Arundel (10 page)

They took the canoe by the thwarts and ran it up on the shore; and from the pleasure in their faces and the look in the eyes of the tall girl it was apparent even to me that my father had done more than give them a few glass beads and pieces of red flannel.

V

T
HE
lower headland of Swan Island, high above its arrow-headed marsh, was used as a lookout by the Swan Island Indians, who are Abenakis and a part of the Kennebec tribe, though they live by themselves and have little traffic with the Abenakis who dwell in the town of Norridgewock. So lofty is the headland that one who stands on it sees spread out beneath him all the winding guzzles in the marsh and the pools through which they pass, as though he gazed down upon a vast map. He sees at once whatever pools contain swans or geese or brant or ducks, no matter how low the tide has fallen below the marsh grass, and can steal out to them in the small flat boats that Swan Island huntsmen use for killing wild fowl.

Behind the front edge of the headland is a deep swale in which there is a good spring. Beyond the swale the land rises again to a pleasantly wooded plateau on which the wigwams were placed, some twenty of them. They were strewn irregularly among the oaks and birches, and were made of poles and bark, except for three houses. These were of logs, one a Long House for meetings, the others for the sachem and the
m’téoulin,
or Indian who possesses magic power, which is also known as
m’téoulin.

Of
m’téoulin
I know nothing whatever. I know I have difficulty in keeping a straight face when a great
m’téoulin
is mystifying an audience with some such amazing piece of
m’téoulin
as causing a strip of calico to vanish in his hands, for I can do the same thing by drawing it up my sleeve with a piece of string. Yet, when badly cut by the razorlike hoofs of a deer and burning with fever, I have had a
m’téoulin
sing a
m’téoulin
song over me and singe a wolverine’s whiskers and a loon feather in a clam-shell, and have gone to sleep and awakened without fever, which is a piece of
m’téoulin
I couldn’t do, even though offered a partnership in the Plymouth Company for doing it.

The sachem of the Swan Island Indians was a woman, Rabomis, an unusual state of affairs among the Abenakis; for a sachem must be wise, brave and a successful hunter. It was Rabomis who ran into the water to greet my father, calling him “Steven” and gazing at him proudly, as a woman eyes a pleasing jewel on her finger. I couldn’t understand how she could be a sachem. She was too young and beautiful, I thought, to be wise or a good hunter.

It seemed to me our arrival on the island was in the nature of a homecoming, for Rabomis clung to my father’s arm, going with him around the point of the headland and up the slope to the wigwams; and behind them came the rest of us, squaws carrying our packs and braves carrying our muskets lest a squaw, by handling them, should rob them of strength and cause them to shoot inaccurately, and all laughing and talking together about my father.

I know little concerning these things, because I was young in those days and content with my father, who was both brave and good. Whatever he did, I knew, was done for excellent reasons. He went often into the Northern forests while his sour-faced first wife was alive, returning always with a store of beaver and otter skins; but whether he went always to Swan Island, I cannot say. He said little to me about it, save in praise of Rabomis, to whom he had taught tricks of hunting and governing, so that she had more skill than any of the braves; but I learned from the talk of the Indians that he had planned the building of the three log houses and supervised the work, and had given instructions in the erection and maintenance of latrines, and in the value of skins and methods to be followed in trading.

At any rate, it seemed to me my mother would be as happy if she heard nothing concerning Rabomis, so I afterward remained silent on the subject. In truth, I think all of us would be better off if we spoke and speculated less concerning the private lives of other folk, since we cannot know the whys and wherefores of their actions, and too often impose upon them standards of conduct that we don’t impose on ourselves. Nor would I mention these things now, only they are bound up with my tale.

I think my father must have been a great joker with the Indians. As we came to the cabin of the
m’téoulin,
the
m’téoulin
stood in the door wearing his swan headdress, its drooping white wings puffed out around his head and shoulders. He held an empty kettle toward my father.

“We greet you, Brother,” he said, taking a rawhide drum from the door post and clapping it over the kettle. “If you find our kettles empty you will send word to Glooskap, and Glooskap will hear your message and bring us riches. Here, Brother, is a messenger.”

