The Beaded Moccasins (12 page)

"Muxomsa, please," I plead with him. "My English will go."

"You will not forget. Your English is here." He taps my chest, where my heart beats underneath.

"We help each other? I help with hard words."

"I already know the hard words. Nuxkwis, you help us more by speaking only Unami." He turns his back and refuses to discuss the English-talking group again.

"Grandfather is as mean as a bear," I say to Hepte that afternoon in our garden. "I am afraid to lose my English."

"You won't forget your English because it is nestled in your heart. You help us more if you learn Unami. My father is a wise man-you must listen to him. He is not only your grandfather but your sachem as well."

I look at her suspiciously. Has she been talking to him about me?

"Think about everything you have learned just by listening hard and asking questions."

"
Heh-heh,
" I mutter, throwing a tangle of roots onto the fire.

No time like the present, I think as I clear my throat. "I need to talk to Mrs. Stewart. Important."

"If Mrs. Stewart wants to spend the rest of her days living in the cave, then let her," Hepte says hotly.

"But I care—"

"I don't care. We don't care. You don't care. Understand?" Hepte looks at me, and I see the same flashing anger in her eyes as I see in her father's sometimes.

She turns away to shake soil from a mass of roots.

I'm working hard this afternoon, and the sun is hot. We're wearing just leather aprons. I have an idea for getting away and warning Mrs. Stewart.

"Hepte." I point to my milk-white chest and back. "I am thinking, the sun will cook me? Um ... red me?"

"Tonn..." Hepte smiles. "We get sunburned too."

"The sun is too strong for me. I will stoke the starfire. Please,
Gahes?
"

Gahes.

I've never called her "mother" before.

I have trouble meeting her eyes, but when I do, I see Hepte looking at me with her own eyes wet and shining.

"Tonn," she whispers, "you may leave our garden."

I run back to the wigwam and pull my cotton dress over my shoulders. When I'm sure no one is looking, I climb down the cliff path to the cave.

Guilt tweaks at my heart because I lied to Hepte and called her "mother." She has treated me with nothing but kindness, often giving me food when she has none. But I can't let them trade Mrs. Stewart to that grimy Sequin as though she were a doeskin or a beaver pelt. If
I warn her, she'll come out of the cave and work, earn her keep. Then Grandfather won't trade her for muskets.

At first I see no one in the cave. When my eyes adjust to the dimness, I see a figure in the corner holding a bundle in her arms. A bad sign.

She's sitting by what was once a fire. Now there's nothing but cinders and ashes.

"Mrs. Stewart, I've come to warn you."

She looks up in alarm and holds the bundle closer to her. When she sees it's me, her shoulders relax.

"Mary! Sit down next to the fire. This is a rare surprise."

The bundle is a short log wrapped in deerskin. I know what it's supposed to be-she's been holding it off and on all winter.

"You're holding Sammy again, Mrs. Stewart. You told me you wouldn't do that anymore."

She presses her thin cheek to the bark and rocks it back and forth. Her eyes are bright with fear as she whispers to the log.

"Listen carefully. I don't have much time-I'm supposed to be tending our fire. Netawatwees Sachem wants to trade you to Sequin for muskets."

She tilts her head slightly in my direction. "Sequin? Muskets? Trade?"

"That filthy little Frenchman with the trading post by Cat Lake, the Erie Lake. He wants to trade muskets for a wife." I don't tell her that he's already tried trading muskets for me.

"Grandfather wants to trade you for muskets because you won't work. They can't afford to keep anyone who won't work. So you have to leave the cave and tend the garden. You have to leave
now
"

I brace myself for her anger, her outrage.

Instead, Mrs. Stewart looks at the bundle for a long time. At first I think she doesn't understand what I said to her. She has that same hollow look in her eyes I saw in the weeks after our capture.

"What does Mr. Sequin's cabin look like, Mary?"

"It's disgusting. The trading-post side isn't so bad, but the side where he lives! Dirty clothes, smelly linens, and cook pots so filthy, there's mold growing out of them."

"Furniture?"

"Lots of furniture. Fancy things-hand carved, I mean. He must have portaged it down the St. Lawrence from Montreal, or France even. But the furniture's spoiled too."

"Fancy things," Mrs. Stewart echoes. "I had to sell my mother's mahogany sideboard before our removal to Pennsylvania."

