The New Land

by The New Land (retail) (epub)

  He read the tracks to decide where to place his traps. The best locations were in lowlands, near water, close to the homes of beaver and muskrat, lands that tended to be separated by hills and ridges like this one. If a site produced nothing for two weeks, Johann searched for a better spot. The more he trapped, the farther from the settlement he ranged.

  He also was trying to learn to pass through the woods without sounding like an entire regiment. If he ever got a rifle and could hunt for larger game, moving quietly would be important. Recently, he came upon two Indians with rifles, crouched behind a large oak tree. He froze, not knowing their intentions, but followed their gazes to the top of a crest, perhaps a hundred yards away, where a deer stood, a rack of antlers giving him a lordly air. Luckily, the deer stood upwind and Johann’s heavy steps hadn’t spooked him. The Indians slid away in pursuit, advancing on their toes. They didn’t swing their arms or their guns. When they disappeared over the crest, Johann tried to mimic their stealthy walk. He found it exhausting.

  Today he had already visited five of his six traps, making a lopsided loop through the woods. When he thought of the two muskrats in his bag, his mouth started to water. The last trap was down from this ridge, far to the northeast of the cabin. He picked the spot because he could make out the shape of a beaver lodge at a nearby pond. Christiane had learned how to cook beaver, and one of those pelts was worth some extra walking.

  Johann glanced at the sun. It probably had two more hours, long enough to check the trap and get home. The baby would come soon. Johann would have to fetch women from the shelter when the baby was ready. Christiane shouldn’t be by herself then.

  He reached a point where the ridge looked down on the trap. Fury swept through him. An Indian, wearing a cape of skins and a fur hat, crouched at the spot, stealing whatever animal had been snared. Johann bent over, scanning the ground before him. The Indian looked around, then lifted the trap’s log off the carcass. His furtive movements were a confession. It was theft, something that Johann couldn’t tolerate, not in a hungry winter with a baby and a pregnant wife. Trappers had a code. No white man would poach from another man’s trap. The system would break down if anyone could take a kill from any trap. McDonnell had been clear about that. General Waldo’s policy of friendship toward Indians couldn’t include letting them steal.

  Johann pulled the bayonet from his sack, then looped the sack back over his shoulder. He couldn’t leave that behind. Losing the two animals already gathered would be too high a price to pay. He took off the mitten on his right hand and stuffed it in his waistband. He couldn’t have his hand slip on the bayonet.

  Johann passed behind fir trees, staying in shade when he could. To use the bayonet, he had to get close. He wanted the sun over his shoulder, shining in the Indian’s eyes. This man must be from close by, a Penobscot. They couldn’t let the Penobscots steal whenever they wished. Where would it stop?

  Closing to fifty yards distance, Johann saw that the man had rested a musket against a deadfall log. Unless the gun was loaded, which Johann thought unlikely, it wouldn’t be much use in a close fight. Johann kept advancing.

  At about thirty yards, he saw the man look up, alert. He had the kill in one hand; it was a beaver, stout-looking. That strengthened Johann’s resolve. He wouldn’t give up a beaver. The Indian had heard or smelt or sensed something. He had the beaver tied to a leather thong that he draped around his neck with other necklaces and two other animals. He gripped the gun and rose, then scanned the woods.

  Johann broke from cover, sprinting as fast as slick snow allowed. When the Indian raised his musket, Johann gave a war shout from deep in his belly, hoping to rattle the man’s aim. When he looked ready to fire, Johann dove to the ground. A shot boomed. Thanking his luck as the sound bounced around the hills, Johann scrambled up. The Indian was climbing the opposite slope, moving north, away from Broad Bay. Johann slung his sack back over his shoulder and set off.

  The Indian churned through the snow in moccasins. Behind him, Johann’s boots sank too far into the snow to work up much speed. He dropped his pace to one he could sustain. His surprise ruined, he would have to run the Indian down.

  The Penobscot, checking over his shoulder, saw Johann’s pace slacken. The Indian tried to burst ahead, but he slipped to his hands and knees, rolling onto a shoulder to keep the gun out of the snow. He was up again, moving at a steadier rate. Sprinting wouldn’t work for either of them.

