“But what do you think would have happened to that child?”
“A life with very little freedom.”
Samuel gave this some thought, and asked the bartender for more ale. “I don’t think I remember having ever been able to converse in this manner.”
“In what manner?”
He mulled that question until he knew the right words. “Without fear of being hated.”
Odahingum found that answer touching. “Who has hated you?”
Before he could stop himself, Samuel said, “I have, sometimes.” And the plain honesty of those words felt new to him, and he smiled at the relief of knowing, somehow, that Odahingum would not resent his honesty.
“You have shown me the truth about you.”
“I don’t understand how, but I’m not afraid of it.”
“In exchange, I’ll give you the truth about me.”
Another conclusion was forming in Samuel’s mind. “Is that what always happened? People have demanded your truth, but withheld their own?”
Odahingum nodded. “The priests don’t have any truths to offer us. They see someone like me and lose all grasp of reality. They have too few words to put the truth into. All they know to say is: il ou elle?”
“What’s the right answer?”
“It doesn’t exist in your language. The word is wiin.”
Morning, May 13 (Gregorian), 1637
Lake Ontario
Odahingum had first offered to sell the bearskin to the Jesuit missionaries, but they were wary of touching the animal that had killed one of their brethren. Met with the same response at all the French outposts around the lakes, wiin had decided wiin would have to leave Catholic lands if wiin wanted to get rid of that skin. But with summer approaching, more white bears would be moving southward, seeking solid ground, which made it riskier to visit Munkhaven. There was the option of offering the fur to the Maskekowak who lived just beyond the lakes; they might easily sell it in turn to the Danish. But the Maskekowak had more experience dealing with white bears than an Ojibwe like wiin, which meant they were able to procure their own fur when they needed it. So wiin had headed down the North River to the Dutch colonies, where wiin’s path crossed with the couple who called themselves the Fullers.
As much as Bridget had appreciated wiin’s disposition to join them, she had felt some apprehension about leaving what was beginning to take the shape of a peaceful life of work. In the end, she agreed that they were too exposed as long as they remained in Dutch territory. Since it would have been hard to sell the fur of a white bear in the summer, she had suggested to cut it into pieces to make minor accessories of the kind that sold all year round. When she was done selling all the parts, she thanked Odahingum for not having discarded the head or the paws, as she had negotiated a handsome sum from a carver who planned to make a luxury chess set with the white pieces made from the teeth and the black ones from the claws. As intermediary, she took a small commission of the proceeds, because she anticipated they’d need European money to exchange with the French, and with the rest she bought things for Odahingum: needles, cooking pots, arrowheads, fishhooks, a hunting knife, and a compass. The last one delighted wiin, and during the first days of their journey wiin stared continually at the small case, marveling at how the other iron items could fool it.
They had traveled by canoe for the first half of the trip, then westward by foot until they reached the lake. The splendor of the mountains in the late spring was soothing to Samuel’s spirits, which until then had grown too accustomed to the weight of a life that had been interrupted many times. He felt, at last, allowed to taste a moment of solace. Odahingum, perhaps by force of habituation, had shown less amazement at the landscape they were traversing, but when Samuel proclaimed, one bright morning, his desire to spend his old age in the midst of all that beauty, wiin judged it a wise choice.
Bridget didn’t share his excitement. Most days her mood had been inscrutable, but when she forgot to keep a blank face, it didn’t invite questions. Intrigued by her silence, Odahingum tried once to get to her, but she snapped at wiin and went back to keeping to herself.
The first thing of note they saw on the morning of their arrival at the lake settlement was a queue of robed figures burning incense and humming lamentations from house to house. Odahingum’s expression darkened. “This keeps happening. Why did they have to come?”
Bridget sensed she should be alarmed, but didn’t fully understand why. “What keeps happening?”
“It has more than one name,” wiin said. “Some years they call it measles. Others it’s pox; others it’s typhoid. It’s one of the things that amaze me about Europeans, that you have so many words for death.”
The missionaries’ large wooden house, built in a plain, economical style, stood next to a corral with hens and pigs and a vegetable garden. On top of the roof a group of novices were making repairs to the bell cot. Beyond it, scattered over the land, a dozen houses. Samuel pointed at them and said, “All the doors are closed. Only the priests are outdoors. It looks like the town is quarantined.”
“Should we leave?” asked Bridget. “I already had measles, but I don’t know about you two—”
“You can survive it?” asked a shocked Odahingum, giving her a long, detailed look. “How?”
She wanted to tell wiin that her mother’s prayers had healed her, but the truth, which she had kept all her life as a secret shame, was that her congregation had collected contributions from all its members to pay for a Jewish medic to come from Amsterdam and treat her.
Seeing her disturbed face, wiin gave up the inquiry. “I’m sorry I brought you here. It wasn’t like this in the winter.”
They stood by the last of the trees before reaching the settlement, almost hiding from it. With all the incense smoke, it was doubtful that the priests had noticed them.
Odahingum started walking back into the forest. “They claim to be saving us, and all they’re good for is bringing their plagues!”
Samuel enjoyed watching Bridget start a reply, then check herself. He expected her to be in favor of preaching, just not by Catholics. He let her ruminate on that and said to Odahingum, “You couldn’t have known. And it’s not your fault. What we need to discuss now is where to go.”
“We could wait out the quarantine and come back,” suggested Bridget.
“I’ve grown fond of the forest,” said Samuel, “but I was really hoping to sleep in a bed tonight.”
Wiin shook wiin’s head. “It won’t be here.”
Bridget had another look at the town, noticed the different house designs, and remarked, “There are so many locals in the mission. Didn’t you say that the priests were having little success with conversions?”
“This is what little success looks like,” wiin answered. “Farther north, in Acadia, they’re much more aggressive, and have baptized whole tribes. I heard their superior complain that the Pope wants the whole regions converted before it occurs to the Danes to expand southward. He mentioned some fiasco that happened to their priests in China, but before you ask me what it was, I didn’t care enough to ask them myself.”
Bridget felt a pang of disappointment at that news. Not only was she the only Brownist in the new world, but her congregation’s old enemies had arrived here too. Shame surged inside her as she noticed herself starting to doubt that the passengers of the Mayflower would have been able to maintain their faith pure here, or anywhere. The Age of the Ship had made the dream of isolation impossible.
Samuel waved in an arc around them. “Have the fur traders built other settlements in this area?”