Shadowbrook Part 18

"Haya, haya, jayek." So, so, all of us together. "Haya, haya, jayek."

Sohantes sat across the circle from the Teller, her three infants strapped to her back in a carrier specially made for her because nothing like this had ever happened in the village before, and chanted with the rest.

All of us together, she thought, but this is my part of the story. Forever.

"And Sohantes was the wife of the chief Kekomoson," Ixtu intoned. "And he had no other wife but her, and he had promised not to take her sister as another wife as long as Sohantes lived. When the other women told him what had happened in the birthing house, Kekomoson went out and found a fat buck standing alone on the top of a hill, and Kekomoson killed it with one arrow so perfectly shot it went directly to the killing spot between the buck's eyes. Then Kekomoson gave a great feast to celebrate this thing that no one remembered seeing before, three sons all born together."

"Haya, haya, jayek. Haya, haya, jayek."

Kekomoson sat beside the Teller, in the place of honor because he was the chief. He did not let his face show how pleased he was to have found a place in the Telling.

"Haya, haya, jayek."

Ixtu was coming to the end. He looked once at the sky. Still gray, but lighter than before. Soon he would know if he had correctly performed the Teller's most important duty. If he had failed he would walk away into the wilderness, taking nothing with him and eating nothing and drinking nothing, and when he could walk no more he would sit down and wait to die. Great Spirit, grant that I may die beside the fire with my brothers, not alone, parched and starving in a far place.

"And that is the story of the Real People of Singing Snow. Until the time of this Great Heat Moon."

"Haya, haya, jayek." So, so, all of us together.

The humming ended and the drums stopped. The sky was streaked with pink now, and the sliver of new moon had disappeared behind the encircling hills. The people waited. Each New Moon Circle of Telling was held in a slightly different place and the sacred fire was set to burn where the Teller said it was to be. Only at the end of the night did the people know if the place had been chosen wisely, if the New Moon would bring them safety and prosperity, or if the Teller had failed them and they were cursed. At last, the red-orange sun peeked over the horizon. The people held their collective breath and waited.

The first low-angled rays of the sun reached the earth and touched the Sacred Fire of Shkotensi, the Fifth Fire of the Potawatomi of Singing Snow. Happiness rippled around the Circle of Telling. Ayi! Ayi! Ixtu thought. It is good. If I die before the next Telling it will be here, on soft skins, with water to drink and, if I want it, corn to eat. Or even meat. Ahaw, yes, the Great Spirit is good.

"Haya, haya, jayek." All was well. "Haya, haya, jayek." So, so, all of us together.

Only one thing remained to be done. At every New Moon Telling, Ixtu added words to the story. They would become sacred words, never to be changed, always to be repeated. The people waited, humming softly, and after a time Ixtu spoke again. "And at that time, the Telling of the Great Heat Moon," he turned his bent old body so he was facing Cormac, "the people were happy because the bridge person, who was called by the name of the mighty warrior of his father's people and by no other name, to signify that he is different from all others, the bridge person, returned to Singing Snow after being long away. And the bridge person was present at the Telling, and he listened with respect and his heart beat with the others. So the people knew he was truly their son and their brother."

"Haya, haya, jayek."

It was done.

"So nothing important happened this moon and you got a place in the Telling," Bishkek, Cormac's manhood father, told him later. "Don't let your head grow to fit a warbonnet because of that. You have been too long away and I am shamed that you forget your home village and your old father."

"I have never forgotten you, Father, and Singing Snow is always in my heart. But much has been happening in the white world. I could not get away as soon as I liked."

"And what about my other white-face son, your brother? Why does he not come to see me? Does he, too, forget me?"

"I am sure he does not, Father. But his birth father is dying and he must stay with him until the spirit leaves the old man's body."

Bishkek nodded. "That is the correct thing to do. But when it's over he must come at once and pay his respect to his manhood father. That too is correct. Does my other white son know this?"

"I believe he does, Father. He will come. When it is over." Cormac paused. "If he can."

"And why could he not?" Bishkek knew that Cormac spoke with purpose and he asked the questions he hoped would help the younger man say what he wanted to say. "Is my other white son suddenly stupid in his head so he cannot do his duty? Are his legs no longer able to carry him? Has he forgotten how to find his way through the woods and across the rivers and streams that separate us?"

"None of those things have happened, Father. But there is talk of war."

"Not among us," Bishkek said sadly. "The Anis.h.i.+nabeg are no longer strong enough to make war on each other. Not real war. They fight like they fart, without warning and with no plan, except maybe to make a little stink. Worse, they allow themselves to be hired killers for the whites. So who makes war? The English? War on Onontio?" Bishkek spat on the ground to take the taste away.

