The Light in the Forest (6 page)

“How many escaped?” True Son’s sister, A’astonah, had asked piteously.

“None escaped in the end,” her father had said harshly. “When the Conestogo who were away came home, there was no village. Their cabins had been burned. Their brothers were killed. So they went to the white man’s town of Lancaster. They asked to stay in the white man’s gaol. Here they would be safe, they thought. They had lost their Indian caution. They had lived too long among the white people. A day or two before the birthday of their Christian chief and God the white barbarians came again. They broke down the doors of the gaol and no white man in the town lifted a hand to stop them. The young Conestogo called out not to kill them, that they liked the Yengwes. Now you know it is the custom of us Indians to adopt prisoners who like us. We make them one of us and everything we have, they have. But the white men do not want the Indians even to share the common air.”

True Son could still hear in his mind his father’s great wrath and scorn for the white cowards as he spoke the names of their victims.

“Shalehaha, a little boy, and Exundas, another boy. Tonquas was just a whip of a boy and Hyyenaes not much bigger. Koquaeunquas was the name of a little girl, Karendouah another girl, and Canukiesung the littlest girl of all. Not satisfied, the white barbarians scalped them. They did indecencies. They chopped off the hands of the men and squaws. They put guns in the mouth of one of our Conestogo cousins while he was yet speaking and blew his head to pieces.”

Tonight True Son lay cold with hate just to remember. And now tomorrow some of these very men and their women were coming to welcome him. Their bloody hands would press his, calling him nephew and cousin. It gave him a feeling of abhorrence. Hardly could he bear even this white soldier, now in deep sleep beside him. At each snore, the boy began moving away from him, little by little, first one foot, then the other. It took a long time to work his way to the bed’s edge and still longer to lower himself clear. Like a panther kit he crawled to the fireplace where embers still glowed. Here he stretched out. It was good to feel the hardness and coolness of the hearthstone beneath him. A little air drifted under the door and across his face to be drawn up the chimney. He pulled his worn bearskin
over him. Its familiar smell calmed him. It took him back to his father’s cabin, blotting out the offensive scent of these white people. With the fur moving from his breath, he fell asleep.

At daylight he awoke with a jerk. He left the unpleasant jacket and pantaloons hanging from the peg in the wall of his room. At breakfast his white father and Aunt Kate looked disapprovingly at his Indian dress. He did not see his mother. Gordie told him that you didn’t go into her room of a morning. When True Son came to midday dinner still in hunting frock and leggings, his Aunt Kate was very stern. As he got up from his chair, she got up with him.

“Now I’ve had enough of this, Johnny,” she said. “Your own kin are coming this afternoon to see you and we won’t have you rigged out in your father’s house like a naked and dirty savage. If you won’t wash and dress, I’m coming up to wash and dress you my own self.”

True Son didn’t know every word she said but he understood enough so that cold horror shook him. This strong, ugly-looking white squaw looked as if she meant it. It reminded him of stories of squaws among the Ottawas who would run and catch a young man and undress him.

“I go look at clothes,” he said with dignity in English.

“You’re not just going to look at them!” she informed him sharply. “You’re going to put them on. And you’re going to wash yourself all over first or I’ll do it for you.”

He flinched. Gordie saw it with his quick eyes.

“I’ll show him how, Aunt Kate!” he promised.

“Well, see that he does a good job or I will!” she warned. “Now come out in the kitchen, Johnny, and I’ll give you some hot water to wash with.”

He felt debased. He was an Indian male obeying a white squaw, made to carry with his own hands a bucket of steaming water up the stairs. That was woman’s work back along the Tuscarawas. His only consolation was that his Indian father wasn’t here to see. He thought he felt amusement on Del’s face as he and Gordie instructed him to stand in a wooden tub. Then they showed him how to sop soap and water on his body from the white crockery basin.

