by Ron Carter
Dear friend Billy:
I take pen in hand to tell you of strange occurrences . . .
Slowly he read her letter, and his forehead wrinkled as he studied the map, the three documents written in an unrecognized hand, and the two sheets with the odd lines. He worked his way through Brigitte’s letter again, handling the other six documents in turn as he began to understand the explanation and directions. For five minutes he stared at the documents while his mind pushed and tugged at them, trying to comprehend the unbelievable implications.
“Mail from home?”
Billy flinched and stared up at Eli beside him, wondering how he had gotten so close without a sound. “Yes.”
“Mother?”
“No. A friend. Brigitte Dunson. Brigitte and my mother delivered your message to Beatrice McMurdy.” Billy gestured and Eli sat down facing him on the blanket, rifle at his side.
“Mrs. McMurdy take it all right? about her son?”
Billy shook his head. “Read this.” He handed Brigitte’s letter to Eli.
For ten minutes Billy quietly finished his stew and bread, then drank from his canteen, while Eli studied the documents, sorting through them, putting the puzzle together. Billy scrubbed his plate and fork with river sand, rinsed them with canteen water, and set them on his blanket to dry.
Eli lowered Brigitte’s letter and raised his eyes to Billy. “Who’s Brigitte Dunson?”
“Our families are close. Brigitte is the oldest daughter. Her brother Matthew is my friend.”
Eli saw that Billy’s eyes softened as he spoke the name Brigitte, and something inside Eli stirred and for a moment he dropped his eyes. He raised them back to Billy and asked, “Can you make sense of all this?”
Billy shook his head.
“Ever heard of someone named T. Horton?”
“Never. And I’ve never heard of anyone buying fish with letters in code.”
“Any idea what this map shows?”
“None.”
“She says the military in Boston sent this to the military headquarters here. Suppose they’re doing something about it?” Once again Eli studied the map intently, turning it slowly, peering at it from every angle. Baffled, he shook his head. “Maybe someone should ask.”
“Maybe they should. I’ll take the papers to Colonel Thompson in the morning. He’ll know what to do.”
Eli nodded and handed them back, and Billy folded them back into the packet as Eli reached for his rifle to leave.
Billy spoke. “Have any time to talk?”
Eli shrugged. “About what?”
“You said one of the reasons you left the Iroquois was because of the Bible—Jesus.”
Eli nodded.
“Can I ask about the Iroquois god?”
Eli drew and released a sigh. “Which one?”
“You have more than one?”
“Several. Like in the Bible.”
A look of surprise crossed Billy’s face. “The Bible? There’s only one God in the Bible.”
Eli shook his head but said nothing.
Billy’s forehead wrinkled. “No? Then how many?”
Eli drew a heavy breath. “I don’t know. In the first part—Genesis, I think it is called—it talks about the Creation, and it says God said, ‘Let us make man in our image.’ Who is ‘us,’ and who is ‘our’? Who was God talking to? And later, it talks about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Are they all Gods?”
Billy stared, then recovered. “I hadn’t thought about Genesis, but the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are one God.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. It’s a mystery.”
A look of deep puzzlement crossed Eli’s face. “All three in the same body?” He turned his face directly to Billy, and in it Billy saw a deep hunger to know.
He reached inside himself for an answer, and there was none. “I don’t know about three in the same body.”
Seconds passed before Eli spoke again. “That night in the garden, before they killed Jesus, it says he prayed to his Father for help. Was he praying to himself?”
Billy saw the irreconcilable conflict, and he saw the pain in Eli’s face as he struggled, but Billy had no answer. “I don’t know what that part of the Bible means. I only know that there is a God, and that the Bible is his book. What I don’t understand I accept on faith. Someday I hope to understand it all. I don’t know what else to say.”
The sun had settled onto the cliffs across the Hudson, casting long shadows eastward. The men of the regiment moved about, weary, subdued, doing only those things necessary to bed down for the night. Eli and Billy paid no heed, lost in their thoughts.
