We Walk in Footprints: Book One

By Ellyn Weaver

Dominated by a powerful founding family, a safe small-town cocoon resting on the fringe of Seneca/Iroquois sacred homelands conceals the secrets of the human heart, the wayward soul perpetuated through the years of habitation.

In the Lands of the Twin Springs, native Seneca/Iroquois peoples maintained Sacred Home lands for many generations. When White settlers arrive in 1820 attempting to make a new life, a chain of events is set in motion involving cooperation and conflict that lasts for more than a century. Native or Quaker, shopkeeper or oil baron, the residents of the area will face decades of socioeconomic upheaval followed by cultural accommodation forced upon farm-to-market towns and expanding cities throughout an often-fractious United States.

Based on historical events this novel, the first of a series, depicts a family saga originating in the Allegheny River Valley and spanning cultures and transplanted generations from the early eighteen hundreds into 1960.

• Language: English
• Publisher: LifeRich Publishing
• Release date: Jan 22, 2018
• ISBN: 9781489714473

Ellyn Weaver

Ellyn Weaver, of mixed Anglo and Native American ancestry, was born and raised in upstate New York, near the Seneca/Iroquois reservation. While raising a family in varied urban regions, she earned a degree in human services with a major in anthropological studies. Research into her own mixed racial heritage brought to life characters telling stories unique to their time and geological setting. She now makes her home in the state of Colorado.

Book preview

White Settlers in

the Lands of the

Twin Springs

1820

Chapter One

HAD THE GODS, THEIR NATURE SPIRITS, FORSAKEN THE PEOPLE of the Longhouse?

The time of the great waters began in the white season. Thick, wet blankets covered the mountains, the Seneca lands. Ice coated the rivers and streams, made brittle the plants and the trees. Through daylight and darkness, the relentless Old Man of the North moaned low in the valleys, whined shrill in the pine woods, roared harsh through the Seneca towns, howling up the longhouse walls, splitting elm bark shells, spiking frigid lances inside the lodges.

The people hung skins from the rafters, huddled in furs near the fire pits, sipping a burnt-corn toddy kept simmering in traders’ kettles. Amid the suffering, the grieving for the dead and dying, legends were told, babies were born. Rations grew slim as hunts grew unproductive. Relentlessly, the Faces chased evil spirits from the longhouses, to no avail. The mid-Winter rites were shortened.

From across the frozen lakes a bitter, west wind brought cold mist or a steady, chilling rainfall. The Green season brought run-off: rivers of mud down the hillsides, streams leaping banks. The cornfields were flooded, the Three Sisters drowned; foul-smelling, ankle-deep mud swamped the palisades. Thanks-to-the-Maple was held; the Strawberry festival was not.

The lodges grew musty, the rations more slim, the people grew listless, depressed. They yearned for the Yellow season’s warm sun.

When the Yellow season was upon them, He-Who-Holds-up- the-Sky hung leaden clouds one on the other throughout his heavens. He-no, the Thunderer’s fierce roaring, sent Father Sun to a distant hide-away. Rain poured in torrents on Seneca lands.

The women set about preserving spindly Three Sisters – corn, beans, squash – salvaging the pumpkin crop. Though the harvest and hunts were meager, the nature spirits must be celebrated and respected – Green Corn rites and dances conducted. Perhaps the spirits would be appeased.

Before the Red season was upon them, the village warriors camped in their preserves stalking wild game. Village mothers and maidens ran wary fingers through lean stores of grain, nuts and berries; too lean to feed the people through another long, dark winter. Work bees organized, gatherers sent deep into the woods along the river banks foraging for foodstuffs.

And so it was that women of the Deer clan ventured far from their village collecting the last wild currents and berries growing along the river’s edge. Two young stragglers took a high trail skirting rocky hillsides just above the raging waters. A mud-gorged, gray-brown serpent, the angry river writhed violently, claiming new ground, devouring shoreline, marshland, cornfield and meadow; spreading raw silt in its entrails.

The wild beast eats our lands, our food, our people, Birdsong sputtered, ruefully. The young mother dropped a meager handful of moist purple berries into a willow, hand basket. Her small son, secured in his cradleboard, cooed, contented for the moment. You have no hungry mouths to feed as yet, Little One, she told the child with great affection.

Blue Heron, Birdsong’s companion, glanced over the river’s steep bank. Wincing in pain, she quickly looked away. Her man had been taken by the writhing serpent. Since the day a girl child slipped lifeless from her womb, the beautiful half-breed had not spoken. Blue Heron kept her breasts wrapped tight with traders’ cloth to stop her milk from flowing through her tunic.

