Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  “A friend of the Abenaki or a friend of the Jesuits?” Conawago asked.

  LaBrosse returned his steady gaze. “A friend of the downtrodden. A friend of freedom.”

  A chill ran down Duncan’s spine.

  “Freedom,” Munro repeated. “A bold word in such a small cell. Freedom from what? I’ve heard priests speak of the eternal freedom of souls, of becoming free from sin, of earning the freedom of redemption through confession.”

  The priest’s reply held none of that biblical pretense. Defiance seemed to enter LaBrosse’s eyes. “Freedom for the Society of Jesus to worship the Lord as it sees fit,” he declared. “Freedom from the chains of kings.”

  The words cast a new silence over the chamber. Every man in the cell stared at the priest, all except the despondent Hayes, who had retreated so far into himself that Duncan feared he would never find his way out.

  Duncan paced, staring at the scenes on the wall, pausing for a moment over one of two bearded men, one very large, the other much smaller. The big man was extending a letter, the smaller held the hand of an Indian woman as they conferred with a priest. Duncan moved on to the drawing nearest the battered armoire. It was an intricate depiction of burning buildings, men firing muskets, complete with puffs of powder smoke, and dead men and women. Right above the burning church, in what appeared to be the forested slope above the town, was a line of more than twenty women and children holding hands, led by a robed man holding a vizier, a cross mounted on a staff. At the end of the line were two warriors carrying a heavy box or chest. Duncan pointed to the monk. “That is you. You saved those women and children.”

  “It was a blessing to have that opportunity. With the help of merciful God.”

  “No,” Duncan disagreed. “You mean with the help of merciful Major Rogers, as you described in a statement to the British army five years later.”

  LaBrosse’s eyes narrowed. “A statement to a contemptible man named Beck,” LaBrosse said in a near whisper. “An arrogant bully. I was never sure whom he served.”

  Corporal Brandt appeared at Duncan’s side. He ran a bony finger along the line of figures fleeing through the trees. “Oh, aye,” he murmured. “On the trail above the church I saw them plain.”

  Duncan tried to recall what he had read in the official reports of the raid. “Rogers was in the town the night before,” he recalled. “He came with Captain Williams, but Williams’s report said, ‘I saw over six hundred scalps, I saw a score of canoes on the landing.’ Not we saw. He was alone then because Rogers had left him to go meet you.”

  As if wondering who was the prisoner and who the captor, LaBrosse nervously looked at the men gathered around him. “My first mission, years earlier, had been traveling among Indian villages in what is now the New Hampshire colony. Rogers was working to map the frontier. I was traveling in a canoe on the Merrimack River when I lost control in some rapids. I capsized, and in my heavy robe I was certain to drown. But Robert Rogers saw me and pulled me to safety. We were much the same age and both much taken with the natural power of the wilderness. We visited waterfalls and treeless mountaintops just for the beauty of them. We became friends and corresponded from time to time.”

  “Even when the war broke out,” Duncan suggested.

  “Like he said, what’s a little war between friends,” the priest replied.

  “Half the rangers with him that night had family killed by the ’Nakis,” Munro inserted.

  It took a moment for Duncan to understand the Scot’s words. “He had to kill the Abenaki to give them a dose of their own medicine. But Rogers gave you a chance to save as many women and children as you could.”

  LaBrosse nodded. “He is an honorable man.”

  “He gave you that warning the night before. And you agreed to give him a list of names the next day. Potential allies, French colonists who were weary of the war, weary of their king.”

  “The king had sent no support for over two years but kept ordering us to fight. We were just his puppets. He had no regard for our lives and livelihood.”

  “Or for Jesuits.”

  LaBrosse did not disagree. “Then he gave us all away in the Treaty of Paris. Every colonist here was French, ever since Champlain and Cartier set foot on these shores. Most did not even speak English. But with a few strokes of the pen he decreed that we were English. Just as he later decreed that Jesuit brothers were no longer priests, that our very vows were acts of sin.” The fiery light returned to LaBrosse’s eyes. “That wasn’t just wrong, it was against the will of God. My vow is between me and my God, not between me and the frivolous Sun King.”