When that was done, he could no longer postpone the crisis of the clothes. Gordie pointed out which was front and back. Revulsion grew as he drew the despised garments over his skin. Just to feel them about his flesh stung and bound him.
Now he was thrice imprisoned—first in this alien land, then in this Yengwe house and room, and last in this white boy’s clothing. He turned away from the window as he saw the first visitors riding up the lane, none on foot, all proud with horses.

Gordie had to come for him twice before he would go down. He must remember what his real father had said—to conceal his true feelings from his enemies. First he had to present himself to his mother in her room and to the strange woman he found with her. Then slowly he went down the stairs. His father led him around the big parlor. A dozen people shook his hand, white uncles, aunts, and cousins. He couldn’t tell one from the other. It was true what Cut Fingers back along the Tuscarawas had once said, that all white people looked alike. Only one stood out, a fattish boy who stared at his clothes, and True Son knew by his peculiar expression that this was Alec, whose jacket and pantaloons he wore.

At the end his father left him by his two uncles. Both sat back smoking. The lean and rangy one with loose skin on his jaw was his Uncle George Owens.

“Well, you can thank your lucky stars you’re
out of the clutches of those devils, Johnny,” he said.

His Uncle Wilse, a powerful, heavy set man, swept the boy with slaty, less friendly eyes.

“He still looks like an Indian to me,” he grunted, and True Son remembered what Gordie had told him, that his Uncle Wilse was a leader of the “Paxton boys.” He tried to take no notice of either comment. His Uncle Wilse went on. “How long was he with those savages? Twelve years. Well, once an Indian, always an Indian. You can make an Indian out of a white man but you can never make a white man out of an Indian.”

“Johnny is no Indian,” the boy’s father said uneasily. “He has the same white blood as you and I.”

“It might have been white once,” Uncle Wilse admitted. “But those savages brought it up red. It’s the heathen notions they drill into him. Bad is good and good is bad. Stealing’s a virtue. Lying’s an art. Butchering and scalping white women and young ones is the master accomplishment.”

The boy stood impassive, although he could feel the blood creeping up his neck and face. Uncle Wilse watched him darkly.

“Look at him now. Standing there cold-blooded as any redskin. I’ll warrant he’s hatching out deviltry
in his heart.” He looked at True Son and his slate eyes flamed with a dangerous smoky violet light that had only smoldered in them before. “Tell the truth, boy! Isn’t that what you’re doing right now?”

True Son gave no indication that he had heard.

“What’s the matter with him?” Uncle Wilse growled. “Is he deaf or why doesn’t he give his betters a civil answer?”

Del Hardy, who had been listening, moved up and repeated the questions to the boy in Delaware. Uncle Wilse interrupted.

“What kind of language is that?” And when he was told, “Can’t he talk English, only that scrub Indian stuff? Well, if that’s all he can talk, why doesn’t he talk it?”

Del translated. The boy felt he could be honorably silent no longer. Holding himself erect as he could, he made an answer in Delaware.

“What did he say?” Uncle Wilse asked.

“He said Delaware isn’t the scrub language you say. He says when Indians of different tribes meet, they talk to each other in Delaware. It’s the master language of the Indians, and that’s true. Most all tribes learn some of it so they can get along with other tribes.”

Uncle Wilse had an expression of derision.

“What does it matter what gibberish Indians talk?”

True Son, listening closely, poured out a flood of words. Del translated it again.

“He says white people talk the Delaware language, too. He says we say tomahawk and wigwam and Susquehanna and other Delaware words. He says it’s not a poor but a rich language. There’s so many different ways of saying the same thing. You can always say just what you mean. He says, in English we say, God. But his Indian father, Cuyloga, told him there were more than twenty ways to say God in Delaware and each one means something different. There’s Eliwuleck. That means, He that’s above everything. There’s Eluwitschanessik. That means, the strongest and most powerful One. Then there’s Eluwilissit. That means, the One greatest in goodness—”

Uncle Wilse interrupted. His face was a picture.

“I can’t stand that! You mean this heathen Indian, Cuyloga, who stole Johnny and claims to be his father, talks about God before he goes out and murders Christian men and women!”

