Which Way Home?

by Linda Byler

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “More?”

  She nodded gratefully.

  He filled the bowl a second time. Smiling, she emptied it, then reached down to lift the haversack.

  He stepped forward. “I want you to stay.”

  She shook her head. “I must go.”

  “Mountains all, if you go north.”

  She stopped, but kept her back turned.

  “East, land will be flat. Towns. People. Lancaster.”

  She turned, despairing. “No. I don’t want.”

  “Go north.”

  “No.”

  “West. No Lancaster.”

  She watched his face closely. She did not want to retrace her footsteps. Neither did she want to be among her people, the Amish. It was unthinkable. They would not accept her, an Indian. She hesitated.

  “Stay,” he said.

  She turned to watch his face. Still kind. Still open, honest, without cunning.

  “You my daughter. I have one. She die. Wife die. In river when it is high.”

  “What river?”

  “The Susquehanna.”

  “Am I close?”

  He nodded.

  Her mind worked fast. She would get to the river and away from the mountains. She would meet her people, the Lenape. They were by this river. She had to leave.

  His sad eyes followed her for days. She could have stayed, but she knew it was unreasonable. How long would she remain his daughter? As long as Hans had her for his daughter?

  There was no use courting temptation. She knew many lonely trappers, who, shunning society, took Indian women for their wives, but that was not for her. Maybe someday, if she lived, she would be glad to be a wife to one of these men, for she was nothing of value. Her skin was the brown color of the Lenape. That would never change. So she was close to Lancaster County and William King. How many ages ago had she harbored enough sense of well-being to imagine the handsome, dark-haired youth one day asking for her hand?

  No, she would go to the Susquehanna, the river of her people. Determined, she turned south. She walked fast now. The land was flat with many creeks, some of them dry, but always there was another. The thirst she had experienced the first four days of her journey had not returned.

  She kept walking south through forests and over small hills and ridges, but no tall mountains presented the endless challenge of finding water. For this she was grateful.

  She fashioned a bow from the sturdy branch of a willow tree. She spent one whole day making arrows from sharp stones, twine, and straight, green branches which she peeled with a knife. She slung the bow across her back, carried the arrows, and resumed her journey.

  Her eyes roamed the world around her, constantly searching for danger, watchful of small changes in the appearance of harmless trees and underbrush, observing clearings for any harm.

  One day she noticed the first curling of the leaves. She felt the chill in the air at night. Locust leaves were beginning their dizzying spiral to the forest floor. Soon the large leaves of the oak and chestnut and maple would follow, turning the brown-hued forest into a world of vibrant color, the foliage taking on a blaze of glory before dying.

  Winter would come riding in on the winds of hoarfrost and icicles, bitter elements she’d find hard to withstand alone. If she did not come upon her people by the Susquehanna and chose to reject Lancaster County altogether, would she be able to survive by herself? Adrenaline rushed through her veins. A greater challenge had never presented itself. Now it was served up on a platter of sheer fear. She shivered. She would need a shelter. She was hardly capable of building one alone.

  And so she planned, her thoughts keeping her company as she traveled. She practiced her routine well. Evenings were filled with the chore of staying alive. She had become more experienced in starting fires. She learned to let the coals become hotter, without flames bursting from them, when she roasted animals. The meat was more edible and not as blackened and stringy.

  She learned to roast wild yams, simply tossing them into the fire, then juggling them in her hands until they cooled. She gouged out the insides and ate them with crisp, wild garlic, sliced. She found chives and fennel and tucked them into her haversack so she could season roasted pheasant, whose meat she found fit for any dinner table.

  When she came upon a wild crabapple tree, she wished for a pot to simmer the fruit in water, cooking it into applesauce. She thought that if she could find mallow, she would sweeten it. She had no pot, however, so she learned to eat what was possible and not wish for anything she could not have.

  Sometimes she sang songs of the Amish church, the slow, mournful plainsong in German verse. Other times she merely walked, clicking off her strides in long sharp steps that ate up the ground.

