“We are alone. Whom should I send?” she asked, keeping her eyes from the young Indian she had followed. “Should I send my young son as if I am a coward to come myself?”

She thought they might smile, as the most serious of Indians often did at a telling rejoinder in the village. But this was a war party and the faces stayed grim. They conferred with an elder. He had bitter eyes and deep wrinkles about his broad nose.

“What do you want here?” he wanted to know. “Maybe you are Schupijaw, the spy?”

“Does a spy come with a small son?” she asked. “I came to talk with you, my uncles.”

“We do not have talk with women,” he said coldly.

“In the Lenape town where I was raised, warriors came to talk to a woman. Her name was Amisheu. War parties came many miles to listen to her before they went into battle.”

“I have heard of her,” Big Nose said. “She was an old woman, not a foolish young one. But speak. We will listen and see if you are wise as she.”

Stone Girl looked around her. The black eyes of the painted men stared back at her. Beyond them, tied to a young hemlock, she could see the pale terrified face of a bedraggled Nan.

“Uncles, I see your young captive by the hemlock. I know your good intentions toward her. You held back the hatchet to make a daughter of her. You want to wash off her cowardly white skin and put on the brave skin of the Indian. You want to make her as one of your own family. Uncles. When I was young I was also taken captive by the Lenapes. My cowardly white skin was washed away. I was made a daughter of Feast Maker. He took out my pale Yengwe heart and gave me the brave heart of the Indian. I was shown how to plant and hoe corn, to make meal, to cut up the deer and cook it and dress and tan the skin. The great hunter and warrior Espan became my husband.”

She paused.

“Uncles. I know this young captive by the hemlock. She is my young white sister. Uncles. You who are fathers know that sisters are not always alike. This sister you have taken is like the white deer that does not inherit the strong brown coat of its fathers. Uncles. I do not believe this girl will ever make a brave Indian. She cries and complains. She speaks spiteful things. She faints from long marches. She makes bad faces over good food. I think she will get the yellow vomit and die.”

She waited in the customary Indian deliberation.

“Uncles. We do not like to see a sister die. I come to make you a trade. The white trader cheats you. I will not cheat you. I am Indian. I will make you an honest trade. Give back the sickly complaining white sister and I will go with you in her place. You need not cut out my white heart or wash away my white skin. They are already red like the Indian. You need not teach or train me. Already I speak the Indian tongue and know the Indian ways. Maybe I am too old to be adopted as a daughter but I can work as a wife and when my husband is old, my son will keep us in game.”