Eliot Pattison - Blood of the Oak

There were more fish than he had ever seen in one place, packed fin to fin as they swam upstream. Jubilant whoops broke out from those at the front as the silver mass passed around them, and Bricklin yelled for the boats to make for the lee of rock ledges in the middle of the river. “Give the plankers the way,” he shouted with a braying laugh, then snapped up a foot-long fish in his hat.

Shad. Duncan had never fully credited the tales he had heard of the spring runs of the fish up the Susquehanna and Delaware, with fish jammed nose to tail for as far as the eye could see. But now as he witnessed the reality, the tales did the fish no justice. Hundreds of thousands, even a million fish swam before them. They were so tightly packed it seemed he could walk on their backs across the river. He paused and turned back to Tanaqua. The night before he had stated that the river would become quicksilver land this day. The Mohawk warrior seemed not to notice him. He just stared at the fish with a serene smile, then dipped his hand into the water, not to catch them but to touch the passing fish as he murmured a prayer in the forest tongue. Not all the gods had abandoned his people.

Most of the men energetically scooped up fish in hats and with their bare hands. Bricklin, trying to paddle toward the front of his fleet, gave up and let his dugout be carried backward with the throbbing, silvery mass. The blanket in front of the Dutchman began to move and a small shape leaned out, blanket over its head, to peer out over the side, and then squealed in delight. Bricklin pulled away the blanket to expose long locks of tangled hair. The girl started singing to the fish.

“Impossible!” Duncan groaned as he recognized the French girl. “I left her thirty miles from the river!”

Tanaqua, confused, shrugged at Duncan. “The moon was out. The traders always like her. Oiseau francaise , the little French bird they call her. Her songs always bring good luck.”

It was Duncan’s turn to be confused. “You know her?”

“She sometimes sings for the elders in Onondaga. But her hair was never the color of straw.”

“Surely you’re mistaken. She’s just-” Duncan’s words faded away. He did not know what she was. A liar and an enchanter. The girl’s voice was casting a spell. There was a strange harmony between her voice and the watery sibilation of the fish, still passing by like a giant silver raft. The rough, powerful men in the boat were all but paralyzed, done in by the hand of nature and the call of the little French bird.

Suddenly Teague pointed as a patch of fur approached, looking like a small weasel riding the living raft. The big Irishman leapt onto the ledge beside his canoe, ran to its far side, and scooped up the fur as it passed by. With a little jig he put it on his head. It was a cap of rich fur, probably mink, of a style worn by prosperous gentlemen. When, far too small for his head, it slipped off, he snatched it and expertly threw it to Analie. She grabbed it out of the air, waved her thanks, and pulled it onto her own head without breaking her song.

Bricklin drove them hard after the shad passed, refusing to pause for a midday meal, to make up the lost time. Yet the convoy moved in high spirits, buoyed by the French girl’s singing and anticipation of roasted shad and fried roe that evening.

They beached on a broad, flat island where rings of blackened stones and lean-to poles tied to trees attested to its frequent use as a campsite. The tribesmen cut green willow sticks for spitting the shad; the Welshmen were able to split a few cedar planks to cook them on; and Teague threw mounds of rich roe, the rarest of frontier delicacies, into a pan of sizzling lard.

“You lie to me Analie,” Duncan said to the girl as he sat beside her with his plate. “You lie to me every time we meet. A bad habit in one so young.”

The girl seemed unconcerned about his accusation. She scooped up some fried roe with her fingers, and swallowed with a satisfied smile before replying. “My mama said do whatever I had to do, say whatever I had to say, so long as I just stayed alive. That was my vow to my mother. To stay alive. I will not surrender.”

“Surrender?” he asked, puzzled at her choice of words.

“To the hornets, the vipers, the catamounts, the bears, the knives, the arrows, the bullets. Not even angry gods who kill my friends.” She sang an Iroquois cradle song between bites then, the impish child again, she pulled on her new mink cap, rose, curtseyed, and picked up her mug to fill from the river. She began to kneel at the water’s edge, then staggered backward and screamed.

Ducks exploded from the water. Her shrieks echoed down the river. Crows, quieting for the night, fled from their roosts with angry screeches. The girl’s terrified cries echoed from across the expanse of water.

Every man in the camp ran to her side, some raising muskets, scanning the riverbanks for the cause of her alarm. Then she pointed a trembling hand. The source of her horror had drifted away and snagged on a log jutting off the island bank. One of the Welshmen reached the log first then froze and backed away, crossing himself. Another man fell to his knees as Duncan passed him, retching up his dinner.

The face of the dead man, clearly a European, had been slit open and the skin on one side peeled away. Four claws had slashed the remaining cheek. His nose was gone, an ear was gone, and one eye hung loose, out of its socket.

“Jesus bloody wept!” moaned Teague, crossing himself.

Bricklin appeared with a paddle and shoved the body free of the snag.

“We didn’t . . .” Duncan began as the corpse drifted away in the current. “We should . . .” His words died away. No one, including Duncan, wanted to touch the dead man. There were many kinds of death, and this one seemed somehow tainted, as if it would curse anyone who came near.

When he turned, the frightened men, one cradling Analie, had retreated to the fire. Only Tanaqua stayed, staring with a stricken expression. They had both seen the mark of the Blooddancer. “He is hungry for flesh,” the Mohawk said. “The more he eats, the more he wants.”

The camp fell into a grim silence as the men readied it for the night. The fire was stacked higher instead of being allowed to smolder, and Bricklin passed around a jug of rum then called for two guards on each watch. Duncan was not alone in sleeping with his hand on his knife.

By daybreak the men were trying to convince themselves that what they had seen had been the result of a tragic accident. The man had drowned and fish had worked at his face. Others argued he had capsized in rapids, and razor-sharp rocks had raked and killed him. Duncan and Tanaqua exchanged knowing glances, but neither spoke.

Duncan had revisited the image in his mind during the night. The man had dark brown hair with no sign of grey, and with his fine woolen waistcoat and matching britches had been unusually well dressed. His shoes, with silver buckles, had been made for city streets. He was a stranger to the frontier. The anomaly had troubled Tanaqua as well. Duncan had stood watch with him at midnight, and he had found the Mohawk at the tip of their little island, staring downstream.

“We used to have great wars with the tribes in the southern lands, and our war chiefs at home said the disappearance of our men there is the sign of a new war. There is an old tale of a half king of our people lost in the south somewhere. He had great powers once. Maybe he summoned the god.”

“Is that what you think-that you are going to a war?”

“War has changed for us since the Europeans arrived. Now all the tribes have lost so many they can barely make up a war party. Attacking a village is nearly impossible. But attacking your enemy’s gods can be done by stealth, by a handful of men.” He made a gesture toward the moon, as if gesturing for it to listen. “Why?” he asked. “Why would my god trifle with a pasty-skinned man of the city? That dead man had never even heard of the Blooddancer.”