by Robin Moore
Maggie went about her work smiling when she could, scarcely able to sleep at night, working in the day with an eye toward the main road, waiting for her husband to arrive.
Chapter Eight
Maggie and Frenchgirl were up in the hills collecting firewood the afternoon their husbands came in.
When the women returned to the cabin, they saw two blanketed forms, rolled up by the fire, fast asleep.
Frenchgirl clucked her tongue. "The men. I wish they'd learn to use the beds. They are used to sleeping on the ground by the fire, eh?" Then she smiled.
"What should we do?" Maggie asked. Her hands were shaking as she stacked the firewood in the corner.
Frenchgirl took her baby out of the backsling and placed her on the bed. "We will take care of their feet now. That is the first thing. Then we will take care of the rest of them." Frenchgirl brought a kettle of water and a wooden bowl, filled with clean rags.
"They may not wake at first," Frenchgirl explained. "They have been running for two days, coming from the Mohawk country in the east."
Maggie was amazed. "Two days? But the Mohawks must be one hundred fifty miles from here. No one can run one hundred fifty miles in two days. It can't be done."
Frenchgirl nodded. "I know. But they do it anyway. Wait until you see their feet."
Maggie looked at the dark forms huddled by the fire. "Which one is mine?"
Frenchgirl nodded to the one lying on his back by the fire. "That one."
Maggie crept up to him in the dim light and began unwrapping the blanket strips wrapped from the knee to the ankle on his lower legs. Underneath, she could see that the buckskin leggings were wet from dashing through streams.
"They're soaking wet," Maggie whispered. "How do they keep their feet from freezing?"
Frenchgirl smiled faintly. "They keep moving."
Now Maggie watched as Frenchgirl drew her knife and cut the frozen laces, easing off her husband's thick elk-hide over-moccasins. Maggie did the same. She was shocked to see that both men's feet were wrapped in bloody rags. The women unwound the rags and pulled the cloth away from the skin. Maggie could see the horrible toll the constant running had taken on the men's feet.
"They will heal," Frenchgirl assured her. "I've seen them worse than this."
They washed the men's feet and wrapped them in clean rags.
It was during the foot washing that the two husbands began to stir under their blankets. Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie could see her man sit up. It seemed an incredibly long time before she could make herself turn her head and look into her husband's eyes.
She was surprised, pleasantly, at what she saw. His features were finely etched, almost delicate. He wore his blond hair long, in a scalp lock that trailed down his back. His eyes were a piercing blue and he had one tattoo: a series of tiny deer tracks that led from the outside corner of his right eye to the right-hand corner of his mouth. For a moment she was lost in the blue of his eyes; then she made herself look away.
Frenchgirl's husband sat up then, and she placed her baby on Cornstalk's lap. The Indian lifted his child up overhead and laughed softly. Like Firefly, he wore his hair in a scalp lock. He was larger, but he still had a runner's lithe form.
Maggie was momentarily thrown off guard. She had expected these trail-hardened men to stride into the cabin full of pomp and bloodlust. Instead, they seemed almost shy in the women's presence.
After the women had served up some corn soup, Frenchgirl whispered, "Well, what do you say, Redwing?"
Maggie shook her head. "Your brother, he is so quiet."
"Ah," Frenchgirl nodded. "You must understand, these men live by quiet. It is what saves their lives. They are fierce and quiet on the war trail, gentle at home. In some things," she said significantly, "the women must take the lead."
That night Maggie lay in her bed, listening to Frenchgirl and her husband laughing and cooing with their baby in the bed against the opposite wall. Firefly slept rolled in his blanket by the fire. Maggie lay awake most of the night, turning things over in her mind. But she was the only one awake. Everyone else slept soundly.
The next morning Frenchgirl said, "Today you will learn to make moccasins. You are a runner's wife. You will make many pairs and you must be able to do it well. On the trail, our men's well-being often depends upon the condition of their feet, eh?"
