Shake The Earth

By P. L. O'Sullivan

Based on the life of Margaret Helm, SHAKE THE EARTH is a groundbreaking novel about one woman's resilience in the face of insurmountable obstacles as Indian Country died and the city of Chicago rose from the ashes of Fort Dearborn. Margaret will lose everything on one desperate gamble, everything but a determination to own a piece of land that cannot be taken from her. As she wanders between the wilderness and civilization, she will never give up her quest or forget the one man she has always loved but cannot have.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newcastlewest Books
• Release date: Mar 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9780996713177

P. L. O'Sullivan

P. L. O'Sullivan is a fourth generation Chicagoan with roots in the traditional Irish enclave of Bridgeport

Book preview

An egret feather fluttered in a clump of grass on the top of a sand hill and she scampered up to retrieve it. If she could find enough feathers, she would make a pair of wings and soar over the water, to escape the constant threats, the endless commands to act like the daughter of a gentleman. A gentleman who died before I was born, she said to the feather. My breeding did not signify before we came here.

Never look back, her mother had said, repeated it like a prayer. How could she not look back, when her mother’s voice betrayed that same longing for the trading post they had to leave because Mr. Kinzie saw opportunity on the far side of Lake Michigan.

He was not a gentleman, her stepfather, but he was a bourgeois and that was a position of high standing in the fur trade. Who would Margaret marry but a man attached to the same business, and why would such a man be concerned with pedigree? She twined the feather into her braid. If they had stayed at St. Josephs they could have remained outside of white society, with all its rules and regulations.

Taking as much time as she could, Margaret wandered along the beach trail and found another feather that she stuck into her other braid. She imagined a bird in flight as she raced down the hill, only to be overcome by an unpleasant sensation of being insignificant, like a single grain in a mountain of sand. Making haste to escape, she reached the maple grove where the trees bore scars of countless sugar seasons. Unfamiliar scars, every one. She hated the trees of the Fort Dearborn settlement.

Juneberry bushes embraced the gnarled trunks, the dark purple fruit dangling just beyond her reach. The hatchet and twine she carried were put aside so that she could use both hands to pull down a branch and select the ripest berries. Moving from bush to bush, she almost filled the basket, only to realize that she had forgotten where she left the hatchet. The tool was more valuable than her life and Mr. Kinzie would skin her alive if it went missing. She had to retrace her steps to find it, eyes fixed to the ground to track her path.

A loud thud caught her attention, and when she looked up, she saw a Potawatomi boy coming towards her, an arrow notched in his bow. At once Margaret thought of her mother who had been kidnapped by the Seneca when she was ten, taken and held for ransom for four long years. What if Margaret was kidnapped, would her mother beg Mr. Kinzie to pay the ransom at once or would she tell him to keep his money because her daughter was disrespectful and did not know her place? A sparkle caught her eye and she lunged at the hatchet, surprised to find that it had somehow become very heavy.

What she thought at first to be a look of menace faded into one of surprise, as if the boy was as shocked to find her in the woods as she was to see him. Assuming it was best, and safest, to start an acquaintance on friendly terms, she raised her left hand in greeting. Bozho, she said, speaking his language to show that they were strangers but not enemies. After all, Mr. Kinzie had been trading at Chicago since before she was born and everyone for miles around held him in high regard. And they cared not if he was a gentleman or common folk.

The boy, or maybe he was more of a young man, stared at her while she tried to outstare him, only to blink first. It was like looking at her shadow stretching out tall before her on a long summer evening. He was dusk and she was dawn, darkness and light, the two halves of the sky. A hint of a smile creased the corner of his mouth and she smiled back, overcome by a powerful bout of shyness.

He picked up the squirrel he had speared with an arrow, a great show of skill that was meant to impress. Eyes cast down, she noticed that he was watching her from the corner of his eye to see if she was watching him as he drew the bowstring back, spindly muscles taut with overblown effort. He let the arrow fly and it sailed up towards the tall branches of the gnarled maples, up and up and over the squirrel that scampered away, unharmed. A nugget of laughter caught in her throat, held in place by good manners. To chuckle over such failure was more than rude, and the best way to manage the situation was to pretend that she had not seen anything. Margaret made a show of her own in selecting fallen branches for the kindling she was supposed to collect along with the berries.

Having started the task, she had to continue or her new friend might realize that she had, indeed, seen his humiliation. She picked up what twigs were at hand, and then went in search of more, leaving the boy to his hunting. With arms loaded down, she returned and added the gatherings to the pile, pausing to taste a few juneberries. To her surprise, the basket was not as full as she recalled. A clever robin must have gotten at it, and she draped her calico bonnet over the handle to protect the promise of a juneberry pie for tea.

