Indian Captive

by Lois Lenski

  Blue Jay began to cry. The men looked up in surprise to see a crying baby there.

  “Go outside!” Shining Star joined words with Squirrel Woman. “Let Blue Jay watch the birds. Then will he be content. Keep watch near by, within sight of the door. When the trading is over, we will come to you.”

  Obediently Molly went out the door. She walked along the path, jogging Blue Jay up and down to quiet him. There were no trees at hand, no flying birds to show him. Molly walked along the path, passing by the few scattered bark houses for Indians and soldiers which made up the village.

  She stared at the great fort whose walls loomed high above her. Once they had held out hope—a false hope which brought no freedom. Here she walked, a white girl, carrying an Indian baby for a burden. She looked down at her hands and arms. They were as brown as Little Turtle’s. She knew her face must be the same.

  Closer and closer she came to the fort entrance. Blue Jay’s cries had died away. He was sleeping now upon her shoulder. She would go up to the entrance—the gate stood open wide—the gate through which Davy Wheelock and Nicholas Porter had walked, never to return. She would take one look inside. No one need know. Sleeping Blue Jay would not betray her. In a moment she would return before the Indians had finished their trading, before they had a chance to miss her.

  Yes, it looked just the same within the fort enclosure. There stood the bake-oven, the well-sweeps, the log houses with their doors open wide. There stood the barn in the corner, but no cows were looking out. There was the garden—a few cabbages had not been pulled—and there the peach tree. Long ago its blossoms had wilted, covering the ground with petals of pink. Long ago, tiny pale green tips had turned into long green peach leaves, curling and browning now in the late summer sun.

  Had the pink blossoms borne fruit? Had there been time for the hard green ball of a peach to turn into red-cheeked softness? Time enough for a white girl to turn into a brown one. Time enough for a girl to forget the family she loved. Was it time enough to grow a peach?

  Before she knew it, Molly had crossed the drawbridge and entered the fort yard. The tree, like a magnet, drew her on. She could not go away till she knew. With her head pressing forward to ease the burden-strap, taking short quick steps, she ran. The leaves hung thick and heavy, curling and burning in the midday sun. She pushed them aside with trembling hands to look. The sight of a ripe, red peach against the blue sky—only that could bring her comfort…

  She was all alone in the fort yard. Even if anyone should see her, they would think it was only an Indian girl with a baby. They would turn and pass her by. But a voice broke through the stillness. As the first sound struck her ear, she crept under the shadowy branches.

  “Why, hello!” the voice said. “What are you doing here, little girl?”

  The words echoed through Molly’s excited mind and it took a moment or two before she realized they were English—before she sensed their meaning and the friendly tone. Still she cowered beneath the branches.

  Then she remembered Blue Jay. They must not see him—they must not see an Indian baby on a white girl’s back. She wheeled about quickly, to give Blue Jay a covering of green branches.

  Then she looked up.

  She saw a white man, dressed in blue, with lace ruffles at his sleeves. His coat was a bright, deep blue like the blue of the sky in summer. It was edged with rich gold lace and had a row of shining buttons down one side. Four Frenchmen in blue—four Frenchmen with hard, cold faces had made Molly a captive. Was this one of them? She looked up into his face to see. No, he was a stranger. His face was not hard and cold. It was kind.

  “Who are you, child?” the man asked, smiling. “Why don’t you speak?”

  He was not French at all. He was English. In spite of the blue Frenchman’s clothes, he could speak in English.

  Molly tried to swallow the lump in her throat, but she couldn’t. She tried to find English words to say, but they refused to come. The man took her out from under the peach tree and, holding her by the hand, walked across the yard. The next thing she knew, she was in a room in one of the houses and a group of white women, dressed in gowns that sparkled in many colors, smooth like shining silver, were crowding round and looking.

  “What lovely hair!” the women cried.

  They touched her yellow braids—her pale yellow hair that had grown still paler, bleached by so many days spent in the burning summer sun. Molly had forgotten that her hair would tell the truth about her. The women did not think her an Indian at all.

