Council of Fire Read online

  “I admire your bravery, my prince,” Wolfe said. “But if I may be so bold as to say: there is a very small difference between being brave and being foolhardy. We only have one of you.”

  “We only have one of each one of us, General Wolfe.” Edward stroked the mane of his horse, looking away from Wolfe and toward the north, the gentle early-summer breeze ruffling his hair. “We can’t see the future and we can’t see what will happen to us. Giving in to every fear is no way for honorable men to live.”

  Wolfe began to reply, thought better of it, began to reply again, thought better of it again, and fell silent.

  “Where do the rangers say this road leads?” the prince said, gesturing northward.

  “Some Indian village.”

  “Extremely descriptive, General. Anything further?”

  Wolfe sighed, as if there it was a matter of no importance. “There is an Indian village at a bend in the Allegheny. They believe it is either a Cayuga or Seneca village, and there are several smaller camps nearby. They may be friendly, or hostile—there is no way to know.”

  It took until the next day for the troop to reach the village, but they knew of its fate long before it came into view. A pall of smoke was visible from some distance; when they first caught sight of it at the crest of a hill, they pulled up for a view.

  “It doesn’t matter which tribe they are, I suppose,” the prince said. “Not now.”

  The village—or what was left of it—was alongside a sluggish stretch of the Allegheny River, either in Pennsylvania or New York Colony. There were thirty or so huts arranged along the bank, plank walls and thatch roofs, with gardens planted in between. The huts had been methodically fired, and the plots torn up, as if someone not only sought to do violence, but wanted to send a message. Even the seines in the river had been torn apart.

  The rangers walked through the settlement, muskets held loosely in their hands, looking back and forth at the devastation. Wolfe and the prince stayed near the wooden bridge at the head of the village.

  “There aren’t any victims,” one of the men said, from within the cluster of burned-out huts. “And no survivors either. There’s no one—”

  The sentence wasn’t completed. From beyond the second-to-last row there were sounds of a scuffle, and one of the rangers emerged holding on to another man—not a native, but a European: a middle-aged man wearing an apron or overcoat. Some sort of tool fell out onto the ground, and he shrugged off the ranger’s grasp, bent down, and picked it up. He adjusted his hat and walked toward the prince and general.

  “I confess to be surprised,” the prince said. “We did not expect to find anyone here—at least anyone alive.”

  “Things grow everywhere,” the man said. “Why would I not be here?”

  “I do not know your name, sir.”

  “I do not know yours either,” he answered. “But as a gentleman, I shall oblige. My name is John Bartram. At your service.”

  “Bartram? As in ‘Bartram’s Boxes’?”

  “The same, sir. Though, I am afraid, no more of them will make their way to the Royal Society, now that it—like all of our mother country—is beyond our reach. But I am honored to be known. And you, sir?”

  “Edward Augustus of Hanover. Prince of Great Britain.”

  Bartram had seemed confident and dispassionate, but when the prince introduced himself it was as if a mask dropped. He fell to one knee and bowed his head. “Your Highness,” he said. “An honor.”

  Edward glanced at Wolfe, then back at the man kneeling before him. “Rise, Mr. Bartram. Be at ease, and tell me what you can about what has happened here.”

  “And why you are here,” Wolfe added.

  “That would be helpful, yes,” the prince added.

  Bartram rose to his feet; another tool fell to the ground, but he left it where it lay. He adjusted his hat once more.

  “I have been traveling,” Bartram said, “continuing my work, and visiting friends.”

  “You had friends in this village, Mr. Bartram?”

  “No, not precisely. I have friends nearby.” He gestured toward the river, toward the woods. As he did, a breeze started up, riffling through the branches of the trees.

  “What happened here?” Wolfe asked.

  Bartram sighed. “There are some among the Indians who have decided, due to recent events, that white men no longer have a place in the New World. I don’t agree, Highness, but I concede that they have a point. We have given them—by which I mean the Indians—a wealth of reasons for their anger. And they’re not alone.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I walk through the forests here. Comet or no comet, the work goes on. But the things I hear worry me, Your Highness. They are angry.”

  “Who, exactly, is angry?” Wolfe asked, his nose arching in the air.

  “The trees.”

  “I confess that I do not understand,” Wolfe said. “Are you suggesting that there are . . . angry trees all around us?”

  “Yes,” Bartram said. “That’s exactly what I’m saying. I do not know why you would find this any harder to believe than . . . anything else you may have seen or heard since the world changed.”

  “The trees are angry,” Edward said. The rangers had assembled behind Bartram and were waiting for orders. “Very well, sir. Perhaps, if you are informed of their mind, you can apprise us of the cause of their anger, and what might reasonably be expected of us.”

  “Of you, Your Highness.”

  “Of me, then. What might reasonably be expected of me.”

  “They wish to be consulted. In all of the mapmaking and all of the working of the land, Highness, they have been left to suffer the consequences of decisions made beyond their control.”

  “Surely both red men and white men have made use of trees—to build houses and canoes and other things. Men are men; trees are trees.”

