“SOKANON”

by R. W. Briddick II

1764

 Sokanon listened for the sounds of her newborn’s voice calling to life. Only the ululations from the elder women echoed in her ears. She feared their death chants to the Great Mysterious. Imagined instead a celebration, a hymn to Our Lady Mary, for the birth of her child. She strained to cease their lament, tell them the baby wasn’t dead, only not yet filled with the Grace of the Christ, Jesus. 
But she slipped away into the shadow world of nightmare and dream where she saw herself as a child again, scared, the shrill war whoops of the attackers resounding from everywhere at once. Her father running for her mother and infant brother. The arms of the man in the black robe around her once more, escaping with her to the canoes.
————
Isaac Dobbins watched the strength in Sokanon’s face drained of life. The pain in his eyes deepened at their baby’s lifeless blue form, the cord attached between mother and child tangled around the little body. He watched the Ojibwa women, come to help with the birth. The baby was too soon, Sokanon warned him, and he ran to summon them to the cabin. They made him wait outside until the time grew too long and he sensed trouble. He’d stood helpless as the women worked to pull the baby out by first the feet and legs.
“Un boy,” Pahmahnee announced in pidgin at the birth. Younger of the three working as midwives, she bothered over the unresponsive child while the two others, much older, years worn heavy on their faces, sat nearby, keening their dirge.
Pahmahnee unwound the cord and laid the tiny body of the motionless infant next to that of his mother. Then she sat away and folded her hands, adding her Christian prayers to the droning voices. The three women swayed gently, their long black hair swinging in braids, the beads of their smocks jangling soft. Eyes closed they chanted together, aiding in the spiritual journey to the afterlife.
Isaac stared wild from the women to search back and forth, mother to baby, to mother. To the ring on the cord strung from Sokanon’s neck, lying shining on her breast. Her most prized possession, the two-hearted symbol of Jesus and Mary, given to her as a young girl by her beloved priest, Father Armand.
He couldn’t lose both wife and son, and weakness came over him all at once, as if a great force was weighing on his shoulders. He lowered to his knees to humble himself to the Lord of Hosts. Our Father came to him in Sokanon’s French. “Notre Père,” he began, reciting the prayer she’d spoken so many times. He was halted by Pahmahnee’s sudden exclamation in her native language.
Isaac raised his eyes to see she had her hand on the baby, his color turning sanguine. She rubbed at the little chest that moved with the staccato rhythm of tiny breaths. The boy squeaked his first voice and Sokanon, too twitched awake at the sound.
Isaac rose and stepped closer, mesmerized by the activity of the three women suddenly in motion around the two revived victims. Pahmahnee ordered one of the others who then pushed Isaac away, rattling off the same rant from earlier in the day that as a man he was to stay away. He only yielded to the woman’s push when Sokanon’s eyes met his, assuring him after looking at her just-born, his arms and legs kicking, squealing his own announcement of his arrival to the world.
“Jacob,” Sokanon rasped to Isaac.
The other women silenced together, their eyes darting from each other, to mother and son.
“Jake-ahb—baby nom?” Pahmahnee asked.
Sokanon nodded and Pahmahnee communed with her tribal kin, each of them repeating Jacob’s name. Pahmahnee addressed Sokanon again with her halting mix of Ojibwa, French and English. Isaac understood to know she told how the three women were now the child’s we-ehs, Godmother’s, being present at his naming.
Isaac fell back against the door of the cabin, sliding down to sit on his heels while the women continued in their mission. He watched the three we-ehs in the pale glow of the rushlights, their shadows moving across the walls in spirit form. He was desperate for Sokanon, for his son. But his vision blanched and he had the sensation of falling, as if from some great height. He reached out just in time to keep from hitting heavy to the floor of the cabin. There were hands at his head and face, cool water rubbed at the nape of his neck. A soft voice in Ojibwa, before the void of darkness came.
———— (dbl sp)
He woke in a shudder, from his dream of the roar of cannons and gunfire. He followed the grain of the rough-hewn floorboards to the fireplace showing only graying embers. He didn’t want to believe he’d slept that long. Sokanon and the baby summoned him to his senses and he sat up with a start to see Pahmahnee’s calm look. She sat next to the bed, holding a bundle under the blanket wrapped around her. The other two attendants lay nearby.
He stood and shuffled on stiff legs, exchanging a nod with Pahmahnee after she opened the blanket to show the tiny baby breastfeeding. Sokanon stirred him from the swirling thoughts for his son. She winced a painful expression and he bent down to touch her forehead. She opened her eyes for him, her face ashen, causing him to still fear losing her.
“Drink.” He held the waterskin to her pallid lips.
She shook her head, her only thoughts to Jacob. She tried to move, but Isaac held her down.
“Jacob,” she tried again with her weak voice.
“He looks good, Sokanon,” Isaac encouraged. “Bien.”
She followed his eyes to see Pahmahnee leaning to show her the baby.
Isaac was cheered by the strength their son gave to her. “Here,” he said, again offering water.
The small mouthful went down hard, but refreshed in her dry throat. She wanted to stay awake, listening for sounds from her baby. But her body called her to sleep and she lifted her arm, felt Isaac help her hand to her ring. She forced a tired smile and lay back again.
She drifted off and Isaac stepped away, wavering unbalanced and dizzy after not eating since the day before. But the bloody skins and canvas cloths from the dreadful labor drew his attention. He thought to throw the cloths on the fire, but realized the baby would need nappy’s. He could get them clean enough for that and he took up the load, satisfying himself again that all was well, before grabbing the musket leaned near the door and heading away.
 The wind was coming off Gichigami as he stood outside. The chill from the north was biting, even though the trees were budding open. Maybe early May, he guessed. Maybe April. He carried the soiled bundle and followed along the river that flowed deep with snow melt and rain in the early spring. Its low waterfall was loud as it fell over the last few feet of elevation onto the beach, dumping into the pool before sliding over the sand into the lake.
He hopped down from the rise and tossed the bloodied peltry and cloths into the pool, made wider around from the winter runoff. The red water washed over the side, down the sand to the tall breakers crashing onto the shore. He knelt, and swabbed in the cold water to sluice free the blood. Sokanon’s blood. That which brought forth their newborn son. The only family the three of them had.
He worked at the chore, granny Dobbins at the washing tub in his memory, her cackling laugh bringing her close to him once more. The safety in her arms, sister in their mother’s, sheltering together in Fort Anne while the French attacked. Fear and sadness, father and grandfather already killed by the Mi’kmaq’s.
Now, he had a child of his own. Born dead and not dead. Into the world to survive. Or not. Made strong by mother and father. Left weak by the hard world. He thought maybe he should thank God for the life of his son. That of his wife. Confusion crept to gnaw at him, worry suddenly for what was to come. He used the work to distract his disquiet, until the stains rinsed clear as he thought they would.
He squeezed what water he could from the laundry, hanging them onto the arms and trunks of the driftwood brought ashore by the past winter’s ice floes. He stood still and let the wind blow against his face. Closed his eyes and listened to the din of the heavy surf. The relentless waves of the giant freshwater sea making him think again of the massive tides of Nova Scotia, crashing in the Bay of Fundy.
———— (dbl sp?)
The we-ehs had relit the fire, the soft smell coming first to Isaac before seeing the smoke rising from the chimney. He watched the gray fingers held for a moment in the branches of the trees, drifting away into the sky. The women had opened the windows, propped open the door. The fresh air was good, but the door thrown open caused him a shiver of wariness. The two fresh-washed bear cub pelts in the laundry over his shoulders reminded of the black monsters that followed their noses to anything that might be food. He squeezed his musket tighter by reflex. Scanned the edge of the trees around the cleared yard.
 The calm activity from inside the cabin settled him. Brought him to peer in, where Sokanon was sitting up in bed, Jacob at her breast. Wonder and joy sparked past her weariness to her bright eyes and smile.
She felt his strength, her husband, standing tall in the doorway. “Father,” she said proud, her voice still breaking.
“Mother,” he returned. “It seems a miracle that it was only a little while ago, I feared for your life. And that of the child.”
They watched each other while Pahmahnee and the others shuffled around the cabin, attending to her and the baby. One of the older women went to the fireplace and poured a mug from the pot hanging on the crane over the flames. The same healing root-broth made for Sokanon the night before.
Sokanon sipped at the hot broth, nodded her wellbeing to Isaac.
“I will be just outside,” he said and turned away to spread the pelts and cloths out on the ground to dry. He knelt and the keen sense came to him again, on his knees, to thank God. Yet, an overwhelming feeling pushed his thoughts to a new direction. He traced the lines of the cabin. To the storage shed where their furs were so carefully stored. Back into the doorway, wife and son. He wanted to scoop them up and run off somewhere safe.
——————
The breeze continued strong from the north, but the sun was high over the tree tops and its warmth cascaded down through the opening in the canopy. Isaac halted his chores, keeping himself busy while he listened to the women move about the cabin. Then they were all at the door, Pahmahnee again cradling Jacob while the two elders, Sheshebens (little duck) and Migisi (eagle) guided Sokanon to walk. All of them answered his questioned look, adamant on mother and baby getting outside into the healing spirit of the wind.
Isaac strode toward them, ignoring the others to clutch Sokanon around her waist.
“Do you feel strong enough?” he asked her.
“On your arm.” Sokanon leaned into him, bracing her steps.
The we-ehs lay the sow bear skin next to a tree where Isaac slowly lowered Sokanon to lean against the trunk.
Just in time to arrest the swoon that blanched away her vision. She held her face up to the freshening wind, gathering her strength with deep breaths. Her eyes were closed when she welcomed Jacob from Pahmahnee. Her child was light in her arms, heavy in her heart. He pulsed his little energy while the we-ehs began to sing, soft. A different song than before, one to celebrate the new life. She wanted to join in, her Cree mother’s song for her baby brother, the words clouded in her memory long ago. But she hadn’t forgotten mother’s pleasant melody and she hummed it now.
The rhythms filled Isaac’s ears with the memory of church songs at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia. Songs of Mass. Those of the funerals for his father and grandfather. And again for mother, grandmother, sister. He hadn’t been in a church since then, seven years old, until he met Sokanon. He stroked his son’s head, Jacob opening his eyes to the world. Dark, almost black. Ghostly opaque. He wondered, feared blindness for him. In a hard world. He’d never been this close to a newborn, but he thought maybe it wasn’t right. And he was so tiny in Sokanon’s lap. So small, frail. He could pick the boy up with one hand and hold him easy in his palm.
His thoughts sharpened around the instinct he’d had since it was certain Sokanon was with child. Only an instinct, he had not talked of it. But he was certain now. They would not fight against another long winter at Gichigami. Not with a baby.
He swept his sight around the yard to stare at the two canoes. Neither of them would do. He’d have to build another, larger. Big enough to run in the waves of the lakes, and haul their furs and belongings. A small freighter, that they together could handle. At least down to the Mackinaw. Maybe even towing one of the others behind. He peered to Sokanon. How many times had she said she’d never been happier in her entire life than here, with him. Their home they had built. Where they had lived the past three years. Never felt safer. Even though they were always on the edges of danger and disaster. She would not want to leave.
That Isaac was next to her, his closeness, brought her peace. Father Armand and Father Pierre, the Sisters and Mother Superior in Quebec, made her feel the same calm. But it was different with him. Husband, sharing their lives together. Especially now with a child. The three were each their only real family.
She caught the seriousness in his eyes matching her thoughts. “You are troubled, husband.”
He was quiet and she squeezed his strong hand settled gentle on the baby. She wanted to tell him their son would not be an orphan as they were. That they would grow together as family. But how could she know? How many times had she started to tell of the baby lost during their first summer here. She welcomed her weariness to dull her thoughts. Rested her head on Isaac’s shoulder. Started again to hum her tune into the song of the we-ehs.

2

She went on with a long discourse that Isaac had a hard time following. But he didn’t have to listen too close to understand.
“Lente,” he said, motioning with his hands to slow her down. “Please, Sokanon, English.”
He was always acting as if he couldn’t understand her. “You can know my meanings in French,” she scolded once again.
“Yes, but if we are to argue, I don’t think I can keep up.”
She halted for a moment. She supposed they were arguing, the first time to it in the three years. She continued to challenge, in his English. “You know there are probable no agents at the Mackinaw. The war has for another year made the buyer’s too fearful to come this far north. We have heard little news.”
He stayed silent, nodded.
She did not like that he would not look at her. “I see the size of the new canoe, Isaac. Even if there are agents at the Mackinaw, you will take us farther. To Detroit.”
“I thought you’d see it as soon as I laid down the keel. But—” He could sweeten her thoughts. “Wouldn’t you rather winter-over at your Jesuit priests’ mission?” He met her keen gaze. “Between him and the doctors at Detroit, they could tell us if there is cause for concern with Jacob.”
Her heart leapt at the thought of seeing Father Pierre. Still, it made her angry. “Do not,” she searched her mind for the word, “—patronize, me Isaac. It is still dangerous to travel far. Warriors massacre all the soldiers at Michilimackinac, not even a year ago,” she reminded, “maybe they yet attack outposts and homesteads.”
“The war against Pontiac and the others has been beaten.”
“We do not know that,” she said.
Isaac countered, himself. “We do know that if it wasn’t for Sakima holding off his warriors last summer, we would have been attacked in our own home. Either we’d be dead, or Jacob might not have been born, or they’d burn the cabin down, leaving us with only the clothes on our backs.”
Her thoughts rose at the mention of the Ojibwa leader and his wife. “We go with them, into the woods to their winter camp.”
“You just spoke about the danger from the tribal warriors, and now you want to winter over, living with them. You cannot use your own arguments against yourself.”
“And you cannot tease at me. You just spoke of Sakima staying his warriors harm to us.”
Isaac laughed.
Sokanon went on. “Sakima owe you Ahmik’s life. Both his sons are friends with you. They are here as much as home.” She rocked their own son in her arms. “Pahmahnee and the others would be there, to help with Jacob.”
Isaac sighed. He went to her, brought his hand to caress the boy’s tiny head. “It is for Jacob I feel we must go. He is finally strong enough to travel, I think.”
She looked away quickly and he knew she agreed.
He spoke softer. “It’s been more than three months and his eyes are still dark as evening.”
Sokanon squeezed Jacob tighter. “His eyes follow my movements.” She looked into them, trying again not to believe they were not perfect. “There is still time for them to come to their colors.”
Isaac wanted to hope. “You’ve worked in hospital, you would know babies better than me. But if we are much longer here, we’ll be trapped for another winter.” He paced away again, frustrated. “And our furs will soon start to rot.”
It didn’t matter to her that he was right. “Get more furs, for next season.”
“Then all our work the last two years will go to waste. The animals’ lives will have been given to no purpose.”
Sokanon was hesitant to say that she didn’t care. Isaac continued pacing while she thought about the bundles of beaver and other pelts they had stored. Jacob cooed in her arms. “Our purpose matters, more,” she finally answered.
“And it is to our purpose we must leave.”
She moved to stand beside him, peered with him out the window. “Never have I been more happy as here, husband. Well, not since I was a girl. Before then—well, I do not remember.”
Yes she did. Isaac put his arm around her, drew her close. “I know, wife. But regardless of his eyes, Jacob is yet so small. It’s hard enough getting through the winter. Even harder with a baby that needs our full attention. Even if we are with the Ojibwa in their winter camp. Even with the we-ehs helping. And they will have their own lives to look after.”
“And we shall risk ours, to travel on the great lakes?”
Her worry was reasonable.
She felt her argument make him hesitate. “If we leave, to so far, we never come back. And if we leave, for so long, Sakima’s warriors will surely destroy our cabin. With or without his hand. You are afraid to go, even to the Cadot’s. To leave our cabin alone, even to a day. Ahmik and his brother are but boys, they can not stop the warriors very long in their destruction.”
“No. But, we can start somewhere new, anywhere we want, with the money from the sale of our furs. However far or long we go, we will be a family.”
“I’m afraid you are to, patronize again.”
“Maybe. Doesn’t mean it’s not true. It’s also true that I’ll miss this place, too. I have never been happier either.”
Sokanon continued to work her mind. “What of the Cadot’s?” she continued to press. “How if I stayed there, while you and Jean-Baptiste go to the Mackinaw?”
Isaac’s brow rose. “That’s not logical, Sokanon.”
She’d heard the folly in it as soon as she’d said. “You are right, Isaac.”
“Madam Cadot was with child this summer, too.”
“I know.”
“We can not impose ourselves on their family, with ours.”
“Yes—Isaac,” she told him.
He ceased his pacing. “I’m sorry. We will certainly speak with Jean-Baptiste, find out what we can.” It came to him, though. “Then, maybe. If Athanasie might want your help with the children. And only if Jean-Baptiste convinces me it’s safe. But—” Concern strained once again across his face. “You lived through it, I know. But I had to watch our baby born dead. And your life draining out as well.”
How many worlds turned in the silence.
Sokanon smiled into Isaac’s gaze turned confusion. “No, husband,” she settled him. She pressed her face to Jacob’s, wriggling her nose on his. His quiet little breaths that had finally ceased their rasp, finally allowed her to relax her strict vigilance in the long tired weeks gone by. She slid her fingers from his forehead lightly over his brow, down over his cheeks. “You are right. We must leave.”
“It’s done, then. We go.”
“It has been done since you start your canoe. We never return.”
“I knew the sadness it would bring you, leaving the cabin.”
“Yes, husband. Not only mine. I see how you are, to live here.”
“Peace and contentment for each of us.”
She went close to him. “Peace it is. I am fearful to travel. And also to return to the places where ever is war.”
They nestled Jacob tighter between them.
“Fear for our son is greater than the rest.”
“Yes, husband. But I also fear to travel, even in your ocean canoe. We will paddle ourselves the way to Detroit?”
“We have enough buckskins to pay for crewmen from Mackinaw.”
“I thought.” She didn’t like the idea of traveling with those they did not know.
Isaac saw it. “We can only fit two more. We’ll make certain of their character with references. Maybe we’ll find another husband and wife.”
“With a baby?” she quipped.
“Maybe,” Isaac laughed.
She handed over Jacob over to father, concern yet awash on her face.
“There is time yet before we leave,” he offered, “until the canoe is finished.”
She stepped to the fire, toed her moccasin gently at the big dark knot in the wood plank on the floor, worn smooth by their many steps in their time here. Felt where the big piece of stone had cleaved off the fireplace from the heat last winter. How Isaac had slid the stone across the floor to her, where she warmed her feet for the short while it stayed hot.
“Café?” she offered, motioning to the pot hanging close to the orange coals.
He had come to enjoy the taste of her French brew in the three years since his tea was ruined in the St. Mary’s rapids. He thought sometimes he could still hear the apology in her voice, that her coffee had survived the soaking when he’d capsized saving the drowning boy.
“Oui, he answered, glad for the ease returned between them. “Yes, coffee. Merci,” 
She knelt and breathed in the aroma that always brought her back home to the Ursulines. With the Sister’s in their den in the basement of the convent. There wasn’t much of the coffee left, but that it had lasted their entire time in the cabin, was well. She scooped the mug and held it out for Isaac, exchanging it for Jacob.
He could always detect the warm feelings she had when she made her coffee, inviting him to it. The beans were expensive. He let her keep the secret of how she’d gotten them in Montreal. It was incredible to him there was yet some remaining. But it had been getting weaker tasting as the months went by.
“It’s still very good,” he said, as if needing to excuse the thought.
“Yes, Isaac.”
They offered each other a thin smile.
——————
Sokanon stood at the door with Jacob, Isaac working at the canoe while the wind blew loud in the treetops. She studied the lines of his new craft again, longer, wider than the others. With its high sides, in the Mi’kmaq way Isaac explained, always telling of his friend Sakmowk who taught him. Jacob gurgled and squirmed and she bounced him gentle in the rocking cradle of her arms. The wind gusted again, rattling the leaves, turning them over to show their silvery undersides, more and more threatening the end to the summer.
Isaac looked up from his task to see Sokanon with Jacob framed in the doorway. She was peering up into the trees and he waited for her eyes to meet his. “At least he doesn’t caterwaul like other babies,” he said.
She stepped out from the shelter of the cabin, drawing close to Isaac. Only the same short length of stitching along the long waterline from the day before showed for his effort. Even fewer stitches had been started on the other side where the thread hung limp from the last finished hole. “Where is Ahmik?”
“Don’t know.” Isaac stood and straightened his back, wincing at being bent over for so long.
“I will help,” Sokanon said.
“You will not check your traps?”
“Tomorrow. We must get the canoe done. I will help when Ahmik is not here.”
He nodded.
She turned back toward the cabin to put the baby down.
“We will work together at the tedious chore.”
“Yes, Isaac,” she called over her shoulder.
Isaac knelt and started again, punching the holes one at a time in the overlapped pieces of birch bark, pushing the moistened spruce root thread in and out, tightening the seam as he went. He knew Ahmik wasn’t there because of the tiresome task. And that the stitching was more usually the work for the women.
Sokanon rested Jacob into his cradle, kissed him and covered him lightly with a blanket. “I will go help father,” she said. He gurgled at her voice. She stared into his dark eyes, moved her head side to side, watching. She spoke in French this time. “Your father’s new canoe is very fine. He will guide us well in it. And we will travel safe.”
She returned to Isaac and quietly began working at the partially finished seam. She looked up to see him watching her. The same engaging way he watched her those years ago arriving at the hospital after the battle at Quebec. The way she watched him when his bateau company came ashore there with wounded soldiers, French and British.
Isaac was watching, her lithe but strong hands working at the awl, pushing and pulling at the tough fiber of the thread. The worries smoothed away from her face, her eyes clearing in the gaze of his. There she was again, just as he first saw her, bright against the darkness of war.
“Your Mi’kmaq friend in Nova Scotia would like?” she asked.
Isaac searched down the canoe’s length. “Old Sakmowk would probably find something I’ve done less than perfect so far.”
Sokanon shook her head. “Nothing is perfect.”
He saw the play in her look. He held his face up, squinting from the shafts of sunlight shooting through the trees. “How about the sun? Perfect?”
“It can burn the skin, blind the eyes.”
“Jesus, then.”
She frowned. “Not that, Isaac. Do not blaspheme.”
He pursed his lips. “What I meant, I suppose, is what about Jacob?”
She stared.
“I mean—” he said. “Is our son perfect? Are you and I perfect, as children of God?”
“I think you speak in vain again, Isaac. It is enough, is it not, God watching over us, when we are not perfect?”
“Even when our families were taken from us?”
The reflection of their hard lives lingered in their gaze.
“We have not talked of it in a long time, husband. It is because of the baby.”
“Not only him. But you, also, wife. When I thought you both would die with the birth.”
“Your prayer kept us to live. Pahmahnee says so.”
His thoughts swirled. “I don’t know what to think of that. I don’t know if it’s enough, Sokanon—to just be God-fearing and trust in providence.” He breathed. “If you two were to live, why taunt with your deaths?”
Jacob’s soft noises drifted in the quiet between the winds. Sokanon thought again to say of the child lost the summer before.
“The fear I have,” Isaac went on, “is to remain in one place too long. That by continuing to move, disease, war—death can not catch us.”
It was a confession, Sokanon knew, from her husband, who had never shown fear of anything. His confession was the same as hers. To have survived. She was self-conscious again of the pockmarks on her face. Even after all this time with him.
“Disease and war that took our families, did not kill us, Isaac. But we were found to each other in the stead.”
“I will never cease being thankful to providence, for that.”
“Nor I, husband. But, your family were killed in the place they lived. My grandmother and grandfather, too. But my mother and father, brother, all killed while we traveled yet again somewhere.”
“While your father was in the service of your Jesuit priest.”
She frowned. “There is no reason to that. You know I only speak that danger can come in the home—or else. That death can come, whether you run or not. And—” she told him, “my father was in the service of Our Lord.”
Isaac smiled. They were into it, now. She was right, it had been a long time. He pushed at her, gently. “And yet your faith is so strong.”
She looked sharp. “Father Armand and Father Pierre. Sister Marie Catherine and Mother Superior. They were all there was, when all I wanted was to die, so as to see my family again. I will always be grateful for Sister and Mother helping me to the peace of Our Lady.” She felt for her ring.
He saw it. Continued to tease. “You touch your ring as a talisman.”
The truth was somewhere in between. “How of the prayers before fishing on the ocean, that your voyage will be bounty, but also for a safe return?”
He laughed. No one could logic better than her. Not even the old salts at Nova Scotia.
“No more, questioning faith, Isaac.”
“You know I don’t. Not, really. I only mean it seems as the same—your ring, the mementos you have gathered since the Ojibwa women gave you the medicine pouch.”
Her hand went to the little bag at her belt. “You reprimand, as the teachers back in school.”
“Reprimand, you? Never from me.”
She was happy for the teasing. Gave it back to him. “But I to you?”
He laughed again. “It’s not a bad thing, I don’t think, Sokanon, to keep the beliefs of your culture.”
She felt the calm patience from Father Armand. The hard stare from Sister Marie Catherine, scolding against superstitions.
“I only honor my mother by carrying the pouch. And to be respectful to those who gave it to me.” She thought of when the older girls found hers out of its hiding place in her room in the convent. “The Sisters made me give up mine from my mother. It was all I had of her.”
“I have nothing from mine.”
“All are dead, husband, so that we do share together.”
The trees bent, their trunks creaking, branches scraping together. As if letting the world know of their spirits.
They brought their eyes down to each other’s.
“That is the culture of my mother,” Sokanon said, “faith in the spirits of the world.”
“My granny Dobbins would have gotten along well with your mother, I think. Granny only went to Sunday Service to avoid talk in the community. She believed most in hard work, making your own place in the world.”
“We are together, here, today,” she told him. “Maybe that is place enough in the world.”
“Is it?”
They were quiet again, the punching of their awls, rubbing sounds of the thread sliding through the holes. Jacob made his noises once more.
“Our son is stronger.”
“Yes, Isaac.”
She spit in her hand to wet the thread, to ease its pull through the holes.
——————
The small flames of the burning rushes flickered around the cabin.
Isaac was cutting a softened elk hide into long strips for lashings and leather work.
Sokanon interrupted. She needed him to step into the moccasins she had started over the past winter. High up his calf, to protect from the ice when laying his traps. She wondered if he would ever need the protection again.
“Crosses?” he said, the designs on top of the foot catching in the light.
She could not hide them any longer. She said nothing while checking the fit around his legs before she would sew the boots to the shoes.
“I didn’t know there were beads enough remaining.”
“I used all there were.”
They kept to themselves their thoughts of the war that had disrupted the trade to the St. Mary’s. That the beads were not the same size, and too many different colors, was frustrating to Sokanon. She was satisfied she made each cross as much the same she could.
“I am pleased,” Isaac said. “They’ll wear well.” He sat again, his chair creaking. The thought flashed, wondering who might sit in their seats after they were gone from the cabin. How maybe the wood might be taken apart, their handiwork used for other things by the Ojibwa. He looked to Jacob, in the cradle he’d made, where Sokanon had propped him up into a corner of his bed. “See how his eyes glow even darker in the flickering light?” He picked up one of the lamps and moved it slowly back and forth.
Sokanon watched close. “See.” she said, “he watches, Isaac.” She kept it from the father who will do his most for their son. That the eyes should have been changing by now.
“Nothing else seems wrong with him,” Isaac said. “He is very quiet. That’s what I do know of babies. They cry. Not this one.” He leaned to press his face close. Jacob immediately moved his arms, flailing his hands and opening his mouth. Made whimpering noises. Only got louder when Isaac rose to pick him up. “Maybe I was wrong.”
“He is hungry,” Sokanon said. She lowered her smock from both shoulders in the warmth of the cabin. She caught Isaac’s eyes for her, staring at her for a moment before settling Jacob into her arms.
“That’s what he watches, Sokanon. Your breasts.”
“As do you.”
“How can you expect your men not to? Each to our own reason, of course.” He kissed her forehead before returning to his chore.