Silently, the two women moved on, gleaning slender, prickly branches.

Suddenly, above the serpent’s roar, the desperate screams of children, fearful shouts in the White man’s tongue. The women glanced one to another wondering if the other heard the screams and shouts so unexpected in these backwoods. The sounds grew closer. Stealthily, they raised their heads above the bramble peering down upon a scene too horrible to behold. Two dories, lashed together side by side, floundered in the wildly thrashing river. A raven-haired girl and a woman cowered in the stern of one boat; a man and a boy clung to the sides of the other.

As the Seneca women watched, a muscular, black-skinned giant tied a rope around his burly chest before dropping overboard. His black head disappearing, then bobbing to the surface as he paddled frantically against the serpent’s hungry jaws. No one could conquer the serpent where it merges with the rain-swollen stream, clan sisters thought, helplessly.

How foolish these people are to taunt the wild beast. Surely they be strangers to these lands, Birdsong scoffed. She sank to her haunches, no wish to watch even as Whites and a black giant were devoured.

Transfixed, Blue Heron had not seen a warrior battle the wild beast so fiercely. This black giant be a brave and worthy warrior, she murmured, veneration in her tone – the first words she had spoken in many dawns.

From her stooped position, Birdsong looked to her cousin with interest and amazement, her tone expressing rising hope. Can the black man make the shoreline with boats and so many others in tow?

He be a strong swimmer. Strong as our warriors, Blue Heron answered. Her heart skipped as she watched the black giant cut through the raging water. He escapes the serpent’s jaws ... … paddles for the shoreline, she reported. Adulation in her tone, she beamed; the most elated expression Birdsong had ever known to grace her cousin’s usually somber face.

Birdsong rose to see the boats rock precariously in a frothing wake. The serpent gave a last mighty whip of his tail, but the black-skinned giant sliced the churning waters with a powerful barrage of strokes. The dories surged the last few yards before scraping rocks beneath the water’s edge.

Raising his powerful body from the water as he dragged the boats on dry land, his strength spent, the black giant dropped to his knees, rolled to his back, lay prostrate.

The native women watching from the bramble felt the press of doom lift from their shoulders. "The brave giant has most powerful Orenda, my cousin," asserted Blue Heron, her head solemnly nodding.

Birdsong would remember always the glow of admiration in her cousin’s soft, brown eyes.

The white children scrambled from the dories, loaded their arms with bundles and made for the safety of a rock ledge some distance above. The white man raised his woman to her feet; her dark head streaked with white strands wobbled on her slender neck. Supporting her, he dragged her to the rock ledge where she was laid upon a blanket and covered with quilts. The girl knelt beside her mother cradling her head in her lap, while the woman cried out in pain, thrashing under her covers.

Blue Heron and Birdsong exchanged a knowing glance. The white woman was with child, in labor and close, very close to giving birth. They dropped down behind the bushes, parting branches as they watched in silence until the infant in the cradleboard began a hungry whimper. Both women’s breasts responded, their nipples dripping sweet, yellow sap.

Birdsong signaled to her cousin that she would backtrack to the clearing where she would nurse her son. Blue Heron nodded, reluctant to leave. Her cousin padded off as lightly as soft breezes rustling fallen leaves.

Back at the rock ledge above the raging river, kindling had been gathered, a smoky fire sputtered. The observer in the bramble had never seen a white man whose hair and whiskers turned blood-red in firelight. When his woman cried out in pain, he knelt beside her, stroked her forehead. Even from a distance, she could see the worry on his face. Indian women did not trouble their men so, she thought and she wondered at their differences.

In time, the black-skinned giant roused. Slipping a hatchet in his belt, he took to the near-by woods; the young brave trailing behind him. They would build a shelter, Blue Heron decided, make camp until the babe was born and the fragile, White woman recovered before they moved on.

White women had a more burdensome time in childbirth – the women of the village heard this from the Quakers in the farm town down river. Though Blue Heron was of a curious nature, she knew she must be on her way before the strangers discovered her hiding place.

She slipped from her place in the bramble, picked up her basket half-full of precious berries, crept silently along the path to where her cousin, cradleboard perched on a rock, held her babe to her breast.

They make camp, Birdsong concluded.

Blue Heron nodded, paced soberly back and forth in thought. She feared for the safety of these refugees. Too far from the campsite to be heard, she kept her strong voice low. We must tell the people what we have seen, she said, resolutely.

Birdsong wondered why they must tell anyone, but she said nothing, attentive to murmuring woods and her suckling babe.

