The Devil Between Us

by S. C. Wilson

On the fifth day, an old, white-haired woman of the tribe entered the wigwam and tugged on Frieda’s arm, in an effort to pull her to her feet. She spoke loudly and with purpose, and although Frieda had no idea what the words meant, it was evident the woman wanted her outside. Frieda staggered on her way out, squinting in the bright sunlight. The old woman took Frieda by the arm and led her down to the creek, motioning for her to get in and bathe.

  Frieda stepped into the rolling water. Her clothes, stiff from days of filth, loosened and flowed around her. She dunked her head under and screamed as loud as she could, her cry muffled by the calming water. As she rose, she understood why the old woman had brought her there. The water not only cleansed her body, but it was therapeutic as well. Screaming like that seemed to release all the pent up emotions she had been keeping bottled up inside. She felt a glimmer of her old self, a new spark of strength to help her get on with her life.

  It took Nathaniel several weeks to recover from his illness, and many more months for him to fully regain his strength. If it hadn’t been for the old medicine man of the tribe, there’s no doubt he would have been reunited with Patrick.

  Nathaniel took the news of his son’s death extremely hard. He knew if he hadn’t pursued the move to Illinois, Patrick would still be alive. The weight of the guilt crushed him and it would plague him until the day he died.

  The Dothka tribe was good to Frieda and Nathaniel, adopting them into the village as their own. They helped the newcomers deal with their grief by keeping their minds and bodies occupied. Busy from sunup to sundown, Frieda and Nathaniel were never given the opportunity to sit around and feel sorry for themselves. Finding the native customs fascinating, they persevered, pushing on through their pain, eventually even learning the strange language.

  As soon as Nathaniel had regained his strength, the men of the tribe taught him how to construct the frame of his own wigwam. The women took Frieda to collect elm bark, and then methodically attached it on the wigwam frame. They used tanned deer hides, another skill they taught her, to cover any openings on the outside of the rounded shelter. It was unlike any home they had ever lived in and, although small, it was right for what they needed.

  The women of the tribe worked hard in the fields, and they taught Frieda how to plant crops in the way of their ancestors. Bare-chested, their tanned skin glistening with beads of sweat, the women spent their days in the fields, unprotected from the scorching sun. Uncomfortable with the nudity at first, Frieda eventually gave up her inhibitions. The woman from Pennsylvania found her true self, becoming more of a free spirit. Little by little, Frieda shed a bit more of the restricting white man’s ways, as she had her old clothes.

  After long hours in the sun, the women couldn’t wait to get back to the village and jump into the cool waters of the creek. Young and old, they stripped off their animal hides and ran, laughing like children as they splashed, tan bodies gleaming in the sun.

  The months flew by during the winter, and the well-built wigwam kept them nice and warm. Discussing their future night after night, Frieda and Nathanial decided in the spring they would continue their trip to Illinois. They told the tribe they would leave as soon as the weather was favorable.

  Big Antler, chief of the Dothka tribe, told them when the rains slowed in the spring, a chieftain from far away would come to his village. He would ask him to help guide Frieda and Nathaniel in the direction of the setting sun. They never imagined the journey to come would take them far beyond the boundaries of Illinois.

  As Frieda continued watching the young girl sleep, she reflected on her own loss. Her pain was still as raw as the day Patrick had died. Frieda knew how Jessica felt and wanted nothing more than to help the orphan cope with the tragedy, just as the Dothka people had done for her all those years ago. The best way she could help the young girl overcome her grief was to keep her mind busy and not allow her to dwell on the despair that was sure to threaten her sanity.

  In the morning, Frieda would begin by teaching Jessica some of the things she had learned over the years.

  Chapter Eight

  The modest little structure Frieda called home had become dilapidated from years of neglect. Nestled in a sea of trees beside a stream, the place was once lovely. It still would have been, had it been cared for. It was nothing more than hand-hewn logs mortared together with mud and straw, and a roof covered in a thick layer of bright green moss. The weathered cabin, despite its condition, was home.