3

It was the easiest of the good memories. With her mother setting the traps for the running birds. Sharing in the satisfaction when the effort brought success. Sokanon saw it as a good sign that her snares had caught two of the birds in the same morning. Pineu, she was certain she remembered her mother and father’s word for them, what Isaac called partridge. She remembered, too, her mother’s favorite food.
YET, THE SADNESS CAME, TOO. (LOST BABY.)
She talked to Jacob leaned up in his carrier.
“I’ll roast these, stuffed with leeks and mushrooms. Maybe I’ll share them with your father.”
She knelt in front of him and spread the wings of one of the birds, where she tried to settle her worry for his sight, testing his eyes to the movement of the feathers. Maybe he did follow a little behind.
She tickled his nose with the tip of a feather, then drew her hand down his face, brushing lightly with her fingers. Crows cawed just then, silencing the rattling of the unseen woodpeckers. The caws grew louder, closer. Jacob’s face grew disturbed at the rising harsh noise.
“Ȇtre tranquille. Be still, little one. Your grandfather was Kakatshu, the black bird. Maybe it’s he, leading his new tribe to welcome you in the world.”
Jacob calmed to her voice. She tickled his nose again with the feather.
“Of course, Sister would scold me for saying.”
She stood and studied the area close, to make certain the running birds had not started any new paths through the ferns. She reset the snare and placed the second grouse in the leather bag before lifting Jacob in his cradleboard onto her back. It was still strange to her, how quickly she had become used to carrying his load on her shoulders, after all the time of his weight at her belly. She snatched up the musket and headed toward the place to gather mushrooms. The crows continued to call out their order while her steps were silent on the ground cover of fallen pine needles.
She came to the open patch in the forest, where the sun came down and gave life to the bright green moss spread out as a blanket. Where the little cross hung from the branch on its cord. She held it again, together with her ring. A blessing for the not born.
“For your brother or sister, Jacob.”
She swept her eyes along the edge of the round field, happy to see the mushrooms she was looking for. For her meal of pineu and leeks. The moss was soft on her knees when she knelt for the mushrooms. She pulled at the moist stalks, the damp smell of the forest floor rising with her gathering. She smiled at the sounds of Jacob burbling at the swaying movement. 
“That’s enough,” she said to him when she had collected a large handful of the tender fruit. “We will come again some other time for more.”
The words caught in her mind. She wondered if she would come again. If there would be another time, now that the new canoe was almost finished.
———— (dbl sp)
The trees swayed overhead and Sokanon smelled the smoking fire on the light breeze as she neared the cabin. Isaac was still attending to the many thick slabs of whitefish lain atop the wood grate, while Ahmik poked at the charred logs below, pushing and rolling them around to snuff out any flames that ignited. Isaac laughed with Sakima’s son, sharing the few words common to each of them. She knew he would miss the close bond with the boy. Just as Ahmik would never forget Isaac saving his life from the rapids, both of them spent, in each other’s arms, while the Ojibwa men dragged them from the water.
They greeted her with a nod and she showed off her brace of birds to their salutes of praise. She laid the grouse on the ground and leaned Jacob against the cabin. She mused as Isaac and Ahmik stood back from the fire, acting out the events from the miraculous catch the day before. Exaggerating the actions of the other Ojibwa villagers, rushing with their nets in their canoes. The men falling into the water in the chaos of so many fish to be speared and netted. Sokanon laughed herself. She followed Isaac and Ahmik’s mocking scenes, the images yet fresh and lively. Isaac’s yell for her, loud and scaring. Running to the sound of his alarm, her musket at the ready. Seeing him clumsy out on the water, trying to stretch the seine alone across the mouth of the cove. All the streaks flashing in the water amazing her. Running and shouting to the Ojibwa farther up the shore to come quick.
She stared again at the many fish on the smoking racks and thought what Isaac had said, explaining why the fish were there to be caught. That the storm that brought cold rain, and wind had changed the water, the huge school of whitefish losing their sense of direction in the strong instinct to breed. Taking them too close to shore, where they ran into the cove, instead of back out to deeper water. The villagers saw it as another sign of Isaac’s harmony with the waters. Father Armand’s voice was in her head, one of his sermons, praising Jesus and the miracle of the fishes.
She knelt and started at the grouse, plucking their tails, snapping off the wings. Already the idea to use the large feathers to add to the decorations of Jacob’s cradleboard. A few to hang from the hoop at the top, so he could watch them swaying. Maybe strengthen his eyesight, if it needed strengthening. The boy was wild with excitement, following the sounds and movements, enchanted with Isaac and Ahmik’s activity at the smoking fire. She went to loosen the pressure of the swaddling cloth and snorted as he swing his arms in the freedom, and jabbered loud.
Isaac saw and laughed, too.
Sokanon started back on the pineu, plump in her hands.
——————
She stood at the shore, where Isaac’s canoe lay on the sand, waiting to be paddled for the first time. She studied it again. Tall front and back, and sides rising at the middle, would let it run in the waves of the great lakes.
Jacob kicked at her back.
“You wish to see father’s canoe?” She let him down to face him in his carrier to the boat. “Beautiful, is it not? Don’t be afraid, little one. Mother and father will bear you well.”
“Sokanon,” Isaac called from the path behind her.
He was standing at the end of the land rise leading down the few feet to the beach.
For a moment they were transfixed.
She thought him august in his confident stance, the morning sky behind him brightening through the trees. His hair and close beard the same red brown of cedar boughs in autumn. The same she had thought, from the first she saw him. A soldier of the dreaded British army, frozen in place, staring back at her. She waited for him to come closer to see his eyes, the green of the same soft leaves in the spring.
Her radiance crossed the short distance and made his chest rise full. Her hair in long braids framing her face, round and plump, even yet these weeks after the birth. There was her smile that made the world’s worries go away. He liked to watch her with their son, the strength of her devotion making him feel that they were three parts of the same being.
They shook their heads to one another, attentions returned to the everyday. Isaac hopped down onto the sand, the new moccasins good and tight in the shifting footing. He and Sokanon greeted, and they laid their equipment into the canoe.
Isaac knelt and ducked under the headpiece hoop of the cradleboard to touch his nose to his son’s. He lifted the board and laid it into the center of the boat.
Sokanon’s hand was on his arm and they caught each other’s gaze once more.
“Well, let’s see how she does,” he said.
He held the boat while Sokanon stepped in to sit in the front. She grabbed up her paddle and speared it into the sand to steady the canoe for Isaac to enter. They pushed together to turn the bow to open water.
The canoe cut easy through the flat water of the calm bay, alert to each stroke. Isaac faced his blade to turn. Then the other side.
“She turns slow,” he said. “But well enough for its long keel line. But it’ll cut through the wind and waves and stay steady on a course. Faster now, Sokanon.”
“Yes, Isaac.”
He fought then, to keep up with her strokes.
“Now, hold your paddle,” he called, “stay still.”
They coasted for a way, while he felt for the motion with his body to the canoe. He watched their wake behind and waited while they drifted straight and true.
His pride welled. “Yes. She holds a line well.”
“Almost perfect,” she added to his boast. He deserved it. Maybe his friend Sakmowk could find flaws, but everywhere she could see only beauty. She looked to the places where she’d helped, the little things that she was proud of with him.
“Isaac!” she scolded when he pitched the canoe side to side, testing against its tumblehome. She turned to make sure of Jacob. The child was smiling from the rocking motion.
“It’ll be a fine freighter,” Isaac said. “Very steady. It will be slower to turn on its long keel once we load her heavy, but it won’t easily overturn in the waves.”
His voice continued proud. Sure.
He pulled his blade through the water, and Sokanon watched him for a moment. She patted Jacob’s forehead and settled herself to paddle again.
———— (dbl sp)
They crossed the bay quick in the flat water, and came to the narrow spit of land that jutted out into the inlet. They rounded the point to the startling sight of a large group of moose feeding in the shallow water.
There was no need to alert each other, Sokanon quickening her pace while the canoe rocked with Isaac’s sudden movements. He flung his paddle down, a moment flashing to see Jacob watching his actions.
The big animals were just as startled, scattering, splashing getaways from the intrusion. There were so many it was hard to focus on any one of them escaping, and Isaac scrambled to retrieve the musket for a good shot.
But Sokanon saw one of the females make a grave mistake, sending her calf into the woods while she swam out into the deeper water to distract the danger from her young.
“Isaac,” she called, sweeping her paddle toward the frantic moose.
He saw, felt Sokanon’s work to bring them closer. The nearer the canoe, the deeper the moose swam out, her protective instincts driving her to her doom. Sokanon brought the canoe right next to the fleeing animal and Isaac readied the pistol from his belt instead, the musket hardly needed at this range.
The cow’s fearful eye darted to them and Sokanon stared at it, close enough to see the color, brown like hers. Haunting, scared. A mother, too, like her. She arrested her thoughts, reached for the musket, in case the doomed calf might come looking for its mother.
Isaac steadied himself, stared over his arm, down the short barrel. The moment struck at him, the animal’s life given over. He took a breath and aimed anew, pulled the trigger. The flint sparked, but the gunpowder in the flash pan fizzled, the misfiring gun powerless in his hand.
The moose turned for shore, maybe sensing her chance for survival.
 “Musket!” Isaac ordered.
Sokanon had it to him already, cocked, set to fire.
Then Sokanon heard it. “Isaac,” she announced, and drew his attention to the crashing brush— “There!” —just as the bull moose charged out from the trees to stand at the shore. It stamped into the water’s edge and snorted its challenge for his cow, not understanding the smell of gunpowder.
Isaac took aim at him instead, hundreds more pounds of meat.
The powder was true this time, flashing its explosion, setting off the load down the barrel, into the huge animal’s chest. The sound was still echoing yet around the half circle of the bay when the bull tumbled straight down onto its haunches, massive antlers smacking the water with the same slap as a beaver’s tail. It twitched its head once, a dying attempt to raise its nose from under the water. Its last gasp of air bubbled, then it was still.
Sokanon watched the cow make it to land and turn for a last look before disappearing into the forest to find its young one. Jacob’s cries from the gun’s loud discharge echoed, too, and she soothed her calming voice and gentle touches.
“No,” Isaac said, “there’s nothing wrong with the boy’s ears.”
The moose lay still in the quiet water.
Isaac breathed deep, letting the moment come to him, the killing of such a regal animal. His movements were slow at the musket, cocking the hammer back and opening the flash pan to blow out the soot. They were the only sounds then, Jacob quieted.
Sokanon broke the stillness. “This is good, Isaac. Very big,” she went on of the animal. “It will give much meat. And we do not have to track it down.”
It was to the animal’s strength, Isaac thought. The big bull giving its life defending the mother and child. “He gave an easy shot,” he said.
She nodded.
Isaac rested the musket and ammunition bag near her. “I’ll take us in to shore. Will you reload, now that he appears settled?” He put his hand gentle on Jacob’s already quieted chest. “I just don’t think he likes to cry.”
“Maybe he will be fearless, like his father.”
“Like both mother and father.” Isaac sat and began to paddle slowly. “As long as it’s not rash.”
Sokanon brought out the gunpowder flask from the bag, tipped it into the barrel for a count, tapped the butt of the gun to settle the powder. Took out a ball and wrapped it into the small square of cloth. Pressed the wad into the barrel and used the ramrod to push it down and tamp it tight.
The huge animal floated heavy, slowly bobbing in the gentle swell of the bay.
“Ce sera plus facile à abattre.” (Say sera ploos facile a abatr)
Isaac ran the words through his head. “Easier to, abattre—slaughter?”
She teased at him again. “When shall you remember all my words?”
He gave a smirk.
“Oui—yes,” she continued to tease. “It will be easier to, slaughter, while it floats here in the water.”
“But it’ll still be a mess. And we’ll have to chop it down with the axe after skinning.”
She put Jacob into the front of the canoe. Sat to unlace her tall boot moccasins. Stood again, to slip her smock over her head, nude body revealed to the sun and sky.
To Isaac.
He reveled in the sight of her, stripped to nakedness. “I—” he started, then stopped.
She stood still for him while he roved his eyes up and down. “I do not wish to bloody my clothes,” she said.
“Of course.” He began to remove his clothes as well. She watched for a moment, then stepped from the canoe to tie off the bow line around the base of a sapling. “It is not too cold.”
Isaac squinted up into the sun shining between the clouds. “It has been a warm summer.”
They waded into the water with their knives to start at the bloody task.
“He’s floating a little,” Isaac said. “Maybe we can turn him enough to better skin his hide. For a warm, dry cloak against the spray in the canoe.”
He meant when they would go, not only to Michilimackinac, but past. When they would travel in the waves of the great lakes.
“Yes, Isaac.”
They pushed and pulled at the huge beast.
———— (dbl sp)
Morning was (turned) afternoon when the massive animal was cut down to fit into the canoe. They took all they could, but there was enough still left on the carcass for many scavengers to feast on.
“There is more than we can need,” Isaac said. “We’ll make a gift of some of it to Sakima and his village.”
“The élan is not like the bears,” Sokanon reminded. “The meat has not much, graisse—fat. The pemmican will be harder to make.”
“I know what graisse is.”
“Do you, husband?” She dunked herself, wiping at the blood on her skin. She checked on Jacob sleeping, then swam a little away into the clean water. Turned and waited for Isaac, still staring at her womanhood.
He strode toward her, swimming the last few yards to clean himself. They let their eyes talk while hands slid over each other’s body while they came together. Sokanon bobbed up and down, her arms around Isaac’s neck, her legs around his waist.
——————
The Ojibwa village was quiet. All but two of the canoes were gone. The villagers there to meet them were mostly old people and children. Isaac and Sokanon were known by those in the village, the two outsiders allowed to live on their land. Trap, hunt and fish. The Britishman from the great saltwater sea, who had good spirit with the water, and saved the chieftain’s son from drowning. The French-speaking Catholic woman of the Tribes from the east, with the pockmarked face, who had been close to the great Jesuit Father Armand de la Richardie.
The Ojibwa were cautious still, wary of any visitors while the young and strong were away somewhere, securing provender for the village. An old man moved closer and held his lance upright out to his side, rested on the ground.
Isaac thought it twenty years at least, since the man might have raised his lance to an enemy. Maybe he was one who had fought the Dakota with Sakima. That he held a spear instead of war club or musket, told of the man’s pride in the weapon, maybe taken from a defeated foe. Wrapped and decorated with fur and colored rawhide fringe. He struggled to stand straight as he could. Proud as he could. And Isaac told himself the man reminded of old Sakmowk.
Sokanon looked for those she knew. Pahmahnee was certainly gone away with the others, but the old women Sheshebens and Migisi should yet remain. They would welcome as we-eh’s to their godchild. Kiwidinok would surely be here, powerful enough in her own, in place of her husband, leader of the village.
Not all were old and children, Sokanon and Isaac alert to the two warriors who came through the gathering crowd. They stood aggressive, clenching at their war clubs, peering through narrowed eyes. But their interest in the canoe gave them away, relaxing their threatening postures before Isaac held his palms out in greeting to them. He signed what he knew, to show that he and Sokanon were bringing a gift of fresh meat. He wasn’t sure if he even knew the Ojibwa word for moose. “Élan,” he said the French.
It was the elder who spoke, calling to the children, sending a few of them running off through the village. Dogs barked and pranced beside them, excited at the activity brought by the visitor’s.
Sokanon had a moment of detachment, suddenly herself one of the children running free between the many lodges. Or was it Jacob? Grown into boyhood, here in the village.
“Sakima?” Isaac said into the cautious meeting.
The old man spoke again, pointed with the spear, sweeping it in his sinewy hand to the north of the village, gesturing enough to know that the others were out harvesting wild rice.
“Kiwidinok,” (woman of the wind) Sokanon said.
The man nodded, motioned behind him. He’d sent the children for her.
They hauled up the freighter, the two warriors’ fascination with the canoe continuing while setting aside their weapons to help. Isaac helped Jacob’s cradleboard into Sokanon’s hold. She stepped away and rested the carrier on the ground, leaned against her leg. She saw Migisi then, coming easy toward them to greet her and the baby. The woman spoke Jacob’s name, made known she was we-eh, patting him and smiling. The other old women leaned to peek at the child.
“Pahmahnee?” Sokanon asked.
Away with the others, Migisi made her know.
“Sheshebens?”
The sadness was clear in Migisi’s eyes. She covered her mouth with her fingers then motioned with the same hand to the western sky. Where the Ojibwa believed departed souls traveled. And Sokanon knew that she had died, her name not to be spoken out loud again. The death chants at Jacob’s birth sounded in her thoughts.
The villagers circled closer, the men studying the canoe, women looking back and forth from the bloody cargo to Sokanon and the baby. They gave way when Kiwidinok, regal pose and manner, appeared with a younger woman behind her, the village children still swarming all around.
“Bon jour,” Kiwidinok greeted, her eyes piercing Sokanon’s.
Not like Sister Marie Catherine’s, inviting a shared respect. Kiwidinok’s position was as matriarch, and it was easy for Sokanon to honor her, for her high place in the village.
“Bon jour,” she returned.
Kiwidinok motioned to the canoe and spoke through the younger woman, who translated the Ojibwa into uneven French. “You good hunt.”
“We wish to share,” Sokanon said.
Isaac held his fists out, pressed together to signify two hearts as one. “To strengthen our friendship.”
Kiwidinok turned from the translator to give a nod of thanks. She motioned for Sokanon, inviting her come away. Isaac saw her interest only in his wife and child. He waved the others to gather the load from the canoe.
Kiwidinok spoke again.
Sokanon thought she might be able to understand, after three years of listening to Ahmik speak to Isaac. But it was easier even in bad French. “Oui,” Sokanon agreed after listening to the translator’s voice. More a command, than invitation to Kiwidinok’s lodge. “Merci.”
Kiwidinok ordered the younger woman to take up Jacob in his cradleboard from her. The moment of hesitation to give him struck with a lifetime of kindred. No one other than she and Isaac had held him since those at his birth. She felt Migisi draw back her attention for her son in the deference to Kiwidinok and she exchanged understanding with the we-eh. She waved to Isaac, before striding off with the two women, Jacob carried beside her. It was strange not to bear him, to see him with another, miles away, even the arm’s distance. The young woman nodded, as if knowing.
The children and dogs continued to bound around them while they walked. Between the wigwams laid out in half-moon rings. Through the open communal space, to Kiwidinok and Sakima’s great lodge. Always one of the finest wigwams she’d ever seen.
A large oval, bigger than the other homes. The bark covering over the frame was new and would not have to be rebuilt when they returned to the village next spring from their winter lodges away from the lake. A looser band of matted reeds a little shorter than her arm formed part of the wall, and went around the lodge at eye height, for air to flow inside. Hides were tied up on the outside to roll down over the mat to stop a hard rain from coming through.
Sunlight filtered in through the matting, lighting the inside, showing how neat and clean. It was the first time Sokanon had been in their lodge. She was surprised by the number of trade blankets covering the raised platforms for sitting and sleeping, Sakima always a show of dislike for both the French and British. Two of the beds had blankets hanging from either side, on ropes stretched around, to curtain them off from the others.
Kiwidinok motioned for Sokanon to sit on one of the open benches and sat herself on a platform across the lodge, where a brass crucifix hung on the rope over her head. The same cross of Jesus that had hung in the home of the Cadot’s at the St. Mary’s mission.
Kiwidinok directed the younger woman to lean Jacob’s carrier next to Sokanon. Then the woman backed away, kept her eyes down and lowered herself to her haunches on the ground beneath Kiwidinok.
“Jay-kahb?” Kiwidinok asked.
“Oui—Jacob,” Sokanon said, enunciating politely.
“Jacob,” Kiwidinok followed. She talked through the translator. “Pahmahnee say he born twice. Once dead. Then alive, after your husband pray to Christian God.” She pointed up to the crucifix.
Sokanon wasn’t sure what to say, already uncomfortable to talk about what had happened at the birth of her son. Confusion too, at that she lived through it, yet hadn’t really witnessed. And, maybe it was not right to talk such things of God.
“My husband and I are as one, as to not speak of it.”
Kiwidinok was silent, her eyes darting to the young woman. Sokanon saw it. Hostility. Only for a moment, as she returned to herself, and spoke with a self-confident voice.
“His eyes,” the young translator said, “as two black stones worn smooth and shiny by the water. Maybe your son have great wisdom in life, spirits of the living and dead. Has he had water poured over him?” Kiwidinok raised her finger toward the crucifix, then made the sign of the Cross on her own forehead.
Sokanon shook her head. “Not baptized.”
Kiwidinok went on, her translated words ending with “…Père la Du Jaunay.”
Sokanon didn’t need the translation. The Jesuit Father at Michilimackinac. The thought had been there since Jacob was born, that she only wanted Father Pierre to baptize her son. She hoped he was yet at Detroit. She dipped her head in respect for Kiwidinok.
——————
Isaac thought to call Sokanon back with Jacob, the sudden strong feeling of separation, their going away from his sight. But the old men and women distracted, bringing their woven baskets to carry the slaughter, some straining to lift more than they could easily handle. They paid no mind to the two warriors who had forgotten themselves, working over the canoe, pushing, pulling, rapping at the construction.
One of the old men spoke to Isaac, made him understand that much of the animals’ flesh had been wasted with such a crude cut down. Isaac didn’t try to explain. Hid his amusement of the old man’s antic scolding.
“Ours,” he said to them, at the portion he wanted to keep for themselves. “Pemmican.”
The man went on anew, how the villagers would dry and smoke all the meat, and he could then take the portion. Isaac looked close, wondering if he meant for he and Sokanon to wait in the village while the work was done. It wasn’t up to the old man to say. He peered out to the water, wondered at Sakima, his wary tolerance of them.
The old man was adamant, going on, giving orders. Two of the women came to take up the huge hide. That they would scrape and tan the pelt to more return the goodwill. Isaac nodded his thanks and worked again, helping at the load until the canoe was emptied of its bloody cargo.
The warriors continued to ignore the activity, at the back of the canoe now, one up to his ankles in the water, lifting while the other gave a long study to the bottom. The Ojibwa canoes were about the finest there were, and Isaac thought it well, their admiration for his craft.
———— (dbl sp)
He searched back through the village, but Sokanon was still with Kiwidinok. He dragged the canoe into the shallow water and turned it on its side, holding it upright while dunking the piece of sailcloth over and again, wiping down the inside. The warriors continued to hover close by and came to help him. They held the canoe so Isaac could take handfuls of wet sand to rub at the fresh blood stains.
A call from one of the children had everyone follow the boy’s pointing out to the water. Canoes were rounding the wide peninsula that formed the protected bay where the summer village stood. The rice harvesters returning. Isaac’s two helpers ambled awkwardly away, leaving him to balance the long freighter himself to finish rinsing. The warriors grabbed up their weapons and stood as if they had been on guard the entire time.
The grudging respect from Sakima showed in the distance and Isaac gestured with a dip of his head. There was Ahmik from another canoe, waving with his usual exuberance, far and away more enthusiastic than any of his people. Isaac returned his greeting. He would miss the lad. Wematin was in front of him, and gave a more subdued wave than his older brother. Isaac acknowledged him, too, the orphaned Ottawa boy Sakima had taken in years ago as a small child. He went back to the freighter. It was clean as it was going to be, but he gave it another rinse, standing away and holding back from those coming ashore.
Sokanon approached with Kiwidinok, Jacob freed from his carrier in his mother’s arms. The younger woman who knew French followed close behind, eyes yet cast down. Isaac was still at the canoe, the new moccasins soaked above the ankles from standing in the water. The wet leather was darker, and showed her beadwork brighter, more colorful. Somehow, she wanted everyone to know she’d made them. Sister Marie Catherine would chastise for her pride. Yet, these were people who had only what the Great Mysterious bestowed upon them. They judged spirit and character highly by ingenuity and ability.
She smiled to Isaac amid the bustle of voices and activity while baskets of wild rice were unloaded and carried into the village. Pahmahnee came to her, her eyes bright for her godson and a playful grab at his toe on her way by. Sakima held his rice basket out for the younger woman behind Kiwidinok. Sokanon wondered at his arrogant look, until Kiwidinok abruptly waved the woman off, taking the basket from her husband herself. She glared at him, and Sakima seemed pleased. She addressed her husband, her voice brusque. Sokanon averted her gaze, but watched again as Kiwidinok motioned to she and Isaac. The tribal leader shrugged before walking away, leaving his wife making signs until Sokanon understood. She turned back for her lodge, tightening her grasp at the heavy basket.
Sokanon came to Isaac. “We are to stay tonight, in the lodge of Kiwidinok and Sakima.”
Isaac nodded slowly. Stretched his back. “It is a great honor for us.”
“Yes, Isaac.” But she wasn’t sure about that either, after watching the husband and wife with each other. She moved away while Isaac propped the overturned canoe. He couldn’t hide his pleasure, scanning his eyes over the craft.
——————
The night was too warm for a fire to add its light to the dark. The moon added its muted shine, broken into shards through the spaces of the matting. But it was the candleflame caused shadows all around the walls of the lodge. Candles—another concession to colonial trade goods. Maybe Kiwidinok’s hand? More likely another way for Sakima to show off his wealth and stature. The tallow candles in stone saucers were expensive and hard to come by, even at the Cadot’s trading post. A lot safer than the rushlights used at their cabin. They waited for Sakima to resume the accounts of his past.
The Ojibwa leader sat silent, his eyes closed, the small lights making his face look even more worn and rugged. Kiwidinok was quiet, as she had been most of the time in the lodge. Their adopted son Wematin was next to her, and she made him hold still while she redressed a wound on his arm.
She held great respect in the village for her knowledge of healing. Her father had been a Shaman in her band and she learned from him before entering into marriage with Sakima and moving with his clan.
Sakima’s voice continued to echo in Sokanon’s drifting mind while she held Jacob rested in the cradle of her arm, Isaac next to her. Polite attention on their host, his tales of war with the Dakota and Fox peoples. But it was the young woman, sitting on her haunches a little way aside and behind, but far too close to Sakima. Kiwidinok’s bitterness for her plain to see. Ominotago. It was her words in French that mattered, and Sokanon waited for her to speak.
“We won this land with Ojibwa blood,” Sakima went on through his intermediary. “I took this from a Dakota war chief,” he said, sweeping his hand to the hanging breastplate of turtle shell armor. He brought his hand back with a cutting motion to his head. “I took no scalps,” he boasted. “But I ate the hearts of my enemies,” finishing with a mock bite from his tight fist.
Ahmik sat up straighter, at his father’s exploits. Kiwidinok finished with Wematin’s arm and sat, leaned back, showing disinterest in her husband’s words. Wematin joined his brother to sit near Sakima, who filled his chest with air before speaking again.
“Our people, followed the setting sun away from our ancestral homes long ago. Away from the wars of the Iroquois, their Six Nations armed with guns from your ancestors.” He pointed to Isaac, waited for Ominotago to finish, then went on. “Settlers that came from across the great salt ocean and gave guns to the enemies of the Ojibwa, of the Cree. And—” he pointed to Sokanon now, muscles of his face tightened, “we went away from our lands also, because of the sickness and disease that came from the whites.”
Sokanon stopped herself from reaching for the pockmarks on her face.
Sakima’s fixed stare glinted in the low candles.
Sakmowk came to Isaac’s thoughts, the old man’s anger at how the Mi’kmaq and others were being pushed out of their lands. How the French and English were fighting for lands that were not theirs. Isaac saw the old Mi’kmaq’s ire rising, repeating the name Nova Scotia, new Scotland, brought from the settlers home country across the great ocean. He had to beg the old man to teach his skill at crafting canoes. Isaac held Sakima’s gaze, waiting for the young woman to continue with his words.
“We came to the places you call in French de troit, and to the north, where we call Nipissing, where the waters drain into the Lake of the Hurons. Then we also get guns from the traders, and we take those from the warriors we killed. When we came to Mackinaw and then here to Baawitigong—the falling rapids. What the French dare to call Sault Sainte Marie, and the British, the Falls of Saint Mary. We fought against the Dakota and Fox people. Drove them toward the setting sun, away from the Gichigami. And now, this our home.” He sharpened his look to Isaac. “We will take what land we wish to, but we will be pushed no farther by the whites.”
Isaac listened. The conversations with Cadot swirled in his mind, the Frenchman complaining of the same things as he grew closer to his wife’s Ojibwa people. He struggled with his thoughts, not sure he should even answer. But Sakima stared in anticipation of his guest’s response. Isaac wondered should he say they were leaving. He decided to keep it polite and play to the old warrior’s pride.
He didn’t trust his French and motioned for Sokanon to Ominotago. “Sokanon and I know the struggles of your people. She more than I. And we also know only by your goodwill the warriors did not attack our cabin.” Isaac continued to commend. “We understand your counsel may not be able to stop them, the next time the Ojibwa and British go to war.”
Sokanon and Ominotago ceased and Sakima’s eyebrow rose. “You think, there is to war again?”
Isaac saw it finally from the old warrior. Worried fear. He understood it well, now, with Jacob. Fear for those vulnerable in your charge. He shook his head. “You may know of war before we do.”
Sakima looked down. Ran his fingers in the dirt, contemplating, before speaking again through Ominotago in his native language. “That is why it is good, you and your family should go back to your people.”
His words surprised.
The boys studied back and forth from their father to Isaac, Ahmik’s confused disappointment plain.
 Sokanon wondered if Sakima and Isaac had spoken somehow. Or did the old man guess at Isaac’s mind? As she herself had after seeing the new freighter canoe, made for traveling on the big waves. She waited for Isaac to tell him they would soon leave their cabin. Probably never to return.
Sakima was right to admonish. Isaac knew, living here, under the good graces of the Ojibwa. Able himself to take his wife, return to his own land and people with the riches borne from Gichigami.
“This is not good area for homesteading,” Isaac offered. “I don’t believe the Europeans would colonize such a wild country without long-term prospects. The British and French will continue to press for furs,” he said, “but this is not country to be farmed.”
The young warrior of his past flashed in Sakima’s glare, looking for a fight. “I see the many whites come,” he hissed, giving himself away, speaking in English. “Even now, more redcoats than before to Mackinaw fort.” (September 22, 1764).
Sokanon cheered the information about the troops, even as Sakima’s nostrils continued to flare.
“Are they,” he railed, “protect, as you say, homestead farms—on our land, wild?”
It was understanding as well as any Sokanon had heard, the years listening in on all the intrigues from the halls in Quebec.
The air in the lodge seethed. Kiwidinok angered, admonishing her husband while showing her embarrassment at his not speaking through Ominotago. So she could understand the talking in her own home.
The young woman appeared placid amid the charged atmosphere.
Isaac felt Sokanon at his leg and placed his hand over hers. “We have not heard that the fort at Mackinaw has been re-garrisoned,” he said, not knowing whether to address Sakima through Ominotago. It was just like the crafty bastard, learning from the traders the language of his new enemy. “But we are only three,” he pressed, “no other family for us. We are, our own people. If we are not welcome here—”
“Husband,” Sokanon frowned. It was only by Sakima’s honor they could even have their cabin.
Isaac bowed his head in apology. He kept his gaze and voice even. “My people. I worry that they will neither welcome me—with my wife and son.”
Sokanon stacked her other hand atop Isaac’s.
Sakima sat still, his back straight.
It was quiet, waiting for him to answer.
“Your wife people—of eastern woodlands fires,” he finally said, in English, ignoring Kiwidinok. He pushed his hand out to Sokanon. “Britishman Isaac Dobbins—go live, her people.”
They saw then, Sakima knew they were leaving.
“It is far to where Sokanon was born,” Isaac said. “The long journey beyond Quebec, past Tadousac even, up the Saguenay river that flows almost into the ocean.” He saw the effect, wonder, if not respect, for how far they had traveled to be here.
Sokanon felt the long pull. “I fear I have been too long away from my people,” she announced. “I do not know them, nor they I.”
Sakima’s eyes pierced the space between them, the audacity for her to speak to him in his lodge, without first being spoken to.
The others watched too, and she shuffled Jacob in her lap as if to tend to him.
Isaac would not apologize for her. “My wife speaks to what I mean. And, from what I know of her people, they are more allied to the French—as are the Ojibwa.”
Sakima shrugged away the statement.
Isaac held his and Sokanon’s hands up together, placed them on Jacob’s chest. “I am of the mind that wherever we will go, we will have to be our own people.”
Sakima deliberated again. “And so it will be always, for you whose tribe is so large.” Back to Ojibwa, through Ominotago. “The whites who are so many, that when they build their forts and towns, as many more as leaves in the forest come to live in them. Then they build more, and even more come from across the ocean.”
“And yet, because I am white, and my wife is not, or the other way round, we three are too many here and elsewhere.”
Sakima’s steady, calculating look returned. “Maybe it is because of your wife’s Catholic religion, that she is unwelcome to the British.”
Isaac had manners enough not to smirk as he mused at the truthful jest.
Sakima peeked to Kiwidinok, even though he didn’t, the taunt also against his own wife’s Christianity. Ominotago’s eyes were closed, satisfied smile hidden on her face. Kiwidinok held her chin up. Sokanon glanced away from her, up to the crucifix over where she reclined.
Kiwidinok withdrew alone and pulled the curtain to hide herself in her bed.
——————
Sakima was immodest with Ominotago, each stripping nude to sleep together, their bodies glistening in the soft moonlight that continued to show through the matting.
Isaac reentered the lodge just in time to see them retire, behind the wall of hanging blankets around their bed. He and Sokanon told the story silently to each other, the younger woman taken as Sakima’s second wife. Subservient to Kiwidinok, even in Sakima’s presence. But, Ominotago made herself known now, in the nighttime company of the village leader, while his sexual union with her was a boasting of his virility. Still, embarrassment for Kiwidinok and Sokanon felt sorry for her.
Yet, their hosts’ strident coupling drew her to desire the same from Isaac. She set Jacob aside and pulled the blanket away to uncover herself. She laid back, watching his arousal. Isaac squinted in the darkness to see the brothers buried in their beds, privately to their sleep. He took his clothes off and slid in next to her. She nestled close and caressed his body while his breaths grew deeper. He wondered how he could ever live without her. Her touch and warmth calling him away from a life of loneliness. She felt the night of their wedding, the disciplined isolation she’d been taught in the Ursuline convent disappearing in the closeness with her husband. Intimacy coming to them by rough hands, soft on prickling skin. He rose to crouch over her, wanting to be slow and quiet, but she pulled him hard down onto her.
———— (dbl sp)
They woke to spattering against their skin. Rain splashed through the cracks in the screen of reeds around the lodge. Sokanon pulled a corner of the blanket to cover Jacob while Isaac and Sakima hurried unclothed outside. She followed their work by the flashes of lightning showing through, before the covers of hides were rolled down in turn over the matting.
Another shock of light came through the door cover being swept open, Isaac and Sakima rushing in. Sokanon looked away from Kiwidinok who watched her husband disappear again behind the curtain, to a shriek from Ominotago. Isaac waited, wiping his body. Sokanon offered him the blanket. Across the shadows it was Kiwidinok who turned now, settling back into her bed.
Lightning crashed just overhead, the thunderstorm rising full in its wake, rain pounding the lodge that shuddered in the gale. Sokanon lay uneasy in the violence of the storm, but was calmed by Isaac standing next to her. It seemed odd to her with the many superstitions of the Ojibwa, that they were all lying still in their beds. That the wild lightning was a good spirit to them. It had always brought back her fears. Too much the crash and thunder of muskets and cannons. Isaac’s body was cold, wet. It invigorated her once more. Took her away from unease.
He felt it, matching her desire.
The good spirit of the lightning went away fast as it came, the thunder rumbling off in the distance. Behind it poured a hard, drenching rain. They were drenched themselves, in the air that was wet with storm, pouring out in sweat. Still, they lay close, her arm and leg atop his body.
She whispered. “Ahmik did not like to hear of us to go away.”
“Yes. What, with his father busy at begetting more progeny. And no uncles for mentors. I had Sakmowk. I know how he helped me, a boy without family.”
“And I, Sister Marie Catherine.” She peered across the lodge. Kept her voice low. “Maybe, he to come with us?”
Isaac dismissed it. “He’s not an orphan, he may yet rise to a high position, as his father. But, I thought I’d give him the old canoe. He can take pride with his people that he helped build it.”
Sokanon felt Isaac’s heartbeat, listened for it, her ear pressed to his chest. “That is wonderful, husband.”
——————
They shared a view to each other, Isaac at the canoe with Sakima and Ominotago, Sokanon with Kiwidinok and Pahmahnee amid the villagers taking the dried meat from the smoking racks.
“Your instincts are correct,” Isaac said to Sakima, waiting to see if he needed Ominotago’s translation. “We will go from our cabin.”
It wasn’t Sakima’s quiet certainty of the world this time, as his attention followed his hand along the top edge of the canoe. Isaac couldn’t figure him, the old warrior never concealing his hatred of the British, barely that for the French. Yet he traded at the post for their goods. Learned English, somehow. And Français from his second wife. Ominotago did say Isaac’s words for Sakima, but the old leader hardly acknowledged, so intent he was on studying his craftsmanship.
Isaac spoke again. “It’s a decision I made almost soon as our son breathed his first. The child was not well at birth. Our worry over him would not cease the long winter.”
Sakima’s gaze sharpened, even as his eyes softened. One thing Isaac did understand of him, the father’s grudging obligation owing for saving his son. “Many children are taken by the Great Mysterious. It is the spirit’s way sometimes.”
Ominotago’s voice lilted, as it hadn’t before.
“Does not your Christian religion say the same—” she continued Sakima’s speech, “that your child will live or die by your God’s command?”
It was not like Sakima to talk of death, God, religion. Always of more practical matters. Ominotago hesitated to say. Averted her eyes. Isaac found Sokanon’s again across the short distance.
“I see the thing,” Sakima said, still possessed of the canoe. “The life for your child takes you to the direction you already turn—” He went back to smoothing his fingers across the stitched and gummed seams. “You are to the water, Isaac Dobbins. As those other whitemen who take the giant canoes with sails over the oceans. In search of, always, some other place.”
Isaac thought again of Sakmowk, going on about the ships with tall masts, their giant sails daring to steal the wind gods for its power. It was the old Mi’kmaq’s wrinkled hand running down the canoe, instead of Sakima’s.
Sakima stood back then, held his hands over the canoe, palms out to the water. Ominotago did not translate. Isaac knew it was an invocation.
Sokanon and Pahmahnee paused, respect for Sakima’s appeal to the great gods of the universe. Kiwidinok continued toward them, showing indifference to her husband’s rising voice, his speech with outstretched arms.
“Sakima speaks of your husband’s canoe.” Pahmahnee spoke low. “That he can feel the spirit of the forest alive in all the resources used in its construction. And that they will protect those who travel in it.”
Sokanon was of little mind to it. Sister Marie Catherine’s lessons, to all the native girls, that objects hold no spirits. That Father Armand’s blessings of her father’s canoes was that God would give His own spirit to the safety of voyage and travelers. But to her the boats were as Sakima said, always just the things that took their family away from there they were. Never in the same place for very long. Yet she listened closer when she heard Sakima invoke the name “Mishipeshu”.
“Mishipeshu,” she repeated, whispering what she thought was her mother’s pronunciation. Her hand went instinctively to her medicine pouch.
 “Mishipeshu,” she repeated to herself, her hand instinctive to her medicine pouch.
“Sakima speaks of the trickster,” Pahmahnee said, Sokanon not thinking she’d said it loud enough to hear. “The underwater panther, that would sometimes drown people in the deep lakes.”
Sokanon nodded. “Most of my mother’s culture, has been gone to me long ago. But some parts of her stories come to me, and I try to remember. The trickster, Mishipeshu, my mother’s word is different, I think. And the giant bird that brings the thunder, Binesi. But mostly, I remember only her voice. Lying with her in the long nights during my father’s travels, conducting Father Armand to the many places where the Black Robes ministered.”
“And what of your father’s culture?”
Sokanon shook her head, pressed her lips tighter together. “My father was Innu, what the French call Montagnais. But he was a great Christian.” She stared over the water. “I remember how proud he always looked, that he was Father Armand’s guide man.”
She released her grip from the medicine pouch to feel for her ring, Our Lady’s comfort ever there.
———— (dbl sp)
The Ojibwa villagers appeared open in their wishing of goodwill, even those whose looks had always been of suspicion. Maybe it was a sign that it was well to leave. The entire village was there to send them off, and it spoke to Sokanon, the closeness, the tiny space of lodges along the quiet bay. Where even the thoughts of the people were somehow shared. As if they carried in the wind. The eight thousand people in Quebec was a number she could only understand from living there the many years. Where she would follow the spread of information in waves, through the streets and houses.
Isaac finished laying the smoked venison into the canoe. One of the old women showed her pride, straining to hold out the huge hide of the moose. Her labor a gift in return for the portion given to the village, the pelt scraped clean of flesh and rubbed with ash. Sokanon accepted it from her, the aroma strong and inviting. It wouldn’t take much effort to finish the tanning. She gestured with it to Isaac, who nodded to add his thanks to the woman.
He showed his own satisfaction when more men than were needed, young and old, came together around the canoe, each of them wanting to touch the fine craft. They held it steady, ready to launch after Isaac and Sokanon were in.
 “Giga-waabamin menawaa,” (giiga-waba-men-men-a-wah) was shared around, the traditional we’ll meet again of the Ojibwa, Cadot’s teaching ‘goodbye’ was not in the language of his wife’s people.
Sokanon repeated the greeting to those around her, wondering if she would meet them again. Pahmahnee’s and Migisi’s long looks telling that they thought they probably would not. Kiwidinok gave the sign of the cross. Even Ominotago, made to stand away by the older first wife, was bright in her farewell.
“Niijii—” Sakima said, “friend.” 
Isaac never thought so, beyond saving the man’s son. But there was a warmth now in the hardened warrior’s manner.
 “Yes, niijii,” Isaac repeated. He copied Sakima’s signs of comradeship. Took his hand when Sakima offered in the European way.
Sokanon stepped into the canoe. She sat and took Jacob in his carrier from Pahmahnee, awkward in her tracing a cross on her godson’s forehead. When the we-eh touched her hand from her heart to his, Sokanon was grateful for the bond between them. “Miigwech,” she thanked her.
“De rein,” Pahmahnee answered in the irregular French of woodsmen.
Sister Marie Catherine’s scolding for using it once caused her to almost correct to the more proper je t’en prie (zhey tone pree) between friends. An easy smile then, for Pahmahnee and another for Migisi. Those who were there to bring her baby forth when she nor Isaac could have. She wanted to say something for Sheshebens, but followed their way of not speaking the name of the deceased. She patted her fist to her chest instead. “We-eh’s,” she said softly. The other women lowered their eyes for a moment. Sokanon laid Jacob onto the moosehide, into its heavy scent of wood fire. The smell of the freshly-smoked venison rose too, and told of the time it would take in the days before they left to prepare it into pemmican cakes for the journey south.
Isaac gave a quick nod to Ahmik, he would see the boy and his brother again soon enough. He entered the canoe himself and they were shoved off to more chorus of we’ll meet again. Isaac drove his paddle deep into the water. The feel of the canoe beneath him was right. He felt it once more, the water rushing by below his feet. Movement. He turned and raised his paddle in salute to the village.
“We are off now, Isaac.”
He didn’t answer, letting the paddles speak their rushing sound through the water.

