Beneath the Slashings (Divided Decade Collection)

by Michelle Isenhoff

  Gradually, Grace’s body stopped shaking, and the fire in her limbs subsided to a pulsing ache. “Are you Swims Like a Loon?” she asked timidly.

  The woman gave one solemn nod.

  “Do you live in the forest?”

  Another nod.

  “How did you find me?”

  Deeply set eyes peered out of the weathered face and met Grace’s over the fire. “I hear sound. I look. Find Cries Under Tree.”

  Grace blinked. “Cries Under Tree?”

  The old woman pointed at Grace.

  “Me?”

  Another nod.

  The name suddenly struck Grace as very funny, and she laughed feebly. “I thought I was going to die.”

  The old woman’s face split in a shriveled smile. “Almost die,” she nodded happily. Only a few broken teeth dangled from her top gum.

  Grace laughed again, afraid she might break into tears if she considered her situation too closely. She wondered if Sam would be proud that she had mastered her fear with hysterics.

  “I am Grace,” she said when her amusement faded. “Thank you for saving me.”

  “Let me see fingers.”

  When Grace produced them, Swims Like a Loon pulled them close to the light of the fire, squinting as she turned them this way and that. Finally, she let go. “You will not lose. Maybe they will blister. Toes too. But they will heal. Come. Sit close to fire.”

  Grace rose to squat beside the flames. The effort left her trembling with fatigue.

  The Indian woman draped a fur across the girl’s shoulders then pushed a bowl of broth into her hands. “Muskrat. Eat. Make hot and strong.”

  Grace didn’t have a spoon, so she lifted the clay vessel to her lips and sipped. The liquid tasted as wonderful as it smelled. She could feel it pouring into her belly, flooding her with satisfying warmth. Her eyelids began to droop before she finished a second bowlful.

  Swims Like a Loon pointed her back to the palette. “Sleep now.”

  Grace was only too happy to comply.

  When Grace awoke, light was streaming through a smoke hole in the ceiling. She had a fuzzy notion that she was in a magically shrunken bunkhouse, then memory of the dance and her flight and the Indian woman flooded back.

  She sat up, feeling strong and rested. The fire still burned beside her, its light eclipsed by the sun, but Swims Like a Loon was nowhere to be seen. Grace inspected her fingers and toes, noting a slight discoloration and a bit of numbness, but she seemed in remarkably good shape after her brush with eternity.

  The shelter she huddled in was quite roomy. It was made of bent saplings covered over with woven mats. If she stood, she could touch the ceiling, but it had sufficient clearance for her head. She guessed the old woman was approximately her own height. Grace had seen no one else.

  At that moment, a deer hide door moved aside and the woman entered, carrying a basket of dried corn. The woman was very old. Her braids were as gray as the winter sky, and her face looked even more lined in the light of day. She wore a shift made of deerskin and plaited with a pattern of porcupine quills. Her leggings were also deerskin, as were the fur-lined moccasins that encased her feet and the lower part of her legs. Grace drew back slightly at the woman’s savage appearance.

  “We eat,” the woman said and settled beside the fire with a mortar and pestle.

  Grace watched her grind the kernels of corn into a grainy meal. The withered hands worked unhurriedly, with the ease of long practice. When she filled a small bowl, she began sifting the meal into a pot bubbling above the fire.

  Grace forced aside her apprehensions. Obviously, the woman wasn’t going to harm her or she would have already. “I can do that,” she offered. She had made mush a hundred times in Aunt Sally’s kitchen.

  Swims Like a Loon passed the bowl to her, along with an antler carved into a broad spoon. Then she sat down cross-legged across the fire and fixed her dark eyes on Grace.

  “No good, Cries Under Tree in forest last night. Why?”

  Grace stirred the contents of the pot, recalling the events of yesterday evening. “You’re right,” she answered. “It wasn’t good. I got into an argument with my father.”

  Loon’s eyes remained locked on the girl’s face, quietly waiting.

  Grace frowned. “It seems like all we ever do anymore is fight or ignore each other. He’s the foreman at the Bear Creek lumber camp. He made me come here with him, even though I didn’t want to.”

