Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  The wind was rising. Bishkek had given him a cloak made of elk hide, cured with great skill so the sleek black fur remained supple and glistening. Corm shivered and drew the cloak doser. He fancied there was the stink of powder and burning pitch on the wind. The smell of war.

  A chain of forts surrounded him. In his mind’s eye he could see them all. The Citadel of Louisbourg to the north was the biggest. It had been built by the French forty years before, captured by New England colonials in 1745, then returned to the French by treaty in 1748. Louisbourg guarded the entrance to the St. Lawrence River and thus to all Canada. To somehow compensate for so great a loss, the English began building Fort Lawrence just east of the Missaquash River, in plain sight of Beauséjour and Gaspareau, the two French forts that guarded the Chignecto Isthmus that joined l’Acadie to the mainland. Forty leagues up the coast from where he stood was the Halifax Citadel, a walled city populated by thousands of Protestant, English-speaking settlers. Halifax was heavily garrisoned.

  Ayi! A river of blood might well flow from any direction in this place.

  But what did it have to do with him? Or with Memetosia and his Suckáuhock. This was a Cmokmanuk struggle. Yes, he reminded himself, and you are half Cmokman. Ahaw. And you are also wabnum, the white wolf. And inside of you is a red man who knows that the path laid out in a dream must be followed. Otherwise even death will bring no release.

  Cormac knew he had to find shelter. He couldn’t travel much farther tonight. This hunt seemed to be over: he’d seen no hawk, no white bear. He’d dreamed nothing of any significance. The whole trek was a waste. Except that the foreboding of the original dream would not leave him. It sat in his belly as it had from the first moment he dreamed it. Every morning he woke to the same sense of urgency and the same dread still twisted his bowels. Merde! A curse on all dreams.

  Kekomoson had said a wabnum running toward the place where the sun rises. “This wabnum can go no further,” Cormac said aloud. “No further! Do you hear me?” He shouted the words at the relentless sea. Memetosia’s medicine bag felt heavy around his neck. He struggled with the urge to rip it off and hurl it into the waves.

  “Est-ce que vous voulez que la mer vous répond, monsieur?”

  Cormac turned and his eyes met those of a woman almost as tall as he was. Hers were gray with black flecks, like polished stones found on a beach. She peered at him intently, clutching her blue knitted shawl with both hands to keep it from blowing away. She seemed to bend with the wind, like a willow, Corm thought, its trunk slender and supple enough to sway with any storm that came. “J’ai pensé que j’etais tout seul, madame.” I thought I was alone. “Je m’excuse. I didn’t imagine I would disturb your cows. Much less their mistress.”

  She smiled. Her teeth were white and even, and the corners of her wide mouth turned up to show two dimples. “Mademoiselle,” she corrected. “And you did not disturb me or my cows. But it is late and getting cold. Soon it will be dark. Not pleasant, even, I think, for the fierce Cormac Shea. You must come home with me, monsieur. As you yourself just said—rather loudly I recall—you can go no further.”

  “You know who I am?”

  “Of course. Who does not know of Cormac Shea?”

  The scar made him easy to identify. “I’d be grateful for a night’s shelter, mademoiselle. Perhaps I can offer some work in payment.”

  “I am Marni Benoit, and for a start you can help me bring these cows home.”

  The barn was attached to the house. It was full of the sweet smell of hay and warmed by the breath of the animals. A corner was occupied by a small flock of dark brown hens, and from a separate nearby shed he heard the snuffling of a pig. “You are well provided for, mademoiselle.”

  “Here in l’Acadie we provide for ourselves. And I told you, my name is Marni.” She sat down on a little three-legged stool and began milking the smaller of the pair of cows while she spoke, leaning her head against its side as she rhythmically tugged on the teats, holding a bucket in place with her knees. “I prefer that to ‘mademoiselle.’”

  “Very well, Marni then.” The position she’d assumed lifted her skirts, and he saw her ankles were slim and shapely above her heavy clogs. He wondered about the color of her hair. A white mobcap covered almost all of it, though the bit he could see above her forehead seemed quite fair. “Will you trust me to do the same service for Mumu?” he asked. As they walked back from the field she’d told him the smaller cow was Tutu, the larger Mumu.

