Fire Along the Sky
Page 71
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Makes-a-Fist would not tolerate his mother's voice or touch or nearness. Instead he attached himself to the twins, Light-Crow and Dark-Crow. The three hunting boys ranged ahead of the women. Grouse, squirrel, rabbits: never enough. The boy brought in his share, and more, and still it was never enough.
They walked hungry. They walked trails the white men had forgotten or never known about; fading back into the woods when they heard horses or people.
At the Ohio they found an old Shawnee with a raft. He was willing to take them over the river to the beginning of Miami territory for three skinny rabbits and the news they had to share.
He poled them through drifts of ice, singing under his breath. Then Red-Hoof lost his footing on the wet log, and the river took him away, his gray hair floating for a moment in an eddy of maple leaves the color of fire. It was too cold to stop and so they sang the story of his life as they walked.
For the first time in her adult life, Walking-Woman stopped thinking of herself as a healer. All her medicines, all her tools, the surgical instruments, all her journals and notes and the records she had kept so faithfully, everything was gone, burned or trampled or stolen. She had nothing to offer these people; she could not fill their stomachs or quiet their fears.
They died, as she knew they must, the oldest and youngest first. A four-month infant of a fever, the second old uncle in his sleep, the mother of the twin boys because her kidneys stopped doing their work. By the time they came to the rolling hills of the Shawnee territory they were five women and nine children.
Makes-a-Fist spoke of his father more with every day of walking. He told stories about Strikes-the-Sky in his mother's hearing, so that Walking-Woman could neither ignore his anger nor put aside her own memories. When her son's fury was hottest, she closed her eyes and saw Strikes-the-Sky dead in a hundred different ways: convulsed with fever, swollen with snake-bite, drowned in a fast river overhung with weeping trees. She imagined him on battlefields, or ambushed, or lying on a pallet among the Osage, unable to ask for water or tell them his name. She saw him shot in the heart, his throat cut, his spine severed, flayed so his skin could be carried away and tanned, an artery in his stomach pumping blood. She blinked, and saw her son beside her husband, dead on the battlefield.
Strikes-the-Sky spoke to her often. He stood just behind her, calmed by death and, it seemed to her, amused by it too. Sometimes he spoke to her of nothing important at all; he reminded her of things they had done, the day he had first seen her, the day they had started the long walk west to join his people. He always ended his visit with the same stern words.
Keep the boy safe.
Makes-a-Fist had been born with a caul. Walking-Woman had watched him appear between her thighs with eyes open wide behind the thin, pearly-white skin of the birth sack. A ghost of a child, she had thought and then he howled, a sound like a panther screaming, and she was so relieved that she might have swooned, if not for the strong hands that held her own: her sister-in-law, gone now too, killed by a soldier when she ran back to the village to get the cooking pot. Walking-Woman remembered the arc of the soldier's sword, so swift and somehow casual, like a man out for a walk, lopping the heads off nettles.
In the newborn's clenched fists they had found more of the birth sack, something that set the women to conjecturing among themselves. This one will run into battle, her uncle's wife had said with great pleasure and pride. This one will be a great hunter.
Good fortune seemed to find them on the day they came to a lake that one tribe called Goose Neck and another, Hollow Waters. It sat among the wooded hills, ringed with a marsh like the stubble on a white man's chin and frozen solid, early and quick, in a series of deep and furious frosts. The weather was clear and the sky bright overhead, with a moon like a fat berry bumping along the horizon to cast pink shadows on the snow.
Late-Harvest found a cave she remembered from her girlhood and in it, waiting for them, a small bear in its winter sleep. Light-Crow killed it with an arrow through the eye and that night every one of them ate their fill. Makes-a-Fist ate until his belly rounded, but in his face his mother saw disappointment. He could not claim any part in the kill, and so the meat was not exactly to his taste.
The food and the warm shelter put them all in good spirits and for once the women spoke among themselves with more animation. Late-Harvest told stories of her girlhood here and of her village, just a few days' walk away. She spoke of her family, who sometimes made winter camp on the shores of this lake. From the mouth of the cave they could see it, glimmering under the moon. Here her father and uncles and brothers and cousins had played bagattaway, as many as fifty of them at a time. Here they hunted and fished and celebrated midwinter.
That night Walking-Woman dreamed of a village put to the torch, the air filled with the reek of burning flesh. She woke with a start to find that her son had put his pallet down next to her for the first time since they had left Ket-tip-pe-can-nunk. His hair had fallen over his face and fluttered with every breath. Walking-Woman touched his skin to feel its warmth. She put her face next to his and slept.
They spent a second day in the cave, rendering bear fat and cooking: food enough to take them to Late-Harvest's village and to offer as a gift to the sachem. The twins went out and brought back more game: two turkeys, a brace of rabbits, a porcupine. Almost more than the women could manage, but they were so pleased and the hunting boys so proud that nothing was said to discourage them.
