Shadowbrook (50 page)

“I think,” Cormac said very slowly, “I have been expecting you, Monsieur Faucon.”

“And how is that?”

How much should he tell this Jesuit? They were known to be perpetual schemers, deeply involved in all the politics of war and peace. In the normal way of things he would avoid them like the plague. But what was normal about a man dressed all in black and bearing the name Falcon arriving at Port Mouton, at the edge of the world, after Kekomoson had dreamed that Cormac must go east, and after Cormac had dreamed that he was to follow a hawk along a river of blood to where a white bear stood beside a covey of little birds? “Will you think me mad if I tell you that I believe we have business together?”

Philippe looked at the métis. He was handsome in spite of his scar. And his
eyes …
incroyable.
He seemed to be seeing things that were not evident to others. The Jesuit made a hurried sign of the cross. “What business is that, monsieur?”

“I am not sure. And please call me Cormac.”

“If you are not sure, then—”

“Wait. I said I wasn’t sure, but I can tell you as much as I know.”

“No man can do more,” Philippe said softly. He had come to see if what they said was true, and if it was, to look with his own eyes on a man who was a legend. But now he was more than curious. He was enthralled.

“Some months ago,” Corm said, “in the beginning of summer, I dreamed of a hawk following a river of blood. It came to a place where there were many little birds. A great white bear approached the birds and the hawk attacked the bear.”

Philippe began to sweat beneath his cloak and his soutane. Despite the spring chill, rivulets of perspiration ran down his back. He was a priest, a Jesuit, but he had never sought out the mystical or attempted to probe the unknown. He had long ago resolved to do his duty, avoid sin, and hope for heaven after death. A quiet life, his sketchbooks, he had never asked for more … He wanted to turn and run. He could not. Cormac Shea held him in place with the strength of his glance.

Mon Dieu,
I am not a man meant for a fight. You did not make me so. Not even strong enough to pit my will against a falcon’s and prevail.
Come Philippe, she is hooded, and your gauntlet will protect you. She is only an eyas, a very young peregrine, and I have just begun to train her. The hens are best, you know, much better killers than the cocks. This one will be special. I’ve named her Lady of Steel. Here, take the jess … Remove the hood. Now, release the jess, launch her. The peregrine flew off, circling above Philippe’s head, then, sensing his weakness, dived and began pecking at his neck and his shoulders while he crouched in terror, weeping using the hand covered with the gauntlest to protect his face. His father softly whistled the peregrine back to fist and the boy was sent away in disgrace. Ever after the mere smell of the Mews sickened him.
“So,” the priest asked softly, “in your dream, did the hawk overcome the bear?”

“I don’t know. A white wolf ran out of the trees and charged the bear. Then I woke up.”

“And this dream is significant?”

Cormac peered hard at the priest. The battle the man was fighting was evident. Why are you so terrified, Jesuit? What have I said that has frightened you? “Have you been long in Canada, Monsieur le Curé?”

“Five years. I go—I went frequently to visit the longhouses.”

“Maybe you did not go frequently enough. The Indians, even the Huron, have much to teach the white men. Such as the fact that some dreams are very significant. Particularly if a man carries the name of a fighting hawk.”

Philippe gestured toward the door of the cabin, desperate to end this talk of falcons. “I must speak more with Mademoiselle Benoit. She is—”

“You are the hawk of the dream. The black hawk that follows the river of blood.”

“No. You’re mistaken. I am not meant for such things. I do not—”

“Whether or not you are meant for it, you are the hawk. Now I must find out where the river of blood leads. And who is the bear.”

Philippe clutched at his cloak, holding it together from the inside, and tried to stop shivering. “I cannot say, monsieur. You are mistaken in your assumptions. I am not a hawk and I cannot …” The words stuck in his throat. Six thousand troops and a flotilla of English ships deployed to intercept them. Surely enough firepower to turn the St. Lawrence into a river of blood.

Monsieur le Provincial had said Philippe must go to l’Acadie to strengthen the faith of the
habitants.
Had he come so far merely to chase after young women who had put their souls in peril by lifting their skirts? To become, though he was entirely unsuited to the task, the curé of L’Eglise du St. Michel, a backwoods parish in a forsaken part? What do you want of me,
mon Dieu?
Only make Your will known and I will do it.

“A river of blood,” Philippe said softly.

“A flood,” Corm said. “Blood that covered everything in its path.”

The Jesuit felt the terror fall away. He let go of the cloak and withdrew one hand from the folds and made the sign of the cross. “Everything is for a purpose, monsieur.”

That’s what Xavier Walton had said before he left Québec for Virginia.
Remember, Philippe, Monsieur le Provincial does everything for a purpose. Nothing is an accident.
Ever since, Philippe had wondered if he’d been meant to find the letter speaking of the troops. Surely it could not be a surprise that the secret springs and hinges in the paneling would be released by vigorous polishing of the sort he’d been set to do. And would a man like Louis Roget forget that unlike the brothers, who usually did the cleaning, Philippe Faucon could read and write? No, not likely. “What is your place in all this, Monsieur Shea?”

“My name is Cormac. And I don’t know my place. But I am the white wolf. It’s my totem.”

Old Geechkah the Huron had explained to the priest about totems. Philippe understood them to be not unlike the saints’ names good Catholic parents gave to their children, and the amulets that sometimes went with the totems were like the medals or other symbols of devotion that Catholics often carried on their person. “And in your dream the white wolf attacked the bear?”

“The wolf was preparing to do so, yes. I think to protect the birds from the river of blood. But I can’t be sure.”

