Blackbird (14 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

KATHERINE spent the next few mornings with Star. 

Each day they had gone early to the river to bathe.  Then foraged for wild mushrooms and choke-cherries near the village.  Star pointed out the best places to gather wild mushrooms and choke cherries.  She also showed her the huge crop of Three Sisters--corn, beans, and squash, their main staples of life.  Planting was a job tended solely by women, and for a man even to plow the earth for their women was unthinkable.  Katherine could not get over the sheer size of the field.  Their corn crop alone was larger than any white farmers she had ever seen.

Katherine learned that Star’s husband, Zachariah, had been educated and named by white missionaries.  Zachariah had taught Star the English language, but he now refused to speak it because he was angry with all whites for encroaching on Iroquois land and dragging them into their impeding war.  He did not approve of Adahya bringing her here.  He thought his brother would be better off choosing a woman of his own race, but he had promised to respect her as long as she did the same to Adahya.

The sun was high overhead when they started back to the village.  Star was telling her about Iroquois customs, when Katherine decided to ask her about the painted tomahawk and shells she had found in the forest the day Adahya had been shot.

Star stopped walking.  Noticeably uncomfortable, she looked at Katherine and then down at own her feet.

“Tell me, Star.  Tell me what the monument marks?”

“That is something you must ask Adahya.”

Katherine recalled how defensive Adahya had become that day when she had tried to remove the tomahawk from the stump.  He had said it was not his anymore and that it had been made it to mark something.  But what?

“Please, Star.”

Star looked around, as if to make certain they were alone, and then spoke barely above a whisper.  “Song’s memory lies there.  But you did not hear that from me.”

Song’s grave.

“The Hodenosaunee paint their tomahawks red for war,” Star explained.  Then frowned, as if the subject was difficult for her. “Adahya was very angry when he lost Song.  He left shortly after, and he did not come back for many moons.  I thought he had gone to the warpath to purposely find death.  His mother thought he was gone forever.  When he came back he was different.  He changed.  Adahya had always been a warrior.  He never accepted defeat or loss, so it was harder on him.”

“How did she die?”

Star looked up as if surprised by her question.  Finally, she sighed.  “Song was difficult.”

“But how did she die?”

Star shook her head and abruptly began walking toward the village.  “I will speak no more of this.  It is Adahya’s place to tell you, not mine.”

Katherine followed the woman, knowing it was no use pressing her further.  Katherine pictured Adahya alone with his grief and so far from home.  She pictured Song’s grave again, so isolated from the village and from anyone going to pay their respects to her.  It was not right for someone to be buried alone and with such a cold, angry monument.  Even if Song had been difficult she deserved flowers placed upon her resting place.

“Can I ask you one more question?”  She trailed Star’s heels.

“Please do not speak of Song.”

“What are the shells for?”

“Shells?”

“Adahya placed shells on her grave.”

Star smiled, as if relieved.  “Condolence shells.  It is customary to be given them when one suffers loss.  One string is to dry the sufferer’s tears.  One is to ease their pain.  Another is to open their throat so that may be able to speak of their memory.”

Katherine nodded.  Song’s condolence shells had been painted red for war.  Perhaps Song had died after she and Adahya had fought.  Perhaps that was why he seemed to have been on bad terms with her when she died.  Or perhaps he had simply been angry at her for dying.  She would ask him about it when the timing was right.

They entered the village to find crowds of Indians gathered at the stockade gate.  Everyone was speaking at once, and it was so loud Katherine could not hear herself think.

“What’s happening?” she shouted, panic rising.

Star took her hand and pulled her toward the center of the commotion.  More than a dozen warriors were whooping and shouting, their nearly naked bodies painted with red and black ocher and everyone was cheering them on.  They carried baskets of supplies:  blankets, kettles, traps, hoes, and shovels--even a spinning wheel.  One warrior led three beagles tied to a rope.  Another two goats and a sheep.  Another led two jersey cows, a calf, and a white swayback horse.  Every one of the warriors had a fresh, bloody scalp hanging on his belt.

It was a raiding party.  The supplies and the animals were their bounty. 

She watched them brag of their victory.  She watched wives greet their husbands, children hug their fathers.  Katherine pictured the innocent victims lying in their homesteads void of their scalps and bleeding to death.  Dying as these warriors celebrated. Bile rose in her throat.  She had to get out of here.

She ran toward the stockade gate, but she was stopped by Adahya’s mother.  The old woman gripped her arm with a force hard enough to bruise.  She shouted something to her, and then spat in her face.

Enraged and unwilling to take anymore from this woman, Katherine slapped her hard enough to knock her off her feet.

The old woman got up quickly and lunged for her, but Star was suddenly there standing between them.  The old woman shouted something Katherine could not understand.

“She says she does not trust you,” Star translated, holding the old woman at bay.  “She does not understand why you have to be here.”

