The Blooding of Jack Absolute

by C. C. Humphreys

  Até looked where Jack pointed. It took a moment and then he dropped his intended victim stepped to the other, jerked his head up. ‘Segunki!’ he cried.

  It was indeed their late slavemaster. The man who’d handicapped him like a racehorse with corn cobs, who’d hung Até like meat and had begun trying to separate his hair from his head, that scar still bright on his forehead.

  ‘So much the better.’ The Mohawk’s eyes gleamed. ‘God has indeed favoured me.’ He bent, lifted the prone warrior who gave a groan. ‘Still alive! Good! Wake, dog. Wake so you know who it is who eats your heart.’

  Jack, unwilling to look, was unable to look away. It was as if Até was silhouetted against a backcloth in some theatre, the smoke and snow so extraordinarily rendered it could only have been created by that young painter he’d surprised at Fanny’s, Gainsborough. And how the artist would have loved the pose, the knife held just so above the scalplock, the power of Até’s crouching body, the limp contrast of Segunki’s. Then, just as the intended victim stirred to fulfil Até’s desire, something moved behind them. The snowflakes were solidifying into snowmen.

  ‘Até,’ Jack screamed, again halting the rise of the blade. Até looked and saw too: the French reserve regiment seeking to march through them and on to the walls of Quebec.

  ‘We must go, Até.’

  ‘But …’ Até had not moved, the knife still raised.

  ‘Now!’

  Reluctantly Até let the head fall. Then just as he was about to step away, he stepped back and slashed just the tip of the blade just below Segunki’s scalplock. The blood was a sudden red fountain against the white.

  ‘I will not kill him till he is looking into my eyes. But now, he and I bear each other’s mark at least,’ said Até, flicking the knife point up to where his own scar shone. ‘And next time, one of us will die.’

  The marching men were less than twenty paces away. He had no choice but to leave MacDonald’s corpse and hope the French would treat it with respect. They ran, back towards the cliffs. They would have to take them again, for the enemy would have secured the beach path. If he was indeed no infantryman even he could recognize the sounds of British bugles and drum, calling the retreat. Murray had failed. Yet he had given Jack a mission should that happen. Their canoe was still hidden on the beach.

  Twelve nights later, Jack and Até slipped back over the walls of besieged Quebec. They had less difficulty with the French, accustomed to seeing Natives in their camps, than the English who held the walls. But Murray had assigned an officer to watch for them at the St John Bastion and when he heard that an English-speaking Iroquois lurked without, he came rapidly.

  Jack brought the news all wanted to hear. The first ship to appear in the upper St Lawrence sported the Union Standard at its main mast. And HMS Lowestoft was only the swiftest of the entire British fleet.

  Epilogue

  Montréal, September 1760

  He’d always had a strange relationship with Time. And September was the month he felt that oddity most keenly. Até had noticed it, in Jack’s increasing silences, in his brooding stares. He had tried to spirit him out of it on the game trail, for the British forces that now occupied Montréal needed endless fresh meat. But even hunting could not brighten Jack’s darkness for long. It wasn’t so much that the month was the bridge of seasons – though this autumn of 1760 had been a brief flash between a sweltering summer and the first sudden frosts of winter. It was more that memories came and refused to leave – of the September only a year before when he’d killed his first man; and of that September eight years ago when he’d still been a child and the English had finally accepted what Europe had known for two centuries – that a year had 365 days not 376. They had marked the sacrifice of those eleven days in flame and riot throughout the realm. Jack had marked it by losing an uncle and gaining parents he’d barely known he had. Eight years before, September had found him an illiterate wretch in Cornwall, wrenched him away to London. And this September found him in Montréal and took him …

  Where? As what? He had no doubt that, with the war over in Canada, he would soon have to trade the garb of an Iroquois scout and spy for the redcoat and tricorn of an officer. But then to stay on as a garrison officer, to shiver another winter away in Quebec or Montréal? The thought made him feel nostalgic for the cave.