"Yes. At least I think they are going to. Very soon now the English and the French will fight. To the death, probably. And if such a war is to start, it is possible that Kwashko"-he used Quent's manhood name of Jumps Over Fire-"will not be able to come to Canada, because he is English, but-"

Bishkek snorted. "That is nonsense. Kwashko is Uko Nyakwai, is he not? How can a red bear be unable to come here? Disgusting name," he added under his breath. "How can my son permit they call him that?"

The Potawatomi hated bears. Once, according to the storytellers, a bear had killed the son of a Potawatomi chief and neither ate him nor left him where he fell so he could be buried with dignity. Instead the bear pulled the body of the young brave apart and left the pieces scattered everywhere. Such an insult demanded vengeance and to this day the Potawatomi killed any bear they could capture, slowly, painfully, and with much taunting. That Kwashko, who was a true Potawatomi and truly Bishkek's son, should be called a bear-and in the tongue of the snakes, to boot-was something the old man could never accept.

Cormac knew Bishkek's thoughts on the subject; it was an argument for another day. "Father, giyabwe." I had a dream.

Ayi! At last they were getting somewhere. "And it is this dream that brought you home?" Bishkek picked up a stick and began idly drawing lines and swirls on the ground. There had been little rain all summer and the earth was covered with a thick layer of dust.

"Ahaw." Yes. Cormac was ashamed to admit any motive other than a desire to see his village and his manhood father, but he would not lie.

"Then it was a good dream," Bishkek said mildly, for once not chiding him.

"Co." Cormac shook his head. "I do not think it was."

"Ktakagikto." Tell me.

"Sheyoshke. Pens.h.i.+yuk. Mskwe, everywhere mskwe," Cormac said. A bird flying fast, a hawk. And little birds. And blood. Everywhere blood. "In the end," he added, wapshkayakmko." A white bear.

Bishkek stopped what he was doing with the stick and looked directly at Cormac. "Neni. Your mother."

Cormac shook his head. "Co! Cozhena neneyum!" I never dream of her.

Again Bishkek spat on the ground. "That is Cmokmanuk talk, the words of white men who know no better. A dream comes to you. You do not invite it. It is not for you to decide what it will be. Your mother was she of the white bearskins. Always. Tell me more of the dream."

Cormac explained about the hawk and the birds and the river of blood. "Then the white bear came and the hawk flew away. The bear was somehow protecting the birds."

Bishkek made a sound in his throat. "Ahaw," he agreed. "Then perhaps it was not your mother." In her whole life Pohantis had never protected anyone but herself. She was a wh.o.r.e, giving herself to anyone who wanted her, not because she admired them or cared for them, only to get what she wanted. Since she was a child she'd never been any different. Like the women of the snakes. Such behavior was unacceptable among the Potawatomi. The only reason Singing Snow had taken her back after she ran away with the white gun trader was because she brought them a bridge person, a son who was half white and half Potawatomi, and the elders thought that such a person would be useful. Ahaw. That was a good decision. Better still was the decision to give Pohantis to the other white man who wanted her, and that way get white training into the head of my half-white manhood son. Now Cormac is truly a red man in a white skin. Surely the future must belong to such men as him. He listened very carefully as his son told him the last of the dream. A white wolf, wabnum, loped out of the forest and toward the bear.

"That part is easy. You are wabnum."

"Yes, I know. But I woke up before the wolf attacked." Cormac lowered his gaze and did not ask the final question-who would win, the wolf or the bear? He felt Bishkek's eyes studying him and he wondered if the old man had any more idea than he did of what the dream meant. It had seemed so important to come here and tell his story. Ahaw, but now that he was here, what had he accomplished? His manhood father offered no explanations, just stared at him. He seemed to be looking at the place where Cormac had hidden Memetosia's gift, strapped to his thigh and hidden by his breechclout.

It was not for Cormac to break the silence and for a long time Bishkek didn't speak. Around them people moved slowly in the growing heat of the morning. Because of the New Moon Telling no one had slept the previous night. Now it was too warm and airless to go into the wickiups, the dome-shaped houses built of bent sapling frames covered with bark. Most of the braves and squaws snored softly under whatever shade they could find. One woman nursed an infant and another sat watching a group of sleeping children and grinding corn in a huge bowl made of a single maple tree burl, using a rounded stone. It was a peaceful scene, but neither man had any difficulty imagining it engulfed in a river of blood. Both knew too much of the history of the Anis.h.i.+nabeg.

"Is that all?" Bishkek asked finally. "There is nothing more to tell of this dream?"