  “You are angry.”

  Grace sprinkled in more cornmeal and shrugged. “Wouldn’t you be? I mean, if you were forced to leave your home?”

  The woman’s face remained unreadable.

  “We used to own a farm in Saginaw. It was my grandparents’. But when Pa came home from the war, he sold it and brought me and my brother here. I have every reason to be upset with him.” Grace was surprised how easily the words poured out of her, as if she were speaking to her aunt.

  “Anger will not help you.”

  “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better.”

  Loon cocked her head to one side. “Anger makes you happy?”

  “No, of course not. I mean—” She stumbled to a halt. With a sigh, she started again, “It’s just so lonely here. I miss my friends. I miss my aunt and uncle. There aren’t even any women at the camp. Not for miles and miles. Just men.”

  The woman’s nearly empty gums made another appearance. “There is one woman, not so many miles.”

  Grace stopped stirring long enough to look into the old woman’s eyes. “Do you live here all alone?”

  Loon nodded once.

  “But where’s your family? Where’s your tribe?”

  The old woman gestured toward the ceiling. “My husband rests with ancestors. My boys grow tall many winters past.”

  “But don’t you have friends? Neighbors?” Grace could hardly imagine such an old woman fending for herself in the woods.

  Loon shook her head sadly. “Once many Ottawa. In summer, families gather in Waw-gaw-naw-ke-zee—village by the big water. In my grandmother’s youth, it stretched ten and five miles. In winter, Ottawa leave village, spread out for hunting grounds.” She gestured toward the door with one hand. “My clan returned to these woods many, many generations.”

  “But where are they?”

  Loon’s old eyes seemed to hold the tragedy of an entire nation in their depths. “Smallpox kill many Ottawa. And now, white man cut down hunting grounds.”

  Grace gasped. “The lumber camp!”

  Moisture settled in the creases of the old woman’s eyes, though her face remained stoic. “Ottawa gone. Next year, Swims Like a Loon will stay in Waw-gaw-naw-ke-zee and not return to winter wigwam.”

  Grace didn’t know how to answer the Indian woman, and silence grew up between them. She felt young beside the woman’s experience, and, she had to admit, she also felt a little guilty. Hadn’t the recent war proven just how violent and evil white men could be?

  “I’m sorry, Swims Like a Loon,” she finally said.

  “Did you do this to me?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then no apology.”

  “But aren’t you angry?”

  “Many emotions live in my heart. Anger would drive others away.”

  “But you’re losing your home,” Grace protested, feeling a sudden kinship with the woman.

  Loon smiled then. “More reason to turn out anger. I remain Loon, wherever I sleep. Come, we eat. Then I walk you home.”

  Chapter 12

  “Grace, where’ve you been? It’s almost time to serve lunch!” Sam’s voice rang out the moment she opened the kitchen door. She had expected questions about her absence, but she figured she and Swims Like a Loon would encounter them long before reaching camp. No searchers combed the woods, however, and the clearing around the buildings stood as quiet as a vacant room.

  Grace had parted company with Loon at the furthest logging track, eager to let her family know she was all right. It soon became
apparent, though, that had Loon not heard her cries, she certainly would have died. No one had missed her at all.

  Well, almost no one.

  “Vhat is the meaning of this neglect?” Ivan thundered, his walrus mustache bristling with indignation. Both of his hands worked to flip strips of frying pork. “Ve are behind. Thank goodness it is Sunday. Take out bread from oven.”

  Grace reached for a cloth to protect her hands. “Why didn’t you tell Pa when I didn’t show up this morning?”

  “I tell him,” Ivan glowered.

  “I think Pa was feeling guilty for hollering at us last night,” Sam said. “He told us to let you rest. Never figured you’d skip half a day’s work.”

  Grace looked from one to the other, her irritation prickling. Given the choice, she would have much preferred baking bread to recovering from hypothermia. “As you’ll both recall,” she pointed out, “I’m not exactly on the payroll around here.”

  She snatched the bread tins from the oven and let them clatter on the table. “Didn’t you even come looking for me?”