4

“Sokanon.”
Isaac’s voice was as pleasant as that first time she’d heard it.
She turned from staring out to the lake to see his unwavering look. That all was in order, the canoe readied for the trip.
“Yes, Isaac.”
“It is time to go,” he said.
She searched through the trees imagining she could see their cabin up the rise, through the heavy late summer foliage. How easy it was for her to live here, after a lifetime in Quebec amongst the modern houses and buildings. How easy she had taken to the hard work. To wearing rough leather instead of the softer cloth fabrics. How well she and husband fought through everything together. Wherever they ended up, they wouldn’t have to fight the longest winters she’d ever known. But even that, they endured. Relishing in each other’s company under deep snow, locked up in the cabin for days at a time. “Yes, Isaac,” she repeated. She peered out to the lake again. “I will miss lying together in the winter nights, listening to the sounds of the ice.”
“We have a whole life of nights to lie together.” He felt it again. “It’s a good day to leave.”
She nodded silently and rested Jacob behind her seat. So father could watch his son while they paddled in the water that was once again flat. The wind from inland, enough to shake the leaves, but not to disturb the calm surface near shore in the shelter of the trees.
He held the freighter steady for her and she stepped in.
“We are away!” Isaac called across the water, waving his paddle to Ahmik and Wematin (brother). The boys already out far from shore in the old canoe.
“It is a good gift, husband,” Sokanon said.
“Well—” he shrugged. He jested the obvious. “We can’t take two canoes. It’ll be hard enough.”
“It is still a good thing of you. He is proud to have it.”
Isaac pushed them from shore, the canoe rocking when he jumped in. “Heavy,” he said.
Sokanon felt it immediately, too, the weight against her paddle. “It is good that the brothers will help with the long portage.”
They neared the lads, their jabbering words for each other drifting in the distance. Sokanon listened to their speaking, mixing with the sounds of the paddles being drawn, the canoes gliding through the water. She thought of the Huron boys, when she lived with her family at the Mission on the island of white trees. The boys testing themselves in their elders’ canoes, spinning and challenging the waves in the strait. Overturning themselves on purpose, to be rescued by the others, regaining the canoe by group effort. How happy she was when the unkind boys were out there on the river and not teasing her. Father Armand’s favorite, the girl from the eastern woodlands with the pockmarks on her face. Jacob’s loud gurgling brought her attention away.
Isaac laughed at his son’s happy noises. “He likes the movement of the canoe.”
She heard his satisfaction. Heard his stories once more of his Nova Scotia, sailing on the great ocean that he teased would swallow all of the lakes and more. Heard that Jacob might one day wish to sail on the ocean fishing boats as he had. “He does, father,” she answered.
“Thank you,” Isaac said, “for setting him behind you so I can see the faces he makes. His eyes aren’t so black in the reflection of the sky.”
Sokanon looked up, blinking from the sun just out from a cloud. There were no others behind it, only bright blue sky. She turned around and pulled the cover over the head ring of the cradleboard to shield Jacob’s face. “I will uncover when the sun is not so bright in the sky.”
“Of course, mother.”
They took to their paddles again and followed the boys who were chasing their youth then, racing far ahead of them toward the St. Mary’s.
———— (dbl sp)
The lake came into the strait before the rapids, the headlands pinching in from north and south less than a mile apart. The current was stronger in the narrowed course and Sokanon felt Isaac’s counter steering.
“She yaws in the faster water,” he said. “We will be well in the waves, but she is no flat water racer.” He drew his paddle stronger to try and outrun the current.
Sokanon felt it, matched his cadence.
The boys were out of sight, round the last point before the little post at the St. Mary’s rapids.
Sokanon was eager to see Athanasie, show her son to the Ojibwa woman with four children, now. “We will stay at the Cadot’s,” she asked, “overnight?”
“We’ve only just begun.”
“It will be late in the day by the time we are portaged to the other landing?”
“I suppose it will be.”
“You will send the boys home after, in the darkness?”
Isaac tutted at her worry. “They’re young, with good eyes. They can find their way around in the dark as good as a couple raccoons.”
Sokanon was silent. Knew she’d have her way.
Isaac spoke to it. “It will be good to talk with Jean-Baptiste anyway. Gain some information about Mackinaw.”
They rounded the point to see the boys in the distance, standing in the canoe, facing each other, bow and aft. They were rocking the craft, challenging who could be spilled first over the side.
“One of them is going to get wet,” Isaac said.
“Like you, husband,” Sokanon teased.
“Always you remind me,” he laughed.
It wasn’t funny then, going overboard with their gear, to save the drowning boy after the Ojibwa canoe capsized. Caught in the rushing water and sent sideways onto the rocks showing in the late season low water.
Ahmik and Wematin went harder at it, reckless to spill the other.
“It will take them quite a rocking to tip that canoe past its tumblehome.”
“Maybe they both get wet, Isaac.”
“Maybe,” he agreed. “There he goes,” he announced as Ahmik tumbled in, a yelp before the splash. He watched the boys, clamoring to right the canoe. Beyond them, the low autumn water rushing in the rapids. Ahmik’s screams were in his ears again. Sokanon’s cries from the shore. Monsieur Cadot’s loud calls to help. Going underwater with the boy’s limp body, fighting in the current until he could bring them both to the surface and in towards shore. Watching, out of breath, their pack with half the food and his tea breaking its line and taken out to sink into the deep water after the rapids. Yet gaining the powerful Ojibwa village leader’s welcome and protection.
Another yelp and splash, Wematin pulled in by his older brother.
“At least it’s warm and sunny,” Sokanon said into Isaac’s long gaze.
He nodded to her understanding. “It’ll be hard for them to portage in wet clothes.”
“Are they not young, Isaac—and stronger than raccoons?”
“Yes,” he laughed again. “So they are.”
———— (dbl sp)
They entered into the protective little bay, the water even flatter, the sun more intense. Ahmik and Wematin were back in their canoe, their chatter carrying over the short distance. Carrying in the strange silence. Bahweting, the gathering place of unity to the Ojibwa, was too quiet. Isaac and Sokanon felt it together, gliding toward the trailhead of the portage.
“There is no activity at the landing,” he said.
“None fishing in the rapids,” she added.
They gripped their paddles tighter and went in slow. Sokanon was tense. Isaac wary. Both on guard.
The boys were there to meet them, standing on shore, full of spirit. Isaac touched his fingers to his mouth and held his hand out to quiet them, to still their nervous energy. Sokanon saw his seriousness reflected in the eyes of the sons of Sakima, their easy youth turned sudden raw. Her thoughts confused for a moment in a strong feeling of Jacob coming into his own manhood.
Isaac motioned again for them to work quietly while they pulled the canoe ashore. The brothers strained to lift the bow of the laden freighter, high onto land so Sokanon could step out onto dry ground. She saluted to their respect for her.
Isaac laid his hand on her shoulder, waited himself for a moment, listening. He spoke low. “We need to look around first. Before we start unloading.”
She nodded, turned to attend to Jacob, his dark eyes continuing to sparkle in the daylight.
Isaac cast a studied search all around, trying to see through the trees. Feel any danger. He made no sound stepping light into the shallow water, where Ahmik and Wematin helped to haul the canoe higher up onto land. Their eyes grew large when he untied the pack and pulled out the two pistols. He signed his warning again, stopped them when they started to unsheathe their trade knives.
Sokanon was ready with the gun bag, holding it open for Isaac to take out the powder flask so he could prime the flash pans of the pistols. He finished and closed the frizzens back down over the drams of fine gunpowder. Tucked the pistols under his shirt into the waist of his trousers.
“It’s probably nothing,” he said to her, giving a disarming smile, “but Wematin will wait here with you and Jacob.”
She gave another nod in agreement.
Isaac explained it to the brothers until they understood.
Sokanon stepped from the canoe and loosed the tie holding one of the muskets. She slid it from its case and saw the boys’ staring even wilder. Isaac gave his agreement then motioned for Ahmik to join him, and they started off toward the St. Mary’s post.
Sokanon tried to hide her concern from Wematin, who stood straighter, gave a determined look. When he turned away she knelt next to the canoe, pressed her fingers against her smock for the ring of Jesus and Mary and said a small silent prayer, asking for all to be well. She clutched the musket tight, peering from Jacob out to the water, then hard into the woods after Isaac, until he and Ahmik disappeared down the trail. 
———— (dbl sp)
He halted before the small stockade and saw immediately the tiny settlement was empty. He roved his vision around the yard, studied the area close. He thought of the places he’d seen with Bradstreet’s army during the war, abandoned by the people living there, either slain or run off out of fear. Caution urged him on slowly, but the feeling wasn’t here. No sensation of ghosts. No sign of conflict. The post had not been abandoned in a rush, he determined.
But there were phantoms in Ahmik’s wide eyes. The boy stood back, nervous in the eerie quiet, reflected in his face the imaginings of dark spirits in the gray, lifeless buildings, cold and unwelcoming.
“It is well,” Isaac settled him with a calm look. Tugged gently at his shoulder and led to the gate. Barred from the inside, but easy to get over the short walls. For those who might need the emergency shelter of the buildings in the coming bitter months of cold and hunger.
“Come, lad,” Isaac encouraged and squatted, interlocking his fingers for a foothold, to boost him over the top of the wall. Ahmik gained his nerve at the reassuring and stepped a foot into Isaac’s cupped hands to go up and over.
Ahmik worked the heavy board off its locks then stood wide-eyed again, his back against the stockade wall, staring at the blackened foundations of the three structures that had burned almost to the ground that December day two winters before. Isaac remembered the smoke rising in the distance when fire almost destroyed the entire outpost. The half-overgrown charred relics of the house and two small barracks stood astride in a line. No need to rebuild the quarters for the troops, Cadot told him, with the British garrison retiring to Michilimackinac.
Cadot’s house showed signs of recent activity, of repairs. The fresh-cut lumber was stark, almost white against the gray-weathered wood. Ahmik could not be encouraged to approach, his eyes darting from the burned structures to the house. Isaac went alone and pushed the door open, hesitating for a moment to peer into the darkness.
The light angling in was enough to see that the home was emptied of all cartable personal items. But a fair pile of wood for burning was stacked neatly next to the fireplace. The grate in the firebox was ready-banked with logs and kindling, only awaiting a cold traveler’s spark. He saluted Cadot’s goodwill. It told him, too, that the Frenchman and his family had already skipped away good. Gone for the winter.
——————
The canoes were half way across when Sokanon saw them, so intent she was on watching for danger from inland. Wematin danced nervously after seeing them, too.
“Isaac,” she ordered, motioning up the trail for him to recall her husband and Ahmik.
The boy ran off and she peered to the canoes, two of them, coming on fast. She tried to judge how long before they’d arrive and wondered if she shouldn’t just gather up her son and run for Isaac. She laid the musket into the canoe and lifted Jacob, setting the cradleboard on the ground just behind her. She had the moment to muse at his giggling at the sudden movement and ran her fingers gentle down his cheeks. She armed herself again with the gun and knelt behind the canoe, from the view of those paddling toward the landing. Another prayer, with her ring pressed between her finger and thumb.
“Yes, Jacob,” she said soft to his continuing baby chatter.
———— (dbl sp)
“Wematin,” Ahmik announced his brother running toward them.
“I-zak,” the boy called his alarm.
Isaac hurried to meet him. “What is it, lad?” He pressed, mad with panic. “Sokanon? Jacob?”
Wematin breathed hard catching his breath. He was animated, pointing, signing, explaining. Enough—that canoes were approaching from the other side of the strait.
Isaac searched past him, down the trail for Sokanon. Saw all the way to the landing, to her and Jacob, their smashed and mutilated bodies. The horrors of war once more. “Come on, then,” he rushed the brothers along, the boys astride while his alarm outpaced.
———— (dbl sp)
“Isaac!” Sokanon called her relief.
He and the brothers greeted her and followed where she motioned out to the water.
The canoes were close enough to tell.
“Ojibwa, for certain,” Isaac said. “Nothing for worry,” he looked to reassure Sokanon. Himself, too. “We don’t know what they want. But—” It was an instant for his scheme. “We position the canoes so they must land at our choosing. Quickly, while we still have distance to conceal our movements.”
Sokanon understood, joined his resolution to stand firm, if needed. There was no way to outrun them, anyway.
Isaac spoke calm and even, directing the brothers to his tactic, to force the Ojibwas to come ashore farthest away onto the landing. To set the two canoes in an angled line, protecting between them and the incomers. He placed the brothers where to stand, close, but far enough apart not to interfere with each others’ movements in case they’d have to draw their weapons. He laid his hands on their knives in their sheaths, making sure they knew—only in defense.
“It would be best to lay it from sight,” Isaac told Sokanon of the musket, “just in the canoe, where you can get to it quickly.”
She slipped the weapon out of sight, yet near. Into the uneasy quiet came the thought to their friends. “What of the Cadot’s?”
“They have gone.”
She watched at him.
“Just gone,” he said, calm. “No signs of violence. It will be well,” he told her again.
“Yes, Isaac. Help me to Jacob on my back.” She shook her head at his questioning look. “There is nowhere he is to be more safe, than shielded by me.”
Isaac knew. He lifted the cradleboard over her shoulders.
Jacob jabbered cheery again.
Isaac shook his head. “Every movement sends him giddy. I think he would be happy if we used a blanket between us to toss him in the air.”
There it was again, Isaac’s confusing strange calm in the most dangerous situations. Sokanon braced in it, practicing in her mind, retrieving the musket from its place.
Isaac turned to watch and wait, palming the pistols at his waist under his shirt.
An eternity.
Then they were just there, three rowers arriving in one boat and two in the other.
“Madjeckewiss,” Ahmik said. He and Wematin retreated a pace.
“Be still, lads,” Isaac steadied them.
Sokanon steadied herself. Madjeckewiss. Related to Athanasie. Monsieur Cadot called him Michiconiss. One of the war leaders of the Ojibwas who took Fort Michilimackinac the summer before. Killed most of the British there, soldiers and settlers.
They glided in silently and Isaac locked eyes on the big man, who rose from the middle seat of the first canoe coming ashore. The Ojibwas stepped out onto land, Michiconiss hulking over the others. Sokanon remembered Cadot talking of how big his wife’s cousin was. He and another were armed with muskets, the rest with war clubs.
Ahmik spoke nervously in the tense gathering, using his father’s name, Sakima. Isaac motioned to quiet him as he saw Michiconiss ignoring the words anyway. The warrior’s keen eyes darted from him to Sokanon and back, until he finished with his assessment.
“You,” he said in French, “the Anglais trapper, Dobbins.”
Isaac wondered if Cadot had told of himself. “Michiconiss, Ojibwa warrior.”
The man motioned to Sokanon. “You need not your French Montagnais Cree woman to translate?”
Isaac tilted his head. “I can say enough of it, from my wife. And the black robes.”
Sokanon knew Isaac’s mention of the Jesuits was intentional, the Society still casting its shadow over many of the tribes. She saw its power as the warriors around Michiconiss stirred.
Their leader stood fast. “You are friends with black robes?” he challenged.
“Oui.”
Michiconiss continued to study. “You are friends, with the enemy of the English?”
Isaac stayed silent.
“You are not Catholic.”
Isaac shook his head.
“Yet your wife is.”
Sokanon returned his stare. “The holy church in Quebec has blessed our marriage. I was raised from a child there by the nuns and black robes.”
“Then your family are dead?” It wasn’t sympathy. A challenge. “Did the English kill them—” he turned his eyes on Isaac, “in their war for beaver pelts and buckskins?”
“Iroquois,” Isaac said. He saw that Michiconiss knew already. Knew their whole story.
The Ojibwa continued to rest his sharp gaze on Isaac. “Then it was the English—their guns, that kill the people of your wife. And kill those others, so allied to the French. Your country’s ancient enemy.” He stepped closer, studying the barrier of canoes.
Sokanon’s impulse was to grab for the musket.
The big man swept his hand toward the loaded freighter. “And now—” his voice rose, his eyes moving back to Isaac, “you and your woman take more from the land, sell to agents who only want more—and more, still.”
“The Ojibwa sell to both the French and the English.”
“It is ours to sell.”
“Sakima has allowed our trapping.”
“Sakima does not speak for all our people.” He deflected the looks from the boys at his mention of their father.
One of Michiconiss’ men moved behind him, sliding toward where he could get around the canoes to come at them.
Isaac eyed him. Hoped the brothers would remain calm. He motioned toward the settlement. “Monsieur Cadot?”
It surprised Michiconiss, his eyes narrowing in confusion at the abrupt change of subject.
“You are friends of the Cadot’s,” he said, his focus returning, “how you not know, they have gone, Mackinaw?”
Another of the warriors shifted behind Michiconiss.
Sokanon wondered if they could all hear her raging heartbeat.
Isaac was unruffled. Yet readied his attention for his pistols. “Why, Cadot to Mackinaw?” he pressed.
Michiconiss gave a little shrug. “For his new son to be baptized by the black robe priest, Du Jaunay.”
Questions of Athanasie and her baby settled in Sokanon’s concentration. Another boy for Jean-Baptiste. Baptism by the priest of St. Anne’s church at the fort.
Isaac continued to shilly-shally, pushing at the same time to find out more to the affairs in the lower lakes. “Are there fur agents there?”
“No Anglais agents,” Michiconiss scoffed. “They are too afraid to come,” he added with disdain, his concentration seeming restored. He brandished his musket, a standard-issue British army Brown Bess flintlock. A boast. That it was taken in the attack on Mackinaw.
It was a mistake, flaunting the weapon. The gun was cocked and the frizzen closed over the flash pan. But there was no striking flint in the hammer. Michiconiss saw his mistake, quickly lowering the musket, his eyes darting between them.
Isaac stayed calm. “Peace once more, between Tribes and English.”
“Yes, there is peace.” Michiconiss returned to his sneering. “But only because the English have given better gifts. And promised more—for us to keep the peace.”
Isaac saw through the show of pride. The warriors had come across the water not to defend, but for gain. He spoke evasive again, to try and keep the situation off balance. “And what of the Ojibwas—why not, gathered here at the St. Mary’s for the fall fishing?”
Michiconiss frowned his displeasure. “Bahweting,” he retorted, motioning out to the rapids. He waved a hand to the south, before pointing to the far shore. “The English soldiers soon are to return to the Mackinaw. I came here two suns ago to tell the others, and it was decided to move the lodges across the water.”
A retreat. That would not set well with Michiconiss. Nor the other Ojibwa war leaders.
“Caution—” Isaac probed, “even in peace.”
“Caution?” Michiconiss glared. “The English are said to be many coming. It is fear for our families that force us away from Bahweting, the place of our ancestors.”
Isaac thought he saw the man waver, unsure in his thoughts. He put his hands to his hips. Closer to the pistols. He would challenge now. “But what, Michiconiss, want of us now?”
Sokanon heard it in Isaac’s tone. Even through his bad French. She readied herself.
Michiconiss stood more erect, too, tightened his lips. His eyes steeled. “English Dobbins—” He set his jaw straight. “You will give gunpowder and cartridges and flints for our muskets. So that we can defend ourselves from our enemies.” He showed off the Brown Bess again. Threatening.
The other warrior was lazy with his weapon at half-cock safe position. Neither of them carried powderhorn or cartridge bag. Isaac continued his judgment, convinced then, their muskets were unloaded. He motioned for Sokanon to the ammunition bag. He saw she was one with him in understanding. As they had been since that first time seeing each other, in the bloody aftermath at the battle for Quebec.
She lowered, haunches onto her heels, and leaned into the canoe for the gunpowder equipment. She knew which, with the old powder and cartridges. “Here, husband,” she said, handing him the materiel while she lingered, crouched at the side of the canoe, peeking to the musket.
“Tell him,” Isaac said, weary of fighting the French through his mind.
“The powderhorn is full,” she said as Isaac held the bag. “So is the priming flask. There are cartridges—but we have no extra flints to give.” She slid her hand stealthy down the side of the canoe, closer to her weapon.
Michiconiss tilted his head to the canoes full with cargo. “Maybe I take more,” he challenged.
Sokanon tensed.
She moved when her husband did, hauling the musket out as Isaac flung the gear at Michiconiss, who scuffled with his gun in the confusion.
Isaac drew quick, the pistols from under his shirt and at once there was commotion, the Ojibwa warriors leaping forward, Ahmik and Wematin gaining their weapons while drawing back, trying to keep the canoes as a wall between them.
“Arrêt!” Michiconiss ordered to stop, his booming voice, even in French enough to arrest the melee, halting the warriors at his command. Just in time as Isaac and Sokanon’s fingers were heavy on the triggers, eyes keen down the barrels aimed directly at the big man’s chest.
He was a second away from being shot, if their aim were true and the gunpowder didn’t foul. But the rogue’s manner shined in his warrior’s eyes. He seemed pleased to be bested by them, that they would fight when they would surely be killed, their child taken or slain himself. He relaxed his stance. Breathed deep. He bent down for the powderhorn and bag.
“We should not accept more than this,” he said. He gave a sly smile. “The English Dobbins and his woman need to protect themselves from enemies, too.”
Isaac lowered the pistols. He settled the boys, knives out, faces flush with every fear. He gestured to Sokanon to let down her weapon.
But she would have none of it, her mind too keen with the defense of her child.
“Sokanon,” Isaac directed.
Michiconiss raised his chin. Defiant.
“Marie,” Isaac said, calm.
Her Christian name swam in her head. Father. Sister. Mother. Their teaching. Thou shall not kill. She dropped the musket to her hip. Released the strike hammer to safety. Into it all, again, was Jacob’s giggling delight.
Michiconiss smirked his own amusement at it, undaunted by the encounter. He shouldered the firearm bags and addressed them again. “And now English, you and your warrior woman wife will go with your child to the fort at Mackinaw?”
Isaac remained still.
Michiconiss was first to impatience. “Giga-waabamin menawaa, Isaac Dobbins.”
“Perhaps.”
The war leader continued to show his satisfaction. “A life can be long,” he said. “Or we will meet again in the Great Mysterious.”
Isaac answered in Ojibwa—We’ll meet again. 
Michiconiss saluted his approval and waved the warriors to their vessels, moving smartly away. Agile for so large a man. It made Sokanon think of her father, bounding around in the canoe on their journeys. She wondered if she remembered him only as big, in the memory of a little girl.
“Bastard,” Isaac said.
His voice broke her attention away from the Ojibwa canoes returning to their clans. “Do not swear, husband.”
Even now. “Quickly,” Isaac directed, and he and the brothers were at once a whirl, snatching up gear from the freighter. Stacking it aside before the long trips down the portage around the rapids.
Sokanon sheathed the musket and gathered up two of the gear sacks, pulling the straps onto her shoulders.
“You don’t have to carry so much with Jacob,” Isaac told her.
“I can go to the Cadot house,” she asserted, “leave the loads there for you and the boys.”
“I’m not sure I want you to be alone.”
She shook her head. “It is well, Isaac. You know it is true.”
He shielded his eyes from the sun to see the distance already gained by the Ojibwa paddlers. He thought she was right, satisfied they were going away. “But wait at the post for us to return. Do not go back to the canoes alone.” He stared until she agreed. Then he drew one of the fur bundles onto his back.
She tried to help him adjust the heavy weight, ever surprised at his strength.
The brothers strained at another of the bundles, carrying it between them.
“Let’s go lads,” he announced and started off. Tried to guess the best pace.
She followed from the trailhead, the footpath tamped down well she thought, for all the recent warfare keeping people away from the area. The weight of Jacob and the bags was not too difficult and walking felt good, even after only the few hours in the canoe.
She came to the Cadot’s and halted, stacked her loads on the trail. Isaac and the brothers were not that far ahead. But she was more tired than she thought she should be, maybe the encounter with Michiconiss stealing some of her strength. She stood still in the strange quiet at the post, usually well-busied with activity. Especially this time of late summer.
She stared up at the chapel’s small cross, rising above the stockade wall. Three years seemed about right. Father Du Jaunay leading the Sunday Communion during their first year there. The last Service she’d been to. And then the chimney of the Cadot’s house. No smoke from the fire, while warming as guests inside. No one, anywhere. She straightened her back from Jacob’s weight. What of Athanasie and her baby?
——————
“They are certain of this near portage?” She studied the boys for mischief.
“They say we’ll reach it before nightfall.” Isaac admonished them. “And they will return to their village in the morning.” They made like they didn’t understand until he threatened to buffet them both.
They dared for a moment, but even Sokanon couldn’t be sure Isaac wouldn’t cuff them about. But it was enough for Ahmik and Wematin to know he was serious, the two not continuing on with their journey any farther than that.
Isaac was satisfied by their promising. “Go get your canoe,” he said to Ahmik, sending him chasing off with his brother back up the path to the other trailhead.
“Not so then, husband, goodbye so soon to Ahmik.”
“Another night it seems.” He tried to see the way in his thoughts. “They say we won’t find the portage without them. If it eases our passage through the many islands, it will be a great help.”
———— (dbl sp)
The moon went in and out of the trees as they paddled. 
“Always I remember being in the canoe with my father, mother and brother, with the men of Jesus. Since Jacob born—” Sokanon stopped, afraid to say of her dreams during the labor. When the Ojibwa women’s chanting came into dark visions of her mother.
Isaac peered through the trees. “Tipishkau-pishum,” he said her brother’s name. “Moon.”
She wondered at the Ojibwa superstition, not to say out loud the names of the dead. But it was all she had of him. And that her husband always remembered…
“What is best?” he asked. “The moon—light for the night sky, but causes the dark shadows of children’s fears? Or the rain—bringing water and life to everything?”
She smiled. “I do not speak of the moon. But I am glad when you do of my brother’s name.” She didn’t answer his question. “More and more I try to recall my mother’s sky-girl tale. She had a husband, and they had a son.”
“Could he fly amongst the stars as she could?”
“I cannot remember.”
“I think it’s enough that she created the peoples of the world.”
If she did, in her memory. “But he was with her, when she searched for her family.”
“Without her husband.”
She smiled again. Felt the smirk on his face. “Yes, husband. I believe it was without him. But they were together again. And turned into falcons.”
Isaac knew. That they could take to the sky and go anywhere, far above the world. “We both struggle to thoughts of our family.”
Sister Marie Catherine’s strength came to her. For a moment, she resented it. When she’d first come to live at the convent. How it felt wrong for her to be alive. How certain Sister was, she could be happy again. She pressed her hand to her ring and asked forgiveness.
“Jacob has brought me to think more of my sister.”
“Not of your mother and father? Granny Dobbins?”
“Yes. But mostly of Maureen.”
“We should have grown together with them.”
Ahmik and Wematin drew their attention, some playful squabbling. Splashing water at each other with their paddles.
“Tipishkau-pishum,” Sokanon said her brother’s name to herself. She stretched her neck to see the moon, but they were in too close to the shore, the trees too tall. She patted Jacob behind her, traded gazes with Isaac and turned to draw her paddle again, adding the soothing sound of her strokes to those of the others. She watched the calm water disturbed in the wake of the boys’ canoe. How quickly the smooth surface returned to glass behind them. As if they had never passed.
The channel narrowed more and more, reflecting the dark forest, like the finest made mirror. It made the calm black water look solid enough to walk on. A loon yodeled, answered quickly by another, echoing from all around. The quiet settled in Isaac’s thoughts. Jacob was asleep behind Sokanon. Son and wife. It didn’t seem possible that he had to worry for their safety in the peace that surrounded them. Even without the threat of Michiconiss, or some other warriors, after tomorrow they would come out of the quiet channel into the open water of the vast lake. He hoped the weather would hold long enough for them to make a quick run down to Michilimackinac. He was Nova Scotian, he told himself, born to the ocean, at home in the big waves. He pressed his feet down into the canoe, imagining confidence drawing between him and his craft. Ahmik and Wematin were again with their brotherly taunting. He increased his cadence, sped his paddle through the water.
Sokanon felt the canoe surge at Isaac’s faster stroke and she turned to see him sharing spirited looks with the brothers, their determination to outpace each other. They couldn’t keep up in their laden canoe against spirited teenagers. But she dug deeper, pulled her paddle stronger in the excitement of the race the boys would win.
———— (dbl sp)
The day’s last minutes of dusky light showed through the branches. It teased as at their cabin, when the sun would slant in through the cracks of the shutters, dust hanging in the shards of light. Sokanon listened to Jacob’s soft breathing under the piece of cloth draped over his cradleboard like a little tent. A yard of sail cloth, as Isaac called each of the squares he’d cut from the untattered areas of the canvas he’d gotten in Detroit. She saw him when he was drying or folding the heavy cloth, the way he’d run it through his hands, thoughts of his Nova Scotia bright in his eyes.
She was looking back, across the fire from him, the flames radiant on her face. Beautiful. “Are you certain you don’t want the canvas stretched out to sleep under?”
Sokanon shook her head. “It is not too cold, there will be no rain.”
Isaac knelt to poke at the smudge fire, for more smoke against the swarm of biting insects. He motioned for Ahmik and Wematin to tend to their own smudge. And to make sure the campfire was well fed, against the bears, through the night. They nodded their understanding, before going back to picking at the smoked fish, licking their fingers.
Sokanon leaned away from the smudge stinging her eyes. She made room for Isaac on her blanket. “It is our first night sleeping out in the open in a long time.”
“Three years,” he said, “and who knows how many more nights, before we get to Mackinaw.”
She followed the smoke from the smudge until it disappeared into the dark trees overhead. “I have thoughts to Jacob’s crib.”
Isaac mused. “We have left only just this morning.”
She laid back. “His crib being alone in the cabin. Our cabin.” 
“It will probably be burned with the rest.”
“Maybe as firewood?”
“Never thought to that. It would be good it go to a useful fire, and not just one against intrusion. I can easily make another crib.”
“Yes, husband. And a new home.”
“If Michiconiss is true about Michi-mack, there might be a great number of civilians with them.”
“You think, an agent?”
“I hope. But we still don’t know about the new proclamation. If the furs are confiscated, maybe we can make something out of employment, hiring ourselves out to some other tradesman. Conveying him and his wares back down the waterway. Some official even, or a small family, anxious to leave the Mackinaw before the long winter.”
She wondered at it. Guests accompanying them. “A family.”
“Husband, wife, no more than two children. Extra paddlers, anyway.”
She shrugged. Thought of the wealthy townspeople, in their fine clothes, shielding themselves from wind and spray. “If they are willing to help.”
“We’ll charge them additional if they are not.”
She grinned. “And they shall pay before we leave.”
“We’ll insist.”
She sobered from their banter. “The Cadot’s can also say of many things.”
“They’ll be able to say of everything.”
The boys stared, curious for a moment at their words, more conversation than in their lodge.
“Mino—good,” Ahmik said of the fish, showing proud his and Isaac’s smoking.
“Eya’—yes,” Isaac answered. “Good—mino.”
“You will know Ojibwa, only when we are leaving?”
“I’ll forget it all before we even reach Detroit.”
She was certain of it.
——————
Jacob stirred in the stillness of the dawn and Sokanon brought him to her from under his little tent cloth.
Isaac woke with a start, screams of panic and destruction, guns firing, echoing in his half-lucid mind.
Dark dreams were ever for them both. “You are awake, husband.”
“As are you, wife.” He breathed easier in her peace with Jacob. “The child is ever at his mother,” he said softly.
“I have let you sleep.”
He held the musket lain across his lap. Stretched his legs. “I didn’t want to trust the boys against the bears, with all the food packs.”
“No.” She peeked to them still asleep, wrapped in their trade blankets against the morning chill.
The fire burned a gentle flame. More wood was piled near. It troubled Isaac that her industry had not awakened him into his alertness. He laid his head back, watched the smoke rise to join the mist filtering through the branches. “It reminds of when the fog would slither through the shrouds and rigging lines, around the masts. The harbor a ghost in the quiet morning.”
“As at Quebec, sneaking from the convent while the others were only beginning their days. Down to the docks, where I would watch the traders and fishing men at their commerce. Sometimes the fog was as if alive.”
“That’s exactly it, Sokanon.”
She looked up with him. “It hangs heavy, Isaac.”
“The current in the narrow passage is stronger in the lower water. It’ll help our direction down to the lake.”
“Where the wind will surely come, then.”
He heard her concern. He spoke calm. “We still need to learn all her tricks, but the canoe will do well in the waves, I’m certain of it. It’s not a flat water craft.”
“You say it with pride.”
“It’s not a sin—to be proud of one’s accomplishments?”
“Sister would remind, to praise God for our skills.”
“But she’s not here.”
Sokanon laughed. “No, she is not.”
As much impertinence as she’d ever shown. Guilt poked at him sharper than usual. “Prayer has always made you stronger,” he said, “your family of priests and nuns. And your strength braces me.” He stretched his legs again. “As I’ve never felt before.”
“Stronger together, husband.” She kissed Jacob on the head. “A people of three.”
The boys stirred, Ahmik rising to lean on his elbow.
“I will truly miss the lad.” He wondered at the Ojibwa we’ll meet again.
“You are right, though, husband. It is as it should be, taking their places in their village as they are adults.”
“And they were right about this portage. I doubt we would have found it. And a straight shot across this peninsula.” He shrugged. “Who knows how much time it really saved us, though.” He blew in his hands. “I want to get moving. Be to yourself and let Jacob finish.”
“I am to make breakfast,” she said, delighting to finally tell him. “I was to have it for our last morning meal at the cabin. But I am glad to save it, to eat together with the brothers.”
He stared. “A surprise?”
“There is yet a good measure of meal flour in the tin. And I have kept the last amount of maple sugar. I will add some coffee to it.”
Isaac smiled at her thrift. “A right good porridge.”

