“Not snake.” Light in the Eyes shakes her head. Her eyes sparkle with mirth. She waves her two hands gently. Then she makes a motion as if she is drinking.
“Water?” Susanna asks. With her fingertips she pantomimes rain coming down. Light in the Eyes nods. Do they pray to this figure? Susanna wonders. Do they worship the water? Light in the Eyes is watching her, still smiling. She has a sweet, heart-shaped face.
A thought occurs to Susanna. “Is there special water somewhere? Something that will cure my leg? Heal it?”
She is growing more and more anxious. But Light in the Eyes just smiles and touches Susanna’s hair, which that day has been braided into five or six braids with long golden leaves at the ends. Susanna immediately feels ashamed of herself for asking about magical water, something a child might ask for. She is glad that Light in the Eyes did not understand, and nods to her as she feels the ends of her braids, crinkling the leafy decorations: yes, this is good, I like this.
One morning Green Feather massages Susanna’s injured leg with a new kind of oily plant resin, and afterward she consults with Meera in a mixture of Iroquois and signs, also a few words of her own language, which Meera is learning.
“Ask her when my leg will be healed,” Susanna says to Meera.
She wants a number: two days, a week. But Meera tells her she must be patient.
“We will keep you comfortable,” she says. “Don’t worry.”
Don’t worry? She looks at their faces, are they hiding something from her? She wants to ask if she is crippled now but is afraid that they will not say no strongly enough. Meera and Green Feather crouch on the ground. Green Feather picks something up. She laughs.
“What? What?” Susanna calls out.
Meera turns.
“What are you saying about me?”
“Nothing. We’ll be right back.”
They disappear into the woods. When they come out again their arms are linked. Is it her imagination, or does Green Feather look a little like a grown-up Meera? Susanna finds herself spinning a tale: this is Meera’s tribe, not her uncle tribe but her real tribe related by blood to Meera’s real parents. Meera is waiting for the right time to tell her. She will be traveling with Green Feather now. And since Susanna cannot walk she will have to stay behind.
Susanna tries to bend her knee but without success.
They approach her, smiling. Meera is holding something in her hand: a purple root. It is still wet from whatever stream they dug it up from. Beside her, Green Feather touches her mouth: for you to eat.
“Gnaw on this,” Meera says. “Green Feather found it. It will help your muscles strengthen and also ease the pain in your stomach.” She hands it to Susanna and then turns. “Now she wants to show me the plants for your poultice.”
“Don’t go off with her, please!”
“Susanna, she is helping you. She is showing me how to heal your leg.”
She owes her life to Meera and Green Feather, and yet she’s conscious that she is nothing to them. Not sisters, not kin. No natural ties bind them together. Every day the men bring back fewer birds. Soon no doubt they will have to leave this place to find more food. When that day comes, if she cannot walk, Susanna will not be able to go with them. Will Meera leave then, too? Susanna looks down at her leg, willing it to move. What if she is left to die in this place alone and unburied? Her bones taken by vultures? Her hair used for nests? She touches the puffy skin above her ankle. Blood runs through it, muscle lies underneath, but the leg itself is asleep. Just a bone to pick at, she thinks.
A few days later there is a great commotion: rabbits have been spotted in another clearing, smaller than this one but with the same dry patches of sandy dirt. It lies to the east not far away, and the Stooping Indians begin preparing to go there.
For a moment Susanna thinks: It’s come, they will leave me now. But as if sensing her anxiety Light in the Eyes comes to tell her that Gosi has instructed two men to make a bier for her. They carry her to the new spot while Light in the Eyes walks alongside them. Today we will catch many rabbits, she tells Susanna, and eat them, and spend the night in new trees. We will dance, she says, and pantomimes dancing.
The trees droop over them, heavy with leaves. Summer is passing. Behind them, Meera and Green Feather are carrying the brethren’s skiff. Susanna can hear them laughing. A thread of worry winds itself around her heart and tightens. Meera never laughs with Susanna.
