My Name is Resolute (21 page)

What reason had I to live at all? I thought. “Oh, la,” I said. “Ma, please come find me as soon as I can write you a letter.” Tears slid from my eyes, one on each side of my face, and ran down into my hair. I rubbed at the right side, feeling the hair, now a couple of inches long. I must still look like a changeling without the bonnet.

I tried to fall asleep but fear came over me in a wave, and though I lay upon my back, my whole being felt weak. At first I believed I wanted to weep again, but when I breathed the more potent need was to scream. I smelled a bear. I leaned upon my elbow toward the Indian next to me and tapped him on the chest with two fingers. He sprang to wakefulness, hatchet in hand. I did not cry out. “Bear,” I said. “I smell bear.”

He frowned and grunted. They did much grunting, as a way of not bothering with words, I assumed, but sometimes a grunt and a frown spoke enough.

“A bear,” I whispered. “You understand, a bear?” I sat up and made claws of my hands and opened my mouth.

The man stared at me, annoyed.
“Ashon,”
he said.

“Rarrr!”
I said, in a soft voice, making my hands swipe the air as the claws of the bear had done. “Bear.” As if the animal had heard my noise, a low growl come from the brush in answer. “Bear!” I shouted, and the same moment the man hollered,
“Owasso!”

The Indians jumped to their feet, all holding their weapons. As everyone awoke, the bear shuffled into the clearing where we slept, and walked right upon Patience, going over her even though she raised her arms. The bear was so startled it stepped on other people, too, and backed up in surprise, rearing up on its hind legs. With but the moon for light, the captives tried to scatter. The Indians yelled and called to each other and three with their hatchets and one with a stone club fell upon the animal. The man with the club rendered a resounding thud upon the bear’s skull. It reeled backward but roared and charged at him, wrapping him in its claws. Other men stabbed it while it fought the club-wielding man as if they were two men battling hand to hand.

Back and forth they went, around the campfire, and as the bear reared up, someone behind me, so close that the air next to my head trembled with the power of it, let go with an arrow that struck it in the breast. The animal swung its paw and sent one of the Indians backward into the coals. He cried hideously and rolled out of it, smoke coming from his leathern shirt in holes that went through to the skin beneath. Another man came behind the bear and climbed aboard its back, stabbing into its neck with a dagger. At last the bear weakened and slumped to the ground.

That caused the most terrifying effect of the night, for such a cry of howls and cheers rose from our captors that I thought Hell had come loose here in the forest. Before long, the fire had been rekindled, and while some of the Indians began to carve up the bear and skin it, others began a hatchet-waving dance around the fire. Now and then they swung their weapons as if fighting, and shouted, crying out to the sky. The fire circle grew to six feet wide, as wide as a man was tall. The kettles prepared, the bear’s head went into one and four others each received a great foot. They filled the kettles again with fat from the bear’s carcass, melting it just as we rendered fat from animals butchered in the settlement.

By sunrise, the special parts of bear’s meat finished cooking and the rest of the carcass was dropped into a ravine. Only six of the Indians ate the meat and drank the broth it served. I could have gladly had some, but it was not offered. The original four men got some, as did the one who had knifed its throat and the one who had been struck into the fire. All the others saluted them and more singing followed the breakfast. During their celebration, I made my way to Patience’s side. The Indians danced in circles, sometimes around the fire, sometimes just spinning in place.

“Dance with me!” I called over the din. “Let us dance, Patey!”

“No, Ressie.”

“It is not a slave dance.”

“No, I said.” She held me to her then, hugging me in a way I did not expect and I fell against her. I watched from under her arm as the savages made merry, holding the bearskin in the air and diving with it as if they were great birds in the sky, calling, whooping, and growling at each other. The stink of bear now seemed like good stink.

One of the Indians saw us together and rushed at us. I fell away in terror as he grabbed Patey’s hand and held it aloft, shouting. He dropped her hand and lay in the dirt. The man holding the bearskin turned and danced toward him and jumped over him. He swung it around Patience then jumped over his friend again.