  “Oui, si vous voulez.”

  There was a second milking stool hanging on a peg on the wall. As if it weren’t in regular use, Corm thought as he reached it down. So far he’d seen no indication that anyone else lived on this remote farm with Marni Benoit.

  “Mumu is not accustomed to strange hands, Monsieur Shea. You must be gentle, and at the same time on your guard.”

  “I will try to be both. But if you are Marni I must be Cormac. Corm, if you like.”

  She had finished with Tutu and straightened, quickly moving the bucket out of reach of the cow’s swishing tale. “I like Corm. Yes, I shall call you that. And you are a very good milker. For a coureur de bois and a métis at that.”

  He was done, and he stood and handed her the full bucket of warm milk. “I didn’t realize they knew so much about me in l’Acadie.”

  “They don’t. I do. Come.” Marni led the way into the house.

  It was full dark now, and inside the only light came from the dull glow of the banked fire. “The logs are there,” she said, nodding toward a supply of wood that had been moved into the house. “If you will stir up the fire, I’ll get a lantern going. And then I’ll fix some supper.”

  He turned to get a log from the stack she’d indicated and saw her remove her shawl and hang it quickly on a peg. When she lifted her arms he could see the swell of her breasts, despite the concealing blue dress and pinafore made of homespun flax. The gesture had shifted her mobcap and he could see her hair was a yellow so pale it was almost white.

  “What did you mean when you said the others didn’t know about me, but you did?”

  “Only that around here very few care what happens beyond l’Acadie. They have heard stories, of course. Tales of the fearless métis who would turn us all out of our homes and let the Indians have everything.”

  “The Indians were here first. The Whites are destroying their way of life.”

  “So in return you would destroy ours.” She shrugged. “It sounds to me like mostly everything men do. An excuse to fight.”

  The fire was blazing now and he felt truly warm for the first time in days. Watching her move about the kitchen was a delight She wakened something in him that had been dormant for some time. This Marni Benoit was leading him back into his whiteness. For the moment, she was his Shadowbrook. “But the others around here, your family and friends, they do not know about my ideas?”

  “No, not in any detail. As for my family, they are dead. And I have no friends.”

  “You live here alone?”

  “Yes.” She swung the crane that held a large blade kettle into position above the leaping flames and ladled into it a portion of the milk they had just taken from the cows. “These days I prefer being alone.”

  “How come you know so much more than other Acadians?”

  “Because unlike most of them I have not remained always in l’Acadie. I committed a great sin for an Acadian woman, Cormac Shea. I went to Québec. With a man.”

  The supper was ready. A thick wedge of hard cheese and a loaf of bread, and to drink, frothy spruce beer cut with the milk she’d warmed over the fire. The first Cmokmanuk food he’d had in months. The bread, made in the French fashion, with a hard crust and a soft chewy interior, particularly delighted him. “Québec was the first city I ever saw, I went there with my mother once. I was very little, maybe three or four. I don’t remember much about it, except bread like this. It was very good, but yours is better.”

  “Thank you. Jean, my fiancé, was a baker.
He taught me how to make it.”

  “You are to be married, then?”

  “Was. I was to be married. Jean is dead.”

  “I’m sorry. How did it happen?”

  She shrugged and leaned forward to refill his tankard with more ale and more warm milk. “He was run over. It was a foggy morning. He was delivering a sack of batards to the fine house of a fine Québécois. The carriage came quickly, the alley was too narrow to permit escape …” She shrugged again. “It is a common story.”

  “Not when it is your story.”

  They finished eating. Marni stood up and began clearing the table. “You can sleep over there.” She indicated a corner beside the fire where there was a rolled-up mat and a neat pile of blankets.

  “I don’t want to discomfort you. The barn is fine if—”

  “You will not discomfort me. My bed is above.”

  “You will have to let me do something to repay you,” he insisted.

  “There is always wood to be cut,” she said, walking to the ladder that led to her bed beneath the peak of the roof. “I’ll be glad of whatever you can get done of that.”

