by Ron Carter
The magpie rose to a higher branch, perched, and thrust its large head forward, its beady eyes fixed on Billy and its oversized black bill opened wide as it cawed its continuing argument at him. A gray squirrel darted from nowhere onto a lower branch to stop, fix its white-rimmed eyes on Billy, and chatter its quick, abrupt warning. It scampered farther out on the branch, then turned and leaped, all four feet extended, bushy tail straight out behind, to a branch in a neighboring tree, and was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
The magpie made its final statement, then suddenly spread its wings, rose to the tops of the trees, and was gone in the approaching sunset.
Billy watched it disappear, and an unexpected echo rose in his memory. Watch the birds and the small animals. They’ll tell you. The thought passed without notice, and then it came back again. Watch. They’ll tell you. For a moment he saw Eli’s eyes, intense as he had spoken those words while Billy was weak from loss of blood, battling the fever from the tomahawk wound.
Billy did not know whether it was the remembrance of Eli’s words, or a sound, or an instinct, but suddenly he was intensely aware of an unknown presence. The hair on his arms rose as he slowly turned his head to his left and then stopped all movement. Not thirty feet away a mother brown bear and two cubs stood immobile, fixing him with small, black eyes that were too weak to distinguish detail far away. She was out berrying, to replace the heavy fat that had sustained her through her long winter sleep, and to gain milk to nurse her young cubs. The big sow raised her head, and Billy saw her nostrils move, testing the air to determine what the strange scent was. Her eyes might deceive her, but her nose—never.
Without moving, Billy glanced at his musket, lying by the bedrolls twenty feet away—judging how long it would take to cover the distance, cock it with one hand, and fire. Too far? Maybe. It will be close. He tried to remember if it was loaded. It was.
In one fluid, easy move, the bear that had appeared so clumsy and incapable, reared onto her hind legs, her nose still working, and small, grunting sounds coming from deep in her throat. The two cubs instantly disappeared behind her, then peeked back to study Billy.
His breath came short as he judged her nose to be nine feet from the ground and her weight to be eight hundred pounds. Never had he considered the power that must be in an animal that size. A rank, musty odor reached him, and he understood he was scenting a bear that was at that moment scenting him. Having seen the effortless grace of her rise to stand on her hind legs, he knew he might reach the musket before she reached him, but with his left arm tied and useless, he would clearly never get it cocked in time, bring it up, fire it. And the thought struck him, that a single musketball hitting that immense body would likely do nothing more than enrage the bear. Where do you shoot a bear to stop it? Head? Heart?
The mother bear dropped to all fours, and with her head swinging from side to side while her nose continued to test the air, she started toward Billy, walking in the deliberate toed-in stride common to her genus.
An unlikely calm came over Billy. He did not move, nor did he make a sound or change his breathing. He remained seated on the large stone, intently looking into the small, pig-like eyes of the huge sow bear and listening to the guttural grunts that ordered her cubs to stay close. They were on either side of her, jammed against her so tightly they were nearly invisible as she continued in her slow, ambling gait. When she was three yards away she stopped. Her head lowered and her eyes locked onto Billy, while her nose continued probing the strange scent of a man. Billy saw the scars on her nose—from striking sharp, buried rocks as she rooted for grubs and herbs and roots—and her drooping left ear, from a three-inch tear taken in some forgotten battle. He saw the long, black, curved claws extending from the huge paws, and could only guess at the ease with which they could rip apart a rotted tree trunk to reach a store of grubs or colonies of ants.
The impression came clearly and strong to Billy. Friend or enemy? She wants to know.
He did nothing, said nothing. He sat still on the rock, staring at her as intently as she was staring at him. He watched the small, pointed snouts of the cubs appear from behind the massive front legs of the mother, then quickly draw back, only to appear once more. For ten full seconds they faced each other at nine feet, the bear’s nose twitching, her eyes locked onto Billy, while her cubs dared not come out from the protection of those thick legs and huge paws. Then she made her decision.
