I Am Regina

by Sally M. Keehn

  We strip the bark together in a comfortable silence, then we gather walnuts, searching under wet leaves for the blackened nuts that others have missed. I am so hungry. I crack one open and eat the meat. Nonschetto watches me, smiling her approval.

  When my basket is full of bark and nuts, Nonschetto invites me into her hut. It is warm inside. A large gray dog curls by the fire. Brightly colored blankets cover the beds which line the walls. There are no torn skins or dank smell. Grass hangs from the rafters, filling the room with a dry, sweet scent. Her hut feels like home.

  Nonschetto reaches into a tightly woven basket and brings out a pouch filled with corn flour. “When stomach empty, wolves bite.” She makes a face. “When stomach full, they sleep.” She smiles and hands the pouch to me.

  Overwhelmed by her kindness, I bite, back my tears and sign my thanks.

  “One night, many moons ago, I leave my village, too,” Nonschetto says in a soft, low voice. “My husband, Clear Sky, bring me here.”

  “Where is Clear Sky?” I ask, wanting to know more about Nonschetto. Does she, too, miss her home?

  “Hunting,” she replies.

  Something whimpers behind me. I turn and see a baby strapped to a cradleboard hanging on the wall. His round face is like Nonschetto’s. He looks fat and happy as he rubs his eyes, awakening.

  “My son, Gokhas,” Nonschetto says, her voice filled with pride.

  Gokhas coos at the sound of her voice. Nonschetto takes him out of his cradleboard and suckles him. I sit by the fire and Nonschetto’s dog lays her big gray head on my lap. I rub her ears and she thumps her tail against the floor. For the first time since I was captured, I feel warm and peaceful. I watch the shadows play against the tightly built log walls, drink in the scent of sweet grass and listen to Gokhas’s soft suckling. I do not want to leave.

  It is late when I return to Woelfin. The rank smell of rotten meat still permeates the air. Woelfin’s eyes narrow when she sees me. I quickly hand her the basket Nonschetto helped me fill with food.

  I don’t see Sarah anywhere. Without calling her name, I search for her. This hut is small, but the darkness can easily hide a little girl, as can the wilderness outside the village. Sarah wouldn’t go out there. But maybe she would, if she were looking for me.

  Panic builds inside me. I look beneath my bed. No Sarah. I look beneath Sarah’s. She’s not there either. Then I see Woelfin’s bed. The bearskin draped across it hangs over the side, almost touching the earthen floor. I lift the bearskin.

  There is Sarah! She’s crouched beneath the bed in a little cave she’s made. She’s sucking her thumb and her face is streaked with ashes. I draw her into my arms, happy that I’ve found her. Sarah nestles against me and I hug her close, trying to make amends for my long absence.

  “Tskinnak!” Woelfin calls me to the fire. “I show you how to make Indian bread.” She mixes corn flour, walnuts and water together in a moss-green bowl that someone took great care to make, for it has been smoothly rounded and finely glazed.

  I watch Woelfin pat the dough into small flat cakes and I follow her example. The dough feels stiff and grainy, unlike the soft wheat dough Mother, Barbara and I kneaded to make our bread.

  We bury the cakes of dough among the hot ashes Woel6n has made by burning strips of the dried oak bark she keeps in a basket near the fire. Sarah watches the baking bread intently as she sucks on her thumb. I can sense her hunger.

  Once the bread is cooked, Woelfin dusts the ashes off a piece and holds it up in front of Sarah. “Achpoan,” she says.

  Sarah takes her thumb from her mouth. She reaches for the bread.

  Woelfin holds it out of reach “Achpoan.”

  “Achpoan.” As easily as breathing, Sarah has said the first word I have ever heard her say.

  I say, “Sarah, it is bread. It is called bread.” Without thinking, I speak the words in the white man’s tongue, wanting Sarah to repeat them. Bread stands for Mother, for human kindness, for Nonschetto and her baby. Bread represents a life I long to share with Sarah.

  Woelfin grabs my hair. She pulls back my head. “You talk like white man, I treat you like white man. I cut you like I cut the deer.” She runs her finger across my throat.

  She releases my hair. Terrified, I crawl away from her. I crawl under a bed which is in a corner of the hut where spiders weave their webs. “Bread,” I whisper to myself, clinging to the words. “It is called bread.”

