10 

Moon Song had observed that white people only slept at night. Someone who slept during the day, unless ill or a child or an old person like the camp cook who had worked with Katie, was considered lazy.

She had learned differently from her people, especially her grandfather, a great hunter, who grabbed snatches of sleep when the animals were sleeping, the better to be alert and ready when it was time to hunt. She, too, had trained herself to fall instantly asleep, and to be just as instantly awake.

There was not one thing she could do until the rain stopped. Then she would go see what the pantry of the countryside had in store for them. Thanks to Grandmother, there were few plants for which she did not know the medicinal or edible use. Early spring was not the best time to go foraging, but if one knew where to look, one could almost always find something. And so, reasonably content beneath the sheltering rock, she curled up in the velvety dust and fell sound asleep to the sound of waves crashing on the rocks below.

Visions of stewed squirrel or rabbit, perhaps some roasted fish, accompanied her into the oblivion of sleep.

“How can she do that?” Isabella asked.

“How can she do what?”

“Sleep like that, in the midst of all that is going on.”

“I guess she’s tired,” Skypilot said. “She’s worked harder than both of us.”

“I know, but she’s smiling in her sleep.”

“Maybe she’s having a pleasant dream.”

“Under the circumstances, I would think she should be having nightmares. How are we going to get out of this mess?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Do you have any idea how far away we are from a settlement?”

“My best guess is sixty, maybe seventy miles. I heard the captain say that a place called Marquette was the next stop.”

“And we’re going to walk?”

“Unless you have a better idea.”

“What about food?” She had unpinned her hair and was now wringing out the rainwater as though wringing out a washrag. “How are we going to eat?”

What did he look like, a magician? He said the first thing that came to his mind. “I’ve heard of people surviving on grubs and worms.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“I agree, unless that’s all you have.”

“Certainly you can do better than that.”

“Me? I have no idea, but I’m hoping that girl over there who is smiling in her sleep knows a thing or two. I suggest we stop talking and let her get her rest so she can be clearheaded when she wakes up. In fact,” he said as he lay down on his side, “it might be wise to follow her example. There’s nothing we can do right now.”

“I won’t be able to sleep a wink.”

“Suit yourself. I’m worn out.”

He closed his eyes and pretended to sleep while she rustled around, trying to get comfortable.

“This is miserable.”

“Not as miserable as being in the lake.”

He felt sorry for the woman, but there wasn’t a thing he could do for her. He fell asleep to the sound of thunder.

Moon Song awakened in the morning to a clear day. Only the drip, drip, drip of water off the lip of their cave-house shelter gave any indication of the deluge they’d endured last night. No one else was stirring—not even Ayasha.

This was good. It gave her time to gather breakfast.

She made her way down the path, making plans. The quickest way to fill everyone up, she thought, would be with fish. It took time to make a rabbit or small game snare, and more time to wait for something to blunder into it. Instead, she found a long, slender stick and made it into a spear by lashing the knife to the end of the stick.

Then the fun came. Oh how she had missed this!

Wading out to her knees, she stood as still as a crane, completely motionless, poised with her makeshift spear in hand. She waited for several minutes, not moving, her eyes roving the shallow water. It was early morning and the lake had calmed. She had grown up beside this lake and knew its moods as well as she knew her own. It was as though it had thrown a tantrum last night, and having used up all its anger was now as placid as a small child sucking on a cone of maple sugar. Hopefully it would be in the mood to give up a fish or two this morning.

If a ship didn’t pass soon, she would have to take them overland, which was a problem because she was not familiar with this part of the lake. She knew much more about the western side. Unfortunately, the western side was becoming overrun with white people.

There were white people like Katie, Robert, Skypilot, and Delia whom she liked and trusted, but she thought the ones who worked over where her people lived were crazy. They sank deep tunnels in the earth, digging out the shiny bright copper that turned green the minute it was exposed to air. Her people had used this metal for years. In some places the metal actually laid exposed on top of the ground, available to anyone who wanted to take the time to shape it into some useful or decorative article. Her people had done this for as long as the oldest grandfather of her tribe could remember and beyond.

