Broken Trail

by Jean Rae Baxter

  “I made these while you were away,” she said, “because in my heart I knew you would return.”

  The next morning Broken Trail rose early and walked down to the river. It was a blustery day. The wind, blowing from the west, rippled the water and drove ragged clouds across the sky. In the middle of the river a bateau was ploughing its way upstream. It had a mast with a crossbar intended for a square sail, but the mast was empty. He counted twelve men working the oars. The boat was low in the water. It must be on its way from Montreal to Carleton Island, he thought, loaded with winter supplies. Tomorrow it would reach its destination, the landing place below the fort. In an odd way, he felt that the boat’s passage brought him nearer to Elijah. A secret link.

  He was still watching the bateau creep by when suddenly he sensed that someone had come up beside him. He heard no footsteps. Turning his head, he saw Walks Crooked at his shoulder. How could a man with a twisted foot approach so silently?

  Walks Crooked was a lean, sinewy man. He had piercing eyes and a weasel-like face that was made particularly ferocious by four vertical scars on his left cheek, a memento of the cougar whose claws had raked his skin. No one doubted his courage. A man with a crippled foot could have lived his life without shame as a medicine man or a canoe maker. Instead, he had overcome his handicap to become the fiercest of all the warriors, famous for his ruthlessness. The sorrow of his life was not his maimed foot but the failure of his lazy son Spotted Dog to achieve prowess in anything.

  “A war party is planned, a raid against the Mississaugas. Perhaps Broken Trail wishes to be part of it?” There was a taunt in his voice. “There is talk of admitting you to the society of warriors, though some say that you are the sort who runs away when fortune turns against him.”

  Broken Trail’s heart filled with anger. “Some say!” Who would have been the first to spread such a lie about him? None other than the man standing at his shoulder, a sneer on his face.

  Broken Trail stiffened his features, not letting his fury show. He was suspicious of Walks Crooked’s motives in inviting him along, but what could he do about it? He had long dreamed of the day when he would be old enough to go on the warpath with the men of his band. Now his chance had come.

  “Take me with the war party,” he said coldly. “Let me prove what I can do.”

  Chapter 24

  BROKEN TRAIL RAN his fingers through his scalp lock. It was too soft, too fine. The hair did not stand up in a stiff crest the way it should. It wasn’t even the right colour. But at least he looked more like a warrior than before, when his hair had hung nearly to his shoulders, like a boy’s. His naked scalp, which still stung from having every excess hair pulled out, had been rubbed with bear grease until it shone.

  The war party would leave at dawn the next day. Eight warriors and four youths would take part. The youths were Broken Trail, Young Bear, Spotted Dog and a slightly older boy named Red Crow.

  Broken Trail was ready. Carries a Quiver had given him a new tomahawk. Catches the Rainbow had made him a scalp-lock decoration using elk hair and beads. There was only thing that his scalp lock lacked, and that was a trophy feather. Two trophy feathers would be better. Or three.

  Carries a Quiver painted Broken Trail’s face in the colours of war, one side black and the other red. He painted with great care to make the pigments smooth. As he worked, he was very quiet. The look on his face was of a man preoccupied with disturbing thoughts. Broken Trail did not pry. He supposed that his uncle was concerned about him, setting forth on his first war party.

  Tonight there would be a feast and dancing. By the time Carries a Quiver finished applying Broken Trail’s war paint, savoury odours were rising from the cooking pots. As the women set out the food, dogs began to swarm, at first skulking at a safe distance, and then sneaking closer to the fire. Four younger boys with clubs stood guard to keep the dogs from approaching the food.

  One year ago it had been Broken Trail’s task to keep the dogs away, for these boys were not much younger than he. Until today, he had looked like them. But now he had a scalp lock and face paint like a warrior’s. Although he knew the boys, he did not speak to them as he took his place among the men. Young Bear sat on one side of him and Red Crow on the other. This was Red Crow’s second war party. For Broken Trail, Young Bear and Spotted Dog, it was their first.

