Under the Same Sky (26 page)

“I think not,” he said. “He would have been happy with you.”

I looked at his profile, so handsome under the black comb of hair. The striking lines of his face were uncharacteristically soft with sadness. I felt an ache in my chest for him, and for Soquili. Wahyaw hated to see his brother in pain. I reached over and touched his hand where it rested on his thigh.

“He will be happy again,” I said.

He looked at me, then frowned, considering. “And you?”

His concern surprised me. Tears sprang to my eyes, and I blinked them back. My words came out much more hoarsely than I had intended.

“I will be fine.”

A rare smile slid across his face and rose to his eyes. He nodded once, then looked back at the path.

“Then it will be so,” he said.

Fort Moore and its imposing fifteen-foot wall protected the trading post at New Windsor from marauders and other threats. A few soldiers looked up as we passed through the gates, but Indian traders were a common sight. With my long, dark hair braided and hanging over the furs, I blended in with my Cherokee companions.

Beyond the starkness of the fort spread the bustling town of New Windsor. Storefronts and alehouses welcomed people of all sorts. But the men with whom I travelled took no notice of those people
or places. They stared ahead, following Wahyaw’s lead, not meeting anyone’s eyes.

I wasn’t as disciplined. I looked everywhere, as fascinated by the bustle of a town as I had been as a little girl. The majority of the people in the street were white, but Indians gathered there as well. In some cases, their clothing was similar to what we wore, but their appearance varied. Hair length for one, and it was often adorned differently or covered by wide-brimmed hats. Some faces were tattooed with symbols and shapes I hadn’t seen before. Some laughed as they stood talking with white men in the street. Others were pointedly silent, like my companions.

Wahyaw rode through the town until he reached a weathered cabin with a lopsided roof, standing at the end of the street. A number of men loitered outside its open door, standing in conversation or sitting on the dirt road. Most were Indians, but there were also white men who looked as if they had adopted the nomadic way of life. They wore buckskin, but it was, for the most part, dirty and tattered. Their beards and bushy hair made them appear more like bears than men. They were a sharp contrast to the Cherokee, who plucked their beards and scalps hair by hair as they grew from boys to men. I had grown used to the naked faces of my new family.

Our moccasins made no sound as we dropped from our horses. We tethered the animals to a post beside the cabin, then the men unloaded the furs and carried the heavy bundles toward the trader’s cabin.

I was afraid of the men, of their voices, of their hands and intentions, but tried to keep my expression neutral. We started toward the door, and I tried to hide behind Wahyaw and his friends. Too late, though. The men spotted me, and the sight of a white woman entering the trading post with a group of Cherokee warriors sparked
more than a little interest. Fear slithered through my belly, and I squeezed my sweat-dampened palms into fists as we walked past them. It wasn’t the Indians who frightened me. It was the eyes of green and blue that glinted from under light curls, lips that smiled behind matted beards. The smell of whisky hung in the air around the doorway, and its odour reached through my nose to twist at my stomach. That smell…
ropes burning my wrists
…
legs forcing mine apart…
I flexed my hands, trying to contain their trembling.

“How much for the squaw?” one of them called.

Wahyaw didn’t know the words but appeared to understand something of the meaning. He stared the man down with forbidding eyes. I looked straight ahead and followed the warriors into the fetid darkness of the trading post.

I stood in the doorway until my eyes adjusted to the light, or rather to the lack of it. We were in a single room, its walls lined with shelves, those shelves filled with boxes, bottles, blankets, and furs. In the centre of the room, a stick-thin man leaned back in his chair, his well-worn shoes propped on a desk in front of him. Crisp strands of hair were combed across his head, and his fuzzy gray beard was streaked with yellow from years of tobacco use. He chewed on a thin piece of wood, shifting it from one side of his mouth to the other. Standing beside the desk, speaking with the trader, was a very tall Indian who was dressed in clothing usually worn by white men. A dirty gray shirt was tucked into his pants, and a black tricorne sat at a jaunty angle over his cascade of black hair. His face was clearly that of an Indian, but his dress and manner were those of a white man. His ambivalence made me nervous.

