Shadowbrook

by Swerling, Beverly

  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 Québec. 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 shell. 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.

  Damn 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 mass exile wasn’t easy to accomplish. Turned out it was bloody 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 dykes 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 dykes 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 dykes 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 hoarse. 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 grass. 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 glass 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 sûr. Je suis le curé. Who else should it be?”

  “I don’t know, I thought …” The moonlight filtering through the stained glass 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 Québec, and that there is never to be a Mass 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 Mass 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 Québec.”

  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 métis 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 damned 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 glass 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 massacre at the Monongahela. It was thirsty work and he was glad of the wine. He raised the glass 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 glasses 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.” God, it didn’t sound very impressive. Not here in this elegant room. Not the way it had back on the Ile d’Orléans 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 damned 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 assumed 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 attitude 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 glass.