Warbird

by Jennifer Maruno

  At first, he wasn’t even sure where he was, but the cook’s morning murmurs brought him back to the mission. He glanced at the rays of the rising sun through the gap in the wooden slats. No wonder this bed was empty when I arrived, he thought. The buckled and broken shutters did not close properly. Etienne often debated whether his blanket would be better over the window than covering his body. If only I had kept that woollen cloak. Each time he thought about it, his foolishness amazed him.

  That morning, Etienne and Tsiko slipped their canoe into the morning river mist. Father Bressani had commissioned them to take letters to Father Daniel at Teanaustaye.

  When they entered the village, an old warrior was squatting on the ground with a group of boys. Etienne and Tsiko stopped to watch.

  The man scratched two large squares in the earth. Then he made several smaller ones inside. The man passed his hand in front of one of the boys’ faces. The boy closed his eyes. The man filled some of his squares with nuts and stones and grunted. The boy opened his eyes and stared at the arrangement. Then the man covered his square with a basket. The boy picked up a handful of stones and nuts and arranged them in what he hoped was the same pattern.

  When the man lifted his basket, the patterns matched. He patted the boy on the shoulder.

  Father Daniel approached the small group with a smile.

  “Where is everyone?” Etienne asked. The village seemed exceptionally quiet.

  “They’ve all gone off to trade,” the priest replied. “Kettles and knives have become the most important things in life,” he muttered, taking the package.

  The boys walked past the hut of the medicine man. Turtles without tails dangled from the doorway. Etienne stared in horror at the sticky red blood draining into the gourd bowl below.

  Tsiko shrugged. “Medicine man makes rattles,” he explained as angry voices shattered the silence. Dogs barked, then there were shots.

  Tsiko grabbed Etienne by the arm and dragged him into his grandmother’s longhouse. They peeked from the doorway at the band of warriors running into the village. There had to be at least twenty. All had painted faces and all carried muskets.

  “Iroquois,” Tsiko hissed. With his finger to his lips, he motioned Etienne to get down.

  “How will we get out of here?” Etienne whispered, frozen in fear.

  Then they heard Father Daniel’s voice call out, “Receive baptism before it is too late.”

  The boys looked around the corner to see him hastening from building to building, calling on the Huron to be baptized. The boys pulled the Jesuit inside when he reached their doorway.

  “You must hide,” Tsiko told him.

  “The Iroquois will kill you for sure,” Etienne said, taking Father Daniel’s arm.

  The priest shook his head and yanked his arm back. “I must prepare my people,” he said. “Fly to Sainte-Marie,” he said as he ran out. “They must be warned.”

  The boys watched the Jesuit make his way back to the church, followed by a throng of women. They held their children out to him, wailing in despair.

  The fierce yell of the Iroquois war-whoop rose again. Etienne desperately hoped Tsiko would not drag him into battle. “What do we do?” he asked in a cracked voice.

  Tsiko’s grandmother made her way to the back door of the longhouse and gave instructions. The crowd of women, carrying babies with children clinging to hands and skirts, moved out and along the palisade wall.

  Tsiko and Etienne ran to the doorway of the next longhouse. From there they watched Father Daniel immerse his handkerchief in a bowl of water. He shook it over those who crowded around. “Today we shall all be in Heaven,” he said as the drops fell from the square of linen.

  “I’m not going to Heaven today,” Tsiko whispered.

  Wide-eyed, Etienne nodded.

  Fiery arrows shot across the sky. One fell at the foot of the palisade, setting the poles ablaze. Another landed on top in a flurry of sparks. The flames spread from one roof to another.

  A burning post crashed. Another fell, striking a woman with a baby on her back.

  The woman behind her put down her own child and rushed to her side. She rolled the woman over and undid the cradleboard straps. She lifted the cradle and baby, took her child’s hand and ran for the opening into the forest. There was a loud bang. The woman arched her back as the shot hit her and she dropped the baby.

  Etienne and Tsiko leaped across the glowing poles. The hot breath nearly strangled them. Etienne stumbled to his knees just as a shot rang out over his head. He picked up the cradleboard as Tsiko grabbed the child.

