The white man had not seen them.
Dega pried at Teni’s fingers, and she slowly removed her hand. He drew his knife and coiled. He counted on his sister not to move or make a sound. But she did. Teni gave vent to the chilling horror that struck her at sight of the scalp with a part sob, part mew.
Instantly, the white man swung toward them. An oath escaped him, and he jerked the rifle to his shoulder.
Dega was already in motion. Even as he bounded forward, he realized he could not reach the white man before the rifle went off. So he did the only thing he could; he threw his knife. Since the white man’s arm was in front of his chest and the rifle blocked his throat, Dega threw the knife low. The keen blade sliced into the man’s groin, startling him, and he raised his cheek from the rifle to glance down.
Another bound, and Dega slammed into the scalp-taker’s shoulder while simultaneously wrenching the rifle free. He nearly tripped over the white man’s legs. Recovering, he swept the hardwood stock against the man’s temple just as the man opened his mouth to scream or shout. There was a crunch and the white man folded.
Crouching, Dega glanced about them. Evidently the white man had been alone. Dega saw no others. Tugging his knife from the body, he wiped the blade clean on the dead man’s shirt. He began to rise when an idea gave him pause. Quickly, he stripped off the powder horn and ammo pouch and slung them over his own chest.
“What are you doing?” Teni whispered. “You do not know what to do with any of those.”
“I can learn.” Dega thrust out the rifle. “Hold this for me.”
Teni averted her gaze from the scalp. “You carry it.” She did not care to touch anything that belonged to the awful man.
“I need my hands free in case we meet another one.”
Again Dega thrust the rifle at her and this time she gingerly took it.
Only a few shrieks were borne to Dega’s ears as they crept on, first on elbows and knees and then on their bellies.
Teni was stricken with fear that they would stumble on more whites. She held the rifle close to her so it would not drag or snag, which made it harder for her to move silently.
A thicket loomed. Beyond it lay the village.
Dega motioned for Teni to stay where she was, but when he moved on, so did she. Exercising painstaking stealth, they edged forward. Mixed with the scent of smoke was the sickly-sweet smell of blood.
Teni dreaded what they would see. She bit her lower lip to keep from crying out, and it proved well she did.
Dega’s whole body seemed to go numb.
A gray pall hung thick above the Great Lodges. Of the five, four were ablaze. But it was not the flames that riveted brother and sister; it was the bodies. Bodies lay everywhere. Hundreds of bodies, the majority garbed in green. Bodies of warriors, bodies of women, bodies of children. Bodies strewn in postures of savage death. Bodies that had been shot. Bodies that had been clubbed. Bodies that had been stabbed. In places the blood had formed pools deep enough to wade in.
Among the fallen, whites roved with bloody knives, finishing off those not dead and lifting hair.
Teni’s fear turned to horror. She stared at lifeless face after lifeless face. To her left lay one of her best friends. At another spot sprawled her aunt, forehead blown away. A youth of seventeen summers, of whom Teni had been especially fond, was on his back with two bullet holes in his chest, his face mutilated, his hair gone. Teni bit down hard on her lip to check a sob.
Some of the whites were standing around talking and smiling, pleased by the slaughter. Laughter rippled across the nightmare scene.
Dega had to resist an impulse to rise and fling himself among them in a killing rage. It would accomplish nothing other than to get him and his sister killed. There were more than a hundred whites. Some he recognized from New Albion. Others were from the outlying farms. They evinced no remorse, no regret.
Remembering Reverend Stilljoy’s comments, Dega wondered if maybe the whites had wanted to wipe out the Nansusequa long before this, and had only been waiting for an excuse. An excuse he gave them by killing his sister’s attackers.
Not all the whites were talking or taking hair. About twenty were at both ends of the only lodge still standing, the Council Lodge. Their rifles and pistols were trained on the openings.
A tall white in buckskins cupped a hand to his mouth and called out in the language of the Nansusequa.
