Remembering Maggie:The Complete Bread Sister Trilogy (The Bread Sister Trilogy) by Robin Moore

Author:Robin Moore [Moore, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Publisher: Groundhog Press
Published: 2013-03-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Ten

The return trip was astonishingly difficult. They paddled as long as the daylight would allow and made quick camps at night, falling into their blankets exhausted and waking every few hours to check Firefly’s breathing.

To make matters worse, they began to run out of food. They had been forced to leave most of the dried meat behind on the island, and the barren landscape offered them nothing for their hunger.

On the morning of the third day, Cornstalk took his rifle and set out on foot along the riverbank, in search of rabbits of wild turkeys, or anything that moved and could be eaten.

That morning, as Maggie and Frenchgirl were changing the bandages around his severed ankle, Firefly opened his eyes and gave them what seemed to be a smile. Then he closed his eyes and faded away, and he was gone.

Suddenly Maggie was back in Philadelphia, in the old house on Spruce Street, the morning her mother died of the fever. It was like that now, with death standing close by, almost touching her shoulder.

Maggie closed her eyes to clear her head.

“What do the old people say?” Maggie asked Frenchgirl. “Where does a Seneca go when he dies?”

“To the Hereafter,” Frenchgirl said softly, “There is no danger or pain there. When a Seneca goes there, he is reunited with his ancestors and there is rejoicing.”

Maggie thought about that for a moment and asked, as a child might, “Is he there now?”

Frenchgirl shook her head. “No. The old people say that it takes a year for the soul to make its journey to the other world.

In the meantime, we must make sure that Firefly has all that he needs on his journey. We will wrap him up in blankets and take him back to the village, where we can watch over him.”

Maggie nodded. “We’ll bury him there, then?”

“No,” Frenchgirl said, “we won’t close him up in the ground. We will build a scaffold in the branches of a tree. We’ll dress my brother in the best clothing we can find and equip him with a hatchet and a skinning knife and a pipe and some tobacco.

"Then we'll place him on the platform where the sun can shine on his face and the winds and rain can cleanse him. We must go to the burial scaffold each night and light a fire so he'll have some light in the darkness and so he won't be afraid. This would nor­mally be the wife's job. But if you feel you can't do this, I will do it for you."

Maggie shook her head. "No, I will do it."

Just then they heard a shout down by the river-bank. It was Cornstalk, grinning as he climbed the embankment, carrying two limp gray squirrels by the tails.

Frenchgirl rose and walked with quick steps down to the riverbank, to tell Cornstalk that his partner had run on ahead.

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