The sparkling blue sky can only mean October.
It is beautiful ... but Pastor Mainwood taught us that the wilderness is the Devil's domain. He said Satan is lurking, here in these forests as old as Eden, to tempt us with forbidden fruit. A city, a town, a village, a settlement, a farm, a claim-means that Satan has been driven from our midst.
He's been driven west, come to think of it.
These Delaware are as much at home in the gorge as the birds and animals. I wonder if I'll ever feel that way, no matter how long I remain in captivity. Or will I always be chary of Satan, watching out of the corner of my eye for his dark shape in the lush undergrowth?
Soon the trees' branches droop, burdened by the thousands of birds that have come to the gorge. Netawatwees Sachem says they're calling to each other by kind for the long trip south. Their calling is so loud, I can still hear them when I cover my ears. Flock by flock, great waves of birds disappear into the southern sky, taking their birdsong with them.
As the first of the winter storms blows in, the wind and rain pull all the leaves off the trees. We are left with an autumn-gold rug on the forest floor, cold wind, gray sky, bare branches, and a stark view of the river.
We awake one cold morning to snow in the gorge. The branches fill up again, with the wet snow of late autumn. The days grow colder and shorter, and the river, swollen with autumn rain and melting early snow, roars in our ears all day and all night.
Then one morning we awake to silence. The river is iced over. The long winter has begun.
We sit on stone-cold floors and lean against stone-cold walls. As our cave faces west, the westerly winds push their way inside and try to snatch the family fires away.
In Connecticut winter was always a time for fun with friends. Skating on Long Island Sound, tobogganing, rides in our neighbor's sleigh, counting redbirds, making twelve snow Apostles in the front yard every December; then long walks next to the hedgerows between the fields. Afterward we'd sit in front of a cheery fire to pop corn and drink hot apple cider. The snow-laden wind would howl outside and set the windowpanes to rattling, but snug inside our house I'd feel safe and warm.
In the cave, though, winter is something to survive. Just to get through the day is an accomplishment. The Delaware sit it out and wait patiently for spring. We sit in darkness, huddled in animal skins with only our feet and shins warmed by the fire. Like bears, everyone tries to sleep to make the time go by.
We eat pemmican-a greasy paste made from bits of meat, dried berries, and animal fat. It tastes awful and makes my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.
Finally we're eating the food we brought from the village on the Allegheny. We dip corn meal out of my carry pack and mix it with the water from melting icicles. Hepte fries it on hot stones rubbed with deer fat.
As the snow deepens, we build a snow wall across the mouth of the cave. The wall does a fair job of keeping the wind out.
Each afternoon the women and girls leave the cave to gather firewood. Sometimes White Eyes lends me his axe. I learn to chop fallen trees into usable logs.
As kindling becomes scarce, we have to walk farther and farther from the cave to find it.
As cold as it is in the cave, it's even colder outside looking for wood. The frigid wind blows down the gorge all day and all night. We scurry back at dusk with stacks of kindling strapped to our backs and fallen branches in our arms.
At night all two hundred of us sit around the fires, our steamy breath mingling with the rising smoke. The cave walls and ceiling have turned smudgy black. When someone tells a story, he or she draws pictures on the wall by scraping away the soot with a stick. The pictures help me understand the words.
One night when Netawatwees Sachem and I are the only ones awake, I ask him to tell the story about the animals as big as the hills. I draw a picture of an elephant on the wall. "You said you had a story, Grandfather," I remind him.
"Yes, the story about the yah-qua-whee" he says, pointing to my drawing of the elephant.
"The yah-who? That's an elephant."
His eyes widen in surprise. "You have a word for this animal?"
"Elephants. They live in Africa."
"They're still alive?" he exclaims. "You've seen one?"
"I've never seen one. They're alive, though."
He leans forward. "Their fur is as thick as a bear's, and each hair is as long as a child's arm?"
