Captain Hartshorne rushed to our rescue with a half dozen men behind him. “There'll be no drumhead justice while I command this fort,” he said. “These people have broken no law nor killed anyone except in selfdefense. Get back to your business.”
Growling, the mob returned to their huts, leaving de Groot and his confederates nonplussed and deserted. “You'll hear from me one of these days. My voice will speak from the muzzle of a Brown Bess,”
30
de Groot snarled.
Malcolm thrust the muzzle of his rifled gun in de Groot's chest. “Here's a look at how you'll be answered,” he said.
How could we have survived without this man? I wondered. By now, Clara and I would have been robbed, raped, and murdered. My brain raced ahead to future years. Was there some way I could retain Malcolm's services? I could not imagine finding any other man who would risk his life for eighteen shillings a day to help me grow rich. Scarcely had this thought winged through my head before it was answered by the Moon Woman's sardonic voice:
He'll do it for Claraâand no one else.
The next day, we prepared for our trip back to Albany. We had twelve packs of furs, weighing a hundred pounds each. I could not find a single bateauman who would work for me. They all sided with de Groot and the traders. I was about to despair when Little Wolf staggered out of one of the huts. He and his friends had spent their pay on rum. Two of them had lost their muskets and powder horns at dice. They glumly accepted my offer of four shillings a day to paddle us to Albany.
Before we departed, Malcolm insisted on making a full report to Captain Hartshorne of their encounter with the French gunboat. The captain was not pleased. “Do you realize you may have started a war?” he said.
“You know as well as I do if we went to Frontenac, we would never have seen our pelts again,” Malcolm said.
“You took that risk when you elected to trade in the villages,” Hartshorne said. “You better get on your way to New York as soon as possible. I'm sure the French will be here trying to arrest you for murder before the next sunset.”
“I'm sorry to leave you the headache, sir,” Malcolm said. “I'm obliged to you for the great kindness you've shown me since I came here.”
“Would there were a few more patriots like you in America,” Hartshorne said. “We'd be far more ready to deal with these arrogant frogeaters.”
I was fascinated by this conversation. It was an educational glimpse of how much the English feared and hated the French. At least as interesting was the way Malcolm seemed to look upon the captain as a kind of father, and Hartshorne regarded him as a sort of son. It was not unlike the way the Senecas adopted a captive or a wanderer into a family to replace sons or daughters who had died. In the white world, where men defied their fathers and roamed off to the frontier on their own, it was equally logical for a young man to look for a second father.
And a wife? No, men did not go to the frontier in search of a wife. In search of a womanâor many women, perhapsâbut not a wife. For a moment I was seized by the heaving, strangling desire for Malcolm that the Evil Brother could now invoke in my soul whenever he chose. Was the Evil One trying to tell me I might find my heart's desire in the word
wife?
Somehow I doubted it. But I did not forget it.
Malcolm made no secret of his admiration of Captain Hartshorne as we began our journey to Albany. He told Clara and me how much he had learned from him, not only about soldiering but about England. Malcolm's father had a placeman's view of the crown. He thought only of how much money he could get from the government. But in England there was a party of high-souled honest men who called themselves patriots. They struggled, mostly in vain, to resist the rule of the king's first or prime minister, Robert Walpole. He was the ultimate placeman, corrupting everything. Malcolm set himself firmly in the Patriot Party. He wanted to be a patriot in America.
I pretended to be impressed by this oration. Clara certainly was. But I doubted the virtue of these patriots. Already I had concluded almost everyone in this world looked first to his own advantage. It was true among the Senecas and among the whites. Warriors fought for fame and booty and the admiration of women. Sachems loved power. Women yearned for the greatest warriors. In the white world, power begot money and money begot power and everyone hungered after both. I was determined to get my share, and I did not much care whether that made me less than a patriot. But for the time being I held my tongue and pretended to admire Malcolm's noble ambition.