  He could get plenty done if he stayed for a time. He thought about it while he lay beside the banked fire and outside the wind howled and the sea could be heard crashing on the beach. No white wolf and no hawk and no white bear. But he had been sent east and traveled as far as he could in that direction. Now he might as well wait until the next step of the journey was revealed to him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 1754

  SHADOWBROOK

  QUENT STOOD BESIDE the rushing stream. The five mighty oaks—Squirrel Oaks—were behind him. They separated him from the burial ground, but he could still hear the sounds of Jeremiah and Little George shoveling dirt onto Ephraim’s coffin.

  Everyone else had left. The Anglican minister and many of the other mourners had come all the way from Albany—John and Genevieve Lydius and their entire brood among them. Every slave was present, and all the tenants, even those from distant Do Good. The Kahniankehaka, too. Chief Thoyanoguin had arrived wearing his jacket trimmed in gold braid and his tricorne. A dozen braves had come with him. Such a large delegation paid Ephraim high honor. Like everyone else, the Indians stayed until the service ended. Only Corm wasn’t there.

  It was often Corm’s way to move south before the great snows. Quent had hoped he’d show up as the autumn passed into winter, but so far it hadn’t happened. Meanwhile, until three days earlier, Ephraim had seemed the same as he’d been since the summer, no better but also no worse. Then, three mornings past, Runsabout had gone to bring him his morning ale and found him dead in his bed. Too late to send word to Cormac, even if he was still at Singing Snow.

  After they had gathered around Ephraim’s grave and listened to the minister speak of resurrection and eternal life, John invited the mourners to stop by the Frolic Ground before departing. There would be johnnycakes to fortify them for the journey home, and a cup of punch lifted in Ephraim’s honor. John didn’t look at his younger brother when he spoke, and Quent knew the invitation didn’t include him. That didn’t matter, but his mother did. All during the funeral, each time he glanced up she was staring at him, defeat and despair all over her face. It was the first time he’d ever seen her look like that. When the minister had said everything he had to say and handed Lorene a clod of earth, she’d thrown it into Ephraim’s grave and looked like maybe she wanted to die, too. Quent took a step toward her, but Lorene had turned aside. She’d never before closed him out like that. He’d known then he wouldn’t be joining the others at the Frolic Ground.

  The sound of shoveling stopped. “That’ll rest him.” Jeremiah’s voice came softly from the other side of the oaks, traveling easily on the cold, dry air. Little George murmured an assent.

  Quent heard the sound of their footsteps leaving the burial ground, which also contained the remains of his grandparents and a couple of aunts and uncles and cousins he barely remembered or had never known, and the small, long-worndown mounds of the six dead children Lorene had borne but been unable to suckle to life beyond a paltry few months. Pohantis was there as well, buried a distance away from the others because Ephraim had insisted on that, and Shoshanaya, and Quent’s son. The child was unborn, but he’d always been sure it was a son. Shoshanaya had said so and he believed her. All bones in the ground now. Soon Ephraim would be the same. The worms were probably already busy with his father.

  He was dressed in a coat and breeches and a white shirt, his home clothes, but there was no longer any place for him to call home. Shadowbrook was John’s now.

  Quent stripped off the fine clothing and threw himself naked into the rushing stream. The frigid water came from high up in the hills, from the underground river that flowed through Swallows Children. Deliberately he swam upstream, fighting the intense cold and the swift current, taking perverse comfort in the struggle. The air was bitter and each sharp breath tasted of snow. At last, spent, he flipped over and lay on his back in the turbulent water and let it carry him back to the place he’d started, his heart racing less wildly now, his spirit calmed. He clambered ashore and pulled on his breeches and his silver-buckled shoes; everything else he left lying where it was. Then he headed for the big house.

  Less than an hour later, in her dead husband’s room, where she had been searching one last time for the bequest Ephraim had made but must have later destroyed, Lorene looked out the window and saw her youngest son leave the Patent. He had on buckskins and his long gun was slung over his shoulder. She watched him striding down the path toward Hudson’s River until she could see him no more, then she sank to her knees, and for the first time that day, she wept.

