paths. Thensuddenly they broke out on a narrow well-worn trail coming over the hills to meet the small river. Their feet took to it like wings. The very breath of the path was Indian. It dipped through the dim pungency of pine groves where hardly would you know the season, and it broke out into the bright new greenness of the hardwoods where even the blind could tell that this was the Month When the Deer Turns Red.
Always the endless Indian forest stood above them. When it thinned, there were the crimson Indian Hearts that white people call strawberry and the purple swords of Indian raspberries. Fish leaped from the creek and pheasants made thunder through the trees. Not often was Half Arrow silent. He pointed out the meaning of signs and droppings as if his companion so long among the whites had forgotten. Oh, never, True Son told himself, would he forget this path, this westward, ever westward path, deep in their Indian forest, with his cousin tramping before him, pointing and talking, giving thanks to every spring that ran across their path, for hadn’t this water they cupped to drink lain deep in the dark caverns of their mother, the Earth, to be brought out just for their refreshment as they passed!
Only once, when the forest gave way to the cleared fields of a colony of whites, did Half Arrow’s good humor leave him.
“
Lennau!
Look at them. Cutters down of the Indian forest! Stealers of the Indian land. Let’s give them a present of Indian lead. In return we’ll take presents for our Indian brothers.”
But all the time he talked, Half Arrow kept to the path, berating the thieving whites, regretting there were only two against so many and that he and True Son would have so far to carry booty.
“Ah well, lead is scarce,” he said. “We will let them breathe this time. But didn’t we fix that old
schwannack
of your white uncle who scalped Little Crane! He won’t forget us in a hurry. If he lives, he is rubbing his head right now.
Yuh allacque!
What a pity we didn’t finish him when we had the chance.”
It made them a little uneasy when their path joined a deeper and wider path. It came pouring down through a mountain gap. You could see that white men and their horses had trod this path. But its makers must have been Indian, for it looked as if long before white men came it had been here. His own people, the Lenni Lenape, must have traveled it, the Shawanose, the Nanticokes, the Ganaweseand Saosquahanaunks. Even distant nations had helped to pack it, the Sankhicani or Gunlock people that the whites call Mohawks; the W’Tassone or stonepipe makers, called the Oneidas; the Onandagos or hilltop people; the Cuyugas or lake dwellers; the Meachachtinny or mountaineers that the whites call the Senecas; and the Tuscarawas, called by all Tuscarawas, for the word rolls easy from the tongue so that wherever they go mountains, streams and valleys are called after them. All these latter were the Mengue which the whites called the Mingoes or Six Nations, and the French, the Iroquois. But many others must have tramped this path, too, the Cherokees and Catawbas, the Kanahawas who should be called the Canai; the Mohican or River Indians, the Wyandottes that the French call Huron; and perhaps even the far eastern Abenakis who are brothers of the Lenni Lenape and speak a dialect of the Lenni Lenape tongue.
And yet for all those red peoples and nations who had trod it, not an Indian did they see that day. So far had the whites driven them from this country. Only twice did the two boys have to lie in the woods while parties passed, once when three white men came suddenly on foot, and another timewhen a train of nineteen pack horses slid down the mountain. Armed traders guarded them. Every bale of pelts on the horses’ backs was a message from home. Surely, Half Arrow chattered, they were on the right track, for those pelts could only have come from Indian country, perhaps even from the Forks of the Muskingum and their own
Always the endless Indian forest stood above them. When it thinned, there were the crimson Indian Hearts that white people call strawberry and the purple swords of Indian raspberries. Fish leaped from the creek and pheasants made thunder through the trees. Not often was Half Arrow silent. He pointed out the meaning of signs and droppings as if his companion so long among the whites had forgotten. Oh, never, True Son told himself, would he forget this path, this westward, ever westward path, deep in their Indian forest, with his cousin tramping before him, pointing and talking, giving thanks to every spring that ran across their path, for hadn’t this water they cupped to drink lain deep in the dark caverns of their mother, the Earth, to be brought out just for their refreshment as they passed!
Only once, when the forest gave way to the cleared fields of a colony of whites, did Half Arrow’s good humor leave him.
“
Lennau!
Look at them. Cutters down of the Indian forest! Stealers of the Indian land. Let’s give them a present of Indian lead. In return we’ll take presents for our Indian brothers.”
But all the time he talked, Half Arrow kept to the path, berating the thieving whites, regretting there were only two against so many and that he and True Son would have so far to carry booty.
“Ah well, lead is scarce,” he said. “We will let them breathe this time. But didn’t we fix that old
schwannack
of your white uncle who scalped Little Crane! He won’t forget us in a hurry. If he lives, he is rubbing his head right now.
Yuh allacque!
What a pity we didn’t finish him when we had the chance.”
It made them a little uneasy when their path joined a deeper and wider path. It came pouring down through a mountain gap. You could see that white men and their horses had trod this path. But its makers must have been Indian, for it looked as if long before white men came it had been here. His own people, the Lenni Lenape, must have traveled it, the Shawanose, the Nanticokes, the Ganaweseand Saosquahanaunks. Even distant nations had helped to pack it, the Sankhicani or Gunlock people that the whites call Mohawks; the W’Tassone or stonepipe makers, called the Oneidas; the Onandagos or hilltop people; the Cuyugas or lake dwellers; the Meachachtinny or mountaineers that the whites call the Senecas; and the Tuscarawas, called by all Tuscarawas, for the word rolls easy from the tongue so that wherever they go mountains, streams and valleys are called after them. All these latter were the Mengue which the whites called the Mingoes or Six Nations, and the French, the Iroquois. But many others must have tramped this path, too, the Cherokees and Catawbas, the Kanahawas who should be called the Canai; the Mohican or River Indians, the Wyandottes that the French call Huron; and perhaps even the far eastern Abenakis who are brothers of the Lenni Lenape and speak a dialect of the Lenni Lenape tongue.
And yet for all those red peoples and nations who had trod it, not an Indian did they see that day. So far had the whites driven them from this country. Only twice did the two boys have to lie in the woods while parties passed, once when three white men came suddenly on foot, and another timewhen a train of nineteen pack horses slid down the mountain. Armed traders guarded them. Every bale of pelts on the horses’ backs was a message from home. Surely, Half Arrow chattered, they were on the right track, for those pelts could only have come from Indian country, perhaps even from the Forks of the Muskingum and their own
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