by Sara Donati
“Spruce root for lacing,” Nathaniel explained. Elizabeth, who as a child had willingly spent hours with the cook, the blacksmith, and the carpenter, stepped in closer to watch.
The second boy was holding two long ribs of wood at an angle in another kettle while the older man poured boiling water over them. While they watched, he dropped his ladle and took the ribs in both hands, stepping backward without looking to sit on a tree stump, where he began to work the wood back and forth over his knee. His whole concentration was on a single point in the wood, as if he could will it to bend. Suddenly his mouth turned down at one corner and then blossomed into a full-blown frown. With a sigh he took up a crooked knife, and began scraping at the wet wood.
“Not thin enough to give the right bend,” Nathaniel explained.
The canoemaker looked up at him and asked a question, which Nathaniel answered at length.
“That is not Mohawk,” Elizabeth said, her tone slightly vexed.
“No,” Nathaniel agreed. “Sturdy-Heart is Atirontaks. He came to live with the Kahnyen’kehàka many years ago.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “He wants to see the gold.”
“I suppose it would be impolite to refuse,” Elizabeth said. With a little shake of her head she pulled the chain from inside her neckline and held it out. The boys came up close, so that Nathaniel spoke a soft word to them. Then the canoemaker came, too, and looked down at her face, rather than at the coin in her fingers. Elizabeth did not mind his close inspection, for there was an honest curiosity in him that disarmed irritation. He said something to her directly and then stood waiting for Nathaniel to translate it.
“He says he will build you a very good canoe.”
“Ah, well,” said Elizabeth with a half smile. “Then I suppose it was all worth the effort.”
She slept again, and ate, and slept, and in between she talked to Nathaniel at great length. Sometimes she talked to him in her sleep, and woke to find him listening to her with an intent look on his face. They passed three days like this, seeing Robbie and Otter now and again but otherwise keeping to themselves. In the evening when the great fire was lit and the singing began, they retired with the youngest children and the oldest grandmothers. In a few days’ time the village would celebrate the Strawberry Festival, which they would be obliged to join, Nathaniel told her. She agreed to this, but for the moment she sought to avoid both Todd and a conversation with the old woman.
Made-of-Bones came twice a day to feed Nathaniel infusions and to tend his wound, bringing along a steady dialogue which required no reply, and in fact would tolerate none. Elizabeth watched carefully and even asked a question on occasion, which seemed not to please the old woman, or to displease her, either.
With every passing day Elizabeth felt stronger and more sure of herself in the village, understanding a little more of the rhythms of the place, and a surprising amount of the language. She ate with huge and unapologetic appetite. Some of the Kahnyen’kehàka food was unusual and she knew that in the past she would have surely turned away from it; in fact, her affronted stomach could not always keep it down. At night she sometimes woke with hunger pangs, but with Nathaniel’s heartbeat in her ear and the smells and sounds of the Kahnyen’kehàka all around her, she would asleep again, at ease.
On the tenth morning there was a heavy rain falling. The others seemed not to mind the weather, going on about the business of preparing for the Strawberry Festival, which was planned for the next day, but bringing in some work that was normally done out of doors. Elizabeth had had enough of rain, and was content to stay under the roof.
Made-of-Bones had assigned one of her granddaughters, a serious young woman by the name of Splitting-Moon, to look after their needs. She brought them food, offering the bowls with downturned eyes and few words. Other young women had soon begun to find excuses to come by and talk to Elizabeth, in short and sometimes awkward conversations, but Splitting-Moon had nothing to say to her. Sometimes, when she looked up, Elizabeth found the younger woman watching her.
This morning she accepted a bowl of beans and cornmeal bread from Splitting-Moon, who barely acknowledged Elizabeth’s thanks and did not meet Nathaniel’s eye at all.
“Nathaniel?” Elizabeth asked thoughtfully when she had gone. “Splitting-Moon doesn’t go out to the fields with the other women?”
