Something else catches Susanna’s eye. She takes off her bonnet and covers her mouth and nose, and then bends over one of the bodies. Someone has stuck a feather into the pocket of the uniform. A green feather, exactly like the ones the Stooping Indians gave to them.
She pulls the feather out. As she turns it over her vision seems to narrow.
“They did this,” she says. “They killed these men.”
Meera takes the feather and examines it.
“This is a warning,” Susanna tells her. She is scared now, truly scared.
Meera says, “To us they were kind.”
“I think we should go back to Gemeinschaft.”
“To Gemeinschaft! No, I will not go back.”
“Listen, Meera. I can ask the brethren to come with us. I can plead for your case. You can still go to your people up north, only you’ll be protected. Think on it! The brethren do carry guns for hunting, you know. They believe in self protection.”
“Sometimes it is safer for women to travel alone.”
“That is certainly not true!”
“It is true,” Meera insists. “We are not warriors, not soldiers. Not a threat. Listen to me. I know these kinds of people. They live their way as they have for hundreds of years going from one food to another depending on the season. They know the passing of time only by what grows and what swims. But make no mistake, they will protect their land and themselves. A uniform is enough to tell them this person is a danger. As women we are not a danger. But what do you think would happen if we came back with soldiers?”
“Not soldiers. Missionaries.”
Meera shrugs her shoulders as if to say: they are the same. “They showed us the cave,” she reminds Susanna. “They did not have to do that. To us they are friends.”
“You cannot be sure how long friendliness will last.”
“We gave gifts to one another. That is a promise of goodwill.”
But no matter how much they argue, neither one can convince the other that the Stooping Indians will or will not hurt them. It has to be the Stooping Indians who did this. It is too much to believe that more than one starving tribe could live in this mossy wasteland. And yet Susanna does not even know that for certain. How can she determine the right course of action? In any case, Meera refuses to return.
“I would be a prisoner,” she says. “Nushemakw will not give me another opportunity to run away. She will see to that. Anyway, I feel sure that the river is just on the other side of these trees.”
Susanna looks at the bodies. What a desolate place to die. And after death, to be mocked with paint and piercings. She hates this wet, spongy land. Every tree seems to be watching them. The truth is, she doesn’t want to go back to Gemeinschaft either, but neither does she want to go on.
“If they wanted us dead, we would be dead,” Meera tells her.
Not a comforting thought.
The woods lead to a small dry clearing scattered with mounds that look almost like sand. After they set down the boat, Susanna bends down to touch one. It is sand.
How is this possible? She lets it run through her fingers.
Back before the mastodon left, Meera tells her, the Black Swamp was made up of six ancient lakes. So Nushemakw’s people say. They claim that one lake is still here, hidden and full of magic. “The person finding it will become great with power but also bewitched, unable to leave.”
The clearing, surrounded on all sides by woods, is bowl-shaped and smells like the wet trees. But there is no sign of a river. Susanna’s initial stab of disappointment turns to worry. Are they lost? Not yet but soon, if they keep going, they might be. She should turn back but she doesn’t want to go alone. She never wants to go alone, that is her problem.
“We’ve been going northwest, but now we must turn fully west,” Meera says firmly.
A blue haze seems to float in the air. Meera decides to climb a tree, hoping to catch a glimpse of Fish River. Meanwhile Susanna takes off her moccasins and scrunches her toes. They are still wet from wading through the shallow pond. She hears the faint trickle of water nearby and pulls her tin cup from her grain sack. She follows the sound to a stream almost hidden by a thick line of plants with brown fanning leaves. On the largest leaf a small frog hides quietly. Looking closer, she sees it is dead.
Meera comes up beside her. With one hand Susanna shades her eyes. “Did you see Fish River?”
“I saw to the west the red maple that grows along its banks. We are close.”
Susanna looks down at the dead frog. Nothing has changed. From here she can probably find her way back to Injured River. But when she takes a step she feels a sudden sharp pain on her ankle.
