Broken Trail (14 page)

Night fell before they had finished eating. There was no moon. Although their small fire crackled cheerfully, darkness pressed from all around. It was good, Broken Trail thought, to have his brother with him. The closeness between them grew with every passing day.

Elijah tossed a handful of fish bones into the fire. “Did you come by here on your way to Kings Mountain?”

“No. I took the short way, over the mountains. I've never seen—”

“Hey!” Elijah broke in. “Look over there!” He pointed toward the low-growing brush at the creek bank. “Something moved. An animal.”

“Likely a raccoon.” Broken Trail's eyes followed Elijah's pointing finger. “No. Wrong shape.”

“A wolf?”

“Too small.”

The animal put a stop to their guessing. Leaving the undergrowth, it sidled toward them with its head lowered and its tail wagging.

“Well, I never!” Elijah said. “That's a hound.”

The dog was brown, with a black saddle and white chest. Its paws were white, and rather large, and its tail ended in a white tip. The dog was so thin they could have counted every rib. It took a few steps toward them, setting down its paws carefully, as if testing thin ice.

“He's hungry,” Broken Trail said, and he reached into the bag of hardtack. There was still some, since even Elijah avoided eating them after noticing that they were crawling with maggots. When Broken Trail held a biscuit out to the dog, it whimpered and came still closer, but not all the way.

Broken Trail reached forward until his fingers almost touched the wet, black nose. The dog stretched out its neck. Its jaws snapped as it took the biscuit. It chewed sideways, its eyes fixed on Broken Trail's face, and then sniffed about for crumbs that might have fallen to the ground.

Broken Trail offered a second hardtack, which the dog
gobbled as eagerly as the first. “You must be starving,” he said, “to eat that stuff.”

Sitting on its haunches, the dog looked at him expectantly, its head cocked.

“That's all you get for now.”

With a sigh, the dog lay down and rested its snout on its forepaws.

All evening it watched them, warily keeping its distance but not leaving. Before falling asleep, Broken Trail wondered if it would still be there in the morning.

Sometime during the night he became drowsily aware of warm breathing against the nape of his neck and a warm furry body pressed against the small of his back.

In the morning, the dog was still there.

“Looks like we've got ourselves a dog.” Broken Trail smiled as he rubbed the velvety ears.

“He won't come with us. He's waiting for his master.”

“His folks aren't coming back.”

“He'll wait anyway.” Elijah cracked open one of the clay-baked trout that had cooked in the embers during the night.

As the dog watched, a ribbon of drool ran from its mouth, but it did not move.

“Good manners,” Elijah said, “considering how he's starving.”

“I'll give him another hardtack.”

“Might as well give him all you have left. They'll keep him going for a couple more days.”

“There are only a few.” Broken Trail tossed one biscuit to the dog. “I'll save the rest to give him later.”

Elijah shrugged.

When they had finished eating, Broken Trail and Elijah scattered the ashes of their fire to make sure it was dead, while the dog sat on its haunches and watched.

“Come, boy!” Broken Trail said as they started along the trail. The dog whimpered at their departure. “Come on!” he urged again.

“He can follow our scent if he decides to join us,” Elijah said.

They walked about a hundred feet. The dog was still in sight. It did not move.

Broken Trail halted. He turned back. Running to the dog, he untied the canvas bag from his belt and dumped the remaining biscuits, maggots and all, under the dog's nose. He tossed the bag away.

The boys walked for a long time without talking, Broken Trail still hoping that the dog would come bounding along the path. Finally he said, “It seems an awful shame for that hound to just wait there till he starves to death. You'd think he'd have enough sense to save himself.”

“Plenty of people don't,” Elijah said. “So why should a dog?”

After two more days they reached the burned-out fishing village at the west end of Oneida Lake.

“I've been here before,” Elijah said. “After you ran away, the long canoe stopped here on the way to Carleton Island. The village looked as if people had moved out in a hurry. There were racks for drying fish set up everywhere. Charlotte and I snooped around for signs that the Oneidas had brought you here.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Your clothes. They were hidden under a log. For aught I know, they're still here. Want to look? I think I can find the log.”

“Well, I don't know…” The idea gave Broken Trail a shivery feeling, as if they were talking about his grave. But Elijah was already walking toward the woods. Broken Trail, who could not help being curious, followed.

The log was humus now. Mixed in with shreds of wood fibre and loamy soil were a handful of buttons, a brass belt buckle, and two small boot soles, almost decomposed. Broken Trail smiled as he picked one up. “I wasn't very big, was I?”

“Size of a cricket. But you were too big for your boots even then.”

“Even then? Are you saying I'm too big for my boots right now?”

“I reckon there's been some improvement, because back then, nobody could teach you anything. I remember Ma in tears when the schoolmaster said the only thing you'd accomplished all year was to carve your initials in the desk.”

Broken Tail tossed the boot sole onto the ground. “I'm no good at book learning.”

“You're smart enough to learn anything you want. When we were camped at Oneida Lake, I taught you to make snares the same way Okwaho taught me. You learned quicker than I did.”

“It's easy to learn things that have some purpose. But I never saw the use of anything taught in school.”

“Maybe someday you'll change your mind about that. Axe Carrier didn't start school until he was eighteen, when he went off to a boarding school in Connecticut, along with Joseph Brant and a couple of other Mohawks. They'd all been warriors for five years. And now they were sitting at desks in a schoolroom learning their ABC's.”

“You'll never catch me doing that,” said Broken Trail.

“Knowing how to read and write properly hasn't stopped Joseph Brant from being a great warrior. Why would it stop you?”

