An Uncommon Woman

by Laura Frantz

  Tessa turned from the doorway. “That kiss meant no more than a red ear at a cornhusking, Auntie.” She withdrew the fan from her pocket and extended the painted leaves for them to admire, anxious to put an end to any nonsense. “But I am partial to this bit of hard-won frippery.”

  They made over the fan, though Hester still had that triumphant gleam in her eye, which set Tessa on edge. With eighty years stiffening her slightly bent spine, Hester was a caution she’d best be chary of. What would her great-aunt think of next?

  Clay ate the cornmeal mush Hester served him the next morn, sunk in thought. A weathered copy of the Pennsylvania Gazette rested on the table, the notice about Keturah clearly visible. Beside it was the more recent letter from John Heckewelder, Moravian missionary to the Lenape.

  “Tell Miss Braam I need to speak with her,” he said to Hester as she banked the coals at the hearth and readied to return to her cabin.

  “Keturah?” Hester looked hard at him, as if he’d misspoken and meant Tessa instead.

  “Aye, Keturah,” he answered, though her great-niece was firmly in mind.

  Hester nodded and went out, leaving him to the uninterrupted reverie of her great-niece. He’d not spoken to Tessa since the cake cutting, but he’d observed her later outside Maddie’s cabin, fan in hand. It impressed him that she’d chosen something pretty and practical, not the costliest item in the store. A mere trinket, Cutright told him with a touch of scorn. But if he read Tessa right, her telling choice reflected her heart and her desire for better things, to be anywhere but here.

  “Kèku hàch?” Keturah stood in the doorway, giving a customary Lenape greeting.

  “Kèku mësi,” he replied, gesturing to a chair. Letter in hand, he left the table and moved to his desk. “There’s been no word yet from your kin, though these things often take time.” He proceeded slowly, speaking English. “What I do have is a reply to the letter I sent to the man in charge of the praying Indians.”

  “The Blackcoats?” Keturah asked, understanding kindling in her eyes.

  “Aye, namely John Heckewelder on Beaver Creek.”

  Keturah’s guardedness thawed, but she lapsed into Lenape again as she often did when English taxed her. “Heckewelder is a good man, a faithful friend to the True People.”

  “He’s proven to be, aye,” Clay continued in English. “He and his fellow Blackcoats want to start a new community called Fine Spring along the Tuscarawas River in the Ohio country.”

  A prolonged pause. “The praying Indians are many. Some of Netawatwees’s—my Indian father’s—people are among them.”

  Netawatwees.

  The name was an echo from another world. Clay staunched his surprise. Had Keturah been adopted by the great chief? Leader of the Turtle Clan, Newcomer, as the whites called him, was a loyal friend to Moravian missionaries if not yet a convert.

  Her eyes bore a hole in him. “Why do you tell me this?”

  Though he didn’t want to alarm her, he said, “I have reason to believe you would be safer among the praying Indians and Blackcoats than here.”

  Something filled her face he could only name as sadness, not fear.

  “Brother Heckewelder is on his way west en route to the Ohio country. He wants to talk to you.”

  A flicker of uncertainty sharpened her gaze. “You will be here too when we meet?”

  He nodded. “And if you decide not to go with him, I understand. We’ll continue to wait for word from your family, though it would be wise to move you to the fort till then. There’s soon to be an empty cabin by Maddie and Jude.”

  “The Swans . . .” Tears made her eyes a wash of blue. “Not welcome now?”

  He was nothing if not forthright. “There’s no protest from the Swans save Jasper, who despite his prejudices seems harmless. It’s your coming and going in the woods that concerns me. I don’t want you encountering any who might do you ill.”

  She was in double danger in a settlement so torn by war and strife. He wouldn’t belabor the fact that the most grievous obstacle she was up against was the many settlers’ murderous attitude against Indians.

  “In the meantime, I’ll send word to Swan Station when Heckewelder arrives.”

  Quietly, Keturah left the blockhouse, her beaded headband reminding him of the beaded tie of Tessa’s braid. Would every rabbit trail circle back to her?