"No, no fur. Africa's hot. It's across the ocean. Their skin is wrinkled and gray." Sort of like your skin, I want to say, but of course I don't.
"This changes the story," he says softly. His eyes are still wide in surprise. "This changes everything."
"Tell me the story, Grandfather."
"A long time ago, when the Creator, Kishelemukong, still walked in our gardens to admire the corn—"
"Kettle who?"
"Kishelemukong. He created us with his thoughts."
Now it's my turn to be surprised. "God?"
"As I was saying, when Kishelemukong walked in our gardens, there were the yah-qua-whee. The four elements-the earth, the plants, the animals, and the People-have all lived in careful balance with each other since the first days.
"But the yah-qua-whee did not live in careful balance with the People. They were huge and traveled in vast herds like the birds. We could hear those herds from far away, like distant thunder. They trampled our fields and crushed our corn. They roared through our villages, killing many of the People and destroying our dwellings.
"Life was harder then because it was so much colder than now. From our villages we could see ice fields as wide as the Sun's Salt Sea and as tall as mountains. It was always winter. This is why the yah-qua-whee needed their thick fur.
"The yah-qua-whee did not live in careful balance with their animal neighbors, either. They crushed burrows with sleeping animals inside and knocked over trees filled with bird nests.
"For our benefit and for the benefit of the animals, the People decided to kill all the yah-qua-whee. We dug huge pitfalls in the earth and hid the deep holes by weaving branches into a false floor and scattering leaves on top. Brandishing fire sticks, the People drove the yah-qua-whee into the deep pits. As the screaming yah-qua-whee were crushed against each other, their blood and flesh became soil as the pitfalls leveled out.
"When there were no yah-qua-whee left, the People remembered how much we needed them. One animal as big as the hills could feed an entire village for the winter. Their hides were tough enough for tents, their fur soft enough for blankets. Their great tusks were good for jewelry, and their bones were good for making tools to dig in the earth and plant our gardens.
"The People were sad. We had total victory over an enemy, but we needed that enemy. Kishelemukong was also sad, because the People had made a decision only Kishelemukong should make. He stopped walking in our gardens from that time on. No one has heard or seen Kishelemukong since.
"Maybe the animals were also sad. Who would knock the logs aside so the birds and bears could eat the insects hiding under them? Who else but the yah-qua-whee were strong enough, and big enough, to make the eastbound and westbound forest trails for all the animals to share? Who else would dig up the earth with their tusks while looking for roots, so the seeds could grow in the softened earth?
"That summer, as a sign to show us that we were forgiven, Kishelemukong caused the cranberries to grow from the yah-qua-whee pitfalls. Cranberries are as red as blood to remind us of the slaughtered yah-qua-whee. Like the yah-qua-whee the berries are good for many things: for medicine, for food, for dyes.
"The cranberries remind us that there is no such thing as total victory, and that we are not Kishelemukong. The yah-qua-whee, like everything else, deserved to live."
"But the elephants, Grandfather."
"Yes." He leans forward. "There are people in this Africa? And animals?"
"A lot of people and a lot of animals."
"But they didn't kill the yah-qua-whee. Tell me, are there cranberries in
Africa?"
He holds his breath, waiting for my answer.
"I don't think so."
Netawatwees Sachem claps his hands and laughs like a child. "Then they live. The yah-qua-whee live!"
"How did you learn to speak English so well, Grandfather?"
He waves his hand impatiently. "That's another story. Go to sleep," he orders. "I must think about these yah-qua-whee of Africa. They live," he mutters to himself "This changes everything."
***
There are five eight-year-old boys among us. Every morning the boys walk naked down the steep cliff trail to the river. I see their long black hair lifting and flying backward in the wind. The fathers go with them. The rest of us stand on the edge of the cliff shouting encouragement.
The fathers chop holes in the ice for the boys to jump into. The boys stay in the river for just a few moments before crawling out. When we count five boys and five fathers walking back to the cave, we all wave and cheer.
I notice the boys' mothers look anxious until their sons are safe in the cave again.
