I Am Regina

by Sally M. Keehn

  “You could have made another one.”

  “No. Only you can make the mother doll. Will you make one for me now?” she says, her voice a little stronger. “You and I can play.”

  “I will make one for you.”

  The corn has not yet ripened and the husks from the year before have rotted. I make a mother doll for Quetit from the dried sweet grass that hangs from the rafters in our hut. I twist the strands together to form the body, legs and arms, and dress the doll in a scrap of deerskin. But the doll is not the same. And the mazes that I make for Quetit in her blankets hold no secrets. I know where they lead.

  The next morning, Quetit awakens caught in the awful chill of fever. Woelfin, Chief Towigh, Mauwi and Proud One help me carry her on the pallet that was made for Tiger Claw into the dome-shaped sweat lodge. There we build a fire with twelve hardwood logs and place twelve stones upon the fire. When the stones are hot, we throw water on them, causing them to steam. Chief Towigh chants amidst the steam, beseeching the Great Spirit to drive the sickness out of Quetit. I hold her hand, feeling the weariness in Chief Towigh’s voice, knowing his despair.

  For a short time, the fever within Quetit seems to die down and she sits up in bed, chattering the way she used to. But then, as the afternoon sun beats down on our hut, new pox break out on her face and body and the fever returns. I bathe Quetit with the medicine made from the kinnikinnick leaves until she cries out for me to stop. And then, as she tosses in a restless, pain-filled sleep, I hover over her, feeling light and hollow, like the wing bone of a bird.

  I know that it’s wrong to question God’s will, but I question it now. Lord, you must not allow Quetit to suffer this way. She is good and kind and gentle. Heal my little sister. Make her well.

  The Lord does not answer me. I continue to nurse Quetit through the night and she grows weaker. Anger, like a thunder cloud, begins to brew in me: anger against the white man; anger against God. I feel like screaming, “We have done nothing to deserve this curse! We should not be abandoned this way!”

  The next morning, Stone Face dies from the smallpox and then Running Water. I feel as if the whole world were crumbling at my feet. Quetit’s eyes, once sunlight on water, are now but dried-up pools. I know that she is next.

  Perhaps I can bargain with God. Tell Him, “Lord, if you would spare Quetit, I will devote my life to you.” But I find it difficult to bargain with a presence I cannot feel. This must be what Hell is like.

  In spite of the heat, Woelfin and I keep the fire burning in our hut both day and night. The smoke keeps the mosquitoes and the wolves at bay. Outside, the wolves howl all night long. They must scent this awful sickness. I am afraid they herald death.

  Although Tummaa grumbles every morning, begging me to greet the dawn with him, I remain with Quetit. I dare not leave her anymore. When her face is slick with sweat and she is dulled by fever, I pray aloud for her. Woelfin grumbles when she hears these white man’s prayers, but she does not stop nor punish me. I don’t know if God hears them, but often, a smile crosses Quetit’s face, as if she understands. “Dear Lord,” I pray, “wherever you may be, do not let her die.”

  Now it is dusk. Quetit has had the smallpox for many nights and storm clouds gather in the sky. How much longer can a sickness last? The hut turns dark, like night. Thunder crashes and Woelfin throws tobacco on the fire to appease the angry spirits. Tummaa shivers and hides beneath my bed.

  I wish I could be like a storm. Unleashing all my hurt in thunder. Bright sheets of lightning spark the air. Quetit awakens from a restless sleep.

  “Little One. Do not be afraid. It is just a storm,” I tell her, smoothing the hair away from her face.

  “Tskinnak. I am not afraid,” Quetit says, touching me, closing her fingers around my hand. She speaks more clearly than she has in days. “I had a dream. It was about the man of God. A robe of clouds covered him, white like snow.” Quetit’s voice fades, like the sound of a dying wind through corn.

  “Tell me about the man of God,” I say.

  “The man of God sheltered us beneath his wings. He flew us to your home. Your home ... it was bathed in sunlight.” She shuts her eyes once more.

  “Quetit. Who was standing in the door flap? Who was there to greet us?” I ask, wanting to hold her here with me, feel the warmth of a dream we have not shared in many moons.

  “The sunlight hurt my eyes. I could not see. But I felt warm ... like I do when you sing your mother’s song. Sing it, Tskinnak, will you?”

