Shadowbrook Part 35

I feel a great blackness between us, Ottawa, yet we have no quarrel. And I have a mission so I must put these thoughts out of my head. The future will come whatever I think or feel. My only course is to follow the dream. "There was a hawk," he began, "and a river of blood." He told of the little birds and the white bear and the white wolf.

Pontiac listened without speaking. When Cormac was finished he asked, "And the waking dream? What was that?"

"It came to me after I had fasted and meditated for many days. If the French could be driven from the north country, the place they call Canada, all the Anis.h.i.+nabeg could have that as their homeland. The English could stay here in the south, and we would both live according to our own laws and customs. And both would survive because of the separation."

Pontiac turned his head and looked at the woodlands surrounding them. Dusk had drained the fiery autumn color from the leaves, but the beauty of the place was still apparent. "You would give the dog t.u.r.ds all this?"

"I would give them what is necessary to allow the Anis.h.i.+nabeg to survive."

The Ottawa nodded. "In that, I agree with you. There is no doubt we are fighting for our survival. Only those who see no farther than the tips of their fingers mistake this war for anything else."

It was time for the hard choices to be made. Cormac picked up one of the Suki beads and placed it in the open palm of the hand he stretched toward the Ottawa. There was just enough light left to see the carving. "Papankamwa, the fox. I wish Pontiac to accept this. If he does, it will be his forever."

The Ottawa did not take it. "In return for what? In the old days Suckauhock was used as we use wampum. Is my little brother asking me to accept a war belt?"

"It is a no-war belt. I am asking that Pontiac lead his braves and his people to where they can wait for the end of the war between the French and the English. And that he take this as well." Cormac picked up the bead that was carved with the spider symbol and placed it too in the palm of his outstretched hand. "Bring it to Alhanase, the Huron war chief who also fights with Onontio. Tell him what I have told you, and ask that the Huron, like the Ottawa, retire from this war and leave the Cmokmanuk to kill each other without our help."

"So that in the end we can all go to the frozen land of ice and snow and the Cmokmanuk get our homeland." Pontiac spread his arms wide to indicate the woods of the Ohio Country where his ancestors had been since the Great Spirit put them on this earth. "In the end the dog t.u.r.ds get what is ours."

"In the end we survive." Cormac could feel in his belly that Pontiac did not believe in the meaning of the dreams. He was in turmoil, but despite what he felt and the length of time he had held out the hand offering the Suckauhock, Cormac's arm did not tremble. He held it steady, as if he were pa.s.sing it over Potawatomi the Sacred Fire, proving the strength of his manhood. "The fox and the spider are for the Ottawa and the Huron. I myself will take the rac.o.o.n to the Abenaki."

"And you think they will make you welcome and agree to do what you ask?"

"I think they will rejoice at the thought of land they no longer need to share with intruders who bring them disease and trouble and wars not of their making."

"But there will still be Cmokmanuk here. The English are to remain, according to your dream."

"Not in Canada. It is a vast place. There is room for all of the Anis.h.i.+nabeg to hunt in Canada."

"It is a frozen place," Pontiac insisted. "Mostly snow."

"Not all the year and not all of it. And the hunting is magnificent."

Pontiac made a sound in his throat that represented a grudging sort of agreement. "The sickness, and the white man's goods that the Real People now believe they cannot do without ... knives made of metal not flint, clothing of cloth not skins, firewater, none of that will have gone away."

"Those Anis.h.i.+nabeg who wish to continue to trade with the Cmokmanuk will do so. We must make a new way for the future, Elder Brother. We cannot change the past."

"And the other beads?" Pontiac was looking at the four beads on the blanket.

"They are for the Lenape and the Kahniankehaka."

"s.h.i.+ngas and Scarouady," Pontiac said, knowing immediately the chiefs Cormac had in mind. "Who will speak to them? Not you, I think. Uko Nyakwai?"

"He knows them better than you or I."

Pontiac turned his head and spat on the gra.s.s. "He is not even half Anis.h.i.+nabeg."

"He is a full Potawatomi brave by adoption. That has always been our way. Does Pontiac deny the right of a tribe to adopt whom they will?"

