One – The Thinning
The smoke curled like a shriveling, scorched husk from the end of Wolf Tongue’s pipe. He took a long draw on it, pulling the tobacco smoke into his mouth. The bowl of the pipe surged red, then darkened. He held the smoke in his mouth, eyes closed. It tasted too bitter, like a bite on his tongue with little of the usual sweetness of his tribe’s sacred plant.
He blew out the smoke and waved it to the spirits with one hand and a silent prayer. The tobacco was off, but not so unpleasant for him to stop.
Wolf Tongue took another draw and settled the pipe with his folded hands in his lap. He stared at the bowl, yellow-brown and shaped like a tulip, its innards faintly red. Smoking tobacco was supposed to bring good thoughts. Let his soul relax. Let his problems mingle with the world of the spirits and help him clear away the caked mud on his eyes.
But today, Wolf Tongue only tasted bitter tobacco and felt his muscles itching to tuck his pipe back in his bag and go do something. Anything.
The Susquehannock had been fading as long as he could remember. Since the English and French first arrived, his people’s hold on the lands, the rival tribes, and their tributes of goods had slipped out of their grip. His people had once been known as the fiercest warriors, and with an immense spread of land to prove it.
But their power and their numbers had begun to shrink a long time ago. And it had only gotten worse in the past year.
He twisted to look over his shoulder at his village. He saw no one else. The longhouses all still stood, though half of them had holes with no curtain on their doorframes. The former home of the Bear Clan stood only as a skeleton, its inner timbers exposed like the ribs on a carcass of a massive beast. The people who still remained had removed the exterior bark and timbers to fix their own longhouses or burn in their fires. Grass, still stunted with the winter, grew out through the gray timbers.
When movement caught Wolf Tongue’s eye, he watched as his mother-in-law, Sits-by-the-Tree, hurried along the mud and ice between the longhouses and the central fire. She clutched something to her chest with her chin and shoulders drawn to it, not to shield whatever she carried, but seemingly to seek comfort in its closeness. She stayed close to the blank faces of each house before she finally pushed through the curtain of her own doorway.
Wolf Tongue took another puff from his pipe and blew the smoke out before rising to his feet. He’d come away from the village to look over what was left of their lands, hoping the air and the scene would bring him some idea or plan. Here, on the wooden palisade that guarded his village, he could see across the fields of soggy snow where they would plant squash and corn in the spring, if enough of them remained in the village to do the work. Beyond the fields, the forest bristled with the bare branches of trees under a low, gray sky.
As he stepped down off the planks, they thumped beneath his feet. At least something about the Susquehannock had some stability, he thought.
Wolf Tongue wound his way past the empty houses, peeking in at the cold, black fire pits. Once, the air moved, winter’s fingertips trailing across his scalp and neck. As he arrived at his doorway, he brought his pipe to his lips only to find the fire had died, untended in his hands.
Tucking his pipe away, he ducked beneath the curtain to the longhouse. Inside, it was dark and heavy with the smell of wood smoke, salves, and the fainter mustiness given off by the puckered remains of their winter’s food stores. Sits-by-the-Tree stood to the left, hunched over the shoulders of her husband. Lifting Smoke sat on a pile of blankets, his head tilted toward the ceiling as his wife rubbed something onto his chest.
Lifting Smoke had been a chief of the Susquehannock for more than ten years, and to Wolf Tongue, it seemed like his health followed the fortune of his people. Lifting Smoke had never been an exceptional warrior or particularly large or strong. But Wolf Tongue had always remembered him as intimidating in the way his eyes flashed and how his voice, rough like the scrape of a flint knife, could hush a quarrel in council.
Now, his voice was ragged and dull, worn by a cough that seemed to have no cure. His neck seemed all strings beneath a drape of skin, leading down to two fragile lumps of clay that had once been shoulders.
Wolf Tongue looked away.
As he turned, a sudden movement caught his eye and he reflexively braced himself. He grunted and twisted his body as a boy slammed onto his back. Wolf Tongue rolled, swinging the boy over his shoulder and locking him in a hug against his chest.
