Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  Roget stood, gathered his black cloak around him, and began the long climb up the hill to the great fortress of the Collége des Jésuites in the Upper Town.

  Quent and Cormac and Nicole traveled by day and camped by night. The going was slow because part of the time one or the other of the men had to carry the woman. She hated that and struggled hard to keep up, but when she came to the end of her endurance and there were still hours of daylight to be utilized, Quent or Cormac picked her up and they continued.

  They ate twice a day: in the morning before sunup, and in the evening after they made camp. Food and drink presented no difficulties. The men killed small game, squirrels and rabbits and the occasional partridge, and the forest was laced with streams and brooks. They lacked potherbs and saladings and it was too early in the season for berries, but once Quent found a stand of fiddlehead ferns poking aboveground. Another time Cormac contributed a couple of fistfuls of mushrooms to the evening meal.

  The men took turns standing watch throughout the night. Nicole, utterly exhausted, slept. There was little time for talk. Sometimes, for a few moments before they doused the cooking fire, Quent and Cormac exchanged remembrances of the long days of summer in Singing Snow and the bitter cold of winter experienced from the safe haven of Shadowbrook. Of the present situation, of what Quent faced when he returned or Cormac’s plans, they said nothing.

  Nicole spoke hardly at all until the sixth night. Cormac had gone deep into the forest to relieve himself and she and Quent were alone. She was burying the bones of the quail they’d eaten, deep and carefully the way the men had shown her. She finished scuffing the earth above the bones and looked across the embers of the dying fire. “You said they had every reason to want us alive. Why?”

  It took a few seconds for Quent to understand what she meant “Tanaghrisson and his braves?”

  “The Indians who … The murdering savages. You said they wanted us alive. Why? To torture us? Because they hate all whites?”

  “Sounds like you’ve been listening to some stories.”

  “It is not true? The savages do not torture white people? Even eat them?”

  “Sometimes it’s true. But not just whites. They do the same things to each other. It’s part of their way of life. Their religion, you might call it.”

  Nicole crossed herself. “You are speaking blasphemy. That is not religion. It is heathen barbarism.”

  Quent shrugged. “Call it what you like. It’s how it is.” He wasn’t surprised by her papist gesture. Cormac had told him she was a Catholic on her way to Québec and that he’d taken charge of her two weeks before. Not by choice, but because he was under an obligation. Nicole had been traveling with her father, Livingston Crane, an Englishman and former army officer. They had been in Alexandria when Cormac arrived looking for Quent. Some American trappers recognized Corm, knew there was a price on his head in a dozen different places in the colonies, and laid an ambush. Livingston Crane chanced on it, warned Cormac, and insisted on fighting beside him. The Englishman took a knife wound to the heart and died in Cormac’s arms. His last words were a plea that Cormac get Nicole safely to Québec. Corm had tagged along with Jumonville’s party because it promised safe passage for at least part of the journey, and a few more of the creature comforts a woman required, even here on the frontier.

  “If it was not to torture us or eat us,” Nicole demanded, “why do you say those Iroquois want us to be alive?”

  “The Half King wants witnesses.”

  “Why should a murderer want witnesses? And how can anyone be half a king?”

  “It’s an Iroquois notion. A king speaks for all his people, a half king for some of them. Tanaghrisson speaks for the Iroquois in the Ohio Country.”

  “You make them sound almost civilized.”

  “Not almost,” Quent said. “Out here that’s an important lesson. Not almost.”

  “You called them snakes.”

  “I never said they weren’t clever. Tanaghrisson wants witnesses to tell the story of how he slaughtered Onontio. That’s their name for the French governorgeneral. It was originally a Huron word that means ‘father’ now all the Indians use it. You heard what he said before he killed Jumonville: Tu n’es pas encore mort, mon père.’ You are not yet dead, my father. He meant Onontio, the French presence in the Ohio Country, wasn’t dead.” He would have said that the Half King washed his hands in Jumonville’s brains for the same reason, but she was looking ill again, sickened by her memories.

  “I do not understand.”

  “The Iroquois are English allies. They want the English to prevail in this part of America,” Quent said patiently.