She went off to another corner of the grove and found a nice big branch that she chopped into smaller pieces. The pie would taste particularly good that evening, after so much hard work, and no gentleman's daughter could have done better. When she brought the wood to her pile she found her bonnet moved and even more berries missing. I should have gathered the kindling first, she said. Stupid girl. She could not very well lug the basket around and still carry enough firewood without having to make countless trips back and forth. The sun would set long before she finished, and how was she to fill the basket as well? She had heard the wolves howling the night before. She would not linger in the dark woods no matter how angry her mother would be when she returned home with a chore not done and no good reason for it.

The boy came back to the clearing as she knotted the hatchet into the kindling bundle. He carried a brace of squirrels with a swagger that she knew from the warriors who came to trade furs with Mr. Kinzie, a way of bragging that was almost a dance. He bent over and helped himself to the juneberries, uninvited. Shocked at his boldness, Margaret gasped with surprise and a touch of anger. In response, he tugged a crow feather from his braid and dropped it in the basket, as if that was enough in trade.

If it was to be an equal exchange, Margaret had to make a counter-offer. She held the feather in her hand, weighed it, and spun it between her fingers. The boy ate another handful of berries, and then another as he waited for her to accept an offer that was growing worse by the minute. No boy was getting the better of Margaret McKillip. She pushed the feather into her hair and yanked a squirrel carcass out of his hand. He tipped the basket into his gaping mouth. She grabbed a second squirrel and stared him down, daring him to try to take it back.

To show that their business was concluded, she put the squirrels into the now empty basket and donned her bonnet with a definite finality. She wrapped her fingers around the basket handle, but the boy was just as quick to get a grip. He tugged, to indicate that he was not satisfied with the deal, which she recognized as quite unequal if only the value of the meat was being considered. She could not damage Mr. Kinzie's reputation for fairness by not being fair herself.

All she had left to give was her most valuable possession, a peppermint drop that she had carried from St. Josephs. There were countless more to be had in Detroit, Mother had said, and so Margaret had saved it in her pocket, cherished it, licked it but three times when the temptation was too strong. With sorrow she wiped it down the front of her apron to rub off the sand and lint, and then held back a tear as the candy moved from the boy's fingertips to his mouth. An ache settled in her stomach. She had been too hasty, not taking one last taste for memory's sake.

Before the misery grew too strong she heaved the kindling bundle onto her back, to put distance behind a great loss. The pile proved much heavier than she realized and if the boy had not caught her she would have tumbled over. He laughed at her in a friendly way, and then adjusted the load onto her back in the way that Potawatomi men helped their wives with their belongings when they broke up the winter camp. The smell of peppermint floated around his head like a delicious cloud as he reached around her to help her get a firm purchase on the load.

Pama minè, she said. Farewell, but not good-bye. They would see each other again, she was certain, and she would play a prank on him to repay his mischief. And what costly play it had been.

The shadows were creeping into the woods and Margaret hurried away, to reach the clearing before dark. St. Josephs is gone, her footsteps echoed her thought, a maddening rhythm that she could not outrun. She would have started sobbing if she had not caught sight of Mr. Kinzie walking towards her, his red beard flecked with wood shavings.

What's this, he said, lifting the kindling from her shoulders. Enough wood to build a fire and a house with a barn. Margaret, if I asked you for a drop of cream you'd bring me a herd of dairy cows.

I brought back two squirrels, sir, she said. Whether her mother would be satisfied with meat instead of juneberries remained to be seen.

Did you bring them down with this tree that you felled? he asked. Is that what took you half the afternoon and part of the evening?

No, sir, I made a trade.

You made a trade? My little bourgeois, bringing me peltries. Next you'll be sailing for Montreal to meet with the fur buyers while I sit back like a proper English gentleman and do nothing. With a hand to her back, he guided her towards the smokehouse. How wise I was, eh, to not let your mother send you to Detroit.

If you had, I would be like Mother when she was with the Seneca, she said.

You would wear animal skins? he asked.

An image formed in her mind as she saw herself walking through Detroit, or at least what she thought Detroit might look like, dressed in a deerskin shift embroidered with beads and quills. Would she be an odd sight, or would she blend in, like a grain of sand in the shifting pile that gathered on the piazza every day? She quickened her pace to keep up with Mr. Kinzie's long stride. I meant I would cry for her every night and be sad, always, she said.

Is that so? Would you be sad always if you were treated like a princess, the daughter of a great chief? Father paused, his smile gone. What are we to do with you, Margaret? Your mother is right. There are no prospects here and soon enough you'll be in need of a husband.