  He sat where he always did when he was not on the trail, in the walled garden of the Seminary of St Sulpice. He liked to watch the monks moving through it, readying it for the winter that had hastened upon them. The regularity of the rows of vegetables being cleared, the ordered profusion of the herbal beds, their steady, slow movements, all calmed him, gave a respite from his thoughts. Though they had at first objected to a tattooed Mohawk in their sanctuary, his status with the conquerors – Murray had taken over half the seminary as his headquarters – and his quiet conduct within the walls had won them over. They had even started to bring him bread and stew. Sometimes he ate it, sometimes he didn’t. Mostly he just sat, stared and waited for he did not know what. He knew these monks believed in Limbo, that place between heaven and hell. He had started to believe in it, too. Not as a place but as an aspect of Time. Perhaps that’s what happened to those eleven days; they had come here, now, and he was stuck in them!

  It had been twice that and more since the French had burned their flags and laid down their weapons in the Place d’Armes. Five months since Jack and Até had snuck over the walls of besieged Quebec and announced the inevitability of that surrender by informing Murray that the relieving fleet had arrived. The French had no choice but to raise the siege, to be chased by Murray from the north, harried by Havilland up from Lake Champlain, overwhelmed by Amherst coming down the St Lawrence. By the time he retired behind the insufficient ramparts of Montréal, the Chevalier de Lévis had less than three thousand men to oppose an Allied force of near seventeen.

  Jack shivered and shifted, drawing ever deeper into his bearskin cloak. It was also coming up a year since the beast had sacrificed itself so that he and Até could live. Many times, harrying the French south, moving swiftly through the forests on horseback (they’d been issued with a precious pair because of their role as Murray’s eyes and ears) he had thought of dumping the fur, for cold had been replaced by such a brutal heat, he’d thought he could never be cold again. Now he was glad he’d kept the rank thing. He didn’t know what was intended for him now. It was one of the reasons he stayed close to the headquarters, so he could know of his future quickly and forsake Limbo; the general knew he was there. But if, as now seemed inevitable, he was to spend another winter in Canada, the bear might save him once again.

  In the Tower, the bell sounded five and while its strident toll lingered in the air, a shape rose on top of the wall and dropped on the garden side of it. Até disdained gates, especially as the monks had once tried to prevent him joining his friend, fearing a Native occupation. He usually came to see Jack at this hour, as full of plans as Jack was lacking in them. He had met up with some of his own tribe when the Allies convened at Montréal. Jack had no doubt that, now the war was over, Até would rejoin them for the winter. Two things kept him close. Jack himself and another type of hunting. One that he was now eager to discuss when he threw himself down. He was not buried in fur, still wore only hide leggings and the blue cotton shirt he’d taken from a slain Frenchman. It made Jack cold just to look at him.

  ‘I have found him, Daganoweda.’ The Mohawk’s eyes gleamed. ‘I have found the Abenaki.’

  This was news indeed. Ever since that second battle at Quebec, Até had regretted doing no more than mark Segunki with his knife blade. He had searched for him ever since.

  ‘Where?’

  Até, who had taken his dagger from his belt, now spat on a whetstone and began to run it down the blade, though Jack couldn’t see how the weapon could get any sharper. ‘My cousin, Ska-no-wun-de, tells me he sees Abenaki bringing deerskins to sell. I go look … fah! The dog is one of them.’

  ‘How
many?’

  Até shrugged. ‘He will be alone, sometime. Then …’ Até threw the knife down into the earth of a bed of rosemary, pulled it out and began to strop it again. ‘You come?’

  ‘Yes.’ At that moment, all Jack wanted to do was sit in the garden. But he couldn’t let Até go alone. The Mohawk would get into trouble without him.

  There must have been something in his tone that caused Até to pause in his activity. ‘You … good now?’

  ‘Why not?’ Jack had made the mistake of trying to talk to Até about his feelings during this time of year and Até – inevitably, annoyingly – had quoted ‘The Time is out of joint. O cursed spite/That ever I was born to set it right.’

  Jack had glowered and said nothing. There was no contradicting the wisdom of Hamlet in Até’s mind. But if Jack took anything from the blasted play it was that he was powerless to decide his fate. Destiny would have to decide for him. So he rose, followed the Mohawk towards the walls. He would not climb them though. The gate would do for him.

  As he tried to leave, a young officer and a sergeant were coming in. They were not ones Jack knew – so many had come as reinforcements and these had the pallid faces of those straight from the boat.

