Broken Trail (23 page)

Spotted Dog grunted. “Me a great warrior? You say the thing that is not. It was my foot that broke the branch when
we crept up on the sentry. I caused Hunting Hawk's death. Because of me, the war party failed. I am unworthy to be Walks Crooked's son.”

“You are young. Your leg will heal. There will be more war parties. You will take many scalps.”

“Whether I live or die, I'll never be a warrior.”

Walks Crooked placed his hand on his son's forehead. “Your skin is hot. When we reach home, Wolf Woman will give you a healing drink, and we'll put you in the sweat lodge to drive out your fever. As soon as your health is restored, your fighting spirit will return.”

Did Walks Crooked believe his own words? His voice was weary, and he looked old. Soon there would be no more war parties for him. On his face was the sadness of a man whose dreams can never come true.

Spotted Dog looked into his father's eyes. “There is something that I must tell you,” he whispered hoarsely.

“Not now.” Walks Crooked said gently. He held his son's hand. “You must rest.”

“I must tell you. I am ready to tell the truth…,” the boy took a great, shuddering breath, “about the golden eagle—”

“No!” Broken Trail shouted. Whether Spotted Dog lived or died, this secret must not be told. “Save your strength! Let me tell them what you told me.”

All eyes turned to Broken Trail, who glared at Spotted Dog, forbidding him to contradict.

“Spotted Dog told me everything about the golden eagle. He told me how it came to him with a noise like a thunderclap—shooting
from the sun with a lightning bolt in its talons.” He hesitated. What was next? Yes! He remembered.

“The eagle spoke from above as it circled the spot where Spotted Dog waited. It said to him, ‘Do not fear. I shall never desert you. You will be safe in the shadow of my wings.'”

He sneaked a sideways glance at Spotted Dog, who looked up at him, speechless.

“Then the golden eagle circled upwards, making wider and wider circles in the sky until it disappeared.” As he spoke, Broken Trail's upraised arm traced the spiralling flight of the fabulous bird. He was sweating as he finished. “This was Spotted Dog's true dream, as he told it to me.” Broken Trail lowered his arm.

No one spoke. Walks Crooked looked astonished. “My son told you all this? It is more than he revealed to the council of warriors.”

Broken Trail turned again to Spotted Dog, to warn him not to contradict. But Spotted Dog was not looking at him. His eyes glowed. With a terrible effort he pulled free the hand that his father was holding and pointed to the sky, pointed to the sun that was now declining in the west.

“Look! Look! The golden eagle!”

Broken Trail shivered. Suddenly he felt a mystic presence. But when he stared in the direction that Spotted Dog pointed, all he saw was the glare of the sun.

“I am ready!” Spotted Dog called out, his voice strong and clear. On his face was an expression of wonder and joy. “Try me!” he shouted at the sun. “I can be worthy!”

Then his arm dropped across his chest. His eyes closed.

“No!” Walks Crooked cried out.

It was over. The rescue had failed. Spotted Dog had set forth on his journey to the Land without Trouble. Overcome by grief and disappointment, Broken Trail lowered his face.

Suddenly Swift Fox's voice broke the silence. “Look there! He's breathing!”

Broken Trail lifted his eyes and saw Spotted Dog's chest moving up and down. Death had not claimed him: he was in a trance.

Walks Crooked raised his head and looked directly at Broken Trail. “Spotted Dog told you things about his vision that he never before revealed to anyone. And now he has seen it a second time. It is a wondrous thing for a warrior to receive his vision twice. Surely my son is destined for greatness.” The look on his face was radiant and yet soft, as if he had dreamed some great happiness and awoke to find it true.

All at once Broken Trail was very happy, and he felt an unexpected kinship with Spotted Dog. Those long days alone in the forest, cold and hungry, had been Spotted Dog's true vigil. They had brought him to the brink. Broken Trail's words, borrowed from Young Bear, had done the rest.

