young.”
They walk along the water. Seth waits for Cade to say more. He doesn’t know if talking helps or not. He fingers the ring in his pocket again and thinks, maybe I’ll just carry it forever, come across it whenever I change my handkerchief: oh that, I should do something about that. Then he thinks: All right. I’ll go to Fort Wayne.
“You should rub some soap up on your skin,” Cade says. “Change your shirt and collar. You look a mess.”
“You do too, brother,” Seth tells him. “You do too.”
The next day Jonas comes in with news from the men: they have found signs of a small campfire near the Blanchard River, and there are marks that might have been made from canoes scraping down the bank. Now they are following the river on horseback, and four men came back to town to fetch skiffs.
Later Liza has Jonas move Aurelia onto a straw tick with a folded quilt on top of it. The new bedding smells like vinegar, a smell that, strangely, comforts Susanna. Ellen used to wash their hair and clothes in vinegar to stave off a fever.
“How is she doing?” Susanna asks. Liza is trying to feed Aurelia some applesauce.
“Doesn’t want to swallow.” Liza puts a drop the size of a fingernail in Aurelia’s mouth and, like Cade, massages her throat. At last Aurelia swallows. “Such a pretty,” Liza says.
“I think she’s the prettiest of us all, though some people say Naomi.”
“You’re all of you pretty. My cousin had dark red hair like yours. Always liked it. You see it brown, then she goes into the sun and you see it red. She married a coureur de bois , a French backwoodsman, they moved up north. Docia. Wonder about her still.”
Sunlight slants in through the open window. There is not a whisper of wind. It is late afternoon, her mother’s favorite time of day. Out of all of them, Aurelia looks most like Ellen: the same color hair, the same mouth. In a way this is like watching her mother die all over again.
“If only I started sooner,” Susanna says. “If I had followed them as soon as they left...”
“Then they would have taken you, too. They use scouts, you know, to see what’s behind them as well as what’s in front.”
“I just can’t understand it. Why would they do this to her? The Potawatomi have always been friendly to us. To my father. They often came to our store.”
“Nothing to do with that. It’s just what they do if they find themselves with someone ill. So they don’t carry disease back to their people.”
A log from the fire shifts and falls, and Liza gets up to attend to it. Above the fireplace hangs a map hand-drawn by Jonas. It is very neat, with small upward arrows indicating trees and looping lines for streams. There is Severne, there is Thieving Forest, and there is Risdale. And at the very top in block letters: The Great Black Swamp.
Liza leans the poker back against the water cask. She sits on the chair next to Aurelia and picks up the bowl of applesauce again, but Aurelia has fallen asleep. She is asleep more than awake now. She slept for almost six hours after breakfast.
Susanna says, “I want to ask you something.”
Liza gets out her pipe and lights a twig off the fire. “All right.” She touches the glowing end to her pipe bowl and takes a long pull.
“The Indians, the Potawatomi...” She is looking for the right words. “Could they have taken Aurelia...taken her honor?”
“Acted like a husband?” Liza asks. “Except by force?” Susanna nods. To her surprise, Liza seems to get angry. She waves her pipe stem in front of her as if scratching the air. “You know who does that? White men. That’s who. Not Indians. That’s not their way.”
“But in the stories...”
“I know about those stories. White men tell them to keep us afraid. Listen now. I’ve lived around forest Indians all my life. Before Jonas and I moved down here we ran a trading post near Canada where we were the only white people excepting a little cripple Welshman who
They walk along the water. Seth waits for Cade to say more. He doesn’t know if talking helps or not. He fingers the ring in his pocket again and thinks, maybe I’ll just carry it forever, come across it whenever I change my handkerchief: oh that, I should do something about that. Then he thinks: All right. I’ll go to Fort Wayne.
“You should rub some soap up on your skin,” Cade says. “Change your shirt and collar. You look a mess.”
“You do too, brother,” Seth tells him. “You do too.”
The next day Jonas comes in with news from the men: they have found signs of a small campfire near the Blanchard River, and there are marks that might have been made from canoes scraping down the bank. Now they are following the river on horseback, and four men came back to town to fetch skiffs.
Later Liza has Jonas move Aurelia onto a straw tick with a folded quilt on top of it. The new bedding smells like vinegar, a smell that, strangely, comforts Susanna. Ellen used to wash their hair and clothes in vinegar to stave off a fever.
“How is she doing?” Susanna asks. Liza is trying to feed Aurelia some applesauce.
“Doesn’t want to swallow.” Liza puts a drop the size of a fingernail in Aurelia’s mouth and, like Cade, massages her throat. At last Aurelia swallows. “Such a pretty,” Liza says.
“I think she’s the prettiest of us all, though some people say Naomi.”
“You’re all of you pretty. My cousin had dark red hair like yours. Always liked it. You see it brown, then she goes into the sun and you see it red. She married a coureur de bois , a French backwoodsman, they moved up north. Docia. Wonder about her still.”
Sunlight slants in through the open window. There is not a whisper of wind. It is late afternoon, her mother’s favorite time of day. Out of all of them, Aurelia looks most like Ellen: the same color hair, the same mouth. In a way this is like watching her mother die all over again.
“If only I started sooner,” Susanna says. “If I had followed them as soon as they left...”
“Then they would have taken you, too. They use scouts, you know, to see what’s behind them as well as what’s in front.”
“I just can’t understand it. Why would they do this to her? The Potawatomi have always been friendly to us. To my father. They often came to our store.”
“Nothing to do with that. It’s just what they do if they find themselves with someone ill. So they don’t carry disease back to their people.”
A log from the fire shifts and falls, and Liza gets up to attend to it. Above the fireplace hangs a map hand-drawn by Jonas. It is very neat, with small upward arrows indicating trees and looping lines for streams. There is Severne, there is Thieving Forest, and there is Risdale. And at the very top in block letters: The Great Black Swamp.
Liza leans the poker back against the water cask. She sits on the chair next to Aurelia and picks up the bowl of applesauce again, but Aurelia has fallen asleep. She is asleep more than awake now. She slept for almost six hours after breakfast.
Susanna says, “I want to ask you something.”
Liza gets out her pipe and lights a twig off the fire. “All right.” She touches the glowing end to her pipe bowl and takes a long pull.
“The Indians, the Potawatomi...” She is looking for the right words. “Could they have taken Aurelia...taken her honor?”
“Acted like a husband?” Liza asks. “Except by force?” Susanna nods. To her surprise, Liza seems to get angry. She waves her pipe stem in front of her as if scratching the air. “You know who does that? White men. That’s who. Not Indians. That’s not their way.”
“But in the stories...”
“I know about those stories. White men tell them to keep us afraid. Listen now. I’ve lived around forest Indians all my life. Before Jonas and I moved down here we ran a trading post near Canada where we were the only white people excepting a little cripple Welshman who
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