Crooked River (7 page)

“They told me the Carvers would have the biggest log house in the settlement, so that's how I would know where I was,” he continued. “And this was the biggest house I saw, so I thought perhaps this was the right one. But now it seems I've come to the wrong place….” The stranger's voice trailed away and he looked suddenly uncomfortable and unsure of what to do next. The hat turned around and around in his hands.

“This here's the Carvers’,” my sister said shyly, nodding in the direction of our house. “I'm Miss Carver. This here's Rebecca.” She pointed at me. “Have you come on business with our Pa?” she asked.

“Well, no….” The stranger's voice faltered. “As it happens, I was hoping, if I might—well, if he's still here, that is—to speak to Amik.”

A little ripple of laughter escaped out of my mouth and my hand flew up to my lips to cover it. Laura gave me a glare and told the fellow that, begging his pardon, there was no one in our family called by that name. She motioned in the direction of
the field where the men were working and told the gentleman that perhaps he could find someone there to provide him some help.

Mr. Kelley appeared as lost as a young boy. “You haven't heard of Amik? Truly?” he said, running his fingers through his hair. “The Indian is no longer a captive here?”

Now, I had never heard our Indian called anything but Indian John. No one had ever uttered the name Amik for him. The sound of it put me in mind of a bird calling in the trees.
Ah-mick, Ah-mick.
Where had the man been told such a peculiar name? I wondered.

Laura wiped her hands on her apron and told Mr. Kelley to please forgive our bad manners—that, begging his pardon, we didn't understand exactly who he was looking for. “Pa and the men call our Indian by the name Indian John,” she explained. “He's kept in irons in our loft for murdering a man.”

But I nearly fell into the wash kettle when I heard what Mr. Kelley said next.

“I'd be very obliged to speak to your Indian if I might, Miss Carver,” he told Laura, in a soft voice that was almost pleading in its sound. He looked down and the hat turned around and around in his pale, skinny hands. “I believe that Amik—Indian John—is perhaps an old acquaintance of mine.”

“He's real handsome-looking, isn't he?” Laura whispered after Mr. Kelley had gone up the stairs. “Never saw him in the settlement before, have you?”

“You think he's truly acquainted with Indian John?” I asked.

Laura shook her head. “No, I don't see how. Still”— she gave a half smile and smoothed her apron with her hands—“I think it would be kind to ask him to stay for tea, don't you? For all his troubles?”

But as we got out the tin of tea and set the water to boil, I think it gave both of us a jolt when we suddenly realized that Mr. Kelley was talking with Indian John upstairs.
Talking.
And his voice was speaking in words that were no longer English.

At first, me and Laura just stared wide-eyed at the ceiling planks above our heads, still as two stones.
The strange sound of the voices mumbling back and forth was enough to frighten a person near to death. Our kettle bubbled over and hissed onto the fire. All the while Mercy tugged the bed quilts off our bed, but we didn't move from where we stood.

“You think I should run and get Amos from the field?” I whispered to Laura.

But then, just as suddenly as it had started, the conversation in our loft stopped. Mr. Kelley came down the stairs slowly. I watched him hesitate on the last step and glance back up, as if he had changed his mind and would turn around, even though he didn't.

Laura stared at me, uncertain what to do. “Mr. Kelley—” she began in a halting voice. “We've made tea if you'd like some. I don't know if you were intending to stay or not.”

Mr. Kelley gave us a startled look. I was nearly sure that he was going to say no, by the wary expression on his face. But then, quite suddenly, his face softened, and he nodded a little.

“Thank you, Miss Carver,” he said, coming over to the table. “Thank you, I'll have a small cup of tea, yes.” Awkwardly, he pulled up a chair and sat down at our big table. He was all elbows and knees and couldn't seem to decide where to set his hat until he finally put it on the floor near his feet.

“So has Ami—Indian John—been here long, in your Pa's cabin?” Mr. Kelley asked in a curious voice while we fixed tea for him. Since he was company, my sister gave him our only unchipped teacup and put some of our best loaf sugar on the table.

“About three weeks,” Laura answered. “My Pa and
the other men brought him here near the end of April.” Then she added carefully, “How are you acquainted with him, Mr. Kelley?”

I held in my breath, waiting for his answer.

“Well …” The man paused and stared down at his folded-up hands. “When I was ten or eleven years old, growing up east of here, the two of us were friends.”

“Friends?” came flying out of my mouth.

Mr. Kelley looked at me in a way that reminded me of Amos when he thought I had said something foolish. “Yes, we were good friends,” he repeated.