  I see W oelfin’s feet pad to her bed. I hear a basket scrape against the floor. Her feet pad back to me and I want to disappear. I want to be swallowed up by darkness as Jonah was by the whale.

  Woelfin grabs my feet and pulls me from my hiding place. “You Indian now.” She forces my mouth open and rubs a gritty powder over my tongue.

  My mouth burns as if it were on fire. I pull away from Woelfin. I run from her hut. My eyes are watering. I cannot see.

  I feel my way along the path that curves behind the hut. I stumble through the garden, down the stream bank. I smash a rock against the ice and drown my burning mouth in water.

  When the burning stops, I stare into the water turning dark as night descends. I touch the shadowy reflection of my face—a heart-shaped face like Mother’s. “I am not an Indian. I am Regina.” I say the words slowly in the white man’s tongue.

  CHAPTER Nine

  Snow is falling. Lacy flakes drift down from the cold, gray sky. They whiten the stream bank and melt into the rushing water.

  Slowly, I walk along the bank, away from the squat shape of Woelfin’s hut, the garden patches where mice nestle in the straw. I carry the wooden club Woelfin gave me before she pushed me out the door flap. The club is heavy and stained with blood.

  The stream winds past me like a dark linen thread. It’s not frozen anymore. The warm spell we’ve had for the past days has thawed the ice. The stream brings me solace, for it reminds me of Penn’s Creek. In summer, Barbara and I would cool our feet in its refreshing water. In winter, we’d slide along the ice in our leather shoes. I dream of stealing a canoe and paddling it down this new stream, away from Tiger Claw’s village. But the forest which shadows the water is deep. Its darkness, its hidden danger, frightens me. If Barbara were beside me, perhaps I could brave the danger and escape. It pains me to think she is not here.

  I stop at the willow tree whose branches arch above the water, take a sharp stone out of my deerskin pouch and carve another day’s passing in the willow bark. This is the fifteenth day I have spent with Woelfin. Tiger Claw has been gone for thirteen of these days. Until he returns with the deer and bear meat that he promised, I must struggle to find food to eat.

  Snowflakes land on my shoulders and my arms. I wish that they would cover me, turn me into a pile of snow. Then Woelfin could not find me and force me to do her chores.

  Nothing I do pleases her. This morning I brought her firewood. “Green wood makes smoke! Green wood no good!” she screamed, kicking at the wood I’d piled neatly in a comer of the hut.

  Mother would never scream if I brought her green wood. She’d be patient with my mistake and show me how to mend it.

  Woelfin treats me like a servant. “Tskinnak,” she growls, “fetch the water! Tan the hides! Build the fire! Hunt for food!”

  Mother never made me hunt. Hunting is the worst of chores. I shiver, thinking of how Woelfin forces me to catch the vermin that burrow in the garden straw. I do not know which is worse, clubbing rats and mice or eating them.

  I amble round a bend in the stream and then another, filling up the hour between late afternoon and dusk. When I return to Woelfin, I will say, “I hunted the mice for a long time. The mice are all gone.”

  But we will be hungry.

  “Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people will go out and gather a day’s portion every day.’ ” Unbidden, this Bible passage comes to me, and I take it as an omen. The Lord made good his promise to a people lost in wilderness. He will provide for me.
/>   A low voice drifts past me now, carried by the wind. Ahead, a softly rounded shape moves lightly through the snow. It is ... Nonschetto. I can tell by the voice, melodic and low-pitched. She sings as she gathers firewood among the trees upwind from the water. Clear Sky returned to her five days ago. For him, Nonschetto’s fires burn bright. He brought her wild turkey and a deer.

  Sometimes, Nonschetto shares this food with me. Clear Sky does not seem to mind. He recognizes my presence with a grunt, then goes back to whatever he is doing.

  Thistle, Nonschetto’s large gray dog, comes out from behind her skirt. The dog barks eagerly when she spies me and races around a brush pile, downhill to my waiting arms. She shakes herself from nose to tail, covering my dress with snow. I cannot help but giggle at Thistle’s excited welcome. She treats me like a long-lost friend.

  Now, solemnly, she rests her large paws on my chest and licks my face, making me feel loved.

  “Thistle! Down!” Nonschetto says, approaching.

  Obediently, the dog settles on her haunches, her feathery tail fanning the snow while I pat her head.

