Language of the Bear

by Nathanael Green

  Wolf Tongue swallowed. He set his tomahawk in the snow, took his knife in his right hand, and leaned forward, closer to the boy’s neck. One swipe and a handful of heartbeats later, it was over.

  Wolf Tongue sat back on his haunches, suddenly more tired than he’d ever been before. His legs and arms, and even his lungs, ached. His soul felt heavy. But there was still more to do, and Pyke had been shot.

  He rose again and headed back to where the soldier now sat slumped against a tree. He held one hand over a wad of cloth on his shoulder. His face was nearly as pale as the boy’s, but his eyes seemed alert.

  “They are dead?” he asked.

  Wolf Tongue thought of the boy’s assertion that Storm-of-Villages would come for him. “For now,” he said. He crouched on his haunches by Pyke’s head and gently pulled the soldier’s hand away to examine the wound.

  Pyke grimaced and sucked air through his teeth. “There were only two?” he asked after a moment.

  “Only two?” replied Wolf Tongue. “Would you rather I killed five by myself while you just laid here?”

  Pyke snorted. “I thought you sought glory.”

  “Right now I seek hot food and a warm blanket.”

  Wolf Tongue replaced the soldier’s hand on his wound and sat back. The bullet had gone in just beneath his collarbone, but it hadn’t exited. It did not seem to be a deep wound, nor a bloody one.

  “It doesn’t look bad. The bullet’s only through the muscle, but it didn’t come out,” he said.

  “Only through the muscle,” said Pyke with a smirk. “Next time I’ll handle the ambush and you can get shot.”

  Wolf Tongue grinned and shook his head. “You’d be better off if it’d gone through. It still needs to come out again. Are you ready?”

  A rough sound escaped Pyke’s lips, a snort, cough, or chuckle, Wolf Tongue could not decide. Then, waving the Susquehannock away, Pyke said, “Leave it for now. If that town’s really got soldiers, it might have a surgeon.”

  The soldier struggled against the tree as if to stand, but Wolf Tongue held one hand out.

  “Don’t get up,” he said. “Rest for now. I’ll be back soon. Then we’ll go see your holy man.”

  Wolf Tongue returned to the dead men and salvaged everything he could manage. Both their shirts had been ruined with blood and gore, but would serve as bandages for Pyke. Their overcoats were still serviceable, and their weapons clean and dry, though the knives were of poor quality and their muskets only slightly better. He left the men with their pants, but stripped everything else, including a few coins in a purse and a silver necklace the younger wore.

  He dragged both bodies up the small slope and shoved them so they rolled down the far side away from the road. He paused for a breath at the top and looked back down. If any passing quhanstrono had eyes in their empty heads, they’d see the trail of blood smeared through the snow. There was no helping that. But perhaps the jogah of the wood would melt the snow quickly enough.

  Wolf Tongue returned to Pyke laden with his spoils and set down the bulging bags with a clank.

  “I saw what you did with them,” said Pyke. “They deserve better than that. They deserve a proper Christian burial.”

  Wolf Tongue stripped a less bloody length from the boy’s shirt. “The way he talked about Storm-of-Villages, I do not believe they were Christian.”

  Pyke searched Wolf Tongue’s eyes, then, “Regardless, every man deserves a Christian burial. It’s not for us to judge.”

  Wolf Tongue folded a wad of the cloth and slipped it under Pyke’s hand. He grimaced at the renewed pressure on the wound. With a long, sharp hiss, another strip tore free from the shirt and the Susquehannock tied it around the wound to hold the bandage in place.

  “While you’re not judging, I’ll leave you to take care of the dead. Me? I judge I’d rather not have anyone see the bodies. And that there’s food in town that might warm my belly.”

  Pyke frowned, but did not respond as Wolf Tongue finished tying the bandage and then spread what little food he’d found between them. He broke a chunk of cheese into crumbling pieces and tore at a piece of bread. The sole piece of salted pork he tore in half. They both sat in silence for a long moment but for the subdued gurgle of the stream and the sound of their own chewing.

  As each picked at the final crumbs remaining on the top of the leather satchel, Pyke frowned. “It feels better to have food in my belly, but I still do not like to take from men we’ve killed.”

