Blackbird (7 page)

CHAPTER EIGHT

KATHERINE did not understand why they had not arrived at the fort by now.

Back at the pond, Adahya had said they would arrive by morning, but that had been days ago.  When she would ask him where they were or why they were taking so long to arrive he would change the subject by telling her stories of stone giants or flying heads or winged serpents.  He did not seem angry with her, and she was glad.  She hoped they could somehow remain friends after this was all over and she was back at the mission, but she doubted she would never see him again after that.  The thought left her with a strange empty feeling.

They stopped at midday, and Katherine sat on a fallen log, her feet aching.  The left heel of her shoe had fallen off hours ago when she had tripped over a tree root.  She tried to remove the remaining heel on her right shoe by pounding with her fist, but it would not budge.

Adahya squatted down in front of her.  Without asking, he grasped her ankle and chopped off her boot heel with one swipe of his tomahawk.

“Thank you.”

He met her gaze, but remained silent.  She did not understand why he was so quiet all of a sudden.  She watched him as he stood and slid his weapon back in his belt.  “You never told me who taught you English,” she said to start him talking.

“Chief Thayendanegea.”

“Who’s that?”

Adahya sat down beside her.  He sighed deeply, and she wondered if he felt all right.  He looked exhausted.

“Thayendanegea is a Ganeagaono war chief, and he is a good friend.  Perhaps your Knox has heard of him as Joseph Brant.”

Katherine nodded.  She had heard Joshua and Thomas speak of him often.  A Mohawk Indian, Joseph Brant, was a friend to the Johnsons and the Butlers.  He assisted in running the British Indian Department for them and getting the Iroquois people to side with England’s cause.  He was highly educated and also served as an interpreter for the Mohawk Anglican mission.  Joshua said he had translated the Bible to the Mohawk language, and he had admired the Mohawk’s devotion to God.  Brant sought to bring Christianity to his people as diligently as he did the British cause.  But Joshua said he was also a loaded weapon ready to go off.

“They say he will bring down an Indian massacre on every Colonial settlement soon,” she said.

Adahya grunted.  “He is only defending what your kind took from us.”

“We didn’t take anything from you.”

“What land did you build your mission on?”

“The Oneidas gave us that land.”

His jaw clenched, and his eyes narrowed.  “And what did you give them in return?”‘

“Knowledge and the love of God.”

He grunted.  Cold dignity transformed his expression into a stony mask.  “The Colonials will not protect the Oneidas after this war is won.  Face facts, Chogan.  The Colonials will not win this war. They cannot win.  They have no riches, no king to guide them as the British do.  The French could not even beat the British.  What makes your kind think they can?”

Katherine had no answer, so she let the argument drop.  Whether it was the heat or Adahya’s mood, her head began to ache.  She rubbed her temples.  “You could learn to read, you know.”  She looked up, pleased with herself at the prospect of teaching--and seeing him again.  “You could come by the mission.  I’d teach you.”

“And what else would you teach me, Chogan?”  There was bridled anger in his voice.  “Will Knox come to watch this time?”

Katherine’s heart pounded in her chest, and her face grew hot with humiliation and embarrassment.  “You could accomplish great things through use of intellect instead of war and violence.”

He gripped his tomahawk, his eyes burning, reproachful.  “This has gotten me where I am today, not talk.”

Adahya rose and began pacing in front of her.  Something was not right, but she could not put her finger on what it was.  He was angry and spooked for some reason, and it made her nervous.  “Aren’t you hungry?” she asked him.  Her own stomach was growling loudly.

He stopped pacing.  He looked at her as if she had startled him.  “Adahya, what’s wrong?  You’re acting funny.”

Panic set in.  Something was not right.  Adahya was not right.  She stood, backed from him.

He came toward her.  “Katherine, do not make this difficult for me.”

“What are you doing?”

Adahya had taken a length of rope from his bag which he now wound around his fist.  Katherine backed away.  She did not like the look in the Indian’s eyes, and she did not like the rope in his hands.

She had let her guard down.  She had let him win her trust.  Now he was going to do something terrible to her.  She had teased him, kissed him, let him feel her entire person.  Then rejected him.  Now he was going to get his revenge.  He was going to tie her up and rape her.  Then he would kill her.

She tore between the trees.  Branches caught her tangled hair, stabbed at her eyes, tore her dress.  He was close behind her, but she ran harder.  She zigzagged through the thickets, scratching her legs.  Her ankle caught on a fallen log, and she fell.

The Indian was on her before she could get up.  She screamed, and he clamped a hand over her mouth.  She bit down until she tasted blood.

“Don’t kill me.  Please.  Please.  Oh, God.  Please don’t kill me.”

Pinning her wrists above her head, he held her thrashing body down with his own weight.  He was heavy upon her, and she fought for breath.  He would rape her now.

She squeezed her eyes shut.  This was too much to bear.  She had been so stupid!  Of all the things Joshua had warned her about Indians it was to never trust them.  And she had not listened.  She had not listened to anyone her whole life!

“Katherine, stop crying.”

Katherine opened her eyes to find Adahya’s face inches within her own.  He tried to wipe her tears with his thumb, but she pushed him away, revolted by his touch.

