Thieving Forest (31 page)

Its surprised cry is like the soft gasp of a woman. Omie cocks her gun and puts her eye to the finder. A few more birds fly into the net, and the first one breaks free. Soon the net begins to shake as more birds escape and others get caught. Will the ties hold, Susanna wonders? She sees Meera gripping her spear hard. Still Omie doesn’t shoot, even when part of the net begins to sag with the weight. Finally, when the net seems ready to fall with all the birds in it, Omie squeezes the trigger, taking the kickback into her large shoulder.

At once a dead bird tumbles from the net. Omie quickly tamps down more powder and lights the barrel and shoots again. Although she has to load between each pull she is quick at it and seems to find her mark every time. Some birds fall without being shot, and these Meera or Susanna spears on the ground. Feathers begin floating up as though in defiance of the natural laws, and the clean fresh smell of the summer evening gets lost in the tang of gunpowder. Omie pulls the trigger again and again and the noise is terrific. Susanna wants to cover her ears but she needs both hands to spear the birds. It feels like hours before Omie sets down her rifle.

“That’s enough! Now leave off!”

But the birds are still flying, now the tail end of the cloud, now the stragglers. Climbing back up the tree to untie the net is like climbing an undersea plant: the caught birds make the whole tree rock in their current. It takes all of Susanna’s concentration to find a tie, cut it, and go on to the next. For some reason one bird, a late straggler, decides to alight on a branch of her tree, so close that she could touch it. She watches it blink its eye and sway slightly on the slim bough. Its long red plumage makes her think of a rare biblical bird, although there are more passenger pigeons, her mother used to say, than any other creature on this earth. In comparison, Susanna’s own body feels monstrously large and inelegant.

Back on the ground again she looks at their take: six sacks full of birds. Susanna’s mouth is already watering at the thought of the pies they will make. Each of them picks up two sacks and this time they walk around the back so that Omie can fetch more water from her well. From this side Omie’s cabin looks less inviting, the roof more jagged, and the surrounding bushes even more overgrown. Just as Meera asks Omie what she uses for dough Susanna notices something leaning up against the cabin’s back wall. A shadow?

A boat.

A canoe, a little one. It is leaning upright near a rangy blackberry bush picked clean of fruit, almost hidden by the branches. Susanna’s heart begins to pound.

“Meera,” she whispers. She points.

Meera’s eyes widen as she takes in what it is. The canoe is old and probably needs repair. It looks like it has not been in water for years. But still: a boat. A boat would save them days, maybe weeks, of travel. A boat would get them out of the Black Swamp.

“Acorn flour,” Omie is saying. She drops the water bucket by its rope into the well, a narrow hole covered by a plank of rotting wood. “Works just fine if you knead it long enough. We’ll make a good many pies for you to take along with you.”

“Omie,” Susanna begins, but Meera puts a hand on her arm.

“Wait,” she says in a low voice.

Back in the cabin they plunge the birds into the bucket of cold well water to make them easier for plucking, and then Meera and Susanna sit outside pulling out feathers while Omie mixes the dough.

Susanna’s thoughts are racing. A boat would mean getting to the Maumee tomorrow, if the current is right. They could find a stream pointed north and not look back. She might even see her sisters the day after that. Suddenly they are so close that she fancies she can touch their hair. She imagines their faces: their surprise at seeing her, their gratitude.

Omie trusses the plucked birds and sets aside their livers, tiny as knuckles. She shows Susanna how to pound the livers with parsley and bear fat, and then she lays the mixture, which she calls forcemeat, at the bottom of the crust. She says something over the meat and adds a few small mushrooms. Susanna cannot make out what she says—a prayer? A spell? Maybe she’s just reminding herself of the next step. And yet she’s very like a witch, Susanna thinks, with her potions and special markings, her animal familiars, her web of hair. But the little pies, cooking in the iron bake kettle, smell delicious.

They eat them on their laps sitting cross-legged in front of the fire, which Meera has built up into a nice blaze. Outside the insects grow louder, and Omie gets up to close the window shutters.