He glanced up from his food and shrugged his shoulders. “Made-of-Bones is training her as Ononkwa,” he said. Medicine woman. “She spends her time gathering herbs and roots and whatever else she and He-Who-Dreams need for medicines.”
“I am afraid we are a burden to her. Should I offer to help with her work?” Elizabeth had been grinding corn for the last days, an unskilled task she could do while talking to Nathaniel.
“I don’t think it will set her more at ease, if that’s your intention.”
“Her silence does unsettle me a bit. Is it me she minds serving, do you think?”
Nathaniel had an uneasy look about him. “It’s got nothing to do with you, Boots. Or at least not directly. It’s me she’s uncomfortable with. There’s some history between us,” he finished.
Elizabeth had a sudden unwelcome memory of Jack Lingo, and his claims about Nathaniel. She put her bowl down. “What do you mean by ‘history,’ exactly?”
She had the surprised satisfaction—for there was no other word—of watching Nathaniel become flustered. “It don’t mean a thing, anymore. But a few years back I brought Falling-Day and Many-Doves up here to visit, and I spent some time with Splitting-Moon. She wasn’t happy when I left.”
Nathaniel lowered his voice, and his eyes. “I was lonely, you see. It had been a few years since Sarah, and I suppose I let my guard down.” He cleared his throat and looked up at her. “To be truthful, I ain’t especially proud of the whole thing. She did me a good turn, but she wanted things from me I couldn’t give her.”
Elizabeth considered this information, and found herself strangely detached from it, with only the vaguest stirring of jealousy. The serious young woman with her straight back and beautiful, glowing skin had shared Nathaniel’s bed, and had at one time thought to claim him. But he had left her, and gone back to Paradise to live without the company of a woman.
“And you? Were you happy to leave?”
He was watching her face closely. “I like it here, but I was ready to move on home.”
“And I’m glad that you did,” she said simply. He smiled at her, and then his face clouded again.
“It ain’t kind of Made-of-Bones to make her spend so much time near us,” he said. He seemed to be on the verge of telling her more, but voices rose suddenly at the far end of the long-house, and three young boys appeared. They ran, dodging fires and tools and children at play, to come to a breathless halt in front of the clan mother’s fire. The old woman and Splitting-Moon had been sorting through baskets of dried plants, but Made-of-Bones looked up at the boys with a kind of irritable affection, and allowed them to speak.
Their story was told in three voices, simultaneously. Elizabeth had caught only isolated words when a translation became unnecessary, for a group of men had appeared at the bearskin door. The tallest and foremost of them was a frightening sight, with hooded eyes and a ragged scar which ran from his scalp down the left side of his face. His head was shaved for war, and like the scout, scalps hung on his belt. He was every horror tale that had ever been told about Indians, and then he grinned and produced two dimples which belied the impression entirely.
Nathaniel was rising, with a smile of his own. “Spotted-Fox,” he said. “And his trading party, back from Albany. They brought us out of the bush.” He glanced at Elizabeth apologetically. “I have to—”
“Go on,” she said. “I understand.” But Nathaniel was already gone.
The village erupted into a new kind of activity. The men had come back from trading the winter’s furs, their canoes loaded with provisions of all kinds. There was a profusion of materials to sort out and store according
to the instructions of the three clan mothers, as well as the Strawberry Festival on the next day. Young people had been assigned the gathering of the fruit, and it seemed impossible to step anywhere without danger of putting a foot into a basket of strawberries. They were being crushed for juice, and the heavy, sweet scent hung in the air.
Nathaniel came to find Elizabeth as soon as he could remove himself from the storytelling of the traders. He found her grinding corn, with Robbie at her side and the red dog at her feet. She looked up at him with her eyes softly shining, and Nathaniel felt a familiar stirring. They had not come together since the day Joe died, three weeks ago now. It seemed like much longer. In the night the smell of her had often pulled him aroused and eager from his sleep, but thus far he had resisted his growing need. She was still very fragile and easily startled, and content with kisses. Although he thought that soon she would want more.
“And how did they get on, the laddies?” Robbie asked. “No trouble wi’ the exciseman?”
