Quent saddled a horse of his own and galloped off toward Squirrel Oaks. He had an insane fear that she had secretly left the Patent, and that he’d never see her again, but he was still half a league away from the burial ground when he saw her standing on the cemetery hill, silhouetted against the afternoon sky. “Nicole!” He screamed her name into the wind. “Nicole!”
She turned and waited for him, unmoving. He rode up beside her, then slid out of the saddle.
“I wanted to pay my last respects to Madame Hale. I am very sorry I was not well enough to attend the funeral. I brought her the first forsythia of the season. You can make them flower early if you cut them and—”
Quent pulled her to him and stopped her words with his mouth. Nicole stood rigid in his arms. “You love me,” he said finally. “I know it.”
“I do, I have never denied that. I always will love you.”
“Then why—”
“I am not free to love you or any man. I took a vow.”
“And kept it. But—”
She reached up and put a finger over his lips. “I will make you a bargain, Mons—Quent. I know the Patent needs a mistress. I will be that, but I can never be your wife.”
Jesus God Almighty, a devil’s bargain. How could he agree to such an unnatural covenant? If he did not, she would leave. “Very well. But—” The idea was born full in him without his having examined any of it’s parts. “Nicole, I saved your life, didn’t I? Bringing you here so Sally Robin could look after you, isn’t that why you’re still alive and walking on both your legs?”
“Yes, and I will always pray for you.”
“I want something more than your prayers. I want you to make me a promise. In June I will go to Singing Snow.”
“The Potawatomi village where you and Monsieur Shea were—”
“That’s right. I want you to come with me. Give me your word, Nicole. You owe me that. Give me your word that you’ll come.” You got to find some way make that little lady know she got her feet solid on the good earth, Master Quent.
“Very well,” she said. “You have my word.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
MUCH FAT MOON, THE FIFTH SUN THE VILLAGE OF SINGING SNOW
“HAYA, HAYA, JAYEK.” Every member of the village stood in a circle, arms linked. The whitened skeletons in the open pit were tumbled together. Bishkek’s bones had been placed on the heap only minutes before, but Quent could no longer tell which ones belonged to his manhood father. “Haya, haya, jayek” So, so, all of us together. The rhythm of the chant owned him. He was no longer aware of Corm, standing beside him, or of Nicole a short distance away.
When the burial of the bones was completed, he came back to earth enough to see how solemn she looked. The ceremony had dearly moved her. “It must be very strange to you,” he said.
“Not as strange as I expected.” She had become so accustomed to seeing him dressed as the master of the Patent she had forgotten how broad his naked chest was.
“I don’t understand.”
“It is pagan and heathen, at least that’s what I’m supposed to believe. But it was …” She searched a moment for the word. “It was holy. I am sure it was of God.”
“It makes me happy for you to see that.”
Nicole smiled at him for the first time in all the months since Québec. “I am sure I look even stranger to everyone here than they do to me.” She had on the same simple gray frock and white mobcap she wore at Shadowbrook. “Never mind, we shall become accustomed to each other. What happens next?”
“I need to speak with Corm. Lashi will look after you. Later there will be a feast.”
“They aren’t going to do it. There are thousands of redcoats all over Canada—Québec, Trois Rivières, Montréal crawl with soldiers. But every French white still alive is right where he’s always been.”
Quent wanted to hold out some hope, but he’d never lied to Corm and he wasn’t about to start now. “Pitt wrote to me. He reminded me that he’d only ever said he’d try. He faces huge opposition in the government. Despite all he’s done, there are plenty who want to be rid of him.”
Corm leaned over and spat on the ground. It was an entirely Indian way of saying what he thought. “Pontiac agreed to try as well. But he succeeded and Pitt failed.”
“It’s not over yet,” Quent said. “Maybe things will still—”
“Jeffrey Amherst hates every red man he sees, and he has garrisons to sustain from Carolina to Québec. He does it by offering a bounty to any as poach game in Anishinabeg hunting grounds. As long as Amherst’s in charge, it’s over.”
Quent wanted to disagree, but he could not. “It will be enormously difficult for them to leave Amherst in charge. The battalions were never up to strength. Now, with deaths and casualties and plain old desertions … He grows weaker, Corm. He has to.”
Cormac looked at him. “Do you really think so?”
“I do. He’s trying to recruit local lads, of course, but you know that seldom produces much.”
“Not in the colonial character, soldiering?”
“Not in the English fashion. Not blind obedience to standing still and being shot at when there’s a whole forest ready to offer shelter. And not doing things for fear of the lash and the noose.” He put his hand on Corm’s shoulder. “I know how discouraged you are. I can’t blame you. But could be things are going to change now. Maybe just in ways we didn’t expect.”
“Change, yes. But not for the Anishinabeg. At least not the kind they were hoping for.”
“You can’t be—”
Corm held up his hand. His disappointment was too bitter for this day in this place. It would poison their last visit with the spirit of Bishkek “Let’s talk about something else. Nicole looks fine. Pretty as ever.”
“She is that.”
“But?”
“She wants no part of me. Still says she’s bound to her vow to be a nun.”
