The Spirit Keeper (25 page)

By this time I had e’en become resigned to the resolution of our story, wherein I became Syawa’s Spirit Keeper. Tho’ I knew ’twas not true, I also knew that without that ending, the story was just too tragic to tell.

After our performance at the Big Bend village, I did not glance Hector’s way again ’til after he sang the traveler’s song and the community dancing began. At that point men were gathering ’round him as women were gathering ’round me, and our eyes met across the crowd. He gave me one of his half-smiles and I smiled back, glowing inside.

At that moment I wisht Syawa’s Spirit truly
was
inside me, or at least watching from above. I knew he would be pleased his friends had finally befriended each other.

 • • •

Hector and I had turned a corner in more than just the direction of the river. Tho’ we still remained mostly silent during the days, it was now a companionable silence, a comfortable one, and during the evenings, more and more, we enjoyed pleasant conversation.

I told various stories to amuse him, but nothing entertained him as much as genuine descriptions of my early life. I told him about the sweet brown cow with a crumpled horn who always mooed plaintively whene’er we were late to milk her. Hector looked skeptical from across the campfire. “This cow of yours,” he asked, “it was like those we see sometimes drinking from the river?” He was referring, of course, to the great wild cows of America, the buffalo.

I admitted Bossie wasn’t nigh as big as a buffalo cow, but I pantomimed how big she was and assured him she seemed huge to a twelve-year-old girl who was milking her. I described how her wet, nasty tail smacked my face if she thought I tugged her teat too hard, but how she always licked me with her big, rough tongue to thank me when I was done.

Hector shook his head in amazement, asking why I took her milk from her.

“To drink!” I exclaimed, then told about cream and butter and all the delicious cheeses we made from milk. He listened to my babbling descriptions, his eyes shining with the same rapt attention our audiences always displayed, and on his face he wore the same half-smile I’d seen whene’er Syawa told a story. He was a wonderful audience.

But if I say Hector was interested in my stories of our cows, I cannot begin to describe the wonder with which he attended my explanation of how and why we gelded our bulls.

 • • •

And so the evenings passed as pleasantly as the days. Once we turned north, the wind was behind us, which meant we fairly flew upon the water. Occasionally it rained, but unless there was lightning, we kept moving. When weather did stop us, we sat on the riverbank under our upturned canoe, each concentrating on handiworks. He made arrows and fish spears; I sewed. I oft wisht I had a book to read. Sometimes we chatted, but mostly we kept our thoughts to ourselves, tho’ I suspect our thoughts went to the same place more often than not.

I remembered watching Hector and Syawa sit together like this, remembered how amazed I was by their almost supernatural connection. I had ne’er seen nothing like it, but now, because Hector fully believed Syawa’s Spirit was living inside me, he was letting his guard down, relaxing, interacting. ’Twas thrilling to experience e’en a faint reflection of the deep bond between those two men.

Mind you, I have had deep and abiding friendships in my life. I had a friend in Philadelphia—Mary—who was like a twin from whom I had been separated at birth. Whene’er we were together, we chattered endlessly about everything and nothing. Her father owned a stable, and the two of us rode together whene’er we could slip away from our families. We rode bareback, both on one horse. ’Tis a wonder to me now we did not break our necks on those rides, for we were oft thrown and were always at the mercy of the large beasts, who trotted, cantered, or galloped as they pleased. Mary’s father encouraged us to ride, for it was good for the stabled horses to get fresh air and exercise, but we were whipt more than once for being careless with other people’s property when we ran a horse too hard or brought it back limping.

Some of the happiest moments in my early life occurred when I had my arms wrapt ’round that dear girl as we rode along the Delaware River.