Root Cutter, Wolf Tongue’s nephew, struggled against the grip for a moment before Wolf Tongue released him.
The boy turned to face his uncle and lifted his chin high. He was growing quickly and strong, one of the few who seemed to be. He almost stood to Wolf Tongue’s shoulders and had a sharp jaw and quick hands. Like his uncle, he wore his hair shaved on all sides and with a lock of hair at the back crest, but today he wore a tight cap dyed red and black. His nose, like that of his mother who was taken by the pox, was arched like a hawk’s beak.
Root Cutter straightened his leather tunic. “You never saw me hiding there. If I’d had a knife …”
Wolf Tongue winked. “If you had a knife, I’d have a new one for my collection.”
Root Cutter’s haughty mask didn’t fade as he picked up a loose stick from beside the fire. He stood straight-backed for a moment, then lunged at Wolf Tongue with a short cry. Wolf Tongue shuffled around the attack, spun the boy around and pulled the stick from him.
In a quick wrangling of limbs, Wolf Tongue spun behind his nephew and pinned the boy’s hands under his knees along with the stick. Root Cutter struggled for a moment, grunting in frustration.
“Now,” said Wolf Tongue. “You Seneca dog. You get what you deserve.” With one hand, he held Root Cutter’s arms clamped tight against the backs of his legs. He raised the other high in the air and brought it down, fingers clamping into the boy’s side below his ribs.
Root Cutter struggled quietly for a moment before he finally burst out in laughter. He wriggled and broke free with strength that told Wolf Tongue this might be the last time he could hold his nephew so easily.
As Root Cutter rolled away, Wolf Tongue cuffed his head.
Wolf Tongue smiled as he turned toward the back of the longhouse where his wife sat watching him, her eyes squinted with a smile.
Root Cutter rushed back to Wolf Tongue’s side. “Uncle, tell me again about the battle and how you saved the village. But start with when you challenged Kicks-the-Oneida.” His fierce mask was gone and he was again the curious boy who followed his uncle around the village.
Wolf Tongue clasped the boy’s neck and pulled him against his side. “You’ve heard it so many times that you know it better than I do. Go now. I need to talk with your aunt.”
Root Cutter looked at him a moment with crafty eyes, then ducked as Wolf Tongue swatted at his ear. Wolf Tongue watched him jog around the longhouse fire and slip through the curtain.
Fox’s Smile was watching him as he turned back to her.
“How are you feeling?” he asked as he settled onto the blankets beside her.
His wife didn’t set down the cradleboard she was decorating, but still held it in one hand and put the other to her rounded stomach. “I’d be better if you’d stop worrying about me and stop moping.”
Wolf Tongue held back a chagrined frown.
Fox’s Smile slapped his arm. “You were never this serious. If I wanted an old man to father my child, I’m sure I could have found one. Maybe Bone Snake’s father? I think he had an eye for me.”
Despite his mood, Wolf Tongue laughed. Bone Snake’s father was older than Lifting Smoke. Though currently in better health, the old man was toothless, bent, and so lecherous that he often made even Wolf Tongue uncomfortable. He was also one of the sweetest, kindest people Wolf Tongue knew, and much like his son, Bone Snake.
The laughter came and went on the wind. Then Fox’s Smile set her hand on Wolf Tongue’s leg. “I know you put on your mask when you f
ight with Root Cutter or talk to anyone else. You’re still upset.”
Slowly, Wolf Tongue nodded with a wry twist on his lips. He blew out a breath and ran a hand across his face. “Who’s left of the Susquehannock? Just us few straggling idiots too stubborn to beg another tribe for a place.” He took a breath. “And those who are smart enough to, but too weak to try.” He waved his hand. “We’ve talked about this before, and I’m not getting any smarter. I don’t know what to do.”
Wolf Tongue felt his stomach churn. As a Susquehannock with an English father, he’d fought so hard to be seen as one of the tribe, to become a leader in their fate, to become part of these people and care for them. It pained him to see so many people shed the Susquehannock name he loved, to desert and join other tribes, or to take on the Christian god and settle into a British town.
