Shadowbrook
Page 41
“Get it spoke and done with, Annie Crotchett, or I swear I’ll send a few more teeth where the front two went.”
Instinctively Annie pushed her tongue into the gap where her teeth should have been. Wasn’t a man did that. Went to a barber and had ‘em yanked out, she did, ‘cause they was aching so bad, but she didn’t fancy losing any more. She took a deep breath. “John Hale signed a paper as gave the men in New York claim to the whole of the Hale Patent.”
Hamish couldn’t speak. When the words finally came they were a squeak, forced out through an almost closed throat. “He dinna do such a thing. He would na do such a thing.”
“He did. He signed it. The sutler saw him. And they was all talking about cane land, down in the Islands somewhere. Cane land in return for the Patent, it sounded like. But the sutler wasn’t sure ‘bout that.”
Hamish didn’t say anything. He’s going to explode, she thought, like a kettle when the lid’s on too tight and the fire’s too fierce. But when the Scot spoke, his voice was so low she had to strain to hear what he was saying. “Go,” he whispered. “Get out of here.”
“Who are you to tell me what I’m to do, Hamish Stewart?” Her arm still hurt from where he’d grabbed it. She rubbed the sore place, knowing she’d have a bruise there later. “I’ll come and go as I please and don’t you forg—”
“Get out o’ my sight, you wretched she-witch. Now.”
“You ain’t got no cause to talk to me like that,” she said. But she was standing up to go even as she spoke. “No cause, Hamish Stewart. I ain’t—”
Hamish half rose. Annie turned and ran.
He sat down again. His legs felt na strong enough to hold him. Cane land in return for Shadowbrook. It made perfect sense, if you were John Hale and seeking only to show a profit on the Patent. A venal, cowardly, miserable excuse for a man, was John Hale. And if he went to Shadowbrook and killed him as he deserved to be killed, skinned him alive maybe, as if he were a rabbit on a croft, what would that gain? A hangman’s noose, most likely. And there was Quentin Hale, no farther away than the front door o’ this miserable tavern where a man couldna get a dram o’ proper whiskey however much he needed it. Passing the time o’ the evening when his stinking brother had signed away their birthright. Did Hale know? He couldna. Not and sit there like that, as if nothing were wrong.
Hamish reached the front of the tavern in six strides. Quentin Hale sat with his back to the wall. Old man Groesbeck was hunched across from him, straddling a small stool and leaning forward as if to hear better. The Scot put his hand on the landlord’s shoulder. “Go tend your other guests. I’ve business with this one.”
Quent looked up. The afternoon light was fading fast, and the Nag’s Head was always stingy with candles. He could see a short hulk of a man standing behind Peter Groesbeck. “Take your hands off him or I’ll do it for you,” Quent said.
“Aye, laddie. I’ve no doubt you would,” Hamish said softly. He removed his hand from Groesbeck’s shoulder. “But there’s better uses for your righteous rage. I can warrant that.”
Groesbeck stood up. “I be leaving you two gentlemans to settle your own affairs.”
“You do that.” Hamish made no move to take the stool the Dutchman vacated. “Step outside wi’ me, laddie. What I have to say is na for any ears but your own.”
Quent squinted into the dimness. “I know you, don’t I?”
“You did. But you were a wee bairn at the time. I doubt you remember.”
“I do. Hamish something.”
“Aye, Hamish Stewart. And you’re Quentin Hale. Now come outside. You’ll not thank me for telling my story in here.”
It was dusk. A cartman drove a wagon up the cobbled road. A small group of Yorkers in their blue and red coats walked briskly toward the nearest gate in the stockade. The breeze carried a river chill and the first scent of autumn. “You gave me a dirk,” Quent said. “I cherished it.”
“Aye. I remember that I did. Still have it, do you?”
“Not anymore. But last time I held it, it saved my life.” Someday, as soon as this insanity loosed by Braddock was done, he’d go after Lantak and get the dirk back. “I’m in your debt.”
“Nay, laddie, you’re not. Not for the gift o’ a wee dirk. But you might be.”
