War Path (19 page)

“The devil take you and your orders!” the big man snapped, color creeping into his sun-bronzed features. “There's a time to follow the footpath along with everyone else and a time to blaze your own way.”

“Ransom will toss you in the stockade for this.” Rogers began to rub his forehead. This obstinate long hunter was a headache. There was simply no reasoning with the man. “Then again, Cassius Fargo or one of his cousins might shoot your lights out. You'll find no friends in Cowslip.”

“I won't be looking for any.” Stark worked the latch on the door, swung it open and sucked in his breath as a gust of cold wind flooded the sitting room, ruffled the lace-trimmed cloth that covered the end tables, set the tongues of fire lapping at the firebricks. Stark heard the sound of a pistol being cocked behind him. He glanced over his shoulder. Robert Rogers had drawn his pistol and leveled it at the towering individual in the doorway.

“I could stop you,” Rogers said, eyes narrowing.

“I don't think so,” John Stark quietly replied, staring at the pistol. His own grip tightened on the rifle in his hand but he had yet to raise the barrel to answer the threat. His smouldering gaze read Robert Rogers like a book. In the silence, Rogers reached his decision. He had wealth. He had authority. And he wasn't about to throw it away because Johnny Stark wanted to exact retribution on Cassius Fargo.

Rogers lowered his pistol and returned it to his belt, taking care to lower the hammer back onto the frizzen. “What the hell … you want to run afoul of the British, so be it. Do what you've a mind to. But I say the devil take Cassius Fargo.”

“He'll have to wait until I'm finished with him,” said Stark. He ducked beneath the door frame and vanished into the morning light. In his wake, a slight sudden laugh drifted in on the wind. It was a sound devoid of mirth, cold as gray bones, and inviting as the creak of a coffin lid.

24

“Before you leave your encampment, send out small parties to scout round it, to see if there be any appearance or track of an enemy that might have been near you during the night.”

J
ohnny Stark was not alone, nor had he been alone since leaving Fort Edward, of that he was certain. He rubbed the back of his neck. The tingling just beneath the skin, an inch below the base of his skull, never lied. Someone or something had been following him for the past two days. He was being shadowed, or stalked. And it was time to turn and face whatever haunted his path.

He'd ruled out Cassius Fargo. The brute would have called attention to himself, blundered into view, erred somewhere along the trail that wound over Greylock Ridge. And an Abenaki war party would have fallen on him like a pack of wolves his first day out from Fort Edward.

Then who? Or what?

He needed to know. To that end Stark made camp on the eastern slope of the Greylocks, chose a small patch of cold-cleared ground and built a fire along the banks of White Creek, a narrow, frozen-over rivulet that cut through the glacier-carved valley, worming its way around great gray boulders left in the wake of receding walls of ice in ages long past.

As the sun lowered over the western hills, he built a tidy pyre of brittle tree limbs, coaxed a merry blaze out of the dry branches, then after checking his back trail, fixed a bedroll so that it appeared he was asleep by the flames. The Ranger steeled himself against the chill as he left the circle of warmth and crept off to conceal himself under a deadfall of decaying leaves and the brittle stalks of jack-in-the-pulpit and green dragon that flourished near the creek, in patient slumber, waiting for the distant spring.

He dug a depression beneath in the humus and lined it with a flap of buckskin upon which he placed a half-dozen glowing coals and covered them over with another piece of hide. The warmth was a welcome comfort against his chest as he stretched out, settled down for what he assumed was going to be a long and probably unproductive vigil.

Shadows lengthened. Night spread across the fertile landscape, transforming the forested slopes into a marching onslaught of cruelly barbed legions that threatened to sweep across the creek and engulf the hapless little campsite.

Stark waited, allowing the stillness to settle on him like sheltering wings, disguise him, seduce him, transform him into something that was once a man yet more than a man. For his untamed heart beat in accord with the pulse of the wild country, its blood his blood, its dangers his own. He was part of the frigid air that braced him, part of the embers whose warmth seeped into his bones; glance in his direction and see the earth and the hills and the debris of winter and not a man on a mission, a man with blood in his eye and his hand upon a gun.