  “Tskinnak. You are far from home,” Nonschetto says, her kind, dark eyes searching mine.

  I look back at the direction from which I’ve come. I cannot see the village anymore. Only tall trees and snow. I had not realized I had come this far.

  “I ... was hunting,” I reply.

  She notices my hands, empty save for the wooden club. “Here.” She smiles and gives me half her firewood. “Tell Woelfin there are no mice in snow. Only wood.”

  “Thank you,” I say, grateful for her thoughtfulness. I could have gathered wood myself, but it never crossed my mind. Mother used to say I was too much of a daydreamer. I believe she’s right.

  “Come. We will walk together.” Nonschetto shifts her load of firewood, resting it on her right hip. I shift mine to my left.

  Her arm warm on mine, we walk side by side, back to the village. I try to imitate the way she moves, toed-in and silent through snow-covered leaves.

  Nonschetto grins at my attempt. “Soon you will walk like an Indian.”

  Strangely, her words do not bother me. Perhaps I wouldn’t mind being at least part-Indian, if I could walk like her.

  “Tskinnak,” she says as we near the sweat lodge. “Tell me white man’s word for the sly one with the long nose and fur like...” She pauses, then points toward the orange-colored sun.

  “Fox,” I say, surprised by her question. No one here has ever asked me about a white man’s word. Woelfin beats me if I say one.

  “Fox,” she repeats. Nonschetto smiles at me, as if I’d given her a gift. “Tskinnak. Sometime you teach me white man’s words?”

  “Yes,” I say. “But why?”

  “I use them when we trade furs with white man. If I know words, he cannot trick me. Clear Sky will be pleased. But say nothing to him. This will be our secret.” She squeezes my arm and I feel pleased, so pleased I want to teach her all the words I know. Like rabbit, bear, beaver, wolf ...

  Shrieks of happy laughter greet us as we now skirt the garden patch where yesterday I clubbed three mice. A gaggle of little children scream past, catching snowflakes in their outstretched hands.

  I do not recognize Sarah at first, for she is wearing an old bearskin robe—Woelfin’s robe. It drags along the ground behind her. I cannot imagine Woelfin lending it to Sarah. And yet ... I can. Sarah has changed since she first spoke. Now she speaks eagerly in the Indian tongue. Hearing her speak the foreign words saddens me, but pleases Woelfin. She rewards Sarah with scraps of food each time she speaks. Sarah has a sweet and winning way. Sometimes the funny things she says make Woelfin laugh.

  Sarah runs up to us, her sweet face flushed with pleasure. “Quetit,” she says proudly, pointing to her chest.

  “Yes, you’re Quetit,” I reply, not bothering to correct her. I must never call her Sarah again, until we escape or an army comes.

  “Nonschetto,” she says, pointing to my friend.

  Nonschetto pats Quetit’s light blonde head. “You speak well.”

  “Snow!” Quetit squeals, lifting her hands into the air to catch the lacy flakes. “Woelfin!” she points to our hut. Then she pauses, scrunching up her nose, as if she smells something bad. “Tiger Claw,” she whispers.

  “Tiger Claw is back?” I ask.

  With solemn eyes, Quetit nods her head. Then, seeing the other children streaming past our hut, she races off to join them. She is so much stronger now that she has shelter, a bed to call her own.

  “Perhaps Tiger Claw has brought you deer,” Nonschetto says, squeezing my arm gently.

  I hope he has. Then it will not matter that I’ve caught no mice. But I smell no deer meat roasting over fire when I duck through our door flap. Only rum.

  Tiger Claw slumps across his bed. Woelfin stands over him, talking angrily. Tiger Claw turns his eyes away from her. His bleary eyes meet mine.

  “Tskinnak,” Tiger Claw mumbles, patting his deerskin blanket, wanting me to sit beside him, as if I were an old friend ... or a wife.

  I know it is the rum that speaks and I wish he wouldn’t drink it. I back away from his strange gesture and pile Nonschetto’s wood in a comer of the hut.

  “My son brings us no deer,” Woelfin says, her voice pitched low and angry. “Only white man’s corn.”

  “White man’s corn?” I ask, thinking I have not heard her right. No one has mentioned white men living near this village.

  “This corn is no good!” She shoves her earthen bowl into my hands. Her moss-green bowl is filled with hard, wrinkled kernels and crescent-shaped white worms.

