Shadowbrook (35 page)

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 Suckáuhock to you, not to me. I do not have to burden my eyes with it. The Midè priest, you are sure he was called Takito?”

“That’s what my friend the Piankashaw métisse 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 Midé 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 Midè 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 anticipated 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 Anishinabeg, 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 Midè priest was involved in all the trouble. Another Midè 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 lust 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 whore. 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, God 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 God’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 Québec 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.

Sweet Jesus. Twelve hours at least, and he’d kept up a steady trot, without a break. He’d never have imagined she could maintain such a pace. “What about those clothes?” he demanded. “Where did you get them?”

“I found the clothes some time ago, in the room where your maman keeps the household linens. I think you must have known they were there, since you gave me the moccasins.”

“Yes, I knew. But—”

“I had to take them,” she interrupted. “I left a note for Madame Hale, to apologize. But I could not go off with you, wearing one of the beautiful dresses she
gave me. I thought you would take a horse. I would need—” She glanced down at Pohantis’s leggings.

“You can’t ride a horse in woods like these.” He nodded toward the thick forest all around them. “The Indians will take a different route, but I know where they’re headed. I’ll get there faster on foot.”

“All the same, to go with you these are better clothes.”

“You cannot go with me whatever you’re wearing. Do you have any idea what I’m about to—No, of course you don’t. But that doesn’t matter either. You have to return to the house, Nicole. We’re still on the Patent. It’s safe enough.”

“I do not know my way back. I told you, I followed you; I didn’t pay attention to the trail. And how safe can it be if a band of murdering savages attacked us?”

“You can’t come with me. It’s out of the question.”

“I kept up with you all night and most of this morning. And you didn’t know I was there.” She couldn’t keep the pride from her voice. She had kept up with Uko Nyakwai, the Red Bear. She’d driven herself to the point of almost total exhaustion, to where she thought she couldn’t take another step, and then she’d taken ten more. And not once had she forgotten the woods lore she had learned from Quent and Monsieur Shea in six weeks of trekking with them. How to be silent, how to stay dose enough to see but not be seen. “I kept up.”

“Yes, you did.” He had to admit his admiration for what she’d done. Wrong and pointless though it was, it was remarkable, and she was indeed what he’d suspected from the first moment he saw her up close, ripping up her petticoat to stanch the blood of a wounded soldier. Much woman. Very much woman.

“And you didn’t know I was there.”

He couldn’t let her continue to believe that. Not because of his pride but because to overestimate your strength is to be weak. “I knew someone was there. Only not that it was you.” Still, she deserved to know how well she’d done. “I thought it was a man.”

She needed to sit down. The water had helped, but she had eaten only the few mouthfuls she could grab as they passed by some highbush blueberries. She needed desperately to rest, but she couldn’t give in to her need until she was sure he would take her north. “Then it’s settled. You will take me to Québec. That’s the direction you’re going, isn’t it? You’re heading north.” She’d remembered what he and Monsieur Shea always said, the thickest bark and the heaviest concentration of moss were on the northern side of the trunk.

“Yes, I am. But … Confound it, Nicole, look at you.” Her face was as white as her clothes, and her legs, were trembling with fatigue. “You’re half dead with thirst and exhaustion, and we’re nowhere near where we have to go.”

“I came all through the Ohio Country, didn’t I? With you and Monsieur Shea. And you never heard me complain, or—”

“Exactly. With me and Corm. We could take turns helping you, and we weren’t in that much of a hurry. But now there’s a man’s life at—”

“You must take me north, Quent.” She would not listen to his explanations. “I must go and if you will not take me, I will go alone.” She would probably die in these woods, but surely
le bon Dieu
would accept that sacrifice.

Quent watched the play of emotion on her beautiful face. He took a step in her direction and reached out for her. Nicole backed away. “Don’t,” she whispered. “I am sorry. Truly. But you must not.”

She sounded the way she had when he’d found her in the cave behind the waterfall. He let his arms drop to his sides. “Nicole, you have to trust me. If there’s to be anything real between us, anything that lasts, you have to believe that I know what’s best. I can’t talk about it now. Whatever the problem is, whatever you’ve become afraid of, I can’t address it until I have gone where I have to go and done what I have to do. You must return to the house and wait for me there.”