  Excited words fell thick and fast, some in French and some in English, and the English words struck deep into the confusion of Molly’s mind:

  “How can she live with the Indians? How can she endure the hardships of a savage life?”

  “She’s only a child! She can’t be more than eleven, if that!”

  “She’s of delicate build—her hands and feet are small. She comes of good parentage.”

  “How can she carry that heavy Indian baby?”

  “How did she happen to be taken by the Indians? Won’t she talk at all?”

  The sound of the English words fell like sweet music on Molly’s ear. The sounds were lighter, gayer, happier somehow than solemn Indian speech. As she listened, her heart leaped up in happiness. There was only one thing she wanted. She knew it now, without the shadow of a doubt. Her whole heart knew it—to be free of the Indians, to be a captive no longer, to go back to the white people, to her own dear family.

  One of the women brought her a cup of milk to drink. Her trembling hand reached out to take it. It was the first cup of milk she had had to drink since she left Marsh Creek Hollow. She wondered if her hand could hold it, if her dry throat could swallow once again. She thought of the red cow in the barn that had given the milk—she wondered who had milked the cow that morning. The milk tasted sweet like honey upon her tongue. Perhaps it was the milk that helped the English words to come.

  The man and the women who spoke in English took her away from the others. They took her out on the doorstep, into the sun. They put the questions slowly and at last she was able to answer.

  “Tell us your name, child.”

  “Mary Jemison, sir. They always called me Molly. Thomas Jemison is my father, Jane Jemison is my mother.”

  “When and where were you taken, child?”

  “At corn-planting time…in Marsh Creek Hollow…in Pennsylvania.” Then the whole story came out, bit by bit.

  “Where are you living now?”

  “In an Indian village called Seneca Town, a day’s journey from here down the River Ohio.”

  As she said the words, Molly saw a black shadow fall. It fell upon the happy, shining day as well as upon her heart. Like animals bent upon seizing helpless prey, two Indian women had rushed through the entrance gate. With heads bent forward, stooping under heavy loads, with short, quick steps they came. Within earshot, they stopped.

  “Oh, I must go!” cried Molly, as she saw them. “I stayed too long. They told me to wait by the trading-house door.”

  “Just a minute!” The man in the gold-laced coat glanced darkly at the women. “Are they looking for you to hurt you? To punish you?”

  “Oh, can’t we do something?” cried one of the ladies, in a voice of anguish. “Such a lovely child… Why do we just go on standing here?”

  “They are looking for me, I must go,” said Molly.

  She broke away from the white people to go across the yard. With her moccasined foot still touching the door-log she paused. She looked into the woman’s lovely face. She did not want to go. She did not want to go back to the Indians. She wanted to stay with the white people and be a white girl for the rest of her life.

  As in a dream, she heard the woman say, “Why can’t we keep her with us? What would the Indians do if we did?”

  Molly could not move. She did not want to go. At that moment her whole life hung in balance. Was she to be an Indian or a white girl?

  Blue Jay began to cry. The next
moment Squirrel Woman had Molly’s arm in a tight grip and she was obliged to follow. She looked back only once. She saw the white people standing there, crowded about the doorway—doing nothing. They just stood there and watched her go.

  “Pale-faces!” cried Squirrel Woman, hot with anger. “So you run off alone to talk to the pale-faces!”

  Shining Star, greatly alarmed, looked down at Corn Tassel and there in her eyes, she saw that a seed of new hope had been planted. She turned to her sister. “There is a time to speak,” she said, sternly, “and a time to be silent.”

  Squirrel Woman, angry as she was, held her tongue. Laden down with the stock of blankets, clothes and trinkets which they had received for their furs at the trading-house, the women took Molly between them and hastened to their canoe.

  Swiftly they paddled across the river and came to the place where they had camped the night before. The banked camp-fire was smoldering. In its still-hot embers, corn-cakes lay slowly baking. The women went on shore, leaving Molly and Blue Jay in the canoe. Far enough away to be out of the girl’s hearing, they talked in low tones. Sick at heart, Molly watched them. She had never seen them so upset before. With motions of great alarm, they kept looking at her while they talked. Then they came to a quick decision. From out the embers they snatched their bread, climbed back into the canoe and paddled off.

