Broken Trail

by Jean Rae Baxter

  After doing this, he looked around. Close by grew a gnarled old cedar tree, its roots gripping cracks in the rock. At its base, a low-growing juniper spread its twisted branches. A juniper clump made a good place to hide; he knew that from experience.

  Broken Trail pointed toward the tree. “You’ll be safer over there than lying out in the open. I’ll pull you to it.” He grabbed Spotted Dog under both armpits, ignoring his grunts of protest and pain, and dragged him to the base of the tree. Then he went back to pick up the tomahawk and rifle. He gave the rifle to Spotted Dog.

  “Keep this for now. I’ll use your tomahawk to cut splints to set your leg. While I’m away, don’t make a sound.”

  “Will you return?”

  “If I weren’t coming back, wouldn’t I take your rifle, too?” Leaving Spotted Dog to think this over, he slipped away into the woods. He moved warily as he searched for what he needed, for there was great danger this close to the Mississauga village.

  It was full daylight by the time he returned, carrying two strong, straight sticks and an armful of moss. Spotted Dog was lying just as Broken Trail had left him.

  “Now I’m going to set your leg,” Broken Trail said. “You have to reach back and hold tight to the tree trunk. Get ready. I need to pull hard.”

  Broken Trail braced his feet. He knew he had to bring the two ends together in a perfect meeting. He also knew that if he failed to do it right, Spotted Dog would walk crooked, like his father, for the rest of his life.

  Spotted Dog, lying on his back, reached both arms above his head and took a firm grip on the tree trunk. “I’m ready.”

  Broken Trail grasped Spotted Dog’s left foot with both hands and pulled as hard as he could.

  Spotted Dog went limp. He had fainted.

  At the sudden lack of resistance, Broken Trail fell backwards. He lay still for a few moments, then propped himself on his elbows. His first attempt to bring the two ends of the bone into line had failed. What should he try next? He looked at the unconscious boy; then he looked at the tough, old cedar tree, with its roots so tenaciously gripping the rock. It gave him an idea.

  Broken Trail picked himself up. He bent over Spotted Dog and unlaced his belt. Using the belt as a tie, he bound Spotted Dog’s wrists together behind the tree trunk. Now it didn’t matter whether Spotted Dog was conscious or not. In fact, it was better this way, for his muscles were slack and would not clench.

  Broken Trail took hold of Spotted Dog’s left foot and pulled steadily until he felt something give. With some adjusting, he brought the ends of the bones into line and then tied the moss and sticks firmly in place.

  The leg was set. Broken Trail had watched warriors do this before. He looked upon his work with satisfaction, knowing that he had done a good job.

  Spotted Dog’s eyelids flickered. His eyes blinked open. For a moment he looked confused. Then, in an instant, he realized that his hands were tied behind the tree trunk. His lower lip trembled. “I see now that Broken Trail plans to kill me.”

  “I wouldn’t have bothered setting your leg if that was what I planned to do.”

  He untied the belt. When he had freed Spotted Dog’s hands, he helped him to put his belt and breechcloth back on. But not his pouch. Broken Trail needed that; he fastened it to his own belt.

  Spotted Dog pulled himself to a sitting position and leaned against the tree trunk. His broken leg, sticking out in front with its packing of brown moss, looked somewhat like a small log. “My first war party,” he said bitterly.

  “Mine, too,” Broken Trail answered. “Were you in the battle by the willow tree?”

  “No. Were you?”

  “I couldn’t get to it. I was trapped on the riverbank. Where were you?”

  “With Hunting Hawk,” he sniffled. “We were creeping up on a sentry when a dry branch snapped underfoot.”

  Broken Trail wanted to say: Under whose foot? But he knew the answer. It would not have been Hunting Hawk’s misstep that alerted the enemy.

  “The sentry leapt like a cougar. Hunting Hawk’s knife missed its mark, and so he was the one who died. The sentry gave a war whoop.”

  “I heard it. The whole Mississauga village heard it.”

  “Then he scalped Hunting Hawk.”

  “What were you doing? Couldn’t you have killed him while he was taking the scalp? With a tomahawk like this one?” He picked up the shiny, deadly weapon.

