Thieving Forest Read online

  “You can remember when you look at them.”

  “Remember?”

  “Aurelia,” he says. “To speak the name is to make live again.”

  His voice is so gentle it brings tears to her eyes. She thinks of Aurelia standing by her henhouse.

  “Now,” Old Adam says. He feels inside his shoe-pouch and pulls out a narrow piece of cloth with a bit of fur on one end. At first Susanna cannot make out what it is, but then she recognizes it as a collar, a linen dress collar, only it has a small deer tail sewn onto it. The tail is reddish brown and about the length of a child’s hand. It serves to hook up the two ends of the collar like a brooch.

  She strokes the tiny hairs. “Is it your wife’s?”

  “She made it. I give to you.”

  Susanna admires the cleverness of the collar’s design, the mix of European and Indian. “It’s lovely,” she says. Then she asks him to wait while she goes into the tavern.

  “I want to give you something, too,” she tells him, coming back out with her grain sack.

  She pulls out her mother’s wedding ring but Old Adam shakes his head. Too valuable, he tells her, she might need it. He was the one, she will find out later, who went back to the cold trail in the forest and came upon the Moravian missionaries. They told him that a woman with red hair had been ransomed and taken back to their village. Susanna pulls out all the objects in her grain sack and lays them side by side on the ground. Old Adam knocks his pipe ashes behind him and squats to look. He puts Sirus’s axe back inside the sack, and then the dinner knives tied together with twine, and the nail scissors with their avian fingerholes. Susanna has already given Liza Footbound her mother’s hand mirror, small enough compensation for all her kindnesses.

  Old Adam picks up one of the cherry buttons and rubs his thumb over the front.

  “Thank you,” he says, his fingers closing over it.

  “Take all three.”

  “One is enough.”

  Susanna puts the other two buttons back into the little square of cloth that serves as their bag and winds a strand of cotton thread around it.

  “Before she died, my sister...Aurelia...she told me she had seen a creature, one of those Black Swamp creatures, half wolf and half swine.” She pauses and looks at him, but Old Adam says nothing. “Could that be true?”

  “Have never seen one,” he tells her.

  “She also said that a white man watched them being taken away.”

  Old Adam looks away past her, toward the uneven roof of the tavern. His expression does not change. At last he says, “Hard to know what is true and what is illness speaking. Maybe animal, maybe no animal. Maybe man, maybe no man.”

  Susanna says, “That doesn’t help me.”

  Old Adam smiles. He looks at her like a father might. “You need to know?”

  “I think so. I don’t know. Maybe not.”

  “Jonas Footbound goes with you to Gemeinschaft. He is good man. Your father was good man too.” He touches her on the shoulder. “When in the wild, remember, lose fear and suspicion. See with all senses.”

  “We’re not going through the forest,” Susanna tells him.

  The sun begins to spread itself more brightly over the horizon, and as if on its command dozens of birds begin chattering all at once. Old Adam’s hand is still on her shoulder. She feels it like a blessing. “Be well, Susanna Quiner,” he says. “Stay harmless.”

  Gemeinschaft

  Seven

  Susanna doesn’t know when Liza found the time to make the heavy split skirt for her to wear on the ride, but it is a practical gift made out of strongly woven linen with a pocket for her turkey hen bone. After Jonas helps her mount she touches the bone through the fabric. It is a cloudy morning, some rain later probably, maybe even a storm.

  “I think we can beat it,” Jonas says as they start off.

  Moments later, to Susanna’s surprise, Seth Spendlove comes riding up hard. He asks to accompany them, says he has some business with the brethren. His coat is stained and his boots are so muddy at the bottom they seem to be made from two different grains of leather.

  Also in their party are Barbarus Tulp, a Risdale farmer who wants to buy flaxseed from the brethren, and Tulp’s grown daughter, Ada. Ada wears cracked spectacles and has breadcrumbs scattered all over her collar. She keeps exclaiming over the view, which is, like all of Ohio, a view of trees sliced through with muddy streams. Susanna finds Ada affected and unkempt and a better horsewoman than she is. It is hard to forgive her for any of that.

