The Way Lies North

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The Way Lies North Page 21

by Jean Rae Baxter


  Under Charlotte’s body was something cushiony and warm. Prodding it with her fingers, she felt the coarse, dense pelt of what might have been a bear. Covering her was a fur blanket woven from narrow strips of rabbit skin, as soft and light as silk. The blanket was the only thing that covered her. Under it, Charlotte was naked. Someone had taken away her clothes.

  She moved her leg and could feel that her right ankle was bound. Then with her hand she touched her left shoulder and realized it was tied up in a kind of bandage. Her right arm stung as if she had thrust it into a bed of nettles. When she raised it, she saw dozens of long welts and scratches, which had been rubbed with ointment.

  Turning her head, Charlotte noticed that she was not alone. Across from her, amidst a jumble of hides and baskets, sat a young girl watching her with keen, bright eyes. The girl’s skin was dusky rose, her eyelashes long and silky, and her eyebrows delicately arched. She wore two long, jet braids, and the parting of her hair was painted red.

  “Where am I?” Charlotte asked.

  The girl’s answer was a shrug.

  “Do you speak English?”

  Another shrug.

  If the girl didn’t speak English, Charlotte could learn nothing from her, not even where she was. Had she been carried in a canoe? She remembered a rocking sensation, the sound of lapping water, the smell of river mud.

  The girl stood up and with light steps left the hut. A minute later she returned carrying a cone-shaped birchbark cup. Putting her arm around Charlotte’s shoulders, she raised her and held the cup to her lips. Charlotte gulped the water. “Nya weh,” she said. No response. It seemed that the girl did not recognize the Mohawk word for thank-you. If she wasn’t a Mohawk, what was she? With her braids and fringed doeskin dress, she could belong to any tribe.

  After taking the cup away, the girl lifted her eyebrows inquiringly and mimed the action of eating. Charlotte nodded. At the suggestion of food, she realized that she was hungry. When had she last eaten? A day ago? Two days?

  Again the girl left the hut, returning a few minutes later with a wooden bowl of something that resembled boiled potatoes. She arranged a stack of pelts for Charlotte to rest against, then held out the bowl. Charlotte picked up a piece of the food with her fingers and popped it into her mouth. It tasted a bit like potatoes, but nuttier and slightly crisp. The more she chewed, the more she liked it. After Charlotte had eaten, the girl gave her a handful of dry grass to wipe her fingers.

  Charlotte leaned back against the pelts. It felt good to have something in her stomach, even though the rest of her body still ached, stung and throbbed.

  The bright-eyed girl was still watching. She was younger than Charlotte, probably about thirteen. A pity they could not talk to each other. Charlotte tapped herself on the chest with her free hand and announced her name.

  “Char-let,” the girl repeated with a smile. She had a lovely smile, though her two front teeth were a trifle large. “Charlet.” She tapped her own chest. “Chi-gwi-lat.”

  Charlotte repeated the unfamiliar syllables. She didn’t know what they meant. But then, she didn’t know what her own name meant, except that she was named after the queen.

  An old woman, bent and withered, now entered the hut. She had small, deep-set eyes, sunken cheeks, and a chin that jutted so far beyond her toothless mouth that her face looked as if it had collapsed upon itself. Chi-gwi-lat spoke to the woman in a respectful tone. She must be Chi-gwi-lat’s grandmother, or even her great-grandmother. The old woman glanced at Charlotte, mumbled a series of indecipherable syllables, and then hobbled outside.

  Chi-gwi-lat brought a covered basket from the other side of the hut, rummaged inside, and pulled out an assortment of leather garments. There was a fringed poncho shirt, a wide panel of doeskin, a belt, and moccasins. She held them up for Charlotte to see. Naked under the rabbit skin blanket, Charlotte nodded her approval.

  Chi-gwi-lat tugged a moccasin onto Charlotte’s uninjured foot and then helped her to her feet. She wrapped the doeskin panel around her hips to form a skirt, which she secured in place by means of a leather belt tied with buckskin laces, and then slipped the poncho over her head. The poncho was soft as velvet, and roomy enough to accommodate Charlotte’s bound shoulder.