  Johann’s thighs burned as the effort stretched out. He could match the Indian’s pace—the musket and the heavy beaver slowed the other man—but he couldn’t gain. He was grateful the Indian wasn’t on snowshoes. He must have intended to stay on frozen streams where moccasins would work better.

  Grim and silent, Johann pursued in the fading light. The Indian led him over ridges and across frozen marshes. The gap between them shrank a little. They were leaving Broad Bay behind. Johann didn’t know this country. The sack of carcasses weighed on him. He kept on.

  When the Indian disappeared over the top of a slope, Johann fought the urge to speed up. He thought of the tortoise and the hare. He must be the tortoise, a lethal one. He set his jaw and pumped his legs. He squeezed the bayonet handle. He focused his mind. He would bring down this offender of the proper order, this threat to Johann’s family, this offense to God. The rightness of his mission washed out the fatigue and pain that waited on each wind-swept ice patch, in each thigh-high snow drift. He must be pitiless, implacable.

  The two men staggered up hills and picked their way down steep grades. They strained to avoid the misstep that could be fatal. The Indian hugged a ridgeline for most of a mile. Johann still couldn’t close. He knew they wouldn’t meet another white man out here. He hoped they didn’t come upon Indians.

  His quarry darted downhill. Gravity allowed him to widen his lead. Johann, following, used gravity to step up his cadence. He had closed a third of the distance by the time they reached a swale at the foot of the slope. Frozen hard by months of winter, the boggy stretch posed little obstacle until the Penobscot reached a narrow stream. His foot smashed through a layer of ice and into frigid water, then sank deep. Thrown off balance, he pawed at the ice with his other foot but found no purchase to pull out of the stream. He tried to vault out of the water but failed and fell back. The water drenched his musket. Johann held his pace, drawing to fifteen yards, then ten. With a grunt, the Indian hauled himself to the stream’s far side.

  The two men faced off across the narrow water, which now splashed through the gap the Indian had smashed in the ice. The Penobscot gripped the gun by its barrel and faked a swing at Johann, who slipped to one knee. Johann saw the tomahawk in the Indian’s girdle. When Johann hesitated, the Indian resumed his flight.

  Johann worked up the stream to a narrower spot. Gathering himself, he leapt across, landing on his hands and knees, but not in water. Being dry might be an edge. He began to close again as they worked up another slope, now heading due north.

  Johann had to plan the fight. The other man was large, larger than Johann. He looked strong. He already had led a chase for several miles. He had the musket as a club and the tomahawk for close work. Because it would take two hands to swing the gun with any force, he couldn’t wield both weapons at once. He probably also carried a knife.

  Johann had only his bayonet. Longer than most knives, its handle fit Johann’s hand. Its wicked triangular shape made an ugly wound. It was meant for stabbing, not for slashing. When he got close enough, Johann might need a heavy branch to fend off the swinging musket.

  He could hear the Indian’s breathing. The stink of animal fat came back to him. The gap shrank to ten yards as they labored up another slope. At the crest, the Indian lost his footing. He began to slide, then turned, braced to defend himself. Johann leapt forward. He meant to land on top of the Indian, making the man’s gun useless, but he landed short. Grabbing desperately, he yanked the Indian’s hair, provoking a roar as the man fell back into Johann. Their fall jarred t
he musket loose.

  The Indian spun, leaving a hank of greasy hair in Johann’s hand. He reared back to swing his tomahawk, then grunted as his footing failed. The weapon flashed an inch in front of Johann’s face. The swing carried the Indian to Johann’s side. Johann fought to rise, feet pawing the ground. Unable to stand, he rolled downhill to duck a backhand swing of the tomahawk which took the man off-balance to Johann’s other side.

  On his knees, Johann let the sack slide off his shoulder and shed his remaining mitten. He launched himself at the Indian’s middle. This lunge came up short too. As he fell forward, Johann clutched at the man’s belt with his free hand, then stabbed up with the bayonet. The thrust glanced off the Indian’s belt. Switching his grip on the bayonet, Johann stabbed down hard into a thigh. The Indian roared again and swung the tomahawk straight down, reaching over Johann’s back and hammering the right side of his ribs. A fireball of pain loosened Johann’s grip. He fell away from the Indian.