Pontiac didn't look at Cormac, but he shook his head. He couldn't deny truth.

"You know that Uko Nyakwai wears the amulet given him by the great chief Rec.u.msah, your uncle. Whatever your quarrel with my brother the Red Bear, it is not-"

"My quarrel is that he is Cmokman. And English."

Neither fact could be denied. Better to let go the matter of Pontiac's animosity toward Quent. His arm was on fire, still stretched in front of him; he wasn't sure how much longer he could hold the position, but if he put down the beads he had conceded the advantage. "The Anis.h.i.+nabeg can survive in Canada. If we remain as we are, the French and the English will crush us between them." They were Quent's words, but Cormac knew none better.

Pontiac continued to ignore the offer of the Suki beads. "For your plan to succeed the English must win this war. Even if both sides fight without our braves, how can you be sure of that?"

"The English have more men and more guns and more food and-"

"And they fight for more," Pontiac said quietly. "They fight for the right to land, and for the English, land hunger can never be satisfied."

"They will agree that we have Canada," Cormac insisted. "If it means they must fear no further attack from any of the Anis.h.i.+nabeg they will agree. Does Pontiac agree?" The Suckauhock was still on offer in his outstretched palm.

"Is it enough," Pontiac asked softly, "to say I will try to see how this thing can be made to work?"

Cormac did not hesitate. "It is enough."

Pontiac reached over and took the two beads. Cormac's palm was empty, but he did not immediately drop his arm. "My Elder Brother is sure?"

Pontiac watched the hand that remained stretched out toward him. He spoke slowly, knowing the test was not over until he said the final word, wondering how much longer the metis could hold out, half wanting him to fail, half impressed with his strength. "Your Elder Brother is sure that he will examine this thing in all its parts, and try to make it real. The north for us. The south for them." Pontiac hesitated as long as he dared. If he forced the trial beyond its natural limits it no longer counted for anything. "I will try," he said at last.

Cormac dropped his arm. It throbbed and quivered from wrist to shoulder, but that didn't matter now. He was as light-headed as if he had already achieved the final victory. Cmokmanuk in the south, Anis.h.i.+nabeg in the north. Blessings on the Great Spirit and his white wolf totem and Miss Lorene's Sunday morning Jesus G.o.d. He had maintained his Potawatomi honor, and possibly enlisted a powerful ally.

Neither man said anything while Cormac returned the other beads-the turkey and the elk and the possum and the rac.o.o.n-to the Miami medicine bag and replaced it around his neck. The bag felt different, lighter. When Cormac got to his feet he nearly stumbled. Pontiac paid him the courtesy of pretending not to notice.

The rich odors of the cooking fires made Cormac's mouth water and he looked forward to the meal. Stewed beaver, from the smell and the last of the season's fresh corn. He was being treated as an honored guest and the Ottawa were known as fine cooks. It was said they flavored their food with dried sumac, but when squaws of other tribes tried the same tricks they did not produce the same taste. The Ottawa cooks had secret-Ayi!

Corm saw himself lying on the ground at Singing Snow with the Midewiwin priestess leaning over him. Because the leaves of a tree turn red in the time of the Great Heat Moon does not always mean the tree is a sumac. That's what she'd said and neither he nor Bishkek had known what she meant. Now he did. A thing might look like one thing but have an entirely different taste, because in reality it was something else. The brave who attacked him in the sweat lodge had looked like a Huron and smelled like a Huron, but that didn't mean he was a Huron. Perhaps he had disguised himself as a snake because that was what he wanted Cormac to think. "Ayi! It could be so."

He didn't realize he'd spoken out loud until Pontiac turned to him. "What could be so?"

"Nothing. I was just thinking that in dreams, sometimes things are not exactly what they seem to be."

"That is true. But put these thoughts aside now, Little Brother. It is time to eat and to talk, and later to smoke and sing and dance. The winter is coming. Then it will be the time to prepare for war. Or"-Pontiac touched the pouch at his waist where he had put the Suckauhock-"to prepare for no-war."

WINTER, 1755-1756.

LAC DU ST. SACREMENT.

A time to plan and listen, and think about war and prepare for war.

