“I hope that some day we shall be able to repay them,” Charlotte said.
She fell asleep feeling safer than she had for weeks, knowing that a man like Axe Carrier regarded her as a friend.
The Loyalist women liked Axe Carrier. “If he’d just grow his hair and put on some decent clothes,” said Mrs. Platto, “he’d almost pass for a white man.”
But they did not like Okwaho. There was a wildness to him that no change of clothing could have altered, and it went deeper than the lightning bolts painted on his face. Okwaho had dark copper skin and high cheekbones. His eyes were black, with a menacing glitter, and the trophy feathers attached to his scalp lock waggled as he strutted about the camp.
Charlotte thought that Okwaho’s scalp lock looked like a black shoe brush glued to the top of a shiny bald head, for he had plucked out every unwanted hair and rubbed his scalp with bear grease until it gleamed. Charlotte stayed out of Okwaho’s way. There was nothing about him that she liked at all.
Yet the young warrior had one devoted admirer. To Elijah, Okwaho was a hero.
“His name means the Wolf,” Elijah told Charlotte one evening as they relaxed by the fire. “He earned that name.”
“It suits him. He looks fierce enough.”
“Oh, he’s plenty fierce. He’s only nineteen, but he’s been in dozens of battles and he’s taken ten scalps.”
“Has he really?” said Charlotte. The hair on the top of her head prickled.
“He even showed me how to do it.”
“Good heavens!” She laughed nervously. “Don’t practise on me.”
“I don’t plan to scalp nobody. But it’s useful to know how.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
“Anyway, that’s just one thing he’s taught me. I’m learning how to throw a tomahawk, strike with a war club, and hunt with the bow and arrow. He’s teaching me his language too.” Elijah leaned toward Charlotte and lowered his voice. “I’ve changed my mind about soldiering. With the things he’s teaching me, I can become an interpreter or a guide or even a fur trader. Lots of white men go off to live with the Indians.”
“I reckon they like the freedom.”
“That’s the truth. It’s a hard life, but it’s free.”
Elijah stood up. “I promised to show Moses how to set a snare. He’s jealous because I spend so much time with Okwaho. Ma makes Moses gather nuts with the little ones. He can’t abide Polly Platto. He says he’s going to run away. But Moses always says that when he’s angry, so we pay no heed.”
Axe Carrier squatted on the ground, plastering a dead pheasant with moist clay. The pheasant had not been plucked, although the long tail and wing feathers had been pulled out and the body cavity cleaned.
When he saw Charlotte watching, he leaned back and said to her, “You should learn to do this.”
“What are you doing?” Charlotte thought it looked like child’s play — something like mud pies.
“I’m going to bake it in clay. That’s the best way to cook a pheasant.”
“What about the feathers?”
“They come off when you crack open the clay. Inside you’ll find the juiciest meat you ever tasted. You should try it.”
“I will, someday.”
“Mohawk cooking is very good. My eldest daughter could teach you.”
“You have a daughter?” She had never thought about Axe Carrier having a family.
“Four daughters and three sons. My oldest daughter is fourteen. Her name is Drooping Flower. She can cook, tan leather, do beadwork — all the things that a woman must know how to do. Last year she had her ceremony of maidenhood. I think she’ll be married soon.”
“Does she have a sweetheart?” This was interesting. Charlotte sat down beside Axe Carrier.
“Oh, yes. I suspect she has already chosen the man she wants to marry.”
“Really? Is a Mohawk girl allowed to choose her husband?”
“Most of the time, they choose each other.”
“Anyone they want?”
“It must be someone from a different clan. My family is Turtle clan, so Drooping Flower must marry a Wolf or some other clansperson. When she makes up her mind, she will tell her mother.”
“And then?”
“My wife will pay a visit to the young man’s mother. The mothers will talk it over. If they agree, Drooping Flower will cook a basket of double ball biscuit loaves and hang them outside her sweetheart’s lodge. If he eats one, he must marry her.”
“Hmm,” said Charlotte. “Perhaps that’s what Drooping Flower should teach me. What did you call them?”
“Double ball biscuit loaves.” He looked amused.