  Bright blood shone on the snow. Johann hoped it was the Indian’s. He shifted the bayonet to his left hand. He had to strike quickly, while he still could, protecting his injured right side. The leg wound would limit the other man. The carcasses around his neck would too.

  Johann stood carefully, staying low. He circled to his right over uneven ground. The Penobscot rotated in place, favoring his gashed leg. He waved his tomahawk and kept his dark eyes fixed on the bayonet.

  Johann feinted to his right. The Indian shifted to meet the thrust. Johann found solid footing and feinted back to his left. When the Indian spun back, his foot slid. Pushing off hard, Johann drove his shoulder into the Indian’s chest and stabbed up with the bayonet. The blade sliced through a leather vest and linen shirt. Johann felt it plunge into flesh and put his weight behind it. Hot blood slid over his hand. He pushed again on the bayonet and twisted it sideways, deep into the man’s guts. The Penobscot grunted and fell back, unable to resist. He grunted again when his back hit the ground, the tomahawk flailing weakly against Johann’s back.

  The bayonet lodged in bone. Johann let the weapon go and reached both hands to the Indian’s throat. He drove his thumbs into the Indian’s windpipe. His hands slick with blood, he leaned in with all his rage. He felt the Indian’s resistance stop, and then his life. Johann squeezed for another minute, then another, until he was sure. He couldn’t afford to be wrong.

  Johann rose to his knees. He fought for breath. His heart thundered. He wanted to gasp deeply, to fill his lungs with cold air, but his ribs shrieked if he tried anything more than a shallow panting. He reached around to his back. The pain was fierce. Touching around the wounded area, he found no tear in his coat. The blade hadn’t penetrated. It must have been dulled by wood-chopping or neglect. If it had been sharp, Johann might already have bled to death.

  Still panting, he stared at the Indian’s face. It was tan and lined. The man was probably five years older than Johann. Why had he run? It was the wrong move. He was larger. He had better weapons. He should have stood his ground. Flight only wore out the older man, making the fight more even. He had underestimated Johann, thinking the white man would give up the chase. Johann was used to being underestimated. It was an advantage.

  As his breathing slowed, another thought crowded in: General Waldo’s policy that the settlers cause no problem with the Indians. This man, whose belt included ten rows of valuable wampum, who carried a musket and had reached a substantial age, might be a respected figure in his tribe. The Penobscots, who seemed always on the edge of war, might not shrug off his killing. That was why General Waldo’s policy was one of peace. Could a single killing trigger a war? Why not? It could in Europe.

  He decided to conceal the body and tell no one about it. They were far from Johann’s trap line, far from the settlement. The man’s stab wounds and throttling could have been inflicted by anyone, white or Indian. Johann would drag the man to a low place and conceal the spot with snow, branches, even rocks. By the time someone found the body, it might not even be recognizable. Johann reached down and closed the man’s sightless eyes, his skin already cold to the touch. Johann’s fever to kill was gone.

  He took the animals from around the man’s neck. One was the fat beaver from Johann’s trap. It would bring a good price. The other two were muskrats, likely stolen from someone else. Johann had traded the man’s life for them. To recover his bayonet, he put a foot on the man’s chest and pulled down and out. He took the other man’s knife and found the tomahawk in the snow. The knife had no special markings. He could keep it. But not the tomahawk, which he stuffed into the man’s wampum belt. He fingered the belt. It had value, but it felt wrong to strip him of his clothes, leave him naked to the winter and the animals. Johann had killed to stop a crime, not to rob the man. Johann instinctively looked at the man’s feet, shod in moccasins with intricate beadwork. Every week or two, Christiane had to re-stitch Johann’s slashed boot. After battle, boots of the dead were an accepted item of plunder. But the moccasins looked flimsy. The traction Johann gained from digging in his bootheels may have saved his life. If he wore these moccasins, people might want to know how he got them. He had no way to pay for such a fine pair.

