River City

by John Farrow

  “A skull, split by a tomahawk. I have seen many deaths, and this is the best way to die at the hands of the Iroquois. If your people are to die, may they go that way.”

  The marquis was momentarily taken aback. He had heard that the chief had a knack for repartee, that he should expect both wit and subterfuge from the man. “It’s not a picture I care to contemplate,” he said.

  “You prefer to burn, do you, the little fire at your feet? Slowly, the fire climbs up your calves to your knees, to your thighs, higher. Scorching, blackening. You will cry out—any Frenchman would—as the hot flames lick your balls. That is when even the strongest man who is burning, even a Jesuit priest, pleads for a tomahawk—” Making a hatchet with his fingers, the chief in his raiment used it to divide his skull.

  “Quite,” Denonville reluctantly concurred.

  Kondiaronk wore feathers in his hair and across a highly embroidered breastplate. His moose hide was fashionable, with decorative beads and a leather fringe, right down to his elaborate moccasins, which he’d never wear except to meet the governor of New France, to impress him with his haberdashery. The Rat had been a student of the Jesuit, Daniel Greysolon Dulhut, who had set out in the middle portion of the century on a clandestine mission to gather Indian tribes westward from the Great Lakes, the Saulteurs and the Sioux in particular, into an alliance against the English. With these tribes on the side of the French, the groundwork would be prepared to allow the remainder of the continent, south to Louisiana and west to the sea, to become French. Yet, for the allegiance of the tribes to be meaningful, they had first to make peace with one another. Dulhut succeeded eventually, coming to an agreement in the place that would later bear a scrambled approximation of his name, Duluth, in the land called Minnesota. As a young man in his company, being persuaded by some arguments and taking issue with others, Kondiaronk learned about politics and negotiations, to the point where he would one day supersede his mentor. From Dulhut, Kondiaronk had learned to comprehend—and more fully imagine—the potential power of peace.

  “Scalped alive, that’s another way to go,” The Rat mentioned to the squeamish governor.

  “But if we, Chief, are treated to such horrible acts, then what will become of the Huron, after we are gone?”

  Kondiaronk knew the answer to that question. He lifted one side of his derrière and pointed to the protuberance. “Our asses,” the chief declared, “will look like French heads after they’ve been scalped.”

  The marquis chose not to reflect upon that outcome. Why did The Rat have to continually make reference to gruesome details? “Then surely, Kondiaronk, we are agreed. The French and the Huron must fight together, side by side, in our mutual defence against the Iroquois.” Except for the bloodiness of certain images, the discussion, Denonville believed, was going well.

  “Maybe,” Kondiaronk said.

  “Maybe?” The marquis expressed dismay.

  “Maybe means perhaps. The French and their English brothers have too many words. Why do you have two words to mean the same thing?”

  “Why do you say maybe?” Denonville demanded to know, not interested in the Indian’s perpetual interest in semantics.

  “Rather than perhaps?” the chief asked him.

  “No! Why do you say that only maybe, only perhaps, will the Huron stand side by side with their French brothers?”

  “Ah,” the chief said, and helped himself to a grape from the plate before them. These foods the French enjoyed, that arrived from time to time on ships, were a marvel on the tongue, well worth the drudgery of these meetings. “It’s simple. I need what you call, in your language, guarantees.”

  “Such as?”

  “The French must fight,” Kondiaronk insisted. He made a fist and flexed it before the governor, to indicate that the French must not only fight, but that they must fight hard.

  Denonville objected to the implication. “We fight!” he claimed.

  “You fight when you are attacked,” the Huron pointed out to him. He was a strong man with broad shoulders and a stout chest, although shorter than most men of his tribe. In his middle years, he’d grown a paunch he was fond of patting while he ate. “When you have no choice, when it’s fight or die, you fight. Usually, you French do both. You fight, then you die.”

  “So what’s the problem? We fight!”

  “You do not attack! You rely upon the Huron to attack the Iroquois on their land. The French must also attack. If not, then the Huron, too, we will only wait to be attacked, seeking the enemy no more. Perhaps, maybe, perhaps, maybe, we will run and hide. To protect our asses, you understand.”