Moses ran away. The next day, when Polly Platto led her band of nut gatherers back to camp, he was not among them. Polly, red-faced with rage, blubbered, “I told him to sort the nuts, because I didn’t want butternuts mixed up with hickory, and he said I was just a girl and he didn’t have to do what I told him. Then he threw nuts all over the ground and ran off into the bush.”
“Someone should tan his hide,” said Mrs. Cobman. “If his Pa was here, that boy would sure catch a licking.”
Polly wiped her eyes. “Maybe a bear ate Moses. That would serve him right!”
She looked pleased at the idea, until Mrs. Cobman burst into tears and Mrs. Platto smacked the side of her head and exclaimed, “What a wicked thing to say!”
“I didn’t mean it!” Polly wailed.
Axe Carrier ignored the commotion, but his face looked grim. “I’ll go after him. He can’t have gone far.”
He left immediately, and returned within minutes with Moses trudging at his side. “I found the boy up in a cedar tree,” he said.
“I climbed there to get away from Polly,” Moses explained defiantly.
“Don’t you dare do that again!” shouted Mrs. Cobman.
Axe Carrier laid his hands on Moses’ shoulders. “Child, listen to me. The forest is full of dangers. You might have an accident, or meet a hungry animal, or be captured by an enemy. Until you are much older, never go into the bush alone.”
Moses hung his head. “It’s not fair,” he grumbled. “Elijah goes off with Okwaho, but I have to gather nuts with girls and babies.”
At the edge of camp, hanging by a thong from a high branch of a jack pine, a dead squirrel swung back and forth in the breeze. Okwaho was giving Elijah a shooting lesson with the bow and arrow. The squirrel was the target.
Charlotte, Mrs. Platto and Mrs. Cobman, who sat cracking hickory nuts on a flat rock, watched the lesson with half an eye.
“Doesn’t it bother you,” said Mrs. Platto to Mrs. Cobman, “to see your boy spending his time with that wild Indian?”
“Bother me? Yes, indeed. That young man is a savage through and through.” She lifted the stone she held in her fist and with a sharp blow cracked the nut that lay in front of her. “It galls me to see Elijah copy everything Okwaho does. I’m properly grateful to these Mohawks, but I’ll be mighty glad when we get to Carleton Island and Elijah’s red friend goes back to wherever he came from.”
Charlotte, half listening to the women, paid more attention to the lesson than to the nuts she was supposed to be cracking. She felt sorry for Elijah, who had launched a dozen arrows and never once came near hitting the squirrel.
When the quiver was empty, Elijah went off to search for the arrows. Okwaho leaned against the tree as he waited. Half a dozen times his piercing eyes glanced at Charlotte. She pretended not to notice.
The lesson resumed when Elijah had retrieved the arrows. This time it was Okwaho who held the bow. He fitted an arrow to the cord and pulled it back. The cord twanged. The arrow whizzed like a whip lashing the air. The squirrel came to life, leapt like a dancer, then fell back to dangle on its thong, doubly dead.
“Show-off!” muttered Mrs. Cobman.
Okwaho handed the bow to Elijah. The boy grinned, shrugged, and got out another arrow. Okwaho stood behind him, reaching over his shoulders to correct t
he angle of shaft to bow and to adjust his grip. The arrow flew again, sailed past the target again, but this time barely missed. Okwaho stepped back.
Elijah tried again. His arrow flew, and the dead squirrel danced.
“Look!” Charlotte shouted. “Bravo!”
With a proud smile, Elijah bowed.
“Well, that was pretty good,” Mrs. Cobman had to admit.
Late the same afternoon, Okwaho and Elijah headed off into the bush. Elijah carried Okwaho’s bow and wore his quiver. When they returned, they were dragging the carcass of a doe. Each held onto one hind leg, while the doe’s head bounced on the dry grass.
“We’ll have a feast!” Elijah’s face was flushed with pride. “Plenty of meat for everybody.”
“Did you kill the deer?” Charlotte asked.
“I surely did,” said Elijah. “Okwaho took me to a place along the shore where deer come down to drink. When this doe raised her head, I got her right in the throat.”
