Fire Along the Sky
Page 70
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Outwardly Hannah seemed well enough: she did what was expected of her and more, but every day she seemed to be a little more removed from the world, a little more inward turned and unreachable. Jennet had talked to Elizabeth and Nathaniel and Many-Doves about this, trying to put her worries into words and failing. With Curiosity she had had only a little more success.
“The winter sets hard on her,” Curiosity had said when Jennet finished with her awkward recitation of her concerns.
“Yes,” Jennet said. “Harder than it should, I think.”
At that Curiosity had looked thoughtful. After a long moment she said, “She lost a child.”
She did not say, You can't understand, but Jennet flushed with color anyway, as if Curiosity had reached over and slapped her hand. “I know that. I know she lost her son.”
The older woman looked up from the work in her hands and there was something in her expression, some kindness that lessened the sting. “You know and you cain't know. Not really. And I pray to the good Lord that you never do. She lost her boy and her man both, and it will be a long time before she find her way back again.”
Jennet had wrapped her arms around herself to contain her frustration and anger. “But she's not on her way back, Curiosity. She's headed away from us. Every day a little further away. I see it happening. I feel it happening.”
At that Curiosity had looked at her hard, the kind of piercing look that came over her when she was examining a child with fever or belly pain. After a moment she nodded. “All right, yes. I'll see what I can do.”
All week Jennet had been watching for Hannah, who must surely come down to the village but never did. She thought of going up to Lake in the Clouds to fetch her, but there was always more work than Curiosity could handle and Jennet would not leave her in such circumstances. Nor was there any reason to send someone else up the mountain, at least not any reason she could put into words.
On the twenty-fourth of the month, when it seemed that Richard could not last even a single day more, Jennet had begun to wonder if Hannah would ever come to the village or if she might spend the rest of her life hiding on Hidden Wolf.
Jennet was contemplating this possibility when she came up around the final bend to the house and Big let out a single sharp bark. Two shadows rose up from the porch and came running. The three dogs met in a rearing dance, tails wagging fiercely and jaws open wide in greeting. And why not, Jennet thought, they were litter brothers, after all. She herself felt a great rush of happiness and relief, because if Mac and Blue were here that meant people were here from Lake in the Clouds.
Jennet picked up her skirts and pace and the dogs trotted along beside her.
Chapter 14
It happened like this.
Harrison's troops, edgy with their victory, well rested, fed, and full of ale set to work in the abandoned village on the Wabash. First they stole what they wanted: kettles and blankets and baskets of wampum beads ready to be strung, and then they trampled what was left. When they tired of that, Harrison called for torches.
They burned the longhouses and council house and stores: corn and beans to feed five hundred through the winter, gone in mid-November. The smell of burnt corn would linger in the air like a taunt for days.
But before they left for good, fresh scalps swinging from the barrels of their rifles, they dug up every grave, old and new, and scattered the remains to rot in the sun.
The women and old men and the men not yet recovered from battle wounds came back while the dust and smoke still hung in the air. They came back to rebury their dead and build shelters among the ashes and ghosts.
They spoke of leaving. Before the white settlers came to finish what Harrison's men had started; before the snows. Before the real starving began.
It had been the Prophet's responsibility to keep the peace; now he sat aside, silent and disgraced, huddled under a bearskin and waiting for his brother to come home and see what he had wrought. Tecumseh was still somewhere in the south, recruiting warriors for the Ket-tip-pe-can-nunk that was no more.
The women prepared for leaving. At night, by their family fires, the eldest boys argued, but their words could not produce food where there was none. The warriors who healed left to find new battles, and some of the boys went with them. Walking-Woman's son, eight winters old, was too young. One thing to be thankful for.
They wandered away in small groups, women and children and the very old. Some went north to live among the English in Canada. The rest, Kickapoos, Dakotas, Sacs, Mingos, and the others, simply scattered with the winds.
Walking-Woman allied herself to Late-Harvest, a young Wyandot whose Mingo husband had been among the sixty-six killed by Harrison's men. Walking-Woman and her son would travel with Late-Harvest and her group and then, when the time was right, they would strike northeast for Mohawk lands. She would take the boy home to Lake in the Clouds. She would take him to her father and uncle, who would raise him to be the kind of man Strikes-the-Sky wanted him to be.
Makes-a-Fist disappeared in the night before they were to start. She found him sitting in a tree, his bow cradled in his arms. New snow made a cap on his dark head that flew around him when he shook it. He said, I will not go, and my father would not want me to run and you are a coward and I do not want to live among your white people. These were strong words, words like a shovel digging a grave; words to break bone. Every one of them true.
They were six women and thirteen children, the youngest still in cradleboards, the eldest twin boys on the brink of manhood. There were two old men, Little-Mouth and Red-Hoof, uncles of Late-Harvest's dead husband. They had a single precious sack of corn from the Kickapoos' hidden stores, a musket with no powder or balls, some knives, four bows, and enough arrows if they were cautious.