After living for so long with people who don't speak English, I've learned to read faces. Mrs. Stewart's face is full of hope-hope and escape.

"I can't believe what you're thinking! You're ... you're already married," I stammer. Married to two husbands, I almost say, but I catch myself in time.

"Am I?" she says softly.

"You haven't even asked me what Sequin looks like."

"I don't care what he looks like," she says in a dreamy voice. "I want a good home, for Sammy and me."

"You'll have to kiss him," I reply hotly. "And he hasn't even got teeth."

"Have I ever told you that my name is Mary too?"

"No." I hesitate for a moment. "But you can't—"

"My name is Mary Stewart," she says softly. "And any life is better than this one. I have no hope, Mary, don't you see?"

Down in the gorge a blue heron flaps out of a huge nest high in a treetop. I watch her as she glides just above the Cuyahoga, looking for fish for her babies.

"He has soap," I finally say. "Soap that smells like roses. Not that he's ever used any."

"Hope," Mrs. Stewart says softly, or maybe she says "Soap." She takes a deep breath and holds the bundle closer to her. "Tell that high-and-mighty old Netawatwees I'll go to Sequin's. Tell him Sammy and I will leave today."

"Oh no! If I tell him you want to go, he'll know I've been talking to you."

"I don't understand your meaning, Mary."

"Grandfather won't let me speak English anymore. I'm not allowed. I'm not supposed to be in the cave talking to you."

She grasps my elbow. "What do you mean he won't let you speak English?"

Her red, wrinkled hand looks like a turkey buzzard's claw. It's all I can do not to pull away from her. "He says I have to learn their language."

"You're turning into a savage, right in front of my eyes! Come with me," she says, giving my elbow a little pull. "Sequin will want you, too."

"NO!" I shout. "I can't. The ... the Turtles would never let me leave. You'll have to speak for yourself, Mrs. Stewart. Talk to Netawatwees Sachem yourself"

"Mary," Mrs. Stewart says in a bewildered voice, "what do turtles have to do with your leaving?"

"It's their name, I reckon: Hepte, Chickadee, Grandfather."

Mrs. Stewart shakes her head and clutches the log closer.

"We'll have to talk to him together then," I say. "He'll be angry with me, but he'll be gladder still to be rid of you, especially if it means muskets."

I've never heard Mrs. Stewart laugh before. Her lilting, feminine laughter bounces off the walls of the cave.

Back in Fairfield we used to have a festive Saturday-night supper before Christmas week with hymn singing afterward.

Just hearing Mrs. Stewart's laughter makes me smell again the pine and holly boughs on the walls, and the hams, spicy pies, and rich cakes on my mother's sideboards.

We'd invite all our friends and relations. At our party I would sit on the staircase with Constance, studying the pretty young women of the town. They would laugh just like that, standing in the center of a flock of admirers. The bright fans they fluttered in front of their smiles shimmered like butterfly wings.

***

When we walk into our village above the cave, the Turtle, the Turkey, the Wolf, and the Bear clans stop and
stare at Mrs. Stewart. She is still wearing the red dress she was wearing when we were captured, except now her blackened knees poke out between shreds of stained cloth. Her hair is stuck together in a gray clump like a horse's hoof. She is cradling her bundled log and blinking as an owl does in the sunlight.

As we approach the English-talking group, they stop speaking one by one. No one likes Mrs. Stewart, but now they look at her in horror and pity. Other people crowd behind us, their faces watchful and waiting.

"Muxomsa," I say softly, looking at my feet, "Mrs. Stewart says she goes to Sequin by the Erie Lake. Two muskets? Maybe three? If she washes and has new clothes."

"She looks like a crazy woman," Grandfather shouts. "Sequin will trade muskets for a bitter, crazy woman?"

"Not bitter. Not crazy. She wants to leave. This sun."

Hepte says, "Father, I have made a new dress with Sequin's red cloth. She may have the new dress if you bring more cloth back, enough cloth for your granddaughters and myself."

"More cloth and muskets for this?" Grandfather flings an arm in Mrs. Stewart's direction.

Mrs. Stewart steps forward. "Netawatwees, I don't understand what you're saying, but I hear the scorn in your voice. Not that I've ever given a fig as to what your opinion is of me. I want to go. I want to leave."

