by Reyna Favis
“Right,” Lucas said. “We’ll need tinder and kindling.” He looked rapidly from Lenora and Ron to Cam and me. His face was creased with concern and he had a look of bewilderment, but he didn’t stop to ask questions. He foraged for small, dry items and built a pile near Lenora. After a moment, Ron joined him, finding larger pieces of wood that would burn. In two minutes, they had enough for Ron to use Lenora’s lighter to get a flame going. Ron knelt next to the small fire, cupping his hand around it and using the lighter to spread the flame to the bits of twig and bark they had gathered.
When the fire had caught, Lenora brought the second item she pulled from her purse close to the dancing flame. The bundle of sage lit and began to smoke. Chanting, she waved the burning sage around Ron and then handed him the bundle. As Ron trailed the smoke around us, Lenora went back to her purse and pulled out a small, zip-lock bag full of green-gray matter.
“Dried herbs,” Lenora muttered. Taking a small amount between her fingers, she sang a discordant melody under her breath and threw the herbs into the fire. The flame brightened and then burned blue for a few seconds.
My head cleared and I was able to focus. Cam let out a breath and I told him it was okay to let me go now. Nothing else had changed. I was still standing in what looked like the bloody discharge of an abattoir, fog danced on the water and settled on the land, so that it was impossible to see very far from where I stood. But I could think again and I was not overwhelmed with the emotions that poisoned the soil, trees and water around us.
The splashing sound came again and I looked towards the stream. Many hands rose from the water and through the fog, grasping and desperate. I could not get an accurate count with the fog shifting in and out and hands bobbing up from the water and then sinking below. As the fog broke, I caught a glimpse of He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief splashing in the deep water, his face etched with grief as he tried again and again to grasp the hands and pull them above the surface.
He turned to look at us in pleading desperation before the fog closed in again. “Wichëmi…” Help me…This time I understood and heard him clearly. Without a second thought, I pulled the laces and kicked off my hiking boots just before plunging into the water. It was freezing and I gasped in shock, but refused to let my body give in to the cold. Two other splashes sounded behind me and Cam, Zackie and I swam towards the Lenape man as if he were drowning. One by one, the hands disappeared below the surface and our urgency grew as the Lenape spirit howled with frustration and distress. Reaching the point where we had last seen the hands, I took a deep breath and dove down under the water, heedless of the depth. Searching as I swam, trying to hold my own against the current, the silt in the water obscured my vision and my lungs began to burn with the need for air. Just as I thought I had lost my position and would have to surface and reorient, I saw them. They were shadows lying at the bottom of the stream, but I could see something wrapped around their torsos that tangled with large rocks, restraining them and holding them down. With the last of my breath, I kicked towards them and pulled at the restraints on one of the bodies, trying to break it and release at least one of them. Try as I might, I could not sever the bonds and I wanted to cry out in frustration.
Something bumped my hands out of the way and I recognized Zackie swimming next to me, moving my hands away with her muzzle. Biting down on the restraint, she broke the rope with her teeth and I grabbed the body under the arms, kicked off from the bottom and shot to the surface with the body in tow. Once I broke the surface, I took a huge, gasping breath and treaded water as I held on to the limp spirit of a woman. In the next second, Cam came up clutching a man. As soon as he was ready, we began to swim to the shore, grasping the spirits and dragging them with us. Zackie swam behind us, her teeth gripping the clout of the baby she had pulled from the streambed. The Lenape man held two small children in one arm as he swam towards land.
The current had pushed us downstream and we emerged from the water a short distance from where we left Ron, Lenora and Lucas. I started thinking about hypothermia. The water was freezing and it was not much better on the land. My scalp prickled and it felt like my hair was stiffening in the cold as I forced myself to move. The spirits we rescued followed us numbly, still in shock and unable to speak. My teeth chattered and I was shivering as we walked back to where we started. Cam was no better off and he urged me to move faster.
