I Am Regina (20 page)

Quetit, sobbing, throws herself into my arms. We support each other while all around us the soldiers shout in a strange tongue we cannot understand. They fire their rifles into the sky. Flames, like bloodied rags, rise from Chief Towigh's hut.

“Tskinnak. What has happened to the man of God?” Quetit whispers the question, but it seems to echo through the sky.

And now, the rain begins.

 

 

 

Q
uetit and I ride the white man's horse. The path that we are riding down is narrow. Wet branches brush against our naked legs, against our horse's flanks. The rain has stopped, but the sky is still dark with clouds.

We travel to the white man's camp and from there we will be taken to a fort. Messengers will be sent across the land to tell our families that we are alive and free. Then our families will take us home. The bearded white man told me this in the Indian tongue. For when he spoke to me as if I were a white man, I could not understand at all.

Quetit rests her head against my chest. The smell of smoke still clings to Quetit's hair. She is crying. She has been crying ever since we left our village. My arms ache from holding her.

I do not know who I am. When I search my memory for the glimmer of a white man's name, all I hear is Woelfin's cry, telling me I am Tskinnak, flesh of Woelfin's flesh, bone of her bone.

I do not know from where I came. Do I still have a home? Does anyone wait there for me? I try to recall the warm house I envisioned in my dreams, but all I see is our burning hut and Woelfin, being swallowed by the trees.

The bearded white man walks on one side of our horse. His hand holds the bridle. The dark man who set the fire walks on the other side. He cradles his musket in his arms. All white men seem to carry muskets. Will they greet us with them when we reach the white man's camp? I am afraid of going there. I have lived nine winters with the Indians, and I don't know who I am.

We pass the village of the Tuscaroras. I smell no wood smoke. No dogs howl. Huts stand like empty turtle shells. A white willow's branches arch above the path. I hear them whisper as we pass and I wonder, who will gather the willow bark when Woelfin's joints ache with cold? Who will brew her tea? Will she greet the dawn with Tummaa? Oh, dear Lord, I miss them. I wish this day had never dawned.

The cries of geese echo through the sky—a lonely, aching sound. The bearded white man lifts his hand and halts the line of soldiers following behind. The soldiers talk together. They all talk at once. I don't know how they can understand what anyone says. They should be like the Indian, who listens politely as each man speaks.

Quetit starts to cough. Her cough is deep and loud.

“She barks like a dog.” The dark man speaks in the Indian tongue, but his eyes are a white man's eyes, pale and staring. “Make her stop crying.”

“Quetit has had the smallpox. She is too weak to handle sorrow.” I make myself speak the Indian words slowly, so that he will understand.

He brings out a flask. He takes a long drink, wipes his mouth and hands the flask to me. “Give her some of this.” He nods his head at Quetit.

The flask smells of white man's whiskey. Tiger Claw was drunk on whiskey the day he mistook Namoes for a white man. He bit off Namoes's ear. I tell the dark man, “No.”

He waves his musket at the woods. “Do you want the savages to hear her?”

“Our people are not savages! They will not harm us.”

“They will. You ride with the white man now.”

His words sting me like a thousand bees.

“Give her the whiskey,” the bearded white man says.

“Will the whiskey stop her crying?”

“It will make her sleep.”

I look into Quetit's eyes. They are full of pain and sorrow. I give her the whiskey. She cries each time after it goes down. “The whiskey burns.” She buries her head into the hollow of my shoulder.

I hear the rain before I feel it. The sound of raindrops on leaves. The bearded white man shouts his orders. We move on. A pack of soldiers breaks off from our line.

The dark man leads them through a laurel thicket and then they are gone.

Quetit coughs and shakes with cold. I wrap myself around her and sing my mother's song, thinking of the day Nonschetto died. This song was our comfort then. It is our only comfort now. Slowly, sleep steals over Quetit. I feel her soft breath warm my neck.

