Broken Trail

by Jean Rae Baxter

  Broken Trail felt a voice of protest within him struggling to be heard. What was he doing here? He knew the answer. He was here because he had to prove himself. He had no choice about that. This war party was his first big test. He must not fail.

  On the riverbank lay the canoes. He counted twenty-three, tied together at the bow in bunches of three or four. They were unguarded. That was fortunate, for he had expected to see somebody keeping an eye on the canoes, either a boy or an old man.

  He turned his attention to the river. Looking upstream, he watched for some floating object that would reveal the speed of the current. At length a broken branch, still sporting a few brown leaves, drifted past. His eyes followed it downstream until it fetched up, below the town, against a fallen willow tree that half blocked the river. Debris was piled up in the lee of the willow. This was the sort of obstacle that concerned Walks Crooked. If the canoes were cut free, that fallen tree would stop many, perhaps most, from drifting downstream.

  Now that he had all the information he had been asked for, Broken Trail climbed down. Walks Crooked and Smoke Eater were waiting for him.

  They listened in silence to his report, nodding from time to time. Neither interrupted until Broken Trail described the fallen willow that half blocked the river.

  “How far is that willow from the town?” Walks Crooked asked.

  “The distance of an arrow’s flight.”

  “Too close! It means we cannot push the canoes into the river and trust the current to carry them far enough downstream. If we do, the fallen willow will certainly trap some, and then, if the Mississaugas take alarm, they can round them up and come after us.”

  “But the tree can help us,” Broken Trail said. “The riverbank beside the willow will be a good place to load the food.” He rubbed his hands on his leggings, trying to wipe off the sticky spruce resin. “First, we push all the canoes into the river. When the canoes float by the willow tree, we can have warriors waiting there to snag the first six, then shove off the rest around the end of the tree.”

  “A fine plan,” Smoke Eater looked at Broken Trail approvingly. “It’s good to have a loading place that even a man with one eye can find in the dark.”

  Walks Crooked grunted. It sounded as if he agreed but did not want to admit it. Broken Trail suppressed a smile. He was beginning to feel that he had Smoke Eater on his side.

  Chapter 26

  THE NEXT MORNING the members of the war party met. They sat in a circle, with the leader of each group ready to report.

  Swift Fox began. Using a sharpened stick, he drew a diagram in the earth, showing the position of the river and the town. Then he traced several trails leading north, south and west from the opening in the palisade. He marked a spot upriver from the town.

  “Here is a sandbar where we can cross the river in order to reach the town through the forest.” His stick moved rapidly over one of the trails he had already marked. “And this trail is the one we follow. It is the most direct.”

  Hunting Hawk reported next. He said, “At night, only two warriors are on guard, positioned separately near the opening in the palisade. No one guards the canoes. There is no sign that the Mississaugas expect an attack.”

  “What about the storehouses?” Swift Fox asked.

  “I can answer that,” said Black Elk. “There are seven storehouses, grouped together close to the palisade on the downstream side. They are unguarded. One way to reach them is by tunnelling under the palisade. Another is to remove four or five poles in order to make a gap wide enough to pass storage baskets through. Either way is possible, providing that Hunting Hawk’s group has first taken care of the guards near the palisade opening.”

  “But where do we take those storage baskets?” Swift Fox turned to Walks Crooked. “What have you learned about the canoes?”

  After reporting everything that Broken Trail had found out, Walks Crooked added, “I’ll wait with Smoke Eater by the fallen willow tree downstream while Broken Trail frees the canoes and shoves them into the river. As the canoes float by, Smoke Eater and I will catch the first six and push all the others around the end of the tree for the current to carry away.”

  “Twenty-three canoes? It won’t be easy for one person to deal with that many, especially an untested boy.”

  Without waiting to be asked, Broken Trail called out, “That’s not too many. I’ve seen how they are tied. It won’t be hard.”

