Shadowbrook Part 8

"I am truly red and truly white, Revered Chief. When the white men came to our land they created some like me who have inside them the blood of two worlds."

Memetosia nodded, encouraging the younger man with his eyes. He waved the stick of crane feathers in a gesture of agreement.

"I take neither one side nor the other when I say that if the Anishinabeg continue trying to fight the white men, the Anishinabeg will lose. Eventually there will be no Real People left in the woods beside the salt waters, or the great waters without salt, or even in the high hills." Pa.s.sion rose in Cormac as he spoke and his white skin no longer mattered. He was truly Indian. "We are no longer happy simply with knives of flint and tomahawks of stone. We want their iron weapons. We want their cloths and their ornaments. We have killed nearly every beaver in our lands attempting to satisfy their hunger for skins, and ours for what they have. But our hunger is never satisfied and we are always at their mercy. We get guns and they come with bigger guns. And there are many more of them than of us. They enslave us with their firewater and sicken us with their diseases. We must find a way to live in peace with the Cmokmanuk, and at the same time remain who we are: Miami and Potawatomi and Fox and Ojibwe, even Irinakhoiw."

"Even Irinakhoiw were put in this world by the Great Spirit," the old man agreed softly. "I have heard what you said. And I take it you do not believe what Pontiac says. That we must band together to fight the whites if the Anishinabeg are to survive."

"It may be true, revered Chief. But I do not think it can ever happen. For Pontiac's plan to work, all the Real People would have to forget all their ancient grievances and fight side by side."

Memetosia made a sound in his throat. "To fight beside the Irinakhoiw, the snakes ... The sun will fall out of the sky before that will happen."

"Yes, I think so, too. That is why Pontiac's way cannot come to pa.s.s."

"The squaw out there," he nodded toward the part of the house beyond the double doors where Genevieve waited, "she tells me you have another plan."

At last Cormac understood what he was doing here: Genevieve had told Memetosia of his dream. And if Memetosia had summoned him to his deathbed to discuss it, then the old man must believe that it could be effective. "Revered Chief," he said eagerly, "I believe we and the whites must divide the land. They will stay in one part and we will stay in the other. We will take the land of cold and snow because we are the great hunters. They will take the rest, the land where the sun shines in every moon, because their crops will grow there. We will trade when it suits us and suits them, but we will have no need to spill blood over the land."

"And on which side will you be, Cormac Shea? With the Anishinabeg or with the whites?"

"I cannot change my destiny, revered Chief. I and those like me will always move between two worlds."

The old man nodded. "Yes, that is so. But it is also true that no one can own land. It belongs to the Great Spirit who created it."

"I know. But people can divide the land according to how it is to be used, and who may be permitted to make their villages and live in peace."

"That is the question," Memetosia said softly, speaking it seemed more to himself than to Cormac. "Can the whites ever be made into Real People? Can they be trusted to give their word and keep it?"

"Some of them can."

The chief nodded. "So you say. So others say. Tell me, my son," it was the first time he had used that form of familiar affection with Cormac, "did your totem reveal this plan to you in a dream?"

Cormac lowered his head, thinking deeply about his answer. A plan revealed in a sleeping dream would carry much more authority, but to lie about such a thing ... He could not hope for success if he made a mockery of everything he'd learned at the fires of Singing Snow. If he allowed himself to be more white than Potawatomi, he would no longer be a bridge and nothing he hoped for could come to pa.s.s.

"The way was not shown to me in sleep, revered Chief. It was revealed slowly. Many times in my village, as a boy and later as a man, I would go to the cleansing place, and after I was purified I would open my mind and let the Spirit show me truth. It was in this manner that the way for the two worlds to live in peace was revealed to me. After a long time and much purification."

Memetosia nodded, slowly and with much gravity. "Sometimes that is how the Spirit speaks. Yes. I, too, have opened my mind to my totem in these last days of my time here." He reached beneath the blankets and came up clutching a medicine bag. "I came here to this place, even though I knew I was beginning to let go of my spirit, to speak with the white chiefs," Memetosia murmured. "I thought I must try one more time ..."