Frenchgirl showed Maggie how to measure the men's feet and how to use an old moccasin as a pattern. They worked as long as the light was good, making three pairs each.
"There," Frenchgirl said when they had finished.
"That is the last of the elk hide. But we will have more soon."
"When do we leave for the hunt?"
"When the men's feet are healed. Maybe ten days. It is late in the season to start. Most of the families have left on the hunt already. But there is nothing to be gained by hurrying."
It was late in November when they left for the elk hunt. Frenchgirl left her child with one of the clan women. The woman held the baby up high until the canoe disappeared down the stream. "Good-bye, village," Maggie thought, knowing that each paddle stroke was bringing her closer to Franny and freedom.
It was three days of hard travel and makeshift camps until they reached the headwaters of the Allegheny River. Eighty miles south of the village, Maggie realized she could have never made the journey by herself.
Once on the Allegheny, Frenchgirl and Maggie set up a camp on a large island in the middle of the river.
"We will flesh the hides and dry the meat here," Frenchgirl explained. "There is much to do but it is happy work. We can dry enough meat for the whole winter during this trip. This is a good camp. On this island, we won't have to worry about animals."
"What animals?" Maggie asked.
"In this country, there are many animals that would come to steal the meat from our racks: small ones like raccoons and squirrels, big ones like bears and wolves."
"Wolves?" Maggie said.
Frenchgirl nodded toward the riverbank. "They are up there. They hunt the deer, as we do, killing the old and sick and some young."
"That seems cruel of them," Maggie remarked.
Frenchgirl shook her head. "Not at all. In this way, the wolves make the elk strong by assuring that only the healthiest survive. In this way, with each kill the wolf assures that the next generation of elk will be just as strong. Our men do that when they hunt. In this way the wolf and the man are the same."
"But aren't the men afraid of the wolves? The wolves can hunt men as well," Maggie asserted.
"No," Frenchgirl said. "This is not so. A wolf would have to be very hungry to attack a man."
Maggie turned that over in her mind. "I see."
The men spent the first day scouting the shoreline in the canoe. The women stayed at the camp and made corn soup. That night the men sat up by the fire.
Maggie went down to the water's edge to carry back some water. It was dark now, but the moon was full and bright, giving the water and the land beyond it a ghostly light. As Maggie was dipping her bucket, she heard a sound coming out across the water. It was a beautiful liquid sound, something like the call of a bird. But Maggie didn't think it was a bird. It was much too complex and ever changing to be simply an animal call. It was plaintive and at the same time peaceful, filled with longing and sadness. Maggie listened until it was over, then turned and hurried up the trail toward the camp.
"I heard this sound, down by the water," Maggie told Frenchgirl.
She didn't see Frenchgirl smile in the darkness.
"I didn't hear anything," she said.
The next morning, when Maggie unrolled her blanket by the fire, she could see that Frenchgirl, Cornstalk, and the canoe were gone. Firefly sat in his blanket by the fire, staring out across the water.
Maggie rose and pulled on her moccasins, went down to the river's edge, and washed her face and hands in the cold water. Then she came back to the fire and warmed her palms. She nod
ded to Firefly. He nodded back shyly.
Maggie thought to try some sign language. She pointed to where the canoe had been tied up by the bank, then shrugged.
Firefly understood. He made a sign for shooting a rifle, then spread his fingers atop his head for the antlers of the elk.
"Gone hunting," Maggie muttered to herself.
She pointed to the sun overhead and shrugged. "How long?" she asked.
Firefly seemed eager to communicate, even in this simple way. He held up four fingers.
"Ah," Maggie thought, "four hours." She made the hand sign that brought the sun to noon.
Firefly shook his head. He pointed to the sun and brought it around four times.
Maggie had a sinking feeling. "Four days?"
Maggie hadn't thought it was going to be like this. Four days alone on the island with a young man she hardly knew. What would they do in all that time? Maggie made some hot water and they each drank a cup of tea, staring out at the gray, cold waters. Then they each had a biscuit and another cup of tea.