  Another section of the burning palisade collapsed. This time it fell backwards into the stream, encasing them in a wave of thick black smoke. “Stay in smoke,” Tsiko said, pulling Etienne in his direction. They ran through the gap in the palisade wall, clutching the children, coughing and choking. The old man who had played with the boys took the cradle from his arms.

  Etienne felt someone grab him.

  It was Tsiko

  Through the cloud of smoke, the trees beside the trail loomed tall and silent.

  “Climb,” Tsiko commanded from the base of a pine tree. “There will be scouts.”

  Etienne stared after the crowd of people making their way down the trail.

  “Climb,” Tsiko repeated, scrambling up the lower branches like rungs of a ladder.

  Etienne followed, pulling himself through the dense, scratchy branches, his head throbbing from the heat. Thick coils of smoke wound and billowed around them, making their eyes sting. As they hid, they could see the shadows of intruders with raised tomahawks running through the village. Others moved about, torching anything that would burn.

  Father Daniel, radiant in his vestments, confronted the raiding party. He raised his wooden cross and spoke.

  The Iroquois stared at him in amazement. Then, with wide grins across their faces, they reached for their arrows and bent their bows.

  Etienne closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see the volley of arrows tear into the priest’s robes, but the musket bang jolted them open. Tongues of flame illuminated the scene. The warriors rushed upon the fallen Jesuit with yells of triumph. They covered their hands in his blood and smeared it on their faces.

  Etienne’s heart pounded like a drum.

  Fire engulfed the church. The warriors picked up the Jesuit’s body and heaved it inside. The roar of the flames grew louder. The elm beside them screeched as its bark cracked. Etienne watched in horror as flames rushed up the tree.

  “Jump,” Tsiko commanded. “Like a squirrel.”

  Sick and dizzy, Etienne reached out for a branch, following Tsiko. He swung again and again. The trees were getting smaller, but he had no idea where he was. He could no longer see Tsiko but dared not call out.

  For a moment, he saw himself laid out for burial like Jacques Douart. His mother kneeled at his side, weeping. But he shook the thought away. He vowed she would see him again alive.

  Voices seemed to travel from tree to tree. Out of exhaustion, Etienne lost his grip. He landed with a bump and rolled down a hill. As he crawled through the brush, the thorns and nettles scratched his body, and as he scrambled to his feet, he was surprised he wasn’t hurt.

  He made it to the river bank. Even there the air held the heat of the blazing village.

  Several canoes came to a stop and warriors jumped out.

  Etienne fell to his knees He could run no longer, and he hung his head, awaiting his fate. As the warriors rushed towards him, he passed out.

  SEVENTEEN

  The Burial

  Etienne sat facing the doctor with a blanket draped about his shoulders. The black smoke that had filled his lungs had scorched his throat. He coughed several times.

  Father Bressani hurried to the bucket and dipped in the ladle. He stood with his hand on Etienne’s shoulder as the boy drank.

  “Thomas and I took to the trees,” Etienne said hoarsely. “Then we saw . . .” He tried to speak of the fate of Father Dani
el, but he choked with the emotion.

  “Thank the Lord both of you are safe,” Master Gendron said. “Others were not so lucky.”

  “Both of us?” Etienne repeated as he looked up at the doctor. “Thomas is safe?”

  The doctor nodded.

  Etienne buried his head in the folds of the blanket in relief.

  In the loft that night, he opened the embossed case with the mirrored lid. A crust of dried blood sat at the corner of his mouth. He wet his finger, touched it, then put his finger back in his mouth. The taste frightened him. He pushed his fists into his red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes in an effort to block out the memory of Father Daniel’s fate.

  Ambroise stomped in carrying a candle. He kneeled by his bed and mumbled. “I ask for the grace to persevere till death as a helper of these holy missionaries.”

  Etienne stirred at his words.

  “You are not asleep?’ Ambroise asked, holding the candle high.

  “No,” Etienne said, turning his face away from the light.

