by Sara Donati
“Lily,” Hannah began slowly. “I don’t know where you got such an idea, but you shouldn’t talk about a human being as if he were a book or a handkerchief. When you are grown you will find out whether or not Blue-Jay is the right one for you. In the meantime, Strikes-the-Sky doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Lily’s expression was a strange combination of obstinacy and worry. “You don’t see what’s plain to everybody else because you are afraid. You’re not used to wanting, and it scares you.”
The truth of that shook Hannah hard, and for a moment she was silent as she gathered her thoughts.
“Why are you in such a hurry to marry me off?”
“Because you’re getting to be an old maid,” Lily said with her usual forthrightness. “And you told me yourself no white man would suit you. I can see that there’s no one in the village you respect enough to love. So here Strong-Words brings you the perfect husband—”
“I doubt that’s what he had in mind,” Hannah interrupted.
“—and you won’t even talk to him. Worse than that, you run away whenever you can, as if he were a monster.”
“Just exactly what would you like me to do?” Hannah asked, her irritation getting the best of her. “Sit in his lap at supper?”
Lily’s mouth pursed thoughtfully. “Now you are making fun.”
“Oh please.” Hannah threw up both hands in surrender and disgust. She stood, and made an effort to smile at her sister. “Enough of this silliness. I have work to do.”
“Will you promise to be there tonight at the fire?” Lily asked.
Hannah was halfway to the house when Lily yelled, “If you’ll promise that, I won’t bother you about him anymore!”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, little sister.”
“I see you took the picture!” Lily called after her, and her laughter followed Hannah into the house.
By the late afternoon it was so hot that the world seemed to buzz with it, and every breath felt as though it had to be drawn through damp toweling.
The blackfly and the heat were enough to banish any idea Hannah might have had about taking the long way home, and on top of that there was a storm coming. When the path wound its way to the edge of the mountain she saw it in the far distance, flexing soundlessly under thick layers of cloud.
She rehearsed her excuses for closing herself in her room. Her daybook, medicines to be prepared, letters to be written. And none of it sounded in the least bit credible. Her father would give her a questioning look and Elizabeth a concerned one, but they would not order her to join the visitors, nor would they try to make her feel guilty. Lily would do that all on her own.
The thunderstorm broke over Hidden Wolf with a vengeance just as they were finishing supper. Because they could not sit with their visitors by the fire the boys had readied, everyone was obliged to crowd together around one hearth, and so Hannah found herself sitting across from Strikes-the-Sky; close enough to reach out and touch him, if the need should arise. Hannah shook herself when that thought came to her, and fixed her gaze more firmly on the shirt seam she was mending.
They talked for a while about baggataway matches played long ago between the Mohawk and the Seneca, a conversation that had the boys almost hopping with excitement. Daniel wanted to get his stick down from its peg on the wall to show Strong-Words and Strikes-the-Sky the dried batwing he had tied to the handle, but Hawkeye stopped him with one raised brow. Daniel in an excited mood with a baggataway stick in a crowded room was not the best idea.
“I remember your older brother well,” Nathaniel told Strikes-the-Sky. “He was a fearsome player. Once I saw him jump clear over a man’s bent back to get to the goal.”
“Did you hear, Walks-Ahead?” Daniel asked, poking Hannah with an eager finger. “Did you hear that our father played baggataway against Strikes-the-Sky’s brother?”
“And me,” said Runs-from-Bears. “I played that day too. There must have been close to two hundred on the field.”
“Last year we played twice in the village,” said Blue-Jay. “But there were only twenty of us. Nicholas Wilde is a good player, and so are the Camerons. Maybe we could play again while you are here.”
Hannah sensed her father and grandfather exchanging glances, and knew very well what they were thinking: a game of baggataway might defuse the tensions in the village, or set them burning.
“You will play baggataway at Good Pasture,” said Many-Doves to her son. “When the corn is in.”
