I Am Regina

by Sally M. Keehn

  “No ... but the Indians ...”

  “What would the Indians want with one old woman?”

  “You’re not old! You’re my mother!” I hug her hard.

  Mother laughs, then wraps her arms around me. “And nothing keeps a mother from her family. I’ll be back by sunset.” She kisses me on the part which divides my hair. “See to the chores, and tomorrow I’ll make those johnnycakes for you.”

  I hope she remembers to get the maple sugar, too.

  Father helps Mother into the wagon. He hands John a whip to mind the oxen. “Don’t spend time in idle talk, John. See to the corn.”

  “Yes, Father.”

  John whistles to Jack. The black and white dog leaps into the wagon, sits himself down between John’s feet, and cocks one black ear at me, as if he were saying, “Aren’t you coming too?”

  I wish I were.

  Christian checks the oxen’s harness. He adjusts a buckle with such care, as if this alone could assure the safety of their journey.

  Father turns to Mother. “God be with you.”

  “And with you.” Mother pulls her cape close around her.

  “Giddap, Ben. Giddap, Red.” John flicks the whip. Mother grabs the seat as the wagon lurches forward.

  Christian and Barbara join Father and me. We watch the wagon slowly roll away. “The corn must be milled.” Father says it to no one and yet to everyone. He closes his eyes.

  My father does not give voice to fear, but I sense his concern. I slip my small hand into his large one. Father squeezes my hand and bows his head. I believe he is praying what I now pray, “Dear God, be their guide. Bring them safely home to us.”

  Mother has given chores to each day of the week. Monday is for baking, Tuesday is for washing and so on to Sunday which is given to the Lord. Today is Tuesday. My hands turn red from scrubbing clothes in hot, lye-soaped water.

  Barbara helps me hang the wet clothes on a rope that runs between our cabin and the oak tree which grows a few yards from our door. When Father cleared the land, he let this tree remain. “The oak has weathered many storms. It has earned the right to stay here,” Father told us. The oak is old. Maybe hundreds of years old. I love the sense of permanence it gives me.

  “If we finish the chores by lunchtime, we can gather walnuts in the afternoon,” Barbara says, hanging Christian’s long trousers on the line.

  “Can we visit Marie?” I ask, thinking of the walnut trees that grow along the path leading to her cabin.

  Barbara grins. “That’s what I’ve planned. But don’t tell Father, unless he asks. He might disapprove. You know how he feels about ‘Marie LeRoy and her fancy ways.”’

  “I won’t tell,” I say, thinking of the necklace I made for Marie out of apple seeds. I can almost hear her delight when I give it to her. The dark seeds will look pretty against her pale and delicate skin.

  It is lonely on the farm. Even the LeRoys, our closest neighbors, live a good ten-minute walk away. Both Barbara and I are hungry for companionship. We don’t dally with our chores. We attack them.

  At noon, Father and Christian return from gathering wood for our winter fires. They bring the cold, clean smell of pine into our cabin. Christian is a head taller than Father and his hair is light brown while my father’s hair is gray. Yet they seem like brothers the way they share their chores. They both look tired and hungry as they sit down at the table. While Barbara and I fill their plates, they talk together in low voices about the bark they must gather this afternoon to make shingles for the smokehouse roof.

  Father smiles up at me as I serve him his lunch of bread, cheese and apple cider. “I saw our clothes drying on the line. You and Barbara have been working hard. Your mother will be pleased.”

  I blush at his words. Father does not praise us often.

  As Barbara and I fill our plates, I hear a soft rustle coming from outside our door. No one seems to mind it but me. It must be the chickens scratching through the fallen oak leaves. Or the wind, restless now with winter coming.

  The rustling stops.

  Yesterday, Barbara said that I was like a rabbit, jumping at every sound. And so I tell myself that perhaps the chickens have had their fill of bugs and mites. Perhaps the wind has died. But the sudden quiet is unnerving.

  We join Father for the blessing. The table feels empty without Mother and John. I have been so caught up in chores, I haven’t given much thought to them. They must be at the mill by now. I wish Jack had not gone with them. I miss his reassuring warmth against my legs, the weight of his chin resting on my shoes.

  Jack would warn us if anyone approached.