"Try what, revered Chief?"

"It doesn't matter. They are more concerned with each other now than with us." The rasping whisper was weaker now and Cormac had to bend close to hear the words. "There is going to be war between the French and the British."

"There is always war between the French and the British."

"Yes. But with every sunrise the drums grow louder in their ears. There was a fort made by the ones who call themselves Virginians, where the two rivers meet in the country of the snakes called Mingo."

"Fort Necessity," Cormac said. "Uko Nyakwai told me about it. The young man who is called Washington, he-"

"He was surrounded by the French and their big guns, and they killed all his horses and mules and oxen and he surrendered. The French were fools and let their enemies walk away, so they must fight them again, but someday-soon I think-one will truly win and the other will truly lose. When that happens the winner will be strong enough to crush the Real People entirely. We must protect ourselves against that day. Perhaps by Pontiac's way, perhaps by yours. But some method must be found. If we go on as we are, they will eat our flesh and throw our bones into the fire."

"Memetosia speaks wisdom." Cormac could smell the sourness of the old man's breath, the unhealthy reek of his ebbing life.

The hand holding the medicine bag snaked toward Cormac. "Take this, Cormac Shea who is both white and Anishinabeg. It is the most precious gift I can give. Take it and when the time is right, use it."

"Revered Chief, how will I know-"

The old man had closed his eyes. He turned his face away and made a languid, dismissive gesture with the crane feathers. There would be no more talk.

The medicine bag was a pouch smaller than the palm of Cormac's hand and made of fine, very soft deerskin, pure white and decorated with red and black crane symbols, tied tightly with a long deerskin thong fashioned into a large loop. Corm fingered it cautiously. There were a number of hard, uneven objects inside, not flat like coins or small and tubular like wampum.

On the sofa Memetosia sighed loudly. The old hawk clearly didn't want Cormac to examine his gift in his presence and wasn't going to explain its significance. Corm slipped the looped thong over his neck and tucked the medicine bag inside his shirt where it didn't show, then backed out of the room.

There was only one brave guarding the door. Cormac wondered where the other had gone, but before he had time to worry, Genevieve walked toward him. She seemed to be studying his face. "Well?"

"He's resting. No worse than when you saw him." Her piercing glance was unnerving. He did not really think it was the condition of the aged chief that was causing her such anxiety, but what else? And was it his imagination that she was staring at the thong around his neck?

"You look so tired, Cormac." Now she sounded more like herself, motherly as she'd always been with him. She touched his cheek and started to trace the puckered skin of his scar, even though she knew he hated for anyone to do that. He pulled away. "Sorry," she murmured. "But-" She broke off, her tone and her look changing. "Come with me," she said firmly. "I've something to show you."

He glanced at the Miami still guarding the doors to the room where Memetosia lay dying. The brave's face betrayed nothing. He felt naked without his weapons; presumably they were still in the front hall. But the mystery of the medicine bag was more compelling. He hurried after Genevieve.

There was a Miami squaw in the kitchen, kneeling beside the fire stirring something in a big pot. Cormac smelled the familiar reek of rancid bear fat and parched corn, probably the special white corn grown only by the Miami. The Lydius house had become a Miami village. "This way." Genevieve hurried him through the stone-lined dairy behind the kitchen, and the herb-drying room beyond that, through the kitchen garden, past rows of potherbs, and squash and beans and pumpkins ripening in the high summer heat. In a few strides they reached the woods that covered much of the Lydius land. Cormac was grateful for the shade. "Where are we going?"

"You'll see. It's just there. Look."

They had reached the banks of a small stream that cut across the edge of the property. Beside it was a newly made clearing, the stumps of the cut trees still creamy and fresh. A s.p.a.ce had been made that was big enough to accommodate a small wigwam formed from willow saplings stuck in the ground in a circle and tied together at the top and covered in skins. There wasn't any chimney opening that Cormac could see, but he spotted a fire pit for heated stones just inside the flap that served as a door. It was a sweat lodge; he could feel the heat from where he was standing. Another Miami, almost as old as Memetosia from the look of him, was moving between the wigwam and a second fire, this one with a lively blaze that was being used to heat the stones for the pit inside the lodge.