“And that’s what you want to talk to me about?”
“Something you should know.” Despite the chill Hamish was sweating. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Fierce heat in summer and cold enough to freeze a man’s balls in the winter. God’s truth, he must be mad to want to remain. Except that Shadowbrook was here. “Your brother,” he began.
“What about him?”
“He’s forfeited your birthright.”
“If I’ve a birthright it’s this.” Quent tapped the long gun hanging over his shoulder. “Nothing else.”
“The law may say it’s the elder who inherits, but it’s Almighty God puts a man in one place and not another. That’s how a birthright comes to be.”
“You’re talking of Shadowbrook.”
“Aye. Just a wee bairn you were, but you sat up in front of your father most days when we rode out to see the place. From Do Good in the north to the sawmill at the southern end. You knew every blade o’ grass grew on the land, and every bird in every tree.”
This land be your pa’s land, but it don’t rightly belong to no human being, This land belong to God Almighty. It got a lot to teach you. No way you can have learned it all. Not yet. Solomon the Barrel Maker was a wise man. Quent hoped that John was letting him end his days in peace, with Sally Robin. “My father’s dead. Shadowbrook belongs to my brother John.”
“No,” Hamish said. “It does na, laddie. Take my word on that.”
“You’re not speaking sense.”
“I wish to Almighty God I were not. John Hale’s given a lien on Shadowbrook to three New York businessmen. He means to trade the Patent for cane land in the Islands.”
“You’re lying. He wouldn’t—”
“Ha’ you na heard about this new name for Bright Fish Water? And is there na a new fort on the Great Carrying Place?”
“The fort’s been built where John Lydius’s trading post has always stood. Lydius leases the land from the Patent. Look, I admit Johnson makes free, but it’s in my brother’s best interests to allow him to do so. Temporarily. The French are a threat to—”
“The only best interests John Hale recognizes are his purse. He signed away Bright Fish Water and the Great Carrying Place and God knows what else, and promised to exchange the rest for cane land. He made a pact with Hayman Levy and Oliver De Lancey. Probably James Alexander as well. Though Alexander might only ha’ been there to do the lawyering. I would na lie, laddie. Not about the Patent. If you think about your brother, you’ll ken.”
Quent claimed a horse from Hooghkerk’s Livery on Market Street and rode hard all through the night Not yet dawn when arrived; the house was an inky black shadow on a still dark horizon. “John!” He screamed his brother’s name even as he pelted toward the stables. “John!”
The yells and the pounding of the horse’s hooves woke Jeremiah and he stumbled into the stable yard. “Master Quent. What you be—Jesus God Almighty, Master Quent. You fair to killed this horse. I ain’t never seen you ride any animal near to death like—”
“Look after him.” Quent slid from the saddle and gave the black man the reins, then ran toward the house. “John! I’ve come to talk to you!”
Jeremiah led the horse toward the stable, making clucking noises, deliberately turning his back on whatever might be going to happen at the big house. Wouldn’t be a good thing. He was sure of that.
There was a balcony outside John’s room, just as there was outside the one that had been Quent’s. His brother appeared, half naked; he must have pulled on breeches when he heard his name called.
“Come down here or I’m coming up there! You’ve questions to answer.”
“Why the hell should I—”
“Stop your foolishness. I’m coming down.”
The Ibo child called Taba huddled beside the bed, her black eyes enormous in the half dark. She could see the man standing below the balcony. Not clearly, but clear enough. She could see the gun. Kill him, she thought. Please kill him. She held her breath, but the shot never came.
A thin band of pink ran along the horizon. Quent could make out John’s features in the false dawn, his cheeks shadowed with black stubble and his eyes red-rimmed from too much rum the night before. “Did you do it?”
“Do what? What the hell are you—”
“Did you make over Shadowbrook in return for cane land in the Islands?”
Think, John told himself. He’s armed and you’re not. Besides, you’ll never best him in a one-on-one fight, no matter what the weapons. What does he know? “Make over …” He spoke slowly, pausing between each word, giving himself time to make a plan. “Exchange Shadowbrook for cane land? Is that what you mean?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“No, of course not. I never did such a thing. Why would I?” You stupid oaf. What would I gain in such a transaction? You’ve no idea what a mortgage lien is, I’ll warrant. But I need to know who told you your half-truth.