  Now that she was dressed, Charlotte felt less helpless, though her head was still light and her body terribly heavy. She would have been happy to lie down again. But Chi-gwi-lat took her firmly by the arm and led her out of the hut into the sunshine.

  Charlotte blinked and looked around. In front of the hut lay a large log, and in front of the log a clay pot filled with water. The old woman whom Charlotte had seen in the hut was poking at a small fire burning a few yards away. Using two sticks as pincers, she picked up a stone the size of potato from a pile of similar stones heaped in the middle of the fire. She hobbled to the pot and dropped in the stone. The water hissed.

  Chi-gwi-lat helped Charlotte to sit down on the log, where she watched the old woman carry stone after stone from the fire until the water in the pot was steaming.

  In the meantime, Chi-gwi-lat unwound the strips of leather binding Charlotte’s right ankle, which throbbed with pain. What a mess of pus! Charlotte had seen enough abscesses on injured animals to know how bad it was. When Chi-gwi-lat lifted her swollen foot and plunged it into the hot water, she did not flinch.

  From where she sat, Charlotte could see green forest, a sparkling river, and eleven bark huts. The huts were neither in rows nor in a circle, but seemed to have sprung up randomly from the earth. In the centre — so far as the camp had a centre — was an open space, and in the centre of that a smoldering fire burned.

  Again Charlotte wondered where she was. And where was Nick? She remembered her last glimpse of him, running with the strongbox in his arms, halfway to the fence. He must have escaped. Her mind admitted no other possibility. And he must be searching for her. But how could he find her? How far away from Fort Hunter was this camp? The sparkling river that ran by was smaller than the Mohawk. Maybe it was a tributary. If she could follow it, she might find her way back to the Mohawk River. But how could that help her? Even if she reached it, she had no way to get back to Carleton Island, where Papa was waiting.

  The thought of him rose unbidden in her mind. She pictured him standing outside the palisade gate, leaning on his crutch, scanning the horizon for the return of the canoe. “Remember, she’s all I’ve got,” had been his parting words to Nick. People could die of a broken heart; Mama had proved that.

  For days, Charlotte did nothing but eat, rest and soak her foot. The welts and scratches on her right arm healed. The infected dog bite on her ankle slowly began to respond to the soaking in hot water. But her right shoulder remained encased in rawhide as hard as wood.

  Through the endless hours, she had nothing to do but think. And the more she thought, the surer she became that she was the prisoner of an Oneida band. The newness of the huts showed that these people had only recently arrived, probably as refugees whom General Sullivan’s soldiers had driven from their homes. Unless they were Oneidas, they would have sought the safety of an English fort. Everything pointed to them being Oneidas.

  The thought did not frighten her. Nick had explained the value of a healthy hostage. She supposed that her captors wanted her to be in good condition when the time came to negotiate her freedom. They certainly were treating her with tender care.

  But what if they wanted to adopt her? They couldn’t turn her into an Oneida against her will, could they? When Axe Carrier had explained about the Oneidas adopting Moses Cobman, he had not dealt with that point.

  Often, as the days passed, Charlotte had a strong feeling that Nick was close by, perhaps lurking in the forest to keep watch over her. And so she was only half surprised when one morning, as she sat with her foot immersed, a pebble landed with a plop in her lap.

  Charlotte jumped. The pebble seemed to have dropped from the sky.

  The old woman had hobbled off to one of the other huts. Chi
-gwi-lat was at the river fetching water. No one saw Charlotte pick up the pebble from the fold of her skirt.

  The pebble was smooth and round, about two inches across and half an inch thick, and brown like the little stones in the creek behind the Hoopers’ farm. On one side was scratched the outline of a heart. Turning the pebble over, she read the initials “N.S.” and “C.H.” As she curled her fingers tenderly around it, she could not suppress a smile. One minute ago, this pebble had been in Nick’s hand. Now it was in hers. Nick, at this moment, was near enough to have tossed it into her lap.