“The winter sets hard on her,” Curiosity had said when Jennet finished with her awkward recitation of her concerns.
“Yes,” Jennet said. “Harder than it should, I think.”
At that Curiosity had looked thoughtful. After a long moment she said, “She lost a child.”
She did not say, You can't understand, but Jennet flushed with color anyway, as if Curiosity had reached over and slapped her hand. “I know that. I know she lost her son.”
The older woman looked up from the work in her hands and there was something in her expression, some kindness that lessened the sting. “You know and you cain't know. Not really. And I pray to the good Lord that you never do. She lost her boy and her man both, and it will be a long time before she find her way back again.”
Jennet had wrapped her arms around herself to contain her frustration and anger. “But she's not on her way back, Curiosity. She's headed away from us. Every day a little further away. I see it happening. I feel it happening.”
At that Curiosity had looked at her hard, the kind of piercing look that came over her when she was examining a child with fever or belly pain. After a moment she nodded. “All right, yes. I'll see what I can do.”
All week Jennet had been watching for Hannah, who must surely come down to the village but never did. She thought of going up to Lake in the Clouds to fetch her, but there was always more work than Curiosity could handle and Jennet would not leave her in such circumstances. Nor was there any reason to send someone else up the mountain, at least not any reason she could put into words.
On the twenty-fourth of the month, when it seemed that Richard could not last even a single day more, Jennet had begun to wonder if Hannah would ever come to the village or if she might spend the rest of her life hiding on Hidden Wolf.
Jennet was contemplating this possibility when she came up around the final bend to the house and Big let out a single sharp bark. Two shadows rose up from the porch and came running. The three dogs met in a rearing dance, tails wagging fiercely and jaws open wide in greeting. And why not, Jennet thought, they were litter brothers, after all. She herself felt a great rush of happiness and relief, because if Mac and Blue were here that meant people were here from Lake in the Clouds.
Jennet picked up her skirts and pace and the dogs trotted along beside her.
Chapter 14
It happened like this.
Harrison's troops, edgy with their victory, well rested, fed, and full of ale set to work in the abandoned village on the Wabash. First they stole what they wanted: kettles and blankets and baskets of wampum beads ready to be strung, and then they trampled what was left. When they tired of that, Harrison called for torches.
They burned the longhouses and council house and stores: corn and beans to feed five hundred through the winter, gone in mid-November. The smell of burnt corn would linger in the air like a taunt for days.
But before they left for good, fresh scalps swinging from the barrels of their rifles, they dug up every grave, old and new, and scattered the remains to rot in the sun.
The women and old men and the men not yet recovered from battle wounds came back while the dust and smoke still hung in the air. They came back to rebury their dead and build shelters among the ashes and ghosts.
They spoke of leaving. Before the white settlers came to finish what Harrison's men had started; before the snows. Before the real starving began.
It had been the Prophet's responsibility to keep the peace; now he sat aside, silent and disgraced, huddled under a bearskin and waiting for his brother to come home and see what he had wrought. Tecumseh was still somewhere in the south, recruiting warriors for the Ket-tip-pe-can-nunk that was no more.
The women prepared for leaving. At night, by their family fires, the eldest boys argued, but their words could not produce food where there was none. The warriors who healed left to find new battles, and some of the boys went with them. Walking-Woman's son, eight winters old, was too young. One thing to be thankful for.
They wandered away in small groups, women and children and the very old. Some went north to live among the English in Canada. The rest, Kickapoos, Dakotas, Sacs, Mingos, and the others, simply scattered with the winds.
Walking-Woman allied herself to Late-Harvest, a young Wyandot whose Mingo husband had been among the sixty-six killed by Harrison's men. Walking-Woman and her son would travel with Late-Harvest and her group and then, when the time was right, they would strike northeast for Mohawk lands. She would take the boy home to Lake in the Clouds. She would take him to her father and uncle, who would raise him to be the kind of man Strikes-the-Sky wanted him to be.
Makes-a-Fist disappeared in the night before they were to start. She found him sitting in a tree, his bow cradled in his arms. New snow made a cap on his dark head that flew around him when he shook it. He said, I will not go, and my father would not want me to run and you are a coward and I do not want to live among your white people. These were strong words, words like a shovel digging a grave; words to break bone. Every one of them true.
They were six women and thirteen children, the youngest still in cradleboards, the eldest twin boys on the brink of manhood. There were two old men, Little-Mouth and Red-Hoof, uncles of Late-Harvest's dead husband. They had a single precious sack of corn from the Kickapoos' hidden stores, a musket with no powder or balls, some knives, four bows, and enough arrows if they were cautious.
