I thought of Jamie being left in the village, but I decided it would be better for him to remain. His parents had been killed, the same as mine. He had no one to raise him, and besides, he seemed to like the Indian way of life. I barely saw him any longer. I think he had practically forgotten how to speak English, as I listened him rattle off Indian words as fast as any of the other tribe members.
Le-le-wa’-you and I started off in the direction of where the berries grew, and as we did, I looked over my shoulder to see Wolf watching us. His mother stood beside him, talking to him, but he didn’t seem to be listening. His eyes were intently burning into mine, and I wondered if he knew I intended to escape? I turned back and tried to forget about the morning I had spent with Wolf across the river. At least my last memory of him would be a pleasant one, I told myself. I didn’t want my resolve to waver, though, so I quickly focused on my plans to evade Le-le-wa’-you.
Le-le-wa’-you was a rather pretty girl a year or two older than I was, I think. She was small and petite, much shorter than me. I was a big-boned Irish girl, which made it easier for me to perform the labor Wolf requested me to do. I liked working and keeping busy because it helped me from missing my life the way it used to be.
Even though I came from a world where men had all the say, my life had been enjoyable. I had helped my mother around the house, while Ben helped my father. We had a good sized homestead on the outskirts of Philadelphia, a settlement which had been growing steadily. Besides Ben and my father, we had two hired hands to help us with the farm. It was their misfortune to be killed by the Indians before they even burst into our house.
My father was a carpenter by trade and made all of our furniture and built our house. Besides our farm, he made extra money building things for other people settling the area. He needed someone to have working the farm while he was working in his shop building furniture. He did very fine finish work. People envied our house because it was not a crude log house like many of the others in the area. Our logs had been planed and squared off, fitting tightly together so not as much chink needed to be used. The outside was sided by pine siding, so the logs were not visible. We had two fireplaces, one at each end of the house, and two stories of rooms, the bedrooms being upstairs. There were fireplaces upstairs, coming off the chimneys of the ones below, to help heat the rooms up above.
Because my father did well with his business, I wore lovely dresses, all of which had been left behind. We always had plenty of food to eat and people round about all knew us. That was why they had all met at our residence. Our house was larger than others in the area, and we did not think the Indians would try attacking a home such as ours when they knew several people were there to defend themselves. The problem was, we had not expected them to strike so soon, and had barely gathered there with no time to make specific plans. In fact, that is what everyone was in the process of doing when the Indians rushed into the house. If the others had remained on their own homesteads, perhaps their lives would have been spared, but maybe the Indians would have picked them off one at a time, for all I knew.
The thoughts of my home drew me, despite the horror of what transpired in the kitchen where we were gathered when Wolf and his companions terrorized us all. While they had taken food from the kitchen, as much as they could carry, I knew the cellar was filled with supplies, if it hadn’t been raided by other Indians or people in the area by now. However, most of the people in the vicinity had been at our house at the time. If the supplies were still there, I would have something to live on over the winter since it was enough to furnish our whole family with food, once we were finished with the fall harvest.
I doubt anyone would even bother to check on the house over the winter. Once the British soldiers removed the dead bodies, to bury them, they would have no purpose to come back since the Indians had taken everyone with them, who hadn’t been killed. Because the British were close on their heels, the Indians didn’t have time to search the whole house or discover what we kept in the cellar. I was thinking I should have hidden down there, but there hadn’t been enough time.
I was thinking these things as I walked behind Le-le-wa’-you. She and I did not talk. I was still pretending not to know the language and had no purpose to carry on conversations with people I had no regard for. Therefore, she tramped ahead of me and I followed behind like the servant I was supposed to be. She was not paying attention to me and I slowed my pace, allowing her to get further ahead as we progressed. She glanced over her shoulder and yelled for me to catch up. I nodded, as though I intended to do so, but as soon as she turned with the path and was hidden by a tree, I darted off into the density of the woods. I found a group of concealing bushes and crouched down in the middle of them.
It was not long before I heard Le-le-wa’-you calling out for me. At first, she was just calling out exasperatedly for me to catch up because I was wasting time. Then she was calling loudly, swearing a little as she continued to call without any answer from me. I could hear her tramping back down the trail we had been following, which led to the berry field, as she continued to call. She passed the place where I had turned off the trail and now her voice sounded frantic. She came back, traveling back and forth to the place where she noticed I was gone and where I had turned off. Finally, she started running back towards the village. It was over a mile away so I knew it would take time before she got there, and then more time before anyone came to try to track me down at the spot to where I had turned off the path. That gave me a good hour or so to disappear. To throw them off, I decided to go back down the path towards the village and then turn before I got to the river. That way, Le-le-wa’-you would bring them past that spot to the place where she last saw me. They would be searching there, long before they discovered I had backtracked if they ever did discover I had backtracked. By that time, the trail would be covered with footprints on top of mine.