The others met us, holding dry clothes and blankets, after we had only gone a few paces into the woods. We stripped out of our wet clothes, unmindful of modesty or fashion in the face of survival. Lenora stood by with a drawn blanket to shield me from the men and maybe when I was warm, I would appreciate her efforts, but just at that moment, all I cared about was putting on the dry clothes and huddling into the blankets. My hands were clumsy because my fingers were numb and I had a hard time gripping the clothes that were several sizes too large for me. The shivering was intense, but that only meant I was really, really cold, but not yet severely hypothermic. I’d start worrying if I stopped shivering. Finally dressed, I managed not to fall over as I shoved my unfeeling feet into my hiking boots. Lenora folded the pants legs up and then wrapped the blanket around my shoulders before walking me the rest of the way to our impromptu camp. She sat me next to the fire, which was thankfully significantly larger than when I’d left. While I shook and hunched, I thought about how nice it would be to have a hot drink to really warm me up, but that wasn’t going to happen. I felt grateful for the dry clothes and the big fire, and that I could be moderately sure that I wasn’t going to die right then.
Zackie set the baby down next to the dead woman, shook off and then lay by the fire, unperturbed by the cold or the company. The Astro collar was water-logged and would probably never work again, but that kind of thing happened with equipment during any mission. As my brain thawed and I was finally certain that I wouldn’t freeze to death, I took a look around at what could have been a cozy scene. The fog had lifted and the ground was no longer saturated with grisly reminders of mortality and the frailty of the human form. Our living friends and the dead gathered around the fire and all were careful not to speak until Cam and I were ready.
We were still shivering when Cam broke the silence. “That was going well beyond our training and I’m quite sure we did not do that safely.”
“Clue me in. Just what in the hell was that all about?” Lucas’s face flushed as he yelled at us and he gestured wildly with his hands, ultimately pointing at the stream. “Are you trying to die?”
I looked at him for understanding. “It was reflex. There were spirits in the water who were in trouble. They asked for our help.”
“Did it maybe occur to you that they were already dead? Lives were not at risk here.” Lucas spoke loudly, but at least the shouting had stopped. He stared at Cam and me, his expression hard. Pacing back and forth to soothe his agitation, he paused only to rub his face, shaking his head and mumbling into his hands.
Trying to lighten the mood, I asked him, “Did you manage to get it on film?”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “Oh, for the love of…” He started pacing again. “No, no I did not get it on film. When I saw you dive into the stream, I ran back to the truck to get whatever I could to keep you from dying if – and it was a big if – you managed to get out of the water.” Pausing for a moment, he gestured towards Ron and Lenora. “They built up the fire and picked up your hiking boots. Ron knew about where the current would take you when you surfaced, so we got a head start in meeting you there.”
“It takes a village…” Cam murmured.
“…to save my sorry ass.” I finished the thought less eloquently than he probably intended, but the crass words could not mask the warm wave of gratitude I felt for their caring and quick thinking.
“You’re welcome.” Ron added another branch to the fire and then turned solemn eyes on Cam and me. “Was it worth it? Did you help them?”
Cam shifted and snugged the blanket over his head. “I think we made progress, but they�
�re not free yet. They’re with us right now, sitting around the fire.”
Ron’s eyes grew large and he swallowed visibly. “Something evil happened here. Even I could feel it. It shouldn’t have happened and I wanted to beat something into a bloody heap because of it.” He shook his head, suddenly morose. “What can we do to help them?”
“Start at the beginning. Who are ‘they’ and what happened out there?” Lucas stopped pacing and pulled a small, spiral bound pad and a pen from his jacket pocket. He gripped the pen tightly and slashed some notes in the small book, his mouth a grim line. He was still worked up about the risk we took and maybe falling back on his role as documentarian would calm him.
Cam described everything, from the bloody, sodden mess of the ground near the water to pulling the bodies up from the streambed. Staring through the flames at our new companions, Cam concluded his report. “They appear to be Native American. There is a man, a woman, two small children and a baby.”
“Modern or historic?” Lucas’s pen poised over the pad.
“They’re wearing buckskin, so historic,” Cam reported.
“He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief is also still with us.” I shifted my head towards where he sat and all eyes turned to look, whether they could see him or not.