Dega had seen this man before. His name was Hardegan, and he was well known among the tribes of the region. Hardegan lived deep in the woods with a woman of the Delaware and was more like an Indian than a white man. He knew the country well and often hired out as a guide and scout to those who did not. Now and then, when passing through Nansusequa territory, he stopped at their village and drank green tea with Hunumanima and the elders. The Nansusequa had considered Hardegan a friend. Yet again they had been mistaken.
“Come out with your arms above your heads!” the scout bellowed. He spoke their tongue fluently, as he did many others.
“You will kill us!” came the muffled reply.
Hardegan consulted with a portly white man with a pig face, another man whom Dega recognized. Luther was his name, and among the whites he was held in high regard because he had more land, and more money, than anyone else.
“We give you our word we will not harm you,” Hardegan shouted into the lodge.
“You lie!”
Dega knew that voice. It was Mawamaneuk, an elder. The same elder who had opposed Hunu’s plan to meet with Reverend Stilljoy.
In confirmation Hardegan shouted, “There can’t be more than thirty of you left in there, Mawa. We will starve you out if we have to.”
“At least we will die with dignity.”
Hardegan was translating for the benefit of Luther, who shook a pudgy fist and spat words at some length. When Luther was done, Hardegan turned to the Council Lodge. “The whites are not willing to wait for you to starve.”
“Let them rush us then,” Mawa said. “We are few but we will kill as many as we can before they kill us.”
“The whites are not so foolish,” Hardegan said. “They have a better idea.” He paused. “If you do not surrender, they will burn the Council Lodge to the ground with you and all the others inside it.”
There was no response.
“Mawa, we have shared tea,” Hardegan said. “Believe me when I say you do not want to die this way. Think of the women in there with you. Think of the children.”
“Yes, we have shared tea.” Mawa’s tone was bitter. “Yet you helped the whites. You brought them here. Thanks to you, they surrounded us and shot us from ambush. They are cowards, these whites of yours.”
“They pay well,” Hardegan said.
“How much was our blood worth to you?” Mawa asked.
“Five hundred dollars.” Since there was no word in the Nansusequa tongue for the money the whites used, Hardegan had to say it in English. But Mawa understood. Years of trading with the whites had taught the Nansusequa that money was the one thing whites valued more than any other. “Half to guide them, half to keep my mouth shut after.”
“May the money be a curse on you and yours for as long as you draw breath,” Mawa said.
“It won’t work. I’m not superstitious.” Hardegan had made it a point not to show himself in the opening. Now he leaned toward it, saying, “I promise your end will be quick and painless. A bullet to the brain beats being roasted alive.”
“We are the People of the Forest,” Mawa said. “We do not give up.”
Luther listened to Hardegan’s translation in mounting fury. He barked orders, and men ran to comply. Exactly what they were running after soon became apparent: torches. Other whites gathered at the two ends of the lodge to reinforce those already there.
Teni bent her lips to Dega’s ear. “We must do something, brother,” she anxiously whispered.
“No.”
“They will be killed!” Teni could scarcely contain herself. Her every nerve tingled with
the impulse to rise up and run to the aid of the Nansusequa in the Council Lodge.
Dega knew his sister as well as he knew himself. Accordingly, he clamped one hand over her mouth and the other around her wrist while hissing in her ear, “Lie still! The whites will see us if you do not calm yourself, and there are too many for us to fight.” Teni tried to speak, and Dega gave her jaw a hard shake. “Listen to me! I like Mawa as much as you do. I would save him and the others if I could. But I cannot, and if we die, who is left? Father and Mother and Miki and Keti. That is all.”
Tears filled Teni’s eyes.
“I am sorry, sister,” Dega whispered. “But for you and me to die for no purpose is pointless.”
Most of the whites were drifting toward the Council Lodge to witness what would come next. A dozen torches were in evidence, but so far no one had applied them to the lodge walls or roof. They were awaiting the command.