At the reference to his Indian father, True Son felt his hackles rise. Suddenly a translator was too slow for him. He spoke to his Uncle Wilse direct, in English as best he could.

“Uncle. You talk about being Christian, but you murder the Conestogo!”

The heavy face flared.

“So you were lying to us when you said you couldn’t talk English?”

“I no lie. I say nothing.”

“No, but you tried to deceive us just the same, keeping quiet and making believe you didn’t understand. That’s an Indian trick and that’s why the Conestogo got their just deserts at last. They pretended they were Christians so they could murder white people without being suspected or caught. If you tried to arrest them and put them to trial like anybody else, the Quakers took them to Philadelphia. They were only poor pagan Christians there. Rubbish! They were no more Christians than wolves!”

“I don’t know,” True Son said. “But they were people. Some good people, some bad maybe. But you were Christians! You had forty, fifty men. You had horses, knives, tomahawks, and rifles. You
blow heads off of Indian men. You kill Indian women and young ones. Not one is left. You scalp. You chop. You cut off hands and try to cut off feet—”

Uncle Wilse’s face was distorted. He got halfway to his feet.

“Yes, and that’s the best thing that could have happened to them. They got what they deserved. We fixed the men so they wouldn’t butcher any more of our people. And we fixed the squaws and young ones so they wouldn’t breed any more murderers.”

His shouting brought his son, Alec, to his side. The latter stood glaring at True Son.

“We give him my clothes, Papa,” he said. “Then he stands there and insults us.”

True Son flushed.

“I don’t ask for clothes. I take clothes off and don’t put them on again.”

“Now that’s enough!” Mr. Butler came to life. “Johnny, you can’t talk this way to your elders. Tell your Uncle Wilse you’re sorry.”

The boy closed his lips tightly. His Uncle Wilse threw an angry, meaning glance at his brother-in-law.

“All I have to say, Harry, you better watch him.
If he goes around siding against his own kin and neighbors, he’s liable to get hurt.”

For the first time since his initial greeting, the other uncle spoke.

“My boy, I want to tell you something. I’d hate to see you get the wrong impression of your family and especially of your father, Uncle Wilson and other Paxton men. In private life we’re decent and respected citizens. We’re members of Colonel Elder’s church and subscribe to public benefits. But nobody can tell us anything about Indians. We’ve had too much experience. If a white man kills an Indian, he’s called a murderer. He daren’t be tried here where he’d surely be acquitted. No, he has to be taken to Philadelphia where he’s convicted and hanged. But if an Indian kills a white man, he’s just a poor pagan who doesn’t know any better. He daren’t be tried here either or he’d surely be convicted and hanged. So he’s taken to Bucks County or Philadelphia where he’s petted and sheltered and made a fuss of and never even goes to trial. That’s the way it is between us and Indians, and why we’ve had to take the law in our own hands.”

Uncle Wilse nodded grimly to the boy.

“I’ll tell you something else. No Indian friends
of yours better come to see you around here. If you expect that heathen abductor of yours, you better send him word to stay away.”

A sudden fear struck the boy as he thought of the possible coming of his father. Bitter words poured out at his white uncle.

“Once a white man lived with Indians. He married Indian woman along the Muskingum. They had three young ones. All girls. One day white man makes mind he goes back to his people. He kills his squaw and three girls. He takes their scalps back to Philadelphia for scalp money. His name David Owens. Maybe you are his brother.”

With the quickness of a giant cat, his Uncle Wilse moved to his feet and slapped the boy. The force of the blow almost knocked him down.

“No, I’m not his brother!” he shouted. “But I wish I was. He only did his duty to his country and his people. He believed in getting rid of vermin and so do I.”

With great difficulty, True Son regained his posture. Now he stood straight and rigid. No more words, he told himself, would come from his mouth today. Around that mouth the white mark of his uncle’s heavy hand still lay. At the owner of the hand his eyes burned with black, consuming hatred.