He lost all track of time … lost himself in thoughts of Molly, in plans for spring forays against the French once the lakes thawed, lost himself in the threat of what lay ahead for him. Cowslip, from what he could recall, was an isolated little farm community another five-hour walk to the east, in a narrow valley hemmed in on both sides by granite bluffs masked by rows of elegant maple trees and trailing vines that spilled across the rim.

Lost in his thoughts, in the speeding hours and minutes of uncertainty, he failed to notice a patch of shadows stir on the edge of night, glide effortlessly, soundlessly and materialize into a man born of darkness until the buckskinclad individual entered the circle of firelight. Stark's blood ran cold and he caught his breath to keep from exclaiming aloud.

Atoan!

What was this? Had the man come alone? Where were the howling heathens who comprised his savage horde? Fortunately, any plan he had to murder Stark in his sleep was due for a swift and sudden reversal. Stark remembered the gauntlet, the deaths of his friends. The ghosts of his massacred countrymen whispered in his ear, their voices keening on the winter's night.

The frontiersman eased his rifle forward. He had a perfect shot. Old Abraham slid across the snow-patched humus. Stark took care not to break or rustle any of the dry stalks in his line of fire.

But to Stark's surprise, Atoan did not fall upon the bedroll with his tomahawk and knife. Instead the Grand Sachem squatted by the fire, drew his heavy woolen blanket around his shoulders, and leaned on his musket, his sharp features in repose. The warrior studied the “huddled form” across from him, on the opposite side of the campfire, his gaze swept the surrounding woods, drifted across Stark's hiding place and passed on.

The Abenaki added some more branches to the fire. The flames leaped upward, the blaze reborn. Atoan removed his pipe from a pouch slung across his shoulder and proceeded to fill the bowl with tobacco smoke, wholly unconcerned that by his actions he presented a prime target for the marksman out beyond the light. But Stark, tempted as he was, could not bring himself to take the shot Curiosity stayed him.

“Kiwaskwek
, I have lit the pipe of peace, I have breathed smoke to the four winds. This ground is sacred. Come into the circle.” The Grand Sachem placed his weapons aside. Johnny Stark considered his options. Atoan had courage, there was no disputing it, too much courage to be shot down from ambush. So Stark rolled out from concealment, brushed the matted leaves and mud from his hunting shirt and sauntered out of the woods and into camp. He knelt opposite the Abenaki warrior. This was the second time they had come face-to-face. The first time there had been screaming and chants and brandished weapons and cries for blood.

And there had been death.

“You call me beast.” Stark accepted the long-stemmed pipe from Atoan's hands and raised it to his lips four times, exhaling to the north, south, east, and west. “Why is this?”

“You are the one who slays my people. You stalk us like the beast of the forest. The
Anglais
call you John Stark.” Atoan leaned toward him, frowning as he received the pipe back into his hands. “But
Mahom
has whispered me your real name. He has told me who you are.”

“There is blood on your tomahawk as well.” John Stark sat back on his heels and keeping a close eye on the Abenaki's empty hands, set his rifle down at his side. “You are the beast to my people.”

“We have made war, one upon the other.”

“I have not killed your women and children as you did at Fort William Henry,” Stark coldly replied.

“Yes …” Atoan said, sucking in his breath, choosing his words with care, a note of resignation in his voice when next he spoke. “Once this was the land of the Abenaki, beyond the Great Water to the North and down beyond the Carrying Place where the
Anglais
flag flies above Fort Edward. The Redcoats and French came from where the sun rises, they chose to make war upon each other in our land, each of them invited the Abenaki to join. The
Anglais
soldiers brought gifts to my people, warm blankets for when the snow comes. We accepted the gifts. And soon after, the white man's spotted sickness spread among my people, and it did not care who it killed. The woman I took to wife, my children save for Kasak, I lost them all to the sickness. We burned the blankets but it was too late. Day after day the death chants were sung out until there seemed no end to them, until what was left of the People of the White Pines sang with one voice. And wept with one heart.” Atoan's facial expression never changed, but his voice wavered for a moment, and his dark-eyed stare was filled with smoldering resolve.

“Then why are we not trying to kill one another right now?” said Stark.