  She looked about at the bushes that ringed the camp. Birds twittered and fluttered in every thicket save one. So that was the thicket where Nick had concealed himself, disturbing the birds.

  It would be wise to follow the example of the birds. Sit quiet and still. Don’t try to see Nick through the thick foliage. Reluctantly she dropped the pebble and pushed it under the log with her heel. The pebble had served its purpose.

  After a while, the birds started twittering again. For a long time she watched the thicket, yet could not tell when Nick left his hiding place.

  For the rest of the day Charlotte felt jittery. The old woman looked at her suspiciously. Late in the afternoon three warriors came by — the same three who had found Charlotte in the ravine. As they talked with the old woman, they glanced frequently at Charlotte. Then the warriors glided into the bushes.

  She heard a shout from beneath the trees outside the camp, and then a sharp call from further away. Charlotte glanced up casually, as if this did not concern her. For a long time she remained as still as the log on which she was sitting.

  A rifle cracked, but far enough away that the sound was muffled by countless trees and bushes. Then two shots were fired in quick succession.

  She waited, numb with dread, terrified to think what or whom the warriors were pursuing, or what kind of prey they would drag back to camp.

  When the warriors returned empty-handed, one gave her an angry look. He’s disappointed, she thought. So it was Nick whom they had hunted. And he had got away.

  All the next day she waited for another signal, thinking that Nick might have lingered in the forest, waiting for her injuries to heal so that they could run away together. When by evening there was no further sign, her regret was mingled with relief. She hoped that Nick had gone back to Carleton Island to tell Papa what had happened. Better for him to know that his daughter was a captive than to think that she was dead.

  Chi-gwi-lat’s friends — three girls, all about thirteen — came to call. They had tawny skin and bright inquisitive eyes, and they giggled constantly. Charlotte’s hair amused them. Fascinated by its curliness, they braided it into two smooth plaits that hung over her shoulders. As a finishing touch, they painted a bright red stripe down the centre part, just like theirs.

  The passing days blurred together. Charlotte’s ankle healed completely. On sunny mornings Chi-gwi-lat and her friends disappeared into the woods with baskets on their arms. When they emerged, the baskets were heaped with raspberries and blackberries. Charlotte wanted to go with them, but that was not allowed. Her captors may have feared that she would try to run away. Or perhaps they simply thought that she would be useless as a berry picker, having the use of only one arm.

  After many days, when it began to feel as though nothing was ever going to happen, a hunting party of men and boys arrived in camp with fresh deer meat. One of the boys had brown hair and blue eyes. He wore a leather breechcloth, leggings and moccasins, and he carried a birchbark quiver on his shoulder. Although he was taller than two years ago, and as brown as any Indian, she knew Moses Cobman at once.

  The moment he saw her, sitting in her usual spot on the log outside the old woman’s hut, he stopped and stared. Leaving his companions, he walked directly to her.

  “I remember you. You’re Charlotte.”

  “And you are Moses Cobman.”

  His features stiffened. “No longer. My name is Broken Trail.”

  “But you’re Moses Cobman, all the same.”

  His face darkened. As he turned away, she recognized the flash of anger in his eyes. Moses stalked off with dignity, or at least as much dignity as an eleven-year-old could muster. Charlotte had offended him, but she didn’t care. Did Moses really think that he could get rid of his identity so easily, shed it like his old clothes that the Oneidas had hidden under a log? When she got a chance, she must talk to him about his mother and Elijah and Hope. Surely he still had some affection for them.

  The next day, Moses was back, accompanied by two older warriors.

  “This is Black Elk,” he said, indicating a broad-cheeked man with greying hair. “The other is Swift Fox.” From the bulge of belly over the top of his breechcloth, Swift Fox looked as if swiftness had deserted him long ago. “Black Elk and Swift Fox speak for the elders of our band. They were waiting for my return in order to question you.”

  The two men squatted on the ground facing her. Each had a blanket draped about his bare shoulders, though the day was warm. Moses stood to one side.

  Black Elk asked the first question.

  “He wants to know why you were wearing men’s clothing,” Moses said.