"That's all of the dream. But there was something else. Something that happened while I was not exactly awake, but not sleeping either."

"Ktakagikto." Tell me.

Cormac repeated what the Miami chief Memetosia had told him, and told of the blind Mide priest Takito, and the sweat lodge, and all that had happened after he went inside. Bishkek listened in silence. When Cormac finished, Bishkek took up the stick again and drew lines and swirls in the dust. "There is something you are not telling me. And something hidden there beneath your breechclout. That is not the bulge of your manhood I am seeing."

"Bishkek is wise as always."

"And my bridge person son does not lie. So what is this unsaid thing between us?"

"A gift, Father. From Memetosia." He lay his hand over his thigh. "It is a great mystery to me. I do not know what the gift means or what I am to do with it. A medicine bag containing the black wampum called Suckauhock."

Bishkek's eyes opened very wide. "Such a gift must be very ancient."

"Ahaw, it is." Cormac looked around. No one seemed to be paying them any attention. He started to reach beneath his breechclout, but Bishkek held up his hand.

"Co. I do not wish to see this thing. It is better not to look on mysteries. Memetosia gave the Suckauhock to you, not to me. I do not have to burden my eyes with it. The Mide priest, you are sure he was called Takito?"

"That's what my friend the Piankashaw metisse called him."

"And it was in the home of this so-called friend that your gun was stolen after you left it as a sign of respect, and a Huron arrived from nowhere to try and kill you?"

"It wasn't Genevieve's fault," Cormac said stubbornly. "I don't believe she had anything to do with it."

Bishkek nodded and wrapped his arms around himself and rocked back and forth for a time. "Let me think on this thing, the dream and everything else," he said finally. Go and sleep."

Cormac found a place in the shadow of a spruce that had been bent to the direction of the prevailing wind. The shade beneath it was deep; he lay down and felt comforted by the pungent familiar smell of the resin that was used in the making of the Potawatomi canoes, which were the best to be had in both the white world and the red. He fell asleep the moment he closed his eyes. When he opened them a squaw, her face entirely covered with tattoos, was staring down at him, holding a knife with the sharp point aimed directly at his heart.

"Do not move," Bishkek's voice said. "Not even a single eyelash."

Cormac knew beyond any doubt that his manhood father would never betray him, so he did exactly as he was told. The woman holding the knife moved it in slow circles, the sharp point aimed always at Cormac's heart. After a time she changed her position and the whole-skin otter medicine bag she wore around her neck came into view. Another Mide priest putting Midewiwin magic into him. It was supposed to be a healing thing, but he'd known nothing but unease since he met Takito. Cormac wanted this squaw priest to stop doing what she was doing, and he was on the verge of saying so when the priest began her chant Wa hi, hi, hi ... Haya, haya, ahseni ... That was the chant he remembered from the sweat lodge. Haya, haya, ahseni ...

After a time the priest stood up and murmured something to Bishkek, who listened, then said, "Get up, my son. This part of the ceremony is finished."

Cormac struggled to his feet. He was still tired. And his head felt stuffed with wool. Most of the village was yet asleep, so not too much time could have gone by. Where had Bishkek found a Mide priest so quickly? None had been at the ceremony the night before.

"This priest is called Shabnokis. She lives alone near here and comes when we need her." As usual Bishkek had antic.i.p.ated the questions in Cormac's mind. Always Cmokmanuk questions. Why? How? Which happened first? Which later? Why that way and not some other way? It was the white part of this son that made him ask such things. Shabnokis is here. What does it matter how she came to be here? It matters not at all to me or to other Anis.h.i.+nabeg, but to this bridge person, yes, it matters. He cannot help it. He is as he is. "I went and asked her to come," Bishkek explained. "Because of what you told me."

Cormac said nothing. A Mide priest was involved in all the trouble. Another Mide priest might be able to explain why.

"This Takito, I know of him," Shabnokis said. "But I have never met him. He is very old and we are from different lodges."

"Why would he send someone to kill my bridge person son who had done him no harm?" Bishkek asked.

"I do not know that."

This priest was missing three fingers of her right hand, Cormac noted. Maybe less was demanded of the squaw priests of the Midewiwin. "I'm told there are many differences in your lodges."

"Not differences in our magic or our cures. But other things, yes, they are different."

"Why did you point your knife at me?"

Bishkek made a sound in his throat. Ayi! This son will offend the priest with his Cmokmanuk questions. Then where will we be? "You say 'why' too often," he scolded. "The priest is wise, listen to her."

