But there was danger in letting her thoughts drift in that direction. Was it only minutes ago that those hands had held her?
To keep her attention focused on other matters, she looked away. Truth be told, Sarah was upset, but not with him. Her upset lay with … circumstances.
How could she have encouraged him to kiss her? Hold her? How could she have practically begged him for his embrace—only to be turned down.
It was a sobering realization.
“You are quiet,” he said after a while.
“Aye,” she returned, “that I am.” She didn’t offer further communication and he didn’t seem inclined to press her.
After some moments, however, she decided to confront this tiger, stripes and all, and said, “I don’t blame you for what happened.”
He paused. “I am glad.”
“However, I think you should have been honest with me about your wife and your feelings toward others in your life before you kissed me. Perhaps before you massaged my legs, also, for I believe that is what started this.”
“I agree,” he said. “I am sorry. But massaging your legs is not what started it, I fear.”
“Is it not? ” she asked, sparing him a glance.
“
Neh
, it is not.”
“If not that, then what? When? ”
He exhaled on a breath, then throwing her a sharp glance, he said, “I will tell you, but in doing so, I do not wish you to think I am trying to change the conditions between us.”
She nodded briefly.
“I have been watching you and admiring you since I first found you, for you are fair of face and figure,” he went on to say. “My feelings have been building up to this since I first found you, awaiting only an outlet.”
She swallowed noisily, before saying, “You compliment me, sir, but I hardly think that would cause you to want to make love to me.”
“Then let me say it to you this way: Had I been massaging my grandmother’s legs, I would not have felt the need to kiss her and leave my imprint upon her.”
“Oh, yes, of course.” She paused. “In not knowing this, I did encourage you, didn’t I? And you are, after all, male, and …” She frowned and turned her head away, rubbing her forehead. It was as though her thoughts hurt.
“Did you remember something? ”
“No,” she said, “but I do seem to be possessed of numerous opinions—which require no memory a’tall. ’Tis strange.”
He nodded. “It is. What opinions are these that appear to worry you? ”
“I fear I cannot say them.”
“Why can you not? ”
“Because, sir, they are hurtful opinions, and perhaps not based on fact.”
“Hurtful to whom? ”
“If I were to tell you that—”
“Tell me.”
She breathed out on a sigh, and glanced down at her hands. “Then it would be toward you, sir.”
He nodded. “I thank you for sparing me.”
“You are most welcome.”
“But I think,” he went on to say, “that I would know the worst of it.”
“I cannot say it, sir. I should never have brought it up, for I simply cannot bring myself to use my lips to say the things that have been told to me.”
Laying down his knife, and ripping open the carcass of the deer, he commented, “Someone has said that the Indian man is a beast and will rape women and children, hasn’t he? ”
Again, she hesitated. “I cannot recall …”
“And you believed it?”
“Until I met you and one other …” She scowled, and again she grabbed her head. Suddenly, it hurt.
“Another memory?”
“Almost, sir.” Sarah cast her gaze upward. At last, she said, “After all you have done for me, I fear I now believe that the opinions I have been told are based on nothing but terrible gossip. And, sir, I have remembered something.”
He glanced up at her, eyebrows raised in surprise, but he didn’t push her to relate her memory. He didn’t say a word. Instead, he waited.
“I recall a man, sir,” she began. “An older gentleman, who was well-to-do, I believe. He had … some business with the Indians, I recall. It was he who told me this gossip, and it was, indeed, similar to what you said.”
“I thought as much, for it is common for a man to accuse another of those things he does himself.”
“Is it, now? ”
“It is. Have you never observed this for yourself? ”
“No, sir, I don’t believe that I have.”
He sighed. “I will tell you the truth, though it is probably useless to do so. But even if you do not believe it—and I fear you won’t—you will at least have both sides of the story, and can make up your own mind about what is and isn’t true.”
“Yes. Please. Go ahead.”
“
Nyah-weh
. It is a story,” he said, but he didn’t look at her. His attention was taken up in preparation of the game. “Long ago, before the French, the English and the Dutch came into our country, our women and children were safe to travel on their own, even into the woods, often without accompaniment. Certainly, they were safe in their own homes. However, with the arrival of the European into our country, this and many other things changed. Disease came with the English and the French, killing many of us. But for this, we did not blame the new invader. If he brought it, it was unintentionally done. No, what we disdained, what we could not understand, were this man’s unhealthy desires to seek his pleasure from our women and children.”
Sarah gasped. “Surely, Mr. Thunder, you are not suggesting that—”
“It is a matter of fact. It is written in the sacred wampum—it is recorded in the memory of our elders.”
Sarah sat gaping at him, unable to muster a response.
“Because of this,” he continued, “to this day, when a white man whom we do not know enters our villages, we hide our women and children until we are certain of his intentions.”
Sarah paused, choosing her words. “You are right, sir,” she said. “I find that hard to believe.”
He didn’t answer. Rather, with a shrug, he went on quietly with his work.
But Sarah wouldn’t let it go, couldn’t let it go, and she said, “Mr. Thunder, are you telling me that good Christian men—”
“I did not say they were either good or Christian.”
“But—”
“In the two years I lived with the missionaries, I came to observe that there were two different kinds of people among the English: those that take and those that give. And the two do not mix. Those that take are not good, and they are not Christian.