  Father bows his head. He begins to thank God for our meal when, as sudden as the quiet, the cabin door crashes open. Stunned, I stare at the sunlit doorway, imagining chickens exploding into flight, a gust of air.

  Two dark figures are poised within it. They carry rifles. Aimed. At us.

  And in that awful moment, I hear the sudden pounding of my heart, like raindrops on an empty, upturned barrel. I grab my sister’s hand and squeeze it, as if Barbara’s strength could still the pounding; drive away these figures casting shadows on our floor. These ... Indians.

  Christian pushes himself away from the table and Father grabs his arm. Father clears his throat while holding tight to Christian’s tanned and muscled arm. “We ask for your blessing, Lord, in these, our times of trial,” he prays, although he can see the Indians as clearly as I. “And may we be filled with the strength and beauty of your peace. Amen.”

  Father releases Christian and gives him a warning look. My brother’s jaw is clenched. His hands have tightened into fists. But he obeys Father’s unspoken words, remaining seated while the Indians approach our table, one on either side. The smell of bear grease fills the room. It must come from the Indians’ scalp locks. From the red and black paint streaked across their faces.

  The taller Indian grabs my father, yanks him out of his chair and onto his feet. Christian grips the edge of the table, his fingers turning white as stone. The Indian runs his hands up and down my father’s homespun shirt, his pants. The Indian’s hands are dark; his fingers, short, stubby and insistent. Father’s hands are pale. They hang limply by his side, as if Father were saying, “We have no cause to war with you.”

  The Indian laughs. “You smart white man. You no carry weapon.” He shoves Father backward. Father lurches against the table. A pewter plate crashes to the floor.

  “Dirty savage!” Christian springs at the Indian. The Indian whips his rifle across my brother’s face.

  “No!” I scream, and Barbara rises to her feet. The second Indian, with two feathers in his scalp lock, aims his rifle at her.

  “Barbara!” Father shouts.

  I grab Barbara’s arm. It takes all my strength to pull her down beside me. Barbara is foolish. She cannot fight these Indians. They have guns and knives. If we were to sit still and silent, maybe they would let us be.

  Christian sprawls on the floor. His face is bruised and bloodied. Christian was always kind and gentle. He never hurt anyone. Tears well in my eyes as the tall Indian searches him for weapons, then drags him over to the bench across the table from Barbara and me. What do the Indians want? Why won’t they go away?

  The taller Indian ... approaches ... us. I cringe when his hand touches my hair. Sobbing, I stare at my plate. The bread my mother baked on Monday. Where is Mother? At the mill? Did the Indians attack the mill? I raise my eyes, searching for Father’s reassurance. Father stares at Christian.

  Christian is eyeing Father’s hunting knife which hangs from a peg beside the fireplace. Oh, Christian, no, please, don’t try.

  The Indian with two feathers in his scalp lock grabs the knife. He laughs and runs his finger down the sharpened blade. He frightens me. He frightens me more than the tall one standing at my back.

  Two Feathers turns to my father. “You have rum?”

  “We have no rum,” Father says.

  “Then give tobacco.”

&n
bsp; Father nods to Christian. My brother’s nose is bleeding. His mouth is fixed in a thin and angry line as he takes tobacco out of the pewter box Mother brought with her from Germany. He hands the tobacco to the Indian then stands behind my father, as if his strong sturdy body could protect my father’s back. I cannot stop crying.

  The taller Indian grabs the three-legged stool we keep before the fire. He sits down and lays his rifle across his lap. Two Feathers stands beside him.

  I swallow my tears and watch the Indians fill their pipes and smoke. No one says a word. The silence makes my stomach ache. Bessie moos from her pen outside, as if this were just another day.

  Father’s hands are folded. They rest upon the wooden table as still as silence. My father’s eyes are closed. I believe that he is praying. I wish I were beside him. I wish that I could hold his hand and feel the power of his prayer.

  “What do you want from us?” Christian finally says.

  Two Feathers lays his pipe on the table. He takes out the tomahawk he has kept strapped to his side. “We are Allegheny Indians.” His dark face turns ugly. “We are your enemies.”

  Two Feathers stands. He turns toward my father and my brother. Sunlight glancing through a windowpane catches the sharp edge of his tomahawk. My head feels dizzy with the burning light. I close my eyes. Out of darkness, I hear his words.

