Crooked River Read Free

other men have done.”
    for two days
    the rain falls
    in long drops
    from the clouds.
    for two days
    the gichi-mookomaanag
    pull me
    through the weeping woods
    and across
    the crooked running river.
    i am tied to a long iron rope.
    i do not come easily.
    when we reach the log house
    of the tall man
    with the black hair of the bear
    and the eyes of the snake
,
    i am placed
    in a room that floats
    above the ground.
    in the room
    where the tall man keeps
    his winter food
,
    i am stored
    like a sack of parched corn
    or a bag of wild rice.
    you will die soon
,
    the gichi-mookomaanag
    say to me.
    Windigo
,
    the flesh-eating giant
,
    will devour you
    by the next moon
,
    i tell them.
    and they
    do not understand
    a word.

Amos told me that the men had gone across the Crooked River to find three Indians who had kilt a white trapper named Gibbs and stole all his traps. One of the three Indians was real young. But Amos said the young one got away and the second one, an older Indian, kilt himself with a gun. So, they brought back just one.
    According to Amos, it took the men two days in the pouring rain to drag the Indian back to the settlement, and they had to pull him the whole way at the end of a chain. The savage Indian was known by the name Indian John, and the men were gonna put him on trial for murder and hang him.
    Now, my Pa had done a lot of terrible things in his life. I could name more than a few of them. He had beat a fellow within an inch of his life. Shot a neighbor'sdog for drinking a pan of milk in our springhouse. Thrown a chair once at our poor Ma.
    But nothing as dreadful bad as putting a murderer in our own house, above our own heads.
    Amos insisted that there wasn't any other place. “Can't have some savage running loose in the woods, killing other poor folks. You want that, Reb?” Amos had said. “He's just gonna stay here until the trial. Pa's got him in leg irons and chains. Ain't gonna hurt no one.”
    It was true that our settlement on the Crooked River didn't have a jail yet. It had one narrow mud road called Water Street, which ended at the river. About two dozen cabins and dwellings—some still unfinished—were scattered along the road. In between, there were three small taverns for travelers and two pitiful, half-empty stores where you could buy Bateman's drops, and salt, and not much else. But, even though our settlement didn't have a proper jail, I still didn't think my Pa had the right to use our cabin as one.
    Lying in bed that night, me and Laura couldn't even close our eyes for fear that the Indian would slip down from the chamber loft and murder us in our sleep. The bedstead that was Laura's and mine stood closest to the stairs.
    “What are we gonna do?” I whispered to Laura, my voice rising in the darkness. “If he comes down those steps, what will we do?”
    Mercy slept on a straw pallet set on the floor beside us. Pa and the boys were on the other side of theold quilt that hung between our beds. I could already hear Pa's rattling snore.
    Laura whispered that she didn't care what Pa said, she was going to fetch the knives from the shelf by the hearth and we would put them between the ropes that held our bed. So, that's what we did. I had the sharp knife that we always used for paring apples, and Laura had our biggest butchering knife.
    But I wasn't sure if putting the knives beneath our bed made me feel more or less terrified at the place we were in. Or if we would ever be able to curl our fingers around the handles and use them. And what if the Indian crept down the stairs before we heard him? Or a whole band of Indians attacked us from the outside? What would we do then?
    The darkness outside the house was filled with the echoing sounds of early spring frogs. They were loud that night, making a noise like a thousand jangling harness bells, and I knew we would never hear the soft sounds of approaching Indians.
    Lying there, I couldn't keep my mind from twisting and turning on its own.