Eli spoke quietly. “I’ve read that part so many times. Why do they say we can’t understand it?”
“Did the Jesuits explain it?”
“No. They said what you said, but that only confuses what the Bible makes plain. God the Father has a Son named Jesus, and he sent Jesus to this earth.” Again he faced Billy. “Is that too simple?”
Billy put wood chips in his small fire pit, struck flint to steel, and gently blew until a flame flickered. He added more chips, then small twigs of dried driftwood, and for a time they watched the flames spread in the twilight. “I don’t know. I’ve never thought of it that way. It’s like God being everywhere all the time. I’m not sure what that means, either.”
Eli shook his head, and a look of great sadness came into his eyes, and he spoke with quiet deliberation. “White men have lost something in themselves. They can no longer hear and see from inside.” His hand made a slow, wide, sweeping gesture at earth and heaven. “Everything has its place in the plan of God, and its own message. The sun and stars and moon, the rocks, the rivers, the woods, the animals—everything. He created it and gave it to us. He made it all, and it all tells truth to your soul that your mind cannot understand, and that truth is God’s, if we will only learn to listen.” He shook his head and his face dropped.
The power of the simple faith and reasoning struck into Billy, and for a time he remained still, reluctant to speak. Then he asked, “Do you understand the Iroquois god?”
“Yes, most of it. Enough of it.”
“Does he have a name?”
“Which one?”
“The highest one.”
“Taronhiawagon.”
“What does that mean in English?”
Eli thought for a time, working with a translation. “He Who Bears the Heavens on His Shoulders.”
“Are there gods beneath him?”
“Yes.”
“Who are they?”
“The Twin Brothers. The Good Twin and the Bad Twin. And some others.”
“Twin Brothers?”
“The Good Twin brings us all good things. The bad one all that is evil.”
Billy’s breathing slowed. Jesus and Satan! They have their own Jesus and Satan! Did they get it from us, or we from them? “Where does the Iroquois god stay?”
“At his home in the heavens, but his spirit is everywhere. He made everything, and his spirit is in all he made.”
“What does he look like?”
Eli looked at Billy with his frank, open expression. “Us. We are all his children.”
“If we are his children, does he have a wife?”
“Yes. First Woman of the Earth.”
“Where is she?”
“With him, where she should be. A woman descended directly lives today.”
“Who?”
“Ji-gon-sa-seh.”
“What does that mean in English?”
Eli’s forehead furrowed while he struggled to translate. “The Mother of Nations.”
For a time Billy stared into the fire, fascinated, absorbed in thoughts so new he did not think to speak further.
Dusk gave way to moonless darkness, and still the two men sat on the blanket, elbows on knees, the firelight playing shadows on their faces, lost in an exchange of thoughts that obsessed them, left them unaware of
time and place.
Finally Billy asked, “What name did the Iroquois give you?”
Eli smiled. “Skuhnaksu.”
Billy grinned. “What does it mean?”
Eli shook his head. “It translates directly as the One It Skin Bad Is. In your language, the Bad-Skinned One, and it means ‘fox.’ They say it that way because foxes have red fur and it looks like the sun has burned it.”
Billy chuckled and Eli grinned, and Billy quietly tried to pronounce it. Eli corrected him, and within a few seconds Billy had it right, with the peculiar glottal stop at the end.
“Why did they name you Skuhnaksu?”
“Because I was white and each spring my skin would sunburn before it became brown.”
They chuckled together as a soldier walked by, lantern in hand, and nodded to them in passing.
Billy pointed after the soldier. “What’s the word for lantern?”
“Yachihri thrat‘ah.”
“What is the translation?”
Eli dropped his face to think. “One drags light with.”
Billy shook his head in wonderment, and then he sobered. “You lost your family?”
For a long time Eli stared into the fire. “Not all. I was two when the Iroquois came. I can remember small bits of it. I remember Father dead at my feet and Mother dead in the bedroom, and the heat in the cabin when it burned. I remember them taking me.”
