Shadowbrook Part 5

Quent shook his head. "Absolutely not. That would be a black mark on Was.h.i.+ngton's honor. He'd promised the French troops quarter."

"Then why-"

"It's the Indian way, to take scalps and loot after a battle. In this case Tanaghrisson wanted to prove to the other Indians in the Ohio Country, the Shawnee and Delaware who might side with the French if they thought it was in their interest, that the Iroquois are still the mightiest warriors in the area. Nothing sends that message better than leaving a pile of scalped and hacked-apart bodies to be found by the next hunting party that happens along. As for Was.h.i.+ngton, my guess is he was just too surprised and terrified to know how to stop Tanaghrisson. He's ambitious, but very young. Now that it's over, he's bound to be sick at the thought of the story getting out."

They traveled for six days and the only other human life they saw was a Mingo hunting party. Quent spotted them first; they moved off the path and hid deep in the forest, waiting while the Mingo pa.s.sed. The last one in the file turned and looked over his shoulder for a long time, as if he'd heard something. Quent loosened the tomahawk at his waist. In the end the Mingo went on without stopping.

On the seventh day they neared a sprawling Shawnee camp erected beside a rapidly flowing stream.

"What do you think?" Corm asked.

"Make it a lot easier if we had a canoe." There were half a dozen beached beside the water. "I reckon we could steal one easily enough."

Cormac tapped his knapsack. He carried a rabbit and a brace of grouse shot that afternoon. "Better if we trade for one. Avoid having a war party coming after us."

Quent could feel the longing in Cormac, the need to let the Indian part of himself come to the surface. He could do that among the Shawnee, who were longtime allies of the Potawatomi. Besides, the Potawatomi were the most skilled canoeists among the Anis.h.i.+nabeg; they would make remarkably good time if they took to the waterways. Quent looked toward Nicole. She was standing a ways apart, staring at the Indian village with a look of frozen terror on her face. "What about her?"

"We take her with us. No other choice."

"I agree. But she's terrified of Indians. What's she going to make of it all?"

Cormac shrugged. "I don't rightly care. The squaws will look after her until we leave."

Chapter Five.

MONDAY, JUNE 22, 1754.

THE OHIO COUNTRY.

THE WIGWAM THE Shawnee squaws used for preparing food, like the others of the encampment, was framed with saplings and covered with bark. It was longer than it was wide and tall enough to stand up in, with a rounded roof that would shed rain.

But the night was balmy, a late June evening with a bright moon rising. The squaws sat on the ground in front of the cooking wigwam, some distance from the main fire and the braves. They crowded around Nicole, touching her hair and her face, stroking her arms as they fingered the material of her dress, caressing her ankles while examining the lacings of her boots. At first she protested and tried to shoo them away; after a time she grew silent and made herself stay limp, ignoring them and concentrating instead on Quentin Hale and Cormac Shea. The two men she had traveled with for a week were gone. In their place were a pair of savages.

Monsieur Shea was naked except for a breechclout. He wore beaded bracelets above and below each elbow and on his bare legs. His hair hung loose and he had feathers pinned to the back of his head. Monsieur Hale had no feathers and no bracelets, and his hair was too short for feathers, but he had stripped to only his buckskin trousers and his chest was bare except for an amulet that hung around his neck on a leather thong.

He had told her this was a summer camp; during the winter the Shawnee divided into bands of hunters and went their separate ways, but when summer approached they came together in places like this. "It's a big three-month family reunion. Pretty much anyone's welcome long as they're not an enemy."

"And you and Monsieur Shea, you are not enemies of these Shawnee?"

"No. Corm's half Potawatomi; they're distant kin of the Shawnee. And I'm Potawatomi by adoption. Besides, I'm not an enemy of any Indian."

"Not even the Iroquois?"

"Strictly speaking, not even them."

"And if we do not speak so strictly?"

Quent didn't look at her. "I'm English. Most of the Iroquois are English allies. That's enough for the time being."

"They are your allies against the French, you mean."

"That's what I mean."

