by Jamie Carie
They were placed together, sitting side by side, in an ever-growing circle of Indians waiting in silence. Samuel could hear Isabelle’s shallow breath, but she would not meet his eyes.
A sudden, loud careening cry split the dawn, as if a bereft spirit had left the owner’s throat, fleeing across the distance to the place where they sat.
Isabelle tensed, nearly panting.
Another woman’s voice added to it, raising and then dropping in apparent agony. Then there were others, moaning and wailing, falling to their knees, shrill and crying. One old woman dropped directly in front of Samuel and Isabelle, her tanned, wrinkled throat straining to cry out. She moaned, her head thrown back, the thin skin of her arms wrinkled and upraised. She was joined by her sisters, throwing themselves onto the ground beside her, joining her cry, so close Samuel could see the tears track down their cheeks.
“What?” Isabelle gasped to him, looking at him full in the face for the first time. “What are they doing?”
Samuel leaned toward her, his shoulder touching hers. “They are mourning.”
Isabelle’s face, that beautiful, fierce face, turned toward him and demanded, “Mourning for what? Not my brother?”
Samuel stared at her, wanting more than anything to pull her into his arms. “No.” He shook his head slowly back and forth, not breaking the contact of their eyes as their captors’ cry grew deafening. “They are mourning the loss of a loved one. One of their own.”
“But why? Are we not the ones who should be mourning?” Her eyes were slashes of raw pain. “Should I not be the one mourning this day?”
“Yes.” Samuel looked down into his lap, wishing, wanting more than anything, that he could have spared her this. He looked again into those deep blue eyes, the eyes of a stormy day. “Yes.”
Isabelle then rose to her feet, suddenly against them. She stood tall, her chest thrown back, her head falling back, her hands balling into fists at her side. He watched her take a deep breath, knowing what was to come, knowing that she didn’t understand that this was their adoption ceremony.
Isabelle’s exhale became a cry. Like theirs … but not. Deeper, then rising to a scream. Stronger … more guttural than even these could manage. She stood to her full height, threw back her shoulders, and wailed her anguish, her arms slowly rising until they lifted full toward the morning sky. She inhaled once more. The cry that followed was so great, so piercing, that the authors of her death cry drew back in silent horror, staring in awe at her brilliance.
She reached up and tore at her hair, shaking the waves of blackness around her, a mourning cloak. Her cry grew, loud and then whimpering, full and then still, shrill but softer, shaking her hair about her, eyes and fists tightly clenched, railing toward the sky, toward God.
And then she turned on them.
The Shawnee were a passionate people. They knew the depths of expressing their grief, but this … this frightened even them. Her eyes opened, and Isabelle leaned at the waist toward them, sweeping from one end of the crowd to the other, impaling them with her gaze and her outstretched arms.
Samuel saw their astonishment of her.
A captive was taking over their ceremony.
She glared her hatred at them. Her arms swooped from one side of the gathered Indians to the other as she spoke in a quiet, harsh voice, looking each of them in the eye as her gazed passed by—the women, the braves, the children, even the chief. She feared nothing and no one.
“You killed my brother.”
She confronted them, first in English, then in French. Then again in English.
Samuel wanted to reach up and grab her, even found himself on his feet beside her. He wanted to tell her that this wasn’t the way, that they must play their part for a time, pretending to be a newly adopted son and daughter while plotting their escape. He wanted to tell her to trust him, that he would find a way. That he knew these Indians, knew their customs and their ways, knew how to work them to his advantage. But all he could do was stare and feel her grief, fighting a clog of emotion in his throat. He knew there was nothing he could do. She would have this moment of blame, even if it meant the end of both their lives.
Then he realized, biting back the words to stop her, that he was willing to give whatever price for her. She deserved this moment.
* * *
AS HER WAILING quieted into rapid, short breaths, Isabelle collapsed back to the hard earth, taking fistfuls of dust from the ground and pouring them over her bent head. The sobbing subsided, and a deep, hate-filled silence enveloped her. When she finally looked back up, she once again glared her hate.