Grandfather switches to English. "Then leave. Today," he says angrily. "My daughter has offered a dress. My granddaughter will help you wash—"

Oh, no I won't.)v&\
the thought of touching that filthy, clumped hair makes my skin crawl.

"—and when you're ready my son-in-law will take you to Sequin's."

"On one condition. Apparently, Mary disobeyed you in coming to the cave and speaking to me. She came to help. You're not to punish her for that."

My mouth drops open. This is Mrs. Stewart?

Grandfather and Mrs. Stewart stare hard into each other's eyes. He blinks first.

"No punishment," he mutters.

"Regular visits, too. I'll not abandon her to you."

Grandfather gives her a short nod. "Hepte will come down the cliff trail with the dress."

"Good-bye, Netawatwees."

Grandfather puts his hand out as though he expects her to shake it. Instead, Mrs. Stewart turns slowly on her cracked heels. When did she lose her shoes?

Her head is held high. With her back as straight as a ramrod, she walks faster and faster down the rows of wigwams toward the cliff trail. I have to trot to keep up.

Finally I stop as she begins her descent.

"I'll miss you," I call out to her. "Thank you for ... helping me. Good-bye." I wave my hand, but she doesn't look back.

"Good-bye, Mary Stewart," I whisper.

Mrs. Stewart breaks into a run and disappears down the cliff trail.

M
RS
. S
TEWART HAS BEEN GONE FOR WEEKS
. Once more the little presents from Kolachuisen appear at my shoulder every morning. Each daybreak I awake to a pretty leaf, or a trim milkweed pod with a stem leaking sap, or a pebble the same dainty pink as my fingernails after an afternoon spent scrubbing pots in the river. Once there was a crisp strip of birch bark crafted into a tiny canoe.

This morning I found three tiny blueberries nestled in an acorn cap.

Every breakfast Kolachuisen watches me eat with the Turtle clan. She always finds a way to work next to me in the gardens. She follows me when I gather wood. Her family wigwam is close to ours. In the evening, whenever I talk to Hepte, or Chickadee, or Grandfather, out of the corner of my eye I see Kolachuisen watching me and listening to what I say.

I lie awake at night, considering what to do. I haven't talked to someone my own age since leaving Fairfield. I wonder if I've forgotten how to talk to another girl. I wonder if I've forgotten what to talk about.

Constance and I swore we'd be best friends forever, but surely she's made another best friend by now. That doesn't mean she's forgotten me; I haven't forgotten her. It would be grand to share secrets with someone again. As I watch our starfire wane to embers, I decide to be Kolachuisen's friend.

Today, while gathering wood, I nod and smile to her, and it's as though I've tapped a keg of cider. The words flow out and don't stop.

"Do you like it here?" she says as she wrinkles her nose. "I hate the Oyo Hoking. I wish we hadn't left the Allegheny. There aren't enough people here. It's too lonesome.

"Did you know Buckahelagas snores in his sleep? Every night last winter I listened to him snore, just like a bear in a cave, and thought, 'This is my future husband? This is the boy my parents want me to marry? I have to listen to that snore every night for the rest of my life?'"

She giggles and looks over her shoulder.

"I wouldn't mind listening to Makiawip snore for the rest of my life-don't you think he's handsome? I'm sure I've seen him looking at me."

She kicks a tree root and scowls.

"But he's been promised to Tankawon, but I don't think she's very pretty. Do you? She's got that long nose, just like an opossum's nose."

She wiggles her nose, then lowers her voice. "Tankawon is only Turkey clan-what were Makiawip's parents thinking? And—"

"Kolachuisen," I break in. "Please. Too many words. My head will hurt."

She looks crushed. "It has been such a long time since I had someone to talk to. I was waiting for you to learn our language and ... to be happy again. So we could be friends."

"We can be friends. I think Makiawip is handsome, too." I take her hand. "Thank you for the presents. I have so many questions."

She smiles again. "We can talk all the time now. So," she leans forward and whispers, "who do you want to marry?"

"What?"

"You're twelve winters, aren't you? Just like me? In two more winters you'll be married."

"I-I will?" I stammer. My knees collapse under me and I land hard on the gorge's steep slope. Kolachuisen sits next to me.

"If you don't choose someone, they'll choose him for you, so you'd better start looking," she says in a low voice. "Not that we've got much to choose from around here. Maybe more Delaware will come here next summer. Or maybe we'll have Wyandot or Shawnee husbands."