“Because I walked in a dream and
Mahom
, the Grand-father Spirit, whispered your name in my ear. And I am puzzled,
Kiwaskwek
. You are not like the others. When the earth mother wakes from her winter sleep, you listen to the warm, hear the windsong and that which is beyond hearing. You see the trail, but you also see the spirit of that which left the trail. How is this so?”

“Perhaps I too walked in a dream.”

“Yet you are not one of the people. How can you know where you are going?”

“Just because I wander doesn't mean I'm lost.”

Atoan nodded. The reply made sense to him. And it troubled him. He would carry Stark's words within him. “I watched you leave the
Anglais
fort. Alone. Where do you go?”

“To kill a man who harmed the woman I will take to wife.”

“I shall not interfere. It is good to see you
Anglais
hunt one another.” Atoan grew quiet for a moment, then slowly reached for his weapons. Stark tensed. Atoan laughed softly and returned to his original position, then stretched out on his blanket. “I was going to leave, but we have a good fire and the night is cold. I shall go in the morning. Let it be said,
Kiwaskwek
, that we met as enemies, but we shared a campfire as.…”

“Friends?” Stark interjected, somewhat doubtful. This man would never cease his war until the colonists were all killed or driven back into the sea.

“Brothers,” said Atoan. “Bound by what we must do, the paths we must-walk. Brothers bound by blood.”

Stark reclined upon his own bedding. He lay on his back, looked up at the black heavens strewn with stars, unimaginable in number, gleaming bright. And he thought how remarkable it was to be sharing a fire with one who was his enemy and yet.…

Robert Rogers wouldn't understand, nor poor Ephraim Page, certainly not Ransom, none of the soldiers or the Ranger company or the colonists. Perhaps the great tragedy of this war is that there was guilt enough for all. Maybe one day men would find a way to acknowledge a common pain, and come together into the light, and find a common sacred ground.

“Twice I had you in my gunsights yet I stayed my hand.” Atoan's words drifted on the wintry stillness, punctuated by the crackling flames. “I tell you now, twice I have spared you just as you gave me back the life of my son. Now it is ended,
Kiwaskwek
, and all that connects us is what lies ahead, not what has gone before. When next we meet, I think it will be for the last time.”

John Stark opened his eyes at first light. It took him a moment to recognize his surroundings. The night before had been like some strange dream. The Ranger glanced across the blackened patch of earth and the smoldering embers of the campfire and found he was alone again. Atoan had returned to the forest, disappeared back into the howling wilderness to await the day that would bring the two of them together,
for the last time.

“So be it,” said Stark.

25

J
ohn Stark climbed the last ridge, cut through a stand of white pines, then crossed the summit, and began his descent. He cut across the downslope where patches of snow clung to the shade and made his way to a wheel-rutted path worn in the earth that descended the grade in a series of gradual switchbacks until it straightened out on the outskirts of the farming community.

A pair of stray dogs and a flock of geese announced his arrival, abandoning the safety of their respective domains to sound the alert for all of Cowslip to hear. Heifers in their pasture looked up in lazy wonderment, then returned to cropping the yellow stalks of dry grasses revealed by the recently departed snow. By afternoon, the temperature had climbed to well above freezing. Rivulets in the mud marked the legacy of melting snow.

The sun was behind him now, riding high over his left shoulder in a cloudless sky. His shadow stretched before him on the ground, sunlight warmed the back of his neck, his cheeks were flush and, despite the chill, perspiration beaded his upper lip. His long-limbed strides made short work of the descent to the valley floor.

As if to remind him that winter was far from over, an icy gust tried to steal the Scottish bonnet he wore snugly over his unruly mane and tugged at the heavy folds of his sea-green cloak till it flapped like the wings of some great bird of prey. It was an apt analogy for the man. Indeed, his hunt had brought him this far and grim resolve would carry him further.

Stark sensed he was being watched, imagined the faces behind the shuttered windows of the cabins haphazardly scattered throughout the valley without any semblance of order or planning. A few homespun-clad farmers appeared in their doorways, paused with arms folded or leaning on their own long guns while they took the measure of this new arrival.