The French troops billeted at the northern end of Bright Fish Water, the lake they called Lac du St. Sacrement and the British now called Lake George, began work on a fort meant to be as impregnable as Fort St. Frederic on Lac du Champlain. At first it was to be called Carrion, for Philippe de Carrion who had once maintained a trading post on this land. It was Vaudreuil back in Quebec who rejected that idea. "Despite what pa.s.ses for commerce these days, I will not name a fort after a smuggler." Eventually they settled on Fort Carillon, for the pealing sound made by the outlet of the waters of the lake. It was a compromise made necessary because Vaudreuil also rejected the suggestion that they use Ticonderoga, the Iroquois name for the high rocky promontory between Lac du Champlain and Lac du St. Sacrement. This new marechal de camp, the marquis de Montcalm, had the usual French disdain for all things Canadian and Indian. No point in alienating him so soon after his arrival.

Bright Fish Water was frozen solid by early January. Eight leagues to the south, in the thin clear air of winter, surrounded by a mostly leafless forest temporarily empty of enemies, the Yorkers heard the sounds of French axes whistling through the air and felled trees cras.h.i.+ng to the ground. They too took up their hatchets and saws.

The Yorkers began by constructing a fleet of the flat, raftlike boats known as bateaux. Fast and simple to build, they were strong enough and big enough to carry at least twenty soldiers, as well as the heavy artillery that must sooner or later determine the outcome of this as yet undeclared war. Meanwhile, General Johnson sent out scouts who returned with the information that the French were also budding bateaux, and constructing a mighty fort. The Americans set about constructing a fort of their own.

It had four bastions and was set on a steep rise. One side faced a cliff that fell sharply to the lake below. To protect the other three exposures they dug a dry moat around log walls thirty feet thick and fifteen feet high. Johnson said the fort was to be named for the two royal princes. Most of the Yorkers, whose sweat and back-breaking labor had made this thing, were born and bred Americans and had less regard for the royals than an Anglo-Irish transplant like the general. Still, Johnson was in command and he prevailed. The new fort was named William Henry.

BOOK 3.

The New World and the Old 1757

Chapter Twenty.

SUNDAY, JULY 22, 1757.

QUeBEC UPPER TOWN.

THE HALLS OF the College des Jesuites were paneled with the finest woods. The floors were of red and white and black marble. The brothers kept everything spotlessly clean and gleaming, nowhere with more care than in the broad and colonnaded south corridor that pa.s.sed by the private apartments of Monsieur le Provincial, where Philippe Faucon now walked silently reading his breviary. Old Brother Luke was twenty strides ahead, shuffling forward with large cloths tied to his feet, telling his beads as he polished the floor. His sibilant whisper could be heard clearly in the otherwise silent hall. "Je vous salue, Marie, pleine de grace." Men became Jesuit brothers rather than priests because they were unschooled and could therefore not fulfill the priestly obligation to daily read the Divine Office. They prayed the rosary in French, while each priest of the Society read the Latin Hours by himself, fitting in the duty among his other ch.o.r.es.

It was Sunday. Philippe had no ch.o.r.es. He would have liked to be off sketching in the countryside, but he and Luke had been left to look after things while the rest of the community was away at a reception in the chateau of the governor-general. Ten strides from the door of the apartments of Monsieur le Provincial Philippe began the third psalm of Vespers for this feast of St. Mary Magdalene: Quis ascendet in montem Domini? Innocens manibus et mundus corde. Who can ascend the mountain of G.o.d? He with a clean heart and innocent hands.

The words chilled him. Philippe did not believe his heart clean or his hands innocent.

"Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu," the old man ahead of him murmured. It was not appropriate to do menial work on a Sunday, but Brother Luke had long since decided that polis.h.i.+ng the floor while he walked was not actually labor and had dispensed himself. "Priez pour nous ..." His purposeful shuffle carried him forward, past the door of the Provincial's study and around the corner into the corridor leading to the Retraite de Ste. Anne, the community's private chapel.

Philippe slowed his pace still further. He knew that when Luke reached the door to the chapel he would pause, remove the cloths tied over his shoes, and go inside. The old man spent hours in devout prayer. He was quite possibly a saint.