  The most charming aspect was the covered porch of wood planks spanning the front. On it sat two crudely carved chairs fashioned from old stumps, seats worn smooth from years of use. Attached to one side of the dwelling was a rickety lean-to with a small grazing area, enclosed by a failing split-rail fence. Having housed no livestock in years, the structure was home now to rodents and other vermin. The paddock was so overgrown that portions of the fence surrounding it had all but disappeared.

  Inside was not much better than the outside. It was dark and dingy, and perpetually musty, despite Frieda’s best efforts.

  Jessica took an interest in the old home as she healed and regained her strength. Wanting to contribute, she set about cleaning up the place. It was the least she could do after everything Frieda had done for her.

  The efforts renewed Frieda’s interest in the old cabin as well. She helped Jessica fix up the loft above her bed. It wasn’t the home Jessica knew and loved, but she was happy to have a personal space to call her own. Frieda, though sad about Jessica’s situation, couldn’t have been happier for the company.

  Each day, life on the mountain exposed Jessica to many new experiences. Frieda spent endless hours teaching Jessica how to hunt, clean and prepare meat, and tan hides. No matter what kind of animal it was, Frieda knew how to dress it. Jessica was a quick learner, soaking up all the knowledge her new mentor had to offer.

  On hot summer days, when the chores were finished, they would strip off their clothes and race each other to the creek, laughing and splashing as the cold water soothed their hot skin. Evenings were spent sitting out on the stump chairs underneath the covered porch. Frieda whittled and smoked her pipe, telling Jessica about her life on the mountain.

  When first arriving on the mountain, constructing a shelter was Nathaniel and Frieda’s first priority. Initially, they built and lived in a wigwam. Even though Nathaniel was impressed with the versatility of the native-designed shelter, he knew a cabin would be more suitable for him and his wife. He appreciated and was grateful for all he had learned from the Dothka tribe. Nonetheless, he was a proud white man who chose to stick to what he knew best.

  The couple lived in the wigwam while they worked on their cabin, toiling sunup to sundown to complete their new home. Trees were chopped down, their logs hand-hewn and notched. Each rock was inspected with great care before making its way into the stone fireplace. Even selecting the right piece of timber for the mantel was done with great care.

  Frieda was never one to ask for luxuries, but there was one thing she yearned for in a home. Back in Pennsylvania they had always had dirt floors. Nathaniel wanted nothing more than for Frieda to have wood floors for the first time in her life. She deserved it. Frieda had, after all, uprooted her previous life, and lost a son to get where they were.

  It took weeks to split all of the logs. Cuts and blisters covered their sore hands. In the end it was worth it because Frieda finally had her puncheon log floor. With the cabin completed, the couple began work on a shelter for their horses.

  They enjoyed nine years together on the mountain before Nathaniel’s health began to decline. He spent the last two years of his life bedridden. Nathaniel knew he had become a burden, and welcomed the approaching reunion with his son. He was at peace knowing Frieda was strong and capable. She would do all right without him.

  Frieda took good care of him, but eventually his body couldn’t take any more. He slipped away in his sleep, passing away in her arms in 1847, eleven years after arriving atop Mount Perish.

 
Frieda buried him underneath a beautiful sycamore, cocooned in a bear pelt. Their wigwam, their first home on the mountain, had sat in the same spot. After covering the hole with dirt and placing rocks on top, she tore off the sleeve of an old shirt and tied it to a stick. She jammed it into the ground, marking the spot as it had been done at Patrick’s grave so long ago in Indiana.

  Frieda spent her time hunting, foraging, and fishing. Experience had taught her staying busy was the best remedy for loss. Still, she neglected her home’s appearance. She sometimes felt bad about the layers of dirt lining the grooves of her wood floor, but survival was her priority. She was one woman, with only so much energy. It took everything she had to simply get through her days. On lonely evenings, she sat on the porch whittling and humming songs she had learned from her time spent with her native friends.