“At the Nag’s Head, they’re saying you exchanged the Patent for cane land.”
“They say a lot of things in the Nag’s Head. Most of it’s lies.”
“This too?”
“I already told you as much. Though why it’s any business of yours isn’t at all clear to me.”
Quent’s chest wasn’t quite as tight and his breath came a little easier. He looked up and saw faces in most of the windows, all open wide to the approaching dawn. Corn Broom Hannah and Runsabout and Six-Finger Sam up in the dormers beneath the rafters. Kitchen Hannah at the kitchen door. And his mother. She’d come out onto what they’d always called the long balcony, outside the big room she hadn’t shared with his father in all Quent’s memory.
Lorene saw him looking up at her. “Quent,” she said, “put down the gun. Please. Do it for me.”
He hadn’t realized he was still aiming it point-blank at John’s chest. He dropped the barrel. “What about Johnson?” he asked.
“William Johnson? What about him?” John was breathing a little easier. His voice sounded more sure in his own ears. “He’s nothing to do with Shadowbrook.”
“They say he’s changed the name of Bright Fish Water to Lake George. They say it’s not part of the Patent any longer. That you signed it over to some men in New York.”
John didn’t answer right away. That’s what alerted Quent to the lie. “That’s ridiculous,” his brother said finally. “I already told you—”
Quent dropped the gun and lunged forward. He got both hands around John’s neck. “You bastard! You lying, cheating, foul bastard! How could you do such a thing? Why?”
John clasped Quent’s wrists, trying desperately to wrench his brother’s hands away from his throat. His breath burned in his chest and his vision blurred. He staggered, went down on his back. The iron grip didn’t ease. Quent knelt over him. “Bastard! What else besides Bright Fish Water? What else?” A tiny part of his brain not blinded by rage realized that his brother could not answer because he was choking to death. And that Quent wanted to know’ needed to know—the exact shape of the betrayal. He loosed his grip on John’s throat and drew back his fist, but he didn’t realize he’d actually hit him until he saw the blood welling from John’s mouth. “What else?” The demand roared out of him. “What else?”
“Carrying Place …” The words were slurred and slow. John’s tongue was rapidly becoming too big for his mouth.
“What else?” Quent’s skin prickled and his heart thumped. The grieving was already beginning in him, a great gash that matched the wound John had made in the Patent. “What else?”
“Above Do Good,” John muttered. “North land above Do Good.”
Quent wanted to wail his anger and his pain, but he could not. It was stoppered inside him, his sorrow was tamped down by rage. “Who?” He spoke quite calmly. “Who’d you give the land to?”
“New York men. Businessmen. Had to. After the fire … Debts. Had to give something away to keep the rest.” He couldn’t get the words out fast enough or as clear as he wanted, as he knew he had to if he was to live. Quent’s fury had gone from hot to cold and John knew it was the more dangerous for that “Fire,” he said again, struggling to be understood. “Fire near’y ruined uf. Had to ge’ money to keep goin’ … nex’ year ha’vest.”
Quent knew in his gut it wasn’t the truth. He wanted to beat John to a pulp, spill his brains on the ground, and break every one of his bones. But it could be true.
“Quent.” His mother’s voice. Coming to him from the long balcony above his head. Just his name. “Quent.”
He staggered to his feet and headed for the stable. Jeremiah would give him another horse. He would go north and do what he’d set out to do. Later he’d go to New York City, find whoever it was who had the northern part of the Patent now. Do whatever was necessary to get it back. “Jeremiah!” he shouted. “Jeremiah.” The black man appeared holding a saddled mare. The gray he’d ridden out of the paddock that day of the fire, as it happened.
“You go away, Master Quent,” the old man said, “for your mama’s sake. Brother kill brother on this land, it be poisoned. Mark o’ Cain that be. You go, Master Quent. For your mama’s sake.”
