Far From Home (14 page)

‘Oh very well then,’ she said, as if resigned to the idea. ‘I’ll be your squaw.’ She saw Kitty’s mouth drop open. ‘But you must marry me in church or I won’t agree to it.’

The Indian in the hat began to laugh and said something incomprehensible. ‘What did he say?’ Georgiana asked. ‘Can he not speak English?’

‘He can.’ The other Indian glanced at her and she saw the humour in his eyes. ‘He say – what will my wife say if I take another woman home!’

‘And what will she say?’ Georgiana raised her eyebrows, still going along with the play-acting. ‘Will she object to you marrying an Englishwoman?’

He nodded solemnly. ‘I think she’ll go crazy and get the hatchet out!’

Georgiana smiled. ‘Shall we call the wedding off, then? I don’t care for the sight of spilt blood. Besides, I don’t know your name.’

‘Dekan.’ He pointed to his companion and said, ‘This is Horse. He’s looking for a wife. He’s so ugly that no woman will marry him.’

She turned to look at Horse, who swept off his hat and placed it over his heart. He was young, about seventeen or eighteen, and she thought him the most handsome man she had ever seen. His skin was light and smooth with high cheekbones and a narrow nose, his dark hair was sleek and his eyes almost black.

She sighed. ‘Alas, I’m too old for you, Horse,’ she said. ‘And my companion, Kitty, is too young to be married.’

‘I’m not, Miss Gregory,’ Kitty whispered. ‘But would I have to live in a tipi?’

‘I think you would need to know him a little better, Kitty, before we discussed that,’ Georgiana murmured. ‘Where are you taking us?’ she asked the men.

‘To see Lake. That’s what you want, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. Thank you.’

‘You shouldn’t be out here alone,’ Dekan said severely. ‘It’s not safe for women. There are Indians—’

Georgiana started to smile but then realized he was serious.

‘Not all Indians are peaceable,’ he went on. ‘And there are gunmen and trappers who haven’t seen a woman in a long time. You have no weapon?’

‘Er – no, we haven’t.’ Perhaps I was foolhardy, Georgiana thought. I suppose I didn’t expect to have to travel such a long way or under such wild conditions. She looked into the far distance. Ahead of them the track, what there was of it, snaked on beyond rocks and scrub, through crevices and narrow creeks, but she thought that beyond the furthermost rocky outcrop there was a wisp of smoke, and she hoped, oh how she hoped, that it meant habitation.

‘How much further before we get to the settlement?’ she asked. ‘The one with no name.’

‘Two more hours,’ Horse said. ‘And it has a name. It’s called No-Name. It belongs to the Iroquois. It is our reservation.’

No-Name was a settlement of only a handful of small cabins and two longhouses set within a woodland. Much of the woodland had been cleared and the surrounding land was planted with corn or had cattle grazing on lush green grass.

‘You’re farmers!’ Georgiana said, as they approached later in the afternoon. She was surprised. ‘I hadn’t realized.’

‘Our women have always grown crops and the men were hunters,’ Dekan explained. ‘Our forefathers hunted buffalo, bison, elk, but the Iroquois lost their hunting grounds many years ago. We have had to adapt to live with the whites, or else we die.’ He held his rifle aloft as they approached the settlement. ‘Many of our old people resent the loss of freedom. We were forest people – hunters. Now great cities are being built on our hunting ground and we have been given land on which to grow crops.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘It doesn’t seem fair.’

He shrugged. ‘I have only known this. But the old people tell us stories of how it used to be in our forefathers’ time.’

‘And Lake?’ she said. ‘Who is he?’

‘He’s a guide and a trapper. He says he won’t ever grow crops, that it is woman’s work. He’s a descendant of Handsome Lake, who, in our history, brought together the white man and the Iroquois to live in peace.’

They approached the front of one of the wooden cabins, and Georgiana and Kitty climbed stiffly out of the dog cart.

‘Oh, miss,’ Kitty said. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever walk again!’ She was almost crying with tiredness. ‘And I’m so hungry and gasping for a drink.’

‘Come with me.’ Dekan motioned them towards the cabin. ‘Horse will look after Henry.’

‘Oh! You know Henry?’ Georgiana said.

‘Mr Dreumel sometimes borrows her,’ he said. ‘She knows her own way here.’