  “You must all die.”

  CHAPTER Three

  Father and Christian are dead. Both the cabin Father built and the log barn he and Christian raised to house the cows and oxen are in flames. Smoke tears my eyes. Corn stalks whip against my face as Two Feathers drags me, sobbing, through the field. Ahead of me, the tall one prods Barbara with his rifle, herding her toward Penn’s Creek. Our mouths are gagged. Our hands are bound behind our backs. I don’t know why we have been saved.

  Two Feathers’s fingers bite into my arm, forcing me to stumble forward while I keep looking back. Two Feathers tomahawked Father. The tall one shot Christian. They left their bodies inside our home, then set our home on fire. Flames, like bloodied flags, rise from the oak tree’s branches. Now our sleeping loft is burning. I don’t want to believe what I am seeing. I can hardly breathe for seeing.

  Two Feathers yanks me through the corn stalks, down the bank and into the creek where the wagon crossed this morning—the wagon that carried Mother and John away from me. When they return from the mill, they will find nothing of our home but ashes. Nothing of Father and Christian but ashes. I remember how carefully my brother’s hands adjusted the buckle on a harness. The air smells of burning flesh and I feel faint.

  Chilly water logs my shoes and the hem of my skirt, and I tell myself, Mother will know that Barbara and I have been captured. Even through her blinding tears, she’ll sense it. She and John will gather the neighbors together—the LeRoys, the Bastians. Their feet will fly faster than eagles’ wings. They will overcome the Indians. They will set us free.

  Two Feathers pulls me up the stream bank and I drag my feet, wanting to leave a trail for an army to follow. Barbara turns, looking back at me and then beyond to the flames that rise above the stand of willow trees bordering the creek. For a moment, something in her eyes reminds me of Father, the way he used to look when he rested his arms on the barnyard fence and watched in silence as the sun went down. I want to slip my small hand into his large one. Bring him back to me....

  The aching minutes feel like hours as we are forced to climb a wooded hill. Mother and I once gathered hickory nuts along this path. Here is the twisted oak where we rested before returning home. Our baskets were full.

  Mother will remember this path. She will see the marks left by my dragging feet.

  The soil turns hard and rocky and Two Feathers jerks me off the path, through a laurel thicket and into a clearing covered with small ferns. Two Feathers shoves me to the ground. The tall one helps Barbara sit down, her back against a tree. He gestures as he now speaks to Two Feathers. His Indian words sound strange and frightening.

  The tall one turns to us. “Galasko.” He names himself, pointing to his chest with pride. He gestures at Two Feathers. “White man call him Tiger Claw.”

  Tiger Claw points to his face. And it is then I see, beneath the war paint, the ugly scars that run down the right side of his cheek. The mark of a cat.

  “You stay with me,” Galasko says. “Tiger Claw get more scalps.”

  My stomach heaves. I swallow the liquid that burns my throat and stare at the ground. I do not look up again until Tiger Claw is gone.

  Galasko takes Father’s pipe out of his belt. He fills it with tobacco and props himself against a tree. While he smokes, I inch myself through the featherlike ferns to Barbara. I curl up beside her and lean my head against her shoulder. She rests her head against mine and her soft hair brushes against my cheek. Light brown hair. Like Mother’s ... like Christian’s. Christian’s scalp lies beside the deerskin bag at Galasko’s feet—the bag in which he put our pewter box, the necklace of blue glass beads that Mother liked to wear. I close my eyes, shutting out the awful sight of my brother’s bloody scalp, the bag. I listen to my sister breathe.

  My head feels thick like cabbage soup. I must have been asleep for hours. How could I sleep after what has happened?

  Barbara nudges me. Tiger Claw has returned, carrying a little towheaded girl. He lays her, slumped, beside me. More Indians, naked but for breechclouts and leggings, swarm into the clearing. I have never seen so many at one time. There must be over ten of them. I shrink at the sight of the tomahawks and rifles they brandish at the captives they now herd toward us: Jacob LeRoy, Marie’s sixteen-year-old brother; Mary Anne Villars, the little Swiss girl who was visiting them; ... Marie.

