He slit open the envelope, drew out the rich paper, and began to read.
Dear Isaac,
I found out only last week that it might be possible to contact you through the Bay City post office. The word came through many convoluted sources, so I have no idea if this will reach you. I shall pray that it does.
First of all, I want to apologize for the shoddy way I treated you. You need to know that I have spent many sleepless and tearful nights because of it.
My loyalties were greatly divided between my father’s needs and your ideology. It seemed to me at the time that it would be remarkably easy for one to espouse the cessation of slavery from one’s pulpit when one does not have to run a plantation. My father’s health was deteriorating. If he had freed his slaves like you seemed to think everyone in the South should do, his fields would have been overrun with weeds, no crops would have been planted, and we would have been penniless within the year. I begged you not to give that sermon, and was furious with you for having gone against my counsel.
All that is beside the point now. The slaves are gone—at least most of those who are able-bodied have gone. The elderly, infirm, and weak are now ours alone to care for. Because we are Christian people—in spite of what you seemed to think back then—we do the best we can with severely limited resources.
You would not recognize our plantation now. My father passed away at the height of the war. There are only a handful of us living here. I managed to plant twenty acres of cotton this spring. Yes, I said I helped plant—with my own hands—twenty acres of cotton. It will give us a little to live on.
You would not recognize me now, either. I’ve not had a new dress in six years. My hands are the hands of a workman instead of a lady of leisure. I have looked back to the years before the war, when we were young together, and wished I could have handled things differently. I truly did love you.
I still do.
I have told you the situation we are in here. If you were to come home now, there are those who would probably avoid you on the street, but you would be most welcome, so very welcome, to call upon me at my home. I still have one dress that is not too shabby to receive guests in. I would enjoy donning it, on the occasion of your visit, and we could see if there was any chance we could let bygones be bygones and begin again.
Your much humbled former fiancée,
Penelope
P.S. There are many of those among your former congregation who, like me, regret the circumstances under which you left. They remember the many fine sermons you preached and the many kindnesses you performed. I believe there might be a chance you would be welcomed back into your old pulpit if you were to come home. I have heard you have been working in a lumber camp. Forgive me for saying this, but it seems a great waste of your talents and training.
The letter drifted from his fingers onto the faded cabbage roses of Mrs. Wilcox’s carpet. He stood and walked over to the window. The harbor was visible from there, and he could see the ships vying for position, including the one he would be boarding tomorrow morning. He had actually been looking forward to taking that voyage and seeing some new countryside until a few minutes ago. Now, it felt as though Penelope had taken Moon Song’s stiletto and plunged it straight into his heart.
“I know this is best for you and the child, but I will miss you and the baby,” Sarah said to Moon Song. “I never had an Indian friend before.”
“Chippewa.”
“Excuse me?”
“My people are Chippewa.”
“Chippewa?” Sarah looked confused. “I thought someone said you were Menominee.”
“My mother-in-law Menominee. We live with her people many moons.”
“I thought your husband was a French-Canadian trapper.”
Moon Song nodded. “He also French-Canadian trapper, like his father.”
Sarah frowned. “Then you’re telling me that your husband was a half-breed? He had a Menominee mother and French-Canadian father?”
Moon Song winced at the sound of contempt in the older woman’s voice, a woman she had considered a friend. “Yes. He a half-breed.”
And this—she did not say to the older woman—was the very reason she seldom mentioned her husband’s connection to the Menominee. The only thing worse than an Indian, in some white people’s eyes, was a half-breed. French-Canadian trappers were somewhat respectable. Half-breeds were not. Moon Song had long ago become weary of trying to figure out why.
“Oh, all that doesn’t matter.” Sarah dismissed her explanation with a wave of her hand. “An Indian is an Indian in my book.”
Sarah’s rudeness was so incomprehensible, Moon Song did not try to further explain the difference between the various tribes and native nations to Robert’s sister. It was obvious that the woman was no longer interested.
“The thing that is important,” Sarah said brightly, “is that you and Ayasha will get to go home.”
“Yes.” That was something on which she and Sarah agreed. Home. The word sounded sweet to her, even in English.
“Is there anything else you’ll need?” Sarah asked.
Moon Song took stock. Even though she had been so angry yesterday that she had been ready to head off with nothing but her baby and his cradle board, packing the right supplies for her journey was important. After the steamship docked, there would be a long trek through the wilderness. She needed to be prepared.
Ayasha was still nursing, so feeding him would not be a problem. Feeding herself might be. Sarah’s kitchen did not afford the rich pemmican she would prefer for the overland trip she would make after the boat docked at Copper Harbor. That combination of dried meat pounded to a powder, mixed with venison fat, flavored with dried berries, and mixed with powdered wild rice was so nutritious and satisfying that she had spent much of her young life helping her grandmother prepare it.
Unfortunately, pemmican was complicated to make and there was no time to prepare it now. Living in the lumber camp where food had been plentiful had lulled her into a regrettable unpreparedness.