Dekan took them into his cabin where a dog sat outside the door. He introduced them to his wife, Little Bear. Her dark hair was covered by a shawl and she wore a long-sleeved elkskin jerkin over a fringed skirt. She viewed them gravely and bid them welcome to her home, and Kitty, uncertain as to what was expected of her, dipped her knee.

‘You will sleep here tonight,’ Little Bear told them. She spoke haltingly in a low husky voice. ‘Tomorrow Lake will come and take you on your journey.’

‘Thank you.’ Georgiana was extremely grateful. Her body ached and like Kitty she was hungry and thirsty. They were asked to sit down and Little Bear went out of the cabin, returning quickly with a bowl of water for them to wash. When they had finished she took the bowl away and then came back with two bowls of something like gruel made from cornmeal, and a dish containing pale and tender meat and a round root like a potato.

‘You are very kind,’ Georgiana said. ‘Thank you, this is delicious.’

‘It is antelope,’ she seemed pleased with the compliment, ‘and wild yam. It will give you strength.’

There was a low bed in the corner of the cabin, but Little Bear brought in two mattresses and laid them on the floor. They were made of straw with a cotton covering, over which she threw colourful wool blankets and skin rugs.

‘You may sleep whenever you wish,’ she said. ‘Dekan will sleep in his brother’s cabin tonight.’

Georgiana thanked her again and said that they would like first of all to take a walk to stretch their legs. As she and Kitty walked around the settlement they were followed by giggling children and a straggle of dogs.

The cabins were neat and built from logs, some with wooden fences around them to separate them from their neighbours, which Georgiana found curious and unexpected. Dekan joined them and shooed the children away. ‘They don’t often see white women,’ he said. ‘Only sometimes when the pioneers pass in their waggons.’

‘I thought there would be more travellers,’ Georgiana remarked. ‘We have seen virtually no-one since leaving Duquesne.’

‘There have been many,’ Dekan said. ‘Everyone is journeying west to look for gold. They go by sea and canal and across country, but do not often come up here.’ He put his hand to his forehead and gazed towards the darkening mountain range to the north. ‘They do not yet know of the riches in this land and beyond.’

She followed his gaze. ‘Do you mean that there is gold up there?’

‘Perhaps. The earth holds many treasures.’ He looked down at her. ‘She will not release it without a price.’

‘A price! What do you mean?’

‘Land is being swallowed up by the white man’s greed. They want to make roads over the land which has been allocated to us.’ He nodded sombrely. ‘If they do this they must pay. There will be much bloodshed.’

‘I hope not,’ she said uneasily.

‘It is coming. Some white men cannot be trusted,’ he continued. ‘They make promises and then break them. Our ancestors warned us of this.’

‘And do you believe that is true of all white men?’ She had to give herself a shake, for she found it incredible that she was having such a conversation with a native American Indian.

‘No, not all white men,’ he admitted. ‘There are some with good intentions who can be trusted, but our ancestor Red Jacket, when he died, left a warning that because of the white man’s greed the Iroquois would one day be scattered across the land.’

He stopped outside a longhouse. ‘This is where our children go to school. They learn the language of the settlers, English and French, but they also learn of their own history. They are taught Christianity but they also pray to the spirits of our fathers, to Red Jacket and Handsome Lake. We listen also to our own protectors.’

‘Your protectors!’ Georgiana exclaimed. ‘Who are they?’

‘Different families have their own spirits who protect them. There is the Beaver Clan, the Wolf, the Deer and the Bear. Sometimes we are named after them.’

‘Like Little Bear?’ she said.

He nodded. ‘Yes. She is honoured by that name and is on the council of women. They make many decisions within the community.’

And here are we, women of the so-called civilized world, Georgiana thought wryly, still trying for equality.

He continued, ‘But times are changing. When the white man lies and steals, the Iroquois and their brothers from other tribes will put on their warrior paint and fight for what is theirs.’

She had watched him closely as he was speaking. He was tall and muscular with a determined expression on his face, and as he stood with his moccasin-clad feet planted apart, she thought that even though he spoke with an English tongue, she could see in him the unvanquished spirit of his forefathers.

The next morning they were awakened by the sound of dogs barking, children squealing and men laughing. Kitty sat up. ‘I’ve overslept, Miss Gregory,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’ Then she added, ‘But what do I do? I’ve no breakfast to bring in, no tea to make!’

Georgiana stretched and laughed softly. ‘We are having a most extraordinary time, Kitty, are we not? How is it we are lying here in an Indian’s cabin, wrapped in animal skins, when only a few months ago we were living a genteel existence in England?’

