Johnson held up a hand to interrupt. “I’m sorry lad. There’s more. The messenger talked with those at the landing. As soon as they heard the news they threw their bags in the canoe. Hetty and the boy left with that big Highlander.”
Chapter Eight
The river fought them as they paddled, throwing a constant wind in their faces, as if it did not want the canoe to go deeper into the tribal lands. Duncan dug into the dark water, doing his best to match the strokes of the figure in front of him. He had not at first recognized the woman when she had appeared by the canoe Sagatchie readied. The Oneida maid wore no more calico, only a sleeveless green waistcoat over a long dun-colored shirt and doeskin leggings with strips of fur for garters. Her protective amulet hung between her long black braids. This was not the gentile courtesan of Johnson’s household. She was Kassawaya, the untamed Oneida, and she had been transformed by the news of the deaths of her father and brother. On her forehead she had painted two wavy blue lines, the sign of the river, under an arrow, the sign of a warrior. On her back had been a quiver of arrows, in her hand a well-crafted bow.
Sagatchie had stared in confusion when he first saw her. Duncan had been unable to read the flood of emotion that had risen on the Mohawk’s face, but he could not mistake the angry tone of his words as he approached the woman, stepping between her and the canoe. The ranger had quickly recovered from his injuries and stood strong and straight, firing questions at her, pointing toward Fort Johnson. The woman had replied to each with firm, short syllables. Whatever she intended, she would not be dissuaded. Sagatchie’s tone had changed from anger to worry, then finally resignation, and he had stepped aside. Kassawaya had helped finish loading the canoe and then settled into the bow.
They had left just after dawn, and there had been no words spoken among them for hours. The three paddled with grim determination, the Oneida woman making no acknowledgement of her companions except to point out an otter that chose to follow them. The creature moved lithely along the canoe, its sleek form often visible just under the surface, effortlessly keeping up with them, finally speeding ahead then rolling over and flipping its tail as though to mock their slowness before diving into the deeps. When it reappeared beside Duncan half an hour later, Kass paused and gazed at it intently as if reading something in the animal’s actions, then she cast a long, impatient glance at Duncan, which he could make no sense of.
“You knew her once,” Duncan suggested to Sagatchie as they gathered firewood at their evening camp.
“Her father was the greatest war chief of their clan. Her family would often visit our village. Kassawaya and I would run in the woods together. She still knew how to laugh then. She had four brothers, all fierce warriors. Like my clan, they have a particular feud with the Hurons. Her mother was captured years ago by Hurons and died before they could rescue her. One brother died of a Huron ax blow at the battle of Lake George. Two were killed by Hurons at Fort Niagara. Her father and last brother left her with Johnson for her safety. She was supposed to be married to some Seneca chief.” Sagatchie paused and looked back at the fire where Kass sat cleaning fish they had caught. “It is not for a woman to be a warrior, I told her. It is not the way of our people, I said. We need our women to be safe, in our lodges and at our councils. She told me all her people were dead now, and she would decide her own way.”
When they finally returned to the fire carrying wood, three small trout were spitted over the flames, scant fare for their empty bellies. Duncan saw no sign of the woman until Sagatchie betrayed her with a small gesture. The Oneida woman stood motionless in a cluster of reeds. As Duncan took a step forward, a duck flushed from the reeds. Kass lifted her bow and loosed an arrow before Duncan even grasped her intentions. The duck fell, an arrow through its neck. The woman turned toward them with a gloating smile, making no effort to retrieve her prey. Sagatchie remained motionless, frowning, in obvious disapproval as the duck floated downstream. In the tribal world she had done the man’s work and she now expected Sagatchie to do the woman’s. Duncan looked from one to the other in frustration then leapt into the water to fetch the rest of their supper.
Fort Stanwick was a hulking shadow as they drifted by in the moonlight. Sagatchie had shaken Duncan awake at midnight and pointed to the canoe, where Kass waited. “If we go before the moon rises high, we will not be seen by the fort,” the Mohawk ranger explained.
Now, as they passed it, the last of the garrisons protecting the settlements, Duncan reconsidered Sagatchie’s words. They had not just been an acknowledgment that Duncan was a fugitive. Sagatchie himself did not want to be seen. Sagatchie did not trust the army. There was rot in the regiments, Woolford had said, and men were dying from it.
He found himself watching the outpost, forgetting to paddle. The lanterns hanging at its corners seemed feeble sparks against the dark wilderness beyond. In such moments the grip of the Europeans on the land seemed so frail, an impossible overreaching, an overreaching that Duncan increasingly hoped would fail. Duncan had barely begun to glimpse the depth of the woodland people, but he understood enough to know the Europeans grasped so very little of the wildness and its nations. He recalled Johnson’s words: Our mistake is to think of the tribes as cruder forms of ourselves.
The traditional route into the heartland of the tribes lay over the portage known as the Carrying Place and on through Lake Oneida, but Sagatchie ignored the well-worn landing at the portage, pointing them into the northern arm of the river. The Revelator was in the North. Hetty and Ishmael were going north. Conawago was going north. They were converging on the secret place where spirits died.
The once mighty river became a narrow stream. Several times they portaged around falls, Sagatchie moving quickly each time to see that he and Duncan did the work of carrying the canoe, leaving Kass to bring the packs and rifles, ignoring her when she suggested loading all the equipment in the boat so they could all three carry the load.
At first she seemed amused at being shunned by the Mohawk warrior, but as the day wore on Kass grew sullen. Finally, at the fifth of their portages, she hastened forward to grab the canoe, lifting the vessel with Duncan and leaving Sagatchie to carry the remaining gear. When she dropped her arrow quiver, Sagatchie ignored it. The woman made a low growling sound, and when Sagatchie stepped away from her quiver, she abruptly dropped her end of the canoe and leapt at him with an angry snarl. The packs he carried went flying as she collided with him, knocking him into knee-deep water.
They fought like two angry bears, Kass clearly expecting no quarter because of her sex and Sagatchie giving her none. They disappeared under the water so long Duncan was about to leap after them when Sagatchie emerged coughing up water, dragging a limp Kassawaya onto the bank. But as the tall warrior turned his back, the woman rose and leapt onto him again. They went down on the bank, rolling in the mud, spitting epithets in their native tongue, pausing only for one quick silent moment to gauge each other before Kass flung mud and took up the fight again. Finally Duncan tried to intervene. But as soon as he pulled Kass away, she rolled and jerked him downward so that all three lay in the mud. As Duncan pulled himself up onto his hands and knees, he realized his companions had gone quiet.
He lifted his head to see a moccasined foot before him. Duncan turned over and looked up into the face of a fierce warrior. Then he saw another, then half a dozen more, all with rifles or war axes raised. They were not Iroquois.
Kass snapped a hostile greeting. “Huron agaya!” Huron dog! She eyed the quiver laying on the bank. More figures appeared, the last of them two fair-skinned men in kilts.