The Beaded Moccasins (8 page)

***

There are five eight-year-old boys among us. Every morning the boys walk naked down the steep cliff trail to the river. I see their long black hair lifting and flying backward in the wind. The fathers go with them. The rest of us stand on the edge of the cliff shouting encouragement.

The fathers chop holes in the ice for the boys to jump into. The boys stay in the river for just a few moments before crawling out. When we count five boys and five fathers walking back to the cave, we all wave and cheer.

I notice the boys' mothers look anxious until their sons are safe in the cave again.

The boys' lips are blue with cold and their teeth chatter away like scolding squirrels. Their long hair freezes on the cliff trail, as stiff as tree bark. They huddle by their family fires, shivering and speaking to no one, their mothers plying them with hot tea and extra blankets.

By the afternoon the boys are finally warm.

The next morning they jump into the frozen Cuyahoga and are cold all over again.

One morning when it's sleeting and a fierce north wind blows so hard my nose aches, I ask Hepte why.

"
Keko windji?
"I ask. Why?

"
Chitanisinen,
" she replies.

"Strength," Grandfather translates.

The wind howls like a wolf pack chasing down the boys' voices. Their piteous cries float upward. "
Ku, ku,
" they cry.

"
Keko windji?
" I ask, louder.

She looks surprised. "
Chitanisinen.
"

I see these boys changing, right in front of my eyes. On the first morning they were typical eight-year-olds, throwing snowballs at each other all the way to the riverbank. As they returned, they cried for their mothers. On the second morning their fathers had switches in their hands. They beat the boys across the backs of their legs to make them walk down the cliff trail.

It's been at least four or five weeks, I think, since their first jump. Now their fathers don't need the switches. And when they return, the boys clamp their jaws shut to keep their teeth from chattering and accept blankets around their shoulders just to be polite. Two of them
don't even sit by their family fires anymore. They stand outside the cave and stare at the river, the ends of their blue-black hair weighed down with milky-white ice.

Their eyes have a hardness to them, a sort of cold stare that makes it impossible to know what they're thinking.

"How long must they jump?" I ask Grandfather.

"The four winter moons-the Moon of Fallen Leaves, the Freezing Moon, the Moon of Deep Cold, and the Moon of Deep Snow. They are halfway through."

It must be close to Christmas, I think.

One day Mrs. Stewart presses a little deerskin doll into my hand. "I've lost track of the days, but merry Christmas, Mary," she whispers in my ear.

"Oh, Mrs. Stewart! I don't have anything for you."

"Just seeing your smiling face is present enough, Mary."

The doll is wearing a long dress, an apron, and a little sunbonnet on her head. I recognize the cloth-it's scraps from my birthday dress.

"My birthday dress! How? Where?"

"You left it on the trail across from Fort Pitt. Do you remember? You stepped right out of your dress when it tore away, and I knew then that you'd lost all hope."

She presses the doll harder into my palm. "This little doll is you. Always remember who you are, Mary. All my life I've heard stories about captives. The adults don't change, but the children do. They forget who they are; they forget what's important. This little doll," she repeats slowly, "is you."

I thank her and hug the doll to my chest. I don't tell her that I'm too old for dolls.

***

I lie awake at night thinking about the boys jumping into the frozen river every morning. Somehow they remind me of Dougal. Would he jump into icy-cold water every morning? Would his eyes have that same hard, inward look that these boys' eyes now have?

Yes, he would gladly do the same thing, to show the world how brave and strong he is.

And what about me? Don't I need strength, too?

The little doll lies next to me. When her faded blue dress reflects the firelight, she glows like a little ghost. She does make me feel stronger, but the strength she gives me is of a different kind than the strength these boys are gaining, I reckon.

These boys are learning to be Delaware braves; their newfound strength is about the future. My doll gives me the strength to remember my past.

I study my doll at night, and entire days spent in Connecticut and Pennsylvania flood into my memory. I remember what we talked about at breakfast, dinner, and supper. I remember what we ate, too: oatmeal with thick cream in the morning; ham, corn bread, pea soup, and apple slump at noon; turkey, yams, cranberries, and berry cobblers at sunset. We had bread, butter, and honey with every meal. And lots of cold milk or cider to wash everything down.