  Cormac returned and squatted beside them. He picked up a handful of moist earth and let it sift through his fingers onto the last glowing embers of the cooking fire, extinguishing it. “Sounds like you’re giving Mademoiselle Nicole a lesson in politics.”

  “Something like that.” Quent looked from Cormac to Nicole. Was there something between them besides obligation? When it was Quent’s turn to carry her through the forest he couldn’t put such thoughts from his mind.

  “Quent’s left out some things,” Cormac said. “The Iroquois aren’t really English allies. They simply want dominance. That’s the Iroquois way. They call it the Kainerekowa, the Great Peace, but it’s a peace in their favor and they’re willing to get it any way they can. Mostly through great war. Iroquois prey on anyone who’s weaker than they are, hostile or not. From their point of view, it’s only peace if they’re in charge.”

  “You do not like tem?”

  “I despise them.”

  “I thought it was only white people you despised,” she said softly. “That is what people said in Alexandria.”

  “They’re wrong. I’m half white. I don’t hate my white blood or anyone else’s. I only hate what the whites are doing to the Indian way of life. If they would leave Canada to the Indians, and down here stay on the other side of those mountains behind us,” he jerked his head in the direction of the Alleghenies to the east, “everything might be fine.”

  “Might be,” Quent said. “There’s no guarantee.”

  Cormac smiled, an odd grimace because one side of his face was frozen by the scar. “An old argument,” he said for Nicole’s benefit. To Quent he said, “Might be, I agree. But the way it is now’s deadly for the Anishinabeg.” He turned to Nicole. “Anishinabeg means ‘Real People.’ It’ what the folks the whites call Indians call themselves. But doesn’t matter what name you use—pretty soon the Real People will be wiped out. So something else has to be tried. The whites have to get out of Canada.”

  Nicole persisted. “Back there in the glen, when the Iroquois murdered the wounded. Is that why the American colonel allowed them to do it? Because the Iroquois are English allies?”

  Quent shook his head. “Absolutely not. That would be a black mark on Washington’s honor. He’d promised the French troops quarter.”

  “Then why—”

  “It’s the Indian way, to take scalps and loot after a battle. In this case Tanaghrisson wanted to prove to the other Indians in the Ohio Country, the Shawnee and Delaware who might side with the French if they thought it was in their interest, that the Iroquois are still the mightiest warriors in the area. Nothing sends that message better than leaving a pile of scalped and hacked-apart bodies to be found by the next hunting party that happens along. As for Washington, my guess is he was just too surprised and terrified to know how to stop Tanaghrisson. He’s ambitious, but very young. Now that it’s over, he’s bound to be sick at the thought of the story getting out.”

  They traveled for six days and the only other human life they saw was a Mingo hunting party. Quent spotted them first; they moved off the path and hid deep in the forest, waiting while the Mingo passed. The last one in the file turned and looked over his shoulder for a long time, as if he’d heard something. Quent loosened the tomahawk at his waist. In the end the Mingo went on without stopping.

  On
the seventh day they neared a sprawling Shawnee camp erected beside a rapidly flowing stream.

  “What do you think?” Corm asked.

  “Make it a lot easier if we had a canoe.” There were half a dozen beached beside the water. “I reckon we could steal one easily enough.”

  Cormac tapped his knapsack. He carried a rabbit and a brace of grouse shot that afternoon. “Better if we trade for one. Avoid having a war party coming after us.”

  Quent could feel the longing in Cormac, the need to let the Indian part of himself come to the surface. He could do that among the Shawnee, who were longtime allies of the Potawatomi. Besides, the Potawatomi were the most skilled canoeists among the Anishinabeg; they would make remarkably good time if they took to the waterways. Quent looked toward Nicole. She was standing a ways apart, staring at the Indian village with a look of frozen terror on her face. “What about her?”

  “We take her with us. No other choice.”

  “I agree. But she’s terrified of Indians. What’s she going to make of it all?”

  Cormac shrugged. “I don’t rightly care. The squaws will look after her until we leave.”

