Little Wolf spat at Jamie’s feet and stalked away, his back stiff with anger.
“You are making a mistake, woman,” Tall Bull said to his wife.
“I need a slave and the boy is strong. I want him.”
“He is trouble. I made a mistake. I should have killed him with the others.”
“But you didn’t,” she replied smugly.
“Don’t point out the obvious to me! All right. Take him. But he is your responsibility.”
Deer Woman looked down at Jamie and pointed to the Shawnee town. When Jamie hesitated, she picked up a stick and beat him across the back and shoulders, the blows stinging and bringing blood. Jamie got the message and walked toward the town. Deer Woman stayed right behind him. Every few steps she would whack him again with the stick.
But I’m alive, Jamie thought. I’m alive. Although there would be many times in the months to come when the thought that he would be better off dead would enter his mind.
* * *
His parents had always felt that Jamie was exceptionally bright and very perceptive for his age — of course all parents feel that way — but in Jamie’s case it was true. He did as he was ordered to do and did it without question or hesitation. The beatings began to slacken and finally all but stopped as Deer Woman very quickly became pleased with White Hair, as Jamie was called.
Jamie was her personal slave and instantly did her bidding. Since Deer Woman was the wife of a very important man, the others in the camp did not torment Jamie. Indeed, most began to like the boy who did his work without complaint and quickly caught on to the Shawnee way of life.
And Jamie made no effort to escape. That was noticed by all and soon Jamie was free to walk unguarded throughout the Shawnee town. The Shawnee town was a large one, and Jamie soon found three other white captives, all women. Two of them had been with the Shawnees so long they were more Indian than white, and shrank away from the boy at his approach. But the third woman, just out of her teen years, was friendly toward him and was as hungry for news from the outside as Jamie was anxious for knowledge as to where he was and what he might expect in the weeks or months that lay ahead of him.
“In the wilderness,” Hannah told him. “I have never been more than two or three miles from this place.”
“How long have you been a captive?”
“Five years, I think. What year is this?”
“1817.”
“Four years, then. Seems like forever. Listen to me. We can only talk for a few minutes or they will become suspicious. We’ll talk each day when we gather firewood, or gather berries come the spring.”
“I don’t plan on being here come the spring,” Jamie informed her.
Hannah smiled. “You’ll be here.”
* * *
Jamie began to sprout up and grow stronger. Deer Woman jokingly complained that she had to work all the time just to keep Jamie clothed. When the spring came, Jamie was still a captive and worked the Shawnee gardens, for like most Indian tribes of that part of the country, the Shawnees depended heavily on agriculture for their existence. Jamie helped the women tend the corn, beans, squash, and other vegetables. Since he was so young, he quickly mastered the Shawnee tongue, although he never let on that he knew as much as he did. He preferred to listen.
He learned his approximate location, and was heartsick for a time. He was several hundred miles, at least, from the village near his home. My home, he thought. I don’t have a home. For Little Wolf had been more than eager to brag about how the cabin had been burned to the ground. He also went into great detail about how Jamie’s mother and father had been scalped and then mutilated. He had taken great glee in the telling, over and over, until Tall Bull had finally ordered him to shut up.
Hannah talked with him briefly each day, and each day he learned more and more about the Shawnees. And to Jamie, none of it was good.
The Shawnee, Jamie learned, were a much feared tribe, and were rarely defeated in battle. They were masters of guerrilla warfare, and were expert in the use of camouflage. The men were for the most part of average height, but with a very stocky build. They were quite strong, with tremendous endurance. The men shaved their heads, using sharpened shells from the rivers, and almost always were elaborately painted. And the Shawnee were very warlike.
They lived in homes, not that much different from the cabin where Jamie had been born. The lodges were long and snug, sometimes forty or fifty feet long, and were built without windows. The smoke from interior fires drifted out through holes built in the roof. When it rained, sliding panels were used to keep out the elements. The Shawnee slept on raised platforms which were covered with bearskin rugs. Since air circulation was poor, the lodges were a mixture of smells, ranging from cooking odors to tobacco.
The Shawnee towns were always built close to a river or stream, and were always built in a circle, with a huge longhouse in the middle of the walled compound that was used for important meetings; such as the declaring of war on another tribe. Jamie learned about the tribe’s history and who they called friend (which could change like the wind) and who they had hated forever and ever. At the top of that list were the Cherokees, the only Indian tribe to ever give the Shawnees a thorough beating on the battlefield. The Shawnees hated the Cherokees, also feared them, and avoided them whenever possible.
The Shawnee were noted for constructing the best bows and arrows of any tribe, and they were deadly accurate with them. The horse did not play an important part in their lives — not yet. They had horses, stolen from white settlers, but for the most part the Shawnee of the early 1800s either walked, ran, or used canoes to travel; when possible, they used all three methods.
Jamie MacCallister did his assigned chores, kept his mouth shut, stayed out of trouble, and learned by listening. Their society, he learned, while vastly different from his own, was, oddly enough, similar in many ways. Nothing of any importance was ever done without first having a meeting and discussing the problem. The chief was a great and important man, but his word was not final and could be overruled by a vote. Although that was not often the case.
The language was Algonquian, but Jamie and Hannah spoke in whispered English whenever possible, so they would not forget their native tongue. The other white captives had been in the hands of the Shawnees for so long they had forgotten most of their English.
“They were brought here from far to the east,” Hannah told Jamie. “So I was told. They were traded from another tribe. The Indians who took them as wives were long dead before I arrived here. They died cowardly, so no other Shawnee will take them. They are looked upon as outcasts. They could both leave if they wanted to, no one in the tribe would care. But they don’t choose to do that.”
“Why, Hannah?”
“Because they know they would be outcasts in a white society more so than they are here. At least here they have a place to sleep, food to eat, and some degree of protection.”
“That’s sad.”
“Yes, it is. But in a few ways, Jamie, the Indian way of life is better than what we grew up in. Not in very many ways, but in some. They are truly savages, but in their own way, generous and giving.”
“I haven’t found any that are generous and giving yet,” Jamie replied bitterly.
Hannah looked at the boy and smiled. “Deer Woman saved your life, Jamie. And don’t think she didn’t take a risk by standing up to Tall Bull. For she certainly did.”
Jamie stole a furtive look around him. No one appeared to be watching them, but that was something he could not be sure of. For Little Wolf had a tight circle of friends and Jamie knew one of those friends was constantly watching, usually from hiding. Jamie spotted his watcher. A big hulking boy called Bad Leg because one leg was shorter than the other. Bad Leg disliked Jamie as much as Little Wolf did. Although Jamie had never done anything to warrant that dislike. Little Wolf and his gang tormented Jamie whenever they found him alone and outside the lodge, for they knew that no matter what they did to him, Jamie would never tattle on them to Tall Bull or Deer Woman. Consequently, they did their best to make life miserable for White Hair. Why that name remained was a mystery for Jamie, since Deer Woman regularly put plant dye on his hair to darken the blond.