I have lived here three moons now.
I pour the sap into the large brass kettle which hangs from a spit over the fire that Woates has kindled. She stirs the sap with a wooden paddle. “Cold nights make the sap run freely,” she tells me. “Fire boils the sweet sap and makes it thick.”
I dip my finger into my wooden bucket, cover my finger with golden sap and lick it clean. The sweet taste makes me hungry. This winter, Tiger Claw has caught fox and beaver and I have helped Woelfin prepare the pelts for trading. But Tiger Claw has brought us little meat.
Nonschetto knows how much I hate to club the little mice and rats. When Clear Sky brings her bear and deer meat, she shares it with Quetit, Woelfin and me. In return for her kindness, I teach her white man’s words she can use in bartering with traders. Soon, she will leave me. By canoe, she and Clear Sky will travel to the river forks to trade furs for brass kettles, blanket cloth, knives and beads. I don’t want her to leave.
Nonschetto pours her bucket of sap into the kettle. “Remember the sugar camp?” she asks Woates.
“Aaaii! I remember. We traveled three nights to get there. My legs ached with walking! And my arms from building shelters! This village is in a good place, for it is near the sugar trees and stream.”
“Where did you live before?” I ask the women.
Nonschetto points in the direction of the rising sun. “We lived there ... maybe three nights travel from this village. But the firewood was scarce. The ground was rocky. It soon tired of growing corn.”
“I have known six villages,” Woates says.
“I have known five.” Nonschetto stares into the boiling sap, as if she were recalling all the places she has been.
“Will we move away from here?” I ask, the thought of leaving disturbing me. I have mapped the location of our village from scraps of knowledge the Indians have given me. It lies northeast of where the Tuscarora and Muskingum rivers meet. White men trade with Indians there. At night, I pray that these white men will discover a stream. Follow it here. Trade a kettle for one useless girl. Take me away from Tiger Claw and Woelfin.
“We will stay here many winters,” Nonschetto says. “Wood is plentiful and the ground is strong.”
Relieved, I stare at the sap bubbling in the kettle. Soon it will thicken and turn dark. Then we will pour it into flat wooden dishes where it will harden into sugar. I cannot think of the name the white man called the sugar tree. I used to know it.
I used to know many things. But now my memories fade like leaves plucked from a tree. At night, when I try to picture my family: the way my mother smiled, the mischievous twinkle in John’s eyes when he was about to do something he shouldn’t, Barbara’s saucy way of tossing her hair; all I see are shadows, like those the fire casts in our hut. Frightening memories no longer burn my mind, but neither do the good ones soothe it.
Several days later, on an afternoon when Nonschetto and I are alone together, gathering firewood by the stream, I share this loss with her, for I feel as if a part of me has died.
Nonschetto picks up a branch and points to a large tree stump. Delicate green branches sprout from the trunk, defying the efforts of a woodsman to destroy the tree. “You are like this tree,” Nonschetto tells me. “Your roots run deep. You may not see or remember them, but they have not died. They feed you. They give you strength to grow new life.”
I stare at the stump, wondering how the tree can continue to grow. Its main trunk has been severed.
“Your new life is here, with us.” Nonschetto waves her branch at the surrounding woods, the stream, the cloudless sky. “You must allow yourself to grow. Do not dwell in the sadness of the past.”
“It is easy for you to say,” I tell Nonschetto. “The home you came from is not so different from this one. And you are Indian while I am white.”
“You speak truth. But I miss my sister, White Cloud. There are times I want to run away and be with her. She knows my heart as well as she knows her own. But then I think of Clear Sky and Gokhas and how they, too, are a part of me.”
“Clear Sky and Gokhas love you. Woelfin hates me,” I say, watching the path my moccasins make through the soggy leaves. I lift my eyes to meet Nonschetto’s. “Why?”
A troubled expression crosses Nonschetto’s face, as if she were about to tell me something important, something that might hurt me. “The path Woelfin travels has been choked with briars. Now she is old and bitter. You must give her time to accept you.”
Nonschetto finds another piece of kindling and slowly resumes walking along the bank. I follow after her, thinking of how Woelfin’s bitterness drains the blood from her lips, turns them into a thin and angry line. She seldom smiles.
