“As long as self-protection is all Delia is coaching her in!” Robert exclaimed. “When I took Delia on as a business partner, I was basing my choice on her business sense and her ability to read men. The old woman seemed so broken and desperate to get out of the brothel business, I took a gamble. I just hope we don’t all live to regret it.”
“I suppose her having enough savings to purchase a big part of next year’s timber tract didn’t hurt?” Skypilot pointed out.
“You got me there.” Robert laughed. “But besides that, I trust her. She’s a tough old bird and she’s definitely lived a hard life, but I think she’s honest. Still . . .” He fingered the pearl-handled stiletto. “When I asked her to give Moon Song a few chores and errands to keep her busy and out from under Katie’s feet, I didn’t expect her to start tutoring Moon Song in the proper use of an instrument like this. Where did Delia get her hands on such an object, anyway? This doesn’t look like anything I ever saw here in Bay City.”
Skypilot dropped the lace curtain and turned to face Robert. “Delia told Moon Song that a ‘gentleman admirer’ from New Orleans gave it to her.”
“Of course.” Robert tossed the stiletto onto his desk. “That little lethal instrument will be going back to Delia, of course. I don’t want Moon Song carrying it. A knife like that is only good for one thing, and it isn’t peeling an apple.”
“The fact remains that Moon Song did nothing to bring this on herself.” Skypilot felt himself yet again growing angry at the thought of the indignity that had been forced upon his young friend. “All the girl was doing was shopping in broad daylight for some little beads for her baby’s moccasins. If that old coot had done to her what he intended, not a thing would’ve happened to him. He knew that.”
“Well, thank God you showed up when you did.”
“That’s exactly what I have been doing,” Skypilot said. “Thanking God.”
Robert shoved his chair away from his desk and stood. “What am I supposed to do with the girl? Katie loves her and doesn’t want her to leave, but you know what it’s like here in Bay City. The loggers come in from the woods and they only want the lumberman’s three Bs.”
“Beer, battle, and bawds.” Skypilot grimaced. “I wish I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard a lumberman say that.”
“Exactly.” Robert began to pace. “Because she’s Indian, some of them are going to see her as fair game unless there’s a man standing beside her with a gun in his hand.”
“You can’t keep her locked up here in the house,” Skypilot said. “She loves to explore. I’ve seen her going in and out of these stores, buying little things for herself and the baby. I don’t think it’s possible for her to stay out of the sight of scum like the man who accosted her today.”
The door to the office opened. It was Katie, the beautiful redhead who had taken over Robert’s kitchen as well as his heart. Watching their courtship during the dark days of winter had been as entertaining to the men as watching a play. She and Moon Song had become fast friends.
“What are the two of you talking about? And why is Moon Song sitting on the garden bench looking like she’s being punished for something?”
Right behind Katie was Robert’s sister, Sarah, a tall, thin woman who wore her black hair skinned back into a tight bun and seldom smiled. Most people who knew Sarah had been surprised when she finally found a husband who could put up with her prickly personality, but the butcher she’d married seemed to be content.
It surprised him that Sarah did not have a problem with Moon Song. They were an unlikely pair to be friends, but he thought that Sarah’s tolerance might have something to do with Moon Song’s eight-month-old son. Sarah acted like a different, softer woman whenever she held that baby in her arms, as she was doing right now.
Robert put his hands in his pockets and leaned against his desk. “Moon Song pulled a knife on a man today.”
Katie gasped.
Sarah sniffed and hitched the baby a little higher on her hip. “I’m sure he deserved it.”
“He probably did,” Robert said. “But Moon Song would’ve hung if she’d killed him.”
“Even for protecting herself?” Katie asked.
“In this town?” Sarah scoffed. “Most likely.”
“I don’t know what we’re going to do about her,” Robert said. “Skypilot won’t always be around to get her out of situations like that.”
“No, but I can be.” Katie’s voice filled with determination. “I just won’t let her go out of this house without me beside her from now on.”
“And how long can you keep that up, sweetheart?” Robert asked. “And how long is she going to allow it without thinking that you’ve become her jailor?”
“I don’t know.” Katie’s lower lip trembled. “I just don’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
“What do you think we ought to do?” Robert asked.
“Maybe we need to talk to the sheriff?” Katie suggested.
“The sheriff?” Sarah’s voice dripped contempt. “Nearly every law official in town takes bribes. In case you haven’t noticed, this town you’ve brought your children to, Robert, is not the most law-abiding place.”
“This is where the lumber is. It’s how I make my living now. I’m doing the best I can, Sarah.”
Skypilot had heard this argument flare up between the brother and sister before. He wondered why they even bothered to go into it anymore.
“You know,” Robert mused, “Moon Song is as smart as a whip. I can’t believe how quickly she picked up English this winter. She speaks it nearly as well as a white person now. Do you suppose we could get her into one of those schools for Indians they’re starting to set up? The ones where they teach them a vocation?”
“She’s a twenty-year-old widow with a child,” Skypilot said. “I doubt she wants to go to some white man’s school.”
