It was the middle of the night when I woke. A fly was buzzing in my ear and the annoyance had brought me to my senses. Creeping forward, I took the risk of approaching the campfire. I could still see the glow, but it looked as if it had been allowed to burn down to the embers. There seemed to be four dark bundles lying in a circle around it: the girl and her three friends, asleep, I guessed. Giving them a wide berth, I dropped on to the beach near the boats. The canoes had been drawn well out of the water behind a large rock. Glancing towards the sleepers, I tiptoed to the nearest vessel. Several leather-wrapped bundles lay on the bottom. Savages though the Indians were, I felt bad enough about stealing one of their canoes; I wasn’t about to take their stuff too. As quietly as possible, I lifted their belongings out and placed them carefully on the sand.
Thwack! A blow caught me on the side of the face, sending me spinning into the river. I gasped, taking a mouthful of water, then panicked. The Indians may have caught me but I was determined not to be taken alive! My attempt to wade deeper into the river was thwarted by a hand grabbing me by the top of the head and dragging me back to the beach.
‘Found you!’ crowed Maclean triumphantly. He shook me until my teeth rattled, then threw me to the ground. ‘You are coming back with me, but not before I’ve taught you a lesson!’
I didn’t know what scared me more: the murderous look in the purser’s eye as he grappled for his whip or the fear that he would wake the sleepers.
‘Indians!’ I gasped, scrabbling away on my hands and feet.
Maclean was too intent on his revenge to take any notice. He swung the cat-o’nine-tails; I twisted like a snake – the ends bit the sand.
‘Stay still and take your punishment!’ he shouted.
Terrified, I backed away until I hit the rock. Covering my head with my hands, I waited for the blow to fall.
It didn’t come. A pebble clattered at my feet. I looked up to see Maclean shaking his hand in agony. A tall, thin man with two long black braids stepped out of the shadows.
‘Put it down,’ he said in halting English, pointing at the whip.
Two more men appeared at his side – behind them the girl, this time swinging a catapult, looking mightily pleased with herself.
Maclean took a step backwards and held up his hands, the whip drooping in his numbed grip.
‘I am friend of the Creeks,’ he declared. ‘You see him; the boy was trying to steal your boat. Let me punish him.’
The leader turned to look at me cowering at the foot of the rock. After my ducking in the river, my hair was straggling over my face and my clothes were soaked.
‘It is girl,’ the Indian said simply, not fooled by my disguise.
‘Ye-es, but she was stealing from you nonetheless,’ said Maclean with a gesture towards the canoe.
‘We watch. She took things out. We not know what she want.’
‘It’s clear enough, isn’t it? She was going to steal a boat and run to the mainland.’ Maclean’s fists curled. This delay did not suit his fiery nature at all. ‘She’s wicked – evil – an outcast of her people. Leave her to me.’
I had no intention of being in Maclean’s power ever again. I made a rapid decision, praying my choice was sound.
‘Please, don’t hand me over to him,’ I begged the Indian on my knees. ‘I’m sorry about the boat. I was just trying to get away from him.’
The Indian approached and raised me from the ground, keeping a strong grip on my elbow. He touched my cheek with his fingertips. I flinched. Maclean’s blow had given me another bruise to add to my collection.
‘Come to fire. We talk.’
He towed me along in his wake and directed me to sit down on one of the heaps of blankets – decoys, I now realized, to make me think they were all asleep. The Indians must have known about me for some time but waited until I made my move before deciding if my intentions were hostile. That gave me hope that they were not going to do anything rash in revenge for my attempt to steal a boat. I was thankful they had given me the benefit of the doubt; I wouldn’t have stood a chance against all four of them.
The girl threw some more wood on the fire as the leader looked again at my cheek. He said something in his own language to the older of the other two men. Much to Maclean’s disgust, this man drew out a pot of ointment from his pocket and gently rubbed it on the bruise. Satisfied, the leader sat down and crossed his legs. The others took positions around the fire, the girl immediately opposite me where I could see her dark eyes glittering in the firelight. They waited.
Maclean was the first to break the silence. He had obviously been working out what he was going to say during the brief interlude. He turned to the leader.