The rhythm of the horse's walk, the sound of raindrops, lull me. I dream of Quetit. She is strong, as she was before the smallpox. She dances in the firelight at Proud One's wedding feast while Woelfin watches from the shadows. I can almost feel Tummaa nuzzling my hand, smell the burning hickory.

And then the burning hickory becomes a raging fire and I see Woelfin burning in the flames. I feel my way through thick, dark smoke, trying to reach her, but I never do. And then, Tummaa begins to bark.

A horse's whinney startles me and I awaken feeling bereft. Our horse is prancing up a small incline while the bearded soldier struggles to hold him back. The woods are thinner now. We crest the hill and I hear a droning sound, like bees gathered at a hive.

A valley spreads out below us, bounded by the broad Muskingum River. Horses, cows, sheep and oxen graze on the rich meadowland. Rough-hewn huts, tents made of some strange white animal skin, palisade fences and wagons dot the wooded slopes beyond. I smell the smoke of many fires, and I am afraid.

We have reached the white man's camp.

The droning sound grows louder and our horse plunges down the hill. The ground dips and through the rain, I now see a band of soldiers marching through a muddy field. They carry rifles with long knives jutting out from the barrel tips.

The bearded white man stops our horse and aims his rifle at the sky. He fires three shots. All around us, the soldiers begin to shout.

“Tskinnak!” Quetit's hands clutch at me.

“Shhhh. It is only the soldiers announcing our arrival.” I rest my cheek against her hair that smells of smoke and bear grease. Beneath my hands I feel Quetit's heart beat, quick and sudden, like a captive bird's.

A flock of sheep scatters as three dark horses gallop toward us through the muddy bottom of the meadowland. Soldiers wearing bright red coats, leggings made from golden cloth, and high black boots spur the horses on.

The hoofbeats seem to pound inside my head. I look down at Quetit, wearing her torn deerskin sacque. I hear the soldiers rein the horses to a dead standstill. For a moment, there is silence. I stare at my broad dark hands, afraid to meet the blueness in the soldiers' eyes. Afraid to marvel at the paleness in their skins. For in this heavy silence I see with a soldier's eyes—a girl, almost eleven winters old; a young woman, twenty. Both of them, more Indian than white.

 

 

 

T
here are more white men here than there are stars in the winter sky. After six nights of living in their camp, I have grown accustomed to the sight of them. Some wear coats the color of the setting sun. Some wear fringed deerskin and fine moccasins, thicker and sturdier than mine. Others wear the dark, somber clothing that now covers me.

The soldiers carry rifles, but they also keep thread and needles in their deerskin bags and, I have discovered, compassion in their hearts. Two fair-skinned soldiers took the coats off their backs to make this sacque for me. Laughing, they corralled two other soldiers and took their coats to make a sacque for Quetit too.

Quetit and I watched these soldiers cut and sew. Quetit's eyes were like a startled owl's. Men doing women's work is like snow when honeybees swarm.

These clothes keep my body warm, but my hands are cold. I warm them over a fire which burns inside the long house the soldiers built to shelter us. Four fires burn within this house. They cast strange shadows. Snakelike arms move through the smokey air. Bodies appear as dark hump-backed shapes.

Women and children form the shadows. Like Quetit and me, they were captured by the Indians. Most of them look and talk like we do. Warriors have brought them to this white man's camp. They have returned them to the white man in return for peace.

When I first entered this camp, I felt like a rabbit caught in a trap. But Mrs. Post, the white woman who now cares for us, took me in hand and freed me from my fear. She is kind. She feeds us stew thick with meat and corn. She bakes bread that is soft and filling. When Quetit awakens, cold and shaking from a nightmare, Mrs. Post will cluck and fuss, as if Quetit were her chick.

Mrs. Post treats us as if we were her daughters. Many winters ago, her only child was captured by Indians. Mrs. Post has been searching for her ever since. White Flower told me this, for she speaks and understands the white man's tongue. White Flower said that Mrs. Post's child has a mark on her cheek that is the size and color of a wild strawberry. Has anyone seen her?

