The Beaded Moccasins

by Lynda Durrant

I walk quickly down the cliff trail and shed my clothes on the riverbank. I walk to the center of the river. My heart is pounding as I begin chopping. It takes longer than I think it will to chop a hole in the thick ice. I toss the axe next to my clothes.

  Now! I am already shivering as I jump in.

  The cold shocks the air right out of my lungs. I curl into a ball, and that is my mistake. The swift current sweeps me away from my ice hole.

  I can't breathe! I'm under the ice! I pound the underside of the ice with my fists. It doesn't break.

  When I open my eyes in the cold, dim water, I see an ice hole from when the boys jumped in. My hands break through the thin membrane of ice already forming across it. The current pushes me forward and the ice hole slips away from my grasp.

  I look forward again. There are four more ice holes, each one with a dimly lit column of water underneath. One of the columns has two arms and an angry face dangling upside down within it.

  A face?

  White Eyes grabs my hair as I rush by. I try to grasp his arms but my fingers don't work.

  He pulls me out of the ice hole by the hair and throws me onto the snow. I fall like a sack of potatoes. The wind freezes me to the bone.

  "Get up!" he roars at me in English. "Get up!"

  He has a switch in his hand. I watch him switching my legs. I don't feel anything.

  I try to stagger upright but my legs don't work. White Eyes hoists me to my feet and I stumble to the river-bank.

  He is already there, holding the axe and my clothes.

  "Run!" he screams at me. "Run!"

  Gasping for breath, I stumble up the cliff trail as he chases after me. I hear the switch singing against my legs, but he might as well be hitting fence posts; I don't feel a thing.

  My hair is frozen stiff. My numb and bleeding feet flip and flop like fish on the icy rocks. My teeth chatter, then my jaw clamps shut. Ice has coated my eyelashes; the ice scratches against my eyes. My fingers are bluish white by the time we reach the cave.

  Hepte is waiting. She scoops me up in a blanket and holds me tightly in front of the fire. Chickadee rubs my feet.

  White Eyes shouts at me, but I don't understand a thing. Mrs. Stewart shouts at me too, but I don't understand her, either. Grandfather pushes her out of the way and shouts some more. I just stare at them all-my mind is as stiff and frozen as my body. Their shouting is muffled and dim, as though coming from a great distance. My eyelids start to droop. I could sleep for days.

  "No!" Grandfather shouts. He shakes me hard by the shoulders. "Mary! Mary Caroline Campbell! Don't sleep," he shouts in my ear as he pinches my cheeks. He hoists me to my feet and walks with me. We weave in and out between the family fires. We walk for a long time.

  The backs of my legs begin to sting. Then my fingers, ears, and nose throb with sharp, hot pain. My thoughts come back slowly, like dying coals coaxed and stirred to fiery life.

  I collapse in Hepte's arms again.

  "I need more strength," I gasp to her. "I don't have enough strength."

  "Shh. I will tell you a secret," Hepte murmurs in my ear. She rocks me in her lap. "Tell me when you are ready to hear this secret."

  Chickadee presses my doll into my right hand. My fingers close around the doll, as slow and creaky as an old woman's fingers.

  Hepte waits for me as I shiver and shiver. Finally, I nod.

  "Secret," I say in a shaky voice. It occurs to me, slowly, that I spoke to her in her own language and that I can understand what she is saying to me. But Hepte doesn't speak a word of English.

  She whispers in my ear, "I saw you chopping a hole in the ice and sent your father down the cliff trail to pull you out. This is the secret: You have more strength than any of these boys. And you do not have to jump into a frozen river to prove it."

  8. Strength Again

  WILL THIS WINTER EVER BE OVER?

  The days turn warm, and just when I think perchance it really is spring, the snow blows down the gorge again, reminding me that there's plenty of winter left.

  Then the weather turns pied: wet snow; sunshine; sleet; rain mixed with snow; sunshine again; sleet again; more wet snow.

  We have to go farther and farther afield to look for firewood. Mrs. Stewart always walks alone as she looks for wood. When she comes back to the cave at dusk, her eyes are red from weeping.