Before she could reply he'd left her in the squaw's wigwam. The women had fed her and themselves after they fed the men. The smell of roasted meats-rabbit and grouse and possum-still hung in the air. A few feet away mangy, half-tamed dogs gnawed on the discarded bones of the meal. Dusk was fading to night, and behind the men lines of fish being smoked looked like so many bats hovering near the fire.

Nicole saw Quentin Hale lean forward. The flames lit his red hair. He looked like a demon. He said something to one of the Indians and the savage put back his head and guffawed. Nearby a couple of the squaws seemed to have heard what was said because they laughed too. Nicole s.h.i.+vered. Dear G.o.d, what will become of me in this place? Holy Virgin, protect me.

"You are pleased to see the men of your tribe like Real People, neya?"

The voice whispering in her ear spoke English, but the smell-like peppermint, Nicole thought-was of squaw. Nicole turned her head and saw a woman of perhaps forty, maybe older. Her face was lined and she was missing some teeth, but her hair was still s.h.i.+ny black. She wore it across her shoulder in a single braid that ended with a cl.u.s.ter of iridescent bird feathers. The woman wore beaded bracelets that covered both arms and a short buckskin dress. She reached out and stroked Nicole's cheek. "Two strong braves. Which one do you lie with? Both maybe?"

"I don't. With neither. It's a sin to ... Stop that! Stop poking me."

"I am saying h.e.l.lo, only. I forgot that white women do not touch each other." The squaw withdrew her hand. "I have been away from whites for the coming of many summers. I am Torayana. Once I was with a white man. For many summers, many years. When he died I returned to my own people."

Nicole looked from the squaw to the men sitting in a circle around the huge fire. The Indians were all as naked as Cormac, and as decorated with bracelets and feathers. The men, braves she supposed she should call them, all had long hair and wore feathers fixed to the back of their heads. A few days ago Monsieur Hale had told her that among many Indian tribes male babies had a board strapped to their heads so their skulls would flatten and make a firm place to anchor the feathers. "That's one way to tell the tribe they belong to, and the clan within the tribe, by the feathers they wear."

The night was warm and the heat of the leaping flames was fierce. All the same, she could not stop s.h.i.+vering.

Torayana fetched a blanket and put it around Nicole's shoulders. It smelled of Indian, musky and foreign, but Nicole was grateful for it. "Tonight," the squaw whispered, "if I were still young and good to look at, I would offer myself to Uko Nyakwai. I would lie on my back and spread my legs and ask him to cover me in the white man's way. Ayee! What a thing to have Uko Nyakwai bouncing up and down on top of me and his man part inside me. After a hundred fires my sisters would not be tired of hearing that story. Not after a thousand, neya?"

Torayana's face was flushed and sweat beaded her upper lip. "To be Uko Nyakwai's woman," she whispered, "that would be exciting. They say his man part is as thick as his arm and almost as long. They say that Shoshanaya nearly died of fright the first time she saw his man part. But afterward, he pleased her so much that she offered herself to him night and day. The other one"-she tossed her head toward Cormac-"he is also fine. I would offer him my back pa.s.sage gladly. But he is not Uko Nyakwai, neya?"

"Uko Ny ..." Nicole struggled to p.r.o.nounce the words.

"Uko Nyakwai." Torayana spoke more slowly. "It is the Indian name of the man you call Hale. It means Red Bear."

"And the squaw named Shoshanaya, she was his woman?"

"His wife," Torayana said proudly. "The marrying words were said over them in a Jesus house. She was an Ottawa princess. Her father was Rec.u.msah, a great Ottawa chief. He gave his daughter to Uko Nyakwai, and Red Bear brought her to his father's land and they were together for seven moons. Until one night when a war party of Huron came." Torayana turned her head and spat on the ground to take the taste of the enemy's name from her mouth. "When they found Shoshanaya alone in the wigwam Uko Nyakwai had built for her each of them violated her, though she did not offer herself to even one. Then, before they were done, Uko Nyakwai returned and his rage was so great he ripped a tree from the ground and used it to kill each of the Huron braves who had forced himself on Shoshanaya. But he was too late to save her. Her spirit was too shamed to stay in her body. She was carrying Uko Nyakwai's son and she took his small spirit with her and they both left this earth."