The familiar clamor rose up from all the children at this announcement. Every fall Runs-from-Bears took his older children to Good Pasture to spend two months with their own people, and every year Daniel and Lily campaigned to be included.
Elizabeth said, “There are more cheerful things to talk about, surely. Strong-Words, you have not told us very much about this Handsome-Lake you mentioned. It sounds as though he is a sensible man with good ideas to share.”
Otter said, “He has done good, most of the time.” But he did not sound entirely convinced; Hannah made a note to herself to ask him more about this later.
“It is because of him that his village has given up all hard drink,” added Strikes-the-Sky.
“But not your village?” Many-Doves asked.
“Not completely,” said Strong-Words. “But we make progress. He-Makes-Them-Ready says if we will keep the old ways we must give up the things that the whites brought to us, and that includes alcohol.”
“Hmmm.” Many-Doves made a sound deep in her throat, one that said she did not think much of this. “If Cornplanter can ban hard drink, then He-Makes-Them-Ready should be able to do it too. Unless he doesn’t have the backing of the clan mothers.”
Strong-Words hesitated. He said, “Some find it hard to go back to the old ways. I see you sewing with steel needles, sister. And the hoes you use to weed the corn, they are steel too, are they not?”
At this Many-Doves only smiled. This was just her little brother trying to start up the old argument, the one that he had never tired of. It always began in the same way: he announced that the Indian nations would have been better off if the whites had never set foot on the continent, Runs-from-Bears disagreed, and for hours they would debate, arguing their positions to the family gathered around.
One by one all the adults would choose sides. Hawkeye and Many-Doves always agreed with Strong-Words in the end; Nathaniel with Runs-from-Bears; Elizabeth would refuse to choose one over the other, in spite of the teasing that came her way.
When they were alive both her grandmothers had sided with Nathaniel. That had always irked Strong-Words, who could not convince his own mother of the truth of his argument. Falling-Day had always ended the discussion when she said, “If I threw away the whole nettle because of its sting, we would not have the medicine it gives us to soothe wounds. We take what is useful and leave the rest.”
To the children who were scattered through the room this old argument was very new. Sprawled on the floor, they listened, wide-eyed, with none of the usual fidgeting. As Hannah had once listened, watching the faces of the adults as they spoke and looking for weaknesses in their arguments to store away and think about later.
Now Hannah was old enough to take a position of her own, as long as she was willing to argue it. And of course there were others here who were new to the game: Pines-Rustling and Strikes-the-Sky. She glanced at him before she remembered that she meant not to and found that for once he was not looking at her, but at Strong-Words, and with an expression she could not quite read.
“We think we cannot live without steel, but that is because our imaginations have gone as soft as our memories,” Strong-Words said. “Bows and arrows suit a hunter in the endless forests better than guns ever will. We could go back to the old ways if we were not so lazy.”
“You scrape a hide clean with flint instead of a fine-honed knife before you go talking about lazy,” said Runs-from-Bears. “And while you’re at it, go fell a coupl
e trees in the old way with fire and then tell me that you’re willing to give up working with axe and saw. I wouldn’t want to be without a knife in the bush,” he said. “Nor would I give up a rifle for a bow and arrow with women and children to defend.”
Otter shook his head. “All you’ve said is that steel is quick. Quicker than the old way, and nobody could deny that. Nobody would deny that a horse is faster than walking, or that it takes less time to buy a bolt of cloth than it does to cure enough skin for a shirt. What I’m saying is that quick ain’t necessarily the best way to do things, at least for our kind.”
“Look out now,” Runs-from-Bears said to his wife. “Not only is this brother of yours going to take my knives away from me, but he wants your calico too.”
Many-Doves lifted a shoulder and said nothing, unwilling or simply not ready to join in the conversation.
“I for one will take a razor over a clamshell when it comes to shaving,” Nathaniel offered, rubbing a hand over his chin. “And it ain’t a matter of quick, it’s a matter of keeping my skin.”