  Conawago, Duncan realized, was smiling.

  “Some fat king in Paris cannot tell me I am not a Jesuit or not French, just as some fat king in London cannot tell you that you are not Scottish.”

  Duncan glanced at Munro, who was also grinning now. They were warming to the priest. “Rogers is not French,” he observed. “Nor is he a Jesuit.”

  “We are both free men of the frontier lands. That is our bond.”

  Duncan saw that Conawago was gazing expectantly at him. He remembered once more their conversation in the moonlit mountains. It was as if the Nipmuc and Noah had anticipated this very conversation.

  “Free men of the frontier lands,” Ishmael, behind Duncan, repeated in a pointed tone. He was gesturing at the scene of the two bearded men and the priest.

  “When was this?” Ishmael asked LaBrosse.

  LaBrosse sighed. “Last year. It’s nothing.”

  “Just friends of ours. Were they delivering a letter to you?”

  When the Jesuit did not answer, Duncan stepped to Ishmael’s side. “It’s Ethan Allen,” Ishmael explained, “and Rufus with one of his Indian paramours.”

  Duncan stared in surprise at the drawing, recalling how Allen had reacted to his mention of Saguenay. “He isn’t delivering a message,” Duncan suggested. “He’s receiving a message. It’s how the letters were delivered to the rangers in Massachusetts.” He turned to Brandt. “And to you, Corporal.”

  “Mountain postmaster, Allen calls himself sometimes,” Brandt confirmed with a grin that showed his missing teeth.

  Duncan watched as LaBrosse retrieved the basket, ready to leave, and he realized that he had one more question. He was pointing to the chest being carried in the last drawing when Conawago interrupted. “Who was it, Father,” the old Nipmuc asked, “who did you marry that night before the raid?”

  Duncan cocked his head, not sure if he had heard correctly. Why speak of a wedding at such a desperate time?

  The priest grimaced, then glanced at Hayes. He seemed about to reply when Ishmael gasped and pointed out one of the narrow windows. Outside, along the nearest edge of the square, Mog was directing the erection of three of the T-shaped posts used for burning captives alive.

  ISHMAEL STAYED BY ONE OF the windows, unable to take his eyes off the posts. He had spent time among the violent western tribes and perhaps knew better than any of them the horrors of such deaths by fire. Mog, adorned with fresh paint, noticed the prisoners watching and dispatched one of his men to bring a bag out of one of the cabins. From it Mog extracted three human skulls and, laughing, placed one on top of each post, facing the prisoners.

  “Oh, that unholy sonofabitch,” Brandt cackled, slurring the last syllables as if one word, then shot his imaginary rifle at the war chief and leaned close to the window. “Who comes to kill? Who comes to kill?” he called, the ranger owl chant. He seemed excited, not fearful, at the sight of the posts.

  When his uncle finally pulled him away from the window, Ishmael looked up with a hollow expression and just said, “Three,” then gestured to his companions. There were six prisoners.

  Brandt had wandered to the drawing of the burning town again and was studying it with intense interest when the door opened to admit Maria, the old woman who had first appeared with LaBrosse, carrying a basket of apples and water gourds. A guard shoved her as she crossed the threshold, and Mu
nro caught her as she fell, sending several gourds tumbling across the floor.

  “Merci, merci,” she said as she recovered her basket, then unfolded a linen cloth at the bottom, releasing the fragrant scent of fresh-baked corn cakes. “S’il vous plaît,” she said, inviting them to eat, and spread the cakes on the bench beside a long sausage. She glanced at the door, then, from within the folds of her dress, produced a small knife and laid it beside the sausage.

  Brandt made no move to join, but instead ran his finger over the line of fleeing figures in the drawing. One of his odd, gobbling laughs escaped his throat, and he turned, extending the same finger toward the Abenaki matron.

  My God, thought Duncan, surely the old ranger didn’t recognize the woman he had seen with LaBrosse so many years ago. He pushed Brandt’s arm down and was about to approach the woman when Conawago began speaking with her in his fluent French. Her back was bent, and she had more gray in her hair than most native women, with traces of a white strip of hair over her crown. Her eyes spoke of long knowledge of sadness and disappointment. Duncan recalled Brandt’s earlier description of a woman with hair like a polecat who had helped with the rescue of children during the raid.

