Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  Chapter Two

  THE THREE INDIANS moved in single file along a track no wider than a moccasin. The thick virgin forest of the Ohio Country, claimed by both the French and the English but possessed by neither, shuddered as they passed, then closed around them, barely disturbed.

  Quentin Hale trotted easily behind the braves. His shoulders were twice as broad and he was a head taller, but he was as noiseless and surefooted as the Indians, and as tireless. The four men jogged along the treacherous path as they had for most of the night, with no break of rhythm or purpose.

  The braves Quent followed were two Seneca and a Cayuga, members of the Six Nation Confederacy that called itself Haudenosaunee, the People of the Longhouse. Those who hated them for their prowess in battle called them by the Algonkian word Irinakhoiw—snakes. In the mouths of the French—who hated them for the strength of their union, which led to power in trade, and for their alliance with the English—the word became “Iroquois.” Years before, after defeating the local Shawnee and the Lenape, whom the whites called Delaware, the Great Council of the Haudenosaunee sent representatives of their member tribes to live among the subjugated peoples. The Iroquois in the Ohio Country had come to be known as the Mingo.

  It was shortly before dawn, late May, and warm and humid. A downpour had ended a while back, but the trees still dripped moisture. The braves, naked except for breechclouts and moccasins, blended with the forest. Quent wore moccasins as well, and buckskins greasy with sweat and the smoke of many fires. A rifle was slung over his shoulder, black, with a highly polished oak stock, shiny brass trim, and a barrel nearly five feet long. The grooved bore that made the long gun stunningly accurate had been invented some twenty years earlier, but the weapons were still rare, and the few around mostly in the hands of whites.

  Every once in a while the Cayuga turned his head and eyed the rifle. If there is to be a battle, he thought, and if Uko Nyakwai is to fall, Great Spirit make me the one to be beside him.

  Uko Nyakwai, Red Bear in the Iroquois language. Red for his hair. Bear for his size, and the size of his courage. Sometimes his rage. The Cayuga knew he wouldn’t get the long gun while Uko Nyakwai was alive.

  Could it be true that this bear had once pulled a tree out of the ground with only his hands and used it to kill twelve enemies? And that he did this thing for a woman, an Ottawa squaw called Shoshanaya, but she died anyway? And after her death the Red Bear left his father’s land in the country of the lakes and vowed never to return? Probably only a squaw’s tale told by the fire.

  The Cayuga fingered the wolf totem at his neck. His own gun, a musket known as a Brown Bess, was the ordinary type issued to British troops and colonial militia. No after-kick—the long guns had a vicious recoil—but impossible to aim. To have a long gun … Ayi! Such a thing would make him invincible.

  All the Indians had tomahawks as well, and knives. So did Quent, but he also had a miniature Scottish dirk tucked into the small of his back. And his face was clean except for sweat and a stubble of red beard. The Mingo were painted for war.

  Behind Quent and the braves were thirty-some soldiers of the recently formed Virginia Regiment. Like all the colonial troops they had agreed to serve for only a few months, as long as they could be spared from their farms and village shops. They were paid eight pence a day while a common laborer got three times as much. The men had enlisted because they’d been promised land somewhere along the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers after they got rid of the French.

  By Quent’s reckoning it would be a cold day in hell when they started plowing that land.

  The soldiers thudded along the woodland path in clumsy, ill-fitting boots. Their tricornes snagged on the low-hanging branches, and their woolen jackets and trousers were saturated with rain. Every one of the poor bastards was scratching. Except for Washington.

  The young officer strode at the head of what was left of the column—they’d lost at least seven to the long dark night and the twisting, narrow forest path—pretending his braided finery didn’t stink and itch. Damned fool on a damned fool’s errand, Quent thought. Not your worry, he reminded himself. You signed on to guide and do a bit of translating, not tell a twenty-two-year-old field-commissioned lieutenant colonel with his first command that the snakes aren’t to be trusted. Least of all Tanaghrisson, the Half King. Because nothing was more dangerous than an Iroquois who’d stopped taking orders from the Great Council and decided to go his own way.