There was soft laughter in the room, and even Strong-Words joined in. Nobody ever brought up the fact that Hawkeye and the rest of his family would not be here at all if the whites had stayed off the continent.
“You could just give up shaving, Da,” Lily suggested.
“Oh no,” Elizabeth said. “Not that, please. He will scratch constantly and stare at himself in the mirror and complain of his ruined looks. He is as vain as any Kahnyen’kehàka warrior about his smooth cheeks and chest.”
“Listen to her,” Nathaniel laughed. “Putting it all down to my vanity when it’s stubble burn she’s worried about.”
Elizabeth blushed, but she carried on resolutely. “That brings up a question,” she said, looking at Strikes-the-Sky and then Strong-Words in turn. “Did you pluck your scalps, or use a razor?”
Strikes-the-Sky let out a deep, short laugh. “I use a razor. Strong-Words lets his woman pluck his scalp until his impatience gets the better of him.”
Otter held up a hand to stop the laughter. “I’m just as weak as the rest of us,” he said. “But we could learn to live in the old way again.”
“This would not be an issue if you were not so set on going back to battle,” said Many-Doves, with a pointed look at her little brother’s scalp.
He ignored her. “Name one thing we couldn’t learn to live without,” he said. “One thing that came to us from the O’seronni. Each of us. Sister, you start.”
Many-Doves put down her sewing for a minute and tilted her head in thought. “You are right, I like my sewing needles,” she said. “But then there’s the cooking kettles. I have them from our mother. Every time I scrub them out with sand I think of her.”
“You could make pots of clay. Our grandmother Made-of-Bones had such pots.”
She shrugged. “If we lived among the people, maybe,” she said. “If there were fifty of us in the longhouse. But not living as we do now.”
For a moment Hannah wondered if Strong-Words would argue that they should all be living in longhouses; it was the one argument that might end in harsh words. Many-Doves and Runs-from-Bears were determined to raise their children in the old Kahnyen’kehàka territories, even if it meant that they must live apart from the rest of their people. Most of the Kahnyen’kehàka—the ones who had survived the plagues and the wars and hard drink—had been driven north to Canada. Even Trees-Standing-in-Water was gone now.
But Many-Doves was determined to stay in this place where her mother had chosen to live and die and Runs-from-Bears would not cross her in this.
Hawkeye cleared his throat. “I’m mostly on your side of this argument, Strong-Words,” he said, “but the truth be told, I ain’t willing to give up my hunting knife nor my tomahawk. A’ course I still have my father’s war club and I couldn’t do without that neither.”
“You’d give up your rifle?” Daniel asked, as if his grandfather had offered to cut off his hand.
Hawkeye shrugged. “If there wasn’t such a thing as a rifle or a musket I wouldn’t know what I was missing, would I?”
One by one they went around the room. Pines-Rustling admitted that she would be loath to give up the good strong thread that Mrs. Kaes spun for her in trade for leather cured for moccasins, and Blue-Jay admitted that he liked cone sugar better even than maple when he could get it.
Kateri, who was a quiet child and loath to speak her mind with so many to hear, stood up all at once and the room quieted. “If my mother let us take our corn to the mill to grind, then I would not want to give that up. I am thankful for the three sisters—” She cast a glance that was all smoldering discontent at her mother. “But grinding corn all day long when there is a mill to do it is… is … not rational.”
She sat again just as suddenly as she’d stood.
Many-Doves raised her head from her work and looked around the circle of faces. She said, “My daughter has spoken. I will consider what she says.”
“And you, my sister’s daughter?” Strong-Words asked Hannah directly. “You are of all of us the one who lives most in the O’seronni world. What must you keep?”
Hannah thought of the medicines in her own workroom and in Richard Todd’s office that had come to them from all over the world; she saw in her mind’s eye the fine scalpels and instruments that Hakim Ibrahim had given her as a gift. She thought of the smooth paper in her daybook, and the words she wrote on those pages.
“Maybe there’s nothing at all,” Strong-Words said hopefully.