Perhaps, many moons ago, someone burned her cabin, too. Killed her father and her brother. The sudden thought troubles me.
I kick a pile of wet branches aside and gather two pieces hidden in the middle of them. I test each piece to make certain it is dry. Wet kindling smolders, fills an Indian hut with smoke.
Thistle shoves her wet nose into my hand. I stroke her head as we amble through the trees. Thistle’s large stomach sways from side to side. Nonschetto says that within one moon, Thistle will have puppies. I cannot wait to see them. Thistle and Nonschetto are the bright spots in my life. I feel loved when I am with them.
“Look, Tskinnak! Gokhotit is fishing!” Nonschetto says, pausing at a bend in the stream.
I peer around her. Gokhotit, Chief Towigh’s son, crouches on a large gray rock. Intently, he casts a grape vine into the rushing water, then flicks it out, again and again. “What does he use to attract the fish?” I ask.
“Corn,” Nonschetto replies. “Perhaps you could try fishing, too. Maschilamek, the trout fish, is wiley, but its flesh is sweet.”
“Maschilamek would be too wiley for me. I am not good at catching things. W oelfin says that I am as helpless as a wolf cub.”
“Even wolf cubs grow into hunters. Look, Tskinnak. Gokhotit has caught a fish!”
The silvery, rainbowed fish flashes through the air and lands on the stream bank. My mouth waters at the thought of roasted fish. Gokhotit flashes us a smile, proud of his catch. Gokhotit must be twelve or thirteen, not much older than me. But he does not have someone like Woelfin to tell him he is helpless. That he does nothing right.
Nonschetto resumes walking and I hurry after her. Beneath our feet, scraps of birch bark litter the ground where the men have been patching their canoes for travel. Ahead of us, smoke, the color of the bark, curls upward from the village huts. Once the sight of smoke rising from a chimney was a welcoming sight to me. Now it reminds me that I must return to Tiger Claw and W oelfin.
“Tskinnak. How do you say machque in the white man’s tongue?” Nonschetto says, pausing outside the long house the Indians call the sweat lodge. I love it when she asks these questions. They make me feel important, for only I know the answers.
“Bear,” I tell her.
“Boar?”
“Bear.”
“I trade you one bear skin for blanket,” she says proudly in the white man’s tongue.
“Yes. That’s good! You’ve been practicing the words I’ve taught you. I can tell. No white trader will trick you now. You understand what he is saying.”
Nonschetto smoothes her long black hair away from her face. It is a gesture she uses when she is pleased. I like to please Nonschetto. She’s like a mother to me.
“When the dawn breaks, I will leave with Clear Sky,” Nonschetto says, reverting to the Indian tongue. “When we barter with the white man, I will use the words that you have taught me.”
“I have seen Clear Sky prepare his canoe for travel. When will you return?” I say, trying to hide a loss I am already feeling.
“Within the moon,” she says. “You have dug a hole the way I showed you? Lined it with leaves and stored your sugar cakes so that mice cannot eat them?”
“Yes.”
“And the ground nuts. You stored them there?”
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bsp; I nod.
“You will be fine. When I return, I bring meat to fill your belly.”
“Will Thistle go with you?” I place my firewood on the ground so that I can rub the gray dog’s ears.
“She will go.”
I wrap my arms around Thistle’s neck and she licks my face. I do not want this sweet gray dog to leave.
Tiger Claw saunters by us then, accompanied by three other braves. He kicks my pile of kindling, scattering it across the ground. “This wood is wet,” he says loudly, making certain everyone can hear.
“What brains you have must be in your feet. For how then could you tell?” Nonschetto retorts, stooping to help me retrieve the wood.
The other braves laugh and enter the sweat lodge. Tiger Claw keeps silent, pretending not to hear, and saunters in behind them.
“This kindling is dry. I felt each piece to be certain,” I say, feeling tears well in my eyes. Nothing I do pleases Tiger Claw or Woelfin. And when Nonschetto leaves, I’ll have no one to turn to.