The boys' lips are blue with cold and their teeth chatter away like scolding squirrels. Their long hair freezes on the cliff trail, as stiff as tree bark. They huddle by their family fires, shivering and speaking to no one, their mothers plying them with hot tea and extra blankets.
By the afternoon the boys are finally warm.
The next morning they jump into the frozen Cuyahoga and are cold all over again.
One morning when it's sleeting and a fierce north wind blows so hard my nose aches, I ask Hepte why.
"Keko windji?"I ask. Why?
"Chitanisinen," she replies.
"Strength," Grandfather translates.
The wind howls like a wolf pack chasing down the boys' voices. Their piteous cries float upward. "Ku, ku," they cry.
"Keko windji?" I ask, louder.
She looks surprised. "Chitanisinen."
I see these boys changing, right in front of my eyes. On the first morning they were typical eight-year-olds, throwing snowballs at each other all the way to the riverbank. As they returned, they cried for their mothers. On the second morning their fathers had switches in their hands. They beat the boys across the backs of their legs to make them walk down the cliff trail.
It's been at least four or five weeks, I think, since their first jump. Now their fathers don't need the switches. And when they return, the boys clamp their jaws shut to keep their teeth from chattering and accept blankets around their shoulders just to be polite. Two of them don't even sit by their family fires anymore. They stand outside the cave and stare at the river, the ends of their blue-black hair weighed down with milky-white ice.
Their eyes have a hardness to them, a sort of cold stare that makes it impossible to know what they're thinking.
"How long must they jump?" I ask Grandfather.
"The four winter moons-the Moon of Fallen Leaves, the Freezing Moon, the Moon of Deep Cold, and the Moon of Deep Snow. They are halfway through."
It must be close to Christmas, I think.
One day Mrs. Stewart presses a little deerskin doll into my hand. "I've lost track of the days, but merry Christmas, Mary," she whispers in my ear.
"Oh, Mrs. Stewart! I don't have anything for you."
"Just seeing your smiling face is present enough, Mary."
The doll is wearing a long dress, an apron, and a little sunbonnet on her head. I recognize the cloth-it's scraps from my birthday dress.
"My birthday dress! How? Where?"
"You left it on the trail across from Fort Pitt. Do you remember? You stepped right out of your dress when it tore away, and I knew then that you'd lost all hope."
She presses the doll harder into my palm. "This little doll is you. Always remember who you are, Mary. All my life I've heard stories about captives. The adults don't change, but the children do. They forget who they are; they forget what's important. This little doll," she repeats slowly, "is you."
I thank her and hug the doll to my chest. I don't tell her that I'm too old for dolls.
***
I lie awake at night thinking about the boys jumping into the frozen river every morning. Somehow they remind me of Dougal. Would he jump into icy-cold water every morning? Would his eyes have that same hard, inward look that these boys' eyes now have?
Yes, he would gladly do the same thing, to show the world how brave and strong he is.
And what about me? Don't I need strength, too?
The little doll lies next to me. When her faded blue dress reflects the firelight, she glows like a little ghost. She does make me feel stronger, but the strength she gives me is of a different kind than the strength these boys are gaining, I reckon.
These boys are learning to be Delaware braves; their newfound strength is about the future. My doll gives me the strength to remember my past.
I study my doll at night, and entire days spent in Connecticut and Pennsylvania flood into my memory. I remember what we talked about at breakfast, dinner, and supper. I remember what we ate, too: oatmeal with thick cream in the morning; ham, corn bread, pea soup, and apple slump at noon; turkey, yams, cranberries, and berry cobblers at sunset. We had bread, butter, and honey with every meal. And lots of cold milk or cider to wash everything down.
Just the thought of my mother's cooking makes my mouth water and my stomach growl.
I remember giggling with Constance Farnsworth about the silliest things-like the time her elder brother sat on a gooseberry pie, or the time my grandfather sneezed so hard he blew a candle out.
