Crooked River

by Shelley Pearsall

  I just kept silent and did my work without a word. By evening, I had nearly forgotten all about the trapper. I didn't know then what an unfortunate mistake that would later turn out to be.

  the trapper

  steals from me

  as the crow steals

  from a patch of corn.

  i can smell a trapper coming

  upwind

  in a rainstorm

  two camps away.

  the trapper laughs

  and plucks a feather from my head,

  laughs

  and struts as if he is

  ten feet tall

  in his boots,

  too tall to fit

  in his own canoe.

  holding the feather

  in his hand, he turns

  and runs.

  cowardly gichi-mookomaan,

  i whisper,

  you could steal

  the wings

  from the soaring eagle,

  but it would not make you

  strong

  or brave.

  After the no-good trapper, a whole river of people started coming to our door to see Indian John. It was as if the trapper had opened the waterways of curiosity and folks arrived from far and wide to stare at a captive Indian.

  I didn't care for their visits at all.

  Amos had once told me about Learned Pig shows, where people paid a few cents to see an exhibition where real pigs spelled and counted. He said that some of the pigs had even been taught to spell the name of the president of the United States—Mr. Madison himself.

  I wasn't sure all that was true.

  But it seemed to me that the families who came to our house acted as if we had a Learned Pig show inside. The women arrived wearing their best going-to-meeting gowns, and the children always carried something to give us Carvers. Since it was the time of year when most folks didn't have much good food left, it was most often a pail of butter or a few brown eggs—as if we were foolish enough not to have cows or chickens of our own.

  After they stepped inside, the women would cast their eyes around our cabin and say in a jumpy voice, “That Indian ain't allowed free, is he? You've got him in chains now, I suppose?”

  If it was up to me, I would have told them the Indian was sitting by the fire sharpening his hatchet. See how fast that would make them throw on their bonnets, turn on their heels, and run. Let them leave Indian John and us alone.

  But Pa would certainly hear of it and give me a thrashing. He had given Laura an awful hard scolding when he got word of how she had treated that miserable trapper.

  So me and Laura didn't have any choice but to tell the visitors where to find Indian John chained in the loft. Then they would go up the narrow stairs, real slowly, still talking to us as they went up. Always the women in front and their children behind, clutching hold of their skirts.

  After a period of silent staring, when we could just hear the feet of the children shuffling back and forth on the floor, they would often holler down to us.

  “He's asleep. When's he wake up?”

  Truth to speak, I think Indian John just pretended to be asleep. When he heard footsteps, I think he would lean his head down as far as it would go on his chest, so the only things visible in the shadows were the bottoms of his moccasins, his stretched-out legs, and the top of his head.

  “Can you git him to wake up?” they'd ask.

  Me and Laura would give each other a look, and then one of us would holler upstairs that we didn't care to do anything to make the Indian angry. That usually sent the curious eyes hurrying back down from the loft.

  Sometimes, though, they got to throwing things at Indian John, trying to wake him up. They threw little things mostly, like the kernels of dried corn that were scattered on the floor of the loft. Or something the children had carried in. Maybe a clay marble or a pebble. From below, we could hear things clattering and rolling across the floor. The children would holler, “Hit him right there on the shoulder, you see that, Ma?” and they would laugh and clap. It always brought a terrible sick feeling to my stomach.

  They were only throwing corn kernels and pebbles, but it seemed like I could feel the sting of every single piece that they threw as if it was my own skin instead of Indian John's. I could scarcely understand how people could think to do such things.

  Me and Laura tried to keep the loft swept as best we could. After the visitors left, I often went upstairs and swept again. If Laura wasn't minding me, I would leave something small near Indian John's feet to try and make up for what folks had done.

  Once I left him a brown butterfly wing I found near the springhouse. And another time, a scrap of green silk ribbon I had saved since Ma's death. Sometimes, before I went back downstairs, I would whisper that I was real sorry for the way people were. I expect that he didn't understand a word, but I felt better for saying it.