With an indifferent toss of her head she turned toward the bedrolls and Billy’s musket and pouches, then slouched over to them where she lowered her nose to touch them, blowing and inhaling hard. The moisture from her nose and muzzle smeared on the musket stock and the leather bullet pouch. She cuffed the bedroll with one paw and sent it rolling, then turned her back on the small camp and walked directly away from Billy, her hindquarters switching from side to side as she disappeared in the forest growth. One cub stopped for a moment to turn and look back at Billy. A single grunt from its mother brought the cub scampering, and they were gone.
Billy sat still for thirty seconds before a blue jay glided in on silent wings to perch on a tree and begin the raucous calls that declared its territorial rights. A raven came cawing, and then three magpies. Two tiny chipmunks with the three light stripes prominent on their backs darted from nowhere onto a tree limb, flitted their tails, and commenced their squeaking chatter at Billy. The bear was gone, and once again the forest was safe.
Billy stepped to the place where the bear had stood, nine feet from him, staring at him, scenting him, concluding he was no threat. He knelt and placed his right hand in the faint track left by her front paws in the soft cushion of the forest floor. The track was nearly double the size of his spread fingers. He shook his head in wonder, then walked to the bedroll and returned it to its place. Odd that I felt no real fear. Somehow I knew she only wanted to be certain her cubs were safe. Somehow she knew I only wanted to let her pass in peace. Strange.
He sat cross-legged on the bedroll to open his bullet pouch and remove the small piece of cotton cloth he used to clean his musket, and wiped the bear smear from the musket stock and the leather pouch. As he tucked the cloth back into the pouch, he touched the packet of letters to Brigitte, wrapped in their oilskin. If I told her about the fight, and the tomahawk cut, and the bear, would she believe it? A boy from the city of Boston? He smiled ruefully. I doubt I’d believe it if someone told me.
He closed the flap on the pouch and tossed it beside the musket, then glanced at the sun, gauging time. Late afternoon. Mother’s getting supper for Trudy. Boston is beautiful right now—trees and yards greening up, things growing. I wonder when I’ll get back to see it all again. He sobered. Maybe the question is whether I’ll get back to see it at all.
He picked a sliver of wood from the chips strewn on the ground where Eli had cut the logs to feed the sweat lodge fire and slipped it into his mouth to thoughtfully chew. I wonder if we’ll find Eli’s sister up there. Eighteen years. Is she still alive? Married? Children? What would Eli think if he had nieces and nephews? Uncle Eli. Billy smiled at the thought. I hope we find her. Part of him would be at peace if we did.
For a little time the tops of the trees were golden in the setting sun, and the forest was cast in a dim golden glow. Birds began going to nest, and squirrels and chipmunks moved closer to their burrows, glancing upward, watching for owls and hawks. The sun slipped below the horizon, and the shadows deepened. The patient, quick eyes of a red fox peered out from a growth of heavy ferns, judging whether it was yet dark enough to begin its unending nocturnal search for food.
Eli appeared from the south as silently as the creeping shadows and walked directly into their small, sparse camp. He did not slow his stride as he studied the ground coming in, reading the tracks as if they were an open book.
“No one out there for more than two miles,” he said quietly. “We’re alone.”
Billy nodded.
Eli laid his rifle beside Billy’s musket, then set two lar
ge fish that had been cleaned and hung on a forked stick beside them before he sat down and pointed at the fish.
“Pike. Good white meat, for after the sweat lodge.”
He gestured toward the tracks of the mother bear and cubs. “The bear. Did she cause any trouble?”
Billy shook his head, and Eli continued.
“Good sized. Maybe eight hundred pounds, with two cubs. She got close.”
“About nine feet.”
“What did you do?”
Billy shrugged. “Talked it over with her. She paid her respects and left.”
Eli smiled. “Scared?”
Billy’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “Me or the bear?”