‘Honoured sir, as I said, I am an old friend of the Creeks. This girl is my kin; I claim her. She must return with me to my ship.’
The leader ignored the latter part of this speech. ‘Old friend? Creeks have no old friends among white men.’
Maclean gave a snort. ‘Your fathers will remember me, young man. I am Maclean, agent of Captain Barton.’
From the looks of consternation that passed round the little group, I guessed that this name was well known but not welcome.
‘We remember Captain Barton,’ acknowledged the leader. ‘I am Tecumseh. My father knew him.’
Maclean nodded. ‘Then he also knew me. I am pleased to meet you, Tecumseh – a fine son of a fine man.’
I was sinking further into low spirits. If Maclean got all pally with these Creeks I was done for one way or another. I clutched my knees to my chest, waiting for the next move.
‘This is my . . .’ Tecumseh searched for the English word, ‘uncle, Killbuck.’ He nodded at the older man who had put the balm on my bruise. He was a head shorter than his nephew and his hair was shot through with silver. ‘And this is my brother and sister, Little Turtle and Kanawha.’
Little Turtle was a stocky young man with a stubborn jaw, a complete contrast to his willowy brother and sister. I could see how he might have earned his name for there was something hard-shelled about him. I guessed he would be a tenacious fighter. Kanawha most closely resembled Tecumseh: slender and handsome with her brown eyes and long dark hair worn loose. She bore herself with elegant poise, or at least that’s what I would have said if this had been a London ballroom and not the savage shore of America. Here ‘elegant’ did not seem to fit.
Maclean bowed to the listeners, clearly believing himself on the home straight.
‘I am honoured to sit at your fireside, friends. But sadly I cannot stay, for my ship sails and I must return before dawn. I will take the girl and leave you in peace.’ He cast a triumphant glance at me. I lowered my head to my knees, plumbing new depths of despair. In the silence, the wind picked up, rustling the leaves and making the fire flare. A spark spat out at my feet, catching light on dry sea grass. I ground it out with my heel, thinking all hope extinguished.
But then it happened.
‘We are sad to lose our friend Mac Clan, but the girl does not have to go with you,’ said Tecumseh levelly.
Maclean drew a sharp intake of breath. ‘But she is mine, I tell you.’
Tecumseh shook his head slightly. ‘No. When since do white men enslave white women? Is she your wife? She is too young for Mac Clan. You claim you are kin, but what kinsman would treat his kinswoman as you treat her? If she were your dog, I would let her free.’
I couldn’t believe my ears, nor could Maclean from the expression on his face. Livid didn’t cover the half of it.
‘No, you can’t . . . I have to take her back with me . . . I demand that you give her to me!’ He rose abruptly but Little Turtle slid between us, blocking his path. Maclean turned back to Tecumseh. ‘By what right do you keep her? I am your friend; she is your enemy!’
The girl broke into a peal of laughter. ‘Enemy? She is no threat to us – she moves through trees like a herd of buffalo!’ She stomped her feet on the ground in imitation of my attempts to pass unheard.
‘Enough, Kanawha,’ interrupted Tecumseh. He turned to me. ‘Girl, what is your name?’
‘Cat,’ I said in a whisper.
‘And, Cat,’ he said the name hesitantly, ‘is this man your kinsman?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Do you wish to go with him?’
I shook my head fervently.
‘There: that is clear. Friend Mac Clan go back to his ship; Girl Cat stay here.’ The other three nodded their agreement.
Maclean was having none of it. ‘No!’ He turned to the older man, Killbuck. ‘You, sir, speak to your nephew: for the sake of our past friendship, the Creek people owe me this much.’
Killbuck had a strange expression as he looked back at the purser. ‘I remember our past dealings with Mac Clan. Friendships die. Regrets come. We have no friends now.’
Maclean was struggling to control his temper. ‘If I can get no justice from you, I will speak to your chief then. Where is he?’
‘Chief of the Wind Clan is not far,’ said Tecumseh, refusing to be ruffled by the slur on his judgement. ‘We take you to him.’
Maclean gave a groan of frustration, clearly wondering how long he could afford to stay away from the Courageous. ‘Can we leave now? See him at once?’
