Shadowbrook Part 33

Dark was falling, rolling in over the horizon. Thick clouds had prevented any sunset this day, but now the night sky showed a red glow. There were many fires in the place of desolation that was l'Acadie. Some had been started by the redcoats as they hounded the habitants from place to place, forcing them out of hiding and herding them to where they were to wait for the boats. Other fires were set by the Acadians themselves.

There was an iron rake leaning against the wall of the barn. Marni picked it up and went inside. No need to remove either of her cloaks. She wouldn't be here long. She took the rake in one hand, the fireplace poker in the other. When she'd stirred up the fire, she dropped the poker and raked the glowing embers out of the hearth and spread them across the wide wooden planks of the floor.

She worked her way to the door, then dropped the rake and claimed the large drawstring bag she'd packed earlier. It held those few possessions she was allowed to take with her, and her money. She had forty livres saved from the days in Quebec. For safety's sake it was not in the drawstring bag but in a pouch under her clothes and strapped around her waist. Alors, c'est tout finis.

The last thing she did was to pick up the crock of lard left from the previous autumn, when she'd slaughtered the pig before this one. Corm had been with her then. He'd helped her make sausages and cure hams and salt pork, and render enough pure white fat for an entire year of cooking. She had cooked little since he left. Plenty of lard remained. Marni raised the crock over her head and flung it to the floor. It shattered and shards of crockery thickly coated in fat went everywhere. A few landed directly on a burning bit of wood and sizzled nicely. Others, she knew, would soon send rivulets of melted lard toward the embers. Marni waited until she saw a few tongues of flame, then picked up her bag and started for Halifax.

After about twenty minutes she stopped walking and looked back toward her farm; there was a satisfactory red glow. The house, the bam, the dead animals-it would all burn. She'd heard that some women had actually murdered their own children rather than take them into the heretical English colonies to which they were being sent. Marni put her hand over her belly. Empty. She had prayed it would not be. After Corm left, she who did not believe had begged the Holy Virgin that she might be with child. That way, when he returned as he promised, there would be something to keep him besides love of her. But she was not with child. And Corm had not returned. So much for prayers.

Many of the habitants were said to be hiding in the woods, vowing never to leave their homeland. She couldn't wait to go. There was nothing here for her now. She had given her heart and her body to two men. Both had promised to love and cherish her, and both had proven to be liars. Jean was dead and Cormac was chasing a dream. So be it. She would reach Halifax by morning. She had seen two large ships sail by her farm the day before. That's what had made her choose this day to leave. Tomorrow, she hoped, she would be done with l'Acadie and promises.

The autumn cold bit his bones and the wind tasted of ashes. Corm stood where Marni's cows had been sheltered and looked across the charred stumps of wood that had once been the wall between the barn and the house. He was surrounded by a burnt sh.e.l.l. Only the stone fireplace remained intact. He could remember every one of the many times she had given herself to him in front of that fire.

He shouted, "Marni!" into the silence. An owl flew above his head, screeching its disapproval of the disturbance.

d.a.m.n bird had a point. It was dangerous to make so much noise. L'Acadie was crawling with redcoats. Corm had no difficulty avoiding them if he was simply concerned with getting from here to there, but now that he was convinced Marni wasn't at her farm, he'd have to go among them to find her, into the villages and towns where the habitants were being marshaled for deportation. Quent had said a ma.s.s exile wasn't easy to accomplish. Turned out it was b.l.o.o.d.y easy, as long as you were willing to do whatever was necessary.

It would have been hard for Corm to imagine that British soldiers would treat civilians like this, but he'd seen the desolation with his own eyes as he crossed the land between the Chignecto Isthmus and the Benoit farm. What houses still stood had been ransacked, in some cases destroyed. Burnt out like Mami's place, or simply left open and empty, exposed to the elements. The barns were another matter. The redcoats had waited to carry out their orders until much of the wheat crop of the summer had been brought in and stored, then they put the barns under guard and marched the people they'd turned into slave laborers off to await banishment.