Walking-Woman woke the next morning with the first scream of the blizzard. She was warm and her belly was full and the snow could not find its way into the cave, and still. She sat up in the near dark and looked hard into the coals in the fire pit, irregular red hearts pulsing and pulsing, close to death now and needing to be fed.
They walked hungry. They walked trails the white men had forgotten or never known about; fading back into the woods when they heard horses or people.
At the Ohio they found an old Shawnee with a raft. He was willing to take them over the river to the beginning of Miami territory for three skinny rabbits and the news they had to share.
He poled them through drifts of ice, singing under his breath. Then Red-Hoof lost his footing on the wet log, and the river took him away, his gray hair floating for a moment in an eddy of maple leaves the color of fire. It was too cold to stop and so they sang the story of his life as they walked.
For the first time in her adult life, Walking-Woman stopped thinking of herself as a healer. All her medicines, all her tools, the surgical instruments, all her journals and notes and the records she had kept so faithfully, everything was gone, burned or trampled or stolen. She had nothing to offer these people; she could not fill their stomachs or quiet their fears.
They died, as she knew they must, the oldest and youngest first. A four-month infant of a fever, the second old uncle in his sleep, the mother of the twin boys because her kidneys stopped doing their work. By the time they came to the rolling hills of the Shawnee territory they were five women and nine children.
Makes-a-Fist spoke of his father more with every day of walking. He told stories about Strikes-the-Sky in his mother's hearing, so that Walking-Woman could neither ignore his anger nor put aside her own memories. When her son's fury was hottest, she closed her eyes and saw Strikes-the-Sky dead in a hundred different ways: convulsed with fever, swollen with snake-bite, drowned in a fast river overhung with weeping trees. She imagined him on battlefields, or ambushed, or lying on a pallet among the Osage, unable to ask for water or tell them his name. She saw him shot in the heart, his throat cut, his spine severed, flayed so his skin could be carried away and tanned, an artery in his stomach pumping blood. She blinked, and saw her son beside her husband, dead on the battlefield.
Strikes-the-Sky spoke to her often. He stood just behind her, calmed by death and, it seemed to her, amused by it too. Sometimes he spoke to her of nothing important at all; he reminded her of things they had done, the day he had first seen her, the day they had started the long walk west to join his people. He always ended his visit with the same stern words.
Keep the boy safe.
Makes-a-Fist had been born with a caul. Walking-Woman had watched him appear between her thighs with eyes open wide behind the thin, pearly-white skin of the birth sack. A ghost of a child, she had thought and then he howled, a sound like a panther screaming, and she was so relieved that she might have swooned, if not for the strong hands that held her own: her sister-in-law, gone now too, killed by a soldier when she ran back to the village to get the cooking pot. Walking-Woman remembered the arc of the soldier's sword, so swift and somehow casual, like a man out for a walk, lopping the heads off nettles.
In the newborn's clenched fists they had found more of the birth sack, something that set the women to conjecturing among themselves. This one will run into battle, her uncle's wife had said with great pleasure and pride. This one will be a great hunter.
Good fortune seemed to find them on the day they came to a lake that one tribe called Goose Neck and another, Hollow Waters. It sat among the wooded hills, ringed with a marsh like the stubble on a white man's chin and frozen solid, early and quick, in a series of deep and furious frosts. The weather was clear and the sky bright overhead, with a moon like a fat berry bumping along the horizon to cast pink shadows on the snow.
Late-Harvest found a cave she remembered from her girlhood and in it, waiting for them, a small bear in its winter sleep. Light-Crow killed it with an arrow through the eye and that night every one of them ate their fill. Makes-a-Fist ate until his belly rounded, but in his face his mother saw disappointment. He could not claim any part in the kill, and so the meat was not exactly to his taste.
The food and the warm shelter put them all in good spirits and for once the women spoke among themselves with more animation. Late-Harvest told stories of her girlhood here and of her village, just a few days' walk away. She spoke of her family, who sometimes made winter camp on the shores of this lake. From the mouth of the cave they could see it, glimmering under the moon. Here her father and uncles and brothers and cousins had played bagattaway, as many as fifty of them at a time. Here they hunted and fished and celebrated midwinter.
That night Walking-Woman dreamed of a village put to the torch, the air filled with the reek of burning flesh. She woke with a start to find that her son had put his pallet down next to her for the first time since they had left Ket-tip-pe-can-nunk. His hair had fallen over his face and fluttered with every breath. Walking-Woman touched his skin to feel its warmth. She put her face next to his and slept.
They spent a second day in the cave, rendering bear fat and cooking: food enough to take them to Late-Harvest's village and to offer as a gift to the sachem. The twins went out and brought back more game: two turkeys, a brace of rabbits, a porcupine. Almost more than the women could manage, but they were so pleased and the hunting boys so proud that nothing was said to discourage them.
Walking-Woman woke the next morning with the first scream of the blizzard. She was warm and her belly was full and the snow could not find its way into the cave, and still. She sat up in the near dark and looked hard into the coals in the fire pit, irregular red hearts pulsing and pulsing, close to death now and needing to be fed.
