Chapter 12

That autumn I boarded the floor of the cabin. We had a rat snake living underneath, and it stayed awake even through the winter because of the warmth. Snug, we settled back into our easy winter life, surrounded by stores aplenty from another good harvest.

That winter, when weather allowed, I went hunting. As was my style, I could chase a young deer or elk, harrying it until it collapsed from exhaustion after a day or two’s pursuit. Then I just carefully slit its throat, cleaned it and carted it home on a sledge. Snow didn’t stop me as Mataoka had fashioned me a pair of snowshoes that worked well.

And when weather was bad I could still work my smelter down in the valley below us, staying out of the biting wind in the little wigwam we’d built over the bellows. I didn’t push myself, but I still made a hefty pile of ingots which I hid for safe-keeping by burying them under the wigwam. I kept a notch for each ingot on a pole over the door so I’d know when I’d dug them all up again.

By Saint Nicolas Day Mataoka was showing again, as she had the year before. Now I knew what my wife looked like before, during and after pregnancy, and I would judge that the new baby was due just a year after little Harvey to the day. Mataoka was sure this one would be a little girl, who she was threatening to call Martha ... after herself! Little Harvey and little Martha. I shuddered at the thought but knew she’d prevail if she wanted that.

Mataoka was surprised that I had something for her; I had brought her a locket that Eliza had picked out when she and I had returned to town to collect Mataoka’s dresses. She was beyond words, and sobbed in happiness as she felt its weight and felt it slip down on its fine, golden chain between her breasts. I knew it wasn’t the finest jewelry, because I knew what I’d paid for it, but I also knew it was a powerful symbol of being an English lady, to wear a piece like that. That evening Mataoka carefully clipped a lock of my hair, and a lock from little Harvey, and placed them both in the locket. Then she closed it up and hugged it and kept lifting and letting it fall down her cleavage as she grinned and lost focus, her eyes just ruddy pools. My eyes followed it on its journey, lingering on the down-strokes to admire the firm hills it nestled between.

Vermin was a problem, with mice and even rats worrying us in our store wigwams. The rat snakes slept through the winter out there in the cold and when the snakes are asleep the mice do play. Raccoons and opossums were also a nuisance. It was a constant battle to keep them from getting into our stores. It didn’t help that Mataoka had a fondness for them all and would try to entice the possums to eat from her hand and let her pet them. She always made agitated noises when I brought them home, dead, to eat, although we all loved possum pie as much as anyone! At least she didn’t try to befriend the skunks.

There were many animals we feared but never had any problem with; we had never come across a bear, for example, and had not been bitten by any snakes. And they holed up for the winter, anyhow. But one winter visitor that scared us was the wolf, which we could hear howling on cold nights. It was difficult to tell how far away the wolves were, but sometimes they sounded awfully close. And one morning I found what I guessed to be their paw tracks in the snow, a whole pack of them sauntering across the path to our outhouse and disappearing up towards the ridge, heading west. It puzzled me how they had wandered right past our pen with the last of the turkeys and completely ignored them.

We still snared over the winter but we weren’t really out to collect furs as we now had iron to sell. We used what we caught to eat, and to use the skins we gathered as clothing and bedding.

That spring nobody visited, so I went myself to fetch Mataoka’s ma to be a midwife, leaving plenty early enough. The path trampled from the smelting the year before was still quite visible and easy to follow.

At the Indian village I could sense something was wrong. Lookouts spotted me as I approached, and I sensed that white men in general were no longer welcome, although I was their special friend.

“Welcome,” said the chief, formally, in front of the crowd that had surrounded me as I’d come into their camp, “you, at least, are our friend,”

“What’s happened?“ I wanted to know. It looked around at all the sour, worried faces. “I came to fetch a midwife to help Mataoka birth our second child.”

That caused a murmur and happier looks. “That is indeed good news, “ the chief smiled and held his hands up for attention. “Come, we will feast, then we will tell you our woes.“

Although not really a feast, the evening dinner was good and the whole tribe gathered around and ate together. I saw many of the braves sat facing outward, on watch, guarding us, as they, too, ate. I could sense the heavy fear and foreboding of imminent attack.