You could bring back someone from Montreal, she said. Someone to be your partner.

His smile returned. What is in your hair? Are you a Potawatomi girl today? Mother will not be too pleased, will she?

A slight aroma of peppermint tickled her nose as she tugged the feathers from her braids. Her fingertips were still sticky and she touched them to her tongue, but all she could taste was dirt. St. Josephs was well and truly gone, given away in an impulsive gesture. What was done was done. She did not want to go to Detroit, not for all the peppermint drops in the world. There was no place to look but straight ahead.

TWO

Across the river, Fort Dearborn stood like a forest on parade, the trees marching shoulder to shoulder as they wheeled left and left and left again to make a palisade. Margaret pushed a pile of sand off the edge of the piazza, her eyes on the guard tower, and wondered if the sentry imagined that he was a hawk. She worked the broom from side to side in a never-ending battle against the blowing sand and prayed that one of the Whistler girls would appear at the riverbank and invite her to call. While her mother kept her busy so that she could not mingle with the Indians overly much, she was at liberty to visit the white world across the river.

It was a different country on the south side of the Chicago River, a place where English was spoken and native people were not welcome. Mr. Kinzie’s trading post on the north bank was the neutral territory where two great nations came together to transact business. There were no borders when it came to the fur trade, Mr. Kinzie often said. It was a lesson that Margaret learned by listening to the men who bartered in the trading room when she was supposed to be practicing arithmetic by tabulating the pages in her stepfather’s ledger.

She was happy to put the broom aside when Mr. Kinzie called her in. While the men traded gossip and goods in a babble of Potawatomi, French, and a few words in English, she absorbed the give and take of their negotiations. Adding up the columns of credits and payments she learned how to set a value when it shifted with circumstance. The gold that the soldiers used to settle their accounts was prized because Mr. Kinzie’s suppliers were white men who dealt in pieces of metal. Let one of those merchants find himself caught in a blizzard on the prairie and he would accept compensation in the form of a warm fire. On the other hand, of what use was a steady income to the Indians who lived off the land? They wanted guns to make hunting easier, and so they put a higher value on firearms than the gunsmiths who sold them to Mr. Kinzie. Trading peltries for gold made no sense because the gold was not valuable to them.

Margaret dipped the quill, ready to tackle another page in the ledger, when her mother stepped into the trading room with a dust rag in hand. I will yield, Mr. Kinzie, she said. Mrs. Ouilmette would enjoy the company and she will keep an eye on Margaret. So that there is no misunderstanding.

She is not entering the lion's den, my dear. Old Naunongee may not welcome her with open arms. He left his work to rifle through bins filled with glass beads. But if she is bearing gifts, this most influential chief will at least have to drop his tomahawk to free his hands so that he might grasp them.

A young mind is easily swayed, Mother said. The allurements, as I know so well.

This is a business arrangement, Mr. Kinzie said. My representative, as it were. We must use what we have to maintain our hold or risk losing all to my competitors. This will only be a few days, my dear, not equal to the four years of your experience. Little time for any allurements to take hold.

With several muslin bags filled with trinkets, a cask of gunpowder and a pair of silver emblems to bestow as gifts, Margaret set off with her neighbor to pay a call on the Potawatomi camp downriver on the Portage. She enjoyed spending time with Mrs. Ouilmette, a young bride who was the granddaughter of Naunongee, a prominent chief whose distrust of whites was legendary. That she married a French fur trapper, following in her mother’s footsteps, only increased his hatred for men he saw as invaders come to steal his land. Like her sisters who also married white men, Mrs. Ouilmette saw a future in which all were intermingled and a new people arose, living in harmony because they could bridge both cultures. Did she not live in a white man’s house, while farming the land in the Potawatomi way?

You wear moccasins and I wear calico, she said. We learn from each other and then take what is most useful. Tell my grandfather such a thing and he squawks like a mad turkey. And don’t dare ask him why he uses a white man’s gun instead of arrows to hunt.

With a hard shove, Mrs. Ouilmette launched the canoe and Margaret took up a paddle, so eager to reach the Indian camp that she could not get into a rhythm with her neighbor. In the settlement, she was expected to behave like the Whistler girls, the offspring of British landed gentry. Their world was too confined for Margaret, who missed the foot races and competitions she knew from St. Josephs. Running was forbidden at the settlement, especially when it was a contest, but there would be no such restrictions at the Indian camp. How could she propel the little boat with lazy strokes when she wanted to cut through the water like a bear was at her heels?

We want only to be left in peace, Mrs. Ouilmette said.

