Thieving Forest Page 2

  Another sharp crow makes her look toward the henhouse again and that’s when she sees Aurelia, astonishingly enough, standing there with a bucket of feed. When did she leave the cabin?

  “Au-re-lia!” Susanna hisses.

  But Aurelia doesn’t hear. There is a good fifty yards between the maple trees and the henhouse with long yellow grass in between. Susanna can see Aurelia talking to her hens. Her face, pale from her recent illness, looks even paler out in the sun. She hasn’t noticed the Potawatomi. The hens bob toward her as if offering kisses but really they are just greedy for their feed.

  Suddenly as if on a signal the Potawatomi all let out a shout and run into the cabin. Aurelia jerks her head around at the noise, and Susanna steps out from behind her tree. Now is her chance. She waves both her arms at Aurelia, Come here! There are two other maple trees on either side of her, both wide enough to hide behind.

  But Aurelia doesn’t move, and Susanna realizes that the shrieking she hears is coming not from the Potawatomi but from Aurelia’s hens. She shouts her sister’s name. Aurelia looks over at Susanna with a wild, frightened expression but still doesn’t move. Susanna doesn’t know what to do—should she rush to the henhouse and grab her? But before she can take a step three Potawatomi come out of the cabin, one holding Beatrice by the arm and one holding Naomi and the last one carrying their mother’s blue pieced bed quilt. Susanna steps back behind the tree, beckoning to Aurelia—there is still a chance if she runs now.

  At last Aurelia steps forward but instead of running to Susanna she picks up Black Peter, who immediately flaps his wings and makes such a noise as Susanna has never before heard. What is Aurelia doing? Is she in shock? Two Potawatomi run to the henhouse, both holding up axes, one with half of his face painted red. The other one, smaller but with a thick white scar running down the side of his face, begins to cut off the heads of any chicken he can grab, felling them neatly with one blow each. Black Peter, released from Aurelia’s arms, half flies and half jumps back to the henhouse door.

  “Stop!” Aurelia screams at the man with the scar.

  The Potawatomi with half his face painted red looks at her and then he says something to the man slaughtering the chickens, who puts down his axe and begins to tie the ones he’s already killed together by their feet.

  That’s strange. Did the Potawatomi just spare Aurelia’s hens? But even stranger is this: he suddenly turns and looks right at the maple tree where Susanna is hiding, and in that first moment she swears that he sees her. He stares directly at her. She draws back, suddenly aware of her red hair and white neck and each glistening black button marching down the front of her dress. She pulls her head down and looks at her boots. She waits, her heart rocking in her chest. She hears Black Peter crow hoarsely again.

  And now she remembers. A rooster crowing in a doorway means visitors are coming. An old Scottish superstition.

  The saying fixes itself in her mind like a stone while she waits for the Potawatomi to come drag her away, and when no one comes she makes herself look again. The area by the henhouse is deserted. Aurelia is now on the other side of their cabin next to Beatrice and Penelope and Naomi, and the Potawatomi are roping up bags of loot.

  Susanna grasps the tree trunk in front of her with her bare hands, feeling for any small holds in the rutted bark. Her mouth is so dry that it hurts. She can’t see her sisters’ faces but wisps of their red hair, each one a different shade, lift in the wind. Their black mourning collars and dark dresses bleed into the color of the trees, and only Beatrice has a cap on her head. One Potawatomi wrenches Naomi’s violin out of her hands and ties it up to the bundle of dead chickens. Then he pushes her with the handle of a spade—their father’s spade—and drives her and the others into the bracken and trees and the vines of small, unopened roses that mark the edge of Thieving Forest.

  Two

  Thieving Forest is an ancient forest crowded with decrepit elms and maples and oak, too many of them fallen for a comfortable crossing, a place settlers generally go around rather than through. It got its name after a band of Sauk Indians tried to hide some stolen horses there. Severne sits on its southern edge like a fly on the rim of a saucer. On the other side of the forest lies the Great Black Swamp—a dark wooded bog nearly the size of Connecticut—and beyond that is Lake Erie. Rumors circulate about the unholy creatures that make their home in the Black Swamp: swine wolves, frogs with fins and teeth. Naomi has even heard that there are bands of backward men living among its stunted trees, and that there is no end to it, and no sunlight within, and no food.

