Montlivet Part 49

"He killed my man."

What was there to say? It was only her look that showed she had been through tempests; in mind she seemed as numbed as I. I took her by the arm and led her outside. I turned away from the blood-soaked camp, and took her to the beach where the water was yellow-white and rippled on the sand. I motioned her to wash away the blood stains on her face and arms. Then I spoke.

"Singing Arrow, do you intend to kill yourself and follow Pierre?"

She drew her blanket high and folded her arms. "Yes, if he calls me.

When I dream of him twice I shall know that he is crying for me and cannot rest, so I shall go after him. I have dreamed once already,--after I killed the Huron. When I dream once more I can go."

I touched her arm. "Look at me. Singing Arrow, Pierre is not calling you to follow him. He is calling you to pick up his work where he had to drop it. He died trying to save me. He wants you to help me now.

My wife is in the woods. You are to help me find her. Will you help me, Singing Arrow?"

She shook her head. As she looked at me, scornful and sorrowful and absolutely unmoved, she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen. I knew this remotely, as an unblest ghost might know a warmth he could not feel.

"You do not need me. If your whisper cannot reach the white woman she would not hear my shouts. I must go with my man."

"Singing Arrow, the Great Spirit is not ready for you. When he is ready he will send. You must wait for him to send."

She did not s.h.i.+ft her look from me. "Your Great Spirit is strange. He tells you that you are brave men and good when you take other lives, but he will not let you take your own. Why should you have power over other men's bodies if your own does not belong to you? Your Great Spirit may be right for you white men, but for me he speaks like a child. When my man calls me I shall go." She dropped her eyes, wrapped her blanket closer, and went away. I did not follow her. She had as sound a right to her belief as I to mine.

And what was my belief?

The sun was at the horizon, and I went to Cadillac. "You hold council to-morrow?"

"Yes, to-morrow morning."

"I shall be here."

"But where are you going now?"

"To the woods."

Cadillac took me by the arm. "Montlivet, be sane!"

But I think that as he looked at me he saw that I was sane. "I shall be with you in the morning," I promised. And I would have no further words.

All that night in the woods, both waking and dreaming, the thought of the woman was like a presence near me. I slept some, dropping against trees, then roused and stumbled on. I do not know that I consciously searched for her, but I went on and on to meet her. It seemed that I should always do that while I lived,--should always push my way forward, feeling that beyond the next turn she stood beckoning.

The stars rose and set. There were mult.i.tudes of them and very bright.

If man could only have his...o...b..t fixed and follow it as they did; be compelled to follow it by a governing power! The terrible cruelty of a G.o.d who throws volition into a man's hands without giving him understanding to handle it came to me for the first time.

When day arrived I ate a portion of meal and meat, and made my way back. It was a long trip, for I had wandered far, and when I reached the camp the sun was three hours high. A large tent had been made of skins and tarpaulins, and French and savages were gathered there and waiting. I was late. The calumet was already pa.s.sing as I went in.

I halted a moment at the entrance. There was no cheer of welcome at sight of me. Instead there was a hush,--the hush of suspended breathing. In two days these savages had come to draw aside from me for what was in my look. "His face is the face of one dead,"

Outchipouac had said. I knew that I had grown to seem abnormal, alien.

I tried to form my expression to better lines, but it was out of my power. I took my place as interpreter, and the long conclave opened.

The hours of droning speeches went on and on. Each tribe presented its claims, and metaphor shouldered metaphor. It sounded trivial as the bragging of blue-jays, but I interpreted carefully and kept the different headings in mind. Then I asked Cadillac's permission, and took it on myself to answer.

Sometimes the Power that rules us, and that shoves us here and there to play our parts in the game, seems to me nothing but a cold-eyed justice, remote, indifferent, impartially judicial. So I felt now. In looking at the issue I saw that meaning and vitality had gone from my spirit, but I had kept equity. I parceled the spoil among the tribes, and did it without doubt of my judgment or care for its acceptance. I remembered Outchipouac's plea for his people, and found it just. The Malhominis had sent the largest force in proportion to the strength of their tribe, and their position on the bay was strategical. So I gave them their choice of a third of the captives. To the remaining tribes I gave the rest of the captives and the confiscated weapons. Then I pa.s.sed the calumet among them.