“Well, I don’t know the answer,” Robert said. “The girl is obviously in danger if she stays in town. The only thing I know is to watch her very carefully and never leave her alone.”
Moon Song heard every word as she sat outside on a small bench where Skypilot had admonished her to stay.
They were talking about her as though she were a half-wild animal they had brought in out of the woods that might bite if they did not watch her carefully. She had defended herself. Stink Breath was the one who had done wrong, not Moon Song.
Robert, Sarah, Katie, and even her friend Skypilot were speaking about her as though her future was theirs to determine. A government school indeed!
Did they think she had no home? No people? Just because she had been half-starved and weak from childbirth when she came to them did not mean she was helpless. It had taken every ounce of strength and willpower she possessed to carry her new baby toward the distant haze of the lumber camp’s chimney smoke.
Most women could not have done it. Even most Chippewa women could not have done it, but she was not just any woman. She was the granddaughter of Standing Bear and Fallen Arrow. There was a fire inside of her.
Now these pale friends were discussing the chore of having to take turns watching her?
Had they not been kind to her these past months, she would have slipped away from the house with her infant son and not said a word. She had been carefully trained by Fallen Arrow in many things, including how to walk away without leaving a trace.
They had been kind, however, and even though she was angry at them right now, it would be impolite to leave without a word. They were her friends, and in their own way they were trying to take care of her.
Skypilot was surprised when Moon Song entered Robert’s office.
There was a ruddy blush upon her cheekbones, her dark eyes were snapping, and her head was held high. She was still wearing that full blue skirt that had once belonged to Katie, along with the loose pink and white calico blouse she had taken a fancy to and kept belted at the waist.
She also wore those moccasin boots she’d found at one o
f the mercantiles that kept a small supply of Indian articles for sale. He’d been with her at the time. She’d explained that they were not the kind her people made, but she had seemed delighted with them anyway. Today, he understood why. They gave her a good place to hide a weapon.
“Don’t worry,” she said simply. “I go away now. Far away.” Then she lifted her baby from Sarah’s arms, turned on her heel, and headed toward the door without another word.
Go away? What was she talking about?
“Moon Song!” Sarah cried. “Where are you going?”
“Home.” The girl looked straight at Skypilot with eyes filled with hurt. “I not walk streets of Bay City again.”
Those eyes were like daggers to his heart. He had let her down somehow.
“Now, Moon Song,” Robert soothed. “You said that your people live far up north. You aren’t going to just start walking up there, and you are certainly not going alone with your child.”
“I know ancient trails. I walk them here.” She drew herself up. “Moon Song is not crippled animal white friends must care for.”
“You’re not a burden, Moon Song,” Katie said. “We love you. We’re worried about your safety and the baby’s. You walked those trails back when your husband was still with you, before you had a child to carry. Things are different.”
“I go now.” She turned to leave again.
“Robert, do something!” Sarah pleaded. “She can’t just leave like this with the baby. Not alone.”
“Moon Song, stop!” Robert said. “I’m sorry, but what you’re proposing to do is dangerous in the extreme. I can’t allow you to do this.”
Skypilot knew her better than all the others. Even though she’d shared a cabin with Katie, it was he who had spent so many hours alone with her as she’d cared for him after his accident. He saw the hurt pride in her eyes. It was obvious now that she had overheard what they had been saying. How that must have sounded to her ears! He felt ashamed that he’d been part of it.
Yes, her presence was a problem—only because they loved her and wanted to protect her. But to her it had sounded as though she were nothing more than a bothersome houseguest.
“Where exactly do your people live?” Skypilot asked. It occurred to him that he’d spent many hours with her and had never thought to ask. Probably because he had been too busy trying to teach her how to read the white man’s alphabet.
Her eyes lit up with pleasure. “Ocīkaeqsyah-Kaeqcekam!”
Skypilot, Robert, and Sarah looked at each other. None of them had any idea what she had just said.
She saw their puzzlement. “Lake Superior,” she translated. “Very beautiful. Near Wēskōhsek.”
“Wisconsin,” Robert said. “That’s one word I recognize.”
“Ayasha and I go now.” Moon Song turned once again to leave.
Ayasha. That was the temporary name she had given her son. Ayasha meant “Little One” in Chippewa, she had explained to him. She said that an elder of her tribe would choose the permanent name of her baby. She had refused to give her Little One a name, and had resisted the efforts of the members of the lumber camp to give him a name as well, although there had been plenty who had tried.
If she walked into the wilderness with Ayasha, there was an excellent chance that none of them would ever see him or Moon Song again. Moon Song and that baby had become precious to him over the months they’d spent in the close confines of the camp. The idea of them simply walking away was not acceptable.
“At least let us help provision you better and let me find someone to help take you, Moon Song,” Robert said. “I could buy you a ticket on one of the steamships. There is absolutely no need for you to try to walk through hundreds of miles of wilderness. That’s crazy.”
“Crazy?” Moon Song cocked one eyebrow. “No. Staying here is ‘crazy.’”