  Chapter Five

  MONDAY, JUNE 22, 1754

  THE OHIO COUNTRY

  THE WIGWAM THE Shawnee squaws used for preparing food, like the others of the encampment, was framed with saplings and covered with bark. It was longer than it was wide and tall enough to stand up in, with a rounded roof that would shed rain.

  But the night was balmy, a late June evening with a bright moon rising. The squaws sat on the ground in front of the cooking wigwam, some distance from the main fire and the braves. They crowded around Nicole, touching her hair and her face, stroking her arms as they fingered the material of her dress, caressing her ankles while examining the lacings of her boots. At first she protested and tried to shoo them away; after a time she grew silent and made herself stay limp, ignoring them and concentrating instead on Quentin Hale and Cormac Shea. The two men she had traveled with for a week were gone. In their place were a pair of savages.

  Monsieur Shea was naked except for a breechclout. He wore beaded bracelets above and below each elbow and on his bare legs. His hair hung loose and he had feathers pinned to the back of his head. Monsieur Hale had no feathers and no bracelets, and his hair was too short for feathers, but he had stripped to only his buckskin trousers and his chest was bare except for an amulet that hung around his neck on a leather thong.

  He had told her this was a summer camp; during the winter the Shawnee divided into bands of hunters and went their separate ways, but when summer approached they came together in places like this. “It’s a big three-month family reunion. Pretty much anyone’s welcome long as they’re not an enemy.”

  “And you and Monsieur Shea, you are not enemies of these Shawnee?”

  “No. Corm’s half Potawatomi; they’re distant kin of the Shawnee. And I’m Potawatomi by adoption. Besides, I’m not an enemy of any Indian.”

  “Not even the Iroquois?”

  “Strictly speaking, not even them.”

  “And if we do not speak so strictly?”

  Quent didn’t look at her. “I’m English. Most of the Iroquois are English allies. That’s enough for the time being.”

  “They are your allies against the French, you mean.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  Before she could reply he’d left her in the squaw’s wigwam. The women had fed her and themselves after they fed the men. The smell of roasted meats—rabbit and grouse and possum—still hung in the air. A few feet away mangy, half-tamed dogs gnawed on the discarded bones of the meal. Dusk was fading to night, and behind the men lines of fish being smoked looked like so many bats hovering near the fire.

  Nicole saw Quentin Hale lean forward. The flames lit his red hair. He looked like a demon. He said something to one of the Indians and the savage put back his head and guffawed. Nearby a couple of the squaws seemed to have heard what was said because they laughed too. Nicole shivered. Dear God, what will become of me in this place? Holy Virgin, protect me.

  “You are pleased to see the men of your tribe like Real People, neya?”

  The voice whispering in her ear spoke English, but the smell—like peppermint, Nicole thought—was of squaw. Nicole turned her head and saw a woman of perhaps forty, maybe older. Her face was lined and she was missing some teeth, but her hair was still shiny black. She wore it across her shoulder in a single braid that ended with a cluster of iridescent bird feathers. The woman wore beaded bracelets that covered both arms and a short buckskin dress. She reached out and stroked Nicole’s cheek. “Two strong braves. Which one do you lie with? Both maybe?”

  “I don’t. With neither. It’s a sin to … Stop that! Stop poking me.”

  “I am saying hello, only. I forgot that white women do not touch each other.” The squaw withdrew her hand. “I have been away from whites for the coming of many summers. I am Torayana. Once I was with a white man. For many summers, many years. When he died I returned to my own people.”

  Nicole looked from the squaw to the men sitting in a circle around the huge fire. The Indians were all as naked as Cormac, and as decorated with bracelets and feathers. The men, braves she supposed she should call them, all had long hair and wore feathers fixed to the back of their heads. A few days ago Monsieur Hale had told her that among many Indian tribes male babies had a board strapped to their heads so their skulls would flatten and make a firm place to anchor the feathers. “That’s one way to tell the tribe they belong to, and the clan within the tribe, by the feathers they wear.”

  The night was warm and the heat of the leaping flames was fierce. All the same, she could not stop shivering.

