As he spoke, several of the Osage warriors moved to the sides of our group, flanking us. Their mood had changed. They gripped their weapons, and though they had not yet raised them, they looked ready to. They appeared frightened.
“You invoke an evil name,” Louis said. “I have given you a warning. If you press this matter, it will go hard for you.”
“Be reasonable,” my father said.
“John.” Mr. Faries took hold of my father’s arm. “Be prudent.”
My father glanced at Mr. Faries’s hand and then at the Indians surrounding us. “I’ll not be silenced by savage superstition. Madoc is no more evil than —”
Louis shouted a command.
The warriors rushed us. One seized my arms from behind. I thrashed against him, but couldn’t break free. I looked for Jane. They had her, too. She tugged, jaw clenched, but couldn’t move. The Society members shouted and cursed, grappling with the Indians. And then a gunshot froze us all.
Louis held his smoking rifle, aimed up at the sky. He yelled something at us.
Andrew, himself restrained by one of the Indians, said, “He asks you all not to struggle and promises you will not be harmed.”
My father shouted. “We did not mean to offend you! And I did not think to ask something of you without offering something in return. We have brought goods to trade!”
Louis tipped his head. “Let us see what you have brought.”
They let go of us and gathered us together. Louis and a few of his men stripped us of our packs and sat us down. With rifles and spears pointed at us, we watched them empty our supplies out on the ground.
“Take what you want,” my father said. “But let us go.”
The Osage claimed almost everything, the goods we had brought to trade, as well as our food, blankets, and knives. They seemed especially pleased with Andrew’s rifle. They didn’t seem to know what to make of Mr. Kinnersley’s Leyden jar, though. I cringed as they touched it, waiting for the lightning within to burst free and shock them. But it never did, and they let it roll harmlessly to the ground. And then they opened my pack. They took the ink, my paper, and my quills. Then they found my drawings.
I leaped to my feet, enraged. “Leave those alone!”
“Billy, be still!” My father yanked me back down.
I watched, helpless, as Louis thumbed through my work.
When he came to the drawings of the incognitum and his Indian hunters, Louis looked up at me. “You made these?”
At first, I just glared at him. “Yes.”
He looked at them again. He showed them to his companions. They talked, pointing at the pictures and one another. When Louis gathered the drawings back, he gently shuffled them together and slipped them into my pack with care. He then placed my pack with the other supplies and provisions they had taken, which they hauled away and set with their own possessions. Louis stood before us, conferring with two of his men.
“Can you tell what they are saying, Andrew?” my father asked.
“I do not know their language. But I would guess they are trying to decide if they will take us, or some of us, as prisoners back to their people.”
I looked at my father. So did the other Society members.
He looked back at Jane and me, his face pale. “Andrew, what do you think they will do?”
My father was afraid. And that made me more afraid than I already was. I had heard stories of Indians taking English children to raise as slaves in their villages. Were those stories true?
Andrew rubbed his leg. “Sir, I don’t know what they will do.”
“Why haven’t they just killed us?” Mr. Faries asked.
“They know we’ve come on the king’s business,” Phineas said. “If they kill us, they have to worry about how their French allies will react. I suspect they will simply take us all prisoner and deliver us to the French.” He spoke with a lightness in his voice, as though he wasn’t troubled by this at all. But as a spy for the French, why would he be?
“They can’t take us all prisoner,” Andrew said. “They don’t have enough men for that, with the incognitum meat they have to carry. But if they take some of us prisoner, they have to worry about what the rest of us will do, and whether the English will retaliate. In these circumstances, it may be easiest to simply let us all go free.”
I chose to hope for that outcome.
So we waited to learn our fate.
A short while later, the Osage seemed to come to some agreement. Louis spoke to us. “Our French allies would expect us to take you prisoner.”
Inside, I panicked, but kept my face and body from showing it.
“But I won’t,” Louis said. “It is more important that we take this meat back to feed our people. You are free to depart, if you go now.”
My father stood, and so did the rest of us. As I had with my fear, I tried equally hard to keep my relief inside as we gathered up the few possessions the Osage hadn’t taken.
My father turned to Louis. “I must —”
“Say nothing,” Louis said.
My father bowed his head, then led the way toward the trees from which we had come. I didn’t want to turn my back on the Osage warriors. I felt the threat in their eyes as acutely as from the points of their spears, which were still directed at us. The muscles in my neck and shoulders tensed as I walked, the tree line too far away.
We covered several yards. Then Louis shouted something.
I winced.
“Oh, Lord,” Mr. Kinnersley said. “He’s changed his mind. They’re going to kill us.”
“No.” Andrew looked at me. “He wants Billy.”
Me?
“What for?” my father asked.
“We must go find out,” Andrew said.
I took a deep breath. What could he want with me? Would I alone be taken captive? I gathered what bravery I could. If they wanted me, then I would do what was necessary to save my father and Jane and the others.
“Stay here, Billy.” My father looked back at the Indians. “Let me go.”
Louis waved at me, motioning me toward him.
“No, Father. He wants me.”
“I don’t think he means to harm him,” Andrew said.