Nothing is an accident.
“It is possible I have something to tell you, Cormac Shea.” The Jesuit’s mouth was so dry he could barely form the words, but once inside the cabin the story poured out; the promised troops from France, the presence of the English fleet, the way things were in Québec. At least the way he believed them to be. “I cannot be sure of such a thing, perhaps it is a great calumny … But Lantak, the renegade—”

“I know who Lantak is. What does he have to do with any of this?” Cormac was thinking of old Memetosia implying that Lantak was a métis, and of Memetosia’s gift.

“The Franciscan,” Philippe continued, “Père Antoine, he’s called. I cannot be sure …”

“Yes, so you said. Tell me what it is you’re not sure of.”

“I think Père Antoine may be in league with Lantak. And that together they are up to no good.” The cabin was not overly warm, but the Jesuit was soaked with sweat. “I saw Lantak and his renegade once, with their hair cut into scalp locks and their faces painted for war. I was told they went south to attack—I do not know who or where—because the Franciscan paid them.”

“Lantak kills for pleasure. If he gets money as well he considers himself twice lucky. You think this Franciscan priest is some kind of spy?”

“I do not know.” Philippe leaned forward, bent beneath the weight of his earnestness. “It makes no sense. I don’t know what to think.”

“No sense at all,” Cormac agreed. “Let us leave it for the moment. Tell me again about the French troops.”

An hour later Philippe Faucon had left the farm, and Cormac was preparing to do the same. “Where will you go?” Marni demanded. “Are you going to look for that renegade Huron?”

“Not immediately.”

“What are you doing there at the fireplace?”

“I’m taking something I put here.” He pried a stone loose and reclaimed the medicine bag of Suckáuhock. “As for Lantak … the master is more important than the dog. The Jesuit said Lantak was controlled by the Franciscan. Père Antoine. I go first to Québec.”

“Bien! C’est parfait!
Take me with you. I won’t be any trouble. I know my way about the city. I can find a place to stay. There’s a baker who will give me work and—”

“I can’t take you with me. You’ll slow me down too much. Besides, what about Mumu and Tutu? What about the pig and the chickens and—”

“You have been here all this time and you understand nothing.”

Her normally pale skin was flushed dark red, and her voice shook. The obvious passion in her made the sap rise in him. It was all Corm could do not to grab her and have her right now on the floor in front of the fire. One last time before he left.

“I hate this place. It is my prison.” Her breath came hard, making her chest rise and fall beneath the homespun frock and pinafore. “I should never have come back here. I do not care if the dykes break apart and this farm is washed out to sea.”

He was rock hard but it was not simply lust. A great deal had already passed between them, but standing here with her, knowing he had no choice but to leave her, Cormac understood that he didn’t just want to possess her to put out the fire between his legs, he wanted her to be his for always. He slipped the medicine bag around his neck and hid the pouch beneath his shirt. Then he went to Marni and put his hands on her shoulders. “I have to go. But I will come back. I give you my word.”

His touch burned her skin. Through the fabric of her clothes, through all the layers that hid who she truly was, she could feel Cormac Shea’s fingers on her skin.

Marni had exposed herself to him in ways she had done with no one else, not even sweet Jean the baker who was to have been her husband and who smelled always of flour and yeast. She reached up and traced his scar with a single finger. He did not pull away.
“Je t’aime,”
she said.
“Je t’aime, Cormac Shea.”

“Je t’aime,
Marni Benoit.” He had not said those words before. Not to her, not to any woman. “
Je t’aime,
but now I must go.”

“Very well. That I understand. Only I do not understand why you will not take me with you.”

“Because I must travel very fast, and to do that I must travel alone.”

“But why? If the black robe is correct and there are truly six thousand French troops on their way to Québec, and God knows how many English ships waiting to hunt them down, what can you do about it? Why should a war between the French and the English be a reason to separate us?”

“Because I am
wabnum,
the white wolf. It is my totem.”

“And the white wolf approached the bear that was near the little birds.” She had sat in this room with the Jesuit and Cormac and listened to her métis lover speak of his dream as if it were a thing as real as the table or the stools or the jug of spruce beer. As real and as important as she was. “You are sure?”

“I am very sure.”

“Alors.”
She pulled away from him. “And I can’t keep you here or go with you?”

“Not this time. But I will return, Marni Benoit. I will come back for you. You can rely on that.”

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 2, 1755
THE OHIO COUNTRY

TWENTY-TWO HUNDRED
men, a hundred and fifty wagons, and five hundred packhorses carrying siege guns—monstrously heavy eight-inch howitzers and twelve-pound cannon—pushed their way through thickly wooded wilderness, over swampy morasses, and across rock-strewn mountains, cutting their own road as they went.

It was insanity.

“You have to tell him,” Quent said. “He trusts you. You know it can’t be done, not and come out the other end with men who are ready to fight.”

“I’ve tried,” Washington said. “He won’t listen. The plan was made while he was still in London. And General Braddock takes his own counsel as best.”

Washington stared straight ahead, his face grim. So you’ve learned something since the last time, Quent thought. Put that together with that insane courage of yours, you could be a formidable soldier one day. “Braddock’s going to fail. If there was some way to make him understand that, maybe—”

“He’s like someone who thinks they’ve spoken to the Almighty. Nothing can change his mind or convince him there’s another way.” Washington hesitated. “The General,” he said at last, “has conceived a four-pronged attack. And this is only one part of it.”

They were walking together behind a group of provincials whose job was to roll out of the way the trees the axe wielders felled. They did the work in a constant had of cursing, sweating and groaning with the effort and the heat.

Quent drew Washington deep enough into the forest to muffle the sounds of Braddocks army spending its lifeblood hacking a road through the woods. “Exactly what are you trying to tell me?”

“When Braddock was back in Alexandria, he met with the governors: Dinwiddie of Virginia and Shirley of Massachusetts, and De Lancey of New York. But of course they have their various legislatures to contend with and—”