Still, she had all the skills she would need to forage for food as she went along. The Michigan forests and swamps in the spring were a very different thing than the barrenness she had faced in October when she’d made her way to the lumber camp. She was young, strong, and well versed in her people’s woodcraft. There were a hundred ways to fill her belly, and in so doing, fill Ayasha’s.
She could feed herself, but keeping Skypilot full could become a burden if he insisted on accompanying her all the way to her people. She’d watched that man put away towering stacks of Katie’s flapjacks at the logging camp. She hoped he wouldn’t expect to stay with her people long if he did insist on accompanying her all the way back to her grandmother’s wigwam. The Chippewa were a hospitable and peaceable people. It was not unheard of for them to sacrifice too much of their own food supply in order to feed guests. Unfortunately, in the early spring, their winter supply of food would already be depleted. They would be on short rations until summer came and the earth began to give generously of its abundance.
She knew that Skypilot was good with an axe and good at reading a book. He had been very good at running the day he had saved Robert’s small daughter from a falling tree, but she had no idea if he had any other skills. Her guess was that he did not. At least, she had never heard him boast of any, and most men she knew liked to boast. At least the braves in her tribe did. Of course, their boasts were a great deal more empty these days since moving to the reservation.
“I hope you’re doing the right thing,” Katie said. “I would never forgive myself if anything happened to you.”
Forgive herself? Moon Song wondered about this statement. Once Skypilot left her, if she did get hurt or meet with an accident, she doubted Katie would ever hear about it.
The death of a great chief was one thing. Word would go out even among the whites. The death of a squaw and fatherless baby? It would barely make a ripple. There were only a few people to whom it would ma
tter—her grandmother and maybe some members of her tribe.
Right now, apart from the lack of pemmican, her biggest concern was gathering enough soft, absorbent moss to get Ayasha through the next few days upon the steamship. White women used cloth on their babies’ bottoms and then laboriously cleaned that cloth. In the lumber camp, Katie had pressed something she called diapers upon her. To make Katie happy, Moon Song had gone along with it since it was winter and moss was hard to find, but in all other seasons it seemed such a waste of time. White people could be so impractical.
For instance, she did not understand why white mothers found it necessary to keep their infants covered with clothes once the weather was warm. Allowing a baby or toddler to play naked outdoors meant no diapers to wash. A baby secured upon a cradle board, wrapped in leather and surrounded by absorbent moss, was so much easier. The soiled moss had to be removed only a couple times a day, and the child washed and allowed to play for hours in camp to strengthen its little body. The whole process would only take minutes out of her walking time versus hours of scrubbing and drying diaper cloths. She marveled at the fact that white women didn’t use such a method.
She had little to pack for herself. A few articles of clothing and the money Robert had been gracious enough to give her for her work in camp. A comb she had purchased. A few sweets she kept in her room. That had been her greatest luxury in Bay City, the purchase of penny candy. None of it, in her opinion, was quite as delicious as the cones of maple sugar her tribe made every year for the children, but it was still very good. And so many colors and tastes! Yes, she would miss the counters of candy.
She decided she would spend the rest of the afternoon finding and bundling the proper moss. One couldn’t always depend on finding a ready supply. No doubt Sarah would insist on coming with her. The woman seemed to think she had to watch her all the time since the incident with Stink Breath.
4
As Skypilot packed the few items he would need for his journey, he felt no excitement about the trip. None at all. Thanks to Penelope’s letter, he had not slept well. Memories of Richmond and the life he had once lived plagued him on and off all night.
He could see the harbor from his window. The bay was peaceful. The sky was a brilliant blue. It had been warmer than usual, and the ice had broken up on the lake two weeks earlier than expected. There was a carnival atmosphere down at the docks because of the early arrival and departure of the steamboats taking supplies from Detroit to the far-flung settlements farther north.
He should have been raring to go, but not after that letter. He felt like he needed to rescue her, much like he’d once rescued slaves who had run from men like her father.
Could he become a successful farmer? He didn’t know. Would he want to preach for that church again? Probably not. Some wounds went too deep.
Could he spend the rest of his life with Penelope?
Ah, that was the real question. The woman who had penned that letter? Maybe. The woman who had put her nose in the air and flounced out without a backward glance while he was standing in the pulpit trying to reason his congregation out of a terrible war? No.
He had loved her once, though, and hated to think of her sitting there at her elegant spinet desk, writing this letter, hoping it would reach him. Wondering what he would say. She would have to wonder awhile longer, however. The boat would be leaving soon, and he could not pen a letter in such a short time. Especially when he had no idea what to say.
The Belle Fortune was one of the smaller steamships, and as Skypilot and Moon Song boarded, he tried to push his concerns about Penelope’s letter aside. They were having fine spring weather, and he was determined to enjoy the trip.
This was the first time he had ridden on one of these ships, and the mechanics fascinated him. He intended to get Moon Song and little Ayasha safely tucked away in their room and then roam around and see if he could figure out how the thing worked.
In the beginning, steamships had the reputation of being unsafe, but he had not heard of an explosion, wreck, or fire for at least a year now. Hopefully, the wrinkles had been ironed out and all would be well from this point on.
