Faith looked past Ben and out the window as they passed a small house. The house, and the little clearing it stood on, was gone in an instant, and they were back to the forest. This time, though, Faith managed to pick out a few details. First thing, the leaves on the trees were tiny, unlike the forest in the valley, where the leaves were fully developed. They were high up on the mountain now, and the effects were plain to see.
“Is spring always this late?” she asked.
“The winter was cold,” Ben explained. “Still had ice on the lake two weeks ago. But it’s warmed up now.”
“Did Aunt Eva get her crop in yet?” Margaret asked.
“Just gettin’ started.”
Faith spotted a line of small trees in full blossom, their branches lined with clusters of small white flowers. “What are they called?” she asked.
“Juneberry,” her mother replied.
“Make good eatin’ when the berries are ripe,” Ben added.
“And those?” Faith gestured to a patch of yellow blossoms growing in the open space beside the road. The flowers were butter-bright in the sun.
“Wintercress,” Margaret responded.
“Scurvy grass,” Ben quickly added.
Faith shuddered. Scurvy? Wasn’t that a disease that British sailors got?
“Does wintercress make you sick?” she asked.
“Just the opposite,” Margaret said. “Late winter was always a hard time for Indians, especially up here where the first frosts come early. Without green vegetables, the people suffered from a number of vitamin deficiencies, especially Vitamin C, which causes scurvy.”
Faith was impressed—and more than a little surprised— that her mother knew so much about plants. Back home, she couldn’t even keep a house fern alive.
“And wintercress contains Vitamin C?” Faith asked.
“Exactly. The plant begins to grow very early in the spring. In the old days, the people were more or less desperate for green vegetables by then.” Margaret looked at Ben. “But that was the Indian way of life. Feast or famine.”
“What does...scurvy grass taste like?” Faith asked.
Ben spoke without turning his eyes from the road. “That, Miss Faith, you’ll find out for yourself. We’ll be eatin’ it tonight.”
They drove on for another fifteen minutes, occasionally passing a few small houses, until they finally came to a Texaco gas station. By then, steam was leaking out from beneath the Chevrolet truck’s hood and the needle on the gas gauge was pointing to empty. Ben pulled inside, settling the truck next to a bright red gas pump. The pump was crowned with a circular crest displaying the familiar Texaco star against a white background. A sign just beneath the crest announced the price: “12 CENTS/Complaints Extra.”
“Twelve cents a gallon,” Ben complained as he opened the door. “It’s ten cents in Stroudsburg.”
An attendant came out of a repair bay, wiping his hands on a greasy rag, only to have Ben wave him away. Ben took off the Chevrolet’s gas cap himself and inserted the pump’s nozzle into the neck of the gas tank. He started the gas flowing just as a V8 Oldsmobile sedan pulled into the station. The passenger-side door opened almost before the car stopped and a man got out, leaving his companion behind the wheel.
The man was tall and lean, with muscular arms that he folded over his chest. He wore a gray cap pulled down across his forehead, which was low to begin with, and his left cheek bore a long, jagged scar. Faith watched from inside the pickup as he ran a finger along the scar. Though the man didn’t speak, not at first, his bad intentions were obvious. The look on his face was scornful in the extreme.
Ben pumped five gallons of gas into the pickup, and then went inside for a water can. He returned and opened the hood, never so much as glancing at the Oldsmobile sedan or the man who leaned against it.
“Hey, Hiawatha, you been on the warpath lately?” The man brought his fingers to his mouth and let out a whoop. “You scalp any peaceable settlers?”
Very carefully, Ben took a rag out of his back pocket and removed the radiator cap, unleashing a plume of white steam. He stepped away from the car and shoved the rag into his pocket.
“Not talkin’? Oh, yeah, now I remember right. You’re one of them silent injuns. Lemme hear you say, ‘Ugh.’” Overcome by his own wit, the man began to laugh.
Faith listened in disbelief. The tension she felt was completely unfamiliar. Was this what it meant to be an Indian? Why didn’t Ben respond? Even her mother was responding; she had rolled down the window and stuck her head out with her sternest stare, which had always worked on Faith—no words necessary.
Faith could feel the outrage. Ben had done nothing to provoke this attack. But even now, as he poured water into the radiator, his features were composed. If the man’s taunts were reaching him, he gave no indication.
“I got it, injun. Lemme hear you say, ‘How.’” Pleased with himself, the man repeated the word, dragging it out: “Howwwww!” That brought another laugh. “Say, I hear there’s work for ya down in Cresco. Ol’ Karl Stamford’s decided to go into the cigar business. You could be his cigar store injun. Oh, but wait, you injuns don’t like work, ain’t that right? You all just wanna run through the woods, shootin’ squirrels and such. Mighty warriors.”
Faith felt like she couldn’t breathe. She watched Ben as he replaced the radiator cap and carried the water can back into the station. he reached into his pocket, came out with a handful of coins, and handed them to an older man who was busily repairing a tire. Ben was on the way back when the man leaning against the Oldsmobile spoke again.
“Guess you’re doin’ right well these days.” The man paused long enough to glance at his companion in the car before delivering the punch line. “But I do gotta say that you’re gettin’ too long in the tooth, old man, to be totin’ around two squaws. Seems like one’d be enough.”
Faith felt her heart drop. Somehow, without her knowing it, she’d become an Indian. And this, apparently, was how Indians were routinely treated.
Faith’s mother had spoken about choosing to live in the American way, about how Aunt Eva considered her a traitor. That was ridiculous. The surprise was that anybody would choose to live as an Indian.
Still, Ben didn’t react, not until the man took a step toward him. Then he reached calmly into the pickup’s bed and withdrew an axe handle. The handle was split on the end that would have held the axe head, but it was perfectly suited to the task at hand. Ben held the wooden handle with both hands at a diagonal across his chest. He didn’t speak, but his expression hardened. That he’d made a decision to fight was as obvious to Faith as it was to the man with the scar, who stopped in his tracks.
“What you gonna do with that?” he asked.
“Put your hands on me, Crease Marron, and you’ll find out.”
The man inside the car broke the tension. Faith couldn’t see him, but his voice carried across the open lot.
“Get back in the car, Crease. Now.”
That was all the excuse that Crease Marron needed. He spit on the ground, a lot closer to his own feet than to Ben Hightower’s, before rejoining his companion. A moment later, the Oldsmobile sedan disappeared around a curve in the road.
“I’m sorry, honey,” Margaret whispered to Faith as Ben got into the truck. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this. I had no idea.”
Faith almost spoke the words on the tip of her tongue, but she checked herself at the last minute. She wanted to ask, What choice did you have? But she knew the question would only make her mother feel worse.