"I knew as soon as I saw you this morning that you needed this," Genevieve said. "I asked Takito to make everything ready for you. As an honored guest." While she spoke the old man squatted beside the fire pit at the door of the lodge and used two forked sticks to probe the heated stones.

It was unthinkable for Cormac to refuse the high hospitality of the sweat lodge; the steam bath was both a religious ritual and a mark of affection and esteem. "I do not deserve such an honor," he murmured.

"Nonsense. We made it for Memetosia, to soothe his old bones and help him prepare for death. Now you must use it to prepare for life, for what you must do."

Corm's mind was racing, trying to sort out the remarkable events of the past few hours. He'd already decided Genevieve must have played a part in events of the day. How else would Memetosia have known that Cormac had a plan for the survival of the Anishinabeg? Maybe she also knew the old chief had given him a gift. Maybe she knew what it was. If so, she knew more than he did.

He could feel the deerskin pouch resting against his chest. It seemed to generate its own heat. He sensed Genevieve waiting for him to mention it, but she didn't say anything. Instead she called to the old man tending the fire of the sweat lodge. "Takito, I have brought you the brave called Cormac Shea. He is of the Potawatomi people from the village of Singing Snow."

The old man put down his sticks and got to his feet. He moved slowly, and his body, naked except for a breechclout, was ropy with age. One leg was shorter than the other and his gait had a distinctive leftward lurch. "Kihkeelimaahsiiwaki," he murmured. I do not know him. "But I have heard of his deeds and his skill with the long gun."

Cormac was starded to see a whole-skin otter medicine bag around his neck He lifted his hand in greeting, then realized Takito was blind; there were rough scars where his eyes should have been. The tattoos on his cheeks and forearms were distinctive and confirmed the message conveyed by the medicine bag. "I am honored to meet a priest of the Midewiwin," Cormac said. "I am not deserving that such an esteemed healer should prepare the sweat lodge for me."

The Midewiwin priesthood was active among the Potawatomi as well as the Miami and Ojibwe and Ottawa. When they were formed, the Great Spirit had chosen to communicate with them through means of an otter who helped a brave whose leg had been crushed in an accident (a Potawatomi, according to the way Cormac had heard the story). The otter told that first Mide priest that in exchange for the loss of his leg he and those who joined him would be given means to protect the Anishinabeg. After that it became common for many members of the Midewiwin to sacrifice a part of their own bodies at the sacred festival that conferred priesthood. It was possible that Takito had gouged out his own eyes.

The priest pointed at the sweat lodge. "Everything is ready. Come."

Cormac looked around for Genevieve, but she was gone. "With your permission, esteemed priest, I will prepare myself for this great honor."

There was a place at the edge of the clearing where three tall pines formed a natural curtain around a flat rock ledge at the edge of the stream. Custom demanded that Cormac enter the rebirth of the steam lodge as he had entered the world at the time of his first birth, entirely naked, without even a totem or a medicine bag of any sort. He took off his moccasins and trousers first, folding them neady, stalling before he must remove his shirt, trying to sense any prying eyes. Instinct told him he was alone except for the old priest squatting beside the fire pit, chanting.

"Haya, haya, ahseni ..." The sound was low, soothing, luring him back to the pleasures of the steam. What did it matter where he left Memetosia's gift? They were alone and Takito was blind. He could leave the pouch tucked un.o.btrusively under his clothes and it would be there when he returned to dress ... Ayi! The steam had already turned his thoughts to smoke. "The most precious thing I have," the old chief had said.

The chanting stopped and the priest called him, "Cormac Shea of the People of the Fire, come. These stones are waiting for you."

"I am preparing myself, esteemed Priest. Only a few breaths more."

A short distance from the rock was a maple tree that had been three-quarters felled, probably by lightning. Most of the trunk lay along the ground, leafless and withered. A shadow-tree remained upright, a single piece of the trunk that was still struggling to grow. Its leaves were yellow and curled in on themselves. Only one branch at the very top was still green and full of life.