“There is nothing the matter with the wood,” Nonschetto says. “Do not let Tiger Claw’s words wound you. He speaks loudly to make himself feel important.” She hands the kindling to me. Something about her eyes reminds me of my mother. I’m not certain what. Maybe it’s the compassion I see in them.
Nonschetto signals to Thistle. The gray dog trots over to her side. “Perhaps by the time we return from trading, Thistle will have puppies for you.”
“I cannot wait to see them. But ... I wish you didn’t have to go.” I hang my head, not wanting her to see my tears.
Nonschetto lifts my chin. “You are a strong girl, Tskinnak. Believe me. You will manage. Everything will be all right.”
I bite my lip to keep from crying, for I remember a time, not so long ago, when my mother left me too. Nothing was all right after that.
“Come.” Nonschetto takes my hand, a warm smile filling her face. “We must build our fires. The kindling you gathered is good and dry. It will bum.”
CHAPTER Eleven
Tiger Claw left the day after Nonschetto and Clear Sky paddled their canoe past me and down the stream. He handed Woelfin two pheasants and a rabbit he’d shot and said he would be traveling to the Tuscarora River. There, he would trade furs with a Frenchman named Dupré. I was relieved to see him go.
But now, the pheasant and the rabbit meat is gone. Even the bones, which I used to make a broth. Last night, when Quetit complained that she was hungry, I began reluctantly to look for Tiger Claw’s return. Along with guns, he promised he would bring back blankets and food—salt, white man’s bread and venison. Until he comes, we live on sugar cakes and nuts.
When I scrape away the leaves covering the hole in which I store our food, I think of Nonschetto—how she taught me how to gather sap. Little Gokhas loved the sugar cakes we made. He would kick his feet in pleasure as he sucked on one. I miss my friends. I mark the days that they’ve been gone in the bark of the willow tree and pray: “Lord, in the shadow of your wings, hide my friends from any danger. Bring them safely home.”
Now it is late afternoon on the thirteenth day since Nonschetto and Gokhas left. Woelfin naps and the village is quiet. I play a game with Quetit and her two small friends—Stone Face, a sturdy boy with a pock-marked face, and little Nunscheach with big brown eyes and a sweet heart-shaped face. It is a game that Quetit is fond of playing.
I help the little girls build a house of twigs while Stone Face makes a confusion of interconnecting paths leading to it. The object of the game is to move the two twig dolls Quetit and Nunscheach have made through the paths until they reach the house. Inside the house sits the little corn husk doll I made for Quetit in the winter. Quetit calls her “the mother doll.”
But today, Stone Face is in a contrary mood. The paths he draws with his forked stick crisscross through the spring mud outside our hut in an endless maze that Quetit and Nunscheach cannot follow. Even I cannot find the end to it.
Finally, in disgust, Quetit grabs a log and rolls it across the mud, wiping out the little paths Stone Face made and making one large one.
Stone Face scowls. He tells Quetit she has spoiled the game. He throws his stick on the ground and stalks away, his body stiff with anger. Nunscheach giggles. Triumphantly, she and Quetit hop their dolls down the broad path and into their home.
Later, as I remove the last of the sugar cakes from the hole in which I’ve stored them, I think of what Quetit did. It looked so easy, taking a log, wiping out the paths someone else has made and starting anew. But it takes courage, too.
At night, while the fire smolders and Woelfin mutters angrily at the feathers she is working into an elaborate feathered cloak, Quetit climbs into my lap. “Tskinnak,” she says. “I hurt.” She points to her belly.
“You are hungry,” I say, feeling my own belly grumble. “Here.” I tighten the deerskin belt around Quetit’s waist. “This will make your belly feel as if it’s full. Tomorrow I will hunt for you.”
“Tomorrow you hunt,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, dreading the thought. I wish it were summer instead of early spring. Then the forest and meadows would be full of wild food I could gather—berries, fruit and nuts.
Quetit scrambles out of my lap and over to her bed. She removes her corn husk doll from a nest of deerskin blankets. She tightens the little rope belt that holds the doll together. Then she speaks softly to the doll, repeating all the words I’ve said. “Tomorrow we hunt,” she whispers.
Sweet Quetit. Acting like a mother to a little corn husk doll. I love her.