  The women brought them dishes heaped with meat and boiled water lily bulbs. Broken Trail was too excited to feel hungry. But he ate everything, just to show that he had a man’s appetite. He could hardly wait for the feasting to be over and for the dishes and pots to be cleared away.

  At the first warning thumps on the drums, his pulse quickened. He watched while the dancing circle was cleared and fresh wood heaped upon the fire. Then the twelve members of the war party rose from their places. Broken Trail and Young Bear stood up at the same moment. For an instant Broken Trail’s eyes locked on Young Bear’s, and he saw his own excitement reflected there. This was it. Their first war dance. Silently the dancers stationed themselves in the dark shadows beyond the firelight. Swift Fox, who would lead the dance as well as the war party, carried a spear dressed with bright streamers.

  DUM, doom, DUM, doom. War drums began to beat, deep-voiced and strident. The shaking of rattles joined the thumping of the drums. Then the singers began to chant, clacking together the polished sticks they held in their hands. Broken Trail’s heart pounded to the beat. Bouncing on his toes, he sensed the rhythm all through his body, faster and faster, until he felt he would explode if he had to wait much longer.

  Swift Fox sprang first into the dance circle, brandishing his spear, its streamers flying. After him came Black Elk, then another, and then it was Broken Trail’s turn. With a leap and a yell he joined the dance, lifting his knees high, stamping his feet and fighting with shadow enemies. He held high his new tomahawk and, with the flat side of its head, struck the war post as he danced by. This was what he had dreamed of for so long—to be part of the dance.

  Flames swept into the sky. DUM, doom, DUM, doom. Faster and faster the drums beat and the rattles shook and the singers chanted, their clacking sticks adding to the din.

  Whooping and leaping, Broken Trail danced in a frenzy. The warrior ahead of him shouted out his history of brave deeds and boasted about the Mississauga scalps he would take. Broken Trail had no past exploits to brag about. But what he lacked in experience he made up for in imagination. Brandishing his tomahawk, he mimed the havoc he would wreak. With wild yells, he smote the war post every time he circled by, and with every blow a phantom enemy fell. By his twentieth circling, twenty foes lay dead.

  And then it was over. Swift Fox led the dancers, one after another, out of the circle of light. The chanting, the stick clacking and the rattling stopped. The drums fell silent.

  Broken Trail sank exhausted in his place by the fire, completely out of breath. Young Bear, his brow beaded with sweat, leaned toward him. “I wore out my moccasins in that dance.”

  “So did I. And they were new this morning.”

  “We’re real warriors now.”

  As the fire died to embers, people straggled back to the longhouses. On his family’s sleeping platform, Broken Trail unrolled his bearskin and lay down, the beat of the drums still throbbing in his head.

  In the morning, Carries a Quiver touched up his war paint, adding a red ring around his right eye—the side of his face that was painted black—and a black ring around the other.

  “This will help you to see far,” he said. “You must watch out for enemies.”

  His face wore the same worried expression that Broken Trail had noticed the day before.

  “Do not worry about me. I shall return safely, and with honour.”

  “How can I not worry about you? I thought you were dead, and now that you have been restored to us, you are setting out to face danger again.”

  “Uncle, you agreed that I should go on the next war party. You told me, ‘Prove your worth.’”

  “T
hose were my words. Yet I fear that this war party is a mistake.”

  “A mistake? Why do you think that?”

  “In my opinion, it would be better to stay home and use the time for hunting. I said this in council, but those in favour of a war party argued that a raid on the Mississaugas was the fastest way to obtain food for winter. The final decision was not mine.” He sighed. “I should not be talking to you like this, not now. You must not go into battle with thoughts that weaken your resolve.” He laid his hand on Broken Trail’s arm. “Be strong. Keep your eyes about you. Don’t rely on your oki to keep you safe if you walk upwind of your foe.”

  Broken Trail laughed, “No enemy will smell fear upon me.”

  “You have never been in battle.”

  Swift Fox led the line that jogged westward along the trail. Behind him came Walks Crooked, his lurching gait not slowing him. Spotted Dog, right behind his father, puffed and panted to keep up. Broken Trail was fourth, and then came the rest, with Black Elk at the end.

