Shadowbrook (63 page)

Pontiac had been with the war party three years before that had invaded Pickawillany, slaughtered every Miami there, and finally put Memetosia’s grandson Memeskia into a pot and cooked and eaten him. Corm knew that. And he’d known it would be mentioned. He had a reply ready. “In the past the
Anishinabeg
had many reasons to be enemies of each other, to fight each other. Now, if they continue in that way, they will all die.”

Pontiac threw down the bundled arrows. “This is a waste of time. Cormac Shea comes to my war camp to tell me things I already know.”

“But I bring things others do not know.” Once more Cormac touched the medicine bag. “There is snow on the ground and the
Cmokmanuk
stay in their forts and do not fight. It is a time for a wise war sachem like Pontiac to think and listen and make plans.”

Pontiac was silent for a time. Then he nodded and turned and summoned one of the squaws standing nearby. “Prepare a place where I and my little brother Cormac the Potawatomi of Singing Snow may speak further of important things. Later we will eat.”

Pontiac spread a blanket on the ground between them. It was the color of blood, with a bright blue border, and he arranged it with his own hands, not calling on a squaw or one of the younger braves to do it for him. Something in the Ottawa chief recognized that Cormac’s Crane People medicine bag contained a unique treasure. Instinctively Pontiac paid it honor.

Corm waited until everything was ready, then he squatted and removed the medicine bag from around his neck and placed it in the middle of the blood-red blanket.

“Wait,” Pontiac said. “First we will smoke.”

More honor. Cormac did not allow his impatience to show. Pontiac lit the pipe, drew deeply, then passed it to Cormac. Corm sucked in the tobacco smoke, then opened his mouth and let it drift into the air of the waning afternoon.

“The calumet means peace,” the Ottawa said. “It may be some time before we smoke again.”

“This is a
Cmokmanuk
war. Why should the Anishinabeg spill their blood to serve the white man’s ends?”

“You too are a white man, Cormac the métis.”

“I am a bridge person. Inside me is a Potawatomi brave.”

Pontiac nodded. “Since the
Cmokmanuk
came, there are many like you.”

“Not so many.” Cormac passed the pipe back to Pontiac and waited until the other man had smoked before continuing. “Now, in the peace of the calumet, I ask that the great chief of the Elder Brothers listen to me with both his ears.” Pontiac’s glance went to the medicine bag, but Cormac was not yet ready to show him what was inside. “The others, most of them, they fight to gain honor and captives and take back to their village many scalps and much treasure. But I do not think those are Pontiac’s reasons.”

“Fighting is our way.” The Ottawa’s tone was mild. “We are warriors.”

It was Cormac’s turn to smoke, but he did not immediately take the pipe. “
Co,
not this time. This is a
Cmokmanuk
war.”

“You speak truth, little métis brother. But they are everywhere, they live among us like the mosquitoes, always biting, sucking our blood.” Pontiac turned the bowl of the calumet into his hand and tapped the live ash into his palm, then rubbed it into the earth beside him. The time for smoking had passed; it was time to talk of whatever had brought Cormac Shea to his camp and whatever was in the Miami medicine bag. “A wise war sachem chooses his enemies at least as well as he chooses his friends. The English are like great dog turds that make a stink in every direction. The French are not flowers, but they stink less.”

“Because they do not take so much land?”

“They take whatever they can get, but they do not prize it as much or hold it as long. The French are like trees with shallow roots: they can be moved. The English are like oaks: once planted, their roots reach to the middle of the earth.”

The sun was dropping and both men felt the chill of the approaching evening. They could see the fires of the campsite, but not feel their heat. The cooking smells reached them, and the sounds of children playing a game that involved a repetitive chant and then many shouts. “It grows late, little brother. Say what you have come here to say.”

Cormac summoned all his strength. “The last time we met you spoke of the need for the
Anishinabeg
to honor the old ways.” Pontiac nodded. Cormac
reached for the medicine bag and loosened the drawstring. “I have here a gift from the past. From the original ways of the
Anishinabeg.
” He tipped the Suckáuhock into his palm, then one by one he placed each of the dark purple Súki beads on the blanket.

They looked small and inconsequential on the square of scarlet, but Pontiac instantly recognized their great age and remarkable workmanship.
“Ayi …”
His sigh of pleasure came from somewhere deep in his belly. “They are beautiful. Memetosia the Miami chief gave these to you?”

“Ahaw.”

“Why?”

“I have asked myself that many times. I do not know the answer for certain, but I think it can only be that he was obeying a message sent to him in a dream.”

Pontiac nodded. There could be no other reason for a chief full of age and wisdom, even a chief of the Miami, to give such a marvel to a member of another tribe that had nothing to do with his. And a métis at that. “
Ahaw.
That must be so.”

Pontiac leaned forward and reached for one of the beads. Cormac grabbed his wrist. The Ottawa stiffened at the insult and started to pull away. “Wait,” Cormac said. “I beg my Elder Brother to forgive my impertinence and to listen with both ears. I too have been sent a dream. In fact, two dreams. One I had while I was awake. The other came while I was sleeping.” He let go of Pontiac’s wrist and waited. It could be that he’d be in a fight for his life. Not that he’d have a chance in this camp of braves sworn to follow Pontiac, but he’d take a few of them with him before he went. Corm’s hand didn’t move, but it was directly in line with the tomahawk at his waist.

It seemed for a moment that neither man breathed. Then Pontiac spoke. “Tell me the sleeping dream.”

There would be no fight, not here and not now.

I feel a great blackness between us, Ottawa, yet we have no quarrel. And I have a mission so I must put these thoughts out of my head. The future will come whatever I think or feel. My only course is to follow the dream. “There was a hawk,” he began, “and a river of blood.” He told of the little birds and the white bear and the white wolf.