Hardegan and Luther had their heads together. Finally the scout stepped close to the opening and shouted, “This is your last chance, Mawa. Come out now or be burned alive.”
Mawa did not reply.
Luther nodded at the men with torches and they dashed in close and flung their brands. One of them strayed near an opening. As his arm rose to throw, a lance streaked out of the lodge. The point caught him high in the chest and pierced his torso from front to back. He screamed as he died.
Angry shouts erupted. A white man jerked his rifle and fired into the opening. Others followed his example. Still others fired at the walls.
Luther waved his stout arms and did a lot of shouting, and the whites stopped shooting. Relatively few set to reloading.
Later, much later, Dega would wonder if Mawa planned it that way. For no sooner did the firing cease than Mawa and a dozen warriors led a charge out of the Council Lodge. Behind them came the women, and behind the women, the children. Everyone who could bear weapons did: lances, knives, clubs, sticks, anything that was handy.
Teni whimpered and sought to stand, but her brother slammed her down again. He was right to do so but she resented him for it.
The charge caught the whites off guard. Mawa and the wedge of warriors slew right and left. They were making for the forest, but a hundred whites rushed to bar their way.
It was a magnificent, valiant, doomed effort.
Mawa and the remaining Nansusequa fought with a ferocity born of desperation, but there were simply too many whites. Many of the latter did not reload but plunged into the melee wielding their rifles like clubs or slashing with their broad-bladed knives. Curses and screams rose as thick as the dust.
The press of furiously battling figures became so intertwined, Dega could not tell friend from enemy. He glimpsed a Nansusequa here and there, fighting fiercely. Always, they were buried under an avalanche of rifle stocks and gleaming blades.
Teni was on the verge of tears. She closed her eyes to shut out the carnage, but she could still hear the shrieks and oaths and thuds. Jamming her fingers in her ears, she pressed her face to the grass and choked down great sobs, smothering them in her throat.
Dega anxiously scanned the vicinity, afraid the whites would hear her, but none was anywhere near the thicket. “Please,” he whispered.
Teni slowly subsided and lay as limp as a wet fur. She felt drained of emotion and vitality, and craved nothing so much as to curl into a ball and cry. But she dared not shed tears or risk being found out.
The bedlam was also subsiding. The din faded to random grunts and groans and a few last blows.
The Nansuseqa were down. Every warrior, every woman, every child had been slain. Multiple wounds testified to the ferocity of their struggle.
Luther, Dega noticed, had not taken part. He had stood well back and let the other whites do the fighting. The reason was not hard to fathom; cowardice was etched plainly on his piggish features.
One other person had not taken part: Hardegan, the scout. But it was not cowardice in his case. His features reflected deep sorrow and disgust.
Wounded whites were being tended. A handful spread out and walked toward the woods on the other side of the clearing. Another handful started moving to the north.
“We must go,” Dega whispered, and started to slide back. But Teni did not move. “Did you hear me, sister?”
“I want to lie here a while. Go without me.”
“It will mean your death. The whites are searching for any who escaped.” Dega cupped her chin and raised her head, so she could see for herself. “Enough of this. Are you the same woman who fought to keep from being raped? Yet now you are ready to give up?”
“It is not the same, brother,” Teni said.
“Why save yourself then, only to throw your life away now?” Dega countered. Both of their lives, for he would not leave without her.
Reluctantly, Teni let him pull her backward. She thought she was past the point of caring what happened to her, but she was wrong. Images of the massacre splashed across her mind, giving birth to a deep rage. The rage, in turn, lent strength to her limbs, so much so that as soon as Dega deemed it safe to stand and run, she raced like a doe back the way they had come.
“I hate whites,” Teni declared.
Dega looked at her. “Not all whites are like Luther and those with him.”
“Did any try to help us?” Teni snapped. “Where were all our white friends from New Albion? Why did no one warn us?” She did not give him a chance to reply. “The stories told by other tribes are true. Whites are never to be trusted. They speak with two tongues. They have only evil in their hearts.”