“Crazy,” Corm said. Then Shabnokis came, beating her drum and announcing the beginning of the feast.
Nicole came shyly out of Lashi’s wickiup. She was dressed in a squaw’s buckskins, leggings and a short dress, and her hair was plaited, the braid hanging over one shoulder and finished with a cluster of bright-colored feathers.
“You look splendid,” Quent told her.
“I wasn’t sure you’d approve.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure. Pretending to be something I’m not, perhaps.”
“Is who we are a matter of what we wear?”
She was startled. “No, of course not. I just—”
“You’re you, Nicole. Whether you’re wearing the black veil of the Poor Clares, or a mobcap in the big house, or beaded buckskins.” He fingered the neckline of the bodice. She couldn’t be wearing corsets beneath this outfit. The time when she dressed herself in Pohantis’s white skins, she’d known enough not to wear them then and when he lay over her for those few moments before she told him everything was different, he’d felt her flesh soft and yielding and unrestrained.
How familiar his fingers felt on the bare skin between the lacings of the dress. How right for this time and this place. As the veil had been right for the monastery.
I have tried to do what is right, ma Mère.
I know. And God knows. And now what is right is that you must leave.
He saw the shadow pass over her face. “What are you thinking?”
“That I do not understand very much.” Then, before she could say more, Lashi came and pulled her away. It was time to eat and the women must be separated from the men.
After the meal there was the calumet, and then, she knew, there would be the dance. Would the women choose a man as they had in the Shawnee camp and go off with him? And if they did, what would she do? I cannot, however much I want to. It is a sin. Help me, mon Dieu.
The drums began, many this time, and not with the prayerful solemnity of the earlier ceremony. Corm came to where she sat beside Lashi and lean
ed down and said, “This part’s joyful. We’re celebrating Bishkek’s passage into the next world.”
“Monsieur Shea, please, tell me … That other time, when we were in the camp of the Shawnee and all the women chose a man to be with, is it …” She knew herself to be bright red. She could feel the flush, and see her embarrassment reflected in Cormac’s wide grin. If only they were not so far north and it were not June, at least it would be dark.
“Not quite the same here. We Potawatomi have our own ways. But don’t worry. I’m sure you’re going to enjoy everything that comes next.” He left her then and she saw him speak a few words to the one they’d told her was the chief, though she could not remember his name. Then the drums became more insistent and she could think of nothing except the way the beat seemed to keep pace with her heart, and how Quent looked as he danced with the others. All the women chanted. “Ahaya, haya, haya…”
Quent watched her moving with the other squaws; they had linked arms with her and she could not avoid it. Her Ups were slightly parted and her eyes shone and he could see from the way her chest rose and fell that she felt the excitement of the others. He was heavy with wanting her, and sick with fear that when the dance ended nothing would be changed. You got to find some way make that little lady know she got her feet solid on the good earth, Master Quent. There was no place on earth more good or more solid than Singing Snow.
The circle moved and he had no choice but to move with it; for a time he had his back to Nicole and the other women. When he next saw her Kekomoson stood in front of her. He was offering her the old clay cooking pots that had belonged to the wife of Bishkek.
Nicole looked up at the chief, trying to look respectful. Doesn’t he know I don’t understand a word of his language? Surely Lashi must tell him. Or Quent or Monsieur Shea. She was enormously relieved when she saw both men coming toward her.
Corm moved faster than Quent. “It’s a gift,” he told Nicole. “You can’t refuse if you want to be polite.”
“Oh no, why would I refuse his gift? Tell him I’m honored. Please say these things are beautiful and I am proud to have them.” Nicole reached out and took the stack of clay cooking pots. A loud cheer went up from everyone in the village. Then the drams were beating more furiously than before and the chief had dragged her to her feet and was walking her toward Quent.
There were more words she didn’t understand, and Quent grinning at her, and finally saying, “Kekomoson wants to know if you wish to give the pots back”
“Oh, no, why should I? Please tell him I’m most grateful for his kindness.”
He knew he had to tell her, but just then, the way she looked and how much he wanted her … I’ll explain later, he promised himself. When we’re alone. “You have to dance with me now,” he said. “That’s the way you say thank you for the gift of the pots.”
“But I still limp. Besides, I don’t know how.”
“It’s easy, I’ll show you.”
She held the pots in her arms and he put his hand on her shoulder to lead her to the fire. The drums continued to beat. Corm had picked up two rattles and he shook them in the same rhythm, and the squaws chanted as before. “Ahaya, haya, haya.”
“Why is Monsieur Shea circling us like that?”
“It’s the way it’s done. Come on. Don’t think so much. Just move.”
She was halting at first, then a bit more sure of herself. He worried that her bad leg would let her down and he put his arm around her waist to support her. “Don’t drop the pots, that’s very important.”
She turned to him and this time her smile was like sunlight and her body moved in unison with his. Quent led her around the fire three more times, then away from the campsite into the woodland beyond. The chant followed them. “Ahaya, haya, haya.” Nicole still held the day pots that had belonged to the wife of his manhood father.
“We’re married,” Quent said.
“What?!”