Across Lake Oneida and down Wood Creek to the portage and along the Mohawk we paddled, eight hours a day, camping at night in the woods with huge fires to keep the wolves at bay. We could hear them howling and snarling in the trees, only a few yards away. Occasionally
Malcolm fired his gun at them. Little Wolf and his friends thought this was a waste of powder. They knew wolves never attacked a human unless he or she was alone. For all his talk of fighting in the woods, Malcolm knew little about the ways of the wilderness.
By now it was Augustâsummer in its glorious prime. Above us the sky was a dome of cloudless blue. The trees and grass along the river brimmed with green glowing life. The river itself was a shining ribbon of light in the beating rays of the sun. By noon, it also became a tunnel filled with thick moist waves of heat. Paddling, Malcolm stripped to his waist, like the Indians. Soon his massive torso gleamed with sweat. I yearned to touch him, to run my hands, my lips, down his gleaming flesh.
Clara and I, paddling as hard as any of the men, were even more sweaty in our long dresses and underskirts. It was white stupidityâthis insistence that women had to cover their whole bodies with cloth at all times. On the morning of the third day, I said: “I'm going to dress like a hunting woman.”
In the spring when the hunting women returned from the winter camp with the trappers, they paddled beside them in the canoes, wearing nothing but breechclouts. I cut one of my skirts into strips of cloth and fashioned a breechclout.
Clara watched, frowning. “He still won't be willing,” she said.
She snatched the shears out of my hand, stripped off her dress and petticoat, and made herself a breechclout. My heart clotted with dismay.
We emerged from our tent, both wearing breechclouts and nothing else. Malcolm Stapleton and Adam Duycinck almost choked on the tea they were drinking beside the campfire. “Ho!” said Little Wolf in Seneca to his friends. “Here is a good sight for our eyes in the dawn. Wouldn't you like to get one of them alone in the woods?”
“I'll take both of them,” said one of his fellow warriors.
“What's so strange?” I said. “You've seen hunting women before.”
“Will you behave like hunting women for us?” Little Wolf asked.
“No,” I said.
For another eight hours we paddled down the river through the thick warm air, while dread gathered in my soul. When we camped that night, Malcolm ignored me. His eyes sought only Clara. After a hurried supper of dried beef, corn bread, and tea, Clara walked away from the fire. In a moment she was only a blur against the dark shine of the river. Malcolm followed her. After a while, I could not bear it and went down to the water's edge. There was no trace of them.
Then I heard the sounds from the trees: the small cries, the violent breathing of desire. Clara had overcome her dread of another child. I turned and stumbled back to the campfire. I touched Little Wolf on the shoulder and said: “Maybe I will behave like a hunting woman after all.”
In the trees on the other side of the camp, Little Wolf soon grunted above me.
Are you satisfied?
I asked the Evil Brother, as the warrior thrusted and thrusted, occasionally growling like a cougar.
Is this what you want me to become?
No, said the Evil One.
I have much more ambitious plans for you. You will not become a whore. Whores don't grow rich. This is a mistake. You must bide your time and win him by becoming
respectable.
Of course, you will always be a whore in your heart. That is the fate of any woman who pledges herself to my service.
We are agreed once more, my dark master,
I whispered, as Little Wolf filled me with his seed. What would I do if he gave me a child? An Indian bastard would prove everything New York already thought about me. But the Evil Brother would not permit it.
I thanked Little Wolf in Seneca, as I had thanked the other warriors who had taken me into the woods around Shining Creek. The Moon Woman was always grateful for the smallest male attention. Back in our tent, I stared into the darkness until Clara returned.
“Was he
willing?”
I asked.
“Yes,” Clara said.
She was silent for a long time. “But it wasn't the same,” she said. “It will never be the same again.”
She began to weepâgreat choking sobs, as if she were mourning her own death. Why wasn't this good news? the Moon Woman asked herself. Wasn't this exactly what she had been hoping for?
Of course it was,
mocked the Evil One.