5

“It can’t blow this hard for much longer,” Isaac grumbled again.
Sokanon thought maybe to jest, how many times he’d said it. But the two days in their refuge on the little island, hacked out of the tangled woods and waiting for the gale to blow itself out, had made her tired as well.
Isaac tilted his ears away from the roar of the wind. “Damn,” he swore. He stepped off the boulder, expecting to be taken to task again for profanity, but she let it be. Just as worn out and frustrated as he. He sat with her reclined against a fur bundle, Jacob next to her, swinging his arms at the playthings hanging from the hoop above him. Isaac raised the boy to his lap, turning him around to face the water.
Sokanon joined his sigh to peer across the lac des Hurons, grayed water ripped open before them. Far as they could see, crashing white waves.
“I remember my father shouting,” Sokanon said, “commanding to the others to keep to their paddles in the giant waves that roared like rapids. Fearful, watching my mother holding on to my baby brother, while the wind blew branches and leaves from the trees, over our heads far out into the water.”
Isaac knew the story. Awaited it again. “And yet, your father had them paddle on.”
He put his arm around her and they drew Jacob in tighter, each of them warming the other.
She leaned onto his shoulder. “When we are to rush Father Armand to the hospital in Quebec. When he lay stricken in the bottom of the canoe, when he could not move on his one side. When everyone was afraid he would die. Even my mother was afraid to his life.”
“But not you.”
“He moved his mouth to try to smile. I saw his God, my Lord Jesus, for the first time, in the peace of his eyes.” Again to her ring. “I have worn it every day since.”
Guilt again. Just a little. Teasing about her ring. “I’ve always given the Jesuits credit for their toughness. Their bravery in the face of death.”
The two of them were there, those she’d seen stand and not fight back as they were killed. In the arms of the one who ran and saved her life with his. “Not all, Isaac, you know.”
“I will never cease thanking him carrying you away. Whether or not his Brother’s might call him weak, or coward.”
She still would not tell of the other thing with the Black Robe.
Out to the crashing waves again, endless. Making the few miles to the mainland look so far away. The dark points of shoreline confusing in the ranging distances to the south.
Impatience pushed at Isaac again. He was up, onto the boulder once more. He pointed to the mainland, so close. “If the wind would slacken, even a little. We could push in a rush, straightaway, just across to there. To wait it out on mainland instead of here.” He squinted. “It can’t be more than two miles. It would still be a following sea, we’d have to batten down tight.”
Not with a fully-laden canoe and only two paddlers. Not with Jacob. Sokanon pulled at his arm, to settle him back against the bundle. “We wait, Isaac.”
He didn’t respond, caution unspoken between them.
“It is only God’s grace,” she told him, “we are here, at this island.”
“Hardly an island.”
“That is what I mean.”
He felt her satisfaction. It didn’t matter to him how the tiny rock outcropping appeared. After getting blown offshore in the sudden gale. From the northeast behind them, striking cold and menacing to chase them into the thrashing waves. That it was there, was enough for him. “Of course we’ll wait,” he said. “But, we have to stay ready. No matter when we are released from this storm, we’ll go straight across, then follow down the shore tight as we can, past that burned down mission for that Jesuit saint, Ignace.”
“We are ready, husband. But we must be patient for God’s will, sometimes.”
“Patient or not, if we don’t leave soon, I’ll eat all your pemmican.” He knelt for the food bag, rifling through to draw out a cake of the dried meat, rendered with fruit, as the Ojibwa made for weddings. “Very good,” he said. “Tres bon.”
They both relished the tart blueberries and chokecherries in the greasy fat of the meat, and he broke a piece off for her.
She took a small bite and chewed until it was mashed into pulp enough to feed to Jacob from her fingers. The boy scrunched his face at the new taste, until he smiled and swung his hands, gurgling for more.
They laughed at him.
She drew her fingers down his face. “Something other than the feeding of your mother.” Still his eyes followed her movement. Still if even a little behind.
Isaac watched her long, thin fingers, so strong at her tasks, move delicately across the boy’s cheeks. The breathed into the uncertainty of a family. “Such a wild country.” He thought he’d never get enough of searching the heights of the trees, swaying in the wind. “I wonder if we could settle somewhere long enough to get him some proper learning, in a proper school. —More than me,” he finished.
She eyed him curiously. He’d never spoken with regret before, forced from the teachers after the death of his family, his youth spent instead in the education of the fishing boats. So unlike hers, for all their sameness. “The Jesuits have schools for boys in Montreal and Quebec—colleges, with many teachers.”
“Not many Britishers want their children to go to school with black-robed Catholic teachers.”
It was true enough. But she wondered at him. “Is our son not to be Catholic, when he is baptized?”
“Yes, I suppose he shall be so. I have to admit, I’ve not once thought of it. I know it matters much more to you than to me.” It was a sobering thought. That he could not deny it. “So, I will have a Catholic son.”
“Your wife is Catholic. Father Pierre would say your son is already so.”
“You would ally against me?”
She smiled and laid her head back. “You think the British will kill Michiconiss?”
Isaac raised an eyebrow at the abrupt question. “I think someone might, eventually. If they can. Why do you ask that?”
To cease the talk of Catholic’s. That he would not say of them, that killed his father and grandfather. “The British soldiers coming again to the Mackinaw. Do you think they come for—vengeance, for the massacre there?”
“You can’t blame them, seeking revenge after the many innocent people killed.” The war continued boring its holes. Destroyed villages. Black smoke rising from the blood. “But I should hope they wouldn’t. A lot of them would end up dead. Maybe after killing many more innocent people.”
“But, how many soldiers, Isaac? There must be many, that Michiconiss would be so fearful as to bring the Ojibwa away. That maybe he thinks the army would come farther north, too? Maybe that is why the Cadot’s leave.”
“A strike across the channel? From a strong base at the St. Mary’s?” It was easy to see the possibility. He shook his head at her awareness of logistics. “How much of war and soldiering did you come to understand, in those long months under siege at Quebec?”
She shrugged. Kissed the top of Jacob’s head. While the cannonballs from the British gunships whistled again. The fear in the eyes of the teenaged French soldier, staring back at her from his place at the rampart. “We have both to much war, Isaac.”
“It causes us to always be alert to what we cannot know.”
She knew it well enough. “Sit, husband. Play with your son.”
He sighed. Settled close again. Put his finger into Jacob’s hand to grasp. It was a wonder to him, how quickly everything else receded. “Nothing has changed me as you. And now our child has, even more.”
He didn’t have to say. She knew that, too.
The wind quieted its roaring din for a moment. Then a mist blew at them from the waves against the rocks.
“Maybe the wind is changing.”
Isaac grabbed up the moosehide to drag across them, while Sokanon turned Jacob away from the cold spray, his giggling face sprinkled with water.
She thought of St. Anne’s Church at the fort, attending Mass there with Father Du Jaunay when she and Isaac came north. And then of the cross above the chapel at the Cadot’s landing. “I do not wish for Father Du Jaunay to baptize our son.”
Isaac understood. “Father Potier.”
“Yes.”
“Du Jaunay will insist.”
“He will.” She leaned back with Jacob and Isaac, protected by the hide that yet smelled of flesh, mixed with ash and smoke.
——————
The sounds of their paddles called to the silence of the night, the wind finally calmed. Turned away from the east, yet still northerly, cold but light. And at their backs, to help them along with its gentle push. Sokanon mused at the sliver of moon showing through the clouds. Its low light shimmering on the endless rippling surface only a short time ago raged a cascade.
Easy going as Isaac could have wished. The veiled night was there again, with Bradstreet’s amphibious attack. Volunteer bateau-man, oar in hand, ferrying other volunteers, fighters, regulars, scouts. Even accompanied by some Iroquois allies in their own canoes. All the transports astride in the silence and under cover of darkness. He tasted the fear again, gorge arisen from his stomach.
They frighted, Sokanon letting out a quick yelp for the moment it took to know the commotion all at once around them. Open-water ducks, exploding across the surface, churning the water left and right. Kicking and flapping in their wild disorder to flee the disturbance through their quiet nighttime rafting.
Jacob added his sounds to the strange noises and sudden movement.
“Yes, little one,” Sokanon said to him, covered in his cradleboard at her feet in the front of the canoe. “Sleep. Dormir.”
“How long before I won’t be able to understand both wife and son?”
“We will make you to learn, husband and father. Mari et père.”
Husband and father. It urged him on, well. In motion again. Their paddles once more the only break in the calm. Mercy after the last three days.
Sokanon squinted into the dark, trying to see the shoreline. Just keep the moon on the left. To their port, in Isaac’s sailor language. Somewhere out there the Ojibwa Michilimackinac. Great Turtle Island. Its rocky, humped-backed shape naming the entire area. The feeling of peace overwhelmed. Alone and surrounded in the great expanse of the lake. Calmed as a blessing just for them.
——————
They coasted in, closer to shore. The smell of village fires carried soft, alarmed them in the darkness, people of unknown temperament.
“Let’s keep going,” Isaac whispered.
Sokanon was already to it, the encounter with Michiconiss yet bothering.
They pushed along close in, quietly working their paddles amid the gentle sounds of surf rolling light onto land.
Jacob fussed and Sokanon called her attention to him.
“The dawn is only a few hours coming,” Isaac said low. “The village is far enough behind us. Let’s tie off and rest in the canoe for a while. Before starting off again."
Sokanon welcomed it. Both of them tired, even through the easy paddling. She tossed off the cloth covering Jacob’s face. He was awake, wide eyes sparkling from everywhere in the crystal sky night. She brushed her fingers down his face before bringing him to her. She and Isaac spoke in hushes, making themselves as comfortable as they could. She settled under covers into the bundles of pelts with Jacob, while Isaac leaned back onto the curved-up stem in the stern, wrapped in a heavy wool trade blanket, against the chill, and the mosquitoes.
——————
“It looks so far away, Isaac.”
The other shore, dark in the morning twilight. To the fort on the lower mainland. The hinting breeze from directly south, right in their faces.
He looked up to the tall poplars, listened to the leaves hissing more than he thought they should. “Flat wind.” He didn’t know what else to call them. Those strange breezes that seemed to carry just above the water, as if the waves themselves a windblock across the surface. “As long as it stays from the south, directly at our bow. The crosswind over the strait will help knock down the swells going between.”
She already knew his thought. That the canoe would slice across as a knife. She peered over the small, but endless choppy waves. She knew, too, once they started across, that would be it. They would push their way, no matter how the wind in its course. The risk to capsize too great, turning the laden canoe around, into the rolling troughs.
“We know what she’ll do, now,” he said, tapping his foot on the bottom of the canoe. “If the wind should come up on us.”
She waited for a moment, but he was quiet while he watched again the trees in the wind. It surprised her, how calm she felt. It would be a wet and hard paddle. Yet no visions of them spilling over, Jacob lost to her mother’s Trickster. “It is well, husband. The wind will push us back into shore.”
If they were to be overturned. She didn’t normally jest so, and it brought him cheer. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
“You will give until I have Jacob ready.”
He nodded, still buoyant to her. “Of course. Keep your spare paddle close, too.”
“Yes, husband.” She finished securing the line from Jacob’s cradleboard to her waist, bracing him in, surrounding with soft furs and covering against the spray. “I am ready.”
“We go hard. Now.”
They leapt to it, confident, drawing into what the canoe was made for.
Isaac hollered into the wind, sailor’s song, simple epithets of challenge to the nature of things. Sokanon laughed at him. Laughed at Jacob’s excitement. Jesus was there, and she wondered again, how it could be, fishing on a sea in a desert land. Only more miraculous every time one of the Sisters tried to explain it to her. Isaac was right. The canoe cut well through the waves.
———— (dbl sp)
The far shore neared, warmth from the lower mainland alternating in the cool breeze over the water.
“Many fires,” Sokanon said, wary of the columns of smoke rising. Hostility had always followed to the number of soldiers. Michiconiss and the other Ojibwa wouldn’t let fear rule them for long. Fired with resentment for such a major encroachment.
“A ship,” Isaac announced. “A two-master schooner.” Even in the distance he could see. “Maybe sixty feet of deck. Looks like eight guns.”
It was at anchor, just right there. How had she not seen it earlier?
“Has there ever been a vessel like her this far north?”
She wanted to laugh at him again, his youthful excitement. But it was a vessel of combat. A show of inescapable force, more than forts or soldiers. Michiconiss was right in his fear. How long before the Mackinaw would be like Detroit? Even Quebec? She followed along the hazy, broken shorelines over her shoulder. Which one, Great Turtle Island? She supposed it didn’t matter, now. Would they even come to this place again? She kept her own mixed feelings to herself. Left Isaac to his anticipation.
“Maybe it has brought a fur buyer,” he said. It felt strange. The prospect of the past three years literally at hand, as he pulled his paddle through the water. Sokanon was quiet. He heard her concern through it. Tried to deflect it. “Madame Cadot will be pleased to see you.”
“As will Monsieur Cadot, you, husband.” She rested her paddle, glad to be under the weather closer to shore. “Yet, I am eager to visit with Athanasie.”
“You can hold each other’s babes.”
She glanced down to Jacob. Wiped her face and smoothed her wet hair. “And you can say to Jean-Baptiste of your grand canoe, husband.”
“She runs well.”
“Very well.”
“Even if we are soaked through.”
“You more than me, husband.”
———— (dbl sp)
He ruddered toward the schooner to pass alongside for a better look.
She understood. Swept to his steering to bring them close.
Sleek and low-board, she would sail fast. GLADWIN read on the ship’s nameplate and three soldiers on board eyed them as they neared.
“It had to be built at the new shipyard on the island above the great falls.”
Sokanon remembered. “There was more than one.”
“That’s it, then,” he continued the certainty. “All the way from Quebec to here, the British will control the great waterway.”
“Yes, husband.”
They passed by the ship, Isaac studying every plank, every joint, every mark left behind by tools in worker’s hands. The two red-coated marines on deck were standing to, muskets in hand. Joined by their officer in his blue tunic. Everything the same. War or not.
The final strokes of the crossing drew them onto the irregular beach. Silted uneven by the chaotic currents of the strait, creating pools between a confusion of sand bars.
“That wasn’t so much trouble,” Isaac said, sloshing his feet in the water covering the floorboards.
“Then you shall do the much trouble to bail,” Sokanon countered his jest.
She was glad for it, to step out onto land. The wet sand shifted beneath her feet and caused her to wobble. Her entire body pulsed on unsteady legs, cramped from the long same sitting position.
Isaac saw. “I’m sore, too. It’ll take awhile to again get used to long hours on the water.”
She peered back across the strait to see the upper mainland shrouded by haze and looking even farther away.
Isaac saw the faraway in her eyes.
His gaze was there to meet hers.
“It is well,” she said.
A voyageur team was camped just inshore alongside their giant cargo canoe. None were familiar while they stared.
“They watch us, Isaac.”
He was already wary of them. “Yes.”
“It is strange, for not to be already in their wintering posts?”
Isaac nodded, continued to study. “Maybe it bodes well that a buyer might yet be here. Or maybe they’re hired on by the army as guides and hunters. Maybe only as haulers.”
She shook her head at the word. “Not these men, Isaac. None are to be haulers with us. Even with their big Montréal canoe.”
He understood. Agreed with her swift judgment. “No.”
A few of them started their way across the sandy shoals. Yet Isaac kept his watchful look on the two Hurons hanging back, narrowed eyes obvious in their menace. He turned away to help Sokanon with Jacob as the men arrived.
“I am Aubert—,” the first one said, French accent heavy and showing his teeth in a wide smile. “I am Capitaine of my team.”
His voice grated at Sokanon as Jacob let out a tut and squirmed. Enough to jostle the cradleboard. She grasped it tighter and dandled the cradle gently in her arms to calm him.
Isaac stayed silent. Wary. He peered from Aubert, to his men, and back.
“This very nice canoe my friend.”
The man couldn’t be trusted. None of them could. That was clear. But the entire area was filled with soldiers’ tents, the shore lined with bateaux and canoes. They wouldn’t dare anything here. “Merci,” Isaac said.
Sokanon wanted to tell him to push off again, away from the scheming that surrounded the air about these men. Yet she knew Isaac would use his ways to try them for information. She was aware of her own breathing waiting for him.
“Your team—” he finally said after his study. “Then you are not in the employ of the army?”
Aubert glanced around. Shook his head. “No. It is only by accident we arrive to the Mackinaw at the same time.”
“Is there a fur buyer here?”
The Frenchman’s eyes went wide, greedy, only for a second as he tilted his head to scan the bundles in the canoe. They wouldn’t be able to hide the furs anyway.
“No agents come,” Aubert said, scratching quick at his beard to try and conceal avarice. “Second year, now, eh?”
Sokanon pushed at Isaac’s calm resolve. “We are to camp, husband. Dry our things. Then I wish to find Madame Cadot.”
Isaac saw it, Cadot’s name shaded across Aubert’s face.
“We are glad to assist a fellow traveler,” the Frenchman deflected again. “Is no problem,” he went on, “we see you are alone with your woman and your babe.”
Sokanon waited for Isaac to say no. Send them off.
“Yes,” he said instead, “to carry our gear to the tribal lodges there, other side of the fort.” He pointed to where, a few hundred yards away.
Sokanon met his sly smirk with one of her own, seeing the frowns and lowered shoulders of the voyageurs.
“Sure, sure,” Aubert said, sideways glances to his men this time. “You must make a safe camp for your family.”
Sokanon kept a straight face. Took up her personal bag and backed away with Jacob.
“Oui, tres bon,” Aubert said about the canoe, back to his fawning manner, “this first-rate craft.” He ran his hands along the high sides. “For ocean, very seaworth in heavy seas, no?”
Isaac narrowed his eyes and breathed. The man’s touch to his canoe felt a personal affront. All the way back to Sakmowk.
“But,” Aubert continued, “I guess must be seaworth, for only two paddles, eh? And with un enfant?”
The others moved in closer when Isaac pulled at the tie-down ropes.
“That’s quite the haul of peltry,” one said. An Englishman. Speaking perfect king’s own.
“Yes,” Aubert agreed. “And with but only the two of you,” he repeated. “Is it Detroit you will go—now there are no agents?”
He was fishing, too.
Isaac felt Sokanon’s unease. He shook his head slightly. “Maybe we’ll winter over here.”
“Ah, my friend,” Aubert crooned, “there hardly be room for you and the misses, now that soldiers have returned.” He swept his hand toward the wigwams standing just outside from the walls. “It will be a long cold winter for those outside the fort.” He wagged his head. “But, there is no need for me to tell you ’bout hard winter.”
They all froze for a moment when Isaac heaved out one of the ninety-pound fur bundles, in one motion onto his back, to haul it the few feet to dry sand. All the hired trappers had to prove they could carry the large bundles. But, so readily? Sokanon stepped nearer to take the small bag from Aubert as he instructed his men to the other furs. Off they went toward the fort, laboring two each to a bundle.
“My men and I,” the Frenchman said, “we can help you to Detroit. Enough paddlers, to make it there quick, eh?” He motioned to Sokanon. “Your wife would not have to paddle at all,” he poked at Isaac’s side.
Isaac had his arm twisted tight around his back, hard up to the nape of his neck, his own arm around the man’s throat.
Aubert saw it and quickly dropped his hand.
“We have only just arrived,” Isaac told him, “we don’t know yet, what we are to do.”
“Of course.”
Isaac leaned the emptied canoe on its side to drain the water.
Aubert finally moved to help, holding the stern while the two of them turned it completely over. “Very fine canoe, my friend.”
Isaac slung the fur bundle once again on his back. He out-waited Aubert who tested him for his strength. A flicker of respect as the man gave in and grabbed up a bag to start away.
Sokanon wearied already of Aubert’s roguish manner, probing for weakness. Maybe Isaac had shown them his vigor enough to discourage malicious intentions.
“Husband,” she said, as they exchanged their unity.
“Wife,” Isaac returned. “I’ll be back and we’ll carry the canoe together.”
He strode off. Past the trappers’ camp where the two Huron warriors sat. He held their hard stares, looked close for their ill will, but couldn’t recall ever seeing them before.

