Chapter Fifteen
Mackenzie awakened to find herself alone. She sat up and rubbed her eyes. The first thing she noticed was that Fire Dancer had moved his portrait. It now hung from a rafter too high off the floor for her to reach.
She slid off the sleep platform. How did he know her so well? Obviously, he suspected she might attempt to destroy the portrait, otherwise why else would he have moved it?
She yawned and smoothed her doeskin dress, fascinated by the fact that leather didn't wrinkle. "Fire Dancer?" she called softly. She glanced around the empty wigwam.
Outside, she heard people laughing and talking. She could hear children's merry voices. A dog barked. From inside the wigwam, the Shawnee village sounded like any small town along the Chesapeake Bay.
Hesitantly, Mackenzie walked to the door. Half-expecting a guard, she lifted the flap and peered outside. Three stark-naked boys raced past her, squealing with laughter as they kicked a leather ball. A naked girl busied herself hanging a doll's cradleboard on a tree branch. Fire Dancer had told Mackenzie that in the heat of the summer Shawnee children wore no clothing, but she still found it startling.
To her right, Mackenzie spotted a woman her own age bathing a baby in a bark tub. Straight ahead, between the next two wigwams, identical to Fire Dancer's, two adolescent boys were digging a hole. What Mackenzie saw seemed harmless enough so she stepped out into the bright sunlight.
Surrounded by forest, the village was situated between a ridge of mountains in the distance to the left and another to the right. Nothing looked familiar. The terrain was rockier and the air smelled different. How far had Fire Dancer brought her? In all of his talk of his village back at the fort, he had never once indicated where it was.
Mackenzie noted that the heat of the summer had vanished. The air smelled not of fresh grass, but of drying leaves. It wasn't cold yet, but the air was cooler. Of course if she'd been unconscious two weeks, than it was nearly the first of October. Summer had left while she had slept.
"Mack-en-zie. This man feared you had fallen into the great sleep again." Fire Dancer appeared at her side and took her hand. "Are you hungry? This man prepared food."
She wondered how a man could kidnap a woman and then treat her with such courtesy and attentiveness. It probably made perfect sense to him. "I am hungry."
He led her to an open cook fire in front of his wigwam. "Sit." He indicated a grass mat similar to the ones that covered the floor inside the wigwam. "This man will bring you food."
Mackenzie sat cross-legged on the mat. The warm sun shone on her face and a light breeze blew her hair. "It's really not necessary that you serve me. I can get my own."
He brought her a wooden bowl of what appeared to be corn mush. On the top, he sprinkled precious sugar. He handed her a crude wooden spoon. "Eat. Today is an important day for both of us, Mack-en-zie. We must have our strength."
Skeptical, she tasted the mush, but found it to her liking. She took one bite and then another. "Today the holy man tells you what must be done with me?"
"Ah . At dusk, we go before him. Now I must join the chief. There are decisions that will be made. The English will be looking for you. The French will be looking for me and my men. My people must decide if we will prepare to fight or if we will move our village." She glanced up at him over the rim of the wooden bowl. "You could let me go," she said casually.
"Point me in the direction of the fort. I'll find my way on my own. I would never tell anyone where to find you. You know I wouldn't."
He face remained stoic. "You understand that I cannot do that, Mack-en-zie."
She set down the bowl. "Fire Dancer—" she lowered her voice—"you wouldn't have to tell anyone. You could make it look like I simply escaped. I could—"
He made no attempt to keep their conversation private. "This man does not have time to speak of this. I must go, but Laughing Woman will come. She will take you to the stream to bathe. Stay with her until I return from Council."
She crossed her arms over her chest stubbornly. "You can't make me stay."
He turned to walk away, then turned back to her. "This man will warn you. Do not try to escape when Laughing Woman takes you to the stream. There are braves who guard the village. They have my orders not to let you pass. If you try, this man will bind you to my lodge pole. Do you understand my words?"
She said nothing and refused to make eye contact. Be damned if she'd make such a promise. If she had chance to escape, she would.
"Mack-en-zie? You must give me your word, or I will bind you now."
If she gave him her word, could she break it? Honesty meant so much to him that she wasn't sure she could disappoint him by lying or playing him false. She dragged her gaze from the ground to his solemn face. "Yes, yes, yes," she snapped. "I understand. I can't leave."
With a nod, he walked off.
Mackenzie picked up her bowl and crammed a spoon of cornmush into her mouth. No one paid any attention to her. Although she was surrounded by Indian men and women, there seemed to be some sort of rule about privacy. Surely those who spoke any English at all had heard what just went on between her and Fire Dancer. Even those who only spoke Algonquian must have known they quarreled. Yet the Shawnee all looked away discreetly and concentrated on their domestic tasks.