My point is that I knew how good it felt to have a true friend, but any experience I e’er had with friendship paled beside the bond I was beginning to enjoy with Hector. Unfortunately, my good feelings were riddled with guilt, as I knew the only reason Hector was nice to me was that he believed some part of me was his own childhood friend. I tried to temper my guilt by reminding myself it did Hector good to have Syawa back in his life, if only in this once-removed way. I assured myself it was a good thing I was doing, that by letting him believe Syawa’s Spirit was residing in me I wasn’t lying to him so much as offering him a way to cope with his awful loss. If I just happened to benefit from the deception by stepping right into the friendship the men had establisht and enjoying it for myself—well, that was not my intention. I ne’er meant to take Syawa’s place in Hector’s life, but once I felt it happening, it felt good, too good to stop.

 • • •

Back at the Big Bend village, the elders had warned of a band of ruffians somewhere to the north. At first we little heeded this warning, inasmuch as the danger was far away, but because the winds were with us and we were now working together like wheels on a cart, Hector and I made excellent progress, traveling great distances every day. As a result, the threat to the north loomed e’er closer. Soon every traveler we encountered could speak of naught but the ruffians.

A week or more after passing the Big Bend, we stopt at a village where the people were so distraught they scarce had any interest in our story. They said a group of fishermen had headed north two months earlier and were now long overdue. A search party had gone to find the missing men, but no word had yet come from either group.

Hector processed this news grimly before insisting we must go on. He was determined to reach a certain village by winter, and that village, he assured me, was still a long, long way away. But the farther north we traveled, the more uneasy he became. Each afternoon he looked for a small settlement or occupied campsite—exactly the sorts of places he previously avoided. Hector did not like camping with strangers, but he liked e’en less the risk we might be taking if we continued to camp alone.

Most people held us off with spears or nocked arrows ’til we explained who we were and what we wanted. Then they told the story we’d already heard—a band of miscreants up north was harassing travelers, hunters, fishermen, taking whate’er they wanted. When asked about the search party sent from the downstream village, most people said they had seen canoes or talked with the searchers, but that was all anyone knew.

At one small settlement we met a man who said he had escaped the ruffians. He said their leader was a young man expelled from a village far to the north, and this ne’er-do-well had attracted a band of outcasts from many neighboring villages. The trouble-makers now roamed the countryside, killing or enslaving everyone they met.

This news so vexed Hector he said we must stay where we were ’til the threat to travelers was somehow resolved. He, like everyone else, reckoned the missing fishermen and/or the search party would be returning any day now with news of a peaceful reconciliation.

I wasn’t so sure. I could see the idea of adding months to our journey made Hector as miserable as a swarm of biting flies, and I felt awful, knowing that, were it not for me, he would be living a life of comfort and ease back home. I told him and the people of that settlement the story of Robin Hood—another social outcast ’round whom a band of criminals collected. When Hector understood Robin Hood’s men robbed and harassed travelers for many years, he decided we’d best just keep moving.

So off we went at dawn each day, paddling as if the Hounds of Hell were baying at our backs, covering incredible distances, breathing a huge sigh of relief each afternoon when we found someone to camp with.

One day we realized that whereas we had, up to this point, regularly met canoes coming or going on the river, suddenly there was no one. No one. The entire day we met not a single traveler. That had ne’er happened during the entire time we paddled up the Misery.

What a deliverance it seemed that afternoon when we found an extended family group just wrapping up a hunting expedition! There were eighteen of them, including four women and six children. With all their weapons trained upon us, they flatly refused our request to join them ’til Hector told them I was a Spirit Keeper. Then they welcomed us, presuming, I suppose, my supernatural powers would protect us all from earthly peril. Far from providing protection, however, my presence only increased our vulnerability, for almost as soon as we joined them, my monthly began. Thus I found myself isolated with the women whilst Hector conferred with the men.

When we arrived, they had been packing to leave the next morning, but Hector convinced them to remain by pointing out that if they did not finish drying their meat, much of it would be ruined and the Spirit of the Buffalo would be displeased. Reluctant to offend the Buffalo Spirit, the hunters stayed to finish their work. Hector helped, hoping to convince them to stay through my time, but each day the men were increasingly agitated, and after three days, they would wait no longer. They left some meat in exchange for Hector’s help and pushed their heavily laden canoes into the current.