6

Sokanon stood with Jacob to welcome Athanasie. She thought it well, the people halting activity at their wigwams to watch her arrive. More regal than even Kiwidinok, more than Sokanon had ever seen in any woman. Once a princess of her Ojibwa people and still well-respected by them. There was always the affinity, in spite of the older woman’s high position. Devoted Christian. Married to a white man in a Catholic service. She carried her new baby in her arms, three other children (daughters, 1756/1759; son, J-B, Jr., 1761/July 22, 1764) following, younger girl and boy led along by big sister.
Her beaded smock was as fine as any Ojibwa wedding dresses she’d seen. Colorful pattern blue and white stripe across the breast, red design of diamonds on white bars up each arm, tassel fringes hung swinging from the edges. Different than the one she’d last worn. How had she the time to work the many hundreds of beads with so many children?
“Bonjour,” Athanasie said.
Her easy greeting in French caused Sokanon to pause, always quiet when not in her native language with Jean-Baptiste. That they would speak privately now, in French made it more certain that she and Athanasie had never been alone together before. “Beinvenue,” she returned the welcome, offering her a place on the spread out blanket. They settled, sons to their mother’s laps.
“Your child,” Athanasie said, “he appears well, now?”
It comforted that she didn’t say of Jacob’s eyes. Sokanon tried to see her child’s, but he continued to sleep. “Oui,” Sokanon answered simply.
“Sakima and Kiwidinok’s people,” Athanasie spoke again, “when they come to Bahweting to fish, and the St. Mary’s post to trade, they said of your son’s birth. That the one that cuts the cord—the do-de-se’em in our language—tells of Jacob not breathing when he was born. That he, came alive, when your husband started to pray Our Father.”
Sokanon remained quiet, unsure what to say, as she noted their sons the same size though Jacob many weeks older. She wondered if he would always be smaller than the rest. He squirmed and swung his arms at the sounds of the other children.
Athanasie touched her fingers to his forehead. “You will have Father Du Jaunay baptize him, yes?”
Sokanon could only nod.
Athanasie smiled, watching her other children play with one another. “We are in the house next to the home of Father Du Jaunay. You will come, with your family. You shall not stay in this old lodge.”
Sokanon studied the small wigwam. How old? Its shingle of bark crumbling around the frame of bound branches. Yet comfortable enough sleeping the past night. The thought to their sameness came again. Both living in such homes as children. She wondered of the providence of it, but also of how Isaac would be, leaving their belongings outside, to board within the fort.
Athanasie’s calm look disarmed Sokanon’s apprehension. Still, she hesitated before agreeing with a nod.
“Good,” Athanasie asserted. “I wish for you now, while we are alone. To tell of the miracle birth of your son.”
Athanasie glowed in anticipation. But Sister Marie Catherine called at it. Blasphemy to speak of it as such. That God’s miracles were everywhere, all at once. It would be the first time talking about it with someone other than Isaac. But the words were there, ready at her lips, to speak instead of the child lost. How expelling the bloody mess made her worry that God thought her unworthy to a child. “But when Jacob…”
Athanasie stared, confused.
Sokanon regained herself. “I was in great pain.” It felt as in the confessional. “Much blood was from between my legs before I was unconscious. The we-eh’s death chants made me afraid and I tried to call to them, to stop their chants. Then I was, when my mother and father were killed.” She gave a nod to the babies in their arms. “My brother, too.”
“Maybe their spirits come to you, to protect.”
Sokanon stopped from shaking her head. “I only know—” she paused. “I was there again, and just as it was, nothing was to save them. God—did not save them.”
“Yet, he saved your son.”
Sokanon nodded slowly. “I heard Jacob crying, but I still could not open my eyes. Maybe his were death chants, too?” She looked up to the clouds. Imagined her Jesus and Mary ring against her skin under her smock. She brushed Jacob’s forehead where Athanasie touched. “Then I heard Isaac’s prayer, and at first I was confused, his words in French.”
She realized her jest and returned Athanasie’s modest grin.
“And then I awoke and I could see him standing, looking at me. It was the first I ever saw him afraid. And I knew he took all my fear onto himself.”
“The Lord heard his prayer.” Athanasie tilted her head. “And his son lives.”
——————
“So, Dobbins, Monsieur Cadot tells me you were a volunteer with Bradstreet.” Captain William Howard sat behind his desk. “One of his bateau-men, even before Beauport?”
“Yes sir,” Isaac returned. How easy his time in the militia flashed back.
“And then again, to Detroit with Captain Rogers.”
“Yes sir,” Isaac said again, more relaxed.
“All through the war with France, and then with Rogers and his Rangers. That’s a long commission, for a volunteer.” Howard stared, sized him up. “All for the pay?”
“I had nowhere else to go. Sir.”
Howard hesitated a moment. “It appears you found somewhere, though. Three years is it, living alongside the savages in the north?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You were not affected by last year’s rebellion?”
Isaac shook his head. “We came through,” was all he said.
The new commanding officer studied him. “That seems a might frivolous answer, considering almost the entire garrison here were slain—by supposed friendly natives?”
Isaac nodded quietly. Glanced to Cadot, sitting in a chair alongside.
The captain looked to Cadot himself before returning to Isaac. “Then you also know how tenuous yet, is our position at Mackinaw.”
Isaac wondered at that, with the flood of soldiers and a warship. “All up and down the lakes,” he deferred, “I would imagine, sir.”
Howard saw through it, his eyes narrowing. “This is but our third day here, Dobbins. And I have many duties to perform, seeing to the repair of the fort, not the least. I’m charged with the defense of the entire upper lakes region, with two companies of Regular’s and a ragtag lot of Canadian militiamen, whose service expires in a few weeks.” He scoffed. “I doubt those knaves will give me the same dedication and loyalty as you gave Bradstreet. For pay, or not.”
Isaac was silent.
Howard sat back. “Well, then. What can you tell me about the natives up there around the St. Mary’s?”
Loyalties careened inside Isaac’s head. “Sir?” he equivocated. Howard saw that, too, and Isaac thought they chose the right man for the new commander. In another time he might have his loyalty. “I don’t believe I can tell you more than what Monsieur Cadot couldn’t. Even less than he, to be sure—sir.”
“Come now, Dobbins. You live right there amongst the Chip’wa. And you’ve just come through there.”
Isaac wondered if it would help his cause. “What I can tell you, is the same thing that Cadot can. The Ojibwa feel they’re being pushed from their land.”
“Yes.” Howard leaned forward again. “How did you keep your scalp when so many of your countrymen lost theirs?”
Cadot spoke up. “Isaac ingratiated himself with the respected Ojibwa Chief, Sakima. He saved the chief’s son from drowning. —And…”
“And?” Howard waited as Cadot turned an awkward expression.
“And—I told them Isaac was a Scotsman. That the Scots had been allies with the French against the English in war many times, over hundreds of years.”
“There are plenty of Scotchmen in His Majesty’s army,” Howard countered.
“Yes, but,” Cadot’s brow rose as he started his point, “the tribes this far north don’t really understand that, yet. It helped that Monsieur Dobbins can somewhat speak French. And that he is married to a French-speaking native woman who is a baptized child of the Jesuits.”
“So that’s it—” Howard sighed facetiously, “drop the King’s own for French. And take a Catholic native wife?”
It showed Cadot’s standing, that he could laugh, as the Captain wasn’t making a joke.
Howard rubbed his arm above his elbow, unsuccessful again at hiding his discontent. “We’re a long way from the bonny hills of Scotland.”
“Never been, sir,” Isaac said. “I was born at Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia.”
“I’m a Rhode Islander, Dobbins.” Howard’s stern officer’s countenance returned. “Let’s us get to business, then. You know you’ve been trespassing on British Crown property?”
Isaac felt Cadot’s unease. “It wasn’t yet royal property when we first arrived.”
“Be that as it may,” Howard said, “the royal Proclamation—put into effect last year,” he asserted, “prohibits whites from entering Tribal lands in all the freshwater lakes, and their rivers, to hunt, fish, or live. I’m quite sure you have neither license, nor are under the employ of those who do.”
Isaac stood straighter. Remained quiet. What could he say?
“Yes.” Howard folded his arms across his chest before resting his chin in his hand. “I can have your furs confiscated, as contraband.”
Anger flashed in Isaac’s mind. Gave way to distress as the captain held his gaze. Settled finally to calculation. “After my contract with Captain Rogers was up, we came north as settlers and only intended to trap for personal trade at the Sault Ste. Marie post. Well, the furs and pelts just piled up. First there was the fire that destroyed most of the post. Then this rebellion with Pontiac halted all trade across the Mackinaw straits. And my wife was ready to have the baby at any time this spring. Cadot warned us anyway, not to travel until things settled down more.”
The Captain was quiet for a moment. “I’m not unsympathetic to your issue, Dobbins. We wouldn’t be having this conversation but for your time with Bradstreet, irrespective of that with William Rogers to Detroit.”
Isaac shuffled on his feet while Howard went on.
“But I must use my position here not only to restore British royal authority, but also to gain the favor of the local community.” He shot a glance to Cadot. “All the locals,” he asserted.
“You will gain favor by confiscating our three bundles of furs?”
It was Howard, calculating then. He stood, rested his hands on the desk. Keen eyes for Isaac. “I need a liaison to the Chip’s you have so well ingratiated yourself with. Agree, and I’ll see that your furs are not taken from you.”
So that was it. Isaac stared. “We need to get our furs to market this season. Before they start to rot.”
“We have a prospective British merchant who traveled with us from Detroit. A gentleman by the name of Henry. An acquaintance of Monsieur Cadot, it seems. I will, persuade him to purchase your furs.”
“I have met Alexander Henry,” Isaac said. “I have been told he is no longer here.”
Howard turned to Cadot.
The Frenchman shrugged. “Monsieur Henry is an incredibly active man. Who knows where he travels now.”
Howard pursed his lips. “It is all I will offer.”
Isaac felt the weight on his shoulders. “It’s not only our furs, sir. Our child—my son. He did not come easy. He was born upside down, small and early. And blue as squid’s ink. It was rough on his mother, too. We thought it best not to struggle through another winter at our cabin. It’s hard enough for us to dig out of the snow without having to worry about a little one. We are to take him to Detroit, at least, to see if a doctor can advise us, as to his condition.”
“How is the child, now?”
A little sympathy from the man? Isaac tried to play to it. “He is well enough to travel, we think.”
“And the mother is hale? I’ve heard it was just the two of you came across the strait, in high waves.”
Isaac nodded.
Howard paced a step. “Well, then. Tell me of the Tribes up there. If your information is useful, I’ll give you a letter to safe passage, at least to Detroit. After that, you’ll be on your own.”
Isaac hesitated.
Howard raised his chin, stood straighter. “I have only so much patience, Dobbins.”
Isaac finally said. “The Saulteaux Ojibwa have crossed the St. Mary’s to the northern shore.”
Both Cadot’s and Howard’s brows raised at the information.
“And their leaders,” the officer questioned, “those that led the massacre of the fort?”
Isaac nodded. He doubted they could catch Michiconiss anyway.
“Anything else?”
“I believe them to be without gunpowder and ammunition.”
The soldier coursed through the captain’s mulling. The same as from the battle-experienced officer’s during the war. “And, what of the other Chip’s, those whom you have lived in so close proximity?”
It was strange to Isaac how threatened he was by the question. How he felt he would join the village, in defense of their own, against those of his. “Sakima is wise enough not go against the British. He has even learned the language.”
Howard’s gaze sharpened. “The British, Dobbins?”
Isaac didn’t answer.
Howard relaxed his stance. Walked to peer out the window. “Well then. You may go. But don’t leave the post.” He turned to Isaac. “At least not with the furs.”
“For how long, sir?”
Cadot motioned for Isaac not to push.
“Do you know the Jesuit priest, Du Jaunay?” Howard asked.
“Yes, sir.”
Howard shrugged. “It’s no military secret. He’ll arrive soon with a delegation of Ottawa and Chip’wa from the mission at L’Arbre Croche. To finalize the new peace and the Proclamation. I want the tribal leaders to see the Gladwin, to know that we are serious in our determination to gain control of the Mackinaw Straits. And, it will also be no secret that the ship is to leave soon, to go into dry dock down-lake for the winter. She leaves soon after they arrive so they can see also, that the army is staying. I’ll give my decision when they arrive, as to whether you may accompany the squadron south.”
It was more than Isaac could hope for. He saluted smartly to Howard’s amusement. “Sir.” He turned to leave, Cadot excusing himself to follow with him out into the yard.
“We habitants don’t mind the British, Isaac,” Cadot said, a few paces between them and earshot of the captain. “Especially not out here in the wilderness, where any military presence helps ensure the trade. And they respect freedom of our Catholic religion, too,” he added. “Well, tolerate, anyway.”
Isaac followed his gaze up and across the yard from the British jack hanging limp on the flagpole, to the rooftop cross over Church of Ste. Anne. “Kings and Christ, eh, Jean-Baptiste?”
Cadot laughed. “Yes, my contrary friend.”
They walked on toward the front gate, past the two guards posted who wore the same gloomy look as had their commanding officer. Isaac nodded to them in comradeship.
“The captain is right, Isaac. For just the two of you, Detroit is a long journey.”
“I know, Jean.” He watched an eagle soar, gliding in a tail wind following the shoreline to the east. “But I do fear for my son. And—” It felt as a betrayal to Sokanon to say it. “Now that we’re at the water again, I just want to keep going.”
“Born to the water, Isaac.”
Isaac didn’t answer. He asked instead. “Will you stay here at the fort this winter, now that the Ojibwa have left Bahweting?”
“Athanasie won’t want to. But who knows, after I tell her of her people moving away from the area. It’s lonely enough in the winter there. You know.”
“I do.”
“We will have Father Du Jaunay’s Sunday sermons to help pass the long winter.” He motioned to the church. “We were married right here eight years ago. And our son Michel has just been baptized here, too. My wife should be as comfortable as any place, other than our home.”
“Well, Sokanon’s true enough to her Catholic faith.” There she was, as he and Cadot neared their campsite. Brightness showing through her always-discerning eyes. “But she fears, as I do, returning to the press of people in cities and towns.”
“There is danger everywhere, my friend.”
Isaac knew it was the only time to say. “It was because of you, and Sakima, that the warriors didn’t go any further than to only harass us. Sokanon and I are ever thankful to you and Athanasie.”
They came to their wives at Isaac and Sokanon’s little camp. Sokanon holding Jacob. Athanasie standing next to her, cradling her son, Michel, barely two months old. Their two older daughters chased each other nearby while the three-year-old son, Jean-Baptiste junior, clung tight at his mother’s dress. Cadot lifted his namesake onto his shoulders, little legs straddling his neck.
Isaac finally settled his restless eyes on Sokanon.
She had been watching him close all the way from the fort with Cadot. She stared now.
He stroked Jacob’s head.
But Sokanon’s attention darted. To where the two Huron warriors with the voyageur team of Aubert had suddenly neared.
Isaac followed her direction to see them, too.
“They make themselves deliberate to be seen by us, husband.”
“They are pressing for a fight, I think.”
“Non, Isaac.” Sokanon caught at his arm.
He pulled away, but halted at the end of the freighter, returning the glares of the Huron’s until they trailed slowly away.
“You have crossed paths with them before?” Cadot asked.
Isaac breathed. “I don’t know. I don’t believe so.”
“Well, do not incite them, my friend,” Cadot said in a low voice. “They are two of the team of Aubert, they arrived here yesterday.”
“You know the man, Aubert?” Sokanon asked.
“Not directly,” Cadot answered. “But he is known as Aubert la Méchant.”
“The villain?” Isaac guessed.
“That is close enough,” Cadot said
The evil one, Sokanon knew. “Non,” she scolded again. “Come away from challenging to them.”
“Yes, be careful,” Cadot warned, “it has only been a few months since the Tribes have ceased from attacking the British. The Hurons were just as belligerent as any of the others during this latest war.”
“They have no cause to be belligerent with us.”
“Come, my friend,” Cadot distracted, “tell me of the design of this fine canoe.”
Isaac spied the two warriors once again.
——————
It had been a long time and Sokanon stilled her thoughts in the relaxed family setting. Cadot readied to serve supper to the table while Athanasie sat aside with Jacob in her arms, tending proud and confident in her experienced motherly way. Strumming her foot up and down on the curved foot of the rocking cradle where Michel lay. Both infants hushed and content. The daughters played with the younger brother, teasing him gently in a game of keep-away with an animal figure of crude-carved wood. The three looked even more like their mother than the last she’d seen them. Even little Michel was more like Athanasie. Jacob already reflected his father’s face, hair already shading red.
She let her eyes wander around the house. The straight lines of the walls and ceilings. The fireplace set unyielding with large, round field stones. Windows covered with panes of glass. The bed invited comfortable, and the oil lamps shined bright on all of it. Not near as fine as the houses in Quebec or Montreal. Not even Detroit. But finer than their home at the St. Mary’s post. Hers and Isaac’s cabin was solid, but dark and roughed-in. Work on it constant, every day, to keep it that way.
She caught Athanasie, peaceful, watching her study at the house. Sokanon returned the amity between them. Not old enough to be her mother, but older sister, wiser, with many things to teach. But always there was the shared melancholy, their first lives adrift from them. Sister Marie Catherine would surely see it between them. The older children were louder in their playing and brought her mind to Isaac’s words for Sakima, that family were the only people. No matter where they lived.
Cadot’s hands were clean as he set the dish in front of Sokanon. It had been a long while since hers and Isaac’s hands were so. The meal was a stew, chunks of potatoes and wapiti meat, too overcooked to her liking. But it wasn’t pemmican. And it was hot. And she could eat as much as she wanted.
Isaac waited for Cadot to sit. “What of that Henry fellow?”
Cadot tilted his head in thought. “One can never know of young Alexander Henry. He likes to travel, as much as you, young Isaac.” Cadot looked to his wife before returning his attention. “Monsieur Henry returned early from his place with the Ojibwa delegation to the peace conference in Niagara. But—” He leaned closer as if to tell a secret, “he has also hurried back to recover his furs that he could not sell last month after being run off by threats to his life from Michiconiss.”
Sokanon frowned at his name, afraid and angry all over again for the threat to her family.
“We finally met Michiconiss,” Isaac declared. He thought maybe he shouldn’t say. “He accosted us when we were readying to portage around the St. Mary’s.”
“Accosted?” Cadot said, surprise showing as he frowned. “He is Athanasie’s cousin. And he understands you and your wife are our friends.”
“Sakima’s sons were with us, too.”
Cadot continued to question. “Then I cannot believe he should threaten you with harm.”
Isaac shrugged. “He didn’t really, threaten. He wanted gunpowder and shot from us.”
“Demanded,” Sokanon said.
“Well,” Isaac added, “we got the jump on him, anyway.”
“You did not confront him?” Cadot’s voice rose.
“He had four warriors with him. Only he and one of them had muskets. But it obvious their weapons were not loaded.”
“The covers were closed over the flash pans,” Sokanon expounded.
Isaac roused at her words. “Even my wife noticed. It was to his dishonor to confront us, so.”
Cadot sighed heavy and shook his head.
Sokanon touched Isaac’s arm. But Athanasie turned no concern to her husband’s displeasure of her kinsman Michiconiss.
“We thank you for the meal and warm house,” Isaac changed the talk. “Sokanon and I are still recovering our wits. We were forced to haul up from the wind for two days onto one of the islands north of the strait.”
“A nor’easter, as you sailing men would say, eh?” Cadot held his hands out. “I do not miss the days spent traveling the lakes by canoe. Even in the huge rabaska.”
Sokanon’s ear pricked at the Ojibwa word for the giant freighter canoes. She glanced to Athanasie, who continued her calm countenance, humming to herself, the babies seeming her sole attention. Sokanon saw otherwise. She knew herself how much you can learn staying quiet. Listening.
“It was well coming overland with my wife,” Cadot said, “then across in rough water by help from the Saulteaux. I do not like the waves, up and down.”
“I’ve seen experienced shipmates’ stomachs empty in rough seas.”
Sokanon scolded. “We are to eat, husband.”
Isaac shrugged an apology. “But, on the lakes by canoe we must travel, Jean.”
Cadot sighed.
“And, as such,” Isaac said to him, “what news have my countrymen brought from the lower lakes?”
Sokanon looked up from her plate, impatient for the answer.
“Well, my friend,” Cadot said, hesitating with a shrug. He scratched at the blue-black stubble on his neck. “The Tribes that were allied against the British are still seething. They are loathe to surrender just because my countrymen have to yours.”
Isaac noted no bitterness in the Frenchman’s voice.
“Resentment for us is strong,” Cadot went on, “as much as any I’ve seen since I was a younger man. But, we’ve had longer to familiarize with the tribes.”
Isaac agreed. “But, what of the rest, this Royal Proclamation? Will it hold the peace?”
Cadot continued to shrug. “Who is really to know?” He spooned at his meal.
Isaac started back to eating, too.
“And what about this Captain Howard?” Isaac asked. “Can Sokanon and I trust him?”
Cadot sat up, straighter. “With your furs? No. Your government has already started clamping down on non-licensed trapping.”
“Will they really bother, with only three bundles?”
“I know your work, Isaac.” Cadot motioned to Sokanon. “Both of you. Your furs are always very well prepared. They will be highly prized, by anyone.”
She turned to Isaac. “You think they are to steal from us, husband?”
“No,” Cadot said before he could answer. “Not the captain, directly. For himself, I mean. That would be out of character for most British officers.”
“Most?” Sokanon questioned.
“Not, steal,” Isaac hesitated, “confiscate.”
“He would do that, this Captain Howard?”
Isaac thought not, even after only the short while with the man. He shook his head. “It’s not what I meant about trusting him. At least not all,” he added. He shrugged. “It is actually his duty to order their confiscation.”
Sokanon wondered at his easy tone for the man he’d just met. One who could take from them all their hard work.
Isaac smiled, guessing at her reaction. “The captain said he may be willing to give us a letter of safe passage with the squadron to Detroit, when they travel south for the winter.” She surprised, as he knew she would.
It was even harder for her to believe. “Why would he do such thing?”
Isaac knew Athanasie didn’t know English, yet it felt a betrayal to say in front of her. How he had told of her people abandoning their late-season fishing grounds.
“The captain was impressed with your husband’s effort in the war.”
Isaac flashed a grateful look to Cadot. “Yet he only gave me an audience because we are friends.”
Cadot waved it off. “He has only known me a few days.”
“He knows your good standing with your wife’s people. And her wide reach among them.”
“Of course you are right.” Cadot’s mustache hung with stew. “But I could see his, impression, of you grow, when he heard you were one of the volunteer bateaux-men during the attack on Beauport.”
Sokanon stared a questioned look, even as the memory came again. Black storm clouds rolling in suddenly to overtake the British troop transports. Down the river, water churning below them from the wind. Lightning flashing, thunder added to the sound of the French cannons on the ramparts two miles away at Beauport. The elation through the streets for the victory. The storm proof that God was on their side, and would see them through the British siege of Quebec. It was still strange to her, her future husband at the steering oar in one of those attacking boats, coming through, assailed by both God and man.
“Non, Isaac,” she said, “Monsieur Cadot.” She insisted. “No more tonight, again of war and battles.”
Isaac sighed. “It has been a while since we’ve talked about our countries’ affairs.”
“Yes,” Cadot agreed, “and it is hard not to talk of war, eh?”
“It’s not hard to believe we will ever be against each other.”
Cadot laughed.
Sokanon wondered at how easy it was for them to talk the blood of battle.
Isaac looked away. Leaned to see Jacob held still in Athanasie’s arms. “I have never had to worry about a family before.”
Sokanon’s eyes focused. “Yes, is more than only ourselves now, husband.”
Cadot wiped his mouth after swallowing a spoonful. “Yes. It is a wild country, my friends. When my father came to Mackinaw in 1717, it was too far away then to be fought over. Now, it is the most important post of the upper lakes.” He tossed his hand through the air. “You will worry for your children no matter where you settle. No matter who surrenders in the next war.”
“Settle and surrender.” Isaac watched the flame in the fireplace.
Cadot’s lips spilled tea as he brought his cup down abruptly. “Your wife is right, young Isaac. No talk of war tonight.”
“Not war, Jean. Not exactly. Of course you are right, that nowhere is completely safe. And, maybe because we have not talked in such a while, my mind drifts. This, settle and surrender, you say. It’s that strange circle we talk of. The man who led the attack on Fort Anne that killed my father and grandfather…” He welcomed Sokanon’s hand on his arm.
“I say again—” Cadot’s tone turned serious. “I traveled with Nicholas de Ramezay before the war, I was not there at Fort Anne.”
“I know, Jean,” Isaac waved him off. “Even if you were, it’s no bother. But, the same man, Ramezay, was he who surrendered Quebec to Colonel Townshend. Where Sokanon lived.”
“Yes, yes. And I was born in Batiscan, very near.”
Isaac shook his head and shrugged, still no memory of the town they had to come through on the way to Detroit.
Cadot gestured to Sokanon. “And I met many of your wife’s people, Montagnais and Cree in my travels with de Ramezay.”
Isaac nodded. “There is my thinking. Sakmowk’s Mi’kmaq’s were friends with my family at Nova Scotia, my father and grandfather only grudgingly joining against them when their warriors allied with the French. When the fighting made it too hard to tell friend or enemy. And my wife’s family, attacked by raiders allied to my King’s government.”
“Non,” Sokanon urged again.
She startled when Cadot rapped his knuckles down on the table. “We will always be one in our thinking, my young English friend—your wife, too. We came to the north to start a new life. You with your wife. I with Louis Repentigny in 1750, when we built the post at the St. Mary’s, and then staying on as his agent.” He motioned to Athanasie. “Then is when I found my wife, and now here is our home, with our children.”
The words swam in Sokanon’s mind, melancholy to content. She let the displaced feelings run. Everything she was in life. Daughter. Sister. Orphan. Wife. Yet, everywhere she goes now, mother. “I shall miss you both, also,” she said to Athanasie and Jean-Baptiste. She squeezed Isaac’s hand. “But it is well, our leaving.”
Athanasie spoke in her first language, eloquent, flowing, Sokanon hearing the call to her past. When Cadot answered, fluent himself in Ojibwa, yet sharp and cutting, she and Isaac waited for him to tell of her words.
“My wife says that Mackinaw is not her home.”
Sokanon and Isaac laughed. She was glad to see him so relaxed. That they both understood what Athanasie meant.
“What does my wife know of the Mackinaw and St. Mary’s?” Cadot teased at her. “She is, anyway, from Nipissing.” He threw his hand out to exaggerate the long distance east of the lake of the Hurons.
Athanasie spoke again in her language.
Cadot sighed and wagged his head. “She says, a far ways from any war.”
“It is exactly what I mean,” Isaac said to her, certain his sentiment would show through, if not the exact words. “Our cabin was the first home either of us could call our own. It is hard to leave it.” He put his hand atop Sokanon’s. “But, maybe Sakima is right. Maybe we should just keep on going further, to the Saguenay and your people.”
“Or all the way to your Nova Scotia.”
“Either way, my friends,” Cadot said into the quiet reflection, “we will miss you both. I will miss your visits to the post. Even if all our conversations are the same.” He glanced to Sokanon. “Always of war and battle.”
Isaac agreed. “Wherever we settle, just not again smack in the middle of the next war. Or the next surrender.”
——————
She stopped her instinct to force past the quickly-crowded circle of yelling men. Not with Jacob. She wanted to hand him over to Cadot, push through their rowdiness, to help Isaac in the fight. But the Frenchman roused to the melee, too, hollering encouragements among the rest of the voyageur team, the gathering of militiamen. She could only stand back, catching glimpses of her husband between them, grappling with the two Huron’s.
The smell of liquor was heavy while the voyageurs were yet passing around an ale jug. A quick sight of Isaac, bloodied mouth and nose, but eyes piercing in concentration, measuring his foes. He tumbled one of them to the ground, it was the big one. She cheered, until his mate came from behind to wrap his arms around. Isaac flipped him over his head and for a moment, both Hurons were down. The first was on his feet again lunging unsteady. Isaac sidestepped, turning aside the awkward advances. Landed a punch. Then another, square on the jaw. The man keeled over again. Out, arms and legs spread flat to the ground. The others in their wildness blocked her view again.
It had been years since Isaac had struck another man. What it was about, didn’t matter. There were two of them. And that the others had closed the circle far too tight, his wrath fired. A fist to the chin of the taunting Huron. Another fist, flush on the man’s nose. Another and the warrior went down in a heap, the hard liquor that made him an easy target, grogging his senses as he lay, out cold.
The other Huron came again, instigator of the brawl. But he was hesitant after seeing his bigger mate dispatched. Isaac sensed it from him, the man wavering unsteady in his rum-slowed reflexes. Isaac readied himself, but waited, calculating. “Don’t stop now,” he glared his challenge, the warrior’s honor already asserted. The man went for his knife. “You won’t dare¬,” Isaac raged through his teeth at the contempt, attacking before the weapon was gained. The metallic sound of it on the stony ground chimed in his senses…guns with their bayonets falling from dead hands. All around him the screaming men were only noise, their movements so slow he felt he could strike all of them at once. Only their wall kept him from running the man heavy into the earth.
Sokanon screamed when the warrior grabbed at his knife. She covered Jacob and fought to push her way through, but she was jostled too hard, forced to back away. She screamed again, helpless. Fear. Anger. Isaac stabbed and bleeding, another in her life gone, the one she loved the most. The crowd surged back and she was knocked to the ground, where she saw him—blessed Mary—between the legs of the rioters. A different fear stabbed instead, Isaac’s eyes filled with rage. Hate. Murder. And for the first time she thought to be afraid of him.
He seethed as the metal taste of blood boiled in his mouth. His hand against the Huron’s throat, squeezing his chokehold until strength waned, life draining from the force of his grasp.
“Isaac!” He heard her through the fury, wild in his head. “Stop!”
Into the charged air another. “Cease and desist!” the voice boomed over the din.
Sokanon felt the crowd open around her with the suddenness as doves escaping the eagle. She turned to see soldiers arriving, a high-ranked officer with men spread out in lines either side of him. Captain Howard. They halted, muskets at the ready, bayonets steeled and garish. She stood and pushed her way through to Isaac, Jacob screaming.
“I’ll not say it again,” Howard ordered, “next man throws a blow will spend the next twenty-four hours chained in the underground storeroom of the powder house.”
Isaac rose off the half-dead Huron warrior, his knocked-out tribesman just coming to, risen to lean on his forearm.
Sokanon drew Isaac to her while the crowd gave way for Captain Howard who glanced to Cadot then swept his hard gaze around, man to man. Isaac looked away at his turn.
“I should arrest the lot you,” Howard exclaimed. He relaxed his stance. “I’ll have the jug.”
Sokanon soothed Jacob quiet while she watched as no one moved, their heads down. God forgive her disdain for them. But were they to not stop the fight, before…
“Corporal Elliot—” Howard announced, startling her.
“Sir!” The soldier went right to one of the voyageurs. He waited for a moment. “Shall I rifle your tent for it, mon ami?”
The trapper shifted on his feet.
“We saw you put it in there, mate,” Elliot said.
The other knew he was bested and retrieved the liquor.
“Make sure some of that goes to the doctor, corporal.”
“Sir.”
Howard motioned with his head. “You militiamen back to your tents. I’ll remind you, gentlemen, as long as your commission runs, you are under direct Crown military authority, answerable to courts-martial. For as long as you’re here—” he glared around the yard, “that means me. Do not try my patience. Drinking and brawling will not be tolerated.”
The men dispersed, resentment and guilt showing plain.
“Now then, which of you is Aubert?”
“That is me, Capitaine.”
“These are your men?” Howard asked of the warriors, just being helped to their feet.
Aubert shrugged, casual in his manner. “They are part of my team, yes.”
Howard moved in closer, forcing the shorter man to step backward. “And under military contract as well?”
It wasn’t really a question.
“We are but lowly haulers, Capitaine.”
Howard stared until Aubert stopped his toothy grin and stood straighter. 
“Well, then,” Howard said. “I’ll have you keep your men in check while you’re on the grounds of the fort.”
Aubert swept his hands toward the group. “You cannot expect there to be no disagreements between former enemies.” His condescension was plain before miscalculation flashed across his face as Howard bristled.
“Don’t be here tomorrow,” the captain flared. “You, nor your, team.”
Sokanon cheered the pronouncement to herself.
“See the paymaster today,” Howard ordered, “and leave before the sun rises full in the morning.”
“Our full pay, Capitaine?”
Isaac lauded the audacity, even as stupidity.
Howard tilted his head over his shoulder. “Corporal.”
“Sir,” the young man stood to. Stamped his foot to attention, eyes narrowed toward Aubert. The order to leave would be enforced in detail.
Aubert’s gaze shifted between the two soldiers.
“Yes, Captain.” In perfect English.
The voyageurs helped their mates toward their campsite, while the Canadian militiamen continued to slip away, under Howard’s continued scowl.
Sokanon wanted to loose her own wrath. “I saw, Isaac.” She couldn’t even be proud, besting two men. Shame and fear called against it. Inflamed her anger. “You were to kill that man.” She wiped hard at the blood from his mouth, making him wince. “And for what reason? He was already to be beaten.”
He let her fuss over the bruises and welts on his cheeks, her rough touch bringing the world back into his senses. Their son, still distressed, in her arms. Death and destruction reflected in her eyes. He thought to apologize.
“Dobbins—” Howard called his authority, chin raised soldierly. “You too, Cadot.”
Sokanon followed alongside her husband.
“It was the Huron’s,” Cadot declared, “but I warned the young man,” not quite supporting. “The canoemen had been drinking,” he said the obvious.
“They were looking for a fight,” Isaac said.
“And you were not, Dobbins?”
“My husband stays from alcohol,” Sokanon defended before she realized drinking was not what he meant as Howard peered at her. She wondered at his lingering eyes on her and Jacob.
“We were hoping to find word of Monsieur Henry,” Cadot said, “to see if he might be able to offer advice on their furs.”
Howard’s hard look for Isaac did not soften. “The Jesuit Du Jaunay and his delegation arrives just this morning and you chose this afternoon for a skirmish?”
Isaac kept silent.
“What say you, Dobbins?” Howard pressed. “Do I have to confine you and your wife and child to inside the fort?”
It surprised him, thinking the captain might send them away, too. “No, sir.”
“I will if I have to,” Howard continued to reprimand. “I’ll not have some petty drunken incident touching off another uprising.”
Cadot shook his head. “I do not think the Ojibwa and Ottawa delegations will care about a private quarrel, with Hurons.”
“If anyone would know that, it would be you, I’m sure. Be that as it may—” Howard stressed, “I shall not have another brawl. No matter who starts it. Dobbins—It’s best you do join the squadron leaving day after next with the Gladwin.”
Isaac started to thank him.
Howard stopped his words. “You’ll take an oar in one of the transport boats. Pull your weight back down.” He looked Isaac up and down. “Fit or not.”
“And our canoe?” Sokanon questioned.
Isaac settled her, pulling at her arm while Howard looked on.
Again she wasn’t sure, pique or curiosity, as he continued his odd scrutiny of her and Jacob. He didn’t answer and she shied from his gaze.
He turned to his men. “Corporal Elliot, organize your squad.”
The young soldier snapped to it. “Squad—lines to the left and right!”
The soldiers double-stepped to form an escort to either side for the captain, back to the fort.
Sokanon wiped again at Isaac’s mouth. She wanted to hit him herself.
He followed the pockmarks on her face. They did nothing to mar her beauty. Even through her wrath. The blood and violence receded farther as he watched her. “I’m sorry.” Not for the fight, but…
“It sounded as if they knew you from the war.” Cadot’s interruption perplexed Isaac.
But he was glad for the reprieve as Sokanon’s glare of judgment deflected in question. He shook his head. “I do not remember either of them.”
Yet Sokanon’s disapproval continued to frown. She started in French, then caught herself. “I say, non to fight with them, Isaac.”
“They came at me. I could not walk away.”
“You could have tried.”
“They were hell-bent,”
“Do not swear, husband.” It was all she had to chastise him.
He brought her hand away from his face. “We’ll be on our way soon.”
“Yes, young Isaac,” Cadot warned, “and you must not provoke any more regrettable action, now that Captain Howard has confirmed his offer for you to accompany the squadron.”
Isaac agreed. But there was something different in the offer than earlier. The way he stared at Sokanon. “Why did he look at you like that?” he questioned.
“I do not know, husband. But he watches Jacob also.”
The man was still in sight, tall among his escort.
Cadot shrugged. “Perhaps he sees a wife and child of his own left behind.”
Perhaps.
Sokanon squeezed Isaac’s arm tighter.
He nodded to her worry.
Their journey only just started and already beset by so many troubles. 
——————
The dust came down again from the rafters, shaken loose by the cannons firing against the French siege. Maureen’s face buried into mama, but it was enough to know the terror in her eyes, to to see it in their mother’s. No fear from Granny Dobbins, her strength still holding him, snug inside her sturdy arms.
Little Michel’s incessant crying brought Isaac away from his study of the beams supporting the roof. Church of Ste. Anne. Grandmother of Jesus. Fort Anne at Annapolis Royale, named for the queen. Protestant. Catholic. He never bothered to the difference. Church services were all tedious. Even the baptism of his own son. Papa would be furious. Granny, too.
Sokanon pulled at his arm, reminding him to be still and respectful.
He leaned close to her ear while Du Jaunay went on in the language of the church, his voice barely over that of Cadot’s crying child. It wasn’t the baptism she wanted, the priest she hardly knew. He’d rather Father Potier, too. Pierre was a good man. Catholic or not. “He protests for you,” he whispered of the caterwauling baby.
She heard his amusement and pinched the back of his hand, digging her nails into his skin.
Jacob lay quiet in Athanasie’s arms, she and Cadot standing proud, presented as godparents. Their children aside, little Michel bawling away, in the arms of the oldest daughter. The French citizens of the town. The Ottawa and Ojibwa delegation from L’Arbre Croche. And Howard, with his sly look, standing next to the tribal leaders and their families. Jacob’s baptism a show from the captain, of British solidarity with the Jesuits and their religion. Isaac mused at the fantastic turn of fate. A Frenchman and Native woman godparents to his child. Jacob used as a facilitator to affairs of state between the two.
Sokanon settled Isaac’s restiveness yet again.
Father Du Jaunay spoke the prayers to make the water holy, pouring it over Jacob’s forehead, anointing into his scalp. She followed his words in Latin so well in her head. He looked tired, his voice cracking trying to speak over the crying baby. Maybe he was worn out from the journey escorting the delegations to the fort. But not too tired to insist on performing the baptism, reminding of the dangers for an infant’s life. Not to wait for Father Pierre, who might not even be at Detroit. She gave an impatient glance to Howard, at attention, his uniform perfectly buttoned, officer’s cap held to his side in a white gloved hand. She had to abide to the British officer’s insistence, too. At least she understood why he appeared so interested in her and her baby.
She nudged closer to Isaac. Little Michel continued to wail in his sisters’ arms, drowning out Father’s words. Jacob giggled and squirmed and she had the idea if Athanasie held him in the font he would happily kick and play in the water. She wondered, that no one had said anything about his eyes.
The ceremony ended and Athanasie handed Jacob over. Sokanon smiled warm, her feelings for the older woman deepening over the past few days. The days and nights spent close with her and her family. A woman’s peace, mother to mother then. The strong notion to never see her again after she and Isaac would leave. Always, sadness and joy confused together.
Athanasie stepped aside for the others and held her head high, royal princess of her people. Another chance to show her prominence, at the center of the Baptismal Rite.
“I know it’s not the way you wanted,” Isaac said low.
“It is well, husband. A very fine baptism.” She swept her eyes around. “Many more attended than we could have had anywhere else.”
Isaac started to agree when the Ottawa and Ojibwa in attendance interrupted.
One after another they came to Sokanon, to wish their blessings in their own languages, on mother and child. A few gave small totems, and Isaac had to hide his amusement at the Jesuit priest’s sidelong glances for the talismans of Native spiritualism. And Howard’s continued calculating measure for the entire ceremony.

7

“Present!” The ship’s captain held his sword to his chest.
The order came while Sokanon watched the eagle on its easy, soaring flight, following the outline of the shore toward the Mackinaw fort. How long since it had come to her? Her thoughts so directed to Jacob. That was miracle enough. Binesi. Her mother’s Cree word. The great Thunderbird who punishes people. So close, tilting its head to stare down right at her, even through all the shooting, yelling. Its giant wings flashing through the sunlight passing overhead while she looked in vain for them. Father. Mother, carrying brother. The terrified Black Robe holding her tight in front of himself, swearing words among prayer, for their escape from the warriors’ guns. Bullets splashing nearby the canoe as the two other men paddled frantically while ducking down. Looking to see it again, the Binesi, yet soaring, watching the entire thing. To her child-self, retribution for something her family had wronged.
“Prepare to fire.” The captain held his sword out.
“Aye, sir,” the one with the lit match answered, the smoking rod held just above the touchhole.
She readied, turning away from the gun and clutching Jacob tighter, covering his ears between her hand and body.
“Fire!” and swept his sword down through the air.
The cannon roared and belched its inferno from the deck of the ship. Not as loud as the huge guns at Quebec, but the smell, caustic, of death and destruction, brought her back to where she would sneak close to the lines of cannons on the ramparts of the besieged city. Jacob cried immediately at the sound and she bounced him in her arms to calm him. Another report blasted away at the quiet of the strait, a cannon from Michilimackinac answering the departure salute from the Gladwin. She scanned to see the eagle had gone.
“Raise topsails, fore and a-mid, Mr. Stuart,” the captain said, sheathing his blade, the sound of steel grating steel in the scabbard. He gestured toward the front of the ship with his head, huge triangle hat nodding.
“Raise topsails!” his officer repeated the order, “fore and a-mid!” and all at once there was activity as the men jumped to the command.
She followed their effort as they pulled on the ropes, lifting the heavy sailcloth to the top.
“Pull up the stay and then run out the jib, please.”
She’d heard some of the terms many times. At the docks. Called from the ships out on the water.
The men scurried forward at the order to pull on more ropes, sending the odd-shaped sheets up and out along the bow-sprit mast pointing from the front.
“We’ll hold off the mainsail until we put her round abeam,” the captain said.
“Aye, sir.”
“Maybe the wind will change and we won’t have to tack.”
“Aye, sir. It’s good to be getting away before the snow and cold.”
“Carry on, Mr. Stuart.”
“Aye sir.” The man skipped away to inspect the work of the others.
The workings of the ship held her fascination while she continued to try and settle Jacob. She steadied her footing as they heaved from the wind in the billowing sails. It was different than she’d imagined, after a lifetime watching the huge vessels. Exciting, but making her uneasy at the same time, standing high above the water. It made her think of the tale, on the back of the giant Michilimackinac turtle spirit. She thought she knew immediately, Isaac’s fascination with the sailing ships. She searched across the water, the short distance to him, rowing as a member of the crew in his assigned bateau, towing their canoe behind.
The captain and men went on in their duties and she leaned to sit away, in the corner of the railing in the very back of the ship. She had seen the man and the two women passengers in the fort, wealthy townspeople. She was self-conscious at how they looked at her, with her crying baby. It brought the memories, too, from many of those at Quebec. They belonged, she didn’t. The sailors were too busy at their tasks, but she saw their sideways glances.
——— (dbl sp)
“How is it your Catholic squaw travels with us so?”
Isaac rowed, his oar joined with his boat mates. “She is my wife,” he answered sharply.
“In a papist service?” the man sneered.
Isaac listened to the snickers, remembered the few gibes after leaving Quebec with Captain Rogers for Detroit. When anyone French, or Native, was enemy. He breathed, stayed quiet and continued to row.
“To yourselves, gentlemen,” the man at the steering oar called. He motioned to Isaac. “Dobbins?”
Isaac nodded. “Potter?”
“Greene,” the man answered, “Potter’s the fellow calling out the pace. That’s John Hartley, with the big mouth.”
“Big enough to shout out backsliders to the Church of England.”
“To your oar,” Greene admonished Hartley. “If you please, gentlemen,” he said to the rest of the crew.
The chatter ceased even as the buoyant air filled again in the boat—all the boats—as they headed south. The men were going home. But Isaac knew. Overheard Howard, after the captain’s order allowing Sokanon to sail on the Gladwin. That the men would garrison at the new fort on the upper strait, Patrick Sinclair to release them on his own order. He knew of Patrick Sinclair. Knew the man would work the militiamen to finish building the fort, if needed. That the Canadians didn’t know, told of their officers’ silence of Howard’s order. Isaac wasn’t sure it mattered. The men would be kept at the new fort whether they knew or not. It was probably easier not to hear them complain the way down.
The morning sun shined golden on Sokanon and Jacob, looking out to him from the deck of the ship. He knew it was for show, his Indian wife and baby aboard one of his majesty’s vessels. Same as the baptism, under the watching eyes of the almost-Catholic delegation leaders. He had to give Howard his due, masterful understanding as the situation presented itself. Great bit of diplomacy, if not soldiering, and Isaac wondered how he could have done any better as Howard’s liaison to the Tribes. He didn’t care as the escape with his family ran to his thoughts.
The captain’s orders for ship’s crew drifted on the wind. He followed Sokanon as she turned away from his view to retreat with Jacob to the stern, to sit out of the way as the sailors buzzed their activity. Topsails hoisted, billowing immediately in the breeze. Nova Scotia was never so near as the sight and sound of canvas full of wind. The jibs went out a-bow and the ship edged away, catching the offshore wind across her beam. She would run out in the deeper water, raise the main sheets and tack back and forth to the weather gage, southwest to southeast.
Mackinaw was very soon lost to view as their little squadron rounded the headland, the northernmost point of the lower peninsula. The waves were low, but the natural cadence of the lake swell struck Isaac again with its faster rhythm than the ocean. The loaded freighter stretched at its tether behind the bateau. That’s what John Hartley was truly upset with. He, and the others. The extra work to tow his and Sokanon’s belongings. More than her being Catholic, almost as French as the French. He imagined her fascination, on the sailing ship, after all the time she’d told him spent at the docks and piers. Imagined Jacob’s fascination, too.
———— (dbl sp)
Sokanon braced against the lean of the ship. A little farther over and she thought she might be able to trail her fingers in the water. The currents from the hull against the surface streamed past, and she wondered how fast. Tried to remember the speed of her father’s Montreal’er, with its full crew of paddlers. The steer-man was at the ship’s wheel, turning farther and farther out into the open water. The captain stood near, hands held behind his back. His feet were as if rooted to the deck even as it rose and fell, swayed at its tilt. He and his sailors were at ease with it, no concerns but to their duties. Seeing Isaac in his bateau comforted, she watched all their oars splashing in time.
She sat out of the way of the crew who were never still, always moving at some task or another. Tying down ropes. Checking the parts of the ship with their strange names. Capstan. Halyard. Gaff. Driver. Orders shouted and answered. More work than she’d imagined. And when the sailors needed to attend to ‘tackle’ ‘rigging’ ‘halyard’ or some other thing close by her, she sank into herself much as she could with Jacob. They acted as if not to notice her, but she saw their quick glances of curiosity and bother. The same averted stares as from the three wealthy citizens aboard. The man leaned against the railing on the other side of the ship, taking deep breaths, trying to steady himself from the waves, up and down. The two women traveling with him below, sick from the motion.
She felt no sickness, but absorbed by the other noises. From everywhere, in between the voices. Quiet, eerie sounds that made her think of the forest in a strong wind. Sails instead of leaves snapping, ropes rubbing while the tall masts creaked, as branches and tree trunks would. The ship itself groaned and Sakima’s prayer for Isaac’s canoe resounded. That the spirit from the forest yet lived in the materials of a boat’s construction. She couldn’t decide whether she was scared or not, never so far out on the water. How could Isaac, the other fishermen, keep their senses on the great ocean, beyond the sight of land?
She closed her eyes and pressed for her ring, to say a silent prayer to Our Lady for thanks and safe passage. How quickly the movement of the ship upset in her belly then. She opened her eyes and the queasy feeling eased. It went away when she looked for the bateaux, far off then in the distance. She couldn’t find which was Isaac’s, and she called out silent words to him.
——————
“The daft Scot woodsman.”
Hartley again.
Isaac stayed quiet while he ladled from the pot hanging over the cook fire. Their derision was tiresome, but the free meal of hard tack and broth, would go good with Sokanon’s pemmican. He swept his hard gaze to the faces aglow from the flames, wondering if any of them would challenge him outright. He doubted it as they averted his stares one after the other. He started away.
“Too good to eat with us civilized Canadians?” someone taunted.
A few muffled laughs went around the circle.
“We’re towing your gear,” he heard over his shoulder.
Sokanon was sitting close to their own fire, the soft light enough for her keen sight while she mended the cradleboard. Jacob lay quiet next to her, nestled on the ground in the Ojibwa reed basket Athanasie helped her to make.
“Husband,” she greeted.
Her eyes sparkled in the light of the fire.
“Regular army supper,” he told her, “hard tack and broth.”
“It is hot, it will be good.”
He decided against telling her they would not again take from the cook mess of the militiamen. “We did over thirty miles today.” He broke up the hard tack and pemmican into a mug, pouring in the broth to make the thick stew for her. He waited for her to set the cradleboard aside, joined her in her short prayer of thanks. “Amen,” he finished with her.
“Thank you. It has been some time for you to join me.”
“Today reminds we have had the fortune of grace together, wife.”
She took the steaming mug from him and shook her head. “Good times, and bad, Isaac. You can not choose when to serve the lord.” The fire crackled its peace, the rolling flames soothing. She spoke to it. “We have been very fortunate in our life together, husband.”
He settled next to her. Grabbed Jacob’s toes, tickled the bottom of his foot.
“He is almost to sleep,” Sokanon admonished.
Isaac took his hand away.
They started at their supper. Hot. Good, after a full day on the water.
“And you were truly not afraid?” He motioned over her shoulder, to the Gladwin at anchor.
“Of course I was,” she admitted. “I have never been so far on the water, so far from land. But, I was more afraid to not see you.”
“And no seasickness—non, mal de mer?”
She smiled at his French. “Only when I close my eyes, or look down. But it went away when I looked far out again. The townspeople—husband, wife and sister, were all sick.”
He heard the satisfaction in her voice.
She looked away from his musing. “All the times I have seen the many ships coming and going from Quebec. And then so many more, during the battles. I finally saw how they make ships go forward into the wind.”
“Tacking.”
“Even when the men were silent,” she went on, “there were many sounds. Almost crying, the wind blowing through the many ropes. And the masts—everywhere—creaking while the sails pulled at them. As if they breathed, the ship yet alive, as the Ojibwa believe.”
He wondered if she’d ever shown more excitement. “You enjoyed it.” He smiled broad. A lad again, a rigging monkey climbing the ropes and spars, working on the biggest fishing schooners. “Ever at the masts,” he said. “Ever for the deep water.”
She followed his squinting out to the ship in the dusk. “I do not wish for you be a sailor, husband.”
“Sailing is a profession,” he said, “a life’s work for some. And part of my family. My father and grandfather were seamen.”
She wouldn’t lose him to the sea, as the many husbands and sons. “You can be as one of those who build the boats.”
He knew her thoughts. His well-earned boast. Youngest ship carpenter’s mate in the fleet. “It wouldn’t be a bad life’s work. But not just a simple shipwright. Foreman of a team. Then I can say,” he wondered at it, “my crew built that ship.”
She hesitated before saying, wondering how it hadn’t come to her before. “Where they are building boats on the island near the great falls.”
“I haven’t forgotten about the naval yard.”
They were quiet for a moment, contemplating a new life there.
“Beyond Detroit then, Isaac.”
The tent flap came untied and opened in the fresh gust of wind.
Sokanon set her mug down, but Isaac’s hand was at her arm.
“I’ll get him,” he said, guessing her mind to Jacob. He laid his supper aside and grabbed up the sleeping boy in his basket to rest him inside the tent.
She watched him with their son, his hands so severe to the world, gentle, carrying the child. She breathed while the peace she had only known since becoming a family drifted through her again. 
Isaac retied the flap. “Fine gift from Monsieur Cadot,” he said of the tent.
She remembered the trip north. Cold, damp, sleeping under the tarps. “Very fine gift.”
——————
It was still dark when they woke to the sound of the tent cloth shuddering.
Isaac pushed an opening between the flaps. “The wind has freshened even more.”
The breeze rushed in across Sokanon’s face and body. “It is not cold.” She covered Jacob.
“Still from the south, maybe a little more ’easter. But it’s blowing good. No tacking for you and your shipmates. The only way she moves today, is by towing. Damn.”
“Do not swear.”
“My shoulders are already sore from only one day. It’s three years since I pulled at an oar. It’s not the same as a canoe paddle.” He tucked the flaps together again. “We won’t gain thirty miles today.”
Jacob stirred in the basket laid between them, whimpered to his needs.
“I’m sure he doesn’t want me.” Isaac yawned, his hand on the child’s chest, feeling his little heart beat amongst the growing squeals.
Sokanon drew her blanket away.
Isaac focused to revel in her, light shining on her from somewhere.
“As you say—” She repeated his jest. “Jacob wants only my breasts.”
It had been since before the baby, tracing her fingers down Isaac’s face.
He breathed in and out. “I thought that was just for Jacob, now.” Her hand still scented with the rawhide cords from repairing the cradleboard.
“Both the men I love.”
She drew Jacob from the sleeping basket to change his breech swaddle.
Isaac piled his clothes into the basket and waited for her. Kissed his son’s head, contentment coming. He slid the basket out and crawled from the tent.
“The blanket does not need washing,” she told him, “only to hang in the air.”
He started to re-tie the flaps, catching at them waving in the breeze.
She held one side open for a moment.
She held one side open for a moment. “Tu es un bon père.” (Twiy on boon pere)
His papa came to him. “I don’t remember my bon père washing any of my sister’s soiled nappies.”
She laughed. Thought not, of her father either. She stilled Jacob’s bother. “Être tranquille.” (et twa twronqeeil) She took a new cloth from the bag and worked in the darkness to tie it around his legs. “Fini.” She lay back with him, his hungry mouth at her again.
Isaac laid the basket near the fire and bent to blow on the coals. A noise called his attention to the food bags, hauled high onto the branch of the tree. He squinted in the dark, turned his ears to listen. He leaned down close to the glowing embers again and blew once more, until a small flame rose. He set a handful of kindling into the spark and then more wood until the fire snapped its awakening. The shuffling sound continued and he peered into the trees again.
“Sokanon—I think there is an animal trying to get at the food bags.”
She started, the charging sow bear instant to her mind. “We are coming out. Here—”
The barrel of the musket poked through the opening. He readied the weapon while she crawled from the tent, Jacob in her arms. He helped draw the blanket over them.
“You are still unclothed, husband.”
“Come, by the fire.”
She knelt and laid Jacob at her side, the boy fussing now at his feeding interrupted.
Isaac gave over the musket while he pulled his pants on.
“I put the bags up high. The branches are too small to support a bear.”
He ducked back into the tent for the other weapons. He set the pistols and ammunition bag next to her. They shared the awareness. Use the guns only at point blank.
He checked his musket.
Sokanon feared. “You will shoot, and cause panic in the soldiers’ camp?”
“No. A measure of powder into the fire. This should chase away whatever it is.”
She rested her hand onto Jacob’s chest, her finger to his mouth to pacify. She understood the she-bear protecting her cubs. She would do the same for hers.
“Ready?” Isaac said. “Look away.”
He tossed the gunpowder into the flame and drew back at the flash.
Sokanon felt its heat, the pungent smell at once in the air.
“See if it likes that,” Isaac said.
“Yes. Begone!” she yelled.
She sat back onto her haunches.
Isaac laid more wood into the fire.
The bright flames danced in their eyes.
Off his bare skin.
“Are you cold, husband?” She offered him next to her, together under her blanket.
“I’m well.” He palmed the musket and stared.
They quieted. Waited. Listened. Let the sounds of the waves, the wind in the trees, the crackle of the fire sound for some moments.
“Many stars,” Sokanon broke the silence.
Isaac gazed up with her dazzled by the glimmering mass, the night sky at their cabin either clouded over or shrouded by the forest canopy. He found the bear pointing north, then turned to look east and south, the horizon glowing with the twilight. “L’heure bleue.” (llair bleuw)
It made her happy when he reminded of Father Pierre. She followed the arc in the sky. The crown of the morning rising.
“The short time I was with your scholarly priest told me he probably has a different word to describe everything. In a number of languages. It says it well enough, though. The blue hour.”
“L’heure bleue,” she said, still watching the brightening sky. “I will be very glad to see Father Pierre.”
“Soon enough. He may be the only one who can help us.”
She knew it.
Isaac set his weapon away, pulled on his shirt, sat to put feet and legs into his moccasins.
A yell came from the army camp, and quick after, more sounds, the day beginning in earnest for the Canadians.
“They are to their first meal,” Sokanon said.
Isaac heard their gibes again. “We’ll see too much of them already today. Your delicious pemmican and thin Montreal coffee will be enough this morning.”
She saw his frustration. “We came to Detroit from Quebec with the army,” she said. “It is the wonderful chance to be able to return so.”
“This war with Pontiac is yet embittered in my countrymen.”
“How could it not, husband?”
Ever keen. He continued to watch the trees in the growing light. “Take Jacob back up to yourself. I’ll get your clothes.”
“Your son is sleeping again. And I do not need my clothes just yet.” She pulled her blanket tighter.
Isaac wondered at it. “You don’t wish to dress?”
“A little while. It is good to not feel so, confined.”
He agreed. Listened over his shoulder to the rousing soldiers. Thought how well it would be to just go back in the tent. Spend the blue hour to each other.
She welcomed the breeze in her hair, damp with sweat from sleep. “A very hard wind.”
Isaac turned his face to it. Southerly. Directly against their way. But it was the wind that was blowing in the late season warmth. “We have some time before we have to be troubled by it.” His attention back to the trees again, watching and listening. He set more logs to the fire and started for their food and cookware bags.
“Be careful, husband.” She slid the musket closer to her reach.
“I’ll wash out the nappy after I return.”
“You are a good father, Isaac.”
“Bon père,” over his shoulder.
Mispronounced again.
——————

Sokanon nodded her thanks before he took it the few steps to the water to wash it.
He went at Jacob’s nappy in the shallow water, rubbing sand at the stains. He wondered if it was a piece of the cloths, bloodied at his birth. He searched the stars again, wondering at their mysteries.