I was feeling rather proud of myself, but I knew I had a long way to go before I was out of danger. I knew the Indians were good trackers, and Wolf would probably assume I was heading back towards my original home. It would be dangerous for him to follow me since the British were patrolling the areas where the Lenape had raided, and he would be by himself. I can’t imagine a group going back to Philadelphia just to drag back a single white girl. If Wolf wanted me back bad enough, he would probably have to come by himself. Only I knew if he didn’t overtake me right away, he most likely wouldn’t track me any further. After all, he thought I was barren and was considering giving me to Running Dog anyway!
I kept a steady pace, eating or drinking as I continued on. I could not hear anyone shouting for me so I knew I was a good distance away from where they were searching. I don’t think Wolf expected me to try and leave. I had shown no indication of being unhappy, so he may believe I had merely gotten lost, and that was the reason Le-le-wa’-you could not find me. When I did not return to the village and no one could find any sign of me, they may think a wild animal had taken me. I was just a mere white girl. I couldn’t be that important to them.
Wolf was the only one who had any vested interest in me because he had taken the effort to capture me and bring me back to his tribe to produce him some babies. However, I also knew that it was very traumatizing for a young brave to ‘lose face’, meaning not accomplishing their goals or having done something wrong. Wolf would lose face if his captive managed to escape. That would give him the incentive to drag me back if he could. After all, he had forced me to come with him when I had tried to escape before. His pride would be wounded if his first captive from his first raid managed to evade him. Maybe he could not earn his manhood, if he ended up losing his first captive. In that case, they may not let him have his manhood ceremony, I chuckled to myself, thinking of all the humiliation I had gone through at his hands.
The thought pleased me. He deserved to suffer. He had made sure I suffered, while he humiliated me in front of his friends, and showed no concern for me but to use me as his personal whore and serv
ant. Why should I care if he lost face, or his pride was bruised? My feelings didn’t seem important to him. Why should his feelings be important to me?
By nightfall, I took the time to fashion something to wear with the cloth I had taken. I tied one strip around my waist, which fell to the middle of my thighs, and the other piece over my breasts. Having done that, I felt a little better. I would no longer be a slave, unworthy to wear clothes. However, I did not stop to rest. I would have to make it across the river to the stream so I could follow it the rest of the way before I came to the place where we had met the stream on our journey to Wolf’s village.
I decided I would follow the stream on the opposite bank from where Wolf, Jamie, and I had traveled, and stay a good distance away from the bank, only approaching it when I needed water or to bathe. That way, if Wolf did come looking for me, he wouldn’t see me along the stream.
I just hoped I could remember where the place was that I would have to leave the stream and not get lost in the woods, as I traveled back the way we had come, so I could get back to Philadelphia and find my house. Then I would be done with the Lenape Indians forever. I would stay there and have my baby, and then I would kill it, I thought vengefully. No one would ever know I had an Indian child. Having an Indian child was unacceptable by society, even if the child was forced upon you. I would pretend like I had escaped before my virtue was taken from me. No one would ever learn of my experience because I would never speak of it. I would put Wolf and his people behind me, and try not to think of them again.
CHAPTER FOUR
I continued walking until I was exhausted and could barely put one foot in front of the other. As far as I knew, no one was following me. If they were, they must be far behind. The only noise I heard was the birds singing in the treetop, and the stream a distance away from me. I had crossed the river in the night, its smooth surface shimmering in the moonlight, causing me to remember the times Wolf had taken me across that river to the opposite bank where he worked on making me conceive his child. As I traveled during the day I knew if there was anyone near, the birds would stop singing or fly up as they passed. Therefore, I was focused on the sound of the birds as I continued on. Only the sound kept drifting in and out, as my eyes would close for a few seconds, and then I was collapsing in a pile under a tree. I wrapped one of the blankets around me and fell into a deep sleep.
I dreamed of the massacre, only in my dream, I was my aunt carrying Wolf’s baby. All of Wolf’s friends were taking turns raping me. Running Dog’s beady eyes looked down at me as he licked his lips before pulling away his breech-cloth. I started to cry out, and the sound of my own voice woke me. I shivered, as though I was still part of the dream. I was trying to remember where I was? Where was Wolf? He was always beside me and now I lay shivering along.
I sucked my breath in and sat up. It was early evening and the memory of my dream and chill that was starting to fall around me, caused me to shiver. I had slept all day. I sat still, listening. All was silent except for the normal night sounds of crickets and the flickering of fireflies. The occasional hoot of an owl cut through the silence and far in the distance, I could hear a wolf howl. It made me recall the story about Tame the wolf trying to discover the size of the new Earth and never returning. It was all fairy stories, I smiled to myself. There was no sign of anyone near, so I felt safe. The sound of the wolf howl made me think of Wolf. Perhaps, he like the animal he was named for, was howling within his soul because I had outwitted him.
I pulled some food from the supply Le-le-wa’-you had packed for us. I had been eating it sparingly because I wasn’t certain when I would happen upon anything else to eat along the way. I had gathered young fiddle fern, and though I knew stinging nettle could be eaten it was only safe to do after it was cooked. There had been an elderberry bush early on, that I had stopped and stripped of its fruit the day before. I wish I could have taken a bow and arrows, but I wouldn’t have known how to use them. I had seen Wolf spear fish, and I thought I may be able to do that if I had to. Only I had no knife or any way to start a fire, so whatever I ate, it would have to be raw or something that I didn’t need to cook.
