The Beaded Moccasins (6 page)

The mornings are as chilly as the evenings now, and
the mosquitoes are gone. The mosquito grease is packed away. Thanks be to God for no more grease!

The leaves have that finished look they get right before their color turns and they begin to fall. The evening wind lifts my hair, and the sweaty skin on my forehead and neck feels cold.

One evening Hepte looks at my legs and covers her mouth with her hands. They're a mass of sores, cuts, and rashes. She says something to her father and then gives me leggings from her knapsack. They're pretty, with long fringes at the sides that swish when I walk. They have a sash at the waist and black leather straps that tie just under my knees to keep them in place. Now the underbrush and pricker bushes can't tear at my legs.

"Granddaughter," Netawatwees Sachem says, "your mother is so sorry she didn't notice your legs before now. Have courage-we will be swimming in the Cuyahoga soon."

The bodice to my birthday dress is long gone. My chemise is rent to shreds: What was once a froth of lace is now dirty cloth hanging by bits of tatting. My pretty lace collar disappeared one night. I saw it tied around a woman's wrist a few days later. My pretty lace collar from Flanders, tied around the wrist of an Indian!

The next evening Hepte digs into my backpack and gives me a long leather dress with a belt. Now I look just like everyone else except for my reddish-brown hair and blue eyes. Even my skin is as dark as everyone else's. My mother always said one can tell a lady by her milky-white skin. When will I be a lady again?

Hepte tears my chemise and fraying drawers into pieces, and every family is given strips of the cloth. I see one woman drawing a bit of lace across the back of her hand, admiring the dainty needlework. The Delaware wear lacy-white cloth bandages, slings, headbands. I even see patches of my underwear rammed down muzzles as the men load their muskets.

Now I have nothing to remind me of home. I'm wearing an old pair of moccasins, leggings, a leather dress. My hair's in braids. Even my underwear is gone. Not wearing underwear is wondrously breezy, but makes me feel even farther away from home than the wilderness does.

Wait! My grandmother Campbell's bowl from Scotland, the one with the roses painted in the bottom. What happened to it? When we stop to eat, I look intently at all the families. I don't see the bowl. A woman has hidden it away, afraid it would break on the trail or I would demand it back.

I watch the woman with my lace collar around her wrist. I'm sure she has my bowl. But her family dip their hands into a big wooden bowl filled with blackberries just like everyone else. She catches me staring at her and looks right back at me, bold as brass. It becomes a contest, who will look away first.

I look away first.

Whenever we stop to eat, Chickadee sits next to me. She chatters in my ear and gives me food from her bowl. I pretend to eat it. When I smack my lips and rub my stomach, she laughs and claps her hands. When she isn't
looking, I give her food back to her. Hepte catches my eye and smiles at me.

We lie down for another night. I remember my Connecticut bed. The goose-down mattress made a great
whooshing
sound when I threw myself across it. It smelled like a henhouse-warm and cozy. I used to fluff my pillow just so before sinking my head into it. My red-and-white quilt always made me think of Christmas, even in July.

I lie awake and gaze at the stars. They look like bits of ice scattered across a parson's black cloak. The night air is downright cold. The summer's over, I think with a sinking heart. One season ending and a new one beginning and I'm walking farther and farther away.

Each evening, Mrs. Stewart finds me and lies down next to me. We whisper to each other about simple things-candle molds and rocking chairs, apple butter and hymnbooks. She tells me about growing up in Camden, New Jersey. I tell her about Fairfield, Connecticut.

"I so much want to go home," I whisper to her. "Connecticut, Pennsylvania, either will do."

"Of course you do, Mary. Say your prayers and go to sleep."

Chickadee has stopped coughing and is sleeping soundly for the first time in many a night. Her breathing sounds dry and clear. All the other children sound better, too.

Does that mean God listened to my prayer? That I'll go home someday? I watch the stars and wait for an answer.

When no answer comes, I scold my family:

Dougal, if you want to be a Mississippi trapper, you'd better learn French and how to add figures together, or the Frenchies will cheat you blind when you bring your furs into their trading posts. Try harder with the reading, Dougal. There's more to trapping than just westering farther and farther from home. You're not the stupidest boy who ever lived, but you just might be the laziest.