  After seeing what a gazingstock they made of Indian John, I never wanted to go to a Learned Pig show. Not even when I was old. It seemed to me that it wasn't right to stare at anything, human or animal, in a show. Even if it was only trained pigs who could spell the name of the president.

  A different sort of visitor arrived one morning during the second week of May. Me and Laura were boiling clothes outside. We had a roaring good fire going and a mess of clothes to wash in the big kettle.

  In the field just across the road from our cabin, Pa and the men were burning the last of the big brush heaps they had piled up in the fall. You could smell the bitter-sharp smoke from the burning wood on the air. Spring was a peculiar time, I thought. Sweetness and bitterness both. We tapped the sweetness out of some trees and burnt others to pieces within the same few months.

  I squinted at the field, trying to see where Pa and the men were working, and that's when I spotted someone coming down the road.

  All I saw at first was a blaze of copper red hair on a stranger who looked as skinny as a beanpole. His brown coat flapped loosely around him as he walked, and he carried his hat in one hand.

  “Now who could that be?” Laura said.

  “Likely someone else coming to stare at Indian John,” I sighed. “Or to bother us about his trial.”

  Pa had said that Indian John's trial would be held at the beginning of June, after the corn was in the ground. But I was awful tired of answering folks’ eternal questions about it. Or perhaps I didn't like to be reminded that Indian John was still accused of murder.

  “We aren't fit for visitors. Look at us.” Laura tried to push her loose straggles of hair underneath her cap, and she told me to pull down my rolled-up sleeves. “Mind your manners, Reb,” she whispered.

  When the stranger reached us, he stopped nearly a dozen feet away. Looking up, I tried to give him what I thought was a tired, unfriendly stare. As if we were too busy to be bothered to help him.

  “Good morning,” he said awkwardly, twisting the brim of his black hat in his hands like he was full of nerves.

  He looked to be about the same age as Amos or Cousin George. His frock coat was rather worn and ill fitting, with one button missing. And the cloth around his neck was tied in a clumsy knot. But his wavy red hair was combed real carefully to one side, I noticed. It curled a little in the early morning dampness, and he reached up with one hand to smooth it down.

  “My name is Peter Kelley,” he said in a stumbling voice. “Mr. Peter Kelley. From Warren, Ohio.”

  I could tell by the way Laura was trying to straighten her day cap that she was taken by him. He did have kind brown eyes, I would venture to say, and a gentle sort of appearance with his skinny shoulders and his too-large coat.

  “Perhaps I've come to the wrong place,” he stammered. He cast a look at our cabin, then at the clearing around us. “I have, haven't I?” He glanced at Laura, and I could see his face grow a shade of pink. Truthfully, we were both water-splattered and wearing our oldest gowns.

  “They told me the Carvers would have the biggest log house in the settlement, so that's
how I would know where I was,” he continued. “And this was the biggest house I saw, so I thought perhaps this was the right one. But now it seems I've come to the wrong place….” The stranger's voice trailed away and he looked suddenly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do next. The hat turned around and around in his hands.

  “This here's the Carvers’,” my sister said shyly, nodding in the direction of our house. “I'm Miss Carver. This here's Rebecca.” She pointed at me. “Have you come on business with our Pa?” she asked.

  “Well, no….” The stranger's voice faltered. “As it happens, I was hoping, if I might—well, if he's still here, that is—to speak to Amik.”

  A little ripple of laughter escaped out of my mouth and my hand flew up to my lips to cover it. Laura gave me a glare and told the fellow that, begging his pardon, there was no one in our family called by that name. She motioned in the direction of the field where the men were working and told the gentleman that perhaps he could find someone there to provide him some help.

  Mr. Kelley appeared as lost as a young boy. “You haven't heard of Amik? Truly?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “The Indian is no longer a captive here?”