“The Potawatomi don’t make much of weddings. But when a brave chooses a squaw, his mother gives her cooking pots. And if she accepts them, then she’s saying yes, she accepts the brave. Those pots belonged to the wife of my manhood father, Bishkek. She’s dead as well. So Kekomoson took the pots to keep them until either Corm or I chose a squaw.”
“And you told him you chose me.”
“Not exactly. Corm did.”
“Quent, I …”
“Stop talking, damn you. I have listened to all your talk for months. Hell, I’ve listened for years. But the reality is that we’re both alive and we’re both here and we love each other.”
They were sitting beside a stream and he turned to her and put both his arms around her and forced her to lay back with the weight of his body. Nicole knew she should pull away, that he would not force himself on her if she resisted, but for only the length of one kiss … That could not be such a terrible sin.
Quent loosed the laces of the squaw dress, and felt the soft flesh of her breast against his palm.
“No, my darling. I cannot. It’s a sin.”
“No, it isn’t. I told you. We’re married.”
The catechism she had learned at maman’s knee had spoken of marriage as a sacrament, one that the couple bestowed on each other. The priest was merely a witness. She turned her head to free her mouth from his. “Quentin Hale, will you love me forever? Will I be your wife under God?”
“Forever and ever,” he promised. “Under any God, Potawatomi or Christian or—”
“Ssh. There is only one God, my darling. However we choose to worship. I will be your wife, Quentin Hale. Forever and ever.”
“Forever, starting now,” he whispered and covered her body with his.
Epilogue
The World of Tears
1763-1769
FOR THE FIRST time ever the Anishinabeg united under a single leader. Faced with the broken promises of the English and Jeffrey Amherst’s refusal even to supply them with food or tobacco or guns or powder, Pontiac rallied his people in a great effort to bring back the French. He called together a powwow of Ottawa, Chippewa, Huron, and Potawatomi—more than four hundred chiefs and sachems—and they listened to the Ottawa sachem and remembered the words of the prophets who had told them that unless the Real People turned back to their old ways they were doomed, and soon they danced a war dance that was unlike any other. Papankamwa, eesipana, ayaapia, anseepikwa, eeyeelia, pileewa … So, so, all of us together.
Fires burned and whites died from Niagara in the north to Carolina in the south. Miami joined the rebellion, and Lenape, and Kickapoo and Seneca and Shawnee. So, so, all of us together. Fort Sandusky fell, and Fort Wayne, and Fort Venango and Fort LeBoeuf. After two months, when Fort Edward Augustus in Green Bay was taken, the English had lost every stronghold in the pays d’en haut and the Ohio Country except for Fort Detroit and Fort Pitt, and both were under siege. So, so, all of us together.
Amherst sent a troop of handpicked soldiers including rangers to Pontiac’s camp near Fort Detroit, but the Anishinabeg were waiting for them and the creek where the two forces engaged ran red with blood. Bloody Creek, it was called after that. Cormac Shea, who had been beside Pontiac from the first moment of the great rebellion, was among those who died there, but no one took his scalp. Pontiac brought the body of the métis back to the camp and it was honored and buried, but the Ottawa knew that without his wabnum his war had lost its heart. He offered to treat with the English, but hatred of the red men was now strong in the hearts of Amherst and the others. Pontiac’s offer was refused, and the other tribes no longer believed in his leadership and gradually they deserted. For the red men, life in the sun-coming part of the earth had all but ended. Most moved west, but the Cmokmanuk followed and the Real People began their sad journey over a long trail of tears.
In 1763 the Treaty of Paris was signed and only Louisiana was left to the French. The Jesuits were well established there by then, but one, Louis Roget, went for a walk one day and was found a week later, scalped and
missing his heart. So Vaudreuil’s curse had borne fruit: Roget had escaped Canada, but he had died a Canadian death.
Vaudreuil himself was imprisoned in the Bastille for a time, but later exonerated.
Bigot was found guilty of fraud and banished from France.
Mère Marie Rose and her four daughters from France, returned to the monastery in Montargis. History forgot them and the Poor Clares dated their origins in Canada to the founding of a monastery in Québec more than fifty year’s later.
Pontiac was killed in 1769 by Peoria Anishinabeg.
In the big house at Shadowbrook there was laughter and birth and death and hope, and bonfires that burned in thanksgiving when word came in high summer of 1776 of the glorious Declaration of Independency pronounced in Philadelphia. In July of 1788, confident that the Bill of Rights for which they had so long argued would be added to the proposed document establishing a union of all the former colonies, the delegates to the Assembly in Poughkeepsie agreed that New York State would ratify the Constitution. The people who tilled the earth, on small farms as well as the huge patents of the north and plantations of the south, would join with the people of the merchant cities from Boston to Savannah. Together they would set out on a great and daring experiment made possible in part by the terrible war they had fought and won twenty-five years before.
The mists of dawn still hung over the Patent when Quentin Hale and Cormac Shea Hale, at twenty-two his eldest son, climbed to the top of Big Two, but by the time they had erected a pole and run up the flag with thirteen stars that Nicole had stitched with such care, the sun had risen on a new and glorious day.
Haya, haya, jayek. So, so, all of us together.
Acknowledgments
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