Tecumseh nodded. ‘We leave now. Vhoyvkets!’ The Indians rose as one and swiftly broke camp, stowing their gear and scattering the ashes; soon there was no sign they had ever been there. Tecumseh approached and put a hand on my shoulder, gazing into my face with his calm dark eyes. I felt my fear ebb away. I knew who the savage was now and it wasn’t Tecumseh. ‘Girl Cat, you travel in my canoe.’
I nodded, grateful that he wasn’t making me ride with Maclean.
The girl dodged round the purser and grabbed my arm. ‘Come, I show you.’
The three Indian men pushed the boats out into the shallows. The canoes were made from hollowed logs that could be either poled or paddled, depending on the river. Maclean clambered in with Killbuck; Kanawha helped me into the biggest canoe while her brother steadied it. They then turned for the mainland and began paddling across the water. They bent and dipped the oars in rhythm as if they were moving in time to a song I couldn’t hear.
I shivered, still dazed by my changing fortunes. A blanket was draped over my shoulders from behind.
‘Thank you, Kanawha,’ I said, trying the name out on my tongue. It tasted strange – a language I had no handle upon, slipping out of my control.
She chuckled, amused by my clumsy pronunciation.
A thought then struck me. ‘Mr Tecumseh, sir?’
The Indian raised the paddle. Water ran down the edge of the blade, dripping like quicksilver into the water. ‘Yes, Girl Cat?’
‘When you said the chief was near, how near did you mean?’
Tecumseh smiled. ‘Two days upstream.’
Maclean wasn’t going to like that; no, not one little bit.
The fireworks began at dawn when Maclean realized that we were still heading up the Frederica River with no sign of nearing an Indian settlement.
‘Put us ashore!’ he bellowed at Killbuck. ‘I’m taking the girl back right now!’
Killbuck continued to paddle as if nothing was happening.
‘Tecumseh, I’m warning you!’ shouted Maclean across the water. ‘You take me to the Courageous or you and your people will suffer the consequences!’
The young leader’s face remained impassive: he too was temporarily deaf.
Maclean then turned his attention to me. ‘You little witch! I’ll kill you when I lay my hands on you.’
Taking a leaf out of my hosts’ book, I feigned inscrutable composure – something that was much easier to do knowing there was a safe stretch of water between us. This drove Maclean over the edge. He lunged for the paddle and tried to wrestle it from Killbuck. All he received in return was a stunning blow to his head which knocked him back. He lay flat in the bottom of the boat, mouth still gaping at the shock that anyone might stand up to him.
Tecumseh said something to his sister. She laughed.
‘Why are you laughing?’ I asked, wondering if I could risk making conversation.
Kanawha sought for the words to translate. ‘Brother say, “What a peaceful morning now we enjoy.”’
I smiled to myself. Yes, peace at last.
Maclean sat up some minutes after the tussle clutching his head, but he must have decided his best course of action was to bide his time. I could feel his gaze like the heat of a fire on the back of my neck. He blamed me for this abduction, which was wonderfully ironic if you think about it. Despite worrying about my own fate, it was pleasant to reflect that he was getting a taste of his own medicine.
The day passed slowly as the three canoes made their way upstream, leaving arrow-shaped wakes as we plunged into the heart of this mysterious world. I passed the time gazing at the banks, trying to understand what I was seeing. I knew we were on the edge of a vast land, still barely known to white men. The forest seemed to stretch for ever; there were no landmarks that I could discern, no taverns or milestones, every stroke of the paddle taking me farther from home. How did the Indians find their way?
Kanawha had been watching me and interpreted my interest in line with her own.
‘There, good hunting,’ she said, pointing to a tangle of trees. ‘Weleetka. River good to fish. A happy place.’
I nodded. It felt the polite thing to do, as one would when a gentleman shows you the features of his estate. ‘Very . . . er . . . pleasant. Does it belong to your family?’
She shrugged. ‘Yes, that is what white men say. They give us rolls of paper saying ours but then return and take it away. I do not understand how it is ours if it is theirs also.’
I frowned. ‘But if the land is yours, by law they can’t take it. You should throw them out.’