If we tell the people, the Whites and the black giant will be seen as refugees. Blue Heron knew that otherwise the strangers faced great danger – blood-red scalps prized for a warriors belt.

Birdsong thought a moment, conceding. This is true. She raised her babe to her lap. Gathering clean moss, she arranged it in his cradleboard.

Blue Heron paced impatiently back and forth across the path. If our warriors should come upon the strangers, they will be seen as invaders, she argued. She and her cousin knew well the fate to befall invaders in Indian Country. The same fate suffered by her people in White hands.

We must go quickly, Cousin, Birdsong agreed, picking up her cradleboard, she hung it down her back, placed the strap across her forehead. Blue Heron had already left the clearing, striding swiftly up the homeward trail.

Chapter Two

THE SURVIVORS OF THE WILD RIVER, THE FAMILY WELBORNE lately of New Hampshire, on their way down river to Ohio Country with their hired guide, Elijah Pine, a free man, a rare Negro who had never known the bondage of plantation life.

When darkness fell inside the cramped, rough-built shelter, Lucinda Welborne gave birth to a tiny, girl child. The mother hemorrhaged; very soon lapsing into a deeply troubled sleep.

Her husband, Abner, paced outside while daughter Meryl, who was but fifteen, saw to her mother’s needs. At the birth, she cut the cord as Pine instructed, took her sister up and wrapped her in a petticoat. More petticoats were used to check Lucinda’s bleeding.

Look Papa, Meryl purred. She’s like a baby bird. I soooo wished for a sister. Meryl cuddled the tiny bundle to her heart.

Best not get too attached, Girl, Abner admonished. He was prepared to lose the child and Lucinda also, for he was now convinced the dreadful series of events he thought he’d left behind had pursued him to this God-forsaken frontier.

Until the previous year, Abner Welborne lived a charmed life as the son and only heir of a prominent New England family. His circumstances changed, radically, upon the death of Amos, his father and employer. With the reading of the will, Abner learned the full extent of his father’s business failures. All the family wealth was taken to satisfy his father’s debt, leaving Abner in disgrace and nearly penniless. His decision was to flee, attempt a fresh start in the new lands of Ohio.

The family traveled overland as far as the town of Elmira where Pine was hired. And where Lucinda in her thirties discovered she was with child and already several months along. The Welbornes’ youngest, Royal, was then ten years of age. Their only recourse, as they saw it, was to continue on their way in hopes to reach Ohio before the child was born. The wild river intervened.

Instead of overland by wagon – and against their guide’s advice – it was Abner’s choice to take the faster though more hazardous water route. The family would have fared well had it not been for unusually strong currents buffeting their crafts. At the point where a rain-swollen steam flowed into the river, Lucinda went into labor. All would have perished if not for Pine’s skills and tenacity.

Pine’s story in the new world began a decade earlier when he was but a boy of thirteen summers. The slave ship in which he was imprisoned broke up in a violent storm off the Carolina coast. In churning seas Pine and his surviving shipmates swam for shore; a handful made it safely. Knowing their fate should they be captured by white slavers, they moved inland, taking refuge with the Cherokee.

Several years later, pious Moravian adherents sponsored Pine and brought him to New York where he would seek employment as a free man. Intelligent and in possession of manners refined in the company of the God-fearing, Pine had taken their faith and was known by the Christian name – Elijah.

Elijah Pine spent his first night in Seneca lands keeping watch outside the shelter he had hastily constructed and covered in pine boughs to give the family some measure of protection from the elements. Before dawn, he slipped out of camp in search of food and water. A trail cut up the mountain led him to a curious and unexpected gift.

In a clearing a short walk from the campsite, he came upon deserted cabins, a clean running stream and a good supply of fire wood. His companions on this ill-fared journey were townies and nearly worthless in the wild, Pine determined. The girl had helped her mother with the birthing; she seemed a right-minded sort. The boy was strong and willing. With the Indians about – the feared and prideful Seneca – the Mister’s contributions could be troubling.

While he lived among the Cherokee, the Seneca had come among them. He knew their language and their ways. They knew when strangers were about and, he feared, would sooner or later come calling.

Pine returned to the campsite at sun-up with breakfast fixin’s: a skin of berries and two fresh killed rabbits caught in a snare. A heavy mist hung low. He boiled coffee, set the rabbits to roasting on a spit and rustled biscuits from the larder.

Shivering, the young ones wrapped in blankets, came to sit by the blazing fire. They ate hardy but said little, their eyes downcast. Abner stooped, exiting the shelter his face grim. Pine set a steaming mug of coffee on a rock. Abner took a swallow, before he sent the young ones in search of fire wood.