  Somewhere a kingbird chattered her dawn chorus.

  Quent saw the shoulders of one of the Seneca two places ahead of him move as he tongue-clicked a response. Tanaghrisson and nine more braves were running along a parallel track. The two groups had been shadowing each other for an hour.

  The kingbird chattered again, fainter this time. The Seneca replied. The other party was breaking away.

  Quent felt Washington’s hand on his shoulder. He slowed and half turned. Both men were over six feet Their eyes met; Washington’s looked eager. Probably couldn’t wait to be blooded. The Virginian had come to the Ohio Country first as a surveyor, then as a messenger sent to warn off the French. That directive had been ignored. So Washington, a young man with neither training nor experience, had been ordered back by the governor of Virginia to raise a regiment, build an English fort, and roust the Canadians, by force of arms if necessary. Bloody fools, all politicians.

  “Those bird calls,” Washington whispered, “that was the Mingo, wasn’t it? What’s happening?”

  “We’re almost there. Tanaghrisson and his braves are taking another route. They’ll position themselves on the far side of the French encampment.”

  Washington nodded, keeping his face expressionless so the older man wouldn’t know how much he’d hated having to ask This Quentin Hale made him uncomfortable. That hair, for one thing. Worn unfashionably short because, he said, it made him harder to scalp. It was a flaming red flag, a constant challenge. So too the cold, ice-blue eyes.

  People knew the name Uko Nyakwai as far away as Virginia. And in Virginia, where such things were important, they said Quentin Hale’s mother had been a Devrey from New York City, and that his grandfather Will Devrey had made a fortune bringing black gold from Guinea to be sold in the slave market on Wall Street. They said the Devreys were sprung from a penniless Englishwoman, an apothecary come to New York back in the 1660s when it was New Amsterdam. They said she married a Dutch doctor, strangled him in his sleep, then hanged him covered in pitch from the town gallows, so the Dutch would believe it was the devil’s doing. Superstitious fools, most of the Dutch.

  Better bloodlines on the Hale side. Gentry, from Kent originally. Now Quentin Hale’s father owned thousands of acres around the northern lakes of New York Province, a prosperous plantation called Shadowbrook.

  So how had his son come to be a woodsman and sometime guide in the Ohio country rather than the landed gentleman he was born to be? God alone knew.

  His legs felt heavy as millstones. Every breath was like swallowing fire. Wretched savages, would they never slow down? And Hale, did he not need to breathe like any other white man? Never mind, word was he could nick a man’s right earlobe at a hundred paces with that long gun. Likely they would see something of that shooting this very morning. The notorious Red Bear and his long gun under the command of Lieutenant Colonel George Washington of Virginia. Jesus God Almighty, it was hard to believe.

  They were toiling up a steep rise. Just enough light now so he could look back and scan the column. At first he couldn’t see Montrose, his French-speaking civilian translator. Finally spotted the rat-faced little man at the rear with a flask to his lips. Sod the blighter. No discipline. Drunk twenty hours out of twenty-four. Ah well, not as important this day, perhaps. This time we’ve not come to talk with the devilish bastards. If the Half King hadn’t sent word that he’d found their encampment, they’d have scouted us out and we’d have had to face them back at the Forks, at Great Meadows. With the fort still only half built and my few
hundred ruffians against God knows how many French soldiers and their cannon.

  He faced forward again, watching Hale, wondering how it was the man never seemed to look where he put his feet, but never stumbled.

  Quent was conscious of the younger man’s eyes boring into the back of his head. He couldn’t remember a moment in his life when he hadn’t known when he was being watched. A useful talent in a place like Shadowbrook—vital for a woodsman in the Ohio Country.

  The only sounds were the breathing of the braves up ahead, the lurching soldiers behind, and the softly stirring leaves. Then the Seneca who led the file lifted his hand. The signal passed down the line and the column halted.

  The French party was bivouacked in a low-lying glen between two steep hills, a site well hidden but not easy to defend. The only guard sat on a rock beside a fire, his musket gripped between his knees while his hands were busy with a mug of drink.

