Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  Solomon groaned. He’d obviously been trying not to, but the leather ties were shrinking, and tightening as the sun dried them. The barrel maker’s head and ankles had drawn closer together, increasing his agony. Quent could see his face clearly now. Solomon’s left eye had indeed been gouged out, just as Thoyanoguin said. The empty socket was caked with dried blood; the old man’s cheeks were sunken and his mouth drawn tight in a grimace of pain. He groaned again. The braves drinking in the shade beneath the trees laughed.

  The one who had wet down the leather joined his companions. The jug passed to him and he upended it, taking a long drink of rum. Quent thought he saw some motion in the trees on the far side of the stream. Damn them all to hell. Lantak, where are you? Come out and fight like a man, curse your rotten hide.

  He felt a prickling on the back of his neck and rolled swiftly onto his back, keeping the long gun in firing position and drawing a bead on the observer even before the motion was complete. A coal-black squirrel stood on its hind legs staring at him, swishing its bushy little tail and holding an acorn in its paws. Man and squirrel surveyed each other for a second or two, then the squirrel turned and ran away. Quent rolled back into his original position overlooking the camp in time to see one of the Indians get to his feet and stumble toward Solomon.

  “Where are you going?” The words were slurred and uneven, as if the jug of rum had been circulating for some time.

  “I have to piss.” The renegade walking across the field pulled aside his breechclout as he spoke. “If we water this one some more, he will sing louder.”

  “Lantak said he wanted to be here at the end. He’ll cut out your heart if you send the darkface to his ancestors too quickly.”

  “Lantak’s not here. Besides, I do not need his permission to piss.” The Huron stood above Solomon, holding his cock in his hand. A stream of urine played over Solomon’s back and the thongs that tied him. The other two laughed heartily, even the one who had warned against killing the captive too quickly. The brave who was relieving himself changed position and directed his flow at the barrel maker’s face. “You thirsty maybe? Here, drink this.”

  The others laughed louder. Quent’s finger tightened on the trigger and he sighted down the five-foot barrel of the gun. The Huron didn’t have time to release his grip on his cock. It was still in his hand when his head cracked like an overripe watermelon, spewing blood and brains.

  “Ayi!” The brave who screamed reached for his tomahawk just as the ball of the dead lookout’s musket parted his chest into two halves.

  Quent dropped the musket and sprang to his feet, loading the long gun as he ran down the hill. A single stride to yank the cork from the powder horn with his teeth, two more to pour the black powder down the barrel, three to ram a wad and prime the pan. The third Huron had managed to load his musket but he was moving it in a wide and unsteady arc, still seeming not to know the source of the danger. Then he spotted Quent pelting down the embankment.

  The long gun was now fully loaded and ready to fire. Quent raised it to his shoulder, still running, presenting a moving target and taking only the blink of an eye to get the renegade in his sights. The barrel of the musket swung in Quent’s direction; Quent drew back the hammer of the long gun. The two weapons roared in the selfsame instant. This time Quent didn’t brace himself against the long gun’s mighty recoil, but allowed it to knock him to the ground. He continued rolling down the hill. The musket ball cut through the air over his head and landed some distance behind the place he’d been standing. The body of the renegade Huron crumpled headless to the earth.

  Solomon’s face was still wet with urine as he turned it to Quent, his remaining eye fixed steadily on the younger man. “I knowed all I had to do was hold on long enough and you be coming to get me.”

  “Absolutely, old man. I figured you knew that.” The dirk sliced through the leather thongs, releasing the barrel maker from the unnatural arch. “Take it slow.” Quent reached behind him and slipped the dirk into its sheath. He needed both hands free so he could support Solomon’s shoulders with one arm and grab his legs with the other. “Real easy now.” Gently, with infinite patience, he allowed Solomon’s tortured body to unfold.

  The barrel maker groaned. Quent waited until what he knew was a rush of excruciating pain had subsided, then asked, “Solomon, do you know where Lantak’s gone?”

  “I did not go far,” a voice from across the clearing replied. Lantak stepped out of the trees. “I have come to meet you, Uko Nyakwai. Stand up and let me see the guest at my camp.”

  The renegade was some twenty strides away, on the other side of the field where the bodies of his two dead comrades lay. He held a long gun aimed at Quent. Quent knew it was loaded and ready to fire.