——————
Sokanon drew the last of the tent poles and guy lines away, stacking them in good order. She peered out to the water again. The Gladwin bouncing in the swells, masts waving against the brightening horizon. “I am not to travel on the ship again today.” Back to Howard staring at her and Jacob together. Calculating their worth to him.
Isaac finished folding the tent, kneeling to compress its bulk small as he could. “I haven’t given it a thought. But Howard’s a sharp bastard,” he snorted, “you may be right.” He waited for her to scold at his cursing as she knelt to add her weight to his on the heavy canvas.
“I do not wish to go on the ship again, anyway.”
He saw it, then. Derision. “Did anything happen on the ship, that you haven’t said?”
She shrugged, then quickly shook her head to hide it. The feeling from the French citizens on board that they resented her being there. “No, no one said anything. But the captain, Howard, for all that he has made of us, and the French townspeople to the delegation as welcome citizens, they have paid a duty to sail with the British warship. And we have not.”
“They know you are Catholic. And you can read, write and speak their French as well as them.”
“Not as well, husband.”
“As well as I can see.”
She wanted to amuse at his allegiance. But she spoke instead to the wrath that had raged so quickly at Mackinaw. “I do not like this of you, husband. I know how you can fight. But we are soon to be back to the city and all the people.”
“Do you think I have been too long away from civilization, and been-untamed?”
“Do not jest, Isaac. I see that which you can become.”
He’d never tried to hide it. “I will ever defend our union. If I have to,” he said quickly to her frown.
He finished tying the rope and she stood, pushing at his shoulder, knocking him off his balance onto his back.
“Every argument, you win,” he clucked.
“Oui. And I continue to remind, not to fight to good cause.”
He stood to gather the tent tent poles to wrap the guy lines around them in a bundle.
She went to Jacob, crouched to secure him into the cradleboard. Her thoughts turned pensive. “I thought of those sail-men. All young, as us. How many are also far from home? From their families.”
Her natural instinct to care for others soothed in him again. He mused to the men in his bateau. Even Hartley. “I can say, most of those in my bateau are from New York, or Rhode Island, or Pennsylvania. But—” he struck at them, too, “they are nothing like us Nova Scotians.”
She ignored his childish boast. “Far from home, husband.”
He readied for another exchange of banter, but a regular in his red coat showed, obvious in his direct course toward them. He motioned over her shoulder. “One of them, far from home, comes to pay us a visit.”
She turned to see him. “He is the one with Howard—after the fight.”
Isaac sighed. Nodded his agreement. He set the bundle of poles on the canvas and waited to greet the young soldier. “Corporal Elliot, isn’t it?”
The cordiality surprised the young man.
Sokanon warmed to it. It was still her husband’s way.
“Yes—sir,” Elliot stumbled. “I am dispatched to you with Lieutenant Rawlings’ orders.”
“Well, corporal?” Isaac said while the man’s attention continued to settle.
He stood straighter, as if he might be caught out, unsoldierly. “Mister Rawlings says we’re going to need all of the boats for towing the Gladwin. The lieutenant says you will ready today your native craft to lash in line with the others to the stern of the ship.”
Isaac should have figured it. “And what of my wife and child?”
“They are to Mr. Pym’s boat with the other civilians.”
“You are right, wife. The army needs us no more for their politics.”
“It is well, husband.”
“Is that all, corporal?”
“Only—” Elliot’s eyes continued to dart between loyalty and sympathy. “Just as yesterday, Lieutenant Rawlings reminds that if we run into any trouble, your canoe will be cut loose, with the rest.”
“Give your lieutenant my thanks for sending a personal dispatch, and not just being told by the captain of the rowers.”
“Sir.” Elliot’s hand came up but he caught himself, turned smartly and marched off, back toward his place in the army.
Isaac waited for him to move away. “The more they tend for us, the more I am wary.”
She narrowed her eyes. “You sound as if still a soldier, husband, when you address them. Someone who commands. You see how he almost salutes you.” It was that way when his bateau with wounded came ashore at Quebec. Those around him following his orders. “Perhaps Monsieur Cadot is correct, that the captain helps because he knows you were with the army in many battles. Maybe he thinks of you, as yet a soldier.”
“That may be. But I’d like to know Howard’s plans. If he even wrote a letter of passage.”
“We already know we are to challenge for our furs.”
The thought dawned. “Unless he has figured we will seek out your priest for help.”
“Isaac,” she said again, “we already know we are to challenge for our furs.”
“I know. I’ll try to be patient. But—” He had to say, so she would be ready, and not taken by surprise. “I will look to cut away and run down to Detroit, ourselves.”
She thought he wouldn’t. “We cannot paddle only two that far in such waves. Even with your fine canoe.”
No. But once they reach the new fort on the lower strait. He kept it to himself. “I’ll finish with the tent. Then we’ll go greet the morning with the rest of the unruly rabble.”
She shook her head and finished with Jacob. “Always I must govern your unruly father.”
————
Their furs loomed next to the canoe, Isaac’s marks, wavy lines inside a square, stained with blueberry paste, on the canvas coverings around the three bundles.
“They sit out in the open.”
He knew what she meant. Showing more than anything how they were government property. Only a fool would dare to steal them.
“Where to Mr. Pym’s boat?” he asked those milling around.
“There, trapper.”
Isaac and Sokanon set their loads down beside the canoe.
“We are to separate again for the day,” he said.
“At least we are to see each other.” The day before. So far from shore. So far from Isaac.
“What?” he asked to her thought.
“Something I did not say about yesterday. I could feel that Jacob missed his father. I do not know how.”
“He must have felt me missing him as much.” Isaac pinched at the boy’s nose.
“It was the first time, away from one another.”
The strangeness passed a lifetime in the moment.
“You won’t travel on the ship again.” His mind was done. To cut and run from St. Clair’s fort. “Only a few more days and we’ll be once again the three of us.”
“You’re with us again, Dobbins,” Greene called to him.
Sokanon started off. “At the end of day, husband.”
“At the end of the day, wife.”
“Misses Dobbins,” one of the men pretended courtesy as she passed.
Sokanon ignored him, but glanced over her shoulder to see Isaac staring the man down.
———— (dbl sp)
She strode through the mass of the crowd. Drab-clothed militiamen who loitered as much as worked. Regular soldiers, smart in their uniforms, seemed twice as many as there were. Camp women, watching her go by with her baby, a mixture of looks. Indifference from the few British wives, accompanying their husbands to work at the kitchens, and as wound dressers, and to set broken bones. The Native women, trying not to stare. But it was the three French citizens from Mackinaw, readying to be rowed across to the ship. Holding their chins up. She couldn’t hide her amusement. That they would get wet from the spray just like the rest. She wondered if their sickness from the motion of the waves would continue today. But maybe towing the ship would make it ride smoother.
“To the boats,” the lieutenant called out.
He was short, his high hat towering on his head. But there was no doubt who was in command ashore as he paced up and down, his orders through the speaking-trumpet carrying over the noise of people and wind. This group to that boat. That group to this. He halted for a moment, lingered his gaze from her to Jacob in her arms. Another, maybe, with a family waiting for his return? Maybe from across the ocean?
He pointed. “There you are, miss, with Mr. Pym.”
She nodded her thanks and moved toward the vessel.
“To the boats!” the lieutenant called again to the civilians to enter the boats, hesitant at the incoming waves.
“Come, now,” one of the soldiers said, his hands out for Jacob’s board. “I’ll hold the little shaver till you get in.”
She could hardly understand his accent. Brogue, Father Pierre would say. But it was kindness easy to see. Easy to hand over Jacob to it. “Thank you, private.”
His brow rose.
She knew Isaac’s easy way with the soldiers, language and rank.
“Yes, miss,” he grinned.
She lifted her leg and stepped into the boat. Sat to welcome Jacob from the helpful soldier’s grasp.
The others started to crowd in over the sides and she moved to settle into the front. A rougher ride, but she and Jacob would be to themselves in the bow. And she could watch the actions of all her boatmates.
The rowers poled their oars to steady the vessel until everyone was boarded and seated, and the order was waved to the bateaux waiting on the open water. To begin towing out those onshore. The boat moved and started to bob in the waves.
“Pull hard today, lads!” the lieutenant’s voice encouraged over the din.
She braced herself and held Jacob tight while the boat crashed in the breakers until they were away from the surge. Jacob’s loud giggling had the others turn to see. Even the oarsman cast a look over their shoulders.
She settled again and spied out Isaac’s bateau, trailing their canoe on the towline. He was standing, coil of rope in hand, just then approaching near to the ship.
————
“Throw the rope!” one of the sailors called to his attention.
“A little closer please, gentlemen,” Isaac said, impatient for a look over the side, across the deck.
“Throw it, trapper!” the sailor howled.
“Now!” Hartley pestered along.
Isaac waited just another few yards, and threw the line, falling into the sailor’s outstretched hands. A moment of worry as the canoe swung sideways, up and down the crests and troughs, until coming to, behind the ship. But he had the tarps tied down tight. Nothing now but hope for no reason to have to cut it free. The thought troubled its way through his mind. It eased as he saw his canoe would be first off, tied directly to the ship, close, in the flattened eddies off the stern. He followed his gaze along the gunwale, over the low railing, studying the build of the warship.
“Look out.”
Greene’s warning was only an instant before their own tow rope to the ship hit full against his face.
“Catch,” another sailor from the Gladwin sneered while the laughs went all around.
Isaac glared through the sharp pain, blood tasting again from his still-raw split lip.
“Watch what you’re doing,” the sailor continued his taunt, “you dozy clod.”
The others laughed again.
Isaac ignored them. Calmed himself to gather the tow rope to the ship. Handed the end to Greene, who tried to hide his amusement. He craned his neck to find Sokanon, in the bow of one of the large troop bateaux carrying the civilians. He was satisfied and sat into his place, pulling slowly at his oar while they bobbed in the waves passing close to the Gladwin.
The tow rope stretched taut.
“Keep pulling gentlemen,” Greene ordered, “keep the line tight while they raise the anchor.”
The weight of the ship came sudden against the oars and they struggled to push straight into the waves that also pushed at them. Isaac didn’t want to believe it would take this much force with so many bateaux towing.
“Get into time, men,” Greene admonished, “follow Mr. Potter’s cadence.”
Isaac settled into the same rhythm with the others in the lurching of the swells and tumbling whitecaps. The ropes to the Gladwin sang in the wind and dipped in and out of the tops of the high waves. The water sheared off the ropes as if not liquid. Blown by the air into fine webs of transparent gauze.

8

“Sinclair’s fort, sir!” The lookout pointed from the ship’s mast.
“Glad to see the savages haven’t burnt it down, yet—eh, Dobbins?”
John Hartley. Again.
“No offense to your wife,” the man irritated.
Isaac gripped his oar tighter, skin on his hands turning white. The nicks and scrapes on his knuckles showed darker. Satisfaction roiled through him. Landing blows against the two at Mackinaw.
“I know where were you,” Hartley directed towards Isaac again, “while the savages were burning down my wife’s parents’ farm in Pennsylvania. Safe, you and the misses, living among them.”
A few low grunts of agreement while Hartley went on.
“The in-laws barely escaped with their scalps, sure enough.”
So, that’s what it was with him. Vengeance. Isaac thought to let it go, now they had made it down to the upper strait. Call no attention to himself and Sokanon to slip away. They could paddle to Detroit on their own from here.
“Well, John Hartley,” Isaac addressed him. He wouldn’t say of their own close run with the Ojibwa. He challenged instead. “We’ll be ashore soon.”
Hartley kept silent. As well the others.
“To your oars,” Greene said, easing the friction, “if you please, gentlemen.”

“You men there!” It was Rawlings, interrupting their start at the oars, directing his voice again through the speaking-trumpet. “Come alongside,” he called, “and pass your towline.”
“Seems the lieutenant wants us to pull him the rest of the way.”
“No use wasting good wind.”
Isaac joined the crew laughing. Glad for the distraction from Hartley.
“Now then,” Greene said, “you heard the officer. Ready to ship oars on my order.” He pulled the steering oar tight up against his ribs, turning toward the Gladwin.

————
Sokanon followed the commotion downstream, a moment of alarm before spotting the fort. Petite sliver of blanched new wood against the dark forest. She searched for Isaac’s boat, once again among those towing the ship, but the squadron was too far away. Farther ahead than she thought they should be. 
“Alright, people,” the rudderman called, “let’s to it, quicker.”
The boat leapt with the faster pace of their oars. Raced with the current. Closed the gap in only a few strokes.
A cannon shot from the fort sounded, the blast rolling echoes low over the water. Jacob heard the noise, his dark eyes open wide amid the confusion of sounds and voices. Another blast, from the ship’s small bow gun, smoke going out in a ring from the barrel before gathering in a cloud to drift away in the breeze. All the bateaux were angling in, making for the shore, Gladwin behind, reminding her of ducklings with their mother chasing in a line.
————
“Ship oars, please.”
Isaac anticipated Greene’s order and was first to draw his from the davit. He leapt with it, over the side amid the others pulling their oars and stacking them onto the seat benches, rattles and thuds of wood onto wood. Impatient for Greene to untie the line. Caught it from his toss. A moment to see Hartley avoiding his glare. Started away for Sokanon, walking in the water alongside the canoe drifting down the shoreline.
“Tomorrow, then, Dobbins,” Greene called from behind.
Isaac raised his hand in salute without turning around. He strode on, wondering how they could not immediately see. No one was leaving here any time soon. He ran the course of three years ago through his memory, laid the course in his mind. Down the upper strait and into the churning swirl of what Chippewa Pete called Bkejwanong—where the waters divide. Where all the power of the upper lakes funnels and tumbles into the islands of flats, channels and cuts. Through to the smaller of the great lakes north of Detroit. Past and around the farms along the grosse pointe and down into the lower strait to the city. They would do it alone. He only hoped Sokanon’s priest could help.
———— (dbl sp)
Sokanon knew her husband’s nature. Determination. “We are leaving in the morning.”
Isaac nodded, brushed the hair across Jacob’s head. “Let’s get to camp quickly, have a good supper.”
“Downstream, Isaac? From where the many in the camp would dump their filth?”
“Only until the morning. We’ll draw water from out on the strait.”
She looked beyond him to see no one’s attention to them. “And what of the army? You are certain they will not for you to continue rowing on the bateau?”
He persisted. “There is no contract. And, we don’t need them anymore. The only hard paddling will be once we come out of the strait into the lake before Detroit.”
She remembered.
Isaac motioned with his head. “They’ll be here for while.”
She followed his gaze.
“Those stacks of unfinished logs,” he went on, “ and the forest, not cleared far enough from the walls.” He motioned with his head. “It’s certain, now I see it. You can see it, too. These men are to be kept here, to finish the fort.” He looked out to the water. “It’s unsure what the ship will do.”
“They won’t chase us for our furs?”
“They don’t have to.”
She knew what he meant. “A race to Father Pierre then?” She raised her brow to it.
Isaac nodded. Grinned to her anticipation.
“Dobbins?”
The voice was familiar, even if the man calling to him wasn’t. “An officer.” He leaned hard at the weight of the canoe pulling in the current. “Continue on,” he said.
She turned back to catch up to him. “You do not know him?”
“I’m sure I do, from somewhere. But he can follow along until we choose our camp.”
“He is following, Isaac.”
“Here,” he said.
She saw it. The little notch in the shore. A few feet of lesser current behind the tiny spit of land. She laid Jacob away and grabbed the line with Isaac, pulling the freighter’s bow up onto the notch far as they could.
“Hold her tight while I get the bundles out.”
She glanced over her shoulder to see the man watching, grin on his face. She drew Isaac’s attention back to him.
“Whoever he is, I guess he’s not going to help.”
“We do not need help. Remember?”
The man continued to stand away, hands on his hips, another lieutenant in the King’s own.
Curiosity ran to its end. “Who are you?” Isaac called.
“Don’t you know me Isaac Dobbins, you unlicked cub Scotsman?”
Isaac shook his head. “Never from your appearance,” he snorted. “Thomas Fraser.”
“In the wool,” the man gibed, stroking the hair on his chin.
“Do you have it?” Isaac asked Sokanon, the weight of the freighter against the rope.
“Yes, husband.”
Isaac let go slowly, then untied the canvas cover. “Soldiering hasn’t killed you yet, Thomas?”
“Not that it hasn’t tried, eh, Isaac?”
Fraser glanced from him to her to the baby, back. “A family man?”
Isaac wrestled at a bundle, while Sokanon held tight.
Fraser moved in to help. Struggled at a bundle himself. “They’re bloody-well heavy, aren’t they?”
Isaac grabbed with him. “Ninety pounds. Well, they’re supposed to be. I’ve no way to weigh them, but I’ve seen the size of a commercial bundle. These are just as big.”
“Yes,” Sokanon said, impatience in her voice.
Isaac and Fraser hurried at the other bundles.
They all pulled at the canoe until up on dry land.
Fraser held his hand out in welcome.
Sokanon watched as they wrestled in their handshake. The familiarity and challenging nature of soldiers. She wasn’t sure if they were really friends.
Fraser studied them again. “You’ve been busy, Dobbins.”
“Anything but soldiering, Fraser.”
“Yes,” he answered, eyes sharp for Sokanon.
“Not like that, Thomas. Sokanon is my wife.”
She watched as the man nodded.
“And now you travel as what—hunter for the army, trapper?”
Isaac shook his head. “We have the fortune to come down with them, is all.”
Fraser continued to examine. He glanced over his shoulder to the commotion come ashore. “The call to duty. You remember, eh, master boatsman? We’ll talk again.” He went off after a bare tip of his hat.
Isaac came to Sokanon. Dropped to a knee to tickle at Jacob’s ribs.
“I think he is not a friend, husband.”
Isaac watched as his time in the war walked its red tunic back toward the others. “It’s hard to know who is still a friend.”
There were Sakima’s words. For she and Isaac to go back to her people. She wondered if Quebec wouldn’t be best. Losing themselves to each other amongst the many, many people. She smiled to him. “Now the wind is gone for the evening, I will fill the water containers. Before the camp dumps its waste.”
She waited for him to protest. 
He did not and she went for the canoe, to finish emptying their belongings. She stopped. Stood still for a moment. “You stare at me, husband.”
There was always the beauty come out with her look of determination. Same as the first time he’d seen her, the purpose in her attention to the wounded. “It will be good practice—if ever...”
“Yes, Isaac.”
He helped her with the gear. Piled in the water containers. Slide it back into the water. “Be careful in the current,” he cautioned. “She’ll carry faster than on the lakes. And even with the long keel, it’ll turn much quicker empty, than with weight in it.”
She was still for a moment. The thought of swimming lessons from the sisters. “I will be careful, husband.”
“You better. Jacob will need his mother to care for him, more than me.”
She touched his arm. “He will have us both.” She motioned with her head. “You will watch him, now.”
“And am I also to ready supper?”
“I shall not be long.”
Isaac held fast as she threw a leg over the side to sit in the canoe.
“Kneel in the center,” he told her, “to distribute the weight.”
“Jacob,” she directed. She stayed seated, leaving her bare leg dangling long from her smock, trailing into the water, teasing at Isaac’s lingering gaze.
He caught himself. Lifted his chin. “Just remember, the empty canoe will be more responsive to the slightest ruddering.”
She felt it right away, the easy response to her paddle. The strength of the current surprised her, even while she thought she was ready for it. Carrying her quickly yards downstream. She drew her leg in and concentrated, scooting on her knees to the middle of the canoe. A few strokes and she was out to the deeper, fresher water for the containers. She stopped paddling, and the canoe was immediately spun around in the current to race downstream.
“Sokanon!” she heard. How did Isaac get so far away, so quickly? He was walking fast down the shoreline. She hurried to fill the water containers.
Isaac halted, worried for Jacob, every step another mile from him. He followed downstream again, until he had to stop at the cross river coming into the channel. She knew what to do, he told himself.
Sokanon finished filling the containers over the side, and onto her knees again to paddle. She stroked hard to turn the bow into the current, where she spun faster than anticipated and she had the moment to think that Isaac was right to warn, the wildness of the craft. As if she were sliding on the ice again in the basket twirled by her father. Or her mother, she couldn’t remember.
Isaac yelled to her. “Don’t fight the current! Just steer her in downstream! —Damn,” he muttered, helpless. He looked back for Jacob and saw beyond their tent, some of the men watching out to the channel.
His voice was even farther away, his words stolen by the distance and the wind. She saw him for a quick glance while the canoe went over too far around before she could stop it. She swept her paddle, to bring the bow back to face upstream, ready this time to stay straight. But the current caught again and she couldn’t stop another spin.
She braced for another sweep, but saw then what to do, letting the current take her, steering the canoe toward shore downstream. It raced in and she tried to check the speed gliding along the shore. She grabbed at the brush, her grasp slipping from stalk to stalk, sharp blades of grass slashing at her hand. Until she finally caught herself to swing her legs over the side, the water cold, up to her thighs even right at the shore. She held the canoe tight and worked herself until she could reach in for the bow rope, wrapping the line quickly around her hand, grasping tight when the back end of the canoe spun around. She crawled up the shore on her knees, stood, surprised and scared a little when she couldn’t see Isaac through the brush. She started back, the towline over her shoulder.
The grass picked at her arms and shins. The bottom of her dress was wet and clung heavy to her legs. She came to the small river, Isaac waiting on the other side, hands on his hips, relief and amusement both on his face. She stared for a moment. An eternity, as always when they were from each other’s sight.
“Come on, then,” he called, smiling.
She pulled the canoe around into the calmer water of the river. Blood ran back into her unclenched hand when she unwound the rope. Light pink lines from the slashing grass showed. She entered the canoe, gave a couple quick strokes to cross. Isaac greeted her, helped her up onto the cleared yard, hacked close to the ground by those building the fort.
“I warned you,” he said. He took up the towline.
“And I told for you to stay with Jacob.”
He teased. “I believe the men were entertained by your show.”
“Shall I do it again?”
He shook his head and started back, towing the canoe along the shore.

9

“The man Fraser comes,” she said over her shoulder.
She busied herself anew at the cook fire.
Isaac turned from his work at the canoe. “Let him come.” He straightened, walked to the fire, warmed his hands, sticky with the pine gum, against the cooler evening air. Jacob was rested near the tent away, from the snap of embers, loose on his cradleboard, amusing himself to the feathers and shells hanging from the headpiece hoop. “The seams are separating more than they should, this soon.”
“Does the ship’s rope pull at them?”
He nodded to her acuity. “That’s exactly it. But the construction is yet green. I should think it well, though, holding up through all the jarring.”
“It is good to see you with so much cheer,” she said.
If he could always work on a boat, he would always be happy. Isaac stepped away from smoke in his eyes, awaiting Fraser. “Hopefully he doesn’t sour my humor.”
“I will wait supper.” The lard was not yet melted.
“That’ll be good,” Isaac said.
She slid the pan away from the fire. It was her mother’s hand, then, her delight for a black iron kettle she’d gotten at one of the forts between Quebec and Detroit.
“Fair evening, Thomas.”
“The same, Isaac. Misses Dobbins.” He was sarcastic in his greeting, dipping his hat. “I came to offer a place inside the fort while you’re here, but I see you have secured one of the armies’ well-made tents for your family.”
He was looking at her and Sokanon was confused. Did he want for her to answer?
“It does serve us well,” Isaac said. “Keeps us dry.” He caught Sokanon’s eyes. “Are you hungry, Thomas?” Isaac motioned his head to the cooking pan. “Firecakes—made from your armies’ own commissary rations, sweetened with molasses.”
Fraser turned a puzzled look to the fire. “I have already supped. And I won’t ask where you got the rations.”
“Trade—fair and square, with one of the camp wives.”
Fraser laughed. “Was she acting commissary when you bartered your exchange?”
Isaac shrugged. Joined him in the easier atmosphere. “She wanted a fine martin fur to trim her winter coat. Sokanon wanted to make a few nice meals for us, now that we are settled for a while at the fort.”
Sokanon heard his hiding the truth.
Fraser squinted, measuring the distance. “You don’t camp with the others?”
“This is farther away than we usually go from them.”
“You were one of them, not that long ago, Isaac.”
Isaac’s eyes went instinctual to Sokanon’s, before he flashed them away to search the rowdy army camp. “No more soldiering for me, Thomas. Four years of war is enough.”
“Too much, husband.”
They stared. Isaac didn’t have to say—even my wife knows. “I see a lot of unfinished work,” he said of the fort instead.
Fraser chuckled. “The rabble sees it, too.”
“Have they been told?”
“Just this evening. None too happy about it.”
Isaac thought again of Hartley. He noted the officer’s insignia. “Lieutenant, now.”
Fraser nodded. “Awarded my commission just before leaving with Bradstreet’s force.”
“A commoner militiaman granted an officer’s commission. Not an easy thing, Thomas. Your mum and dad should be proud.”
“You mock, Isaac.”
“Perhaps a little.”
They continued to stare at each other.
“Don’t fault me for my life in the army,” Fraser defended. “Besides, as you said, soldiering was not for you.”
“I finished my contract—my service was completed.”
“I suppose that’s it, isn’t it? Contracts.”
“What will the King’s army give you when yours is up?”
“A small pension—and then a citizen’s plot in a graveyard.”
Sokanon interrupted. “Café?” She swung the open kettle from the flames and stirred the dark brew slowly, blowing at the surface.
“Merci.” Isaac bent for two cups. “Coffee?”
Fraser leaned closer to the pot. “Can’t say that I’ve ever smelled coffee before. No proper tea of an Englishman?”
Isaac laughed. “I thought we were Scots, Fraser.”
“Aye, Dobbins.”
Isaac waited for Sokanon to dash the grounds to the bottom of the kettle with a cup of cool water. He dipped his mug to fill it.
“Yes, then,” Fraser said, following Isaac’s lead. “I will have some of your French brew.”
“It’s very hot, Thomas,” Isaac said.
“I see that from the steam pouring out of your mug. To our Scottish ancestors of Nova Scotia, then,” he said. He made a face at the taste. “It’s bitter.”
“You should try it when it’s fresher.”
“Is it less so?”
“No, even more,” Isaac laughed.
“It would take me a while to get used to it.” Fraser braved another sip.
“We lost some gear in the rapids on the way up, my East India tea, among it.” Isaac tipped his mug to Fraser before pointing it to Sokanon. “My wife likes to remind me how her Montreal coffee survived the soaking and my tea did not.”
She held back a smile, dipped her own mug and drew it from the pot.
“So, all else aside,” Fraser said, his eyes darting to them over his mug. “How far up were you—and the misses?”
“West of the Saint Mary’s falls,” Isaac answered. “After portaging around the rapids, we followed along Gichigami for another day and built a trapper’s cabin next to a river.”
Sokanon smelled again, the fresh-worked cedar trees.
“Gichigami?”
“It’s the Ojibwa name, means about the same thing as, great lake. I actually rather prefer the old Jesuit name, Lac Tracy.”
Fraser frowned. Tried to hide his sneer, blowing on the hot coffee. “And now you have a French Chip as wife.” He raised his cup to her. “To your health, misses Dobbins.”
She looked away. Set her mug down. Scooted to busy with Jacob.
“Sokanon is Montagnais Cree,” Isaac corrected, “for what it matters between us, Fraser. From far east of Quebec. She is my legal wife. Under both French and British law.”
“Seems then maybe I should apologize.”
“I’ve heard enough of it coming down from Mackinaw.”
“I meant to her, not you.”
His warm words surprised Sokanon. She drew back to her coffee at the fire.
His voice again. “How did you get through this last warfare?”
“We were under the protection of the local Ojibwa leader. But it was a close run thing for us, too. But I understand our fellows’ feelings. It was difficult for me not to hate the French after my father and granddad were killed.”
“Bloody massacres, though Dobbins.”
Back to the hard soldier.
“I marched with the army Thomas, you did not, from your naval duties. Whole villages long left deserted in superstition from smallpox.”
“They were still bloody massacres.”
“I saw what was left of raids on those villages afterwards, too.”
Fraser threw his hand out. “And there’ll be more.”
Isaac motioned to the fort. “A blockhouse and stockade. Sinclair should be commended for what he has accomplished already.”
“He’s a devil.”
Isaac remembered hearing of the man during the war. “He has chosen a good place,” he said, “closeby the river coming into the strait.”
Sokanon looked, too, while Isaac pointed and spoke again.
“They can pull any craft wintering over into the river, a natural harbor away from the channel ice.”
“And here we are. You, too, Sa—Sakanone.” He held his mug out again to her, his eyes sincere.
 She snorted in amusement. She could forgive this one.
“To have survived the war,” he said, “and live to complain about it.”
He sipped at his mug. Made a face. “Too bad about your tea, eh?”
Sokanon studied the fire. Contented. This man was a friend of Isaac’s.
“Well, that’s it for the day,” he said abrupt. “We’ll lower the flag soon.” He sipped, looked over his mug at them both. “Walk with me a moment, Isaac.” He set the mug down, touched his hat to Sokanon. “Misses Dobbins.” Still sincere.
He stepped aside to wait.
“Let’s hear what the man has need to say out of your earshot.”
“Yes, husband.” She studied Fraser, then. “Your Nova Scotia, to his.”
He laughed. “I won’t be long. Then we can to supper.”
The few steps to Fraser, and they walked slowly together.
Fraser motioned across the cleared yard to the fort. “More proof to the savages that we are here to stay.”
“We have been told of the many burned in this latest uprising.”
“Not any more, Isaac. Well, at least not so easily.” He halted, his face soldierly. “It’s not a secret, but I thought you should know. After this latest native uprising, Amherst ordered a massive show of force, all up and down the seaway. The governor has sacked Major Gladwin and sent Old Brad to Detroit with fourteen hundred men.”
“Fourteen hundred.” Isaac shook his head at the incredible number.
“The attack and siege there was protracted and bloody.”
Isaac nodded. “Odawa’s I heard.”
“A bastard called Pontiac. And another, called Guyasuta, or some such—Seneca war chief.”
The names didn’t matter to Isaac. “Captain John Bradstreet. There’s a good bastard.”
“Colonel Bradstreet now. Another good Nova Scotian like yourself, eh?” Fraser pointed out to the Gladwin. “It’s no secret we wanted to show our long reach with warships on the lakes, to both the savages and the French. All the parties involved know anyway, we won’t let the newest of our ships get caught in the channel ice. And another not so well-kept military secret is that Amherst has ordered another force of fifteen-hundred under Bouquet into the Ohio Territory.”
Isaac shook his head. “And of this new proclamation, forbidding white settlement on tribal land?”
Fraser stopped, his sly smile flashing. “How long we honor the King’s new proclamation is not for me to question. I’m a soldier, to do what I’m told. Defend who—” He looked up to the soldier walking on the rampart, “and where—they order me to. I only wanted to warn you, the disposition south. You have been away for a long time. The entire area, deep into the Ohio, is still charged with rebellion.”
“I’m not sure rebellion is the correct term. How can one rebel, if they are not subjects?”
“They certainly desire our trade.”
His words droned with judgment.
And with truth. Isaac thought of the trade items in even Sakima’s lodge. “As I told Captain Howard, the Ojibwa still harbor deep hatred. But if the English continue to supply the tribes with gifts, I believe they will grudge the encroachments.”
“The English, Dobbins? Have you spent too much time with the natives?”
Isaac said nothing.
But Fraser showed no bother. “Did you see anyone from the Company?”
“Hudson’s Bay doesn’t travel south of the St. Mary’s.”
“St. Mary’s. What do they call it in French—Soo…?”
“Sault Sainte Marie.”
“Yes, that’s it.” Fraser went on. “And your wife—I have heard of Cree, but the other, Mon—”
“Montagnais. It is the French name. Innu, is what Sokanon told me is the native name. Her priest has said they were the first Tribe to convert to Christianity.”
“To the Catholic friars in their black dresses.”
Isaac let the words disappear to the air.
“And you speak this, Cree-Mon—tagnais with your wife?”
“No. Her family were killed when Sokanon was a girl—killed by other, savages, Fraser. She was taken in by the Jesuits, raised in Quebec.”
“And her face. I see she has survived the pox.”
“When she was a child.”
“She is still pretty, I’ll give you that.”
“The smallpox took most of her older relatives. She and her mother and father were probably only saved because of the Jesuits nursing. I lost my mother, sister and Granny to the typhus. They had no such professional nursing in the wake of the fighting.”
It was Fraser quiet, then. Conceding to the variables of what was true. He scanned from the fort across the many tents of the encampment surrounding. “Why are you coming down so late in the season?”
Isaac was glad for the change. “Jacob wasn’t well when he came. Neither was Sokanon. I had to wait until I knew our son was strong enough to travel. And she didn’t want to leave.” He lowered his brow. “She has seen as much of war as we have, Thomas. But, I didn’t want to spend another hard winter so far in the north. Not with a family.”
“And it was just fortune, you coming down with the squadron.”
“I don’t know, Thomas—was it?”
Fraser stayed aloof.
“And now you are to return to civilization, with your family—a squaw, and half-breed child?”
And judgmental.
“My wife and son,” Isaac told him.
Fraser held up his hand. “But how as a Protestant, were you married in a Catholic service?”
“Sokanon was raised by them. And very well liked. It was easy to see the sisters and priests would do almost anything for her.”
“Yet, there weren’t any white women in Quebec to wed? Even a New France bonne femme?”
What was he supposed to tell him, that they were meant for each other, as the poets would say?
“Sokanon and I both grew up orphans. We have a way together, that I’ve never known with another.” He smiled to her, looking back to him. “She is as good a woman as any I have ever seen.”
“So you say. But—I will apologize again. I don’t mean to be so crass.”
“Yes you do.” Isaac wondered if it would be this way always, defending his wife, even to friends. “Our child is a British royal subject.”
“Well that’s something,” Fraser laughed, half-sincere anyway. “Yours is a life with many qualities,” he went on. “Maybe I should be envious of your vagabond’s existence, Isaac.”
“A free man’s existence, Thomas.”
“As you say. Well, then, I will take my leave.” He countenance grew serious. “If I were a free man as you, Isaac, I would not linger here.”
Isaac studied him for questions that would not be asked, answers that could not be given. “So be it. Thank you, Thomas.”
He offered his hand. “Maybe we’ll see each other someplace else, along our travels.”
“Good luck, Isaac. And fair wind.”
“Aye, Thomas.”
Sokanon watched them as they shook hands. Even in the short distance she saw the measuring between them.
“Father returns,” she said to Jacob’s cooing. She stood to greet him. “We are to leave, husband.”
“Yes—” He searched for the word in French. To strengthen the togetherness of their union. “Demain—tomorrow. Before dawn. Even before the blue hour.”
“Le voleur dans la nuit.”
“Oui, just like the thief in the night.”
“We shall steal from ourself?”
Her look was warm. Disarming as she could ever be.
“Let’s hope your priest can help us do just that.”
A low sound came, like a dog baying in the distance. Then another. And more. Overhead, squinting to see the white flashes of wings high in the sky. The yelps came more and more from the hundreds of the big swans, line after line sending their trumpets down, farewell to the north on their way south.
“They’ll be at the antipodes before nightfall.”
She heard it in his voice. Even though he missed movement on the great expanses of the water. Wondrous of the birds in their soaring on the wind, easy, place to place. Her mother’s Sky-girl invited too, in the sounding down of their calls.
“The soldiers continue to bother you,” she said, “to be married to me. I saw, with Fraser, even though he is a friend.”
He shrugged. “Words of foolish men.”
“Yet, enough to make your, sour humor.”
He smiled. “Your pleasant cheer is always for me.”
“I thought it was the two men at Mackinaw, making you so.”
“The Hurons? No.” He knelt to pour Fraser’s mug into his own. “I don’t know why the one challenged so, with no cause to it.” He lifted his brow. “But, they wouldn’t care to our marriage union. Only my own countrymen do,” he said. “Nobody else.”
“They do not speak much to me at all.”
“Their silence means the same, wife.”
She knew it was so. “They do help, when I need, with Jacob.”
“It is because of the baby, that they do so.”
“Maybe you should carry him all the time.”
“As if you would allow that.” He wagged his head toward the canoe. “Let’s get it closer to the fire, help dry the gum.”
________
The bugle sounded across the yard, Isaac standing with his arms folded, watching. Sokanon felt his anticipation rising with hers. Voices heard from the fort, orders given, the many columns of smoke rising from the army campfires, all the men at attention facing the pole over the walls, the flag being lowered by parade for the night.
She’d heard bugle calls. Saw the marching of armies. Their ordered rows of tents. Remembered when the red British jack went up over Quebec. The French citizens, even some of the Sisters, crying. She looked to Isaac again. That flag had brought him.
Everything was stacked and ready to pack. Only to sleep for a few hours, take the tent down, their belongings to their places in the canoes. She and Isaac directing whispers to each other in the silence of the night. She felt it at her back, a shiver from the dark forest, menacing trees to hide a sudden attack. It was good they were leaving. She didn’t trust being there, near any fort. Even with its soldiers, warship and guns. Their numbers offered protection. But it would be because of them that the warriors might at any moment charge from the woods. To attack against the intrusion into their country. They would kill her as the woman of the British man. Massacre him right off, or take him for their ritual torture. Steal away with her son, or dash the child against the wall of the fort. She wondered if it was worse than cannons shooting their iron rounds into the city, to crash through houses to destroy those townspeople inside.

