River City (54 page)

“Daddy!” Sarah Hanson gasped again, for a pair of Iroquois had burst upon them in the bedroom. Tall, bare-chested, wildly painted, they were grinning.

Indians, she had believed, never grinned.

One shook his tomahawk with a rattle attached to it—as well as feathers and shells—and the terrified family recoiled against the headboard. The warrior, shaking the rattle once more for the pleasure of watching them flinch, laughed. Warring Indians never laughed, Sarah knew. No one had ever mentioned laughing Indians to her. Jeremy Hanson clasped his wife and daughter to him. That he was inwardly pleading for a quick death shocked him, but instinctively he knew it would be preferable to seeing his family burned alive at the stake.

Squeezing between the legs of the natives, his seven-year-old son scrambled up onto the bed to join his parents. The father felt his heart blow open, fearing that these intruders might find his boy appetizing.

Below, they heard an ominous commotion, a rampage of destruction and theft throughout the dwelling, the outcries of servants swiftly muted. Above them, timbers crackled as the fire took hold.

The two Indians in the master bedroom merely stared at them and waited. They smiled. What delayed them, Jeremy Hanson did not know, until he smelled the smoke and heard flames crackle on the roof.

“Please,” he whispered. “Mercy.” Why were they smiling? What tribe was this?

An Iroquois gestured to the girl on the bed already dressed in riding clothes. “Pull boot on,” he commanded. “Come with us.” Sobbing, the mother cried out.

A dawning despair welled up inside Sarah Hanson’s bones. She did not know where her skin ended or began, as though the flames on the rooftop had already claimed her as their own. Her fright slammed inside her as she felt her father’s grip around her tighten, then, almost imperceptibly, go slack. From their stalls, she still heard the horses whinnying. From the barnyard arose the squeals of pigs as the animals scrambled for cover from Iroquois pursuing them with tomahawks, and the frightful squawk of hens as the raiders systematically wrung their necks.

She waited on the bed in the burning house, feeling glutinous and queer as her father’s grip continued to loosen around her and the sound of petrified squealing pigs ended and the hens went silent.

Horses kicked against the stall doors in the barn, distressed by the travesty of sounds, of death to animals.

Her father’s grip continued to relax around her. He clasped his young son to his chest, and his wife pressed her weight upon the boy also.

“Surprise comes with me,” Sarah Hanson, aged fourteen, announced.

“Is that a dog or a horse?” a Mohawk responded, as though he had negotiated such terms before. He moved a step to his left as the roof above his head was on the verge of burning through.

“Nelly can stay. Surprise, my horse, comes with me.” She pulled her boot on. “I’ll come and get you,” her father whispered. “It’s what they want. We’ve heard this happens. I’ll trade for your release.” “Your father is wise man,” the Indian said. “Treat her well. If you don’t treat her well—”

“Hurry,” the Indian said to the girl. “Before your family burns up in bed.”

Sarah Hanson would pause at the gate to her property as she led her horse down to the river in the company of Iroquois. Blood dripped from the headless pigs strapped to the backs of each horse, including Surprise. Jittery, high-stepping, her horse paused beside her. She waved to her family, who waved back, the house partially in flames behind them. Servants waved also, briefly, then realigned to form a bucket brigade. Sarah turned and guided her captors down the best path to the river, where the Iroquois had ditched their canoes.

They had taken three other horses, and these and Surprise were given over to a pair of young men to guide overland to their new home at Oka, by the
rivière des Outaouais,
either to be used by Iroquois or sold at a street fair in Montreal. Sarah Hanson reluctantly bade her animal goodbye and kissed him on the snout. She told the Indian boy responsible to treat him well.

He glared at her without expression.

Sarah slid down into a canoe and the natives pushed off from shore.

She began to shake all over. Then she quelled herself and bid herself to be strong. A spirited girl who had yearned for adventure, she now understood that the grand adventure of her life had commenced.

They taught her to smoke, these Iroquois.