He lifted the drum, and in the kettle was a rabbit which fell to the ground, scrambled to its feet drunkenly, thumped with its hind leg, and scuttled off through the trees. The Indians behind my father howked appreciatively, and my father gravely extended his hands toward the
m’téoulin.

“I have sent,” he said, “and thus the answer returns.” He showed the back of his left hand and the palm of his right: then he showed the palm of his left hand and the back of his right. Both hands were empty. He moved them quickly in the air, drawing the left hand slowly over the right, and in the palm of the right hand lay a new clasp knife. This, as the Indians whooped and slapped their thighs, he dropped into the
m’téoulins
kettle.

Rabomis drew my father on toward her own cabin, but waved the others to the Long House. “We will return for a council,” she said, and then she opened the door for my father and me to enter.

It was a good cabin, warm, with a stone fireplace, and hung with skins. On the floor was a bearskin. A small girl sat by the fireplace, playing with a doll made from the thigh-bone of a deer. There was something about the girl, even though her skin was a soft brown, that made me think of my sister Cynthia.

“Jacataqua,” Rabomis said.

My father nodded and looked around the cabin. “No change,” he said. His glance lingered here and there, and stopped at Rabomis. “No change,” he repeated, and smiled at her.

“No change,” said Rabomis. She leaned over suddenly and kissed me, the act being without reason, so far as I could see.

My father went to the fireplace and squatted by the child Jacataqua, who regarded him solemnly. When she showed no alarm, my father picked her up and sat on the bed with her in his arms.

“Stevie,” he said, “I’m as good a magic-maker as any
m’téoulin.
I can see this girl is like you. She will never get up in the morning unless she must, and it will be years before she will admit she likes to be kissed. Therefore I declare her your sister and you her brother. Say the words, Stevie.”

I knew my father must be joking; yet I felt he was not. I said the words of the ritual: “She is my sister: I am her brother.”

“At all times and in all places,” my father insisted, “until the squirrel again grows greater than the bear.”

I repeated the words. My father pricked my little finger with his knife and placed a drop of my blood on Jacataqua’s tongue, and she became my sister.

Rabomis smiled what seemed to me a tremulous smile, and said: “If all the English were like you, Steven, and all the French were like the Frenchman who stopped here yesterday, we’d be fighting with you against the French, instead of doing as we are.”

My father eyed me stolidly, and I tried to look stolid too, like an Indian.

“So,” my father said, “the French captain is on his way home!”

Rabomis nodded. “Traveling by night, to escape the forts.”

“He was not liked by our brothers to the south,” my father said, “because of his high-and-mighty airs. I think it would have been better for this captain—ah—bah, his name slips my tongue—”

“Henri Guerlac,” said Rabomis.

“Of course! Guerlac! It would have been better, I think, if this Captain Guerlac had taken lessons in common decency before he came into these parts, so he wouldn’t have looked with such contempt on all of us, or made war on unarmed men and children.”

“The little girl seemed happy with him,” Rabomis said.

This was more than I could bear. “She was not!” I shouted; “she was not!”

My father told me to keep quiet. “Here’s the truth,” he said to Rabomis, “and you never knew me to speak aught else. This Guerlac came among us two nights past. He killed my neighbor and carried away his daughter, who was the dear friend of my son. This is apart from the war: an evil done to me and to my house. We must come up with him and take the child back and finish him if we can, and avenge ourselves. There can be no end to it until this is done.”

“You’ll rest here to-night, Steven, and go at dawn?”

“No,” my father said, “later we’ll return; but this wrong has been done and we must go. Cook ducks for us and help us on our way.”

“What do you want from us, Steven?”

“A canoe and two short bows and two braves to paddle.”

Rabomis hesitated, but seeing the tears rolling down my cheeks, she kept silent and led us to the Long House, where all the braves were assembled. There was a stir and a murmur of welcome when my father entered, but Rabomis faced them silently until they too became silent. “Our brother,” she said, “asks for help. Hear him and judge.”