“They do not live by the book that they tell the Indian and others to obey,” he continued. “They lie and they cheat. So much is this true, that our wisest men warn that if such people say a thing is so, it is the opposite. These kinds of men or women are few among the English, fortunately, but they give your race a bad name. Someday all the Indian Nations might blame your people for the injustices they suffer beneath the hand of these few—which would also be untruthful.”
“I’m sorry that you feel this way.”
“It is not a feeling. It is an observation.”
“Yes,” said Sarah, “so you have said. But, sir, are you implying that your society has no stragglers, no men who serve their own ends? ”
“No, all societies have such people. Perhaps the difference is in how a tribe treats a man who lies or serves his own ends. It is an Iroquois law that if a man is seen once to lie or to serve only himself or his family, the women of the tribe dismiss him from his seat on the council, or if he is not a council member, he is banished from the tribe. He is considered a thing of horror, and no child will even look upon his face. He is a disgrace.
“But this is not so among the English, who tend to believe the wagging tongue of the man who cannot and will not associate himself with anything but lies.”
Sarah became silent. Indeed, she realized that what this man said was very near true.
“Until the English find a way to show this man up for what he is, until they serve him real justice, he will leave a disgrace upon the graves of the innocent Englishman, who in his heart is a good, God-fearing Christian.”
Sarah stared down at her lap. In truth, she was stunned. Stunned because what this man said was too astute to be readily dismissed. She said, “I hope, sir, that your look into what the future holds for the Englishman is not an exact look.”
“I, too,” he said. “But I fear this will be as it is unless some force comes into the world to change it.”
Again, Sarah sat silently by, watching him.
At length, he changed the subject, and said, “Would you like to try to help me take the layer of fat from the skin? I could bring you here beside me, and guide you so that you could do it again if the need ever arose.”
And be that close to him?
She said, “No, sir, I believe not. I am still recovering, and I am happy watching you.”
He didn’t comment, though he did allow his glance to scan over her features. Silence again commenced between them.
While cutting up the meat into strips, he spoke, saying, “We will dry this meat over a smoky fire so that we can make a mixture that will nourish us on the trail.”
“And where will we be going, sir?”
“Either I will return you to your people, or if you have not recovered your memory by the time we are ready to leave, I will take you to my village.”
“To your village. Ah, yes, I do remember you saying as much to me.” Sarah’s stomach dropped. The prospect was frightening. However, if her memory didn’t return, there would be little option but to follow him. She said, “But we are not ready to go yet, are we? ”
“Not until you are up and able to walk on your own. And whichever path we take, whether to your village or to mine, we will need food. And since we will be traveling fast, it is best to prepare it now.”
Sarah nodded. “Then I will help you do it … tomorrow.” She grinned at him, and heaven be praised, he smiled right back.
Eight
It was only a few days later when, with the aid of the cane that White Thunder had fashioned for her, Sarah struggled up onto her feet and slowly, with one foot placed carefully after another, began to walk. Soon, within a matter of days, she was walking without aid. And though her muscles still spasmed with pain now and again, neither she nor White Thunder had dared to repeat the deep massage.
True to his word, White Thunder had concocted many meals’ worth of bone broth soups. As he offered the soup to her, along with the other foods he had in store, gradually the muscle contractions in her legs lessened.
It was liberating, she discovered, to be able to amble about again, and she realized a limited truth: Lack of movement created, to a greater or lesser degree, a sort of enslavement. Certainly it made one dependent on the goodwill of another.
Within days, Sarah could leave the cave on her own and though at first she was reluctant to venture too far, eventually she conquered her fear and strolled out farther and farther into the woods. As she became stronger, she realized that for all practical purposes she would be able to leave this place soon. Not yet, if only because her legs wouldn’t always obey her every command. But soon.
Where would she go? she wondered. What would she do? The worry hung over her like a dark cloud, since, to date, her past life still remained a mystery to her.
One factor had changed recently, however. It had started to rain, which was causing Sarah to stay close to the cave out of necessity. Along with the downpours came a coldness that had settled over the land. Even the autumn leaves, so bright only weeks ago, now hung dismally under an often-gray and threatening sky.
It happened late one afternoon, suddenly and without warning. One moment Sarah had been safe and warm in the cave, the next she had ventured out of it only to come face to face with a bear: a big, fully grown black bear.
Sarah froze.
The bear growled, stood up onto its hind legs and pawed at the air. Sarah was dwarfed by it. It howled again, the sound terrorizing. All at once, adrenaline and fear washed through her.
She remained frozen to the spot. Though the bear made no forward movement, it was close enough that the very air around her became scented with the animal.
Suddenly something changed and the bear came down on all fours and started toward her.
Sarah screamed.
Stunned at the noise, the bear stopped, and looking right and left, it pawed at the ground. Finally, bringing its attention back to her, the bear slowly, carefully, closed the distance between them.
“Put your arms up over your head and growl!” It was White Thunder. “Do it! Now!”
She did as White Thunder ordered. Raising her hands over her head, she opened her mouth and snarled at the bear.
As before, the bear stopped, sniffed at the air, gave her a cautious look, but plodded forward.