Cormac grasped the skinny remains of the tree with his knees and began to shimmy up the ghost trunk It swayed and bent toward the earth. The rough and splintered bark tore at his naked legs, but he ignored the pain. The single live branch stuck out of one side and hung almost over the stream. Cormac tested it gingerly.

"Haya, haya, ahseni ..." The chant had started again. People said that a Midewiwin priest could see with his eyes closed. Maybe Takito could see with no eyes at all. But what did it matter? Takito was not his enemy. There had been trouble between the hereditary chiefs and the Mide priests since the chiefs had been unable to cope with the devastation caused by the white man's diseases. That had allowed the Midewiwin to become more powerful, and in many of the tribes they struggled with the chiefs for power. But if Takito wasn't loyal to the old man dying a short ways away in Genevieve's parlor he wouldn't be here.

"Haya, haya, ahseni. Haya, haya, ahseni."

The single live branch of the maple tree dipped perilously close to the water. Ayi! He was going to fall in and make a fool of himself. He moved back a couple of inches and the branch stopped swaying. He glanced over at the steam lodge one last time. Takito's back was to him. Cormac reached up with one hand and slipped the deerskin medicine bag from around his neck, wound it securely around the single living branch of the dying maple, and shimmied carefully back down the branch. When he was on the ground he saw that the green leaves entirely hid the treasure.

Utterly naked, at last he approached the lodge. Takito stopped chanting and stood up. He rubbed Cormac from head to toe with bear grease, then he held open the flap of the small wigwam and waited.

Cormac had to stoop to get inside and once there he couldn't stand upright; the wigwam had not been built for standing. On the floor was a frame of laced-together saplings that stood about two hands high and supported a woven lattice of hide thongs. When he lay down on it Cormac felt as if he were floating. The air was already thick with moisture, but he heard the sound of liquid splashing on the rocks in the fire pit and more clouds of steam filled the little lodge. The moist heat surrounded him, entered his muscles, and began its work. He gave himself up to the healing magic of the Midewiwin.

Chapter Eight.

MONDAY, JULY 13, 1754.

ALBANY, NEW YORK PROVINCE.

HAMISH STEWART DID not like cities in general, and Albany, for all he'd lived here going on a twelvemonth, he considered the least likable of all. Nothing to inspire a man to awe or even admiration, only squat wooden buildings, na the fine red stone o' Edinburgh ni the impressive gray granite o' Glasgow. Wi' a wooden stockade around the bits that mattered, the fort and such, there were too many people crammed together in too little s.p.a.ce, and the men all haggling and cursing and spitting and p.i.s.sing at the same time into the same wee drainage ditches as ran down the dirt roads and emptied their filth into the river. The decent G.o.d-fearing sort of women turned their pinched faces away and pretended they dinna see or hear the goings-on. The wenches as lifted their petticoats out behind one or t'other o' the town's taverns or grog shops and bent over for any as had five copper pennies to pay for a straightforward f.u.c.king-or a bit more for something fancy-those sorts o' la.s.sies dinna care.

There were plenty o' that sort in this place. The taproom belonged to a Dutchman, Peter Groesbeck, and as in the rest of Albany, you were as likely to hear under its roof the Frankish speech of Holland and the other Low Countries as the b.l.o.o.d.y king's English. Groesbeck, like most, spoke both tongues. What set him apart was that he let the wh.o.r.es do as much business as they liked out o' his establishment at the Sign of the Nag's Head, long as they paid him his share at end o' day. Hamish had no quarrel wi' that. You survived how best you could. What bothered him about Groesbeck's taproom was that geneva could be had for a ha'penny the gla.s.s and rum for a penny, but you couldna get a dram o' real whiskey at any price. None to be had anywhere in the town. A pox on Albany. Once Shadowbrook was his he wouldna come again to this miserable excuse for a town. He'd send his slaves to do whatever business he had with Albany.

Hamish finished his rum and called for a refill. Old man Groesbeck himself brought the jug and filled the Scot's gla.s.s. Hamish put a wooden penny on the table and the Dutchman took it and went away.