  Frieda’s one true pleasure was smoking Nathaniel’s pipe. One day she noticed it sitting next to his old brass spill on the mantel. The sight of it alone was enough to bring on such a vivid memory of the smell of the smoke she had become dizzy with emotion. The aroma had been gone for so long and she hadn’t realized until then how much she missed it. She smoked it from that day forward. Tobacco was not readily available on the mountaintop, but Frieda found several herbs and plants she liked to smoke. Her favorite was a blend of mugwort, huckleberry, and nettle leaf, which she always kept hanging in bundles inside the cabin to dry.

  Jessica listened to Frieda’s stories, watching in fascination as one animal or another came to life from a piece of wood. The woman carved them without effort, her knife never pausing while she spoke. Jessica was thrilled when Frieda handed her a knife.

  “It was Nathaniel’s. Thought you might want to give it a try. Just be careful not to cut off a finger,” Frieda said, only half teasing. She kept the blade razor-sharp.

  “Thank you,” Jessica said, eager to create her own figures. “I’m going to make you a deer.”

  “That would be lovely.” Frieda smiled at the girl’s confidence. She felt a surge of pride.

  It took three weeks to complete her first carving. It was so hideous and lopsided it wouldn’t stand upright. Even so, Frieda bragged about it as if it was a blue ribbon winner. She propped the wooden deer up against a tin, smack dab in the middle of the table where it would remain thereafter.

  Life on top of Mount Perish hadn’t been an easy transition for Jessica. Frieda tried her best to keep her young mind engaged. Still, the gruesome memories managed to creep in. Most of the time Jessica quickly pushed them away, tucking them safely into the deepest recesses of her brain where they could do her no harm. Other times, especially at night, in her loft bed, those thoughts would come crawling out to bite. Her breath caught in her throat as her eyes burned. The memories were heavy, holding Jessica back as she tried to escape into sleep.

  Some nights she dreamed about fishing with Toby or sitting on her father’s lap, while others were filled with the faces of evil. On the bad nights, sweat soaked, tears streaking her cheeks, she woke to find Frieda sleeping next to her in the loft. The sight of Frieda always comforted her, particularly after a bad nightmare.

  Jessica was now part of a new, if smaller, family.

  The next two years flew by for Jessica. Busy, work-filled days meant she spent much less time at play than other kids her age. She learned how to sew using animal pelts for fabric. Jessica couldn’t help but think about her sister every time she pulled her bone needle through the tanned animal hide. Jamie had loved to sew. These memories were tamed by time and didn’t hurt as much. Now, the act of sewing helped Jessica feel closer to her sister.

  Plants played a pivotal role in mountain life; learning which were edible and which were poisonous was as important as understanding the medicinal properties of each. Frieda taught her about wild roots, leaves, flowers, and fruits. Jessica learned how to make an antidote for snakebites, how to use tree sap to stop infections, and endless other remedies.

  Life on the mountain was often extremely hostile. Brutal winters seemed as if they would never end. The snowy months were long and hard for the pair. They huddled inside, sometimes for days on end, while nothing moved outside. Frieda, determined the young girl would get an education, thought this the perfect time to channel the always-active youngster’s energy into learning.

  Lethargic and bored, Jessica had little interest in reading, writing, and arithmetic. Why would she need to know such things? Like other girls her age, she would get lost in daydreams, her mind racing with thoughts of so many other things she wished she could be doing. Trapping, fishing, hunting, anything would be better than this. A quick, calculated clearing of Frieda’s throat always brought Jessica back to reality. In the end, Frieda would succeed in enlightening another mind, much to Jessica’s dismay.

  Frieda wanted to make sure Jessica could survive on her own in any situation. She taught her the importance of the stars and moon cycles, and how to use them. Vital not only as instruments of time, these heavenly bodies were used for guidance and as a guidepost on the movements of the nature that surrounded them. They called the months of the year by moon names, which took Jessica some getting used to at first. Her favorite month was the Harvest Moon, or September, when the huckleberries ripened. Huckleberries were her favorite.

  Sometimes Frieda would point to an object and call it by name in a different language. The words sounded funny to Jessica, but she thought it was fun and did her best to learn each new word she was challenged with.