Only Broken Trail knew that Spotted Dog had never seen his
oki
before.

The Great Spirit hated a lie. But would he not forgive a falsehood whose only purpose was to spare a loving father
pain and to give the son a chance to make a new start? In a way, the Great Spirit himself had transformed the lie into truth, for there was no fakery in what they had witnessed. Only the Great Spirit could have sent such a vision. Everyone present could see its power.

Walks Crooked tucked a blanket around his son and sat by his side. It seemed that the exhausted boy had slipped from his trance into quiet sleep.

Broken Trail and Swift Fox stood on either side, facing each other. Their eyes met.

“We're in danger here,” said Swift Fox. “It's fortunate for us that no one from the Mississauga village happened to be near.”

Before he could answer, Broken Trail's nose suddenly caught the scent of wolverine. Looking about, he saw nothing. Yet there was no mistaking that pungent musk. Swift Fox gave no sign of noticing it. Perhaps it was meant for Broken Trail alone.

“We must hurry,” he agreed. “It is not safe to linger.”

Together they fashioned a litter out of poles and twisted vines. Then they shouldered the litter and carried Spotted Dog through the forest to the canoes. Spotted Dog was still asleep when they lowered him gently into Walks Crooked and Black Elk's canoe.

Everything has changed, Broken Trail thought as they paddled down the river. A new beginning for Spotted Dog. A new beginning for himself.

Walks Crooked was his enemy no longer. He, Broken Trail,
had proved his worthiness to be a warrior. Now it was time to prepare himself for the real work of his life. What lay before him he still did not know. But he had taken the first step, and that was how every journey began.

All the way to the Oneida village, Spotted Dog slept, warm under blankets and rocked by the motion of the canoe. A snow flurry blew from the west. Helped by wind and current, the canoes reached home just before dawn.

Spotted Dog did not wake up until the canoe touched the riverbank. As he was being lifted onto the shore, he turned his face toward Broken Trail.

“You saved my life.”

No one else would ever know exactly and completely what he meant.

After Spotted Dog had been carried to Wolf Woman's lodge, Broken Trail turned his steps toward the Bear Clan longhouse. At the entrance he stopped, suddenly realizing that he did not want to go in just yet. The sun had not risen. Everyone would still be asleep, but as soon as anyone saw him, the longhouse would come to life. He was not ready to cope with a crush of people, even those dear to him, or to answer the questions they would ask. And so he drew back at the last moment.

He made his way slowly through the fields, between planting mounds stripped of the last fruits of harvest. Scarcely noticing his surroundings, he entered the forest, which was still shadowy in the dawning light.

As he walked, he found his mind turning to the day that had changed the course of his life, the tenth day of his spirit quest, and to the moment that his mystic vision had been snatched from him. He had not been ready for his vision, he thought. It was right for the unseen spirits to have kept him waiting until he learned who he was and what he was.

He supposed that the first glimmering had come at his blackest moment, when his warning to the soldiers at Kings Mountain had gained him only ridicule, and he had feared Elijah had been brutally killed. A sign had come in a beam of light piercing the darkness of the washout cavity under the maple tree. He remembered moving his hand so that the bright spot would fall upon his skin. As he watched the tiny beam of light waver in the darkness, he had for the first time experienced the feeling that the Great Spirit had a special plan for his life.

As he and Elijah travelled north together, Elijah had tried to make him see that he belonged both to the world into which he had been born and to the world that had adopted him.

What once had seemed a fault that he must struggle to overcome he saw now as a gift that he might use to help the native people. He was not, as he had sometimes feared, stranded in a no man's land between two worlds. Nor was he forced to choose between the one and the other. Instead, he could be a bridge to connect them. Through the power given to him, his thoughts could soar above all the warring
nations, white and native. Their strife seemed never-ending. And yet, he thought, the Sun our Father and the Moon our Mother shone on all alike. This great earth, with its mountains and valleys, its forests, lakes and rivers, was vast enough for all to share.