  Spotted Dog turned his head away.

  “I see.” So Spotted Dog had run away. Well, hadn’t he done the same? This first war party had been a disaster for both of them. He sat down beside Spotted Dog, beginning to sympathize.

  “Here’s what I think. You can’t walk. You’re too heavy to carry, and I can’t drag you all the way home.” He paused. “There’s no chance of stealing a canoe, not after last night. I must leave you here and go for help.”

  “Where will you find help? In this country we have no friends.”

  “Back to our village.”

  “And leave me alone?”

  Broken Trail pretended not to notice the tears that spilled down Spotted Dog’s cheeks, making an even worse mess of his war paint.

  “Is there food in your pouch?”

  “Pemmican.”

  Broken Trail opened the pouch. From a leather bag he took out a chunk of pemmican the size of a man’s fist. He cut off two pieces, each no larger than a walnut.

  “We’ll eat this now. You keep the rest.” Broken Trail took a bite. Until he started chewing, he had not realized how hungry he was. It was good, although not as good as the pemmican Catches the Rainbow made. Spotted Dog’s mother should have used more dried cranberries and less grease.

  “It took our war party four days to get here,” he said between bites. “If I hurry, I think I can return home in three.” He plucked a handful of dry grass to wipe his fingers. “Then there’ll be another day or two for rescuers to reach here by canoe. So this pemmican must last you for about five days.”

  “Five days!”

  “Can you think of a better plan?”

  When Spotted Dog failed to answer, Broken Trail said, “I’ll start out now. You can keep your knife and tomahawk. I’ll take your rifle.”

  “Don’t take my rifle.”

  “I’ll need it to hunt for food… unless you want me to take the pemmican.”

  “But then I’d starve!”

  Broken Trail’s small stock of sympathy drained away. He stopped himself from saying, “You’re lucky I don’t leave you for the Mississaugas to scalp.” What he did say was, “Afterwards, I’ll give you back your rifle.”

  Broken Trail rose to his feet. “You’ll be as safe right here as anywhere. Lie still under the juniper. Your clothing is the same colour as the needles lying on the ground. With the tree at your back, nothing can come up behind you.”

  “A cougar could leap from the branches.”

  “You’ll have the tomahawk and your knife.”

  “What good will they do me against a cougar? If you leave me, I shall sing my death song this very day.”

  Broken Trail spoke sharply. “Do that if you like. The Mississaugas will be searching the forest. If somebody hears you, you’ll die soon enough.” He paused. “But if you want to live to be a man, lie low, be silent and wait.” He handed the tomahawk to Spotted Dog. “Summon your oki. It will protect you.”

  Spotted Dog’s knuckles were white where he gripped the handle of the tomahawk. His voice trembled. “I have no oki.”

  “No oki?” Broken Trail did not know what to say. “But… but you told everyone about the golden eagle that—”

  “I lied.” He turned his face away. “There was no golden eagle. I couldn’t let my father know that my quest had failed. He would die of shame to have a son who was fit only to dig garbage pits.”

  Broken Trail took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Walks Crooked held a great feast to celebrate your vision. He gave you this rifle…”

  So it was all a lie. Th
ere was no protector to watch over Spotted Dog while he waited in the forest. No wonder he was afraid.

  He’ll wish he hadn’t told me, Broken Trail thought. If I walked in his moccasins, I don’t think I’d want to live.

  Chapter 28

  BROKEN TRAIL FORDED the river at the sandbar upstream from the Mississauga town. He was on an unfamiliar path—not the one that the war party had taken. But he knew which way was east, and that was the direction he had to go. He ran at an easy pace that would carry him forward without exhausting his strength.

  The exercise kept him warm, even though he was naked from the waist up. He kept moving all day. At dusk he stopped beside a creek. It was the time when animals came to drink—a perfect opportunity to try out Spotted Dog’s fine rifle.

  He waited behind a tree, ready to shoot the first thing that came along. A hare was what it happened to be. Broken Trail had never before hunted with a rifle. But he had a clear shot, and the hare was barely half an arrow’s flight from where he stood. Staring down the rifle’s barrel, he pulled the trigger.

