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Whole villages had died. Perhaps half the native population of the region had already faded away. Malaria had come with the White Men’s ships, and syphilis too. But the most fearsome import of all had been smallpox. Only last year, that terrible scourge had wiped out nearly a whole tribe south of New Netherland, and then appeared even in New Amsterdam.
    Could it be smallpox?
    Then he had done a terrible thing. He could explain it, of course. He had to think of himself, his wife and children, the good people of New Amsterdam. The dominie would have told him: consider the greater good. Oh yes, he was justified. He had done the right thing when he hesitated and then, avoiding even Pale Feather, hurried back to his boat, and gone downriver.
    But couldn’t he have waited, instead of running like a coward? At a time when her family were preparing to be at her side, he’d deserted his Indian woman. Couldn’t he at least have seen the child? The pain, the awful, cold shame of it, haunted him still. Several times a year he awoke in the middle of the night, crying out at the horror of what he had done.
    A month later, he’d returned, to find Pale Feather safe in the bosom of her extended family, and to learn that her mother had died the day after he had fled, not of smallpox, but the measles.
    He’d tried to make it up to his daughter. Every year, when her people celebrated the feast of the dead, he had arrived. Normally one did not speak of the dead, but at this yearly feast, it was appropriate to do so, and to pray for their souls. This was what he had been doing for the last few days, before taking Pale Feather downriver.
    “Tell me what you remember about me when I was little,” she said.
    “We should move on,” he answered, “but I will tell you as we go.”
    So they left the glade where the wild strawberries grew, and found the old Indian trail again, and as he rode slowly along, he did his best to call to mind all the little incidents he could remember from her childhood, of days he had spent together with her and her mother; and this seemed to please Pale Feather. After a time, though she was not tired, he put her up on the horse in front of him.
    They reached the top of Manhattan well before dusk and camped on high ground above some Indian caves. Wrapping themselves in two blankets, they lay staring up at the sky, which was clear and full of stars.
    “Do you know where my mother is now?” she asked him.
    “Yes.” He knew what the Indians believed. He pointed his arm along the line of the Milky Way. “Her spirit has traveled along the path of stars to the twelfth heaven. She is with the Maker of all things.”
    She was silent for a long time, and he wondered if she were still awake. But then, in a sleepy voice, she said: “I think of you often.”
    “I think of you too.”
    “If you cannot see me, you can always hear me.”
    “Tell me how.”
    “When there is a little breeze, listen to the voice of the wind sighing in the pine trees. Then you will hear me.”
    “I will listen,” he said.
    The next morning they made their way down to the water and found the two Indians with the big canoe. There they parted and Dirk van Dyck went home.

    Margaretha van Dyck waited three weeks. It was a Sunday afternoon. Her husband had been reading a story to their children, and Quash the slave boy, in the parlor while she sat in a chair watching. These were the times she liked him best. Their son Jan was thirteen, a strong boy with a mop of brown hair, who admired his father and who wanted to follow in his footsteps. Dirk would take him to the company warehouse, explain the workings of the ships, the ports they called at, and the trade winds their captains had to follow. But Jan also reminded her of her own father. He had less waywardness of spirit than Dirk, more love of the counting house. She thought he’d do well.
    They had lost two other children a few years ago to a fever. That hadbeen a terrible blow. But the