Thieving Forest (12 page)

“You’re wrong. I never cared for ordering. And besides, we’re not missionaries.”

“Well of course right now I’m just a ghost, like you, but in time...”

“A ghost?”

“A guest. In time we will feel more comfortable, we’ll accustom ourselves to their ways. In fact, I can already...”

Susanna has caught up at last. “You
want
this life! You want to be part of this...this
experiment!”
For what else is it? Educating Indians, teaching their children English and stories from the Bible. No white settler outside this little enclave believes it will last. The farmers laughed, in fact, some of them, when they first heard the idea. Of course, Susanna reminds herself, the farmers are fools. She is conscious that Johanna is looking at her.

“If Penelope were here...” she begins.

“Penelope!” Beatrice’s face is very red. “Penelope! There’s no Penelope, Susanna, there’s only us.”

Of course: only us. But what can Susanna say to that? In all likelihood Beatrice would not have chosen Susanna out of all their sisters as a companion, but here they are.

“What happened, Beet?” She can’t help asking. She feels certain there is something that Beatrice is not telling her. “Please tell me what happened.”

Beatrice stiffens. “I already told you. They were killed. They weren’t saved, and I was. Don’t you see, I can’t just return to Severne. I have to give something back.”

“You have to give back your life?”

“No. I don’t know. All I know is that I can’t just go home.”

Noises come from outside the hut, and then a man calls in to them.

“They are here to change the rocks,” Johanna says. “Do you wish to stay longer?”

Susanna stands up, more than ready to go. She is confused and concerned and solicitous all at once. Also annoyed. She feels sure that Beatrice is protecting her from something, but she doesn’t need protecting. Beatrice suddenly looks at Susanna’s feet.

“Why are you wearing those moccasins?” she asks sharply.

“They’re comfortable. And I think of Aurelia when I wear them.”

“Susanna, that’s morbid. When we get back to the Birthing Hut you must take them off. Surely we can find you new boots.”

“I don’t want new boots.”

“How can you wear them knowing what happened?”

Susanna looks down. She can imagine one of the brethren thinking that she is, like them, adopting Indian ways on principle. But she isn’t principled. She doesn’t want to be equal with anyone. She just likes how the moccasins feel.

Nine

Brother Graves says, “Mr. Spendlove, if you are done there, I was hoping I might talk to you about the iron trade. We’ve had quite a time of it lately with some merchants from Detroit.”

Seth is crossing the barn floor on his way outside. The smell of dry hay, tied into bales and stacked on either side, surrounds him. There are a few pieces of farming machinery in the corner near a long trestle table, where just a few minutes ago Seth was seated mending an iron jacklight for Brother Lyle, who likes to go eel fishing at night. The horses, stabled underneath—the barn is partially dug out of the ground and the horses are in the lower level—have just been fed, and Seth can hear the smacking of their huge lips. Through a chute in the floor he sees a bay mare with her nose in a feed bucket.

“Shall we walk together to the chapel?” Brother Graves asks. Although he isn’t actually smiling, he looks, to Seth, as though he might as well be, so gentle are the lines of his face. “The midday service begins shortly. Perhaps you would like to attend with me.”

Although this is not really what Seth has in mind on such a beautiful, fresh morning, it occurs to him that chapel is the one place where he might see Susanna, since both women and men are allowed to attend any service. He has not seen her since he helped her off his horse two weeks ago, and has had no way to communicate with her. In Gemeinschaft single men and women are not allowed to meet or even exchange letters.

“I’d be glad to,” he says.

They walk out together through the wide barn doors and into the daylight. A copper-colored horse blanket is hanging on a fence post to dry, and the flies are very interested in that. Seth walks beside Brother Graves while he talks about the cost of iron goods, the labor involved in making them. In Seth’s opinion, could the brethren import raw materials and begin to forge their own?

Seth is glad to offer his advice. He has been here for a fortnight, and even to himself he has to admit that he is dawdling with no set purpose. He has done virtually nothing to earn his keep except help out in the stable or mend bits of equipment.

As they pass a rosemary bush Brother Graves pulls off some needles and holds them up to his nose. An unlikely sensualist, Seth thinks.

“The country here is beautiful,” Brother Graves says. “As the years go on I find myself more and more unwilling to leave, even just to buy supplies.”

“Some think the land too flat.”

“But the trees give it depth, don’t you agree?”

Seth can smell a pervasive scent of cut green wood and he watches a thin plume of smoke rise above the trees. Although he too likes this country, he would not choose Gemeinschaft as a place to live. Ohio, yes, but not this place. Something about it sits uneasily with him. Perhaps it is all the mission Indians dressed like Europeans and carrying around Bibles, their little daughters wearing white aprons. Or is he just being closed-minded? Back in Severne most of the farmers distrust Christian Indians, even Old Adam who has lived among them for years. Equally so they distrust the missionaries. Well, they do not have complicated opinions, those farmers. Whites should be whites. Indians should move elsewhere. Small wonder that Amos hid his Potawatomi blood from them.

At a pause in their conversation Seth says, “I have been meaning to ask you about Susanna Quiner. Is she well? And her sister? I would like to offer them my services back to Severne but I don’t know how I might approach them.”

Brother Graves assures him that they are both well. They are working hard and going to services. He does not say where they are working. He rubs the bit of rosemary between his fingers again and then lets it drop on the path. “Do they wish to leave?” he asks.

That gives Seth pause. “I assumed...” He stops. He does not want to insult his host.

“And you—you wish to leave us also? We could use someone with your talents in our little community. Our door, as you know, is open to everyone. But I would in particular like to welcome you in.”