  Stunned, I stare at her pale blue dress, now torn and dirty. A dark-skinned Indian leads her by a rope that is noosed around her neck. Her eyes alight on me. “Regina. Barbara,” she gasps. The Indian jerks the rope, cutting off her breath.

  Jacob moans. The Indian behind him jerks the rope binding Jacob’s hands and he falls backward to the ground. Beside me, Barbara struggles to her feet. She stumbles toward Marie and Tiger Claw steps in her way. Defiantly, Barbara sidesteps him. Her hands are tied! She cannot help Marie!

  Bark scrapes my arm as I inch myself up the tree, trying to stand, wanting to stop her. Tiger Claw is reaching for his tomahawk. Now he raises it above his head.

  I scream, the gag muffling my cry as Galasko intervenes, grabbing Tiger Claw’s descending arm. My legs are shaking. I sink back against the tree. Marie is sobbing and Galasko speaks harshly to Tiger Claw. He grabs Barbara and drags her to me.

  Galasko towers over my sister. I cannot understand the words he says to her, but the anger in them makes me cringe. Barbara holds her head erect. She stares into Galasko’s eyes, defying him.

  Suddenly, Galasko laughs, as if he were pleased with her reckless courage. He shouts to the other Indians and several of them start laughing, too.

  Something large crashes through the trees, startling us all. An Indian shouts! Jacques LeRoy’s chestnut stallion leaps through the brush and into the clearing. A young Indian wearing Jacques’s dark wool coat and deerskin leggings runs beside the stallion, holding the reins. Sweat streaks the chestnut’s neck and darkens his quivering flanks.

  The Indians flock around the high-strung horse, examining his teeth and legs. Marie’s father, Jacques LeRoy, was proud of his stallion. He would never give him up. Not if he were alive.

  I glance at Marie. Angry welts cover her throat. She is crying. How I ache for her.

  Galasko raises his rifle in the air, gesturing that it is time to leave. The boy with the stallion takes the lead. Tiger Claw follows, carrying the towheaded girl. The Indians herd Barbara, Marie, Mary Anne, Jacob and me together. They prod us through the undergrowth to a steeply wooded hill. We struggle up the slope together in a breathless silence. Nothing seems to mark our passing but the dead leaves whispering beneath our feet.

  The sun sets as we crest the hill. The Indians
herd us onto an outcropping of granite. From here I can see over the trees and down to the valley where our farm lies. Penn’s Creek circles its western border. Its waters shine in the fading light like a silver ribbon.

  Once Mother braided my hair with a ribbon like that. Just for fancy. Where is Mother? Where is John? I hope that they are safe. Have they found our home in ashes? Do they search for us now?

  I try to see their faces in my mind. All I can picture are the oak tree’s, branches, flaming against the sky. That and sunlight glancing off a tomahawk.

  Father and Christian are dead. Nothing is the same. Nothing, will ever be the same.

  The night descends too quickly, bringing with it five more Indians. They strut around us, whooping and crying as they proudly display their spoils of battle: kettles, harnesses, blankets, Bibles ... scalps.

  “Mah!” Tiger Claw throws three fresh scalps at Barbara’s feet.

  I close my eyes, shutting out the vision I can too easily picture now: Mother’s light brown hair; John’s dark curls.

  I rest my cheek against a cool, gray rock. I do not know why, but I think of the apple trees that bloomed in our orchard. I remember the way the wind scattered the pretty pink-tipped blossoms. My thoughts turn to apples, colored red, like the flesh that must outline the scalps before me.

  I curl into a ball, wishing I, too, could die. Beside me, I feel Marie tremble. I wish someone would take these scalps away.

  Long, silent minutes pass and I open my eyes. The young Indian wearing Jacques’s wool coat approaches us. He gathers up the scalps and I find that now I cannot help but look at them. I hold my breath, for the threads of my life seem to hang from his hand: straight dark hair ... but not curly like John’s; red hair; blonde; no light brown hair ... like Mother’s. I let my breath out slowly, in relief. Then I start to shake. The red hair must be Mr. Bastian’s, our neighbor. When I was small, Mr. Bastian used to carry me upon his shoulders. He called me his “Little Madonna,” for, he said, my eyes were large and dark and he could see the sweetness of the world reflected there.