War Path (16 page)

Stark studied the officers in their scarlet coats and polished buttons, their periwigs and silver swords. Colonel Drennan waited. But he received even less of a salute than Rogers had accorded. In fact, Stark accorded the two Englishman none whatsoever. Rogers's eyes flashed his friend a warning. Stark shrugged it off. They had just returned from a morning's run through the woods on the opposite shore from Fort Edward. Standing here in the cold, his limbs were beginning to tighten up. He longed for a hot cup of strong black and perhaps a wedge of Christian cheese and a slab of Aunt Charity's fresh-baked bread.

“John Stark,” Sir Peter said, as if by saying the long hunter's name, he intended to remember it for future reference. “It is customary to remove your bonnet and salute those officers under whose command you have the honor to serve. I am sure you expect no less from the men who follow your lead.”

“Your pardon, Colonel, but the only thing I expect from my men is to bring the war to the French and the Abenaki. I expect them to kill the enemy before he can do the same to us.”

Ransom inwardly groaned at what the officer considered outrageous behavior. He'd receive an earful once he and Sir Peter Drennan had returned to their quarters within the fort. Stark could be brusque and damnably insubordinate. But the major had given up trying to break the man of it.

Instead, Ransom had chosen to put up with such conduct because he knew Stark and these Rangers had forced the French to worry about protecting their own settlements. These magnificent woodsmen and trackers were buying the major precious time, allowing him to remain within the ramparts and prepare for an eventual assault. He continued to seek reinforcements from General Amherst who was marshaling his forces to the east. Alas, thus far, the general had not chosen to comply with Ransom's requests. The major had hoped a man like Sir Peter might rectify the situation.

“See here,” Drennan began, staring up at the long hunter, incensed by his familiarity. “As long as you are in service to the crown.…” The heavy set officer's admonishment died aborning when the “youth” alongside Stark removed her bonnet and allowed her striking red hair to form a glorious cascade of thick curls and ringlets about her features and over her shoulders. Her eyes were as green as the dyed buckskins that covered her lithe frame.

“I … I … oh my … what is this? A woman? In colonial uniform and … commanding the king's troops?” Drennan's mouth dropped open as he searched for the proper words but failed. He could only turn once more to confront Michael Ransom, who sighed and shook his head, sensing his career was unraveling right before his very eyes.

Molly grinned, wiped a smudge of powder smoke from the tip of her nose, inadvertently smearing some across her cheek. She leaned on her long rifle and held out her hand. “Welcome to Fort Edward, Colonel!”

19

I
am marked by the beast. I have heard his spirit, along the Great War Path. I can mark his passing where the widows moan for their dead husbands, fathers for their slaughtered sons. But I am Atoan, and I have left my own mark upon the land. We stalk each other, following a trail of fire and blood.

I shoulder my war club, I gather my knife and musket. If it is to be, then let it be now. I am the Grand Sachem, the first in battle, the last to leave the bone fields of the dead. Spirits above me, shadows under my feet. But I am not afraid. The voice of the wind sings in my heart and I am filled with courage. Hear me, Kiwaskwek, one of us must die, before long.

But which of us? And yet … who are you? And why does Mahom whisper your name? A man should know his enemy.

The dream faded as the man awoke.

Atoan knew what he had to do. He rose from his blankets and moved silently about the crudely constructed longhouse where many of his warriors were sprawled in sleep. He carefully picked his way among the sleeping forms, moving with the grace and agility of a hunting cat; the war chief gathered his weapons, his shot pouch, and powder flask, and stole through the woven-rush door.

The gray light of predawn gripped him with invisible talons of ice. He sucked in his breath at the first caress, continued past the smoldering embers of yesterday's cookfire and crossed unannounced through the camp until he reached the fringes of the Abenaki encampment where he paused, a man facing east, and began to chant softly to himself the welcoming prayer before the first light.

Mother earth, listen to my heart's song.

Release the golden one that the earth

might be healed.

My eyes, healed.

All that was broken

by the dark of night,

made whole.