Sarah Hanson wasn’t partial to the taste of tobacco and twigs and the fire on her lips and tongue, but she desired to be treated as a grown person, and a grown person in the woods at night smoked. They sat around campfires and passed clay pipes, and she breathed the smoke and observed the fireflies flitting among the timbers. The Iroquois appreciated that she was not a burden. As they canoed the rivers, she remained still, and when they made a portage she
purposefully carried a pack upon her back without needing to be asked. She did not stop until they stopped, nor did she impede their pace. They fed her as well as they fed themselves, with roast pork from her own farm and vegetables from her family’s cellar. Her stomach full, her head adrift upon the effects of the twigs and seeds and dried leaf, she slept upon the cedar boughs she’d gathered on her own. Always she hoped for a clear night, for she desired those few moments to herself, spent gazing at the stars as she repeated her prayers. Stars were comforting, familiar signposts. All else stood out as strange, difficult and dark, either perplexing or frightening. Her body ached from the cramped misery of her journey, from the heavy loads she carried at times. Lonely, ravaged by mosquitoes and pesky flies, fearful, her nerves on edge, exhausted, she also felt oddly exhilarated, and each night under the stars or clouds slept soundly following her prayers.

In the morning, Sarah stirred up the breakfast beans.

Sometimes, the young men who travelled overland with the horses made it to the same camp at night as those who canoed north. Then she would hug her animal’s neck, water him and brush the dust from his coat with her fingers.

“You’re riding him now?” she asked the young Iroquois.

“I teach him ride no saddle. To be a Mohawk horse.”

“That shouldn’t be so hard. I’ve ridden him bareback. I ride him bareback all the time.”

“White girls lie,” the youth proclaimed.

“Do they? I don’t know any who do. Anyway, I’m sure you’ve never met an English girl before, so how would you know?”

“You never before met Mohawk,” the young man stately gruffly. He looked to be older than her, yet only eighteen years of age, at the most. While he appeared to be a man, he was usually ordered around by the others.

“So true, I’ve never met a Mohawk, so I do not know if a Mohawk lies or not. I’ll wait, and judge for myself. That’s what you should do. Judge for yourself.”

“What means ‘judge’?”

Sarah Hanson thought a moment. “It means decide for yourself. Think. Don’t just believe what others tell you. Do you understand?”

“In old days,” he said, “a white girl like you be my slave. You cook for me, come to the bed of Colweenada at night when Colweenada want.”

“What old days? You weren’t there, so you don’t know the first thing about any old days. I would never come to your bed just because you wanted me to. Anyway, you would never have had a chance to make me your slave. One of the warriors would have me, not some
boy.”

In the light of a campfire built close to the horses, the youth wiped his brow.

“I am warrior,” he claimed. “Not boy.”

“You’re a thief and a kidnapper. You should be ashamed of yourself. But you’re a savage, so of course you don’t understand what I’m talking about. What do you know of shame?”

“Your father, he come for you. Take you home. Don’t worry.” From his tone of voice, he sounded as though he’d be relieved when that day arrived.

“What will the Iroquois sell me for, I wonder?”

The Iroquois shrugged. “A walking cow,” he said.

“A cow!” Sarah’s voice expressed her outrage.

“Two cows still walking, maybe. More pigs still walking. More dead chickens. Sacks of beans. Two more horses. Colweenada would trade you for that, if Colweenada was the man who own you.”

“You don’t own me. Nobody does. No one can own another person.” She sat by the fire and crossed her legs. Using a stick, she poked at the flames, causing sparks to fly up to the branches and leaves.

“A man can own a slave,” the boy said.

She had to concede that point. “I’m a captive. I’m not a slave. You shouldn’t be allowed to sell me. It’s not right. Certainly not for two cows.”

“Colweenada pay two cows for you, if Colweenada own two cows.”

She looked at him across the fire. “That’s a compliment, I suppose.”

“Not understand, com-plim-ent.”

She continued to look at him, then turned her eyes away.

“Never mind,” she said.

“If Colweenada own horse …” the Indian boy started to say.

“It’s
my
horse,” Sarah interrupted him stubbornly.

“If Colweenada own horse, horse stay to me. Colweenada give back horse to you if Colweenada own horse. If Colweenada not own horse, horse go to market in Montreal, a man buy horse, a Frenchman, you do not see horse again.”

Sarah curled her legs up so that her chin rested on her knees and wrapped her arms around her folded legs to keep warm. “His name is Surprise.”

