Warbird (13 page)

“You take,” Satouta said to Etienne in the longhouse. He handed the boy a small black bundle. The beaver pelts glistened in the glow of the fire.

Etienne didn't know what to say. This gift was unexpected,
and he had nothing to give in return. He put his hand on his hip, touching the tin at his side. Then he remembered the little round stone. He pulled it out and pressed it into Satouta's copper palm. “You take this,” he said.

The warrior looked down at it in surprise.

“It's from the shore of your sacred place,” Etienne said. “It will remind you of your village.”

Satouta clenched it in his fist and nodded.

Everyone had busied themselves preparing for the journey. Soo-Taie threaded thin strips of meat onto branches and smoked them over the fire. The children filled woven sacks with beechnuts, black walnuts and acorns.

A sheathed knife lay across the blanketed poles at the bottom of Tsiko's canoe, along with two harpoons and a fishing-net. There were baskets of corn and makuks of brown sugar. Tsiko also had a stack of beaver pelts tucked in the bow.

Etienne wore his deerskin leggings and eagle feather. His other clothes and belongings were in the drawstring sack. At midnight, their little canoe scooted through the reedy swamp like a beaver. The yellow-eyed owl was their only witness. Etienne said a silent goodbye.

Soon the black, choppy waves slapped against the sides of the white bark. At the river's bend, Tsiko emptied the contents of a small drawstring pouch into the water.

Etienne looked down. “What was that?”

“Beaver bones,” Tsiko replied. “They must always return to the river.”

The first portage, through the cedars and down the rolling hills in the moonlight, would end at sunrise. They stopped their journey on foot at the bank of the next river. While Etienne collected wood, Tsiko plunged his hands into the water and came up with a large, gaping fish.

As they ate, Etienne couldn't help wondering about the fate of those who would stay to pray at Sainte-Marie.

Etienne returned to the routine of the journey with ease. When they weren't paddling, they staggered beneath the weight of their packs as they carried the canoe across the many portages. They carried their vessel across meadows and through forests. At times the trees were so dense all they had to follow was a thin line of dirt.

Day after day they cut silently through the green water. A silver coated lynx with tufts of hair on its ears crept along a rocky ledge at their side. As its short black-tipped tail disappeared into the underbrush, Etienne wondered what message it carried.

One afternoon, they passed a line of waterfalls with a rainbow at the foot. They paddled their way between the jagged rocks of the crooked river. Their little canoe picked up speed, and soon there seemed to be hundreds of rocks poking out of the water. The thunder of rapids roared ahead.

Etienne gazed anxiously ahead. “We won't make it!” he yelled as the spinning eddies snatched at their paddles. “We'll be dashed to pieces!” he screamed.

The waves lashed and smashed the bow of the leaping canoe. Etienne closed his eyes and held his breath. Suddenly they found themselves in a pool of deep, clear water, circling in an eddy. Their little canoe had shot across the rapids like a tiny stick.

Tsiko raised his paddle above his head and yelled in triumph. Etienne sat gasping in relief. He turned his eyes upward and gave thanks to the gods.

The journey filled Etienne with memories of the previous year, setting out into the wilderness for the first time. No longer the same young boy who had left, he had learned how to be a helper, a hunter, a healer and a hero. He knew he was ready to face his distant, brooding father.

They approached an area that Etienne recognized from the year before, but a strange gurgling sound came from the creek bed he had once walked with Médard. Yellow, muddy water carried matted masses of sticks and grass. “Something must have happened to the beaver pond,” he told Tsiko.

“No time to look,” Tsiko warned. “Eyes and ears are everywhere.”

Etienne thought about how the Huron didn't really hunt the beaver so much as farmed them, as they did the land. They kept track of the lodges and knew the number of old and newly born in each. They feasted on their meat, made use of their fur, tail and claws. Tsiko's people even returned their bones to the river instead of giving them to their dogs.

The silver-tipped birch trees soon became few and far between. Etienne's mind drifted with the smell of pine
that floated across the water. He could still see the surprise in Soo-Taie's deep brown eyes when he'd handed her the scissors. He remembered watching her pull porcupine quills for her designs.

The countryside of fallen trees, marsh and brush gave way to the cold, forbidding mountains.
Is this how I will find them at home?
he wondered.

That night the boys moored at an outcrop of rocks just before the river narrowed and turned. They lifted the canoe from the water to examine it.

“It needs a patch,” Etienne said, sticking his finger into a small tear at the side. He looked around for a birch tree, but there were none in sight.

Tsiko pulled a long roll of birch bark from his deerskin pouch and a coil of
wattape
, a kind of string made by his people. “This will do,” he said, cutting a piece from each.

Etienne helped remove the torn stitching and patch the frayed canoe.

Tsiko scraped a wad of resin from a nearby pine with a stick, heated it in the fire and sealed the patch.

