Land of the Free (29 page)

“Do you see the horses?”
Marina asked from behind him.

“No.” He crawled out, stood
up and gave her his hand. “No tracks either. It must have snowed
another foot after they ran off.” His breath produced a dense cloud
of vapor.

She stood up, brushed the
snow off her knees and looked around. “Do we stay here and wait for
the snow to melt or walk?”

He pointed to the north.
“Well, the wind kept the ridges fairly clear so I think we should
try to see how far we can get.”

“What if the ridges don’t
lead to Wapakoneta?”

He shrugged. “We’ll fight
our way through the drifts to the next ridge and keeping going as
far as we can.”

“And get lost?”

“Marina, you don’t seem to
understand. There’s no perfect answer. We stay here and certainly
die or we go on and try not to die.”

She looked back into the
shelter. “I better repack. We can’t carry all that on our
backs.”

“Leave it all. I have
everything that we need in my pockets.”

“The pistols? Our extra
clothes?”

“Leave them. They’re
useless.”

“We could wear some of the
clothes. They’d keep us warmer.”

“They’d make us too warm and
we’d perspire. Wet clothes would kill us as sure as a bullet.” He
caught her hand. “Come on.”

They walked for three hours,
staying on the ridges for a time then wading through snow to get to
another ridge until they at last came to a wide stream.

“Now what?” Marina
asked.

“No choice.” Yank pointed
across the stream. “Wapakoneta is that way.”

Marina pulled off her glove
and tested the water with her fingers. “Cold.”

He nodded. “Take off your
clothes and tie them in a bundle.” He began undressing.

“What are you
doing?”

“We’ll wade across and I’ll
carry our clothes.”

“There must be another
way.”

“Yes. The other way is to
sit here and freeze to death.”

“We’ll freeze in the process
of wading across here.”

“It’ll feel like it, but
we’ll make it. Get your clothes off.”

She undressed slowly then
naked and shivering, tied her clothes in a bundle. “I’ve never been
so cold in my life.”

He picked up her clothes
bundle and tied it to his. “If you can still talk, you’ll be able
to say that again and really mean it in another few seconds.” He
took her hand. “Everything in you is going to be telling you to
stop but you have to resist and keep going.”

She looked at him and didn’t
answer.

“Tell me you can do this,
Marina.”

“I can do this,” she said
through chattering teeth.

“Good.” Holding the clothes
bundle over his head, Yank stepped off the bank into knee deep
water and helped her down.

“Oh Lord,” she
gasped.

He moved forward testing the
bottom.

Marina had her free hand in
the air trying to keep her balance on the sharp rocks.

“There’s a step down here.”
He led her into the deeper water.

She gasped as the water came
up to her breasts.

“You can do it,
Marina.”

She took two more staggering
steps, then slipped and went under.

Yank dropped the bundle of
clothes and dove to pull her up.

She regained her feet, wide
eyed and spluttering.

With a grunt, Yank plucked
her from the water, put her over his shoulder and waded to the
other side where he plopped her down in the snow. Unable to speak
he pointed at the water and waded back in to chase the bundle of
clothes that was floating away.

When he got back to Marina
with the dripping bundle, they were both blue and shivering too
badly to speak. After a brief look at their surroundings, Yank
began to dress in the wet clothes. Marina, unable to think for
herself, followed his example.

When they were dressed, Yank
tried to carry Marina but found it to be futile.

She shook her head and after
two failed attempts, struggled to her feet.

He gave her his best
imitation of a smile, took her hand and began walking.

They followed along the east
side of a dense forest for a mile where the trees had filtered the
snowfall and the sun could warm them as they walked. Yank was
regaining his strength but Marina was flagging.

“Can we rest a minute?” she
murmured.

“No,” Yank replied. “We’re
soaking wet and we have no dry clothes. If we stop the cold will
sap our strength and we’ll die.”

She trudged on for a time
then looked at Yank again. “I can’t feel my feet.”

He stopped. “You better not
be exaggerating.”

She shook her head and sat
down.

“No.” He dragged her to her
feet, bent her over his shoulder and trudged on.

After about a mile he came
to a small round-topped hill standing above a dead lightning struck
birch. Summoning all of his strength, he slogged up the hill then
put her down on the rocky, windswept pinnacle. “Take off your
moccasins,” he panted. “Then rub your feet with your
hands.”

She shook her
head.

“Do it, God damn
it.”

He ran down the hill to
break some dead branches off a birch, then ran back and dropped the
wood. Marina was halfheartedly rubbing her bare feet. “Rub harder,”
he growled.

“It hurts,” she
whined.

“Good.” He knelt and peeled
curls of wood from one of the branches with his knife then used the
flint and steel to shower the shaving with sparks until they began
to smolder. He dropped to the ground and blew gently. With each
breath, the glowing red ember grew larger. At last, a weak flame
popped up then went out producing a tiny column of smoke. He
quickly added shaving and started again. Finally, when a
sustainable flicker was attained, he began adding more fuel. “Take
off all your clothes.”

She looked at him
bleary-eyed.

“Now, Marina, now. Your lips
are blue. The wet clothes are doing more harm then good.” He raced
back down the hill and began ripping bark off the dead birch.
“Marina,” he bellowed. “Get those clothes off.”

She began to fumble with the
buttons on her coat.