His green eyes red-rimmed, Abner dropped down on his haunches. Tugging numbly at his blood-red beard, he gazed into the fire. At last he spoke in low tones. My wife is sickened by this birth. She rejects the child.

Pine nodded. At intervals, the infant whimpered; no healthy, newborn bawl was heard.

How long do you reckon we stay here before the Indians find us out, Abner questioned, loathing in his voice.

The Seneca know we’re here. These are their lands, Pine responded. They got troubles a’ plenty a’ their own, and thar’ be a treaty holdin’. They may not bother with us if they think we be movin’ on.

But Pine was mistaken.

When the dew burned off and a feeble sun came out from between low-hanging clouds, the Seneca came calling. A wind-like flutter in the woods, a rippling of tall grasses, an uneasy silence … ghost-like, a cluster of beings appeared.

Pine and Abner crouched beside the fire; the Welborne children in the shelter with their mother. The Negro sensed the Indians were about. Too frightened to move from his spot, Abner was caught unaware at the band’s sudden appearance.

At first glance, it would be difficult to tell this band from the country people thereabouts. A closer look revealed silent, somber men and women dressed in calico and buckskin, adorned with silver buckles, beads and feathers. By good fortune, they were bearing gifts.

Pine raised himself, slowly. With his hand to his heart, he took a few cautious steps from the fire before greeting the band in their tongue.

A man, imposing in statue, stepped forward. With a smattering of tonal Iroquois, English and signing, he told Pine he was Tall Elk, chief of the band, whose village was upstream beside a mountain lake.

Among the group was Singing Water, clan mother of the Deer clan. Her daughters set down baskets of dry corn and beans, some jerky and a fresh killed grouse. They stepped behind their men folk from where they could admire the black-skinned giant with the powerful guardian spirit sitting on his shoulder.

Pine invited them to come and warm themselves beside the fire. Only Tall Elk stepped forward, the rest stood back in watchful contemplation.

The Welborne children would not show themselves. Dumbstruck, Abner sat rigid as a stick. He’d determined that the Indians trusted his Negro guide. Only later would he learn of the native women who had witnessed the black giant’s valiant rescue of his family.

Stumbling over unfamiliar words and sounds, Pine told of the travelers’ misfortune. He thanked the chief for the hospitality of his band.

Chief Tall Elk listened, stone-faced, until the black giant finished his story. When the chief stood, his dark, keen eyes singled out a female figure from among the band. Holding a brightly-painted cradleboard, Blue Heron stepped forward.

Tall Elk signed. This woman has milk. She will care for the babe.

Abner’s face revealed a puzzled expression.

As Tall Elk took his leave, the chief and Pine took hold on each others’ forearm in a gesture of friendship. Farewell, Brave Brother.

Unassuming as they had come, the band blended with the undergrowth, until no sign of them remained. All eyes were on Blue Heron who stood alone, the toes of her moccasins turned inward – a Seneca woman’s common posture. Dressed as her people in leggings and a deer-skin tunic trimmed in beadwork, unlike her sisters she was tall and slender. Her bronzed skin glowed in sunlight and her hair, though plaited down her back, showed more auburn than black. Soft brown eyes revealed an intelligent brightness.

Wh … what does she want with us? Abner sputtered.

Pine told him what the woman offered.

His mouth dropping open, Abner starred in disbelief at the one who stood her ground. L-L-Lord! he stammered, at last. Breed, Abner decided. He had rarely seen an Indian. The tribes had been gone from New England for more than a generation. There were plenty of mixed bloods left behind. This woman had their look about her.

To refuse the woman’s generosity would offend the Indians, I believe. Pine spoke softly, still his strong, bass tone carried across the rock ledge.

With a nod, Abner agreed. No telling what these savages would do should they be provoked. Mr. Pine.

Yes Sir.

Invite the woman to come and warm herself beside the fire, Abner instructed. He did not take his eyes from Blue Heron. And thank her for her kindness.

Taking up the baskets of provisions, Pine directed the woman. Graceful in her movements, Blue Herron took a place beside the fire.

At some point in the future, Abner Welborne would look upon the visit of this band of Seneca as a turning point. At this moment, he saw no other choice. At the entrance to the shelter, he swung his gangly frame inside. A short time later, Meryl appeared. Reluctantly, she placed her newborn sister in Blue Heron’s arms, stood by in silence while the baby suckled at a stranger’s breast.

