mind son,” Mary interrupted. “Tell me what it is.”
“Mister McCorkle has asked me to go with him into the Creek land in west Georgia to help him survey the area for the government. It’s a long way from Savannah. They just moved the Indians out, and we have a big job ahead of us.”
“But Lott, what has this got to do with your brother?”
“Mother, Mister McCorkle wants me to find someone else to go with us, and that someone else can be Jeremiah.”
“But Lott, what if Jeremiah doesn’t want to go?”
“He’ll go. I’ll think of something. He’s got to leave. If he stays in Savannah, somebody is going to kill him.”
HOME IN THE WILDERNESS
The year was 1832 and the Wilson boys had now been surveying land for the state of Georgia for four years and recently had accompanied Mister McCorkle westward to Mississippi to survey the land acquired by the state of Mississippi from the Choctaw Indians.
While in Georgia, the group had surveyed land in the western part of the state that had once belonged to the Creek nation. After that McCorkle had been contacted by an associate in Mississippi and was employed to survey the large area of land ceded to the state by the Choctaw nation at the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. The surveying group sailed from Savannah around the tip of Florida by the way of the Gulf of Mexico, and finally reached Mobile, Alabama. Leaving Mobile, they took a flatboat up the Tombigbee River to a small settlement, and by traveling overland they soon reached the eastern section of the Choctaw lands located in east central Mississippi.
At this meeting place, several groups of surveyors gathered to design a plan in which the area could be charted thoroughly and quickly. The state wanted the Indian lands ready for settlement and sale as soon as possible.
Land speculators and traders had already begun to move into Choctaw lands to locate the choicest property and to trade with the Indians. In some cases, speculators were devising plans to cheat the Choctaws out of the more desirable sections. By the recent treaty, an individual Choctaw male could remain on the land but with restricted rights if he would give up his tribal allegiance and agree to become an American citizen. In return, he would be given 640 acres which was defined as one section. If he did not accept these terms, he and his family would be forced to move to the Oklahoma Territory, where most southeastern tribes were being relocated. The vast majority of the Choctaws chose to relocate in the Oklahoma Territory. Some decided to remain in the only homeland they had ever known, the hillcountry of east central Mississippi.
In addition to Lott and Jake, McCorkle was assigned an extra surveyor to assist with mapping a large area located to the northwest of their organizational point. The assistant, a young man named Franklin Olliver or Frank as he wished to be called, was the son of a Louisiana land speculator and a French Creole woman. He seemed to be likable enough, but acted strange at times. More was on this man’s mind than surveying.
The early March winds sent the leaves swirling softly around the campfire causing the horses to shuffle back and forth nervously. Every once in a while, the breezes would gust through the leafless treetops creating a ghostly whistling sound that caused goose bumps on those not accustomed to life in the wild.
The group traveled all day to finally arrive at the work site where they would lay out the land sections. Before reaching their campsite, they had ridden in the dark for over an hour, unaware of the landscape’s appearance. When Mister Mac finally decided to stop, it didn’t take the men long to set up camp and bed down. Later, Mister Mac was worried over the restlessness of the animals.
“Jake, get up and check the horses. Be sure they’s tied up well for the night. If we loose them, we walk, and I ain’t wantin’ to do no walkin’,” stated McCorkle, as he pulled the blanket closer around his head to keep his ears warm.
Jake slowly moved from his warm place near the fire and with his blanket wrapped around his massive shoulders walked toward the horses grumbling, “Why is it always Jake that has to do all the lousy jobs. Hell! I was better off in Savannah.”
Jake soon returned to the campfire complaining under his breath. He finally blurted out, “Mister Mac,” as he settled once more in his place by the fire, “I want to ask you sump’n, and you bein’ more intelligent than my brother Lott, I think you can give me a more sensible answer.”
“What is it now, Jake? I’m about ready to settle down for the night. I ain’t talkin’ long.”
“My brother, that smart ass over there rolled up like a cocoon, hoodwinked me out of Savannah by takin’ advantage of me when I got drunk one night. He said I got in a fight and killed a man,” explained Jake.
“Well, was it true?” Mister Mac asked, as he raised up on an elbow in order to hear Jake’s reply.
“Hell, no. You know it weren’t no truth to it. You knowed it was a joke. The worse thing about it was that officer Crandell was also in on the trick. He bein’ a friend of the fam’ly, made it more real by goin’ along with their scheme. They had me scairt to death that I was going to be arrested and sent off to jail or maybe even hanged. They had me scairt crazy.”
“Jake, the way I heard it was that yore mamma wanted you out of Savannah. She felt like you was going to get yoreself killed if you stayed there, and I agreed with her and so did Lott,” answered Mister Mac. “I knew about their plan.”
“Okay, you answer me this. I got hoodwinked out of Savannah to save my life, but here I am in this damned wilderness where I’m goin’ to either freeze to death, be eaten by one of them wild bears, or one of them Choctaws is going to stick me full of holes!” explained Jake, now moving closer to Lott to get his brother’s attention.
“Jake, just shut up yore complainin’. We’ve been over this time and time again. You ain’t going to freeze. We ain’t seen a bear in several days and them Choctaws ain’t warlike,” Lott said firmly, trying to ignore Jake’s agitation.
“We went through that village a couple of miles south of here this afternoon and there was hund’rds of Indians there. There was some mean-lookin’ ones too. I don’t think they liked us and they kept lookin’ at me, kind of strangely,” Jake exclaimed.
“They probably don’t like the idea of losin’ their land, Jake, and we ain’t helpin’ them too much either,” added Frank who had been wakened by the loud talking.
“Jake, settle down. Them Indians ain’t going to hurt us, and if they do, this is as good a place to die as any. And by the way, if they did stare at ya, they was probably thinkin’ this is the biggest and ugliest white man they’ve ever seen,” joked Lott, as Mister Mac and Frank broke out in laughter.
“See, Mister Mac, what did I tell ya? My brother is nothin’ but a smart ass and an educated fool,” resounded Jake.
“Jake, why do you resent my education? You had the same chance I did,” answered Lott. “You have as much sense as I do, when you want to use it,” continued Lott.
“I know that, but common sense is better’n book sense any day. Besides, I just couldn’t keep my mind on the subject. There was always more important things to think about, like what I wanted to do when school was out. Weren’t no way I could sit still and listen,” Jake said, pulling his blanket around his shoulders and settling himself next to a giant oak tree located twenty feet from the fire.