He told us that Amik's father was the chief of a small band of Chippewas. “Ojibbeways, as they call themselves,” he said. Mr. Kelley described how the Indians used to return every spring from their maple sugar grounds and stay on his Pa's land through the summer. He glanced at Laura and asked her if she had ever heard of the Nibinishi River, in the eastern part of Ohio, but she shook her head no.

“Well, the band always came to fish on our river, as they had done for years and years, I suppose, long before we had come,” he explained.

Mr. Kelley said that Amik and some of the other Indians were near to his age. “I had four brothers when I was growing up,” he told us. “And we would play games and run all day with Amik and the other boys when our chores were done. I was quick with languages. My Pa said I had an ear for it. So, I learned to speak with them as well as anyone.”

I could hardly even imagine the scene in my mind—our own Ma opening up the door of our
cabin and letting us play with Indian children. Even Laura gave a surprised gasp. “Your Pa and Ma? They allowed you to do that?”

Mr. Kelley studied his cup of tea, as if he was thinking hard. “Indians aren't—well, they aren't, forgive me for saying this—” He paused and stumbled over his words. “Well, it is my belief—and it was my Pa's belief, too—that Indians are as human as white men. Truthfully, in a great many respects, they are, Miss Carver,” he stammered. “And in some ways, more so.”

There was an uncomfortable long silence after he spoke. I drank a big gulp of tea and peered over the top of my cup at my sister Laura, but I didn't dare to breathe a word about all of the things Indian John had given to us. Or how I sometimes thought Indians were human, too.

“I don't see how the murder of innocent folks can be counted as human, Mr. Kelley,” Laura said finally, in a strong voice that echoed Ma's Bible-reading one. “Even if he was once your friend, how can you call his actions human?”

“No, certainly not,” Mr. Kelley answered quickly. “But perhaps what everyone believes—” Mr. Kelley hesitated and looked down at the table. “Perhaps, well, perhaps it isn't all true,” he finished.

I stared at Mr. Kelley.

Even Laura seemed startled. “Are you saying that our Pa's Indian didn't kill the trapper?” she said.

“I don't know what to think, truly I don't,” Mr. Kelley answered, rubbing his eyes wearily. “Amik was always a good friend. For all the years we were growing up. He was never the kind to—”

Right at that moment, Pa and the boys came stomping through the doorway. Me and Laura were so taken by surprise, we nearly knocked over our chairs in our rush to stand up.

First thing Pa said, of course, was that nobody came out to the field to tell him there was a fellow here to see him, and he gave me and Laura a hard look. After that, he sat down at the table and announced that he was Major Carver—and as the major general of this part of Ohio, it was his duty to ask the fellow what business he had in our settlement.

Mr. Kelley's narrow face turned as pink as a spring wildflower and his elbow sent his spoon clattering to the floor. “I'm Mr. Peter Kelley Esquire,” he managed to say, trying to reach for his spoon. “I'm an acquaintance of the Chippewa Indian you have caught for murder—”

“Acquaintance?” Pa's voice was sharp.

Mr. Kelley took a deep breath. I could see his shoulders rise up and down, and I felt sorry for him because of my Pa being the way he is.

“I'm newly in the practice of law,” he said real quiet. “And I have come to see about perhaps defending him in his trial.”

My mouth just about fell to my feet when I heard that. All he had told us was that he was acquainted with the Indian from boyhood. He never breathed a word about defending him. Or being a lawyer.

My Pa let out a loud hoot of laughter. “Well, don't that beat all,” he said, smacking his hand down on the table. “George,” he hollered at my no-good cousin. “George—this man is gonna stand up for a savage. Don't that beat all you ever heard?”

Cousin George grinned and shook his head.

“You a real lawyer?” Pa asked.

“Yes,” Mr. Kelley answered, as red as beets.

“You study many books?”

“Yes,” Mr. Kelley said.

“Well, I'll tell you what.” Pa snorted and leaned forward. “You got more ed-u-cation than you got brains, Mr. Peter Kelley, Esquire. Everybody around here knows that savage up there”—Pa jabbed his finger toward the loft—“kilt a poor fellow who didn't have no reason to die. Kilt him in cold blood with a tomahawk.” He fixed his eyes on Peter Kelley's face. “And if you keep that Indian up there from hanging for his crime, you got the fewest brains of any man I know on this green earth.”

Pa stood up and pointed at the door. “Now git out of my house.”

Seems like when a person is treated poorly by someone else, it makes you want to take their side. I don't know why. Maybe it isn't even a side you would have picked under other circumstances.