  I enfold Quetit in my arms. I feel her heart beat like my own. I want to fill her with my love. Give her the strength to live. I sing my mother’s song for her. I sing it softly, over and over again, longing for the time when I was small and a mother sang this song to me.

  The storm rages through the night. I hold Quetit and I sing until my throat turns raw. Like the slow unfurling of a blossom, I begin to feel God’s spirit move within me. And I realize then that He has always been there, like a small seed, buried in my heart.

  Morning light awakens me. Morning light and Tummaa, poking his wet nose into my face. He is begging me to go outside. Quetit stirs in my arms.

  She has survived the night. I don’t know if it was the cool, clean air the storm brought or the singing of my mother’s song. I hold my breath, afraid to dream of her recovery. The smallpox is fickle. Like the moon, it wanes and then it waxes.

  But two days later, when Quetit sits up in bed and tells me she is tired of broth, that she wants deer meat for her breakfast, I know that she is better.

  That morning, Tummaa and I greet the dawn together. With tears in my eyes, I ask God to forgive my anger and I thank Him for Quetit’s life. She means everything to me. Tummaa barks. My tears turn to laughter when I see this old dog chase his tail, as if he were a puppy. He must feel the way I do, born anew.

  What corn we have grows tall and ripens. There are not many of us left to gather it. Six women. Five children. Chief Towigh. The days grow short and I harvest walnuts. Soon cold will crack the trees and snow will fly once more. I dread its coming.

  A chilly wind blows through the village the day the messenger arrives. A Tuscarora. His leggings are caked with mud. His face is gaunt.

  “Brothers. I bring you this message with a heavy heart,” he says. “A white man’s army mustered by the English marches through our land. It numbers as many warriors as there are stars in the winter sky. They carry guns, long knives that glitter. The white man’s chief, a Swiss named Colonel Bouquet, says that we must bury our hatchets, return all prisoners taken in the war and pay for peace.”

  First the smallpox, now a white man’s army. I feel the old cloak of despair cover me, feel a hard noose tighten around my neck. I don’t know how we will survive this time.

  At nightfall, Chief Towigh lights the council fire. “My people. Now this fire bums bright. But soon it will go out. Extinguished by our blood. I have seen our blood fill the streams until they overflow. The white man will not rest until he has destroyed the last of us. At sunrise, we must flee.”

  “The white man will hunt us wherever we place our blankets,” Woelfin says. She stands beside Chief Towigh, holding herself erect with the oak limb she uses for a cane. “The Great Spirit has given us this land for a good purpose. Are we to abandon it like cowardly dogs? Hiding our tails between our legs and running for the nearest shelter?”

  “Old woman. There are too few of us to fight.” Chief Towigh’s shoulders seem bowed by a burden too great to carry. My heart aches for him.

  “Then flee,” Woelfin says. “But I will remain. I will plant my soil and guard my hunting ground.” She moves stiffly around the council fire, poking at coals with her cane. I know that Woelfin has no choice but to remain. She is too weak, too old to travel.

  “Old woman,” Chief Towigh says. “If you stay here, you will die.”

  Hot embers fly from Woelfin’s cane as she points it at Chief Towigh. “Hah! What does the white man want with me? One old woman with two daug
hters. One day you will return and you will find me here. I will be sucking marrow from a deer bone while my daughters grease my joints with oil.”

  “We have made our decision,” Chief Towigh says. “I leave you with the freedom to make yours.”

  I say nothing to Woelfin about her choice. I know that it is madness. We cannot survive the winter on our own. But she stands so erect and proud, bold defiance, like firelight, giving life to her dark eyes. I will not take that life away. I respect her for it.

  I mind Proud One’s baby boy while she gathers her few belongings and packs them in a deerskin bag. He giggles when I tickle his belly, reminding me of Gokhas, Nonschetto’s baby.

  Somewhere in the land beyond our sight, Nonschetto must look down upon us now. Her face will sadden when she sees her people packing their belongings. I wish her spirit could descend, curl up inside my heart and tell me not to fear—that a white man’s army with scalping knives and blazing guns will never cut and bum its way through our wooded hills and valleys.