“Omie,” Meera asks casually when Omie sits down again. “Where do you get the powder for your shot?”

“Oh I get to the Maumee once a year. One of the river boatmen knows me, gets me what I need. Mark you, I’m careful to hide my tracks.”

Omie licks her fingers and reaches for another small pie.

“Do you go on foot,” Meera asks, “or by boat?”

Omie says, “You saw my boat did you, Little Pea? No I walk.”

“Then perhaps you will trade us for your canoe?” Meera suggests in her gentlest voice. “It would save us many days of walking. We would trade handsomely for it.”

“We have money,” Susanna puts in. “We could buy it from you.”

“Money! Puh. I’ve no need for that.”

“Perhaps you would like my kettle then?” Meera asks. “It has a handle, unlike yours.”

But Omie says hers does her fine.

“Maybe you would fancy a curiosity?” Susanna takes the Chippewa necklace from its cedar box. Omie touches the turkey bones as she listens to the story behind it.

“You lost your lucky bone? Aye, that is a misfortune. Better you had reached for that. Luck is more important than money.”

But although she admires the necklace, she does not want to trade for it. Nor does she want the dinner knives, the cherry buttons, or Sirus’s ax. When Meera brings out Consolation’s shawl, Omie fingers the tiny mirrors and holds it up to look at her face.

“Breaks me up, don’t it,” she says, amused. “Eyes here, nose there.” She gives it back.

“What can we give you?” Susanna asks. “Name it.”

Omie appears to think, giving Susanna a moment of hope. “Don’t really need anything,” she says finally.

She tells Meera to fetch more water and gives Susanna a cloth to wipe their dishes, turning her back on the conversation. But now that Susanna has seen the boat, it feels too hard to give it up. She searches her mind for another argument. They’ve been delayed over and over. She has to get out, she doesn’t have the strength to keep going, she doesn’t have any more patience for leeches and mud, she has come to the edge of herself and what she is capable of, in fact she is over the edge. And what about Meera, a child still growing, who needs her food? Saving three days or four days or even a week—it makes a difference, Susanna thinks. Four days not spent in the Swamp would make a difference. Not to mention they might get lost again. They can’t continue on foot. It’s too difficult. She would rather stay here and paint chickens.

“Omie,” she says desperately, “please listen. A boat would save us so many days! And we have no more food. We might get lost again.”

“I go every year on foot. It’s simple. And I’ll give you enough food for the journey.”

“You don’t understand...these last weeks...if we’d had a boat...” Susanna swallows. Never negotiate by showing need, Sirus used to say. But she has nothing else except need.

When they are done cleaning, Omie takes something from a little box in the corner. She brings it over to show them, her eyes almost shy.

“Look at this.”

It is a small, cheaply framed picture: a blank check printed with the words “Mechanics Bank of Baltimore” in swirly letters at the top. Underneath is a small line drawing of an elegant woman wearing a long tea gown and reclining on a sofa.

Omie touches the folds of the woman’s gown. “Pretty, isn’t she? I want to keep her nice so I just take her out now and again to look.”

The fire snaps and then falls quiet. Omie, standing so close to Susanna that their arms are touching, seems large and soft. She unloosens the back of the frame and removes something from inside. A lock of hair.

“My babe,” Omie says.

It is blond to the point of whiteness. A frayed curl. Omie’s bent, red fingers look even redder holding it.

“Died the day before his first birthday. Found him in his cradle. Nothing for it.”

“Is that why you left?” Meera asked.

“Puh,” Omie says. “I left because my husband beat me at every turn and took to rye whiskey while he was at it. Called himself religious.” She looks down at the lock of hair.

“What was your baby’s name?” Susanna asks.

Omie closes her fingers over the lock. “That I’ll not tell.”

All these years living alone has made her both lonely and skittish, Susanna thinks, wanting to air her thoughts but afraid to give too much away. She gives Meera and Susanna two warm deerskin blankets and takes their torn ones away. A kind gesture. She isn’t heartless. Susanna isn’t sure what she is.

