Norseman Chief (26 page)

“So my father sent you?” asked Makkito, breaking the silence while we sat.

“Yes, in a manner of speaking, he did.”  The girl nodded while gnawing on some bit of food in the dim moonlight.

“What did he do in another manner of speaking?” the intelligent girl prodded.

I did not have time for games or lies.  I looked at her directly.  “Your father demanded that you be rescued from the Fish.  In the end, the chief decided against it, but your father and I would not stand for it.  Together we came to rescue you both.”

“And yet he is not here.  Where is he?” Makkito interrupted.

“He is dead.  The Mi’kmaq with whom we were recently at war commanded it.”  She swallowed hard and looked less like a girl on the cusp of becoming a woman and more like a fragile little girl.  Tears came, but she controlled herself in a manner that would have made her father proud.  There was no need to tell her it was an arrow from my bow that killed the man.

The silence resumed.  We had tarried long enough and as I carefully set Alsoomse’s peaceful form across my shoulders, Makkito said, “There were three of us taken that day.  You said you came to rescue us both, but there were three.  Kimi, Chief Kesegowaase’s daughter was left in the Pohomoosh village.”

“If it could be so, we would have rescued the girl.  But it cannot be so.  We will be eternally blessed by your Glooskap if he guides us out of this mess as it stands already.”

She sighed, but stood.  When I began to hike the pack up around my shoulders the girl caught it, stopping me.  With a tough, firm smile she swung the heavy pack onto her own back and we marched.

That girl was Etleloo’s daughter for she walked rapidly up and down hills all the next day without complaint or breaking.  At times I even let her lead when the trail was such that making a directional mistake was nearly impossible.

But despite our solid pace, I knew that with each step, the Fish gained on us.  Their best warriors would be trailing us, making up three strides to our one.  They would probably fall upon us in the coming night.  This knowledge gave me no exceptional insight.  I thought back to Leif and his ability to divine the future.  He gained no insight from his foresight either.

If I could get us to the Pohomoosh Mi’kmaq village safely there was a small chance that the chief there would honor his agreement and see that we were given safe passage across his lands.  He would not fight his Fish cousins for us, but he may force them to wait to attack us in the land of Kesegowaase.  Or, he may end up in battle with the Fish if the latter took note of the arrows littering their fallen men.  By Hel!  Or Luntook would kill us with a smile on his face.

This line of thinking was worthless.  None of it mattered.  The Pohomoosh village was some days away.  By then the Fish would have already swept us up like we were dust in the path of a wind storm.  I would be killed.  The girls would be killed.  In the end I would have saved them from a kidnapping and given them over for murder.

Night again fell.  We walked.  After a time we rested.  While Alsoomse slept and Makkito ate, I quietly backtracked three or four hundred ells to find out just how close were our pursuers.  I perched myself at the top of a slick stair-step slope, greased with green moss and trickling water, we had ascended some time earlier.  The weather had been unseasonably dry since the last of the snow left, but these rocks were made precariously wet from a natural spring that oozed its way out of the hill’s side.  My form would be hidden from anyone across or below as I crouched beneath a small butternut tree that grew in the shade of the nearby pines.  The tree’s original seeds were likely set there in the droppings of some rodent.

I soon became bored and felt my eyes close for a time.  I do not know how long I slept, but when my eyes shot open at the sound of a man’s voice, the night was still as pitch around us.  Down below in the ravine I counted at least twenty Fish warriors gathered in the soft moonlight to eat.  They did not use a fire.

One of the men said, “You two move ahead and scout for us.  We must be gaining on this lone man and whoever this little person he has with him.  We will follow-up shortly.”

As good soldiers, the two in question stood and began moving toward the damp stone hillside.  I backed out from under the tree and jogged back to where the girls lay.

Makkito was fast asleep.  Alsoomse was rummaging through my pack stuffing her mouth with anything that looked edible.  When she laid eyes on me, the girl simply said, “Welcome back, father.”  It was as if I returned to our mamateek in the village after a short hunt.  She was calm and showed no sign of distress.  I ran to her and hugged her close.  You likely think it was foolish to be so careless when the Fish scouts would be here in moments.  I did not care.  I was driven by selfish emotion.  I wanted to squeeze that little beast before they came and so I did.

Much too soon she pushed me away saying, “Father, I need to return to my studies with Torleik.  I like him much more than I like those wicked men I’ve been with the past several days.”  I laughed.  Too loud, I laughed at this precocious little creature.  Makkito stirred then.  I do not know if the scouts heard.

“We will have two visitors in no time.  They are from the people who took you, the Fish.  You are not to worry.  If you want to survive, you’ll do exactly as I tell you.”  Alsoomse nodded obediently.  Makkito returned to the frightful gaze she wore when I first rescued the girl.  To her, I said, “Girl, you are nearly a woman.  Act as an adult would act.  Fear nothing.  You are the daughter of one of the greatest warriors ever know among the Algonkin.  Will you obey me completely?”

With a quivering lip, she nodded.  “Completely?”  I asked again.  “I mean do exactly as I say?”

More certain now.  “Yes.”

“Good.  You two sit here and visit.  I am leaving you alone.  Talk about whatever you wish, but talk so that you can be heard.  Let the men who come from the Fish approach you.  Do not flee.  Though I leave you, you will be completely safe.”  I took no time to see that they understood.  I ran ahead away from the Fish.

But, of course, I circled back so that I crouched just ten steps from the fallen tree where the girls sat.  The two Fish scouts could not help but take the bait I set for them.  They stood talking to the girls, unaware that their deaths were moments away.

“Who are you?” one of them asked.

“We are the people of Kesegowaase,” answered an amazingly confident Alsoomse.  Makkito nodded.