For reasons he could not explain, Dega felt compelled to say, “Remember the white man we traded furs to? He always treated us fairly. And his grandmother, the silver-haired woman, always had sweet cakes for us.”
“They do not count,” Teni said.
Dega was going to argue but a yell from their rear lent wings to their feet. He worried they had been spotted, but time passed without hint of pursuit. They approached the spot where they had left their parents and younger sister and little Keti, and Dega slowed. “Do you see them?”
Out of the undergrowth stepped Tihi and Miki. Mother and daughter had been weeping.
“Keti?” Dega asked.
“She succumbed to her wounds,” Tihi said. “Your father is hiding her body so the whites do not find it.”
“Father told us to wait here,” Miki said. She sniffled and added, “I liked Keti. She always had a smile for me.” Dega looked about them. “Where is the horse?”
“It wandered off,” Tihi said. “Why? Did you want it?” She had been doing her best to comfort Miki and had not given the animal any thought.
“It does not matter.”
Tihi motioned toward their village. “What did you see? We heard more shooting and yells.”
Dega hesitated. He was trying to think of a way to lessen the hurt, but his sister had no such compunctions.
“The People of the Forest are no more, Mother. We are the last of the Nansusequa.”
“That cannot be.”
“There may be others who survived,” Dega said. It was the hope at which he clutched. The whites could not have killed them all. Surely not all.
Teni mouthed a short snort of derision. “Did you not see what I saw, brother? Did you not lie there and watch our people being slaughtered?”
Tihi looked from her daughter to her son in bewilderment. “You did not try to help them?”
“There was nothing we could do,” Dega said. He believed that. He believed that as much as he had ever believed anything.
The undergrowth crackled, and Wakumassee appeared. He walked as one in his sleep, his face empty of emotion. “It is done.”
“Father?” Dega said. To see him so devastated was profoundly disturbing. Their father had always been the fount of inner strength on which the rest of them depended.
“I heard what was said about our people.” Waku spread his arms wide. “Would that I had not lived to see this day. The Old
Ones are old no more. We have been severed from all that is. I no longer feel Manitoa within me.”
“Do not say such things,” Tihi said. Of her husband’s many fine attributes, she had always admired his devotion to That Which Was In All Things foremost.
“It is the end,” Waku declared. “Our ways have flown on the wind, and with them all that we were.”
“Not so long as a Nansusequa breathes,” Dega vowed. Teni glanced toward the village. “We must keep moving, or the whites will do to us as they have done to everyone else.”
“We must not let that happen,” Dega said, and appealed to his father. “Which direction would you have us go?”
Waku did not seem to hear.
“Father?”
“All ways lead to ruin. Do you not see that, son? Do you not see that we are dead but have not yet been killed?”
Young Miki grasped Tihi’s hand. “I do not want to die, Mother. What must we do to live?”
Dega had the answer. “We must leave. This land has been the land of the Nansusequa since before the memory of time. But no longer. We must find new country in which to live. Somewhere without whites.”
“There is no such place,” Teni said. “The whites control all the land from here to the Eastern Sea.”
“They do not control all the land to the west,” Dega reminded her.
Their mother gazed westward, her expression thoughtful. “They control much of it, though, as far as the Muddy River. The river the whites call the Mississippi.” The word was strange on her tongue.
“I was not thinking of the land between here and there,” Dega informed her. “I was thinking of the land beyond the Muddy River. I have heard there is a vast prairie, and beyond that, mountains that rise as high as the clouds.”
“The Rocky Mountains.” Tihi’s trade with the whites had made her conversant with the wider world beyond their own. Or, rather, her husband had, for it was he who translated for her. The Nansusequa did not have a name for those far distant mountains. They had not even heard of them until the coming of the whites.
“It is said a man could spend a lifetime wandering their peaks and valleys and still not see all there is of them.”
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