I reach under my bed and pull out the basket where I’ve stored leftover scraps of deerskin. As I begin to sew them together into a shawl to keep Quetit warm, I hear the murmur of low voices outside our hut.
I glance at Woelfin. She stares at the door flap. The firelight flickers as it opens. Tiger Claw staggers through after twelve days’ absence.
I look at him expectantly. Hoping to see a side of deer. A cake of salt. Bread.
Tiger Claw’s hands look empty.
I smell rum. Again. Anger begins to build inside me. When Tiger Claw drinks, he thinks of no one but himself. We have been waiting for the food he promised. We are hungry.
“Where are the blankets that you promised us?” Woelfin says, her voice sounding cold as winter. “Where are the guns? The hunting knives? The venison?”
Tiger Claw does not answer. He stares at me. I drop my eyes and intently stitch the deerskin shawl, not wanting him to sense my anger. It might make him turn on me.
My hands move the bone needle in and out of deerskin. Tiger Claw begins speaking to his mother in a low, slurred voice. I find it hard to understand what he is saying. Something about there being no time for hunting. Something about a cache of rum.
“Drunken dog!” Woelfin screams when she discovers that his empty hands speak true, that Tiger Claw has brought us nothing but foul-smelling breath. Again.
“You let Dupré feed you drink! Then while you sleep, he steals our furs!”
“Dupré does not steal from me!” Tiger Claw says loudly. “At the time of roasting ears, the Frenchman will pay for the furs. I have his word!”
“Words do not warm us like the blankets we need. Words do not cut like hunting knives. You should have gone with Clear Sky. He trades with John Mountain. John Mountain is an honest man.”
“John Mountain lives five nights’ walk from here,” Tiger Claw says. “Clear Sky has not returned. But see, I am here.”
I raise my eyes as Tiger Claw staggers across the floor. “Did you see Nonschetto when you were trading?” I ask, my need to know what has happened to my friend conquering any fear I have of Tiger Claw.
“I saw no Indians but Shawnee. They carry scalping knives and guns into valleys where the white man builds his cabins. Soon the French and Indian will kill all the Yengee devils.” Tiger Claw laughs, a low and ugly sound, and approaches Quetit’s bed. She hastily crawls out of it and onto mine, clutching her doll.
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“Where is Nonschetto?” she whispers, glancing anxiously at Tiger Claw. He slumps across her bed.
“I don’t know. She should be here by now,” I say.
Tiger Claw turns his back to us and he begins to snore. With a stick, Woelfin pokes at the fire, making it spit and crackle. I feel her anger and frustration. We can never depend on Tiger Claw to bring us anything but scalps and talk of war. I see dark and endless years stretch out before me, filled with constant pain and hunger.
I don’t sleep well that night, for my belly aches as does my heart. I worry about Nonschetto. If war has broken out where she is trading, she might get caught in rifle fire. I worry about the safety of the white man who has built his cabins in the valleys. I worry about myself. With white man pitted against white man, no one will remember one girl captured by an Indian. I tell myself I must be strong, let my heart take courage, for the Lord upholds me even now. But my sleep is troubled. In the dark hours before dawn, it begins to rain.
Early the next morning, I awaken. The fire is burning low. I rise and feed it kindling.
Quetit joins me, rubbing her hands over the flames. “Tskinnak,” she whispers, “my belly aches.”
Tiger Claw snores and mumbles in his sleep. He must still be drunk. Woelfin, nestled in her bearskin robe, sleeps soundly now. But when she awakens, she will be hungry, too. My heart sinks when I think of the mice and rats I must now catch to feed us.
I pick up the club I’d left beside the door flap.
“Must we hunt mice?” Quetit asks, making a face. “I don’t like them.”
“We will sweeten the meat with sugar cakes,” I say.
“But, Tskinnak. You said the sugar cakes were gone.”
“I forgot.”
“Can we hunt other things?” she asks.
As I begin to shake my head, the image of Gokhotit fishing crosses my mind. Just as quickly, I dismiss it. I don’t know how to fish. I’ve seen no other women do it. Woelfin would mock me if I tried.
I Am Regina Page 7