But what pained him even more was the suffering of those like Root Cutter’s mother who stayed through the vomiting fits and the pox that seemed to be hacking through the tribe. To see dozens die, fevered, covered in sores and shrinking away from their families. To watch his own mother’s flesh shrivel until her eyes, always so sharp and quick, clouded and closed.
To see his friends and family abandon the village was like a fire against his heart, but if the sickness that took his mother along with so many others was still here with his wife and their child …
“The pox won’t get me, Wolf Tongue.” Fox’s Smile turned back to her work as if she’d finished their conversation.
Wolf Tongue rubbed his hands across his scalp and let out a breath. “If it did, I’d have to find a new wife. Though, maybe an old lady this time so I can let her do the worrying for me.”
Fox’s Smile snorted. “Old ladies are too smart to lie with the likes of you.”
“I can be persuasive.” Wolf Tongue attempted a joke out of habit, but his tone was more dour than he intended.
Fox’s Smile looked at him from the corner of her eye. Her voice was softer, more serious when she spoke. “It’s not old ladies on your mind. So who are you trying to persuade?”
Wolf Tongue blew out a breath and thought about the tribe again as he looked to the front of the longhouse. Lifting Smoke now held a cup in his hands, a blanket draped over his shoulders. His face, storm-gray and creased with sagging lines, stared quietly at the drink he held. His wife sat beside him, fussing at a blanket of her own.
Wolf Tongue thought of all the decisions the old man had made for the village. The help from the English, the cessation of raids and the old wars, his quiet acceptance of his friends’ decisions to leave the village. When Wolf Tongue looked back to his wife, he saw Fox’s Smile watching him with narrowed eyes. She glanced at her father, then with a deliberate motion ran her tongue along her teeth behind closed lips before looking down at the cradleboard in her lap.
Wolf Tongue took a breath and cleared his throat before he spoke. “I’ll start with Bone Snake. He’s smarter than I am and gets along with more people. Maybe he can help me keep those we have. Maybe even persuade some of those who left to return after the pox has passed.”
Fox’s Smile set her hand on his knee again. Her smile was small, and though her words were encouraging, her shoulders slumped slightly and she turned her head in the way she might when offering condolences for the death of a loved one.
“Do what you have to do, lover.”
***
Wolf Tongue found Bone Snake outside his family’s longhouse. His uncle wore a similar fitted cap as Root Cutter, though his had four hawk feathers tied to it. He was walking toward his house, a bundle of smoked fish slung over one shoulder on top of a gray, wool English blanket he wore over his shoulders. He turned and smiled when Wolf Tongue called out to him.
Bone Snake was not so tall as Wolf Tongue, but broader in the shoulders and fifteen years older. Bone Snake was of the Porcupine clan and had married one of Wolf Tongue’s aunts. His uncle had been one of his closest companions as he grew, and the older man had taught him more about battle, romance, politics, and life in general than anyone else. He had an odd habit of talking with his bottom lip, which seemed to only add to the delivery of the raunchy jokes he passed along from his father.
“You look like a dog just shat you out,” came Bone Snake’s greeting.
Wolf Tongue shrugged. “At least I’m making it out the other end.”
The two embraced. Though the village housed only about two hundred people when it was full, and now it was less than half that, it felt to Wolf Tongue that he hadn’t seen his uncle in weeks.
“Come in for a bite? Have a smoke?” asked Bone Snake.
Wolf Tongue shook his head. “No. Thanks. I want to get back to Fox’s Smile.”
“She feeling all right?”
Wolf Tongue nodded. “She’s better now. She was sick in the mornings for a while, but that’s better and she’s back to herself again.”
“Is that good or bad for you?”
Wolf Tongue laughed and looked away for a moment. Then, he said, “I need to talk with you.”
Bone Snake sobered. “Everything all right? You sure you don’t want to come in?”
“No. Thanks.” Wolf Tongue sought the right words for what he was thinking. He knew the sense of loss and helplessness that came with each family that left their village, but he wasn’t sure how to say it or what he wanted.