Corm turned and headed north across the familiar fields, his way lit by bright moonlight. After a time he realized something didn't look right. At first he wasn't sure what, then he knew. The d.y.k.es were gone. The precise, rounded, earthen fences no longer stood guard between the fields and the sea. He cut to his right to look more closely; the d.y.k.es had been beaten flat, spread over the ground. The wooden parts of the structure were splintered.

A pickaxe lay a few strides away; it had to have been Marni who left it there. The last thing the English would want would be to destroy these farms. He knew them too well, knew how important land was to them, to all Cmokmanuk. Their intention would be to invite English settlers into l'Acadie. Land that would support crops, nothing would be more important than that. Ayi! If Quent's plan were going to work it would have to be put into effect soon. Otherwise it would be too late.

What was it she'd said to him the day he left? I hate this place. It is my prison. I do not care if the d.y.k.es break apart and this farm is washed out to sea.

He could feel the ghosts of all the Benoit clan looking down and cursing this betrayal. Maybe she felt them too. Maybe that's what had held Marni here on the land so long. "Marni!" he shouted again, even as he turned and walked backward, keeping his eyes on the charred remains of the house where they had been together and for a time no one else had mattered. "Marni!"

Not caring about the danger, Corm screamed her name until he was hoa.r.s.e. Nothing and no one answered. Then, when he could no longer see even the jagged, burnt outlines of the pitched roof and low-slung barn, he turned again. Now looking forward, not back, he broke into a trot.

The village wasn't much, half a dozen houses, a small trading post and general store, and the church, the hamlet's main reason for existing. The sign read L'EGLISE DU STE. GABRIELLE; it had been nailed to the wall of the church, but someone had torn it down and left it lying in the gra.s.s. Corm walked past it and mounted the few steps to the door. It was not locked and he went inside.

The sanctuary was empty. Nothing had been touched. The pews, the stained gla.s.s windows doubtless imported from France, the altar built against the back wall, everything was as it had always been. But there were no altar linens, the sanctuary lamp had been extinguished, and the doors to the tabernacle were open, exposing to the empty interior. Corm had hoped that this was one of the marshaling places. He'd expected to find huddled crowds of habitants here, and to search for Marni among them. Instead there was nothing.

"Bon nuit, Monsieur Shea."

He turned at the sound of his name. "C'est vous!"

"Bien sur. Je suis le cure. Who else should it be?"

"I don't know, I thought ..." The moonlight filtering through the stained gla.s.s windows provided enough illumination so he could see the Jesuit. Faucon was unshaven and his soutane was filthy, stained with dirt and mud. He was standing at the rear of the church clutching something. Corm couldn't make out what it was. "I expected to find many of your flock here. I thought perhaps Mademoiselle Benoit-"

"You know she does not come to church."

"Yes, but I presumed the habitants were being brought here."

"No," Faucon shook his head. "Not here. Everyone from this part of l'Acadie is being taken to the Halifax Citadel."

"And you? Where are you going?"

"I am told that I am free to return to Quebec, and that there is never to be a Ma.s.s said here again. If that is so, I may as well do as they say."

"But I would think ... Your parishioners, they must need you. Now more than ever."

Philippe shook his head. "No one needs me, Monsieur Shea. I told you, I am not permitted to say Ma.s.s or administer the sacraments. And priests are not allowed to accompany their parishioners into exile. Besides, I am not even Acadian. So I am of no use. Except, perhaps ..." He stepped to a bench and put down the thing he carried-a deerskin envelope, Corm realized now that he'd gotten a better look-and opened it. "I have made a record, monsieur. To show them in Quebec."

He had worked entirely in secret. Philippe knew the redcoats would confiscate his crayons and his sketchpad if they saw him, so he had waited until he was back in his rectory and alone and sketched from memory. The metis was the first person besides himself who had looked at these drawings. In the cold white light of the moon they were more terrible than they would seem in sunlight. The anguish on the faces of the habitants ... Philippe had not realized he'd captured it so well. But yes, it was exactly how he remembered it being in Halifax.