  She smelled change in the air. She smelled mud and the rolling brown water of the Susquehanna, she believed. Had she skirted Lancaster County entirely?

  Excitement sluiced through her, tingling in her stomach. Would she find her people living in long, low houses covered in bark? She imagined the smell of cooking fires—and belonging to people of her same color.

  Eagerly, she pressed on. Between the trees, she sensed movement now. Water? Her steps became soundless. She held her breath. Lowering her body, she peered from beneath a fir tree. Before her lay a sight she had never seen. A clearing so large she could not define the end of it. There was no river, no mud. Only the rattling of wheels as a team of four horses pulled a harrow, its teeth tearing up the moist, brown soil, preparing the land for a fall crop.

  Hester lowered her head and laid her cheek on the floor of the forest, letting the rich, earthy scent comfort her as disappointment and exhaustion consumed her. She had stumbled directly into the settlement she was determined to avoid.

  Mein Gott, she whispered. Now what? She would be mocked, turned away. Back in Berks County, life was far different. There, she had been accepted as a newborn, a crying foundling saved by the lonely, childless young woman who had been her mother. Could she stay here somehow? Perhaps she could, with her vast knowledge of herbal remedies and cures for sick people. Winter was coming on.

  She watched the horses’ heads bobbing up and down, their great hooves coming down, lifting up. She saw the farmer guiding the horses as they pulled the wooden plow through the ground, the iron piece cutting through the soil and releasing its rich, earthy smell. The ache of remembering was more than she could bear. She was a young girl again, her white cap strings waving delicately, her face lifted to the sun, her legs strong, her balance complete, as she stood on the plow, the smell of disturbed earth rich and sweet to her senses.

  She wanted to retrace her steps and rid herself of the burden of survival, of making decisions on her own. Would she be defeated if she returned? Could she speak to her stepmother, try to reason with her father?

  Perhaps if her face was disfigured, or if she became handicapped, she would be safe. All she wanted was to live within the sturdy protection of the stone walls of the great house and eat the food that always appeared three times a day—a wonderful thing, until now never fully appreciated. And so she cowered behind the veil of the forest, homesickness, fear, and doubt her only companions.

  CHAPTER 4

  SHE RETRACED HER STEPS, FINALLY, SENSING WITH certainty the one move that would prove to be futile. She would be Amish no more. The thought of approaching the man with the plow was terrifying. She knew he would see her as an Indian, not a member of his own plain sect.

  She had debated within herself. The Pennsylvania Dutch she spoke might convince him, but if he did not accept her, there were hundreds more who would not. Outwardly they would perhaps say they did, but they would not with their hearts. They would warn their sons. The German heritage should stay pure.

  So she slipped into the forest, her only home. She walked aimlessly now, without caring. The land was almost flat except for an occasional rise, a small slope, a hollow. The trees were sparse where logging trails crisscrossed through
the bush. She smelled woodsmoke, spied gray, weathered buildings and soft yellow ones, where the lumber was so new it had not yet aged.

  Dogs barked. The lowing of cattle sounded unexpectedly. She heard voices in the distance. She imagined she was making her way through Lancaster County and would soon reach the great river, the Susquehanna. When the heat of the afternoon waned, Hester knew she would have to exercise much better surveillance, now that she would spend the night so close to other human beings.

  She heard the barking of a dog in the distance. Realizing this might be her biggest challenge yet, she zigzagged through the dense, green forest. She could make no cooking fire. She would conserve her energy and drink very little of the tepid water in her jug. Earlier than she normally did, she prepared a bed of leaves and moss behind a large, uprooted tree, where the residue of past years had blown beside it, leaving a comfortable place of rest.

  A chipmunk streaked across the log, then turned to watch her with bright eyes, its tiny cheeks bulging with a cache of nuts, the fruits of its energetic foraging. A garter snake slithered soundlessly through the leaves, its small eyes alert, the wee tongue lashing out repeatedly. A bumblebee droned past, then came to rest on a white flower, the columbine that grew profusely in low areas.