  Half the warriors were armed with rifles; the others had brought their bows, preferring the silence of the arrow to the speed of the bullet. Among the boys, only Spotted Dog owned a rifle, a fine one given to him by his father to celebrate the success of his spirit quest.

  The beat of the drums still throbbing in Broken Trail’s head drove out most of his troubling thoughts. He set aside his uncle’s concerns. For a long time he had wanted to go on a war party. Nothing could spoil it now.

  The raid had been carefully planned. A four-day journey westward would bring the war party to the Mississaugas’ main village, which stood beside a river that ran south into Lake Ontario. The Mississaugas were a forest-dwelling people, hunters and gatherers. They did not cultivate great fields of corn, beans and squash as the Haudenosaunee did. Their storehouses held dried meat, fish, berries, nuts, maple sugar and wild rice.

  While one group of Oneida warriors took baskets of food from the storehouses, another group would steal all the Mississaugas’ canoes. They would load six canoes with food and set the rest set loose to drift downriver. Two to a canoe, the Oneida raiders would paddle the loaded canoes downstream to Lake Ontario, then they would turn east. When they reached the St. Lawrence River, the current would bear them swiftly home.

  The warriors jogged on and on. They squelched through bogs where tiny channels of water flowed sluggishly between clumps of bulrushes. Broken Trail’s moccasins were soon caked with the mud of swamps. The war party pushed its way through the undergrowth of lowlands that smelled sour with decaying vegetation.

  They did not stop to hunt or fish, for they had brought along a good supply of pemmican packed into leather bags. A mixture of dried meat pounded into flakes and then mixed with fat and dried berries, this was food that gave strength, tasted good and would last for a long time.

  As they sat around the campfire each night on the trail, the warriors talked about battles they had fought, dangers they had faced and enemies they had slain. Like the other boys, Broken Trail listened and dreamed about the day when he would have his own exploits to brag about. Yet he began to have a feeling, and the feeling grew, that this war party would not bring honour to those who took part.

  Here they were, planning to steal food that the Mississaugas had stored up for winter, so that the Mississaugas would go hungry instead of them. What they were doing, he thought, was not much better than what General Sullivan’s army had done to the Oneidas when it destroyed their crops and burned their homes.

  This was not the kind of thought he could share with any other member of the war party, not even Young Bear. Aside from Carries a Quiver, the only person that might understand was Elijah, and Elijah was far away.

  On the third day, when the sun stood directly overhead, Swift Fox called a halt.

  “We have entered the Mississauga hunting grounds,” he said. “The war party will now separate into four groups, each with its own assignment. The four groups will return to this spot tomorrow to share what each has learned.”

  The warriors sat in a circle on the ground. Swift Fox looked around, meeting the eyes of each of the others in turn. “Black Elk, Walks Crooked, Hunting Hawk and I will each choose one youth and one experienced warrior. My group will search out all the trails that lead to the Mississauga town. We must decide upon the best route, as well as locate paths for escape in case we are discovered.”

  Choose me! Choose me! Broken Trail pleaded silently. He was good at reading trails, and eager to earn Swift Fox’s respect.

  Swift Fox continued. “Black Elk’s group will locate the storehouses and find out how they are guarded.

  “Hunting Hawk’s group will learn where sentries are posted and what signals they use to communicate.

  “Walks Crooked’s group will find out how to steal the Mississaugas’ canoes and also select the best place to load them.”

  Swift Fox chose first, passing over Broken Trail to choose Red Crow.

  Broken Trail did not allow his disappointment to show. It didn’t matter greatly, he told himself. He would willingly serve under Black Elk or Hunting Hawk. Anyone but Walks Crooked.

  Walks Crooked won’t choose me, he assured himself. He’ll want Spotted Dog so he can keep an eye on him and cover up his mistakes.

  Black Elk chose Young Bear.

  Now it was Walks Crooked’s turn. Broken Trail kept his head down. Help me, oki, he silently pleaded. Make him say Spotted Dog!

  Walks Crooked announced his choice. “I’ll take Broken Trail.”

