He was majestic and solid, dressed in a long blue calico ruffled shirt with a broad finger-woven sash around his middle, breech-clout, leggings, and moccasins. Joseph guessed the man must weigh at the least three hundred pounds. His face, though broad, russet, and jowly, gave no impression of fat-man softness. His eyes were big, dark, intense, and canny.
“Chief Godfroy,” said Miller, who seemed a mere slip beside him, “here are Mr. Joseph Slocum of Pennsylvania, Mr. Isaac Slocum of Sandusky, and Mrs. Mary Towne of Centerville in Ohio. They believe that Maconakwa, Deaf Man’s widow, is their sister, as Colonel Ewing has told you, I believe, and they have come a long way to meet her.”
“E heh,” he replied in a resonant bass voice, appraising them so penetratingly that his gaze was almost palpable, then extending a huge brown hand and a half smile—not one of those mocking half smiles that men in Quaker garb were accustomed to receive from ungentle men, merely a reserved half smile, as if the rest of it would be forthcoming when it was earned. “I expected you. Come back to the quieter room, where we may sit and have a few words of understanding, and a refreshment if you like.” He turned to lead them back and up toward a sort of office room with hewn puncheon floors and a huge stand-up merchant desk. The room was clean and pleasantly lit by a northern window overlooking not the little Mississinewa, but the broader Wabash. As he led them in, Joseph found himself admiring the sheer presence of this man—not because he admired physical power, except in terms of the work a strong man could do, but because here was a combination of might, elegance, and self-containment such as he had seldom seen in anyone. Godfroy, he knew, was war chief of the Miami Nation, but in the absence of war he was making himself a great merchant and, Miller had declared, was one of the richest men in the state. Godfrey’s cupped hands seemed to row his bulk through the air as he crossed the room. He offered chairs. His thick ebony hair, glossy and full of silver strands, was combed smoothly back around his huge, shapely skull and braided into a thick, neat queue that hung nearly to his waist, and he seemed very clean. His posture was erect and his step light and silent despite his bulk. Joseph Slocum, himself a judge at law, felt as he entered Godfroy’s chamber as if he were a humble cipher presenting himself to be appraised for worthiness.
It was apparent that Chief Godfroy already was aware of their mission and some of its particulars, and was prepared to speak as well as listen. He greeted them warmly, lit and offered a pipe all around, which they obligingly put to their lips. Then he congratulated them upon what apparently was the joyous conclusion to a sadness that had lasted for generations. He explained his deep personal interest in and affection for Maconakwa: that she was the widow of a good chief and fine man who had approved him as his successor as war chief, but more important, that she was a woman of courage and honesty, high principles, vast generosity, and devotion to the Creator. All this was heartwarming, but when Joseph glanced at his brother and sister, he saw that little edginess in their eyes that made him sure they were wondering, as he was, what was her concept of the Creator by now? It did not seem a proper question to ask Godfroy; better to hear it from her, if their visit with her should permit the discussion of such things. So many Indians had become Christianized in the peace since the last war with England; perhaps she had. It was something Colonel Ewing had not stated in his letters, though they hinted that she was totally an Indian by habit. Now Godfroy had begun talking in earnest, leaning forward in his groaning chair:
“Brothers, if it proves that my old friend is your relative, it will not be easy for her. She has held this in her lone heart so long that it will frighten her to have it known. She will be afraid of anything it might bring. I ask this, as her friend:
“Approach her as if you were going to look at a little four-legged. Go quiet. Do not startle her. Do not get all around her to make her feel trapped. I mean with your bodies or your words. Keep minking this: whenever whites have come to this valley where she lives, they have burned down her house or taken more land. She is like an animal that has learned that two-leggeds are predators with guns. When it sees a two-legged, it runs.
“You appear to be gentle. I trust that you will not corner her or rush upon her. Do not be surprised if she is timid like a rabbit, or cold and coiled like a snake. Much has happened to her. Her younger daughter is three times married because of whiskey troubles, and Maconakwa is suspicious of your race. Give her ease until she grows used to you.”
“Don’t thee be cast down or surprised,” Isaac said as the wagon swayed and bumped along the riverside path toward Deaf Man’s village, “if she doesn’t so much as break a smile. She didn’t for me, and if thee asked me whether she has so much as a tooth in her head, I couldn’t answer because her lips were set tight the whole time I was there.”
“Mr. Slocum,” Miller called back, “yonder comes her sober son-in-law!” Miller was pointing across the fields toward a slender figure coming at an easy canter on a fine-looking bay saddle horse.
“This is, ah, Brouillette?” Joseph called.
“Yes, Brouillette, sir. T’kwakeaw. Means ‘Autumn.’ ”
“Ah, this is good!” Isaac exclaimed. “I was given to understand she wanted to have Brouillette and her daughters at hand when we came. She might not be so timid with them at hand.”
“Grand fellow,” Miller said loudly over his shoulder. “Couldn’t ask for a better Indian.”
