The Blooding of Jack Absolute (37 page)

That man was Segunki, cruellest of their St Francis’ tormentors. He had come to reclaim his slaves.

Sounds came, of kicks, then of men moving away. Jack snatched another look. Two of the Coureurs had Até under each arm, were
dragging him along the cliff top and down to the entrance of the little gorge, the Mohawk semi-conscious,
his wrists already bound. The Abenaki, with one glance back, followed.

Jack’s gaze moved frantically from tree to tree. Four against one! But what choice did he have? Surrender and there was a
good chance they would fulfil his desire, take him to Montréal. He was valuable. It was one option … and none at all. For
Até would still die, as escaped slaves did, as slowly as possible. Segunki would insist on it.

Jack rose quietly, skirting around to the left of their arena, thankful that Shakespeare was not the only thing he’d learned
in the forest. Though Até rarely gave instruction, there had been competition between them from the beginning. Jack had observed
the Indian, patterned himself on him, could move through the forest almost as silently now. And while he was not as accurate
a thrower of the tomahawk, he was better with a bow and arrow, for Até was in love with gunpowder and thought the weapon primitive.
Jack had hunted coneys in Cornwall with a bow and, in their time in the forest, had killed three deer to Até’s one.

They had left their weapons to the side of the arena – performances would be interrupted if game appeared – and the enemy
had not found them. Quickly slinging the bow and the deerskin quiver over his shoulder, taking a tomahawk in each hand, he
moved parallel to the path through the trees. He could hear men just beginning the descent to the gorge. One man though had
stopped, so Jack did too, the voices of the others fading. The Frenchman who remained went to the cliff edge, peered over.

Jack slipped from tree to tree till he was within ten paces of his quarry. He thought of the bow, dismissed it; even with
a good shot the target would not die instantly, would scream, perhaps plummet over the edge, and Jack’s only odds-lessening
strategy – surprise – would be gone. Shrugging off the bearskin and quietly unslinging the weapons on his back, he laid them
and one of the tomahawks down. Hefting the other
in his right hand, he waited till he heard the voices from below disappear and, with the other men now in the first cave,
he moved toward the cliff top.

He was three paces away when the man turned, so he covered those last three fast. The Coureur yelped ‘
Merde
’, not too loudly, not loudly enough, reaching to his belt, to his own tomahawk, too late. Jack struck him, not with the blade
but with the blunt back of the weapon, high on the temple. The man spun backwards, instantly unconscious, following the trajectory
of the blow. He was over the edge, about to plummet down, when Jack grabbed at his heavy belt. Sudden weight nearly pulled
them both over and Jack desperately threw himself back, down, his feet slipping, seeking purchase in the melting snow. His
moccasins ground into a lip of rock, the man swayed over the precipice … and Jack held him, dangling there, listening to the
voices again rising up, to the feet moving along to the second cave. The sound came of the bough door being thrown down. Just
when Jack thought his grip would break, he heard the last of them enter the rock face below.

He twisted the man back, tipped him to the side to fall. He didn’t know if his one blow had killed, didn’t take time to check.
The man’s fallen musket was choked in snow, and Jack didn’t have time to clean it out. He thrust both tomahawks back into
his hide belt, fitted an arrow to the string of the bow and dropped the quiver over his shoulder.

As he entered the gorge, voices came from their abattoir cave, sounds of more blows and a groan – Até was still alive. Whatever
they’d found hadn’t yet confirmed or denied the Mohawk’s protection of Jack. He crouched, waiting, unsure. Then the two Frenchmen
came out of their living cave. Jack waited, wondering if Segunki would also emerge. When he didn’t, Jack began to run forward.
Adept though he’d been with deer, he was no Robin of Sherwood, and had missed more than he’d hit. The closer he got, the better.

They heard his feet crunch on the ice and, as they turned, Jack shot. The arrows – they had made three altogether – were of
shaved hickory, tipped with shaped stone. But they weren’t the straightest, the crow feathers making the flights uneven. This
one rose as it went, seemed to be bound for the first Frenchman’s face. Then it deviated sharply right, missing him by a good
foot.

Fuck.
Jack reached back, fingers fumbling for the second arrow, too aware that both of his enemies had unslung their muskets, were
swinging them down. He notched, pulled, let loose. There was little in the way of aiming but this arrow went straight where
the other had not. It took the man on the left in the centre of his chest; he staggered back, colliding with his comrade,
who was forced to step to one side before he could bring his musket to bear. Jack had dropped the bow, was running flat out
now, tomahawk in hand. The man fired when he was three paces away, the noise deafening within the narrow, canyon walls. He
missed.

