Thieving Forest (26 page)

Inside, their cabin smells like blood. There is a dark stain in the corner where the planks of wood have run out and the floor is bare dirt. Is this where he was killed? Then dragged outside? A few things are obviously gone: the iron tongs, the longest hammer, and a mirror that once hung over the basin and pitcher, their only decoration. The room feels like defeat. Seth looks at the ceiling. Has it always been so sloped? Even the walls seem darker than he remembered and strangely, considering Amos erected the cabin only six years ago, in a state of decay. Seth knows he should do something, get his things together, see what he can sell to any takers. Maybe meet Cade in Kentucky. But he stands in the empty room as if listening. He knows Cade will never come back. Seth could sell the rest of his father’s tools without too much effort. Maybe someone would even want to take up the trade, one of the farmers tired of being outdoors all day. Every settlement needs a blacksmith.

One thing is certain, though: it won’t be him. Amos always talked of leaving the trade to his sons. Cade didn’t want it, but Amos never saw that. Seth pours some water into the basin but it sat too long in the pitcher and the smell of sulfur is strong. He should go out and fetch more water but instead he just puts the pitcher back down. A feeling is pulling at him but he can’t think what.

The other settlers have gotten nervous—trouble with the natives, they’re saying. John Johns, one of the farmers who buried Amos, told Seth that he was going to carry a rifle with him the next time he plowed. But Seth isn’t worried about natives. That isn’t it. Something to do with Susanna? He needs direction. A task. The slope of the ceiling is permanent, there is no fixing that now.

He goes outside to get some fresh air and that’s when he sees the Indian crouching near the cabin. A Potawatomi. He isn’t hiding but he isn’t making himself too visible either. The long rye grass rises behind him, and Seth realizes that he would only be seen by someone coming out of his cabin: himself.

The man stands. “
Bozho
,” he says. Greetings.

The man is taller than Seth and broader but his hands hang to his sides, empty. His only knife is tucked into his belt. Seth can see that he is not here to threaten him.

“
Bozho
,” Seth replies. He knows Potawatomi from Amos’s late night rants after hours of drinking.

The man is looking at his face. Then he looks at Seth’s arms and legs, his shoulders, and back to his face. “You are Potawatomi,” he says.

Is this a question? “I have Potawatomi blood, but also German. Mostly German.”

“Face is Potawatomi. Father is Potawatomi but does not have face.”

“Did you know my father?”

He says, “I did not sanction his death.” For a while he says nothing more. Seth waits, curious. Sanction is an interesting word to use. For a moment he wonders at his own coldness, and then lets it go. Amos was not an easy parent to live with. Thank God for Cade, his ally.

“I am here to see if you seek revenge,” the man finally says.

At that Seth looks at him quickly, warily.

“I am here peacefully. To parley,” the man says.

Seth looks around. No farmers in sight, all of them out in their fields probably. There is not much to Severne: a couple of plank walkways, a half dozen yellow buildings, and that’s it. That’s the settlement. Behind him the ground is so flat you could see a man riding in from nearly a mile away. Also that man could see you.

“Let’s go into my cabin,” Seth says. “This place is too open.”

But the Potawatomi does not move. “If you seek revenge I am beholden to help.”

This surprises Seth. “Beholden! But I have never seen you before. We have no connection.”

“Both Potawatomi.”

Seth pushes his damp hair off his forehead. The day is very humid. He tells the Potawatomi that he believes his father was engaged in some wrongdoing. What he means by this is that he does not think revenge would be a fitting response.

“Do you know who killed him?” Seth asks. Immediately he wishes he could take it back. Better not to know. They still have not moved from their spot in front of Seth’s cabin. The wind when it reaches him is hot. The man doesn’t answer. An insect lands on his arm but he still does not make a move. Seth asks him what his name is.

“Koman.”

“Koman, let me offer you some food inside. It is too hot to speak here without shade. I do not seek revenge, but I would seek your aid. I am looking for a woman. Her name is Susanna Quiner. She’s gone into the Black Swamp.”

Koman searches Seth’s face. Then he says, “Red hair?”

Seth nods.

Koman crosses his arms in front of him. His hair blows forward in the hot wind. “I will aid,” he says.

Seventeen

At night wild creatures call out in human voices and she is convinced that the Stooping Indians are coming in a pack to kill her and pierce her ears. When she opens her eyes a full white moon is close to her face. So that is why she feels so hot. A moment later, the moon is gone. It is daylight and Green Feather is massaging her leg. Green Feather says, “
Gloucheecheechee
,” in a very soft voice. Susanna licks her dry lips and searches her mind for an answer. “
Merci
,” she says finally.

She dreams she is walking through Thieving Forest in search of something vitally important only she has forgotten what. When she looks up she can see a single tree branch angling down as if pointing to her head. It places her in the world and gives her solace: you are still here. In the morning Meera urges her to drink some foul liquid from a cup, which she spits out.

“Look over there,” Meera tells her.

On the opposite end of the clearing, men and women are dropping down from tree branches. In the cold gray light they look like ghosts.

“It is where they sleep,” Meera tells her.

Susanna watches them drop, breathing through her mouth. Is she dreaming again?

“They share the night with the birds,” Meera says.

Whenever Susanna thinks back to this time she can still feel the soft tug on her scalp as the children braid and decorate her hair. They love her hair, probably its red color, and they thrust their little fists into it whenever they can.