With a cry, I flung myself across the narrow tent and embraced Clara. We clung together, rocking back and forth, both weeping, for a long time. “Pray for us,” I whispered. “Pray to the Master of Life. Somehow you can save us both. Ask him to help you forgive me. Ask him to help me forgive myself.”
T
HE NEXT DAY WE PREPARED TO resume our journey in an exceptionally morose mood. Malcolm Stapleton responded with curt monosyllables to Duycinck's attempts at conversation. Clara and I were at least as downcast. The only cheerful traveler was Little Wolf. He considered
his enjoyment of the white hunting woman last night a tribute to his manhood. The rest of the warriors gazed hungrily at the Moon Woman, wondering if they too would get a turn.
They soon learned the Moon Woman had become Catalyntie Van Vorst again. I hauled out my purse and paid them all off. We were only a dozen miles from the falls of the Mohawk at Schenectady and the river's swift current would carry us there without lifting a paddle. I thereby saved a day's pay. For good measure, I subjected them to a lecture from Clara, exhorting them not to go home via Oswego and lose their wits and their money at rum and gambling. They stalked into the forest, subdued warriors all.
“If we ever have a war up here, I'm going to stick close to you two,” Duycinck said. “You'll browbeat the entire Iroquois Confederacy into burying their hatchets before they can get close to my scalp.”
Clara and I put on our dresses and petticoats again and resumed our civilized identities. At Schenectady, I hired three wagons at the usual outrageous prices to lug our skins the final sixteen miles to Albany. There we found more malice awaiting us. Willem Van Schenck, the commissary at Oswego, had sent two men in a swift canoe to carry his writ to the sheriff of Albany County and that dignitary was waiting for us on the docks.
He was another Dutchmanâa huge fat fellow named Roelof Janse Van Maesterland, with the gold chain of his office clanking around his neck. “You will haf to surendar dem furs and yourself for seizure, damn you,” he thundered. “Vat's a fine-lookin' young wommens like you mixin' met dem scum at Oswego for, riskin' yer immordal soul for miserable pelts?”
I decided to bow as low as possible before this fearsome figure, who I perceived was not very intelligent. Reassured by the Evil Brother, I had regained my devious self.
“I'm a poor orphan, trying to make her way in a cruel world,” I said in Dutch. “Oh, Your Honor, don't send me to prison. Let me carry these furs to New York and sell them so I can pay a lawyer to defend me. I broke no law of God or man, I swear it.”
I wept pathetically and told Sheriff Van Maesterland how all the traders at Oswego had persecuted me because I was Dutch. “Everyone of them is a damned Englishman,” I said. “You should have heard the things they called meâDutch whore was among the mildest insults. I appealed to Willem Van Schenck to stand by me but I fear he's been corrupted by their pounds sterlingâand a habit of toadying to that English officer who rules the fort.”
The dismay on Clara's face made it clear that she knew I was telling prodigious lies, even though she did not know enough Dutch to understand
them. “Is dis true?” Roelof Janse Van Maesterland asked Clara. “Yer midstress vas insulded by dese traders?”
Clara managed to swallow the assumption that she was still my slave. “Oh yes,” she said. Insults had unquestionably been exchanged.
“Sooch demmned insulds I vill not condone to a voman of Dutch blood, no madder vat her bad judgment is,” growled the sheriff. “I vill get dis writ nolle prossed
31
dis day or my name is not Roelof Janse Van Maesterland!”
He lumbered off to the courthouse. Duycinck, who had followed the whole conversation in Dutch, gazed at me in awe. “She's the only woman I've seen who's a match for your stepmother,” he said to Malcolm. “She could lie the devil out of his pitchfork.”
I was tempted to shove the little Dutchman into the Hudson. The last person I wanted to be compared to was a woman Malcolm loathed. But I had more pressing problems. In an hour Roelof Janse Van Maesterland was back with another man, far younger and much more intelligent. He was unquestionably Dutch, with clever blue eyes and hair as blond as mine.