“We’ll go together,” my father said. “The rest of you continue on to the forest.”
So the three of us trudged back toward Louis, and as we approached, the Indian held up my pack. “Your pictures are very good.”
His statement surprised me, and I didn’t know how to respond. But as I looked at him standing there, smiling with my things, I grew angry again. He had taken my drawings. He had taken what I was most proud of.
“What will you trade for them?” I asked.
Andrew didn’t translate. He just stared at me. So did my father.
Louis looked at me, his hairless brow wrinkled in confusion. He turned to Andrew, and when Andrew translated, the Indian’s brow lifted. He laughed. “What is your price?”
I hesitated.
Louis waited.
“This is my price. Tell us where we can find the people of Madoc.” As soon as I said the name, I regretted it. The Osage warriors all took a menacing step toward the three of us. I hoped Jane and the Society members had continued on to the woods like my father had ordered, but didn’t dare look.
Louis played with one of the bones hanging from his ear. He no longer smiled.
I waited.
“We do not speak of Madoc,” he said at last. “But if you wish to find him, continue on in that direction.” He pointed over our heads, just south of west. “After several days, you will come to a valley. In the valley, you will find what you seek.”
“Thank you,” I said.
“Do not thank me,” he said. “My people do not hunt in that place. You should be more afraid of them than you are of us.”
“Why?” I asked.
“They are …”
Andrew’s translation faltered.
“What did he say?” my father asked. “They
are what?”
“Demons,” Andrew said.
“What did he mean, Father?”
We had put a mile of forest between us and the Osage before I dared to speak or ask the question. We moved quickly without the burden of our now-stolen supplies. Mr. Faries still had the lenses he had hidden, and Mr. Kinnersley now bore the heaviest load with his Leyden jar. But he refused to leave it behind.
I continued. “And he said, ‘him.’ When he was talking about Madoc, he said, ‘If you wish to find him.’ Why would he say that?”
My father’s gaze plowed ahead of us. “As to your first question, you needn’t concern yourself with savage superstitions. And as for the second, it must be an error in translation.”
“I made no mistake,” Andrew said.
“Then I would doubt the Indian’s French!” my father said. “No more talking. Quickly, now.”
He set a relentless pace.
Mile after mile passed of the same underbrush and trees through which we had carried Andrew. By the time evening descended, we were far from the incognitum road, and my father finally let us stop. We made a fire but had nothing to cook, and we had no blankets to make our beds. My father laid his coat out on the ground for Jane to sleep on. I was hungry but too exhausted to complain.
“Tomorrow morning,” my father said, “we can spare the time to forage for food. Agreed?”
No one answered him.
We sat around the fire, warming our hands.
My father stood on the opposite side of the ring from me, obscured by sparks and smoke. “I must apologize to you all. It was I who decided to approach the Osage. Our present state is my responsibility.”
“Sit down, John,” Mr. Godfrey said. “This is no fault of yours.”
My father sat.
I stared at him through the flames. I did not agree with Mr. Godfrey. But I understood what it meant to blame yourself. Jane did, too. As the expedition had faced a threat, we had each made choices that brought it into greater danger. But just because my father and I experienced something similar did not make us alike. It did not change anything.
“Try to get some sleep, everyone,” he said.
We settled down as best we could without any bedding. I rolled onto my side, away from the fire, feeling its heat across my back. Hunger gnawed at my stomach, but it wasn’t yet painful enough to keep me awake.
When we woke early the next morning, the fire still smoked. My father led our forage in the surrounding woods, searching for edibles. We didn’t find much, so we began the day even hungrier than we had been the night before. We took water from the plentiful streams and creeks we crossed, traveling in the direction Louis had pointed. For a few moments, it gave our stomachs the sensation of fullness, but that didn’t last long.
In midafternoon, we came across a wild blackberry bush bearing some fruit. The thorns stuck my hands and my arms as we stripped it bare, but it was worth it when I bit into my first juicy berry. The sweetness and tartness satisfied some of my hunger.
That evening, we camped near a stream that held some tiny silver fish, flashing like penknives under the surface. I snapped off several green, flexible branches from a small oak tree and wove them together into a lattice. Then I waded into the water and slipped my makeshift net down under the surface. I held my body still, and I waited. Before long, the fish began to approach. When two swam over my net, I heaved it out of the water, tossing them up onto the bank, where they flipped and rolled in the grass.
I did the same again and again, until my back hurt and my feet were cold and I’d caught a little fish for everyone.
They did not taste good. But they were food.
The next few days passed like the previous two. Except we were hungrier. We ate what we could find. A few mushrooms. More berries. Some nuts and some roots. At each camp, we laid snares overnight, but only once did we catch a squirrel. And with eight mouths to feed, there was never enough, especially with the heat and the physical exertion the dense forest demanded. Flies and midges tormented us, stinging and biting our necks and faces.
Mr. Kinnersley wasn’t doing well. He muttered to himself, and if I tried to talk to him, he acted confused, as though he didn’t recognize me. Mr. Godfrey had fallen into a sullen silence. Mr. Faries and Phineas seemed to be doing relatively better, but they were both younger and stronger than the rest. Andrew hobbled along, and I couldn’t tell if the pain in his leg had lessened or if he had simply grown accustomed to it. Jane kept up, but her feet dragged. So did mine.
