Isabel III short story

Pumpkin Spice

Short story adapted from the screenplay Isabel III

By T. A. Terga

Isabel stepped away from the clay oven noticing it was a chilled November day. In the horizon, beyond the hammocks that dotted the range where the Seminole’s cattle grazed, the sunset had turned the sky pinkish red. “Que grandioso!” she thought aloud and returned to the oven.  Although cloaked from head to toe in her own patchwork creation to avoid the bugs and buffer the heat, Isabel’s Spanish eyes made her stand out with her arched dark brows and intense gaze.

The entire village was buzzing more than usual with the yearly meeting of the clans that was taking place over several days. Plus, there were always several passersby to add to the mix.  ‘This jolgorio, she thought in Spanglish, was the greatest yet’ and hurried on back to the baking.

With an agile hand Isabel inserted a long stick in the center of the loaf to test its readiness. She smiled excitedly. The loaf had risen considerably considering no wheat flour could be found and she was testing a new recipe variation with the coontie flour they had managed to make. Relieved, Isabel sighed and started to pull the long handle holding the loaf out of the oven.

Nearby under the chickee, Alawa, a young woman about 15 years her junior, observes Isabel’s cooking prowess. Baked bread from coontie flour usually doesn’t rise, but this one had, thanks to her new way of rolling the dough.  She reminisced, how long had it been since Leroy had showed up dragging her all the way from Fort Mosé along with 20 of the Freedmen? Maybe 6 or 7 years had gone by. Look at her now, who would have thought!

Isabel glances at Alawa and raises her brows admonishingly.  After setting the loaf on the counter she faces the young woman.

“Are you just going to stand there and watch me, or help? Don’t let the stew get too thick. Look how many more people here today,” she scolds.

“Just thinking,” replies Alawa not fazed by her bossy tone, “how long have you been with us?”

“Since the year Spain gave Florida up. Already 8 years and two months. You were just a child.” Isabel took a deep breath and reminisced. A memory flash of Alawa about 12 years old offering her sofkee, crossed her mind. It had been the first warm drink she’d had in the weeks it had taken them to cross Florida on foot from east to west.

A child about 7 came running from the bushes and straddling behind him, several more rushed to the chickee where Isabel and Alawa were. He wrapped his arms around Isabel.  “Stop, Jose Leonardo, go get your bowl. Kids!” But instead they surrounded the loaf stunned; their eyes and mouths wide open. “Ooooh!” “Oh! Wow!” They called out in awe.

Perched on a rack on the counter under the chickee, sat the most gigantic loaf of bread ever baked, done to a golden brown and perfectly risen, emanating a perfect blend of pumpkin and world spice aroma across the village. 

“You can each have a piece, now go get your bowls.” Isabel called out and rushed them along with a pat on the rear end.

 Alawa thought, ‘love must be the healing potion.’

“Check the stew, Alawa,” reminded Isabel.

On the other side of camp, huddled in a tight circle wearing grim faces, the clan leaders, chief MICANOPY, BILLY, WILDCAT, ABIAKA, ALLIGATOR, OSCEOLA, JUMPER, TIGERTAIL, OTTER, CYPRESS, PANTHER, and several elders, ABITHA, MORNING ROSE… and others, laid out their plan on the sandy soil. On one end of the line they drew a building and on the other end, a ship.

Every eye was fixed on two Black Indians, LEROY, and SAM, who sat in the center taking turns gesturing animatedly and pointing to a diagram. “That’s how we get the Miskito out of the Cabildo in New Orleans,” finalized Leroy.

“Yea, the masked intruder, the key, the escape, and back onboard the Pegasus,” Sam summarized the plot pointing to the ship.  Followed by Alawa and two other women carrying trays with bowls, Isabel passes the thinly sliced bread around the clan leaders.  

Meanwhile, the rest of the people, an assortment of ethnicities from Irish and French to Freedmen and mixed races, gladly took turns to fill their bowls with turtle stew and get a slice of the delicious pumpkin spice increasing their appetite.

While eating, the clan leaders and elders contemplated and discussed the plan forged by Leroy and Sam. However, they stopped to listen when Osceola spoke, his grave tone a foreboding, “General Hernadez summoned us to a cease fire to start a peace treaty meeting meanwhile his troops are moving in on our pastures making room for more and more white settlers on the way here.  He demands the removal of our people to the West territory and most of our cattle will thereafter surely be lost as well.”

           Cypress, a young two-spirit, who until then had listened quietly, cried out. “They promised us this land!”

The eldest woman, Abitha, turned her beautiful wrinkly face upwards and closes her eyes. “Our ancestors   watching,” she says, “some of us will go to Oklahoma.  Let the General think we all will follow.”