“Dis be my nedphew, Nicholas Van Brugge,” the sheriff said. “He's a counselor at de bar. He vill defent you for nodding.”
“I will pay full fees the moment I lay hands on ready money,” I said. I still had fifty pounds in my purse but I thought it better to play the helpless female.
“Dat bastard Oloff Van Sluyden vill not dismissed de charge,” the sheriff said. “Maybe now I remember your name I suspect why. Dat man and his whole family ist a bunch of demmned scoundrels!”
“What do you mean?” I asked in Dutch.
“I mean I remember an evil thing that happened to your father and mother on the Mohawk,” the sheriff replied in Dutch. “There are people in this town who thought the Van Sluydens were parties to that crime. But proof was totally lacking. They will have to answer to God for it.”
“I'm too young to remember what my uncle is talking about,” Van Brugge said in English. “But it's become a sort of secret scandal here in Albany. These people have controlled the fur trade with the French in Canada for a long time and they've never wanted any competition from the west. They fought the proposition to build a fort at Oswego. They continue to harass it in every way they can.”
It made murderously perfect sense. I whirled and spoke to Clara in Seneca. “They know the men who killed our parents. Now we know them too. We must find a way to kill them.”
Clara shook her head. “It happened too long ago.”
“It happened
yesterday,
” I hissed.
Malcolm Stapleton understood enough Seneca to grasp this part of the conversation. He said nothing but I could see he was more inclined to side with me than with Clara.
I thrust aside this hopeful observation and concentrated on my current dilemma. Plaintively, I brushed tears from my eyes and asked Nicholas Van Brugge what we should do. Did the Van Sluydens control the courts of Albany? I gave him a heartbreaking rendition of our nasty dismissal when we sought Oloff Van Sluyden's help against de Groot and his confederates.
“They have considerable power. But it's not absolute, thank God,” Nicholas Van Brugge replied. “We'll ask for a three-judge panel to hear your case.”
We spent the night in the Crown Tavern, Malcolm and Duycinck sharing a room, while Clara and I slept next door. We spent much of the night arguing about whether we should seek revenge on the Van Sluydens.
“How do we know any of those who are still alive had anything to do with it? It happened almost twenty years ago,” Clara said.
“That doesn't matter,” I said. “A Seneca would wait for the right moment and drench their houses in the blood of their children, their wives, their daughters! A Seneca never forgets, never forgives an injury.”
“We're not Senecas anymore.”
“In our hearts, we'll always be Senecas.”
“I hope that isn't true. If it isâwe'll die hating each other.”
“Why?”
“You know why.”
She was talking about Malcolm. “Maybe we can find a way to talk peace,” I said. I was willing to share him, to accept any terms Clara offered, however humiliating.
Clara's eyes said
never
. She turned in the bed and blew out the candle. I lay there in the darkness, waiting for tears. But my eyes remained dry and cold. If Clara wanted war over Malcolm, she would get it.
The next morning the courtroom on State Street was surprisingly crowded. Roeloff Janse Van Maesterland and Nicholas Van Brugge had spread the news of the trial among their friends. On a front bench sat a group of men who Van Brugge said were members of the Van Sluyden clan. I saw venality and worse on their tense faces.
“They look like they would do anything for money,” I said.
“I fear you're right,” Van Brugge said.
Clara and Malcolm and Duycinck sat in the rear of the courtroom. I wanted to bring Clara forward as my partner but Van Brugge ruled
against it. “Let us not distract the judges from the main point,” he said.
The sheriff presented Commissary Van Schenck's writ to the court and explained why he had chosen not to execute it. The three judges included Oloff Van Sluyden, a red-cheeked Dutchman named Bleecker, and a sallow Englishman named Parton. Van Brugge argued that I had not violated the treaty with the Iroquois. I had received permission to trade with them from one of their grand sachems, who had the power to grant exceptions. The young lawyer stressed the importance of my refusal to trade in rum, wryly suggesting it would be good for both races if liquor was banned from the trade at Oswego as well.