The new clearing is hotter and flooded with insects, and yet all the Stooping Indians seem happy and excited. They busy themselves finding clubs or small round rocks. When everyone has a weapon they stand in a circle and keep very still as they wait for a rabbit to come out of a burrow. Meera stands next to Green Feather with a rock in her hand.
At last a rabbit emerges. Two men drive it toward Green Feather, who is nearest, and she throws her club at it. It veers off to another person, who throws a rock. Then another hits the rabbit and another and another until the rabbit can no longer run. In this way twenty-two rabbits are killed: a feast.
The women skin the rabbits and the men cook the meat in large hollowed-out gourds filled with hot water. They save everything: fur, bones, teeth.
“Why don’t they have kettles, do you think?” Susanna asks Meera. “It’s obvious they sometimes trade with other tribes. They have whelk beads, and Green Feather knows some Iroquois.”
“Probably they would rather have food. Besides, then they would have to carry the kettles from place to place. Have you noticed they take almost nothing with them?”
They have only their rough clothes and their hammocks made of reeds. Sometimes Gosi’s attendant puts out a collapsible stool for the chief to sit on; it is made from whittled swamp oak with a hide seat. This is their only piece of furniture.
“They leave nothing behind them but leaves and sticks,” Meera says, “which will disappear into the earth. When the white man comes for this land they will believe it was empty. No one will ever know they were here.”
“Why would white men want it? It’s just swampland.”
“If it is there,” Meera says, “men want. Women do not want so much.”
Well that’s not true, Susanna thinks. She wants plenty. Maybe not miles of land but at least a safe place to live with her sisters—a roof and four walls. And to walk again. That most of all. She’d seen cripples in Philadelphia make their way slowly down the street, dragging their bad leg behind them. But she can’t even go to relieve herself without help.
When it comes time to eat Light in the Eyes brings Susanna her share of rabbit in a watery broth. Susanna uses the wooden bowl and spoon she brought with her from Gemeinschaft, and when she is done Light in the Eyes washes out the bowl and fills it with drinking water, which they share. Two men go around the little clearing lighting smudge torches. They will sleep here tonight, Light in the Eyes tells Susanna, but first there will be dancing. She sways to demonstrate.
While they wait for the music to begin, Susanna listens to Meera and Green Feather talk to each other in a mixture of words and pantomime. The four of them are sitting together on blankets but Meera keeps her head turned away from Susanna.
Light in the Eyes takes her hand and pats it. Then she pats the collar around her neck. Susanna agrees, it does look handsome. She smiles at her and says in English, “Hello. Hello. Hello.” She makes Light in the Eyes repeat it: “Hello-ello-ello.” Susanna is thinking that if the white men come as Meera says they will, Light in the Eyes will fare better if she knows some of their words.
At last the bell ringers ring their bells and the men begin drumming on upside-down gourds. A young man steps forward and begins blowing into a reed flute. At first everyone just listens, and then a few get up to dance. Susanna is surprised to see that they all begin dancing the same dance in synchronized movements: legs together, a bend of the knees, a sway from left to right. The music gets faster and the dancers raise their arms. More people get up to dance. When the chief enters the circle, a man wit
h a goose-wing whistle calls attention to him.
Their movements become more and more joyful, a celebration. Bending, swaying, stepping forward and back—Susanna does not understand the timing, but it is beautifully executed in absolute unison. Now even the smallest child is dancing. Later, when she arrives at the Wyandot village, she will see the same dance but there only the men are allowed to dance it.
Green Feather has pulled Meera up with her, and Light in the Eyes is dancing, too. A young boy with a tiny reed flute steps up next to the flute player, who puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder and nods. The boy raises his little flute to his mouth. Unexpectedly, tears come into Susanna’s eyes. Here are these people, she thinks, practically starving, with nothing, and yet look at them dancing, making music, full of joy. God himself could not help but look down on them with every pleasure in his heart.
Light in the Eyes sways and then she looks back at Susanna.
“Help me stand,” Susanna asks her.