“Katherine, I will not hurt you.  You must be still.”

“What are you going to do with me?”

“I am taking you someplace, but I must do this or else you will run.”  His eyes looked apologetic.  “I gave you a choice.  Now this is the only way.”

She did not understand what he meant, and she shut her eyes again to block the sight of him.  Quickly, with one hand still pinning down her wrists, he grabbed the rope and began binding her wrists together.  Katherine flailed under his weight, but she was no match for him.  As if he had done this a hundred times before, he effortlessly bound her arms hands immobile.

He rolled off her and stood.  He took hold of her wrists and pulled her to her feet.

The longer he searched her expression, the more infuriated she became at her vulnerability to him.  “I will not be treated this way!  Untie me at once!”

Without word, he pulled on her ropes, but she dug in her heels, refusing to follow.  “I will not go with you.”

“You will, or I will bind your feet and carry you.  I have given you my word not to harm you.”

“I won’t go.”

He pulled her forward, and they broke through a clearing.

Katherine was not sure if she had really screamed or just thought she had.  Where she had expected to find Fort Ontario stood a fortification of another sort.  The stockade wall rose over eight feet high. It was made with timbers which had been sharpened on the ends, as if to impale anyone who dared escape.  Mohawks were everywhere, and they spotted Adahya and began opening the gate for him.

This was not a fort.  It was a Mohawk village--Adahya’s village!  She was his prisoner, and now he would give her to his people.

Fear replaced her anger.  She fought her bindings, frantically tearing at him and trying to escape his grip on her.  As if she were nothing more than a dog on a rope, he grabbed her by the waist and slung her over his shoulder.  She kicked at him and dug her nails into his neck, all to no avail.

Suddenly, he was surrounded by at least ten other.  Adahya spoke to them in his native tongue, and they began laughing.  When they had passed through the gate, he set her down on her feet.  The men walked away but continued to laugh and look back at her.

“They say I should bring a woman to my lodge by courting her instead of by chains.”

Katherine glared at him.  She did not find any humor in his joke or his friends’ sneers.

He stopped grinning and tugged her bound wrists.  “Come.”

Dogs were everywhere.  They jumped on her, sniffed at her, snapped at her ankles.  Children gathered around her, laughing and pointing at her. Their skin was darker than hers, ranging from light to dark olive tones.  Their hair was as black as hers.  The women wore it long, but most of the men only had hair in the back.  Some were completely bald.  The people wore as little clothes as possible. Some of the older women wore no shirts or bodices at all and left their breasts exposed.  A few of the younger men wore British jackets like Adahya’s.

Over a dozen large, bark-covered lodgings stood within the stockades, and Adahya led her between then to the farthest one from the stockade gate.  More Indians gathered to stare at her.  Women approached her and touched her hair and her breasts.  One spat in her face.

Without speaking, Adahya held back the bark door for her and gently pushed her inside.  Katherine coughed from the thick smoke, and her eyes began to burn.  The lodge was at least thirty feet in length.  Top and bottom bunks lined each side of the longhouse, and there were various fire pits down the center floor space where people walked.  Adahya led her halfway down the lodge, stopping at the hearth of an old woman and an even older man.  Adahya greeted them in his native tongue and sat between them.  The ancient looking man passed a small clay pipe to Adahya.  Adahya inhaled the smoke, then gently tugged on her ropes, motioning that she should sit.  She sat between Adahya and the old woman.

The old man looked at Katherine.  His head was shaved except for a single white tuft on the top.  She tried to read his expression, afraid he would be as hostile as the Indians outside, but his face was too wrinkled to see any hint of anger.

Pointing at her, the old man spoke to Adahya in Mohawk.  Adahya replied, and the old man smiled.  He had but one tooth in his mouth.

“This is my grandfather, Many Stories.”  Adahya spoke softly, as if a sign of respect to the elders.  “He is over ninety-summers.”  He motioned to the woman beside her.  “This is my mother, She-who-commands.”

Katherine was not surprised.  She had noticed the resemblance in mother and son immediately.  Mainly because she was also glaring at her the same way Adahya often did.

The woman touched Katherine’s hair.  Her hand was rough, and Katherine drew back.  She-who-commands tried to slap her, but Katherine blocked her with her bound wrists.  Adahya shouted something to his mother, and she shouted back.  Adahya and the woman continued to shout back and forth until the old man told Adahya what Katherine guessed was a command to leave.

Angered by whatever his mother had said to him, Adahya stormed from the longhouse.  He tugged hard at Katherine’s ropes, hurting her wrists, but, confused and shaking, she said nothing.

She had gotten halfway across the village when a woman tripped her.  Katherine fell, hitting her nose hard.  She had no more than raised her head when another woman lunged onto her back, punching her shoulder blades and biting her.  Adahya pulled her off, but another replaced her, and this one wielded a club.  Katherine managed to pull the club from her grip, but not until the woman had smashed it against her left eye.

Her head was reeling.  She saw Adahya knock the woman off her, and that was the last she remembered. 

When she regained consciousness, she was lying on a pallet of soft hides.  A heavy bearskin covered her, making her uncomfortably warm.