  Perhaps she could find a few berries, so she heaved herself to her feet and was off in search of anything to ease the emptiness in her stomach. She soon found it was too late in the season for berries of any kind, but she came upon a tangle of wild grapes. They were turning purple, although most were green. She would have been cautious, but her hunger was a driving force. She pulled the clusters from the sturdy vine and devoured them, her thirst and hunger both easing as the sour juices puckered her mouth.

  Sometime during the night, Hester awoke, a fire in her stomach. She rolled onto her side, drew up her knees, and shivered with the cold and the clawing pains in her abdomen. Too late she realized her mistake.

  She remained by the log all that night and into the next day until her body had rid itself of the unripe fruit. Twice she had fainted from the scourge of pain. She cried aloud for water, her body dehydrating as her stomach expelled its contents. She lay by the log, finally deciding she would probably die because she could not bear the pain. She was too weak to sit up. Too weak to travel in search of water.

  In the afternoon, the pains subsided and she slept. Jolted awake, she struggled to sit up, alarmed. The forest floor spun crazily, tilting at impossible angles, but she stayed erect until the dizziness passed.

  She pushed herself to her feet, then sagged against the log, finally willing herself to move. Stumbling through the forest, her thirst a clenching fright, she weaved from left to right, her dizziness directing her feet. Then she smelled water. She had reached the great river!

  With her remaining strength, she surged forward, her tongue cleaving to the roof of her mouth. Again, like her hunger for the grapes, her thirst overrode the restraint she needed. Breaking through a line of trees, she came upon a meandering waterway, a wide, sleepy creek. On its banks, green willows, turning yellow with autumn’s approach, swayed above the deep, grey current. Rocks jutted from shallow places where the cool water ran against them, rippled around the obstructions, and sang merrily on its way.

  Hester slid down the bank, her foot collided with a rock, and she was thrown into the water like a fish. Uncaring, with her thirst taking away any sense of danger, she sat on the pebbly creek bottom, drinking and drinking, then becoming as sick as before, her stomach resisting the onslaught of cold water.

  She did not smell the cooking fires or the dogs or see the longhouses. She simply lay on the banks of the creek, heaving, wet, and too sick to care. They took her haversack and burned the contents in their cooking fires—including her cherished volume of remedies from the ancient Lenape woman. She was too sick to save it. The fat women that found her by the creek trundled her wet, feverish form home to their settlement, washed her, and dressed her in a warm dress made of soft, pliant deerskin, with colorful beads woven into an intricate design all over it.

  They washed her hair with the herbs and flowers that they grew, while gabbling and laughing. They shooed the men and children away when curiosity drove them into the longhouse where Hester lay, barely conscious. They gave her bitter medicines, and she slept so long she didn’t know how many nights she lay in the hut, or how many days.

  She dreamed of Kate, her mother, dressed in white. She dreamed of white, blinking stars and lovely pastures where Lissie and Barbara beckoned to her. She dreamed of Hans, strong and mighty, shouting at her. And always on the outskirts of her subconscious, in an area she could not quite penetrate, the voice of someone she had known, someone she recognized but could not remember.

  When she awakened fully, it was nighttime. Hester lay on her side, able to look around with one eye. The beating of her heart in her chest was loud in her ears, like drums that came from within. She rolled on to her back and stared wildly at the ceiling. A roof. A low bed of coals in a hole in the ground. Muffled sounds of breathing. Dark shapes of various sizes. A smell. A scent of animals, food, earth, skins, an overwhelming odor of something she could not name.

  Someone had rescued her. She ran her hands along her body, touching the foreign garment. Her fingers found the beadwork, felt the texture of the deerskin, and knew. She had the explanation for the smell, the bed of coals. She was with the Indians, her people.

  Fear overrode every other emotion. Her people were talked about as savages. Uncivilized. Uncouth. She had not been raised the way they lived. She wanted Kate, her soft, clean touch. She wanted wooden floors, lye soap, hot water, clean bedding, scrubbing brushes, white laundry strung on lines, flapping in the breezes.