  The sun had begun to sink behind the wooded hills before Molly looked up. Then she gave a wild start of alarm, for she saw that the canoe was going not west, but east. It was going away from the setting sun, not toward it. Seneca Town lay down the river; to the westward—of that she was certain.

  “Oh, where are you taking me?” she cried aloud, in great distress. “Where are you taking me?”

  But the women would not answer. Squirrel Woman muttered under her breath and Shining Star turned away. Then Molly knew that something serious had happened to make the women change their course, to make them go away from their home, not toward it.

  Although the women paddled with swift desperation, they were not able to put much distance between themselves and Fort Duquesne that night. They kept on the course until long after dark and stopped to camp on the Allegheny River banks only when they could see no longer. There they made no fire but, wrapped in blankets, slept upon the ground.

  The next morning they rose early, but did not start at once. They watched and waited, looking down the stream. At last they saw what they were expecting—the large canoe with their brothers and the men from Seneca Town. Molly stared as she saw them coming. What did it mean? Were the women going along, too, to the village beside the Falling Waters?

  The men stepped ashore, as if expecting to find the women there. They stopped to eat bread and to have private consultation with their sisters. Then they came nearer and no longer guarded their words.

  “You went away none too soon,” said Gray Wolf, loudly. “The pale-faces came before you were out of sight, asking for the white girl captive. They searched along the shore to find where she was hid. They went back to the fort with tears streaming down their faces. You are fortunate that you still have your captive.”

  He turned directly to Molly. “Oh ho, little Pale-Face!” he cried. “You didn’t get away that time, did you?”

  “It is the will of the Great Spirit that Corn Tassel should be our sister,” said Squirrel Woman, crossly. “The pale-faces cannot take her away from us.”

  “All that we have we will give to Corn Tassel,” said Shining Star, her eyes lighting up with happiness. “I will love her as her own sister would.”

  Molly knew now why the women had paddled so fast. They had been afraid of losing her to the white people at the fort. The man in the gold-laced coat and the woman in the sparkling gown of silk had wanted to keep her, after all—to keep her for their child. They had followed the Indians to the opposite shore and tried to bring back the white captive girl. They had returned to the fort with heavy hearts, with tears in their eyes. They had seen Molly Jemison only once, but they had loved her enough to want her for their child.

  Molly knew now why she was not returning to Seneca Town. The women had heard her tell the white people where she lived. They were afraid the white people would search out the Indian village and find her. They were going along with the men, taking her on the long journey to Genesee Town, where they had not wanted to go. They had changed their plans because of her. She herself was going on the long, hard journey of which Shagbark had told her—the long journey through the pathless wilderness. She was going to a place where the white people could never, never find her.

  On a second journey, like that first one over the mountains, they were taking her—a journey of hardship, hunger, pain and distress. Through pathless woods, through flooding streams, through drenching rains she must go. At night no place to sleep but on the ground; by day, a heavy burden on her back, the Indian baby growing ever heavier as her own strength grew weaker.

  And all for what? All for what? Molly could not lift her sorrowful head. For a second captivity, harder than the first. A second captivity more painful than the first, because her hope was gone.

  9

  By The Falling Waters

  IT WAS A LOVELY, mild day in late fall—the moon of falling leaves—when Molly came to the end of the long journey from Fort Duquesne.

  The Indians followed the general course of the Genesee River northward, skirting the western shore until they came to the river gorge. Near the top of the cliff they stopped at an Indian camp site to rest. Molly took Blue Jay in his baby frame off her back and leaned the board against a tree. Then, with faltering steps, she walked to the edge of the cliff and looked down into the gorge for the first time.

  Her tired eyes filled with wonder as she gazed at the great Falling Waters. She had often heard the Indians speak of the place, but nothing they had said had prepared her for its great beauty. So tired she could scarcely keep from falling, she stood there and drank it in.