Our men can decide what is best for them, Margaret said, aping words she had heard at the trading post. The rebellion was fought for that very reason, but now those from the east want to be our king,

My sisters and I, we fear that our grandfather will one day force us to choose between our white husbands or our Potawatomi relations, Mrs. Ouilmette said.

Captain Whistler says that the fort is here is protect us all from being overrun by white settlers, Margaret said.

He speaks for the Great Father Jefferson, Mrs. Ouilmette said. And many chiefs no longer trust the word of the Great Father or his agents.

More words reached the tip of Margaret’s tongue but she swallowed them down. Mr. Kinzie had no love for President Jefferson either, but his opinions were not meant to be aired in public by anyone other than himself. What he said to Captain Whistler within the confines of the piazza was best kept there.

Hello, Margaret, are you leaving us? Harriet called from the opposite bank. The Whistler girl closest in age to Margaret was in company with her younger sisters and

Mrs. Lalime, the wife of the post’s interpreter. The older sister, Sarah, was noticeably missing and Margaret wondered if the settlement’s gossip was true.

The Whistler girls asked questions all at once, chattering like a flock of trumpeter swans. Behind them stood Mrs. Lalime, scowling with a chilling glare that was frequently directed at any convenient member of the Kinzie household. She took affront to everything, it seemed, from the disregard of Mrs. Whistler who preferred Mrs. Kinzie’s company to the cold shoulder of the metis women who considered her arrogant. Her dislike of all things Kinzie had its origins in the dissolution of the partnership between Mr. Lalime and Mr. Kinzie. The two fur traders had been partners for a time, until Mr. Kinzie formed a new partnership with his half-brother Thomas Forsythe. From that day forward, Kinzie and Forsythe Mercantile prospered while Lalime was left behind, his sour disposition costing him Captain Whistler’s favor and the sutling business at the fort. Bad blood existed between the Kinzies and Lalimes, a festering that showed no signs of healing. Margaret waved good-bye to her friends and ignored her family’s enemy.

Coming up fast behind them was a flotilla of canoes powered by strong men who had been at the trading post earlier. Their voices carried as they argued loudly, decrying the Indian agent at Fort Wayne who was forever making new treaties and demanding more land as President Jefferson drew new boundaries to Indian Territory whenever it suited him.

Hot words, Mrs. Ouilmette said. There are many in my family who want to drive the whites back to the east.

Would they go to war over it? Margaret asked. Captain Whistler was quite concerned that the warriors were being driven to desperate measures by fools in Washington City who had no idea what damage they were causing.

When a man is forced to become a woman, tilling the soil, not allowed to hunt, would you blame him for fighting?

No, Margaret said. A man who would not defend his honor was no man. We should be left alone in Indian Country. If whites want to come and live here, they should follow our customs and not try to force theirs on us.

A call for peace came from two warriors who spoke at the same time, making it difficult for Margaret to translate their words. She lost the rhythm of the paddling and Mrs. Ouilmette issued a stern correction. It was hard work to navigate the river against the current and there was no call to make the journey that much more difficult. We have made our own customs in the settlement. Not quite Potawatomi, not quite French. You understand this because you are young and the young can see with their fresh eyes.

Father said I am being sent with you to meet my Indian father, but he did not explain what he meant, Margaret said.

Mka-da-puk-ke has come up from Peoria and wishes to see you, Mrs. Ouilmette said. He will tell you the story, better than I can.

A father, a step-father, and now an Indian father; Margaret was distracted by the puzzle presented and her strokes took the canoe sideways towards the shore. She corrected course with a series of short chops, but the slow pace meant that the men soon overtook them. Greetings were called out from those not busy arguing, and as a canoe passed, Margaret was poked in the back of the head with a wet paddle. Hurry, or you shall be as old as my grandmother before you reach the camp, a boy said.

Hoots of laughter filled the girl with anger at being mocked, but when Margaret turned to hiss at her tormentor she saw the young man who had stolen her juneberries. With a quick slap of his paddle he splashed her, and then smirked with a look that dared her to retaliate. Not one to take a challenge lightly, Margaret dug into the current with a fury, sending the canoe into a spin that Mrs. Ouilmette corrected with a great deal of effort. If you have ruined this corn, Pepinawah, I will ruin your hide, she barked. Keep together, Margaret. What has come over you?

The men powered ahead and Margaret settled into a comfortable pace, focusing her thoughts on even more retribution. She had yet to develop any sort of strategy by the time they reached the camp, where the people were turned out on the bank waiting for guests. A buzz of excitement charged the group as Margaret stepped ashore and helped Mrs. Ouilmette beach the canoe. The arrival of a visitor who was not related was a novelty, and novelty was a rare treat in the wilderness.