Pa, how could you forget my birthday'? You'd better have come home that evening, proudly showing off the venison haunches that were to be my birthday dinner.

Ma, you never saw the strawberries. But I know you saw me carrying the pretty rose bowl. You must have known that I was going to pick berries for you. Why are you always so angry with me? Why is nothing I do ever good enough?

She doesn't answer.

I gaze at the stars again. It's a comfort to know we are all looking at the same stars and moon by night, the same sun by day. We even see the same clouds blowing east, although I see them first.

A
FEW WEEKS LATER
, I reckon, we're there.

Two hundred people are standing on a cliff. Far below us a river twists and turns between the trees. There are glints and glimmers of slanting autumn sunshine against the water. A waterfall roars in the distance.

Netawatwees Sachem and some of the other men go below to look at the river. The rest of us stay huddled together. The men who remain examine the trees above us, the gorge below.

They make me nervous. Why are they so wary?

When Netawatwees Sachem and the others come back, he is holding a map, of all things, and pointing to places on it. They talk excitedly together.

I ease my carry pack to the ground. To our left drifting mist floats upward from the waterfall spray. A rainbow hangs above it. The mist feels cold against my hot face.

How good it would feel, swimming in that cold water.

The map reminds me of Dougal and his excitement about westering. It reminds me, too, of my father, always talking about the west as a golden place because it's so big and vast and empty. "Where a man has room to breathe," he'd say, pounding his chest as though there wasn't enough air in Connecticut. "The frontier-where a man's soul can stretch to the sunset."

"The frontier," Dougal would repeat with his eyes shining.

I stamp my foot and scold the Campbells again:

Silent Trapper, here's a western river, never been used. Help yourself. I'll wager you were still abed when they set fire to our cabin. And when Pa demanded to know how you could let such a thing happen, you made up a grand and glorious tale about shooting Indians through the windows and running through the forest to rescue me. Hah!

Pa, I'll bet you're sorry now. You must look at our burned-out cabin and my empty seat at the table and just feel wretched. Good. It's your fault I'm in the Ohio wilderness. And guess what-there's no more air here than in Pennyslvania or Connecticut.

Grandpa, it's
your
fault I'm here. You broke Grandmother's heart tearing her away from her home. You should never have left Scotland in the first place.

And Ma, why can't you ever—

"Granddaughter."

Netawatwees Sachem brings me back to the cliffside with a jolt. I blink at him, the Campbells floating away
like dandelion cotton. Everyone else steps back to make room for me.

"I think we're here," he says pointing to the map. "Is this your thinking too?"

His map looks like Dougal's map. It has the same black lines that mean rivers and the same short, thick lines that mean words alongside the rivers. He points to the words.

He can read! Netawatwees Sachem can read a map as well as (maybe even better than) Dougal can!

I study the map. Netawatwees Sachem points to a place where the river takes a sharp turn south. He looks at me questioningly.

"Yes," I lie. But I stare at the map and don't look at him.

"Good, the Cuyahoga. I was right."

He rolls the parchment carefully. We all pick up our gear and trudge down the cliff trail to look at the winding river. The men and boys surround us; they look up at the trees as we walk.

Are they afraid of wild animals? I wonder. Other Indians?

The Cuyahoga is deep and swift, with water so clear I can see all the way to the bottom. Schools of fish push against the current. Freshwater crabs scuttle along the bottom, picking their way among smooth gray rocks.

The children want to swim, but the women shake their heads no. Now all the men are watching the surrounding cliffs. There is fear in their eyes. White Eyes climbs back up the trail with his musket cocked and ready.

"Grandfather," I whisper, "why is everyone so skittish?"

"Skittish? I don't know this word."

"Afraid."

"Ah. These are Iroquois hunting grounds, Granddaughter. We Delaware are Algonquin. The Algonquin and the Iroquois have been enemies since the
yah-qua-whee
were here. If the Iroquois are in the Oyo Hoking, we must be careful."