From that moment on, Abner stepped away from his tiny, helpless daughter. Never would he hold her in his arms, nor would he ever feel a father’s love for this child. Perhaps he believed her too weak and small to survive harsh, frontier conditions; he would lose her one way or another. Perhaps he saw surrender as the price he had to pay for the favor of the inscrutable Seneca. Whatever his intentions, he would reveal his thoughts to no one.

That afternoon, the party collected their bundles, moving on up the mountain to the deserted, assortment of small cabins in the Deer clan’s maple grove. Lucinda, in a fitful sleep, was carried on a litter. Meryl lay down pine boughs on the rough wood pallets inside the cabins. Not the grand accommodations the family had once known, but an improvement on the damp cold ground out in the open. Still, Abner sulked; unaccustomed to the backwoods, he was impatient to be on his way.

The cabins built of downed logs from the grove’s clearing, had been swept clean and were in good repair as though waiting to be occupied. Fire pits formed from river rock dotted the open spaces outside the cabins. Blue Heron called the place The Outpost. Pine asked her who had built the cabins.

The men who hold up sticks, she responded, adding that, the men would return when the trees turn green

Ahhhh, surveyors. He smiled, nodded understanding.

Sometime in the afternoon, she disappeared as quietly as she had come, leaving the babe in the cradleboard. Pine hoped she would return before the trees turned green. He admired her natural beauty and gentle manner.

Young Royal had found a champion in Elijah Pine. Eager to learn the ways of a woodsman, for him misfortune had become a grand adventure.

Pine enjoyed the company of his young companion, instructing his charge to keep an eye peeled for deer an’ critters. We gotta eat. He teased with rumbling laughter. If’n ya’ sees a bar, play dead, or run like lightnin’.

Mountain nights turned cold this late in autumn. With only a few blankets or quilts between humanity and the elements, providence again would intervene. Before nightfall to warm their sleeping pallets, fur robes appeared as though by magic outside the cabin doors. Then from the deep woods, soundlessly, the half-breed woman appeared. She took the newborn from her cradleboard and held the infant to her breast.

This was not to be the end of fortuitous events inspired by the Indian way of life. Late the following morning, two white men appeared at the Outpost. Abner was so pleased to see pale faces that his own lit up with pleasure for the first time since he left New Hampshire. The men were Quakers from the training farm down river. Chester Osgood, the director of the farm and his associate, Brownell, who had medical training.

Friend Brownell will have a look at thine wife and thine child, if thee wishes, Osgood offered upon meeting Abner.

I’d be most obliged, Sir, Abner replied as he led the way into the cabin.

Down at the river’s edge, Pine met Blue Heron’s brother, Crooked Foot, the young warrior who had brought the Quakers to the outpost in his birch-bark canoe. This proud half-breed would not let a withered limb become a handicap and through his contact with the Quakers he spoke the white man’s tongue. As men do, he and Pine passed the time with talk of hunting and fishing until the Quakers and Abner, engaged in serious discussion, trudged down the mountain trail.

Crooked Foot hobbled to the water’s edge steadying the canoe. Brownell stepped aboard. Stepping gingerly into the canoe, Osgood addressed Abner. If I may, a word of caution, Friend.

Please, be free to speak your mind, Sir.

The way she’s been of late, a fool takes on the river in a dory. A plain-spoken man, Chester Osgood was of a genial nature. The natives build a fine conveyance, he continued. Thee may put thine faith in the Indians hereabouts. The Seneca will lead thee on the right path. Waving farewell as Crooked Foot paddled into the current, the sturdy canoe headed down river, tossing about like a toy in a hurricane.

Safe journey, Abner called after them, fearing the river would swallow them.

Standing on the bank, Pine and Abner watched the upright canoe disappear round the bend before they headed up the steep trail to the outpost, climbing a distance before Abner spoke.

Young Brownell says he often sees conditions like Lucinda’s. He calls her state … childbirth malaise, from blood loss and trauma. She’ll recover, if she’s meant to, ‘in her own time’, he says.

Pine nodded understanding. And the babe? he asked.

About two months early, Brownell reckons. No way to tell if she will live.

As they climbed through the thickening forest, Abner grew more winded. Osgood says the Indian women make fine mothers. With Blue Heron, Abner gasped at the end of his breath, the infant has a chance.

Pine believed that to be true. They reached a level area where they rested on a rock formation. We’ll be stayin’ on a while. Is that your thinkin’, Sir?

Abner took a deep breath, filling his lungs with pure, mountain air before he replied. My wife can’t be moved, nor can the child. And Osgood says the river is too risky just yet. ... Well you heard the man. He shrugged.

They trudged on upward.