  Susanna is not good with horses. The horse that Jonas found for her, an ornery mare called Step, has three white socks, which is very unlucky. Step keeps brushing along the trees next to the track as though hoping to crush Susanna’s leg against one of them. Although Susanna tries to rein the mare over, Step’s mouth is so tough that the bit means nothing to her.

  “They don’t know the first way about making a living,” Tulp is saying as they ride. “Plant corn, but when the time comes to harvest, where are they but off hunting? Then they overhunt so they have to go to another tribe’s territory for fresh meat, and war is what happens next.”

  “Savages,” Ada Tulp says, looking back at Susanna with an ugly expression, as if Susanna, being a woman, would naturally agree. Ada swirls her reins around to avoid a puddle. Susanna tries to follow but Step plunges right into the water and mud shoots up the inside of Susanna’s split skirt and onto her leg. She makes up her mind then and there never to use the word “savages” again.

  By the time they stop for a quick meal the wind has met up with them and the horses are getting nervous, twitching their tails and refusing water. While Ada tries to soothe her own horse Susanna ignores Step and sits down on a mossy log a good ways away to eat her biscuit and cheese. According to Jonas there is only one more stream to ford before the small stretch of woods that marks the border of Gemeinschaft. Very soon now she will meet up with her sister. They will make a plan and leave. If it is Penelope or Beatrice they probably already have a plan. Susanna touches her turkey hen bone again through the pocket of her skirt. She is worried and anxious and hopeful. She tries not to wonder where the others might be. If they are alive.

  “Excuse me, Miss Susanna?”

  She turns her head. Seth Spendlove is standing there with his hat in his hand. Sometimes she forgets that he is from Virginia where their manners are so old-fashioned and fussy.

  “For pity’s sake call me Susanna,” she says, thinking about how they used to play together in one of the little streams near her cabin.

  “I just wanted to say, I’m sorry about your sister. Aurelia.”

  Without warning the muscles in her face seem to weaken. For a moment she can’t look into his eyes.

  “Also, I believe, well...this belongs to you.”

  To her great surprise he holds out a faded black purse. Two hundred dollars, he tells her. To pay off a debt. “One of your sisters asked my father to sell something or other for her.”

  “What could have possibly been worth so much?” But Seth has already put his hand in his pocket as though afraid that she would try to give it back. As if she would! Two hundred dollars! This is money enough to pay back the brethren for the ransom of her sister, and part of her does not want to question the whys of this gift too closely although clearly it is a mistake. The black leather of the purse has weathered to green, and Susanna pulls the drawstring to close it. With the sun at this angle it is hard to read Seth’s expression. For a moment he looks like he is about to say something more.

  “Thank you,” she says, pushing the purse into her pocket alongside her turkey bone. Seth turns his head to check the sky behind them. She has always liked his profile, she doesn’t know why.

  “How has your ride been?” he asks.

  “My horse is a rascal. She wishes me off her back and is plotting at every step.”

  Seth smiles. “The old ones can be the worst. They know all the tricks.”

  She puts her hand
on her pocket, feeling the heft of the purse, and smiles back. Down at the other side of the clearing Jonas is signaling, Let’s be off. The sky has become a deep purple and the wind is blowing down in long sweeps. Now the horses are even more skittish. They pass through a small grove of buckeye and Susanna has to concentrate hard to get Step to cooperate. Fortunately Seth is nearby to help, but once or twice she catches Ada smirking.

  When they get to the stream Step jerks her head up in two quick hits, nearly pulling the reins from Susanna’s hands. Susanna stares at the water. It is wider and faster than any of the other streams they’ve crossed. The trees on the other side, mostly pin oak, seem very far away. Winsome Stream, Jonas calls it. To Susanna it looks more like a river.

  “Pretty full,” Tulp remarks.

  Seth reins in his horse. “It’s been a wet season.”

  “Fording might be a problem.”

  Ada slaps at a mosquito. “Papa, they found a hole in my netting.”