  The air was soft and warm, and a gentle breeze was blowing. With the deafening roar in her ears, Molly put her hands into the damp spray and forgot her fatigue. The noon-day sun struck down at just the right angle to make a rainbow spring, upward and outward, from the base of the falls. Breathless, Molly walked closer, stumbling through the wet, brown, fallen leaves.

  It was then she saw the second rainbow, arching proudly, following the same curve as the first, both ringed in the most brilliant colors she had ever seen. Was it an omen? Were the rainbows meant for her? Was she here, in this beautiful spot, to find solace for her pain, peace to uplift her spirit?

  Greatly comforted, she slept that night with the roaring of the waters in her ears. The next day she followed the women over rough and rugged hills to the Indian village, a half-day’s journey farther north. Molly was sorry to leave the gorge behind, but the low rolling hills of the Genesee Valley were beautiful too. Composed of bark long houses and log cabins, the village was much like Seneca Town, though larger. It lay near the mouth of Little Beard’s Creek, and it was called Genesee Town—Gen-ish-a-u, which in the Indian language signified a Shining-Clear-or-Open-Place.

  Upon arrival, Squirrel Woman and Shining Star turned Molly over at once to Earth “Woman, famous among, the Senecas for her skills in dealing with all forms of sickness. Silently, Earth Woman looked at the girl’s thin legs and arms, examined her scratched limbs and swollen feet. She saw that her toes were worn almost to the bone from the rubbing of sand which had collected in her moccasins while fording so many creeks. Slowly she shook her head. Then she scolded.

  “Why did you not kill her and be done with it?” she cried. “It would have been more merciful. A wounded animal should be put out of its misery. Such a journey is only for a strong man to take—not a child and a pale-face at that! The daughters of Red Bird have shown little wisdom.” She paused, then added, “But I will do what I can.”

  Rebuked by a woman older and wiser than they, the two sisters hung their heads and without reply, returned to their mother
’s lodge.

  Earth Woman took the girl to the river bank and there in a shallow place, gave her a thorough washing. Then back to her lodge she brought her and placed her in a bed. There, tired and ill, Molly was to lie for many days.

  Earth Woman prided herself on being able to cure all manner of fevers, plagues and diseases. She knew the exact medicinal root or herb to perform the cure for each. She set to work at once. She steeped red oak and wild cherry bark and mixed it with dewberry root. This she gave to Molly to drink frequently and in it she had her soak her feet, at intervals, for days. When the girl did not improve, she tried various other decoctions, but nothing seemed to help. A troubled frown settled on the Indian woman’s placid face.

  Days passed one after the other, but Molly took no notice. Sometimes she heard Earth Woman start out the door on her daily trip to the woods or saw her come back again, her arms filled with roots she had dug or leaves and herbs she had gathered. Listlessly she watched as the woman mixed her medicines, setting them to steep or boiling them over the fire. Listlessly she watched, but her mind took in little or nothing of what she saw. She never spoke or asked a question.

  The lodge seemed always quiet as if the other families had no children full of life and action. Or, perhaps all the other families had moved away. Perhaps they had all gone on the long journey, too. Sometimes a little white dog, like the one in Seneca Town, came whining to Molly’s bedside. Sometimes Earth Woman was not herself at all. One moment she was Bear Woman, pointing out weeds on a corn hill. At another, she was Squirrel Woman, scolding and angry. Then she turned into a white woman, with full-gathered skirts of homespun and friendly eyes of blue. The white woman was always in a hurry, going away somewhere. And when she went, Earth Woman came back again.

  Long hours passed when no one was there. The fire was out, the ashes were cold. Had they all gone away and left her? Had they set the broom against the door, a signal of their absence? Slowly Molly crawled out of her bed. Over the dirt floor she crept as far as the door. Then she forgot about the broom. She made up her mind she would go away from the Indians. She would find her way home again. But Earth Woman came, picked her up and carried her back to her bed.