CHAPTER ELEVEN
†
“Christiane,” Johann said from the entrance.
She was terrifying in the firelight, leaning back against the cabin wall nearest the fire, her knees drawn up to her swollen belly. Her face shone bright red. Her unseeing eyes were glassy. A candle flickered on the floor next to her.
“Close the door,” Ursula said sharply, though the door consisted of three blankets pegged into logs above the entrance. “Don’t bring those animals here. We need wood.”
Christiane’s face dissolved into a grimace, and she began to moan.
“Get the wood!” Ursula shouted at him. She took Christiane’s hand and spoke soft words that Johann couldn’t make out. An older woman who helped at Broad Bay births, Frau Schultheis, was dipping hot water from a three-legged pot over the fire.
“Walther?” he asked.
“At the shelter, with Herr Bauer,” the Schultheis woman said. She must have brought the pot, since he and Christiane didn’t have one.
He went for wood. He stashed the carcasses under a canvas sheet, then piled snow on it. Hauling the wood loosed the pain of his back. Christiane was crying when he returned. “More,” Frau Schultheis said.
After his second trip, he fed the fire. “Stay there,” the older woman said, nodding toward a far corner. “Better you don’t watch.” She and Ursula were on either side of Christiane, helping her stand. Christiane’s eyes passed over Johann without a trace of recognition. “We’ll walk, dear,” Frau Schultheis said. “It helps the baby find his way.”
Christiane nodded. She shuffled a few steps. Watching, Johann felt fatigue overtake him. He started at the sound of Christiane’s groan when she turned. He passed a hand over his eyes and drank some water from a cup.
“When did she start?” he asked.
“Midday,” Ursula said.
“She’s not taken this long before.”
Frau Schultheis turned a stern face to him. “Hush, you.”
“But she’s in pain.”
“Of course, she’s in pain. She’s having a baby. This is woman’s lot. We have nothing for her, not even tobacco, but she’s a tough little cat. She’s done this before.”
But Johann hadn’t. He had missed the births of their sons, away on campaign both times.
Christiane gave a cry and sagged heavily on the other women. “It hurts,” she said.
“Yes, dear,” Frau Schultheis said, “let’s get you in the chair.”
“Please,” Christiane breathed. The women grunted with her weight. Johann got to his feet and took Ursula’s side. He supported Christiane as they lowered her to the birthing chair he had banged together from lumber McDonnell gave him. It was better than lying on the floor. Frau Schultheis pushed him aside. He fed the fire and fanned the smoke up to the ceiling, then returned to his corner.
The midwife reached up Christiane’s skirt. She massaged both sides of Christiane’s belly. “Here,” she called over her shoulder to Johann. “Pile the leaves under her.”
He was close when Christiane screamed, the sound tearing into his bones. Her eyes were clenched tight. “That’s it,” the midwife said softly. “That’s it, dear. The baby’s coming.” She dropped down between Christiane’s knees, spreading them, placing her hands under her thighs and repositioning her.
Johann stepped back uncertainly. He dropped into his corner. His back and ribs were on fire. The dead face of the Indian hung before him, the life he had just taken, the stench of the Indian’s grease and guts and blood still on him, the bayonet in his waistband, the Indian’s knife on the other side. The connection was clear. This agony of Christiane’s was God’s punishment for his bloody killing, for the violence in Johann’s heart. God kept punishing the innocent to teach the wicked. He recoiled from the unfairness of it. He closed his eyes and begged God not to do this thing. Punish me. Punish me. Another shout came from Christiane, one that lasted.
“Good, dear,” the midwife said. Ursula wiped Christiane’s face. Christiane clutched her hand. Johann sat in the cesspool of his sin, forced to watch God wreak vengeance on his wife and his baby.
“It’s coming,” the midwife said. “I see the head. You’re close, dear. You’re doing well.”
Christiane began to cry again. “No more,” she said. “No more. Please. Make it stop.” Ursula leaned close and whispered to her. Christiane sucked in her breath and issued a sound close to a roar.