We started walking toward the trader, who stopped talking midsentence to stare at me, as did the tall Indian beside him. Their expressions of surprise made it clear that women weren’t usually seen in this building. White women were even rarer. I breathed in through
my nose, filling my lungs with what I hoped was confidence, and immediately regretted doing so. The place reeked of old skins and tobacco. Bile rose in my throat.

“Well, now,” the trader drawled.

He shifted the stick to one side of his mouth and, groaning with apparent effort, pulled his feet off the desk and stood. He stepped toward our group, pausing to spit a stream of yellow juice onto the floor beside my feet. I flinched, but didn’t step away.

“What have we here?”

His eyes were small, their edges creased by constant squinting. His gaze dropped to my beaded moccasins, slid up my dress, then paused at the level of my breasts.

I was terrified. I fought the impulse to turn and run.

“Pay no attention to the pig,” Wahyaw muttered in Cherokee. He stood beside me and crossed his broad arms across his chest. He stared at the trader with eyes dark and cunning as those of a wolf. And just as intimidating.

“We are here to trade,” I said to the trader.

His mouth widened into an ugly grin. I saw why the little stick moved so easily within his mouth—he had no teeth to anchor it in place. I looked past him, wondering whether the tall Indian was a threat. I thought not. His dark eyes flicked between Wahyaw and me, taking in the scene, but he made no comment.

The trader sniffed, then spat again. “I’ll take a look at them furs in a moment,” he said. His lack of teeth caused “furs” to sound like “furth,” a fact that didn’t render him any less frightening to me. He hitched up his pants and stuck his thumbs into his belt.

“But I’ll tell you what, girl. I’m wondering more what they’d take if I were to take you out back with me for five minutes,” he said. The yellowed tip of his tongue snaked across his lips.

I glared at him. “We have brought skins to trade, sir. Nothing more.”

He grinned, his toothless smile forming a strange, vacant hole. I shuddered.

“Injuns’d trade jest about anything for rum and guns, girl. You might want to ask your menfolk if they’d be interested in a couple of bottles in exchange,” he drawled, winking at me.

The tall Indian said nothing but his eyes flicked toward the warriors behind me. My companions had understood none of the conversation. They waited in silence behind me.

“We have skins to trade,” I repeated. “If you aren’t interested, we’ll go somewhere else.”

He gave me a look of disgust and spat again. Wahyaw nudged me, inquiring. I turned my head and whispered into his ear.

“He wants to trade you a couple of bottles of rum—for me,” I whispered flatly in Cherokee.

My protector exhaled in something close to a growl. The trader looked up into Wahyaw’s furious black eyes, a foot higher than my own, and listened as Wahyaw unleashed a violent string of Cherokee threats and insults.

“Would you like me to translate my friend’s words for you, sir?” I asked the trader, who flicked his eyes back toward me. “Or has he made his thoughts clear enough?”

The trader scowled, then sucked his lips in and out a few times while he considered what to do. “All right,” he grunted. “Put them furs there. Ah’m payin’ a blanket for fifteen skins, a rifle for twenty-five.”

I had no idea what the furs were worth, but that seemed like robbery to me. The trader returned to his desk and had just started to sit when he noticed me shaking my head.

“That isn’t good enough,” I said. “We’ll go elsewhere.”

I turned to leave. Wahyaw and the others looked surprised, but stepped aside to let me through. Wahyah touched my arm.

“He isn’t paying enough,” I told him.

Wahyaw’s jaw snapped shut, and he nodded.

“I ain’t sure you wanna waste your time doin’ that, little girl,” the trader said. I looked back and saw he was still standing, his palms flat on the desktop. “You won’t find a better trade anywhere.”

I could hear the truth he was keeping from me. Like when my mother hid toys for me to find. I heard the numbers in his head, saw other deals he had made in the past. I pushed aside my earlier panic and stood up straight.

“You’re lying,” I said, gaining confidence. I saw again the numbers in his head, and applied them to our own deal. “You are offering too little. We will trade fifteen pelts for a rifle, not a blanket.”

The trader made an irritated clucking noise with his tongue. Then he sighed.

“Injuns around here get that same trade every time. Don’t you go and get difficult with me. I don’t do well with girls what go against mah word.”