  He leaned back till the creak of his chair told him to go no further and gathered his thoughts, trying to shut the door Keturah had just cracked open with the Lenape. Yet once again something as simple as the flash of wampum beads struck like a schoolmaster’s lash. Even learning Keturah’s Indian father was the ancient chief sparked a keen ache. Wise, peace-loving Netawatwees had treated him kindly. What other Lenape ties did Keturah have?

  The little he knew now haunted. Keturah had been brought to Pitt in a prisoner exchange following another meaningless treaty. Her Lenape name was Wisawtayas. Yellow Bird. He should have dug deeper, asked for details.

  Picking up a ledger, he uncovered the latest communication from McKee, a warning embedded within the usual politics and military maneuvering. Something was brewing among the Ohio Indians, the Iroquois farther north, and mayhap the smaller tribes around Detroit. Though his own report to McKee was bland, he couldn’t shake the premonition of danger even in the face of scant sign.

  “Colonel Tygart, sir.”

  He’d already turned toward the door before the voice sounded, a habit of the backwoods. His head spy, Captain Arbuckle, removed his battered hat, giving his matted hair a shake.

  “More tracks along the Buckhannon by the ferry and near Swan Station.” The report came out in winded spurts. “Two horses stolen from Westfall north of Swans’. Signs of passage at the salt licks further upriver.”

  “How many in the party?”

  “A dozen or so by my reckoning, mayhap a mix of Wyandot and Shawnee. We lost their trail at Clover Bottom.” He reached into the folds of his linen shirt and withdrew a foot-long strip of birch bark. “Found this between the old Braam homestead and the Swans’. Some sort of picture writing.”

  Clay took the rough bark from his outstretched hand and studied the etching of coal and pigmented clay on wood. Wikhegan. Indian symbols telling a story or relaying a message.

  “I recollect you saying these bark maps are used amongst the tribes, detailing rivers and trails for those Indians unfamiliar with a region.”

  “Aye.” Though he tried to look at it dispassionately, coldly, Clay could not. “Odd finding them in more settled territory.”

  The maker had drawn the sign of the moon followed by seven straight strokes in black. Below this were two red arrows in flight, both aimed at a woman fleeing, her dark hair spread out and flowing behind her.

  “What do you make of it, sir?”

  Clay set the wikhegan on his desk. “The red arrows and the woman fleeing are warnings. The moon and the lines beside it indicate the passage of time and the growing strength of their numbers, likely, be it Shawnee or Wyandot or else. Mayhap a declaration of war, though not as telling as a black wampum belt. But something to heed, aye.”

  Arbuckle gave a low whistle. “Grim picture writing.”

  “Think no more of it.” Clay turned away from the ominous sign with a ghost of a smile. “A hot meal and a gill of muster-day rum is owed you.”

  “Obliged, sir.” Arbuckle passed outside, leaving Clay to ponder this latest development.

  Other spies and other reports would soon follow. For the moment, he was most concerned about the Swans leaving out once the frolic was done. He was of a mind to escort them all the way to Swan Station. And now, melded with his conflicted attraction for a woman he couldn’t court, this telling piece of wikhegan only fueled his angst.

  Woodenly, without thinking, he abandoned his desk and climbed to the loft, the weight of his defenselessness amid the coming tempest pressing down like a hammer on an anvil. When the Swans left the relative safety of the fort, what could he do? Though the
brothers’ five guns were formidable as far as number, they were old and unreliable, a poor defense amid a volley of red arrows. What—or who—was the fleeing woman with hair flying etched so carefully in coal? Might it be Tessa? Settlement women in general? If so, why leave out children from the picture?

  His backside connected with his bed and he sank his head in his hands, Maddie’s words weaving through his inner turmoil.

  You’ve got to get out from under that burden of believing a lie. Folks you care about get cut down, so you stop caring, stop letting folks in.

  Might his prayerlessness, his occasional nod to God, leave him or a situation more defenseless, even powerless? Was it akin to facing an enemy without a weapon? He stood in the crossfire of fort life, the empty blockhouse calling for something he’d abandoned years before. His faith, watered down and mixed with Indian mysticism and superstition, had turned to rust.

  If this gnawing attraction for Tessa drove him to his knees, all the better then. He hit the rough wood floor, the slight twinge warning of the rheumatism that followed so many backwoodsmen into old age. The odd posture felt awkward, even foolish, but he bent his head, fisting his hands together.