  The sergeant pointed at Jack, said, ‘Is that ’im, sir?’

  ‘Damned if I know. All savages look the same to me. Hey, you! Are you … Daga … Daga … what’s the blasted name?’

  ‘Daganoweda?’

  ‘That’s the damned word. All sounds like gibberish to me. You there, fellow, are you he?’

  Jack stared for a moment. The man was both shouting loudly and speaking very slowly. Finally, he nodded.

  ‘Then General Murray wants you,’ he brayed. ‘Now.’ He clicked his fingers and the sergeant reached and grabbed Jack by the arm.

  Jack disengaged himself, stepped away. His bearskin fell open, revealing the tattoos on his chest, the tomahawk at his waist. At the same moment, Até, fresh from the walls, joined him.

  ‘Egad, ugly brutes, ain’t they?’ Both the Englishmen looked nervous now.

  ‘Do they arrest you, Daganoweda?’ Até said in Iroquois.

  ‘They summon me to Murray.’

  ‘Do you wish to go?’

  Jack sighed. ‘Might as well.’

  ‘Then I go keep watch on this Abenaki dog. He lurks on the wharf trying to trade with the sailors.’

  ‘I will find you there. Don’t begin anything without me.’ Turning back to the officers he said, ‘Lead on, fellows.’

  Neither seemed to realize that Jack had spoken English, but this time Jack didn’t shake off the sergeant’s hand. The man was leading him to his desire, after all. To the general. Out of Limbo.

  As usual, Murray was alone. He’d always received Jack thus; with MacDonald dead, there were barely three men in the army who’d been told of Jack’s double existence. Also as usual, Murray spoke as if their previous conversation had ended a minute before and not the three weeks it actually had been.

  ‘Why did you not tell me you were required to return in the spring?’

  He was standing with his back to the window of the large cell he used as his command, pince-nez on the end of his nose, staring at a piece of paper held at arm’s length.

  Jack took a nervous step into the room. ‘Sir? I did not know …’

  ‘Orders, Absolute. The ones you brought from Pitt. You were to deliver them and bring news back as soon as the river thawed. Hmm?’

  He glanced, and Jack shook his head. ‘I am ignorant, sir, of any—’

  ‘Course you are!’ Murray glared then resumed his perusal. ‘You arrived, let me see, day or two before the first battle, yes?’ Jack grunted but Murray wasn’t interested in confirmation. ‘And Wolfe wouldn’t have taken time to read all the orders. Oh no! Too much work for that lazy turd!’

  Jack stayed impassive. In each of their meetings Murray had conveyed how little he esteemed the dead hero of the first battle of Quebec. ‘Still,’ he sniffed, ‘you stayed and became,’ another glance, ‘well, as we see. God knows how you talked me into it. Can’t say it hasn’t been useful. Can’t say that. But you will obey those orders now. Especially as the King wants his messenger back. Or at least his favourite colonel does. Whats-isname?’ He looked at a paper on the desk. ‘Ah yes. Burgoyne. Popinjay!’

  Jack’s heart, which had begun to beat quicker at the beginning of the conversation, quickened again. Burgoyne had requested his return! He was going … home, if that’s what it still was. Murray had indicated another paper on his desk but Jack’s skills at reading upside down had not been tested since Westminster and anyway the general strode forward and covered one page with the other.

  ‘So you are to return, sir.’

  ‘When, sir?’

  ‘When, sir. Now, sir! By the next available ship, sir. You are half a year late.’

  Even by Jack’s standards that was extreme.

  Murray had seized another piece of paper. ‘Too risky to try for Quebec with the ice due. Have to be Boston.’ He scanned the sheet. ‘Plenty of ships going from Boston end of October. You’ll go from there.’

  Murray read on and Jack waited. When he realized that the general had dismissed him, he spoke. ‘Uh, sir … ?’

  ‘Still here?’

  ‘I have no uniform, sir, and no—’

  ‘For God’s sake, man, just speak to the quartermaster, will you? He has everything for you. Will fit you out with dead man’s boots and full fig. Though you’re a dragoon, ain’t you? Well, you’ll be a lobster-back on the way across. Give you gold, too, and your papers for the ship, together with the letters I require you to carry. Your hair will grow out on the voyage and till then wear a wig, sir. Wear a wig!’