Maggie had an inspiration. She pointed to the firewood pile and to the hand axe stuck in a log nearby. "We will collect firewood," she said to herself, "make ourselves useful."
He picked up his axe and headed away from camp. Maggie realized he was as uncomfortable as she was.
They worked all that afternoon, bringing in the wood. Late in the day, she sighed to herself. "If I don't think of somethin' else to do, there won't be a stick of firewood left on this island." She decided to cook something. She made some corn cakes in the ashes of the fire. They ate their meal, avoiding each other's eyes. Darkness came early and the cold clamped down over the water. They built the fire big and watched the cold moon come up.
Firefly rose and wrapped his blanket around him, shaking his legs, stiff from cold. Then he walked off into the woods.
Maggie stared into the fire. A moment later she heard that birdlike sound, the musical sound she had heard the night before. She ventured away from the warmth of the fire, following the sound that seemed to be coming from the river itself.
She felt drawn to it in some strange way. The sadness of the melody tugged at her, reaching back into the loneliness of her own heart.
Then she saw Firefly, sitting on a tree trunk along the water's edge. Perhaps he had heard the sound too. As she came closer she could see that the sound was coming from him.
It wasn't until she was perhaps six feet away that she could see how the music was made. Firefly was playing a long wooden flute, not blowing sideways like the Irish flutes, but blowing into the end and fingering the tunes with a series of note holes. It was impossible for Maggie to tell how long she stood listening to the music before she crept up and sat beside him on the log. But the flute had done its work.
It is not possible to tell everything that happened to Maggie that night, or in the next three days on the island.
It is enough to say that they learned to talk in hand signs. They swam in the icy moonlit water and ran laughing to the fire where they huddled in warm bearskin robes. They cooed and laughed and held each other under the great star-sprinkled night, listening to the sound of the water lapping up on the shores of their tiny island camp.
It is enough to say that, for the first time in her life, Maggie knew what it was to fling herself away, out of her body, and to feel at one with the earth and the water and the stars overhead.
Chapter Nine
Maggie and Firefly saw the canoe coming from a long way off, gliding across the cold waters to their warm island camp.
When Frenchgirl and Cornstalk pulled their craft up along the landing place, Maggie could see that the canoe was riding low with the weight of a huge elk. Frenchgirl had taken off the skin and antlers and quartered the carcass to make it easy to carry.
Firefly waded down into the shallows and pulled the loaded canoe up to the shore. Cornstalk was happy as only a hunter can be happy.
Frenchgirl was happy as well. She grasped Maggie's arm and stepped up onto the bank. "I'm glad things went so well for you and Firefly," she said.
Maggie pursed her lips playfully. "Why are you so sure things went well with us?"
Frenchgirl threw her head back and laughed. "Are you serious? It is written on your face. And we could tell from a great distance offshore. The two of you— your mouths were smiling and your eyes were smiling, your whole bodies were smiling."
Maggie felt the color rising in her face.
"Is it that obvious?"
Frenchgirl grinned. "It is nothing to be embarrassed about, Redwing." They laughed.
It was hard work the rest of the day, but it was happy work. It was the work of plentifulness. Frenchgirl showed Maggie how to slice the meat into thin strips and lay it out on the wooden drying rack by the fire. They stretched the huge skin out between two trees, to dry in the open air.
Meanwhile the men carefully removed the sinew from the legs and from both sides of the backbone. This would be bowstrings and sewing thread," Frenchgirl explained.
Maggie noticed that there was a use for every part.
"It is our obligation to the elk, to use every part we can. This way the spirit of the deer will be pleased and we will have good hunting another time," Frenchgirl explained.
For dinner they feasted on the fresh liver. They laughed a lot by the fire that night. When they rolled in their warm bearskins and watched the stars wheel and spin in the cold clear sky overhead, Maggie found herself wishing that this hunting trip would never end. It snowed that night.
For days after that, they fell into a routine: The men went hunting mornings and evenings and the women worked at scraping the hides and drying the meat during the days.
