With winter over, there was more cause for happiness. I was not yet ready to say anything to Andrew, but I had missed my monthly courses now two times, and though I felt on occasion sick, and the scent of foods I had once loved now sent me to retching, I knew this time would be different. We were healthy and strong and rugged, and this baby would live and thrive.
If our lives in the West were far happier than once we would have dared to hope, events back east turned ominous. With the melting of the snows we had received our first dispatch of news, and we learned that Hamilton and Duer had only increased their power. Having enriched themselves with the Assumption Bill-a slap in the face to every patriot who had traded his debt for western Pennsylvania land-the money men in the government had convinced the Congress to charter a national bank. This project, all in the West agreed, was but a scheme to tax the poor, so that monies could be provided for the rich. The bank was upon everyone’s lips. It was the harbinger of doom, the sign that the American project had failed. In breaking away from England, we had become but an imitation, a model of its injustices. Hamilton, in our estimate, was the architect of American corruption, and Duer his principal agent. What had been done to us as individuals would be visited upon an entire nation. We of the West, it now seemed to me, who had long been America ’s unwanted stepchildren, might be forced at some future time to pick up arms against Philadelphia, much as we had done against England.
For now such a cataclysm seemed a distant prospect, perhaps a battle to be fought by our children or grandchildren, but tyranny crept upon us sooner than I could have imagined. Perhaps a week after learning of Hamilton and Duer’s attempt to sow corruption, Andrew and I were interrupted in our cabin. It was after dark, and we had only just sat down for supper when the door to our cabin opened. My first thought was that it must be Mr. Dalton and Mr. Skye, though they were not in the habit of entering without knocking. It was neither of them.
Three Indian braves faced us with the blank and unreadable expression so typical of their race-faces hard and stony, as though they had never known emotion and, at the same time, as though that lack of feeling was the very apex of some human experience. In recent weeks the air had remained rather cold, so they wore deerskin breeches and jerkins. Their hair was long and unrestrained, their faces unmarked by war paint, and they had the slovenly look of redskins too long living among white men, too accustomed to strong drink and unsavory habits. They set their guns by the side of the door and then sat down at the table without a word.
I had heard of such things happening before. The guns by the door were a sign that they meant no harm, but I remained uneasy. We dared not attempt to force them away or make them feel unwelcome, but I cannot fully describe the great fear I felt upon seeing them. It seemed to me the confined space of our cabin could not contain the mounting energy of their silent anger, violence, and, yes, carnal urges.
Andrew cleared his throat. “Well, friends, it seems you’ll be joining us for our meal, then. I’m afraid the offerings are meager, as we did not know to expect company.”
If they understood him, or had even heard him, they made no sign of it. They stared into nothingness and waited to be served, blank eyes straight ahead, soulless and soulful all at once, the centuries of hatred for our race written into their very skin. Serve them I did, giving each a plate of venison stew, a salad of field greens, and a piece of corn bread. Their eyes did not move as I set the food before them. It seemed I could have tossed stones on their plates, sending their food splattering, and they would not have responded.
I dipped my spoon in my stew, but only because I feared not doing so would upset the braves, make them believe that there was something untoward in the meal. My cooking since coming to the West was none the most sophisticated, but now it tasted like sand in my mouth, and it took every effort to swallow. I hoped the braves would be satisfied, however, eat their fill-and go. One dipped his fingers into the stew and put them in his mouth. He made a sour face, the first semblance of human expression I’d witnessed, and spat toward the fire. Another brave bit into the corn bread and let the food tumble from his mouth the way a baby does when first learning to eat. The third, unwilling even to sample what his friends found so distasteful, lifted his dish and allowed its contents to slide to the floor.
I expected Andrew to offer some kind of rebuke. In my mind I could see him gently scolding the braves, explaining that if they were to visit a white man’s house they must behave in accordance with the white man’s customs.
He merely sat with his hands in his lap. He blinked but otherwise remained motionless.
I stared at him. Andrew was no coward, but even so he was only one man, and here were three braves. What could he do? What could I expect him to do? I did not know, but oh, how I wanted him to do something!
The braves rose now, all three standing across the table from us. One took from his belt a knife. “We take your wife, we let you live,” he said.
“You are not taking my wife anywhere.” Andrew remained in his seat, looking like a clerk before a supplicant. He blinked again and again, as though trying to get something out of his eye, but he did not lift a hand to rub it.
“Not take away,” the brave corrected. “Take. You watch, we take.”
A second brave clarified his meaning, taking the index finger of his left hand and moving in and out of the circle of finger and thumb on his right. The gesture was so foolish, so much like that of a puerile apprentice, that I repressed the mad desire to laugh.
“We take your wife and you both live,” said the brave with the knife. “You fight us, you both die. This the deal.”
“I see,” said my husband, still the calm of a man who considered whether or not to buy a mule. “It is a rather unusual deal, is it not?”
“It the deal,” the Indian insisted.
“Does this deal come from Colonel Tindall?”
The braves exchanged looks, and then the one with the knife nodded. “From Tindall.”
“Very well,” said my husband.
There was then the loud report-louder for being so unexpected-of a pistol shot from nearby, followed almost immediately by a thud upon the table and then by another pistol shot. The air at once was singed with the bitter scent of powder, and our little cabin was full of stinging smoke. I looked around in terror, not knowing whence the shots had come, but the brave with the knife sank to his knees, his stomach darkening with blood. He clutched the knife so tightly, the skin of his hand turned white, but as he did so, he fell forward onto his face.
The second shot had struck another brave in the knee. He collapsed upon the floor and clutched his wound with his hand, but he made not a noise. The third brave bolted for the door-to get his gun, I presumed. Andrew let go of the pistols, and I now realized why he had been sitting with his hands under the table. I remembered Dalton ’s warning, and I could only think that Andrew had taken it to heart but had said nothing lest he upset me. He sprang to his feet, and I could see that his hands were stained with powder. His pants had been blackened by the shot, and it looked as though the fabric had caught fire and been put out. Andrew, however, remained utterly calm-focused and determined, but not hurried. Taking the hunting rifle mounted upon the wall above the fireplace, he turned, aimed, and fired.
Once more the scent of powder burst into the cabin, and smoke choked the air. Only after the ball struck the brave’s back did we see that the man had not been running for his gun, he had been running for the door. He had been trying to escape. I looked at Andrew to see how this would affect him, the knowledge that he had shot an unarmed man in the back while he fled. I did not see the man I knew there. Musket in hand, eyes hard, he looked as remorseless as had the braves.