Since I wasn’t sleepy, I decided I would continue to travel until it was too dark to see. There had been a full moon the night before, so I knew I could travel by its now waning glow if I had to. It was cooler traveling at night because we were having a hot, “Indian Summer”. I had always wondered why they called it that? I hope it lasted until I could get close to my destination. I judged it had taken a month for Wolf, Jamie, and me to walk to his village, so it would take less time going back since I didn’t intend to stop along the way to eat or play in the stream. I would only sleep as sparingly as possible and walk until I dropped. I hoped by doing that, I could cut off at least a week of travel.
This time, when I finally stopped to sleep, I couldn’t go to sleep. My mind was too busy to quiet down. I suddenly felt lonely. From the moment I had started traveling with Wolf, he had been by my side at night most of the time. Now it seemed strange not to have him there. Even the fact that I no longer had to allow him using me did not make me feel any better. I had to admit, that some of the time, I liked him being there, holding me and putting his seed in me, as he put it, on the few occasions he was gentler than usual. I kept reliving the time by the river when he had actually almost made love to me, short of kissing me.
I chalked it up to conditioning. He had groomed me into accepting his constant touch and having him there as my companion. He must have thought he had me totally trained, to have let me go off with his sister to pick berries and not worry about me not coming back. I had to remind myself that when I returned, had I remained, he would have been turning me over to Running Dog. The thought saddened me. It was a rejection, despite the fact that I was a mere slave to him. At least he wanted me there to use at his leisure. Not wanting me anymore, even for that, hurt me in a way I couldn’t explain.
On top of that, I had no one. My family was dead. All our close neighbors were dead or taken by the Indians. I had to leave Jamie behind. No one would even know when I returned so I wouldn’t have any visitors, once I arrived. However, I didn’t want any visitors. I didn’t want anyone to know I was carrying a savage’s baby. The bleak future I had to look forward to was not welcoming. Only it was more welcoming than being given to Running Dog, and him believing I was carrying his baby. It would have served Wolf right, I laughed to myself. Then he would think he was the one who could not bring forth a child. Had I stayed, that thought alone would have been worth it because I knew I would never have admitted to Wolf that I was going to have his child. I would have pretended it was Running Dog’s child and make Wolf believe he was the one who could not produce children. Maybe that would have kept him from marrying anyone, I snickered to myself.
Eventually, I managed to sleep some, but I rose early and continued on. I had come to the conclusion that no one was on my trail and so I did not worry as much anymore.
I managed to make the food last for a week, by only eating a few bites once a day. After all, I had gone two days without food or water when the Lenape first took us. I was losing all the weight I had gained and the baby probably did not like having to go without. Only I was the one suffering from not eating. I got tired easier and slept longer. I managed to break off a sharp splintered piece of wood from a tree that had been struck by lightning and toppled over. I used it for a spear and after patiently sitting by the stream for hours, wasting time, I finally managed to spear a fish. I had to eat it raw, but it surprised me that it didn’t taste that bad. It must have been because I was so hungry!
I kept my spear and knew I could eat fish for the rest of my journey if I had to.
I stayed a good distance from the stream while I was traveling and I was surprised when I happened upon an abandoned trapper’s cabin. It was halfway falling down, but I decided to investigate to see if there was anything left behind that I could use? The door was weathered and half hanging on it’s lea
ther hinges. I almost fell off, when I pushed it open. The leather hinges were stiff and rotted. Cobwebs greeted me as the door slumped against the wall, once I pushed it open. Inside I was met by a crude, rock fireplace, a wobbly table and a makeshift cot with no mattress. There was a lantern hanging on the wall, draped with cobwebs, covered in dust, but no oil in it to burn. Then I spied a small, rusted hatchet, leaning against the raised hearth. The floor was littered with leaves and grass growing up in places under each hole in the roof where the rain had fallen to the sod floor. As my foot pushed leaves and twigs aside, I found a knife blade with no handle. If I could find some flint, I would be able to start a fire, I told myself, my spirits starting to rise. Then I remembered my brother telling me about how flint sometimes washed down the rivers. If I looked along the banks of the streams, I might be able to find a piece of flint. After all, the Indians made their arrowheads out of flint. There had to be some somewhere along the way.
The thought gave me hope, and I decided that for the rest of the way, I would walk along the banks of the stream until I managed to find a piece of flint. I was thinking about what I would manage to cook, other than fish, if I found a piece of flint, when I noticed a small trap hanging on one wall. I didn’t have any weapons to kill some wild animal, but I could set a trap, I told myself gleefully. The only problem with that was I would have to wait around for something to get caught in it, and that would take time. However, if I set the trap at night while I was sleeping, or any time when I was sleeping, I might get lucky and trap something. If I got hungry enough, it would probably be worth the wait, otherwise. Things were starting to look up, I decided.
Across The River Page 6