The Indian boy nodded. He looked at the ground for a long time before he looked up. He was not as handsome as some warriors. He was chubby, his face round and flat with dark pockmarks, as though he’d been frozen during the wintertime as a child. While at first she had considered him ugly, with his red and black warrior stripes and his jaw line emphasized by white paint, she liked his rare, slight smile in a way, and she liked how he talked softly when only the two of them were together by the fire. He told her, “A good name.”

“Thanks,” the girl said.

“You ride horse tomorrow,” the boy said. “With Colweenada you ride.”

She immediately straightened up with interest. “I can? Can I?”

“Colweenada ask my chief for you ride.”

“Ask. Ask! Go ask!” She was pushing him to go quickly.

“You must promise Colweenada not to escape.”

“I can’t escape, Colweenada. I don’t know how. I don’t know where I am.” “English girls lie.”

“I don’t lie! Now go. Ask him. Hurry!”

The boy would return to their small campfire with the chief standing beside him. The old man had deep furls that ran straight down his cheeks, and black eyebrows, each bisected by tufts of grey. He said nothing, looking from one young person to the other, into their hearts, their minds, before he walked away.

In the morning, Sarah Hanson thought she was saying goodbye to Surprise again, and kissed him on the snout, when her new friend ordered, “Climb on horse. You come ride. My chief, he who is my father, he say okay. If you make escape, Colweenada take your scalp.”

“You’d never do that,” she said with glee, so delighted at the prospect of riding these deep woods upon her favourite animal.

“Colweenada do what Iroquois warrior do,” the boy protested. She never seemed to take him seriously, even when matters were profoundly serious. “I won’t escape and I don’t lie,” she told him. “Now, come on, let’s ride!”

The journey north on horseback became more arduous than Sarah Hanson had expected. She rode long hours with rare stops, the stamina of the boys being extraordinary, and forded fast, rocky rivers against the animals’ will. That’s when she peed—when she was up to her waist in water. She was too embarrassed otherwise. Trails were Iroquois footpaths beaten down through the ages, often not suitable for horse and rider, although deer, bear and other critters used the routes often. Sarah Hanson’s face was slapped by branches and cut and punched by tree limbs, yet she was forbidden to cry out on the chance that bandit Indians were lying in wait. She had to twist her mind to comprehend that she was travelling as a captive in the company of Iroquois raiders, yet should be frightened only of other Iroquois or Indians believed to be bandits. If this bunch was not a concoction of bandits, why was she being held against her will?

Walking the horses down a steep trail, one rebelled and fell, slipping off to the side, and its pack shifted on its back, surprising the animal, which hoisted its four legs into the air and took flight. For Sarah, the fall seemed to last forever. The horse broke its back and neck in the ravine below. She wept. She didn’t care if the boys thought little of her—she wept for the animal who had no fault or design in this, brought into the wilderness with no prayer or comprehension and now dead because stones had skidded loose beneath its hoof. She mopped her face dry on her shirtsleeve and forged on.

When they found a good place, the Indian boys tied her to a tree, then went down into the ravine to retrieve the dead pigs off the back of the dead horse. Then they hacked the horse into manageable sections for travel and consumption later.

Sarah stretched her restraints as far as possible from the tree and vomited. Yet she said nothing, and the boys untied her and carried on.

They were descending, and at times she could see the great expanse of a lake. She gathered that they were bound for Lake George and Lake Champlain. In a day, they made it to the French and Iroquois camp at Fort Ticonderoga, where many Indians were sitting in huddled groups. Their dark eyes were upon the girl as she rode her horse among them. She stayed very close to Colweenada after they dismounted. She didn’t want him to step into the forest without her, not even to relieve himself.

Within the fort were drunken Indian boys and women and men, and others who never spoke nor smiled, but gazed upon her with a look as indifferent as trees. She could not begin to fathom their intentions. Some Indians wore white man’s clothes, including the clothes of soldiers.

“Are they in the army?” Sarah asked.

Colweenada did not answer such a foolish question. Whenever she caught up to him to ask another question, he turned away in a different direction. Finally, she grabbed his arm and said, “Are you mad at me? What’s the matter with you?”