  Now that the winter is almost over, I want to plan our escape. We could be home in time for my birthday.

  But Chickadee tags after me every afternoon. Most of the wood she picks up is either too heavy for her, so I end up carrying it, or so rotten and soggy as to be useless.

  Today, however, she's napping back in the cave. I follow Mrs. Stewart past the waterfall, past the bend, and all the way to where beavers have dammed up the Cuyahoga, turning it into a deep pool.

  I call out, "Mrs. Stewart?" She jumps.

  "You frightened me, Mary."

  "Look." I give my left earlobe a tug with my right hand and look at her expectantly. She just frowns at me, so I tug my earlobe again.

  "Is there something wrong with your ear, Mary?"

  "That's my escape signal-don't you remember?"

  "Shh." Mrs. Stewart draws me close. "I told you not to say that word." She looks around us wildly.

  "No one can hear us."

  "We can't leave. How could we cross the Appalachians with snow as deep as a house?"

  My eyes fill with tears. "But it's almost spring."

  "Not in the mountains."

  "You said we could escape. You promised."

  "I said I'd promise to think about it. But it's much too dangerous, Mary. We'll just have to wait for a rescue."

  "Are you saying we're not going to try? All this winter I've been telling myself we'd be home by my birthday," I cry out. "How could you betray me this way?"

  "I haven't betrayed you. Not another word."

  "That's what my mother used to say when she'd run out of words," I say bitterly.

  Mrs. Stewart is already walking ahead of me on the trail, not listening.

  "You're content to die here, aren't you? Mrs. Stewart?" I call out. "Just rot here and die? You're not even going to try?"

  She gives her kindling strap a pull to hitch the firewood higher onto her back. She doesn't stop walking.

  I come back at dusk with more kindling strapped to my back and fallen branches in my arms. I walk through the frozen gorge surrounded by bleak trees. This is what it feels like when all hope is lost, I think. I might as well be these barren trees, reaching up to a darkening gray sky. And waiting for a spring that will never come.

  But spring always returns, no matter how raw and long the winter remains. I can't give up hope.

  "Believe in the bluebird's promise, Mary," I say out loud. "Believe in yourself. I will see my family again someday."

  A thin ribbon of hope glows within me, just as the Cuyahoga shines like molten iron as it reflects the setting sun.

  ***

  The next morning White Eyes comes back to the cave with a doe he's killed. While I collect firewood, Hepte makes a savory stew of venison, dried squash, and powdered mushrooms.

  After she sets up our fill of the meat for smoking, Hepte divides the rest among the other families. Now every family fire has a stewpot bubbling with venison and vegetables. The cave is steamy with the comforting fragrance of hot food.

  This is not unusual. Other hunting parties have come back to the cave with game. The hunters' wives cook enough for their families, then share the rest.

  The next day Grandfather explains that Hepte wants my help to tan the deerskins. "You will not have to gather wood today, Granddaughter. And soon you'll have a new pair of leggings. You're growing so fast; Hepte has noticed yours are too small."

  "Heh-heh," I say to Hepte, and she smiles at me.

  With a great flourish of prayers and face paint, the men and boys leave for another hunting expedition. Sometimes I think hunting is just an excuse for the men to escape the cave. Most of
the time they come back empty-handed. You'd think they'd look more chagrined and disappointed.

  I stand on the cliff trail and watch them longingly as they march out into the fresh, cold air. A bright curtain of sunbeams breaks through the clouds, filling the gorge with pearly light. Just like home, I think with a sigh. The men and boys leave, the women and girls stay behind and do the work.

  "Tonn," Hepte says, pointing to the place next to her. Just as I sit down, she flings the deerskin out onto the cave floor.

  The deerskin is already stiff, the skin side scraped but still bloody with spiderwebby sinew clinging in places.

  She reaches for a covered bowl and places it between us. When she takes the cover off, I feel as though someone has punched me in the stomach.

  The bowl is filled with lumpy gray matter crisscrossed with blood vessels like dark lace. The doe's brains.

  I gasp. For once even Chickadee is silent, staring wide-eyed.