  At dawn, Flat Nose and I cover the ashes of our council fire. Red, orange and yellow, the leaves fall from our hands. Flat Nose weeps, a tall, ungainly woman who has lost her husband, lost her two sons, Stone Face and Running Water. I have never walked as a friend with Flat Nose, but now our eyes meet and we reach for each other. Like two lost souls, we wail as sunlight paints the sky the color of the falling leaves.

  CHAPTER Twenty-one

  Frost covers the north wall of our hut and the morning air is damp and cold. I am Quetit’s blanket. She shivers when I rise. “I will boil some broth to warm you.” I wrap her in my ragged deerskin, wishing it were Woelfin’s bearskin robe. Woelfin sleeps in shadows, burrowed in its warm dark folds. The outline of Woelfin’s body looks small and frail beneath the bearskin. I have never noticed this before. It troubles me, but I don’t know why.

  Tummaa yawns and stretches. He shakes himself from nose to tail, then follows me outside. Our breath makes clouds in the freezing air.

  No dogs howl. I hear no corn being ground in mortars. Four uneasy nights have passed since our people fled. The village feels as empty as the dusty bowls lined up beneath my bed. I shiver at the sound the wind makes as it blows through the naked trees, rattling their branches like old bones. Last night, a ghostly ring circled the moon, heralding a storm.

  I run from hut to hut searching for scraps of food the others may have left. Flocks of hungry blackbirds screech as they ride the wind above me. I wonder what the blackbirds see.

  The wind rises and the blackbirds alight in the locust trees behind Chief Towigh’s hut. There, I gather fox and wildcat bones that I find scattered on the ground. The raven and the turkey buzzards have picked them clean. I hope Chief Towigh has escaped the white man’s guns. I hope he’s reached the promised land and that his fires burn bright. I wish I had a blackbird’s wings so that I could ride the wind and see. Dark clouds are massing in the sky.

  Tummaa rests his chin on his knees, watching me as I now feed the fire inside our hut and cook the bones in a pot of water. I add corn meal to the broth, but only a handful. We must ration what little corn we have. Winter is soon coming.

  Woelfin stirs. Her bearskin hangs like bat’s wings as she shuffles to the fire. I hand her a bowl of broth and her lips smack in appreciation as she tastes it.

  I prepare another bowl for Quetit, wondering how we will survive the winter. Perhaps some people from another village will join us here and we can hunt together.

  “You must gather walnuts before the storm breaks,” Woelfin says, her head cocked as she listens to the wind.

  “And kindling,” I say, already beginning to feel burdened by these chores. Quetit is still weak from the smallpox. Chores are endless when you do them alone.

  I turn to hand Quetit the bowl of broth and Tummaa begins to growl. I stare at him. His head is raised, his ears, pointed. He listens to some faraway sound I cannot hear.

  Tummaa’s hackles rise. He begins to walk toward the door flap.

  “Tummaa. What is wrong?” I say, feeling my heartbeat quicken, for suddenly, I hear it, too. Something is moving outside our hut. It is not the tapping of a tree branch nor the wind blowing through the fallen leaves. It sounds like hoofbeats.

  Woelfin grabs Tummaa. She wraps her hand around his mouth. “Be silent,” she hisses.

  The sudden quiet in our hut feels like the heavy calm before a storm. Quetit slips out of bed and runs to me. “Tskinnak,” she whispers. “Who is coming here?”

  I shake my head. I do not know. But I hear the sound of iron-shod hooves, the creak of leather. Steam rises from the pot, and I wish the telling scent of fox and wildcat bones would return to the broth.

  “The white man,” Woelfin whispers.

  “No, it cannot be,” I say, suddenly realizing that it could.

  The sound of footsteps nears our hut and I don’t know if I should rejoice or cry. Do guns await us or helpful arms? Last night I dreamt about the man of God.

  “Lay down your weapons,” a deep voice says. “Then come outside.” The words are in the Indian tongue, but the tone is wrong. Not like an Indian’s at all.

  Woelfin holds a warning finger to her mouth, silencing Quetit and me. We huddle together, not knowing what to do.

  The door flap slowly opens. A cold draft of air chills my neck and Quetit tightens her arms around me. Woelfin releases Tummaa and grabs a smoldering branch from the fire. Tummaa lunges at the door flap and I throw my arms around him, holding him back from the dark shape filling our door.

