Eliot Pattison - Blood of the Oak

He jerked awake, his heart hammering. The last two bodies were those of Conawago and Woolford. His hand was on his knife hilt, as if part of him sensed more immediate danger. As he listened, the pounding of his heart lessened, replaced by a nearby breathing. Something large, perhaps even a bear or a catamount, was sleeping only a few feet away. He lifted his blade and looked about in the grey twilight, then rose, took a step past the remains of his fire, and cursed.

Analie had blanketed herself with dried leaves and slept with her precious sack clutched to her breast. On a flat rock beside her, like an offering, was a small pile of spring berries. He paused for a moment, admiring how she could look so peaceful, so innocent after having been so battered by life. He had had a sister, Mary, who had burned with the same energy. She had been Analie’s age when he had last seen her, destined to die on a British bayonet.

He tapped her lightly with his foot, without effect, then kicked harder. She shot up, wide-eyed and frightened. The sack fell away and in the hand underneath was a treacherous little skinning knife, which she quickly hid in the folds of her dress.

“Before dark I picked wild strawberries for our breakfast,” she offered in a tentative voice, accented with an uncertain smile. “I smelled tea. I like strong tea. We could drop a peppermint leaf in it; it grows by the hemlocks.”

“I wasn’t going to trouble with a morning fire,” he growled. “I’ve thirty miles to span before sunset.”

Her attempt at another smile was forced, but it reminded him enough of his sister that he had to look away. She looked longingly at the smoldering ashes.

“Breakfast,” he conceded in a stern voice, “but then you go back.”

“ Bien sur. Of course,” she replied, then bent to coax the embers back to life.

He watched the French girl uneasily, chastising himself for sleeping so soundly. It could have as easily been the murderers who had stalked into his camp in the night.

“Do you pray, Analie?” he asked as she handed him his mug of hot tea, with the promised peppermint. He had to grudgingly acknowledge her skills in the forest.

She cut her eyes at him. For a moment her ever-changing countenance was that of a cunning fox. “To the blessed virgin, naturally!” she replied with the fervor of a choir girl, then crossed herself as the priests would have taught her. “Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,” she added, then nibbled at a piece of his jerky.

“Then swear it. Swear in the name of the Holy Mother that you have finally told me the truth and that when we extinguish this breakfast fire you will follow the trail back to Edentown.”

“I swear it so, Duncan McCallum,” she said solemnly, crossing herself again. “Back to Edentown. Back to Miss Sarah.”

Duncan nodded and gestured for her to sit on a log by the fire. “Tell me how you came to be with the Oneidas. How old were you?”

“I had just had my sixth naming day when some old British officer, stinking of wig powder, came to say we had twenty-four hours to pack and leave. My papa and uncles got us into boats that night, for he said he would never have us become slaves of the British. Forty or fifty of us fled, along the Bay of Fundy. One boat overturned and no one swam away. One couldn’t sail fast enough and was taken by a British sloop. A score of us made it to Castine on the Penobscot Bay, and my father started a new farm among the French who lived there. For just a couple years, he said it would be, then we would go south, ’cause he said some of our cousins were going to the Carolinas where they would be safe. But the British kept sending troops to search for us. One night we had to flee into the woods with only the clothes on our backs. My father and brother went one way and told my mother and me to meet them in three days at the trading post in the north. We had an Indian, an Abenaki, who helped us on the farm and my father sent him with us. He kept us safe. But when we had to swim a river, he said my mama must take off her skirts or the water would pull her under. She refused, out of modesty.” Analie looked into the flames. “She never came out. She was swimming one moment and was gone the next, like a beast had swallowed her up.

“My papa and brother never came to that post. We waited five days. A trapper came and said they had been shot. I became an Abenaki for a few months, and went to their big settlement at St. Francis. Then an old Dutch fur trader offered a kettle for me.”

It was a rich price, Duncan knew. “Why so much?”

Analie grinned. “My singing. They all liked my singing. But that one put a slave collar on me and made me work in the fields at his cabin. One day Red Jacob saw me. He offered three otter pelts for me. The Dutchman said I would be worth a lot more when I ripened. So Red Jacob gave him three mink pelts too. When we returned to his village by Lake Oneida he said there was no honor owning another human, and he took the collar off me.”

“But you stayed with him?”

Her face grew melancholy. “He made me laugh. His wife kept me fed and warm. I was accepted as one of his children.”

“Still, you left them.”

She nodded as she chewed more jerky. “Red Jacob was a ranger with Long Runner. They came into our lodge one day and asked if I would like to see the great Johnson Hall and the school Sir William had there for orphans. But I didn’t get to see the school because they went south.”

“And you followed them. Like you followed me.”

She looked into the fire. “I sang for them. I could sing for you.”

“Someday. When I return to Edentown. Go sing for Conawago and the Long Runner as they heal from their wounds. They would like that.” Duncan finished dropping his kit into his pack and hoisted it onto his shoulder. “I will keep an eye out,” Duncan promised. “If I find any Acadians I will tell them about you, let them know you are in Edentown.”

“My family name is Prideau. My mother was a Cyr.”

Duncan made a show of taking out his writing lead and jotting down the names. Minutes later they parted, Analie again waving farewell as she walked back up the trail. Duncan ran out of sight then hid behind a large oak. When she appeared he tripped her again, but this time he had a switch in his hand. He put her over his knee and delivered several rapid, stinging blows. “You are going to Edentown! Did you not swear to the Holy Mother? Do you not remember what happened to Red Jacob?” he barked. “You are going to go to Sarah and apologize for making her fret over you!” He delivered one last emphatic blow. “This is the end of your games, girl, do you hear me?”

Analie did not cry out but tears were streaming down her face when she looked up and nodded.

He left her there but stopped after another quarter hour to confirm she was not following. He prayed she would reach Edentown before nightfall.

The Susquehanna was a golden ribbon under the setting sun as he came down out of the hills, so weary from hours of running that his hands shook. He knelt at a stream, sluicing cold water over his head, before carefully scouting the broad, sandy landing place.

Half a dozen oversized cargo canoes and two dugouts were beached at the river’s edge. Ragged, weary men, including a handful of natives, were arranging the bales of cargo around a circle of smoking wood where a heavy, bearded man knelt, blowing onto the flames.

Duncan waited for the fire to illuminate the camp before venturing to the edge of the clearing. He stood behind the cover of an ancient sycamore and called out. “Hullo the camp!”

His shout sent several men scrambling for weapons. In an instant three muskets were aimed in his direction.

“One man only,” he called. “A friend.”