He stopped, and Billy saw a faraway look steal into Eli’s eyes and a longing that made Billy’s heart ache.
“I have an older sister. Golden hair, blue eyes. I remember her pushing against the door when the cabin was burning and the Iroquois came through the door.” He licked his lips and shook his head as though to rid himself of unwanted memories. “I think she tried to save me. I don’t know what happened to her. The Iroquois never said, and the Jesuits couldn’t find out. Most of my reason for leaving the Iroquois was to find her. I will look for her until I find her, or know she’s dead.”
“Do you remember her name?”
“Only what I called her. Iddi. I know that’s not her name, but that’s what I called her, and that’s all I can remember.”
“After you left the Iroquois, did you go back to your home?”
“Yes. There’s nothing left, after seventeen summers and winters. No one within a hundred miles knew anything. I asked. I learned about George Washington and the war and that regiments of men were gathering from all over. I thought maybe some man in a regiment from the north might remember something, so I came looking. A traveling preacher told me they were all gathering to New York, so I came south and heard this regiment was marching to New York, so I joined. I hope someone from the north can remember something.”
“Do you mind if I ask around?”
“That would be good. I thank you.”
The night song of bullfrogs had begun, with the crickets adding to the sounds of flying insects. Fireflies left their signatures in the velvet blackness. Dwindling fires glowed up and down the camp, and fresh pickets marched to replace tired ones.
“You mentioned George Washington. Was there a reason?”
Eli nodded. “He’s special. I want to meet him once before I die.”
“What do you mean, special?”
“There is an—”
Without warning Eli’s head jerked up, eyes narrowed, every nerve instantly taut. Billy started to speak and Eli raised a hand to silence him, and then his eyes closed as he listened intently. Billy heard nothing but the frogs and crickets and the usual sounds of a military camp coming to the end of a hard day, but he remained motionless, silent, waiting for Eli to move or speak.
Eyes still closed, Eli’s hand pointed, then shifted to point again another direction. His words were whispers, nearly inaudible. “Hear it?”
Billy closed his eyes and concentrated and only then did it come to him. The distant call of an owl. He started to speak and again Eli raised a hand to stop him, still locked in deep concentration. Again the distant call came floating, and Eli did not move.
Suddenly an answering owl call much closer came loud and Eli’s eyes opened wide. It came once more, and then stopped.
“Authentic?” Billy whispered.
Eli shook his head. “The first one, far, was a white man. The second one, close, was either an owl or an Indian. I think Indian. I think there’s a white man and an Indian out there talking.”
For five seconds the two men locked eyes while their thoughts ran wild to explain what they had heard. In one easy, fluid movement Eli came to his feet, tall and unreal in the firelight, face like stone, eyes points of light, and Billy was stunned to realize that in an instant the white man Eli Stroud had become an Iroquois warrior named Skuhnaksu—the Fox—once again.
“Watch my rifle. I’ll be back.”
Billy rose, alarmed. “You don’t have permission to leave camp. There’re pickets. They’ll shoot to kill.”
“Watch the rifle.”
“You be careful.”
Eli strode to the edge of camp and disappeared beyond the campfires, while half a dozen men turned their heads to watch him. One followed him, calling, “You got no permission to leave camp—you’ll be shot.” The man stopped where the light stopped, shrugged, and came back to his blanket.
The tip of a quarter moon rose above the New Jersey cliffs behind Eli as he silently worked his way north and east in the blackness, through grass and brush and scrub oak, and onto the grass behind the scattered houses near the end of Reade Street. Window shades glowed, and he avoided the light as he moved between houses. A dog growled and he froze and backed up and moved to his left and continued. He stopped and dropped to his haunches, listening, eyes wide in the blackness, and the music of the frogs and the crickets continued uninterrupted. He moved west onto a crooked dirt road, then worked north again, slowing, and then stopped again and waited. Minutes passed and he remained motionless, waiting, and then it came again, closer—the call from the distant owl. He gauged distance and direction without moving, and waited.
