Prologue

Summer, 1833, St. Louis, Missouri

A smile, cold and cruel, slid across old lady Dalrymple’s face. “One way or another, girl, your heathen soul is gonna be redeemed. Maybe a little time in the dark will help you to see the light.” The woman disappeared, her laughter fading as the door to the root cellar slammed shut.

The blackness descended mercilessly, complete, and dark as a tomb, which seemed fitting enough as Reverend Dalrymple and his wife wished to kill the Red Spirit inside her.

Pounding on the unyielding wood and howling at the top of her lungs, her rage and misery echoed around her. Then she jerked to a halt, palms pressed flat against the roughhewn planks. Even if they could hear her, no one at the boarding school would come to her rescue. Only Cook showed her a modicum of compassion—the rest either feared or hated her.

Easing away from the door, she groped her way around the dank enclosure. Coming upon a sack of potatoes, she climbed atop the burlap-covered mound—at least it was warmer than the cold earthen floor. Still shaking with anger, she wrenched off the too-tight shoes her captors forced her to wear and tore at the dress and camisole restricting her breathing.

How had it all gone so wrong? The Iroquois people, friend to her tribe, promised the Black Robes were kind, harboring no cruelty in their hearts. But these missionaries were not Black Robes. These missionaries knew only harsh ways. She must find her people and tell them the truth.

Because her mother was a white woman, they acted as if they were obliged to save her. But she knew better—it was for the money. If she bent to their will, she would be a great success story, an example of how their religion redeemed her from her wicked Indian ways. People would pay to look at her, or to sit and drink tea in her presence.

When her mother read verse from her special book, the words spoke of kindness and of living in peace with all creatures. These people invoked their God with spite and malice, with no concern for the life she had lived or the family she had loved for sixteen winters.

A scurrying noise sounded in the corner. Reaching for her knife, she grasped only a fistful of calico cloth—they had left her armed with nothing but memories.

The air seemed to thicken and press down upon her, and the quiet roared in her ears. Refusing to cry, she shivered in the darkness. Her stomach knotted with fear, and her mouth turned dry as the bread they fed her.

The pounding of her heart shook her body like the once familiar cadence of the drums, and rocking to and fro, she chanted the prayers her grandfather had taught her. She smelled the woodsmoke, felt the wind on her face, and the remembrance of another time and place gave her strength.

The Christians had stolen her tack belt and hide dress. They had cut off her hair and called her Belinda Dearborn. They tried to destroy everything that made her who and what she was. But as long as she drew breath she would never forget.

Her name was Blind Deer—and she was of The People.