“What you call this plague?” Siipu demanded.
“Smallpox.” Rebecca couldn’t help flinching as she uttered the dreaded word.
Siipu exhaled slowly. “This is white man’s gift.”
“A gift?” Rebecca’s gaze moved from the fever-wracked woman to the red-rimmed almond eyes above the deerskin mask. “A curse, not a gift,” she said. “My people die of this as well.”
“No,” Siipu said sharply. “This one not know how or why, but know true. White men give. Wind tells this woman’s heart. This time sickness be sent. White men want all Indian die. Man, woman, child. All die. White men plant corn where Shawnee clear field. Graze cattle where our ancestors are buried.”
A terrible ache swelled in Rebecca’s chest, making it hard for her to breathe. “Have you had the pox, Siipu? Those who have it once never do again.”
“No have. My brother get. This one—no.”
“When I was a little girl, my mother deliberately exposed me to cowpox. I was sick for a few days, but nothing serious. I don’t know how or why, but cowpox prevents you from catching smallpox. Have many of your tribe—”
Siipu shook her head. “No cows. I do not know this cowpox you talk of. Indian catch this—” she gestured toward Mary’s pain-wracked body—“Indian die quick.”
“But you said Talon had the smallpox, and he didn’t die.”
“Have when small child—at Williamsburg. When stay with white shaman. White man sickness. White man know how make well. Indian not know.”
“I know how to treat someone with smallpox, but I don’t know how to make them well. No one does,” Rebecca said. “Of those who catch it in Ireland, one in every five die, and many more are left hideously scarred or blinded.”
“Not so for Shawnee . . . Delaware,” Talon’s sister answered softly. “Two sick, one die. Bad, much bad. Indian medicine not strong for white man sickness.”
“There is something we can do, if you’re willing to take the risk. My father had a half-brother who studied medicine in Edinburgh, in Scotland. He was visiting us when one of our maids died of smallpox. Uncle Beatty took scabs from the sick girl and put them under the skin of our other servants. They got sick, but no one died. We could do the same thing, Siipu. We could use Mary’s illness to protect the rest of the tribe against the disease.”
“White men do this thing?”
“No. Most do not. Most people are ignorant. But I saw my uncle do it, and I know our servants didn’t die. Others in the village died, but not those Uncle Beatty treated.”
“You have scab in your skin?”
“No,” she admitted. “No, I didn’t, because I’d had the cowpox, but my little brother Colin did. He was only a few weeks old. Colin was the first person that Uncle Beatty treated.”
“And this brother not die?”
“No. He wasn’t even very sick. He didn’t catch the smallpox then, and he didn’t catch it when we came over on the ship or since . . .” Or had he? She realized that it had been many weeks since she’d last seen Colin . . . or was it months? The image of his laughing face rose in her mind. Oh, Colin, she wondered. Where are you?
Mary moaned, and Rebecca was jerked from her reverie back to this dim wigwam and the reality of their situation.
Siipu murmured a few soothing words in Algonquian as she removed the cloth and dipped it in water, then wrung it out and replaced it on the patient’s forehead. “What can we do for her?”
Rebecca shrugged. “What you’re already doing. Keep her warm, give her water, pray.”
“You say her sickness can keep people from die?”
“I think so.” She covered Siipu’s hand with her own. “What have we got to lose?”
“You have much. You do and Indian people die, you die. They call you witch. Blame you for all death.”
“If we don’t do anything, there will be an epidemic,” Rebecca argued.
Siipu got to her feet and rubbed her hands on her deerskin dress. “You put scab of smallpox under your skin? How?”
“My uncle made a small cut—with a piece of glass. And yes, I would do it to myself. But it’s not necessary. I can’t get the pox. I told you. I—”
“This one hear you say. People not trust wife of Simon Brandt. You do, this one do, maybe they do.”
“All right. We’ll take the chance,” Rebecca said. Her father had trusted his brother with Colin’s life, and he hadn’t let them down. None of them had realized that it was the last time they’d ever see Uncle Beatty. A few weeks later, on his return voyage to Scotland, his ship was caught in a sudden storm and sank with all hands. She still remembered the tears her father shed when he got the letter telling him of Beatty’s death.