Leroy braced the situation. “Who’s going to allow that without fighting?”

Panther puts down a fist and blurts out. “We will NEVER SIGN that treaty!”

The moon reaches its zenith over cumulus clouds while the clan leaders finish their meal in silent brooding until they empty their bowls. The talks resumes.  Tigertail, full of impetus, among the youngest in the group of leaders, pleads, “Let me go with you, uncle.”

Osceola shakes his head. “No, you are not ready!”

Isabel returns with a tray and hands out sofkee bowls before sitting in the center next to Leroy. Morning Rose giggles. “Hey, Leroy, try not to dump all the silver in the ocean this time!”

Everyone chuckled except Leroy. “That’s why we’re getting the Miskito out of prison. To help us recover the before it hits the bottom.” 

“I’m not convinced that the Miskito can take over a Spanish frigate any better than our people can!” Otter challenged.

Young Cypress adds, “we’re all wreckers, so why take such a big risk on a mission to get the Miskito out of prison all the way in Louisiana?”

Leroy pointed out the payoff. “That frigate, Señora de Regla, might be their smallest going from Veracruz to Cuba, but it hauls enough silver to buy the entire state of Florida. We need the Miskito to fight and run them aground.”

“We may be the best wreckers,” replies Sam dissipating their fears further, “but the Miskito are better sailors, and they know those waters.”

Isabel clarifies. “Will we go directly from New Orleans to the cape of Florida?

Fondly, Leroy puts his arm around Isabel’s shoulder. “Yes, at Biscayne Bay a convoy will be waiting to take you to camp.”

“We’ll cover you.” points out Chief Micanopy.

“Yep, make sure to give them some entertainment,” promised Billy.

Otter has an idea. “Why not set fire to the Lighthouse? Won’t that keep ships away from the bay and divert the Navy schooner’s attention?

“That’s the only way we’re going to be able to deliver the Freedmen to Bahamas as promised.

On one side of the camp, the drumming and singing had given way to dancing around the small campfire where the musicians gave their best rendering of age-old drumbeats and chants.

Isabel and other mothers made sure the children had a drink before getting them under mosquito nets and in their sacks.

In the silent dawn, thin columns of smoke rose from the smoldering campfires around the chickees in the village.

Isabel and Leroy awake together in their sack.

“So, you called me the intruder?” Isabel brings up the meeting the night before.

“What else could we call you? You’re intruding in a masked gala, looking for the Black Knight and speaking French until you exchange the key for the bag of coins.”

Is that all I am to the clan, an intruder? She insisted.

The timer alarm on a modern-day kitchen oven rings loudly. In the living room, Isabel, a young Latin woman in her 30s, wakes with a start.  She springs from the couch and runs to the kitchen, opens the oven door, and greets the fragrant golden pumpkin spice loaf.

With mitted hands she sets the tray on the counter next to her flashing cell phone. She opens the notifications and reads a video message from Leroy. His image shows up on the phone’s screen.

“Sweetness, I can’t wait for my pumpkin spice. Hmm! Listen, don’t wait up for me, I’ll be there before noon. We’re working a club in Memphis, just a PR stunt. You know how it is! You didn’t announce yourself. I have to fulfill the contract.”

Isabel stares at her cell numbly, breathes deeply and exhales slowly before perking up and dialing a number. The call goes to voice mail. “Hi Stan, Isabel here, tomorrow afternoon will be fine. Can’t wait to play Elsa. I mean Ilse, as agreed. Send your driver, please. Thanks for being the man, Dan” she says in a zealous voice.

Dialing again. This time someone answers the call, “Hi, Robert.” Silence.

“Calm down. I’m in Nashville.”

“Following your Seminole flashbacks?” Says the voice on the other end of the receiver.

“Had to check someone out. It’s private.” Replies Isabel.

“I’m your agent, remember? We had an agreement, and you broke it. You stood him up again!” yells Robert.

“No, that’s not true, I just made an appointment with him. He’s going to mentor me.” She refutes.

“You sure?” Robert continues to sound belligerent.

“He’s giving me the Casablanca tour de force, as planned. I’ll be playing Ilse.” She tries to reaffirm.

“Remember, no…” She interrupts him.

“Shibboleths? I know, mijo.” Isabel laughs raucously and hangs up.

Isabel rolls her luggage to the door but before she gets across the living room she returns to the kitchen and pinches off a piece from the end.  She tastes the sweet aromatic fluffiness of the dough and rolls her eyes. “Divino!”  she exclaims.

 After wrapping the loaf in paper towel and tucking it under her arm, she rips off a piece of the paper and gets a pen from the kitchen drawer.

“I am not an intruder in your life,” she writes and signs, “Isabel.” She leaves the note over the pan and heads out.

THE END