When she is able to sit up, one of the men carries her on his back away from the sycamore trees so she can get more sun, which is important for healing, Green Feather says. Her right leg is getting stronger but her left leg, the one the snake bit, still has no feeling. It is swollen and yellow and her toes are like little sausages. She cannot so much as bend her knee. When Meera or Green Feather helps her stand she turns into a wading bird, up on one leg. Looking down, her foot seems like something attached to somebody else.

A week goes by and still she can’t move it. At night she is carried back to her little shelter but during the day she sits up against a tree stump in the sun with a skin over her lap, dozing or watching the Stooping Indians at work. The women make little reed hammocks that they sleep on up in the trees, or look for nuts and roots. Meanwhile the men hunt, using short bows that they handle with astonishing accuracy. By this time all the food that Susanna and Meera have brought with them from Gemeinschaft is gone. They are dependent on whatever food the Indians can find. Every morning the men bag birds nesting in the Swamp, each one tiny, hardly a meal for a child, and they also snare small rodents and snakes. They save the bones and the children pound them into powder, which they mix into hot water and drink.

Susanna takes a sip. It tastes like chalk.

Slowly she sleeps less and remembers more. Her sense of smell returns. But she still can’t move her left leg. One afternoon after they decorate her hair, the children play a game pretending to cure her. The girl to whom Susanna gave Old Adam’s collar plays the part of a priest or doctor. She blows on Susanna’s leg and chants some words.

She is the chief’s daughter, Meera tells Susanna. Her name is Light in the Eyes. She wears Old Adam’s deer collar every day, although it is too large for her and droops over her collarbone. The chief himself—they call him Gosi—visits Susanna wearing a cape made of muskrat skin that Susanna sometimes sees the children playing in. He bends down to touch her leg, moving her kneecap as if that is indicative of something, like testing if a roasting chicken is done. Then he stands to consult with Green Feather, rolling between his fingers the small wooden object she saw him holding that very first evening. It isn’t a pipe, as she thought at first. It looks like a wavy snake.

When he leaves Susanna asks Light in the Eyes about it, pantomiming a snake on the ground. All of her communication feels like an exaggerated performance, a play, all signs and pantomimes. The children especially like to act out little speeches for her, telling her every day what the men have found to eat.

“Not snake.” Light in the Eyes shakes her head. Her eyes sparkle with mirth. She waves her two hands gently. Then she makes a motion as if she is drinking.

“Water?” Susanna asks. With her fingertips she pantomimes rain coming down. Light in the Eyes nods. Do they pray to this figure? Susanna wonders. Do they worship the water? Light in the Eyes is watching her, still smiling. She has a sweet, heart-shaped face.

A thought occurs to Susanna. “Is there special water somewhere? Something that will cure my leg? Heal it?”

She is growing more and more anxious. But Light in the Eyes just smiles and touches Susanna’s hair, which that day has been braided into five or six braids with long golden leaves at the ends. Susanna immediately feels ashamed of herself for asking about magical water, something a child might ask for. She is glad that Light in the Eyes did not understand, and nods to her as she feels the ends of her braids, crinkling the leafy decorations: yes, this is good, I like this.

One morning Green Feather massages Susanna’s injured leg with a new kind of oily plant resin, and afterward she consults with Meera in a mixture of Iroquois and signs, also a few words of her own language, which Meera is learning.

“Ask her when my leg will be healed,” Susanna says to Meera.

She wants a number: two days, a week. But Meera tells her she must be patient.

“We will keep you comfortable,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

Don’t worry? She looks at their faces, are they hiding something from her? She wants to ask if she is crippled now but is afraid that they will not say no strongly enough. Meera and Green Feather crouch on the ground. Green Feather picks something up. She laughs.

“What? What?” Susanna calls out.

Meera turns.

“What are you saying about me?”

“Nothing. We’ll be right back.”

They disappear into the woods. When they come out again their arms are linked. Is it her imagination, or does Green Feather look a little like a grown-up Meera? Susanna finds herself spinning a tale: this is Meera’s tribe, not her uncle tribe but her real tribe related by blood to Meera’s real parents. Meera is waiting for the right time to tell her. She will be traveling with Green Feather now. And since Susanna cannot walk she will have to stay behind.

Susanna tries to bend her knee but without success.

They approach her, smiling. Meera is holding something in her hand: a purple root. It is still wet from whatever stream they dug it up from. Beside her, Green Feather touches her mouth: for you to eat.

“Gnaw on this,” Meera says. “Green Feather found it. It will help your muscles strengthen and also ease the pain in your stomach.” She hands it to Susanna and then turns. “Now she wants to show me the plants for your poultice.”

“Don’t go off with her, please!”

“Susanna, she is helping you. She is showing me how to heal your leg.”

She owes her life to Meera and Green Feather, and yet she’s conscious that she is nothing to them. Not sisters, not kin. No natural ties bind them together. Every day the men bring back fewer birds. Soon no doubt they will have to leave this place to find more food. When that day comes, if she cannot walk, Susanna will not be able to go with them. Will Meera leave then, too? Susanna looks down at her leg, willing it to move. What if she is left to die in this place alone and unburied? Her bones taken by vultures? Her hair used for nests? She touches the puffy skin above her ankle. Blood runs through it, muscle lies underneath, but the leg itself is asleep. Just a bone to pick at, she thinks.