Broken Trail winced, remembering the message that the officer had written for him to carry to Kings Mountain and his embarrassment at mistaking the word “bearer” for “bear.” Like it or not, reading and writing did have some use. But he wished Elijah would stop talking about school. Surely there was no place for school in the Great Spirit's plan for his life!

From amongst the shredded wood fibres on the ground Broken Trail picked up the brass belt buckle that once had been part of his clothes.

“What are you going to do with that?” asked Elijah.

“Just keep it.” He slipped it into his pouch. The buckle would be a reminder of his childhood—the childhood it was his duty to forget. Carries a Quiver would disapprove. Broken Trail felt a twinge of guilt but kept the buckle anyway.

SIX DAYS LATER
, Broken Trail and Elijah reached the islands that marked the eastern end of Lake Ontario and the beginning of the St. Lawrence River. Across a channel half a mile wide stood a fort on a hill near the western tip of an island.

“Well, here we are,” Elijah said. “That's Carleton Island, and that fort is where I enlisted in the Royal Greens nearly three years ago.”

“It's a mighty big fort,” Broken Trail said.

His eyes took in everything: the tall blockhouse that peeped above the ramparts, the shipyard, and the red, white and blue British flag that fluttered in the breeze. He saw the huts where native people lived outside the walls, with their birchbark canoes pulled up along the shore.

“How do we cross over?”

“We shout and jump up and down. If the sentries don't notice us, we light a fire. That brings attention. The garrison is used to people showing up here, Loyalists fleeing the Mohawk Valley.”

Elijah cupped his hands around his mouth. “Halloo!” The sound rolled across the water. “Halloo!” And he waved his arms.

Broken Trail stared gloomily at the fort. He did not want to go there. If there had been any way to reach the mainland without setting foot on Carleton Island, he would have employed it. He wished that he had wings like one of those seagulls wheeling overhead. Then he would fly over the rippling water, following the river's course until he saw below him the longhouses of his village, snug within their palisade.

Elijah interrupted his thoughts. “They've seen us. Somebody's coming.”

A redcoat had emerged from the fort gate and was ambling down the hill. When he reached the canoes, he hauled one to the water's edge, climbed in, and took up a paddle. The canoe rode high, skimming the little waves.

“As soon as we're across,” Elijah said, “I'll clean up. Then I'll report to the officer in charge.”

“I'm not going into the fort,” Broken Trail said.

“Why?”

“I don't want to take any chance of seeing Ma.”

“You don't have to see her if you don't want to. But it
makes no sense for you to accept me as your brother but not her as your mother.”

“Maybe not. But my mind is made up. Let's not talk about it any more.” Broken Trail was tired of this argument, waged not only with Elijah but also with the part of himself that suspected his brother might be right.

They stood side by side, watching as the canoe from the fort approached. Broken Trail began to feel self-conscious in his deerskin clothes, aware that he would attract curious glances and unwanted attention.

When the canoe drew up at the water's edge, the soldier looked at Elijah in his muddy coat, then at Broken Trail, and finally back at Elijah. He frowned.

“Who are you?” The question sounded like an accusation.

“Private Elijah Cobman of the Royal Greens, reporting for duty.”

“Where have you been, to get your uniform in such a state?”

“Kings Mountain.”

“Kings Mountain! You survived that, and then walked all the way here? Why didn't you report to Charleston headquarters?”

“Since my regiment had been wiped out, I figured it made as much sense to come back to where I'd enlisted in the first place.” Broken Trail noticed the defensive tone in his brother's voice. Elijah sounded as if he knew that his explanation was not convincing.

“And him?” The soldier nodded curtly in Broken Trail's direction.

“This boy was helping the Loyalist side. He took a message from one of our armies in the field all the way to South Carolina.”

The soldier looked closely at Broken Trail. “Is that the boy?” Then he spoke directly to Broken Trail, “I've heard about you. You'd better report to the blockhouse same as him.”

Broken Trail resolved that he would do no such thing.

“Hop in,” the soldier said.

Throughout the crossing, no one spoke.

When they had reached the other side and pulled the canoe onto the riverbank, the soldier gave Elijah a sideways glance. “No battles around here. You'll be safe.” His lips curled disdainfully. Then he walked away.

Broken Trail looked after him, puzzled. “What did he mean by that?”

“He thinks I'm a coward,” Elijah muttered. “To him, it looks like I came up north just to avoid the fighting. Well, he can think that if he chooses.” Elijah tried to brush dried mud from his uniform with his hand. “You heard what he said, that you should report, too.”

“I told you. I'm not going into the fort.”

Elijah shrugged. “As you like. You don't have to take orders from him. While I'm at the blockhouse, you can look around the Indian camp for someone to take you over to the mainland. As soon as I've reported, I'll meet you back
here.” Without another word, he walked away up the hill and through the open gate.

He's angry, Broken Trail thought, but it could not be helped. He had the feeling that if he even entered the fort, he would somehow become entrapped, that the old life would grab him and not let him go. If that happened, he would never become a warrior or ever see his Oneida home again.

On the gentle slope below the fort stood the scattering of bark-covered huts that made up the Indian camp. They reminded Broken Trail of the temporary lodges his band had lived in after the rebels had driven them from their ancestral lands. Everything about the camp had a makeshift look. As he walked about, he saw no stretching frames set up for hides and no racks for drying fish. What did these people do, he wondered, if they did not hunt or trap or fish? What kind of life was this, to be hanging around a fort? The few people he saw standing about seemed to be doing nothing.