  The long barrel of a rifle points toward me. “Tie the dog.”

  With trembling hands, I tether Tummaa to my bed with a rawhide strip. He braces his front feet on the packed earth floor and barks as I back away from him. I do not want to leave Tummaa, but the rifle barrel points at me, gesturing to come outside. A thousand drums begin to pound inside my head.

  Quetit clings to me and we duck through the door flap. I feel the brush of bearskin as Woelfin follows close behind.

  The man holding the rifle lowers it when he sees us. He has hair upon his face that is the color of the hills at sunset. He wears a large dark coat with shiny buttons. Behind him are more white men: some riding horses; some now creeping around our huts. All carry guns, long knives that glitter.

  The men surround us with their weapons. Holding her smoldering branch before her as if it were a fiery shield, Woelfin shrieks, “You killed our people! Would you now scalp one old woman? Would you kill her daughters?”

  Her cry cuts through me like a knife. Drum beats pound inside my head and I see our rivers red with blood. Above them, a dark cloud forms into a wolf’s head, the totem of our clan.

  “These are not your daughters,” the white man says, his eyes searching mine, searching Quetit’s. His eyes are strange. They are the color of a cloudless sky. He pushes up my sleeve and points to skin the sun has never darkened. I feel as if a storm were breaking. “What is your name?” he asks.

  “Tskinnak,” I whisper, wonder replacing my sense of fear. This man is taller than any Indian I have ever known and his skin is fair. Yet he speaks the Indian tongue. Is ... he the man of God?

  “And your name before Tskinnak? Your white man’s name?”

  “She was always Tskinnak. She is my daughter!” Woelfin tries to grab my arm and the white man pushes her away.

  “No. Do not harm Woelfin,” I say, placing myself between the two of them, feeling the sudden pull between a life I know and one I remember in my dreams. Is this the man of God?

  “Where are you from?” the white man asks. His voice is gentle and his eyes are kind, but I cannot answer him. How can one describe a dream?

  Beside me, Quetit shivers.

  “The child is not well.” The man takes off his coat and helps me to dress Quetit in its warm dark folds. “The war is over,” he tells us. “We have come to take you home.”

  Home?

  Woelfin makes an awful sound Like pottery when it cracks in fire. “Thi
s is Tskinnak’s home!” She waves her branch at the empty huts. “Daughters! Tell the white man who you are. Tell him how Woelfin raised you. How you are flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone.”

  “Flesh of her flesh, bone of her bone,” I whisper, feeling the anguish in these words. But how can I deny my dreams? “Woelfin raised me,” I say softly, staring at the frozen ground. “She has shared her fire with me for many winters.”

  “She has held you prisoner many winters.” The white man takes my hand. “Now you are free. Now you can go home.”

  Home.

  “Tskinnak! Quetit!” Woelfin cries. “Tell the white man who you are!”

  I feel as if I were being torn in two. How many winters have I waited for the man of God? How many winters have I shared Woelfin’s fire? Who am I?

  The sky above is dark with clouds and seems to hold no answers. The white man leads Quetit and me to a chestnut horse. I have seen a horse like this before. Was it in my dream? I remember ... a wagon, an oak tree and an awful smell, like burning flesh. Quetit sobs and pulls on my arm. “Tskinnak. If we go with the white man, Woelfin will be all alone and she will die.”

  It is then I recall how Woelfin looked when she was sleeping, small and frail. I cannot leave her; make her face the coming winter on her own. She ... is a part of me.

  Tummaa barks. “Tskinnak!” Woelfin screams.

  I turn around. Flames are rising from our hut. A thin, dark man carries a lighted torch. He runs from one hut to the next, setting each on fire.

  “No!” I scream at the white man. “Stop him! He is burning down my home!”

  The white man grips my arm. His fingers are like iron. “It is war,” he says.

  “You said the war was over!” I wrench myself out of his hold. Sobs choke me as I race across the clearing. Tummaa is tied to my bed! Tummaa will burn!

  Flames lick at the door flap as I stumble through. Tummaa cowers beneath my bed. How could I leave my dog? What is wrong with me? I struggle to untie him.