Samuel sat back down beside her. “This is an adoption ceremony. They grieve their lost ones, then adopt us into the families that need replacements.”
She turned toward him, her chiseled, dirt-streaked face so disbelieving that it made him wonder how he’d ever accepted it.
“And whom will I adopt?” she whispered in a hiss. “Who will assuage the loss of my brother?”
She turned, half-mad, toward an Indian boy and pointed at him, causing the lad to lean toward his mother. “Him? Will he be my Julian?” She pointed at another, older man. “Or him? Will he magically become my best friend?” She threw back her head and laugh-cried, a sound that sent chills down Samuel’s spine, then abruptly stopped and stared back at Samuel. “Only a fool would replace a brother with a dog.” Her eyes were slits of scorn. “Only desperate, stupid hearts could so easily replace a loved one.”
“It is their way. Isabelle, we must go along with this, or we will be lost.”
She tilted her head and stared at him, through him, scorn and sadness filling her eyes. “Can you not see? They cannot do anything more to harm me.” She smiled, and it was not lovely. “I am already lost.”
She rose, turning away from him, then walked calmly away from them all, her back strong and straight, toward the charred remains of the fire that had taken her brother.
Samuel and the whole tribe turned and watched her kneel at the site. She reached toward the ashes, like a mother gathering her family to her, and slowly, methodically, rubbed ashes into the deerskin they’d adorned her with, turning the dress from a lovely sky-blue to the gray of her grief.
17
They had continued with the adoption ceremony. Samuel was renamed Patamon, meaning “tempest.” Isabelle, too, was renamed. They called her Cocheta—“That You Cannot Imagine”—and Samuel had to agree that it fit. He noted that they seemed afraid even to look upon her still form sitting at Julian’s grave site. Such a thing must never have happened to them before, a captive turning their mourning against them, mocking it to their face. No one knew what to make of her. She had practically dared them to burn her, but they clearly feared her. Even the chief looked uncertain.
After the ceremony, a quiet affair now, they led Samuel to his new family. A tall, thin man, about his age had lost both a father and a son. Samuel understood that he was being greatly honored by replacing both. Apparently he was worth two family members. He was led to their lodge, given new clothes—a breechcloth, a deerskin shirt and breeches for cooler days, and a pair of moccasins. The woman, his new “mother,” fawned over him, carefully preparing his dinner of cornmeal and pumpkin. She brought him the food, waiting patiently beside him to see if he liked it, but he could hardly force it down, wondering what Isabelle was doing. Where was she? Was she fighting them? Would she force them to kill her? It seemed to be what she wanted.
As soon as seemed permissible, he said in his stilted Shawnee that he needed to go outside. The woman nodded and opened the hide flap for him.
Isabelle was still there, prostrate now, covered from head to toe in ash and dust, looking like she was trying to bury herself. He turned away, knowing that he couldn’t help her yet. He would let this scene play out, watch for any opportunity to rescue her.
* * *
THEY FINALLY URGED her up, and she seemed spent and willing. She was led to a different lodge from the one she’d slept in t
he night before. Two women, the two who had given her the bath, offered her a skin of water. Her mouth was full of the grit of the earth, and she found herself willing to drink the water, feeling it cool and sweet as it slid down her dry throat. They clucked over her ruined dress, pulling it from her slack body. She had little strength left to resist them.
Naked, she stood before them, seeing out of glassy eyes as they sponged away the dirt, dressing her in another dress of softest deerskin, brown this time, plain but clean.
The world had rounded strangely on her, facing her, asking her what she would do next, her face burning from hours in the sun.
“Rest, Cocheta,” one of the women said.
She was led to a pallet of furs where she obediently collapsed. Nearly asleep at once, she suddenly roused, rising up on an elbow. “What did you call me?”
“Cocheta. Shawnee name,” the tall, stately woman said kindly, as if Isabelle had been given a mysterious gift.