  “So the brown robe told the truth.” Lantak spoke the words without turning around, but he seemed to be addressing someone behind him. “I thought you were dreaming. I did not believe that a whiteface would come after a darkface in this manner. I was mistaken.” He didn’t move, not taking his eyes off the Red Bear for a moment. “I told you to stand up, Uko Nyakwai. Do it now. The gun, you will leave there on the ground beside you. If you reach for it I will kill you.”

  Quent still had hold of Solomon’s arms and legs. He let them go. “Stay still,” he murmured, his lips barely moving. “When I shout, roll away from my voice.” Slowly, taking what felt like an infinite amount of time, Quent got to his feet. No gun, but his tomahawk hung at his waist. God-rotting hell! Why had he been so bloody quick to sheath the dirk? He couldn’t risk reaching for it. Or the still more lethal tomahawk. And there was another unknown: Who was behind Lantak, and with what weapons?

  “Walk toward me, Uko Nyakwai. Yes, like that. I wish to see your face when I kill you.”

  “Killing quickly is not your custom, is it Lantak? The storytellers say Lantak is like a spider who brings a fly into his web and offers many caresses before death. But perhaps that is only your way with old men and children and squaws? Maybe you do not have the courage to test a brave whose strength is like your own.”

  Lantak chuckled. “Do you think you can make me angry, Red Bear? That perhaps I will lose my temper and that will cloud my judgment? They say you are truly a Potawatomi brave. Perhaps that is so, but you are also a fool. You treat Lantak as if he were a child. No Real Person would do that. Yours will be the next corpse left for the vultures to find, not Lantak’s. Every moment you remain alive you are a danger. If you have a death song, Uko Nyakwai, sing it now.”

  The barrel of the long gun had not wavered while Lantak spoke. Quent knew he was perfectly sighted. Lantak would not miss. Quent focused his mind on his interior spirit, calling up the strength to meet death. He saw everything with remarkable clarity. Even the small gesture Lantak made as his finger tightened on the trigger.

  Quent’s death song rose in him. He was a whiteness that first plunged into the bowels of the earth. Then the whiteness rose, reaching for light like a flower stretching to the warmth of the sun. He, his spirit, was the whiteness. He would cover the earth and protect all that he loved. He would sing his white song forever, and all that Shkotensi the Great Spirit had put inside him, all that made him who he was and not someone else, would live for eternity. He was a whiteness with the softness of new-fallen snow, and the cunning of the wabnum, the white wolf who hunts on ice. Lantak fired his long gun. Quent let his death song and his spirit go free, toward the bright light waiting for him, beckoning him.

  The bullet crashed into the trees to Quent’s left. Lantak stumbled and fell. Behind him Père Antoine shuddered, staring at the hand that had shoved the renegade as if it did not belong to him. He, Antoine de Rubin Montaigne of the Friars Minor, had saved the life of Uko Nyakwai, heretic and enemy of the True Church. The priest groaned softly.

  Lantak released his gun and allowed his body to roll, coming to his feet with his tomahawk in his hand. He hurtled toward the priest with a roar of rage, the tomahawk swinging above his head in an arc of death.<
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  “Lantak!” Quent was still suspended between two worlds, hovering, looking down on himself and on Lantak and the priest on the other side of the clearing. “Lantak! I am your enemy! Uko Nyakwai is over here! Why waste your time with a man in a squaw’s frock?” Quent’s own tomahawk was in his hand. In what seemed to him the slowest, most deliberate motion, he pulled his arm back. “I am over here, you madman!”

  For a single heartbeat Lantak hesitated, torn between his rage at the priest and the knowledge that every moment Uko Nyakwai lived was a danger to him. Then he swung round and charged across the open ground toward the Red Bear.

  Quent released his tomahawk. It whistled through the air in a deadly series of turns, gathering momentum as it spiraled toward the renegade. But though he’d adjusted the throw for the fact that Lantak was running toward him, he was spent from the release of his death song and this time his aim was not perfect The knife-sharp edge of the stone blade buried itself in the renegade’s left shoulder instead of his forehead, slicing through skin and muscle and lodging deeply in the bone.