  “They understand that, Your Highness. But white men clear indiscriminately. They have changed the land in a way that red men have not. Now that the world has undergone a transformation, they demand to be heard, just as the Indians who seek redress demand to be heard.”

  “I cannot hear them, Mr. Bartram.”

  “But I can, Highness.” He drew his hat off, examined it as if it contained some defect, and then placed it back on his head. “Since the change swept across the land it is in my ears, almost constantly.”

  Edward nodded, as if considering the idea. “What has happened to the villagers who lived here?”

  “They abandoned this place. They—and many others, from various villages in this part of the Six Nations—have become refugees. They have gone to Fort Johnson, to seek the counsel of Sir William Johnson.”

  “Then we should go there as well.”

  “Perhaps,” Wolfe said, “Mr. Bartram might consent to guide us there. I am sure he knows these lands better than we do.”

  “Surely Your Highness is familiar with them,” Bartram said. “Otherwise how could you have come here?”

  “You would be surprised,” Edward said. “Or perhaps not. In any case, we would be glad of your help.”

  “And counsel,” Wolfe added.

  “And counsel,” Edward agreed. “Please see fit to accompany us, Mr. Bartram. We will discuss the matter of the trees as we travel.”

  Bartram thought about it for a moment, then bent down to pick up the tool he had dropped. He tipped his hat and offered a slight bow.

  “I would be honored,” he said.

  Chapter 32

  The Great Spirit demands it

  New York

  They followed a well-marked, narrow path that John Bartram identified as the Great Central Trail—a route that crossed all of the six nations of the Haudenosaunee along the southern boundary between New York and Pennsylvania. The Trail passed through a number of Indian villages that had the appearance of having suffered the same fate as Ichsua. Where crops had been planted, the fields looked uncared for; longhouses and other structures had been broken or b
urned.

  And, of course, there was no one to be found in the villages. But five days into their march, they came into a clearing and encountered two bodies: Iroquois warriors, lying on their backs with their arms extended, each still holding a tomahawk. In the shadowed light passing through the thick forest cover, the expressions on their faces were of indescribable horror.

  One of the rangers dismounted and moved to investigate while others kept their weapons ready—there had been more than enough strangeness recently to keep them on their guard.

  He knelt to examine one of the warriors, whose vest looked as if it had been torn aside. On his chest there was a burn mark in the shape of a splayed hand, with irregular lines extending outward from the extremities of the fingers.

  “There’s no sign he’s even been touched by predators,” the ranger said. “You find a body in the woods and it’s usually food for wolves. They stayed away from this one.”

  “How long has he been dead?” the prince asked.

  “Not long, Your Highness,” the man answered. “Two or three days. But it’s hard to say what killed him. There’s no blood on the axe, no real sign of a struggle.”

  “No Indian warrior stands in place and lets himself be slain,” Wolfe said. “How did anyone—”

  “What is the nature of the wound?” Bartram asked. He had dismounted, but did not approach. This was somewhat beyond botany.

  “It looks like a handprint,” the ranger said, reaching out to touch it; but Wolfe said, “No!” and he withdrew.

  “We don’t know what we’re facing, young man,” Wolfe continued. “Best we let the dead lie.”

  “Should we bury the two unfortunates?” Prince Edward asked. “It might be the decent thing to do.”

  “It might,” Wolfe agreed. “I would say, to keep them away from the wolves; but it seems the wolves have no taste for men killed this way. But after a few more days they will start to stink.”

  The rangers dug a shallow grave in the clearing, and carefully lowered the bodies into it, taking care not to touch the places where the handprints marred the chest. They closed the eyes of the warriors, wondering what it was they must have seen just before they met their deaths.

  As they continued to travel northward and eastward, they were troubled by the idea of what had killed armed braves at close range. A few days after finding the corpses, they had their answer.

  The troop generally traveled single or double file along the well-marked Indian trails, with two rangers in front scouting the path. There was no particular discipline on the march; Prince Edward would often ride near John Bartram, who was a bottomless source of anecdotes and information about the plant and animal life in the deep Iroquois forests. On a humid, rainy afternoon he was in the middle of a complicated account of the feeding habits of mustelidae—weasels—when there was a whistle from up ahead that stopped it.

  One of the lead rangers loped back to the prince. “Someone is up ahead,” he said, making a hand gesture to indicate the need for quiet.

  The troop dismounted and began to approach as quietly as possible. From his vantage, several yards away through the overhang of moss-coated branches, Edward could see movement, and hear a voice speaking in some Indian tongue he could not understand.

  He crept closer and saw a single Indian brave facing three other natives, draped in some sort of ceremonial attire. One of them held a wand or a staff, at the end of which was attached something that looked very much like a withered human hand. The single native appeared transfixed, his tomahawk held loosely in his right hand, his eyes staring straight forward at the wand-holder.

  As Edward watched, he thought he saw the fingers on the grotesque hand begin to writhe.

