Adventures of Radisson (4 page)

It was then that Radisson spotted two strange shapes lying a little to his left in the long grass. They were not tree trunks, nor animal carcasses. He feared he knew what they were but disbelieving, walked up to… the horribly mutilated, arrow-riddled bodies of François and Mathurin! Horrified, terrorized, he flung his load to the ground and recoiled. He felt sick at the sight of their blood-soaked bodies lacerated from head to toe, their disfigured faces oozing blood. He vomited hard. But he couldn't take his eyes off their scalped heads, their hair cut sliced from their foreheads then torn off, their bodies slashed with knife wounds, carved up like animals. “Why didn't they fight back?” he wondered, horrified. “Why didn't I hear anything? There's no way…” Radisson refused to see the truth, but there was no denying their grimacing faces, covered in still warm blood, no denying their still soft flesh.

A violent shiver ran through his body. Radisson could feel death closing in on him, cruel and ruthless. Instinctively, he fired into the air to alert the people of Trois-Rivières, so they could come to his aid. But it was a forlorn hope from so far away. And now he had only one shot left. He pointed his other musket aimlessly in front of him, ready to defend himself at all costs. And then, just like that, he saw ten Iroquois with brightly painted faces half hiding in the bushes! He took aim and was about to fire when terrible screams from behind him made his blood run cold. He turned around and saw twenty Iroquois warriors racing toward him. He fired blindly at the powerful bodies as they overpowered him. Their cries and their weapons beat down upon him. Radisson tried to put up a fight but it was impossible. The Iroquois pinned him to the ground and a violent blow to the head knocked him unconscious.

BETWEEN LIFE AND DEATH


T
HE INTENSE PAIN
awakened Radisson. It was as if his head was trying to split in two. He couldn't move: his arms and legs were tightly bound. “If it hurts,” he thought, “that means I'm still alive. Thank God!” He'd been spread-eagled, naked, on the ground, ankles and wrists bound to stakes driven into the earth. The horror of his friends' mutilated bodies flashed through his mind. Suddenly overcome by intense anxiety, his breath came in gasps. A cloud of mosquitoes swarmed around him, drinking his blood in short, painful gulps. He blew at them to chase them away, but his head hurt twice as much. He resolved not to move again, waiting with resignation for his fate to be decided.

An Iroquois noticed the prisoner was awake and stepped toward him. Radisson looked on in terror as the Iroquois leaned over him. Broad black and white strokes painted across his face gave him a threatening look. His bare head, dirty and glistening, was divided into two by a short, narrow strip of hair that made him look ferocious, impenetrable. The man remained impassive for a long while, then smiled at Radisson. Was the Iroquois smiling because he was about to finish him off, Radisson wondered, or should he take some hope from the smile? The Iroquois vanished as quickly as he'd appeared. Radisson, once again alone with his anguish, tried to understand why he wasn't executed on the spot, like his friends. He remembered what Jean Véron told him one day about the appalling ways the Iroquois tortured their prisoners: scorching burns to the skin, torn-out nerves, scalding-hot sand over the head… He was surprised to find himself envying his massacred friends and implored God to spare him such terrible punishments.

Not far away, just out of his sight, Radisson could hear the Iroquois singing, talking, and feasting in the light of the setting sun. The reflected light of a huge, crackling fire, giving off clouds of smoke danced around him. Radisson was probably unconscious for an hour or two. He must still have been close to Trois-Rivières, but it didn't seem as though the Iroquois feared retaliation from the French or the Algonquins. Guided by the fire and the chanting, anyone could easily find and attack them, but the Iroquois didn't appear to be in the least concerned. They were in control. There was more pain to come, Radisson feared. His strength abandoned him. His unforgivable mistake had sealed his fate. Suffering and death awaited him.