She included Kitty in her description of gentility, for she thought that Kitty would never have believed how her life would alter in so short a time. ‘I slept well, but had the strangest dreams,’ she went on. ‘Of Indians and trappers.’

She had dreamed that Red Jacket, the long-dead Indian chief, had come to tell her to leave the cabin at once or suffer the consequences. He wore a red blanket over deerskin trousers and had feathers in his black hair. In his hands he carried a bow and arrow. Behind him a white man sat on his horse, with a rifle pointing at Red Jacket. She hadn’t been afraid in the dream, for Dekan was there. His face was painted and he stood in front of her to protect her and his chief.

‘I dreamed of wild animals coming to get us, Miss Gregory,’ Kitty said. ‘Did you hear them howling in the night?’

They were interrupted in their conversation by Little Bear coming in with breakfast, which again was two bowls of cornmeal, only this time with a scattering of seed and grain and sweetened with wild honey.

‘Lake is here,’ she said in her husky tones. ‘He will greet you when you are ready.’

They finished breakfast and dressed, which didn’t take long for they had only removed their top garments and boots for sleeping. They stepped outside and found Dekan in conversation with a fierce-looking man. His face was weathered, with a scar across his right cheekbone. He was dressed in a buckskin shirt and trousers and a cracked leather coat. A string of beads hung around his neck and a belt containing various pieces of equipment, a powder horn and bullet pouch, a knife in a sheath, was slung across his shoulder. On his head he wore a battered leather hat with a feather stuck through a hole in the brim.

‘Good morning,’ Georgiana said, and for the first time in her life was not in the least concerned about her dishevelled appearance or that her hair was not dressed, but hung loosely around her shoulders. ‘I am Georgiana Gregory. I understand from Mr Charlesworth that you could take me – us,’ she indicated Kitty standing behind her, ‘to Mr Dreumel.’

Lake gazed at her from piercing eyes without speaking for a few moments, then said, ‘Expecting you?’

‘Erm – ’ She glanced at Dekan, caught out in her lie. ‘I have important news for him.’

Lake continued to scrutinize her and she felt slightly unnerved. Then he asked, ‘Can you ride?’

‘Yes, I’m a good horsewoman.’ Georgiana glanced at Kitty, who shook her head. ‘Can we not take the cart?’ she asked.

‘No. The trail is rough. The girl will ride behind me.’

Kitty took in a nervous breath, but the expression on Lake’s face brooked no argument.

‘And our luggage?’ Georgiana asked. ‘We have one bag each.’

‘No.’ Again that indomitable expression. ‘Bring necessities only and put them in the pack.’

‘So, no extra stockings, Kitty!’ Georgiana said, as quickly they pushed the bare essentials into the leather pack which he had offered them. ‘And as for gloves! I think this is not going to be the jolliest of expeditions.’

She was trying her best to be cheerful, for Kitty was clearly anxious at the prospect of riding behind Lake.

‘He smells, Miss Gregory! I don’t think he washes all that often,’ she whispered.

‘He probably doesn’t get the opportunity,’ Georgiana murmured. ‘Remember what he does, he’s a trapper and a guide, and he’s probably been wearing those clothes for a long time. Put up with it, there’s a dear.’

As she spoke in such a familiar manner, they glanced at each other. Their roles were changing. Although Kitty was now Georgiana’s companion rather than her maid, the old divisions had to an extent still been there, but as each day passed Georgiana felt more and more responsible for Kitty, and was becoming fond of her. In their new environment they supported and reassured each other.

‘I’m sorry, Kitty,’ she said, seeing the girl’s nervous expression. ‘Would you rather be back home with my aunt?’

‘Oh, no, miss.’ Kitty was quick to deny it. ‘I wouldn’t want to think you were out here on your own. It’s just, well, I’ve never ridden on a horse before. At least, only on coal carrier’s carthorse when I was a bairn.’ She gave a sudden grin. ‘He lifted me up and put me on and gave me a ride. I think I was seven,’ she said wistfully.

‘This will be quite different,’ Georgiana started to say, when Little Bear came in carrying a bundle of clothing which she handed to Georgiana.

‘You wear these?’ she said. ‘We look after your clothes until you return.’

Georgiana held up the garments. There were two divided skirts and smock-like shirts, made from thick bleached cotton.