  The sun is almost at the horizon. There is not light enough to search for a better crossing; they need to go over now or camp for the night. Susanna watches sticks and clumps of leaves being borne away by the current, but the water itself does not seem terribly deep.

  “Do you want to see a trick?” she asks Ada while they wait for the men to make their plan. Although she does not care for Ada she wants to impress her, perhaps to make up for her inadequate riding. Susanna pushes up the sleeve of her blouse. After a few seconds a mosquito lands on her arm and tries to sink in its pointer. It tries again. Then again.

  “I can’t be bit,” Susanna tells her.

  “You’ve never had a mosquito bite?”

  “I’ve never had Swamp Fever, either.”

  “You’re lucky,” Ada says, pushing her cracked spectacles up higher.

  That’s what Beatrice always says: you’re the lucky one. She doesn’t get chilblains or sore throats, she never gets Swamp Fever, and even her skin rarely bruises. Susanna rolls down her sleeve feeling a little bad now, as if her good luck has been taken from her sisters’ store of it. But that’s foolish, she tells herself.

  The men decide to cross a few yards downstream where the bank slopes more gently. Jonas goes first. His horse prances a little when she gets to the opposite bank, still excited, and she throws her head up in the air.

  “It’s all right,” Jonas shouts to them, pulling the reins to his chest. “Just move the horses through fast.”

  Tulp and Ada cross next without incident. Then Seth moves his horse next to Susanna’s saying they’ll cross together and does she want him to hold Step’s reins? But she shakes her head, determined to do as well as Ada. The air is slightly cooler here and blueflies skirt over the water. Step maneuvers down into the stream and lifts her head. Susanna sees Jonas on the other side watching her. And then suddenly, she doesn’t know how, she is falling off the horse.

  “Susanna!” Seth shouts.

  She falls on her backside as Step, relieved of her human burden at last, dashes through the water and up the bank, where Jonas grabs her by the reins. Meanwhile Susanna struggles to stand. The water is not very deep but the current moves fast and she has trouble keeping her balance. She falls again and this time the cold water seems to seep right through to her bones. As she struggles for footing she notices two things floating away: Seth’s purse with the two hundred dollars, and her turkey hen bone, each one caught in a different eddy. Susanna stops and feels part of her skirt paste itself wetly against her leg. What with the pace of the current and her heavy clothing she can only reach one, she knows this instinctively. She has to make a choice. She takes a step against the current and then another and once more falls into the water but even falling she is near enough to close her fingers around the purse. The drawstring holds and she can feel the thick wad of bills inside. She stands up and holds it for a moment against her stomach as she watches her turkey hen bone carried farther and farther downstream. It rotates around a gray rock in the water and disappears.

  “Susanna!”

  Seth is wading toward her holding the reins of his horse with one hand. For a moment she stays very still as if waiting for him. There are hundreds of such bones, she tells herself, trying not to cry, although not one more that Sirus would give her.

  “Susanna, are you all right?”

  Her wet clothes stick to her skin in patches and she can feel the wind on her scalp. She looks at Step standing meekly now next to Jonas’s horse, her reins dripping.

  “I’m not getting back on that horse,” Susanna says.

  After this, disheartened and cold, she half-expects to find that a mistake has been made, that there was never a woman ransomed by the Moravians, or that it was not a white woman with red hair, or not one with the last name Quiner. She rides the rest of the way on the back of Seth’s horse, her wet arms around his dry middle. The storm is still gathering behind them but soon enough they come up to one of the brethren walking along where the track opens up to the village. He turns when he hears them and waits, introducing himself as Brother Graves when they get to him. Although it is still early in the evening he is holding a torch made out of a dry linden branch. When he hears their business, he raises it slightly to look closer at Susanna.

  “Your sister Beatrice,” he says, “will be most happy to see you.”

  His eyes are as dark as his hair, and his voice, warm and gentle, sounds like it might just be Saint Peter’s voice at the gate. Susanna feels Seth squeeze her forearm gently. She feels a rush of relief followed by guilt over the other two, Penelope and Naomi, where are they? She will find out soon enough. She lets herself lean into Seth’s back a moment before Jonas helps her dismount, and she goes with Brother Graves while the others take their horses to the stables, the rain still behind them but barely.