Pine could see that Welborne was disheartened, impatient to be on his way to Ohio Country. He offered reassurance. Well Sir, we can make do. Could be in a worse place. There was a rare and beautiful quality in this setting they had chanced upon; Pine was quite taken with the place, as well as the fine, Seneca woman who had joined them. For him, staying through the coming winter presented no unforeseen hardships. The Indians seemed friendly enough, though he remained watchful.

A plan forming in Abner’s mind, from him there would be no response.

The following afternoon, Crooked Foot returned from his village with a mess of lake trout slung over his shoulder. The trout were incidental to a more important mission: powders which he carried in a skin pouch – a tonic for Lucinda.

Brownell, the Quaker, had given Meryl instructions in the use of medicines the Indians made and how to add the powders to her mother’s tea and broth; the most she could ingest in her gravely weakened state.

Most often swaddled in her cradleboard, the babe seldom cried. Blue Heron cared for Lucinda’s babe as though the girl child were her own. The Seneca woman shared a cabin with the babe, Meryl and Lucinda, while the male residents of the outpost sleep in a cabin nearby. Building a small hut from where he came and went on various missions, Crooked Foot stayed on to be near his sister. Unknown to the Welbornes, his most vital mission was to keep away the wolves, fox or bear and any other danger, animal or human.

When several days had gone by a curious Abner inquired of Pine, What does the half-breed call the child?

Blue Heron calls the babe, Little Wren, Pine answered.

Ahhhhh, and so she is, Abner agreed, the babe’s name of no concern to him. And what do the Seneca call you, Pine? he questioned.

They call me, Brave Brother, he responded, pleased to have their hosts’ respect. Had he asked Elijah would not have told the red-bearded one the name the Seneca had given Abner. Words in English meaning – Itchy Feet.

Abner didn’t ask; he didn’t care. He was unusually impatient even for a man who was known to have a restless spirit – and some said, flighty. Here was a man ill-suited for the rigors of life in the backwoods, and he knew it. He couldn‘t bear the place. Before the snow fell, he would see a way out of his dilemma.

Supplies were running low. The way he saw it, it was up to the head of the family to brave the treacherous river, provide provisions to see the encampment through the months ahead. The Quaker had been correct in his judgment: Indian canoes were better suited for this purpose. A bargain was struck with Cooked Foot. With barely a word to the family, one morning, Abner and Crooked Foot left the Outpost as the sun came up. The Indian’s skill would see them through a wild and harrowing transport to the town of Fort Franklin.

A few days before the mountains would be clothed in winter white, Crooked Foot alone returned with needed supplies and a letter from Abner.

My Dear Lucinda,

I have sent the Seneca man with ample supplies to see you and children through the winter months.

In the mercantile, I was fortunate to make the acquaintance of a Mr. Bennett, a man of commerce from Ohio, who offers me employment. As you know, my funds are running low and it occurs to me that my time be better spent in pursuits for which I am well suited. In that spirit, I have accepted Mr. Bennett’s kind offer and will stay in Ohio country through the winter.

Know I will return for you and the children in the spring when the river is once again navigable.

Your husband, Abner

Young Meryl read the brief and puzzling letter to her mother again and again. Lucinda seemed not to comprehend, nor did Meryl comprehend, the meaning of what was to be her father’s last communication. In her mind, the party had no choice but to await Papa’s return.

Very soon the wild river receded, slept, a sleep that calmed its fiercest thundering.

Chapter Three

BESIDE THE MOUNTAIN LAKE HELD SACRED BY THE SENECA, Tall Elk’s village was set in a sweeping bend a short paddle upstream, or a half-day’s walk on well-worn paths along its banks. At times of festival, the thundering beat of water drums, native ritual chants and singing resounded through the valleys. Heard in the cabins at the outpost, the Welborne children tensed, fearfully, looked about.

Pine reassured them. You hear their church sounds, their hymn singing, he told Meryl and Royal who in turn soothed their mother. The Indian ways are strange to us; they abide their Prophet’s code. They are good people.

Pine knew this band of Seneca lived by the Good Word of Handsome Lake, known to them as, Peace Prophet, a sachem, who adapted to Anglo ways. Somewhat modified, but not forgotten, the Prophet’s ways retained the Old Ways of the Ancients.

If not entirely secure, the party had become comfortable in their little community, which to them at this time seemed a temporary refuge. Crooked Foot came and went about the normal duties of caring for his sister, absent from her village for a time, but not forgotten. The children accepted Pine as leader; they followed his direction. Blue Heron was most always about the place gathering firewood, cooking on the open hearth and caring for the babe.

