Bride of the Wilderness

by Charles McCarry

  “Look,” she said, pointing with her toe.

  Fanny saw a round hole in the snow, about the size of a shilling. A jet of steam, faint in the warmish air, came out of it. The rhythm was very slow—so slow that the vent would be covered by the falling snow, then melted by a fresh exhalation, then covered again.

  “What do you suppose that is?” Rose asked.

  She drew back her foot to kick the mound of snow. Suddenly she was lifted into the air. A big dirty hand, callused and hatched with scars, closed over her mouth. The thumb and forefinger pinched her nostrils shut.

  Used to be Bear, covered with snow, had materialized out of the storm and seized her from behind. Rose, unable to breathe or speak, struggled for a moment, then subsided. Used to be Bear put her down, pushing her and Fanny away from the mound of snow with exaggerated caution. His face broke across in a yellow grin and he said something in rapid signs.

  Fanny interpreted, whispering: “He says you mustn’t wake up the bear.”

  They were standing in a grove of young birches. Used to be Bear selected two, growing some distance apart, and told Rose and Fanny to climb to the tops. The limber saplings bent under their weight, so that they were nearly horizontal as they clung to them. They had an excellent view of what followed.

  Used to be Bear returned to the mound in the snow, approaching it inch by inch with such caution that he appeared not to be moving at all. On reaching the mound, Used to be Bear dug in the snow with equal care, removing one handful of snow, waiting, and removing another until the bear was uncovered. The animal was curled up in a ball. On a colder day it would certainly have awakened. As things were, the bear, protected by three inches of fur and four inches of fat beneath the fur, did not appear to notice any change in temperature. It twitched a little but slept on. Used to be Bear sat cross-legged in the snow and watched it intently for many minutes. The air was just cold enough to condense the bear’s breath; it seemed to be breathing four or five times a minute. Without this sign, it would have been difficult to tell one end of the bear from the other.

  Used to be Bear had no gun, no bow. He was armed, instead, with Philippe’s bayonet. This was a long, narrow blade with a needle point. He held it in both hands. Used to be Bear was looking at the bear’s head, which lay on its hip. First he saw the breath, then the black nose at the end of the whiskery muzzle, then the lip, then a brown tooth under the lip, then an ear, and finally the eye hidden in the fur.

  Used to be Bear placed the point of the bayonet against the bear’s eye. Through the steel, he felt the lid flutter just before he threw his whole weight onto the blade, driving it through the eye socket into the bear’s brain. Used to be Bear, following his own weight, somersaulted across the body of the bear. Rolling to his feet, he leaped into a birch sapling and scrambled to the top. Behind him, the dying bear undoubled convulsively and stood up on its hind legs, as if trying to escape from the blade that had passed completely through its brain and emerged from the back of its skull. Then it collapsed onto the snow and lay where it fell, inert.

  Used to be Bear, after waiting in his tree for a long time to be sure that the bear was dead, skinned the animal, gutted it, and trotted off into the falling snow with a tangle of intestines in his arms.

  Rose followed him—the ways of the Indians were beginning to interest her. Used to be Bear walked along the ravine, listening. Every few paces, he dropped to his knees and put his ear next to the snow. Rose understood, perhaps because she could already hear it gurgling beneath the snow, that he was listening for running water.

  She showed him where it was. He dug through the snow, found the frozen brook buried beneath it, and chopped a hole in the ice. Then he washed out the bear’s intestines, holding them under the icy water and letting the current run through. The elements seemed to have no more effect on him than they had had on the bear.

  Back in the ravine, Used to be Bear, muttering a song under his breath as he worked, removed every bit of fat from the bear’s carcass and packed it into the intestines, tying them off every six inches or so with a length of rawhide. When he had finished, he had a long string of capsules of bear fat. He cut two of these off and dropped them on the raw side of the hide, where the bear’s liver already lay.

  The rest of the carcass he hung in a tree. Then he rolled up the hide, made the sign for “come with me” to Rose, and dropped down into the shelter he had dug for the two of them.