As the winter sun edged above the wooded crest of distant mountains, Kasak emerged from the longhouse to find his father, standing on the shore of a frozen creek where the ice-crusted waters flowed out of a forested hillside a quarter of a mile from Fort Carillon and well out of sight of their French allies.

Back in the compound, the Abenaki had begun to bestir themselves. Smoke began to curl from the tops of the huts and lodges where the cookfires within were vented through the roof. One look at Atoan's rigid features and his stiffened gesture of welcome and Kasak could tell his father had been up for at least an hour, keeping vigil in the bitter chill of the fast approaching daylight.

“Father …” The younger man rubbed the sleep from his eyes and yawned, then reminded himself the next time he ventured outside he needed to bring the great coat Barbarat had presented him with only a few weeks earlier. Atoan was too suspicious of the French. And too proud, Kasak thought, to fully realize the profits to be gained from their alliance with Barbarat.

Atoan shook his head, motioned for him to be quiet. He gestured for his son to stand at his side. Winter lay upon the land, draped the white pines and the spruce and fir with a mantle of freshly fallen snow. The air was still and intensely quiet and each and every sound from camp rode the stillness unfettered, undistorted by distance and the terrain. Colonel Lucien Barbarat had ordered the Abenaki to make their camp in the shadow of the great walls of Fort Carillon but Atoan's will was iron.

Kasak could not see any wisdom in refusing the French officer and that dissatisfaction underscored his words. “We ought to be warming ourselves by the cookfires of our French brothers. The long guns that guard their soldiers can protect us as well. And
La Marines
have plenty of food to eat. Barbarat has offered to feed us inside the fort.”

“Gagwi gedidam!
What is that you say?” Atoan hissed. “Have the Abenaki become like children and the French our mothers, that we must suck at their teats?” The Grand Sachem shook his head and sighed. It was as if his very spirit clouded the air before his lips, billowed and disappeared into the crisp cold light of morning. “When the Abenaki can no longer feed themselves, when the Abenaki must crouch beneath French guns for safety, on that day I will have lived too long.”

“My father twists my words,” Kasak exclaimed. “No white man runs me.”

“We shall see,” Atoan replied. “Remember, my son. We walk the French road because it suits us. The guns they give us shoot straight …” He reached out and tapped the hilt of the dirk Kasak kept sheathed at his side. “… And their steel cuts true and does not snap. Today we use them on the
Anglais
, but tomorrow … May our grandfathers' spirits give us guidance.”

“We shall see,” Kasak said, unconvinced and mimicking his father's earlier reply. The brash young warrior had witnessed firsthand the French cannoneers at the siege of Fort William Henry, how the iron guns eventually broke the walls and then the courage of the defenders and forced them out, and put them within reach of Abenaki tomahawks. “But why do you stand here? Who are you looking for?”

The war chief lifted his gaze to the way south.
The beast awaits
. “Send runners to the Huron, the Seneca, and Chippewa. Have them carry belts of wampum to our brothers and tell them to gather with us at St. Francis Village, above the Place of Thunder. Tell them we seek to hold council with all the People of the Green Mountains, and that we seek to unite with our brothers and strike the white eyes with one hand.

Now it was Kasak's time to worry. He frowned and stepped back and for the first time realized his father was dressed for the trail, armed with a rifle and 'hawk but little else. Atoan intended to travel light and fast, trap what food he might need along the way, and live close to the land that he knew would sustain him.

“I have walked in a dream. The One Spirit,
Mahom
, has shown me what I must do.
Kiwaskwek
must die. Or we must die. One or the other. But to kill the beast, I must know him first.”

“Then I will go with you,” Kasak flatly stated. He had fought Stark once, briefly, remembered his humiliating defeat all to well. The deer hunter still had claim to the young warrior's life.

“No,” Atoan retorted, more sharply than he had intended. “It is for me to go alone.”

“Why?”

“I have spoken,” Atoan said in a tone that demanded obedience. He looked past his son, saw that more of the Abenaki had begun to stir and venture out into the cold. Soon all the fires would be rekindled and the day begun in earnest. These things were good. He took courage in them. His gaze settled on his troubled offspring. He placed his hand on Kasak's shoulder. “Why?” he gently repeated his son's grave question. “Because it was not your dream.”

