New York - The Novel

and settled at the far end of Lake Erie. The Turtle clan, they’re called. There’s not a lot of them, and they don’t give trouble. Keep to themselves, mostly.”
    “So her people were around when our family first came to Manhattan?”
    “Probably.” He gazed down at her. “She’s a pretty little thing, isn’t she?”
    Frank didn’t answer, but then the girl turned and stared into his eyes, and he felt awkward, and looked away.
    “She’s all right, I guess,” he said.
    “You want my wampum belt, don’t you?” his father said to the girl. He used a calm, friendly voice, the same as when he was talking to the dog at home. “Well, you can’t have it.”
    “Can she understand you, Pa?” asked Frank.
    “No idea,” said his father. Then something caught his eye. “Hmm,” he said. “What’s that?” And he signed to the girl that he wanted to look at an object hanging round her neck. Frank could see that the girl didn’t want him to, but since his father had let her look at his belt, she couldn’t very well refuse.
    Without making any sudden movement, his father reached forward.
    It was so neatly made. Two tiny rings of wood glued together formed a little double-sided frame, with a cross of twine binding them together for extra security. A thin leather thong passing through the frame made a loop, so that the girl could hang it round her neck. The precious object in the little frame gleamed softly in the light as his father held it up and examined it.
    “Well, I’m damned,” he said. “Do you know what this is, Frank?”
    “Looks like a new dollar.”
    “It is and it isn’t. We’ve been minting US dollars one way or another for forty years now, but this is older. It’s a Dutch dollar. A lion dollar, they used to call them.”
    “I never heard of that.”
    “People still used them when I was a boy, but they were so old and worn by then, we called them dog dollars. This one’s never been in circulation, I’d swear. It must be a hundred and fifty years old—maybe more—but you can see it’s still like new.” He shook his head in wonderment, and handed it to Frank.
    Frank looked at the coin. He could see there was a splendid lion depicted on the front and a knight of some sort on the back. He gave it back to his father.
    His father looked at the girl, considering. “I wonder if she’d sell it to me,” he said. He made a sign to the girl that he wanted to buy it. She looked alarmed, and shook her head. “Hmm,” said his father. He thought for a moment. Then he pointed to the wampum belt. “Trade?”
    Frank saw the girl hesitate, but only for a moment. Then she shook her head again, and put out her hand for the coin. She looked unhappy.
    But his father wasn’t a man to give up easily. He smiled at her and offered again, keeping the coin well out of her reach.
    Again she shook her head and held out her hand.
    His father looked over to where the Indians were sitting. They were watching impassively.
    “That’ll be her family, I should think,” he said. “Maybe they’ll tell her to sell it to me.” He wound the leather thong round the coin, making a little package of it. “I reckon I’ll speak to them,” he said.
    By now the girl was visibly distressed. She thrust out her hand again, urgently.
    “Give it back to her, Pa,” said Frank suddenly. “Leave her alone.”
    His father turned to him with a frown, surprised. “What’s the matter, son?”
    “It’s hers, Pa. You should give it back to her.”
    His father paused a moment. “I thought maybe you might have liked it.”
    “No.”
    His father wasn’t too pleased, but he handed the coin back to the girl with a shrug. She took it and, clasping it tightly, ran back across the grass to her family.
    His father stared out irritably at the water.
    “Well,” he said, “I guess that’s Niagara Falls.”
    After they had started back along the path, his father said: “Don’t get emotional when you’re trading, Frank.”
    “I won’t, Pa.”
    “That girl. She may have got white blood, somewhere back, but she’s still a savage, you know.”
    That evening, they ate with the governor in a big hall, and all the people who were coming on the boat tomorrow toasted the new canal andsaid how grand it would be. Frank was pretty excited at the thought of the trip ahead, and all the locks they would be going through.
    Then after the meal, while the men were sitting at the table, drinking and smoking their cigars, Frank asked