“Why won’t you trade us the boat?” she asks her. She can’t let the matter go. Disappointment is too slight a word for how she feels.

Omie shrugs. “I may yet want to leave.”

That takes Susanna by surprise. But then she thinks about it. Omie has fashioned this home entirely by herself, a place of pride. She will never leave it but needs to believe that if she wants to, she can.

Omie rechecks the windows and the door while Susanna spreads her new blanket near the fireplace and lies down. Beside her, Meera does the same. Then she turns her head to look at Susanna. Her dark eyes do not seem as blank and hopeless as they seemed yesterday. That’s a good thing. Susanna hesitates only a second, and then she rises above her disappointment and stretches out her hand. Meera takes it and squeezes it.

It’s all right. They will be all right, even without the boat. They are dry after all, and their bellies are full, and there is a promise of breakfast in the morning without having to search for it first. After Omie spreads the ashes in the fireplace, she lies down on her blanket next to Meera. For a little while she is quiet. Then she says, “Never had anyone else sleep here before.”

The room is warm and smells of roasted meat.

“Don’t really like it,” Omie says.

Yadata

Twenty

Koman carries with him a pipe for peace, a pipe for battle, and other pipes for other purposes, each one marked by the color of the feathers interlocked with human hair. White feathers mean peace, he tells Seth. When traveling, displaying such a calumet is vital to their safety.

It is propped up in the bow of the canoe with its white and black feathers leaning away from the wind. Once in a while a pair of blueflies land on it and take a short ride. Seth doesn’t mind the blueflies, it’s the mosquitoes that plague him. They bite through the paste of mint he applies every afternoon to his face and neck. At dusk he applies several coats, for they are at their most brutal then.

Sitting on the backs of his legs at the bow, Koman turns his head to observe a crooked line of beech trees growing down into the stream, their leaf tips drinking the water. Is he searching for something? Seth wonders. It is wet and hot and desolate, the land only fit for insects. They have not seen much in the way of game. Three days ago they took the Blanchard to the Auglaize and now are cutting up north on a smaller tributary that will meet up eventually with the Maumee. They are more than halfway across the Black Swamp, Koman calculated that morning. Water stands all around them in ponded hollows that sometimes bleed into the stream, and their main accompaniment, besides the insects, has been the scores of wood frogs piping out from among the milkweed and sedge grass. When the trees close up, which they often do, their canopy makes a dark vaulted ceiling. Then the frogs sound even louder.

Seth presses a wet leaf to his arm. Despite all his care, he has bites everywhere. The mosquitoes here are hungry enough to draw blood from a horse.

There has been no sign of Susanna and the girl she left Gemeinschaft with, but Seth is not worried, not yet. Susanna got a head start but he and Koman are making good time. Every day they go farther downstream with a swift current, and the water for the most part has been deep enough for the canoe. Only twice so far have they had to portage. At night they sleep with their feet toward the fire, Koman in a buffalo robe with the fur inside and Seth in a Scottish wool blanket. They rise early, before the sun, and Koman always stretches his whole body as soon as he awakens. Curious, Seth tried it himself and found it a satisfying way to warm up his limbs. Now he does it without thinking. Afterward they clean up their camp and leave without eating. An hour or so downstream Koman stops with the sunrise to trap a grouse or a couple of bobolinks, and they make a small fire to roast them. Seth boils water for tea, and Koman accepts a small cup but only to rinse out his mouth, never to drink.

The problem, one of the problems, is that neither one can guess which route north Susanna might have taken. Impossible to find her in the Black Swamp itself, it’s too large. They will have to try their luck at the Maumee. Find out where she crossed, or, if she hasn’t crossed it yet, wait for her to do so. Talk to the ferrymen. Talk to the other traveling bands of natives. Seth has brought with him many gifts: knives, a net that Cade used to use for fishing, blunted awls, gunpowder, hooks and eyes, sacks of tea. And some cash for any white men. But for the natives, Koman has taught him to say gift, not trade.