  At once came the lick of another memory. Pale candlelight. The whistle of wind through cabin chinking. All the night sounds beloved to a boy, his mother’s bent head and heartbeat most memorable of all as she’d gathered him close to pray. How he craved the words she’d once said, lost to time. No doubt they’d been aimed at his oft-absent father, away on a long hunt. Prayers for protection. Peace.

  Peace, aye, peace. For Tessa. For all in this war-torn land.

  Father, forgive me. It’s been too long.

  19

  Tessa navigated the humid, briar-ridden woods, hardly batting at the insects bedeviling her. ’Twas not yet noon, and though Ma had wanted to leave the fort at peep of day, her brothers had business at the store and then with the colonel, delaying them further. But she was barely mindful of the time or the fretful arch of Ma’s brow.

  Despite repeated, secret talking-tos, she could not find her way past her romantic musings. Ever since that muster-day cake, Clay had kissed her not once but a hundred times in memory. It hadn’t helped that he’d stood at the gate when they rode out. She’d allowed herself a last look at him, enough to see him give a tug to the brim of his hat as they filed past.

  Oh, how his respectful distance vexed her. He seemed mildly interested at best. Was it wrong for a woman to woo a man? Did she dare? If he had no sweetheart, had he no hankering for one? Her brothers certainly did, though they took care to hide their feelings. Likewise, Clay was another question mark in britches she might never figure out.

  Though Jasper usually forbade any woods talk lest they draw notice, Ross leaned near enough to say, “Ever since the colonel kissed you, you’ve looked pleased as a fox in a henhouse. But today, nay.”

  “Shush,” she replied, still pondering her plan. To woo or not to woo?

  Near their own clearing, their caution ebbed and talk turned to the coming harvest.

  “Colonel Tygart’s set a guard for each farm to bring the crops in,” Jasper told them as he dismounted. “Won’t have to work and watch our backs.”

  Lemuel nodded approvingly. “I reckon we’ll get fifty bushels of corn to the acre in half the time then.”

  “I say eighty bushels,” Zadock countered, igniting a full-blown discussion of the matter.

  Ross went to round up the cows and horses, the faint tinkle of their bells heard in the direction of the river, while Tessa fetched a wood sled from the barn. She pulled it with a hemp rope, the slither of the runners reminding her of a snake. She and Keturah started toward the fields to gather melons grown so large they’d likely need help hauling them.

  Chary of her steps in the tall grass, she noticed Keturah wore that distant, faraway look. Since meeting with Clay in the blockhouse, she’d seemed uncommonly quiet.

  Her high spirits were so at odds with Keturah’s own that she asked, “Are you downcast, winkalit?”

  “The Blackcoat, he comes.” At Tessa’s questioning look, Keturah added, “A holy man among the True People.”

  Bewilderment took hold. Moravian missionaries? Hester had spoken of these faithful men and women in years past. “To Fort Tygart?”

  “Pìshi. To talk. Këshkinko told me so.”

  Këshkinko. Tessa committed the odd word to memory. Was this Clay’s Lenape name? Keturah was called Yellow Bird. Wisawtayas. It suited her somehow, sounded almost poetic, and surely spoke to her Dutch paleness. Once again Tessa felt on the outside looking in. So many questions, so few answers. And a wide chasm of misunderstanding between their Indian world and her white.

  Had Clay returned from captivity near the time Keturah had been taken? How oft she’d wondered but never asked. “Did you know Këshkinko when you were Yellow Bird?”

  “Mata.” No. The firm word removed all doubt. “Much talk—of him. He made many afraid.” She gestured to her eyes. “Nataèpia.”

  “His eyes?”

  Keturah nodded. “They gave him power among the People.”

  A glimmer of understanding dawned. Clay’s eyes, so striking to her, might be especially fearsome to the Indians. “How so?” Tessa asked gently, afraid Keturah would turn silent as she sometimes did.

  “Ghost Eyes—Këshkinko—he is called. His blue eye, it sees heaven. His brown eye, earth.”