A few moments pa.s.sed. The sounds of the whispered rosary grew fainter, then died away. Philippe heard the squeak of the one hinge that defied all their efforts to silence it; even a novena to Saint Anne herself had produced no results. The squeaking hinge meant Luke had opened the door of the Retraite. When it squeaked a second time Philippe knew the door had been closed.

Alors. In practical terms he was alone in the house. He did not remember the last time such a thing had happened. It was a sign from G.o.d.

He closed the breviary and lay it on a nearby table, then hurried forward and without hesitation grasped the handle of the door to the Provincial's study. It turned easily. He had told himself that if the door was locked that too would be a sign from G.o.d. He would make no effort to force his way inside, simply accept that what he was thinking was grave sin and prepare himself to do penance to expiate it. But Louis Roget had not locked the entrance to his private apartments. The door swung wide at Philippe's first touch. The wondrous carvings of the ebenistes of Reims were spread before him.

Straight ahead was the panel that depicted the Flight into Egypt, which if he touched it in the proper place would swing wide and give him a view of the Lower Town and the wretched monastery of the Poor Clares, and the hovel where Pere Antoine Rubin de Montaigne lived. On his right was the panel with the angel whose wings covered his face as he knelt in adoration before the Divine Throne. Philippe, too, put his hands over his face.

Lord, I wish to do Your will. His heart thumped wildly, his hands were icy cold. But it could not be the will of G.o.d that the night terrors would not leave him, that his grieving and sense of failure, were like a scrofulous growth in his belly which no amount of prayer or sacrifice could relieve. It is not your fault, Philippe. That's what Xavier Walton told him each time he confessed the same sin of betrayal. You did not desert the habitants of l'Acadie. They were sent away by the heretic English soldiers, may G.o.d have mercy on their souk. The English forbade you to accompany your paris.h.i.+oners. What were you to do?

What he had done was the only thing he'd known for certain was right and the thing G.o.d expected of him. He had borne witness, using the small talent that had been given him to doc.u.ment the sufferings of those entrusted to his care. And the moment he arrived here, back in the College, he had turned his drawings over to Monsieur le Provincial.

It had rained the afternoon of his return. Philippe remembered being soaked to the skin as he walked up the Cote de la Montagne. No one knew he was coming so no caleche had been sent for him, and by his lights his vow of poverty-however loosely it was interpreted among Jesuits-prohibited him from hiring a cart and cartman. He remembered dripping puddles of water when he stood right here in this very room, facing his superior and clutching the deerskin envelope that contained his drawings.

"Welcome home, Philippe. You would perhaps prefer to dry yourself and change before we speak."

"No, Monsieur le Provincial, with permission. I wish at once to give you these things."

"Your drawings." Roget could not quite suppress a sigh. "Yes, of course."

Philippe opened the envelope and spread his sketches on the gleaming surface of a mahogany table. "This is what I saw, Monsieur le Provincial. Exactly as I saw it."

For some moments the only sound was of rain thudding on the lead roof. Louis Roget had looked a long time at the drawings. Finally he made the sign of the cross and Philippe saw his Ups move and knew that Monsieur le Provincial was praying for the habitants, asking G.o.d that the sufferings of the Acadians might be rewarded with the joys of heaven. When he finished he gathered up the drawings, handling them, Philippe thought, with a certain tenderness. He had never before seen Louis Roget be tender. "You have done well, my son. I shall take charge of these now."

Almost two years, and Philippe had heard nothing more. His record, the only thing he could give those paris.h.i.+oners who had been put in his care, had been stifled. At least that's what he thought had happened. Twice he'd tried to ask Monsieur le Provincial what had been done with his drawings. Both times the question was answered with an icy stare and the reminder that it was not his place to concern himself with the decisions of his superiors. But, mon Dieu, this thing gives me no peace. I have to know.

Philippe crossed to the panel of the angel kneeling in adoration and pressed on the wings. The wall parted and a drawer slid forward. It was lined with velvet and deeper than he remembered, crammed full of papers. This time nothing had been left open for him to see.

