Fierce Protector

Chogan raised his hunting knife and plunged the blade into the stranger’s chest. Onatah screamed, her hand clutching her heart.

***

Kanaiatarowennah, the great waterway, had brought Trilok to her and to the lake. The day he came, she leaned against the open door of the longhouse. Dark clouds massed to the east. She breathed the pure smell of impending rain. Wind kicked up small swells on the lake and her birch bark canoe tethered by the braided rope danced at the water’s edge. The changing weather hurried her steps to the underground cache. She shooed a loon off its nest, stole one large egg and left the others to hatch.

Chogan’s bow and arrow found no deer or elk that year, no venison cured and stored. His anger and humiliation boiled over and scalded Onatah.

“Why do we not have a son? We have been together many moons.”

She bowed her head. “I do not know.”

“I should have chosen Kachina, instead of you. She has borne Matoskah two sons.”

The next morning, she watched from the door as he joined a hunting party traveling

upriver foraging for game. Chogan did not turn to look at her.

***

He had been gone many seasons. She counted lonely winters when the wind shrieked, moaned, and battered the sides of the longhouse. Heavy snows blanketed the ground. Then, silence surrounded her. She squatted close to the fire and pushed the bone needle and sinew through the holes she had bored in the deer skin to make Chogan a new cape.

She kept waiting, hoping for his return. But she knew death might have overtaken him, a wild animal, or another tribesman competing for food.

To survive, in the spring and summer, Onatah found roots and berries. She bent her back and fought the thick grass with an adze. She soaked maize kernels in water and planted the seeds along with squash. She fashioned a fish trap at the water’s edge.

This day with autumn rapidly approaching, she leaned over to find a rock bass flopping within. She smiled, already savoring its delicious roasted flesh on her tongue.

Just as she was about to turn back to the longhouse with her delicacy, out of the corner of her eye, she glimpsed a large object farther out on the lake. Raising her other hand to her forehead, she stared across the rippling water. A large, strange-looking canoe drifted without anyone paddling.

She threw the fish into a wooden bowl, kicked off her moccasins and flung her deerskin cape aside. She untied her canoe, waded to the side, and slipped in. Leaning hard, she dug the paddle into the choppy waters.

Coming even with the wooden craft, her eyes widened in surprise, and she gasped. Lying in the bottom, a man groaned in pain. Her heart thumped. His shaved head identified him as a Mohawk, a warring tribe. Chogan had told her they had attacked settlements up the great river.

The wound in the side of his bare chest begged for attention. Her mother had taught her how to use herbs, fronds of squirrel tail dried and mixed with grease to speed healing and greenbrier leaves and bark made into tea to fortify the body.

She sighed, picked up the rope from the bottom of her canoe, secured it and tied it through a cracked board in the Mohawk’s canoe. Rowing back toward shore, the wind increased making her strain even harder, pulling the extra weight. Panting, she finally reached the shore as rain began pelting down. Quickly, she tied the canoes to a post. She leaned over the man. His chest still rose and fell.

If she could get him out of the boat, she would drag him onto the travois she had made from leather stretched over cottonwood poles. As she removed his moccasins, his eyes opened. His dark eyes stared at her. Onatah trembled.

“I will help you,” she said.

He attempted to sit up.

Quickly, Onatah put her arm behind his shoulders and together they raised him to a sitting position. She swung his legs around and put his feet in the water. He tried to stand.

She took hold of his chest, being mindful of the wound in his side and slung his arm over her shoulders. Slowly, they stumbled through the soft moist ground to the nearby dwelling. She led him to the bed. Heavily, he fell into the frame. She took water from a clay pot and gently cleansed the wound. He winced when she applied yarrow paste from a round stone bowl. She covered him. He closed his eyes.

Onatah stoked the fire, wrapped herself in a bear skin blanket and lay down on the floor exhausted.

As the aspen leaves turned golden, she fed the Mohawk, and his wound began to heal. Their languages had some similarities. They pointed at themselves and learned each other’s names. Through some gestures they managed to communicate. When Trilok rose from bed and began to walk about, she watched him for signs of leaving. He repaired his boat, gathered wood for fire, and snared rabbits. She would be alone again.

She rejoiced when the first snow fell. Surely, he would not return to his people now. Each day he returned to the house, she had food prepared. One night, after the fire died and bitter wind blew off the lake, she walked to where he now slept on the floor. He looked up and saw her. She knelt beside him. He lifted the fur blanket.

When spring came, they lay on the bed sleeping. A noise woke her. She saw Chogan standing over them with a knife in his hand. Trilok never woke. He slept in death.

Chogan again raised the bloody knife. Onatah jumped from the bed and ran toward the lake. Chogan roared curses as he ran after her. A woman turned warrior, she snatched her pointed fishing spear from her canoe and hurled it with all her might. Chogan fell to the earth and lay still.

No one would be allowed to kill her unborn child.