In his pictures the women were all to one side, some with children clinging to their skirts, the men to the other. Redcoats stood between them with bayonets fixed to their muskets. "They said they would not separate families," Philippe said softly, "but they lied. Yesterday, when the ships left, many families were no longer together. See," he pointed a trembling finger at one sketch of a women kneeling beside a soldier who had a small boy by the arm. "That is Madame Trumante, and the child is her son Rafael. They were my parishioners here. She is a widow and the boy is four years old. She begged to be allowed to keep him with her, but they were put on different ships. No one knows if they were going to the same place."

"Yesterday, you say? The ships left yesterday?"

"Two of them. We are told there are more coming."

"Then everyone is not yet gone." Corm stopped looking at the drawings and grabbed the priest's arm. "That's right, isn't it? Some of the Acadians are still here."

"Oh, a good many of them, Monsieur Shea. Some are still at the citadel. Others hide in their root cellars and barns and even in the forests. The redcoats keep looking, but they cannot find everyone."

"Marni, Mademoiselle Benoit, do you know if she is hid-"

"Mademoiselle Benoit? Oh no, monsieur. She left yesterday. I thought you knew."

"You're sure? How can you be sure? Maybe she got away." He'd told her to wait for him, that he'd come back for her. Marni must have known he'd keep his word. "Marni wouldn't be easy to force onto any d.a.m.ned ship."

"It was not a question of forcing her, Monsieur Shea. Look" Philippe found the sketch of Marni he'd done right after he was made to leave Halifax. As soon as he'd come back here, hers was the first face he'd drawn. In his picture Marni was alone, wrapped in her cloak and standing on the ramparts of the citadel, with her back to the others, the miserable habitants begging not to be deported. Marni was looking out to sea and smiling. "Mademoiselle Benoit was, I think, happy to go. She did not like l'Acadie, Monsieur Shea. I believe you knew that."

Corm spent another week searching the entire peninsula, but the Jesuit had told the truth. He wouldn't find her because she hadn't waited to be found. Marni was gone. Corm headed south for the Ohio Country.

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1755.

NEW YORK CITY.

The acting governor of New York-the only governor, since the Englishman appointed to the task two years before had never troubled himself to come to the province-poured another gla.s.s of malmsey for his guest. "I am not entirely surprised by your report. I had heard much the same."

Quent had just completed a detailed description of the string of stupidities that had led to the ma.s.sacre at the Monongahela. It was thirsty work and he was glad of the wine. He raised the gla.s.s in the direction of his host, then sipped. The malmsey was sweet and strong and very smooth. "Not the Canaries, I think," he said, "From Madeira?"

James De Lancey nodded. "You're a remarkable man, sir. You sit in my study in buckskins and moccasins, and I have it on good authority that you can paint yourself up to look like a savage and howl with the best of 'em. Indeed, that you regularly do so. But you can tell the difference between malmsey from one part of the Spanish Empire and another. Exactly what sort of man are you, Quentin Hale?"

"Many sorts," Quent said. "I believe it's called being an American."

De Lancey smiled. "Entirely true. It is something London has difficulty with, that we are true Englishmen, but Americans all the same."

"Apparently London has difficulty understanding many things in the current situation. How to defeat the French, for one."

"So it seems." De Lancey turned his head. Rain sheeted down beyond the window of the governor's mansion on the Broad Way. Be snow soon enough. "It's over for this year, at least. All Braddock's grand plans. Poor sod."

"I was never sure if the plans were his or made by his masters in London. In any case, whoever came up with those notions had no idea what our forests are like. Or the way the Indians who fight against us will-" Quent broke off. De Lancey knew what to expect, even if London didn't. The governor needed no further details. But Quent didn't feel he'd given Edward Braddock his due. "The general may have been ignorant of warfare in America, but he had as much courage as any colonial. Or any brave, come to that. I counted at least four horses shot out from under him that day. He never hesitated about getting up on another."

"And that young Virginian colonel," De Lancey asked. "What's his name?"

"George Washington. He's brave enough as well. Too brave, if the truth be told, still young and impetuous. But he's got a gift for leadership. Be a fine soldier some day."

