Warbird

by Jennifer Maruno

  He smiled at the screech of the owl. It would be Tsiko. He could imitate the calls of all the birds except the chicken. He crept down the stairs.

  In the hen house, Tsiko held out a bundle. “Tonight you wear this.”

  “It’s for me?” Etienne asked as he unfolded a pair of soft, tanned deerskin breeches.

  Tsiko nodded. He placed a necklace of shells in Etienne’s hand. It was the one he had worn the first day they’d met.

  The boys waited for the sentry to move away from his post. Without a sound, Tsiko manoeuvred the canoe through the weeds. Etienne could hardly contain his excitement. Tonight he would attend the Huron Council.

  The encircling grove of giant pines reminded Etienne of the great cathedral his mother had talked of visiting as a girl. The smoke from the blaze in the centre hung amid the branches. Satouta stood in a patch of silver moonlight in front of the clearing. All pairs of dark eyes turned to them as they slid into place.

  Watching Satouta’s gestures and listening to the Huron words, Etienne understood what the council was hearing. Satouta mimed how Etienne had hunted beaver and built a fire to save his Huron brother. He told them how Etienne had called out to the Great Hawendio for help.

  Satouta then explained to the warriors how Etienne’s dreams had foretold the fires that destroyed his drum and the village. He told the men that Etienne had helped the children escape.

  When his speech ended, the men in the circle grunted. Satouta approached Etienne. “Rise,” he said. Etienne received the feather of a red-tailed hawk tied to the feather of a great-horned owl. Clapping Etienne on the back, Satouta called out. “Here is Feather-At-My-Feet.”

  The medicine man beat his rattle against the palm of his hand. Some men rose to their feet and formed a circle while others drummed. Tsiko seized Etienne’s hand and pulled him into the circle. The drums changed their rhythm, and the line moved forward. As the thunder of the drums took over his body, Etienne shuffled his feet in time. With a swaying, rocking motion, the circle moved. The clouds seemed to shuffle to the rhythm as well, allowing the moon to break through. The ancient dance ended at sunrise with the laughing call of the loon.

  Back at the hen-house, Etienne changed his clothes. He hid them, along with his feathers, in a nesting box just as the soldier on duty announced an arrival. Etienne scampered up the ladder to the rampart. The black dot on the horizon became a canoe, and the canoe had a painted eye.

  NINETEEN

  Trois Rivières

  Etienne ran to Médard and flung his arms about his waist, but after a quick pat on the shoulder, the voyageur moved him aside and made his way to the gathering crowd. He appeared much older and very tired.

  A murmur went up among the waiting crowd when they heard the news. The Iroquois had taken Pierre Leroux, the clerk.

  “The Governor-General will be at Trois Rivières to reaffirm the French-Huron alliance,” Father Bressani told them all at dinner. “A party of representatives from the mission must go to request protection. We need more soldiers and firearms. Monsieur des Groseilliers and anyone that wishes to trade will accompany us in one week’s time.”

  “Is it safe to travel?”

  “We cannot let those devils stop us.”

  “The soldiers must go as well.”

  “What if the Iroquois attack Sainte-Marie while we are gone?”

  Everyone talked at once. Etienne’s mind raced. That night he told Tsiko what he had heard.

  “Huron Council tells us,” Tsiko said, “we will go to our Tobacco Brothers.”

  Etienne’s heart sank at the thought of Tsiko leaving. “If you leave,” he said, placing his hand on his friend’s shoulder, “I will leave too.”

  “We will journey together,” Tsiko said, “like brothers.”

  Etienne plucked a large feather from the black-necked goose hanging in the kitchen. He trimmed it with his knife until the quill point was as fine and sharp as Soo-Taie’s needle. When Tsiko entered the apothecary, Etienne was sitting at the doctor’s table, copying words from one sheet of parchment to another.

  Tsiko pretended not to be interested.

  Etienne replaced the quill in the ink bottle and sat back in pride. “There,” he said. “Now I will be able to sing Father Brébeuf’s song too.”