Slaves. G.o.d's truth, it was a mighty strange notion. He dinna think he'd ever be really comfortable with it. Men and women running about doing whatever they were bid for no pay, and no reason for it other than that the slaves had black skin and the masters had white. Could be this whole slave business was a heretic Protestant notion. On t'other hand, St. Paul himself said that slaves should be obedient to their masters. Besides, slaves and Shadowbrook went together. First time he'd seen the one was first time he saw t'other. And G.o.d's truth, Shadowbrook was meant to be his.

He'd known that back when he still had two eyes, the first time he saw that glorious piece of G.o.d's creation called the Hale Patent. Shadowbrook was his destiny. That's why the Almighty had let him live through the sinkhole o' death that was Culloden Moor. It was why he'd survived the b.l.o.o.d.y slaughter o' the hunt the Sa.s.senachs mounted after the battle ended, pursuing the Highlanders up every brae and down every ben, killing them wherever they could be found. After Culloden the Highlanders were na permitted e'en to wear the plaid, G.o.d help them all. But Hamish Stewart still had his plaid, woven for him by his own grandmother in the soft blues and rose reds o' the tartan o' the Stewarts o' Appin. He would wear it again, by G.o.d, when he was laird o' Shadowbrook.

His destiny, Hamish reminded himself, and pushed away the faint unease he felt each time he thought o' how it was he'd gotten enough bra.s.s to make it all happen. By Christ, had he gone to London and paid the a.s.s-licking court flunky as was supposed to get it, what would ha' happened then? Nothing. Whatever the wee favor the Sa.s.senach was supposed to do for the poor bedeviled crofters who dispatched Hamish Stewart to pay the Englishman their life's savings, he would na ha' done it. No Sa.s.senach can be trusted. Ach, what was the point o' thinking on all that now. "Landlord! Another rum. A man can be dead o' thirst in this place and you'd not notice."

"And will you treat me to one as well?" a woman's voice asked from somewhere over his shoulder.

"Aye, glad I'll be to do it, Annie. If you'll sit yourself down and talk a wee while."

"The talk's easy enough, Hamish. But the sitting is another matter." Annie Crotchett was on the wrong side of twenty-five. She was missing two front teeth and her skin was beginning to look like badly tanned hide. Aye, but her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were still fine things. They rose above her bodice like a pair o' ships in full sail. Hamish had heard she charged tuppence extra to unlace her dress and let a man suckle. He couldna say for sure because he'd never gone with Annie out behind the Nag's Head. A man shouldna s.h.i.t in the same place he ate, a lesson he'd learned early on. Annie was a matter o' business.

She sat gingerly on the bench beside Hamish, keeping her weight more or less on one cheek. "I keep telling meself it's not worth letting a man ram his c.o.c.k up yer a.r.s.e for a guinea, much less a shilling," she sighed, "but I give in every time." Groesbeck appeared and gave them each a tot of rum. Hamish put tuppence on the table and the landlord scooped it up and turned to go. "Hold on." Annie reached between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and extracted three sixpences. "Here's your share of me day's earnings, Peter. I'm done work until tomorrow. Got to give me poor bottom a bit of rest or they'll be burying the whole of me by week's end."

Hamish waited until the landlord had left them before asking, "What about John Hale? Does he like to ram it up your backside, as well?"

Annie laughed. "Lord no. Wish he did; I'd hold my s.h.i.t for a month if I thought I could bury that b.a.s.t.a.r.d's c.o.c.k in it. It's other things John Hale likes."

"What things?"

"None of yer business. I told ye afore I took yer poxed money, I'll tell you anything he says, not what he does." She was too ashamed to tell what Hale made her do the two or three times a month he came to see her. The Scot had offered her a golden guinea to loosen her tongue, but no amount of money would make her. " 'Sides, I ain't seen John Hale at all this past fortnight" And glad she was of it, much as she missed the shilling Hale paid her for each visit.