  “The Lord protects those in times of trouble,” the cook said. He made the sign of the cross. “I will pray for your peace of mind.”

  Etienne tried to listen, but the words of the prayer slipped past him. He remembered how Brother Douart had looked at the Hurons in disdain and had taken pleasure in their discomfort. The longhouse was hardly a stone’s throw away, but Father Mesquin never saw those that lived in it as real people with real families.

  “I must look in on the chickens,” Etienne choked out as he bolted from his bed.

  In the poultry house, the Houdans huddled under their wings. Sleeping pigeons balanced along the roost. Ignoring the sour smell of dust and dung, Etienne flung himself onto a nesting mound of grass and sobbed. That night, he slept with the chickens.

  It should have been the kind of morning when Etienne could fill his lungs with the fragrance of sweetgrass, but he raised his matted head to a smoke-filled sky. Even though he was still coughing, he knew he had to get to the hospital. The doctor would need plenty of assistance.

  Survivors were streaming through the gate, and small cone-shaped tents covered the grassy common. Those who lived told how the Huron warriors had returned and the fighting had grown fierce. But their numbers had been no match for the Iroquois, who had hunted the woods all the next day. Cries of infants gave away mothers unable to travel far. The Iroquois had marched their prisoners off to their village, but many had died along the way. The grey, gritty air was thick with worry.

  Fathers Rageuneau and Bressani went from bed to bed in the hospital as Etienne filled gourd cups with root tea. The Jesuits wished to compile a list of the dead, but no one would give names.

  “They believe if they say the deceased’s name, it will stop their soul from going to heaven,” Father Bressani told the Father Superior with a great sigh.

  “Their souls must journey towards the setting sun,” the doctor added from across the room. The shadows in the room intensified the lines of fatigue across his forehead.

  “I want to help bury the dead,” Etienne said to the doctor as the priests walked past.

  Both Jesuits blinked at him in surprise.

  “Why would you want to do that?” Father Bressani asked.

  “The people in the village were my friends,” he said. “They will need help.”

  Father Bressani moved closer to the doctor. “They do not bury their people in the same manner,” he said in a whisper.

  “He needs to come to terms with the matter,” the doctor replied. “We cannot allow the blackness of what he has witnessed to smoulder. It must be dampened with good deeds.”

  Father Rageuneau nodded and beckoned Etienne to him. “First they will bury the infants along the village paths,” he said in a low voice. “They hope their spirit will enter a passing woman to be reborn.” The Father Superior waited for Etienne’s reaction.

  “Do the others go into the ground?” Etienne asked, not questioning the practice.

  “No, they carry the bodies to an isolated place,” Father Bressani said. He shook his head in wonder. “After their family has gazed upon them, they cover them.”

  “And then they bury them?” Etienne asked.

  “They do not,” the Father Superior said in a sad, low voice. “They leave the bodies to the elements, allowing the bones to be cleaned.”

  “But Thomas said they would be buried,” Etienne whispered.

  “They will be, but much later,” Father Rageuneau said, fingering the wooden cross on his chest. “On the Feast of the Dead, the bones are put in caskets of bark.” He sighed. “Then they are placed in a large pit.” He shook his head. “They believe when the bones mingle, the souls of their family will meet again.”

  Etienne stared down at his feet. All the bones mingled together. Tsiko’s mother lay in the churchyard at the mission. Now he knew why her brothers were so displeased. They believed there was no chance of ever meeting their sister again.

  “It is not a pleasant sight, from what I have been told,” Father Rageuneau concluded. He sighed. “But if your curiosity is greater than the telling, feel free to go.”

  “But no one is allowed to leave the mission,” Father Bressani protested. “You gave that order yourself.”

  “Not even the Iroquois will attack a funeral procession,” Father Rageuneau replied. He paused in the doorway and looked back at Etienne. “If it is too much for you, return with those who bring Father Daniel to St. Joseph. But you had better tell Master Broulet where you are going,” he added. “He complains of your thrashing about with bad dreams.”