  The colorless dawn was warming to a faint pink. A few soldiers staggered out of the bark-covered lean-tos that had sheltered them from the rain and made their way toward the fire.

  A small girl stepped into the clearing. She had her back to Quent; his impression was of someone little more than a child. Young to be a whore, but what else could she be?

  Quent heard Washington’s sharply indrawn breath. Hard to blame him. Sweet Jesus God Almighty. Were French troops such lechers they had to bring a whore along with a search party? That’s what this was, of course. A sortie to discover exactly what the Americans were doing at Great Meadows.

  A man appeared and moved through the camp. The few others who were awake stepped out of his path. He was of medium height, slim and dark, wearing buckskins much like Quent’s own. He kept one hand on the long rifle slung over his shoulder. His hair was tied back with a leather thong, and a jagged scar pulled the left side of his face into an unnatural grimace. Even in the half light and from a distance of fifty feet, he was unmistakable.

  Washington leaned into Quent. “That’s Cormac Shea, isn’t it?” His voice was hoarse with disbelief.

  “Yes.”

  Good God. The two fiercest woodsmen in North America, each a legendary shot, on opposite sides of a battle in which he was in command. Washington’s throat closed, a huge lump of fear choking off what wind the long trek had left him. He tried to swallow, but he had no spit. Everyone knew it was Quentin Hale who’d held the knife that had marked Cormac Shea for life. The young lieutenant colonel put his lips close to Quent’s ear. “I’ve never heard of Shea operating this far south. He’s supposed to be in Canada.”

  “Looks as if he isn’t.”

  “Why would a coureur de bois such as Shea be with—”

  Quent held up his hand for silence, all the while keeping his eyes on the man with the scar.

  Cormac Shea was a Canadian, but no French patriot. His mother was a Potawatomi squaw; his father, an Irishman who deserted the English Army, took to the north woods, and lived by trapping and trading—until he was dismembered and eaten alive by Huron who resented his selling guns to their Mohawk enemies. Despite Shea’s pale skin and his Christian name, he was the scourge of French Canada. He had taken a public vow to drive every white man from the north country.

  So why, Quent asked himself, was he traveling with a party of French soldiers? And dancing attendance on a white whore?

  Shea had claimed a couple of mugs of drink at the fire and carried them to where the girl stood. She turned to take hers. Quent craned his neck to see her better. Someone sneezed somewhere to his right and a flight of tiny birds lifted from the forest canopy and flew off, chattering in outrage.

  For long seconds the still, damp air quivered with the sound. Then the French soldiers began shouting warnings and running for their weapons. Shea knocked the mug out of the girl’s hand and shoved her roughly into her shelter and out of the line of fire. At the same time he managed to start ramming powder down the barrel of his long gun.

  Quent grinned. He figured he was three, maybe four seconds ahead in the loading process.

  The guard had leapt up from his rock. He flung aside his mug and raised his musket to his shoulder.

  Washington jumped to his feet. Quent wasted precious seconds of loading time to reach up and yank him back to the ground. The musket ball whizzed over their heads and crashed harmlessly into the forest. Meanwhile Cormac Shea had finished loading his rifle and lifted it to his shoulder. But he hadn’t loosed a shot.

  Quent sucked in his cheeks and whistled the throaty, three-note whoop of the northern loon. Then he sighted and fired at a French soldier on the opposite side of the clearing whose finger was just then tightening on the trigger of his musket. The man fell, jerked once, then was still.

  Another musket ball hurtled out of the glen. Once more Washington jumped to his feet. This time he managed to shout, “Fire!” before Quent pulled him back down. The Virginia Regiment loosed its first volley of musket balls into the hollow.

  A Brown Bess had no sight, and the Virginians were badly and inadequately trained. Still, they had the advantage of the high ground. A number of French soldiers fell. “Tell them to aim low or they’ll overshoot, wound rather than kill,” Quent murmured. “But don’t stand up. You can holler lying down, can’t you?”

  Washington was quivering with excitement. Even his words shook. “Yes, yes, but, but—”

  “No buts. Do it.”