"When you did see him last, was he talking about the harvest? Did he say how-" Hamish stopped speaking. Nearly everyone in the taproom stopped speaking.

A huge redheaded man had walked in. There was a la.s.sie with him, a wee sc.r.a.p o' a thing. Half undressed, she seemed, so tattered was her frock. The man sat at a table near the door and called loudly for a pint o' ale for himself and a gla.s.s o' Rhenish wine for the lady; if he noticed how quiet the taproom had become, he dinna let on. Hamish felt a cold hand grip his bowels and damped his teeth tight shut to keep from groaning aloud.

"Only drinks wine." Annie didn't seem to have noticed Hamish's distress. "Lady is she? Don't look like it to me."

Hamish wasn't interested in who or what the la.s.sie might be. "That's Quentin Hale, isn't it?"

"That's him," Annie confirmed.

People had started speaking again, rather more loudly than was normal. And making a point of not looking at the newcomer or his companion. "The Red Bear. That's what they call him, isn't it?"

"Uko Nyakwai, the savages say. Practically one of 'em hisself, if the truth be told. Married a squaw, and in a proper Christian church, if you don't mind. And when-"

"I thought he was gone. I heard after the squaw died, Quentin Hale left Shadowbrook for good and went to the Ohio Country." To Hamish's ears his voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and unnatural.

"Not right away. Stayed up there on the Patent for maybe a year, then he had a huge fight with his pa and left. Doesn't matter anyway. Shadowbrook was never going to be his. John's the elder brother. That's how rich folks do things, isn't it? The first one gets the best of whatever there is, and the rest are left to squabble over the leavings."

"That's how it happens sometimes," Hamish said.

G.o.d-rotting h.e.l.l! He'd been sure he wouldna have to deal with Quentin Hale. Leastwise not until long after everything was settled and he had the law and possession on his side. G.o.d-rotting h.e.l.l, but sometimes a man's destiny was a hard thing to live with.

Nicole was glad to leave Albany. The women of the town had looked at her in surprise, then quickly looked away in disapproval. Her dark hair hung in a plait down her back like a squaw's, because she had lost all her pins. She had no petticoats and no chemise, and her dress was little more than rags. The lingering glances of the men were worse. She could tell what they were thinking. If Quentin Hale wasn't with her she'd have been mauled like a common wh.o.r.e. "Where are we going now?" she demanded when they quit the town. "Where is Monsieur Shea? You said he would rejoin us."

"He will, when he can." She'd have to stop asking so many questions if she was going to be Cormac Shea's woman. Not his worry, Quent reminded himself. Corm had claimed her; it was up to him to break her to his ways. "We're going the same place we've been going right along," he said. "Shadowbrook. We'll be there before midday tomorrow if you'll stop talking so much and keep walking."

"That's your family's home, isn't it? I have heard you and Monsieur Shea talking about it."

"That's right." He said no more and they walked in silence for what remained of the day.

At dusk they descended a steep hill to a shallow cove beside the broad river. There was a narrow strip of sandy beach that ended in an outcropping of rocks, the whole protected by a half circle of willow trees growing at the foot of the cliff. Quent waited and kept watch while Nicole bathed. "Stay this side of the rocks," he told her. "There's an undertow." When she came out, refreshed and ravenous, he had already stripped to the waist and taken off his moccasins. "I'll bring back supper," he called over his shoulder as he moved off. He dropped his breeches, stepping out of them, and bent forward to gather them up. Nicole's cheeks grew hot and she quickly turned her head. By the time she turned back, the bare backside of the Red Bear was nowhere in sight.

Nicole wondered why he hadn't made a fire for her to cook the fish he clearly intended to catch, but when Quent returned he was carrying a basket woven of willow reeds. He came clambering over the rocks, wearing his breeches, droplets of water still clinging to his shoulders and chest and red hair. "Supper," he said, depositing the basket at her feet. It was full of rough-sh.e.l.led oysters, each almost as big as her palm. "Biggest and sweetest you've ever tasted," he promised. He bent over to reclaim his dirk from the things he'd left on the sh.o.r.e, pried open the first mollusk, and handed it to her.