“So many people have died,” he began. “And it seems like the remaining sick are getting better. But people are still leaving.”
“Wolf Tongue,” Bone Snake interrupted. “We’ve talked about this at council. I know how you feel, but …” he looked around at the village. “Do you see what’s happening? The Bear Clan’s house is coming apart. The Turkey Clan is empty. The people who are left are sick and want to belong to a tribe again. It’s only a matter of time before someone attacks us for what little we have left. The Susquehannock had our fire, and now we’re almost ash.”
“But we don’t have to be. We can still raise a hundred warriors if we need to. The sickness is passing and so many of the others who left can come back when it’s safe. If people want to belong, they have a place here. They belong among the Susquehannock, not beside the Cayuga or the Mingos. But I need your help to rally people together. Keep people here, as Susquehannock, and we’ll work together to make the village strong again.”
Bone Snake shook his head. “You’re going to be a father. You know how it feels to want to protect your family. You go and take your family with you. Make the Mingos a little less dirty when you join them.”
Wolf Tongue stared at his uncle for a moment. They’d had this discussion before. Bone Snake had always seemed the most sympathetic to him, but he still held his own idea that those leaving weren’t deserters, but just people looking to survive the slowly-growing storm.
This time, though, there was something different in his uncle’s posture, in the tone of his argument. He stood a little too defensively, one shoulder turned farther away.
Wolf Tongue truly noticed for the first time the heft of the smoked fish Bone Snake held on his shoulder. When he looked back into his uncle’s eyes, he knew it.
“You’re leaving, too.”
Bone Snake licked his lips, then let out a breath with eyes closed. When he opened them, he said, “Yes. In a few days.”
“Where?”
“The Mingos. North and west a few day’s walk.”
Wolf Tongue nodded. His old rival, Kicks-the-Oneida, had gone to them as well. A group of iomwhen from different nations grouped together to form their own bands and villages in the Ohio Valley, farther away from the British. They were an assortment of nations bound into a new one.
Bone Snake opened his mouth to say something, to offer some apology or explanation, but stopped and simply looked back at his nephew.
Wolf Tongue nodded again, managing a smile this time. He clapped his uncle on the arm. “I hope they’re good people. Come by before you leave. We’ll eat and smoke and have a night of it.”
; “I will.” Then, with another clap on Wolf Tongue’s arm, Bone Snake turned and slipped into his home.
Wolf Tongue stood alone for a moment, listening to the sounds of twilight before he turned around to trudge back to his own home.
Two – Jenkins Town
Lieutenant Hugh Pyke waited impatiently in the hall as the builders hurried in and out of Colonel Bennett’s house. They were running out of daylight and Pyke knew from his time serving under the colonel they were months behind schedule—like all builders. Because they were in and out so much someone had propped the doors open, letting the drafty cold of March transform the hall into an icehouse.
He’d been waiting an hour for his appointment with the colonel, which was thirty minutes longer than the usual. Pyke could hear the colonel meeting with someone in the study, though he could not understand what was being said. Occasionally he heard what sounded like laughter and he smelled tobacco smoke escaping under the door. The colonel’s dog, Cerberus, padded silently into the hall to lie on the cool marble tiles. The dog flopped to its side and let its huge tongue hang out of its mouth.
Pyke had served with honor and distinction for two years now in the Colony and the colonel had vaguely hinted at a promotion. Pyke felt he was due, overdue in fact. His father had told him his just rewards would come his way if he served well and acted the gentleman. But that was proving not to be the case and Pyke was now ready to press the issue. Because of his strained history with the colonel, he feared his career as an officer was not progressing, despite his commendable service. He yearned to take up the burgeoning fight with the French. After Washington’s resounding defeat at Fort Necessity and the continued French encroachment on English territories, all the talk in the Province centered around war. Even the Quakers, ever the peace-lovers, were now at least considering raising a colonial militia to counter the attacks on the frontier, though of course there was disagreement about how the effort should be funded. The older Pyke grew, the more he thought that everything came down to money.
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