“Oh!” she cries out. Something golden rustles away in the grass.
“A snake,” she says. “It...I think it bit me!” She drops to the ground.
Meera turns quickly. “Where did it go?”
“I don’t know. Oh!” She can see fang marks above her anklebone and the skin around it is turning red. All in a moment every limb of her body seems to stiffen. “Oh! It hurts.” But Meera has run after the snake. A few moments later she returns, her face ashen. “A yellow shixikwe. It makes its way to water after attacking, else it dies.”
Susanna is still on the ground, cupping her ankle with both hands. “Is it bad?” she asks, rocking backward. It feels very bad.
Meera crouches down and gently takes Susanna’s hands away from her foot. She looks at the bite without touching the skin. “The poison is inside you,” she says. “Try not to move.”
She makes a travois with her blanket, maneuvers Susanna onto it, and pulls her toward a nearby stand of sycamores. The sky has become a curious shade of yellow-green, and a hazy rain begins, as soft as fog. Susanna lifts her face to it, hoping for some relief. Her ankle throbs.
“My nose feels strange,” she says. She looks up at Meera’s face, which is pinched with worry. Meera says there is a plant she’s seen used, she doesn’t know the English name, but she will look for it. Susanna watches her disappear into the trees. Her tongue begins to quiver and she touches her lips gingerly. She doesn’t want to be alone but at the same time she is aware of some new barrier rising up between herself and the rest of the world, as though some important change is happening but only to her. Her nose feels like little bubbles are popping inside.
She realizes she’s going to be sick. Leaning out as far as she can away from the blanket, she empties her stomach. Meera returns as she finishes, and wipes Susanna’s mouth with a cloth.
“I’m sorry,” Susanna says. “I was afraid to move.” Is she slurring her words? Her tongue feels very thick in her mouth.
Meera says she will dig a hole for her to be sick in, but first she must drink. She puts a cup of water to Susanna’s lips.
“Wanishi,” Susanna says in Delaware. Thank you. Then she leans over and is sick again.
The afternoon turns into bouts of vomiting followed by rest followed by yet another bout. Her thirst is unquenchable. Meera makes a poultice from a long smelly shaft of bugwort she found, pulverizing its knotty roots with a rock. She mixes the powder with water and crushed leaves from another plant, making a kind of wet cake. When she lays it over Susanna’s foot her ankle feels better, but soon afterward a sharp pain punches her in her middle. She crawls off the blanket and pulls off her skirt to relieve herself. Looking down, she sees with horror that her urine is filled with blood.
“Everything is coming out of me,” she wails.
Meera gives her something sour to drink. After she finishes it Susanna falls into a heavy sleep.
When she wakes it is dark. Meera is shaking her arm. “I built a shelter,” she is saying. “Can you walk?”
A low, bright moon casts a sharp shadow behind her.
“I thought I should try not to move?”
“By now the poison has run where it will.”
Susanna puts her two hands to the ground. She says, “But I can’t feel my legs.”
Meera drag
s her again by the blanket. Fortunately the shelter is not far off—a little structure made out of thin sticks woven over a framework of thicker branches. It is the length of Susanna’s body, wide enough for them both to sleep in, and open at either end. But when Susanna lies down her nose begins to bleed and doesn’t stop for some time. Her bowels still ache but the pain in her ankle is gone. She has no feeling there at all. Through the branch latticework of the shelter she can see broken fragments of the night sky. Clouds come and go and the moon grows smaller and smaller. The morning takes a long time coming. The air keeps getting colder.
Sixteen
When there is no sign of Susanna on Injured River, Seth leaves Gemeinschaft and returns to Severne. There he learns that Cade has left for Kentucky almost two weeks ago, and that Amos is dead. And not just dead, but brutally killed. One of the farmers, needing help with a wagon wheel, found Amos’s body three days ago propped up against the cabin door.