20

I
saw it move beyond the campfire, just a shadow, mind you. But I sensed it was stalking me. I waited a mighty long time, until a powerful thirst came over me. When I could not stand it any longer, I rose up and headed off through the forest.” A half circle of firelit faces surrounded the big man whose powerful torso strained the seams of his homespun hunting shirt. A shaggy, silver-flecked mane framed his rugged countenance, and when he shook his head, it was as if some beast of the woods were stretching and testing the air for scent. Bold, indomitable, seemingly fearless … this was a man.

“Bloody hell if it didn't follow me down to the creek bank,” Big John Stark continued, playing the account for maximum effect. “I'd take a step or two, and hear it move. I held up and give a listen and there it'd be, not just keeping pace, but closing in. And me with damp powder and no way to fire a single shot.”

The tavern was eerily quiet, the usually noisy gathering held spellbound by the tone and tenor of the tale-teller's voice. Each of the listeners pictured the encounter in their own way, personalizing the terror.

“I knelt and slaked my thirst and when I stood, the clouds parted and the new moon shone big and round and bone-white, and lit the night, clear as day. And that's when I saw … it.…” said Johnny Stark, in a gravelly voice, the legacy of a bout with the grippe that had laid him low for the latter part of December.

With the year coming to an end, he'd only recently thrown off the malady. He coughed now and then, but he was gaining strength every day thanks to Molly's expert tending and Aunt Charity's breakfasts. Every morning a hearty bowl of Indian meal served steaming hot with molasses and butter and washed down with strong black tea or hard cider, what man wouldn't mend on such a regimen? But despite the winter's lull, and his own congested lungs, Stark never doubted come spring he would once again carry the war to the French along the Great War Path.

“Well what was it? Man or beast?” Locksley Barlow blurted out, his youthful features flush from the copious amounts of rum he had swilled to guard against the chill of night. Beyond the walls of Kit Fox Tavern, the north wind prowled, swirling the sodden snowflakes as they drifted down. Unseen fingers tapped the signboard hanging over the front door. The wooden placard swung to and fro, chains creaking as the iron links scraped against the wooden pole from which the signboard dangled.

The wheel-rutted streets of Fort Edward were for the most part deserted. There was no one without the comforting log walls to read the weathered words inscribed upon the bill and those within the tavern knew by heart the greeting scrawled upon the signboard's ashen face.

KIT FOX TAVERN

OH WE CAN MAKE LIQUOR TO SWEETEN OUR LIPS
,

OF PUMPKINS, OF PARSNIPS
,

OF WALNUT TREE CHIPS
.

It was a grand night for keeping close to a hearth and cleaving to the light, for there might be ghosts abroad this night, or so the gray wind warned with a moan and a sigh.

“A beast,” Stark replied, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the men and women gathered around his table, their features reflecting the flames that leaped and danced as the embers crackled within the confines of the hearth. The tavern crowd was made up of Rangers and townsmen. The young men like Locksley Barlow were gathered close at hand. While Sam Oday and Moses Shoemaker, the older men sat off to the side, enjoying how these younkers sat poised on stools and ladder-backed chairs, enraptured by Stark's exploits.

Tess McDonagel, the proprietress, full-breasted with a toothy smile and an earthy sexuality that a man could bloody near drink in like they did her hot-buttered rum, made her way through the crowd, refilling the pewter mugs of her customers from a heavy stoneware pitcher. Her favored drink for a night like this was made with rum from the Indies steeped in a black kettle with heavy cream, butter, molasses, sugar, cinnamon and clove.

But as Stark progressed with his account, even Tess paused in her rounds, eyes wide, full lips slightly parted, astonished by the story. She was just about the finest-looking lass in the settlement and there wasn't a man jack among her patrons who didn't think so.

Just
about
… indeed. But there was another who could hold her own with the likes of the buxom tavern keeper.