The white people, however, had not been satisfied with the chunks they found close to the surface. They dug deeper and deeper, taking out wagonloads of the metal, building huge buildings where it was rumored they had large machines that crushed the rocks so that they could get every last bit of copper out to put on their ships to carry away.

There! She thrust the spear downward, striking as quickly as a rattlesnake, the muscles in her arm coiled tight from the wait. She felt the satisfying crunch as the knife went through a fish, and then she brought it up out of the water, wriggling and fighting. It was nice-sized, a good meal for one hungry person or enough to satisfy at least a little hunger for all of them if this was all she could catch this morning.

She could not stand in the cold water any longer, so she stepped out while she gutted the fish and allowed her legs to warm.

Soon she would be very warm. They all would. She had found a great gift this morning. They were not the first people to use that particular rock shelter. The first thing she’d seen when she’d opened her eyes was something more precious than food. Lying on a small ledge above her head was a piece of flint, left behind by someone else who had taken shelter there at one time. It could have been left there yesterday or a thousand summers ago, but she was grateful. It was possible to make a fire without a flint, but it was time-consuming and nearly impossible after a rain had drenched everything combustible.

She waded into the water again. Even moving shadows could frighten a fish, so she moved slowly, carefully. Then she took up her stance again, ready to spring, hoping the lake would provide more food.

Skypilot awoke with a start. He glanced around, disoriented. His exhaustion was so deep and his sleep had been so profound, it took him a moment to remember why there was a rock ceiling above him, a woman lying in mud-encrusted red velvet nearby, and a baby leaning against the stone wall, blinking solemn coal-black eyes at him.

Then he came to his senses, shook his head, rubbed his eyes, and realized that Moon Song was gone. He duckwalked out from under the rocky overhang and then stood and stretched to his full height. The clouds had disappeared, the rain was gone, the air was fresh, and they had escaped death twice in the past few hours.

His eye was caught by a slender figure standing in the shallows of the lake down below. It was Moon Song, still as a statue, looking down. It struck him as a strange thing for her to be doing until he saw the spear in her hand flash downward and come up with a fish flapping on the other end.

Moon Song had gone fishing?

His mouth began to water at the thought of fried fish. Then he realized he would have to eat them raw, and his stomach recoiled at the thought. He would have to be a lot closer to starving before he could chew raw fish and keep it down.

Still, watching that beautiful girl standing so quietly in the water, every muscle taut and ready to spring, did something to his stomach that had nothing at all to do with food.

It was obvious to him now that he had spent an entire winter underestimating her. He had been kind, but he had never taken her seriously as she stumbled over English words and struggled with white mannerisms.

As he had recuperated from his injuries, she had been a source of entertainment and sometimes a delight as he realized how lightning swift she was to learn, but she’d also seemed innocent and childlike, so much younger than she truly was.

In Bay City, she had seemed awkward and out of place, prowling about the city, wearing white women’s clothes with her baby on her back. All who had known her in the camp had loved her, but she had become a worry and sometimes a bit of an embarrassment to him and the Fosters once they came into town.

But here?

Watching her here was like watching a graceful doe melt into the shadows of the forest. The perfection of it tugged at his heart.

She struck again and came up with another fish.

Standing there in the shallows of the lake, poised and natural, dressed in the fashion her people had worn forever, she was in her element, and she took his breath away.

Now he and Isabella were the ones out of place and awkward. Moon Song belonged here. They did not.

Funny how he had never really seen her before. Watching her like this—so intent on her task, framed against the beauty of the lake—was like candy to his eyes.

Ah. Fishing was over now. She had evidently caught as much as she wanted. He watched as she worked over the fish, squatted and rinsed them out, then slipped the knife back into her boot and came walking up the path.

He steeled himself against the miserable thought of chewing raw fish. He’d do it, though. Not only to avoid starvation but to keep from hurting Moon Song’s feelings.

“Looks like you’ve been busy,” he said when she entered.

“Fish will taste good.” She was obviously well pleased with herself.

“I’ve never eaten raw fish before,” he confessed.