At the very depths of despair, he saw three well-built men approach. After cutting his bonds they lifted him up off the ground, grabbed hold of him, tied a rope around his neck, and pushed him right up to the edge of the fire. Fifty or so Iroquois greeted him with cries of delight, jostling and hitting him. To his great surprise, the Iroquois man he first saw when he woke up pushed away most of the men who wanted to beat him. The men who untied him forced him to sit on a fallen tree trunk opposite the fire. They gave Radisson a chunk of rotten meat that he couldn't bring himself to swallow, and his queasiness caused great mirth among his captors. Then the Iroquois that appeared to be on his side handed him his own piece of roasted meat and gave him something to drink. Despite the throbbing pain in his head, Radisson managed to chew and swallow a few mouthfuls and his worries receded a little.

The respite didn't last long. Without wasting any time, a group of warriors bound him hand and foot and threw him into a canoe. The bloody scalps of his friends François and Mathurin hung before his eyes. Radisson couldn't stop himself from throwing up as he witnessed a portent of his own death. His captors were doing everything they could to terrorize him. Weak and demoralized, he lay prostrate against the bottom of the canoe. He closed his eyes, prepared to accept the torments his executioners were about to inflict upon him. He scarcely noticed that the whole band of Iroquois was busily paddling west, at an impressive clip.

When he opened his eyes, after a long moment of uncontrollable terror, Radisson saw, by the pale light of the full moon, the Iroquois who shown him some kindness. The Iroquois was sitting in front of him, right beside the revolting scalps of his friends. He was impressed by the warrior's muscular build and the strength with which he paddled. To allow him to move more freely, the man untied the rope from around Radisson's neck and fastened it to his waist. Despite his strength, the young Frenchman didn't feel up to battling these giants. “Where are they taking me now?” he wondered, noticing they were moving further and further away from Trois-Rivières and his chances of salvation.

At dawn the Iroquois stopped at last to set up camp at the mouth of a large river that flowed from the south, on a sandy shore perfectly suited to their needs. They beached their canoes and gathered wood for a fire. Here the band camped for three days until another group of Iroquois arrived from the west to meet them. For all of the following night, a good two hundred Iroquois celebrated their success: the other group also had prisoners, two Frenchmen. But they were kept apart and Radisson could only catch a distant glimpse of them now and again. The Iroquois danced around the fire, brandishing in triumph a dozen scalps at the end of long sticks, showing off their deathly trophies with sinister exuberance.

Over the three days of festivities Radisson slowly regained his confidence. Ganaha, the kindly Iroquois who was in a way his personal protector saw to it that he came to no harm. Though he believed his odds of survival to be slim indeed, hope again began to stir in his heart. On the morning of the fourth day, Ganaha painted half of Radisson's face red and the other half black. Then, his captors clambered back into their canoes and paddled south, along a broad river. To his great relief, the scalps of François and Mathurin had disappeared.

N
O MORE THAN
four canoes and nineteen warriors headed back upriver. The trip went by peacefully. The Iroquois paddled strongly for days on end, making steady progress against the current. At times the river bottom was so rocky and the current so powerful that they had to drag their canoes along by rope from the shoreline to negotiate the rapids. Each time, Radisson did his share, dragging his canoe along. It didn't take long for him to understand that he would have to show goodwill if he was to escape the Iroquois' wrath. He would like to learn to paddle as efficiently as the others, he told them. After asking a few times, his keeper finally agreed to teach him how to paddle without tiring himself out. “Keep your arms straight,” he gestured. “Put the paddle into the water in front of you and push with your chest and shoulders to propel it behind you.” Once again, Radisson proved to be a good student and a fast learner. Ganaha was clearly pleased at the progress shown by his prisoner, who was happy to forget his sad fate for a moment.

Without knowing it, Radisson was saving his life. The decision to execute or spare him lay in the hands of Ganaha, who chose to capture rather than kill him after Radisson left François and Mathurin to continue his hunting expedition alone. Ganaha and his brother Ongienda followed him from afar to judge his worth. His audacity impressed Ganaha. The Iroquois brave could appreciate his talents as a hunter and the determination he showed by bringing back everything he shot. Radisson's cunning had even almost gotten the better of them when he abandoned his geese and his musket. Then and there Ganaha was convinced of the young Frenchman's potential.