Just the thought of my mother's cooking makes my mouth water and my stomach growl.

I remember giggling with Constance Farnsworth about the silliest things-like the time her elder brother sat on a gooseberry pie, or the time my grandfather sneezed so hard he blew a candle out.

We spent long afternoons sitting on a bench near the window, looking into Constance's fancy picture book of the animal kingdom. We talked about the lions, tigers, monkeys, and elephants. While looking at the pictures we practiced being ladies. We sipped lemonade out of dainty teacups held in gloved hands, and nibbled ginger cookies with our little fingers high in the air.

Always remember who you are, Mary.

But when I start remembering, I begin to cry and can't stop.

"I need strength," I whisper, sobbing to my doll. "I need more strength than you can give me." I stuff her dress into my mouth so no one can hear me weeping.

I slept away the afternoon and now I can't sleep tonight. The family fires no longer hiss and sputter with flames but glow instead as silent embers. I imagine myself strolling right into Campbell Station next spring. The dogwoods are white and yet the most delicate pink from a distance. In the pasture the tender grass smells sweet. Livestock are treading on the wild strawberries again. Spring lambs and calves cleave to their mothers.

Dougal is still sitting on his stupid rock in the middle of the pasture, mooning over his map.

"Good afternoon, Dougal," I say.

Seeing me dressed the way I am, he jumps clean into the air, thinking I'm an Indian. The map lands in the mud.

"Mary?" he says, his eyes as big as wagon wheels. "Ma! It's Mary! She's home!"

My mother, dressed in black, is sitting on the side porch dolefully churning butter. She jumps off the porch and charges toward me, skirts flying.

"Mary," she hollers out. "Mary's come home!"

My father runs toward us from the fields, holding his sun hat flat against his head so it won't blow away. Even Lady Grey is purr-winding around my ankles. My mother enfolds me in her arms.

"I'm all right. I escaped. I'm all right."

"Oh Mary! And it's your birthday, too! I'll make you a cake and everything!"

As we walk toward the cabin, I can't go another step until I've given them all a piece of my mind.

"Pa, if you hadn't made us go westering, this would never have happened. I've been starving, freezing, terrified, and so exhausted I've fallen asleep with half-chewed food in my mouth. You're so selfish. You only think about yourself."

He hangs his head. "I'm sorry, Mary. We'll go back to Connecticut tomorrow, just as you wish."

I turn to Dougal.

"And you, you were supposed to be protecting me. If you hadn't been so lazy, I might never have been kidnapped."

Dougal hangs his head. "I'm sorry, Mary. I'll never sleep beyond daybreak again. My lazy days are over."

I turn to Ma.

"And you, you were always so angry with me. Nothing I ever did was good enough. Why did you make my life so hard?"

She hangs her head and speaks so softly I have to lean forward to hear her. "Because a woman's life is hard, Mary, much harder than a man's. It breaks my heart to be the one to prepare you for your future, for all I want is your happiness."

I sit bolt upright, half expecting to see my mother kneeling between the dark lumps of sleeping Delaware. It's a long time before sleep comes.

***

We awake one dawn to the most direful cold-the bitterest, coldest morning I can remember.

Hepte rubs mosquito grease on our faces and hands to keep our skin from cracking. Frigid wind screams down the gorge and sets the trees to shivering. It hurts to breathe. I squirm in front of a weak and quavering fire, my teeth chattering and my bladder full.

The boys try to look brave and unconcerned, but I can see the fear in their eyes. Holding blankets and axes, the fathers go down the cliff trail with them. We hear the ice cracking as the fathers chop holes in the ice for their sons. We hear the boys scream as they climb out of the ice holes. The boys run stiff legged up the cliff trail with blankets around their shoulders.

Their fingers are blue. Their cracked heels are bloody from running on the sharp stones. Everyone is paying attention to the boys, rubbing their feet, spooning hot cornmeal into their mouths, pushing cups of hot tea into their hands.

Now,
I say to myself.
I need more strength.

I pick up the axe White Eyes lets me use for firewood. "I get wood," I say in their language, "good fires for the boys."

Hepte tries to catch my hand. "Tonn," she says softly.