One of his ears was missing and his face was painted black. He was naked and all of his weapons were gone. Some Indian did it, but why? A couple of farmers took it upon themselves to bury him, not knowing if Seth was coming back or not. That was yesterday. Seth missed the funeral by a day. But he does not go over to the small walled plot where the settlers have chosen to bury their dead. He does not want to see Amos’s grave.
Inside, their cabin smells like blood. There is a dark stain in the corner where the planks of wood have run out and the floor is bare dirt. Is this where he was killed? Then dragged outside? A few things are obviously gone: the iron tongs, the longest hammer, and a mirror that once hung over the basin and pitcher, their only decoration. The room feels like defeat. Seth looks at the ceiling. Has it always been so sloped? Even the walls seem darker than he remembered and strangely, considering Amos erected the cabin only six years ago, in a state of decay. Seth knows he should do something, get his things together, see what he can sell to any takers. Maybe meet Cade in Kentucky. But he stands in the empty room as if listening. He knows Cade will never come back. Seth could sell the rest of his father’s tools without too much effort. Maybe someone would even want to take up the trade, one of the farmers tired of being outdoors all day. Every settlement needs a blacksmith.
One thing is certain, though: it won’t be him. Amos always talked of leaving the trade to his sons. Cade didn’t want it, but Amos never saw that. Seth pours some water into the basin but it sat too long in the pitcher and the smell of sulfur is strong. He should go out and fetch more water but instead he just puts the pitcher back down. A feeling is pulling at him but he can’t think what.
The other settlers have gotten nervous—trouble with the natives, they’re saying. John Johns, one of the farmers who buried Amos, told Seth that he was going to carry a rifle with him the next time he plowed. But Seth isn’t worried about natives. That isn’t it. Something to do with Susanna? He needs direction. A task. The slope of the ceiling is permanent, there is no fixing that now.
He goes outside to get some fresh air and that’s when he sees the Indian crouching near the cabin. A Potawatomi. He isn’t hiding but he isn’t making himself too visible either. The long rye grass rises behind him, and Seth realizes that he would only be seen by someone coming out of his cabin: himself.
The man stands. “Bozho,” he says. Greetings.
The man is taller than Seth and broader but his hands hang to his sides, empty. His only knife is tucked into his belt. Seth can see that he is not here to threaten him.
“Bozho,” Seth replies. He knows Potawatomi from Amos’s late night rants after hours of drinking.
The man is looking at his face. Then he looks at Seth’s arms and legs, his shoulders, and back to his face. “You are Potawatomi,” he says.
Is this a question? “I have Potawatomi blood, but also German. Mostly German.”
“Face is Potawatomi. Father is Potawatomi but does not have face.”
“Did you know my father?”
He says, “I did not sanction his death.” For a while he says nothing more. Seth waits, curious. Sanction is an interesting word to use. For a moment he wonders at his own coldness, and then lets it go. Amos was not an easy parent to live with. Thank God for Cade, his ally.
“I am here to see if you seek revenge,” the man finally says.
At that Seth looks at him quickly, warily.
“I am here peacefully. To parley,” the man says.
Seth looks around. No farmers in sight, all of them out in their fields probably. There is not much to Severne: a couple of plank walkways, a half dozen yellow buildings, and that’s it. That’s the settlement. Behind him the ground is so flat you could see a man riding in from nearly a mile away. Also that man could see you.
“Let’s go into my cabin,” Seth says. “This place is too open.”
But the Potawatomi does not move. “If you seek revenge I am beholden to help.”
This surprises Seth. “Beholden! But I have never seen you before. We have no connection.”
“Both Potawatomi.”
Seth pushes his damp hair off his forehead. The day is very humid. He tells the Potawatomi that he believes his father was engaged in some wrongdoing. What he means by this is that he does not think revenge would be a fitting response.
“Do you know who killed him?” Seth asks. Immediately he wishes he could take it back. Better not to know. They still have not moved from their spot in front of Seth’s cabin. The wind when it reaches him is hot. The man doesn’t answer. An insect lands on his arm but he still does not make a move. Seth asks him what his name is.