Yank ran up the hill and
knelt at the fire, carefully feeding it the slabs of birch bark.
“Can you stand up?”

She shook her
head.

He reached out, caught her
ankle then dragged her closer to the fire. “I’ll be right back.” He
made another trip to the birch tree and climbed up to bounce on a
limb until it broke, then he dragged it back to the fire and began
to frantically strip Marina, who seemed to have fallen asleep.
“Wake up,” he shouted. “Damn you, woman. Fight.”

“Cold,” she
murmured.

“I know.” He struggled to
hold her while he stripped off his own clothes. Then he sat down
facing the fire with Marina between his knees and her back against
his bare chest. “You’ll be fine in a few minutes. Do you feel the
heat?”

She put her head back
against him and sighed.

They sat like that until the
fire got too hot, and then moved away. When it began to burn down,
Yank left her to gather more wood. As he started back, a tall
Indian on a painted horse suddenly appeared before him like magic.
Yank dropped the armload of wood and staggered back three
steps.

“You are three days late,
Yangee. Very bad manners.”

Yank staggered and then fell
to his knees. “Catecahassa,” he said, looking up at the mounted
Indian. “I have never been happier to see anyone in my entire
life.”

February 15,
1806

Wapakoneta, Ohio
Country

“Your woman has strength,
Yangee,” Black Hoof chuckled.

“Yes,” Yank
agreed.

They were seated around the
fire in front of Black Hoof’s lodge with about a dozen other men. A
few women and children sat near a second fire. Marina was in a
nearby lodge, nursing a boy who had been gored by a
deer.

“She speaks strangely with
an Algonquin tongue but says she is a daughter of
Montezuma.”

“If she says so it must be
true,” Yank answered, not sure what Black Hoof was
implying.

Black Hoof shook his head
emphatically. “I have no doubt that she speaks the truth. I just
find it remarkable that it was you, my white brother, who found
her.”

The men around the fire all
nodded and grunted agreement.

Yank was baffled by the
chief’s words but could think of no way to question him without
exposing his complete ignorance of the Shawnee ways. “What news of
Tecumseh and his brother?”

Black Hoof was silent for
almost a full minute but just as Yank was about to repeat the
question he spoke. “There will be war again.”

“Soon?”

Black Hoof shook his head.
“It will take a few years to build his confederacy.”

“We continue to hear stories
in Washington of the British supplying weapons to the nations and
provoking them to attack American settlements.”

“So you told me when last
you were here.”

“And still you have heard
nothing of this?”

“Nothing.”

“How can that
be?”

“It can only be that the
stories are not true.”

“Why would anyone lie about
a thing like that?”

“Land.”

“I don’t
understand.”

Black Hoof turned around and
pointed to a young woman at the other fire then pointed at the
lodge where Marina was helping the boy. The young woman quickly ran
toward the lodge and Black Hoof smiled at Yank. “We will bring your
woman to translate.”

“I understood your words,
Catecahassa, but I do not understand their meaning.”

Black Hoof nodded. “We need
more words than we have.”

Yank looked back to watch
Marina move through the women toward the fire. She was wearing a
deerskin dress and looked like she belonged here.

Black Hoof invited her to
sit with the men then conversed with her animatedly at some length.
They spoke too fast and used so many unfamiliar words that Yank
gave up trying to follow and waited from Marina’s
translation.

Marina at last turned to
Yank. “Chief Catecahassa says that there are many greedy men on the
frontier who would like to see a war between the Americans and the
British.”

“For what purpose?” Yank
asked.

“To take Canada from Britain
and make it part of the United States.”

The explanation overwhelmed
Yank for a moment and he didn’t reply.

Black Hoof was speaking
again and Marina began translating as he spoke. “Catecahassa says
that he knows for certain that one report of a raiding party armed
with muskets was fabricated,” Marina listened a moment. “He says
that the raiders were actually only a few young Erie boys who
slipped in among some drunken trappers to steal their horses. He
says that the two white men that were wounded shot each other in
panic.” She looked at Black Hoof for a moment then back at Yank.
“Catecahassa wants to know if you understand.”

“Yes, yes,” Yank
replied.

“Understand was the wrong
word,” she corrected. “He wants to know if you accept what he
says.”

“I can see how that would
explain why I’ve found no evidence but...”

Black Hoof began speaking
before Yank finished.

“Catecahassa says that
Governor Harrison knows the truth and that perhaps William Wells
does too,” Marina translated. “He suggested that you trust no one
except your family here.”

Yank nodded to Black Hoof.
“Now I understand and I accept what you have told me as probably
correct. Thank you, Catecahassa.”

“I can’t translate ‘probably
correct’,” Marina complained. “The two words are in
conflict.”

“I understand what your
husband has said,” Black Hoof confirmed.

“While I have you here to
translate, Marina,” Yank said. “Would you ask my brother about the
many British muskets that Tecumseh’s band now carries?”

“These are not new,” Black
Hoof answered in English without waiting for a translation. “They
were supplied many years ago.”

“Perhaps some were,” Yank
agreed.

Black Hoof said something to
Marina.

“Your Shawnee brother says
that all the weapons were given to Tecumseh twelve years ago during
another war. But he cannot remember the name that was given to the
war.”

“The Northwest Indian War,”
Yank supplied, still speaking English. “But the flints, powder and
shot from that war would have been used long ago and many parts of
the muskets would have broken or worn out.”