  Conawago spoke of the fine church that had been built on the ruins of the old.

  “The king in Paris was generous,” she observed, then counted out the bottle gourds, making sure there was one for each prisoner. Conawago and Duncan exchanged a perplexed glance. The king in Paris wouldn’t pay a sou to restore a Jesuit mission church.

  The old Nipmuc made a show of admiring the drawings near the woman, then pointed to the one of a wedding. “They say there was a wedding the night before,” he casually mentioned. “Was this the one?”

  The woman’s eyes seemed to look toward some distant point, as if she could see beyond the walls. “Pere LaBrosse came for it. She was such a sweet thing, had put off the wedding for two years because her father was going blind and her mother had a bad leg and she said they needed her.” The old matron sighed and made the sign of the cross on her breast.

  “A big affair,” Conawago suggested. “Who were they?”

  “We had such great hopes. He was from the warriors, the ones who kept pushing our young ones to go and bleed on distant trails, but his love for her was slaking his ardor for violence. She was from a good church family. We thought the union might ease the tension, cool the blood of both her husband and his brother, so some of our boys might be saved.” She motioned Conawago closer so she could examine his bandage.

  “You mean warriors under Mog the war chieftain.”

  “Yes, yes,” the woman said distractedly as she lifted the linen over the Nipmuc’s wound. “Mog’s brother was the groom. I think it was the only time that devil Mog entered our church.”

  Conawago cast another pointed glance at Duncan, but Duncan did not understand. Why was the Nipmuc so interested in a wedding that took place nearly ten years before? He was about to ask when angry voices rose outside. The old woman stepped to a window, then abruptly began a low chant. “Je vous salue Marie, pleine de grâce, le Seigneur est avec vous. Vous êtes bênie entre toutes les femmes.” He saw her fingers working at her wrist, and as she repeated the words, he realized she was reciting her rosary as she watched something on the town square.

  Father LaBrosse was standing in front of one of the death posts as Mog directed the stacking of dried brush around it. The war chief was shouting furiously. LaBrosse was speaking in a low voice, his hand on his crucifix, in what sounded like a prayer. As Duncan watched, Mog slapped LaBrosse so hard the Jesuit staggered and fell to one knee.

  When the old woman turned back, tears filled her eyes. “He came back five days ago, and suddenly it was like the old godless times again.”

  “Was he alone, grandmother?” Duncan asked.

  “Not alone. Two angry Frenchmen were with him. They met with Pere LaBrosse and shouted at him. They questioned him and hit him, hit our blessed priest, and almost killed a lay brother. When we objected, Mog laid one of those trophy poles with scalps across the doorway of the church, as if declaring war on us. We have members of the tribe arriving from distant villages for the migration west, and we fear he will win some over.” The Abenaki woman fought a silent sob, then collected herself. “Those Frenchmen left for Montreal two days ago.” She straightened and spoke more loudly, to all the prisoners. “I am sorry. I will pray for a miracle, but God seems far away these days. Prepare your souls. Three of you will die tonight.”

  THEY KEPT A SILENT VIGIL at the loopholes, watching as brush and branches were stacked around the posts while two of Mog’s fierce warriors kept shoving Father LaBrosse and three older women as they tried to pull away the fuel. Two women in long black dresses knelt a stone’s throw away, fervently reciting their rosaries. Another, the man’s mother or aunt, Duncan guessed, arrived to harangue one of the guards, who stared stoically ahead without responding. Duncan more than once thought he saw Noah in the shadows by the houses, watching and speaking with some of the onlookers, and when Conawago took a turn at the watch, he nodded and whispered “Totokanay,” as if acknowledging the old Abenaki. There was no sign of Woolford and his rangers, and Duncan, finding himself looking at the trophy poles to see if any scalps dripped fresh blood, was beginning to worry that Mog’s warriors had attacked them. More wood was being stacked for a bonfire in the center of the square. Mog’s ceremony would not start until an hour or two after sunset, Conawago explained, when the full moon would rise above the trees to light the square by the river.