The man was perhaps in his early forties in age, graceful in the saddle, wearing leggings, a sashed frock coat, and a turban of red cloth whose long tied ends billowed and fluttered like banners over his shoulders as he rode. Joseph thought he had never seen so beautifully wild-looking a horseman ever, and his admiration grew as the man drew closer.
And, best of all, he was smiling. That was a good sign; after Isaac’s description of Frances’ dour demeanor, Joseph had been worried that their whole reunion might be considered an invasion of her world. This man’s dazzling smile at least indicated welcome, though how sincere remained to be seen.
The rider gave the Slocums a hand salute and then wheeled his mount to fall in beside Miller and Fulwiler, and as his horse pranced along the path, he talked cheerfully with them in the Indian tongue. When the wagon forded the Mississinewa again, Brouillette rode behind, keeping an eye on the stability of the buggy, ready to help if anything happened. Then they moved on southeastward on that bank for a short while, until Isaac said, “There it is, our sister’s farm.”
Joseph loved the look of the place at once. It sat in a bend of the green river, overarched with gigantic cottonwoods and spectacular sycamores whose white limbs spread upward and outward through their yellowing foliage. On the bottomland close to the river stood a few log cabins and sheds and cribs, and on the second level of the bottomland was the main house, two log rooms connected by a breezeway under the same roof, the whole village pleasant and free of undergrowth and dappled with sunlight and shade. Beyond, he saw the open, bright yellow-brown and green of pastures and cornfields, through which snaked picturesque zigzag fences of stacked split rails. Remarkable numbers of horses and cattle grazed in the distance. “By heaven!” Joseph exclaimed. “I was dubious where Mr. Ewing’s letter called her a ‘wealthy Indian,’ but I see now!”
Brouillette took away the saddle horses while Miller helped the elderly Quakers out of the buggy. Then he returned, shook hands with them with small bows, and led them into the house. Joseph was suddenly so wrought up inside that his heart quailed.
There in the clean and fragrant room sat the woman he had been seeking all his adult life; he was sure of it.
She had risen from her chair for the introductions. She was about as tall as Mary. Her posture was not stooped. She was in every regard an Indian woman—except her coloring. The reddish auburn hair, thick with gray, was parted in the middle and slicked back behind her ears to hang in a braid, and from her lobes hung several intricately made sets of earrings. Her wrinkled, weathered face was stoic. Much of its darkness was from massed freckling
—a contrast to Mary’s protected paleness. Joseph, himself ready to burst out with tears of joy, was almost intimidated by the severity and control in this woman’s face. She was every bit as forbidding as Isaac had warned she would be. Joseph was vaguely aware of others standing in the dim background behind her chair and of Brouillette moving about, but at this moment the center of the world was in this space of an arm’s length between them, and that space seemed so dense with the power of the moment that if he could have thrown off his reserve and tried to go forward and embrace her, he would not have been able to move through the compressed atmosphere. She looked at him for just a moment, then nodded recognition of Isaac—still without a smile—and then her eyes met with Mary’s.
Maconakwa was only half hearing Miller as he made the introductions in first one language and then the other. What had seized her attention was the face of the old woman who stood before her in a dark travel cloak.
This was supposed to be her sister. Even though she could not remember her sister, and even though she had never seen her own mother as an old woman, this face stirred something in her memory. There was a familiar prominence of the jaw muscles, something about the wide-set eyes. Was she remembering her mother’s face by looking at this old woman?
Then she knew where she had seen those characteristics: in her own mirror.
The woman’s eyes were filling with tears. Maconakwa had to turn away from that sight. She made her way back to her chair, saying to Miller, “Tell them welcome. Daughters, come around and greet these visitors.” She realized that she had not even offered them her hand. Well, never mind that now, she thought. They were already busy being introduced to Cut Finger and Yellow Leaf. Both daughters were dressed in their finest, with ruffles and ribbons, earrings, calico blouses almost entirely covered with rows of little silver brooches, embroidered skirts to the ankles, beribboned leggings and quill-worked moccasins beneath. Her daughters were so beautiful, these white people would be impressed, and probably would forget how awkward she had been in greeting them.
She sat down in her chair with all the talk swirling around her. She had tried to prepare her spirit for this meeting. She had prayed all the time since the one called Isaac had been here. Sometimes she had prayed for a certain knowledge that this was her birth family, but mostly she prayed that it would be proven a mistake and they would go away and not trouble her life. It was a good life, and she did not want it changed or complicated by more white people.
Now the introductions were done and her daughters and her son-in-law had eased back around behind her chair and there were no bodies between her and the three old white people, and she had to sit here and watch the agitation they were suffering. These people seemed to have no strength. The brothers would not sit down in the chairs that had been set out, but kept pacing about, wringing their hands, their chins trembling, looking up at the ceiling and sighing, while the old woman named Mary sat with a handkerchief, trying in vain to keep tears mopped off her pale cheeks and red nose, sobbing and snuffling. Maconakwa’s heart squeezed at that sight until it hurt, but she just clenched her jaws and would not let tears come to her own eyes. This was terrible. Now even Miller’s young friend Fulwiler was going red in the face and starting to leak tears, and he suddenly went gasping out the door into the yard, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. And he was certainly not one of the relatives. Maconakwa turned and glanced quickly at her three loved ones, Cut Finger, Yellow Leaf, and Brouillette. They were beginning to look dazed, but when they saw the set of her face, they braced themselves not to weep.
