As the canoe began its turn around a bend of the narrowing river, Sheninjee saw three objects floating. He focused, calculated their dimensions and the rate of movement on the current, and was sure almost at once that they were bodies. He turned to wave Mary off the sight of this and then remembered the change in her and stayed his hand. Instead, he spoke. “The traders.”

What she saw, then, was a grotesque trio, an exercise in varieties of torture unto death. One man was fully clothed save for his boots but had no nose; the second was nude and had an arrow jammed through his penis; the other was half dressed and missing his feet.

The bodies drifted past their canoe. Sheninjee, who had pulled his paddle from the water, sat motionless, and in her husband she saw an unusual few moments’ indecision before he spoke. “We must not continue just now. The whites we will meet up ahead may think some of us did this.”

Us?

SO THEY turned back.

They brought the canoe aground in shallow water at a low bank in front of the trading house. Even as Sheninjee secured the canoe he noticed that the house’s door was open, and he again became motionless—this time for just a few seconds. Lifting a hand to warn Mary, he made his way alone up the short bank and across a length of ground to the trading house. He walked through the open door and paused until his eyes adjusted to the dim light within.

Here were three Shawnee and a youth, a white man who was tied to a chair, his face twisted in pain or in grief. But it was pain, for then Sheninjee heard him whimper and saw that the ears of his head had been carefully sliced so that they looked stringy.

The Shawnee, inebriated, regarded Sheninjee, who returned their stares. The white man seemed to fall into a semiconscious state; he slumped against the ties securing him to the crude chair.

Sheninjee said, “Who is this man?”

The tallest Shawnee held his head to one side as if his neck were stiff. Impressed with Sheninjee’s bearing, he narrowed his eyes in an exaggerated way and said, “This one? This—stinking white? He was with the traders when we met them. We brought him here through the woods.”

Sheninjee studied them. “This,” the Shawnee continued, “is a stinking white, not a man. This is a pig.” He lifted his knife and made a swift diagonal cut across the shreds of the prisoner’s ear. The young man screamed.

Sheninjee was careful not to take a step forward. “What has he done?”

“He was born a white!”

Then the tall spokesman and the other two Shawnee started squinting and blinking: a woman with a baby in her arms had stepped into the cabin.

And the woman said in a low voice, “Untie him.”