  Sam glared at her. “Who do you think was kicking your door down an hour ago?”

  “Fine.” If they wanted to believe the worst of her, let them. She wouldn’t be the one to share her night’s adventure.

  When the men poured in for lunch, none of them would meet her eye. She wondered if Pa had chewed them out as well. Mr. Bigg watched her openly, his eye cold and a slight smirk on his face. In that moment, she was certain it was he who had ratted her out. She retreated hastily to the kitchen. When she returned a few minutes later with a pot of hot tea, the scaler’s attention was focused elsewhere.

  “I’ll take a cup of that,” a cheerful voice called out. “It’s cold enough to snap the stripes off a polecat.”

  She looked up to see Gideon grinning at her despite a dozen sharp glances cast his way for breaking the no talking rule. Her stomach fluttered. As she poured his tea, he leaned in and spoke in a lower voice, “By the way, have you seen Bertie lately?”

  “Not today,” she whispered, her skin suddenly burning like a cook stove.

  He shielded his mouth but spoke loud enough for the men to hear. “Seems he found a safer way into the bunkhouse. And he’s taken a particular liking to Charlie, here. Left him a dead rat in his bunk this morning.”

  Happy Charlie’s usual dour expression deepened to a sulk. “No doubt I’ll be ill by evening.”

  “Cheer up, Happy,” Squeaky called. “Eef you die, you weel no longer have to eat Ivan’s cooking.”

  This brought a chorus of half-choked guffaws. Pa shushed them, but the meal lost its awkwardness. Before they left, Fiddlesticks, Squeaky, and Johansen all asked after Grace’s well-being. Doc tipped his hat to her. Wrong Hand gave her a sparkling grin. And another young man whose name she could not remember called it a “right shame” that the foreman had “put the kee-bosh” on festivities last night.

  That afternoon, the dishes were finished, a huge pot of stew simmered on the back of the cook stove, and Ivan lay snoring on his bed. Sam had chosen to go hunting with a few of the men, so Grace took out her new book, choosing to read on Sam’s bunk in the warmth of the kitchen rather than braving the weather—and her father—to reach her own chilly quarters.

  Midway through the sixth chapter, lyrics rolled out of the woods like the distant howl of a wolf. “Sur le Pont d’Avignon, On y danse, on y danse...” The music grew louder and livelier and was soon followed by the slamming of the dingle door and the stomp of half a dozen boots. Ivan woke with a snort.

  Squeaky pushed his cheery face into the kitchen and held aloft two rabbits, a pheasant, and a squirrel. “Ivan!” he beamed, “I’ve brought you dinner!”

  The cook swung his bulk off the bed, muttering something about half a moment’s rest. But he took the carcasses willingly enough, along with a wicked-looking knife, and pushed his way through the gaggle of hunters.

  Squeaky retreated and Gideon took his place at the door. “Got a couple checkerboards out here,” he said to Grace. “Want to join us?”

  She really didn’t care for the game but smiled eagerly. “All right.”

  In the mess hall, Sam and Jefferson were setting up one game. Sam looked up and grinned, having forgotten their disagreement of morning. “This time I didn’t ask Gid to play you. He lost a bet and he has to! He’s the only one who didn’t bring home something for the pot.”

  Jefferson grinned broadly at this, and Gideon punched Sam playfully in the shoulder. “Next time, my young friend, you’ll be stuck playing your sister yourself.”

  A few weeks ago, Grace might have bristled at being made a consolation prize, but now she simply rolled her eyes and took the seat across from Gideon. “Why are you guys playing in the mess hall again?” she asked as she moved the first button. “Don’t you usually have tournaments going in the bunkhouse on Sundays?”

  “Usually, yes,” Gideon answered. “But since one of us has been banned from the bunkhouse, we decided a change of scenery would be nice.”

  Grace looked up at the three of them, touched at their thoughtfulness. But she answered with rare mischief, “Not because it smells like a rotting carcass in there?”

  That made Jefferson laugh out loud. “Ain’t that the truth!”

  “Listen, Grace,” Gideon said, “I’m sorry I got you in so much trouble last night. That wasn’t my intention.”