  And what of the musket? Johann looked it over. It was drenched from the stream and from lying in the snow, but was in fair condition. The spring and hammer and trigger worked smoothly enough. The barrel was straight and cleaner than some he had seen. Johann longed for a gun for hunting. He might bring home a deer or even a moose that would feed them for days. He could defend his family with the musket. But how could he explain acquiring a gun in the dead of winter? That he found it in the snow? His neighbors would talk. If he was to conceal this killing, he would have to conceal the musket. He resolved to find a separate, safe place for it so he could retrieve it when he had thought up an explanation for how he got it.

  It took time to find a low spot where a fallen tree and underbrush would conceal the body. Johann scooped out the snow, stopping every few minutes to wait out the pain in his back. The man was too heavy to carry, so Johann dragged him, then covered the body. Finally, he walked backward from the spot, using a long branch to spread snow over his own footsteps and the track and blood where he dragged the corpse. He placed the gun in a hollow tree trunk some distance away, using a cloth to wrap the mechanical parts.

  With clouds gathering and the light thinning, Johann ate snow for the water. He stuffed the carcasses into his sack, then used the branch to smooth over the site of the fight. He wedged the Indian’s knife in his belt and began the long trudge home. He wasn’t sure of the way or the distance. During the chase, he had focused on the man ahead of him, not noticing landmarks. He retraced their tracks until the skylight faded to a moonless sky. A light snow began to fall. He would have to reset the trap where he interrupted the theft, but there was no time for that. He fought to ignore the pain. His wound seemed to be swelling.

  His mind cycled back to the Indian’s mistakes. The savages were supposed to be mighty warriors, yet this one had blundered when confronted by a smaller man with only a short, bladed weapon. Were a few trapped animals so essential to the man’s family that it was worth a fight to the death? Maybe the man had been half-mad with hunger, his judgment distorted. Was there something about Johann that unsettled him? Did the Indian fear that other settlers were close by? Or was he simply a man of faint heart, not a fearsome warrior at all? Surely the savages, despite their bloody reputation, had men like that. All races did.

  With a start, Johann realized he had lost the trail. Had he gone beyond where the chase started, or simply veered off? He climbed a ridge for a wider look. Nothing was familiar. Pines rose like open umbrellas, long bare shafts with conical greenery at the top. He searched for the North Star, but snow clouds obscured it. The man had fled northeast, so Johann had to travel in the opposite direction.

  After dropping his sack, he blew on his hands through his mittens and stamped his feet. He stretched an arm to test his back. A lightning bolt of pain
stopped him. Waiting for the spasm to relent, he closed his eyes, then concentrated on searching the horizon. He sniffed the air for wood smoke. He hunched against a wind gust. Weary from the chase, the fight, and his wound, he knew he couldn’t stay out for the night. He had heard about trappers who curled up behind a windbreak, wrapped themselves in a blanket, and waited for sunrise. But he had no blanket and feared freezing to death. And Christiane might give birth at any moment. He had to choose a path, the right one, and get home.

  He thought he saw a break in the trees. It seemed to stretch for some distance. That could be the river. He squinted, shielding his eyes from the snow as it fell, muffling the sounds of the forest. The more he squinted, the more Johann thought he had no choice. With a moan, he shouldered his sack and started off. The night would only grow colder. The snowfall might accelerate.

  Johann’s progress slowed, but he kept on, still puzzling over the Indian’s tactics, searching for an explanation that satisfied him. In this weather, he didn’t fear animals. Bears would be in their winter dens. Wildcats wouldn’t attack a man unless he was obviously injured. A wolfpack might be trouble, he supposed, but he could do nothing about that risk now. He was using a solid branch about four feet long as a staff. That would be his defense against wolves.

  As the snowfall eased, a half-moon cast a low glow that backlit the clouds in front of him. He thought he saw a white plume to his left. The scent of smoke spurred him on. The smoke thickened, becoming much too thick for that time of night, when settlers let their cabin fires dwindle. He thought he heard a woman’s shout.

  He drove himself faster.