Shadowbrook Part 3

"There is no need to call me mister, John Hale. I'm told thee does not share our beliefs, but thee should know I seek no t.i.tle of any kind."

"Very well--Daniel, then. What brings you to Shadowbrook from Rhode Island in the dead of winter? It can't have been an easy journey."

"Easy enough since it ended safely. I come on the urging of the Light Within, John Hale. To bring a message."

"Oh? What message is that?"

"It is time we stop buying and selling our fellow creatures."

John looked over at the bundle of pelts that lay on the counter. "You worried about the seals and the beaver, Daniel? We'd be overrun with the things if we didn't trap 'em."

"I speak not of animals but of people, John Hale. Negro people like Prudence here."

Quent shot a look at the black woman. She stood absolutely still and stared straight ahead, as if she did not hear what was being said. "What do you say to that, Prudence?" John asked. "You think you've been treated right?"

Prudence didn't answer.

"Thee may reply if thee wishes," Martin s...o...b..rry said quietly. "I confess, I would hear thy answer."

"Ain't n.o.body in this place be's mean to me." Prudence didn't look at them and began packing the basket with the remains of the food.

"But thee is not paid for thy labor," Daniel Willis said. "Thee gets no reward for thy toil. In the Bible it says the workman is worthy of his hire."

Esther was looking from Prudence to Daniel Willis with some consternation. "In his letter to the Colossians Paul says to be fair and just in the way thee treatest slaves. Would he say that if the owning of them were contrary to G.o.d's law?"

"Dost thee not believe that the Light Within is stronger than any written word, Esther?"

"Of course I do. But we bought Prudence from a man who whipped her regularly. No one whips her here, and she is properly clothed and housed and fed. Thee must believe that it is better we bought her from a master who treated her so poorly."

Daniel Willis shook his head. "Thee canst not buy another human being."

"That would certainly surprise parliament and the king," John said. The Province of New York was the only English colony with a royal governor appointed by London; all the others had a right of self-rule written into their charters. But though no territory north of Virginia approached the number of slaves bought and sold and owned in New York, one way or another they all-north and south alike-depended on the trade for their financial health. "Nor, I suspect, would the merchants of Rhode Island be happy with the news."

"Slavery is against the will of G.o.d," Daniel Willis insisted. "Thee canst not buy and sell thy fellow human beings, nor expect them to work on thy behalf without fair recompense."

John stood up. "Not another white human being, perhaps. Nigras and Indians are different. And half-breeds, of course." John put his tricorne on. "Good day to you, gentlemen, Esther.

He and the two boys were halfway to the door when he turned and handed the deerskin pouch full of money to Cormac. "Here, carry this. You may as well be useful for something."

When they arrived at the big house, there were only sixteen pounds and five s.h.i.+llings in the pouch, a pound and six s.h.i.+llings shy of the amount Edward Taylor had said belonged to Ephraim Hale.

Quent knew instantly that John had taken the coins before he gave Cormac the money to carry. He tried to tell his father, but Ephraim wouldn't listen. And John just laughed when Quent confronted him. His mother was his last hope.

Quent found her in the little room where they stored the household linen. It was right next to the woodshed where Ephraim had taken Cormac.

"Cormac didn't do it," he blurted out. "He didn't steal Father's money, John did. He gave Corm the pouch to hold just so he could get him in trouble when we got home."

Lorene was standing with her back to him, holding a stack of carefully folded kitchen cloths to her face.

"Mama, do you hear me? Please, Mama, you've got to-"

"Hush, Quent. I hear you." Lorene turned and set the stack of cloths on the table. She was breathing with some difficulty and her cheeks were bright pink. The flush extended down her neck to the exposed skin above her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

They both heard the sound of Ephraim's razor strop whistling through the air and thudding softly against flesh. Quent winced. "Mama, Cormac didn't do it."

"Tell your Father."

"I did. He won't listen."

She shook her head. "Your Father is ... I can't tell him anything, Quentin. I'm sorry. I ... Go away, child. I'm busy."

She was folding and unfolding the same square of cloth and her eyes were strangely s.h.i.+ny. The sound of the razor strop was loud in the little room but Lorene shooed him away, her eyes staring at a point somewhere over his head.

"He knew you didn't do it and John did," Quent told Corm later. "That's why he only gave you six stripes."

"If he knew I didn't do it, then it was wrong to give me any," Cormac said.

Quent agreed, but he couldn't explain Ephraim's behavior so he didn't try.

The next day John was sent to Philadelphia to stay with a Hale cousin for a year and learn something of printing, since Ephraim said he might someday want to open a print shop on the Patent.

In April four Potawatomi braves appeared and stood waiting at the edge of the long drive that led from the front door to the river landing. "They've come for Cormac," Ephraim said.