  Swift Fox turned to Walks Crooked. “How will Broken Trail reach the canoes without being seen? Even after the guards have been removed from the palisade opening, it will be too risky for him to try to sneak all the way through the village to reach the riverbank. There’ll be almost a full moon tonight.”

  “He won’t go through the town,” said Walks Crooked. “It’s quite simple. Smoke Eater and I will fasten him under a floating log with a reed to breathe through. He will swim underwater across the river. His arms will be free to control the log. It will seem to drift ashore.”

  Broken Trail gasped. Walks Crooked had not told him about this part of his plan. To swim underwater concealed by a floating log was part of every boy’s training for war. He had practised it in the summer. But at this time of year the very thought made him shiver. What if he lost consciousness in the frigid water? What if he drowned? For an instant he thought that this might be a scheme to kill him. But no. Walks Crooked would not risk the success of the raid just to rid himself of Broken Trail. He must think that Broken Trail really could do it.

  Swift Fox shook his head. “It is an excellent trick. But the water will be too cold.”

  Walks Crooked smiled unpleasantly. “Broken Trail brags that he is a true Oneida. If he is, then his blood will not freeze. Smoke Eater and I will take him a short distance upstream. When he is under the log and under the water, the Mississaugas cannot see him.”

  Swift Fox looked unconvinced. “This close to winter, I would not ask anyone to do it.”

  Broken Trail seized his chance. “My body is hard. I can do it.”

  Swift Fox looked intently at him, as if to make certain that he really meant it and was not just trying to placate Walks Crooked.

  “Very well,” he said. “If you are sure.”

  Broken Trail noticed that he looked impressed.

  Walks Crooked, Smoke Eater and Broken Trail set out first. Before the raid could begin, they had to hew a suitable log and carry it to the riverbank. The other warriors would wait until later to cross even farther upstream at the sandbar.

  The sun had set but the moon had not yet risen. There was little chance that any hunters or food gatherers would be in the forest this late. But Walks Crooked was taking no chances. He had sent Broken Trail high in the spruce tree again as their lookout while he and Smoke Eater cut down a basswood tree.

  They were far enough east of the river that the chop, chop of their tomahawks would not carry as far as the Mississauga village on the west bank.

  Sitting astride a branch and clinging to the trunk, Broken Trail felt numb from holding one position too long. He moved his shoulders and wriggled his toes in an effort to keep his blood moving and to ward off the chill. Part of him was eager to begin his assignment. The other part worried about the challenge that lay ahead, half wishing that he had declined it when he had the chance. The water would be brutally cold. Maybe his bravado had been a mistake. It had been easy to say, “My body is hard. I can do it.” But what if he couldn’t?

  The moon had risen by the time Walks Crooked and Smoke Eater had the log ready. Broken Trail shinnied down the tree and helped them carry it to the river. The log’s length was slightly greater than Broken Trail’s height, and its diameter about the same as the thickness of his body. Bass-wood, being soft, had been easy to cut; being light, it was easy to carry.

  They set down the log on the riverbank. Across the river, there was no sign of activity in the Mississauga town. Broken Trail looked at the cold, dark water in front of him—the water that he would have to plunge into to
reach the other side.

  “Take off everything except your belt and breechcloth,” Smoke Eater said. “Keep your knife. I’ll look after your clothing and your tomahawk and give them back to you at the willow tree.”

  Broken Trail pulled off his shirt and untied the laces that attached his leggings to his belt. Finally he took off his moccasins. He braced himself, trying not to shiver as he followed the others into the river.

  Walks Crooked and Smoke Eater guided the log until the water was deep enough for it to float easily. Broken Trail ducked below the surface and positioned himself on his back under the log, with one end of his breathing reed in his mouth and the other sticking straight up above the water.

  He felt Smoke Eater’s hands fasten the strap under the back of his neck to support him at one end of the log, and Walks Crooked’s hands attach the strap to hold his feet at the other. Then he felt the thrust as they pushed the log out into the river.