  There was little left of Teanaustaye when Etienne and Tsiko arrived. The blackened branches of the burned longhouses moved in the breeze like desperate fingers. Gusts of wind made the embers glow, as if the village gave out its very last heart beats.

  The smouldering ashes warmed their moccasins. Charred bodies lay everywhere. Etienne retched on the burned, black grass. His next wave of nausea came at the sight of several bodies in a heap. He willed himself to be brave like the Hurons as he helped to lift the blanket-wrapped corpses into the canoes.

  Etienne picked up his paddle and took his place at the stern. Tsiko waited in the bow.

  Soo-Taie sat as still as stone, her white knuckles gripping the side of the canoe. The folds of the beautifully beaded cloak draped about her shoulders did not soften her look. With the death of Tsiko’s grandmother, she was now head of the Deer clan.

  Etienne could feel the hurt in her heart.

  The procession moved down the river, paddles in perfect unison. An enormous colony of swallows burst from the tops of the trees. They twisted and turned as they wheeled across the sky. Within minutes, a second flock burst out, then another and another, until the sky filled with whirling birds. Then, as if by signal, a large number of them suddenly separated from the others and flew down the long stretch of the riverbed. Making a wide turn, they dipped and dove, then disappeared. The rest of the birds followed the canoes a short way downriver, then flew behind the trees and disappeared into the clouds. It was as if they had come to say goodbye.

  They paddled to a small island with a beach of stones. Many trees covered the grassy hill. An old Huron with flowing white hair stood at the top, holding his arms to the sun. Bright yellow birds, darting in and about the branches, seemed somehow out of place.

  Etienne helped carry their dead up the grassy mound. They placed the bodies on platforms in and around the trees and covered them with beaver skins. A low whispering sound came from the wind playing about the clothes and trinkets of the dead. Everyone placed a hand on the tree trunks and wished the dead a safe journey to the land of the sun.

  The sun tipped the treetops with gold and the wavelets with silver as Etienne waited on the beach, tossing stones into the water. A perfectly round pebble caught his eye. He picked it up to throw but instead put it into the small tin at his side.

  EIGHTEEN

  Feather-at-My-Feet

  We are but forty Frenchm
en in the middle of an infidel nation,” Father Rageuneau said after evening grace. “It is from God alone that we wait for reward.”

  “I’m not planning to wait for that reward,” Etienne whispered to Nicholas in the kitchen.

  “No one is going to get out of here,” Nicholas said. He gave Etienne a pleading look. “If we stay, we will surely die.” His eyes filled with tears. “If we leave, we break our vows and lose grace.”

  Etienne straightened his shoulders and shivered. His mouth was too dry to speak. He had already seen what the Iroquois could do. His heart filled with dread, even though the sun shone and the birds sang. With a heavy heart, he went to the loft to think about his future.

  Each morning, he hoped it would be the day his two voyageur friends returned. It was time for him to think about heading home. Twelve small circular moons decorated the thin headboard of his bed. Etienne rinsed Pierre’s red sash in the river, thinking how happy he would be to hear how it had helped save Tsiko.

  At the apothecary, Etienne handed the leather apron to the doctor, who took it from him and examined the workmanship. “Where did you get this?”

  Etienne shrugged. “I brought it from Sillery.”

  “It was your father’s,” the doctor surmised.

  “It is for you,” was all Etienne said.

  The doctor nodded in thanks and smiled as he tried it on.

  The joy of giving the gift suddenly disappeared. Once Etienne left, there would be no more tramps in the forest for herbs. He would miss the comfortable silence of the priests at prayer, seeing the Huron women at work and watching the doctor as he made medicine.

  Etienne raised himself on his elbows and listened to the heavy breathing of the men. He slid into his clothes and waited on the floor next to his bed.

  Keeping his eyes on their sleeping forms, he pulled out the knitting from his bag and gave the wool a tug. Row by row, the little knots fell apart and the loops unravelled. He wound the coarse hairy wool into a crinkly ball. This he could give to Master Masson, the tailor. The wooden needles could go to Soo-Taie.