"Not for her?" Lorene asked in a flat, unnatural voice.

"Not for her," Ephraim confirmed. "She stays. Cormac spends the winter here with us learning to be white, then he goes back to Singing Snow for the summer and learns to be red." Ephraim shrugged. "The sachem said they want him to be easy in both worlds. So in the future he can speak for the Potawatomi to the Europeans."

"She stays," Lorene said.

"Yes, I told you. She stays." He stroked her cheek with one finger and smiled slightly. "There need be no interruption of our ... our mutual interests. No interruption at all."

Ephraim Hale strode out of the house to meet the Indians. An hour later they left with Cormac and took Quent along as well.

Standing in that clearing in the Ohio Country, Quent thought about that day in Do Good. He didn't know what the Quakers had decided about slaves, but the older he got the more he knew how much he hated the system. And the thing he maybe hated most was the way the slaves he knew went along with it, truly believing they were owned by another human being, and that it was the right and proper way of things.

No, maybe what he hated most, the thing that two years before had finally driven him away for good, was how John was making it worse. Blaming the slaves for the decreasing profits. Treating them like animals. Worse. Not even John was stupid enough to put his horses on half rations. But he was stupid enough-or mean enough-to ignore the fact that it wasn't lowered supply causing the financial troubles at Shadowbrook, simply less demand: cheap Pennsylvania wheat was driving the better New York product out of the market.

Quent walked back to where Corm squatted on the ground, checking the sight of his long gun. "My father's been an invalid for years. I can't remember the last time he was able to walk without sticks. But he's always been too ornery to die. What makes my mother think that's about to change?"

Cormac got to his feet and tested the repair he'd made to the long gun's carrying strap. "Good thing that dirk of yours is so sharp. You sliced this through nice and clean. Made it easy to fix."

Quent looked at the scar his dirk had made on Cormac's face. Twenty years and the pain and guilt were no less, despite the fact that a short time after it happened both boys had solemnly smoked the calumet, and the fight was truly over, forgotten and forgiven. Quent made himself ignore the scar and his feelings; it was a sin against the calumet to do otherwise. "Tell me why my mother thinks the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d's going to die."

"Your uncle, Caleb Devrey, Miss Lorene's brother, he's a doctor and he came and said so."

"All the way from New York City?"

"Yes. He said-"

There was a terrible noise. Nicole was rocking back and forth, making a sound of grief and pain that was like the sc.r.a.pe of a sharp stone on gla.s.s, so piercing it hurt the ears.

Cormac swung around. "Est-ce que vous etes folle? Silence!"

The girl didn't stop wailing. "Who is she?" Quent demanded. "And why are you responsible for her?"

"It's a long story. I told you, I'll explain later. Listen, about your father, you've got to-"

Quent turned away and strode over to Nicole. "You must be quiet. We're in the middle of Iroquois country."

Her cries got louder, and she looked at him as if he were not there. Quent knew she was gazing into some terrible h.e.l.l in her own mind.

He picked her up. She was limp in his grip, her arms clasped over her heart, her mouth still open, still making those terrible noises. Carring her over to the stream, he waded into the middle of it, then dropped her. She landed on her backside, and tiny though she was, made a formidable splash.

Even this late in the season the water was icy with the melting snow of the high peaks to the east. Nicole screamed and flailed around, beating the racing water with her fists, trying to get to her feet but constantly defeated by the slippery, uneven rocks that formed the streambed. Quent watched as she eventually managed to stand up. The struggle had left her soaked from head to foot. Her dress, already torn and filthy from their flight through the forest, clung to every generous curve of her small body. "You are a madman! Un idiot!"

"I told you, we're in Iroquois country. You were keening so's a half-dead deaf-and-blind old man could find us, let alone a few bloodthirsty braves."

She shuddered. "Those Indians, the ones back there at the glen, they will come looking for us?"

"I don't think so. That bunch has no reason to want us dead and every reason to want us alive. But that doesn't mean you should tempt fate. There are others around who have different intentions."

"I'm sorry. I didn't know I was making any sound at all." She stopped looking at him and looked down at herself. Her cheeks reddened when she saw how much the wet garments revealed. "I'm sorry," she murmured again.

"It doesn't matter," Quent said kindly. "We seem to be pretty much alone, for the moment. Ohio Country's a big place."

"What is this Ohio Country? I thought we were in the pays d'en haut!"

"Not exactly. That's what the Canadians call the land north of us around the big lakes. As far as the Potawatomi and the Miami and the Mascoutin and the Huron are concerned, it's their land. As for this bit here, Ohio Country's as good a term as any. Which are you, by the way, French or English?"