Quent swung himself into the saddle and rode away without looking back.
Upstairs, in John’s bedroom, when she saw him stagger up from the ground still alive, Taba wept.
Chapter Eighteen
SEPTEMBER 7, 1755
FORT EDWARD, THE SOUTHERN END OF THE GREAT CARRYING PLACE
“FRENCH REGULARS?” Johnson asked.
The Mohawk scout shook his head. “A few. Mostly Canadians and Anishinabeg.”
Johnson made a soft sound under his breath. “This Dieskau does not sound like the usual sort of European general.”
“But the Abenaki with him are the usual sort of Anishinabeg,” Thoyanoguin said.
The old man had cut his hair into a scalp lock. It looked out of joint above his timeworn face. The disparity gave Johnson a bad feeling about this campaign. The man the English called King Hendrick was over seventy by most reckoning, but nothing Johnson or his wife, who was also Kahniankehaka and a member of the old man’s clan, had said could change the chief’s mind. He was war sachem of the Kahniankehaka, the Keepers of the Eastern Door; if there was to be a battle on that doorstep Thoyanoguin would lead his braves into the fight. If it proved the last one, so be it.
The chief had put aside the tricorne and blue officer’s coat he usually wore and was in full Iroquois battle dress: leggings, breechclout, and a double line of six blue dots across his forehead. His chest was bare except for the carrying strap of his musket. It was a young man’s attire on an old man’s soft and flabby body. Rolls of fat curled over the top of the tomahawk at his waist. “A blanket, old Father.” Johnson held one out. “It grows cold.” He did it out of respect, of course. But also he did not wish to see this travesty. It made ice in the marrow of his bones.
Thoyanoguin wrapped the blanket around his shoulders, grateful for the warmth. “The winds come early this year. You will not take Fort Frédéric for many moons.”
“No, I don’t think we will,” Johnson agreed. “Next spring, perhaps.”
“And the attack on Niagara? It too is delayed?”
“So I hear.” The plans made in London were coming up against the realities of colonial life. Not just the thick forests and the lack of roads, but also the rivalries of the different governors and their legislatures stood in the way. “De Lancey refused to release the cannons from the Albany fort. And
John Lydius was supposed to recruit men for the Niagara campaign, but not too many have appeared.” More than likely Lydius had pocketed the bonus money meant for the recruits.
Thoyanoguin nodded. Even among the members of the Iroquois Confederation, sometimes you could not rely on cooperation. He had dreamed a river of blood covering the villages of the Kahniankehaka. Endless blood, covering the earth. And a hawk, and a tiny raon, and a great bear that Thoyanoguin had thought was Uko Nyakwai. Perhaps not. His scouts had reported sightings of the Red Bear heading north in the direction of Singing Snow. The Potawatomi were allied with Onontio. So maybe in the end Uko Nyakwai was more Potawatomi than Cmokmanuk. And maybe not the bear in his dream.
Johnson was squatting, making marks in the dust. It was a way he had of ordering his thoughts. Thoyanoguin had seen it before. He hunched down beside the other man. His old bones creaked and protested, but they still served. He leaned forward, studying Johnson’s marks. There were two circles on the ground. Both had a few crosshatches within their perimeter.
“Say five hundred men in each group,” Johnson said quietly, his words meant only for the chief. “Two detachments. They can cut off the French. A pincer movement.”
Thoyanoguin ran his hand over his scalp lock. After so many years, the Great Spirit had given him one last opportunity. But pointless death was a waste. He stood and motioned to the scout who had brought the news of the French approach. “How many?” he asked.
The scout had already relayed his estimate, but he did so again. “A thousand. And half a thousand more. Nearly half the total are Abenaki and Caughnawaga Kahniankehaka. Only a few French soldiers. The rest men of Canada.”
So there were fifteen hundred enemy approaching. And most were braves and Cmokmanuk from this world, not the Old World. Men who knew how to fight. It would not be like that thing they said happened two moons before on the Monongahela. These troops would not stand still and wait to be killed. Thoyanoguin looked again at the markings on the ground.