Shadowbrook

Praise for
Shadowbrook

Also by Beverly Swerling

City of Dreams: A Novel of Nieuw Amsterdam and Early Manhattan

SIMON & SCHUSTER PAPERBACKS
Rockefeller Center
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2004 by MichaelA, Ltd.

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

First Simon & Schuster Paperback edition 2005

S
IMON &
S
CHUSTER
P
APERBACKS
and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America

1   3   5   7   9   10   8   6   4   2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Swerling, Beverly.

Shadowbrook: a novel of love, war, and the birth of America/Beverly Swerling.

p.   cm.

1. United States—History—French and Indian War, 1755-1763—Fiction.  2. Indians of North America—Wars—1750-1815—Fiction.  3. Ohio—History—To 1787—Fiction.  I. Title.

PS3619.W47S94 2004

813′.6—dc22

2003064127

ISBN 0-7432-2812-X

0-7432-2813-8 (Pbk)

ISBN 978-0-7432-2813-8

eISBN 978-0-7432-5360-4

For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-800-456-6798 or [email protected]

Britain and France spent the first half of the eighteenth century fighting over empire. This story takes place during the decisive battle in that long conflict. In North America it was known as the French and Indian War, in Europe the Seven Years’ War. It was a death struggle fought in a New World, the glory and extent of which the opponents did not imagine, and home to a rich and remarkable culture they did not understand.

From the moment the Europeans discovered their paradise it was doomed, but the indigenous peoples—the Real People, as they called themselves—put up an immense struggle to hold back the tide. I have tried to be true to their history and customs, but this is a story and I am a storyteller. When I couldn’t find details of a ceremony or a ritual, I made them up. My one rule was that I always extrapolated from what my research uncovered; teasing out the weave, never creating from whole cloth. Moreover, I never added or embroidered something that was by its nature pejorative. The bad stuff—or what seems so to us when judged by the standards of our culture and our time—is all there in the record.

The linguists tell us that in the eighteenth century there were some hundred thousand languages and that now there are six thousand. Moreover, among all languages past and present, only two hundred or so have ever been written down. Native Americans had a complex and sophisticated system of pictographs, but essentially theirs was an oral tradition. Its strengths and its depth were wondrous, but much of it is lost. I worked with both Iroquoian and Algonkian dictionaries (all created in modern times to try and stanch the mortal wound) and have tried to give the flavor of the speech with some authenticity. I have, however, avoided the complicated accent marks that have been developed as pronunciation guides. They are beyond the scope of this tale and my ability. So too the grammar. I apologize for the inevitable mistakes.

I know I have not been able to explain in proper depth or complexity the belief system of Native Americans. What the story contains is as true as my research allows; it is no doubt a vast distance from all truth. The rest, since it is part of my own Judeo-Christian heritage, is familiar territory. Here it is only necessary to say that Catholic theology is a long, ever-flowing river. What you see of the water depends on where you happen to be on the shore. The attitudes, customs, and practices, even some of the core beliefs described in this story, are accurate for the Church of that time and the religious orders as they were then. It is in many cases not the same now.

This Too Is True …

Love in all its many splendors has not changed in any fundamental way. Two hundred and fifty years ago it was as it is now—enough to move the world.

I
MPORTANT
C
HARACTERS IN THE
S
TORY

M
AP

B
OOK
1
Shadowbrook ·1754

B
OOK
2
The World That Came from the Belly of the Fish · 1754-1756

B
OOK
3
The New World and the Old · 1757

B
OOK
4
Québec · 1758-1759

B
OOK
5
The Covenant · 1759-1760

Epilogue: The World of Tears · 1763-1769

A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS

The People of Shadowbrook, also known as the Hale Patent

Quentin Hale:
Also called Uko Nyakwai, the Red Bear, and very occasionally by his secret Potawatomi manhood name of Kwashko, Jumps Over Fire

John Hale:
Quentin’s elder brother

Ephraim Hale:
Father of John and Quentin

Lorene Devrey Hale:
Ephraim’s wife, mother of John and Quentin

Nicole Marie Francine Winifred Anne Crane:
A young woman of French and English ancestry, traveling through the American colonies on her way to Québec

Kitchen Hannah:
The Big House cook

Corn Broom Hannah:
A Big House maid

Six-Finger Sam:
A general handyman

Clemency the Washerwoman:
The laundress, and among the Patent slaves, the keeper of the oral history

Jeremiah:
In charge of the stables

Little George:
Jeremiah’s assistant

Runsabout:
A Big House maid and mother of the twins, Lilac and Sugar Willie

Taba:
A young Ibo girl bought at the New York slave market in 1754

A
T THE
S
UGARHOUSE

Moses Frankel:
The chief miller, in charge of the grinding of wheat into flour and corn [Indian] meal as well as the production of rum and ale

Sarah Frankel:
The wife of Moses

Ellie Frankel Bleecker:
Their daughter, a widow

Tim Frankel:
Son of Moses and Sarah; never married

Deliciousness May:
The mother of Runsabout and a Hale slave assigned to the Frankels

Big Jacob:
Husband of Deliciousness and father of Runsabout; a Hale slave assigned to the sugarhouse and gristmill. He is also the horse trainer of the Patent.

Lilac and Sugar Willie:
Slave twins, children of Runsabout, but assigned to the sugarhouse. They are four years old when Quent returns to Shadowbrook in 1754.

Ely Davidson: The sawyer

Matilda Kip Davidson:
Ely’s daughter-in-law

Hank Davidson:
Ely’s son

Josiah, Sampson, and Westerly:
Brothers aged fourteen, twelve, and eleven; Hale slaves assigned to the sawmill

Solomon the Barrel Maker:
A cooper, and a Hale slave born on the Patent

Sally Robin:
The beekeeper and supplier of honey and various unguents and medicines used on the Patent; Solomon’s woman since she was purchased at the New York Slave Market in 1720

Esther Snowberry

Martin Snowberry:
Esther’s husband

Judith Snowberry:
Their daughter; later Judith Snowberry Foster

Prudence:
Their slave

Edward Taylor:
Treasurer of the community

Hepsibah Jane Foster:
Daughter of Judith

Daniel Willis:
A Friend from Rhode Island who has come to bring an antislavery message given him by the Light Within