  The pain opened a pit into which Lantak could plunge to escape torment. But he knew it offered no refuge, only death. Lantak fought the lure of oblivion. He dropped his own tomahawk and reached up and pulled that of Uko Nyakwai from his flesh, sending it spinning into the dirt. He could not suppress a scream of agony, but it didn’t stop him from pulling his knife and hurtling toward his foe.

  Quent had his dirk in his hand. His rage erupted in a scream of hatred and he ran to meet his enemy.

  Quent could not feel his feet in contact with the earth. To fight well, to feint and dodge and maneuver until he was close enough to cut out the heart of his foe, he must be able to read the enemy’s movements with his moccasins. The ground would tell him which direction Lantak took before he took it, but it was as if Quent floated above its surface, separated from the source of strength and knowledge. He had freed his spirit to seek the next world, and though it had been called back, it had not entirely returned to this one.

  Lantak sensed the Red Bear’s weakness. For a moment it seemed to him that he could still emerge from this contest victorious. The renegade thrust forward with his right arm, ignoring the searing pain in his left.

  Quent saw the blow coming and moved, but not in time to prevent the Huron’s knife from slicing through the flesh of his side. He grunted once, then blessed the sting of the wound. It helped him to focus, to summon his soul back to his body, and when Lantak swiveled to the left Quent followed, ready to plunge the dirk deep into the other man’s chest.

  At the last moment Lantak pulled back. The handspan’s length of the dirk’s blade buried itself not in his heart, but in the same arm already on fire from the tomahawk’s assault. He screamed again, and without another moment’s hesitation turned and ran. Here on this day, he was no longer a match for the mighty Red Bear. But if he lived there would be other days. And revenge, when it came, would be sweeter for the delay. He ignored the pain and stooped to scoop up his long gun before he disappeared into the surrounding forest.

  Quent could not follow him: his tomahawk lay on the ground where Lantak had flung it and his dirk was still buried in the renegade’s flesh. By the time he got his gun … He glanced back at Solomon. The barrel maker was sitting on the ground cradling Quent’s long rifle. “I got it, Master Quent.”

  “Very good, Solomon. Excellent. You hang on to it.” He shook his head, trying to come back, reminding himself that he and Solomon were still not alone.

  The priest hadn’t moved since Quent first caught sight of him; he was white-faced and trembling with shock, hunched over, shaking like a leaf in the wind. Quent took a step toward him. “I appear to owe you my life, sir.” The pit in the center of Quent’s belly was closing, but his words still seemed to his own ears to travel an immeasurable distance. “I’d like to know your name.”

  “I am called Père Antoine, and—I could not let him kill you in cold blood in front of me. I could not.”

  “I’m glad to hear it, Père Antoine. But for you I’d be dead.” Quent’s voice strengthened. “The water in that stream over there is fresh and cold. Do you a bit of good just now.” He touched the other man’s arm, noting how rough the brown cloth was, and gently turned him in the direction of the brook.

  “I could not see a man murdered in front of my eyes,” Père Antoine said. “I could not.” But Almighty God, how will you judge me for this? He is a danger to Holy Church. I feel it in the depth of my soul. But to see him killed in my very presence, with no opportunity to repent his sins so he must go straight to hell-fire … I could not. Savior, forgive me if I did the wrong thing.

  Père Antoine stumbled toward the stream, leaning on his enemy. They reached the bank, and the priest bent over and splashed his face with the icy water. “Thank you, my son. I will offer prayers for your soul.”

  “I’m the one in your debt, Père Antoine. May I ask how you happened to be here,” Quent watched the priest’s face. “I saw you back there in the nuns’ church, didn’t I? The place I brought Mademoiselle Crane.” He turned his head to look at the dead Indians in the clearing. “These renegades don’t seem likely converts to Christianity. Nor Lantak either.”

  The cold water helped. Père Antoine felt more himself. He stood up, and his eyes were level with those of the redheaded giant. The priest was accustomed to being able to whither most men with the power of his glance. Not this one. Are you heathen or heretic, Red Bear? And do you know how close to death you just came? Do you care? “God’s ways are not ours, my son. Who are we to say who is to benefit from the loving kindness of Jesus Christ, or the infinite goodness of His True Church? Now, I must be getting back to the town and my duties.”