  Hayes, still morose and silent, took a turn at the windows, gazing without expression at the preparations for death. “Only two of you,” he finally declared when he turned from the window. He began straightening his clothes, brushing away the dirt on his waistcoat. “I will take a post,” he announced. “I think Mog will mean to burn me in any event. More the honor in volunteering. My life is over.”

  “More the honor in finding a way to live!” Duncan snapped, feeling an unexpected anger at the tinker’s words.

  Hayes reacted with a hollow smile, then bent to brush off his legs, as if he wanted to look his best for the death post.

  “You would do this to Sadie?” Ishmael asked.

  The tinker’s breath caught a moment, and his voice cracked. “I am no good for her anymore. Young Will can watch over her.”

  “Is this how you would repay your debt?” Conawago demanded.

  The tinker continued to clean himself for his death. “Debt?” he asked in a disinterested voice.

  “To your God, Solomon. He took you to the end of your quest. He gave you strength all these years. He brought you to new friends. He brought you to the truth, as bitter as it may be.”

  Hayes sobered and surveyed the faces of his companions. “Yes,” he defiantly declared, “this is how I repay you, by giving one of you his life.” He retreated to his corner and slumped against the corner again, speaking no more.

  THEIR CELL WAS LIT BY the dull orange glow of dusk when the door latch rattled again. The tall figure who entered wore a cloak fashioned from an old blanket embroidered with flowers and six-pointed stars. When she lowered the hood, Hayes uttered a small moan and struggled to his feet. “Rebecca!”

  Duncan had only glimpsed her face in the chaos of that morning, but now he saw that Hayes’s former wife was strikingly beautiful. The Jewess from Rhode Island had braided her brunette hair, weaving beads and small feathers into the plaits. The braids set off her long, graceful countenance and the tattoos along one cheek. Her eyes were filled with a deep melancholy. She seemed to have trouble speaking.

  “Tetwanay. My name is Tetwanay, Solomon,” she finally said, then glanced at her onlookers. “I was hoping we could speak.”

  “These are my friends,” Hayes said. His voice was hoarse. “I keep no more secrets from them.”

  Ishmael pulled a bench away from the wall, then helped her remove her cloak so she could sit. Her eyes brimmed with moisture. “I wanted to die when t
hey killed our darling Ezra in front of me.” Her gaze was fixed on the floor as she spoke, as if she could not bear to look at Solomon. “I tried to die. Part of me did die. I begged them to kill me.” She pressed a fist against her lips to stifle a sob. “I jumped in a river to drown, but Mog pulled me out. I pestered a rattlesnake to bite me, but as it sprang, his war ax split its head. I ran away, but each time, a warrior tracked me down within an hour or two and beat me. I became a slave. The women and children spat on me, flung filth on me. I lived on nothing but the scrapings of pots after they ate, fighting with dogs for the leavings. They would not let me keep the Holy Day. If I hesitated at any task, they hit me with switches.” She glanced up as Hayes rose, then she spoke to the floor again. “For the first few months I prayed every night that you would come. They were so angry over the raid by the rangers, sometimes they would come and hit me just for being what they called English. I began to learn their language, and one day a group of women came to me and said I was very fortunate, that now I would be a real person, an Abenaki. I said I was of the Jewish faith, of the Hebrew tribe, and they just laughed and said that person was dead.

  “They stated that a great man wanted me for a wife, the man who had been married the night before the raid. His new wife had lingered behind in the raid to help her parents and the rangers killed them all. I said I was already married, and they said no, that person was dead, that I was now Tetwanay of the Abenaki. Then, that night, Mog’s brother came and an old man spoke words over us and washed smoke over us and declared us married. They pushed us into a lodge. I would not let him touch me that first night. But the second night Mog came into our lodge.” The woman’s voice lowered to a near whisper. “He ripped off all my clothes and said if I did not lie with his brother, he would go south the very next day and bring back your head, Solomon.” Tears flowed down her cheeks. “He knew your name from the papers in the packs they stole when they attacked us, knew that you lived in Rhode Island. He said you would die slow and then he would rip off your head the way he had ripped off our son’s head.”