Hector was stone-faced as he watched them depart, but I knew he was feeling wretched. I, myself, could not have felt worse, keenly aware I was the one putting us in danger. At least if we could travel, we could hope to out-paddle any pursuers. As it was, we were sitting ducks. And, thanks to the ridiculous rules of his people, I couldn’t e’en talk to Hector about it, to ease his mind.

As he paced the riverbank, anxiously trying to look in all directions at the same time, I finally decided this unique circumstance must surely merit an exemption to his hard-and-fast separation requirements, so I urged him to let us get in the canoe and go, regardless of my condition. I explained my people ne’er observed monthly prohibitions and nothing bad e’er happened to us. When Hector refused e’en to acknowledge he heard me, I was infuriated. I ranted and raved in English, calling him every foul name I knew.

Eventually I gave up and sat by the fire glaring at the flames, trying to convince myself that all the rumors we’d heard were surely exaggerations. People tend to let their imaginations run wild, and my sense was that the “band of ruffians” was probably nothing more than a group of young men flexing their muscles.

When we lived in Philadelphia, my older brothers became well-known as hooligans, and the more people feared them, the more they swaggered and bullied. What started as petty theft and minor vandalism soon escalated into grand larceny and deliberate arson. As their reputation for violence grew, so did their power and influence, and before long the townspeople were actually paying my brothers and their gang not to cause trouble. That was the main reason James stayed in Philadelphia when the rest of us moved to the wilderness—he had a good thing going and didn’t want to give it up.

I reckoned the ruffians we’d heard so much about were in a similar situation, which meant the more people talked about how terrible they were, the more terrible they became. Our best hope, I knew, was to slip swiftly and silently through their territory whilst they were occupied with something else—such as the search party we were following. If we were waylaid by the ruffians, we’d just have to pay whatever tribute they demanded, after which they’d let us go. Tribute was all my brothers e’er wanted.

The sun set and it came time for Hector to sleep, but he remained on the riverbank, looking back and forth. I told him it was stupid to go without sleep—he would wear himself out so that if the ruffians
did
show up, he would be too tired to offer a defense. Tho’ he was ignoring me, I could see my words had an effect. Then I got an idea.

My brothers ne’er got into a fight they weren’t sure they could win, and if the odds were against them, they’d wait ’til they had the advantage. So as Hector paced nearby, I collected piles of grass and weeds. I spread our extra hides atop these piles so that it looked as if there were two people sleeping near our fire. Tho’ Hector ne’er looked at me, he joined me in collecting four more piles so we seemed to have
six
additional people sleeping in our camp. Satisfied, he lay down amidst the “bodies” and went to sleep.

Holding the French hatchet in my hand, I sat under my bearskin with my hat on my head so that it was not obvious I was a woman. Thankfully, nothing unusual occurred during my watch, except when Hector snorted in his sleep, woke himself up, and nigh stabbed one of our sleeping “bodies” with his knife. I would’ve laughed at him had he not been so obviously anxious for my safety.

I slept undisturbed that night, and tho’ Hector paced like a caged cat all the next day, nothing happened. When nighttime rolled ’round, we rearranged our piles and hoped for the best, both aware we should be free to travel on the morrow. All we need do was make it through one more night.

The second night was more tense than the first, but, once again, nothing occurred. When the second morning came, I got up, tied back my hair, and picked up my pack, preparing to go to the river to perform the purification rituals Hector insisted upon before we resumed normal communications, but just as I turned to leave, Hector suddenly spoke.

He was standing by the canoe, facing the surrounding brush, casually collecting his fish spears. “If I had someone to talk to,” he said quietly, clearly addressing me, “I would say we are being watched.”

I froze, considering. I tried to look unconcerned as I went back to stand near him. I bent down beside his pack, looking for the hatchet. “If I could talk to someone,” I murmured, “I would ask how many people are watching us.”

A long moment passed. Hector continued to fumble with his spears. “I would tell someone I see at least ten, maybe more,” he said softly, apparently to the canoe.