  This trench in the snow, roofed with balsam boughs like the other, was about three times the size of a grave, and like a grave it was deep enough to stand up in. It was very dark inside. Rose was glad of the balsam over her head and under her feet, because its fragrance intermingled with the stench of the fresh bearskin and the many smells emitted by Used to be Bear. After he spread the bearskin over the floor, he retreated to one end of the shelter.

  Rose heard him breaking sticks in the darkness. Used to be Bear, singing a fire-starting song in a muffled voice, struck his flint and steel together. Sparks flew, illuminating his big sleeper’s face, which was something like Oliver’s face except that it was the color of a saddle. The tinder caught. Used to be Bear blew on it gently, coaxing it into a flame. Then he placed it gently beneath the tipi of dead wood he had built on the rock shelf.

  A moment later, he had a bright, nearly smokeless fire burning. It was a very small fire. Neither the smoke nor the flame could be seen, and it could not be smelled except by an Indian—or by Rose—as far away as the river. The English could not be as close as that.

  Used to be Bear cooked bits of liver on the end of a stick and gobbled them. When he had had enough, he sat back and watched Rose cook and eat. The liver was very strong in taste and smell, but Rose ate as much as she could. Finally Used to be Bear growled at her and she stopped. Belching and smacking his lips and spitting out the inedible parts, he ate more liver, meanwhile toasting one of the bear-grease sausages over the coals of the fire.

  When the sausage was hot, he untied the rawhide at one end and squeezed a blob of fat into his palm. He licked it up and grunted, then offered some to Rose. When she did not eat it at once, he gave her a hard dig in the ribs. She stuck her finger into the fat and licked it. The horrible taste of the stuff, like the secretions of uncooked meat that had lain in the sun for a long time, like cat, filled the entire cavity of her head. She gagged.

  Used to be Bear was laughing. What was wrong? Rose had always been told, even by Magpie, that Indians never laughed. Used to be Bear was making signs. By now Rose could understand most of this simple language, so what Used to be Bear did next did not surprise her. He stood Rose on her feet and stripped her naked, tossing her fur cloak, her gown, her petticoats, her shift onto the balsam floor.

  Then, grunting, he stepped back to look at her in the firelight. He seemed to be a little drunk. He gave himself another mouthful of bear grease in the same way that Robert or Oliver, in the same situation, might have taken another drink of brandy. Rose smoothed her hair, which had been mussed during the undressing. Used to be Bear rubbed bear greased into it, then turned her around so that she faced the fire.

  He pulled her nearer to the flame and kneeled, absorbed. He had never before seen a woman with flaxen pubic hair; the other fair-haired Englishwomen he had captured, three of them in all, had had dark hair on their stomachs.

  Rose began to make her plans to control Used to be Bear. She gave him a look filled with pain and wounded trust. He pushed downward on Rose’s shoulders, telling her to lie down. She twisted away and bent over, reaching for her fur cloak. Used to be Bear gave her a clout on the buttocks that knocked her into the wall of the trench and took away her breath and even her sight. She felt him pulling her onto the bearskin and pushing her over onto her back. When she opened her eyes, he was standing over her in the smoky light of the fire, removing his breechclout.

  Used to be Bear, singing a song to summon a child that would look like the Abenakis but have this woman’s eyes and ears and nose, ran his greased hand
back and forth on his engorged member and threw himself on top of Rose.

  Used to be Bear bellowed his song into her ear. Unbearable smells issued from his body, his great weight slammed against her pelvis, the wet bearskin scourged her back. After a very short time, Used to be Bear let out a roar and collapsed on top of her. He lay inert for a moment, snuffling, then recovered his size and started in again.

  Rose tried to smell just the woodsmoke so that she would not have to smell the bearskin, the bear grease, the breath and the secretions of Used to be Bear. Woodsmoke reminded her of Norwood and the Gypsy camp; Rose had smelled so much woodsmoke since coming to America that she had forgotten what a rare aroma it was in England. That was the day the Gypsy crone had told her fortune … And then, as if the old woman were actually there in the pit in the snow with her, Rose heard her say, “I see a bear.… You cannot hide from him. The bear will find you. You owe him this child from another life and he will make you give it to him.”