Mackenzie had eaten half of the delicious corn mush when she saw Laughing Woman walk toward her. A little boy and a little girl hung on her hands. The naked children were twins and could not have been more that two years old.
"It is good I see you awake," Laughing Woman called. Her smile lit up her face and she was strikingly beautiful.
"Th . . . thank you."
"You have feel good?"
Mackenzie couldn't resist a smile. Laughing Woman's speech was difficult to follow, but Mackenzie quickly got the hang of it. "You speak English, too? Fire Dancer said he learned English from a Jesuit priest, but how do you come to speak it?"
The Indian woman released both children and the babies toddled off in pursuit of an orange butterfly. "Our chief think it is good to know the words of the enemy." She bit down on her lower lip. "This woman did not mean to hurt. I do not call you enemy. You are friend to our Fire Dancer and no enemy to this woman."
Mackenzie grinned, thankful for her consideration. "It's all right. Really. Considering what happened back at the fort, I can't honestly tell you who's on whose side anymore."
Laughing Woman nodded and began to clean up the breakfast dishes. "This woman understand." She tilted her head one way and then the other in an exaggerated motion. "Men say friend, women say enemy. Women no see as easy as the men. This woman wish there was no enemy. Only friend."
"Exactly," Mackenzie agreed.
Laughing Woman chuckled as she sifted a big bowl filled with ground corn. "Look. This woman let Fire Dancer cook his mush one time and he grind enough corn for whole winter."
Mackenzie chuckled with her. It was funny that Fire Dancer would grind so much corn. The woman's words also made her curious. What was her relationship with Fire Dancer? She felt a strange tightness in her chest. Was she jealous of this beautiful Indian woman? "Do you usually cook his meals?" she asked casually.
Laughing Woman met Mackenzie's gaze. "This woman cooks when he la-lowe her. She make him loin cloth, soap. Laughing Woman have no man to care for." She smiled, as if reminiscing. "Like make Fire Dancer smile."
So a relationship did exist between Laughing Woman and Fire Dancer, but just how intimate, Mackenzie couldn't deduce. Fire Dancer said there were no servants among his people, so she couldn't be his maid. She wasn't his sister. Who was she? She didn't feel right asking Laughing Woman, but she made a mental note to ask Fire Dancer later.
Finished with her breakfast, Mackenzie accepted a gourd of cold water. "Are those your children?" she asked, making conversation.
The Indian Woman turned to watch the little boy and girl now chasing each other around Fire Dancer's Wigwam. "Ah . When waiseeyah die, this woman have no one but babies in belly." She touched her flat abdomen. "Gift from Tapalamawatah. "
Mackenzie guessed that she spoke of her husband by her tone of voice. So the children had been born after her husband's death. How sad , she thought. "You must miss him very much."
"Ah." she knelt to wash Mackenzie's bowl in a bark bucket of water. "Not good be sad. My Waiseeyah go to great sky." She pointed upward with a wet hand.
"Why-see-ya," Mackenzie repeated. "Is that the word for husband?"
Laughing Woman chewed on her bottom lip in thought. "This woman not know English word. Waiseeyah." She tapped her heart. "Love of Laughing Woman." She pointed to the children. "Father."
Mackenzie nodded. "Husband," She repeated. "That's got to be it. Waiseeyah. "
"Hus-band," Laughing Woman mimicked.
The two women smiled at each, both pleased by their ability to tackle the language differences and learn something in the process.
"May I help you with cleaning?" Mackenzie asked. "Maybe doing something with all that corn meal?"
Laughing Woman's eyes twinkled with amusement. "Mahtah . You were sick from head. You must rest. Get strong. This woman can clean up bowls. Then I think we pick the berries."
As the Indian woman spoke, Mackenzie got the strange feeling that someone watched her, but when she looked around, she saw no one.
"You think you strong to walk in field and pick berries?" Laughing Woman asked.
"I think the sunshine would do me good." Mackenzie smiled. "I—" She spotted Okonsa standing behind a tree, beyond the next wigwam, staring directly at her. He gave her an arrogant grin and grasped his groin in his usual suggestive gesture. This time he lifted one black eyebrow in invitation.
Mackenzie's first impulse was to shout something at him. Who did he think he was that he could be so obscene to her? She gritted her teeth. She bet he'd not behave thusly in front of Fire Dancer.
"Mack-en-sie? Mack-en-sie?"