Light in the Eyes helps her up. Susanna stands for a moment trying to find her balance. The dancers go on dancing, oblivious to her, but Green Feather and Meera come over and she gives them each one arm and then looks down at her leg. She concentrates. At first, nothing. But she keeps looking at it and finally, painfully, slowly, she shuffles her left foot forward. It feels puffy and stiff but she moves it. It moves. On either side of her, Meera and Green Feather both tighten their grip from either excitement or caution. She tries to move her foot again. She cannot put weight on it, or not much, but she can at last shift it forward with the greatest of effort.
“You walk!” Light in the Eyes cries out in her own language, but her meaning is clear. She makes a little hop and begins to dance around her. “You walk! You walk! It was the chimwa!” she cries. The rabbit.
Eighteen
Meera tells Susanna there are rapids where Fish River meets the Maumee and she must tie her grain sack to her back so it won’t fall out. But looking down at the river Susanna has a hard time believing it can stir up enough white water to trouble them. It is so clear she can see whiskered fish swimming along the pebbly bottom. They put in their skiff at a narrow point between two willow trees and then turn to say farewell.
“Hello, Chimwa,” Light in the Eyes calls out, meaning good-bye. She has been calling Susanna Chimwa, rabbit, ever since Susanna began to walk again. She is convinced that she herself healed Susanna’s leg. When the rabbits were first spotted, Light in the Eyes petitioned her father, Gosi, to let her select the one Susanna would eat. She declared that the right one would cure Susanna’s lameness. The rabbit she chose was not the largest but it was the hardest to kill. Twice it nearly escaped the circle. It had special strength. Afterward, men and women came up to congratulate Susanna and to hear, from Light in the Eyes, the story of the rabbit.
Two of the men have repaired their skiff and fashioned new oars, and although Susanna watches Meera closely for any sign that she wants to stay with Green Feather, Meera just steps carefully into the skiff and sits down, clutching its side with one hand as it rocks. She holds her body very stiffly and looks at Susanna: Ready?
Susanna lifts her oar with a heavy heart. She wishes she had her turkey hen bone, or even some tobacco that Meera could scatter on the water. She wishes Light in the Eyes and Green Feather could come with them, but there is no room in the boat even if they could persuade them to leave their people.
She puts a hand on her heart, which is how the Stooping Indians say thank you, and then waves good-bye.
“Hello! Hello!” Light in the Eyes calls out as the boat moves away. Gosi lifts his hand in farewell, as does Green Feather, who is standing up to her ankles in the river. Meera waves once and then turns her head sharply. Her mouth, Susanna notices, is drawn very tight.
Susanna keeps her arm raised. She turns around so she can see them as long as possible. “Goodbye!” The corners of her eyes are wet. She will never see Green Feather or Light in the Eyes again.
When they are out of sight Susanna turns back around and after a moment she stretches her leg, which is still a little stiff. The river moves steadily north in the wet landscape, and for a while they just let the boat drift. When Susanna looks down she can see two fat fish swimming beside them. One looks up at her with an open mouth full of teeth, and she has her first moment of uneasiness. A sign, she thinks, but of what? The boat floats on through a patch of reeds. Fish River is placid and easy, nothing to worry about. An easy boat ride downriver to the Maumee. Susanna moves her leg into the sun and scrunches her toes in her moccasins. She can see larger trees coming up ahead that will close off the sunlight.
But very soon after they enter the trees, the river tips a little to the east. According to Meera, Fish River flows west and northwest. A slight hiccough, a curve that will adjust itself? They take up their oars as if that will make a difference. Susanna wills the river to turn back toward the Maumee, but stubbornly it does not. If anything it veers even more decidedly to the east.
“Are you sure this is Fish River?” she finally asks. “When did you last go down it?”
“A few summers ago. After Nushemakw married the second time.”
Three years? Four? So much could have changed. A dry, hard wind begins blowing down the river, making steering more difficult. They stop to rest and to eat a few strips of the dried rabbit meat Green Feather packed for them. Susanna crouches over the river to wash up. Although the water is still clear, she can’t see any more fish. A river called Fish River should have more fish.