I had spoken coldly, as an onlooker. Perhaps my air of detachment gave me authority. The chiefs smoked the calumet and ratified my words.

That part of the council was over.

And then to the future. Cadillac rose. His eloquence painted the prospect till it s.h.i.+mmered like a dream landscape, rose-tinted, iridescent, with sparkling vistas full of music and bugle calls and the tramp of marching men with the sun in their faces. We, French and Indians, were a united people. Our young men were brave and full of vigor. We should sweep all before us. We should crush the Iroquois and drive the English far away over seas. We should go now to Michillimackinac and march from there to conquest and empire. All the bubble dreams of sovereignty, from Nineveh on, glittered in his words.

I translated faithfully.

Outchipouac answered. I had somehow won his spirit, which was brave and vigorous. Perhaps he repented his distrust of me. My silver chain was on his neck, and he fingered it. He said that where I led the Malhominis would follow. His wild imagery swept like the torrent of an epic. The man was warrior, dreamer, fatalist. He called on the chiefs of the tribes to witness what I was, what I had done. Water could not drown me, arrows could not harm me. I wore the French garb and my face was white, but I was something more universal than any race. I spoke all tongues. I was like the air which belonged to French and Indian alike. I was a manitou; I had been sent to lead the Indians back to the supremacy that they had almost lost.

I could believe him as I listened. I did not remember that he spoke of me. He was talking of some great principle, some crystallization of the forces of the woods in man's shape. The woods that had nurtured the Indian should protect him. At last, out from the woods had come this spirit,--this spirit that was their voice. He did not talk to me, he talked to the skies and the clouds and the forces that dwelt in them. It was the call of a savage king to the soul of the wild earth that had cradled him.

So swept away was I that I could not have translated. But it was not necessary. He had spoken in Algonquin, which all but the French and Hurons understood. The war chiefs rose. It is strange. An Indian may scalp and torture, yet have at heart much of the seer and poet. The chiefs came forward and laid their bows and quivers full of arrows at my feet.

For a moment Outchipouac's speech had warmed me as I thought I might not be warm again. But when I saw the chiefs advancing I became stone.

"I cannot lead you," I said in Algonquin, and I knew my voice was blank. "Outchipouac is wrong. I am no manitou, but a man so weak he does not know the truth even for himself. How can he lead others?

When I brought you here the sun shone brightly, and I thought I saw the way ahead. Now I am in darkness and mist. Go. Leave me. Find a leader whose sight is not clouded." I turned my back and stood with my head down.

A murmur rose. I had broken the illusion. We had all been riding the clouds of fancy, and I had dashed us to earth again. The chiefs had come to me with their hands out, and I had thrown water in their faces.

They had reason for their anger. Cadillac saw the pantomime and lumbered from his seat. He seized my arm.

"Montlivet, you are insane! You are insane!"

I pointed him to the woods. "Monsieur, I have dropped my sword. I shall go into the forest for a time."

He shook me as if I were in a torpor. "Your wife"----

"I shall search for her. I am going out now with Indian trailers. I shall not leave this country till all hope is past,--then I shall go west."

For a moment suspicion clutched him. "Oh, you would form your union without me! You are planning a dictators.h.i.+p."

I took him by the arm and begged him to understand. "I have dropped my sword," I reiterated. "I am going on alone. I have skins and provisions cached at Sturgeon Cove--enough for barter. I am not insane. I shall go prudently. There are lands and peoples to be explored in the west."

The clamor grew. Dubisson and others of the French came nearer.

"Speak to the chiefs now. Speak to them now," they begged. "You can save the situation yet."

I watched the Indians. "They are departing peacefully."

"But they are departing!"

I looked at Cadillac. "And why not?"

He drew his sword. "Montlivet, have you turned priest--or coward? Do you dare to try and tell me that war is wrong?"

I looked at him, and left my own sword untouched. "I do not know what I believe. I am going back in the woods. Perhaps I shall learn. But now we have done all that we set out to do. We have destroyed the Seneca war party. We shall be safe from the Iroquois for some time."

"But we are just ready to go on. Our men are ready."