Where’s the answer? There’s got to be an answer.
Minutes passed, with only the frogs and crickets sounding in the silence, and then the answer came, very close, and Eli had to make up his mind.
Indian. It’s an Indian. He doesn’t know I’m here yet. Wait. He’ll move. Wait. Wait. Seconds became a minute, and he felt the hair on his neck and arms rise. Did he see me coming in? Ambush? Without a sound he placed his right hand on the head of his tomahawk and opened his mouth to breathe silently, missing no sound, no movement in the night, and by force of will he did not move.
He sensed it before he saw it, and through slitted eyes he watched a silent shadow move quickly from half a dozen scrub oak to a growth of bushes, crouched, head turning every direction.
Indian! He missed me!
The quarter moon hung low over the western skyline, casting only enough light to faintly reveal the nearly hidden outlines of trees and buildings. But for those who had spent a life dependent on sensing what could not be seen or heard, the light was enough. Eli counted twenty breaths, then quickly moved across the open space and dropped behind bushes. Ahead, to his right, some crickets momentarily silenced, then continued, and he soundlessly drew his tomahawk from his belt and moved in that direction. Minutes passed as he continued tracking the man ahead, steadily working through the dark streets and houses, north and west, across a narrow, crooked dirt street, past an abandoned, crumbling barn, onto a cobblestone street, and then straight west. The houses became larger, then mansions, and Eli stopped.
Close. This has to be close to where the first owl call came from.
On the corner ahead, light glowed from many window shades on both floors of a large house outward towards the street. In the dim light, Eli made out half a dozen men in full uniform standing in a line near the street, and he understood they were soldiers and bore muskets with bayonets. He settled down behind bushes and began a patient study of the men and what they were doing.
>
Pickets. Who lives in that house?
Without warning a shadowy figure, also in full uniform, appeared from beside the house and walked unchallenged through the line of soldiers and angled west directly towards Eli. Eli moved his feet, ready for a silent retreat, and he began gauging distance in the dark.
Fifty feet. At fifty feet I move.
At seventy feet the man suddenly stopped, turned to look at the soldiers behind, then motioned with his arm. From nowhere a crouched figure appeared and they exchanged objects that Eli could not see, and then the figure disappeared, moving south as quickly as it had come. The uniformed man turned on his heel, strode back to the house, moved through the line of soldiers, and vanished beside the building.
Eli made the instant decision and moved silent as a cat towards the place the men had met, and then he turned south into the bushes, where he stopped, listening. There was nothing, no sound.
I lost him!
He wished he could strike flint to steel and make a light and look for tracks, but he dared not. By dead reckoning he moved on, covering open spaces at a run, gambling he would find the man ahead before the man discovered him. Ahead a dog barked and Eli dropped to the ground, then sprinted, crouched. He stopped, worked past the dog without a sound, and ahead caught a blur of movement beneath a lighted window at the side of a large brick house. He saw more pickets in the street in front.
Got him!
He waited for three seconds while the man crouched beneath the window, did something Eli could not see, then turned to his right and moved northwest, through the yard of the neighboring house. The pickets had seen nothing, raised no alarm.
Eli counted twenty more breaths, then moved, crouched, tomahawk in hand, following the man back towards the Hudson. Two hundred feet short of the river, past the last of the houses and buildings, the man turned north onto a footpath through the weeds and sea grass and broke into a ground-eating trot, showing no caution, no concern of being seen or heard. Eli followed one hundred yards behind, as the dirt trail wound around outcroppings of rocks and clumps of oak and maple. They passed the large lake called the Collect far to their right, and the man veered west once more, down to the river’s edge, where he threw brush aside and dragged a hidden canoe to the water’s edge. He paused to look behind and listen for a time; then, satisfied he was alone, he shoved the canoe scraping into the water and stepped in. Eli watched as the river current caught the light birch-bark Indian craft and drifted it south as the man dug his paddle into the black water, driving towards the far New Jersey shore.