  Now the discussion was not going so well for the governor. He needed to create the semblance of a broad front and a redoubtable force, for he had engaged the Iroquois in secret talks about peace—secret from his visitor, as well—and for those negotiations to succeed, he needed to appear strong. On his part, Kondiaronk needed only one thing: a commitment from the governor to make no separate peace with the Iroquois, but to fight them at every opportunity. Peace between the Iroquois and the French would allow the Iroquois to concentrate on fighting the Huron, and his people, he knew, who had already sustained grievous losses, would be annihilated in any such war.

  “If you do this, what I suggest, strike a clever blow against the Iroquois, then we French will also attack. But I need to witness this commitment from you, Chief Kondiaronk, before we proceed.”

  The agreement pleased both men, and Kondiaronk commenced the long trek back to his lands around the Michigan lake, dreaming strategies of war.

  On the way home, he stopped at the French fort that guarded the great river where it flowed out from Lake Ontario. He was welcomed there, as the commandant always enjoyed his company, more than that of any Indian. Over a meal, without being aware of the secrecy that was meant to govern certain information he’d received, the commandant spoke freely to Kondiaronk.

  “How did you find the marquis, Chief? Is he well?”

  “I left him in good spirits.”

  The commandant sipped wine. “Wonderful! He’s talking to so many Indians these days, it’s good news that you got him off to a happy start.”

  “Yes, yes. Talking to Indians, many Indians. Ah, who’s next, did he say?”

  “The Iroquois, I suppose.”

  “That’s right, I remember that now. Who exactly—have you heard? I hope it’s not Conaymasteeyahgah. He’ll make the governor irritable. Or Klow, who will only put a knot in his bowels—he does that every time, to everyone he meets.”

  Smacking his tongue around his lips to clean them up, the commandant leaned forward to the centre of the table, ripped the last leg off the roasted turkey and blithely waved it in the air. “Whomever they chose to be their ambassadors, they will go. Whatever team they choose to negotiate the peace.”

  “Yes, the peace between the French and the Iroquois.” Kondiaronk spoke as though this was old news to him, while a knot in his own belly began to fester.

  “Precipitous, don’t you think?” The commandant was always amused that he could use a word like that in front of Kondiaronk and the chief wouldn’t blink, wouldn’t indicate any lack of comprehension. He was a noble chief, that much was understood by the French and Huron both, and even by most Iroquois and English. Vicious, too, rumours told. They said of Kondiaronk—and the commandant had heard the governor himself say it—that he made his moves in the present in order to influence the future, and no one possessed clearer insight into the future than The Rat. “I don’t know who they’ll send. Perhaps the sachem, from their ruling council. Probably not chiefs for a first meeting. The Iroquois will be suspicious of a trap, don’t you think? It is all great news. Peace!”

  The commandant reached for his goblet.

  “This is good, this is good.” Already defining his next move to counter the white man’s never-ending treachery, Kondiaronk feigned passive agreement. After the meal, he headed back the way he’d just come, departing in the dark so the French wou
ld not notice his reversal of direction. Following several days of hard paddling, in the Adirondack Mountains well south of Montreal, he ambushed the Iroquois peace delegates, killing a couple and capturing the remainder.

  His warriors had been under strict instructions to take most delegates alive and to scalp none.

  By the side of the river, the Huron made camp and cooked rabbit from their stores. Kondiaronk threw scraps at the feet of his captives, and slowly, the men bound at their ankles consented to eat also.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Kondiaronk told them. “It’s the French. They made me do it. I had to promise I’d come down here and attack you.”

  “They did not,” the man who would speak for the group protested.

  “Why else would I be here, a Huron from Michilimackinac? The governor sent me to massacre you, to roast you over a slow fire. ‘Cut off their balls and feed them to the bullfrogs,’ he said. ‘When I hear the frogs croaking, I want to know that dead Iroquois are moaning in their bellies.’ So that’s what I will do. I will feed your manhood to the frogs. I want to remain on good terms with the governor.”