After travelling together for a few days, Ganaha was now certain that his prisoner would make a good hunter and an excellent warrior, as Iroquois custom demanded. Perhaps he would have his family adopt him to take the place of one of his fallen brothers. That would make his mother happy: she was hoping to adopt one or two French or Algonquin soldiers to make up for the many deaths that war and disease had brought to their family, their clan, and their village. Radisson's face was painted half red and half black, meaning that his fate remained in the balance: black for death, red for life. Ganaha was waiting until he knew his prisoner better before deciding one way or the other.

Radisson knew nothing of any of this. One night he had a surprising dream. He was back in Trois-Rivières with a Jesuit priest, eating roast goose and recounting his adventures while his sister Françoise served them beer. When he awakened, he took the dream to be a premonition and decided that he had a good chance of returning from his misadventure alive. From that day forth, he decided to forget about his friends François and Mathurin; in any case he could not bring them back. He decided to do everything he could to stay alive and to please his captors, especially Ganaha, his keeper. It didn't matter that the Iroquois had killed his friends. It didn't matter that it was his fault they were dead and he had been captured. Now, in the depths of his soul and conscience, nothing else must matter other than his life, and the survival he now believed to be possible.

From that moment on, Radisson pestered Ganaha every chance he got to teach him the Iroquois words that were soon to be a part of his vocabulary: canoe, sun, river, eat, drink, smile, friend, happiness… Whenever the group stopped to camp for the night, Radisson sang French songs to the great delight of his captors and joined in with their chants. He busied himself collecting firewood, he brought them water, and handed out food, doing everything he could to stay on their good side. Soon he realized that another Iroquois in his canoe, Ongienda, was Ganaha's brother. Knowing that now two of them trusted him, he tried to become friends with Ongienda. The strategy brought encouraging results: he was no longer bound, day or night. The fear that he might run away or take his revenge while they slept had disappeared. In the space of a few days, even though he could not understand why he was no longer being mistreated, Radisson was sincerely grateful to them. He even wondered if the French back in Trois-Rivières had not been exaggerating the cruelty of the Iroquois. And whenever he recalled the cold-blooded murder of François and Mathurin, he hastened to draw a black veil over their memory and devote all his thoughts, all his hopes, to the future.

Ten days after setting out up the river, the Iroquois landed at a place known for its good fishing. No sooner had they arrived than they each took up three-pronged harpoons and waited with them in the water at strategic spots. Radisson gestured to Ganaha that he wanted to fish and contribute to the meal. Knowing that the harpoon could be used as a dangerous weapon, his keeper hesitated. He glanced at Ongienda, who nodded his approval.

For the first time since his capture, Radisson held a weapon. He was happy and relieved to see that his captors trusted him. Eager to show himself worthy of their trust, he stood up to his waist in water on the sandy bottom at a gentle bend in the river, where, like the Iroquois around him, he waited patiently without moving. He held his harpoon tightly in his right hand, just above the water. Barely five minutes had gone by when an enormous fish came to a standstill right in front of him. Radisson couldn't believe his eyes. Gently moving its fins to stay just below the surface, the fish rested nonchalantly, indifferent to his presence.

What incredible good fortune! He was paralyzed for a moment, admiring the rainbow on the trout's back, lit up by the sun's rays shining through the clear river water. “God has given me this chance to win the Iroquois' esteem,” he thought. Pulling himself together, he thrust the harpoon into his prey with all the force he could muster. The fish reacted so powerfully that it seemed as though it was going to explode! Radisson grabbed the harpoon tight and raced to the shoreline, just managing to keep the speared fish from wiggling off. The monster was struggling furiously. Radisson flung it down onto the sand and sank the harpoon deeper into its flesh with all his weight. The giant trout continued to flail about, this time with such strength that, once again, it almost escaped. But he kept the harpoon planted deep in the fish and the struggle quickly swung in his favour as sand flooded the gills of the deposed king of the river. It tired and suffocated. Soon, victory belonged to Radisson.