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memory ain't good. Well, if you'll listen I'll tell ya again. Margaret Little would say to me, ‘Ya gots to know your enemies, C.C. To figure out how yer enemy thinks, ya gots to crawl inside his blood, inside his veins. Now ya look into that fire and ya picture yer enemy and ya feel his breath in yer lungs. Now ya walk 'round like this and shur 'nuff, perddy soon ya'll be thinkin’ like your enemy, and then ya know what's gonna happen? You, C.C., will know exactly the next move yer enemy's gonna make.’ ”
    Poppa about now would inhale from his pipe, and I would crane my neck to try to get a whiff of the apple-sweetness. “Shug, have ya ever defiled a Christian grave?” “What are you talking about, Poppa?” “I said, defiled a Christian grave, Shug … I can see by the look on yer face, I need to explain. Ya see, Margaret Little knew how the Bluecoat thought. Sheknew that nothin’ was sacred to the Bluecoat down South. But, ya see, the Bluecoat's God was not Southern, but he definitely was Christian. So Bluecoats, as well as any other God-fearin’ Christian, all got buried in white Christian graves. Yep, even the Bluecoats as well. So, turns out, Margaret Little pinpointed the only piece of land that wouldn't get burned. That wouldn't be drenched in blood. And ya know where that was? Yep, them white Christian graves. Margaret Little knew that she was never gonna be allowed to be buried in a white cemetery. Ya see, Shug, there was white churches and black churches back then. And ya wasn't allowed to mingle socially. While Granddaddy Rice was alive, which wasn't for much longer, the church wasn't gonna say no to Granddaddy Rice and his money. So Margaret Little accompanied him to church sometimes, but mostly she had her church in the woods surrounded by the kingdom of the Great Mother.
    “She'd say to me, ‘I saw me some fresh dirt, and the word was, Bluecoats was tryin’ to bury their friends if they died. So I went into this Christian cemetery and dug me some graves m'self. I'd taken all our seed, put 'em in as many bundles as I could, and dug fresh graves for my seed all 'round these fresh Bluecoats. And I even thought to m'self, bein’ since they'd slaughtered all our livestock, I was sure I could come up with a recipe for Bluecoat stew. But ya see, my seed wouldn't be harvested till after the Bluecoat turned into a No-coat. I also had me some dried beef and enough eatin’ for me, Granddaddy Rice, and the youngins for at least a couple moons. I had it wrapped in such a way that would discourage any vermin from gettin’ to it.’ ” Poppa's eyes would shine when he said, “And the Bluecoats came and, likes I said before, left nothin’, just a wasteland, but shur 'nuff Margaret Little was able to feed her family with the dried food she had hidden in the fresh white Christian graves. I asked her how in the world she planted the seed. And she turned and looked at me andgave me a look that could freeze the sun. ‘C.C., I'll tell you what I did— since they butchered our oxen to eat for themselves and took our horses, there was only one thing left to do—I got me a young lad from the village and had him steer me as I became the oxen m'self. I strapped that harness on and plowed the fields with my body. When harvest time came, it wasn't a lot, but it was more than enough for Granddaddy Rice and the youngins and the young lad and his family.’ ”
    I looked over at Nanny and realized her people were on the Eastern Cherokee tribal rolls also. That's one reason Nanny and Poppa joined forces. They were both called half-breeds.
CONVERSATION BETWEEN TORI AND ANN:
     
    On Nanny's side, her grandfather, who had also tried to escape the Trail of Tears in 1838–39, had been murdered. Many of her family's stories were lost. Her grandfather was known as John Akins. John had married a white woman who remarried a white man soon after John's murder. The white woman's new white husband didn't want anything to do with her