“He’s out!” the midwife called. “He’s out!” She held the baby’s head in her hands and pushed the cord from its neck. Its hair was matted and smeared with fluid. “Take another breath, dear, then you’ll have your baby.”
Christiane sobbed and thrashed her head from side to side. Then she roared again, and the baby came in a rush and squirt, its legs curled up. With precise movements, the midwife clipped the baby’s cord and wrapped the baby in a blanket. “She’s a girl, dear,” Frau Schultheis pronounced. Ursula took the baby and wiped it dry. She rewrapped it and handed it down to Christiane.
“Just a bit more, dear,” the midwife said. “Don’t mind me.” Using the cord, which dangled like a tail from Christiane, she pulled out a clotted mass and wrapped it in the leaves Johann had spread. “Here,” she said, turning to him. “Take this to the woods and bury it. You must bury it deep so she won’t have so much pain.”
Johann accepted the bundle but was flummoxed by the direction. The earth was frozen solid half a foot down or more. He would have to hack at it with an ax. “Go,” she said. “Do you want this poor thing to be racked with pain? As deep as you can.”
Johann pulled his mittens on. They were all he had taken off since reaching the cabin. Holding the bundle in one hand, he lifted the ax and left.
The job took nearly an hour, digging through the snow, then battering the ground. He feared he would shatter the ax handle, but the earth finally yielded. Twice he heard small cries from the cabin, almost like a cat mewing. His daughter. His eyes welled up. He was grateful to hear no more cries from Christiane. Perhaps God understood that Johann had been enforcing His law on the trapline. Or perhaps God would turn His vengeance only on Johann, where it belonged. Johann felt purged, filled with light. By the time he had filled the hole and covered it with snow, a grey dawn lit the sky behind the cabin. Most of the clouds had fled in the night.
He brought more wood. Christiane lolled back in the birthing chair, her shoulders against the cabin wall. “Right, then,” Frau Schultheis said. “Carry them back to the bed.”
When he knelt, Christiane gave him a sleepy smile, the baby at her breast. He slid an arm under her legs, the other behind her back. He felt the barest weight when he lifted them. He turned to the sleeping area, far from a proper bed. In the warm weather, he vowed, he would build a fine bed for Christiane and another for the children.
When he placed Christiane down, she gave a small moan.
“What?” he said.
“It’s sore. Down there.” The women swept in with blankets and helped Christiane shift. “Right, then,” the midwife said, straightening up with a sigh. “I’ll be off.”
Johann pulled off his hat and reached his hand out. “Frau,” he said, “may I say thank you, for you are a blessing from God.”
The woman smiled, which gave her apple cheeks a less severe look. “She’s a fine girl, and you have a fine baby. No more traipsing out in the woods when you should be here looking after them.”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “May I send home a couple of muskrats with you, to show our gratitude? I can skin them for you.”
The woman shrugged. “That would be fine, but you needn’t skin them. There’s nothing wrong with Herr Schultheis doing a little work for his supper.”
Johann left with her and dug out the muskrats.
When he returned, Ursula stepped from the fire and took one of his hands. “You look tired, Johann. You were so late. We didn’t know what to think. Christiane was afraid.”
“It was stupid. I got lost. I’m not y
et a man of the forest.”
“You must rest,” she said, “with your new baby.” He sat near Christiane. “Christiane,” she said, “wants to name the baby after her mother.”
“I know,” Johann said. “Hanna. Hanna Oberstrasse.” He closed his eyes.
Ursula settled in the corner where Johann had been. She was asleep in a moment.
CHAPTER TWELVE
†
Johann woke up to his daughter’s soft noises as she strained for Christiane’s milk. Ursula bent over the pot that hung over the fire, the smell of porridge blending with the smoke.
“She’s beautiful,” Christiane said. He rolled on his side to stare at Hanna. Her eyes were shut as her mouth worked. He twisted to ease the pain in his back. The movement didn’t help. “Touch her skin.”
He trailed a forefinger over the baby’s cheek. “Like her mother.”
“Pah,” Christiane said, “not since I was her age.” She smiled at the baby.