My father stood straight before them, as young as any man there, it seemed to me.

“In times past,” he said, “I gave you help and you called me brother. Now I claim the rights of a brother. Murder has been done by the Frenchman Guerlac, who has gone north, and my son and I are afoot to right that wrong. This is a private matter between the Frenchman and myself. If there is fighting between us, my son and I will do it without help. Give us only the means to overtake the Frenchman.”

“The Frenchmen are also our brothers,” a young brave objected.

“That’s idle talk,” said the
m’téoulin,
“and unless we are dogs we must do as he asks.”

“Give him a canoe and two men,” said an ancient Abenaki. “He has been wronged and he is our brother. That is talk we can understand, and if we speak all day we’ll come no nearer the heart of the matter.”

“You’ll catch them above Cushnoc,” said Rabomis, “and Natawammet knows the river above Cushnoc. Say if you’ll go, Natawammet, and who you’ll take.”

“Woromquid,” Natawammet replied and stalked from the Long House.

We went out, all of us, and down to the beach. The canoes leaned against the high bank, overturned, and the
m’téoulin
pointed to a small, slender one. It was fast, the
m’téoulin
said, patting its side—fast. My father stooped beneath it, picked it up by the thwarts, swung it over his head; then lowered it into the water.

A brave brought us a moosehide bow case, two quivers, and a bundle of broad-head arrows with grooved shafts. In the case were three short hunting bows, four extra bowstrings, and a ball of sinews. Tied to the case was a bag of arrowheads.

The bows were short, barely four feet long, made of cedar backed with hickory, and the hickory in turn backed with rawhide. My father tried one of them, borrowing three blunt-head arrows from a child, and the Abenakis watched him closely, for he draws a bow to his jawbone, shooting accurately at targets, whereas the Abenakis of the Kennebec draw to the breastbone with the bow held diagonally before them, shooting miserably at targets but well enough at game.

He shot at a block of wood on the edge of the marsh, twenty paces off, and knocked it spinning into the water. Then he shot at a red squirrel on a pine branch, striking the branch and causing the squirrel to fly raging into the air with tail and fur a-bristle, at which my father declared the bow had lost its cast: the arrow was badly made: a gust of wind had taken the arrow at the last moment. The Abenakis, accustomed to excusing bad marksmanship with all these complaints, cackled loudly.

He loosed his third arrow at a black duck swimming in a guzzle some sixty paces off; but the duck, hearing or seeing the approaching shaft, sprang into the air as it arrived and struck it somehow with his wing so that he became tangled with it and fell flopping into the guzzle; then flew off squawking.

When Natawammet and Woromquid had placed our packs, our muskets, and two extra paddles in the canoe, the men gathered in a circle around the
m’téoulin,
who drew a map in the sand.

“The Frenchman left here with two canoes at dusk last night,” he said, “so to pass the forts unseen. The tide was against them. In the dark they could make four miles an hour: maybe less. Cushnoc is twenty-two miles, though some say eighteen who have never paddled it. There they must carry, going silently so the garrison at Fort Western won’t be alarmed.

“Above Fort Western the water is swift and shallow. They won’t travel by night, not knowing the river and fearing to break their canoes. To-day they have gone on cautiously, pausing at each bend to guard against soldiers moving between Fort Halifax and Fort Western. To-night they lie south of Fort Halifax. To-morrow morning they carry, a long carry, around Fort Halifax and past the Five Mile Ripples, going carefully and slowly to avoid disaster. This is the last of the settlements. Once beyond this they are safe and the way is clear to Norridgewock and beyond.

“Now at Ticonic Falls, by Fort Halifax, there is a trail through the forest. This trail is known to Natawammet and Woromquid. It cuts across a bend in the river and comes out above the Five Mile Ripples. Two leagues from the ripples there is an island. On one side of the island the water is shoal and quick. On the other it’s clear, with trees overhead and good shelter on either side. There’s where you can catch the Frenchman. If you don’t catch him there, you won’t catch him at all. To do this you must reach Ticonic Falls by dawn. That is a journey! I know of nobody who has made it in any such time.”