He had dropped way back and was hoeing slowly, in exaggerated fashion, as if he were a man caught in time trying to perfect a work.

And then she did something that struck her as odd: she laughed.

Without lifting his head, he picked up speed and caught up with her, never once looking at her. She turned back to her own quick hoeing.

The next time she looked up, he was gone.

When the night came, Sheninjee again found himself staring at Mary’s back.

In the English he had furtively learned from Mary’s younger sister, he said, “Good corn.”

Silence.

And then the bride rolled over to face him. “What?” she said in Seneca.

“Good corn.”

In Seneca she asked him, “What does that mean?”

To which the groom replied in English, “Good corn today. You laughed.”

In English she said, “My sister has taught you some English.”

“Good corn.” He looked serious and proud.

Mary looked at him and after a few moments said in Seneca, “Good corn.”

Then the groom smiled and with some caution and great lightness touched the bride’s collarbone and said, “Mary.” Then he took his finger away.

Mary looked at Sheninjee and then placed the tip of her own finger on his skin, on the indentation just above his collarbone and did not remove it and he allowed her.

In a half-light they awakened. She lay once more with her back to him.

Sheninjee said in English, “You have beauty.”

The bride’s eyes were open and she considered his statement. Then, though her body was still backed up to him, this time caught in his arms, she bumped him with a rocking motion and said in a slightly scoffing manner, “Good corn!”

He laughed a loud male laugh such that I imagined the eyes of my sisters in the nearby hut snapping open of a sudden, as do the eyes of disturbed turtles.

SEVERAL months later Sheninjee confessed that he himself had fears before his wedding night. Some of his friends had told him that white women were oddly shaped inside and had edges there that could hurt men in the act of love. The edges or borders of that secret place were sharp, sharp as raccoons’ teeth.

SIX MONTHS later, while her husband was away trading furs for them and for their people, she dreamt that the child she was now carrying spoke and reproached her.

“Mother,” it said, “what had I in some previous state done to you that you should have conceived me? Do you intend to wreak vengeance on me? For you have set me on a lonely course, a dark paddler in dark rushes. I am formed nevermore to live as a simple woman among her people. Instead I must be all eyes, nothing but ears, all ways conscious.

“Why did you allow my father to enter you? Answer me. Why did you allow him? You allowed my father, you allowed a man whose race tore you from your young womanhood and from your valley, whose race held the dripping scalping knife above your mother’s head, your own father’s head, the heads of your brothers and sisters—”