“Then that makes two of us.”

“She says you come between her and her son.”

“Tell her if she ever touches me again, I’ll kill her!”

The old woman raised her voice.  She lunged for Katherine again.  Before Katherine could strike back, Adahya charged between them, blocking his mother from her with his body.

Katherine listened to Adahya and his mother shout at each other.  She had no idea what they were saying, but their tones were heated with venom, and his mother ended it by storming off.

Adahya took her hand and pulled her back into the village.  “Come.”

Katherine dug in her heels.  She was not going back there where they celebrated the murder of innocent families.

His eyes were sympathetic, as if he understood her revulsion to what was happening within the stockade walls.  “Would you rather go someplace else?”

She nodded.  “Any place else.”

Silently, he led her down to the river’s edge.  He was quickly regaining his strength, she noticed as she watched him move over rocks and shrub with smooth, confident strides.  For a moment, she was glad he had not been able to join the raiding party.  She did not want to think of him with a scalp at his belt, even though he had admitted taking many of them.

Further down the river, she heard children shouting and laughing.  Adahya held a hemlock branch aside for her, and she saw his grandfather, Many Stories, perched atop a huge rock by the river’s edge.  His great-grandchildren, Little Jay and Swift Runner, played in the water. 

Many Stories beamed at her.

The children ran away screaming.

Adahya helped her onto the rock and they each sat on one side of the old man.

“Kat-rin.”  Many Stories grinned.  Adahya said he had taught him to speak her name.

“Ti-sot.”  She took his outstretched fist in her grip, as was his greeting.  When he said something she could not understand, she looked at Adahya for translation.

“He said it is good you do not have children of your own to scare away.”

“I’m sorry.”  She tried to read the old man’s expression but found that she could not.  “I didn’t mean--they tried to stone me.”  She looked back in the direction the children had run.  “Should someone go look for them?”

Adahya shouted something in Mohawk, and two little heads poked out from behind a birch tree, their black eyes wide and cautious.  He said something else to them, and they slowly approached Adahya.  Cautiously, they cast wide-eyed glances at Katherine as he spoke.  One sudden move on her part and they would be back in hiding.

Katherine was not used to children being afraid of her.  She had taught all her younger cousins to read and write.  And her students looked up to her.  None ever ran from her or looked at her the way these two did.

She needed a peace offering.  But what?  She touched the cameo around her neck.  It had come from her grandmother and had belonged to her grandmother all the way from the mother country.  Mama had given it to her on her deathbed.  But what about the boy?

Many Stories seemed to sense her dilemma and secretly passed her a small knife which he took from his belt.

Removing the cameo from her neck, Katherine slid off the rock and slowly approached the children as if she were sneaking up on a cornered deer.

She held the gold necklace out to Little Jay.  The child’s black eyes grew wide with fascination.  “This is very old.  Go on, you can take it.”

The girl cautiously took the gift.  Swift Running took the knife from her outstretched hand and immediately stepped away.  Little Jay held up the necklace, her gaze going to the cameo lady to Katherine and back again.  When Katherine resumed her place upon the rock, the girl crawled up beside her and sat on her lap.  She held the necklace up for Katherine to put it on.

* * *

ADAHYA watched the scene in stunned amazement.  Little Jay was afraid of everyone, and here she was nestled in Katherine’s arms and chattering away as if she had known Katherine her whole life.  Katherine was holding the girl, telling her about her mother, and Little Jay was looking up at her in awed silence, even though she could not understand a word of English.

A strange surge of affection washed over him.  He had never thought of having children before.  Song had point blank told him that she hated them, that she would rid the pregnancy if one should occur.  Katherine, however, was different.  She would make a good mother, and for the first time he saw himself with a future including children.  Something strange coiled in the pit of his stomach.  It also terrified him.

Katherine had been scared with him last night, but he had gotten further with her than he ever had before.  She would come to his bed soon.  It was only a matter of time.

A war whoop split the air.  In an instant, Swift Runner drenched him with water.  Splashing him with all his might, the boy called him a yellow coward and ran down the riverbed, sending water everywhere.  Adahya took off after him.  He caught the boy mid-stride, and they both fell into the stream.

“Don’t hurt yourself!” Katherine called.

Adahya stood and looked back at her. 

Her scowl conveyed concern for him.  Genuine concern.

She also was not wet yet.

* * *

KATHERINE saw Adahya and Swift Runner charging up the riverbank toward them.  She pushed Little Jay from her lap and slid off the rock.  She had just reached the shore when a surge of water soaked her from head to toe.  Little Jay squealed with delight and Swift Runner laughed hysterically.

Adahya stood over her, hands on his hips as if he were the mighty conqueror of the universe.  “What will you do now, Chogan?”

He was challenging her.

She darted between the wide span between his legs and ran into the river up to her knees.  Adahya followed her, and she splashed him for all she was worth.