  They are heading north toward the Black Swamp now, half running among the elm trees on paths that seem to vanish underfoot, reappear, and vanish again. A second group of Potawatomi joins them near two gray boulders, and one of the men gives each of the four sisters a pair of moccasins since they were taken in their stocking feet. After that they can run faster. Although no one speaks, Naomi feels as though a din of conversation is thrumming around her, the voices so relentless that they degrade into meaningless noise. She can see her violin tied to the bundle of dead chickens on the back of a small but broad-shouldered man.

  Aurelia weeps to see them. Naomi hears Penelope say in a low, scared voice: “Hush, Aury, don’t vex them. They’re only chickens.” But that only makes Aurelia weep more.

  When they cross a small clearing one Potawatomi stays in the rear to sweep up the trampled grass with a long staff. On the other side Naomi takes hold of a sapling to steady herself. A man with a thick, white scar down the right side of his face scolds her. “Do not breaking branch! I will knock on head!” he says in English. She pulls her hand away.

  Her head is spinning with noise. Usually in any situation Naomi can conjure up her music—this is her gift. She has famous recall, and even if she can’t put her hands on her instrument she practices a piece in her head while performing some tedious task, like making soap or mending. Out of all the Quiners, she is the quietest. She was always her father’s favorite. Now she can’t hear anything except chaotic noises playing—what? Not music. Nothing like music.

  “Ke-nup,” the scarred Indian says. Hurry. “Or I will knock on head.” He isn’t in charge, though. The one in charge is the one with half of his face painted red. They call him Koman. Koman’s black dog, running next to him, wears a string of deerskin around his neck, a red feather dangling from that like a flower. A promise. Naomi knows she should not let such fanciful thoughts in but instead concentrate on keeping pace. And she would if only the noise in her head would stop and she could remember her music.

  When at last they stop to rest Penelope finds herself looking around for landmarks, something familiar, but she has never been so deep in the forest before.

  “How are you, Naomi, all right?” she asks. “Beatrice, all right? Aurelia, listen to me now, you must stand up straight. Give no sign that you’ve been ill.”

  “What about Susanna, what happened to her?” Beatrice asks in a low voice.

  Aurelia glances back at the Potawatomi, who are talking among themselves near a trio of oak trees. “I saw her,” she whispers. “She was hiding behind a maple tree near the henhouse.”

  “She’ll get the men, then. They’ll come after us,” Penelope says. She looks at her sisters’ faces. Beatrice’s skin is tight with fright, Naomi appears to be in shock, and Aurelia’s forehead is flushed and sweaty. Penelope is the most worried about her.

  “I saw a man in the forest,” Aurelia says. “When we first went in. A white man watching from behind a tree.”

  “Nonsense,” Penelope tells her. “Any white man would have done something.”

  “I couldn’t see his face but he wore English trousers.”

  “One of the Indians. I’ve seen plenty of them wearing trousers. You have, too. Now stand up straight. Your face is very red.”

  “Does that dog seem strange to you?” Beatrice asks.

  The leader, Koman, is walking over to them with his dog by his side. He gives them each a sh
elled walnut.

  “Where are you taking us?” Penelope asks, but he doesn’t give her an answer. When he turns around, Penelope gives her walnut to Aurelia.

  “You must keep up your strength,” she says. Even to her ears it sounds like a scolding. But she doesn’t mean to scold. She’s frightened. As the oldest, it’s her job to protect the others, but how can she? She looks at her hand, which is shaking, and she clenches it, trying to stop. She tries to drink some water from the stream but the stream is so shallow that she scoops up equal parts mud and water, and in her haste swallows a mouthful of grit. For a long time afterwards she works out tiny pebbles along her gum with her tongue.