  Beatrice.

  Brother Graves takes her to the Birthing Hut, where they care for the ill or dying or pregnant, he explains, although Beatrice is none of those things. Recuperating, is what Brother Graves says. She is at the chapel at the moment but will be back as soon as service is over. Inside, he introduces her to a Shawnee woman named Sister Johanna. She is not a nun, but a convert. He calls Beatrice Sister Beatrice, and when he turns to leave Susanna he calls her Sister Susanna, saying good night. The Birthing Hut is small, only one room, with rough walls and a stone fireplace. Sister Johanna gives her a dry shift to put on and a cup of warm liquid that tastes like grass mixed with dirt. As Susanna is sipping it she hears the rain begin.

  The door opens. A woman in a heavy brown cape walks in.

  “Beet!”

  Beatrice stares at her, her face pale. Her bright red hair seems even redder. “Susanna?” They embrace, clinging to each other, and Susanna breathes in Beatrice’s hair. It smells like wet leaves. Her cape is damp but Susanna doesn’t want to let go. The rain begins pounding on the roof with a fury as Sister Johanna says good night and goes out into the storm, drawing her hood up. Beatrice turns to hang her cape on the peg. Droplets like tears streak across the single glass window.

  “Are you all right?” Susanna asks. She stands back to look. No bandages. Nothing in a sling. “Where are Penelope and Naomi? Tell me everything, start from the beginning.”

  “Susanna.” Beatrice drops down on the bed. “I’m sorry. I don’t know how to say this. They’re gone.”

  “Gone? What do you mean?”

  “They were killed. Aurelia, too.”

  Susanna feels something white flutter near the edge of her mind, neither thought nor emotion. She takes a step back. “I found Aurelia alive. She lived for three days...” She will tell Beatrice all about that but right now she needs to hear about Penelope and Naomi. “Is it possible, could they have lived, too?”

  “I can’t talk about it,” Beatrice says. She has a pierced look on her face. “Please don’t make me say more. They’re gone. They were killed. The Potawatomi killed them.”

  Susanna sits down on the bed next to Beatrice. She and Beet are the only ones left? Ca
n that really be true? All the others, gone? The fire sputters as a couple of raindrops fall down the chimney. Her worst fears have come true, and she struggles to bring up a picture of Naomi in her mind. Naomi playing her violin beneath the short, dead branch of the apple tree near their barn.

  “I’ll dampen the fire. We can both sleep in the bed,” Beatrice tells her. “We’re lucky that no one is ill, we can have this place to ourselves.”

  Susanna thinks of her turkey hen bone floating down the stream. She doesn’t feel lucky. She feels wet and exhausted and a hundred other feelings that circle around failure and loss. She’s too tired even to cry. She looks at her sister, hoping for some words of comfort. But there’s a deadness in Beatrice’s eyes, like she has nothing to give.

  “Tomorrow we’ll talk more,” Beatrice says.

  Eight

  Ever since she arrived in Gemeinschaft Beatrice has attended both the morning and the evening service, and often the one at midday, too. Her nights are uneasy but she awakens to the chapel bell ringing out in clear tones: no, no, no, as if it can banish the night with its ringing. As she dresses she looks forward to sitting on the hard bench with the other women, singing hymns, listening to Brother Graves preach, and then the testimony of the natives who have been saved. At the chapel she is able to think about something other than Penelope and Naomi. There are buns and coffee, prayers and a blessing. The Moravians like to bring up Christ’s suffering in physical detail: the blood he spilled, the points in the skull where thorns pierced his skin. When comforts flee, they pray, abide with me.

  Beatrice sees the bloody wounds in Christ’s hands. She feels the mockery he endured, she can see the expression on his face when he is given his cross. These pictures take the place of those other pictures: the back of Naomi’s dress as the Potawatomi leads her away. Her red hair coming out of its braid.