“Raw?” She made a face and shuddered. “Why eat it raw?”

Fascinated, he watched as she placed the fish on a rock and then walked into the shallow rock house. When she came out, she had a piece of rock in her hand and some small bits and pieces of wood that looked like the remains of an old fire. Then she looked around until she saw a large tree, long dead, lying on the ground a few feet away. It had broken when it fell from the heights above them, and the end of it was not only rotten but hollow inside. She pulled her knife out and dug into the heart of that hollow.

“Here.” She handed him a couple of handfuls of dry pith that she had dug out. Then she searched until she found a few dead limbs lying about. Carrying the pith, he followed her over to a place near the overhang where she’d put the pieces of dry wood she’d found.

She took the dry, rotten wood from his hands, made a small mound of it, and then began to make sparks fly from the flint stone by striking it with her knife.

“Where did you get that?”

“Inside. On rock shelf.”

She ignored him while she concentrated on gently blowing a spark that had fallen on the pith into a small flame. Soon the dry pieces of wood were also afire, and she began to feed some of the damp, dead wood into the flames. Within minutes, she had a good, strong fire going, and Isabella had awakened.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Moon Song is cooking breakfast for us.”

Isabella’s eyes opened wide. “Breakfast?”

“Fresh-caught fish.”

“How?”

“She speared them.”

Moon Song left for a few minutes, then came back with several small green twigs. One was forked and it formed the base for whatever it was she was making. Her fingers flew as she wove those twigs together in a shape that reminded him vaguely of a very small snowshoe. When the twigs were woven together, she laid the fish on it, split-side down, then wove three more twigs over it, securing it to her green-twigged cooking implement.

Holding the fish expertly secured in the woven cooking device over the fire, she roasted the fish first on one side, then turned it over to roast on the other. Soon it had turned flaky, and steam rose from it.

“It is done.” She withdrew the three twigs, shook the now-cooked fish out onto a clean flat rock she had brought close to the fire, and handed the warmed “plate” to Skypilot.

“Ladies first.” He passed the dish to Isabella, who fell upon the fish like the starving person she was.

Moon Song frowned. “Braves eat first in my tribe.”

“It’s different for whites,” Skypilot said. “The polite thing to do is to allow the women to go first.”

“Oh.” Quickly, she positioned the second fish on the woven twig cooking device, and held it over the fire.

“I don’t believe I’ve ever eaten without a fork,” Isabella mused as she wiped her hands on her skirt. “As a child I was taught that it was rude to eat with my fingers.”

“If we make it out of here,” Skypilot said, “I promise not to tell anyone.”

Isabella smiled as she picked up the last bits and dropped them into her mouth.

“Ingenious,” Skypilot said as the second fish started steaming. His mouth began to water as he anticipated the taste of the fresh-caught lake fish. In minutes it was done. Moon Song placed it on the small warming stone. He started to reach for it, then stopped when Moon Song calmly began to eat what she’d cooked.

Ladies first. Of course.

It was hard to wait, but she soon finished, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and began to prepare his fish. She had obeyed the letter of his law.

“Let cool,” she instructed as she placed the fish on the third stone. “Fish hot.”

Skypilot snatched a piece off the still-hot rock and flipped it from hand to hand for a few seconds before tossing it into his mouth. It was quite possibly the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten. Being careful of bones, he gobbled up every ounce of the savory food.

The burning hunger in his gut eased, and he relaxed against one of the boulders near the fire, enjoying the warmth. Soon, he saw steam rising from his damp clothes, and he thanked God for the discovery of that piece of flint and the amazing Indian woman who knew how to use it.

Moon Song now rose and carried Ayasha down to the lake, where she rinsed him off, dried him, and wrapped him in one of the pieces of leftover sheets, and then brought him to Skypilot.

“You hold,” she said. “I find moss.”

Skypilot held the damp baby, who was now studying him with those dark eyes. What would it feel like to have and then lose a child like this? He could not fathom how Isabella was feeling, and yet she seemed to be a fairly strong woman who was coping the best she could under the circumstances. He just hoped she was strong enough.