  Somewhere off to his right, someone—probably not a ranger—stepped on a loose branch which broke with a loud snap, making all three of the menacing natives turn. In that moment, the single brave seemed to snap out of his lethargy; and with a sweeping motion, he lifted his tomahawk, his muscles bulging and straining as if it suddenly weighed a hundred pounds, and brought it down with a sickening crack on the head of the wand-holder, who cried out and fell to the forest floor. The other two, still looking for the errant sound, saw their leader fall, and without any hesitation broke and ran—directly toward where the lead ranger scouts were concealed. One of the men moved his hands in some sort of gesture, and one of the rangers rose from his position, took aim and fired point-blank into his chest. The other native began to run, but another shot brought him down.

  The armed brave came running toward the troop, but when he saw armed men extended his arms outward and stopped in place.

  “Peace, friend, we mean you no harm,” Prince Edward said, stepping out from concealment. “What is happening here?”

  The brave scowled, as if unsure how to respond; after a moment he lowered his tomahawk, still coated in gore from the man he had slain.

  “You come from the west,” he said, gesturing toward the direction from which the troop had come. “Do you keep peace with the betrayer?”

  Wolfe came up beside Edward. “Which betrayer would that be?” he asked.

  “Guyasuta,” the man answered. “Betrayer of the Haudenosaunee, breaker of the Covenant Chain. He has called upon Stone Coats and Oniate and other evil things to drive white men from the land, as well as red men who keep peace with them. If you share a pipe with him, you are my enemy.”

  “Our . . . allies fought the Stone Coats,” Edward said, “and destroyed them—or drove them away at least. Guyasuta is no friend of ours.”

  The man’s expression did not change, but he visibly relaxed, as if he had been prepared to fight—and die—on the spot.

  “Can you tell me,” the prince continued, “what it is we witnessed? Who were those men, and what was the—wand—that one of them held?”

  “Oniate,” the man answered. “A dry hand. It is an evil medicine, taught to Guyasuta and Sganyodaiyo by Ciinkwia, the spirit of thunder and storm. When a powerful shaman dies they cut off his hand and do their work on it. The bravest shamans—” he seemed to spit out the word bravest, as if he meant the exact opposite—“make the Oniate a part of them, putting the dry-hand in place of their own hand. The evil medicine spreads into their bodies then and makes them powerful.”

  “This shaman did not do that,” Wolfe said, “but he seemed powerful enough.”

  The man did not respond, but seemed angry, as if unwilling to admit the truth.

  “We are heading toward Fort Johnson,” Edward said, with a glance at Wolfe. “You are welcome to travel with us.”

  “We were traveling there also,” the man said. “My brothers and cousins were slain by Oniate. I am the only one who remains to cover their graves.”

  “We will bring word of this,” Edward said. “This Guyasuta has more and more to answer for.”

  Chapter 33

  Now is not the time for weakness

  Fort Johnson, Colony of New York

  Since she had fainted while visiting the recent arrivals, the older mothers had decided among themselves to take turns visiting the main house and “checking in” on Molly. She refused their attentions at first, but they proved persistent and would not be deterred or prevented. Skenadoa was suspicious but soon dismissed it as a women’s matter, offering no more than polite grunts when one or another woman made her way up the long path to the house and found her way to Molly’s rooms.

  One of the most frequent visitors was an Onondaga crone named Fourth Sparrow. She was among the first of the mothers to visit and seemed to come more regularly than the others. The usual procedure was to come up the hill in late morning—the mother needs her sleep—and to never remain into the evening for much the same reason.

  It was thus a surprise to Molly when she felt the bony hands of Fourth Sparrow gently shaking her shoulder. She opened her eyes and looked through the open windows; it was deep night, and the moon, which should have been near full, was invisible beneath low clouds that had brought drizzle and r
ain all day and evening.

  “Please, Degonwadonti. You must awaken. I am sorry to disturb you.”

  “No,” she said. “No.” She felt her belly instinctively; Fourth Sparrow’s eyes flicked from Molly’s face to her midsection and back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something near the gate, Degonwadonti. The braves are gathering, but it is nothing they can fight.”

  “What . . . ” she lowered her feet to the floor and pulled on her moccasins. Fourth Sparrow bent down and helped her tie them. Molly was a trifle embarrassed at the attention but realized how much it helped given the baby. She pulled a light shawl across her shoulders and, when Fourth Sparrow was done, she stood and followed the old woman out of the room toward the stairs.

  Joseph came out of his room, his bow slung across his back. “What’s wrong?”

  “Something near the gate. Maybe—”

  Fourth Sparrow hissed, as if there was no need—and no desire—to speak of what might be waiting down below.

  “There are warriors down there,” she continued. “But my Elder Sister says that there is something there they cannot fight. Perhaps you should stay—”

  “No,” he said.

  “Your hands—”

  “My hands are fine, Sister,” Joseph said. “But you want my eyes.”

  Molly considered protesting but decided that there was no point.

  Fourth Sparrow walked at a slow, deliberate pace, but Molly was unwilling to leave her behind. Joseph had no such restraint; once outside the Hall, he loped away, headed for the lower gate. The rain kept most people inside their tents and makeshift houses, but there were many warriors out and watching. As Molly passed down the hill, they went from squatting near the banked fires to walking down with her—so that within a few minutes she was accompanied by a few dozen young braves, all armed, their faces shadowed by the flickering fires and the gray light from above.