No less than two dozen girls gathered around the daughter of Shawneeawkee, as they called Mr. Kinzie, each one vying for the honor of speaking to a distinguished person. Pepinawah pushed through the knot of giggling females and took the basket of corn from Margaret’s hands, thrusting it at one of the younger girls with an air of authority. He ordered them to clear the way, as if Margaret were a queen, and when she tried to help Mrs. Ouilmette off-load the corn, he took charge of the process like a ship’s master.

Trailing children and barking dogs in their wake, the procession made its way to a wigwam near the center of the camp, where Margaret was presented to Mrs. Ouilmette’s uncle Wahbeeneemah and her aunt Nodnokwe. There then followed a stream of introductions that had Margaret’s head spinning, with too many faces to match with too many names. Through it all Pepinawah remained glued to her side, as if he had appointed himself her guardian and protector. He would remember for her, she felt, an ally to guide her through foreign territory. All at once she felt the tug of the satchel strung over her shoulder.

She had known nothing but the fur trade for all of her nine years, and she understood full well the importance of friendship. The continued success of Kinzie and Forsythe depended on strong ties between the Potawatomi and Mr. Kinzie, and appeasing Naunongee was an important element. She had to be respectful and offer the gifts with humility, as befitted a girl, and be respectful to the old chief whether he showed her any respect or not. Her behavior would show that the Kinzie tribe was at peace with Naunongee’s clan, that skin color did not signify. With Mrs. Ouilmette holding her hand, Margaret approached the cluster of chiefs who sat on reed mats at the center of the camp.

She recognized one of them from the canoeing party, a very tall man who appeared to be a little younger than Mr. Kinzie. He must have known who she was because he rose and embraced her. Welcome, my daughter, Mka-da-puk-ke said. Sit next to me and we shall talk of days past.

I have gifts for the great chief Naunongee, she said, eyes held demurely to the ground.

The chief accepted the presents from a man he called his good friend, but Margaret was not quite certain that the sentiment was genuine. He heaped praise on the silver armband, a shiny piece of art that Mr. Kinzie was known for among the tribes. His Indian name translated to Silver Man, and Mr. Kinzie’s ornaments were rather highly prized, according to Mka-da-puk-ke, who sported a silver emblem tied into the strip of rawhide that held his braid in place. Each item from the bag was displayed for all to see as Naunongee basked in the glory of being important. As best as Margaret could judge, her visit was going well.

Now I will speak of another friend, Mka-da-puk-ke said.

Listen carefully, Mrs. Ouilmette whispered in her ear. He will tell you the story of your father.

The saga of the brave white chief McKillip held Margaret spellbound, a chronicle of heroic courage in battle. What little she knew of her father revolved around his lack of financial means and how he left a widow in dire circumstances, an image that did not quite square with the picture painted by Mka-da-puk-ke. Margaret wondered why her father had gone so far from home, from Upper Canada all the way down to the Maumee River where the Miami and Ottawa once lived until their land was taken. Why would he leave his young bride? The answer came without her asking, as if her Indian father heard her thoughts. Captain McKillip was called by his British superiors and he brought his men where they were sent, to defend Indian friends against a common enemy.

At a place where the Americans had felled the woods to barricade their fort, McKillip fought at my side like a brother, Mka-ka-da-puk-ke said. The bullets did not frighten him, the clouds of bullets like the flocks of pigeons that darken the sky with their numbers. But we were too few and we retreated to the shelter of the British fort, thinking our friends would help us. The brave chief McKillip did not join his people behind the walls. He remained with us, and attacked like a warrior instead of hiding like a woman.

Naunongee snorted with derision. His people closed the gates of their fort in our faces when we arrived with the American warriors not far behind. His people left us to be slaughtered.

McKillip chose to remain with us, Mka-da-puk-ke said. He fell with our warriors. Their blood mingled on the ground, the same red blood. Many Potawatomi warriors were saved by his sacrifice. McKillip was my brother from that time and so his daughter became my daughter.

The two old chiefs argued tactics and strategy, re-fighting an old battle that would have had a different outcome if one thing or another. Listening carefully, Margaret discovered that a single act of British treachery had altered the old alliance between England and the native tribes, who had supported the English during the American revolution. After the Battle of Fallen Timbers, many of the chiefs decided to abandon their former allies and join with the Americans, hoping that their loyalty could be converted into protection of Indian lands. The British had shown that they were unwilling, or incapable, of stopping the American onslaught, and the Indians had to make peace with their former enemy to survive. Chiefs like Naunongee believed that his people were doomed if they made peace. Killing the enemy was