“He didn’t mean it that way,” Katie placated. “It’s just that we love you so much and we can’t bear to see you just walk away like this. Not alone. Let Robert buy you a boat ticket and hire someone to help . . .”
“I’ll go with her,” Skypilot said.
“You?” Robert’s voice held hope that this situation could be resolved so quickly. “Do you mean it?”
“If we take a steamship, it will only take a few days at most. I should be able to get her safely to her people and come back within a couple of weeks.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Robert asked.
“Why not? I don’t have anything else I need to do. Besides, I wouldn’t mind seeing a different part of the country for a day or two. It should be interesting.”
3
Moon Song stood on the shore of Bay City and watched the congested boat traffic, trying to get used to the idea of getting onto one of those gigantic vessels. It would be like getting swallowed by a giant animal and it frightened her more than she wanted to admit.
There was a bit of everything on the water today. In addition to the logs bobbing inside their corrals, there were working steamboats, sailing ships, ornate paddle wheelers, and smaller vessels down to a one-man rowboat. Far to one side was a sight that made her sad—a lone birch bark canoe, beautifully made. The woman who had made that canoe—and among her people it was almost always the woman who built the canoes—had been a true artist. One of her people had probably brought it here.
There had been a time when that canoe and others like it would have been the only things skimming silently through the water on these sparkling lakes. Now the bay was filled with steamships belching smoke, a calliope playing tinny music on one of the paddle wheelers, and the sound of workers yelling over one another.
She’d heard the steamship stories as she’d walked about town. Too many had their wooden decks catch fire from sparks from the smokestacks. Some had blown up while racing with other ships. Some had simply wrecked or torn apart in heavy waves.
No, it was better to walk the few hundred miles home. It had taken her and her husband less than one moon to make the trip.
Skypilot seemed to think it foolish to even consider such a thing. Since he was so determined to accompany her, and since she did not want to inconvenience him any more than necessary, she had agreed, even though she didn’t like the idea.
“Are you looking forward to our trip tomorrow?” Skypilot asked.
“On big gray boat?” She pointed at the steamship upon which she had been told they had rooms. “No.”
“I am.” She could tell that Skypilot was completely at ease as he gazed out over the water. “They say that in good weather, those things can travel up to twenty miles per hour, and I can’t wait to see what that feels like.”
“Why go so fast?”
“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I guess just because we can. There are lots of things happening these days, Moon Song. Inventions I’ve been reading about in the newspapers that I would never have dreamed of a few years ago. Things are changing fast. A person has to hurry to keep up.”
Moon Song thought that the people she saw hurrying along the wooden sidewalks of Bay City needed to slow down, but she kept quiet. That was their problem. Not hers.
“I go back now, to Katie’s house,” she said. “Sarah said she help pack.”
“Sure thing,” Skypilot said. “I’ll walk you there.”
As they left the bay, Moon Song glanced back over her shoulder at the giant hulk of the steamboat. It did not give her a good feeling. She wished she had simply started walking north with Ayasha when she first decided to leave, before anyone else could get involved. The ship looked like a monster to her, but she would walk onto it because Skypilot was her friend and she did not want to disappoint him.
“The postman brought something for you, Isaac.” Mrs. Wilcox, the woman who owned Skypilot’s boardinghouse, nodded toward a letter lying on the corner of a square worktable where she was busily kneading bread.
“For me?” That was odd. He got one letter a month from his brother back east, and he wrote one per month
in reply. That was it. He had received his brother’s monthly letter only yesterday.
“From the handwriting, it looks like it might be from a lady friend.” Mrs. Wilcox was middle-aged and genial in her nosiness about her guests. She meant no harm, but their lives were her principal form of entertainment.
He didn’t have any “lady friends” and hadn’t since his former fiancée had broken their engagement.
The envelope was of heavy, lilac-colored stationery. He had seen this stationery before. It also had a generous sprinkling of flour upon it.
“Sorry about the flour,” Mrs. Wilcox said. “Sometimes things get a little out of hand when I’m making bread.”
He knew it would make her day if he sat down and read the letter out loud to her, but this was a letter he needed to read in private.
“I’ll see you at supper, ma’am,” he said.
“Oh.” She was visibly disappointed. “All right, then.”
As soon as he got to his room, he kicked the door shut, locked it, and sat on his bed. The letter was from Penelope. The palms of his hands were beginning to sweat, and he wiped them off on his pants leg. It surprised him that after all this time, the mere sight of her handwriting could cause this kind of physical reaction.
“Father, give me wisdom,” he asked aloud. “Whatever this letter might hold, please give me wisdom.”
He glanced at the envelope again and realized that there was something peculiar about it. Instead of her customary black India ink, Penelope had used pokeberry juice to write it.
In spite of the way his former fiancée had treated him, this small observation made his heart ache. The South had been hit hard by the privations of war. Evidently, although Penelope still possessed a few scraps of luxurious stationery, she had been forced to use homemade ink to pen her words upon it.
Under a Blackberry Moon Page 2