“She’s the first Oberstrasse of America,” Johann said.
“We’re all from America now,” she said. She gestured up to Ursula, who stood with a bowl of porridge. “Now, you eat. You must be starving.”
“Have you eaten?” he asked. She nodded. He took the bowl and shoveled in the hot mush. It warmed him from the inside. Sitting back and closing his eyes, he gave thanks to have made it back here to his small family. He was a prideful fool, risking all of this over a beaver and two muskrats. He leaned over and kissed Christiane’s forehead.
The day was nearly half gone, but he had much to do, starting with clearing six inches of new snow from the cabin’s entrance and roof. Bright blue sky peeked through patchy clouds. He emptied their pot and chopped wood, cutting extra so he could bring some to Fritz as thanks for Ursula’s help. He gutted and skinned the remaining carcasses. He was still learning how to preserve the pelts for trade, but made a fair job of it, taking special care with the beaver. He stored the pelts in a cache he had dug and kept covered with stones. The meat would make a dinner stew for them and the Bauers. He brought in clean snow to melt for water. Through it all, he ignored waves of pain from his back, which loosened a bit as he worked.
Near dinnertime, he carried the extra wood to the shelter. He found Walther in the care of the stout Frau Reuter, playing a game with her young daughter that involved sticks and clapping. He felt a pang of guilt for still disliking Herr Reuter.
“A little girl?” she said. He grinned. “She’ll be a blessing for you all.”
He pressed the extra firewood on her. He would chop more for Fritz and Ursula. Then he gathered Walther up. “We go to meet your sister, all right?” he said.
“Mama,” the boy said, and Frau Reuter laughed. “He’s been saying that all afternoon.”
“Yes,” Johann said, “we go see Mama too. Do you know,” he asked the woman, “where Fritz Bauer is?” She shook her head and shrugged. He thanked her again.
They found Fritz and Sigrid stamping their feet before the common fire, holding mittened hands out to the warmth. Several settlers congratulated Johann. The midwife had spread the news. He smiled and ducked his head to each.
Fritz explained that he and Sigrid had fished with spears through holes in the river ice. Herr Leichter had been teaching settlers how to fish that way, using a wooden decoy fish on a string. One person dragged the decoy through the water. If a real fish came near the surface, the other struck with a barbed spear.
“It was freezing,” said Sigrid, “and we couldn’t make any noise at all.”
“Yes,” Fritz said, “she is an excellent fisherwoman.” He offered to bring to dinner the two fish they’d speared, but Johann insisted the stew would be plenty.
* * * * * *
Next morning was grey again. While splitting wood, Johann favored the side that took the tomahawk blow. It would heal. He’d told Christiane that he hurt his back when he slipped on the trail and fell on a log. It could have happened that way. His mind still churned over the killing. Why didn’t he just scare the man off? That would have cost him the beaver—the Indian made sure to take that with him—which Johann would have minded. Plus, the man had shot at him. Johann was justified to retaliate against that attack. And why wouldn’t the Indian come back to steal from Johann again? It was just luck that Johann had come upon him. He may have been stealing for weeks without Johann knowing. As long as the thief reset the trap and smoothed over his tracks, there would be no way to know.
When Johann reached this point in his thinking, though, his heart seized up. General Waldo’s directions were clear: no quarrels with the savages. But it was more than just flouting the general’s policy. Johann had meant to kill that man, had run him down, and then he killed him. Did he still have the taste for killing from serving the Landgraf? Would this land bring out the violence and anger in him, the parts he tried to conceal from Christiane, from everyone?
He stopped chopping and looked up at the unyielding sky. Those clouds, he decided, wouldn’t bring snow. He needed to reset the trap where he’d found the Indian. He could check the other traps on the way. He began to pile the wood to carry inside.
“Brother Oberstrasse!”
Johann turned. Nungesser, about twenty paces down the path, peered back in his owlish way. Next to him stood Leichter, the general’s agent, wearing a beaver hat and a jet-black coat with brass buttons. A settler hung behind them. Johann knew the man slightly. Wagner, he thought. Josef was his given name. A young man, one with some money but not so much energy. And a handsome wife.