Mackenzie shifted her gaze back to Laughing Woman. "Yes?"
Laughing Woman's face was etched with concern. "You feel sick?" She knelt and felt her forehead. "Have need of rest?"
Mackenzie looked back toward the tree. Okonsa was gone. She shuddered. "Mahtah , I'm fine. I'd love to pick berries with you and your children." She didn't mention Okonsa to Laughing Woman because what would she say? That he'd looked at her?
"You want bathe after pick berries, ah"?" Laughing Woman rose. "Fire Dancer say take Mack-en-sie bathe with Laughing Woman and babies." Her gaze met Mackenzie's and she tapped her cheekbone. "He say no let white woman out of eyes."
Mackenzie rose slowly. She still felt a little dizzy when she moved too quickly. So Laughing Woman had been sent to look after her, but also to guard her. "It would be nice to bathe." She pushed her dirty hair off her cheek. "And I'll not try to escape. I'd not put you danger of Fire Dancer's wrath."
Laughing Woman didn't appear to understand.
Mackenzie rephrased her words. "I won't run. I wouldn't want Fire Dancer to be mad at you."
The Indian woman caught her daughter by the hand and reached for her son, speaking to them rapidly in Shawnee. She turned her attention back to Mackenzie. "Fire Dancer keep you here Shawnee village, you no want?"
Mackenzie gave a sigh. "He took me from the fort, from my father. I have to go home. I want to go home."
Laughing Woman thought for a moment before she replied. "Fire Dancer have good reason keep you, even if you no understand." She turned away, leading the children. "Even if this woman no understand."
Tall Moccasin crept through the grass on his hands and knees, keeping his head low, moving it one way and then the other in an attempt to imitate the bobcat. He wished he had made himself a tail to sway. How could he ever convince Snake Man that his totem was the bobcat, if he couldn't imagine that tail? He would have to try harder. He would have to concentrate on becoming the bobcat.
Tall Moccasin, the bobcat, heard the sound of flowing water. He slinked out onto the flat, hot rocks of the streambed and lowered his head to drink, lapping the cold water with his fuzzy tongue.
He knew he should get back to the village-den. He had strayed too far and his mother cat would be angry with him.
Tall Moccasin lifted his head and water dribbled down his chin. He tried to slurp it up with his tongue. Staring straight ahead, he noticed a cylinder of smoke curling in the air. He wiggled his cat nose. The smoke had a strange, unrecognizable stench. Who would be in the forest burning a fire this time of day?
Tall Moccasin glanced over his shoulder in the direction of the village. He felt torn between returning home before he was missed, and searching out the source of the smoke.
After a moment's hesitation, he crawled across the shallow streambed, still on all fours. It was in a bobcat's nature to investigate, wasn't it?
Tall Moccasin heard a man's voice on the wind. The man sang and talked. The voice sounded familiar. Tall Moccasin crept between the trees of the forest, ignoring the prick of dry pine needles and angry nettles on his palms and knees. His cat-curiosity had the best of him now.
The voice grew clearer as Tall Moccasin drew closer to the source of the stinking smoke. Laughter echoed in the trees. Scary laughter.
"Perfect. Perfect," the man said in Shawnee. "This one will work well. Only a few more prizes and this man will have a coat for the winter."
Tall Moccasin sat back on his heels behind a patch of pokeberry plants and parted the leaves. His eyes widened. Uncle Okonsa? He made the stinking smoke and laughed like a crazy man? What was he doing? Tall Moccasin watched in fascination.
His uncle was drying a hide of some sort over a small, open fire. But what kind of animal hide it was, Tall Moccasin couldn't tell. It wasn't squirrel or rabbit and it was too small to be deer or fox. The hide was thin and circular in shape. It looked as if it had been scraped, but there were still patches of dark, bristly hair.
Okonsa had stretched the hides on circular hoops and placed the hoops on a rack above the fire.
Tall Moccasin wrinkled his nose. It sure did stink. He guessed he should make his uncle aware of his presence. It was rude to sneak up on an adult. Uncle Fire Dancer had told him that time and time again. Even young bobcats did not sneak up on their family members.
Tall Moccasin started to get to his feet when he heard Uncle Okonsa talking again . . . . Talking to himself in Shawnee.
"Perfect . . . perfect. This man thanks you for your contribution to my English manake coat. It will be beautiful, the envy of the next great clan gathering, no?" He laughed that strange laugh and picked up one of the hoops that dried over the fire. He took a handful of what looked like bear grease and rubbed it on the skin.