All the Indians circled her, reached toward her, touching her arms and skirt and hair. She turned back and forth, frightened, holding her arms close to her bosom, tears upon each cheek. I heard her moan when one last man reached forth and touched her bonnet, pulling it from her head. Her long red hair fell from its binding and rolled down her back in curls. They stopped what they were doing and got quiet. When the Indians laid the bearskin upon the ground and bade Patey sit upon it, I felt proud for her and relieved, for I knew they meant her no harm. I suppose I might have been frightened for her, for later on that day I realized just how terrifying it would have been, had it been me they had chosen, but at the time I was most interested in the pantomime of the bear crossing Patience without harming her, and her rising up almost under it, causing the animal to rear and step away.

The man who spoke English came to her and said, “Gude woe-man. Shield of Owasso. Gude woe-man.” He took a bracelet off his arm and handed it to her.

Patience took the bracelet and nodded, but I suppose she was too surprised to smile. She placed it upon her arm where it hung, for his arms were meaty and strong and hers as lithe and delicate as a deer’s leg. He smiled then, pointed to her, grunted, and said, “Shield of Owasso,” in English, and something else in their language. All the Indians got quiet, waiting for something to happen or perhaps for Patience to do something. When the quiet became long, indeed, she looked about her. The Indian man who had fallen into the coals sat alone, his face braced against the pain.

Patience stood and the Indians all made small noises, watching her. She went to the fireside and, with her skirt as a pot holder, lifted one of the kettles of rendering bear fat by the handle and took it to the bearskin. She went to the man with holes in his shirt and tapped on his shoulder. He looked up at her but did not move. The other Indians stepped back, as if they had no idea what she was doing, when I knew in an instant. Patey grabbed the man’s shirt sleeve and tugged, saying, “Come here so I can help or you’ll take a fever. Come on. Over here. Right there, sit,” and she motioned to the bearskin. Indians gathered all around so I had to squeeze between two of them to see.

With tugging and motioning with her hands, Patience bade the man remove his shirt! Once he knew it, he did as she asked him, and though he resisted her pointing to the mat several times, at last she made him sit upon the skin. She dipped part of her apron into the bear grease, testing it so that it was not too hot, and began dressing the burns on his back. When the apron would not reach high enough, for it was naught but threads anyway and was sewn to her bodice in such a way that she could not remove it, she stopped. In a moment, she pulled her beautiful red hair over her shoulder and dipped the ends of it into the bear oil, using that to dress his wounds.

The sigh that went up from the Indians was as if they thought she was a saint performing some miracle. When Patience was satisfied that his back was as clean as she could get it, she rose and put the kettle back near the coals, now glowing from the earlier revelry. As she did, I moved toward her. She wrapped her arm about my shoulders. I held to her with both arms about her middle. She drew a breath and said toward the Indians, “If you will honor me, honor also my sister.” She led me to the bearskin. One of them stopped me. No matter what Patience did with movements of her hands, he would not allow me to join her in sitting upon the bearskin. The Indian I had wakened with the news of the bear spoke up then, and told that part of the story. The Indians murmured.

Reverend Johansen stood in the circle of captives so I said to him, “Sir, I pray you, tell us what they say.”

He shook his head. “The words I know are of some other tribe, I fear,” he said, but in his voice I heard a tremble, as if the words were not Indian words at all.

One of the Indians spoke to the others and they began to pack up the night’s merriment. They pushed Patience and me to the front of the line, and in a short while, before I was tired at all, my companion bade me climb upon his back again. I was happy to ride there, and fell asleep there, knowing Patey walked behind me.

If the Indians had a map, they consulted it not. I wondered if they traveled by the stars as mariners are wont to do, and it seemed they did study the sky at night when there were stars to see but most often there were not. Yet we moved through forest and marsh and glade as if they followed some supernatural guide, always with the sun rising on my right hand and setting on my left.

Each evening we ate stews and porridges. At last it came that they had eaten all the goats, a deer brought back by some warriors, and several rabbits and squirrels. I loved the squirrel best, but the Indians did not seem to like to kill enough for all of us. That day they brought the ox up and I knew it was for slaughter but I did not want to watch so huge an animal killed and gutted.