  The shot rang in his ear. The rifle butt punched his shoulder, knocking him onto his backside while the hare bounded away.

  The clear shot turned out to be a clear miss.

  Shamefaced, he glanced to either side, as if there might have been a witness to his failure. But only the little birds, their twittering silenced by the noise, had seen. Broken Trail looked down reproachfully at the gun, his expectations greatly disappointed.

  With a sigh, he looked for a fish hook in Spotted Dog’s pouch, but did not find one. What was he to eat? This close to winter, frogs were already hibernating, deep in mud. Crayfish? He turned over a stone in the creek’s shallow water and lunged for the scuttling creature that tried to flee.

  Darkness fell. As he sat beside his campfire, picking shreds of flesh from a stack of crayfish claws, unevenly roasted, he thought about his brother. The hare would not have escaped if the rifle had been in Elijah’s hands. Elijah was a sharpshooter. One of the best. Hand-picked to serve in Major Ferguson’s rifle company. But now the fight had gone out of him. He saw no point in dying for a lost cause.

  Or for a bad cause?

  If Elijah were here now, Broken Trail would explain how important it was for him to prove himself as a warrior, and how he had struggled to suppress his doubts about the war party. Even his uncle had felt that the raid upon the Mississaugas was a mistake, although how great a mistake no one could have foreseen.

  It was cold that night. Next morning the ground was white with hoarfrost, and tiny icicles like pointed teeth hung along the overhang of the creek bank where water had sprayed.

  Broken Trail crept shivering from the pile of leaves where he had slept, and he set off again. Around midday he came to a river and turned south to follow it downstream, knowing that all watercourses in this region flowed into Lake Ontario. As he jogged along, he passed a dead campfire, recent because the smell lingered. Who had camped here? Mississauga warriors? White traders? The ashes offered no clue.

  By sundown the river had begun to widen, telling him that he was near its mouth. Not far ahead, downstream, he saw a single tendril of smoke rise above the trees. Was this smoke from the fire of the same travellers whose campsite he had seen earlier in the day? He needed to know. If they were Mississaugas, he must be very careful that they did not see him. But if they were white traders, he might ask for their help.

  Leaving the path, Broken Trail moved silently through the forest. When he reached the spot from where the smoke was rising, he peered through the bushes.

  Two white men sat by a fire, roasting bannock on sticks. Their canoe lay overturned on the riverbank. The men wore fringed buckskin shirts and leather leggings. Both had untrimmed beards and long hair that straggled from beneath their broad hats. Although one’s beard was brown and the other’s streaked with grey, they looked enough alike to be brothers.

  Traders, he thought. If there were fur bales under that overturned canoe, then those men must be headed for Montreal. If so, they would pass right by his village.

  With Spotted Dog’s rifle over his shoulder, Broken Trail strolled into the campsite. When the men saw him, they had their hands on their guns before he could blink an eye.

  “Friends, I’m glad to see you,” he announced, “because I need help.”

  The younger man gaped.

  The older one laughed. “What kind of a boy are you?”

  “I’m Oneida, though born white.”

  The man laughed again. “Son, you ain’t fish nor fowl nor good red herring. But how d’you reckon we can help you?”

  “I was on a long trail with a friend. Two days ago he broke his leg. I left him hurt bad. I need help to bring him out.”

  “Where’d this happen?”

  “Upriver.”

  “We ain’t going back upriver to help nobody. Under that canoe we got eight bales of beaver pelts. We’re taking ’em to Montreal, and we’re mighty eager to get there.”

  “I’m not asking you to go upriver. Just take me with you as far as the Oneida village east of Cataraqui. It’s not out of your way.”

  The younger man pulled his bannock from the stick and chewed it slowly. His eyes were on the older man. “What d’you think, Abel?”

  “I think we might… if he makes it worth our while.”

  “What do you want from me?” Broken Trail asked.

  “We’ll settle for that rifle,” the man called Abel said.

  “It isn’t mine to give away. It belongs to my friend.”

  “The same friend that’s lying in the bush with his leg broke?” Abel snorted. “I reckon he’d give his rifle to save his life.”