  So Hunting Hawk was left with Spotted Dog, that clumsy lump whom his own father would not choose. Good luck to him! If Spotted Dog snapped even one dry branch under his foot, all their lives would be in peril.

  But why, Broken Trail wondered, had Walks Crooked chosen him?

  Chapter 25

  BROKEN TRAIL HAD faced danger more than once before now. For the most part, he had faced it unafraid. But now he was afraid. What he feared were not the bullets and arrows of the Mississaugas so much as a silent knife in his back.

  It was some comfort to have Smoke Eater as part of his group. Although not friendly to Broken Trail, he was not hostile, either. But he was blind in one eye. Broken Trail would feel a little safer if Smoke Eater had two good eyes, and much safer if Walks Crooked were not his enemy.

  Starting out deep in Mississauga territory, Walks Crooked, Smoke Eater and Broken Trail made their way toward the river. They crept through heavy brush, avoiding trails, crawling under bushes rather than pushing through them. Once they saw a party of Mississauga hunters glide by, silent as wolves on the prowl, and lay still until the hunters had passed. The sun was halfway down the sky when Broken Trail and his two companions reached the riverbank.

  Walks Crooked, standing at the base of a tall spruce tree, motioned Broken Trail to stand beside him.

  “You see this tree?”

  How could he not see it? It was right in front of them, stretching up and up into the sky. Broken Trail nodded.

  “You may wonder why I chose you,” Walks Crooked said. Before Broken Trail could think of a reply, he continued, “I wanted you because you’re small and light. You can climb higher than someone heavier, and be better hidden in the branches.”

  Broken Trail, who had never before seen any advantage in being small for his age, nodded his head and hoped that this was Walks Crooked’s true reason.

  “Climb up to the top. From there you will be able to see not only the canoes, but everything up and down the river.” He paused. “Your task is to count the canoes and see if are they guarded.”

  Broken Trail nodded.

  “And judge the speed of the current.”

  “I can do that.”

  “And look downstream to see whether there are any fallen trees, big rocks or sandbars that would block canoes from floating away. Finally, I want you to look for a good spot where we can load the canoes.”

  “I’ll find out everything.”

  All this would be important informati
on, Broken Trail realized. Excited by the challenge, he swung himself onto the spruce’s lowest branch. Quickly he scrambled up the trunk.

  The drooping branches with their dense needles soon hid the two on the ground from his sight. As Broken Trail climbed higher and higher, bark blisters burst under his hands and resin stung his scratched skin. When he reached the crown, clinging like a bear cub to the trunk, he saw hills and forest stretching to the horizon. Below him was the river, and across the river was the Mississauga town.

  The town had no defences on the riverbank. But on the land side there was a palisade of tall, pointed poles. It curved in a half circle, embracing the town, with each end of the palisade extending right into the river. At the rear of the town, a gap in the palisade gave access to the forest.

  Inside the palisade, the whole life of the town lay spread before him. Women were scraping hides on stretching frames. Meat slabs and whole fish hung on drying lines. A man was applying hot pitch to the seams of a birchbark canoe. Children and dogs were chasing each other around the dome-shaped lodges.

  The homes were different from those in an Oneida town. The Mississaugas were not longhouse people, where a clan’s many families lived under the same roof. In the Mississauga town it looked as if each family had its own house, a bark-covered lodge with a hole at the top for smoke to escape.

  Broken Trail noticed that several lodges had no smoke hole. A couple of these were very small, not high enough for a man to stand upright inside. They looked exactly like Oneida sweat lodges, and that was likely what they were. But others were much larger. Those must be the storehouses, he thought, crammed full with the food that the war party planned to carry off.

  Looking down on the scene, Broken Trail felt no hostility to the Mississauga people. They were not traditional enemies of the Haudenosaunee, as the Hurons had been. Because the Mississauga hunting grounds lay north of the Oneidas’ ancestral lands, there had been little contact between the two nations before the Oneidas were driven from their old territory. Since then, a few skirmishes had taken place. Nothing approaching outright war. From now on, Broken Trail thought sadly, the Oneidas and the Mississaugas would be enemies. This war party would make certain of that.