  “Beatrice is right about that animal,” Aurelia says, catching up with Penelope on the trail a little while later. “It’s not a dog. It has a snout like a pig but the body of a wolf.”

  Penelope can guess where this is heading. “There’s no such thing as a swine wolf,” she says. “Those are just swamp stories. It’s just a dog.”

  “It isn’t! Look at it!”

  The scarred Potawatomi turns to stare at them.

  “It’s not a dog!” Aurelia says again. She stumbles over a root that is protruding up from the ground like a knuckle and she puts her hands out in front of her.

  “Aurelia, for pity’s sake, pay attention,” Penelope says.

  Beatrice discovers in her pocket a bit of corncake leftover from breakfast. She touches it every so often, hoping it will help her feel better. Then she stops, thinking of Susanna and her little good luck charms. She considers good luck charms ungodly and foolish. Her chilblain is hurting but there is nothing she can do about that. The warm bread she used as a compress this morning didn’t work. Nothing ever does.

  She tries to remember what she knows about the Potawatomi. They are good hunters but they haven’t brought in many pelts lately. The fur trade is declining, some say. She looks up, trying to locate the sun through the tree canopy. Where are they going? The men seem to have a plan. One man gave her water from his skin pouch, which carried with it a faint taste of animal fat. Another helped Naomi when she tripped over a root. They do not seem cruel, except for the one with the white scar down his face. Where are they taking them? Probably she should pray but to pray is to hope, and she is afraid to do that.

  Penelope comes up behind her. “We’re going north. That means we’re going toward Risdale.”

  “Will they ransom us there, do you think?” Beatrice asks.

  “Maybe. Or maybe they’ve hidden their canoes along the river there. Maybe they want to make us their wives.”

  Beatrice shudders. She puts her hand in her pocket and feels the corncake, and again thinks of Susanna. Susanna has always been lucky, and she was lucky today. Whereas I am constantly plagued...but that is an un-Christian thought. To make up for it, she gives Penelope some of her corncake.

  “Here,” she says.

  “What is it?”

  “Don’t let them see you.”

  Penelope coughs, then puts her hand to her mouth. Beatrice watches her swallow. It irks her that Penelope is older and thinks of herself in charge. It is irrational but she has always felt this way, ever since she can remember.

  “I’m worried about Aurelia,” Penelope says. “If you get a chance, give her some too. How is your heel?”

  They are all wearing the deerskin moccasins that the Potawatomi gave out to them. As soft as they are—much softer than boots—her chilblain rubs like fire against the leather when she walks, and it throbs when she rests.

  “I hardly feel it,” she lies.

  Toward midday they come to a spot where three rivulets empty into a fast-moving stream. Here they are given water and parched corn and are told to wait. Three Potawatomi station themselves north, east, and south on the lookout. Another Potawatomi signals with his hands for the women to lie on the ground. Like swine, Aurelia thinks. Like Saul, their pig. Even my birds have their pallets but we are treated like swine. She can’t bear to see the carcasses of her hens carried on the back of that man, each one of which has a name. Her head feels open and strange, almost bright, as though pierced at the top by a ray of sunlight. What will become of Black Peter and the others? she wonders. In general she is not a lover of animals, only her birds. Koman’s dog especially makes her nervous. He is not a dog, no matter what Penelope says. That creature is not a dog. She shivers, but also feels hot.

  Beatrice is wondering aloud why they aren’t in Risdale already. “It doesn’t take this long to get there. Certainly not at the pace we’ve been going.”

  “We seemed to double back at one point,” Penelope says.

  “I thought so, too!” Naomi says. “I recognized the same stream with yellowish water. We passed over it twice.”

  But Beatrice is skeptical. “All the streams have yellowish water. They all look alike.”

  Koman walks over to them. Although his face is painted like a warrior his voice is gentle. “We wait here,” he tells the women. “Do not worry.” His eyes look at each of them, taking them in, a kind of regard Aurelia has never seen from a man except maybe her father. Even Cade Spendlove, her beau, is shy about looking at her, as if he fills up quickly at only a glance. But it’s just a trick, she thinks. A show of concern.

