But Autumnsquam had learned to shoot a stone-head arrow. With a stone-head arrow, he knew just the force and flight needed to bring down deer or black duck. Bringing down white men would be no different.

He sat before his wetu, and with a large stone he chipped at a smaller one. On the ground sat a bowl of finished arrowheads and a pile of unworked stones.

“You make many.” Aspinet stood over him.

Autumnsquam looked up. “We need many.”

The old sachem sat on his haunches, which pleased Autumnsquam because it was a sign that Aspinet accepted him as an equal. Autumnsquam called to his new woman to bring them food.

“The white men have been here now for one moon, and they have not come south of the rivers of the Pamets.” Aspinet picked up a piece of snow crust and sucked on it.

“But they do much north of there. They take Pamet seed corn. They dig into Pamet graves. They steal from Pamet dwellings. White men steal everything.” Small chips of stone flew as Autumnsquam worked. “Even us.”

“Their women wash clothes on the shore. They would not bring their women on a stealing voyage.”

“So they wish to settle. Stealing or settling, they bring no good.”

Autumnsquam’s new woman came with a bowl of salt herring and put it before the men. He waited until the sachem had taken the first bite of fish; then he took a piece and tore it with his teeth. When she saw that the men were pleased, the woman went back into the wetu.

“Her belly grows big,” said Aspinet.

“I will not let her be stolen, or lose another child to another sickness. If I do, I will wait for a storm, then point my canoe into the sea.”

Aspinet looked for a long time at the young man, then picked up an arrowhead. “Make many more.”

iii.

Jack Hilyard awoke like a man. That was what he said whenever morning brought a firmness of the loins, whether from a dream or a need to piss.

The feeble light slipping through the cracks of their little canvas room told him it was before sunrise. He glanced at his son, sleeping at the foot of the pallet. Then he listened. Except for the sounds of snoring and coughing, the tween-decks was quiet. Sleep was a true gift.

The Saints might have their thoughts of God, the Strangers their dreams of a new beginning, but every waking hour was invested by the presence of a wilderness that seemed, even to Jack, to be indomitable. For all of them, sleep had become a small surcease from this vision, a time to restore the spirit as well as the body. And when the spirit was restored, the body might awaken like a man.

Jack pulled his shirt up around his waist, then rolled toward Kate, who slept with her back to him. He bunched up a handful of her shift and pressed against her. She made a sound in her sleep and moved slightly, just enough that he could slip himself between the soft globes of her flesh.

Then he closed his eyes and felt her warmth. He had been cold for days. He had been miserable for weeks. Only Kate had kept him from losing hope. In a life of hopelessness, any woman might make a companion, but a woman who loved you promised the future.