We’ll go down the strait and haul up before the place that Ojibwa told us about in Detroit. Bkejwanong. Chippewa Pete, remember?”
She nodded. “The guide whose front teeth missing.”

“That’s it. How is it that I remember the names, Bkejwanong, Gichigami, Bahweting, but I cannot know to speak the language?”
“You can think the names of places, because you keep the maps in your mind, to know how to get there. It does not matter to know more. I can not, either, speak Ojibwa, husband.”
He huffed. “You know more than I do.”

“I do not remember the first language of my mother or father.”
There was always her reflective sorrow, deeper than his own. “Maybe the languages are not the same, as you’ve said—Cree and Montagnais, this Innu. Maybe they knew each other’s language, the way you and I know French and English. And your mind is confused trying to piece together the two.”
She remembered their talking, mother to father, never the struggle she and Isaac sometimes have. “You have never said before.”
“I just thought of it, now. Maybe since coming back to so much English, after so long. Your father spoke French to the Jesuits. I will bet it was as bad as mine. How could you not be confused in your memory as a, wee lass?”
How many times there was comfort in his words. “Father Armand and Father Pierre could speak my native language. But, with the Sisters, it was only for me to learn proper French.” She ran her fingers down Jacob’s sleeping face. “You think our son, will also be confused?”
The thought rushed into him, caused a shiver. “Only if we are dead, Sokanon.”
She felt for the ring under her smock.

10

Every noise was a roar in the silence. Isaac’s foot against the side of the canoe. Sokanon setting Jacob bundled to his carrier into the bow. The slide on grass, light slap onto water. Tiptoe’s in. Creaking of wood and sinews. Lapping of their paddles gently stroking.
“We are away,” Isaac said after the eternity of quiet.
“It will be good to travel again alone, husband.”
She mused at her struggle with the empty canoe, the effort needed to turn the heavy-weighted craft out on the channel. She also felt its speed in the current, apace to their easy strokes. Father Pierre seemed close, as if his protection was reaching through the nearing distance up the waterway. A silent prayer to Our Lady for her grace to see them through.
———— (dbl sp)
The half moon shone through a large opening in the clouds, hazy light in the damp and chilled air.
“Isaac,” Sokanon said, pointing in the dark with her paddle.
“I see it.” The straight lines, telling of construction. “Let’s pull in, rest for a moment.”
“Yes, we’ve been at it long enough, for two thieves.”
They slid in, low branches catching against Sokanon’s face, scraping her forehead as she ducked.
“Be careful,” Isaac warned too late.
The canoe came ashore to an easy halt.
“It is yet wet here,” she said. “The mud will be deep.”
“Pole in, far as we can.”
She felt the solid land with her paddle and stepped out. Used all her strength while Isaac continued poling to drag the freighter high up. She stood for a moment and peered into the dark. “There are lodges here.”
Isaac ducked through the brush to stand next to her. He squinted his view. “Maybe a spring or summer fishing camp?”
She sensed something else as they paced closer, among the haunting ruins of the domes. “No, Isaac. There are too many lodges for only a camp.”
He agreed. He thought the small lodges were different than those of the Ojibwa. It wasn’t their territory this far south, anyway. “Ottawa’s, maybe?”
“It has been abandoned,” she said, “much long ago.” She crossed herself, pressed her fingers to her medallion. “Hail, Mary,” she whispered to herself.
“We’ll stay only until it’s light enough to see. Remember the place where the strait funnels into the islands and smaller channels, dividing into the flats and marshes? Chippewa Pete called it…”
“Bkejwanong,” she said. “Will it be swirling so in the low water of autumn?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know how far down until we reach it. I only know it’s coming, and I don’t want to risk it in the dark. Not with Jacob.”
“No, husband.”
“Let’s eat a little meal, you to Jacob. It won’t be more than an hour or two.”
———— (dbl sp)
The shadow of dawn came soon enough, revealing the eerie sight onto the abandoned village. Deteriorated wigwams, long years since they’d been used, webs of moss clinging everywhere. Carved figures hanging in the openings to the darkened interiors of the lodges. Two large people and four small ones, here. Two and two, there. Another, a tiny figure of cradleboard tied and wrapped in a tattered shred of animal skin.
There was her mother, hanging the little totems on their lodges. Grandmother, grandfather, aunt, uncle, cousins. “They are all dead, Isaac.” The pockmarks on her face were there. “And not killed in war.”
He’d seen them with the army. Villages deserted from disease. The talisman’s hung for the spirits of the dead.
She said it aloud then. “Hail Mary full with grace…”
Isaac let her words come easy into his thoughts, waited until she finished. “Amen,” he said with her.
“Quickly, husband, from the shadow of this unhappy place.”
Isaac agreed.
She strode past him to set Jacob into the canoe. Pushed at the bow to barely move it.
“Wait,” Isaac said. “Together.”
They stared to find that place where their struggles ease, in the ardor for one another.
They readied. “Push,” he said.
———— (dbl sp)
They came before where the waters divided. Bkejwanong, Sokanon said again. He trusted her memory, as the many Ojibwa names bounced in his. Gichigami. Bahweting…and before them now, Bkejwanong. Where the strait cleaved down into the huge shallow delta before the lake.
He studied the bobbing waves recoiling off the points of land, no pattern to figure in the ugly brown swells. No wave should get that high without whitecaps folding over the tops. As if boiling up from the bottom, bringing up silt to swirl in the giant eddy. They’d come through here mid-summer and he wondered same as then, what must it be like filled with spring melt and ice?
Sokanon backed her paddle, sensing Isaac’s measured caution. She made sure of the cord tied between her belt and Jacob’s carrier.
“Straight through,” Isaac announced. “Use the shorter beavertail paddles, so we can swing faster. Paddle hard and outrace the current. We’ll cut right through.”
The wonder of her mother’s voice came to her child’s fearing memory—Mannegishi. Somehow she wanted to laugh as they slid into the whirlpool. Left, right, as if twisting a toy in a baby’s tub. She swung her paddle, a stroke at air when the bow was lifted high, then up to her elbows when it crashed down deep, soaking her and washing onto Jacob. She couldn’t feel anything Isaac was doing, she had no notion other than to just keep trying to paddle.
Isaac was certain their weight would sink them low, even into the haphazard swells, as they pushed through. But they bobbed as if empty and plunged bow down the very first wave, coming over to douse Sokanon and Jacob. “Damn,” he swore, throwing the shorter beavertail into the bottom of the canoe and grabbing for the longer paddle to rudder. Just in time to stop their broaching completely broadside to the surge. He swore again at his mistake, thinking they could outrun the current as it struck at them from all sides. Another paddler they needed, while he could only steer.
Yet, all at once, bkejwanong was behind them. The danger at once so wild, yet gone so quickly.
Isaac looked back to the erratic surface, a queerness of the world coming to him.
“Is Jacob wet?”
“Yes,” Sokanon laid her paddle down, “yet again he laughs.” She unleashed the boy to hold him so Isaac could see his smiling face drenched with cold water.
“Nova Scotian,” he boasted, “no matter where he was born.” Isaac felt guilty, in his dry clothes and he guided the canoe towards shore. “Let’s in. I’ll bail the water out, while you dry yourself and the future sailor.”
“Yes, father.”
———— (dbl sp)
The channel widened into a broad bay where the water hardly rippled, even as the wind sounded in the swaying trees. How protected they were in the vast marsh. But the canoe swelled in a long rhythm of rise and fall, the hard wind blowing the lake up into the shallows.
“The wind is warm.”
Isaac felt it on his cheeks. “From the south. Maybe our fortune will hold with a few more warm days.”
She wanted to remind of the Lord’s will in fortune, but he started to sing.
They were the only words Isaac could remember. The school-day song at Christmastime, “soft and easy is thy cradle…coarse and hard thy savior lay. When his birthplace was a stable…and his softest bed was hay…”
He repeated it. His singing cracked, yet a wonder to Sokanon, to hear his voice gentle and gracious. She hummed along, trying the traces of her mother’s song into Isaac’s melody. Jacob lie asleep at her feet while the moment’s peace surrounded. It spoke to her.
“This is a pleasant place,” she said, not sure loud enough for Isaac to hear.
“Maybe if we weren’t trying to quickly traverse its maze.” He preferred the wide open expanse of ocean or lake. Fewer landmarks to have to remember. Only the reading of sky and water. “It’s an in-between place, of constant flooding. Only those that can swim or fly could live here.”
“It is still a pleasant place.”
He thought of the hunters in Pete’s team, the many easy waterfowl for their meals. “I will have to accede to your judgment.” He silenced the fears chasing with them and hummed the Christmas refrain again.
They continued on, easy in song, twisting, turning, in the confusion as the channel narrowed. Past the myriad islands, mud flats, sediment islets rimmed with cattail amid dense swaying reeds, small stands of trees rising behind here and there. They stopped their paddles for long stretches, to let the natural flow show them the quickest way down, through the endless points and cuts.
Another broad bay widened where the water was no longer brown, but blue. And the wind came stronger against their faces, reminding its threat, that they were nearing the open expanse of the lake. Tall trees rose, to their left, a large island the other side of the bay. They crossed quickly to come before a solid wall of reeds.
“There is an opening.” Sokanon pointed with her paddle. “There,” she continued to show when he didn’t answer.
He turned back from watching behind them. “I see it, now.”
She measured his concern and looked herself. “They would follow us?”
Isaac searched again, wondering if they really would, for three bundles of furs. “I think Thomas would have warned of it.”
“He did warn, husband.”
“Only that we should leave on our own. He had to think we would search out our own source to sell our trade. He would have said to guard against direct confrontation.” He studied the wind in the trees again and sighed. “Hopefully we’ll be able to cross quickly. Once we do, Detroit will be that much closer.”
She nodded. Started with him again at their paddles, to enter the opening that led into a narrow cut. The high green and brown marsh grass rustled noisy and towered over their heads, closing in around them, hiding their view of the world. The undulating feeling grew as the canoe bobbed up and down in the increasing swells. Sokanon felt as if they might be sinking into the breathing earth itself.
It appeared with the suddenness to surprise, even as they’d expected. The breadth of the lake before them. Everywhere at once, the wind in its full power. White-topped waves roaring relentless. Dark specks and soaring flashes of gulls and terns, swans, geese, ducks, raucous in their calls. How had they not heard it all until just now?
“It’s even shorter than I thought,” Isaac said of the crossing.
Sokanon turned quick to him. Her eyes focused. Don’t you dare.
“Don’t worry,” he said. It was frustrating to be so near, with so much daylight left. He searched up and down the other shore. “I only mean that the distance is far less than I thought it would be. Even closer than the Mackinaw. We did not come this way, north.”
She agreed. The lake had been on their left when Chippewa Pete brought them into the great marsh before bkejwanong. It was opposite now, on their left, again. “Shall we enter back into the shallows?”
Isaac took only a second to rule it out. “We’ll get lost in the maze of islands. Besides…” He let his thought to the wind as he glanced behind them.
She understood. And when he motioned with his head she knew then, too. Relieved. They would wait out the weather camped on the island.
They let the wind drift them a few yards back up the channel, where they paddled through a small cut into the tiny bay, sheltered into a quiet pool by a shoal of sand, jutting a hundred feet out from the large island. They steered along the inside of the shoal, while breakers crashed just on the outer.
The sand continued to rise into the wide beach, running steep up to the brush and trees, gnarled and broken, stunted by season after season, the harsh weather pounding at the island that stuck so far out into the lake.
The freighter touched softly and they waited for it to come around, sideways before stepping out. The sand was deep and shifting and it took all their effort just to pull the canoe up a few feet. But the shoal running out from the island protected the pool so well, it was hard to believe the mayhem just the other side. They stretched their backs and peered across the onslaught of tumbling waves, the gale wind coming from the southwest, clear up the entire length of the lake.
“I remember,” Sokanon said, “when I was a child, the sun behind the clouds, shining in waves through the blue glass of the church windows.” She held her hand up and shook it in front of her face. “On the walls, as if the jewels I see the wealthy women to Sunday service wear.”

“How small they look,” Isaac said of the whitecaps.
Compared to ocean waves. Yet, she knew he meant how just as dangerous. Maybe more, with their endless charging pace. She scanned along the brush and scraggly trees. “Isaac.”
He followed her view to see more straight lines of someone’s handiwork.
“Come on. Another big pull.”
They strained at the canoe for another couple feet.
“I don’t think it’s going anywhere.”
He waited for her to grab up Jacob and they tramped up the dune to the trees. There was an area cut out for a campsite just inside. Tamped down and not quite overgrown, maybe for shelter in a wind such as this, waiting to cross, same as them.
“Isaac.” She motioned this time to the red berries showing through the wild twisted brush.
“Strawberries?” he said, surprised as she. He armed his way through the pickers to get at them. “There is a good many.”
“The birds have eaten all those close to the outside.” The wonderful garden at Quebec was there. A sin to take even one of the strawberries, meant for the poor children from all the convent communities of women. Sokanon would trust only her friend Agnes Marie to know of those she secreted from their prickly vines, bigger, softer, and sweeter than the wild ones.
Isaac plucked a bright red one and handed it to her. She bit the sour fruit in half and squeezed the juice into Jacob’s mouth, before letting him suck at the berry. They laughed at his puckered face while he shuddered, yet returned to gum at it over and over.
Isaac gave her a small handful more.
“All the strawberries were gone,” she said, “to use in the pemmican instead of the chokecherries of the Ojibwa.”
“It’s still good, even with the sour cherries. The blueberries sweetened it enough.”
“Yes, Isaac.” She let Jacob suck at another.
“How do you say them again, in French—blueberries and strawberries?”
“I have told, many times.”
“Myrtilles et fraises,” he said.
She nodded.
“Which one’s which?”
“Many times, Isaac.”
“Myrtilles et fraises,” he said, pinching Jacob’s cheek. “Myrtilles et fraises,” he repeated his lyric, sweeping Sokanon and Jacob up into his arms, twirling as a dance.
“Isaac!” she scolded as he lost his balance, tumbling the three to the ground.
Jacob giggled.
The high sun shone down on them. Sokanon delighted in the autumn red of his beard, the green showing brighter in his eyes. Isaac in her easy natural smile, eyes shining the color of her dark brown coffee.
He stood. Studied the distance across again. Where the headland jutted out from the far shore, to make the crossing shorter. And to where the shoal disappeared under the waves. He pointed— “We should be able to drag the canoe over the sand, there,” meaning to put it to her memory, too. They would cross the moment the wind would let them. In darkness, or daylight. “Without having to go around.”
He pushed through the brush into the old campsite. Kicked and smoothed at the ground.
Sokanon peeked in. “The tent will fit in here. Tie it off to trees, instead of stakes.”
Isaac continued to level the ground. “The tarp won’t be enough. We’ll have to lie on a few blankets if we have to sleep the night.”
She looked to the canoe. Shining bright in the sun. “We should hide hide it?”
He agreed. “We’ll cut some reeds to cover it. Right after the tent is set.”

11

Isaac slid from the comfort of wife and child. The air was colder than the morning before. The cool sand prickled at his bare feet as he stood away, exposed in the breeze that continued to blow all the many miles straight up the length of the lake. He turned his ear to the waves to try and gauge their height in the darkness. The low sounds of irregular crests encouraged him. As long as it didn’t blow any stronger. But Sokanon would not be happy. It would be another hard and wet crossing.
The moon was somewhere hidden and he searched the sky. Dawn hinting in the east. Clouds building in the south. Aurora shimmering faint, seeming to dance, low along the northern horizon. The Great Bear constellation was there among the milky cloud of stars. It had pointed their way north, coming. Already on its way to turn upside down in the winter, as if emptying out its ladle to the south, yet ever pointing to the north star. He ducked back (into the tent) under the tarpaulin.
Sokanon shuddered at his cold skin against hers. Jacob squeaked and she drew him to her.
Isaac gave room. “The horizon glows again with the blue twilight of your priest.”
She heard it in his voice. Purpose. She listened to the wind. “It blows hard, still.”
Jacob turned his mouth away from her, continued to fuss.
Isaac laid back to pull on his trousers. “I don’t like that this island sticks so far out in the open. This site has been cleared because it’s the natural crossing point, I’m certain. If the army does come looking for us, they’ll find us easy here.”
She had to agree. “But the wind is still strong.”
“It’s as light as it will be. As soon as Jacob’s done deciding on whether he’s hungry or not, and you’re dressed, we have to make the crossing. Before the wind freshens again during the day.” He kissed Jacob on the head. “Although we could use some fresh wind in here.”
“Maybe, he wants father after all.”
“There’ll be plenty of time for me to change his nappies once we’re settled somewhere. Even if it’s only for the winter,” he said to her searching gaze.
He grabbed his shirt and crawled from the tent.
She handed Jacob out from the shelter and stood, her smock and moccasins in her hands. She turned her face up, peering to the crown of the morning rising. The cool breeze was refreshing against the damp skin from their warm sleep.
Isaac stared up and down at her body, not for the thousandth time. Her shapely form. Her skin and hair, luminous even in the darkness.
She saw. Waited for him to turn his eyes away.
Yet… “The wind is very strong, Isaac.”
“It’s blowing from the same compass as yesterday.” He motioned with his hand. “We’ll let it drift us up, a little farther into the shallow bay to the north. Then turn back and cross close-hauled, angled into the wind. The canoe has proven itself. She’ll cut right through the waves on a straight course.”
“What if the wind changes?”
“Then it’s even more important we cross now. While we have its gauge to our bow.”
She was deliberate in her movements, dressing while he held Jacob. “We will be wet.”
“Aye, drookit,” he said the Scots word of his grandmother. “Aye,” he said again, cooing to Jacob, holding him aloft, “good old dead Granny Dobbins might probably never put you down.”
“Lord’s peace to her soul, Isaac,” she gently reprimanded.
She dragged out the cradleboard and tended to it, refilling the bottom with dry soft grass from her bag. She squinted into the wind, trying to see in the dark past the sandy shoal out onto the lake.
——————
The sounds of the rolling breakers against the shoal were ghostly in the blue darkness. Their paddles struck bottom again and again. Isaac laid his into the canoe. Got out to man-haul it over the sand.
“The shoal goes farther out than I thought,” he said. “Just keep poling with your paddle.”
A tense moment when the bow came off the shallows and started to swing downwind. “It is deeper,” Sokanon said, whirling her paddle to the other side, stabbing into the hard sand, using it as a lever to hold them from being turned sideways back onto the shoal.
“Go!” he called pushing hard one last time before leaping back in.
They couldn’t stop the sideways drift, the wind abreast against the high side, spray soaking them at once. Sokanon’s paddle hit bottom again and she worried they’d be forced back onto the shoal, where the lake would pound at them without mercy. But she knew Isaac’s plan and paddled with him on the same side until they cleared and pushed out deeper. Away from the surf piling up onto the shallows. Out in the open water, where the waves were more ordered and they could steady the timing of their strokes. She practiced again, what to do if they should be tipped over, Jacob on the cord tied to her.
The wind was stronger than Isaac had anticipated, a little more from the south than the day before. His instincts called him to it. “Let’s make the turn now,” he directed.
Sooner than she thought he would. She felt his steering and swept her paddle hard to make the turn quickly as possible. But they were slammed again sideways to the waves, another drenching spray over the windward side.
Bow around and the canoe was transformed. Borne to the water, riding over and through the steady cadence of waves that Isaac had misjudged. The slight change of wind was enough to hide its strength, until they pushed out into the open water. It came in full at their front, hitting the bow slightly angled, sending spray after spray into their faces. It was warmer than the air. Sokanon made sure of the otter skin covering Jacob and swept her long lake paddle, practiced through the water. Isaac swung on her same leeward side, no need for steering, only power. Their strength, and the wind together, sweeping them across.
——————
The tree line grew as the daylight did, rising disc of the sun aflame, dancing on the horizon of cresting waves. Crimson sunrise stretched over them, sky burning deep red. Reflected pink in the splashes continually soaking. Isaac sloshed to his ankles in the stern. Three hours? Four? When they slipped tired, exhilarated, into the quiet water of the headland running out from shore. Gliding smooth through the wide expanse of green stick reeds tapping gentle along the canoe’s length. To a halt when tucked tight into the lee of the peninsula, held in place by the reeds. Isaac started at the baling, dunking the sail cloth into the pool at the bottom of the canoe and wringing it out over the side.
Sokanon tossed off the otter skin covering Jacob to welcome his little sleeping face.
“Non drookit,” she mocked to Isaac, pulling at her smock, soaked through and stuck to her skin. She squeezed the braids of her wet hair away from Jacob, dripping into the canoe.
Isaac worked his way forward, climbing over the tight-packed gear bags and fur bundles. “Watch your legs,” he said, leaning over her seat with the sailcloth into the pool of water at her feet. “Hopefully, we can stay drier all the way down to Detroit.”
“Yes, Isaac. The hide from the élan does nothing, stored away under the canvas.”
“It was to make a cape for me in the stern. Where it’s wettest. Your father would tell you.”
She wiped at his wet beard, smoothed his hair away from his brow, over the top of his scalp. Would they ever tire, gazing at each other? She gave him more room, bringing Jacob away, closer to her to nuzzle her face with his. His skin was warm. The boy flinched awake and they laughed at his antic shuddering from her cold fingers traced down his face. Isaac worked the bailing cloth until the floor was dry below her. He crawled back to finish at the stern.
———— (dbl sp)
Isaac paddled easy in the calm haven behind the headland. Only a few canoe lengths away the lake was again turning over onto itself, white-topped waves tumbling and stacking into the big bay to the north. But it wasn’t a headland, as they neared. Yet another river cut its way into the lake, silting its ancient peninsula. Its mouth was wide and calm and he guessed it went far inland. To where?
He worked his paddle while Sokanon sat to herself and Jacob. Slow along the shore, trees bending in the wind, leaves hissing and rattling, sliding onto land where he went over the side again to lug the bow up farther. They shared a moment before he scampered up the rock and scrub to see the open water roiled in endless whitecaps, rougher than the day before. He shielded his eyes from dust blowing in the hard wind, changed to the southeast from yesterday. Enough to blow straight out from the lake horizon, full across the breadth. No protection from the grosse pointe as yesterday’s southwesterly would have offered. He gauged the distance to the giant promontory. Eight miles?
“Maybe ten,” he said to himself. Long, hard, wet miles.
A long beach ran down the other side of the point before where the shore turned to south. A huge expanse of reeds and lily pads flattened the incoming waves, creating a wide cove into the bend. They could launch through the expanse, breaking out with speed and power into the crests all at once. But they would have to fight them all the way as they worked south. He turned back to see Sokanon still wringing out her braids. His wet clothes clung tight and confining, too.
“It’s only a few yards across here,” he said to her. “It won’t take much to portage over.”
She knew his mind. He hated to lose another full afternoon. “We are not to travel today, I think, husband.”
“The reeds are thick enough on this side to break the waves.” He pointed. “It runs down into a quiet cove, where we can eat our noonday meal, and argue about it then.” Even though he knew she wouldn’t let them to the open water. Even with the moosehide made into a storm cape to cover her and Jacob.
“Non, this argument for you to win.”
“Non,” he laughed, “but we can dry ourselves and shelter until this gale blows itself out.”
“It is well, husband.”
———— (dbl sp)
Sokanon stumbled at the top of the rise and fell forward, the canoe slipping from her grasp. Isaac felt the sudden lurch and tried to catch himself, but dropped to his knees, the boat still rested on his shoulder. She started to apologize when she saw them out on the lake. Looked again to be sure.
“Isaac,” she pointed.
It took him a moment but there it was. The dark shape bucking in the waves. A Montreal canoe, its team of nine rowers.
Their instincts were to hide, but they were out in the open.
“Come on,” Isaac said.
She was already lifting the canoe, both of them leaning low and scooting it down to the shore.
They crouched to see just over the reeds.
“Trader men,” Sokanon said, “from Michi-mack fort.”
Isaac wouldn’t question her eyesight. He suspected it anyway. He watched close, studying the rowers. “Yes,” he said, “Aubert and his company.”
“They have stopped at their paddles.”
Isaac saw.
They watched as the voyageurs’ canoe turned to headed back toward the channels of the delta. A telling action, their intent not for destination, but searching, instead.
Sokanon called to it. “They are looking, for us?”
Isaac didn’t want to believe it. “They wouldn’t dare. Too many people have seen us with our stores…” Isaac trailed off as he continued to watch.
Sokanon knew what he meant. That the voyageurs would have to kill them, and risk murder in the law. Fears of a lifetime came to her. The raiders attacking and killing her family. The sounds were there again. The war whoops, shooting, strikes from war clubs. She looked to Jacob, happy at his hanging playthings.
“Sokanon,” Isaac drew her attention away. “Quick. Down into the bend.”
They piled in the fur bundles. She snatched up Jacob and they slipped into the canoe, paddling through the reeds and pads, the hard, yellow lily flowers knocking against the canoe. Along the shore until they reached where the sand ended, safety to hide in the trees only a few steps away. They stared out to the lake, where the Montreal’er was turned again, going south.
“That’s good,” Isaac encouraged, “away from us.” He wondered at encountering them in Detroit.
“Do you think they saw us?”
“Maybe. Let’s hide the canoe, and get up into the trees.”
———— (dbl sp)
Sokanon was wary as Isaac slid the muskets out to bring them to where she and Jacob waited. Hidden from view, yet able to watch out to the water, where the Montreal’er was gone.
He handed her one of the muskets.
“We shall not fight them, Isaac.”
He saw past her fears to know she was right. “I don’t think we’ll have to. As I said, they wouldn’t dare to it. But, if we are to remain here overnight, we have to be prepared to defend ourselves.” He searched through the thick forest. “From anything.”
“But, we shall not fight the Aubert team, if it is the furs they want. There are too many.”
“If we show we mean to fight, they might deem it not worth the effort.”
He looked away from her and their son.
“Isaac,” she pressed.
He wondered of the river, just back around the point, dismissing its unknown course. He sighed. Gave in. “No, we won’t fight them. But we’ll damn sure report them all the way to Montreal, if it comes to that.”
“Do not swear, husband.”
“I will swear all the way to Montreal, too.”
“And I will ask that you do not, all the way there.”
“I know you will.”
He continued his study of the area. Atop the little rise, where they could still see the water, but any attack from the woods would have to finish its charge up the small incline. Clear path for them to retreat behind the downed tree. And then to the deadfall. He looked to Sokanon and the baby. Where they could shelter, while she could reload for him behind the safety of the wide uproot.
It was his way. Always to be prepared. Yet she worried at the conviction in his eyes. “We will not fight, Isaac.”
“Only defend, wife. I promise.”
Yet she wondered. Knew it would be a hard promise for him to keep. She held to faith, that what Isaac said was true. The voyageurs wouldn’t dare to it.
The wind hissed through the leaves above them. They stopped suddenly and looked up for the familiar sounds. The tall trunks creaked and branches rubbed and knocked at each other.
Her eyes were awaiting his when he looked down from overhead.
“Eat, now, husband.”
“Yes.” He pulled at his shirt. “It’s uncomfortable in these wet clothes. I’d like to strip them off and make a fire to dry them.”
“You would to me,” she cooed, “instead of standing guard.”
“We would to each other, wife.”
———— (dbl sp)
They sat quietly in the late afternoon waiting for night, the lethargy of enforced idleness blurring in the hours. Isaac fixed his attention on Sokanon. He thought the change suited her, the look of a mother. He breathed with a contented feeling that Jacob, and the other children they would have, would see how beautiful she was. He thought of his own mother, and the sadness of her face came to him, too. Of when his younger siblings had died, not living to see their first birthdays. He frowned an anguished look to Jacob.
“What, Isaac?”
“I was thinking of Margaret and Andrew. How I never understood the sadness of my mother and father, until now.”
“You could not have. Even now—” she pained to think the contrary, “Jacob is alive. You do not know.”
He nodded. “But I can understand, the sense of loss, for them. Much deeper than I knew then.”
“Sister would say— do not question, yet accept, the Lord’s will on earth.”
“But, I didn’t think of them at all.”
“Your mother and father?”
“Not any of them. When I visited the graves with mum and granny, I wondered at their tears. Because I felt nothing.”
“You were a child, Isaac.” She looked down to Jacob, asleep aside her. “Sister would also say not to be regret, instead the faith that God will guide your steps.”
The wind hissed through the leaves above them. They stopped suddenly and looked up for the familiar sounds. The tall trunks creaked and branches rubbed and knocked at each other. Their eyes awaited each other’s when they looked down from overhead, cares softened in the shine.
But the snap of underbrush beneath a footfall stole away the easy presence. In an instant they challenged against the danger, the Huron warriors charging at the sound of the misstep.