Cormac understood his manhood father's annoyance. Bishkek had asked a question to which he had no answer while he, Cormac, questioned the actions and decisions of the priest. The first was acceptable, the second was not. All the same, it was important to him to know, and Bishkek understood that the point of a bridge was to travel in two directions. Whether the squaw priest did or not didn't matter. "Your knife," he repeated, ignoring Bishkek's reprimand, "why were you holding it over me?"

The woman crouched down and spat on the ground, then drew her finger through the spittle, making symbols only she understood. "If this Takito put bad magic into you, I would draw it out. With my knife. Otherwise, if I was not strong enough, the knife would be sucked into your heart."

"By the bad magic?"

The woman nodded. "Ahaw."

"That's a poor bargain."

"You are still alive," she said, smiling.

"But am I alive because your magic was stronger than Takito's, or because-"

"There was no bad magic in you. Or at least very little. It was not difficult to keep the knife away from you."

"In that case," Bishkek said, "this Takito meant my son no harm. What of the Huron who tried to kill him?"

"You have not told me why your son thinks that happened."

"It happened," Bishkek said. "It is for the priests to tell us why."

"I think," Shabnokis said, "that because the leaves of a tree turn red in the time of the Great Heat moon does not always mean the tree is a sumac." She gestured with her head to the place where a number of the stubby sumac trees grew. Leaf-falling time was two months away for other trees, still some weeks away for the sumac, but the leaves were already scarlet. Fair enough, but what possible connection could there be between sumac trees and what had happened in the sweat lodge?

"Red leaves can be found in many places," Shabnokis said. Then she stood up and walked away.

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 26, 1754.

SHADOWBROOK.

Quent had known for some time that he was being watched; since he left the big house in fact. It wasn't Lantak or one of his renegade butchers. They were still far ahead of him. Besides, if it had been, the attack would have come long since. He'd had enough of vigilance and waiting; it was time to lure whoever it was into the open.

He knelt beside the stream he'd been following at a brisk trot and washed his face, then dipped his leather-covered tin flask into the water. While it filled, he carefully looked around. Yes, over there on the left. Whoever it was, was crouched behind that low stand of juniper. It was the stream, Quent realized, that was the attraction. His stalker was thirsty, really thirsty, with that l.u.s.t for water that pretty much overcomes everything else. Even caution, and the fear of Uko Nyakwai's long gun.

The bubbles stopped rising from the mouth of the flask. Quent lifted it out of the water, conscious of the fact that the sounds he was making would inflame the stalker's thirst even more, and carefully, taking his time, bunged the cork stopper into position. He left the canteen under a tree-a thick-trunked old elm on the other side of the clearing from the juniper, then made a great show of stretching and yawning. Quent reached for the drawstring that held up his trousers, untying it as he moved off away from the stalker and the stream to relieve himself.

The surrounding forest was the usual mix of hardwood and conifers. The needles of the evergreens made a thick carpet covering the earth, soundless beneath his moccasins. He circled around and approached the stream from the right. And saw exactly what he expected to see. Someone was kneeling beside the wat-Sweet Jesus. He was looking at a ghost.

For a moment he couldn't focus. Quent rubbed his eyes, trying to clear away the shock-induced fog. Pohantis was dead. He'd stood next to the grave when they lowered her body into it and helped shovel in the dirt. He'd told Cormac that he was glad she was gone because she was a wh.o.r.e. And all the time he'd been sobbing inside, thinking not of his father but of his mother, and the way, when she thought no one could see, she would slip her hand into Pohantis's, and Pohantis would raise that hand to her breast. Then he and Corm had fought, and Quent had scarred his brother's face for life and-Pohantis was dead. It wasn't she kneeling here by the stream, dressed in white bearskin scooping water into her mouth as if she'd die if she didn't get enough.

Quent raised his gun to his shoulder and released the hammer. "Get up real slow and turn around." He spoke in English, then repeated the words in Mohawk Iroquois. Because, G.o.d blast it, the squaw couldn't be Pohantis, and this was Mohawk country. "Desatga hade nyah."

Nicole stopped with her cupped hands halfway to her mouth. She allowed the water they held to trickle back into the stream, then got to her feet and turned around. "Don't shoot me, please."

Quent lowered his gun, but he moved no closer to where she stood. "In G.o.d's name ... How did you get here?"

"I followed you. As soon as you changed back into your buckskins, I knew you meant to leave and go after the savages who attacked the Patent. But you made me a promise and you must keep it. You must, Quent." She wasn't pleading, she was stating a fact. "You must take me north. I cannot go without you, and it is imperative that I get to Quebec at once."

"What do you mean you followed me? Are you saying you're the one who's been tracking me since last night? Since I left the house?" She nodded and he had no choice but to believe her.