A duck flew from the reeds at the side of the river bank. Tsiko grabbed an arrow and let it fly.

“Will I ever learn to shoot that well?' Etienne wondered aloud as he waded out to retrieve the bird.

“Just shoot every day,” Tsiko said with a shrug.

They built a fire in a dry, open spot. Tsiko held the duck to the sky in thanks. He plucked the feathers, put some of them into his pouch and gave the others to Etienne. Then he slit the duck down the middle and fixed each half to a roasting stick. Etienne tossed a handful of
beechnuts into the coals. As the heat cracked them open, the boys enjoyed the small, tasty treasures.

As they ate, Etienne thought about the forest of brilliant green pine and golden birch. The land teemed with birds, animals, berries and nuts. The cold, crystal clear lakes and rivers were full of fish. These forests had everything anyone could want. And yet his father cut the trees down to make room for his fields. More farmers would come. Would there be enough forest left for the Hurons or the Iroquois?

The sharp sound of a crow drifted through the trees. Tsiko stopped eating when the sound of an owl came from across the water. His eyebrows furrowed and his forehead creased with a frown. “Something isn't right,” he said. “Crows know if there is an owl in the forest. The owl is the crow's worst enemy.”

He doused the fire and gestured for Etienne to get down. Like snakes they moved into the tall grass of the river bank to investigate. A disturbed bird whirred past them, so close that Etienne felt the flutter of its wings on his face. It shot across the river and disappeared in the evening light.

Tsiko scanned the water. “Look,” he said, pointing to the shore on other side. “Beside the rock, I saw a splash of a paddle.”

Etienne could hardly believe his friend saw anything at all, especially so far away in the dusk.

Tsiko cupped his mouth and made his own owl sound. A moment later, a similar sound came back. “I thought so,” he said. “Someone is signaling.”

“At least they are on the other side,” Etienne said.

No sooner had the words come out of his mouth than a canoe shot out from the opposite river bank, heading right for them. Moments later, it turned. The boys watched the warrior paddle downstream to where a second canoe joined him.

“They're Iroquois scouts,” Tsiko whispered.

Etienne felt a cold chill go up his spine when he saw the large war canoe carrying painted warriors follow the scouts down river.

The French boy and the Huron youth exchanged glances. There was no doubt in their minds that the Iroquois were planning an ambush.

“We have to hide,” Etienne said, trying to keep the panic out of his voice.

Tsiko nodded and pointed downstream. Where the river narrowed, a great willow had fallen from the bank into the water. Its mass of tangled roots spread out in all directions. The tree had not been down long. The trailing branches and leaves were still green.

“Good idea,” Etienne said.

“I'll check the canoe,” Tsiko said as he slipped into the water.

Etienne went back for their things. Their canoe rested exactly as they had left it. As far as they could see, nothing had been disturbed.

The boys waited until the night clouds dimmed the sky then paddled to where the willow rested. They hid their canoe in the density of its roots, climbed into the boughs and flattened themselves against the trunk.

The only sign they left was their cold fire pit.

The Iroquois crossed the water like shadows, searching the woods. One held a burning roll of birch bark above his head as he peered in the direction of the boys. In their willow branch cavern, perched above the dark water, the boys didn't stir. The faces of his mother and father floated before Etienne's eyes. He was halfway home. Would he ever make it there?

When the sun rose, the boys watched the first of the Mission's two canoes come into view. Father Bressani rode with the Huron traders beside Satouta in the front. The French soldiers followed a short distance behind. Médard, assisted by Louise Gaubert, paddled his birch-bark alongside.

The first canoe anchored by the same rocky outcrop that the boys had used the day before.

“Why are they stopping?” Etienne whispered.

“Traders must put on face,” Tsiko answered, easing down the trunk.

Etienne knew the Huron painted their faces and greased their hair to make themselves presentable, but there were Iroquois about. “They have to be warned,” he said.

“You tell Father Bressani,” Tsiko said, as he waded into the water. “I'll warn the others.”

He swam to the rocks as silently as a fish, his long black ponytail floating behind him.

Etienne followed in the canoe.

Father Bressani stood on a rock, wringing out his robes.

“You are in danger,” Etienne called out to the Jesuit.

The surprised Jesuit regarded the boy with a puzzled expression. “Why are you here?” he asked. “Does Father Rageuneau know you have left the mission?”

“You have to come with me,” Etienne insisted. “The Iroquois are around the bend.”

“Iroquois have never been on this part of the St. Lawrence,” scoffed the Jesuit. “In all my years as a missionary . . .” he said, just as a war-whoop erupted across the water.

Tsiko flashed from the water like a trout eating a fly. He grabbed the hem of the priest's cassock and yanked him down.

Father Bressani floundered about in the river

Etienne dragged the confused Jesuit into the canoe. Tsiko leaped in behind. The boys dipped their paddles deep and sent the canoe surging forward to the shelter of the fallen tree.