  But she was here now. Here in this building constructed in the way of the Indians, her birthplace. Every terrifying bit of gossip filtered through her mind—the massacres, the scalpings, the Amish women’s tongues wagging endlessly with gruesome tales of the savages.

  Not here, though. Not in Lancaster County and the surrounding areas. William Penn had lived peacefully among them, trading woolen blankets for the precious wampum and teaching them to cook in heavy cast iron pots.

  Hester relaxed, breathing in the scent of the skins beneath her. The heavy robe covering her could hardly have been from a deer, its bulk weighing her down like the good, warm sheep’s wool of home. The skins had an earthy, dry, smell. Not rancid, but surprisingly pleasant.

  She reached her left hand out, but drew it back in alarm. She was not on the ground. She sat up in the heavy blackness. Her eyes searched the interior of the dwelling, but all she could be sure of were the holes in the ground where red coals glowed softly, illuminating only a bit of the darkness around them.

  So she was on a raised platform, higher than her bed at home, it seemed. She was aware of the company of sleeping people—deep breathing, an occasional snoring sound, a cough. Someone stirred. It seemed as if the movement came from above her, but she couldn’t be sure. Darkness did that sometimes, turning the world every which way.

  An animal snuffled from outside the wall to her right, then moved off into the night. A child whimpered and began to cry, but the sound faded away quickly, either because of its mother’s care, or because it had gone back to sleep.

  Hester rolled on her back, snuggled deeper into the skins that kept her warm, and tried to go back to sleep. But she was awake for hours, her thoughts tumbling endlessly as she wondered what she should do or where she should go. Perhaps she should stay with winter coming on. She could adapt, if they would receive her.

  In the first gray light of morning, Hester awoke, her eyes wide. Directly above her was a row of saplings bound together with long ropes made of bark. Slowly, she turned her head to find that she was lying on a raised platform, lashed to the sturdy poles that supported the domed roof of the Indian dwelling, the longhouse.

  She raised herself on one elbow, making no noise. What she saw was incredible. She had never been in a house this larg
e with so much open space. First she saw the number of poles on both sides of the structure. They held sleeping platforms—one lower one and another above it—the entire length of the longhouse. Raised mounds of skins dotted these platforms where the Indians lay sleeping.

  She supposed if there were no barn, no cows or sheep or pigs, there were no chores to do. So perhaps they all slept later than Hans or Annie did.

  As the light became stronger, her eyes focused on many items strung from the poles of the platforms. Bows, quivers made of reeds or skins, baskets made of different materials, beads, gourds, cooking pots.

  The floor below her was bare, yellowish-brown earth, dry and compacted by the many feet that walked over it.

  Flat rectangular stones held stone bowls with heavy pestles. Bags of dried corn sat beside them. She had heard that corn was the staple of the Indian diet.

  When a grunting sound came from close-by, Hester lay back down in a flash. Feet hit the ground and lumbered past. The hide by the doorway was pushed back and then flapped down with a soft swish as the footsteps faded away.

  Another set of feet thumped the hard earth floor, followed by another. A low tone of voice reached her ears, but Hester did not understand anything that was said. The words were garbled, as if they were swallowed, the sound of syllables she had never known existed.

  Cooking fires were stirred into flames as more of the Indians awakened. Some squatted by the fire; others went outside immediately. A baby’s thin, high wail sounded through the gray light.

  Should she get up? Offer to help? Her heart beat rapidly as the full knowledge of finding herself in this situation confronted her. She had no reason to believe they would hurt her, and no reason to think they wouldn’t.

  She was gathering courage to rise when she became aware of breathing directly beside her. Her eyes flew open. Two woman stood looking down at her. The fat one, her eyes glittering black in the folds of her dark face, her small mouth moving as the words tumbled from it, pulled the heavy robe off from her shoulders. Loud exclamations and finger pointing followed. The younger woman reached out to touch Hester’s hair and her eyes, then tugged gently on her nose, her eyes revealing her intrigue.