"But why did the Huron braves do such a thing?"

Torayana shrugged. "They say earlier there was some kind of fight and Uko Nyakwai killed a Huron who was stealing. They say it was the dead Huron's brothers who went to the land of Uko Nyakwai's father. They say it was for vengeance, but who knows why men do anything, neya? Anyway, Huron are filth." She spat again. "Look, see that brave there?" She pointed to a man who had risen and was standing beside the fire speaking. All the others were listening to him intently. "He is Pontiac, an Ottawa like Shoshanaya. He is part of her clan, the son of Rec.u.msah's brother."

Quent could feel the women studying him. He glanced in Nicole's direction. He was pleased to see her wrapped in a blanket and chatting with one of the squaws, though he guessed they were talking about him.

No one else was paying any attention to the women; they were listening to Pontiac. "If we forget the old ways, what will become of us? We will sink deeper into the pit we dig for ourselves with the white man's weapons and his tools and his firewater. Soon we will no longer be sickened by his stink." Pontiac's tawny skin was bathed in the fire's glow, and the clan feathers pinned to his head were haloed by smoke. His hair was long like the Shawnees', and around his neck was a stone carved with the sign of the turtle. The amulet around Quent's neck was the same. Shoshanaya's father had given it to him.

"It is time to put aside our differences and remember that we are red men and that the whites are our common enemy," Pontiac said. "We must circulate no war belts against the Anis.h.i.+nabeg. We must unite to fight only those who would drive us from our lands and destroy our way of life." He turned and looked directly at Quent, still squatting beside the brave he'd been joking with a few moments before. "Look what has become of us. We allow white men to take our women. And because they are too weak to protect them, our squaws become wh.o.r.es for our enemies."

Quent got to his feet. He towered over the Ottawa, but he knew that did not mean the fight would be an easy one. Pontiac was known for his strength and his cunning. Quent felt the dirk against his lower spine, but he did not immediately reach for it. "Pontiac speaks like a child who steals the nuts and tells his elders he has killed the squirrel."

"I am not a child, Uko Nyakwai. And I do not mistake nuts for a squirrel." The Ottawa's head barely reached Quent's chin, but his shoulders were as wide as a bull's, and the muscles in his chest and his arms rippled when he moved. No one came armed to a talking fire like this one, but Pontiac had used his knife to cut the meat of the earlier feast. It was stuck in the ground at his feet. He bent and retrieved it.

"I smoked the calumet with Rec.u.msah," Quent said quietly. "I cannot now fight with you over the same wrong."

"I was not at the ceremony and you did not smoke with me." Pontiac reached up and yanked the turtle amulet from around Quent's neck and flung it on the ground.

Quent had no choice now. He'd have to fight Pontiac. If he killed him, Rec.u.msah would howl with rage and declare Quent an enemy of all the Ottawa. It was unthinkable. "I have no quarrel with you, Pontiac, son of the brother of Rec.u.msah. Pick up the amulet and return it to me and we will put this moment on the fire and turn it to smoke."

"I have a quarrel with you, Uko Nyakwai. You do not stink like a white man, but you cannot escape your white skin. What's worse, you are English. Your kind wants more than the hearts and bodies of the Anis.h.i.+nabeg, more than our hunting skill to feed your endless hunger for skins. The English want our land and that is our soul. One less of you will be a good thing."

Quent reached behind and palmed the dirk. He felt Cormac's eyes on him and knew Corm was tensed and ready. No one would interfere with the fight until after Pontiac was dead. Then they would be furious because the visiting Ottawa had died at a Shawnee fire during a time of peace, and the Shawnee would have to pay huge reparations to Rec.u.msah's clan in apology. As soon as that realization sank in, the Shawnee would be blind with rage and a free-for-all would begin. It would be the sixteen braves against him and Corm. Their long guns were stacked with all the other weapons some ten strides to their left. The girl was twenty strides in the opposite direction, surrounded by Shawnee squaws who could be as fierce as the braves when the need arose. Sweet Christ, what a mess.

Pontiac lunged at him. Quent feinted. He brought the dirk up in his clenched fist and the tip grazed the Indian's shoulder and drew blood.