  Her face hurts from the effort of staying awake. She closes her eyes and listens to Penelope asking questions. Koman does not know much English or he does not want to answer. He says again, “Do not worry.” He says, “Soon you will be...” but Aurelia can’t hear the rest. Free? Dead? Beneath her eyelids she sees blood-red swirls and points of yellow light.

  “Aurelia! How do you feel?” Penelope suddenly asks. Aurelia opens her eyes. Koman has gone back to his men. How long has she slept? Her body feels white and boundless.

  Penelope kisses her on the forehead. “You’re burning up.”

  The men are making a small fire and Aurelia can smell meat cooking. It smells delicious. Then she realizes it is one of her chickens.

  “Aurelia, don’t,” Penelope says as she begins to cry.

  “I can’t help it.”

  One man notices that she’s crying and he brings her a pouch of water. The water is warm and she takes a long drink. The scarred Potawatomi also notices. When the man leaves with his water pouch, the scarred Potawatomi crouches down in front of her with his face very close to hers. She can smell his rotting teeth. He puts the palm of his hand on her cheek and she keeps her face very still. She is not sure what he will do if she pulls away.

  “Yaknogeh,” he says. “Ill.”

  “No,” Penelope tells him. “Not yaknogeh. Strong.”

  They all know a smattering of Indian languages from trading with so many Indians at the store. But the scarred Potawatomi takes no notice of Penelope. With one hand he grasps Aurelia’s head, his thumb on her jaw. With his other hand he presses two fingers above and below Aurelia’s eye, stretching the skin to see her pupil.

  She is frightened, but she says, “I am warm from all the running.” She tries to think if she knows the Potawatomi word for running. From the corner of her eye she sees Penelope nod: good.

  After a moment he takes his hand away and stands up. When he goes back to the others she closes her eyes again. Her weariness is like a veil pulling her down. She drifts into sleep and dreams that her arms are dry sticks without leaves, and although they are light she can’t move them no matter how much she tries.

  Some time later she wakes to Koman and the scarred man shouting at each other in Potawatomi. She hears the word cmokamanuk repeated. White men. Koman takes up his hatchet and goes off, saying something over his shoulder. His animal, the swine wolf, stays behind.

  The afternoon lengthens and still Koman does not return. Penelope tries to work out what they are doing here but can think of no explanation—if the plan is to ransom them for money, they should be in Risdale already. If the plan is to take them home and make them into wives or servants, they should be in their canoes. If the plan is to kill them they would have
done so long ago. They would not be giving them water and walnuts and moccasins. She thinks of her knitting in the sack with the tea and candlesticks and everything else taken from their home. She could knit stockings for Koman perhaps, to show her worth. Or Aurelia could. Aurelia is a fast knitter.

  “They want us to make a shelter,” Beatrice says coming up to her.

  “How do you know?”

  “One of them speaks a little French. Look, they have Naomi at it already.”

  Penelope picks up a couple of long twigs and makes her apron into a nest to carry them. Two younger men—the ones carrying the sacks with the Quiners’ goods—are cutting limbs off a tree. When they have three good ones, they pound them into the ground. Then they show the Quiners how to push and weave the twigs around them. Despite the men’s stony expressions, Penelope tries to talk to them. She points to one of their sacks.

  “My knitting?” she asks. “Do you have my knitting bag in there?”

  They do not understand. “Mik-chay-wee-win,” one says. Work.

  When the shelter is done the four sisters are told to go inside. It is tall enough for them to stand up in, but narrow and cramped and dim. The men roll a fat log against the opening to serve as a makeshift door, which only partially blocks it. Naomi feels like she’s being buried standing up. Sweat runs under her collar and turns cold. There is hardly room to turn.

  “Do you see anything, Aury?” she asks. Aurelia is in the middle with the widest view. When she leans forward Naomi sees a tiny leaf stuck in her strawberry-blond hair from sleeping on the ground. In spite of her sore legs Naomi wishes she were outside again running along the path. In here she feels like an animal.