If my father felt exhaustion, he didn’t show it. He led the way forward.
Always forward.
“Mr. Bartram?” Jane sat on the ground while the rest of us rose and prepared to move on. “How much farther, sir?”
“I do not know, Jane.” My father offered her his hand to help her up, but she only stared at it blankly. “Louis said it was several days away.”
Jane finally took his hand and got to her feet. “It’s been six.”
“I know,” my father said. “Which means we must be close. I know you are all tired, but we are nearly there.”
“Unless the Indian lied to you,” Phineas said.
Silence followed.
That wasn’t something I had considered. What if the hunger, the fatigue, and the strain of the past several days were in vain? What if my drawings had purchased us nothing? I thought back to the exchange with Louis and I did not think he had lied. His fear was too evident.
“I believe he told me the truth,” I said.
“I also believe that,” Andrew said.
Phineas raised his eyebrows but said nothing more.
We pressed on.
Hunger stalked me the following day, and the heat made it difficult to breathe. I felt weak, drenched in my own sweat, and I crossed some kind of threshold. My thoughts became hazy, my mind unfocused and slow. All I could do was keep moving.
Keep moving.
I stumbled more, tripping over roots and rocks. My vision clouded at times, and I could barely rouse myself to swat the flies away.
Keep moving.
“How does the Indian survive in this pestilent land?” Phineas asked.
“They survive,” my father said. “They do not thrive. And they will never be truly civilized, until they learn to subdue and cultivate this land for its better use. This soil is rich. This land is fertile. Imagine what could be done with it under better stewardship.”
“Your stewardship?” Andrew asked.
“Why not?” my father asked. “I look at this land and I see wide, verdant fields and pastures. I see its potential.”
Fatigue loosened my tongue. “Why is a field better than a forest? Why is our use of the land better than theirs?”
My father’s expression showed more confusion than anger. He reached over and touched the back of his hand to my forehead. “You’re too hot. We need to find some water.”
A short while later, we came to a wide stream, and my father called a halt for the night. He had me drink, then take off most of my clothes and submerge myself in the water. The cool current washed over me and carried away the dirt and heat of the day. I looked at the sky, imagining myself up there again, among the clouds, flying without a ship.
My father helped me out of the water, back into my clothes, and set me down in front of the fire. I stared into it. The wavering dance of its flames lulled me, and deep in the embers, I thought I saw a small beetle. A beetle. I blinked.
It was still there, right in the midst of the fire, polished like a mirror, reflecting the flames, appearing made of them. It crawled from coal to coal, then out of the fire and down a tiny hole. I imagined I saw the inside of its den, a dark warren of roots and moist air, where time passed slowly. I saw the beetle leave its home. It traveled over the ground, and the armor on its back opened, unfurling translucent, humming wings. I lifted off with it into the air as it flew in search of leaves and fruit to eat.
The beetle thrummed over a river, grazing the wat
er with its feet, where a spotted frog slipped between clutches of waterweeds, eyes turned upward. I spotted the beetle’s tiny silhouette dancing on the river’s surface. The frog floated up into the dryness, blinking its eyes, waiting, and in an almost imperceptible movement, flicked its tongue. It caught the golden beetle in its mouth, broken legs and wings sticking out, then swallowed it whole.
The frog hopped up onto the riverbank, croaked its satisfaction, then splashed back into the water, while overhead, in the dry world, I stood with a stick-legged heron in the mud, its dagger beak poised, black eyes waiting. The little frog darted between the heron’s legs and the bird snapped and scissored the water.
It wobbled the frog down its gullet, legs last. Then the heron stepped among the reeds and cattails and came up on the bank, where an enormous cottonmouth coiled in the sun. The heron startled it awake, and the serpent reared. The bird squawked, spread its wings and flapped only once. The snake struck, fang through feather, and the bird crumpled. The snake’s jaw unhinged and opened.
Then the cottonmouth, bulging in the middle, disappeared into the forest. I kept with it to the shadows and the cover of brush and leaves. It danced its tongue over the ground, tickling out the scent and flavor of the woods. It eased into a meadow of dry grass, a ceiling of open sky overhead where an eagle soared, watching. The great bird caught movement, tucked in its wings, and plunged to the earth. The snake writhed and died, skewered on talons.
I returned with the eagle to the sky, soaring, while down below human eyes envied golden eagle feathers and coveted the freedom to fly. Bullets reached upward and brought the eagle down. I fell with it, then walked with the hunter, trophy feathers in his pack. He carved a path through the forest, cleared the land, and all manner of creatures fell away before him. He marched supreme, but his scent wafted away from him into the nostrils of another.
The bear-wolf erased the hunter’s footprints with its paws as it stalked him to the edge of the wood. I felt its power as the animal charged, roaring, and though the hunter raised his gun, it was too late. And so the hunter fell. The bear-wolf sniffed at the body and rumbled under its breath.
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