  “Does it make you feel better to know that you didn’t kill them? I did.”

  Pyke looked up. “No. It makes me feel worse.”

  Wolf Tongue took a long drink from the water skin and wished it had cider. He passed it to Pyke. “What do we do now?” he asked.

  Pyke took the skin and looked toward the town. “We go there. You said it before that we need supplies and food and shelter.”

  Wolf Tongue grunted as he dislodged a piece of bread from a back tooth. “And Storm-of-Villages?”

  “That I do not know yet,” said Pyke with a dark voice. “He has five times the men we had expected.”

  “Can your colonel give you men to fight him?”

  Pyke shook his head sadly. “No. He will not. Nor could I ask him to.”

  Wolf Tongue frowned. “Why? This is his wish.”

  Pyke leaned his head back and took a long breath. “The Colonel is Azariah’s uncle. He could not order troops because it would make everything too public. If anyone learned that this madman was of his family and that he ordered the murder of his own nephew, he would lose his commission, his pension, be dishonored. The French would be ecstatic that we are killing our own.” He sucked a breath through pursed lips. “His disgrace would ruin his daughter, and I could not live with that.”

  Wolf Tongue brushed his hands along the stubble on the sides of his scalp and knotted his hands at the back of his head. He drew in a long breath of cool air. It tasted faintly of smoke and wet earth. “My people will not help, either.”

  Pyke’s eyes had gone to slate as he turned them on Wolf Tongue. “Why?”

  The Susquehannock rubbed at the soreness in his left thigh. “Our chief, Lifting Smoke, seems too similar to your colonel. He would please the English, but will never give you more than one young warrior he doesn’t want around his daughter. And maybe he’s right. Our people are too few to go into your wars. Once we ruled all these woods, but now we are only a few hundred.”

  Wolf Tongue sighed. “And I cannot return without earning glory. I fought a man for the honor to go with your messenger. To return without a victory would be my disgrace.”

  Pyke picked absently at the earth for a long moment, his eyes unfocused. The creek just beyond them hissed against the rocks while a crow cawed twice somewhere in the forest.

  “First, we go into town,” said Pyke. “Once we get some food and rest and maybe cut the ball out of my shoulder, then we can talk it over again. Things may look less bleak once we get our strength back, and I would not make a hasty decision even though we must decide soon.”

  He looked at Wolf Tongue with a hint of a smile. “I think things have gone badly partly because I acted too rashly and with misinformation. Saepe delibera, semel decerne.”

  “You quote the dead again?”

  “It means one should take long in council, but act decisively.”

  Wolf Tongue shrugged. “My people say you never kill a hare with an arrow you don’t release.”

  He stood then and offered his hand. Pyke took it in his good arm and rose. As he did, he grunted through clenched lips.

  “Are you healthy enough to walk?”

  Pyke nodded and Wolf Tongue saw some color and determination return to his face. “I’ll live.”

  “Maybe. But your chances are better if there’s no English surgeon.”

  ***

  The two stumbled through the mess of a road into the tangle of hunched buildings. Really no more than a village, it seemed as if the ground itself had spew
ed forth some foul, twisted boils across a swath of trampled mud and broken stone. The dusk shone orange and red on the horizon, but this place seemed so far removed that it only collected the dust and ash from the sun’s blaze. Even the recent snow had been trampled to mud or else huddled beneath shadowy walls made from bent trees and gray planks of wood.

  “Should anyone ask, we should not admit to being companions. Nor should we speak of our mission.”

  “If you wanted to rid yourself of my company, I wish you’d done it before we scaled the cliff,” whispered Wolf Tongue. His attempt at humor seemed heavy even as he said it and he looked around at the hovels as if they glared back at him for his intrusion. Wolf Tongue shrugged, and offered, “If you think it’s best. If we get separated, follow the creek back to the river. We’ll meet there.”

  Pyke nodded, seemingly satisfied.

  A sparse few people scurried among the huts, though none seemed to sense or see Wolf Tongue and Pyke. Two pigs shoved at one another as they snuffled and plowed with their noses at the muck beneath the stump of a tree. Wolf Tongue wrinkled his nose at the stench of feces and stale smoke that seemed to cling to the place so much as to color the very air.