  Grace shrugged. “No one could have seen Pa’s reaction coming.”

  “I didn’t,” Sam admitted. “I’ve never seen him that worked up.”

  “Don’t be too hard on your Pa,” Jefferson drawled. “The last four years changed a good many people. Besides, he made a valid point.”

  “Were you in the war, Wrong Hand?” Sam asked.

  “Sure I was,” the black man nodded. “Even got me a dog back home named Stonewall Jackson.”

  She laughed. Jefferson no longer seemed very frightening. Sometimes, if she wasn’t looking at him, she forgot he wasn’t white. “I didn’t know coloreds fought.”

  “She wasn’t much for reading the newspaper,” Sam explained with a roll of his eyes, “only books.”

  “There were over one hundred colored infantry regiments,” Jefferson told her. “Cavalry, artillery, and navy, as well.”

  “Did any fight for the South?” she asked.

  “Reckon so.”

  “But the South tolerated slavery.”

  He shrugged. “A man will fight and die for his country.”

  Grace jumped one of Gideon’s pieces and watched as he took two of hers. “Were you a slave?” she asked, looking up at the black man.

  “No, miss,” he chuckled. Then he sobered quickly. “My parents were, though. They ran away before I was born. I have brothers and sisters I’ve never met who were sold away before my parents fled. We don’t have any idea where they are or what happened to them.”

  “You could have been fighting one of your brothers,” she thought out loud.

  “That happened a lot, Grace,” Gideon put in. “Neighbor of ours had a brother-in-law in the Confederate army. And I read about a woman who had two sons on each side.”

  “Where is your family, Wrong Hand?” Sam asked. “The ones you know of?”

  “Ma and Pa live in a cabin near Allegan. They’ve been my only family. But last year I learned I also have an aunt and a cousin living across the state.”

  The door burst open then, and Squeaky sank into a chair just in time to watch Gideon sweep the last of Grace’s buttons from the board. “Ma chérie, you do not play so good.”

  She shrugged and gave a sheepish grin.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Gideon exclaimed. “Grace, why don’t you let Squeaky take your place, and you can bring one of those books you’re always lost in and read some of it to us?”

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t think—” she began, but all four of her companions cut her off.

  Squeaky quickly agreed. “Oui! Feedlesticks tells most of zee stories ar
ound here, and zey are as bad as your checkers game.”

  “But all I have are children’s stories,” she protested.

  “Grace,” Jefferson put in, “our other options are whittling, sleeping, or writing letters—those of us who can write, anyway. I think your storybooks sound like a fine idea.”

  “Come on, Grace,” Sam pleaded. “You read as well as Mama used to. You can choose the story, and we won’t interrupt.”

  She hesitated, but four eager faces overpowered her. “All right,” she conceded, and slipped into the kitchen for her book of fairy tales.

  She could hear the conversation in her absence. “Tell us how you found your aunt and cousin, Jeff,” Gideon prompted.

  “Before my Pa ran away, he told his sister, Julia, that he would leave word in Detroit, just in case she ever followed. They missed each other for twenty years. But last year, when I visited the city to muster into the service, I promised I’d search one more time. I found her through one of the colored churches.” Jefferson was beaming as Grace returned. “Would you believe it? My cousin Malachi is becoming quite a fine doctor!”

  Grace sat down and began flipping through the pages as the others congratulated the black man. When it grew quiet, she opened to The Emperor’s New Clothes and read it aloud. When she finished, her listeners encouraged her to read another, and then another.

  Half an hour later, the door slammed open and Fiddlesticks jogged inside. He looked startled to see the group watching him, but his surprise quickly gave way to laughter. “This looks like as good a place as any to hide out before the gol durned foreman comes around with a scrub brush. Ain’t natural to peel off before the spring drive.”

  “Ah, come on, Sticks,” Gideon prodded. “The boss’s policy ain’t so bad. There’s something to be said for shedding bugs.”

  “More to be said for the healthy insulatin’ qualities of dirt,” Fiddlesticks countered.

  Gideon grinned. “If you don’t trim that beard, you’re like to find a poodle growing in there.”