Broken Trail (15 page)

When he saw a warrior watching him as he wandered, Broken Trail raised his hand in greeting. He might as well, he thought, ask this man about a way to cross to the mainland. The warrior's response to Broken Trail's greeting was to stare at him with narrowed eyes. Broken Trail was familiar with that look. He knew what the warrior saw: a white boy wearing deerskins.

The warrior was a heavy-set man, not fat but well on the
way Draped over his bare shoulders was a red blanket. His face was marked by a raised scar, the colour of a worm, that reached from the corner of his left eye to his chin. Without the scar, he would have had a sleepy face. With it, his look was menacing.

“What you want?” the warrior asked. When he spoke, his wormlike scar appeared to crawl.

“I'm looking for somebody with a canoe to take me across to Cataraqui. My home is in the Oneida village downriver from there. From Cataraqui I can walk the rest of the way.”

“Oneida? You look white to me.” He shrugged. “Not my business what you are. I have canoe. Tomorrow I go to trading post at Cataraqui. What you give me to carry you there?”

Broken Trail thought hard. His knife? His tomahawk? Though his tomahawk was worth more, he could manage without it. But in the forest he would be helpless without his knife.

“Well?”

“I'll give you my tomahawk.”

“Show me.”

Broken Trail pulled the tomahawk from his belt and gave it to the warrior. After a quick inspection, he handed it back.

“Good. Come tomorrow as soon as the sun is over the trees.” He paused. “My name is Two Trees.”

“They call me Broken Trail. I'll be here.”

Now that his ride was settled, Broken Trail felt at loose ends. It was too soon to return to the shore to wait for Elijah. Not wanting either to linger in the Indian camp or to visit the fort, Broken Trail started walking. The path he took led northeast into the woods that covered most of Carleton Island. He had no destination in mind.

He walked very slowly. In the undergrowth small birds chirped, undisturbed by his passing. Every once in a while he stopped and gazed about. He looked down at the carpet of many-coloured leaves that covered the earth: reds, yellows and browns of every hue. He looked up through naked branches to the blue sky. A flock of geese was flying south, steadily, noisily, each bird knowing exactly where it was going.

A lonesome feeling came over him. He was about to lose Elijah. An uncertain future awaited him. He did not know his way.

What advice, he wondered, would his uncle give at such a time? Broken Trail already knew the answer. “Pray to the Great Spirit,” Carries a Quiver would say. “Open your heart to the unseen spirits that are all around.”

Lately, how often had he remembered to do this? Ever since he began travelling with Elijah, he had neglected even the simple obligation to give thanks after each meal.

Broken Trail stopped walking. He raised his face to the sky and reached deep inside himself for the right words, for the solemn chants and the sacred songs that his uncle had
taught him. None came to him. His mind was a blank.

The only words he could think of were English words. He had gone too many days without hearing an Oneida voice. He squeezed his eyes shut and forced his mind to remember the prayers he had learned when preparing for his dream quest. And finally the words came to him, true Oneida words:

As he prayed, he felt the power of the spirits flow into him. Confidence replaced uncertainty, and the right prayer sprang to his lips:

He stopped and listened. A curious hush had fallen over the forest. The birds in the undergrowth had stopped chirping. There seemed to be a humming in the air, a sound that drew him toward it as if he were a fish on an invisible line. He pushed forward through the bushes.

Then he came upon the hollow.

It was shaped like a cup, and when he climbed down the side, he found warmth at the bottom, as if some of the sun's heat had been trapped. Milkweed grew there. The grey pods
were papery, for they had long since burst and the silk blown away. At the bottom of the hollow was a little pool. He knelt at the edge. When he turned over a stone, a crayfish scuttled off.

As he gazed at his reflection in the pool, a faint dizziness came over him. Sweat trickled down his skin under his leather shirt. His chest felt squeezed. Gasping for breath, he pulled air into his lungs. With the air came the smell of musk—that wonderful odour he had waited so long to smell again! He heard movement behind him, a rustling. Slowly, cautiously, he turned his head.

“Oki,”
he said softly.

The wolverine approached, head lowered, jaws open to show its yellow teeth. It spoke to him in thoughts.

“You have proved yourself worthy. Your long journey has made you a man. Now you may see the vision of your life.”

Broken Trail shivered, afraid to interrupt lest his vision be lost a second time. A strange numbness filled his head. In his trance he saw a great waterfall with a rainbow shining in the mist, and he knew that this must be the waterfall at Niagara that he had heard about but never seen. The waterfall disappeared in a swirl of mist, which lifted to show a scene of armies clashing on a battlefield. In the mêlée, men in red uniforms and warriors in buckskin struggled with soldiers in blue. He saw a warrior with tomahawk upraised and knew that this was himself. The mist descended to blot out the battlefield, then lifted to reveal a town of many
longhouses by a broad river. In front of one longhouse an old man sat on a log, with children clustered about his knees. And he knew that this old man was also himself.

“You will be a warrior,” said the
oki,
“but you will not die in battle. You will become a great leader, both in war and in peace. When at last you go to the Land without Trouble, all nations will mourn.”