No one has.

White Flower now sleeps on the platform bed in back of me. For three long winters, she lived with the Shawnee. White Flower said that she was traded from one family to another and knew the fires of many homes. Warriors brought her to this white man's camp four nights ago.

White Flower has a birthmark on her arm that is shaped like a locust leaf. When Indians brought her to this camp, I saw a soldier kiss this birthmark. He lifted White Flower and swung her through the air. He called her “daughter.” He said that, once the army is disbanded, he will take her home. But for now, White Flower must stay with the other women and children. She will be safe and cared for there.

I wish a father would find me at this camp. I wish he would take me in his arms and swing me through the air.

Colonel Bouquet, the white man's chief, has eyes like White Flower's father. His eyes are dark and kind, and they miss nothing. He speaks some Indian. He asked me my white name.

I could not answer him.

He asked me where I came from.

I could not say.

“Do you remember anything about your family? Your father? Your mother?” he asked me.

I told him, “No.”

Colonel Bouquet placed his hand upon my cheek. “Something will happen. Something will come to you. Then you will remember.”

For one moment, I laid my cheek against his hand. Then he was gone.

I did not tell him of the dream I have. A dream I do not even share with Quetit. In my dream, a mother now holds me in her arms the way that White Flower's father held her. My mother smells like Mrs. Post, of wood smoke and baking bread. My mother's hair shines in the firelight. Her hair is the color of the hickory nut once its rind is peeled. My mother's skin is like white willow leaves, soft and silky.

I know this dream is wishful thinking. And I know the horrors that believing in a dream can bring. But it haunts me, as does Woelfin. I don't know what has happened to her. I pray she has found shelter from the winter wind. So many spirits haunt my sleep.

A shadow now moves across my face. White Flower begins to scream. She thrashes on the bed in back of me. White Flower's hands are like a bird's wings. They flutter across the many scars which mark her face.

I try to take these hands in mine.

“Do not touch me!” White Flower screams.

“It is just me. Tskinnak. You have been dreaming,” I say. I know the anguish of her dreams like I know my own. At night we have shared our memories. White Flower and I are kindred spirits. I feel as if I've known her for a long, long time.

White Flower's eyes are dark and wild. She pulls away from me. She stands and quickly walks outside. Quetit looks up anxiously from the lump of bread dough Mrs. Post has given her to keep her small hands busy. “It's all right,” I tell her. “Everything will be all right.” The sounds of whispers trail me as I follow after White Flower.

The tattered robe she wears flutters in the wind like broken feathers. I see her seek the shelter of a tree that grows beside the river. She sits down, nestled by its roots.

I follow and sit beside her, and I wait.

“I am sorry. Did I frighten you?” White Flower finally says.

“Not as much as your dreams frighten you.”

“An eagle held me in his talons.” White Flower points to the scars which mark her face. She does not touch them. “Suddenly, he let me go. Tskinnak, I am afraid.”

“It is only a dream.”

“When I lived with eagles, I learned the eagles' way. I cooked horse liver in a caul of bear fat to please my masters. I repaired torn clothing for scraps of food. My tongue learned to remain silent, so that blows would not rain upon my head. Now I am falling. I do not know where I will land.”

“Your father is here. Once the peace talks are over, he will take you home,” I say, thinking of a burning hut, a dream.

A smile, like sunlight through this wind-blown tree, crosses White Flower's face. She sighs, hugs her legs and rests her chin upon her knees, her long black hair curtaining her face. Upstream, a sentinel halloos, telling us that all is well. But the wind off the river brings the sad wailing of two Indian women mourning the loss of the adopted white children they've turned over to a soldier's arms. This camp is no-man's-land.

White Flower shudders. I lean my cheek against her shoulder, wanting to let her know that I am here. That I understand the way she feels.

We sit together, she and I. We watch the sunlight dance on water.

Where does the river flow?

 

 

 

I
have cut my hair. I have braided the dark strands together to make a bracelet for White Flower.