“So you were taken by our men, dragged here then rescued?  Where is the man who took you back?  Before we confronted you we heard the older one currently without a tongue say that she couldn’t believe the man abandoned you,” said the other pointing at Makkito.

“We were rescued by my father.  He is a big man with grey hair, but my mother tells me it used to be yellow like the color of grass in the fall.  He carries a blade that cuts men in half with one stroke.”

Both men chuckled at her bravado.  One of them even elbowed the other in the ribs.  “Ha, my father has flaming red hair and shoots fire from his mouth.”  They giggled at the joke.

Alsoomse, as earnest as ever, said, “That is wonderful.  My father tells me that my grandfather had red hair too.  I don’t know about the fire breathing, though.”

The Fish tired of her now.  “Yet this amazing warrior of yours left you alone rather than face the Fish.  I believe we’ll just wait here until the rest of our men arrive.  Some of them can take you back to our village, while the rest of us hunt down this cowardly father of yours.”  Then one of them saw my pack.  “I wonder if they have anything good to eat.”

He promptly sat next to the girls and began digging through the paltry amount of food that remained.  Completely at ease, his comrade relieved himself at the edge of the log.  Steam from his stream of urine rose into the air.  This was my only chance.

Without my usual battle cry I rushed from my hiding spot, blade drawn.  The man sitting on the log was just getting his spear drawn when the point of my blade with the Christian markings on it pierced his chest.  I had the sword pulled out before the other scout even dropped the cloth covering his groin.  He was half-way turned around when I slashed his right arm at the shoulder.  The proud warrior watched helplessly as the ragged arm dangled uselessly by just a sinewy cord or two.  Blood poured down his side.

After turning back to Makkito, her eyes wide with fear, I said, “Move.”  She did.

“Here is what the blade of this coward can do.”  The sitting man grunted, spitting up blood, while looking down at the ground.  Alsoomse scattered out of the way when she saw me grip the handle with both hands.  Taking a single step back I brought the blade all the way above my shoulder, arms bent.  Then with more force than I knew I possessed, I stepped into my swing aimed at the man’s midsection.  I cut through his left arm and half-way into his belly before his spine stopped me.  I think without the arm, he would have been cut in two.

With the bottom of my foot, I kicked the man over behind the log.  His now pale comrade threw up the contents of his stomach, took several steps back the way they came then toppled into a dying heap.

Alsoomse and Makkito both ran to me and hugged me, nearly cutting themselves on my sword with their zeal.

“Thank you, but we must act now, if we want to survive the night.”  In truth, our chances were still remote.  “After I drag that man from the path, cover his blood with whatever dust and leaves you can find.”

I wiped my sword clean on the clothing of the man missing his right arm before I hefted him onto my shoulders.  His blood shifted and again poured out, this time down my neck.  It was warm.  I tossed him next to his friend, replenished my dwindling Pohomoosh supply of arrows with a quiver of Fish arrows, then piled sticks and leaves to cover the bodies.  The girls did a fine job covering the pool of blood that now sat in the path.  A toddler with poor eyesight could see all the mess we made, but I had to hope that since the scouts did not return with news, the main party would assume all was well and keep marching into the dark, past the scene.  My mind fell to the word of the One God from my books.  Moses told his people that the Lord had not given them minds that understand, or eyes that see, or ears that hear.  Then as my mind associated much of my reading, I fell upon a prayer a Psalmist once offered, “May the table set before them become a snare, may it become retribution and a trap.  May their eyes be darkened so they cannot see.”  I made that my prayer that night.

In mere moments we were on the move.  Perhaps a short arc of the moon was all we had before the war party caught us.  What I hoped for besides the miraculous blinding by the One God, I do not know.  The One God was on my thoughts then.  He was all I felt that I had in those dark times.  Perhaps I hoped that like the One God had done for Gideon, he would bring about an improbably victory against mighty odds.

Very soon I knew the plan of Providence.  It was well and, like all he created, was good.  A slow, low-pitched whistle followed by two high quick ones came from the dark ahead.  A genuine smile of relief came to my face.  I’ll write that a tear formed as well, but I did not let anyone know it that night.

“Rowtag,” I whispered.  “Good of you to come, but I hope you bring more men.  We are in a pinch.”

My friend materialized on the path with Pajack, a thin, young warrior with a continuous grave expression, and three other untried men from our people.  “I bring many men.  Even old Halfdanr came from his mamateek leaving his young bride to join our party.”

“Huh.  I cut his fingers off years ago when I saved Kesegowaase.  Now he joins in because his chief Kesegowaase hunts me down.  I am proud of him, even though he is half Dane, for being so patient to wait for his revenge.”

“You are probably correct.  What is this pinch?”

“About eighteen Fish are nearly upon us.  We will find ourselves in battle tonight no matter what we do.  We may as well fight together before Kesegowaase sees me dragged back in tethers.”

“Let’s ask him.”  Rowtag directed the others to stay in place as a watch party.  Meanwhile, he led us to where the main band of men lounged about a small campfire.

Chattering among the night watch grew to a small roar and soon Kesegowaase was awakened.  He stood with the dim light from the fire splashing now and again to his face.  I faced him, looking down, with my hand on the shoulder of Makkito and on little Alsoomse’s head.  “I have retrieved the captives,” I said a little formally compared to how he and I usually spoke.  “We need the warriors of Kesegowaase to turn back the war party sent after us by the Fish.”

“Of course you do!  You have made an attack on their property by taking these girls.  You make war against my wishes and against the decision of the council.  As it stands now, I should have you and these girls bound to wait for the Fish and let their anger pour out upon you.”