  Tsiko’s eyes narrowed as he approached. “You will not have time to learn his song,” he said. “Father Brebeuf needs many weeks to teach you the words.”

  “I don’t need anyone to teach me the words,” Etienne replied. He tapped the paper with his fingers. “I have the words here.”

  Tsiko snatched up the paper and studied it.

  “You’ve got it upside down,” Etienne said. He took the paper and fixed it to a peg on the wall. “Give me one of your arrows,” he said.

  Tsiko, overcome with curiosity, removed an arrow from his quill and handed it over.

  “You know the song best,” Etienne said. “You can tell me if it is right.” Using the stone tip, Etienne pointed to each word as he said it out loud.

  Tsiko listened in amazement.

  “Did I get it right?” asked Etienne.

  Tsiko nodded. He stepped closer and peered at the lettering in front of him.

  “The marks look like animal tracks,” he said. He pointed to the “s” at the end of the first word, “just like a snake.”

  “Yes!” Etienne said with enthusiasm. “You’re right! And since you know the words of the song so well, you can figure the rest of it out.”

  Tsiko’s eyes went small. “How do you know this?” he asked.

  “My mother taught me,” Etienne said. “By the time I was five, I knew all the letters.”

  Tsiko shot a nervous look over his shoulder. “Only Black Robes read,” he said.

  “The doctor can read,” Etienne said, “and he’s not a Black Robe.” He placed his hand on Tsiko’s shoulder. “You can learn too.” He pulled Tsiko closer to the paper on the wall. “You say the words, while I point.”

  After three repetitions, Etienne handed the arrow back to Tsiko, and both of them were smiling.

  Etienne waited for Nicholas by the well. He removed his fur vest and handed it to the carpenter’s apprentice. “Try this on,” he said.

  Nicholas reached for it eagerly.

  “You can keep it,” Etienne said in a low voice.

  Nicholas looked up in surprise. “But you will need it for this winter.”

  “I will not be here for the winter,” Etienne whispered, putting his finger to his lip.

  “Where will you go?” Nicholas asked.

  “I will find a home,” Etienne said with a catch in his throat.

  A look of fear crossed Nicholas’s face. “What about your duty to God?”

  “Let me worry about that,” Etienne said. He picked up his bucket and strolled away. He didn’t dare share the details of his plans with Nicholas. He knew the boy would be duty-bound to tell the Jesuits everything he knew if questioned, and he needed to keep his departure a secret.

  Tsiko and Etienne planned to travel to the first trading post before the group from Sainte-Marie. Tsiko would continue on his journey to the Tobacco People. Etienne would hide until Médard was ready to take him on to Trois Rivières.

  “You take,” Satouta said to Etienne in the longhouse. He handed the boy a small black bundle. The beaver pelts glistened in the glow of the fire.

  Etienne didn’t know what to say. This gift was unexpected, and he had nothing to give in return. He put his hand on his hip, touching the tin at his side. Then he remembered the little round stone. He pulled it out and pressed it into Satouta’s copper palm. “You take this,” he said.

  The warrior looked down at it in surprise.

  “It’s from the shore of your sacred place,” Etienne said. “It will remind you of your village.”

  Satouta clenched it in his fist and nodded.

  Everyone had busied themselves preparing for the journey. Soo-Taie threaded thin strips of meat onto branches and smoked t
hem over the fire. The children filled woven sacks with beechnuts, black walnuts and acorns.

  A sheathed knife lay across the blanketed poles at the bottom of Tsiko’s canoe, along with two harpoons and a fishing-net. There were baskets of corn and makuks of brown sugar. Tsiko also had a stack of beaver pelts tucked in the bow.

  Etienne wore his deerskin leggings and eagle feather. His other clothes and belongings were in the drawstring sack. At midnight, their little canoe scooted through the reedy swamp like a beaver. The yellow-eyed owl was their only witness. Etienne said a silent goodbye.

  Soon the black, choppy waves slapped against the sides of the white bark. At the river’s bend, Tsiko emptied the contents of a small drawstring pouch into the water.