One afternoon, Cornstalk single-handedly trailed and killed a huge elk up in the woods, about a half mile from the water's edge. He gutted the elk and covered it with leaves to hide it from other animals, then got the others to help in packing the huge carcass down to the water.
They first rolled the animal on its back and skinned off the hide. Then Maggie helped as they took their axes and chopped through the backbone, dividing the huge carcass into sections that could be easily carried. It reminded Maggie of hog butchering back in the settlements.
Frenchgirl laid the hide out on the snowy ground and piled the liver, heart, pancreas, and stomach on it so they would stay clean. She rolled the hide up.
"Cornstalk and I will take the canoe," Frenchgirl told Maggie. "It will take several loads to bring the elk down to the water. You and Firefly will begin the work of carrying the meat down to the water's edge. It will be hard work."
"We don't mind," Maggie assured her.
"Good," Frenchgirl answered. "We will take the first load across now and come back for a second as soon as we can."
They had plenty of light for the first trip down, and they carried the hide and a fair amount of meat because there were four of them then. But Maggie knew they must make at least one more trip back. It would be just Firefly and herself that time and it would be getting dark. But they could easily follow their trail in the light dusting of snow, and once the moon came up there would be enough light.
It was dark by the time she and Firefly reached the water's edge with the last load of meat. They piled the butchered carcass on a rock and stood waiting for the canoe.
Maggie noticed that it had gotten quite cold after the sun went down. She hadn't noticed it while they were working, but now that they had stopped, their clothes moist with sweat, she began to feel a chill creeping through her. Firefly began to shiver too. They danced around in the snow, laughing, to keep the blood circulating through their limbs. But after a while, even that wasn't sufficient. Maggie wanted a fire but knew they couldn't have one. She knew the smell would alert the animals and ruin the hunting along that side of the river.
Maggie watched Firefly hopping up and down on the balls of his feet, eyes scanning the water. Where were Frenchgirl and Cornstalk? And why were they taking so long? They sho
uld have been back long before now.
Maggie touched Firefly on the arm and pointed to her feet. She felt them beginning to freeze. Firefly nodded. He looked about them for a sheltered place to get out of the cold. Then his eyes fell on the elk hide, rolled up and sitting atop the rock. He quickly went to it, unrolled it, and piled the organs with the other meat.
Maggie watched as he laid the hide down on the snow, hair side up. He drew her over onto the hide. Then he lay beside her and she turned with him as they rolled up in the hide. It was a good idea. The thick winter coat of the elk made a warm, luxurious nest. In a short time the combination of their body heat and the protection of the elk hide made them tolerably warm.
Once the blood returned to her freezing limbs, Maggie felt a pleasant drowsiness. Both she and Firefly dozed off, secure that they could stay this way until their companions arrived. They were careful to keep their feet well covered at the tail end of the hide but left their faces protruding through the upper end of the roll so their breath wouldn't mist and soak the hairs around them.
It was hours later, well into the night, when Maggie was awakened by a sound nearby. She came to consciousness slowly, reluctant to come out of her warm sleep. She glanced around the clearing. The moon had dipped low now and made eerie shadows on the snow. But something was moving over by the pile of meat on the rock. She saw the sparkling of a dozen pairs of eyes. She squinted, trying to make out the dark shapes. Then she knew them for what they were—wolves!
The sounds she heard were the snufflings and scratching and growls of the wolves as they tore into the frozen carcass of the elk, barely thirty feet from where she and Firefly lay.
Maggie saw that Firefly was awake as well. Knowing they could not speak, Maggie quickly considered what they could do. They had their skinning knives and hand axes in their belts, so they had weapons. But lying on the ground as they were, they were vulnerable. Ever so slowly, Maggie felt Firefly beginning to sit up. She knew what they must do and she knew they must do it together. They would roll out of the hide, get to their feet, and draw their axes. Maggie scanned the clearing for a tree to climb. It would have to be done smoothly and quietly. The wolves would be surprised, Maggie was counting on that.