We spent long afternoons sitting on a bench near the window, looking into Constance's fancy picture book of the animal kingdom. We talked about the lions, tigers, monkeys, and elephants. While looking at the pictures we practiced being ladies. We sipped lemonade out of dainty teacups held in gloved hands, and nibbled ginger cookies with our little fingers high in the air.
Always remember who you are, Mary.
But when I start remembering, I begin to cry and can't stop.
"I need strength," I whisper, sobbing to my doll. "I need more strength than you can give me." I stuff her dress into my mouth so no one can hear me weeping.
I slept away the afternoon and now I can't sleep tonight. The family fires no longer hiss and sputter with flames but glow instead as silent embers. I imagine myself strolling right into Campbell Station next spring. The dogwoods are white and yet the most delicate pink from a distance. In the pasture the tender grass smells sweet. Livestock are treading on the wild strawberries again. Spring lambs and calves cleave to their mothers.
Dougal is still sitting on his stupid rock in the middle of the pasture, mooning over his map.
"Good afternoon, Dougal," I say.
Seeing me dressed the way I am, he jumps clean into the air, thinking I'm an Indian. The map lands in the mud.
"Mary?" he says, his eyes as big as wagon wheels. "Ma! It's Mary! She's home!"
My mother, dressed in black, is sitting on the side porch dolefully churning butter. She jumps off the porch and charges toward me, skirts flying.
"Mary," she hollers out. "Mary's come home!"
My father runs toward us from the fields, holding his sun hat flat against his head so it won't blow away. Even Lady Grey is purr-winding around my ankles. My mother enfolds me in her arms.
"I'm all right. I escaped. I'm all right."
"Oh Mary! And it's your birthday, too! I'll make you a cake and everything!"
As we walk toward the cabin, I can't go another step until I've given them all a piece of my mind.
"Pa, if you hadn't made us go westering, this would never have happened. I've been starving, freezing, terrified, and so exhausted I've fallen asleep with half-chewed food in my mouth. You're so selfish. You only think about yourself."
He hangs his head. "I'm sorry, Mary. We'll go back to Connecticut tomorrow, just as you wish."
I turn to Dougal.
"And you, you were supposed to be protecting
me. If you hadn't been so lazy, I might never have been kidnapped."
Dougal hangs his head. "I'm sorry, Mary. I'll never sleep beyond daybreak again. My lazy days are over."
I turn to Ma.
"And you, you were always so angry with me. Nothing I ever did was good enough. Why did you make my life so hard?"
She hangs her head and speaks so softly I have to lean forward to hear her. "Because a woman's life is hard, Mary, much harder than a man's. It breaks my heart to be the one to prepare you for your future, for all I want is your happiness."
I sit bolt upright, half expecting to see my mother kneeling between the dark lumps of sleeping Delaware. It's a long time before sleep comes.
***
We awake one dawn to the most direful cold-the bitterest, coldest morning I can remember.
Hepte rubs mosquito grease on our faces and hands to keep our skin from cracking. Frigid wind screams down the gorge and sets the trees to shivering. It hurts to breathe. I squirm in front of a weak and quavering fire, my teeth chattering and my bladder full.
The boys try to look brave and unconcerned, but I can see the fear in their eyes. Holding blankets and axes, the fathers go down the cliff trail with them. We hear the ice cracking as the fathers chop holes in the ice for their sons. We hear the boys scream as they climb out of the ice holes. The boys run stiff legged up the cliff trail with blankets around their shoulders.
Their fingers are blue. Their cracked heels are bloody from running on the sharp stones. Everyone is paying attention to the boys, rubbing their feet, spooning hot cornmeal into their mouths, pushing cups of hot tea into their hands.
Now, I say to myself. I need more strength.
I pick up the axe White Eyes lets me use for firewood. "I get wood," I say in their language, "good fires for the boys."
Hepte tries to catch my hand. "Tonn," she says softly.
The Beaded Moccasins Page 6