Most often secured in her cradleboard, Little Wren went everywhere with Blue Heron and the babe began to thrive. When the mid-winter rites were held, the babe was adopted by the Deer clan as replacement for her caretaker’s stillborn child. Bonded with Blue Heron those first months at the outpost, this tiny girl was destined to survive.

Gradually, Lucinda grew stronger, though she tired easily and could not fathom where she was or what had happened to her; her mind most affected by the sudden shock of childbirth.

Young Royal, a strong, bright boy taken under Pine’s wing, soon learned to fish and hunt small game showing off, and roasting his trophies on fire pits in the palisades between the cabins.

Blue Heron and Meryl found companionship in each other learning to speak everyday words in each other’s tongue, baking corn cakes and biscuits and keeping a cauldron of porridge simmering on the hearth. Around the fire, they made simple garments and wove baskets, learning from each other, becoming friends. Singing Water, Birdsong and the matrons came to visit when the weather was mild.

Food was not always plentiful but adequate; the cabins tolerable due to strong backs and sharp axes. This winter’s white season brought only light dustings of powder and mild temperature changes. Good fortune the Seneca laid at the feet of Brave Brother. The Black giant’s Orenda they believed brought favor to the people and their lands.

Blue Heron loved Pine from afar. He yearned for the nearness of her, but kept a respectful distance – ancestral courting rituals playing out in silence.

It was Crooked Foot who told Pine of their heritage: Seeker-of-Truth, founder of the village and father of Tall Elk, found a white child wandering in the forest as though she’d dropped out of the tree tops. A maiden, pale-skinned, brown haired, so high, Crooked Foot’s description. He held his hand about the height of a child of several summers. Our founder carried the child back to the Deer lodge where he put her in the care of Singing Water. The Deer clan found the child most pleasing. In time, Singing Water adopted the girl giving her the name, Fortunate Child.

Their mother, known to them as Fortunate Woman, took on the Seneca mystique which she passed on to her daughter, Blue Heron, fathered by Swift Eagle of the Wolf clan. Both parents died when cholera struck Cornplanter town where they were visiting.

There came a day when Pine had gathered bundles of strong twigs under his muscled forearms; his intention to craft a crib for the rapidly growing Little Wren. As his work progressed in the palisade, he need not see Blue Heron to know that she was watching; her soft brown eyes causing his innards to swell. He spoke to her in the Seneca tongue. I make a cabin cradle for the growing babe. It will swing from the rafters. He swayed to and fro, a rocking motion.

She nodded understanding. A light in her eyes as she gazed up at him from where she perched on a fallen log.

He nodded in return, went on lacing twigs together with strips of leather twine.

Hearts beating in a symbiotic rhythm had no need for words.

Careful not to touch him nor disturb his work, in due time with pure and simple innocence, Blue Heron spoke. When the babe is weaned, Brave Brother will come into Blue Heron’s bed.

Pine would not be taken by surprise.

Blue Heron continued, her face possessing radiance as though she saw into the future and all was known to her. Make the cradle strong as the strongest boughs in the strongest trees, Brave Brother. She moved her torso to and fro. Our sons and daughters will swing there soon.

Elijah need not answer. In her words he saw his future.

The long winter passes as it has for all the many generations back in time, before the land awakens.

Early Green season. A cleansing falls from the heavens; warm breezes prance; the Earth exhales her powerful, pungent fragrance. Anticipation stirs the senses, sets the spirits leaping, hearts to singing songs of love.

Blue Heron prowls the woods about the cabin, searching out the sugar maples’ sap-laden trunks, her nimble fingers lifting shards of bark. Tasting sweet tears on her tongue, she consults her brother.

Meryl and Royal looked on. Though back in New Hampshire they had observed as white folks tapped bare trees, hung buckets catching nectar, they were unprepared for the invasion of Seneca that was to come.

The sweep began just after sun-up. Late sleepers roused themselves. Still blurry-eyed they peered through heavy mist. In the clearings, activity burst forth: Men, women, young ones, iron kettles, oaken buckets; litters, wound together in a practiced, purposed symphony of sound and color – for generation, this plot of ground, the Deer clans’ sweet-maple grove.

The sugar maples all were tapped, hollow sticks inserted, a wooden bucket hung below to catch sweet nectar. Fires were started, shelters built, baskets emptied, blankets, furs and clothing aired across the bushes. Women went off to the spring for water; men off on their hunts. The young ones gather switches, wove them into garlands, tied on leaves and feathers with strips of colored cloth. There is almost no discussion; each man, woman, child knows exactly what to do.

At the center of the enterprise, Singing Water, encircled by her kin, basks, her stoic manner transformed in pure contentment.