Okwaho skinned the doe and peeled off most of the meat in sheets. Charlotte watched curiously. This was nothing like the way Papa butchered a hog.
“How are we supposed to eat it?” Charlotte asked.
“On sticks,” Elijah said. “We spear strips of meat, wrap them around the stick, and grill it over the fire. That’s what Okwaho said to do.”
The feast went on for hours. When it was over, when every strip of deer meat had been eaten and the children had been taken into the shelters to sleep, Elijah and Charlotte sat side by side on a log near the fire. Elijah stretched out his legs so that Charlotte would be sure to notice the moccasins he was wearing.
“Look what Okwaho gave me. He said I’d never be a mighty hunter until I stopped cracking branches under my boots.”
She leaned forward for a better look.
“Want to see them?” Elijah pulled off one moccasin and handed it to her.
The moccasin had been cut from a single piece of smoked buckskin, with its top turned down in a sort of collar. She held it up to examine the beadwork — green, black and white beads in a complicated geometric pattern.
“It’s beautiful,” she said as she gave it back to him. Charlotte looked down at her own battered boots. “I wish I had moccasins.”
“Okwaho says his mother always packs him lots of spares. Maybe he’ll give you a pair. I think he likes you.”
She looked across the fire to where Okwaho sat glaring at her. Charlotte flinched at the fierceness of his gaze.
“Oh, no! I’m quite certain Okwaho doesn’t like me at all.”
Chapter seven
On the evening after the feast they were sitting by the fire — Axe Carrier, Papa, Charlotte and Elijah — talking about the differences between the life of the Indians and the life of the colonists. Everyone else except Okwaho had returned to the shelters for the night. Okwaho, sitting cross-legged on the opposite side of the fire, stared into the flames. For once, to Charlotte’s relief, he was not staring at her.
Charlotte’s attention had drifted away from the conversation until one statement by Axe Carrier brought it quickly back.
“I was eighteen years old when I started school.”
Eighteen when he started! Everyone Charlotte knew finished school at thirteen. From the corner of her eye she glanced at Elijah. His expression showed that he was just as surprised as she was.
“At that age, I had been a warrior for five years.” Axe Carrier took a long pull at his pipe. “I fought in my first battle when I was thirteen. It was at Lake George in the time of the French Wars. We beat the French. Thayendanegea, the man you call Joseph Brant, fought by my side. It was his first battle too. Our commander was Sir William Johnson, Sir John’s father.”
Elijah spoke up. “If you were already a warrior, why did you want to go to school?” Elijah looked as if he couldn’t believe such folly.
“Yes,” said Papa. “How did it happen?”
“Thayendanegea talked me into it.” Axe Carrier puffed on his pipe as he collected his thoughts. “Thayendanegea’s older sister, Konwatsi’tsiaiénni, married Sir William Johnson after his first wife died.”
“We call Joseph’s sister Molly Brant,” said Papa.
Axe Carrier nodded. “Most white people do, or Miss Molly.” He took another puff at his pipe. “After his sister married Sir William, Thayendanegea spent a fair amount of time at Johnson Hall. Sir William liked him, and couldn’t help noticing that he was clever and ambitious. So when Thayendanegea said that he wanted to learn to read and write, Sir William decided to send him away to school. As he thought about the advantages, the idea kept getting bigger. Sir William ended up sending five of us to the Moor School in Lebanon, Connecticut. So there we were — five Mohawk warriors sitting at desks making scratches on paper.”
“Was that when you got the name Nathaniel Smart?” Papa asked.
“Yes. We were all given names to use in the white man’s world. You would be calling me Mr. Smart if I had become a clerk in the Indian Agency. But that life did not interest me. Thayendanegea was different. He wanted to live in both worlds. Do you know what his name means?”
“No,” said Papa.
“He Who Places Two Bets.”
Papa laughed. “You double your chances when you place two bets.”
“Yes,” said Axe Carrier. “And he won both. The Iroquois respect him as a warrior, and the English as a statesman. When he was in England to negotiate with the King’s ministers, he was treated like a prince.”