Isabelle slowly blinked at her. “My name is Isabelle Renoir.” She lay down again, cradling her head in her curled arms. “Isabelle … my name is Isabelle Renoir,” she said in a whisper before succumbing to exhaustion.
* * *
THEY WOKE HER the next morning, these two benevolent women. She didn’t care who they were or why they thought she should be made to be like them. She didn’t want to know which family had “adopted” her. What job they would give, what food she would eat, what man had “won” her as wife. She turned away from their attempts at conversation, ignoring their efforts to embrace her. The older of the two directed her to sit while she slowly and patiently brushed out Isabelle’s long, dark hair. Isabelle sat mute as her wild dust tangles were fashioned into braids.
Sitting under their ministrations, she remembered her mother. Dear God, it seemed so long since she’d seen her face, and Isabelle knew, deep within her being, that if she ever saw her mother again, everything would be different. She was no longer a girl. Or a daughter even. But she clung to the image of her mother’s face, her eyes so pretty against her dark-blonde, swept-up hair, her countenance so kind despite the hardships of life. Isabelle envisioned that sweet, beloved face, holding it close, while they tightly braided her hair.
Isabelle had never let her mother touch her hair, at least, not for as long as she could remember. She’d always rejected the customs and fashions of her day, instead twining brightly colored ribbons brought back from her father’s trips, tied to her crown and twirling throughout the long, wavy mass. Her mother had soon given up. She recognized Isabelle’s spirit for what it was, calling her “little gypsy” and accepting her despite the girl’s habit of flinging a hand in the face of society. Her father, too, had approved. And so she’d always roamed her own way, sticking close to her heart’s song.
Now she waited as they bound her hair, patient as a cat lounging upon the wrinkled bark of a tree limb, eyes slanting, seemingly convalescent. As soon as they were done, as soon as they stood back to admire their handiwork, Isabelle slowly rose to a regal stance and turned toward them. Looking the two women in the eyes and smiling her cat-confident smile, she reached for the first braid. A tiny laugh escaped her throat as she untied the cord at the bottom of the braid. Her gaze turned condescending as she quickly, surely unwound their intricate work.
They stared at her in uncertainty as she unbound the other braid. She shook out her hair, running her fingers through its glorious length, her chin up.
Then she called to them, making her declaration, “I am Isabelle Renoir. My parents are Joseph and Hope Renoir of Vincennes. I am an American and a supporter of George Rogers Clark and the Long Knives.” She paused, growing still and strong, finishing with a narrow-eyed hiss, “And we will win this day.”
She smiled at them then, a little crazed, throwing back her head and laughing out loud. Her laugh resounded about the room like a trumpet’s blare. Then she turned her gaze on them, daring them to gainsay her.
They stared back in shock, not understanding her.
So she shouted at the top of her voice into their faces, “I will always be Isabelle Renoir!” She took a menacing step toward them, threw out her arm, and pointed toward the exit. “Leave me!”
The two women scrambled to get out, Isabelle’s mad cackle chasing them like a haunting spirit.
They didn’t approach her the rest of that day. She was left alone, without food or water, sitting in the lodge, feeding the fire with sticks she found piled in a corner.
She fed the fire, not because she was cold, for she was too cold to feel cold. No, she fed it because she wanted to see the hunger of it, consuming each stick, watching it turn into ash and vapors of smoke as it rose toward the opening of this paltry stick hut. She fed it like she fed her hate. If only they would come and burn her too… .
It was all she wanted.
* * *
AT DUSK, IN their desperation, the women sent Samuel in to talk to her. He brought her a small bowl of deer broth, which she ignored, looking at him wild-eyed with hate.
“What do you want?”
“Isabelle,” he said simply, his hand reaching in aching need toward the air around her. “They think you are a witch.”
She saw his chiseled, distressed face, and a laugh escaped her throat. A victorious smile curved her lips. “Good.”
“No. This is not good. Do you know what they do to witches?”