Eli chuckled his rare chuckle, then sobered. “Remember one thing. If you see the cubs and not the mother, find out quick where the mother is, and get out from between her and her cubs. They ask no questions, and they move fast and hit hard when they fear for their cubs. They may look slow and clumsy, but on flat, open ground a bear can catch a horse, and one as big as that one can break the neck of an ox with one blow.”
For a moment Billy reflected on it, then nodded, but said nothing.
Eli walked to the sweat lodge, dropped to one knee, and thrust a hand inside, then bent to peer into the darkness. He returned to Billy to sit on the forest floor with his feet apart, elbows on his raised knees, fingers laced loosely together. His face was downcast as he gathered his thoughts.
“The lodge is ready. I’m going in tonight. Do you still want to come in?”
“Yes.”
“Once we’re in, we come out only to get more water for the rocks, and maybe take a sip. No food. We stay until our minds are clear.”
Billy nodded but remained silent, and Eli continued slowly, thoughtfully.
“I need to know what to do about Joseph Brant and his Mohawk. Without them, I doubt the British will make it very far in the forest. There’s a chance I could get close enough to shoot Brant, but I doubt I would get away afterwards. Maybe, maybe not. But that’s not what bothers me most. What bothers me is I have a feeling that if I could find a way to talk to him, he might quit the British, and if he did, most of the Indians would quit with him. If I kill him, the whole Iroquois Confederacy will likely take up the hatchet against every American they can find, soldier or not, all across the frontier. Mohawk, Onondaga, Cayuga, all six tribes. Blood would flow like a river.”
He raised pained eyes to Billy. “It’s hard to know what to do. The only thing I can think of is to purify ourselves in the sweat lodge until our minds are clear on it. When we come out, I will need to make a prayer to ask if my thoughts are right.”
Billy nodded. “I’m ready.”
Eli took the fish to the stream to wash them. Then, in the gathering darkness, they carried their weapons, bedrolls, and belongings to the sweat lodge and laid them against the outside north wall, closest to the high granite boulders. Eli carefully unlaced the deerhide binding, and with Billy gritting his teeth against the pain, worked his shirt over his head. He replaced the binding, then removed Billy’s shoes and stockings.
Clad only in their breeches, they picked up their canteens, and with Eli bringing the fish, the two men approached the low, rounded opening. Eli dropped to his hands and knees and crawled inside the small, circular enclosure and sat down on one of the logs next to the pit filled with hot rocks bedded in flickering, glowing coals. Billy followed to sit opposite him, and Eli reached to pull the blanket over the opening. The sweat lodge was plunged into darkness, save for the dim light from the firepit. It turned their bare torsos into ghostly apparitions and their faces into a study of ghoulish shadows. Eli reached to lay the fish on the edge of one of the heated rocks.
The heat inside the enclosure was stifling, but there was little smoke from the low fire and glowing embers. Eli jerked the stopper from his canteen and carefully dripped some water onto the rocks. The loud hiss of steam was followed by two sharp pops as two rocks split under the cold water. Eli waited for thirty seconds, then patiently dripped more water until the air inside the tiny structure was filled with tiny, invisible water particles. It clung to their bodies and hair and the inside of the sweat lodge and began to trickle down their chests and backs. Their loose hair became sodden, and sweat poured from every pore on their bodies, dripping from their noses and chins onto their breeches and running down their legs to soak their bare feet. For a time they labored to breathe, and then it became easier. They leaned forward, knees on elbows to take the weight off their backs, and settled in for the long, quiet time ahead.
The passing of time began to lose meaning. From time to time they poured water from their canteens onto the heated rocks and watched the steam cloud billow. They sat patiently in the darkness and sweltering heat with sweat running in rivulets to soak the logs on which they sat and make tiny puddles on the dirt floor. Sometime after midnight, when their canteens were empty, Eli took both of them, pushed aside the blanket, crawled out into the cool night lighted by an eternity of stars, and refilled them at the small stream. He reentered the sweat lodge, and each took a small sip of the sweet, cold water, then poured more onto the heated rocks. They knew it was dawn when the blanket showed light around the edges, and still they remained. With the sun two hours high, their canteens were again empty, and Billy left the lodge to refill them. Returning, he and Eli each took a small sip of water, poured some steaming on the rocks, and settled back again.
