Thieving Forest (8 page)

Susanna doesn’t know what to say. She believes Liza and feels a little ashamed of herself. Sirus always told them not to listen to the lies white men spread about Indians, but her fear got the better of her. Liza gets up to knock her pipe against the hearth, and then she washes her hands in the basin and feels Aurelia’s forehead over the bandage. Susanna watches her, relieved but still uneasy. Why then did the Potawatomi take them? Not for revenge, not for ransom, not to satisfy themselves. Aurelia’s hair is spread out like the wings of a red moth, and Liza strokes the top of her head. When she speaks again her voice is a little softer.

“Stories are lies made up to make us feel something,” she says. “I don’t hold with them unless they have music, and then I mostly give over to the music.”

The Risdale men find the company of Indians in canoes, but they are Sauk Indians, two brothers and their uncle, and they are traveling with their women. They have not seen anyone else on the water, they say, all this past week.

That day a good number of the men return to their fields. After this disappointment their energy seems to flag. There are no other signs to follow. Old Adam is not among those who have returned, Susanna notices.

“Has he gone back to Severne, then?” she asks.

No one knows.

Aurelia’s fever seems a little abated, which is good, but she sleeps more and more. In the afternoon, Susanna decides to give her a sponge bath. Her arms feel heavy, like sleeping snakes. After washing her, Susanna trims her fingernails.

“I knew there was a reason I brought these,” she says, getting out Ellen’s nail scissors. Aurelia is breathing deeply and her pale eyelashes do not so much as flutter. But Susanna keeps talking. “The bird heads are pretty, don’t you think? When I was little I was glad there were two of them, so they wouldn’t be lonely. I used to pretend they talked to each other.”

Aurelia’s nails are hard and brittle, and Susanna takes her time. Through the door she can hear Becky’s hooves clicking on the wood floor as she follows Jonas. Since Becky won’t use stairs Jonas built a little ramp for her against the kitchen door so she can get out to the yard. Sometimes she sleeps there, in the sun. As Susanna finishes Aurelia’s pinkie nail and turns to take her other hand, she notices that her sister’s eyes are open.

“Aurelia! You’re awake!”

It is the first time in almost three days that Aurelia has woken up on her own. A good sign. Susanna squeezes her sister’s hand and a little sob escapes her, like a hiccough.

“Hi, Princess,” Aurelia says slowly. Her voice is thick and unnatural, as if a heavy coin is lying on her tongue.

“How do you feel?”

Aurelia swallows with difficulty. She looks confused. “Where are my birds?”

“They’re fine, don’t worry about them. Mop is taking care of them.”

A pause. “I want you to. It’s past their feeding.”

“We’re not home right now, Aury. We’re in Risdale. Remember? At the Eager Tavern. Liza Footbound is helping me take care of you. Well, I’m helping
her
.”

Aurelia frowns. Her eyes are like little caves with light way in the back of them.

“You were taken by some Potawatomi. Outside by the henhouse. But now we’re in Risdale. You’re all right now.”

Something shifts in Aurelia’s expression. “In Risdale?”

“At the Eager Tavern. Aury, I’ve been given strict orders to feed you. Can you open your mouth? It’s applesauce. I’ve been eating it all morning. It’s good you woke up when you did or there’d be nothing left.”

Aurelia allows herself to take a little. “Why are we in Risdale?”

“You were taken into Thieving Forest. By some Potawatomi. Do you remember that?”

Aurelia looks up at the ceiling. Her lips are very dry.

“There was a man there. Behind a tree.”

Susanna wipes Aurelia’s lips with a wet cloth. “I know, Aury. A Potawatomi.”

“A white man,” Aurelia says.

She is confused, delusional. Susanna spoons up more applesauce. “Another bite. Just a little one. Please.”

Aurelia inhales as if gathering strength and opens her mouth. Susanna gives her the tiniest amount, but even so for a moment she thinks that Aurelia is going to let it spill out. From the other room there is the sound of a hearth being scraped, and then Jonas begins singing:

As Dinah was walking the garden one day,

She saw her dear papa and thus did he say,

“Go dress yourself, Dinah, in gorgeous array,

And choose you a husband both gallant and gay.”

“Oh no, dearest Papa, I’ve not made up my mind

To marry just yet I don’t feel so inclined

To you my large fortune I’ll gladly give o’er

If you’ll let me stay single a year or two more.”

Liza comes in on the chorus, her voice as low as a man’s:

Sing tura-la-lura-la-lura-la-lie

Sing tura-la-lura-la-lura-la-lie...

Aurelia seems to be listening. She closes her eyes and her breathing changes. But she isn’t asleep. After a minute she says with her eyes closed, “I remember something else.” A pause. “The one with the half-red face. Koman. He had an animal with him.”

Susanna tries to follow. “One of the Indians?”

“Like a dog. But it was...” Another pause. “One of those swamp creatures. A swine wolf.”

A breeze flutters the window curtain as slight as a caterpillar walking a leaf. Susanna has heard about swine wolves of course. She has always wanted to see one. Penelope and Beatrice claimed they didn’t exist.

“Don’t worry,” she tells Aurelia. “You’re safe here.”

“Its hackles were up but its eyes...” Aurelia turns her head and looks at Susanna as if seeing her face will help her form the words. “Its eyes were kind.”

“The swine wolf?”

“The eyes of a friend, or, what do you call it...”

“Aury—”

“For protection.”

“Aury, you can tell me all this later when you’re better. Here, take another bite.”

“It tried to protect us.”

“One more taste. Please, Aury. For me.”

“I can’t.” Aurelia presses her lips closed. Susanna reluctantly puts the spoon back.

“I’m cold,” Aurelia tells her. “Will you lie down with me?”