  “The white man builds his cabin on my hunting grounds,” Tiger Claw mumbles from his bed. “The white man frightens the deer away. I take his corn and shoot him.”

  Woelfin glances over at the pole that holds my father’s scalp. Another scalp hangs there. Brown hair.

  “Did you club mice for me?” Woelfin asks, her head cocked sideways, a dark eye glittering at me.

  “No,” I whisper, staring at the scalp. It reminds me of clubbed mice—all brown and pink and bloody. My hands begin to tremble. I think I’m going to be sick.

  “Aiii! What are we to eat?” Woelfin says.

  I shake my head, trying to clear my mind of a painful memory this new scalp has evoked: the gleam of a tomahawk; death screams; two scalps—Father’s and Christian’s.

  The earthen bowl that Woelfin gave me wobbles in my trembling hands. Suddenly, it crashes to the floor.

  Stunned, I stare at the shattered pieces.

  “Tskinnak is no good!” Woelfin screams, raising her hand to strike me.

  I cover my ears and slowly back away from Woelfin’s screams, the broken shards—one step, two, until I feel the door flap, feel cold wind chill my back. I run away from her mean hut, scrambling through the charred circle where the Indians hold their council fires. Snow, mixed with cinders, has turned wet and gray.

  I remember the bleak, the frightening day my father died. His hair ...

  “No!” I scream, wanting to shut out the memory; running blindly while my head reels with the remembered crash of a cabin door slammed open; the smell of burning flesh; bloodred flames; two scalps.

  Tears stream down my face as I scramble past the two upturned canoes resting against the sweat lodge, slide through mud and snow downhill to the stream.

  Water rushes past my feet and I see within my mind a whole fleet of canoes. They are made of white birch bark. Indians pole them through a stream of gray and light brown hair.

  There is no solace from a memory here. There is no solace anywhere. My mind bums as if it were on fire. I don’t know how to make it stop.

  I could drown myself in water.

  A twig breaks under someone’s foot. Woates, a thick-set Indian woman, approaches, walking carelessly through the sticks and dark, wet leaves strewn along the stream bank. She stares at me with curious eyes as she sways from side to side, carrying a load of firewood on her
right hip.

  I recall a soft low voice, an arm, footsteps strangely silent as they cross twigs and leaves.

  Sobbing, I stumble around the curious Woates and up the bank. Hugging my arms, head bowed against the snow, I skirt charred logs, run toward a locust tree arching over a snug bark-roofed hut. Eyes blinded by tears, I stumble through a door flap into the only refuge that I know.

  There, beside a warming fire, Nonschetto holds me in her arms. Sobbing, I try to tell her what has happened. Tell her for the first time what had gone on before. Father. Christian. Barbara. All lost. All gone. The Indian words come slowly and I cannot seem to get them right.

  Nonschetto croons as she smoothes the wet hair from my face. Her dark eyes well with tears, as if she were experiencing all my pain and horror.

  “My mind bums like fire,” I whisper. “I want to die.”

  “No, Tskinnak. You will live.” Nonschetto’s voice is soft, but I sense the strength of iron in it. “You are a strong girl. You will weather this storm and all the storms to follow.” Gently, she cups my hand in hers, places my hand on my heart so that I feel its slow and steady beating. “Tskinnak. Nonschetto will teach you.”

  CHAPTER Ten

  Beyond the circle of our village, up a low hill near a small clear spring, grow the sugar trees. Yesterday, Nonschetto taught me how to gather their sap. She was patient with my clumsiness, as she was the day she taught me how to make an earthen bowl. The bowl is not as fine as Woelfin’s moss-green one, but she uses it.

  Yesterday, along with the other women from the village, we made small incisions in the sugar trees using hatchets the Indians bought from the white man. We inserted small bark funnels into the cuts, tied wooden buckets below the funnels and waited for the chill of night to cause the golden sap to run.

  Now, on this crisp morning with frost-covered leaves crackling beneath our feet, we gather the golden harvest. All of us wear deerskin leggings as well as skirts. Some wear bearskin robes; others, shawls of blanket cloth their husbands bought from traders. The tight buds on the trees tell us spring is near. But the clouds our breath makes in the air, the numbness in our fingers, tell us it’s still winter.