  As long as he kept the clear end of the reed above the surface, he could breathe. Stroking steadily with his arms, he knew that he was moving well. The water began to feel not quite so cold. Either the exertion was warming him, or his chilled flesh was already numb. He just had to keep moving and keep breathing.

  This wasn’t going to kill him, he told himself. The only thing to worry about was the swiftness of the current, for if there had been a mistake in judging that, he might go ashore at the wrong place.

  It seemed a long time before he felt stones scrape his buttocks. First he freed his feet, and then his neck. Still clinging to the log, he lifted his head and took a deep breath. Blinking the water from his eyes, he saw that the calculation of the current had been correct. At the water’s edge in front of him were the canoes.

  He manoeuvred the log out of the water and lay behind it. With the night air blowing on his wet skin, he felt colder than ever. Naked except for his sodden breechcloth, he could not help shivering.

  Pulling his knife from its sheath, he crawled to the nearest bunch of canoes and set to work, hacking and sawing at the fibrous ropes that linked them. His numb fingers could scarcely grip the knife. His awkward position, lying on his stomach, made the work harder still. But he dared not allow any part of his body to be higher than the canoes.

  There were six ropes. When he had cut them all, Broken Trail returned his knife to its sheath. Crawling on hands and knees, he placed a pair of paddles in the first canoe and dragged it into the water, not releasing it until he felt the tug of the current that would carry it away. Then he went back for the next. One after another, he set the canoes loose. Gentle bumping and splashing were the only sounds he made. He kept working until he had launched more than half.

  Nothing stirred in the Mississauga village. In the distance, wolves howled. Closer by, a great horned owl called. Hoot. Hoot. Hoot. Another owl answered from farther off.

  Then suddenly the air erupted with a savage whoop, wavering and pulsing, high and wild. This was not the Oneida war cry. Something had gone wrong.

  He threw himself flat on the ground behind a canoe. Men were shouting. People were running in every direction. But there was nowhere for him to run. At his back was the river; in front, the Mississauga town.

  Rifles cracked. Arrows whizzed in flocks, some with metal arrowheads that glinted in the moonlight. They flew in both directions: toward and away from the fallen willow. In an instant, he realized that he could not go to the willow tree; his own comrades would shoot at anyone running to them in the dark. And if they didn’t kill him, the Mississaugas would. Broken Trail did not have the strength to swim across the river again. He was trapped.

  His only safety lay in the forest beyond the Mississauga town. To reach it, he must go around the end of the palisade. With a shudder, he waded back into the icy water and splashed upstream, away from the willow tree and the fight.

  After clearing the end of the palisade, he stumbled onto the bank. Then he turned west, toward the forest. War whoops rang in his ears. Numb and shaking with cold, he ran clumsily, tripped and fell, banging both kneecaps on hard rock. He rose to his feet, staggered, and then fell again. After his second fall, he lacked the strength to rise.

  Still within earshot of the battle cries, he crawled through scratchy undergrowth to the nearest thicket and lay exhausted in the matted grass. I can still defend myself, he thought. I have my knife. I’ll stay here until there’s enough light to see where I’m going.

  The eastern sky faded from black to grey. From the direction of the willow tree came war cries and battle sounds. That was where he should be, fighting at the side of his comrades. He felt like a coward to be hiding while the battle raged.

  Chapter 27

  BROKEN TRAIL LAY ON his side with his knees pulled up, trying to curl his shivering body into a ball. This was no night to spend in the open, wearing nothing but a breechcloth. Snowflakes drifted into the thicket, melting when they touched his bare skin.

  Gradually the sounds of battle ceased and the bushes around him emerged from a dark blur to distinct shapes. The first birds began to stir. A crow cawed. A cardinal whistled: purdy, purdy, purdy, purdy. He heard the cheerful voice of a chickadee.