  “We were on our way to see the French governor!” an Iroquois maintained.

  Another was equally adamant. “He asked us to go there, to talk about a peace! Does the governor send Huron to kill us when he wants a peace?”

  Kondiaronk expressed his astonishment. “A peace? He asked you to come to him to talk peace, then sends me down to feed you to the bullfrogs along the way? What black deed is this? My brothers! I’m sorry. There has been a terrible mistake. How can I be a part of this treachery? Such black and wicked deeds! The white man! Who can understand his animal ways? He is a wolverine on two legs! I shall never be happy, my brothers, until the five tribes of the Iroquois avenge this day! Huron! Cut loose our Iroquois brothers!”

  The captives were freed, and Kondiaronk gave them gifts of beads and rabbit meat and delectable deer for the inconvenience and tragedy of the unwarranted attack. He confessed his shame to them and repeated his horror at having been used in such a repulsive scheme. “Ah,” he cautioned, just before the Iroquois were about to embark northward again in their canoes, “I do have a slain warrior.”

  No Iroquois could recollect firing a shot. They’d been outnumbered and taken by surprise in the open, and in that circumstance had been quick to surrender. That any of their own had died had been unfortunate, as there had been no need for the Huron to kill them in order to win the fight. That an attacker had died remained inexplicable, although perhaps a shot had been fired by an Iroquois who was now dead. The dead Huron lay visible, lying at a distance through the trees upon a mound, his body awaiting disposal.

  As was the practice, an Iroquois captive would take the place of the dead Huron and remain behind with the invading tribe. Less that one man and their dead, the Iroquois continued on, burdened now by the gifts they’d received.

  Once they had disappeared behind a bend downstream, and the lone Iroquois captive was distracted by his slave duties, five Huron climbed the hillock to bury their dead brother. Six men returned from the task. The party then returned to their territory and to the fort at Michilimackinac, by Lake Michigan, where Kondiaronk approached the commandant upon arriving.

  “What do we have here?” the Frenchman inquired, for he did not normally see one Indian bound in the company of others.

  “Iroquois spy,” Kondiaronk bristled, and spat.

  “Is that right?” the commandant inquired of the prisoner.

  “I am not spy,” the Iroquois insisted. “I came to negotiate peace with the French governor.”

  The Rat shook his head solemnly. “He’s crazy,” he said. “He’s a madman. What should I do with him, Commandant? I can’t keep him—he’s too crazy.”

  The military man eyed the Iroquois up and down. He was not from a tribe that came into his area very often, although he was not the first Iroquois prisoner that Kondiaronk had brought to him. He looked like a formidable warrior, taller and more muscular than the majority of Huron men. The Iroquois pleaded again that he had come to talk peace with the governor, which confirmed that he was either a spy or crazy.

  “Shoot him,” the commandant decided.

  “You shoot him,” Kondiaronk said. “We Indians, you know, we prefer to roast our prisoners alive.”

  The commandant nodded, and consented to the arrangement.

  The Rat visited him again that night.

  “You shot my prisoner,” he pointed out to him.

  “You wanted me to.”

  “We have a custom.”

  “What custom?” He had often negotiated with Kondiaronk, and had learned long ago that he was unlikely to win any advantage over him. He considered himself fortunate if he managed to keep his uniform on.

  “You shot my prisoner. You have to give me one back in exchange.”

  “But you wanted me to deal with him, Kondiaronk. Not only that, you brought me the other prisoners in the first place! They were your prisoners!”

  The Rat shrugged. “I’m a poor Indian. I could not afford to feed them. But now you must give me one back.”

  “Why must I?”

  “It’s the custom. It’s the price you pay for shooting prisoners.”

  The commandant remained frustrated. He sensed that Kondiaronk was up to something, but he could not comprehend what. “How will you feed him now if you couldn’t feed him before?”

  “I won’t. I’ll just send him home.”

  “What’s the good of that?”

  “It’s the custom.” The chief shrugged.

  “Oh Jesus, Mary and Joseph. What are you up to, Kondiaronk? They don’t call you The Rat for nothing!”