  An hour later he emerged from the quartermaster’s. Murray had sent a note down that indeed arranged everything. Jack had a new fustian haversack stuffed with the full uniform of a man a touch smaller than himself, with a large blood stain under the armpit, inadequately patched. He had a horsehair wig, a tricorn hat, a sword, gaiters and shoes, and a rather fine silk shirt. He had a purse containing five guineas and a requisition for a third-class berth on the West Indiaman, Accord. Yet he still sported the single top-knot and tattoos of a Mohawk warrior so when a soldier shouted, ‘Thief!’ at him, he took the bearskin off and wrapped everything in it, suspending it from the end of his musket’s barrel to be carried across his shoulder. Then he ducked into the sleet that had begun to blow off the river and headed for the wharf in search of Até. The cold and the news together numbed him to all but what lay ahead. Out of Limbo, bound for home, a hard farewell still awaited.

  He didn’t make fifty paces down the Rue St Joseph before a crowd blocked his passage. Men and some women were gathered, civilian and soldier, yelling at something before them. Taller than most there, Jack peered and winced as he saw four hefty Redcoats thrashing one of the townsmen, a balding man in his later-middle years. When a woman ran from an open door and slapped a broom-handle onto the largest assailant’s back, Jack winced again as that man took the implement from her, reversed it to beat in his turn. He also noticed that the soldier thrust a hand inside the blouse he casually ripped.

  Soldiers cheered or jeered, civilians looked on powerlessly. The largest soldier was still laughing cruelly as he groped, tugged, beat; and it was that cruelty that suddenly made Jack notice something familiar in this man’s obvious enjoyment of pain. And in that recognition, in the moment before a detachment of soldiers began to stroll toward the fray from the guardhouse at St Sulpice, Jack suddenly realized what that something was.

  The man with his hand in a defenceless woman’s blouse was Craster Absolute.

  He gasped, his legs gave. If his cousin had descended in lightning, he could not have shocked more. Jack had thought often of his former life through the winter in the cave, in the campaign that followed. Indeed, his dreams had become more urban the more his daytime life adapted to the forest. Fanny would come in heat and pleasure and, on waking, memories of her
would linger happily. If he knew his actions had led her to her shame at the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, had caused the death of her patron, Melbury, he also knew that she would survive because she always had done. But Clothilde! Dreams of her came too, these swathed in sadness. She was innocent and he should have protected her and instead had opened her to the ravages of … the man before him now. Absolute gold had bought her off, paid for her to wed someone she could not love, all to preserve the family name. More gold had bought the uniform that Craster wore and disgraced even now.

  He did not realize he had taken the five paces forward, arriving at the same time as the platoon, did not know his hand was gripping his tomahawk. Then he stood before his cousin, saw again that jowly face, little diminished by a campaign’s privations, like a bear who had stored up fat; noted again those close-set eyes that only ever gleamed when there was pain to dispense, pain Jack had borne all his life.

  Craster had stepped away from the fracas once the troopers moved in. He stood back now and let his comrades take the half-hearted blows, laughing and leering still. Then, suddenly, he turned and looked at Jack, and he said, ‘So what do you think you are staring at, you poxed brown monkey?’

  Jack had no words. And by the time he thought of the actions he’d promised himself a thousand times to take when this man stood before him again, his cousin was already being pulled away by three Redcoats, already laughing with his captors. Jack, goaded by that braying laugh, still could not move. An order had been given to free him from Limbo but his body seemed still to be in it.

  Slowly turning, he resumed his walk towards the river.

  To a man in a trance, the wharf was an assault of sound and sense. The wind blew sleet off the water yet this did not stop the labours of men, hundreds scurrying over the sides of the ships. One army was leaving, the defeated French being readied for transport out. Another, their conquerors, continued to arrive. Both needed to be fed. So livestock bellowed in pens or swung in slings while men in every shade of coat cajoled and argued, hefted sacks of grain and vegetables, barrels of salted meat and rum. There were a number of Indians of the various tribes: Iroquois, Huron, Nipissing, Algonquin and Abenaki, a group of them seemingly hunting for something.