  Quent did not once look back. It was over. Shadowbrook was no longer his home. What next? He had buried his birth father, Potawatomi custom said he must now go at once to show respect to his manhood father. He should spend a year, twelve full New Moon Tellings, in Singing Snow. Take a wife there. Sire a child. Become a manhood father to a boy. Thus did life go on in the face of death. So had the Great Spirit Shkotensi made the world.

  A great distaste rose in him, a protest that tasted of bitterness and rage. He was sick of old men dictating to young men how things had to be. Quent turned south, not north and headed for the Ohio Country.

  FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1754

  MONASTERY OF THE POOR CLARES, QUÉBEC

  The refectory table was a single wide plank on a pair of trestles. The chairs of the nuns were low, backless stools. There were six of them, one for each member of the community. Nicole’s was empty. She knelt on the other side of the table, on the stone floor, both arms outstretched before her, clasping the empty wooden bowl that should have contained her midday meal. “I accuse myself of falling asleep during silent prayer,” she had admitted at the Chapter of Faults that convened that morning.

  “That is a grave sin against the Holy Rule of our Mothers Clare and Colette,” Mère Marie Rose replied. “You will beg for your dinner every day this week.”

  So she was here. Silently imploring her sisters—they were her sisters, Nicole reminded herself, they had become so exactly sixty-one days ago when she’d crossed from the world to the cloister—to share some of their food with her. Dear Lord, her arms were on fire, held out in front of her like this for so long a time. But she must not lower the bowl until it was filled. To do so was a sign that she wished to fast. That would be a holy thing if I could do it, mon Dieu, but forgive me, I cannot. Already the waist of the black dress she’d been given the first day had been tucked three times.

  And I fell asleep when I was meant to be concentrating on You because our cell (a Poor Clare never referred to anything but her sins as her own since the nuns held all in common) is so cold at night that I shiver instead of sleep. If only I could have a blanket, mon Dieu, even just a little thin one, I would not be so—Oh! She had been concentrating so hard on this litany of complaints she’d almost lowered the bowl. That w
ould signify that she meant to fast. Oh no, mon Dieu, please. I must eat. Forgive me my sins and strengthen my arms. For the sake of Your Holy Mother. Nicole gripped the bowl as tightly as she could and stiffened her arms yet again.

  None of the other nuns paid any attention to the struggle of the young woman they called a postulant while they tested her fitness to become a novice member of the community. Until she took the habit, she was with them but not entirely of them, and each of the nuns tried to maintain a slight distance to protect her heart. It was desolation to lose a companion, a sister who gave up the struggle and left before making her vows. As for today, the punishment la petite was undergoing was something every one of them had endured numerous times. They knew it was kinder not to look. Besides, the Holy Rule forbade eye contact during meals.

  Poor Clares ate no meat, and fish only on major holidays. This was an ordinary day; the martyrology read before the meal commemorated saints Vitis and Agricola, fed to the lions of ancient Rome. Today the black-veiled heads remained bent over servings of beans and oats cooked into a gruel, and for the monastic third portion—what they were served in place of meat—boiled turnips. The nuns ate quickly, but the refectory was so cold each woman could see her breath. The food congealed in their bowls before they could get it all down. When only a single spoonful remained each nun scraped it up and leaned forward and tipped it into Nicole’s bowl. “Que le bon Dieu vous récompense pour votre charité,” Nicole responded each time. May God reward you for your kindness.

  Mère Marie Rose waited until every nun had put down her spoon, then she stood up. The others immediately did the same, including Nicole. Thank you, mon Dieu, thank you that I am no longer kneeling on these stones. And that I can lower my arms. She held onto the bowl with her left hand and used her right to make the sign of the cross.

  “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti …” The abbess intoned the long Latin grace. When it was ended she picked up the spoon she had herself used and gave it to Nicole. Nicole’s own spoon was at her regular place, clean and untouched. She must eat her cold dinner with the other woman’s utensil, a further humiliation. “You may eat, child. And when you are finished you will clean the refectory floor. Soeur Angelique has left a brush and a bucket for you.”