"Stop!" The voice of the brave called Teconsala was not loud, but all heard it. "Stop," he said again, and Quent and Pontiac backed a few steps away from each other. Neither man was breathing hard, but blood trickled down Pontiac's naked torso from the wound on his right shoulder.

"This is a fire of summer peace and none here have any quarrel with Pontiac or Uko Nyakwai," Teconsala said. "You will settle your differences in another time and place. Not here."

Teconsala was not a full chief, but he was the senior brave present at the camp. And apparently the coolest head. The others nodded and murmured agreement. The pleasure of watching a death fight between two such warriors had to be weighed against the size of the reparations required if Pontiac should be the one killed. Teconsala gave good counsel.

"I have lost blood," Pontiac said, gesturing toward his shoulder. "I am due payment."

"This is true." Teconsala looked at the white man whom the Potawatomi had adopted. Let us see if your courage is really that of the bear they call you, man of the red hair. "Pontiac is ent.i.tled to one cut in return. It can be anywhere he chooses." He could have restricted the area for the vengeance cut, said it must not be a death thrust or a cut that took away Uko Nyakwai's manhood. He had set no such limit. Now the Red Bear was wholly at Pontiac's mercy. "You agree, Uko Nyakwai?"

"Teconsala speaks fairly and with wisdom. I agree." Quent opened his hand and let the dirk fall to the ground. He stood where he was with his legs spread, arms hanging loose at his side, and stared straight ahead.

Pontiac took a step toward him. His knife was a honed piece of flint, and it was sharpened to an edge that could slice easily through aged leather. He held it in his right hand to show that he cared nothing for the pain of the wound in his shoulder. Pontiac aimed his weapon at Quent's heart.

Quent looked past the Indian into the fire. He opened himself and allowed his spirit to leave his body and fly far. In his head he sang the death song he had composed as a boy, under the guidance of Bishkek, his manhood father, the old brave who had helped him become a Potawatomi and a man. Whiteness. Snow covering the earth. A spirit soaring free.

Pontiac waited, studying Red Bear's face, trying to engage his eyes but failing. The only sound was the crackling of burning logs.

Pontiac did not strike. He dropped his knife until it no longer pointed at his enemy's heart but at his groin.

Castration. A fitting punishment for a man who could not protect his Ottawa squaw and allowed the Huron to defile her. Quent did not move. Whiteness and a free spirit.

Pontiac s.h.i.+fted his weight forward and slashed. At the last second he moved the blade so it merely grazed the hard muscled flesh of Quent's side. Deep enough to draw blood, but nothing more. Pontiac wiped the flint on his wounded shoulder, signifying that he was repaid for the loss of his own blood, then sheathed it at his waist. He bent down and retrieved the turtle amulet and the dirk and handed both to Quent. "These are yours, Uko Nyakwai. I heard your death song as it was in the air between us. It was a good song, like the softest snow is good. Perhaps I will kill you one day to avenge Shoshanaya, but not here and not like this."

Quent drew a long deep breath and slowly, with pain, his spirit returned to his body.

The others watched and waited, knowing that Uko Nyakwai had faced certain death and that he must be given time to recover. After a few seconds a shudder pa.s.sed through him. Teconsala saw and nodded to the drummers and the dancing began.

The feet of the men shuffled slowly at first, then the beat of the drums became faster and the dance quickened. A singer, a young boy, added his voice and at various times the braves sang with him. Quent sang too. The beat of the drums entered his blood, making his heart beat with their rhythm.

The squaws got to their feet and began to sway in time to the music and the dance. Torayana pulled Nicole up beside her. "It is a mark of disrespect to stay on the ground when the dance begins. Now," she whispered urgently, "you must choose."

"What do you mean? I-"

"Who will you have, a Shawnee brave or one of the two you came with? If you do not choose, it means you will accept only a chief. Tonight that would mean you belonged to Teconsala. Or if he wanted, he could give you as a gift to Pontiac. By not choosing for yourself you will give him that right."

The dance was a whir of speed now and the singing was a high-pitched frenzy that to Nicole sounded only like a wail. "You are mad. I will not lie with any man. I have made a vow."