"But why would the British send you here if it wasn't safe? They must have told the Iroquois to stay away."

"We must hope they said nothing to the Iroquois about us coming, or they will be waiting to attack us."

It's a warm day, maybe the last warm day this year. Two hundred tired and footsore people look longingly into the river. Some reach into the current and drink from their cupped palms. Old men and women sit quietly on the riverbank and dangle their feet. The small children are jumping up and down and looking at their mothers. Their chubby arms reach toward the water.

The king's officers don't care what happens to these people, I think with a shock. If the Iroquois attack, it means two hundred fewer Indians to worry about.

The British would never have sent them here if they knew Mrs. Stewart and I were with them.

White Eyes comes back to the group and talks to the women and children. I'm surprised that I understand some of what he says. I wait for him to finish speaking.

"A good place?" I ask him in his language.

He looks at me proudly, then answers in English.
"Yes, high up on the cliff there's a cave. We'll live there through the winter and build wigwams in the spring."

We trudge up the steep cliff again. I see the cave and count how many steps I have to take to its mouth. Ten steps, nine, eight, seven, six, only five more steps, four, three, two, one. The march is over and I'm alive!

I slide the rawhide strap over my head and drop the carry pack to the ground with a thud. Freedom! I walk back and forth, enjoying the weight off my neck and shoulders. I feel lighter than air.

The cave is wide and shallow; the mouth must be a hundred feet wide, but the space is only thirty feet deep in the middle. It will keep the rain out if it's not too windy, but not much else.

Families choose their places in the cave. The women light fires, lay out animal-skin blankets, and set the baskets and bags on the cave floor. The dogs curl into a heap and lick their paws.

Incredibly, we have eaten none of the food we brought with us. Women have foraged, picking nuts, berries, and edible plants along the way. With bows and arrows men have shot rabbits and squirrels as rare treats for evening meals.

The children jump up and down and pull at their mothers' sleeves. Everyone is hot and dirty; everyone wants to swim.

"
Heh-heh,
" Netawatwees Sachem says, which is their word for "yes." With whoops and hollers, children peel off their clothes and run down the cliff trail toward the Cuyahoga.

"Tonn." Hepte has been calling me
tonn,
their word for "daughter." I turn around at her voice.

Hepte is standing in front of me with her arms outstretched and wearing nothing but a smile. Goggle-eyed, I watch grown men take off their breechcloths and leggings, their shirts and moccasins. Old women are struggling with their dresses, trying to pull them over their heads. Pregnant women are laughing and helping each other down the slope.

"
K-ku,
" I stammer and I shake my head. "
Ku.
" That means "no."

With a shrug of her shoulders Hepte runs ahead to join her family. Two hundred naked people, and they are no more aware of their nakedness than a baby would be.

Mrs. Stewart and I are the only ones left in the cave.

"Mary," she says. "We may bathe in private, when everyone else has finished. Untie this backpack for me, please."

A swim would feel so good. With sand and pebbles I could scrub the grease and campfire soot out of my skin. I could soak my hair, now stiff as a board with dried sweat, dirt, and mosquito grease, in sparkling clean, fresh water.

Far below the cliff Chickadee is laughing in the water. She's splashing one of the boys. I take everything off quickly—

"Mary!"

—and run down the cliff trail. Leafy branches brush against me as I run down toward the river.

"Mary!" Mrs. Stewart calls from the cave. "My backpack!"

My stomach is as white as the frost we left behind in the Allegheny passes. The breeze tickles in places I'd rather not consider.

The water is stirred up by the time I jump in. The river looks like the ones back in Pennsylvania and Connecticut-it looks as if people live next to it. That freshness is spoiled.

As I splash in the cool water, I try to decide if spoiling a new river is a good thing or a bad thing. Everyone is laughing and splashing everyone else. The ducks are circling above us, quacking their complaints. Box turtles have crawled out onto fallen logs to glare at us with ancient eyes.

Surely if the river is good enough for ducks and turtles, it's good enough for people, isn't it?