Every now and then one of the brothers would turn a beseeching face toward her and open his mouth as if to ask something, but then would squeeze his eyes shut and tilt his head back and give a sob and walk around some more. It was becoming too awkward and pathetic to bear.
One should not let something like this happen in one’s home, she thought. This shames me! I will have to talk with them!
I suppose I need to know, as much as they need to know. “Miller,” she said, “make them sit. I am going to talk about Slocum to them. What is wrong with them?”
“As I understand them, they are hurt because you are cold to them, Grandmother.”
“They are strangers, Miller.”
“They do not believe that. Do you?”
“I do not know, Miller. Have the men sit and I will tell my life.”
Miller said some words and the men turned and sat, one on each side of the white woman. Their souls were in their eyes and they were eager. Seeing the three faces side by side, Maconakwa now was looking not at the different degrees of grayness in their hair or their different postures or their expressions, but at the essential faces, and yes, they now were so obviously old people who had once been children who must have looked all alike, their lives having changed the outsides in various ways. She could not remember the child faces but saw that these were brothers and sister to each other. And perhaps to me, she thought. That notion set her mind to whirling and she was speechless for a while, and at last the man who had not been here before began speaking to her. Miller translated the words.
“Joseph Slocum says, they three have come from several places. They had not seen each other for many years, but each always knew where the others were. You, they have not seen for nearly sixty years. But they always believed that you were alive somewhere. He says that your mother crossed to the Spirit World thirty years ago knowing you were alive, and she made her sons promise never to stop seeking you. The other brothers who searched for you even as far as Canada, they are all dead now. Their names were Giles … William … Ebenezer … Benjamin. Your oldest sister Judith died in Ohio more than twenty years ago …” Miller kept pausing as the man called Joseph gave him the names one by one. They sounded familiar, in a vague and haunted way, but she could not envision any faces when she heard the names. The gray-haired man spoke some more, looking intently at her face, and Miller continued. “Your youngest brother, named Jonathan, is still alive, but he lives away even farther east, in New York, and was not well enough to come so far.”
The man called Joseph spoke some more, his voice warming and growing more cheerful, and his was a good voice, she thought, and though she could understand few of his words, she thought he might be some kind of an orator or chief among the white people where he came from; now that he was not gasping and rolling his eyes to the ceiling, he was an impressive man.
“He says your father was killed by Lenapeh warriors one moon after you were carried away, and your grandfather with him. And so now, he says, you four in this room, and the one left in New York, are the elders of the Slocum family from your time. All have children who are adults now, and most of them are married and have given them many grandchildren. He says all the Slocums are prosperous; that had they not been, they could not have searched for you so far and so often, or come here now. He says they prayed together when they met in Peru town and thanked God for Colonel Ewing, who was so kind and concerned, and they thanked God for letting them live long enough to come to you at last.”
She sat for a long time thinking of all that she had just heard, so long that the white people began to look distressed again. She remembered that white people have a strange sense of hurry and are afraid of silence; she had noticed that when visitors came. So she perceived that her silence was upsetting them. And so she stopped thinking back over the things the man named Joseph had said and forced herself to think how to answer. She said to Miller:
“Tell this man he has spoken well and now I know about Slocums. And tell him these things. My father’s name was Slocum, but he did not look much like these people; I can remember him a little. He was Quaker. He wore a wide black hat. The number of my brothers I believe was seven, and two sisters.”
She held up her left hand for them to see. “The end of this finger was hammered off by a brother. But not to hurt me. He was making something and I wanted to help him by holding it. I was never angry at him for it.” The old people nodded and
talked excitedly among themselves. She went on.
“Three Indians came one day when it was cold. They were Lenapeh, whom you call Delaware. They pulled me from under a stairway. There was a boy they took also. He was not a brother of mine. I do not know what became of him.…”
Joseph raised a hand and spoke, and Miller translated. “Wareham Kingsley was that boy. He was returned later and told of being kept in a village where you were, but later separated when General Sullivan’s army came through. He lived in Rhode Island later and has passed away.”
“Yes,” she said. “I remember it was when that army came. That was the first of the Town Destroyers. The Lenapeh fled to the Great Falling Water. Niagara. Maybe you have heard of it. It is a sacred place. I was adopted there by Lenapeh elders to be the resurrection of their daughter who was killed by soldiers …” She told them of her first marriage, ruined by whiskey, and said, “I do not even yet permit drinking liquor in this family.”
“Amen,” Joseph said, and his brother and sister repeated it. It was a word that Maconakwa slightly remembered; it meant something like a ho!
She then told them of the long and terrible years of being burned out and pushed back, naming each burned town she could remember, and watched the expressions of horror and dismay as they listened. Often they dabbed at tears, shook their heads, moaned.
The Red Heart Page 60