The rasp of the Retraite's squeaking hinge was unmistakable. Impossible! Brother Luke never left the chapel after so short a time. There was a second squeak as the door closed again. "Je vous salue, Marie ..." Luke had left the Retraite and was retracing his steps, coming back toward Philippe.

He had not closed the door to the Provincial's study. He raced toward it, resisted the urge to slam it shut, closed it carefully and soundlessly, and pressed his throbbing forehead against the coolness of the wood.

Luke's footsteps grew louder. "Priez pour nous pauvres pecheurs-" The words stopped.

The old man was standing right outside Monsieur le Provincial's study. He had stopped reciting the rosary. But Luke never stopped; decade after decade rolled out of him, a constant stream of pet.i.tion. Philippe leaned all his weight against the door. Perhaps if Luke tried it and it did not give, he would a.s.sume the study was locked. The handle, however, did not turn. Philippe put his hand on his chest and counted his own heartbeats. They seemed to him loud enough for Luke to hear. He had reached nine when the river began again to flow. "... maintenent et a l'heure de notre mort. Sainte Marie, Mere de Dieu ..." Brother Luke continued on down the corridor.

Philippe had promised himself he would not look at anything else in the drawer. He wanted only to know if his drawings were there, if Monsieur le Provincial had, as he suspected, hidden away the record of the sufferings of the Acadians. He could be wrong. Louis Roget was a thousand times more clever than Philippe Faucon. Perhaps he had sent the drawings to Versailles, or even to the pope in Rome. Perhaps Louis Roget, like Philippe, was waiting for the English to be publically accused of the terrible things they had done.

The sketches made in hiding in the little Eglise du St. Gabriel in those dark days of terror and turmoil were tied together with a black ribbon. They had been placed in the rear of the secret drawer. Philippe knew without doubt that they had been there since, in keeping with his vow of obedience, he had presented them to his superior.

He carried the drawings to the mahogany table and untied the ribbon, turning the sketches over one by one, flipping through them quickly, tears streaming down his cheeks as he saw again the anguish he had been trying to forget. There were Madame Trumante and Rafael, her four-year-old son, sent away on separate s.h.i.+ps, unlikely to find each other ever again. There were the women cowering on one side of the hall and the men on the other, the redcoats between them with fixed bayonets. Not just exile, but separation, whole families destroyed, for no other reason than that their tormentors wished them ill. Alors, even Mademoiselle Marni Benoit, standing on the ramparts and looking out to sea smiling, the one habitant who seemed glad to leave her homeland. The record he had made was intact, but no one had seen it except himself, his superior, and of course Cormac Shea, that night when the metis had arrived looking for Marni.

There was a drawing in the pile that had not been made by him. It had been caught in the black ribbon and lifted out of the drawer when he removed his sketches. A map of some sort, with dotted lines to indicate the depths and the positions of shoals and reefs and little numbers scattered all about So perhaps a navigation chart. Both. A map and a chart. The artist had not wished to be bound by convention. And though the thing was old and yellowed, it was meticulously drawn with ink and a quill.

Philippe held the sketch to the light, squinting so he could read the signature. Mon Dieu! Ignace Loualt? Que magnifique! He was holding a drawing made by one of the most famous names in the Society. Louait had been among the Jesuits who accompanied Champlain when Quebec was established in 1608. This drawing must therefore be 150 years old.

At first Philippe could not orient himself to the artist's point of view, but after a few seconds he realized he was looking at the St. Lawrence River and the earliest beginnings of Quebec Lower Town. Alors, the big tree, the oak with the large wound in its trunk left from a bolt of lightning ... it is still there. Louait drew this from the sh.o.r.e just below the falls. Bien sur. It is the river pa.s.sage between Ile d'Orleans and Ile Madame, the place they call La Traverse. No merchant s.h.i.+p larger than a hundred tons can maneuver through La Traverse, and even then only with the aid of one of the experienced local pilots. Everyone knows that's why we are impregnable here in Quebec. He had heard the statement more times than he could count. No British wars.h.i.+p can sail upriver and threaten us, they cannot pa.s.s La Traverse. It was an article of faith in Quebec. He had no doubt it was true. But why would Monsieur le Provincial have such a map as this hidden away?