They are in need of more blacksmiths. Seth understood this after only a few days. Brother Lyle, who performs that job now, has not been well trained. “Thank you. But I’m not sure I’m enough of—a good enough—Christian.” He is trying to imply that he rarely goes to church.

But Brother Graves says lightly, “Your heritage means nothing to us. Your heart is what matters. If you allow me to be blunt, your bloodline makes you even more interesting to me. I know your story would attract others if they knew it. I would like to know your story myself.”

Seth stops walking and looks at Brother Graves in surprise. He knows about me? He’s guessed? Above them the sky darkens as a fat crepuscular cloud drifts over the sun. Of course, as a missionary Brother Graves would have seen Indians from all different tribes, mixed and otherwise. Still, Seth feels caught and exposed.

Brother Graves smiles. He offers Seth his arm. “Come, here we are.” The chapel is just ahead of them now. Brother Graves says hello to a group of Delaware men waiting by the steps, addressing each one by name, and then opens the heavy door to let Seth walk in first.

“An Ottawa will be giving his testimony today,” he says as they go inside. “I think you will find his story compelling.”

“My sister was living with the brethren two years ago,” the Ottawa begins. His large dark eyes crinkle when he speaks, and he is much taller than the translator standing next to him. He faces the congregation with his head bent as though he is used to being too large for a room.

“She wished very much to be in the church, but her husband, not. So she went back with him to his people in the north. Last spring when she fell ill she begged her husband and his mother to send a message to the brethren to pray for her. This was promised but not done. I was present at her death, and the broken promise pressed itself upon my heart. After much thinking I resolved to make myself free of every thing and to come to the brethren myself. I gave to my mother all my silver ornaments and I released my weapons at the gate. When she was dying my sister told me that the blood of Jesus Christ would save her. As she was saved, so do I wish also to be saved in his blood.”

Seth shifts restlessly on the bench, still uneasy from his conversation with Brother Graves. Susanna is not here, she is not sitting with the women on the other side of the chapel. He finds himself looking around for anyone with Potawatomi blood while the Ottawa continues talking about his guilt over the broken promise, even though it was not his own. This, at least, is something Seth understands—the feeling, rational or not, of being responsible for something someone else has done. For what his father has done. The chapel darkens as the sky changes itself into a mass of storm clouds, and a short while later the rain begins. Seth looks around at the native men with no axes or knives tucked into their belts. Giving up their weapons is a potent symbol.

“I met with no happiness,” the Ottawa is saying, “only unrest, until I came to this place.”

After the service most of the congregation stay in the little chapel waiting for the storm to pass, but Seth goes out to stand on the narrow front porch to watch it. The tree branches shake with the wind, and then the wind shifts and a spray of hard rain hits him full on the face. As he turns, he notices a few women sheltering beneath a nearby oak. One woman wearing a hooded cape is picking up an object from the ground. A few strands of dark red hair escape from her hood.

He runs out holding his hat, his coat flapping open. By the time he gets to the oak tree his shirt is drenched. He says, smiling, “The last time I saw you, you were the one soaking wet.” He has to raise his voice to be heard over the rain.

Susanna turns around with a look of surprise. “Seth! I thought you’d left.”

Her face is pale but alive with thought and feeling, not cloaked like so many other women here. She holds an acorn in her hand. “My Aunt Ogg always kept one on her mantelpiece in Philadelphia, she said it protected the house against lightning. I’ve been debating whether to take this to the Sisters’ Choir or hope the wretched building is struck. Have you seen it? Awful place. We sleep on the floor on blankets.”

The rain suddenly comes down much stronger, emptying itself in a rush. They both look up. For a moment the sound is deafening. A swift cool wind blows against them and moves the tree branches as if pointing the way out.

“There, that will finish it,” Seth says when the sound dies.

“Do you think?”

“In a moment.”

Sure enough, the rain lightens and then stops altogether. Susanna and Seth step out from under the dripping tree. The other two women peer up at the oyster-colored sky and stay put.

As they walk down the path together, Susanna tells him that she’d been living in the Birthing Hut with Beatrice but they had to move out a few days ago when a woman went into labor. Now she sleeps with twenty other unmarried women in one room. During the day she works at the brethren’s store, mostly taking inventory. It is very dull, she tells him. She looks at him from time to time with a frank expression. There is something of a bird about her, he thinks, maybe her liveliness. The coarse missionary dress doesn’t suit her, it is too confining and dull. Blown leaves litter the path in front of them and a fresh scent rises from the earth. Usually there would be pairs of Indian women along here gathering up the green nuts they use for tea, but the storm has driven everyone to shelter. They are alone. He wants to touch her.

“My father was not a churchgoer,” Susanna is saying. “He used to say that ever since Reverend Luther nailed his 95 theses to the church door we need not be dependent on anyone to act as a liaison between ourselves and God. I don’t know if he ever spoke to you on the subject. He could be quite...what is the word...”

“Persuasive?”

“Lengthy.” She smiles. A lock of hair has fallen over her face. He has the urge to tuck it back behind her ear. “I’m like him, talking so much. But it is so good to see someone from home!”

His heart twists but he tries not to give her words any more weight than they ostensibly have. “What are your plans for going back?” he asks.

Her pleased expression fades and she looks away. “The trouble is,” she begins, and stops.

He says, “Because I would be happy to accompany you and your sister when you decide to leave. It would be my pleasure.”

“Our plans are a little uncertain,” she says. She still doesn’t look at him. “It is very kind of you to offer, but we may, or at least Beatrice, she wants to stay for a while.”

“Stay
here?”

“She thinks our sisters have been...Penelope and Naomi...she saw them...well, I don’t know what she saw. But they are dead.”