Johann dropped the wood and walked down to them, pulling off his mittens. He extended his hand to each. His stomach was shaky. They must know about the Indian. There could be no other reason for such a delegation.
Leichter took the lead. “I hear,” he said, “that you have had a happy occasion. Allow me to offer my congratulations, and General Waldo’s.”
“Thank you.”
“And the little girl’s name?”
“Hanna, after my wife’s mother.” Johann gestured back to the cabin. “I would invite you in, but my wife is still—”
“Of course, of course,” Nungesser said. “She needs rest, and so does little Hanna.”
“General Waldo will be pleased to hear this news,” Leichter said. “He wishes Broad Bay to be your home, and the home of all your generations.”
“As do we,” Johann said. He couldn’t get a good read on this Leichter. He dressed like a dandy and sometimes spoke like a man of learning, but his bearing and movements were those of a man of action. Of a man like Johann.
“We’ve come about something else,” Nungesser began, “something from two days past.” Johann’s stomach dropped.
“Yes,” Leichter said, “we understand that you were out in the forest long into the night, that’s what Frau Schultheis said.”
Johann repeated the lie that he’d gotten lost tending his trapline. He tried not to appear nervous. “It was a dark night, and snowing,” he added.
Leichter made a sympathetic noise. “Ah, but then we come to Herr Wagner’s tale.” He tilted his head toward the mute member of the delegation. “He was in the forest that day, as well.” Leichter turned. Switching to German, he told the younger man to speak. The man nodded uncomfortably and cleared his throat.
“I was out with my musket—it’s one I bought from Armstrong. I’ve been hunting with it. A week ago, I shot a deer,” he said eagerly. “We shared the meat with some others.” Not with my family, thought Johann, but he waited silently. Trouble was coming. He would have to accept any consequences. He wouldn’t apologize. They would see that as weakness. “I was on the ridge, over to the east and north of here.” Wagner pointed that way. “Wasn’t finding any game. Well, I’m not very good yet, as a hunter. I make too many noises.”
Leichter shifted his weight, conveying the impatience of all three listeners. Wagner cleared his throat again. “I heard a shot on the far side of the ridge and went to see. That’s when I saw you taking o
ut after that Indian. You were on one side of a trap, and the savage, he was on the other side, running away.”
When the narrative trailed off, Nungesser prodded the young man. “And you saw.”
“Yes. Yes. I saw you keep chasing that Indian. You followed him right up and over the ridge until you disappeared over the other side. He had a gun but you didn’t, so I figured he’d taken the shot at you, maybe when you found him at your trap.”
“Why,” Leichter asked, “didn’t you follow Herr Oberstrasse to help him in his pursuit?”
Wagner shrugged. “I watched for a few moments, figuring out what was happening, then realized I should help, having a musket and all. So I started after him. But,” he turned to Johann, “you started about 200 paces away, something like that, and then you were 300 paces ahead, and then more. It was difficult to go fast in that snow. You both moved so fast. I was slower. I knew I’d never get there in time to help. And the musket’s no good at such distances. Listen, I’ve got to tell you,” Wagner nodded with a type of respect, “you looked like the vengeance of the Lord, the way you went after him. I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of you, not for anything.”
“So, Herr Oberstrasse,” Leichter said, “what have you to say about this?”
Johann took a breath. “Herr Wagner speaks the truth. I found this Indian, a Penobscot I think, stealing a beaver from my trap. I surprised him and went after him.”
“And?” Leichter asked, “did you catch him?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I got my beaver back.”
“And the Indian?”
“He won’t be stealing from traps again.”
Leichter looked off into the woods. “I see,” he said. “And what did you do with the body?”
“I concealed it. I know General Waldo wants us to get along with the Penobscots, so I hoped no one would find it. I didn’t want to cause a problem for anyone. For all of us.”
Leichter gave a slight smile, flicking his eyes back at Johann then looking again into the woods. “It was rather late to think of that, wasn’t it?”
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