Something inside me shifted into place, and my fear disintegrated. I strode toward the man, slammed my palms on his desk, and stared him right in the eye. To my great satisfaction, he flinched.

“I don’t care
how
you do,” I said through gritted teeth. In my mind I danced, so excited to hear the confidence in my words. It was as if I listened to someone else speak. “You take advantage of these Indians because they don’t speak English. Well, I do. Make me a better offer,
sir
,” I said, “or we will ride to the next post.”

“Well, shit,” he said, and spat.

He looked from me to the healthy stack of furs at the men’s feet, lusting after the potential profit. He glared at me from under bushy
gray eyebrows, then grunted in assent. He yanked open a desk drawer and pulled out his ledger book, then gestured toward Wahyaw with his chin.

“Tell yer dogs to lay them furs against the wall over there. Do you know how many they brought, or do I have to count ’em all?” he asked.

“Of course I know,” I said, and listed off the various furs.

The trader wrote it all down, then looked up at me. A hint of a smile lurked at the corner of his lips. His mind, I could see, flickered with grudging admiration.

“You done yerself a good deal, girl.”

The trader got up and trudged toward an open box filled with rifles. He checked my list against the guns, counting them out and setting them in a pile for the Cherokee, who inspected every weapon as if it were a legal document. He spat loudly and repeatedly throughout the trading process until Wahyaw put a stop to the habit by giving the man such a look of disgust I thought the trader might be afraid to do it again.

Two of the Cherokee nodded toward the cases of rum bottles lined up against a far wall, but Wahyaw dismissed the idea with a shake of his head. Instead, he headed toward another wall, stocked with various items for trade, and we followed him.

The trader waved his hand toward a stack of folded woolen blankets. “Gettin’ cool at night,” he muttered. “Got lots of blankets there.”

The promise of warmth through cold winter nights drew me toward one, dyed in a cheerful red and white pattern. I brushed my fingertips over the rough fabric, but jerked my hand back as if I’d been stung. During that brief moment of contact, my mind had swirled with visions of the sick and the dying, lying in contorted shapes beneath this cloth. Disease crawled through the fibres. The
air was thick with warning. Feeling slightly faint, I turned away and remembered instead the familiar comfort of bearskins.

The men appeared pleased as we left the trading post. Their arms were full of our half of the bargain: guns and ammunition, tobacco for council, a couple of iron pots for cooking, and some pretty shells and beads the women of the village liked for their embroidery.

We loaded the items onto our horses, then, our business complete, took a leisurely stroll to the edge of the Savannah River. I took off my moccasins and lowered my feet into the current, numbing my toes. The men squatted beside me on the water’s edge and splashed their faces, cleaning off the dirt from the journey and the stink of the trading post.

I looked up at the sounds of voices, but there was no one but us at our little spot. I stood up to look farther and realised the words and bits of laughter were coming from a boat across the water. Wahyaw told me it was a ferry that transported people from one shore to the other.

I watched the tiny barge draw closer and thought of another ship, far away. This ferry was nothing like the ship on which Andrew sailed. Sails and nets shadowed his galley; hardened sailors manned its deck. I closed my eyes and searched for the comfort of his features and saw his face at once. He was standing by the ship’s rails, wind whipping through his hair. The surf crashed around him, and the sails snapped as they gobbled up the wind. He was coming.

We set up camp just outside the wall of the fort. After the sun set, we ate around a fire, told stories, then bundled up in our blankets under a tarp. I couldn’t sleep. I was unaccustomed to the late-night noises of a town. Even more disconcerting was hearing English spoken, after having spent so long with the Cherokee.

Out of habit, I translated the myriad of conversations. All the voices were male. Many of the words were rough and slurred,
punctuated by random obscenities. Scattered bursts of laughter penetrated the darkness.

With a start I realised someone was discussing me.

“Yep, Ah saw her, too. Come marchin’ outta the post there with them braves like she run the town,” grunted one.

“How old she be, ye reckon, Henry?”

“Oh, I’d say no more ’an twenty.” Henry paused, relishing the attention. I heard the sound of a pipe being puffed. “No. Less than that. Purty little thing.”