I walk quickly down the cliff trail and shed my clothes on the riverbank. I walk to the center of the river. My heart is pounding as I begin chopping. It takes longer than I think it will to chop a hole in the thick ice. I toss the axe next to my clothes.

Now! I am already shivering as I jump in.

The cold shocks the air right out of my lungs. I curl into a ball, and that is my mistake. The swift current sweeps me away from my ice hole.

I can't breathe! I'm under the ice! I pound the underside of the ice with my fists. It doesn't break.

When I open my eyes in the cold, dim water, I see an ice hole from when the boys jumped in. My hands break through the thin membrane of ice already forming across it. The current pushes me forward and the ice hole slips away from my grasp.

I look forward again. There are four more ice holes, each one with a dimly lit column of water underneath. One of the columns has two arms and an angry face dangling upside down within it.

A face?

White Eyes grabs my hair as I rush by. I try to grasp his arms but my fingers don't work.

He pulls me out of the ice hole by the hair and throws me onto the snow. I fall like a sack of potatoes. The wind freezes me to the bone.

"Get up!" he roars at me in English. "Get up!"

He has a switch in his hand. I watch him switching my legs. I don't feel anything.

I try to stagger upright but my legs don't work. White Eyes hoists me to my feet and I stumble to the river-bank.

He is already there, holding the axe and my clothes.

"Run!" he screams at me. "Run!"

Gasping for breath, I stumble up the cliff trail as he chases after me. I hear the switch singing against my legs, but he might as well be hitting fence posts; I don't feel a thing.

My hair is frozen stiff. My numb and bleeding feet flip and flop like fish on the icy rocks. My teeth chatter, then my jaw clamps shut. Ice has coated my eyelashes; the ice scratches against my eyes. My fingers are bluish white by the time we reach the cave.

Hepte is waiting. She scoops me up in a blanket and holds me tightly in front of the fire. Chickadee rubs my feet.

White Eyes shouts at me, but I don't understand a thing. Mrs. Stewart shouts at me too, but I don't understand her, either. Grandfather pushes her out of the way and shouts some more. I just stare at them
all-my mind is as stiff and frozen as my body. Their shouting is muffled and dim, as though coming from a great distance. My eyelids start to droop. I could sleep for days.

"No!" Grandfather shouts. He shakes me hard by the shoulders. "Mary! Mary Caroline Campbell! Don't sleep," he shouts in my ear as he pinches my cheeks. He hoists me to my feet and walks with me. We weave in and out between the family fires. We walk for a long time.

The backs of my legs begin to sting. Then my fingers, ears, and nose throb with sharp, hot pain. My thoughts come back slowly, like dying coals coaxed and stirred to fiery life.

I collapse in Hepte's arms again.

"I need more strength," I gasp to her. "I don't have enough strength."

"Shh. I will tell you a secret," Hepte murmurs in my ear. She rocks me in her lap. "Tell me when you are ready to hear this secret."

Chickadee presses my doll into my right hand. My fingers close around the doll, as slow and creaky as an old woman's fingers.

Hepte waits for me as I shiver and shiver. Finally, I nod.

"Secret," I say in a shaky voice. It occurs to me, slowly, that I spoke to her in her own language and that I can understand what she is saying to me. But Hepte doesn't speak a word of English.

She whispers in my ear, "I saw you chopping a hole in the ice and sent your father down the cliff trail to pull you out. This is the secret: You have more strength than any of these boys. And you do not have to jump into a frozen river to prove it."

W
ILL THIS WINTER EVER BE OVER
?

The days turn warm, and just when I think perchance it really is spring, the snow blows down the gorge again, reminding me that there's plenty of winter left.

Then the weather turns pied: wet snow; sunshine; sleet; rain mixed with snow; sunshine again; sleet again; more wet snow.

We have to go farther and farther afield to look for firewood. Mrs. Stewart always walks alone as she looks for wood. When she comes back to the cave at dusk, her eyes are red from weeping.

Now that the winter is almost over, I want to plan our escape. We could be home in time for my birthday.

But Chickadee tags after me every afternoon. Most of the wood she picks up is either too heavy for her, so I end up carrying it, or so rotten and soggy as to be useless.