Tecumseh, who had been listening to our conversation, nodded. ‘You are wise girl, Cat. You should be Indian.’
I felt a hand pull at my pigtail: it was Kanawha playing with my ginger hair, perhaps checking it was real. Her gesture reminded me that I was still dressed like a boy and no longer needed to keep up the disguise.
‘Can I borrow a comb?’ I asked.
She felt in her pouch and pulled one out. ‘I do it.’
Tugging off the string that had confined my hair, she let it fall free in straggling locks. She lifted an end and sniffed.
‘What is on it?’
‘A kind of grease – the sailors use it to keep their hair back.’ Maclean always insisted that I kept it under control so that no girly locks escaped.
‘Smells like whale.’
‘Probably is.’
‘Yuck.’
It did little for my self-esteem to be repulsive to people I had thought of as savages until a few hours ago. The canoe lay low in the water. The answer was obvious.
‘Excuse me a moment.’
I dipped my head into the river, making the canoe lurch. Kanawha shrieked and Tecumseh pulled me back.
‘You spill us out,’ he scolded. ‘Sit still. We stop soon.’
With cold water dripping down my neck, I watched as Tecumseh angled the canoe to the shore. We reached the little beach before the other boats. Kanawha skipped out, beckoning me to follow.
‘Quick,’ she called, ‘before Mac Clan gets here. We go wash. Brothers cook breakfast.’
I ran after her. She led me some way into the trees until we reached a little stream that fed into a stony pool. It was icy cold but I didn’t care. Stripping off my filthy sailor’s clothes, I plunged in. Kanawha dug in her pouch and threw me a bar of rough soap.
‘Come in: the water’s lovely,’ I lied, splashing her.
Laughing, she shook her head and backed away.
Once I had seen to myself, I turned my attention to my clothes. Rubbing with soap and beating them on the stones, I soon had them reasonably clean. The only problem now was that they were soaking wet. I began reluctantly to clamber back into them, shuddering at the unpleasant feel of wet cloth on my skin.
‘No, no. You die of cold,’ said Kanwaha seriously. ‘Wait here.’
She disappeared and after ten shivering minutes she returned from the camp bearing a pile of clothes. ‘These are mine. They fit you.’
The folded garments smelt a little of fish but were soft and dry. I pulled on a long green cotton blouse with a wide cape collar edged with silver coin brooches, somewhat like a gypsy’s shawl. The garment fell to my knees and was belted with a cloth appliqué tie, decorated with beads. I then stepped into a pair of black buckskin leggings edged with red. They felt comfortable and warm – so much better than petticoats or the ragged trousers I’d been wearing. Proud of my colourful new clothes, I held out my arms.
‘How do I look?’
Kanawha covered her mouth with her hand to laugh. ‘You are like Indian maid now.’ She took the comb out and attacked the tangles in my hair. ‘Now I plait.’
By the time she had finished I was completely transformed into a pale-skinned, red-haired Indian with hair bound back by a beaded ribbon.
‘Cat of the Cat Clan,’ she dubbed me, tapping my tattoo, which peeped out of the scooped neck of my tunic.
I bowed. ‘Greetings, Kanawha of the Wind Clan,’ I said formally.
‘Breakfast?’ she suggested.
‘Race you?’
And with shrieks of laughter we bounded through the trees like two deer with Spring fever.
She won of course.
Back on the river, I was enjoying being a passenger. My fate had been placed in the hands of others and I could do nothing. Accepting this, I let go of the fear that had burdened me for so long. Every hour Maclean spent trying to get me back gave Frank a chance to prove himself. I had achieved what I intended and it no longer mattered what became of me. I had no sense that these particular Creeks were planning to do any of the terrible things I’d read about. If anything, they were going out of their way to be friendly. All in all, for someone adrift in an alien land, I judged I wasn’t doing too badly.