Cam examined our guests again and was about to say something when he stopped and looked appraisingly at Ron. I caught his eye and he gave a barely perceptible shake of his head.
I shook my head back. “No, go ahead. Tell them. He’ll be all right.”
Sighing, Cam continued with his description. “The man has a gunshot wound to his chest. The woman and all the children appear to have been bludgeoned about the head and shoulders.”
Lenora inhaled sharply and drew back, her arms wrapping protectively around her chest. “Even the baby? Who would do that to a baby?” My mind shot back to little Maria Matilda Castner. There had been no mercy for her either, but I said nothing rather than pollute Lenora’s mind with yet another story of cruelty and evil.
Ron’s face was ashen and the skin was stretched tightly around his eyes. He looked like he was either about to cry or murder someone. His voice was quiet, but deadly. “What happened? Who did this to my people?”
“Easy there. Whoever did this is long dead.” Lucas kept his eyes on the pad and continued to jot notes, but gave a quick glance up to Ron before going back to scribbling. It was Ron’s turn to pace as he tried to work off the rage at learning that a whole family of Delaware Indians had been massacred.
“I would have liked to go to war shoulder to shoulder with this one.” He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief pointed to Ron and gave an approving nod.
When I relayed the spirit’s comment to Ron, he stood stock still for a moment. Looking in the direction of where he knew the spirit to be, Ron replied in Lenape. “I am honored. I would have taken great pleasure in finding justice for this family.”
Lucas kept his voice low and asked for a translation, so he could record the exchange. Writing quickly to catch up, he raised his eyebrows as Cam repeated what we had heard. “Violent much?” Lucas murmured.
Lenora’s sharp ears caught this comment. “He used to be. I fixed that.” Gesturing towards the fire and our unseen guests, she frowned. “But going after the ones who did this…this is not violence. This is justice.” Shaking her head in disgust, she continued. “Can you imagine? A baby?”
I did not want to imagine, but the worst part was that in my experience, the truth could easily outstrip my imagination. But we had to get to the bottom of this if these spirits were going to find peace. It must have been more than a hundred years that they were trapped here, so I was just going to have to deal with whatever brutal tale emerged. It wasn’t about me. Sighing, I directed my question to He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief, the least damaged of the spirits. “What happened? Did you survive this attack, only to be killed by a bear later?”
He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief laughed, but the merriment didn’t reach his eyes. “I was dead and wandering before this man’s grandfather’s grandfather was a baby.” The Lenape spirit pointed to the man with the gunshot wound.
Cam repeated the answer for Ron and Lenora and then counted on his fingers. “At twenty years for each generation… let’s see… that’s almost a hundred years before this family met their end.” Cocking his head, Cam stared at He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief. “You’re going to have to explain. We don’t understand.”
He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief exhaled deeply and hung his head. “I died and I wandered. My story will not help these people.” Raising his head, he spread his hands to indicate the family.
The man with the gunshot wound croaked out some words and air leaked from the hole in his chest as he spoke. “I saw this one just before I charged the one with the gun. He had the red olaman on his face and I knew him for an ancestor. I knew then I would die, but I thought I could save my family.” He shook his head slowly and tears leaked from his eyes.
The woman raised her head and she held the baby to her breast. Both had gaping head wounds that bled and dripped as she rocked the baby. “You were brave, but you could not stop what happened.” The tears flowed and mingled with the blood. She wiped at her face absently and then continued. “We were in the canoe and traveling down the river. We were ambushed.”
The two small children clambered onto the lap of the man and he held them, gently cupping their faces and their ruined skulls. “My poor boys…” The man sobbed and hugged his children. Taking a deep breath, he continued the story. “He pointed the gun at us and told us to get out of the canoe. If we went farther, he would shoot us down. We had no choice. Our only chance was to do as he said.”
“Who did this?” Ron demanded after Cam conveyed what was said. His eyes were dark, like an avenging angel.
“It was Tom Quick.” Lenora gasped as I relayed the woman’s whispered words. Ron bared his teeth and pounded his fist into the trunk of a tree.