Elijah would be at his side, finding the path that was right for him. It was neither the path of a Loyalist soldier nor the path of a hunter-warrior. Saved from the battlefield for some greater purpose, somehow, somewhere, Elijah would join him in his work so that the tragedy of the Cherokees need not be repeated over and over again.

He stopped walking, and for a few moments gazed along the path that he had taken with Young Bear the day he killed the elk. He stood absolutely still, listening to the murmur of wind in the trees and smelling the scent of pine. A crow cawed, the forest's rough voice waking him to where he was. Broken Trail became aware that he was cold. Now he wanted to be with people whom he loved. He wanted their nearness and their warmth. His heart felt light as he started back.

Two days later, Broken Trail joined the council of warriors. When the pipe passed around the circle, he too inhaled the sharp, bitter smoke. While others spoke of his bravery, he did not allow himself a ghost of a smile. But it was sweet to hear Walks Crooked's words of praise.

After the council meeting, he strolled with his uncle down to the river. Hard grains of blowing snow stung their faces as they walked along the shore.

“I would make a feast in your honour,” Carries a Quiver said. “But how can we feast at this time of sorrow? Five warriors dead.”

“I don't want a feast. It is better that we hunt to build up our stores of food.”

“I shall hunt with you.” Carries a Quiver paused. “It is time you had a rifle.”

“For a long time, I've been thinking the same thing.”

“Let us go back to the longhouse. I have a rifle to give you, now that you are a man. It belonged to your father. I have saved it for you ever since he died at Barren Hill.”

“I shall try to be worthy of it.”

“You already are.”

Broken Trail listened to the sound of the wind as he walked at Carries a Quiver's side. It blew from the west, from beyond the great lakes, from lands that he had never seen, although someday he would. But first he must make himself ready for the long trail of his life.

“Uncle,” he said, “when my turn comes to speak to the council of warriors, I shall urge that we make peace with the Mississaugas. I shall say that the time has come to put a stop to raids against our brothers.”

“Then you and I shall speak with one voice to the council. Finally, others may be willing to see the need to find a better way. The world for which I prepared you will soon be no more. As the world changes, we must change, too.”

What lies ahead? Broken Trail wondered. Something better? Something worse? He supposed that the future would
be better for the colonists but worse for the native people. But he could help them, moving back and forth, being part of both.
Mitakue Oyasin,
he thought. We are all related.

They had reached the dancing circle when Carries a Quiver stopped and laid his hand upon Broken Trail's shoulder. Startled, Broken Trail turned to him.

“Remember your first deer?” Carries a Quiver asked.

“Does any hunter forget his first deer? Uncle, you stood at this spot and made the boast.”

“I called you a hunter who brings meat for the people.”

“I remember the scowl on Walks Crooked's face.”

“And now there is no one who speaks more highly in your praise.”

Broken Trail felt a rush of happiness, like a spring of fresh water welling up inside. He threw back his head and laughed.

Carries a Quiver's solemn face cracked in a smile. And then he was laughing too.

Jean Rae Baxter was born in Toronto, grew up in Hamilton, and lived for many years in the Kingston area. During her career as a secondary school English teacher, she wrote articles, poems and short plays. It was after retiring that she first turned her hand to writing fiction, soon discovering that this was what she liked to do best. She writes for adults and for young people. Her first book,
A Twist of Malice,
was a collection of short stories, published in 2005. It was followed by her young adult novel,
The Way Lies North,
in 2007. This novel received the 2008 Arts Hamilton Award for a young adult book and was nominated for the 2009 Red Maple Award in the Ontario Library Association's Forest of Reading Program and for the 2010 Stellar, British Columbia's teen
readers' choice award.
The Way Lies North
tells the story of fifteen-year-old Charlotte Hooper, driven from her home and separated from her sweetheart by the violence of the American Revolution.