Elizabeth laughed out loud in surprise. “In this of all places I cannot imagine that they would have such a problem.”
Nathaniel and Robbie exchanged glances. “We’re a half day’s ride from Montreal,” Nathaniel pointed out. “And the English ain’t thrilled with the Kahnyen’kehàka running fur into New-York.”
He watched her working through this information. “They trap in Canada and smuggle furs to Albany for a better price,” she concluded.
Robbie grinned at her. “Ye’ve got the richt of it, lassie. And a unco’ lucrative business it is, too, but bluidy dangerous for a’ that.”
“They shave their heads,” she noted. “As if they were at war.”
Nathaniel said, “Stone-Splitter has managed to keep his village intact and well provisioned because he is always at war, Boots. He has always gone his own way and his people have survived for it. You see this place is much better off than Barktown.”
“Hmmm.” Elizabeth had to agree with that observation, but still she was uneasy. “I wouldn’t want to be here if the English raid,” she said, working the pestle more forcefully into the curve of the bowl.
“On that account ye needna worra, lassie.” Robbie stretched and stood. “The English are no’ aboot tae come doon here an’ pester Stone-Splitter. They dinna like the tradin’ he does, but they do depend on his braves in the event o’ war.”
“Another war? Between England and America? Unlikely,” Elizabeth noted.
Robbie looked thoughtful. “Aye, weel. Ye’ve mair faith in yer countrymen than do I. But in the meantime there’s celebratin’ tae do. Strawberries, ye ken. The wee seeds do stick in ma pegs, but I canna resist, for a’ that. I can weel resist anythin’, except temptation.” He winked at her. “And then o’ course, there’s the dancin’.”
Elizabeth smiled. “Will you be dancing, Sergeant MacLachlan?”
He laughed, his strong white teeth flashing. “Wait an’ see, ma lassie, and these auld bones may just surprise you.” Robbie paused on the way out, and turned back to Elizabeth.
“Wad ye mind owermuch if I tak the wee dog wi’ me? She and I get on richt well,” he said, somewhat apologetically. Treenie cast her a sheepish look of her own and Elizabeth waved her on, amused.
When they had gone, Nathaniel sat down next to Elizabeth and slipped an arm around her waist. She paused for a moment in her work, and then tipped more corn kernels into the bowl.
“And what about you?” he asked, breathing on the soft pink lobe of her ear. “Will you be dancing, Mrs. Bonner?”
She snorted and pushed him away. “Not very likely,” she said, laughing.
“And not even for your husband?”
“Don’t you mean, with your husband?” she asked, keeping her eyes on her task.
“No,” he said. “The women’s dance is just that. For the women to dance and the men to watch.” He turned her face to him and kissed her lightly, taking considerable enjoyment in the way she grew flustered.
“It’s daylight, Nathaniel,” she whispered. “And there are people about.”
“But it won’t be daylight forever, Boots.”
“Your injury,” she said, faltering.
He ran a hand up her side, his fingers gently probing. “Let that be my concern,” he said. “Unless you’re saying you don’t want me?”
“No!” She glanced around them, her color high. “I didn’t say that.”
“Then you do want me.”
She pursed her mouth at him, in exasperation and something else, perhaps relief, or pleasure. Then she nodded. “When we have some … privacy.”
Nathaniel rose to his feet. “The rain’s stopped, and I’m off to have a talk with Stone-Splitter,” he said. “Will you come along?”
Elizabeth looked down into her bowl, and back up at him.
“Please come.” He amended his question, and she took his hand and let herself be drawn up.
The sachem was sitting on a blanket in the sun, surrounded by piles of silver and copper coins. With him were Spotted-Fox and the faith keeper, He-Who-Dreams, who drew on a long pipe as he watched Stone-Splitter count. Elizabeth recognized other men, some of them by name now. They were talking quietly among themselves. They neither stared at her nor ignored her, and after a while she was able to simply listen to Nathaniel as he talked.
