried for this moment.
Then, as if night has fallen in an instant, everything turns black. He hears a great commotion from the sky as an ebony blanket replaces the afternoon sunlight. Ravens. So many that no human could count them all even if they had a thousand days. Hasse can see nothing ahead. The trail and the trees are hidden by utter darkness.
The ravens squawk and holler in a multitude of voices and tones, each sound adorned with its own unique texture as the blanket seems to descend vertically upon him because it wants to swallow him up.
He worries about sorcerers. Who could conjure such a thing? He returns his arrow to its quiver. It is useless now. The ravens continue to descend with a flightless path, simply falling, impossibly, without apparent movement forward.
Frightened, he begins to disembark from his perch. As he makes his way down the tree’s many ladders, the ravens seem to be reacting, as if arguing amongst themselves about what to do, screaming orders and suggestions like a crowd of angry children. Still, he descends, not caring about their arguments.
He wonders where the horses are. Will their riders be waiting for him when his feet touch the ground? Is he being foolish and falling into a perfect trap? Have the ravens reached the city, turning it into night?
He finally reaches the ground. He looks at the trail to see a lone woman holding three horses by their reins. He closes his eyes hard, then opens them again, to be sure his eyes are not tricking him.
She is an elder of some kind. He can feel it in his bones. An Afriker, perhaps a priestess, which would explain the ravens. Her tightly braided black hair rises from the top of her head like billows and bands of dark smoke. A rope of small shells surrounds her forehead. The ends of each braid are dyed in a variety of hues.
She looks weary but not broken. Her stature speaks to pride and strength. She is no enemy.
Hasse approaches her and offers her a chunk of smoked, dried elk from his pocket. “You look hungry,” he says, peering up at the clouds of ravens.
She nods appreciatively and accepts his gift. “I cannot eat my own birds,” she says through a thin, crooked smile. He notices a network of tattoos across her face and a large, looping ring attached to her lower lip.
“I am Hasse Ola Oak-fus-ka-Har-jo, and I welcome you to the realm of Pakanahuili and the Creek warrior lands.” He bows.
“I am Shyllandrus Zulu,” she replies. “And I’m afraid I have lost my way in your lands, and I can’t say that I recall how I arrived.”
This is a Restive Souls short story. Shyllandrus Zulu is one of the major characters in the novel. You’ll read much more about her in the first installment of Restive Souls, but I’m afraid you won’t know what she is doing in Pakanahuili until another tale is told.
Restive Souls is a novel about a great African nation that arises on the East Coast of North America after the British win the Revolutionary War. Coming soon.