"By birth I am both, monsieur. My father was English and my mother French. But my heart is not divided. It is entirely French."

The amount of pride in her voice made him smile.

"You are laughing at me!"

"Never."

She didn't look convinced. "I am entirely serious, monsieur. You cannot-"

"Hale. Or Quent, if you prefer. Not 'monsieur.' "

"Very well, Monsieur Hale then." Nicole tried to make for the sh.o.r.e, but stumbled after the first step and again fell to her knees.

This time Quent took pity on her and picked her up. "This streambed is treacherous, and you're not properly shod to navigate it. Besides, if you're going to bathe in the stream like an Indian, you should take all your clothes off to do it."

"Bathing in open water is unhealthy," she protested. "Everyone knows it." And when he'd dropped her on the gra.s.sy bank, "What is properly shod?"

"These." Quent held up his leg. His wet moccasin, ankle high and fastened with supple leather thongs, had molded itself to his foot. "They're what the Indians wear. Much better than boots in the forest. Boots"-he nodded toward hers, black leather and tightly laced to a few inches above her ankle-"have hard soles that slip and slide. The Indians make moccasin leather so it stays soft-it protects your flesh, but lets you move as if you were barefoot. You can feel the earth."

"Barefoot," Nicole said softly, "is a good thing. It's what I want to be."

Quent had no chance to ask why. Cormac had kindled a small fire. "Come over and get dry. This and the sun will do the job in no time."

Quent's legs and his moccasins dried quickly, as did Nicole's skirts. But her hard leather boots remained damp, and the top half of her was soaked through. Her nipples showed against the snug bodice of her dress. Both men tried to avoid staring at them.

"What's it to be?" Cormac turned to Quent. "What direction are you taking when we leave here?"

"My uncle Caleb, you're sure he said my father would die soon?"

"Ahaw." Yes. "He said it was dropsy. A few more months. Maybe less. I heard him myself."

Quent hesitated. He sensed no hostile force in the immediate vicinity, and even if there were, Cormac Shea would be a match for it. Corm was as good a woodsman as was ever born, and in a fight he had no equal, except maybe Quent himself. Corm and the girl didn't need him. But his mother had asked him to come. And Shadowbrook. G.o.d yes, that was the real truth of it. Shadowbrook calling him home. "I'm heading north with you, nekane."

"My spirit is pleased," Cormac said softly in Potawatomi.

Chapter Four.

SAt.u.r.dAY, MAY 30, 1754.

QUeBEC, NEW FRANCE.

IN NEW FRANCE, the Delegate of the Minister General of the Order of Friars Minor lived hard by the river in Quebec's Lower Town, in a two-room stone hut that was little more than a hovel. The larger of his rooms was square, with one tiny window and a ceiling of rough beams darkened by countless fires, furnished with a single battered table and two straight chairs; it served Pere Antoine for every purpose except sleep and wors.h.i.+p. The other room he called his cell. It had a few straw-covered planks that did for a bed, and enough floor s.p.a.ce so he could kneel and pray or take the discipline. It was wide enough so he could stretch out his arms in the cross prayer and not be able to touch either wall. To say Holy Ma.s.s or recite the Office in the presence of the Holy Sacrament he had to go into the street, walk a short distance, and enter the public side of the tiny chapel of the Poor Clare nuns.

However dreary his house might be, the surroundings did not diminish the force of the priest's personality. Hunched over, using the light of the only candle to study the papers spread out on the scarred table, he dominated his visitor. "This map, you're sure of it?"

"Oui, mon Pere."

The man, a Scot named Hamish Stewart, spoke pa.s.sable French. He was the son of a minor laird from the Highlands, one of those who had clung to the True Faith since the days of the sainted Reine Marie-Mary Queen of Scots, as she was known to the English. Those who remained loyal to her these many years since her death were called Jacobites, after James II, the last Catholic king to rule over Britain and forced from the throne because of his religion. Many Jacobites smuggled their children to France to be educated, but mon Dieu, they never lost the Scots twist of tongue. The mutilated accent pained the priest's ears. "We will speak English, so you will not fail to understand me. This land between the lake and the river, it is exactly as you have drawn it?"

Pere Antoine straightened and stepped aside. The candle flame illumined the map, the priest as well. He was of medium height, so thin as to be gaunt, and his brown hair was threaded with gray, but he still had the elegant carriage of the aristocratic family Rubin Montaigne into which he'd been born; a way of setting his shoulders and holding his head that no amount of asceticism could erase. "Exactly?" he asked again, indicating the map. "Because if there are errors-"

"Na a single error, mon Pere. I drew the thing meself. That's the lay o' Shadowbrook's land, exactly as I saw it."

"Ah, then the question comes down to how well you see. I do not mean to be blunt, but with one eye ..."