  Etienne looked down. “What was that?”

  “Beaver bones,” Tsiko replied. “They must always return to the river.”

  The first portage, through the cedars and down the rolling hills in the moonlight, would end at sunrise. They stopped their journey on foot at the bank of the next river. While Etienne collected wood, Tsiko plunged his hands into the water and came up with a large, gaping fish.

  As they ate, Etienne couldn’t help wondering about the fate of those who would stay to pray at Sainte-Marie.

  TWENTY

  Attack

  Etienne returned to the routine of the journey with ease. When they weren’t paddling, they staggered beneath the weight of their packs as they carried the canoe across the many portages. They carried their vessel across meadows and through forests. At times the trees were so dense all they had to follow was a thin line of dirt.

  Day after day they cut silently through the green water. A silver coated lynx with tufts of hair on its ears crept along a rocky ledge at their side. As its short black-tipped tail disappeared into the underbrush, Etienne wondered what message it carried.

  One afternoon, they passed a line of waterfalls with a rainbow at the foot. They paddled their way between the jagged rocks of the crooked river. Their little canoe picked up speed, and soon there seemed to be hundreds of rocks poking out of the water. The thunder of rapids roared ahead.

  Etienne gazed anxiously ahead. “We won’t make it!” he yelled as the spinning eddies snatched at their paddles. “We’ll be dashed to pieces!” he screamed.

  The waves lashed and smashed the bow of the leaping canoe. Etienne closed his eyes and held his breath. Suddenly they found themselves in a pool of deep, clear water, circling in an eddy. Their little canoe had shot across the rapids like a tiny stick.

  Tsiko raised his paddle above his head and yelled in triumph. Etienne sat gasping in relief. He turned his eyes upward and gave thanks to the gods.

  The journey filled Etienne with memories of the previous year, setting out into the wilderness for the first time. No longer the same young boy who had left, he had learned how to be a helper, a hunter, a healer and a hero. He knew he was ready to face his distant, brooding father.

  They approached an area that Etienne recognized from the year before, but a strange gurgling sound came from the creek bed he had once walked with Médard. Yellow, muddy water carried matted masses of sticks and grass. “Something must have happened to the beaver pond,” he told Tsiko.

  “No time to look,” Tsiko warned. “Eyes and ears are everywhere.”

  Etienne thought about how the Huron didn’t really hunt the beaver so much as farmed them, as they did the land. They kept track of the lodges and knew the number of old and newly born in each. They feasted on their meat, made use of their fur, tail and claws. Tsiko’s people even returned their bones to the river instead of giving them to their dogs.

  The silver-tipped birch trees soon became few and far between. Etienne’s mind drifted with the smell of pine that floated across the water. He could still see the surprise in Soo-Taie’s deep brown eyes when he’d handed her the scissors. He remembered watching her pull porcupine quills for her designs.

  The countryside of fallen trees, marsh and brush gave way to the cold, forbidding mountains. Is this how I will find them at home? he wondered.

  That night the boys moored at an outcrop of rocks just before the river narrowed and turned. They lifted the canoe from the water to examine it.

  “It needs a patch,” Etienne said, sticking his finger into a small tear at the side. He looked around for a birch tree, but there were none in sight.

  Tsiko pulled a long roll of birch bark from his deerskin pouch and a coil of wattape, a kind of string made by his people. “This will do,” he said, cutting a piece from each.

  Etienne helped remove the torn stitching and patch the frayed canoe.

  Tsiko scraped a wad of resin from a nearby pine with a stick, heated it in the fire and sealed the patch.

  A duck flew from the reeds at the side of the river bank. Tsiko grabbed an arrow and let it fly.

  “Will I ever learn to shoot that well?’ Etienne wondered aloud as he waded out to retrieve the bird.

  “Just shoot every day,” Tsiko said with a shrug.