  Now, I had never heard our Indian called anything but Indian John. No one had ever uttered the name Amik for him. The sound of it put me in mind of a bird calling in the trees. Ah-mick, Ah-mick. Where had the man been told such a peculiar name? I wondered.

  Laura wiped her hands on her apron and told Mr. Kelley to please forgive our bad manners—that, begging his pardon, we didn't understand exactly who he was looking for. “Pa and the men call our Indian by the name Indian John,” she explained. “He's kept in irons in our loft for murdering a man.”

  But I nearly fell into the wash kettle when I heard what Mr. Kelley said next.

  “I'd be very obliged to speak to your Indian if I might, Miss Carver,” he told Laura, in a soft voice that was almost pleading in its sound. He looked down and the hat turned around and around in his pale, skinny hands. “I believe that Amik—Indian John—is perhaps an old acquaintance of mine.”

  when Red Hair climbs the stairs

  to see me,

  all appears as a dream.

  neejee! neejee!

  my friend! my friend!

  i say

  i see that

  Red Hair is tall now,

  tall and thin

  as a young sapling tree,

  but his hair

  is still the color

  i remember from long ago—

  the vermilion color that does not

  wash away.

  Red Hair grins

  and makes a picture with his hands—

  do you remember the river, Amik?

  near my Pa's old house? remember?

  i laugh.

  eya’, yes,

  i tell Red Hair—

  i taught you to swim there

  in the time of ripe corn.

  Red Hair grins

  and shakes his head.

  no, you did not teach me,

  he says—

  you put me on your back

  and dove!

  i tell my friend

  it is the way the Ojibbeways learn

  to swim

  like fish.

  Red Hair laughs and says,

  remember our games of moccasin

  and sticks

  and my Pa teaching you

  to play the fiddle?

  eya’, eya’, I say,

  yes, yes.

  we grow silent.

  below

  i can hear Bird Eyes

  and Tall Girl Who Follows

  clattering and shuffling

  as they do.

  Red Hair asks in a soft voice,

  Amik—

  did you do what they say?

  i close my eyes

  and remember

  the day

  the cool green river water

  pushed us upward

  like two strong arrows

  shot into blue sky.

  old friend, i sigh,

  how we have changed.

  “He's real handsome-looking, isn't he?” Laura whispered after Mr. Kelley had gone up the stairs. “Never saw him in the settlement before, have you?”

  “You think he's truly acquainted with Indian John?” I asked.

  Laura shook her head. “No, I don't see how. Still”— she gave a half smile and smoothed her apron with her hands—“I think it would be kind to ask him to stay for tea, don't you? For all his troubles?”

  But as we got out the tin of tea and set the water to boil, I think it gave both of us a jolt when we suddenly realized that Mr. Kelley was talking with Indian John upstairs. Talking. And his voice was speaking in words that were no longer English.

  At first, me and Laura just stared wide-eyed at the ceiling planks above our heads, still as two stones. The strange sound of the voices mumbling back and forth was enough to frighten a person near to death. Our kettle bubbled over and hissed onto the fire. All the while Mercy tugged the bed quilts off our bed, but we didn't move from where we stood.

  “You think I should run and get Amos from the field?” I whispered to Laura.

  But then, just as suddenly as it had started, the conversation in our loft stopped. Mr. Kelley came down the stairs slowly. I watched him hesitate on the last step and glance back up, as if he had changed his mind and would turn around, even though he didn't.

  Laura stared at me, uncertain what to do. “Mr. Kelley—” she began in a halting voice. “We've made tea if you'd like some. I don't know if you were intending to stay or not.”

  Mr. Kelley gave us a startled look. I was nearly sure that he was going to say no, by the wary expression on his face. But then, quite suddenly, his face softened, and he nodded a little.

  “Thank you, Miss Carver,” he said, coming over to the table. “Thank you, I'll have a small cup of tea, yes.” Awkwardly, he pulled up a chair and sat down at our big table. He was all elbows and knees and couldn't seem to decide where to set his hat until he finally put it on the floor near his feet.