  The small storm of words ended, leaving Tessa wide-eyed in the aftermath. Never had Keturah spoken so, with vehemence and a sort of reverence. Indians oft attached extraordinary significance, a heightened mysticism, to the simplest things. Had Clay been protected somehow by his unusual eyes? Hedged from harm? And did this explain Keturah’s noticeable regard of him, that respectful awe, if not affection?

  “So you only heard of him during your time with the Lenape.” Tessa’s quiet question brought a nod of affirmation. “But never met him.”

  “Këshkinko took a separate path,” Keturah said at last.

  In silence they walked on to the heart of the cornfield, unmindful of the cry of a buzzard and shrill chorus of cicadas, their reward an abundance of round, shiny melons beneath tall, tasseling stalks.

  Keturah marveled. Had she no memory of melons? The three sisters were known and beloved to her—the Indian maize, squash, and beans. When Tessa thumped a watermelon, Keturah laughed.

  “Tasty. Sweet,” Tessa told her as they stepped around twisting vines and loaded the ripest onto the sled. Once cooled in the springhouse, the fruit would be savored till the juice ran down their chins. “When we were small, we’d have a contest and roll them to a finish line. The boys usually bested us. Remember?”

  They grew still, the raucous call of a crow the only sound other than the rustle of the stalks. Keturah shut her eyes, then opened them. “Jasper . . . he won.”

  “Aye, being the oldest and the fastest.” The burst of joy she felt at the sweet memory was short-lived, given her brother’s hard-heartedness.

  Keturah lost her faraway look. “Talk more of, then.”

  As they started back to the cabin, taking turns pulling the heavy sled, Tessa spoke of cranberry tarts at Christmas, the forest furniture they’d gathered for their rag dolls, the bear cub once shut up in the barn, the scourge of measles that spanned months before it was done, and her and Keturah’s baptisms in the cold water of the Buckhannon by an itinerant preacher.

  “I was made a”—Keturah hesitated as she often did, the white words eluding her—“angel?”

  “A saint,” Tessa replied softly, moved by the recollection. “But aye, I do remember Brother Merritt saying you looked like an angel when you came up out of all that water.”

  Clay had expected someone older but now faced a man his own age, an apprenticed cooper turned missionary. John Heckewelder was a remarkably unassuming man. “I’m serving as the messenger of David Zeisberger,” he said almost apologetically upon arrival at Fort Tygart, his handshake firm, his manner warm. �
�But Brother Zeisberger sends his sincerest regards.”

  Zeisberger was the Moravian leader, a true friend to all the tribes, with none of the prejudices afflicting so many. He’d established a successful mission named Bethlehem in eastern Pennsylvania, and his converts, mostly Lenape, were growing. Keturah’s plight was of special interest to them.

  In Heckewelder’s party was a Mingo scout and his wife, three fellow converts, and his own assistant, all committed to establishing a new mission farther west. Greetings went round, and then Heckewelder was left alone with Clay after being shown the east blockhouse where they’d lodge.

  Hester soon came with food and drink, then left the men to their talk. Keturah would join them in the morning, escorted by one of the Swan brothers and Tessa. He’d asked Tessa by letter to accompany them, his desire to have her safely behind fort walls as much in mind as Keturah’s comfort.

  He’d expected to answer Heckewelder’s questions about Keturah, help smooth the way to their meeting, but once again the truth emerged that he knew precious little about her due to his own history with the Lenape and not wanting to delve further.

  Now as they walked about the garrison at dusk, Heckewelder remarked on the fort’s prime location, particularly taken with the bountiful spring. “Bethlehem, being a peaceful community, is without pickets.” He stood beneath the elm’s arching shade as a few children regarded them shyly. “We Moravians would deny you a job if we could.”

  “By converting every tribe and nation?” Clay mused, knowing their lofty aims. The peaceful prospect seemed especially ludicrous in light of their present surroundings. “Admirable but hard-won.”

  “We understand the tribes’ plight, given so many of us Moravians have been driven out of our own homelands in Europe. We see their warring ways as a desperate effort to hold on to their territory, their way of life, mayhap their very existence. Admittedly, our stance on the frontier is conciliatory rather than defensive.” Heckewelder studied the sentinels guarding the half-open front gates. “What is your greatest challenge here as commander?”