  One of the most important lessons Frieda taught Jessica came in the spring. Nathaniel had been an expert at trapping beavers, and he had passed his knowledge on to Frieda. She, in turn, passed the trade along to the young girl. Once caught, beavers had to be skinned carefully and with skill.

  First, Frieda would scoop out the brain and mash it in a bowl. Next, she would add her urine to the bowl, mix the contents, and smear the salty mixture on the pelt. The hide would be nailed to the side of the old cabin, the shape kept as round as possible. The dried pelts made excellent parkas, mittens, and hats. They were essential in keeping the women warm when the air became bitter cold and the ground turned white with heavy snow.

  Summers were spent picking fresh berries along the mountainside, the excess carefully dried. When Frieda and Jessica weren’t harvesting fruit, they hunted for red meat, fish, and fowl.

  Drying meat was a summer priority. Once it had dried, it was pounded into a powder, mixed with hot fat and dried berries, and then mixed into small cakes called pemmican. The cakes were unremarkable on the surface. In the dead of winter, when it was too cold to leave the cabin and food became scarce, they tasted wonderful and calmed hunger pangs.

  Chopping, splitting, and stacking wood also took up a lot of time. Somehow the two of them always managed to put away enough to get through the harsh winters. Summers were busy and filled with hard work, but all of it was necessary. Winter on the mountain proved fatal if one was not properly prepared.

  Jessica needed less and less supervision as time went on. She reveled in the independence her abilities gave her. This was exactly what Frieda had hoped for. Jessica may have only been twelve, but she had been catapulted into adulthood. No longer the helpless little girl, too scared to come out from under the hay, she now bore a growing portion of the burden as her beloved mentor aged.

  One afternoon, not far from the cabin, as Frieda insisted she was never to venture too far, Jessica was out checking on one of her snares. She bent down to check the trap when a rattling noise stopped her cold. She had never heard the sound before. Like rocks shaking in a tin can, the rattler gave little warning before sinking its fangs deep into the flesh of her right forearm. When the snake finally released, Jessica ran back to the cabin.

  “It bit me!” she screamed, face chalky white, arm cradled in excruciating pain.

  Frieda was out front plucking feathers from a dead grouse. She dropped their dinner, and ran to Jessica, already pulling an old handkerchief out of her pocket. She wrapped the
makeshift tourniquet around Jessica’s upper arm. Pulling out the knife hanging from her hip, she sliced Jessica’s arm right across the two puncture wounds. She put her mouth over the cut, and began to suck and spit.

  Frieda’s lips and tongue were numb before she was confident she had gotten most of the poison. She carried Jessica into the cabin and put her in bed as the room began to spin around the girl. Frieda retrieved an old jar off of the shelf; mixed the contents with a ladle of water, and feverishly shook the mixture. She lifted Jessica’s head and held the jar up to her lips.

  Jessica knew she would die without it, but still her body involuntarily retched as she tried to swallow the bitter drink. After getting it down, Frieda tossed the jar aside, and carefully lowered Jessica’s head onto the pillow. She removed the tourniquet from the rapidly swelling arm.

  “I don’t want to die.”

  “I won’t let you. You’re going to be just fine,” Frieda said in the most reassuring tone she could muster. In all honesty, she had no idea if Jessica would survive. She was scared to death. What had been a long day turned into an even longer night. Worsening, burning with fever and hallucinating, Jessica screamed. Once again the faces of evil men haunted her fevered mind.

  “Frieda! They’re coming. They’re going to find me. Frieda…where are you? Help me!” Jessica said, crying out.

  “Child I’m right here. No one is going to hurt you. I promise you. I won’t let anyone hurt you, ever again.” Frieda tried to soothe the tormented girl. Not being able to pull Jessica from her nightmare was heartbreaking. Her lip and chin trembled even more at the realization it was the first time Jessica had called out for her instead of her parents during one of her terrifying dreams.

  Frieda never left her side. For the first time in many years, she prayed. She prayed all night. By morning, the fever had broken. Her girl was out of danger. Once again, Jessica owed her life to the old mountain woman.