She said, “The microscope.” Then she found that she needed to explain exactly what a microscope was to Strong-Words and Strikes-the-Sky, who had never heard of such a thing or seen one.
“I can take you there to see for yourself,” she finally volunteered. “A simple drop of pond water will convince you that there is more to life in this world than your eye can see.”
Many-Doves looked up from her sewing. “My brother has promised me to stay away from the doctor and from all the Todds,” she said.
Lily sent a significant look in her brother’s direction that was lost on nobody at all. The children were always digging for information about the old feud between Strong-Words and Richard Todd, and this newest piece of information would keep them busy for a good while.
“What about you, Strikes-the-Sky?” Hawkeye said. “You got anything of the white man you’d rather not give back, if they packed up bag and baggage and went back across the water tomorrow?”
Hannah did not raise her head, but it was a struggle. She could almost hear him thinking, just as she could hear all the others in the room turning their attention to him.
“Kissing,” he said finally, and surprised laughter echoed up to the rafters. Hannah would not raise her eyes but she suspected that everyone was looking at her.
“Are you claiming the white man thought up kissing?” demanded Runs-from-Bears, still laughing.
“I am,” said Strikes-the-Sky. “My mother says that it’s unnatural, the way whites press mouths together. She says the old ones never did such a thing until they saw the whites doing it. And old Fish-Carrier says the real people will never be good at kissing.”
Elizabeth had put down her knitting. “Whoever this Fish-Carrier person is, I must challenge his wisdom. This can’t be true. Why, I would have thought that kissing is as universally known as …” She broke off abruptly.
This time the laughter went on for so long that Hannah ventured a glance up from the needlework. Strikes-the-Sky was not laughing at all; he was looking at her. She stared back at him defiantly and got nothing more than a grin for her trouble.
Then Hawkeye said, “To tell the truth, there didn’t seem to be much kissing back when I was a boy.”
“Maybe not where you could see it,” suggested Lily. “Maybe just in private.” She sent a meaningful look to her parents, and Nathaniel reached over and tousled her hair.
“Wait till you’re old enough and the right man comes along,�
�� he said. “You won’t care so much about private anymore when you’ve got kissing on your mind.”
“No, Nathaniel, she is right,” Elizabeth said firmly. “Some things should remain private, between two people.”
“Then why are you and Uncle always kissing?” piped up Kateri.
“A reasonable question. I suppose I must admit to a certain lack of—” She faltered, and Nathaniel leaned over to run a hand down her back.
“Never mind, Boots,” he said. “It’s all my fault anyway, I’ll admit it. I’ve led you astray, but I can’t say I’m sorry about it.”
Elizabeth sent Strong-Words a firm look. “I would say that this conversation has gone astray.”
Strong-Words cleared his throat and tried to calm his expression.
“Thank you, brother,” he said to Strikes-the-Sky in his most solemn voice. “For all the years we’ve been talking about this no one had ever managed to come up with something the whites brought that I want to keep, until tonight. I think this is one thing we can finally all agree on. What do you think, Hannah?”
They were all looking at her, the women sympathetic and amused; the men more cautious and curious. Lily looked as if she might explode with anticipation; Daniel turned his face away, disgusted.
Hannah said, “I will have to reserve judgment on this particular matter.” And wondered where the words came from inside herself.
By all rights Elizabeth should have fallen asleep easily and without dreams after such a long and eventful day, but deep in the night she gave up the struggle and slipped out of bed.
Her skin was damp with sweat and she was glad of the night breeze from the open window. From their spot by the hearth the dogs raised their heads and looked in her direction before they fell back into an effortless sleep. A banked coal fell in on itself with a sigh and whisper.
In the middle of the cabin she stopped to listen to the sounds from the sleeping loft. Daniel muttered and turned, a restless and reluctant sleeper from the day he was born, wrestling with blanket and pillow and sleep itself. Lily was made of different stuff: she slept with a furious concentration, curled tight into herself, her fists tucked under her chin. Always ready to do battle.