The longer they stay on the river the more easterly it flows. Finally Susanna lays her oar across her lap and turns to look at Meera. “This isn’t Fish River.”
Meera’s face tightens into a stubborn expression. “Green Feather said it was. She said this will take us to the Maumee.”
“Meera! We’re going east! We need to get on the first river going north and then find one going west.”
“But she knows this land, we do not.”
“All she said was that this river will take us to the Big River. But maybe she meant the Sandusky.”
By this time the white water is increasing and the wind brings with it a scent of minerals and mossy stone. Up ahead they can see the river bending to the east even more.
“Meera!”
At last Meera shrugs but her face is still tight. “It’s possible she was thinking of the Sandusky,” she concedes.
The first river going north that they come to flows so fast they cannot steer the skiff into it in time, and the second is too shallow. The third is also fast but at least it is wider. They manage to turn into it rowing harder than Susanna has ever yet rowed. Wet, triangular rocks protrude from the banks like fangs. But at last the current slows, and for a little while they drift, resting their arms, and letting the current do their work for them. However it soon becomes apparent that they must pay attention to these jutting rocks. They are getting larger and no longer confining themselves to the edges of the water. The current picks up its pace again, and Susanna is splashed from head to foot as the skiff turns sharply. Meera shouts an instruction she cannot decipher. She is trying her best to keep the boat away from the rocks. Should they get out of the water and portage until it is calmer? She pushes her oar against a jagged rock as dark as a bad tooth. Where can they bank?
But it is too late. All at once the current races harder as the river narrows and turns, and the boat, hitting a confluence of rocks, tips over.
Meera shouts as they are dumped into the water. The boat turns over on top of Susanna and she struggles to get out from beneath it. The smell of wet wood fills her nostrils as she pushes up the skiff’s side while at the same time being pulled in the opposite direction by the current. Later she thinks: if I had only hung on! But she is too intent on getting up to the air to think of anything else. At last she manages to get her head clear and she gulps at the air. Her grain sack is still tied to her back, but Consolation’s shawl with the kettle and all their food inside is drifting awa
y—she catches it by its fringe. The water is up to her chin and feels like cold, wet silver. Where is Meera? At last she spots her on top of a flat rock near the bank dripping wet and stretching her hand out for Susanna.
Susanna begins paddling with one arm, the other wrapped around Consolation’s shawl, her head barely above the current. The heavy, wet shawl with the kettle inside threatens to pull her under, but somehow she gets to the rock and Meera gets hold of her arm and helps her up. Meanwhile the boat, with strands of velvety weeds hanging across its hull, is coming toward them. Susanna knows she has to catch it. She gets on her stomach and leans over the water. As the boat bumps its way over she manages to grasp its slippery edge, and the tips of her fingers work at finding some leverage. But before she can find any the current pulls the boat out of her grip and it rocks onward down the river.
She scrambles down onto the bank. For a moment a jumble of rocks near the river’s edge catches the stern of the boat and Susanna thinks she has another chance. She looks down to see grassy underwater plants bobbing in the current like thin snakes as if to say, Go on, Go on. She steps in and begins to wade toward the rocks, but just as she is nearing it the current wrestles the boat away again.
“Stop!” Susanna calls to it irrationally.
Meera is standing on the bank with her back to the wind.
“We might still be able to get it,” Susanna says, wading back to her. “It could get caught again.”
She stops to catch her breath, and when she does she realizes she cannot possibly keep walking with any kind of speed. Every muscle in her bad leg aches, and with the wind blowing against her she is even colder than she was in the water. She looks at Meera. There is a long gash down the side of her face, making a line of blood like an arrow to her mouth. She is holding Consolation’s wet shawl against her stomach. Susanna is afraid that she will say they cannot continue without a boat. But how can they go back without one, either? She is afraid Meera will say, This is the end.
Thieving Forest Page 19