  Quent moved aside, clearing the way to the path that led through the woods and back to the fortress city of Québec. “I will not forget this day, priest. Nor the fact that I’m in your debt.” He spoke to the man’s departing back. The priest merely raised a hand to acknowledge that he heard.

  Solomon was still sitting on the ground, waiting. Quent went to him. “You goin’ after Lantak?” the barrel maker asked.

  “No.” Quent took the long gun from Solomon’s hands and slung it over his shoulder. “He’s had too much of a head start. Besides, he knows these woods better than I do.” But Corm knew them as well as Lantak did. Even with the old barrel maker slowing him down Quent wasn’t more than a week’s trek from Singing Snow. There were people there who could heal Solomon’s wounds and if Corm was gone, Bishkek might know where. The temptation was strong, but it was hard to say how much time Solomon had left. Could be he wouldn’t survive a week’s trek. Could be he’d die before he ever saw the only place on earth that mattered to him. “I’d dearly love to get my dirk back,” Quent admitted, “but if I don’t get you home to Sally Robin sooner rather than later, she’ll sing a hex on me.”

  Solomon chuckled. “She mighty will, boy. I trust she mighty will.” It was the first time in years he’d called Quent boy rather than master. It felt good to both of them.

  LEAF FALLING MOON, THE TWENTY-THIRD SUN THE VILLAGE OF SINGING SNOW

  It was nearly the end of September; the cold was settling in and the sun was never higher than the treetops of the far horizon. These days Cormac figured it to be about three o’clock when darkness arrived. A Cmokmanuk idea. If he’d never gone to Shadowbrook he wouldn’t give a dog’s fart for precisely what hour a thing happened or didn’t happen. Or maybe he would. Maybe the white on the outside of him would have overwhelmed the red inside whether or not he ever left Singing Snow. Ahaw, yes, but if he’d made more room in his head for the Anishinabeg and less for the Cmokmanuk, maybe he would understand the meaning of the hawk and the little birds and the white bear and the white wolf. He shivered and drew the blanket closer around his shoulders, leaning toward the fire.

  “Until he was eight,” Bishkek said, “my bridge person son knew only the way things are here in this place of the Fifth Fire. Then he learn
ed the Cmokmanuk ways and the cold moons chewed his bones and froze the water in his eyes, and the darkness was like a curse to him and he left us when the sun left.”

  Cormac couldn’t look at his manhood father, much less answer him. How did the old man always know what he was thinking?

  Bishkek shifted his position slightly to accept the pipe which had passed to him from the left. He drew long and deep, exhaling smoke in a slow stream before finishing his thought. “It is time for my bridge person son to go.”

  “I do not know more than I did when I came,” Cormac murmured, his words meant only for Bishkek. “I have no answers, Father.”

  “Ahaw, you have. You know that the answer is not here.”

  “Where, then?”

  Bishkek shrugged and passed the pipe to Cormac. Cormac drew deeply and held the smoke in his mouth, enjoying the heat and the taste of the tobacco. A boy of no more than six, the son of one of Bishkek’s daughters, sidled up to him and leaned confidently into Cormac’s body, sure of his welcome. “Do it, Uncle. Do the trick. Do it!” Cormac put his arm around the boy’s waist and drew him close, at the same time exhaling in such a manner that the smoke made large and distinctive rings just visible in the glow of the fire. The boy’s pudgy little hands grabbed at the fleeting images, destroying the thing he wanted simply by the act of reaching for it.

  “You still have Memetosia’s gift?” Bishkek asked.

  “Ahaw.” The pipe had passed on and the little boy moved to another man in the circle. “I still have it.” The medicine bag was buried deep in the earth beneath the place in Bishkek’s wickiup where Cormac spread his sleeping blankets.

  Bishkek started to say something, but Kekomoson the chief leaned forward. There were four braves sitting on the ground between the chief and Bishkek and Cormac; Kekomoson had to raise his voice to be sure he was heard. “Giyabwe.” I had a dream. “Last night I dreamed of wabnum, the totem of this brave who is different than all the others.” Kekomoson lifted his chin in Cormac’s direction. “The wabnum in my dream was the biggest, whitest wolf I ever saw. It was racing away from here, going toward the sun.”