Poetry did not prove a suitable topic, as he grieves the loss of his books. I mentioned the flora & fauna we have so far observed. My wife would be interested in the birds, I said. She spends every spare minute outdoors with her field glasses.
Pruitt showed some interest in the subject, said he watched a large, pale gray falcon in flight as we made our way up Trail River but was unable to identify it.
My wife is particularly enamored with the humming bird, I said. I went as far as to tell him how I had found her a humming bird nest during our courtship. A tiny thing, yet it won her heart.
?—?I doubt we will see any humming birds this far north, he said.
Tillman, on the other hand, is wholly content here. He even says he has become fond of their cooking.
?—?All that bloody meat, it makes a man feel alive!
He has taken up bow & arrow with some of the younger Indians. They place wagers on who can shoot the farthest, with the most accuracy. We are unable to obtain a single bit of helpful information from the tyone, yet the lack of common language has not stopped Tillman from learning several gambling games from the Midnooskies, including one involving a handful of carved bones. I do not understand the game, nor do I care to.
When he does not fraternize with the Indians, Tillman totes the found infant swaddled in rabbit pelts. Tillman makes peculiar noises & expressions at it, seems to enjoy its company. He explains his ease with the child by saying he grew up the oldest of a dozen siblings.
When I informed him we must be on our way so as to reach the coast before winter, the sergeant shrugged it off, as if it made no difference when we return home.
?—?Why rush off, Colonel? Soon enough the boy will give us some direction. It’ll save us time in the long run.
That is what he calls the tyone?—?‘boy.’ It is an underestimation. The tyone may be young, but he has more influence than Tillman gives credit.
May 19
The Midnooskies held some sort of celebration last night. After noon, the entire village of more than 30 gathered near the tyone’s hut. They lit a large fire, boiled pot after pot of moose, tebay, rabbit. The tyone’s women brought out birch baskets full of different foods?—?dried berries, tubers, last year’s dried fish. It was well after 8 o’clock before everything was prepared. Pruitt would not move from his bed, but Tillman & I sat with the others just as several young men began to sing. They had no drums or other musical instruments, but kept time with the rhythm of the words. Their voices rose & fell in a hypnotizing way.
This near to summer, the sun no longer sets, though it dipped behind the mountains to leave behind a cool, bluish light in the valley. The cooking done, the Indians heaped more wood upon the fire until the flames climbed into the pale night sky.
Next a group of men formed a circle near the fire. They were the most extravagantly dressed of any of the Midnooskies we had so far encountered, adorned with copper jewelry, furs of lynx, marten. One had a particularly large copper nose piercing & ornate necklace of dentalium shells. The tallest, most dignified of the group wore a black wolf hide.
Their steps began slowly, a kind of bowing & stomping to the ground, but soon their pace was feverish. The firelight cast a glow on their faces. They sang with low shouts & a rousing cadence, until against my will my own heartbeat quickened. More Indians joined until the scene was so violent & heated, I believe it would cause some white women to faint.
Tillman was stirred to his feet, made as if to join in. I pulled him back. —?It’s not our place.
?—?Looks like good fun to me, he said. —?We are outsiders. We can’t understand what all this means. I advised him to just sit & watch.
As the night neared the closest it would to darkness, sometime after midnight, the Indians piled more wood into the flames. The women had now gathered in a circle around the men. Their dancing was more contained, the steps smaller, but equally impassioned. Tillman tried to take the hand of one of the young women, danced one of his jigs in front of her, but she quickly pulled away.
At last I implored Tillman to follow me back to the hut. He cannot be trusted to stay out of trouble’s way.
May 20
I did not expect to find anyone by the creek this morning. I walked only to stretch my legs. When I came through the bushes, the servant woman who cares for Pruitt was crouched beside the creek. She gathered water with bags made of animal gut. I must have frightened her for she looked up at me with wide black eyes, then hissed at me.
I maintained my composure. I offered to carry the water. She did not respond. I squatted near her, reached into the creek where she held a bag in the flow of the stream. In evident fear, she withdrew her hand. There, on the inside of her wrist, a patch of gray, downy feathers grew along her pale skin.
It is time for us to leave this place.