Jane looked up, saw Hiokatoo, and said in a loud, bold voice: “Even my father? Is it the condition even of my father to wobble?”

The thought of wobbling on the part of their massive father, the father who kept his shining tomahawk next to their parents’ pallet, made the children’s mouths open.

Then Hiokatoo began moving from side to side. He stepped forward and moved his hips; he stepped forward again and lost his balance. He staggered.

His children shrieked.

Hiokatoo frowned deeply. “What is this? You laugh at the Great Wobbler?”

The children yelled.

Then their father stooped, reached past their mother, and touched each child lightly on the forehead.

Later he said to his wife, “I hardly recognized that story. You are changing the great Seneca turtle legend.”

“As Senecas before me have changed it,” she replied.

His countenance changed.

“Did my answer anger you?”

“No,” he said. “I came to ask you to go to Oswego with me.”

“Oswego? Why?”

“To a council.”

“A council?”

“The people,” he said, “of the colonies have risen up against the English king.”

“WE ASK your help,” the British commissioner said, “in putting a stop to this rebellion.” As he spoke from the center of the council circle, he moved about and waved his arms in an expansive manner. “It is an evil uprising; it will destroy the normal order of things.”

He stopped speaking, for he had caught sight of Mary sitting just outside the council circle. Who was this? One of his own held against her will? A spy trying to disguise herself as an Iroquois? Though she was tanned, her hair and eyes betrayed her. A rebel sympathizer? He frowned and turned to his compatriot, who shrugged.

An Oneida chief rose and held up his hand. “We know you are aware,” he said, “that the Six Nations have conferred: we will not enter the thickets of this dispute.”

“Do not think,” the commissioner continued as if the Oneida had not spoken, “that the Nations will profit little from assisting King George. He has sworn that in exchange for your famous warring skills, his vast resources will be always at your disposal: if your maize is blasted by downpours or drought, he will send food to nourish you and your children. He will supply you with guns and gunpowder for your days, and when you return to your homes at nightfall, rum will await you. If you join with us, each man”—and he looked pointedly at Mary—“will today have a pledge of the king’s good intentions. In addition to what you are about to see, you will receive money, a bounty payment for each rebel scalp you present to us.”

Hiokatoo turned his head and looked at his wife. Her face was expressionless.

The Englishman pointed toward his chief officer, who was opening a large bundle which lay at his feet. He unwrapped and held up in turn a full suit of clothes, a brass kettle, a gun with an accompanying vessel of powder and lead, a tomahawk, a scalping knife, and something that looked like a flake of gold.