20
Heckewelder greeted Keturah with the same easy affability that had already won over many of the fort’s inhabitants. If he was surprised by her beauty, her thoroughly Indian ways, even the beads she wore, he gave no sign. She stayed stoic, almost guarded, despite Heckewelder’s humble manner and his fluency in Lenape.
He began, “Would you prefer to converse in English or the language of the True People?”
Clay was unsurprised when she chose Lenape. It allowed her an ease of expression not yet mastered with English. He well knew the struggle of exchanging familiar words for the unfamiliar, a loss not unlike a small death as words and whole phrases in the Indian tongue were abandoned and then forgotten.
“Word reached us at our mission in Bethlehem that you were given up by the People. In fact, some of our brothers and sisters there were overjoyed when they learned you were here. I have come to see if you would consider joining us, at least until word of your family reaches you.”
Keturah eyed him with renewed interest. “Who are these sisters and brothers you speak of?”
“These Lenni Lenape have taken Christian names, though you know them as Neolin, Shingas, Pesquitomen, and Chulili.”
“They are now”—her pale brows arched in surprise and something akin to alarm—“praying Indians?”
“Aye, Christian Indians. They have heard the Good News of our risen Lord and embrace Him.” Heckewelder smiled as if to lessen her sudden anxiety. “Why don’t we go back to the beginning. Tell me how you came to be with the Lenape.”
They sat before Clay’s desk, their backs to the closed door. Even in the shadows, the sole light streaming through the cabin’s chinking and the loft window, Keturah’s shifting expressions were plain.
“Much I have forgotten.” Her soft voice was tinged with sorrow. “It was corn-planting time. The season of strawberries. I was with my white sisters.” She looked toward Clay. “Tessa Swan . . . another girl named Ruth. I went ahead of them to pick berries. The woods were thick with sounds, and I did not hear the warriors approach.”
She spoke so clearly and precisely that the scene played out in Clay’s head. Heckewelder seemed just as riveted, though he’d no doubt heard such accounts before.
“I was much afraid. These men made motions they might kill me. They took me northwest, toward the Scioto, so very far I knew I could not find my way back again.”
“Many days of travel,” Heckewelder said.
“Yes. When I came to the one village, my white clothes were taken away. I was led to a river and told I was their new daughter, all my whiteness washed away.”
Clay’s own story was much the same, though it had begun more violently with the firing of his family cabin. When he’d reached that last Lenape village, he’d run a gauntlet, dodging sticks and clubs. He’d stayed standing, earning him the respect of watching warriors before his own river cleansing.
“My Lenape mother was good to me. She taught me many things. My Indian father, the sachem Netawatwees, was kind. Still, my heart was on the ground. No one came for me from the white world. I had to learn Indian ways. Indian words. My thinking became more red than white.”
“How long were you among them?” Heckewelder asked.
Again she looked to Clay. Time was not counted in minutes and months but by moons and seasons.
“Ten or twelve years, by my reckoning,” he answered.
Heckewelder nodded thoughtfully. “Long enough to make you forget much of your family and life along the Buckhannon.”
Keturah toyed with her braid. “I have little memory of Keturah but became Yellow Bird. There was much to see and do. We camped many places but mostly along the big waterfalls for a night’s lodge.”
Brow furrowing, Heckewelder looked at Clay for confirmation. “The same as a night’s watch?”
“Aye, a stay of one year in Indian time. Along the Cuyahoga River.” It had been his favored camp, heavily timbered with wide, cascading falls. Plentiful game and fertile places to plant the three sisters.
“Cuyahoga Town?” Heckewelder asked. “’Tis what we Moravians call it.”
“The True People live on the north side of the river,” Keturah told them. “The Iroquois live to the south.”
“And Netawatwees is—was—your adoptive father. I heard the same from your friends at Bethlehem,” Heckewelder said. “Is it also true that you had a husband?”
The question, gently stated, startled her nonetheless. Expecting a nay, Clay reached for his pipe and started to take out the tobacco pouch a Shawnee had given him. Keturah’s attention swiveled to Clay as he filled the bowl with Indian tobacco, the këlëkënikàn made fragrant with sumac leaves. He did it if only to ease her, as the questions turned more personal and mayhap more painful.
“My husband . . .” She swallowed and looked to her lap. “He is a warrior. A chief.”
“So, he still lives,” Heckewelder asked quietly, “or was alive when you were returned to Fort Pitt?”