“Koman.”
“Koman, let me offer you some food inside. It is too hot to speak here without shade. I do not seek revenge, but I would seek your aid. I am looking for a woman. Her name is Susanna Quiner. She’s gone into the Black Swamp.”
Koman searches Seth’s face. Then he says, “Red hair?”
Seth nods.
Koman crosses his arms in front of him. His hair blows forward in the hot wind. “I will aid,” he says.
Seventeen
At night wild creatures call out in human voices and she is convinced that the Stooping Indians are coming in a pack to kill her and pierce her ears. When she opens her eyes a full white moon is close to her face. So that is why she feels so hot. A moment later, the moon is gone. It is daylight and Green Feather is massaging her leg. Green Feather says, “Gloucheecheechee,” in a very soft voice. Susanna licks her dry lips and searches her mind for an answer. “Merci,” she says finally.
She dreams she is walking through Thieving Forest in search of something vitally important only she has forgotten what. When she looks up she can see a single tree branch angling down as if pointing to her head. It places her in the world and gives her solace: you are still here. In the morning Meera urges her to drink some foul liquid from a cup, which she spits out.
“Look over there,” Meera tells her.
On the opposite end of the clearing, men and women are dropping down from tree branches. In the cold gray light they look like ghosts.
“It is where they sleep,” Meera tells her.
Susanna watches them drop, breathing through her mouth. Is she dreaming again?
“They share the night with the birds,” Meera says.
Whenever Susanna thinks back to this time she can still feel the soft tug on her scalp as the children braid and decorate her hair. They love her hair, probably its red color, and they thrust their little fists into it whenever they can.
When she is able to sit up, one of the men carries her on his back away from the sycamore trees so she can get more sun, which is important for healing, Green Feather says. Her right leg is getting stronger but her left leg, the one the snake bit, still has no feeling. It is swollen and yellow and her toes are like little sausages. She cannot so much as bend her knee. When Meera or Green Feather helps her stand she turns into a wading bird, up on one leg. Looking down, her foot seems like something attached to somebody else.
A week goes by and still she can’t move it. At night she is carried back to her little shelter but during the day she sits up against a tree stump in the sun with a skin over her lap, dozing or watching the Stooping Indians at work. The women make little reed hammocks that they sleep on up in the trees, or look for nuts and roots. Meanwhile the men hunt, using short bows that they handle with astonishing accuracy. By this time all the food that Susanna and Meera have brought with them from Gemeinschaft is gone. They are dependent on whatever food the Indians can find. Every morning the men bag birds nesting in the Swamp, each one tiny, hardly a meal for a child, and they also snare small rodents and snakes. They save the bones and the children pound them into powder, which they mix into hot water and drink.
Susanna takes a sip. It tastes like chalk.
Slowly she sleeps less and remembers more. Her sense of smell returns. But she still can’t move her left leg. One afternoon after they decorate her hair, the children play a game pretending to cure her. The girl to whom Susanna gave Old Adam’s collar plays the part of a priest or doctor. She blows on Susanna’s leg and chants some words.
She is the chief’s daughter, Meera tells Susanna. Her name is Light in the Eyes. She wears Old Adam’s deer collar every day, although it is too large for her and droops over her collarbone. The chief himself—they call him Gosi—visits Susanna wearing a cape made of muskrat skin that Susanna sometimes sees the children playing in. He bends down to touch her leg, moving her kneecap as if that is indicative of something, like testing if a roasting chicken is done. Then he stands to consult with Green Feather, rolling between his fingers the small wooden object she saw him holding that very first evening. It isn’t a pipe, as she thought at first. It looks like a wavy snake.
When he leaves Susanna asks Light in the Eyes about it, pantomiming a snake on the ground. All of her communication feels like an exaggerated performance, a play, all signs and pantomimes. The children especially like to act out little speeches for her, telling her every day what the men have found to eat.
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