Jack crashed into him, shoulder dipped, but the Militiaman was burly, thick-set and strong, and he braced himself, one hand
flat-palming Jack in the chest, the other pulling a tomahawk from his own waistband. In a moment the two weapons rose, clacked
over head, parted, rose again. His enemy’s falling first, Jack ducked to the side, low, and struck at the man’s leg. With
an agility that belied his bulk, he dodged it, struck again, at Jack’s shoulder. To save it, Jack spun out, his back colliding
with the stone wall hard enough to expel air. The man, sensing victory, stepped back to give himself room to swing, stepped
onto ice; weakened by the thaw, it gave and he sank to his knee. Off-balance now, he swayed and Jack, propelling himself off
the wall, swung the tomahawk hard at the side of the man’s head. It lodged there, and the bone-splitting force of the blow
followed by the man’s instant fall, sucked the weapon from Jack’s grasp.

A shout made Jack, whooping great gasps of air, turn to see Segunki step out of the abattoir cave. He held a knife in one
hand, its blade reddened; on seeing Jack, he dropped it, reached around and had his musket unslung and pointed in a moment.

Jack fell forward. The Frenchman with the arrow in his chest was curled around it, his hands grasping the shaft, cursing and
weeping. Beside him was his musket. Jack couldn’t remember if he’d fired it or not but he picked it up nonetheless and pointed
it down the canyon at his tormentor.

They pulled their triggers simultaneously. Jack had no idea where the other’s bullet went but he saw his own’s course for
it snapped the blue-dyed eagle’s feather in the Abenaki’s headdress. The smoke curled between them as, almost slowly, Segunki
reached up and pulled the half-feather from the headband. Jack moved quicker, first, running the three paces forward to his
dropped bow, snatching out the last of his arrows, notching it. Segunki looked up from the feather at him, turned and sprinted
away. He was gone before the feather had floated to the icy canyon floor.

Jack was suddenly hotter than he’d ever been. If he’d been wearing any clothes he’d have taken them off. As it was, he bent
down to scoop up ice melt, rub it onto his body, his burning face. A bass drum was beating blood throughout his head and he
suddenly found he was yawning, his jaw crackling with the width it was forced to. Yet there was not a trace of tiredness to
him. He thought he might never be tired again.

‘Monsieur?
Prend pitié. Par la grâce de Dieu, aidez-moi!
’

The whisper was startling in the silence. The Frenchman’s lips were stained and bubbling with bright pink blood, he was reaching
an arm out to Jack now, paralleling the arrow shaft sticking straight out from his chest. Blood made Jack think of the brightness
of Segunki’s blade when he came out of the cave and at the thought, he was up, weakened legs propelling him on.

He’d always thought that the bear, stripped of its hide, looked strangely human dangling upside down against the
cavern wall. The body hanging there now seemed to have the same bluish-grey tone of flesh, similar sheets of blood.

‘Até!’ Jack cried, taking the weight on his shoulder, hoisting him so that the leather cords came off the promontory of rock
above and the body slumped across his shoulder. Lowering him to the ground, he cut the ties, wincing at how they had gouged
the flesh; yet looking at the deep scalp cut that gushed blood, Jack wondered if the Mohawk was not already beyond pain.

‘Até! Até!’ He went outside, into the other cave, grabbed a bark container, stooped to fill it with iced water. He washed
away the worst of the blood, though more kept gouting from the slash. There was some deer skin tanning on cedar frames. Ripping
a piece off, Jack wrapped it round the head and, as he did, the dark eyes opened.

‘Daganoweda,’ Até coughed, tried to sit up.

‘Rest!’ Jack tried to push the man down but the Mohawk resisted.

‘He tried to … tried to …’ Até raised a hand swiftly over his scalp in a cutting motion. ‘Then he heard gunshots from outside.
He said he would be back to finish …’ Até suddenly gripped Jack’s arm. It was the first time Jack had ever seen anything like
fear in the Iroquois. ‘Is he …? Where is he …?’

‘Gone. For the moment, at least.’

‘The others?’

‘Dead. I think they are all dead.’ He jerked his head to the outside.

‘You killed them, Daganoweda? All of them?’