  Hepte pulls down her leggings and straddles the bowl.

  After living in a cave all winter with two hundred Delaware, I think I've smelled and seen and heard just about everything people do.

  But I've never seen anyone empty her bladder in the cave. We always go outside.

  Hepte stands and pulls up her leggings. "Tonn," she says, pointing to the bowl.

  "Keko windji?" I whisper. What can she be thinking?

  She says something, and Chickadee pulls down her leggings and straddles the bowl. Chickadee smiles up at me as a little bit trickles out. She stands up, points to the bowl, and chatters at me about a mile a minute.

  Gray lumps of brain float and bob in a pool of yellow urine. It looks like sour milk long gone to curd. Hepte and Chickadee look at me expectantly.

  "Ku," I say, shaking my head. "Ku, Hepte."

  Hepte shrugs her shoulders, then sets to work. She dips her hands into the steaming mess and mixes it into a paste. She begins to rub the paste into the bloody side of the deerskin. Chickadee helps, the gray mass curling out between her chubby fingers.

  I can't bring myself to look for more than a moment or two. It occurs to me, as I'm looking down at my tunic, that my butter-soft leather clothes and beaded moccasins were tanned by Hepte, and surely in the same way. And that's the same bowl we've used for our family dinners. The same pot we eat from. How could she—

  "Tonn," Hepte says angrily. "Tonn. Mary?

  When I turn around she's unrolling a much smaller skin. She gives the bowl a bit of a push in my direction and points to the little pelt. There's still a bit of the brains-and-urine paste sloshing in the bowl.

  I kneel down in front of the skin. At first I think it's a rabbit skin, but it has four long strips jutting out where the legs used to be.

  "What is this?" I ask in Unami.

  Hepte says something, but I shake my head.

  "I don't understand."

  She points to the deerskin with one hand and makes a rounded motion over her stomach with the other.

  "The doe was pregnant?" I gasp in English. "This was ... her fawn?"

  I spring to my feet and run toward the riverbank.

  "No more," I gasp. And if I could stamp my foot while running down the cliff trail, I'd do so.

  I hang my head over the water. At first I think I'm going to be sick, but the fresh air and gulps of clean water clear my head and ease my stomach.

  Hepte wants me to put my hands in that horror! My hands are swollen and red, the palms cracked and bleeding from cold wind and icy water. They haven't touched soap in almost a year. But they're still my hands, hands that once played Handel on the pianoforte, hands that once held dainty plates and cups for afternoon teas.

  I remember the soup from last night. I'd never tasted meat so tender and soft.

  That was the baby, the unborn fawn!

  Now my breakfast does come up. While I'm on my hands and knees, my stomach heaves again and again, as though by vomiting long enough, and hard enough, I could rid myself of everything that has happened to me.

  I curl up by a tree and sob and sob. "Why?" I wail to the four winds. "Why did this happen to me?"

  Escape, Mary. Run. You've got the strength, don't you? Stop waiting for a trapper or the king's men to come and rescue you. It may be years before anyone comes this way. If ever. Mrs. Stewart hasn't the nerve to run. She'll rot here, in misery and despair, for the rest of her life.

  I run south down the river trail.

  "South by southeast," I say aloud as I stumble over rocks and tree roots, "and then over the mountains. I've done it once-I can do it again. I'll be home by May. I'll eat the leaves as they come out, the berries, the acorns. I'll find ... find wild strawberries in the meadows. These Indians have been foraging for generations. I'll find enough to eat."

  At this very moment Constance is wearing a pretty dress and sitting in a warm and tidy schoolhouse, learning to read. Why should I have to live like an animal? Why should I never see Constance or my family again, never eat at a table again, never sleep in a bed again? It's not my fault Hepte's daughter died. Why do I have to pay the price?

  I laugh out loud. "Not westering, eastering," I shout.

  The Campbells ... I will see my family again by my birthday!

  What if trappers never do come here? What if the king's men decide the Cuyahoga is too far away and never come here to rescue me? What will happen? I'll live here the rest of my life, that's what will happen.

  Run away I Don't stop! Strength. Chita ... nee ... something.

