Chapter 17

That fall, just after our little rice harvest, the young braves came from the old village they had finally vacated. They brought with them all the possessions they thought to keep, although many of the squaws complained about things left behind that the men hadn’t valued but that the women thought precious.

With them came a joyous surprise. The newlywed Eric and Eliza joined them! Eliza’s and pa’s many good words about our cabin, and his own sight of our summer camp and foundry had convinced him that his future lay westwards with us. Mataoka and Eliza were thick as thieves, most pleased with how things had come to be in the end, and I saw the glint in Kanti’s eye, too, as Eliza gave her meaningful looks when she thought nobody was noticing.

The last of the Indians finally moved from our summer camp, their new village now ready for occupation.

Eric wanted to build a mill and forge on the stream by the summer camp and we set about that, Eric and Eliza moving into some of the now-abandoned wigwams in the meantime. The summer camp was to become their homestead and the forge was to become their livelihood; Eric and Eliza were to be our first tenants.

Eliza helped gather clay from the bank and we ground it with hand stones to make it just the right consistency. Then we formed bricks, using a wooden form to ensure they were all the same size. These we left out in the sun for several days, and it mercifully didn’t rain, and they set quite hard. Then we stacked them and covered them with charcoal and clay, just like making charcoal. Only this time, we were firing our bricks.

This was such a success that we repeated this, doing several loads, and then built a charcoal kiln out of bricks as well as building the new forge and mill of them. As fall approached and the leaves started to yellow and drop I finally got to see Eric making the first nails on the new forge. The bellows were driven from a wheel in the stream again, which was Eric’s invention, and soon the valley echoed to the hammering of the smithing again.

I was surprised when Kanti left the Indian village and moved into the wigwam that Eric and Eliza shared. Mataoka was less surprised. Kanti became Eliza’s handmaiden and worked tirelessly with Eliza to build up a small field of their own where many of the wigwams had been. I had to go dig up my big stash of ingots when I found them dismantling the very wigwam they were all hidden in and preparing the ground to till!

Eric still had the pistol we’d given him, a nondescript and anonymous model that wouldn’t implicate him in how he’d obtained it, and had learned how to fire it. It was one of the new flintlocks that were becoming common in the colony. Even pa now had a flintlock musket, Eric explained. I fetched out one of my matchlocks and a flintlock pistol just like Eric’s, and he taught me how to handle and clean it. We shot off much of his fuse and gunpowder perfecting our aims and becoming comfortable with the things. I wondered how long it would take the Indians to ask about getting guns and powder, too. Would that be a crime?

The path between the high cabin and Eric’s camp – for although Eric and Eliza felt they were staying on my farm, it still now felt like not my camp – became well-trodden as we spent much time with them and I helped Eric so much with the forging and milling and Eliza doted and cared for the children. Mataoka just looked at me disbelievingly when I pondered how soon they would have children of their own, and I took the hint and stopped asking.

Mataoka smirked and batted my arms whenever Eliza asked why we had no handmaidens up at the cabin, but that fall we did take in a waif. Sleeping illness swept the new Indian village and several died, including both Reanna’s brave and her newborn daughter. Distraught, Reanna clung to her childhood friend Mataoka for solace and Mataoka engaged her as a wet-nurse for our children. Mataoka confided that she was feeling like a bloated cow and that little Harvey’s teething was hurting her, and that Reanna was welcome to the calm and comfort their feeding would bring her. So now we had a handmaiden of a kind after all, although at least we now had two rooms in the cabin and Reanna and the children could sleep apart and give my wife and me our privacy again.

Weening the kids off of Mataoka’s bosom released us to a new comfort, and although Mataoka was as attentive a mother as always, we could now more easily slip away to bathe or go fishing together in the lake or take a walk over to visit Walla and everyone in the Indian village again. Alawa would always complain if we did that, though, as it seemed she cherished time with our children more than time with us! So in good spirits we often took the children over to see her, although on those occasions Reanna stayed at the cabin; she wasn’t ready to face the new village again, and, like Kanti, was thinking of herself and our valley as increasingly English.

Leaving Eric at his forge and Reanna at the cabin with our kids, Kanti, Eliza, Mataoka and I set off to make one trip back to farm before the snows set in. I was taking with me much of the coin that the Indians had traded for the first metal implements from the forge, and the ladies were planning to shop for cloth and trinkets in the town.

For protection, I took a matchlock that I had carefully carved the stock of so as to properly disguise it, as well as a flintlock pistol. I tried to keep them properly as Eric had instructed, for I feared the lack of law in the backcountry between our valley and the township.

When we reached the ford we found that a stout line had been strung across to help people cross. On the far bank were settlers beginning to clear the land, and on our side, the path forked and a new trail led down the valley towards more new homesteads. The frontier had moved much closer to us already in just the past couple of months.

“Howdy, neighbors,” I greeted the family at the crossing, and Eliza led the ladies across to talk to the womenfolk while the husband stopped chopping wood and leaned on his ax to talk with me, doubtless pleased at the interruption and chance to rest.

“I be Jethro,” he introduced himself, “and that be Mary, my wife, and my children”.

I replied in kind, calling Mataoka Martha as she’d wish. It was then that he realized that Eliza wasn’t my wife and that the two Indian women weren’t just our servants and his eyes widened in surprise.

“You married an injun?” he challenged, disbelievingly.

I called Martha to my side and embraced her and proudly proclaimed that I had, and in a proper church to boot! Jethro looked stunned, and said no more about it. There was more shock than hate in his eyes. I figured, with time, he’d accept us.

Mataoka returned to the women and Jethro changed the subject by pointing out the extent of the land he was claiming. I nodded in agreement, and told him, likewise, where my lands lay. I told him how Eliza’s husband had a mill and smithy a day up the trail, and he got excited and promised to visit it to trade with us. He told me of the two families settling further south in this valley and how excited he’d be to spread the news of the forge.

The women were all smiling and we accepted their hospitality by staying for a midday meal with them. We declined to stay the night, for they seemed hesitant to offer, what with us having two squaws with us and their confusion as to what the sleeping arrangements would be.

We got a good way that afternoon and managed to find a good conifer to camp under before dusk. That evening there was a slight smattering of snow and I began to fear that the weather might be against us and Eliza wondered if we should turn back, but Kanti squinted at the horizon and tasted the air and declared that the weather would be good another week or two yet. We set some snares and settled down for the night, each couple pretending not to hear the other.

There were several more new farmsteads within sight of the trail and by the time we reached the farm there was hardly a copse left in sight, just a patchwork of fields and hedges as far as the eye could see. The ground was muddy and the trees bare and winter’s choke felt not far off. It was with relief that we reached the warmth of the farm’s hearth and could kick off our moccasins and roast our feet while ma and pa and the twins fussed.