How different things would have been for Colin and me, she mused, if Uncle Beatty had been her father’s nearest living relative. We might still be living in our own home in Ireland with my mother . . .
But then I’d never have known Talon . . .
“Why?” Siipu’s question intruded on her thoughts. “Why you care about Indian?” she demanded. “Why take chance?”
Rebecca looked at her in astonishment. “Why? What else could I do?”
“Let Indian die.”
“No,” Rebecca answered firmly. “Not if we can help it.”
But convincing Siipu was easier than convincing the rest of the tribe. In the end, after much arguing with the chief and council members, and after she and Talon’s sister had both endured the crude inoculation, Counts His Scalps volunteered. Gradually, one by one, most of the villagers submitted to the treatment.
Many people ran fevers, some very high. Siipu’s fever sapped her strength, but despite all Rebecca’s pleading, the Indian woman would not take to her bed. For days and longer nights, Rebecca and Siipu went from wigwam to wigwam tending the sick. Mary died, and then the old woman who had taken care of her threw herself in the river and drowned. Men, women, and children broke out with pustules, but no one showed symptoms as severe as Mary’s.
As weeks passed, Rebecca began to doubt her decision. More and more of the Shawnee became ill. One young woman miscarried of a child. Angry grumbling arose against Rebecca, and she heard the whispered word “witch” as she moved from house to house.
She lost all track of time, often missing meals and falling asleep in a strange wigwam surrounded by coughing, moaning patients. It seemed to her as if the sheer drudgery of nursing, the exhaustion, the stink of illness, and the bitter, gray weather had gone on forever.
So many of the Shawnee were flat on their backs that Simon Brandt could have taken the camp single handed. Supplies of fresh meat were depleted when hunters were no longer fit to seek game. Often Rebecca had to direct family members to tie their loved ones to keep them from running outside to quench their fevers in the snow. It was a time of weeping and of little hope.
“It’s useless, Siipu,” Rebecca said as she broke down in tears. “We wanted to help and we’ve only made things worse.”
“No quit,” Siipu said. “The old chief, Seeks Visions, has not ordered you burned at stake. Council not believe you witch yet. No quit.”
“But they should be getting better, not sicker,” she protested. “Why are they getting sicker?”
“Indian not white man. White man disease. No quit. Believe in self, Becca. Believe.”
“I’m trying,” she said. “I am, but sometimes, it all seems hopeless.”
Then the next morning, Rebecca awoke to the sound of a child laughing. And when Siipu brought her a bowl of corn mush, she told her that there were no new cases of illness in the night. When Rebecca finished eating, she would have gone to see to those who had suffered the highest fevers, but Siipu bade her sleep some more. And she did; she closed her eyes and didn’t open them again until dusk had fallen.
Fresh snow fell that evening. The following day, Counts led two youths to shoot down a woods bison, and there were plenty of meat and bones to make rich soup for the village. After that, two deer were taken, and
the hungry period passed.
“You were right,” Counts said grudgingly to Siipu, as she and Rebecca sat across from him at his fire pit and dined on grilled venison. “White men have the medicine for white men’s sickness.”
Siipu nodded. “Becca save tribe from smallpox.”
“With the help of a Delaware witch,” he said.
“And of Counts His Scalps,” Rebecca put in. “You were the first to let us cut your arm.”
“Hmmp.” He cleared his throat importantly. “After you.”
“After Siipu and me, you were the first,” Rebecca repeated. “It took great courage.”
“No one call Counts His Scalps coward,” he boasted, displaying the fresh scar on his arm.
“No one ever will,” Rebecca assured him. “Talon will be very proud of you.”
There had been no word of him for weeks, not since the day he’d left to bring home his father’s body, and Rebecca was worried. What if Simon or one of the soldiers had killed him? What if he’d been captured or had taken sick himself?
