In answer, polished scalping knives and tomahawks were raised and shone in the sun. Hiokatoo stepped back and his arms fell to his sides as if he were exhausted.

She watched the games, the races, the enacted ambushes, the dancing and face paintings, and finally she turned to the far field where Hiokatoo was drawing a crowd. He was doing a kind of pantomime or “dumb show,” and he was all wrists: she saw that he was performing a mock tomahawking. Those wrists with their immense suppleness made the tomahawk and scalping blade rotate and swivel so as to hone close to bone, to cleave and carve out a wedge of scalp. He punctuated ritual scalping after scalping by throwing his instruments into the air and catching them with sudden clutching movements. In all of this, his dignity was greater than that of any scepter-wielding king.

Finally he packed his trophies into an imaginary bag.

“YOU WATCHED too closely.” Tree looked at Mary’s face. “He told you he was a fierce warrior. Was that not enough? You watched too closely.”

“He seemed to me kind and gentle.”

Then Tree sighed and told her that he was tender with his friends. Further, she said that Mary had looked for kindness and gentleness, that she had wanted to know “kind” and “gentle” and had not on the other hand wanted to see the fierceness of which her new husband himself had spoken. Mary had not wanted to know the facts—that he had earlier practiced the art of war on everything hostile that fell into his hands.

For the next days I avoided Hiokatoo as much as I could. I was aimless and restless and the specter of leaving the Genesee gripped me again so that I would sweat and want to die. Almost worse than these feelings was the knowledge that I had just a year or so before resolved that I would accept my life as settled.

It was Hiokatoo’s fault. I told myself that I had made a mistake in marrying him. And once, I caught myself thinking that I hated him.

“YOU DO not look at me,” Hiokatoo said. “You will not meet your husband’s gaze.” He waited for a reply, and when it did not come his shoulders slumped. He looked to one side of his wife and continued: “My young sinews were formed for strength, for war. And war itself further formed them. I loved combat, the ambush thrilled me, and also the spoiling of my enemies.” He looked right at Mary and spoke deliberately. “Sometimes our enemies were held at bay with just the stories about my furious assaults.”

Mary returned his gaze, and at this he sat up straight and leaned slightly forward toward her. He lowered his voice. “I know you lost your white family. I was carried away during the festival. To be a warrior at all you have to want to win. You must want success. Your nerves have to be finely strung. My nerves were remembering my younger days.”