Pontiac listened without speaking. When Cormac was finished he asked, “And the waking dream? What was that?”

“It came to me after I had fasted and meditated for many days. If the French could be driven from the north country, the place they call Canada, all the
Anishinabeg
could have that as their homeland. The English could stay here in the south, and we would both live according to our own laws and customs. And both would survive because of the separation.”

Pontiac turned his head and looked at the woodlands surrounding them. Dusk had drained the fiery autumn color from the leaves, but the beauty of the place was still apparent. “You would give the dog turds all this?”

“I would give them what is necessary to allow the
Anishinabeg
to survive.”

The Ottawa nodded. “In that, I agree with you. There is no doubt we are fighting for our survival. Only those who see no farther than the tips of their fingers mistake this war for anything else.”

It was time for the hard choices to be made. Cormac picked up one of the Súki beads and placed it in the open palm of the hand he stretched toward the Ottawa. There was just enough light left to see the carving. “
Papankamwa,
the fox. I wish Pontiac to accept this. If he does, it will be his forever.”

The Ottawa did not take it. “In return for what? In the old days Suckáuhock was used as we use wampum. Is my little brother asking me to accept a war belt?”

“It is a no-war belt. I am asking that Pontiac lead his braves and his people to where they can wait for the end of the war between the French and the English. And that he take this as well.” Cormac picked up the bead that was carved with the spider symbol and placed it too in the palm of his outstretched hand. “Bring it to Alhanase, the Huron war chief who also fights with Onontio. Tell him what I have told you, and ask that the Huron, like the Ottawa, retire from this war and leave the
Cmokmanuk
to kill each other without our help.”

“So that in the end we can all go to the frozen land of ice and snow and the
Cmokmanuk
get our homeland.” Pontiac spread his arms wide to indicate the woods of the Ohio Country where his ancestors had been since the Great Spirit put them on this earth. “In the end the dog turds get what is ours.”

“In the end we survive.” Cormac could feel in his belly that Pontiac did not believe in the meaning of the dreams. He was in turmoil, but despite what he felt and the length of time he had held out the hand offering the Suckáuhock, Cormac’s arm did not tremble. He held it steady, as if he were passing it over Potawatomi the Sacred Fire, proving the strength of his manhood. “The fox and the spider are for the Ottawa and the Huron. I myself will take the racoon to the Abenaki.”

“And you think they will make you welcome and agree to do what you ask?”

“I think they will rejoice at the thought of land they no longer need to share with intruders who bring them disease and trouble and wars not of their making.”

“But there will still be
Cmokmanuk
here. The English are to remain, according to your dream.”

“Not in Canada. It is a vast place. There is room for all of the
Anishinabeg
to hunt in Canada.”

“It is a frozen place,” Pontiac insisted. “Mostly snow.”

“Not all the year and not all of it. And the hunting is magnificent.”

Pontiac made a sound in his throat that represented a grudging sort of agreement. “The sickness, and the white man’s goods that the Real People now believe they cannot do without … knives made of metal not flint, clothing of cloth not skins, firewater, none of that will have gone away.”

“Those
Anishinabeg
who wish to continue to trade with the
Cmokmanuk
will do so. We must make a new way for the future, Elder Brother. We cannot change the past.”

“And the other beads?” Pontiac was looking at the four beads on the blanket.

“They are for the Lenape and the Kahniankehaka.”

“Shingas and Scarouady,” Pontiac said, knowing immediately the chiefs Cormac had in mind. “Who will speak to them? Not you, I think. Uko Nyakwai?”

“He knows them better than you or I.”

Pontiac turned his head and spat on the grass. “He is not even half
Anishinabeg.
”

“He is a full Potawatomi brave by adoption. That has always been our way. Does Pontiac deny the right of a tribe to adopt whom they will?”

Pontiac didn’t look at Cormac, but he shook his head. He couldn’t deny truth.

“You know that Uko Nyakwai wears the amulet given him by the great chief Recumsah, your uncle. Whatever your quarrel with my brother the Red Bear, it is not—”

“My quarrel is that he is
Cmokman.
And English.”

Neither fact could be denied. Better to let go the matter of Pontiac’s animosity toward Quent. His arm was on fire, still stretched in front of him; he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold the position, but if he put down the beads he had conceded the advantage. “The
Anishinabeg
can survive in Canada. If we remain as we are, the French and the English will crush us between them.” They were Quent’s words, but Cormac knew none better.

Pontiac continued to ignore the offer of the Súki beads. “For your plan to succeed the English must win this war. Even if both sides fight without our braves, how can you be sure of that?”

“The English have more men and more guns and more food and—”

“And they fight for more,” Pontiac said quietly. “They fight for the right to land, and for the English, land hunger can never be satisfied.”

“They will agree that we have Canada,” Cormac insisted. “If it means they must fear no further attack from any of the
Anishinabeg
they will agree. Does Pontiac agree?” The Suckáuhock was still on offer in his outstretched palm.

“Is it enough,” Pontiac asked softly, “to say I will try to see how this thing can be made to work?”

Cormac did not hesitate. “It is enough.”

Pontiac reached over and took the two beads. Cormac’s palm was empty, but he did not immediately drop his arm. “My Elder Brother is sure?”

Pontiac watched the hand that remained stretched out toward him. He spoke slowly, knowing the test was not over until he said the final word, wondering how much longer the métis could hold out, half wanting him to fail, half impressed with his strength. “Your Elder Brother is sure that he will examine this thing in all its parts, and try to make it real. The north for us. The south for them.” Pontiac hesitated as long as he dared. If he forced the trial beyond its natural limits it no longer counted for anything. “I will try,” he said at last.