The vision disappeared.

“Go now,” the wolverine said. “Return to your village. It is time.”

The wolverine loped away, vanished amid the milkweed stalks. Broken Trail looked about, wondering where it had gone. The strong, musky scent was the only evidence that it had been there at all.

Broken Trail climbed out of the hollow and turned back the way he had come. It was time to meet Elijah by the shore.

AROUND HIM, THE
little birds in the undergrowth began to chirp again. Broken Trail left behind him the pool and the hollow and the smell of wolverine, but the power of the spirits was still with him as he turned south and followed a narrow path to the river. He stood at the water's edge.

There was a splashing noise right by his feet. A bullfrog had jumped into the water. Broken Trail watched as it swam away. Then he turned west toward the fort and followed the shoreline all the way back to the spot where he was to meet Elijah.

When he did not see his brother anywhere about, he sat down near the canoes to wait. He was glad to be alone to
ponder what he had seen and heard. An immense gift had been given to him, so immense that he could not grasp its meaning all at once. He was to become a great leader, both in war and in peace. That was the Great Spirit's plan for his life.

When he had prayed to see a vision of his future, he had not expected this, and yet he was not surprised. It seemed to be one of those things that he had known without knowing ever since his mission to Kings Mountain began.

Should he tell Elijah about his vision? One part of him wanted to share it with his brother; the other part advised him to wait until the path of his life became clear.

But where was Elijah? The sun was halfway down the sky. Elijah had had plenty of time to report to the officer in charge. Something must have happened to prevent him from meeting Broken Trail here, as they had planned.

Broken Trail wandered back through the Indian camp, thinking that there might have been a misunderstanding that caused his brother to look for him there. But there was no sign of Elijah.

If I want to find him, Broken Trail thought, I'll have to enter the fort after all.

With a sinking heart he headed up the hill and walked through the open gate.

There were so many buildings! Some were of wood, and some of stone. The largest was a low, sprawling structure with a wing at each end. But it was the second largest, a
square, two-storey stone building, that appeared to be the most important. People kept going in and out of it. There were women of all ages, some tugging little children by the hand. There were soldiers in uniform, and old men wearing regular clothes. That building must be the blockhouse, he thought. Elijah might be there.

Broken Trail considered looking inside, and then decided against it. With its stone walls, it looked like the kind of place where he might be locked up and forced to stay forever.

Farther off was an open square where redcoats were drilling. They marched with their muskets over their shoulders. On their heads were tricorn hats like the one he had picked up on the battlefield.

Beyond the square stood row upon row of white tents. Those must be where the Loyalists lived, the white colonists whom rebels had driven from their homes.

But where was Elijah?

Over by the large, sprawling building a soldier lounged outside a door. He looked idly about, as if waiting for someone. Perhaps he would know where to find Elijah. Broken Trail walked up to him.

“Good day,” he said, wanting to make a good impression, “I'm looking for Private Elijah Cobman.”

The soldier lifted his eyebrows.

“Who?”

“He's a soldier who came here this morning. A canoe brought him and me across from the south shore.”

“Oh, him. He's confined to barracks.”

“What does that mean?”

“He can't leave barracks. He's lucky not to be in the guardhouse. Truth to tell, he's lucky not to be shot.”

For a few moments Broken Trail was too shocked to utter a word. At last he blurted, “I need to see him. Where are the barracks?”

The man gestured with his thumb over his shoulder. “Right here. This is the soldiers' section. You'll find Private Cobman inside.”

Broken Trail opened the door. Walking warily down a narrow hall, he peered into every room that he passed. The rooms were identical: two windows, twelve cots, and a trunk on the floor at the end of each cot. He saw no one in any of the first four rooms. The soldiers who lived in them must be the ones whom he had seen outside, marching around in the square.

In the fifth room, he found Elijah sitting on the edge of a cot, polishing a boot. He wore a clean uniform, but he did not look happy.

ELIJAH WAS DABBING
polish onto the leather of the boot he held in his hand when Broken Trail entered the room.

“So you found me!” Elijah said. “I thought you would, even though you had to enter the fort to look for me.”

“What happened to you?” Broken Trail asked. “I waited a long time on the shore.”

“I didn't get the kind of welcome I hoped for.” Elijah spat on the boot, picked up a rag, and began rubbing the polish into the leather. “First, they threatened to shoot me as a deserter. Then somebody said that I must have been out of my mind, because only a madman would walk five hundred
miles to Carleton Island instead of one hundred to Charleston.”

“Now that you're here, do you reckon you'll be staying?” Broken Trail sat on the edge of the next cot, facing Elijah.

“If they decide that I've recovered my wits,” said Elijah, “they may keep me. The garrison could use an extra man.” As he rubbed, the boot took on a burnished glow. “On the other hand, they may send me back down south and attach me to another regiment. With the left wing of Cornwallis's army wiped out at Kings Mountain, the Southern Command needs reinforcements. At present, I'm confined to barracks while they make up their minds.”