  “Fire!” Washington yelled a second time, remaining on his belly. “Aim low!” he added, but not before another round of musket balls had peppered the hollow.

  On the clifftop where the Virginians were positioned the sound was deafening. Quent knew it had to be a hundred times worse down below, booming between the pair of hills. A haze of thick and acrid smoke had formed over the glen. He could just make out a number of French soldiers running in the opposite direction from the musket fire. Futile. Tanaghrisson and his braves blocked the only other exit from the valley.

  Quent squinted into the smoke but didn’t find what he was looking for. Christ. He whistled the loon’s cry. Nothing. He tried again. Seconds later he heard the three-note reply and breathed easier.

  Four, maybe five minutes had passed since the first shot was fired. A dozen French bodies were writhing on the ground. The word was passed that the Americans had lost one man and had three wounded.

  A cry echoed from the hollow below. “We have for you information only! Will you give quarter?” The English words were heavily accented.

  “Yes!” Washington shouted back. “Hold your fire and we’ll hold ours.” He waited a moment, stood up, then looked at Hale still lying on the ground, sighting into the French camp. “I’m going down there. I want you to come.”

  “I’d suggest a number of your soldiers as well, Colonel. To claim your prisoners. Be about twenty of them, I reckon.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And Montrose to translate.”

  Washington looked over his shoulder. “That’s hardly possible. He’s some considerable distance to our rear. Sodden with nun.”

  “Lucky bastard,” Quent said as he got up.

  Eight members of the Virginia Regiment accompanied them into the valley. Holding their weapons at the ready, the ten men slithered sideways down the steep hill. By the time they reached level ground they could smell the blood and the loosened bowels of terror. Washington had to raise his voice to be heard above the moans of the wounded. “I am Lieutenant Colonel George Washington of Virginia. Who is in charge here?”

  “C’est moi. Joseph Coulon de Villiers de Jumonville.”

  The man who spoke lay on the ground beside the rock that a few minutes before had provided the lone guard with a seat. Jumonville was clutching the bloody pulp that had once been his left thigh, “Je regrette, Monsieur le Colonel, ce n’est pas possible de me mettre debout”

  “Do you speak English, sir?”

  “Je regrette encore, Colonel Washington. A few words only. Not enough.” Jumonville turned his head toward the group of
French soldiers the Americans had disarmed and were herding into the far corner of the encampment. “Sisson!” He hissed the name because he didn’t have the strength to shout it.

  A Frenchman, civilian by the look of him, murmured something to one of the American soldiers and stepped away from the throng of prisoners. “I am Henri Sisson, Monsieur le Colonel Washington. I am the translator official of this party.” He approached the two Americans and the wounded Jumonville and bowed stiffly. Washington bowed back. Jumonville spoke a few quick words of French. Sisson translated. “There is a correspondence for you on the person of my commander. It is his wish that I to you present it. I am permitted?”

  Washington nodded. Quent cocked his gun. Sisson dropped to his knees beside the wounded Jumonville, put his hand in the inside pocket of the Frenchman’s jacket, withdrew a stack of correspondence, and held it out “For you, Monsieur le Colonel.”

  Washington took the letters and opened the one on top. “This is in French. I do not trust myself to read accurately in that language. Hale, you speak French, do you not?”

  “Some. I probably don’t read it any better than you do.”

  Jumonville appeared to have picked up the drift of the exchange. He said something to Sisson, his voice so faint the translator had to bend close to hear. “My commander wishes me to tell you that the message of the worthy correspondence is that this is French territory, and it has come to our attention that you are erecting a fortification in the place of the river joining known as the Forks, on the flatland called Great Meadows.”

  Jumonville spoke again. The words came hard. Blood spurted from his wound.

  “It is the duty of my commander,” Sisson spoke quickly, conveying the wounded man’s urgency, “to inform you that His Majesty Louis XV forbids you to continue building this fortification.”

  Washington began an indignant reply. Quent interrupted, speaking directly to Sisson. “Tell him I can tourniquet that leg and stop the bleeding. Keep him alive long enough to continue the argument.”