"And will he," De Lancey asked, "make these same sorts of mistakes? The ones you accuse us all of-"

"I understood the plan was General Braddock's."

"Yes. It was. But he called all the governors together. Told us what he intended, asked our opinions." De Lancey shrugged. "Eventually we agreed."

"The general was accustomed to getting his way."

"But we"-De Lancey broke off long enough to fill their gla.s.ses a third time-"we were quite willing to give it to him. It's what we seem to do best, Mr. Hale. What London tells us to do."

"Then London must be informed that there's a better way."

"Exactly what are you proposing, Mr. Hale?"

"Quent, please." It was the second time he'd said that. He didn't think it likely James De Lancey would take him up on the offer. Not the sort of man to be on a first-name basis, even when he was invited. "I'm proposing that we get together enough of our American woodsmen to become rangers, fighting scouts if you will. Link them up with our redcoats and let the rangers use their specialized local knowledge to direct the attack on the French." G.o.d, it didn't sound very impressive. Not here in this elegant room. Not the way it had back on the Ile d'Orleans when he told Corm.

"That would require a great many woodsmen, Mr. Hale. I don't think-"

"I'm not saying the woodsmen could do it alone. But London's going to send more troops, aren't they? In the spring?" Quent leaned forward, trying to read the answer in De Lancey's face. If he were wrong about parliament's plans, nothing else mattered. His convincing Corm to try and enlist Pontiac in the cause, coming here, the whole thing was a wasted exercise. He hadn't yet gotten to the main thrust of his proposal, but there was no point in pursuing it if he were wrong about what they were intending in London. "After what happened on the Monongahela, surely they-"

"I'm not privy to London's plans, Mr. Hale. I doubt any of the governors are."

You're lying, you white-wigged fop, sitting there in your blue damask coat and your white satin breeches, with a ruby ring on one hand and an emerald on the other. You could be in any drawing room in London; would rather be, I warrant You know d.a.m.ned well what your masters have in mind. "But you have an idea, Governor, some inkling ..." Despite his certainty, sweat was starting to make rivulets down Quent's back. If London didn't value the colonies here as he a.s.sumed they must, if he'd been wrong about that ... "Not privy to the details, perhaps. But you're bound to have an idea."

"I have a number of ideas," the governor admitted. "And you, I think, have a few as well. More than just these ... what did you call them?"

"Rangers. American woodsmen who'll travel with the troops, and teach the soldiers how to fight Indian style."

"We have our Indians just as the French have theirs, do we not? The Iroquois and such like? Aren't they-"

"General Braddock saw little value in Indian allies and as a result he had few. A man with a different att.i.tude could get more. Some Iroquois, no doubt, the Delaware and Shawnee. But that's not the same as what I'm proposing. The Indians-any Indians-have a different perspective from our own. They have no concept of taking territory or holding it. It's about captives for them."

"And scalps," De Lancey said, his distaste showing on his face.

"Yes," Quent admitted. Whites took scalps as well, for bounty if not for honor, but he didn't bother to say so. "Look, we do things differently. That doesn't make us wrong and them right, or vice versa. But in a fight like this, against the French and purely for territory, it means the help we can get from the Indians is limited Thing is, the way our side is fighting isn't very useful either. Form up in two straight lines, shoot over each other's heads, keep up a volley so intense no enemy can resist it. Never run. Never break ranks. Not until the officer gives the command. That style of warfare won't work here, however many troops London sends."

"That style of warfare has served Britain well for more than a century, Mr. Hale. Why should they leam new tricks now?"

"Because this is America."

And that, De Lancey knew, was true. He was silent for a few moments. "Rangers," he repeated finally. "American colonials, most of them unable to read or write, common men with common notions, made superior to British officers." In practical authority if not in rank. And never in rank, the governor was sure of that. One of the great grievances of colonial troops asked to serve with British regulars was that the most junior red-coated officer automatically outranked the most senior colonial. De Lancey took a sip of his wine, keeping his sights on his visitor, staring at him over the rim of the gla.s.s.