  Rose had been cursed. Her fate, grunting and pushing, was entering her body like an incubus, just as she had known it would, but in a way she had never imagined. For the first time, she could feel the act as it occurred. Against her will, she became aware of everything that was happening to her. She could see in the dark, hear the brooks running under the ice and snow, distinguish every nauseating odor in the pit from every other odor. Her body moved against her will. Something grunted and screamed, using Rose’s voice.

  Used to be Bear fell asleep on top of her. Rose was herself again now. A plan formed in her mind. She let Used to be Bear lie as he was for a long time before she moved, so as not to wake him up. Finally she turned her leg, very cautiously. Used to be Bear woke up and began to sing.

  16

  Talks in His Dreams smelled the smoke of Used to be Bear’s fire when he was still about half a mile away from it. He stopped where he was, in a grove of hemlocks, and waited for Father Nicolas and Sleeping Fox, a young man whose father, Yellow Rain, was the first Abenaki to be killed by the ghost dogs, to bring the women along the trail he had broken.

  The going had been slow because one of the women had a child who was too small to walk in the snow and too heavy to be carried. Now that it was snowing, the child, a boy with watery English eyes, was more of a burden than ever; the women kept falling behind, each carrying him for a while, then handing him on to one of the others. He had a bad cough that made him whoop as he struggled to draw breath.

  Earlier that day, while headed north and west along the Pocumtuck, they had come on the tracks of the fat English ghost and the ghost dogs. These tracks were several hours old, which meant that the ghosts had started up the river ahead of the Abenakis, and were waiting for them in the forest ahead. The ghosts were not traveling on the ice, but on a trail that followed the contours of the hills above the river.

  Talks in His Dreams and Sleeping Fox had left the captives with Father Nicolas and tracked the ghosts for a mile or two. They were moving at a fast pace, which showed that the fat ghost was not troubled by the arrows that Talks in His Dreams had shot into his neck and chest. There was no blood on the trail and no sign that the fat ghost was dragging his snowshoes as a wounded man or an exhausted man will do; his prints, laid down by running feet, were clear and distinct mile after mile.

  After observing all these signs, Talks in His Dreams and Sleeping Fox decided that it would be better to go home by another route. Therefore they reversed direction and headed due east toward a tributary of the Pocumtuck that ran north and south, parallel to the Connecticut. This was a much harder river to walk on because it was narrow and full of rocks, but it led to a point only a few miles away from a bigger river that led to Lake Champlain.

  Waiting among the hemlocks, Talks in His Dreams listened for the women. He heard them coming up the steep hill behind him, gasping and whimpering. The child was coughing again. Whoever had built the fire would hear this noise. A dog would be able to hear it over the distance of half a day’s walking. Sleeping Fox was too far behind, watching for the ghosts, to do anything about it.

  Talks in His Dreams stripped the child out of its mother’s arms and looked around for a rock on which to smash its skull. Seeing none, he dropped the child on its face into the snow and pushed it under the surface with his snowshoe while he got out his tomahawk. The mother threw herself to the ground, howling, and clawed at Talks in His Dreams’s snowshoe. She would not let go even when he yanked on her hair and poked her hard with the handle of his tomahawk. Talks in His Dreams did not want to kill her; Sleeping Fox seemed to like her. But how could they travel through hostile country with a woman who made this much noise?

  While Talks in His Dreams was thinking about this problem, an owl launched itself out of a tall maple tree, dropping steadily through the air like a stone with wings, and landed nearby in a hemlock. The owl had always been a friend to him; perhaps it wanted to tell him something.

  The hemlock shook, snow falling off the laden branches, and Philippe jumped out of it.

  “Hello, Wind Hunter,” Talks in His Dreams said. “I thought you were an owl. Is that your fire I smell?” “Not mine. Used to be Bear killed a bear.”

  “Then he’s cooking the grease.”

  “He will be glad to see you. Why are you walking this way?”

  “Because the ghosts are going the other way.” “Going the other way?”

  “We saw their tracks on the trail above the Pocumtuck, near the place where Crow saw the snake.”