  “Tell him I dressed as a man because it was dangerous to travel as a woman. I came from the Upper Country to Fort Hunter to find things that my father had buried to hide from the Rebels.”

  The two elders exchanged a few words. Moses translated. “What were those things?”

  “Legal papers, a silver tea set and our family Bible.”

  Moses looked confused. How would he manage to translate that into Oneida? Charlotte reckoned that he knew precious little about the Bible, less about tea sets, and nothing about legal papers.

  He told the warriors something, at any rate. When Moses had finished speaking, the two men nodded solemnly and conversed in hushed tones, glancing frequently in Charlotte’s direction.

  “What are they talking about?” she asked.

  “How many presents you are worth.”

  “Presents!”

  “We need rifles and blankets. We fled with nothing from our old homes. In summer we can live off the land from day to day. But when winter comes, we shall be hungry and cold. We have no stored-up food. No corn.”

  Charlotte nodded. She knew all about cold and hunger. But these Oneidas needed more than guns and blankets. They needed a new home, a place where they could plant their crops of corn, squash and beans. A place where they could live without fear. They asked too little. Presents would not save them.

  As the elders conversed, a plan came to Charlotte’s mind. She saw that it was in her power to give the Oneidas something better than blankets and guns. As a go-between, she could help to restore their old relationship with the Mohawk nation, a beginning from which peace with the English would follow. No longer fugitives, the Oneidas could join their brother Iroquois in the Upper Country, where there would be land to replace what they had lost.

  She would need Axe Carrier’s help, and she knew that he would give it freely. She remembered all that he and his warriors had done for her family and the other Loyalists. And she remembered his sadness — the sorrow with which he had stared into the fire one rainy night during the journey to Carleton Island. “The breaking of nations is a terrible thing,” he had said. “We were United People, but today we are no longer united.”

  Now she had a chance to repay Axe Carrier. By bringing the Mohawk and Oneida nations together in peace, she could help to restore what had been lost.

  There was work to be done. Why should she sit here on a log day after day, waiting and waiting for someone to rescue her? If negotiations were necessary, she would start them herself.

  Black Elk and Swift Fox stood up and adjusted their blankets over their shoulders.

  “Wait!” Charlotte said. “Moses, tell them that I have—–”

  “Don’t call me by that name,” he snarled.

  “All right. Broken Trail, if you prefer. Just te
ll them I have something important to say. Ask them whether they know my father’s friend, Axe Carrier of the Mohawk nation.”

  That question worked magic. The elders’ eyebrows rose. Sitting down again, they spoke a few words to Moses.

  “They know Axe Carrier,” Moses explained. “He is famous for his influence with the Mohawks and the English.”

  “Tell them that I will write a letter to Axe Carrier. When he knows where I am, he will come here to take me away. He will come with Mohawk elders to smoke the pipe of peace. He will help the Oneida people end their quarrel with the English.”

  When Moses translated this, Black Elk frowned and Swift Fox sneered. As they answered, Charlotte heard mockery in their voices.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked Moses.

  “They say you are only a woman. How can you promise such things?”

  “Oh, is that what they say!” Lifting her chin, Charlotte tried to look as haughty as a queen. “Tell them they will see for themselves what I can do. I ask only that they send a messenger to Axe Carrier with a letter from me.”

  Again, they spoke to each other for several minutes, glancing often in Charlotte’s direction. Moses translated what they had said.

  “They have wanted for a long time to bury the tomahawk with their brothers. Even if they had nothing to fear from soldiers, they would not want to stay here. They say that this land is no good. The soil is thin, like a skin stretched over hard rocks. No crops will grow in this place. They say that we must find a new home.”

  “Then tell them that I shall write my letter. It will have power with Axe Carrier. I promise that. If I am wrong, then they can trade me for blankets and guns.”

  Once again, Black Elk and Swift Fox adjusted their blankets upon their shoulders. This time they walked away, their heads bent together as they continued their conversation. Moses started to follow.

  “Wait!” Charlotte called to him.

  “What do you want?”

  “A sheet of birchbark that I can use for paper, a feather to make a pen, and some kind of berry juice for ink.”

 

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