"Call them special forces on special a.s.signment. London must at least consider the plan. Look what the traditional methods have gotten them. Not a single success. Just dead-"

De Lancey raised a forestalling hand and set the winegla.s.s on the table, then took a lace-edged pocket cloth from the sleeve of his ruffled shirt. "Let us give ourselves what credit we're due." Dabbing at his Ups between the words. "We've pretty much driven the French out of l'Acadie."

"Not much of a return for so much loss."

The governor shrugged. "Something. And done without your rangers, if I may say so. More malmsey, Mr. Hale?"

"No, thank you. Look, they took Beausejour by a freak, a once-in-a-lifetime accident." De Lancey looked as if he hadn't heard the story so Quent told him about the officers all having loose bowels and being in the latrine when the cannonball landed. "Something about a bad chicken. How many bad chickens do you think we can get the French officers to eat, Governor?"

De Lancey was smiling. "It's an amusing tale, sir, whether or not it's true. But say it is; say Beausejour is not proof that the traditional means of warfare will succeed here. How do you propose convincing our colonial woodsmen to fight with the redcoats? That doesn't sound to me as if it would be a popular notion."

"It might not be, unless you could promise them that when they had defeated the French they would be free of any Indian attacks, that they and their families and their farms would not be harried by any red men ever again."

De Lancey put down his gla.s.s and sat forward, peering into his visitor's face. "In Christ's name, sir, how could you promise that?"

Quent felt his excitement start to build. He had De Lancey's full attention at last. "Because, sir, I can deliver an agreement with the Indians to share this land in peace. Once we throw the French out, they have Canada, and we have these English colonies."

There it was, in the open, the thing that Cormac Shea had been agitating for since boyhood, that a few other visionaries had suggested from time to time, that Quent had always known to be the only way his two worlds could coexist if somehow it could be made to happen. It was the first time he'd said it to someone he didn't already know to be convinced, and the earth, he noted, had not opened up and swallowed either of them.

De Lancey sat back and sipped his wine and studied his visitor. Quent watched him and waited. One of the logs on the fire bled a trickle of pitch. Leaping tongues of flame shot toward the chimney.

"If anyone else had brought me such a notion ..." De Lancey's voice was low, the bl.u.s.ter and the false bonhomie both gone, "a notion that depends on getting a dozen different Indian tribes to agree to a single course of action ... anyone else I'd have put out of my house as a madman. But Uko Nyakwai ... Yes, perhaps."

"It's a workable plan," Quent said. "Maybe the only workable plan."

"Your friend, the metis with the Irish name, he's in this with you, I expect."

"Cormac Shea. You're well-informed, Governor. Not many people realize we're friends. Quite a few a.s.sume we're enemies."

"I would have said more than friends. I would have said almost brothers."

"As I said, sir, you're well-informed."

De Lancey shrugged. "The Hale Patent may seem to be its own kingdom, Mr. Hale, but it is in the Province of New York It is my duty to know what goes on in New York."

How much gossip had he heard, Quent wondered. Tales of the two squaws, Pohantis and Shoshanaya. And he'd know Lorene Hale was a Devrey, with powerful relations here in New York City. Likely he knew about John as well and what sort of a master of the Hale Patent John was turning out to be.

De Lancey chose that moment to say, "I am remiss, sir. I have neglected to offer my condolences on the recent death of your father."

"A year now," Quent said. "But I thank you for your kindness. Governor, the business at hand ... If I can deliver such a promise from the red men-alliance at best, neutrality at the least-until the French are defeated. Then what?"

"All the red men. That's what you said."

"Enough as will make the scheme work," Quent promised. The Anishinabeg who were longtime French allies, the Huron and the Abenaki and the Potawatomi among them, would be the easiest to convince. If they believed that once Onontio was defeated all Canada would be theirs as it had been before the Europeans arrived, they were sure to fall into line. As for the Ohio Country, he could convince Shingas and Scarouady. h.e.l.l, they were longing to be convinced. Most of the other chiefs-Mingo, Delaware, Shawnee-would come round after they did.

"It's a daring scheme, Mr. Hale."