The captain was waiting on the deck to greet the passengers. “I’m Captain Fowler.” He shook Skypilot’s hand. “And you are?”
“My name is Isaac Ross. My employer, Robert Foster, made the arrangements for us.”
“Ah yes. He reserved the last two rooms.” The captain glanced at Moon Song standing beside him. “And this is, um, your . . .”
“This is my friend Moon Song. I’m accompanying her back to her home on the Keweenaw.”
He supposed he could forgive the captain for staring. As usual, Moon Song was an interesting sight in her clash of brightly colored white-women clothes and Indian comfort. At the moment, she was also wearing eight-month-old Ayasha in a cradle board on her back.
“And is this your . . . son, ma’am?” The captain craned his neck to see around her. Moon Song obligingly turned completely around so he could see her pride and joy.
Like most cradle boards, Ayasha’s had a strip of wood that curved around his face for protection. From it, Moon Song always tied interesting small objects with which to entertain her baby. A tiny pair of intricately beaded moccasins dangled from it now. These were new. Yesterday she had seemed worried about getting them finished before the trip. She must have been up half the night sewing those beads on.
It occurred to him that perhaps it was more important to her how she and her baby appeared than he’d realized. He was grateful when the captain took notice.
“What lovely workmanship on these little moccasins,” the captain said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen finer.”
Moon Song beamed.
Yes, it mattered to her. It mattered very much. She wanted people on the ship to know that she was a good mother to her son, and she had chosen to work diligently in order to prove it.
“This is little Ayasha,” Skypilot said. “Moon Song stayed at our lumber camp last winter after her husband died. I’m accompanying her back to her people.”
It was more than he needed to say, but somehow he wanted the captain to know that Moon Song was a respectable woman.
“Welcome to my ship, ma’am,” Captain Fowler said. “Dinner will be at six.”
Skypilot decided that he liked the captain very much.
He helped Moon Song deposit the few bundles she’d brought with her into her room and get settled for the next two days. He tried to ignore the look of fear he saw in her eyes as she turned toward him after entering the tiny stateroom.
“I cannot breathe. This room is so small.”
“Nonsense, Moon Song,” he said. “You’ll be able to breathe quite well in here.”
Her eyes grew wider. “I cannot breathe!”
He gave a sigh. He cared deeply about her, but she was such a child sometimes. He guessed he would have to bring her and the baby along with him as he looked around the ship.
“Come along,” he said. “We’ll get you some fresh air.”
There really wasn’t anything “fresh” about it when they came back out on deck. The bay was so filled with boats that the smell of fire and smoke from the belly of all the steamships was all around them.
It was invigorating, though. The crowded bay, the shouts and calls of various sailors, the creaking of the great wooden sailing ships anchored farther out in the bay. Over all was the perpetual smell of fresh pine. That scent seemed to cling to everything in Bay City, from the sawdust sprinkled in the streets, to the lumber camps situated all around, in the very air that they breathed.
Another couple came on board. The woman was dressed impressively in a gown the color of sunshine that showed off her mane of chestnut-colored hair perfectly. The man wore a military officer’s uniform. The woman carried an infant who appeared to be not much older than Ayasha. As she held her infant, the white, lace-edged baby blanket fell gracefully over her left arm.
The woman was not especially b
eautiful, but she was so exquisitely turned out that it was hard not to stare. He tore his gaze away and looked at Moon Song instead.
That was a mistake. The poor girl certainly suffered by comparison. Her skin wasn’t the lovely, pale white that was the fashion, and the clothing she wore seemed all wrong. Moon Song’s clothes seemed ill-fitting and rumpled beside this woman’s perfectly coiffed, professionally tailored loveliness.
Then, there was that cradle board she insisted on carrying Ayasha around in. If anything made a woman look like a squaw, it was that cradle board. The woman in yellow velvet holding the baby in her arms looked so graceful in comparison.
He saw Moon Song glance at him, then at the woman, then back to him. She must have seen the admiration on his face. He hoped she had not been able to read his thoughts. He would not deliberately hurt Moon Song for the world. In fact, he loved her like a little sister.
Seeing this elegantly dressed woman caused his mind to float back to the letter he continued to carry around in his pocket. Imagine. Penelope had actually humbled herself enough to write and apologize for her actions and invite him back home. He felt an unexpected pang for the gracious culture he had once been part of, one to which Penelope held the key.
He was tired of living in lumber camps, around men whose idea of pleasure was to get drunk and stomp each other senseless. The war was over. Everyone had learned their lesson. Maybe it was time to let bygones be bygones.
The idea of sitting in Penelope’s father’s library, reading from the man’s vast collection of leather-bound volumes, a soft-spoken, grateful wife bringing him coffee, while all around him were rich fields producing food for an impoverished South was a heady one.
He brought his thoughts up short. The plantation would no longer be the graceful oasis it had once seemed. Most of the land was no doubt overgrown with weeds from lack of field hands; the leather-bound volumes were probably musty from neglect; and the soft-spoken wife of his daydream did not exist. Penelope had never been particularly soft-spoken unless she was trying to impress the older women who ruled her social world.
Under a Blackberry Moon Page 3