The mother’s body shook and she hunched defensively over the baby. Rocking the infant, she shushed and crooned to it as it cried weakly. Looking up, her face was streaked with bloody tears. “I was breastfeeding this one. My husband got out of the canoe and went on shore.” She rocked her body, the baby clinging to her, and gave in to weeping, taking deep, shuddering breaths. Zackie stood up and went to them, leaning her flank against the woman, softly touching the mother and child with her muzzle while making quiet whimpering noises. The woman wrapped an arm around Zackie and released a long breath. “I thought he would not kill the children and when he shot my husband, I tried to protect the baby. But he had a tomahawk and he started swinging, striking me until he broke my head…” The woman made a choking sound and pressed her face into Zackie’s flank.
He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief took up the story. “I saw everything and could do nothing. When this one who was the mother was dead, he crushed the baby’s skull with the tomahawk and then went after the little boys.” He closed his eyes and shook his head. “I wish my mind could forget what my eyes have seen…” Gathering himself, He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief finished the story. “He collected the bodies and was afraid this atrocity would be discovered, so he tried to conceal his crime. He gathered heavy rocks and made ropes from the bark of a basswood tree. He tied the stones to the bodies and then dumped them in the deepest part of the water.” He-Who-Counseled-the-Chief wiped hard at his eyes and pressed his lips together until they formed a grim line. “Then he destroyed the canoe and the few things the family had with them. And no one but me knew what he had done.”
Silence reigned when the tale was finished. Looking around, I surveyed our friends. I was sure this would hit them hard. I can’t say that I was used to these stories – I hope to never be that hardened – but I was at least not surprised by the violence. Lenora pressed her knuckles to her mouth, her eyes were wide and tears trailed down her weathered face. Ron was on his knees in the dirt, his hands in the earth and clenching, his head bowed. He was breathing hard. Lucas was frozen with a look of h
orror and he stared back at me. “How can you stand it?” he asked.
I wiped my eyes to clear the tears that I hadn’t noticed a moment ago. “I stand it because I have to.”
Cam cleared his throat, but his voice was weak. “Who was this Tom Quick person?”
Wanting to let go of the raw emotion that threatened to overwhelm me, I let the history major in me take over and I rattled off what little I knew. My mind floated in a sort of auto-pilot as I spoke. “He was an Indian slayer. Celebrated in his time.” I thought for a moment. “That was around the mid to late 1700’s.” I shuddered, trying to shake off the cold and relieve the ache that the story left in my core. I stood with effort and my legs trembled, but I managed to stay upright.
Zackie made her rounds to each of the family members, nuzzling and licking, wiping away the tears. She approached the Lenape spirit and he stood and backed away from her, melting into the forest. He was not ready, but the family was bone-weary from centuries of enduring the cold waters, forgotten and tormented by the brutal end to their lives. But the worst was over for them now. We knew what happened to them. They were no longer lost to history and the pain of their deaths was shared among the living who heard their tale. Someone mourned them now and that was enough.
It was growing dark and the light from the fire left the surrounding woods shadowy and ill-defined. Our friends could not see Zackie as she gathered the family on the far side of the flames and opened the portal. I closed my eyes and bowed my head, but I could sense the intense light and turned away to avoid being blinded through my closed lids. “We should go. They’re leaving.”
“The family and Lenape man will be at rest?” Lenora’s lips quivered and her eyes pleaded that this be true.
Cam stood and walked to Ron, putting a comforting hand on his back, but keeping his face averted from the light of the portal. “The family will find peace. The Lenape man is not ready.”
Ron stood, chanting softly as he rose. Lenora joined him after a moment and from somewhere in the woods, a deep male voice connected with the rhythm of the chant. The melody was sad and slow, like the wind wailing through trees, music for a funeral. I kept my head bowed to show respect. The silvery sound of the flowing stream complemented the lament and a crisp breeze filled with the perfume of autumn’s fallen leaves wafted through the forest, leaving the air clean and fresh. I felt the change in the texture of the growing night when the family stepped through the portal with Zackie. The sweet scent of spring flowers washed over me and for a moment, I was warmed by the rays of a gentle sun.