Fighting the smallpox had taken all of her energy, but now, she had begun to be concerned about her own future again. It seemed as if the Indian people had accepted her presence without malice. What if she did do as Talon wanted? What if she remained here with him?
Counts was laughing at something Siipu had said. “For a witch—” he began. Then he looked toward the entrance.
A young warrior entered the wigwam. He stood up and looked from Counts to Siipu. Rebecca recognized him as a man named Rabbit Running, a man whose pregnant wife had been one of the sickest.
“Is there something wrong with Sees Sunshine?” Rebecca asked, getting to her feet. “Is the baby coming?”
Rabbit Running spoke in Algonquian. Counts shook his head and replied in a loud voice in the same tongue. Siipu added something, but Rabbit Running wouldn’t be swayed. He pointed at Rebecca and repeated the same phrase he had uttered when he came in.
“The high council calls for you,” Counts said brusquely. “The war chief has returned. You must come and answer for the death of the shaman.”
“Talon’s back?” she cried. “He’s safe?” Nothing else seemed to matter. If Talon was here then—
Siipu seized her arm and gripped it tightly. “My brother say come,” she said. “My brother say soul of medicine man must be honored by life of white hostage.”
Chapter 20
Anticipation and excitement crackled in the air, and despite a rising fear for her own safety, Rebecca was struck by the pageantry of the gathering. Even though she’d tended them in the sickness, she hadn’t realized that the village contained so many people. Hawk-faced men and handsome women stood side by side, garbed in their finest clothing and adorned with feathers, fur, and jewelry. Faces painted with streaks of black and yellow and red, the proud Shawnee and Delaware crowded close together inside the three finished walls of the Big House. More people waited outside, pressing one upon the other for a view of the center hearth and the dignified council members who sat there in stony silence.
The throng parted for her and Siipu. Counts His Scalps and Rabbit Running followed on their heels, but Rabbit Running got no farther than the edge of the building where he was stopped by his father’s forbidding glance. Rebecca caught sight of Fox and Counts’ friend, Osage Killer, in the first row behind the council. None sat in the forefront but seasoned warriors and a few older matrons wrapped in bright blankets.
Five drummers formed a smaller circle on the west side of the central post, a skinned log of massive proportions boasting an oval carved face painted half white and half black. One drum was a hollow log, two were as large as washtubs, one as small as a man’s palm, and the last painted leather stretched tightly over an open circle of wood, much like a gypsy’s tambourine. The throbbing of the small drum rose and fell above the deep boom of the log-drum. The others kept up a steady bom bom bom-bom, so that the earth under Rebecca’s feet seemed to echo their ancient rhythm.
Wild cherry logs burned in the fire pit; there was no mistaking the pleasing smell. The room was also thick with the scents of damp fur and leather, interlaced with leaf tobacco and the heavy musk of bear grease, but she wasn’t repelled by the strong odors. She could detect no hint of human sweat in the throng; church services among the unwashed white settlers smelled far worse. Even as a child in Ireland, she had dreaded winter services, when chapel windows were tightly barred and worshipers reeked of fetid wool garments and rancid hair and breath.
She looked around her at the red-brown faces, and refused to believe that these people would really put her to death. These were the villagers she had tended during the illness; that man’s head she had held when he was too weak to drink water, and that infant she had bathed and rocked to sleep when his mother couldn’t rise from her bed. She felt a kinship with the tribe then, a human link that ran deeper than the color of their skin or the pale shade of hers.
Where was Talon? Rebecca realized that among all these individuals, she had not recognized the one man she longed to see most. Her gaze moved frantically from one stern warrior to another. Rabbit Running had said that the war chief was here. But where was he?
Siipu led her to stand before Seeks Visions. The old chief was splendid in a tall beaver hat with a British peace medal dangling across the front. A cloak of goose feathers covered his frail shoulders, shoulders that Rebecca had rubbed with ointment to ease the itching of the pox only a few short days ago.