Their stomachs were empty, and with the fierce, unrelenting heat steadily draining their strength, their bodies clamored for food in the growing inner struggle between their mortal needs and their determination to bring them into subjection. They denied the demands of their bodies, and slowly their resolve and their will rose above them. By midafternoon it seemed that the spirit in each of them had defined itself from the physical and had conquered the demands of the flesh. With their minds uncluttered by the dictates of the natural man, the clouds and shadows that obscured their reasoning vanished in the pure light of clear, unfettered vision.
Thoughts from a level higher than mortality began to come, quietly, surely. They seemed at first common, unremarkable, but they grew and expanded, one leading to another until in their minds they saw and understood with the sure conviction of those who have perceived truth and know it in their hearts. They heard no voices, nor did they see surreal visitors, nor did they wish to.
With a sureness not of the mortal world, the soul-wrenching question of the course they should take in the days to come began to order itself in their minds. With no conscious effort from either man, the core of it became clear, simple, and then each man silently reached for the peace that would come when the light of understanding opened in their minds, and they would know what to do. They sat silent, unmoving, while they struggled. One minute became ten, then fifteen, before their minds, and their hearts, settled, and they knew.
Eli stirred, then raised his head and spoke softly. “It is enough for me. My mind is clear, as far as it can be.”
Billy nodded. “I’m ready.”
Eli plucked the cooked fish from the rocks, Billy picked up the two canteens, and they worked their way out of the tiny structure into a setting sun that had streaked the western sky with reds and yellows and brushed the domed trees with gold. Drenched with sweat, they walked to the stream and waded in, then went to their knees to cup water in their hands and wash themselves with the chill water until the sweat had stopped and they were clean. They wrung out their breeches, and Eli helped Billy with his shirt, then his shoes and stockings before he put on his own. They tied back their hair, and Billy refilled the canteens.
Eli laid the fish on a flat rock near the sweat lodge, and they sat down on either side, weak, glowing from their bath in the cold creek water. With their stomachs shrunk, they felt little desire for food. Eli gestured toward the fish.
“Eat just a little, then wait for a while. We’ll leave most of it until morning, but we have to get back our strength. We have to be mo
ving tomorrow.”
Billy nodded, and they broke chunks of the broiled fish with their fingers and began to work it in their mouths.
Eli broke the silence. “My mind is clear. We have to find a way to talk with Joseph Brant. We cannot kill him.” He brought his eyes to Billy’s.
“It came to me the same way.”
Eli nodded. “I don’t know yet how we’re going to do it, but I do know one thing. If we are clear that’s what we must do, then there is a way to do it.”
Billy answered softly. “We’ll find it.”
They ate sparingly and drank cold water before Billy wrapped the remainder of the fish in ferns and lily pads and placed it just inside the sweat lodge entrance. The sun was gone and deep dusk was settling as he untied his bedroll and spread his blanket near his musket. When he turned back, he saw Eli just beyond the far edge of their little clearing. He was standing straight, face lifted to the north, arm raised high, hand pointing toward the north star, faint in the dusky light. Eli’s words came with a quiet reverence, and Billy realized they were Iroquois. Eli turned to the east, face still upward, hand extended, pointing, then to the south, then the west, and finally back to the north, where he ended his spoken words. He lowered his arm, then his face, and for a time stood straight and silent, face cast downward. Then he walked back to work with his bedroll.
Billy did not speak to him of what he had seen. While Eli untied and spread his blankets, Billy bowed his head for a few moments, and silently repeated, “Almighty God, for my blessings I thank thee. In thy tender mercy protect my loved ones this night. We pray thy will to guide us. Amen.”
They were wrapped in their blankets before Billy turned toward Eli in the dark. “If one Iroquois tribe is at war with another and wants to end it, how do they tell the other tribe?”