  Broken Trail hesitated. He had promised Spotted Dog that he would return the rifle. But the time saved might mean the difference between life and death.

  “It’s a bargain.”

  “Are you sure we got room for him?” the younger man said.

  “We can squeeze him in with the pelts.” He turned to Broken Trail. “Sit down. If you’re going to join us, we might as well feed you. I’m Abel. My brother here is Seth.”

  “My name is Broken Trail.”

  Seth handed him a hot bannock, still on the stick. After he had eaten it, Abel gave him a filthy blanket. Rolled in the blanket close to the fire, Broken Trail drifted off while the brothers were still talking. Later, waking briefly, he heard snores from the other side of the fire and fell asleep again.

  In the morning Abel and Seth loaded the fur bales into the canoe, making a space for Broken Trail to squeeze in. Sitting with his arms wrapped around his knees, he could barely move. But he was warm.

  Soon the canoe reached the river mouth and entered the choppy, open water of Lake Ontario. Heavy with cargo, it rode so low that every wave threatened to swamp it. Spray soaked Broken Trail’s face and hair and wet the fur bales piled around him.

  Paddling became easier as soon as the canoe reached the islands where Lake Ontario flowed into the St. Lawrence River. Seth and Abel turned the canoe northeast in order to follow the channel that lay between Wolfe Island and the mainland, that being the shorter way. Broken Trail recognized the western tip of Carleton Island, before Wolfe Island hid it from his view, and he had a glimpse of the flag that flew over Fort Haldimand. Maybe Elijah was still there, a member of the garrison. Or had he been assigned to a different regiment and sent back to the Carolinas? Someday Broken Trail would have to search for him all over again.

  Once past Cataraqui, the canoe, helped by the current, moved swiftly along the St. Lawrence River. Soon Broken Trail would be home.

  What awaited him there? How many of the twelve who had set off on the war party were still alive? Maybe he and Spotted Dog were the only ones who survived. His thoughts turned to Young Bear, who at the age of thirteen had his death song ready in case his first battle turned out to be his last. Broken Trail prayed that Young Bear had not been killed in the fighting, though he knew that it was now too late for prayer to
help.

  Darkness had fallen when Seth and Abel dropped him off at the Oneida village. Broken Trail handed the rifle to Abel, who cradled it appreciatively in his arms.

  “Good luck, little Indian,” said Abel.

  “I hope you reach your friend in time,” Seth added.

  Stiff from sitting cramped so long, Broken Trail walked on wobbly legs through the opening in the palisade.

  He hesitated before entering the Bear Clan longhouse, dreading what he was about to learn. But there was no time to spare. He lifted the corner of the hide covering that hung over the entry and stepped inside.

  It was almost a surprise to see that everything looked so normal, with each of the six cooking fires burning in its proper place. And yet an unaccustomed stillness hung in the air. He heard no laughter, no chatter of conversation. This was a house of mourning. He saw grief on every face.

  At the third fire pit, Catches the Rainbow was stirring something in a big pot. Maybe she felt him watching her, because she raised her head and looked directly at him. Her mouth opened, but he could not catch what she said. Everyone turned and stared at him.

  Carries a Quiver rose from his spot beside the fire and approached, his arm upraised in greeting. His features did not move, but Broken Trail saw joy in his eyes.

  “Ho! Broken Trail lives and has returned,” said Carries a Quiver.

  “A couple of fur traders brought me back.”

  A silent crowd gathered. And there was Young Bear in their midst, looking unharmed. Broken Trail’s heart lifted, but this was not the time to show his gladness.

  “Walks Crooked told us how you swam the river to cut the ropes of the Mississauga canoes,” Carries a Quiver said. “He told us that arrows and bullets flew like a blizzard. He was certain you had been killed.”

  “The shooting came from two directions. I was caught in the middle, unable to reach the place where we planned to meet.” Broken Trail looked around, searching for other members of the war party. “Who else came back?”

  “Black Elk and Young Bear arrived first. They came in a canoe loaded with baskets of rice. They had set out before the Mississauga sentry raised the alarm, and paddled all night. In the morning they stopped to wait for the others to join them. When none did, they realized that their canoe was the only one that had escaped.