Torayana's dark eyes widened. "You are a virgin. Ayee! What a prize!"

Nicole tried to duck back into the protection of the wigwam, but Torayana grabbed her arm and held it so tightly she could not get away. "No! That means only that you invite Teconsala."

Quent saw the scuffle from the corner of his eye, but he didn't focus on what it might mean. His entire being was one with the music and the dance. His life had been returned to him and his body sang with the joy and the desire and the need of the drums. The first time he'd danced he'd been thirteen years old, newly made a Potawatomi man because he had earned the right. That time he'd been embarra.s.sed by the reaction the drums and the dance produced until he saw that all the dancing braves had the same response. And in moments a squaw had chosen him-an older woman whose b.r.e.a.s.t.s sagged and who had few teeth. She led him away to the woods and squatted for him, showing him how to mount her from the rear. He'd lost his virginity in a howl of excitement and triumph. Next time, she'd told him, he could have a young and beautiful squaw, and not shame himself by not knowing what to do.

The first of the squaws to break from the cl.u.s.ter of women in front of the Shawnee wigwam went to Pontiac and touched his shoulder. He followed her into the woods.

"Quick," Torayana whispered, "if you want Uko Nyakwai choose now. Otherwise one of the others will pick him." Her advice came too late. One of the squaws, the youngest and prettiest of them, darted forward and touched Quent's shoulder. He followed her into the trees without once looking back toward Nicole.

Torayana saw the terrified look on the white girl's face. She waited a second or two more until Cormac was in their direct line of sight, then gave Nicole a huge shove toward him. The girl stumbled into Cormac's dancing body. He grabbed her to keep her from falling, then picked her up and carried her away.

Chapter Six.

MONDAY, JUNE 29, 1754.

THE OHIO COUNTRY.

THE SEVEN MEN sat in a circle in a clearing hard by a small trading post known as Gist's Settlement. Was.h.i.+ngton and his civilian quartermaster, an Irishman transplanted to Virginia named George Croghan, were the only whites. The others were Tanaghrisson the Half King, a Delaware, two Mingo, and a Shawnee. According to Tanaghrisson, they were all war chiefs. So far they hadn't shown any stomach for the fight Was.h.i.+ngton urged.

The Virginian's foothold in the territory, the fort he'd erected on Great Meadows, was six leagues east. He'd left a hundred troops behind to guard it. The French were twelve leagues west at Fort Duquesne.

If he turned his head Was.h.i.+ngton could see the three hundred militiamen he'd brought with him. They were strung out in clumps of twenty or so, each working party with a distinct job: felling trees, hauling them out of the way, leveling the path, beating the raw earth into some semblance of a surface hard enough not to ensnare the broad wooden wheels of their transport. It was slogging, backbreaking, thankless work, and the men cursed and sweat and stank their way through it. All with one aim, to complete the road that would take them the rest of the way to the French fort. They had been about that same task for two weeks of hard days and exhausted nights with never enough time to sleep, inching through the forest with their supply wagons and their big swivel guns. Never mind, Was.h.i.+ngton told himself, success was a.s.sured. The men would thank him for it in the end and they would thank Almighty G.o.d they'd been privileged to serve with George Was.h.i.+ngton. There was glory in him; he could feel it in his bones. b.l.o.o.d.y d.a.m.n, he could taste it. But right now he needed to concentrate on the Indians.

b.l.o.o.d.y savages all of them, and Tanaghrisson the worst. An animal who washed his hands in another man's brains. In Christ's name ... Best not to think about it. Nearly a month now and no repercussions. No surprise from anyone when he reported that the Virginian musketry killed ten that day, including Jumonville, and afterwards the Indians scalped the dead. Everyone knows they do that. As for the French prisoners, they're spies and lie about everything. Any right-thinking person would take the word of George Was.h.i.+ngton of Virginia over a lying Frenchman. Put it out of mind Concentrate on what's happening right now. Tanaghrisson is right; it won't hurt to have the hatchets of these savages and their warriors on our side. Put the fear of the Almighty in the French. But G.o.d help me, it's a strange business to listen to a painted savage go on for over a quarter of an hour and not understand a word he's saying.