Seeks Visions’ eyes were clouded with cataracts, his brown, weather-worn features nearly hidden by wrinkles. His hair was as white as the plumage of a snow goose; it hung in two looped braids on either side of his face. The elderly Shawnee retained a full set of nearly perfect teeth beneath a bony nose so large and jutting that Rebecca wanted to reach out and touch it to make certain it was real.
“Here be the white woman who save our people from smallpox,” Siipu said loudly, so that her voice might carry to those standing outside the Big House.
Seeks Visions grunted and raised a hand in salute. Siipu translated his words for Rebecca. “He says he see you,” she whispered. “He says this be wife of Simon Brandt.”
A ripple spread through the onlookers. Rebecca heard Simon’s name murmured repeatedly.
“I am Rebecca Gordon Brandt,” she said. Her heart was hammering in her chest so hard that she wondered it didn’t sound above the drums, and it was difficult to keep her voice from cracking. “Tell him that, Siipu,” she insisted.
Talon’s sister did so, and the chief nodded.
Rebecca glanced around for Talon. Where was he? If he was here, why didn’t he show himself? He couldn’t blame her for his father’s death, could he?
The chief began to speak. He went on for several minutes, and then Siipu cleared her throat.
“Seeks Visions tells of the treaty meeting with English,” Siipu explained. “He tells of treachery and death of Shawnee and Delaware. He tells of my brother’s vow to trade you for our shaman who be prisoner.”
“Where is Talon?” Rebecca whispered.
“Shhh,” Siipu answered. “Must show respect for Seeks Visions. He tell of shaman’s death by hang . . . hanging. He say why war chief no keep promise—kill wife of Simon Brandt as shaman be killed.”
Rebecca’s mouth went dry. She tried to moisten her lips, but they were as numb as if she’d been drinking strong spirits. She wasn’t a fainting woman, but any second, she was afraid she’d disgrace herself by falling flat on her face. “I am not responsible for what Simon Brandt does,” she said. “You can’t blame me. I don’t deserve to pay for what evil . . .”
The words died in her throat as heads turned and necks craned to see the tall man in the wolf’s head cape who materialized out of the darkness.
“He comes,” Siipu said.
Voices cried his name. There was a flurry of excitement, and men and women hastily moved back to let the war chief enter the Big House.
“Talon,” Rebecca murmured
.
His face was painted with slashes of red and yellow over his cheekbones; his thick black hair flowed loose in shimmering waves down his back. A necklace of bear claws encircled his throat. His chest was bare except for a sheen of oil and a gorget of beaten silver engraved with the fleur-de-lis of France. A simple red loincloth and moccasins completed his attire; he carried no weapons except for the sheathed knife at his waist.
“Talon,” she repeated, swallowing the thickness in her throat. His eyes were shadowed with grief. He looked like a man who’d walked through hell.
Without a word or a glance, he strode past her with the arrogance of a prince, stopped in the center of the council circle, and stood before Seeks Visions as rigidly as an obelisk of carved granite.
The chief spoke first.
“He asked my brother if his father’s body rests in sacred ground,” Siipu whispered to Rebecca.
“Ahikta,” Talon answered. Yes.
“Does our shaman go empty handed across the river of spirits?” Siipu continued. She paused a moment, then went on. “No, the shaman does not. He rides a fine black horse and carries a new British rifle with him. And at his belt are the scalps of three enemies, so that those who wait on the far side of the river will know that he is a man of worth.”
Rebecca shivered. Scalps. Talon had killed men—perhaps even Simon. Suddenly, she wasn’t so sure that these people wouldn’t harm her. The chasm between Talon’s world and her own loomed wide. Was it possible that only a few short weeks ago they had lain in each others’ arms?
Talon pushed back the wolf’s head cloak and folded his arms over his chest, then switched easily from Algonquian to English. “I, Fire Talon, war chief of the Mecate Shawnee, have come this night to fulfill the promise I made to the long knives and to my people.” He turned toward her and raised an open hand. “I vowed that I would return the wife of Simon Brandt when my father was set free. And I gave my word that if harm came to him, the white woman must die.”
“Yuho,” replied a council member.
“Yuh,” uttered a second.
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