He knew their customs. Even for a severe fever, an Indian would retire to a little cabin heated with red-hot stones until it was like an oven. Sitting there until he was pouring with sweat, the sick one would emerge, plunge into the cold river, then wrap himself in a blanket and dry out by the fire. The treatment often worked. If not, there were the medicine men, skilled with herbs.

As van Dyck approached the house where she lay, an old man had come out. “Only the meteinu can help her now,” the old fellow said sadly. The meteinu had skills beyond the ordinary medicine men. They communed with the spirit world and knew the secret spells. If they alone could help her, she must be close to death.

“What kind of sickness has she?” van Dyck asked.

“A fever.” The old man seemed uncertain, but grimaced. “Her skin …” He seemed to be indicating pockmarks. He walked quietly away.

Pockmarks. The Dutchman gave a shiver of fear. The greatest curse the White Man had brought to America was disease. Influenza, measles, chickenpox—the common maladies of the Old World, against which the Indians had no resistance. Whole villages had died. Perhaps half the native population of the region had already faded away. Malaria had come with the White Men’s ships, and syphilis too. But the most fearsome import of all had been smallpox. Only last year, that terrible scourge had wiped out nearly a whole tribe south of New Netherland, and then appeared even in New Amsterdam.

Could it be smallpox?

Then he had done a terrible thing. He could explain it, of course. He had to think of himself, his wife and children, the good people of New Amsterdam. The dominie would have told him: consider the greater good. Oh yes, he was justified. He had done the right thing when he hesitated and then, avoiding even Pale Feather, hurried back to his boat, and gone downriver.

But couldn’t he have waited, instead of running like a coward? At a time when her family were preparing to be at her side, he’d deserted his Indian woman. Couldn’t he at least have seen the child? The pain, the awful, cold shame of it, haunted him still. Several times a year he awoke in the middle of the night, crying out at the horror of what he had done.

A month later, he’d returned, to find Pale Feather safe in the bosom of her extended family, and to learn that her mother had died the day after he had fled, not of smallpox, but the measles.

He’d tried to make it up to his daughter. Every year, when her people celebrated the feast of the dead, he had arrived. Normally one did not speak of the dead, but at this yearly feast, it was appropriate to do so, and to pray for their souls. This was what he had been doing for the last few days, before taking Pale Feather downriver.