The Indians talked together for a while, pointing at the ox, gesturing, saying the word “owasso” a few times, but in the end they did nothing, and our fare that night was corn porridge. I was disappointed that there was no meat, but I suspected that “owasso” was the word for bear, and perhaps they thought killing the ox would draw more bears to us. I ate beside several of the Indians. I had not feasted so well in all these months since leaving Jamaica. We stuffed in the porridge, and when one man burped, I did likewise, and we smiled at each other.

Rachael and the reverend sat not far away. She frowned at me. “You do well to remember whose you are, Mary,” she said.

I looked from her to the dark man next to me and thought of my coins. “I am mine own,” I said. “I remember
that.
You belong to your husband and to these men. But
I
am
mine.
” She grunted. I faced the Indian man beside me. I nodded. He frowned, pushing his lower lip out. I copied his expression and no one told me to put my lip in. I knew for the first time that from then on, no matter what became of us, I belonged to no one.

They allowed us to huddle close together and I managed to find Patience one night. “Why, Patience. Your tummy is round. You have been eating extra food,” I said.

“Hush, Resolute,” she whispered. “Now is not the time to reveal my shame, for the Indians may do away with me, fearing I will slow this infernal marching.”

“Shame? What shame have you in a nice plump figure?”

“’Tis a child I carry within, sister. And keep you still about it.”

I sat up straighter and leaned close to her. “A child? How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“And how did it get there? Did God bring it to you? Did you pray for it?”

“Keep your voice down. No, I did not pray for it. I prayed against it but it came anyway. Now go to sleep. I have told you this so that if something should occur, you will know the source of my problems. Do not tell a soul for they shall kill me if they know since I have not a husband.”

I lay beside her, my eyes wide open staring at the stars, curiosity flitting against my skull to keep me awake. What difference did it make if she had no husband? How did a girl come by a baby? Was there a clock that determined the time, just as winter comes before spring? I thought it would be ever so nice just to have the baby and not worry about a husband. We were too young for that. Would I have one? And would it be soon? I rubbed my stomach. A babe. But in this wilderness there would be all that crying and soiled linens to wash. What would Indians know about a baby? Why, they might handle it roughly and hurt it. I must keep the secret for Patience’s sake and my own. Why, I might be carrying a baby, too, since we were sisters. Patience’s babe would be born first, which was only right. We should think of a name for it. No reason to tell anyone until the time came. Perhaps we would be where we were going by the time that happened. I wrapped my arms about my sister and patted her secret, her roundness, smiling. Warm and happy, I fell asleep.

We pressed onward. My shoes split and stockings showed through the toes. My hands grew callused from the handle of the kettle. Every other day the Indian man carried me, as if I weighed not a breath upon his shoulders. Whether it was by raiding and stealing from some poor farmer they found in the wilderness, or by hunting deer or squirrel, we had something to eat every day. I began to feel almost kindly toward our captors. I hummed or sang every song I could remember, particularly the ones that I had been told not to sing. Some that knew my songs joined, but most were quiet, not used as I was to this captivity. I reminded myself of the women in the hold, who knew how to call for names and signal by drumming on the floor. I knew things I would never have learned in Ma’s schoolroom.

One morning as I started in song, the Indian man I walked beside touched my cheek with his finger. “
Ah-shon,
be quiet,” he said. The whole lot of them, every Indian, grew quiet. They pushed us into the brush. I was not far from Rachael and I heard her complain to the man who guarded her. He clapped his hand upon her mouth and threw her down, forcing his whole body upon her so that she could not move. Down our path came Indians, dressed differently from these, their faces painted in ferocious colors. Their hair was wildly set and I could imagine they had just left their homes for some errand, be it hunting or war, whereas our captors looked as weary and footsore as their prisoners. We waited a long time. Finally we began our walk again.

When we stopped to rest, Rachael fell against a tree and wept. Reverend Johansen tried to comfort her. She called out more. Even Patience went to her and tried to quiet her. I watched the Indians as they circled her. I feared lest they do away with her just for being noisesome. I was not so simple as to not understand that the Indians were hiding from the other group that passed. They did not want to fight them. I could only hope Reverend Johansen could prevail upon her to quiet down. She turned on him, saying, “You did nothing to save me from being so ill-used by a heathen.”