  “So has Ami—Indian John—been here long, in your Pa's cabin?” Mr. Kelley asked in a curious voice while we fixed tea for him. Since he was company, my sister gave him our only unchipped teacup and put some of our best loaf sugar on the table.

  “About three weeks,” Laura answered. “My Pa and the other men brought him here near the end of April.” Then she added carefully, “How are you acquainted with him, Mr. Kelley?”

  I held in my breath, waiting for his answer.

  “Well …” The man paused and stared down at his folded-up hands. “When I was ten or eleven years old, growing up east of here, the two of us were friends.”

  “Friends?” came flying out of my mouth.

  Mr. Kelley looked at me in a way that reminded me of Amos when he thought I had said something foolish. “Yes, we were good friends,” he repeated.

  He told us that Amik's father was the chief of a small band of Chippewas. “Ojibbeways, as they call themselves,” he said. Mr. Kelley described how the Indians used to return every spring from their maple sugar grounds and stay on his Pa's land through the summer. He glanced at Laura and asked her if she had ever heard of the Nibinishi River, in the eastern part of Ohio, but she shook her head no.

  “Well, the band always came to fish on our river, as they had done for years and years, I suppose, long before we had come,” he explained.

  Mr. Kelley said that Amik and some of the other Indians were near to his age. “I had four brothers when I was growing up,” he told us. “And we would play games and run all day with Amik and the other boys when our chores were done. I was quick with languages. My Pa said I had an ear for it. So, I learned to speak with them as well as anyone.”

  I could hardly even imagine the scene in my mind—our own Ma opening up the door of our cabin and letting us play with Indian children. Even Laura gave a surprised gasp. “Your Pa and M
a? They allowed you to do that?”

  Mr. Kelley studied his cup of tea, as if he was thinking hard. “Indians aren't—well, they aren't, forgive me for saying this—” He paused and stumbled over his words. “Well, it is my belief—and it was my Pa's belief, too—that Indians are as human as white men. Truthfully, in a great many respects, they are, Miss Carver,” he stammered. “And in some ways, more so.”

  There was an uncomfortable long silence after he spoke. I drank a big gulp of tea and peered over the top of my cup at my sister Laura, but I didn't dare to breathe a word about all of the things Indian John had given to us. Or how I sometimes thought Indians were human, too.

  “I don't see how the murder of innocent folks can be counted as human, Mr. Kelley,” Laura said finally, in a strong voice that echoed Ma's Bible-reading one. “Even if he was once your friend, how can you call his actions human?”

  “No, certainly not,” Mr. Kelley answered quickly. “But perhaps what everyone believes—” Mr. Kelley hesitated and looked down at the table. “Perhaps, well, perhaps it isn't all true,” he finished.

  I stared at Mr. Kelley.

  Even Laura seemed startled. “Are you saying that our Pa's Indian didn't kill the trapper?” she said.

  “I don't know what to think, truly I don't,” Mr. Kelley answered, rubbing his eyes wearily. “Amik was always a good friend. For all the years we were growing up. He was never the kind to—”

  Right at that moment, Pa and the boys came stomping through the doorway. Me and Laura were so taken by surprise, we nearly knocked over our chairs in our rush to stand up.

  First thing Pa said, of course, was that nobody came out to the field to tell him there was a fellow here to see him, and he gave me and Laura a hard look. After that, he sat down at the table and announced that he was Major Carver—and as the major general of this part of Ohio, it was his duty to ask the fellow what business he had in our settlement.

  Mr. Kelley's narrow face turned as pink as a spring wildflower and his elbow sent his spoon clattering to the floor. “I'm Mr. Peter Kelley Esquire,” he managed to say, trying to reach for his spoon. “I'm an acquaintance of the Chippewa Indian you have caught for murder—”