“What about you?” asked Papa. “Why didn’t you place two bets?”
Axe Carrier raised his arm in a sweeping gesture that included forest, lake and sky. “This is my world. When I grow too old to paddle a canoe, I’ll probably work in the Indian Agency. But not yet. I am not a tree, rooted in one place.”
“In that way,” said Papa, “you and I are different. I reckon that I am a tree — a tree that was pulled up by the roots. My dream is to own some land, plant crops, and sink my roots into the soil again.”
Axe Carrier knocked out his pipe into the fire. “There’s good land in the Upper Country.”
“If you know of a likely place, please tell me.”
“Half a day’s journey from Carleton Island, there’s some land that’s partly cleared.”
“Where might that be?”
“The old French fort at Cataraqui.”
Papa looked surprised. “Fort Frontenac? Hasn’t the forest swallowed that up?”
“Not quite. It takes longer than twenty-five years for land to return to wilderness.”
“I’ll think about it. That would be very convenient.” Papa stood up. “Right now, I’m going to get some sleep.”
“Me too,” said Elijah.
As the fire burned low, Charlotte thought about Axe Carrier’s suggestion. Cataraqui would be perfect. Nick could easily find her there … if he tried.
On the far side of the fire, Okwaho suddenly jumped up. He looked straight at Charlotte as he strode around the fire with his eyes fixed upon her. In one hand he carried a pair of moccasins.
When he reached her, he thrust the moccasins at her.
“Ho!” he said. “Atatawi.”
She saw that the moccasins were new, and very like the ones he had given to Elijah, although the beadwork on this pair was red, green and white.
Okwaho pointed at her boots. “Too old. Too bad.”
Charlotte did not know what to do. That her boots were “too old” and “too bad” was obvious. This must be Elijah’s doing. Elijah meant well, but he shouldn’t have asked Okwaho to give her a pair of moccasins. She could not accept such a gift.
Okwaho’s eyes were black points, and his face was a rigid mask.
“No, no!” she exclaimed, pushing away the moccasins.
Axe Carrier was watching. “Take them,” he commanded. ‘Atatawi’ means gift. You must accept them.”
“But I can’t.”
“You will insult him if you don’t.”
Okwaho rem
ained motionless, staring at Charlotte with his glittering eyes.
“Thank you,” she said faintly, and took the moccasins from him.
Okwaho stalked away.
“He’s angry,” Charlotte said.
“No. He doesn’t know how to talk to a white woman.”
“Please advise me. Tell me what to do.”
Axe Carrier looked at her gravely. “Okwaho is young and needs a wife. In you he sees a beautiful maiden, strong and tall. I fear that he has an impossible dream.”
Charlotte gulped. Okwaho, of all people! She thought he hated her.
“I advise you to tell him that you are already pledged to marry a man of your own people. Or it may be easier if I tell him for you. That will save his pride. Then, for the sake of your honour, you must give him a present. With us, one gift calls for another.”
Axe Carrier paused for a moment and then said, “I have been to your school. Now you must go to mine. We Mohawk have customs of great antiquity, and you must learn them. I wish I could send you for lessons to a wise woman like my wife. Then you could be She Who Places Two Bets — at home in your world and in ours.”
“One world is enough for me.”
Axe Carrier shook his head. “Be ready. For many years to come, the lives of Loyalists and Mohawks will be entwined.”
The next afternoon, while all were gathered around the campfire, Charlotte heard a faint noise, a peculiar clanking that sounded both familiar and strange.
“Listen!” she said. “What’s that?”
Mama raised her head. “I don’t know. It sounds a bit like someone hammering metal or banging on a tin. Could it be soldiers?”
The others shifted uneasily, exchanging nervous glances. Strange noises meant danger. The sound was coming closer. The youngest Platto started to cry.
“Shush!” Polly smacked him.
“It couldn’t be soldiers,” said Papa. “We’re too far north for Rebel troops and too far south for any of ours.”
Clank, clank, clank.
“Maybe we should hide in the woods,” Mrs. Cobman murmured, snuggling Hope to her bosom.
The Way Lies North Page 7