  Any Abenaki would have known what place Talks in His Dreams was talking about. Philippe did not know, but he did not question him further. The Indian’s mind was on the bear grease; he sniffed the air, hoping to catch the scent of it.

  The child coughed convulsively under the snowshoe, choking as it inhaled snow, and then fell silent. Its mother, still lying prostrate in her tattered nightgown, was trying to dig away the snow to give it air.

  Philippe said, “I think you can take your foot off the child now. It has stopped making noise.”

  Talks in His Dreams lifted his foot. “I’m going to go see Used to be Bear now,” he said.

  Philippe dug the half-conscious child out of the snow. Its nose was bleeding, but it was otherwise unharmed. Father Nicolas listened to it cough and shook his shaved head.

  “Whooping cough,” he said.

  Father Nicolas carried a small cooking pot with him. He built a fire in the pit where all the women were huddled together. Even Rose was there. Used to be Bear had sent her away when Talks in His Dreams and Sleeping Fox arrived, and the three Abenakis were now eating bear grease together and telling stories. The singsong sound of their voices drifted over the campground.

  Fanny made broth in Father Nicolas’ pot from a chunk of beef from Philippe’s sack. The women sat in a circle, passing Father Nicolas’ spoon from hand to hand. Fanny fed Betsy as well as herself.

  Father Nicolas renewed his arguments for baptism. “The child will die in the snow and the cold,” Father Nicolas said, speaking English to Betsy. “Really, you must think about the soul of your daughter, madam.”

  “Have some of the meat,” Fanny said to Betsy.

  She tore it apart with her fingers and put it into Betsy’s mouth. This time she chewed and swallowed without assistance. Solitude whimpered; Betsy gave her her breast.

  “This woman does not seem to understand me when I speak to her in English,” Father Nicolas said to Fanny. “I’ll speak French and you can translate. Tell her that she is committing the sin of pride, and thereby placing the soul of her daughter in jeopardy.…”

  Father Nicolas went on in his thin earnest voice. The convulsive coughing of the little boy who had whooping cough made it impossible to hear what he was saying.

  “What is that man saying?” Rose said. “Why does he never stop talking?”

  She was trying to dress herself in the dark, and the effort was exasperating her. Used to be Bear had put her out naked underneath her fur cloak.

  “Papist poi
son, that’s what he’s talking,” Hepzibah said. “He’s trying to steal the babe’s soul for the pope, and Fanny’s helping him. That’s why Betsy gets the broth, Betsy gets the kind words, Betsy gets to wear her cloak while the rest of us go hungry and half-naked. As soon as the papists get the baby, Betsy, you’ll be as bad off as the rest of us.”

  “Be quiet,” Rose said. “You don’t know anything about anything.”

  “I know about her. I found her crucifix where she hid it in her room a long time ago.”

  “You think Fanny’s a spy, do you?” Rose said. “Come here, Hepzibah, I can’t see you.”

  Hepzibah crawled across her sister’s body and kneeled in the dark in front of Rose.

  “Is that you?” Rose said, feeling her face and hair. “It’s me, missis.”

  Without warning, Rose slapped Hepzibah hard on the ears. She howled in surprise and pain.

  “I know who the spy was, and it wasn’t Fanny Harding,” Rose said. “Don’t ever tell another lie about Fanny or you’ll get worse than a box on the ears. Now, go lie down and keep your mouth shut until you’re spoken to.”

  Father Nicolas had gone outside. They could hear his faint prayers and the Indians and Philippe speaking Abenaki in the next pit. It was impossible to know what time it was because the storm had blotted out the moon and the stars.

  “Rose,” Fanny said. “Come lie on the other side of Betsy, to keep her warm.”

  They arranged themselves on either side of Betsy, who was still singing under her breath. Solitude was asleep on her chest. Reaching across Betsy to find Fanny’s face, Rose touched the baby by mistake. It was wrapped in fur.

  “My beaver bonnet,” she said. “It doesn’t look much like a bonnet now. Oliver gave it to me, you know, when we were happy in London. It was lovely in London—always something new, jolly people all around, and you playing your musical instruments.”