"This man is sorry he did not take some of your friends' as well," he said to the hide. "I could make a coat for my cousin Fire Dancer. But this man could not remain and fight once he lead the Hurons in. The Shawnee had to escape from the fort before you sent for reinforcements. It is like that in battle, isn't it?"
Tall Moccasin's brow creased. What was his uncle talking about? Did he speak of the fighting at Fort Belvadere from where they had come? What did he mean, he lead the Hurons?
The boy knew his uncle had been involved in the fighting. Once the Shawnee delegation was far enough from the fort to consider themselves safe, they had stopped and regrouped. Tall Moccasin had seen Uncle Fire Dancer corner his brother and ask Okonsa how he became involved in the fighting with the Hurons and the soldiers. Okonsa was supposed to be off hunting.
Uncle Okonsa had said Fire Dancer was lucky he had appeared when he did, otherwise the Shawnee delegation might not have escaped.
There had been so much confusion that night with the cannons booming and the crazy Hurons running everywhere, that Uncle Okonsa probably did have to fight to get away. But his uncle's words now did not sound like those of a man who had retreated from fighting. It sounded as if he had been in on the attack. But surely Uncle Okonsa would not have joined stinking Hurons to attack the fort.
Okonsa returned the hoop to the drying rack and picked up another loose skin from the ground. This one had long hair on it . . . blond hair.
Tall Moccasin felt a sudden chill. Hair? Blond hair . . . not fur? It couldn't be possible. Uncle Okonsa would not take a scalp. It was a barbaric practice and not permitted in their village. Such a desecration of a human body—even the enemy's body—was forbidden.
And yet Tall Moccasin had learned to believe what he saw and smelled. He would have to tell Uncle Fire Dancer. He dropped flat on his belly. He was no longer the bobcat. He was just a scared Shawnee boy and he wanted his mother. He turned on his belly to slink away. His foot hit one of the pokeberry plants and a dove eating berries spooked and fluttered off.
Tall Moccasin held his breath, fearing he had given away his hiding spot. He waited a long second and then another. With his back to his uncle he couldn't see where he was. Uncle Okonsa must not have noticed the dove. Tall Moccasin leaped to his feet to make his escape.
A hand clamped down on his shoulder and the boy couldn't resist a cry of terror.
"Spy," his uncle accused in their native tongue. "I will kill you for spying on me." He held a skinning knife to Tall Moccasin's throat, the same blade he had used to scrape blond hair from the scalp.
"You took scalps!" Tall Moccasin accused, so frightened that he shook. "Our law does not allow you to take scalps. You have so many!"
"Silence," Okonsa bellowed as he held Tall Moccasin by the neckline of his leather vest, the knife point still held to his Adam's apple. "You do not know what you speak of. I take no scalps."
"Those . . . those are scalps with hair on them." Tall Moccasin's lower lip trembled. "This boy saw them with his own eyes."
"This boy's eyes deceive him." Okonsa stared with a crazed wide-eyed glare. "Wrong. Wrong. Wrong. Do you understand?"
The tip of the knife nicked Tall Moccasin's throat and he felt the warm wetness of his own blood. "I do not understand. Let me go. Let me go to my uncle Fire Dancer." He struggled, truly afraid. Uncle Okonsa had gone mad or was possessed by some evil demon. Why else would he behave like this?
Okonsa held tightly to his vest so that Tall Moccasin couldn't wiggle out of it. "You will not repeat what you thought you saw, because you are wrong. Do you hear me? My brother does not have time for a boy's foolish lies. If you tell such lies the flame-haired woman will not want me." He shook Tall Moccasin. "She wants me, you know. She is hot for this man."
Tall Moccasin ceased to straggle. What was Uncle Okonsa saying? None of it made any sense. Surely he didn't think Tall Moccasin so stupid that he didn't know a human scalp when he saw one. He stared up at his uncle, unsure of what to do. He was too far from the village to call for help.
"You will not speak of this incident, boy. Else it might be your scalp that is lost." His uncle raised the knife from his throat to Tall Moccasin's hairline.
Suddenly it became clear to Tall Moccasin. His uncle was saying "Tell and die."
Tall Moccasin began to shake all over. "Yes, Uncle," he whispered.
Okonsa lowered the knife and smiled. "That is a good boy. Now go back to your mama. Soon it will be dark and the families will gather. We have been summoned by our holy man."
The moment Okonsa let go of Tall Moccasin's vest, the boy dropped and rolled. He hit the grass and came up running. He ran until his lungs were bursting, until he smelled the smoke of his mother's cookfire.