“You white men want our land, “ the chief started to explain when our initial hunger was sated, “and you take.” He, with the help of many of the older men gathered tightly around us, went on to describe how the townsfolk were harrying them and trying to buy the land around the Indian village for a pittance, and bringing a gang with guns with them when they came to negotiate. All knew it was just a matter of time before the townsmen found some pretext to attack.

Could I get or make guns, they wanted to know. I had to shake my head and disappoint them. I had never even held a gun, let alone fired one. And the English didn’t let the Indians have them either, which was itself something that came between us.

The Indian men lived to raid, hunt and gain honor. That was their whole purpose in life. And they were enamored of the English weapons, and eager to examine them and understand them, just as they offered their bows and spears to the newcomers. But the English were unwilling to share their secrets and wouldn’t even let an Indian hold a gun, let alone have one. This offended the braves and worried them too.

I knew that if I tried to buy a lot of guns or black powder I would also be suspect. The townsfolk had me down as an Indian lover – literally – already, and there was no way I could set about arming them openly.

Walla and the chief and I talked quietly about the impending show-down. The village was vulnerable with its broad ring of open Indian fields around it. The attackers could fire volleys from afar, and slay many defenders before the Indians could even reach range to shoot arrows back. And so their plan was to flee into the forest, where they figured their arrows were more deadly than the English guns. They had to hope that the attackers didn’t think to surround them, but rather attacked together from the thin bush on the town side of the fields.

That evening, under cover of darkness, some braves helped me move the last of the stash of ingots to my dad’s farm. We left them in the barn and then I said farewell to the Indians and went up to the house alone to surprise my folks with my visit.

Eliza and pa were glad to see me, and even ma seemed to be more accepting, but Johnathon was surly and distant. As I described the good fortune of awaiting a second child ma and especially Eliza became excitable and happy.

Then I outlined the problem facing the Indians and pa and I talked about how to get them guns. It was while we were talking about that that I first noticed that Johnathon had slipped away into the night. We shrugged it off; he made no secret of the fact that he didn’t like that I’d married one.

The next morning Eliza went with me as I carried three of the last ingots into town. The guards all stood up straight as my sister approached, and she turned many heads with her uncommon beauty despite her plain dress and no shoes. The streets were muddy and mucky so we carefully picked and threaded our way along the raised planked sidewalks.

The blacksmith, a bear of a man, grunted as I approached and carefully eyed the ingots I clasped. He was used now to my pa dropping by with a few, and he remembered me.

“Why, if it ain’t that damn Indian lover!” one of the apprentices muttered to the other and then spat into the fire, causing a hiss. “If we ain’t heard all about him!” The apprentices stopped working the bellows now that the blacksmith was putting down his hammer and wiping his blackened meaty hands on his thick leather apron.

The blacksmith wasn’t a man of many words and we weighed my ingots in silence. Then the slow conversation he started up was just to talk me into taking payment in trade, showing me the many fine implements and tools he’d made, probably much from my iron.

Behind us we both heard a sudden commotion and we turned together and squinted out into the bright sunlight beyond the open forge front. The apprentice who’d spat was now crowding Eliza and she was backing away from him.

“Oi!” the blacksmith hollered. The other apprentice stepped forward and arrested the arm of Eliza’s suitor, who shrugged that off angrily and went back to the stand by the bellows. He glared daggers at me like it was all my fault. Eliza looked at me with relief and thanks in her sweet eyes. The blacksmith shook his big bushy head and turned me back to his wares as though nothing of note had happened.

Across the street the Reverend staggered out of a tobacconists and slumped against a pillar, clearly slightly inebriated as usual. He patted his sweaty forehead with a dainty yellowed lace handkerchief and set off under the midday sun towards his next foible.

Eliza and I slipped homewards dejectedly. Town didn’t seem exciting any more. I ached to hurry back to my wife, and bring her a midwife, too, but it felt wrong to be leaving the Indian village when it was under threat. But what was I to do? I knew nobody of consequence in the town, and surely could not be an intermediary and talk peace with anyone. My stab scar started to itch and ache again as I walked on back to the farm, as though to remind me of my vulnerability. I tried unsuccessfully to put it out of my mind.