“How can you be cold,” Susanna says lightly, trying to tease. “It’s sweltering out.” But she stretches out on the little straw tick next to Aurelia, careful not to jostle her, and takes her hand. Aurelia’s hair smells of blood and dry leaves and something else, something flowery—maybe Liza has brushed it with scented water?

“I’m glad you’re here, Princess,” Aurelia says. Susanna squeezes her hand. Jonas and Liza have stopped singing but she can still make out sounds from the next room: a murmur of voices, the clang of tinware. In contrast their little room feels still and cozy.

“You’re all right now,” Susanna says. Her eyes begin to close. In spite of the heat she is drifting to sleep. Some time later she hears a commotion in the tavern, excited voices in the outer room and then a lower one asking a question. Her fingers, still holding Aurelia’s hand, feel stiff. Aurelia lies very still. For a moment Susanna doesn’t move. A bird is singing outside the window. It stops and starts, stops and starts.

“Susanna!” Liza comes into the room wiping her hands on her apron. “There’s news! Two of the brethren over at the Christian mission have ransomed a white woman with red hair.”

Still Susanna doesn’t move. A tear rolls out of her eye and down over her jaw.

“What is it?” Liza asks. She quickly goes to Aurelia and puts a hand on her forehead.

“She’s passed,” Susanna says.

Six

Seth is preparing to camp when Cade catches up with him. At this twilit hour the ground is humming with insects, and the clearing, surrounded on three sides by forest, smells heavily of moist decay, as if even air were a thing that could rot. To the west a grove of dying beech trees stands between him and the rest of Ohio. He is following an old buffalo trail, the only way out. At some point he will start coming across soldiers and that means that the string of forts between the Maumee and Fort Wayne has begun.

When he hears hoof beats he stops building his campfire and listens. Sounds like a white man riding, although if someone asked him he would not be able to say why. Sure enough, even at a distance, he makes out his brother’s fair head. As he comes closer, Seth sees that Cade’s face is like the mask of tragedy, his jaw so clenched it seems bound with cloth. He understands even before Cade’s horse has fully halted: Aurelia is dead.

From the beginning it seemed unlikely to Seth that anyone could survive such an attack. He lets Cade tell him, though, and then he says what he can say, knowing that nothing will bring comfort so close to the fact. A good woman, gone before her time, a loss—but Cade is hardly listening. His anger and despair hold most of his attention.

“Couldn’t stay in Risdale.” He rubs his chin up but it has no effect on his expression. He tells Seth the news: a white woman has been ransomed by the Moravian missionaries, and Susanna is fixing to go to their village, called Gemeinschaft, tomorrow. Every settler in the area knows about Gemeinschaft, where a dozen or so white men and women live alongside fifty or sixty converted Indians. It’s a safe haven for the Christian Indians to practice their faith away from liquor and marauding tribes and ill-natured Europeans, a place where they can grow their own food and start little businesses—weaving, carpentry, textiles. There are several of these Moravian villages in Pennsylvania and New York, but this is the first one in Ohio.

“Old Adam found out,” Cade tells him. “He came across a couple of the brethren out prospecting the woods. Guess they’re thinking of clearing more land.”

Seth pulls flint and charcloth from his tinderbox. There is no use pretending that they will do anything else but camp here before they return, for there is no moon to light their way. Besides, the horses are tired. Cade waters them at the stream while Seth gets the fire lit. They boil coffee and eat the cornbread Jonas sent with Cade. Insects rise in a dense, cloudy mass and find little hollows in the land over which they swarm as if trapped there. Seth watches them, staying close to the fire’s smoke, which keeps them at bay.

What Seth doesn’t say is this: he is still relieved that Susanna, out of all of them, was spared. How can he help it? But the feeling sits uneasily on him. He loves his brother and feels his loss. Although they sit side by side with their boot tips nearly touching, Seth feels his brother’s thoughts pulling him away. They will separate. They will go their own ways. Only a week ago the future Seth saw was the two of them in Severne each married to a Quiner. Amos gone or dead, somehow no longer a problem. But Amos has always had so many tricks. Uprooting them from Virginia, as it turned out, was the least of them. But that was when they were too young to venture forth elsewhere on their own.

Seth gives Cade the last of the cornbread even though he could eat it himself and still want more. He will see Susanna through this, he vows to himself. He can’t make up for what Amos did, whatever that was exactly, but he will see Susanna through to the end even though she has not asked for help and it does not even appear to cross her mind to seek it from him.

“I’ll go to Kentucky, then,” Cade says once the fire is banked and they are lying on the damp ground looking up at the stars. “Nothing for me here.”

It is one of the things he sometimes talks about. Joining a militia. He has the weight and look of a soldier, that’s certainly true.

“You would fight Indians?” Seth asks.

“More like the English, the bastards. But Indians too if need be. I’m not one of them. Not like you.”

“Cade, that’s ridiculous.”

“What? You’re the one got it all, just look at you. Besides, one quarter, what’s that? Easy enough to throw that away.”

“Amos will want you to work the forge with him.”

Cade rolls over in his blanket. He is sleeping in his boots and they stick out from the bottom. A rafter of turkeys, gabbling aimlessly, crosses a corner of the clearing. Cade picks up his musket and, hardly raising himself, lets off a shot without aim. The turkeys scatter, gabbling louder.

“Amos be damned,” he says.

In the small back room in Eager Tavern, a few hours after Aurelia died, Susanna helps Liza prepare her sister for burial. Her stomach feels loose and watery and she now understands the phrase
sick with grief
, because that is how she feels exactly: her own body is both hot and cold and also somehow strange to her. Her hands are not her hands. They move with a will of their own.