  “They call me The Rat because I draw a rat to sign my name. But they don’t call you a wise commandant for nothing, either.”

  The officer thought a moment, trying to imagine how this might hurt him in any unforeseen way. Soon defeated by the train of thought, he nodded. “Go ahead. Take whatever prisoner you want. Just don’t—”

  Kondiaronk waited politely, then asked his question. “Don’t what?”

  “Don’t burn him alive. Or slice his scalp off. Or eat him, or anything vile.”

  Enjoying a good laugh, The Rat tapped the Frenchman on the shoulder. “I will send him home. That’s all. You will see.”

  “Yes, yes, I know. It’s the custom.”

  “It’s the custom.”

  Kondiaronk did send him home. He spoke to the man first, who was trembling, wishing that he had been left in the custody of the French and not in the hands of the only Huron the Iroquois feared.

  “What did you see here today?” The Rat asked him.

  “You returned.”

  “What else?”

  “The French. They shot an Iroquois.”

  “One of your brothers. Go home. Tell your people this. Tell them what your eyes have seen. That the French shoot Iroquois while they talk of peace.”

  He made it sound as though he was trying to frighten the prisoner, as if his message would send fear through the Iroquois confederacy. The Indian who was freed mocked him for this when he told his brothers the sad tale of the Iroquois warrior shot by the French. His brothers raised their knives and whooped, and in the firelight each man could see the warring spirit in his brothers’ eyes. The French and the Huron would discover that the Iroquois would not be intimidated. And the first lesson would be inflicted upon those who had talked of peace: the French.

  August 5, 1689.

  Rain had fallen with hard fury through the night, a racket in the leaves, as noisy as a waterfall when it turned to hail and beat upon the settlers’ wooden roofs. Thunder boomed low over the hills and rumbled across the plateau, and the farming people at Lachine, on the island of Montreal, slept fitfully as lightning lit up the skies. Soldiers in the three forts by Lachine were driven inside, and they would not budge to go out in such a torrent. Their commanding officers were not around to tell them otherwise, having gone into Mont
real to visit Governor Denonville, who was down from Quebec. Under the cover of darkness, as the lightning moved on, under the fury of rain, under the bedlam of brisk wind that chased all sound away from the forts, Iroquois landed by the riverside and beached their canoes.

  They laboured diligently and in silence.

  Fifteen hundred warriors split up and surrounded each settler’s home.

  They waited in the rain.

  At dawn, upon a signal, they sounded a fierce, calamitous war whoop.

  Soldiers remained asleep, or kept watch from their turrets, hearing nothing but the storming wind and rain.

  The attack was perfectly executed. The Iroquois burst into homes and bludgeoned the skulls of the settlers in their sleep. In cabins that had been barricaded, the French fought back, only to have the dwellings set ablaze. They ran out from the fires to be slaughtered. Each home had to pitch its own battle. No farmer could come to the aid of another. In a short time, the community was overrun, with all citizens either dead or captive.

  The Indians took their time, relishing the victory. Stakes were implanted in the earth, and men and women strapped to them. Small fires were stoked at their feet. Spits over bonfires were created and children roasted. Pregnant women were brought forth to have the fetuses ripped from their wombs. Their dying eyes watched their unborn children being cooked and consumed. The storm continued unabated, suffocating their screams, their outcry before God.

  Once word of the attack reached him, Denonville ordered the Marquis de Vaudreuil, who was in charge of the Montreal garrison, to take no chances in quelling the enemy. The integrity of the garrison was more important than revenge. The marquis failed to apply his men to the task of driving off the Iroquois. Soldiers remained hunkered down in their forts while the invaders continued to maraud the island for two more months, pillaging, murdering and taking prisoners. They harvested the crops for themselves and burned seed and winter stores, and as they departed in October they released ninety fierce yells to proclaim that they were taking ninety prisoners home with them, to put to work, then mutilate at their leisure.

  They paddled past the forts. Their chief shouted out before each one, “You deceived us! Now we have deceived you!”