Then he added: “This is a peculiar case, Your Honors. It stirs memories of a crime which took place on the Mohawk many years ago, involving this young woman's parentsâ”
By the time he finished, Judge Van Sluyden had tried three times to gavel him into silence but the other judges overruled him. The young Dutchman closed with a plea against permitting the “persecution” of a blameless young woman to go unchallenged.
The three judges retired to their chambers for a consultation. While they waited, a half dozen older men bowed before me and whispered in Dutch: “I knew your grandfather. He was a true man.”
It was amazing to discover so much goodness in the world. Had I sold my soul to the Evil Brother prematurely? Was there some way for honor and love to overcome the iniquity that seemed to lurk in so many hearts? The judges returned to the courtroom with clumping old men's gaits and ascended the bench. The central judge, the red-cheeked Dutchman named Bleecker, announced the verdict: “The court rules the writ of Commissary Van Schenck is without merit.”
I was bewildered. What began as outrageous lying to Sheriff Van Maesterland had ended in a modest triumph of truth and justice. Before I could begin to sort out this conundrum, I had to decide where and how to sell our skins.
“Do you plan to stay in the trade?” Nicholas Van Brugge asked me.
“Most assuredly.”
“Then I advise you to sell here in Albany and make your peace with the Van Sluydens in the bargain. Our biggest buyer and shipper of furs is Philip Van Sluyden, Oloff's son.”
“Make peace with my parents' murderers?” I cried.
“There's no proof that they murdered your parents,” Van Brugge replied. “It's never been more than a nasty rumor, propagated by people who resent the Van Sluydens' wealth and power.”
“Is that true?” I asked his uncle the sheriff.
Roeloff Janse Van Maesterland struggled between a desire to give me good advice and a need to take a legal view of the matter. It was true, the story was never more than a rumor. But he thought I would be better off if I sold my furs in New York and stayed there.
“I will not be driven out of business by threats!” I said. “Do you agree, Mr. Stapleton? Will you let them do that to me?”
“Not while I'm in your employ,” Malcolm said.
The implication was all too clear. He hoped to be out of my employ as soon as possible. Disconsolate, I allowed Nicholas Van Brugge to lead me to the dockside office of Philip Van Sluyden. Expecting a younger version of his dour father, I was taken by surprise. The man was as handsome and as suave as Robert Foster Nicolls.
“Ah,” he said to Nicholas Van Brugge. “I'm glad you persuaded Miss Van Vorst to see me.” He offered me a grave bow. “I told him at the very least I wanted to apologize for my father's atrocious conduct on the bench. I fear he's getting old. He resents terribly the vicious rumor that he was in some way responsible for your parents' death. Nothing could be farther from the truth.”
He uttered this pronouncement in the manner of a man who expected everyone to agree with whatever he said. Although he wore ordinary business clothes, Philip Van Sluyden virtually emanated wealth and power. He was the crown princeâor the young kingâof Albany.
“I hope I may come to believe that, sir,” I said. “It would put my heart and mind to rest.”
“You must believe it because it's true,” he said, as if he were talking to a child. I suspected this man had a rather low opinion of women's intelligence. “To prove my point, I want to give you the best price in my power for your furs.”
Philip Van Sluyden went briskly to work, examining our pelts. He said they were “good quality” and offered me seven shillings a pound for them. I was dismayed. Our four months of work and peril in the wilderness was going to net us only four hundred twenty pounds. I had paid three hundred fifty pounds for our goods and another fifty pounds to transport them to Oswego. That gave us a profit of twenty poundsâless than one percent. When I added in the cost of paying Malcolm Stapleton and his friends for their protection, we would show a loss of more than eighty pounds.
“If this is the best price possible, how does any trader make a profit in this business?” I asked.
“I've heard you carried no rum.”
“True.”