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single syllable could completely alter a word’s meaning. Try tho’ I might, I uttered few words to Syawa’s satisfaction. He repeated them again and again, but the nuances eluded me. Still, he remained good-natured about my efforts and was absolutely delighted by my determination.
    I soon learnt it best to memorize entire phrases rather than simple words, and so I focused on those collections of sounds that meant “I must rest” or “I am hungry” or “I am ready.” In that way Syawa and I laboriously began to communicate in words at long last.
    Of course, the fact that Syawa was such an indefatigable talker meant I came to understand his meaning long before I could speak myself. Whene’er we stopt, he chattered on about himself, his family, his people, and his world through slow, oft-repeated phrases and his complex vocabulary of gestures. Using small stones to represent years, he explained he was twenty-five, Hector twenty-one. I was surprised to learn they were so much older than I’d thought, but their lack of beards and body hair made them seem young. Syawa went on to make me understand how unusual it was for any of his people to undertake the sort of Journey they were on, but added with a grin that he was very unusual amongst his people in many ways. I could certainly believe that —he was such a peculiar fellow, I felt certain he would stand out in any crowd.
    After we supt on the first night of our journey, Hector immediately went to sleep as Syawa worked hard to explain that his people were nothing like the Indians we’d just left. Instead of living in crude bark huts, for example, his people lived in spacious wooden houses more like the one in which he’d found me. He also assured me that, unlike the Indians of Pennsylvania, who achieved notoriety through war, or my own people, who acquired power through property, his people earned status by being accomplisht artisans.
    I wish I could impart how daunting it was for Syawa to explain such complex concepts through naught but gestures, but he was resolute and I was eager to learn. I frowned in concentration as he painstakingly pantomimed building, carving, painting, weaving, and I nodded as I slowly absorbed his meaning. His people, I concluded, took great pride in craftsmanship.
    Once he made me understand how important these refined skills were to his people, he went on to make clear, in no uncertain terms, that he, alas, did not excel at any of those endeavors. “I—not do—building, carving, painting,” he told me, shrugging in a self-deprecating way, tho’ his perpetual smile was still intact. “I think, dream—alone much. No friend—but him.” And he pointed to Hector, rolled up in his sleeping fur.
    From this I deduced Syawa was a loner, an outcast, someone who did not fit very well within the world he knew, and this news only made him more appealing to me. “I—do much,” I told him, trying hard to replicate the sounds he’d made. “But I—do much alone. No friend—no him.”
    Syawa’s smile flickered as he sympathized, his black eyes shining. “You—alone—not now,” he said softly. He took my hand and gestured from me to him to our joined hands. “You—me—together—forever.”
    I smiled, tears in my eyes, and slowly repeated the sounds he’d made. He grinned, and for the first time in my miserable life, I had some inkling of what it was to be wanted, to be loved. I suppose that was the moment in which it finally occurred to me I might not make it back to Philadelphia after all.
     • • •
    As plain as I found this declaration of love to be, it was yet unclear to me whether or not Syawa now considered us to be husband and wife; save for this one romantic moment, he continued to treat me as if I were little more than a beloved sister. I had no words to inquire as to what his ultimate intentions were, but I deduced his objective must, of course, be marriage, because, after all, that’s what men and women do. I did