  Torayana fetched a blanket and put it around Nicole’s shoulders. It smelled of Indian, musky and foreign, but Nicole was grateful for it. “Tonight,” the squaw whispered, “if I were still young and good to look at, I would offer myself to Uko Nyakwai. I would lie on my back and spread my legs and ask him to cover me in the white man’s way. Ayee! What a thing to have Uko Nyakwai bouncing up and down on top of me and his man part inside me. After a hundred fires my sisters would not be tired of hearing that story. Not after a thousand, neya?”

  Torayana’s face was flushed and sweat beaded her upper lip. “To be Uko Nyakwai’s woman,” she whispered, “that would be exciting. They say his man part is as thick as his arm and almost as long. They say that Shoshanaya nearly died of fright the first time she saw his man part. But afterward, he pleased her so much that she offered herself to him night and day. The other one”—she tossed her head toward Cormac—“he is also fine. I would offer him my back passage gladly. But he is not Uko Nyakwai, neya?”

  “Uko Ny …” Nicole struggled to pronounce the words.

  “Uko Nyakwai.” Torayana spoke more slowly. “It is the Indian name of the man you call Hale. It means Red Bear.”

  “And the squaw named Shoshanaya, she was his woman?”

  “His wife,” Torayana said proudly. “The marrying words were said over them in a Jesus house. She was an Ottawa princess. Her father was Recumsah, a great Ottawa chief. He gave his daughter to Uko Nyakwai, and Red Bear brought her to his father’s land and they were together for seven moons. Until one night when a war party of Huron came.” Torayana turned her head and spat on the ground to take the taste of the enemy’s name from her mouth. “When they found Shoshanaya alone in the wigwam Uko Nyakwai had built for her each of them violated her, though she did not offer herself to even one. Then, before they were done, Uko Nyakwai returned and his rage was so great he ripped a tree from the ground and used it to kill each of the Huron braves who had forced himself on Shoshanaya. But he was too late to save her. Her spirit was too shamed to stay in her body. She was carrying Uko Nyakwai’s son and she took his small spirit with her and they both left this earth.”

  “But why did the Huron braves do such a thing?”

  Torayana shrugged. “They say earlier there was some ki
nd of fight and Uko Nyakwai killed a Huron who was stealing. They say it was the dead Huron’s brothers who went to the land of Uko Nyakwai’s father. They say it was for vengeance, but who knows why men do anything, neya? Anyway, Huron are filth.” She spat again. “Look, see that brave there?” She pointed to a man who had risen and was standing beside the fire speaking. All the others were listening to him intently. “He is Pontiac, an Ottawa like Shoshanaya. He is part of her clan, the son of Recumsah’s brother.”

  Quent could feel the women studying him. He glanced in Nicole’s direction. He was pleased to see her wrapped in a blanket and chatting with one of the squaws, though he guessed they were talking about him.

  No one else was paying any attention to the women; they were listening to Pontiac. “If we forget the old ways, what will become of us? We will sink deeper into the pit we dig for ourselves with the white man’s weapons and his tools and his firewater. Soon we will no longer be sickened by his stink.” Pontiac’s tawny skin was bathed in the fire’s glow, and the clan feathers pinned to his head were haloed by smoke. His hair was long like the Shawnees’, and around his neck was a stone carved with the sign of the turtle. The amulet around Quent’s neck was the same. Shoshanaya’s father had given it to him.

  “It is time to put aside our differences and remember that we are red men and that the whites are our common enemy,” Pontiac said. “We must circulate no war belts against the Anishinabeg. We must unite to fight only those who would drive us from our lands and destroy our way of life.” He turned and looked directly at Quent, still squatting beside the brave he’d been joking with a few moments before. “Look what has become of us. We allow white men to take our women. And because they are too weak to protect them, our squaws become whores for our enemies.”

  Quent got to his feet. He towered over the Ottawa, but he knew that did not mean the fight would be an easy one. Pontiac was known for his strength and his cunning. Quent felt the dirk against his lower spine, but he did not immediately reach for it. “Pontiac speaks like a child who steals the nuts and tells his elders he has killed the squirrel.”