  They built a fire in a dry, open spot. Tsiko held the duck to the sky in thanks. He plucked the feathers, put some of them into his pouch and gave the others to Etienne. Then he slit the duck down the middle and fixed each half to a roasting stick. Etienne tossed a handful of beechnuts into the coals. As the heat cracked them open, the boys enjoyed the small, tasty treasures.

  As they ate, Etienne thought about the forest of brilliant green pine and golden birch. The land teemed with birds, animals, berries and nuts. The cold, crystal clear lakes and rivers were full of fish. These forests had everything anyone could want. And yet his father cut the trees down to make room for his fields. More farmers would come. Would there be enough forest left for the Hurons or the Iroquois?

  The sharp sound of a crow drifted through the trees. Tsiko stopped eating when the sound of an owl came from across the water. His eyebrows furrowed and his forehead creased with a frown. “Something isn’t right,” he said. “Crows know if there is an owl in the forest. The owl is the crow’s worst enemy.”

  He doused the fire and gestured for Etienne to get down. Like snakes they moved into the tall grass of the river bank to investigate. A disturbed bird whirred past them, so close that Etienne felt the flutter of its wings on his face. It shot across the river and disappeared in the evening light.

  Tsiko scanned the water. “Look,” he said, pointing to the shore on other side. “Beside the rock, I saw a splash of a paddle.”

  Etienne could hardly believe his friend saw anything at all, especially so far away in the dusk.

  Tsiko cupped his mouth and made his own owl sound. A moment later, a similar sound came back. “I thought so,” he said. “Someone is signaling.”

  “At least they are on the other side,” Etienne said.

  No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than a canoe shot out from the opposite river bank, heading right for them. Moments later, it turned. The boys watched the warrior paddle downstream to where a second canoe joined him.

  “They’re Iroquois scouts,” Tsiko whispered.

  Etienne felt a cold chill go up his spine when he saw the large war canoe carrying painted warriors follow the scouts down river.

  The French boy and the Huron youth exchanged glances. There was no doubt in their minds that the Iroquois were planning an ambush.

  “We have to hide,” Etienne said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

  Tsiko nodded and pointed downstream. Where the river narrowed, a great willow had fallen from the bank into the water. Its mass of tangled roots spread out in all directions. The tree had not been down long. The trailing branches and leaves were still green.

  “Good idea,” Etienne said.

  “I’ll check the canoe,” Tsiko said as he slipped into the water.

  Etienne went back for their things. Their canoe rested exactly as they had left it. As far as they could see, nothing had been disturbed.

  The boys waited until the night clouds dimmed t
he sky then paddled to where the willow rested. They hid their canoe in the density of its roots, climbed into the boughs and flattened themselves against the trunk.

  The only sign they left was their cold fire pit.

  The Iroquois crossed the water like shadows, searching the woods. One held a burning roll of birch bark above his head as he peered in the direction of the boys. In their willow branch cavern, perched above the dark water, the boys didn’t stir. The faces of his mother and father floated before Etienne’s eyes. He was halfway home. Would he ever make it there?

  When the sun rose, the boys watched the first of the Mission’s two canoes come into view. Father Bressani rode with the Huron traders beside Satouta in the front. The French soldiers followed a short distance behind. Médard, assisted by Louise Gaubert, paddled his birch-bark alongside.

  The first canoe anchored by the same rocky outcrop that the boys had used the day before.

  “Why are they stopping?” Etienne whispered.

  “Traders must put on face,” Tsiko answered, easing down the trunk.

  Etienne knew the Huron painted their faces and greased their hair to make themselves presentable, but there were Iroquois about. “They have to be warned,” he said.

  “You tell Father Bressani,” Tsiko said, as he waded into the water. “I’ll warn the others.”

  He swam to the rocks as silently as a fish, his long black ponytail floating behind him.

  Etienne followed in the canoe.

  Father Bressani stood on a rock, wringing out his robes.

  “You are in danger,” Etienne called out to the Jesuit.

  The surprised Jesuit regarded the boy with a puzzled expression. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Does Father Rageuneau know you have left the mission?”

  “You have to come with me,” Etienne insisted. “The Iroquois are around the bend.”