She turned from him, sinking down onto her pallet. She rubbed the supple fur, feeling its softness, gathering it to her throat, then looked up at him. “I don’t care.”
“You should.” Samuel moved to her, knelt down beside her cot, and set the steaming bowl on the ground.
His chest was bare, and he looked like a white man playing dress-up. Isabelle imagined him as a boy who’d lost some game with his friends and had to play the part of “the Indian.” She chuckled aloud. Her first impression of him, in armor, as a knight of old, fitted him so much better. In his Shawnee garb he looked … displaced … dishonored … and deeply concerned for her.
He reached for her hand, and her gaze traveled up his strong, tanned arm.
“They will try to cut it from you,” he said. “Little slices from your flesh that they will poke pine needles into to flush out the evil.”
One of her dark, elegant brows rose in derision. “If evil dwells in me, they’ll not find it in my skin. Tell them to cut into the soul, Samuel.” She flung his hand away and lay back on the bed, looking at the ceiling. “Others have tried to take it from me. See if they can find the root of it.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying.” He squatted beside her, his hands loosely clasped together. She stared at his fingers, seeing them intertwined, wanting that closeness with him, even here, even now.
“I am not afraid of pain.” Her voice was as the dead.
“You know not what you speak!” Samuel reached for her hand and raised it to his cheek. “Even if you could bear it, I could not.”
She slanted him a look. “What care do you have of me, Samuel Holt? Tell me the truth.”
He looked momentarily befuddled, adrift, then stared at her. “I only want you safe.”
She laughed, leaned in to kiss him full on the mouth.
“Fool.” She said it compassionately, as if she spoke to a child. Her head tilted, and a long curtain of dark hair cascaded to one side, pooling on the cot. “Nothing will ever be safe again,” she whispered. Then she smiled, leaning back into her fur nest, giving him a heated look. “Maybe I am a witch.”
He exhaled. “No.”
She tilted her head at him, smiling her cat’s smile again. “Are you certain? You don’t really know me.”
He pulled her from the bed, made her stand, drawing her close to his chest. “You are devastated by what has happened, and rightly so.” He looked down briefly, pressing his lips together. He took a deep breath and looked back up at her.
She saw his face in that moment of pause. The Glorious One, they’d called him, and she could see
it. His hair, so blond, like a child’s, his face chiseled male authority. Strength rode high on his cheekbones, his hooded eyes seeing more than what his vision perceived. Isabelle saw his whiskers, darker blond, covering his lower face, but still sparse. And his lips. He had wonderful lips.
His next words shook her from her spell.
“You are a coward. I never thought it of you. You are giving up.”
Isabelle stared into his amber-colored eyes, the color of molten honey, and didn’t like what she saw. A challenge. And so much compassion. Her breathing increased as she allowed it in, turning her head away, hiding the sudden tears.
“They burned him. In front of me.”
“Yes.”
“I can’t bear it.”
“Yes, you can.”
“I can’t. I’d rather die than bear it.”
“Look at me.”
She looked at him.
His eyes filled and spilled forth. His face was warm, radiating heat toward her, real and alive.
She reached up to touch his cheek. She exhaled, breaking.
“I can’t breathe if I don’t hate them.”
He pulled her close, burying his face in her neck, clasping her to him. His breath moved over her neck, up to her ear, where he rasped, “You might want to die, hope to die, pray to die to bear the pain of it. But you … will … not … die.”
His lips grazed her jawline, caressing her other cheek with his thumb. His mouth found hers.
“You can’t leave me,” he said.
His lips moved over hers, taking her breath and giving his, infusing his strength into her.
She felt his lips moving over hers. Felt the heat and the life, resisting at first by the immobility to his words … and then giving in, grasping his shoulders, feeling the muscle, the life of him. Her hands moved over his chest, then up to his shoulders, wrapping around his neck and hanging on, hanging by the last sane thread to this man, this moment, this lifeline in a wild sea, never wanting to let go of something so solid and real.