  Pyke shifted the musket in his hand again. Wolf Tongue had carried all the provisions he’d taken from Storm-of-Villages’ men, save one of the guns, the one that had shot Pyke. This, the soldier insisted on carrying.

  Wolf Tongue eyed the area again with suspicion. Pyke had suggested coming here, hoping to find sympathetic British soldiers, though it seemed only to be a gathering of shadows and ghosts. Wolf Tongue did not trust the feel of this place and would rather overnight in the forest in his own shelter if he could only find food and warmer clothes.

  “Welcome to our little town!”

  Wolf Tongue started at the sudden voice and spun toward it, his fist clenched. An old man stood with his hands clasped in front of him. Unlike his surroundings, he was fastidiously groomed in a green, sleeveless tunic over a white collared shirt and black leggings and boots. Beneath thin strands of white hair, the top of his head shone red, as did his great, old nose. The silver gorget of an army officer hung on his breast.

  So out of place did this polished officer look, that neither Pyke nor Wolf Tongue replied for a moment. The officer stepped forward and opened his hands in a gesture that matched his smile of clean but crooked teeth. “Oh, don’t be shy, old fellows. Unless you come to loot and kill, you’re welcome in our little garrison town. It’s not much to look at, I fear, but our fires are warm.”

  Pyke cleared his throat and pulled his new overcoat closed a little more over his wound. “I’m sorry to say, sir, that I do not have your acquaintance. But if you wear your rank truly, I see that you are an officer?”

  “And I hear by your voice that you are a man from my own lands. England born? Perhaps in the west?”

  Pyke opened his mouth to answer, but the old man interrupted him with a wave. “Where are my manners? I am Major Thaddeus Blackstone, surgeon to this little, proud group of His Majesty’s Royal Army. And you are?”

  Pyke turned and coughed for a long moment. Wolf Tongue wondered whether it was solely to take a moment to think. Then, he seemed to make his decision and straightened up.

  “I am Lieutenant Hugh Pyke, assigned to the regiment stationed with Colonel Bennett in Jenkins Town.”

  “Well met, Lieutenant,” said Blackstone, stepping forward and offering his hand. Pyke took it and shook, but as he did, the doctor’s eyes turned worried. “Is that blood on your shirt?”

  Pyke coughed again. “Yes, sir. I had a … small misfortune on the road.”

  Without waiting for invitation, Blackstone stepped closer and lifted the lapel of Pyke’s jacket.

  “Small misfortune, indeed. Come. I’ll tend to that wound before it begins to fester.” He turned on one squelching heel, took a step and paused. Over his shoulder he said, “Your man is welcome, too. We live side-by-side here.”

  Wolf Tongue tried to hide the shock from the sudden events and looked to Pyke, then he turned to Blackstone. “Trade for food, powder?” He asked in what he hoped was a poor imitation of English.

  Pyke looked from one to the other, then, to Blackstone, he said, “I paid the savage to lead me here and now he wants to spend his coin already.”

  Blackstone studied them both for another heartbeat, then he gestured farther into the town. “Mr. Brown is our blacksmith and quartermaster. He has what little supplies we have, though he may be willing to trade. You’ll find him by the silo there.” He pointed toward a wider plank building set off beyond the knot of houses.

  Wolf Tongue nodded and briefly turned his eyes back to Pyke. The soldier looked back and then without any hint of acknowledgement turned toward Blackstone. “Thank you, sir, for your offer of help. I do not think it a grievous wound, though your expertise is certainly welcome.”

  Pyke followed the doctor through the mud and hunched as he stepped into the darkness beyond the doorway.

  Despite the doctor’s friendliness, Wolf Tongue narrowed his eyes at the village around him that seemed to threaten him with glowering looks. With one more glance to the doctor’s house, the Susquehannock stepped off.

  Fourteen – Do No Harm

  The surgeon’s house was little more than a shack of two rooms divided by the flimsiest of walls. Once through the door, Pyke was led to a crooked examination table with one leg shorter than the others. The doctor urged him to sit so he could check the wound.

  Blackstone withdrew some spectacles and placed them precariously on the bridge of his drinker’s nose. He carefully shifted Pyke’s blood-soaked shirt out of the way and brought his pockmarked face up close to the skin. In the dim light of the sputtering fire, the surgeon squinted his eyes.