Free from her cradleboard, Little Wren with Meryl, her bright eyes taking in festivity, waves her arms and giggles.

The sun straight up in clear-blue sky, the camp was made, the trees were tapped the people set about to feasting. In the afternoon, the iron kettles would be set upon the fires, the buckets emptied, sweet tapings boiled to a crusty sugar.

Throughout the clamor, in the small, dark cabin, Lucinda lay upon her pallet in a fitful daze. In the months of her confinement, her salt and pepper mane had turned a frosty white. Deep crevices set in around her mouth, her eyes sunken and lifeless. She has become a shadow of the woman she once was; a feeble specter that her children barely know.

In her haste to join the celebration, Meryl had left the cabin door ajar; a heavy, pleasing aroma wafting in the air around the cabin, traveling on brisk breezes, slipping through the slender separations between the light and dark.

Gasping, Lucinda murmurs, nostalgic flashes tweak her troubled soul; pictures spring into her mind: fresh white, pink, yellow blossoms, suggest springtime in New Hampshire. Although she fears she is no longer in New Hampshire – her beloved New Hampshire – the fragrance energizing.

She sits up, swings her legs to the side of the pallet. In time, the ringing in her ears subsides. Unsteadily, she stands, pulls a quilt around a linen nightdress. Her head clears as she shuffles barefoot across the cold, dirt floor. Reaching the cabin door, she swings it wide, lets the pleasing scent engulf her.

Pine and Royal had gone deep into the forest – war games with the village men and boys. Only women, girls and young ones remain in the grove, aside from a few old warriors who sit against a shelter smoking home grown from well-seasoned pipes. When the time came, they would act as drummers for the afternoon events. Logs for seating had been rolled around a circular plot of ground in preparation for Towisa – the women’s rites. Her clan encircling, Singing Water takes her honored place.

When all is ready, a low, pulsing beat of drums commences – the call to ancient ritual. No one sees, or so it seems, a barefoot woman wrapped in an old, dark quilt creeping timidly from tree to tree. Averting eyes, the native women know, they need not fear this stranger.

Mournful chants of pain and sorrow in honor of the dead commence … conclude, hymns of praise begin … conclude. After a respectful interval, Thanks-to-the-Maple rings out; joyful blessings on the giving spirit of the trees, the animals, the guardians of nature. Those present sway in rhythm with the all-embracing chants.

At the end of the log enthralled beside her friends, sits Meryl with Little Wren. Some time would pass before the sisters feel a presence close behind.

There comes the timeless, melodies of life’s renewal, of birth, of mothers’ milk, of human kindness; trills reaching deep, ever deeper into the body and the spirit of a woman. Pure wonder lights Lucinda’s face. She glows with knowing.

Aware now of a presence, Meryl turns about to see her mother swaying. Her heart skips beats, fluttering in her chest. Their roles reversed for all the months she’d tended to her mother, Meryl longed to see a sign of comprehension in her mother’s eyes. Mama! Meryl gasps. Oh! How wonderful. She rises, easing Lucinda into the place she‘d left beside her sister. No one looks in their direction. Making room for one more, the women of the Deer clan inch closer on the log. Drums beseech the guardian spirit; voices reach the human soul. In choruses of deepest yearning, abiding faithfulness, the ancient rites conclude with the passionate strains of hope.

The chanters then disperse among the young ones, a moment’s respite to nurse babes, drift into the woods, refreshing themselves.

Throughout the singing, tears well up in Lucinda’s eyes, streaming down her pale cheeks, dropping to her long, muslin nightdress. A wail escapes her heaving chest, sobs come one upon another more from joy than anguish. Meryl puts her arm around her mother. Sobs will seek an ebb and flow. Her tears a graced release from the solitude of her confinement.

Presently, Singing Water stands before Lucinda. Blue Heron at her side, she holds a pair of doe skin boots adorned with beadwork, fringe and shell. Blue Heron helps Lucinda slide bare feet inside. The women lay a garland on her slender shoulders. Singing Water speaks in words Lucinda does not understand. No matter, she believes this native woman to have the most calm, most kind, all-knowing eyes she has ever known. Her tears abate.

Grandmother Singing Water say ... ‘Now women will dance, a dance of joy,’ Blue Heron relates.

Native women drape the garlands young ones had fashioned, tie on brilliant streamers. Meryl takes Lucinda by the hand, they dance, draped in garlands, strung together with their sisters, a chain never to be broken.

Water drums sound a steady, urgent beat too irresistible for any woman’s feet; the women step-bounce, step-bounce counterclockwise in a circle around the drummer’s bench. With each small repeated