Exhaustion came then and Jack flopped down. One man on the Plains of Abraham had told him, when he’d killed for the first
time, that killing never got easier. Another on that same field had told him later that it did. The second one had been right
and the realization shocked.

‘I did.’

They sat there for a moment, staring at nothing. Then Até
stirred, rose to his knees. Leaning forward, he took the second tomahawk from Jack’s belt. ‘This Abenaki … he may come back.’

‘You cannot go after him. You are wounded.’

‘This?’ As he pointed to his own head, Jack saw the old Até return. ‘I have had worse playing
otadajishqua
.’
Tightening the bandage around his head, he got up, staggered a little, then moved to the cave’s entrance. Reluctantly, Jack
followed.

The Frenchman with the arrow in him had managed to crawl about ten paces, collapsing on a bank of snow, staining it red to
a depth of several inches. He was still breathing, just.

As Até bent to examine him, Jack said, ‘There’s one above. I’m not sure I killed him. I’ll go see.’

Out of sight of the Mohawk, halfway to the cliff top, Jack stopped, looked around once for any sign of Segunki, then leaned
over and voided the contents of his stomach. Wiping his mouth, he carried on walking till he could see the first of the men
he had struck that day, a short inspection revealing him to be definitely dead. The carnage made him think of how their day
had begun, with Até’s rendering of
Hamlet.
And if the Mohawk had not been allowed to finish his performance, at least this stage was as littered with bodies as any
production of the tragedy.

Até returned from the forest when the sun was at its height.

‘He flees fast, this Abenaki coyote, with the wind in his anus,’ he said, leaning his snowshoes against the cavern wall. ‘His
tracks lead east, toward St Francis. But he did not come from there.’

‘No?’ Jack dropped another cedar shingle on the fire. He could not stop shivering.

‘No. He came with
les Canadiens.
From the south-west. From Do-te-a-co, what you call Montréal. Their tracks come from there.’ Até fell down beside Jack, re-tying
the bloody bandage that had slipped across his face. ‘I think he went to
Montréal to tell of you, a Redcoat officer in the woods, and they send these Coureurs du Bois to help take you.’

‘How did they find us?’

‘It seems we are close to one path from Montréal to St Francis. They cross our hunting tracks.’

‘And the one with the arrow said that Montréal was two days’ march.’ He had sat by the Frenchman as he slowly bled to death.
There was nothing Jack could do for him; but it was surprising how much the man talked, thinking that he might. ‘He also said
that a big army is gathering there.’

‘To march north or south?’

Jack shook his head. ‘No one knows … except Montcalm’s successor, the Chevalier de Lévis and presumably some of his staff.
General Murray is holding out in Quebec. Your General Amherst is mustering in the south. Who will Levis choose to fight?’

Até sat up. ‘I can go to Amherst. My uncle-by-law, William Johnson will be there. I can fight with my people.’ He studied
Jack’s silence. ‘You can come with me, Daganoweda. For we will fight your enemies too.’

‘Yes.’ Jack poked at the fire. ‘But my people are at Quebec. If Levis does march against the city, my fight is there.’

‘So north or south, where will the war be?’ said Até, lowering himself again. ‘That is the question.’

Both young men now stared into the flames for a long moment. Then Jack spoke. ‘You know, I’ve been sitting here thinking of
another quote from that damn play. “There’s a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will.” Now I haven’t suddenly
converted, I hold ever to my non-belief—’

‘And will burn in hell for eternity,’ interjected Até placidly.

‘But I do believe in … in destiny, in some force that propels a man along his path. All this,’ he gestured to the forest outside,
‘Canada, slavery, you, even bloody
Hamlet,
all have been shaping me for something. Look at me!’ He ran his hand up over his shaved crown to the swinging top-knot,
traced the wolfhead tattoo over his shoulder. ‘A year ago I was still a schoolboy, pretending to be a Mohock. Now I am living
as one.’

Até’s voice was solemn. ‘You have still to journey along that path before you are truly one of us. But you have come a way
with my teaching. You have a name, Daganoweda. You can speak well and, in all but a bright light, you could pass for one of
us. You have killed, even if you have not taken scalps as befits a true warrior. And you have saved a Mohawk’s life – so now
you owe a great debt to the tribe.’ He overrode the objection Jack would voice to this logic. ‘But you lack the one thing
that would make you a warrior of the people.’