> WHO IS THE HOTTIE!?!?
Lotte wanted to know after Saskia had sent her a selfie with the mound of crayfish in the background. Saskia scrolled back and examined it and saw Jules in the background making eyes at Fenna.
> He’s taken.
> Aww.
> By Fenna.
> AWESOME
Then, later, after a few more selfies:
> OMG Surinamese guy on the left. Your age.
Saskia looked at the selfie, puzzled. Then she understood.
> Not Surinamese. They don’t exist here.
> He seems fit for a guy that age.
> You mean, a senior citizen like me?
An exchange of emojis followed, reflecting embarrassment and apologies accepted.
“My daughter thought you were Surinamese,” she said to Rufus later. The man was obviously an introvert, not fully comfortable with the hyper-gregarious Boskeys. Saskia exchanged a glance with Mary, a few yards away, who seemed glad to see that Rufus had company.
Rufus had never heard the term.
“Like Amelia,” Saskia explained. She nodded over toward her acting security chief. As usual the poor woman was on the phone, looking preoccupied and tense, with frequent glances toward Saskia. She beckoned Willem over and they huddled on the edge of the bonfire’s circle of smoky, bug-strewn light.
Rufus nodded. “Something gone wrong, or is that just how her job is?”
“I don’t think anything has gone wrong in particular. It’s just that there are a lot of nervous people on the other end of the line. Trying to work through all the contingencies.”
“Those people didn’t like it that you went down the river like you did.”
“They didn’t like anything about this.”
Rufus nodded. “So your daughter thinks I look like her? That’s a fine compliment.”
Saskia smiled. “I’m glad you think so! I consider Amelia quite beautiful even though her looks are unusual by Dutch standards.”
Rufus shifted his gaze to Saskia. “Most Dutch look more like you.”
“Yes.”
“Well, that’s not a bad way to look either.”
Saskia swallowed.
“Takes all kinds,” Rufus added. “The reason I look the way I do is because of my great-great-granddad Hopewell, who was an African man. He was a slave owned by Chickasaw Indians.”
“Indians owned slaves?”
Rufus nodded. “Oh yes, ma’am. Lots of ’em. Chickasaws were one of the so-called Five Civilized Tribes, down in the Southeast.
They lived like white people. White people had slaves. So they had slaves too. Later the Five Tribes got pushed west across the Mississippi to Oklahoma, which was called Indian Territory in those days. Took their slaves with ’em. Hopewell, he was born into slavery around about 1860. When the Civil War started, a lot of the Five Civilized Tribes supported the Confederacy, because they wanted to keep things like they was. Now, when Juneteenth came—the day the slaves were emancipated—Hopewell’s family took the name Grant.”
“After the general?”
Rufus smiled and nodded.
“So that’s my last name. I’m Rufus Grant. Never properly introduced myself.”
“Got it. Nice to properly meet you.”
“Right back at you. Now, the family kept living where they were, among the Chickasaws. Which was not a good decision. Because, out of all the Five Civilized Tribes, the Chickasaws lived farthest west in what we now call Oklahoma. Which put them right up against the Comancheria. The lands of the Comanches. The most powerful and feared of all the tribes that ever was. And in those days they were still living as they always had. They would raid the farms and ranches of the white people and the Five Tribes. One day in 1868 they raided the Chickasaws, stole their horses, burned everything down. They had a policy, I guess you could say, about captives. Small children, who were more trouble than they were worth, they would just kill. Adults they would kill slowly. But kids in a certain range of ages, maybe seven to twelve, they would take with them and adopt them into the tribe.”
“And Hopewell Grant was eight years old.”
Rufus nodded. “He was eight years old and he was good with horses, which was a useful skill to the Comanches. So they took him off into captivity and later traded him to the Quahadi.”
“Quahadi?”
“A different Comanche band. The most wild, fierce, and free of all of ’em. The last to surrender. But surrender they did, eventually. So in 1875, ol’ Hopewell ended up at Fort Sill. Oklahoma.
Not far from the Chickasaw country where he had been born. Of course his whole family had been killed off in that raid, and he had become a true Comanche by that point.”