  I trip over a tree root and sprawl into the late-winter slop. As I get up, I look behind me: One set of telltale footprints settling into the wet snow and mud. Tracking me would be as easy as tracking a yah-qua-whee.

  Mary Caroline Campbell, what do you reckon you're doing?

  It must be three hundred miles to the Susquehanna. Three hundred miles of forests filled with hungry wolves, bears, and panthers. The Alleghenies are still covered with snow, and the passes must be freezing cold at night. For all I know, we're still at war with the French. That means they'd march me to Quebec City as a prisoner of war if they caught me.

  And what would these Delaware do to you if they caught you?

  You don't have a knife, Mary. Even if you knew how to load and shoot a musket, you don't have one. You don't have flint to start a fire. Your clothes are too small. You don't even have a blanket to keep out the cold.

  "And what am I so all fired up about going home to?" I say bitterly. "A brother who thinks calling me a girl is the worst insult there is. A mother who treats her son as a prince and her daughter as a slave. A father who dragged me away from my home and my best friend without so much as a backward glance."

  But don't I owe it to my parents to escape? Don't I owe my king at least an attempt to escape?

  Grandfather says the name Cuyahoga means "crooked river" in Cayuga, one of the Iroquois languages. The path has zigged and zagged every which way, following the river. I can't see our cave. Even our cliff has disappeared around the bend.

  There might be not another person on earth but me.

  I shiver as the wind blows cold against my face and limbs. It seems to blow right through my hollowed stomach. How good it would feel to sit in front of our family fire, warm and safe.

  What about yourself, Mary? What do you owe yourself?

  I owe myself my life and a chance for happiness.

  Go back now before they reckon you tried to escape. Do whatever you have to do in order to survive. King, country, parents, friendship-they won't mean anything if you're dead.

  ***

  Back in the cave, Hepte and Chickadee are stretching the skins and hanging them over the fire. When Hepte sees my face, swollen and red from crying, she looks at me questioningly.

  "Hepte," I say softly, "kamis Chickadee."

  I begin to apologize, but Hepte puts her arms around me.

  "Ku, ku," she says softly. "Tonn."

  She holds my face in her hands. They're wet but I tell myself not to think about
why.

  "Everything's so different," I cry out in Unami. "Everything's so different with you people. It's ... so hard."

  A flicker of understanding lights her eyes.

  "Don't tell on me ... please," I plead with her. "Don't tell your father I tried to leave."

  "Heh-heh. Chitanisinen, Tonn," she says slowly.

  I nod, recognizing the word for "strength."

  "'Chitanisinen lappi, Tonn" she says.

  Strength again, Daughter.

  "Heh-heh" I reply. "Chitanisinen lappi."

  "Our secret. It took strength to leave," Hepte says slowly, "but so much more to return."

  9. Sequin

  SOMEONE FROM ANOTHER FAMILY FIRE makes up a story about the People and the winter as a great, hibernating bear. "We are in the jaws of the bear. The wind is the bear's snores, wheezing and howling through its huge teeth."

  Everyone smiles and nods and points to the icicles hanging down, fanglike, from the top lip of the cave. The snow wall looks like a bear's bottom lip.

  The icicle fangs grow longer and longer. The days are a little warmer now, so the ice melts as the sun shines. But the nights are still cold, so the dripping water freezes once the sun is down. One of our icicles has frozen all the way to the floor of the cave. It's one solid piece of ice.

  The ice on the river snaps and breaks. The cracking ice sounds like the booming of cannon fire and makes me think of British soldiers, finally coming to rescue me.

  Our snow wall begins to melt. Water trickles inward, and in some places the uneven cave floor is ankle deep with icy water. One morning we push the snow wall over the side. We all blink at one another in the bright sunlight.

  I can see the river again from the cave. The swift current spins the floating ice chunks into a delicate minuet.

  Grandfather says the Cuyahoga empties into a great lake, so wide the other side can't be seen. He says there are even bigger lakes farther to the north, with waves as big as ocean waves.

  I didn't know we were so close to the French lakes. We're at war with France.