The sachem threw a pinch of tobacco onto the fire, a ceremonial gesture that Elizabeth recognized as an honor to Nathaniel, who then thanked Stone-Splitter for his help and hospitality, and finally announced their plans to leave the village on the day after the Strawberry Festival.
When Nathaniel had finished, the sachem spoke, glancing now and then at Elizabeth.
“He wants to talk to you directly,” Nathaniel said. “He will try to do it in English.”
Elizabeth was sitting across from He-Who-Dreams, who nodded to her without taking the pipe from his mouth. She glanced also at Spotted-Fox, trying not to stare openly at his scars, the mangled ear and the deep puckered valley that dragged his eye down at the outer corner.
The sachem regarded her for some time, and then he spoke to her in an English undercut with French. “Tell me of your school, and your students.”
Taken by surprise, Elizabeth took a moment to gather her thoughts. “It is a small school,” she began. “All children in the village are welcome to come and learn. It is my belief that each of them, white or Kahnyen’kehàka or black, is entitled to an education. I would welcome any child of this village to my classroom.”
Stone-Splitter turned to Nathaniel and asked for an explanation in his own language, which took a long time. Then he turned back to Elizabeth.
“And you are the teacher?” he asked.
She nodded.
Stone-Splitter looked thoughtful for a moment.
“Bone-in-Her-Back,” he began. “We see you. You are a good woman. You have brought Wolf-Running-Fast the land he needs to keep his people safe. You have shown great courage in the bush. You killed the O’seronni who walked with the Windigo, a ghost-man who has caused the Kahnyen’kehàka much sorrow, and you show us respect and a willingness to learn our ways. We see no fault in you but your pride.”
Elizabeth blinked at him, confused. “Pride?”
He-Who-Dreams spoke up, his voice raspy with age but his tone not unkind. He spoke slowly, switching back and forth between his own language and a melodious French. “You call yourself teacher, and summon children to you. White children, and black, and Kahnyen’kehàka. But we ask, what do you have to offer our children? You cannot make a moccasin or skin a deer. You cannot cure hides. You know nothing of the crops, how to plant or tend them. You cannot turn your hand to hunting, or show them how to track. You do not know the names of the moons or the seasons, or of the spirits who direct them. Of medicines you know nothing. And yet you call Kahnyen’kehàka children to your school. You will teach them to read and write your language. You will teach them of your wars and your gods. You can teach them only to be white.”
Blu
shing hot with confusion and anger, Elizabeth struggled hard to hold on to her composure. Nathaniel had taken her hand and she felt his tension, too, but she was being tested and he could not help her.
The sachem finished: “Bone-in-Her-Back, I wish you well, but we cannot send our children to you. Instead, I say that you should send your sons to us, and we will make men of them.”
The men were watching her, their eyes hooded and expectant. Elizabeth searched inside herself for an answer to this man, for some way to make him understand. She meant well; she had only the best intentions for those children who came to her. Reading and writing were good and necessary skills, ones that would open up worlds for them.
Other worlds.
She cleared her throat.
“Sachem,” she began. “We are ignorant of your stories, that is true. Most of my people are dismissive of your way of life. But it is also true that the Europeans are here and will not be sent away.” There was a surprised murmuring, but Elizabeth continued, searching for the right words. “All I can offer your children is a command of our language, and a knowledge of our stories. It is through those stories that you can gain some understanding of how we think.”
“You give us weapons to use against your own people,” Spotted-Fox pointed out to her in a very good English.
“I would give your children a tool,” Elizabeth said quietly. “What they do with it once they leave my classroom I cannot determine.”
The sachem was looking hard at her, his face impassive but his eyes wide and flashing with the speed of his thoughts. “If you stay with us for the summer, we will teach you our stories, and you can teach us your own.”
“I thank you for this honor,” she said. “But we have family at home who wait for us. I will learn the Kahnyen’kehàka stories from Falling-Day and Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears. And from Otter, who has already taught me important lessons,” she added, seeing the young man suddenly at the back of the crowd of men.
“Otter goes to fight with Little-Turtle against the treaty breakers in the west,” said Stone-Splitter.