  But there was another sound as well that reached his ears, a low moan that rose and ebbed. Not the call of a bird. Not an animal noise, though at first he thought it might be. The long, drawn-out “Ooooohhh! Ooooohhhh!” was human. Not a woman. Not a child. The groans were deep and hoarse. It sounded like a man in great pain. But surely no warrior, no matter how badly injured, would allow himself to moan like that.

  Say something, he silently urged. Speak Oneida or speak Mississauga. Let me know what you are.

  If he were a Mississauga, wounded in the fighting, Broken Trail would take his clothes. Clothing was his first need if he was not to perish from the cold. He also needed a weapon. A warrior would carry a war club or a tomahawk. Maybe a gun.

  But what if the groans came from a fellow Oneida, a member of the war party? Then Broken Trail would help him any way he could.

  On his hands and knees he crept toward the sound. A thin skin of soil and dry grass barely covered the hard limestone. Separating Broken Trail from the person who lay moaning was a long fissure in the rock, twice the width of a man’s foot. Though it was too narrow to fall into, it would still be a hazard for anyone walking there in the dark.

  He crawled carefully across the fissure, not wanting to send pebbles clattering down its sides. He was good at this. No other boy in his village could creep so stealthily up to a grouse and snatch it from the nest.

  Just a bit closer. Now he saw a man lying on the ground, or at least he saw a man-size horizontal lump the colour of buckskin. He saw a rifle too. For safety, he must gain possession of that gun before doing anything else.

  Holding his breath, he wriggled forward until he was close enough to grab the rifle. Just as he snatched it away, the owner’s head turned. And Broken Trail found himself looking into Spotted Dog’s terrified eyes.

  “Broken Trail?” Spotted Dog mumbled, sounding as if he could not believe it. His eyes looked a little less terrified—but only a little. He hated Broken Trail. Now Broken Trail had him at his mercy. They both knew it.

  “What happened to you?” Broken Trail asked.

  “I think my leg is broken. I stepped into that crack in the rock.”

  Broken Trail sat back on his haunches and stared at Spotted Dog. His war paint was smeared, and his left leg lay bent at an angle that was not natural. This was a fellow Oneida. Whatever Broken Trail thought of him personally, nothing could change that fact, or the duty that he owed.

  Spotted Dog rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand and snivelled, “I can’t walk.”

  “Let me see.” Setting the gun well out of reach, he ran his fingers over Spotted Dog’s legging. A little below the left knee there was a sharp point beneath the skin. “You’re right. It is broken.”

  Spotted Dog whimpered, “Help me!”

  Broken Trail felt like asking: What w
ould you do if our situations were reversed? For a fleeting moment he was tempted to taunt Spotted Dog with this question. But why torture him when he was already in pain?

  “I’ll help you.” He thought for a moment about what needed to be done. “Do you have some strong cord in your pouch?”

  “I have sinew cord.”

  “Give it to me. Your tomahawk, too.”

  Spotted Dog pulled the tomahawk from his belt. It was steel-headed and new—worth many beaver pelts. Taking it in his hand, Broken Trail liked the heft of it, the feel of the smooth wood and the sharpness of the blade. Walks Crooked always gave his son the best of everything.

  Broken Trail laid the tomahawk on the ground and undid the laces that held up Spotted Dog’s left legging. After pulling it off, he untied the laces of the right legging.

  “You don’t have to take off both my leggings,” Spotted Dog whined. “Only one leg is broken.”

  “As you can see, I’m almost naked. If you want my help, you must share your clothes. Keep your shirt. I’ll take the leggings. I need moccasins too.”

  “I have an extra pair in my pouch.”

  “Give them to me.”

  Spotted Dog pulled them out and handed them to Broken Trail. They were new buckskin moccasins, and only a little too large.

  As soon as he had put on the leggings and moccasins, Broken Trail felt better. The leggings were twice as wide as they needed to be, and too long. Although there was nothing he could do to make them narrow enough for his skinny legs, he could adjust the length by shortening the laces that attached them to his belt.