Thieving Forest by Martha Conway

front.
    “Thank you,” he says, his fingers closing over it.
    “Take all three.”
    “One is enough.”
    Susanna puts the other two buttons back into the little square of cloth that serves as their bag and winds a strand of cotton thread around it.
    “Before she died, my sister...Aurelia...she told me she had seen a creature, one of those Black Swamp creatures, half wolf and half swine.” She pauses and looks at him, but Old Adam says nothing. “Could that be true?”
    “Have never seen one,” he tells her.
    “She also said that a white man watched them being taken away.”
    Old Adam looks away past her, toward the uneven roof of the tavern. His expression does not change. At last he says, “Hard to know what is true and what is illness speaking. Maybe animal, maybe no animal. Maybe man, maybe no man.”
    Susanna says, “That doesn’t help me.”
    Old Adam smiles. He looks at her like a father might. “You need to know?”
    “I think so. I don’t know. Maybe not.”
    “Jonas Footbound goes with you to Gemeinschaft. He is good man. Your father was good man too.” He touches her on the shoulder. “When in the wild, remember, lose fear and suspicion. See with all senses.”
    “We’re not going through the forest,” Susanna tells him.
    The sun begins to spread itself more brightly over the horizon, and as if on its command dozens of birds begin chattering all at once. Old Adam’s hand is still on her shoulder. She feels it like a blessing. “Be well, Susanna Quiner,” he says. “Stay harmless.”

Gemeinschaft

Seven
    Susanna doesn’t know when Liza found the time to make the heavy split skirt for her to wear on the ride, but it is a practical gift made out of strongly woven linen with a pocket for her turkey hen bone. After Jonas helps her mount she touches the bone through the fabric. It is a cloudy morning, some rain later probably, maybe even a storm.
    “I think we can beat it,” Jonas says as they start off.
    Moments later, to Susanna’s surprise, Seth Spendlove comes riding up hard. He asks to accompany them, says he has some business with the brethren. His coat is stained and his boots are so muddy at the bottom they seem to be made from two different grains of leather.
    Also in their party are Barbarus Tulp, a Risdale farmer who wants to buy flaxseed from the brethren, and Tulp’s grown daughter, Ada. Ada wears cracked spectacles and has breadcrumbs scattered all over her collar. She keeps exclaiming over the view, which is, like all of Ohio, a view of trees sliced through with muddy streams. Susanna finds Ada affected and unkempt and a better horsewoman than she is. It is hard to forgive her for any of that.
    Susanna is not good with horses. The horse that Jonas found for her, an ornery mare called Step, has three white socks, which is very unlucky. Step keeps brushing along the trees next to the track as though hoping to crush Susanna’s leg against one of them. Although Susanna tries to rein the mare over, Step’s mouth is so tough that the bit means nothing to her.
    “They don’t know the first way about making a living,” Tulp is saying as they ride. “Plant corn, but when the time comes to harvest, where are they but off hunting? Then they overhunt so they have to go to another tribe’s territory for fresh meat, and war is what happens next.”
    “Savages,” Ada Tulp says, looking back at Susanna with an ugly expression, as if Susanna, being a woman, would naturally agree. Ada swirls her reins around to avoid a puddle. Susanna tries to follow but Step plunges right into the water and mud shoots up the inside of Susanna’s split skirt and onto her leg. She makes up her mind then and there never to use the word “savages” again.
    By the time they stop for a quick meal the wind has met up with them and the horses are getting nervous, twitching their tails and refusing water. While Ada tries to soothe her own horse Susanna ignores Step and sits down on a mossy log a good ways