  “No man sees as much evil as a surgeon,” Blackstone said. “But despite that, I do love my profession. I assure you, you are in good hands, son.”

  Pyke winced as the surgeon poked at the wound. He was in no mood for conversation but tried to keep gentlemanly appearances up. “Do you know Colonel Bennett, sir?”

  “Bennett? How is that old dog? You are one of his new officers, I take it?”

  “Relatively new. The Colonel is well, though his duties weigh heavily upon him.”

  “I know it. The man carries a heavy burden. And how fares his daughter? Have you had the pleasure of meeting her? She is quite a beauty.”

  The thought of Damaris was enough to take his mind off the pain for a merciful moment. “I have met Miss Bennett. She is a fine woman.”

  Blackstone gave him a gummy smile, and Pyke feared he had revealed his true feelings for Damaris.

  But Blackstone, as a gentleman, changed the subject. “You’ll forgive me a bit of boasting, son, but really, I think doctoring is the most honorable profession. The Lord Jesus himself was a healer, was he not?”

  “Praised be the Lord.”

  Blackstone had Pyke lean forward so he could examine Pyke’s back. “Damned shame it didn’t go through. Damned, bloody shame. Have you ever been shot before, son?”

  Pyke shook his head no. “I’ve certainly been shot at, but until now, I’ve been lucky.”

  “I’m a surgeon, so you might think I hide in tents when there’s danger, but not so. I prefer to be in the thick of it. You will not believe this, but I swear it’s the God’s honest truth: I myself have been shot no less than five times. And there’s debate about the sixth attempt.” The surgeon shook his head and laughed at his own memories. Pyke figured it was a tall tale but indulged the man with a smile.

  “How could there be—” He sucked in a sharp breath as the doctor poked at the shoulder. “—debate about the sixth time?”

  Blackstone suddenly produced a glass canteen and was about to bring it to his lips before he thought better of it. “Where are my manners? As host, I should offer this first to my guest.”

  “Thank you, sir, you are very kind.” Pyke gulped, and his throat stung with whiskey. His lungs revolted and h
e broke into a coughing fit.

  “Have some more, my dear fellow. It will dull the pain.” The surgeon nudged the canteen away from himself. Pyke caught his breath before sipping again. It was the most vile whiskey he’d ever tasted.

  But it hit the spot.

  “A little more, son, a little more. Don’t be shy. There’s plenty where that came from. Being a surgeon in this place has its privileges. You wouldn’t believe it. You’re probably thinking the soldiers here are well stocked, but it’s not true. Some Virginian major was through here a couple of weeks ago on his way to scout the French … name of Washington. The man had no drink on him and took a goodly portion of my own.” The doctor shook his head in serious disapproval. “I get most of my liquor from the cartographers that are always coming through here. They make a big show with their maps and compasses and claim we’ll have a road before we know it. The road never comes but the cartographers keep popping up. Never trust a mapmaker, son, because he is only out to redraw the imaginary lines in the earth in a way to his benefit, not to yours. But at least they bring whiskey.”

  Pyke didn’t really want any more liquor. He would have much preferred some Adam’s ale. But Blackstone gave him another patriarchal look, so he sipped again. It burned all the way down his throat into his belly.

  “Thank you, Major. I wonder if you might have any water?”

  Blackstone moved away from him and went to the fire in the corner of the room. “I’ll have to boil it of course. The water around here, you can never trust it, I’m afraid.” He put his pudgy, bloated hands over the fire of the stove. “Say old man, I wonder if the next time you see the Colonel, you could ask him about getting a road for us up here? We’ve been wanting for a while. A word from the good Colonel would go a long way I suppose.”

  “I will see what I can do.”

  “Most kind.”

  “So tell me, how can there be debate about the sixth time you were shot?” Pyke asked, trying to take his mind off the pain and the surgery that was sure to begin any moment.

  “It’s a matter of semantics, as so usually happens with debates that rage amongst men.” Blackstone chuckled at some joke only he had heard. “The rational animal. What rational animal would create such monstrous devices as muskets, pistols, swords, and …” The doctor broke into a smile. “Forgive me, I do tend to get carried away in my sermonizing.”