Kanawha passed the time in the boat telling me stories of her people. Every sight and sound seemed to cue another legend, full of the creatures and scenery of this country. She told me how the Indians believed that the land was created by Crawfish, who stirred up the bottom of the sea so that mud came to the surface. Next, Buzzard flapped his wings and made it dry, forming hills and valleys. Then came Light, creeping at first into the world thanks to Star. Moon soon followed and finally Sun. When a drop of blood fell to earth, the first people sprang up in that place. That was certainly something I’d never heard mentioned in church on Sundays, but then my parish priest had told me we came from a garden, shaped by God from the dust, His breath in our bodies, so perhaps our beliefs were not so very different after all.
Sitting silently in the canoe as we travelled further into the unknown, drinking in story after story, I felt that Kanawha’s words were spinning a magic spell around me. The stories fitted this world, slipping into place like a foot into a well-worn shoe. My old life seemed so far away, as unreal now as this country had been to me when I’d heard travellers’ tales in London. Nothing that mattered to me there made any sense here. What was Drury Lane to a girl who knew nothing of plays and acting? Would Kanawha not find the idea more alien than any of her legends were to me?
As the riverbanks flowed by, Kanawha told yet more stories about how her people had learnt to hunt, to grow corn, and how they were taught to live in balance with the world they knew.
Until the white men.
When they came, many of her people were killed by the pox until the Indians were weakened, unable to hold on to what was theirs. Now they were continually being made to move on, dwindling into the woods or going west.
I couldn’t help feeling ashamed of my skin as she spoke. To her, we were the wily tricksters who bully when strong, lie when weak.
‘You must hate us,’ I commented after she had told me of yet another betrayal by my kind.
Kanawha looked surprised at the suggestion. ‘It is . . . complicated. Some of us have married with white people. We learn to speak your tongue.’
‘But we hate those that kill, lie and steal,’ Tecumseh butted in from the other end of the canoe.
I gulped: had he been thinking of my attempt to liberate a canoe from their possession?
‘Now there are so few of us, some hunt among other tribes in the mourning wars,’ he continued.
‘What are mourning wars?’
‘When we lose our brothers we go and seek new blood. We capture prisoners to take their place, people to become one of us.’ He whistled over to his brother in the third canoe, summoning him alongside. ‘Tell Girl Cat how many you brought back last time you went hunting.’
The hard-shelled warrior Little Turtle smiled at me and held up five fingers, mistaking my shocked expression for admiration. ‘Two got away,’ he admitted with a modest shrug. ‘We let them go – they were not worthy.’
My throat was strangely dry. ‘And what if the prisoners don’t want to join your clan?’
‘They have no choice,’ Little Turtle said dismissively as if this was not a consideration.
‘I see.’
I turned back to Tecumseh and saw that he was looking at me with particular intent. Suddenly Kanawha’s gifts of clothes bore another, very disconcerting meaning.
‘But I suppose it’s just other Indians who you recruit, isn’t it?’ My voice was almost a squeak.
Tecumseh shook his head. I think he was laughing at me. ‘No, if someone is meant to be one of us, it does not matter where they come from. Our leader, Chief McGillivray, had a Scottish father, his mother was half French. Only a quarter of his blood is Wind Clan. He is well chosen to be our chief in these times, do you not think, when our future depends on how we deal with strangers?’
‘Er, yes, I suppose,’ I muttered, wondering where this was leading.
‘And with hair like yours, you could be one of his children.’
I kept quiet, thinking no answer was safest.
Kanawha leant forward and tied a shell necklace around my throat. A moment before it would have been welcome; now I felt unsettlingly like a favourite pet being pampered. I fingered the tiny shells, completely at a loss as to what I should do.
‘You said captives have no choice. What did you mean exactly?’ I asked Little Turtle.
The warrior steered skilfully around a rock poking out of the water like a shark’s fin and rejoined us on the far side.
‘Captives are either killed, enslaved, or adopted,’ he replied.
‘And how do you decide?’
‘The clan decides. It depends what we need.’
‘And at the moment, what do you need?’
Little Turtle grinned. ‘I do not know. We have been away long time.’
‘So have I,’ I muttered, thinking of the months that had passed since I had been at home among the theatre people who knew me. I missed Drury Lane, the streets around Covent Garden, the sense of belonging somewhere. I had never seriously considered that I might not return; now this truth struck me like a slap to the face. I had leapt out of the frying pan, and now found myself in the fire.