12

Isaac and Sokanon swung to the threat, weapons snatched up haphazard. She fired first, the musket lain across her lap, held up her thigh to aim. The gun blew from her hands but the man was right there, at the end of the barrel. He keeled over backward limp and dead, landing half buried into the thick underbrush.
The second Huron came on and Isaac fired, stopping the warrior who grabbed at his face, blackened and bloodied by the shot missed, the force of the gunpowder flash striking full. He raised his war club, wailed his death cry and leapt wildly in his blindness. Isaac swung to bludgeon him in the side of the head with the gun stock, sending the man down heavy in a heap.
Isaac drew one of the pistols from his belt and readied for the next attacker. But the battle was to continue from the beach as shouts drew his attention there.
“Non, Isaac,” Sokanon grabbed for him when he started away.
He held his finger to his lips, steadied her. “We need to know where they’re coming from.”
She released her grip.
He snuck closer to the edge of the forest to see them moving forward, keeping to the tree line. They were calling to their comrades, the struggle in the woods hidden to them.
“Sondok! Atironta!”
“We move, now,” Isaac said, returning to Sokanon.
He belted the pistol to grab up both muskets and the powder bag. Sokanon carried Jacob and rose to a crouch at Isaac’s arm. They shuffled away from the shouts of Aubert and the others, calling out again. 
“There,” Isaac directed behind the downed tree.
Sokanon dropped heavy, leaned against the trunk, unsure of what to do with Jacob. Hold him. Lay him behind her. Cover him with her body.
Isaac held a musket out. “Reload,” he told her. “Sokanon,” he drew her attention from Jacob. “Reload,” he said again, his voice even.
Her thoughts settled and she took the weapon, sharing the powder bag between them to rearm the two guns. Wives and mothers flashed, dresses soiled at the hems from the mud, helping the soldiers at the ramparts during the siege of Quebec flashed.
“Sondok! Atironta!” More shouts through the trees.
“Your men are down!” Isaac called.
“Non,” Sokanon urged before gun reports crashed, wild shots ripping through the foliage, whizzing in the air, striking trees with dull thuds.
“We’ll put more of you down if you come any closer!” he shouted.
Isaac fired off both pistols in turn to draw their fire towards the downed tree. Sokanon shied deeper into the ground, covering Jacob. She wanted to drag Isaac down with her and their child.
He pulled at her instead. “Go again while they reload. Over there,” he motioned. “Behind that deadfall.”
Isaac hurried Sokanon along, shielding her and Jacob, his back crawling with the same cold shivers as the war. More shots came, then. The bullets directed closer. Striking nearer. His hand was strong at her arm, but she was heavy on her feet and stumbled.
Isaac panicked, thinking she’d been hit. “Are you shot?”
But she was up, clutching at him for support.
“Come on, then,” he exhorted, pushing and pulling to help her along.
They came to the deadfall and Sokanon tumbled down behind, laying Jacob where she thought was best protected. He cried from the noise and heavy handling, and she knew his wails would quickly give away their hiding spot. She wondered if it might forestall their attackers, the innocent child crying. Take the furs and go. But she wondered at revenge for their comrades. She took up Jacob again, drawing him close to try and quiet him.
Her panic was that of a mother in terror. Her fear turned dread for her son.
“Here,” he said, handing her the pistols. “Only at close quarters.”
She knew what he meant. Only after he was dead. When they would come upon her.
“You are fighting a losing battle, my friend!” Aubert’s voice rang.
Isaac didn’t want to answer. Maybe they could remain hidden. Retreat into the woods to hide again in the night. He saw their movements, but only for a moment amid the echoes of shots and taunting yells. He aimed at the closest smoke billowing from a position behind a tree. But he held his fire, the sporadic and undisciplined aim telling the voyageurs’ still didn’t know exactly where they were. It would only be a matter of time. Musket blasts and bullets pierced the air again. There were thuds into the upturned tree root. A couple of the shooters had guessed their position.
“Take the furs and go!” Isaac called out.
It brought more shots, their attention directed to the deadfall then, more bullets striking against the giant root covered thick in earth from the forest floor.
Aubert yelled for his men to cease fire. “I can only hold off my men for so long, to avenge their friends.”
Isaac’s anger rose. “You will kill my wife and child?”
Silence.
Sokanon’s ire flamed in it. Matched her resolve to Isaac’s. That he would be dead soon. She ravished, and left to die with Jacob in the woods. Let him cry his own little defiance. She readied herself with the pistols. “Close quarters,” she whispered through her teeth. Readied to reload the muskets in turn as Isaac fired.
“Well,” he challenged the would-be assassins through the trees. “Come on then! And be damned!”
Sokanon pressed for her ring. She had seen war, as had Isaac. Smelled its stench and felt its madness. They knew death. Yet, now she knew killing, too. “Forgive me,” she said, needing the grace of Our Lady to know that her goodness was still there.
“I’m sorry,” Isaac said.
“As am I, husband.”
They awaited the onslaught in another eerie silence, their attackers approaching stealthy.
But a gunshot came from farther away, from the water.
“Damn!” Isaac cursed. “Some of them must have brought their canoe around to get behind us.” They were caught, and the dread finality wrenched at his determination.
Sokanon saw it. Laid her hand to his shoulder as a strange calm came to her.
He regrouped to the clarity in her vision. “Grab up Jacob,” he said. “We’ll flee now into the woods. It can’t be more than twenty miles to Detroit from here.”
“Yes, husband.”
It meant losing everything. Except that which was most important.
He searched their path. There was a sandy ridge about a hundred yards away, its rise to give them cover to halt again, to fire over its crest in retreat. Another shot fired from out on the lake and they ducked instinctively. Readied to make their dash.
“Cease and desist!” came the command, a different voice carried in the air.
Isaac’s thoughts raced with his heart and lungs pounding blood through his body. He didn’t want to believe the chance, thinking his ears were playing a trick.
“Officer of the king’s army!” came another announcement and Isaac knew the voice.
“It is the man, Fraser,” Sokanon said, her eyes wide in the providence.
The quiet was different. An eternity, yet loud with anticipation while they waited for Aubert’s reaction.
Until Fraser’s voice called again. “Dobbins! Are you alive?”
Isaac stayed vigilant. Aimed the musket again across the palisade of the deadfall, peered over the sights as he swung the barrel left and right. “Yes, Thomas!” He called after no sight of danger. “We are here.”
He saw through the trees the double brace of bateaux and canoes coming ashore. Fraser in his blue naval officer’s tunic, standing at the bow of one of the boats, his boot on the gunwale, sword drawn. Small contingent of regulars amongst the drab-clad militia rowers in each craft, their red coats stark against the setting, readied to disembark with guns presented.
Sokanon didn’t have to wonder about Isaac. She could guess his thoughts watching him set traps, mending some important or minor thing, during a simple meal. To feel a lifetime of relief now, after resigned to death and destruction… She saw it in him, past his courage. Her tears ran for both of them. She brought Jacob to her. For their tribe of three.
Isaac reached out to place his hand on first, Jacob then Sokanon. “We are well, wife.”
Sister’s always certain lectures sounded. “Thanks be to our Lord, husband.”
He nodded. “Touch your ring any time you will.”
Her hand was there.
“Tell your Lady thank you from me, too.”
He reached to help her to her feet.
“My legs feel weak,” she thanked him.
“Mine, too. Even a short battle can drain all your strength.”
The world was about them again, sunlight slanting down through the canopy, the shafts made solid in the dust and still-drifting gunpowder smoke, wind blowing high in the trees, the lake rolling with waves.
Voices carried to their ears. Fraser commanding orders. Aubert countering for his mates.
“Sondok is dead!” one announced.
Sokanon heard, felt it in her stomach. The world yet again. Darkest as she had ever known. She watched the man sweep his view around until he spied them behind the deadfall. Right into her eyes. A pang rose to her chest. Sondok is dead. By her hand.
“Atironta is over here,” another said. “His face is burnt and bloodied. But he’s breathing.”
The sounds were hollow as she and the first man continued to stare.
“We are well, Sokanon,” Isaac repeated. “It’s over. I hope Fraser deals harshly with this gang of murderous savages.”
She nodded blankly, her sight still fixed on where the man she killed lay silent. The only murder here, today. She handed Isaac the pistols, one at a time, the weapons cold to her touch. He tucked them back into his pants.
“Dobbins!” Fraser hailed.
“Here.” Isaac stood out from behind the hiding place to show himself.
“And your wife and child?”
“Right here, Thomas.”
Sokanon leaned on Isaac to brace herself, her feet catching on everything while they paced to where the soldiers stood with the voyageurs. She wavered at the sight of the bloodied man she’d shot, his torn open chest causing her gorge to rise. Like nothing ever at the hospital. She wondered how anyone could live with a killing on their soul. She turned away and held herself close to Isaac.
“Does she need some assistance, Dobbins?”
“No, Thomas.” He glared at their attackers. “By your fateful arrival, our family is well.”
The man Isaac wounded was sitting up, blood running from his head down his blackened face. Somewhere under the powder burns were the bruises, same as his own, from their brawl at Mackinaw.
“Who is leader here?” Fraser demanded.
His stern voice was satisfying to Isaac.
“I am,” Aubert answered, compliant and arrogant at the same time.
Sokanon had too much of it. “I will to the canoe with Jacob.”
“Hold here a moment, if you please, Isaac,” Fraser said.
Isaac motioned for him not to stop his wife.
She wasn’t asking anyway. Continued on, before her sick would come. Her legs were still tight, as if she were wading in water.
“Corporal Elliot.”
Only then did Isaac recognize the young man once again.
“Sir.”
Fraser thumbed his direction. “Get two of those frowzy militiamen over here. Carry this man away.”
“Yes, sir.”
“My men can do, Lieutenant.”
Fraser glared at Aubert. “You and your men will stay here, to answer some questions before you do anything.”
Sokanon didn’t care to hear any of their words. She knew what happened and only wanted to flee, now, with Isaac and Jacob, who continued his broken fits of crying.
“Your son is well?”
“He is, Thomas.”
“Good.” He turned to Aubert. “Where is your vessel—capitaine?”
The trapper tossed his thumb over his shoulder to the other side of the point, into the river.
“And this is all your men?”
Aubert shrugged, hands out to his sides. “All that you see, lieutenant.”
Isaac’s disdain rose at the (little) man’s casual manner. As if there were nothing to killing, raping, stealing. He felt himself move toward Aubert, the little man’s life ebbing away in a fit of his own violence. Isaac didn’t know if the others id, but it was enough that Aubert drew back from his advance.
Fraser’s hand was hard at his chest to stop him.
“Dobbins—”
“They attacked us, Fraser,” he protested.
All the trappers changed their stances as he stepped toward them again.
“Hold it, Isaac.” Fraser was in front of him now, their beards brushing together before the push back to arms length.
“They would have killed my family, Thomas.” The images ran in his thoughts. Sokanon set at. Jacob left exposed to die. Fraser pushed once more.
“Isaac.” It was Potter.
“Good to see you, mate,” from Greene.
Isaac relaxed his stance. Yielded to Fraser’s firm nudging to move back, away from the circle. “Greene, Potter,” he nodded to their welcome.
They hesitated a moment, their gazes darkening looking down to the bloody warrior, the other still being tended to.
“Alive and well,” Potter added.
“Yes,” Fraser said, steadying himself, yet still in front of Isaac, “alive and well.” He motioned to the shoreline. “You had better wait at the boats while I question these men.”
Isaac stiffened again. “They attacked us, Thomas.”
“Stand away, now, Dobbins. Don’t make me disarm you, have you detained by my men.”
Isaac glared. “Detain, me?”
“For your good, if not theirs.”
Isaac saw his war mate. Comrades at arms. “As you will, Thomas. At least let me help tie them up after you arrest them.”
Fraser hid his smirk. “Go on, Dobbins. I’ll sort it out.”
Isaac gave a nod to Greene and Potter. Headed for Sokanon and Jacob.
———— (dbl sp)
She stood away near their canoe, bouncing Jacob, crying yet in her arms. She recognized some of them, those who had rowed with Isaac. And the same young corporal, just coming out of the woods, calling for two of the militiamen to follow him back. But she was uncomfortable in their company. Even through all their looks of sympathy. She listened for her husband among the muffled voices through the trees, rising from the scene. She wanted to yell for him. Hurry them away from it. The killing the man caused her to, to save herself and child. She grasped Jacob tighter as she fought against the rise in her stomach.
“Sokanon.”
Isaac’s call revived her. She steadied at his hands, taking Jacob from her.
“Here, sit,” he said.
“I have seen worse at the hospital.”
“It’s not the same.”
“Non.”
——————
“You can’t just let them go.”
Sokanon wanted to halt Isaac’s protests. To say she was glad for them to be gone. Out of their lives.
“They attacked us,” he pressed.
“It’s their word, against yours,” Fraser said. “Your wife admitted to shooting first. You told me yourself the others didn’t start shooting until after you’d put their two mates down.”
“That’s a narrow view of it, Thomas. Especially for you. Especially between us, mate.”
“Probably. But it’s a lot easier to explain away when the two accused are dead and blinded. Justice would seem to be served.”
“Justice?” She blurted it out and for a moment, all around were silent, staring. “Where is justice, for me?”
Fraser turned to her. “I would say, young lady, that justice is the fact that you and your child are alive. And that those who might harm you, are dead.”
She saw into his certainty in an instant. Felt it from Isaac, too. Their short life together. All the slivers, mentions of fighting in battles. The whispers of the untold. Kill or be killed. How could they do it, time and again? How could the men of Jesus… “They have no children.” She kept her eyes down. Isaac brushed at her arm as she went with Jacob to stand at the militiamen’s fire. They offered blankets to sit and cover. Army biscuits and tea if she was hungry. One of them thought to praise, maybe, saying to attack a mother and her baby was the same as if a she-bear and her cubs. She wondered if all of them misunderstood her about having no children. She wished she could remember about her mother’s sky-girl. Whether she could escape her troubles by flying away. Fraser and Isaac went on, their voices hollow.
“We have all their names, Dobbins. They will be recorded into the official record in Detroit. Along with your charges against them.”
Isaac breathed. Watched the militiamen help to settle Sokanon. Greene, Potter, Wayne. Even Hartley, sympathy softened across his face. “And what now?” he pressed Fraser. “Are we to be in fear, on our guard till then? The two Hurons were those I grappled with at Mackinaw.”
“Careful, Dobbins. Don’t let that temper of yours appear hysterical in front of the others.”
Isaac took a breath, conscious of Sokanon’s gaze.
“Now, then,” Fraser went on. “I’m sending the two canoes with you down to Detroit. We were to send a dispatch anyway, once the disposition of the Gladwin and those from Mackinaw were settled. Corporal Elliot and Private Gale will join the militiamen paddlers and act as military escort.”
Sokanon felt the men around her hide their cheer. Another measure of the world closer to home for some of them.
“And I figured it was the two you told me about.”
Sokanon’s attention pricked.
Isaac waited. Watched intently.
“Later in the day after you pushed off, word got about that a voyageur team came ashore and were asking around, who else had come down with the squadron. These men are the ones who alerted me.”
Isaac followed his motioning to them. Greene, Potter, Wayne. Even Harley?
“They were suspicious when the trappers suddenly absconded,” Fraser recounted. “When they said of the two Hurons with them, I remembered your telling me of your confrontation at Mackinaw. I put out immediately with a squad to run after them, just in case. We had just come out of the flats when we heard the gun reports across the lake, and we quick crossed.”
Sokanon watched Isaac’s disbelief match her own, turn to ire.
“Yet you doubt my word—our word—” he emphasized, “that we were set upon by them, without provocation?”
“I don’t doubt it. But look at the evidence as presented. You say the two were the only ones who initially attacked.”
Isaac already knew the rest.
“They say the rest of them only entered the woods to see to their mates. That is fairly well what we witnessed coming upon the situation.” He pushed his hand out to Isaac. “If they are brought to an inquiry, it won’t take much lying on their part to switch it around and accuse you of murder.”
“Non!” Sokanon rose to her feet, her outburst again fixing the attention of all the men to her. “They attack us,” she went on, and angry tears fell with her words, her English failing in her wrath, “make me shoot, to be a murder to them.”
“There’s for you, Dobbins—” Fraser kept his voice even.
Isaac heard the condescension.
Sokanon saw her husband’s surrender to it.
“And it makes for an easier report.” Isaac supposed it was something at least.
Fraser stared, before his attention went out to the lake.
Isaac followed it, Sokanon his. To see the voyageurs canoe rounded the point, the big Montreal’er plowing through the waves, seven paddlers heads down, intent at their purpose.
“Get some rest now, Dobbins, you’ve won another war.”
Isaac’s breath was heavy in his chest. “Thank you, Thomas,” he offered. 
Sokanon turned away when Fraser tipped his hat to her.
Isaac came to her and Jacob. The fatigue flushed over him. The soreness that came after battle, scrapes, cuts and bruises, unfelt in the mad action. The euphoria of being alive, surviving the death struggle. And this new feeling, fear and joy for the safety of his wife and their child. His hand shook a little when he reached to feel Jacob’s heartbeat, the small rise and fall of his breathing.
Sokanon clasped her hand over his. There were speckles of blood on the sleeve of his tunic. She searched out to see the canoe ever farther away.
He wanted to tell her not to worry. That they wouldn’t dare attack them now. But he could offer no assurance. He knew the killing would continue to haunt. “We are alive,” he told her.
She was quiet. Nestled in tighter.
——————
The blood was with the shadows, life pouring out from the unmoving body into the ground. Where strawberries were suddenly grown from the gaping wound in his chest. Somewhere Jacob cried.
She woke with a start. Jacob was peaceful in his carrier between them. She lifted her head expecting to see all the lighted faces around the fire watching her. But the men were to their bedrolls, only the quiet noises of their slumber. The flames were low, turning to glowing embers. Isaac breathed the heavy breaths of sleep. Even in the dark she could tell his easy expression. Wondered how it could be. How Fraser and the others could make it as if she and Isaac had done something worth praise. Fought two against many. How they could jest she was as a wild animal to protect her child.
The mother bear charged again, Isaac firing first his musket, then the pistol, then her musket while he lay on the ground with the bleeding animal hunched over him. How he had dismissed his wounds as they clubbed the two motherless cubs to a merciful death.
She blinked from her vision and squinted in the darkness for the security of the nighttime guards, posted to either side of the beach encampment. The wind was calmed in the evening, surf rolling in soft. She peered out to the lake, listening to hear for what danger might come from the black, beyond the quiet waves.
She laid her head back down to watch the shroud pull across the night sky. Dark clouds spreading, as the warrior’s blood. Swallowing the stars, hiding them in the shame too great for their dancing light to shine upon her. She heard Father Armand’s voice again, his telling with pride as a Man of Jesus, the story of the eight Jesuit martyrs of Sainte-Marie of the Hurons, killed by the Iroquois long ago. And now here were Hurons. Aubert and their French and British comrades. Christians, all. Come to kill her.
She sat up. Scooted to lay more wood into the fire. Stoked its orange glow into small flames. Anything to calm her fit. The spirits were there, in the fire. Peoples’ shadows walking unlit paths, searching for the light to guide them. The world of ghosts, that called for her and Jacob when he was born. Isaac prayed, and his wife and child were brought back into the world of light. Only to be killed again? She wondered at his short life. Wondered had he not lived when he was born. They might not have left their cabin. She would not have killed the man, who might have killed her son.
The two guards were there, too. Young men. Younger than she, maybe. She stood. Wrapped the blanket tighter around her. Looked the one guardsman away while she walked toward the other, a silent nod of acknowledgment to his duty as she passed him. Out to the end of the point, until she could go no further. She clutched her ring and prayed for the Mother of Jesus to bring peace into her thoughts of destruction.

13

She was to her motherhood while the others were roused from their night’s sleep.
Isaac stretched his back and shoulders, testing against his soreness. That he might be able to paddle hard all day without discomfort. “I hope you were finally able to sleep well.”
“Well enough, husband.”
He understood. But it wasn’t the time to offer solace.
“I dreamed of the mother bear.” It was a little lie.
Isaac watched her try to hide her distress. “Don’t listen to what the others say.”
“They should not make it a joke, that I am to kill.”
He kept his voice low. “They are almost all new recruits and haven’t seen battle. Making jokes helps make it easier to think about when that time does come.”
She had her answer, then. Of course she already knew. The bawdy, self-assured talk, while she walked among the French soldiers defending her city. “I did not think, somehow, that they might be afraid.”
“And they’ll all look at you differently now.”
She couldn’t help sweeping her gaze around to them. Easy nods of greeting from those whose eyes she met. She didn’t want to be one of them. Yet their violence had saved them, from that of the trappers. “I am to be sick.”
She tossed the blanket away so Isaac could take Jacob, exposing herself for a moment as she leaned away to her wretch. There wasn’t much, she hadn’t eaten with the others at their supper. Enough to feel embarrassed, more than relieved. The men were politely to themselves.
“Here’s some water.” The canteen to her pallid lips had Isaac again to the aftermath of the birth. “How is your side?”
She felt for the pain. From the recoil of the musket not properly set in the crook of her arm when she fired. The purple blotch under her smock already dark. She wouldn’t let him see and sipped at the canteen. She put him off. “It is colder this morning.” She’d said it in French, caught herself and repeated in English.
“I understood.”
“I am still to better my English.”
“You don’t need to. Your English is more than good enough.”
“Sister always said…”
“Be proper in all things,” he finished her sentence, glad to see her more relaxed. He held his chin up, gauging the wind. “From the north this morning.”
She heard it in his voice. From the exact opposite way as the past few days. The in-between seasons pushing and pulling at each other.

“It’ll serve us well if it blows like this all day,” he went on.
She felt the breeze fresh in her hair while she imagined the fast travel, riding swift in the wind at their backs.
“We’ll reach the strait before the sun goes down.”
“De troit,” she said.
“Of course.”
She winced when she opened her arms for Jacob squirming in Isaac’s hold. 
“I think you hurt more than you are saying.” Even so, he laid Jacob into her hold. Even unsteady, their child was safer with her as anywhere. He wrapped the blanket over her shoulders until she could grab the ends herself. He watched her for a moment as she settled back with Jacob to her. “I know you are yet uneasy about yesterday.”
“As you are, husband.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“You mean, as to sin.”
He thought he knew what to say, but then nothing seemed right. “You did well, Sokanon. That is all.”
“I can only see the man’s blood, and know I was the one to it.”
He knew what he wanted to say then. “No—” He fought to be calm, even as his wrath welled anew. Even as he let it pierce the air between them. “He was the one. It was his sin, that of assault on innocents. Anger, wife. Use it to stop yourself from the guilt.”
“Anger?” 
Another sin. He sighed. Placed his hand on Jacob’s head. “You will come to understand the fault was theirs.”
“Yes, Isaac.” Time would take away the sharp memory, as with the destruction of her family. But it would linger the same, always. Come into her thoughts, sudden and raw. Confuse with its darkness, the joy of watching their son grow into his own manhood.
“I’ll go chat with Fraser, if you are well, now.”
She nodded. “I was wrong of him. He has shown to be a friend.”
“A friend wouldn’t have let them go.”
She tugged at his shirt as he started away.
“Do not argue,” she said. “With any of these men.”
He didn’t think he could promise that. “I will not.” He strode past the others, where Hartley continued his change of sympathies, joining the other bateau-mates signaling their greeting to the day.
———— (dbl sp)
“It can’t be easy with an Indian wife and child.”
“First the escort—now sympathy? It doesn’t suit you, Thomas.”
Fraser shrugged. His eyes focused. “Don’t they give Christian names to the Catholic native girls?”
“Marie.”
“Of course. Isn’t every French girl named for Mary?”
Isaac welcomed the levity. “Mary, or Saint Anne. But Sokanon suits my wife well. It means rain in her mother’s Cree.”
“It has appeared to me the native women all tend to the melancholy.”
Isaac saw something in the way Fraser peered from him to Sokanon. “Lowering your guard even more? Showing a tolerance I didn’t know you had. Perhaps at your funeral, it won’t be just others in uniform.”
“You’re not the only white man to have a fine native wife.”
Isaac stared. “Most of those are mistresses, Thomas—of already married men. But, if you meant it as a compliment, thank you. From both of us. My family has brought me great contentment.”
“At the same time, a great burden, I think. I don’t envy you, Monsieur Dobbins.”
Isaac was quiet.
“It does suit a man, though,” Fraser said. “One with wandering in his blood. —Not a gentleman of course,” he gibed. He snapped back to his cool manner and motioned to the men. “It will be Corporal Elliot and Private Gale for you and your, Marie. All the militiamen would volunteer to go, of course. But I’m sending those who came to me about that Aubert fellow in the first place.” He shrugged. “I’m not certain of their names.”
Isaac watched them. “I don’t like being in their debt.”
“Except for the alternative.”
“How will you explain it to Sinclair?”
Fraser shrugged again. “They’re Bradstreet’s men, and, anyway soon to be sent to Detroit. With any luck, myself too. Corporal Elliot will present my report to the Colonel.”
Isaac thought of Sokanon’s reprimand not to argue. But he couldn’t stop himself. “I still say you should have arrested them.”
“With that many to guard, I would have to send the loaded bateaux down to Detroit instead of the few men with the canoes. I would certainly have to explain that to Sinclair. Justice was served on them by you and your wife. Divine justice, if you wish to call it that.”
“She takes it serious, her Catholic faith.”
“It was Catholic prayers behind those guns shooting at us at Beauport.”
He looked to Sokanon watching him. “I’ve told her. That she will come to some, agreement with it.”
“As we soldiers do.”
Isaac wondered at that. Thought of Michiconiss calling her his warrior woman wife. “This will always be a wild land, while the army advances to contain the violence.”
Fraser huffed. “If we’re not fighting with the French, then the savages will slit our throats while we sleep.”
“Or attacked by our own, coming as murderous thieves?”
“Well, you can tell your wife, at least for now, Detroit is secure as it can be with our presence there. And, those murderous thieves will not dare to bother you again.”
“I hope you’re right, Thomas.”
———— (dbl sp)
Isaac was right. The looks from the men were more obvious. The younger ones were clumsy in their glances. She saw the older one’s own children reflected in their longer gazes. How long had they been away from their homes? She wondered if they were from across the ocean. She sensed some wanted to stop and visit with the child, say something to her—even Hartley. When she laid Jacob out on the soft mink fur to wipe down his body, some of them made a point to pass close by, warm smiles for mother and child. She held her elbow tight to her side when she lifted him.
Isaac saw. “The pain is worse.” He grabbed for the carrier.
She tried to wave his hand away. “You hurt, too.”
“Cuts and scrapes like you. From dragging around the forest, away from bullets. But, maybe your ribs are broken.”
She shook her head. “I have seen those with ribs broken.” She moved her arm through the pain in a paddling motion and breathed in deep. “Not broken.”
“It may get worse,” he said. “You won’t paddle today.”
She stared at him in protest.
“Not until we see how you do as the day comes.”
“I can paddle as I can.”
“That’s what I meant.” He motioned to the others bidding their farewells to each other. “But for now, let me wear those boys out paddling hard.”
She shook her head.
He set the cradleboard down then stood with the crib blanket to shake it out. “We’ll be closer together.”
She was happy for that, and ceased her objection. “It will be well. But I will paddle as I can.”
They knelt together to make a cradle with the blanket, emotions between them still intense. Their hands touched more than needed while she wrapped Jacob into the blanket, then into the carrier.
“You will see your priest soon,” Isaac told her.
“If Father Pierre has not returned to Quebec.”
“As well as he speaks Huron—” He paused at the mention of the Tribe. “He’s too important to the peace in the entire area. If he’s gone from the mission across from Detroit, he’ll go no further than winter quarters at Sandusky.”
“I see many times, even important priests, recalled to the holy church in Quebec.”
He couldn’t counter that. “We might be able to get to Montreal. But we’ll have to hire on with someone. But Quebec? I don’t know.”
“I only wish to know, if we are to Sandusky.”
“I’ve already given you my word. Besides, we may need him to let us up for the winter.”
“And we do not need concern to those men?”
“Thomas assures we will not. We’ll find out at Detroit how he has made his report to Bradstreet.”
She knew the times, how he boasted of being under the command of Old Brad. “You will not look to fight with them?”
“As long as they keep their distance from us.”
She finished with Jacob. “What of our furs—has your friend said anything else?”
They stood, Isaac with the cradleboard.
“No he has not,” he said. “Nothing has changed, we will have to be careful before Detroit. De troit.”
Sokanon breathed. Hid the pain in her side. “I will be glad when the furs are gone from us.” She didn’t care how. “We will not trap again, husband.”
He thought for a moment, even though he already knew it for truth. “I’ll miss our cabin.”
“As will I.” She looked past him, to the militiamen again. Their easy fraternizing with each other. Nothing had changed in the world for them. They laughed, teased with each other about some going home, the rest returning with the regular soldiers to the new fort on the upper strait. “Your friend watches us.”
Fraser was giving the soldiers and bateau-men orders, pointing to the canoes, making his way toward them. Ready to leave.
Sokanon pulled gently on the cradleboard for Isaac to rest it into the freighter. “As long as we are together,” she said.
“That will never change.”
Isaac leaned away from the canoe to wait for Fraser. “I thought we were finished saying farewell at Sinclair’s fort.”
Fraser touched his hat to Sokanon. It still felt as mocking. Yet, a little less so.
“You absconded before a proper goodbye, Dobbins.”
“I thought you were warning us away, for the security of our furs. What of it, Thomas—is it your mind will we have to worry for confiscation at Detroit?”
Fraser shrugged, holding his hands open to their canoes. “It appears you have to worry for your bounty, from everyone.”
Sokanon continued to annoy at his casual lack of seriousness.
“Corporal Elliot will be in charge of your little squadron, of course,” Fraser continued. “But, because they’ll be in canoes, I’ve told him to defer to you all matters concerning offshore travel. It will be your call, Isaac, to say what conditions are too rough to be on the water.”
Isaac shook his head. “With this wind, we’ll race down into the strait.”
“As it is, then. I’m certain we are to run into each other again, up and down the long waterway. Unless of course one of us are killed.”
Sokanon’s impatience was already pushing the freighter out onto the water herself, dragging Isaac with her, racing along alone.
Isaac’s eyes met hers. “Yes,” he said to Fraser, holding out his hand as they shook. “Our eternal gratitude. You’re a damn fine soldier.”
“Maybe a friend, too, eh? Godspeed, Isaac. I wish you and your family well.”
“The same, Thomas.”
“Corporal!” Fraser called as he strode back to the men.
“Sir.” Elliot stood to.
———— (dbl sp)
The two government bateaux were shoved off amid goodbyes and more teasing between the two groups going in opposite directions. Fraser didn’t look back, his officer’s stiffness apparent.
“Anytime you are ready, sir,” Elliot said to Isaac.
“We’re ready now, Corporal. The sooner the better.”
Sokanon couldn’t hide her soreness when she swung her leg to step into the canoe. Isaac helped her, but said nothing. 
They pushed off, quickly past the reeds and into the waves.
“We’ll make good time,” Isaac said.
She was glad for his voice, close behind her. He could reach out from his seat and touch Jacob. She could feel his contented smile for his son. His cadence was fast to race ahead of the following seas, and the calls went from one canoe to the other, challenging to Isaac’s pace. Their taunting to each other reminded of when she was in the bateaux with the unruly Rangers, leaving Montreal excited for their advance on Detroit.
She leaned to see around the soldier in front of her, to follow the course of the land as it curved out in front of them, the grosse pointe far in the distance. The soldier was wild at his paddle, unruly in his attempts to paddle over the high sides of the canoe, his blade splashing back onto her. The moosehide was there this time, and she pulled it to cover herself and Jacob.
“Lean into it, Private,” Isaac urged.
“Gale,” sir, “Edward Gale.”
“Well, Private Edward Gale, lean into it, if you please.”
——————
Sokanon set her paddle down. She was wet, her side ached, but she proved her ribs weren’t broken. That she could paddle. Even if it hurt enough that she would have to limit herself for a while. The attack continued to weigh heavy. She wondered how soldiers could make battle, and do it all over again the next day. She turned to be with Jacob to face Isaac.
He saw her fatigue, felt it himself. “A rest, corporal?” he said, “So we may stretch our legs and relieve ourselves.”
“Sir,” Elliot answered over his shoulder.
“There,” Isaac said, pointing with his paddle. “Behind that narrow spit. Out from the waves, at least.”
“Sir,” Elliot said again.
Isaac steered to Sokanon’s weary smile.
They tucked behind the spit, welcoming the shelter. The respite from the hard paddling.
“Don’t stray too far from the boats, if you please, gentlemen,” Corporal Elliot said to the men scattering to the brush nearby.
The land there was freshly cleared.
“The homestead is new-built,” Isaac said.
Sokanon saw. It was as the small French farmhouses along the shore from Quebec to Montreal. Those along the waterfront up and down from Detroit.
“Not much bigger than our cabin,” Isaac said. But he admired the fine craftsmanship. “Glass windows, even a small porch.”
Sokanon was happy to see the peaceful setting, smoke drifting from its stone chimney. Someone was about. She couldn’t remember the distance. “It is farther from the fort.”
Isaac thought so, too.
Elliot shrugged. “Will we make it to the fort before nightfall—sir?”
Isaac stretched his back, feeling the aches from the fight. “I’m not exactly sure, corporal.”


“How much farther, sir?” There was weariness in his voice, too.
 “I guess what I mean sir, is—will we make it to the fort before nightfall?” Elliot peered south over the lake. His nervousness also showed.
“I’m certain we’ll reach Detroit with daylight to spare.” He motioned down the shore. “Once we get around this huge headland, the way will be easier into the strait.”
The young man cheered the news.
Isaac waited for the others to move far enough away. “Your first command, young corporal?”
Elliot straightened. “Not so young, sir. I was a marine aboard the Shannon, a sixth-rate frigate, fought at Lagos off Portugal.” He glanced down to bring attention to his uniform.
Some difference Sokanon never paid interest to know.
“But yes,” the man went on, “I was only made corporal last month.”
“Well,” Isaac said. “Don’t be afraid to put the boot into them bateau-men if need be. We can take it.”
“Sir.” Elliot stifled a smile.
“France man,” Sokanon interrupted, motioning toward the house.
The homesteader was studying them from his porch.
“He doesn’t know what to make of us,” Isaac said.
The man started slowly toward them.
“Looks like he’s curious enough to find out,” Elliot said.
Isaac scanned the area. “Where’s his family…hired hands?”
“Allô?” the man arrived with a guarded greeting, his gaze going back and forth to the other men moving along the shoreline.
“Bonjour,” Elliot answered, “we are only here for a short rest,” he spoke in good enough French.
“Not to worry, my friends. You are not trespassing. The shoreline is for common use. I have watched you for a while. You are on your way to Fort Detroit?”
Elliot was hesitant to reveal any information.
The man seemed disappointed at the mistrust. He took off his broad-rimmed hat. “I have a good well dug, if you would like to draw fresh water for your skins and canteens. It is very clean,” he offered, “seep water from the lake, but the well is lined with laid stone. Much better for drinking.”
Sokanon thought good of it.
Isaac looked from her to Elliot. “My wife would like to see to herself, too.”
“There is time?”
Isaac nodded.
“Not too long, then, sir?”
“We are anxious to continue on.”
“Yes, sir. You can see to your own water, Mr. Dobbins. I’ll have one or two of the men after ours.”
Isaac agreed. He grabbed up the water containers, while Sokanon climbed the short embankment. The Frenchman was awkward, half step forward, then back, unsure if he should help her with Jacob.
Isaac joined and they walked toward the well.
“I am so far north of the city, I have few visitors,” the man said. “Many of the farms here are yet vacant, the tenants too afraid to return.”
“You are the tenant?” Isaac asked.
“I am Louis Greffard,” he introduced himself. “The seigneur—” he said proudly, “the holder of the land grant. The British have allowed the system of grants to remain in place, and I have come here to make a life.”
There was no need to ingratiate himself to Isaac’s heritage. “Isaac Dobbins—my wife, Sokanon.”
“Madame.” Greffard tipped his hat.
A genuine salutation, unlike Fraser. Sokanon greeted in return.
Isaac looked around at the wild state surrounding the cleared area. “No grants closer to the city?”
“Yes, but I wanted unspoiled forest, to cut the lumber for the first house myself. And to be the first to work the land.”
“You have that. But not only far from the fort, away from the other farms as well.”
Greffard cast a more serious look. “That is why I will wait to send for my wife.”
Sokanon turned to him. “She is at the fort?”
He was surprised by her words. “Until I am more certain of her safety, Marie-Renée remains in our home at St. Francois. It is near Quebec.”
Sokanon knew. “My Christian name is Marie. I am also from Quebec.”
“Quebec?” His surprise continued as he tried to hide his examining of them. “And yet you arrive from the north? You are far travelers.”
Isaac shrugged. “Any others from the north pass by yesterday—trappers in a Montreal canoe?”
“I have seen no one,” Greffard shook his head, “either by land or water, for more than a week now. Why?”
Isaac ignored the question.
Sokanon hoped the same as Isaac, the voyageurs would not be in Detroit when they arrived.
“Do you have children?” she asked.
“None, yet, Madame. But we will look to start our family in earnest, once my wife arrives.”
Sokanon smiled at the casual indiscretion.
He motioned to the baby. “The child is a boy?”
“Yes, Jacob.”
“And born very recently, I see. I am not a father. I did not know it was safe to travel long distances with a newborn.”
“Jacob was born in the spring.”
“He is so petite.”
They reached the well and Sokanon worked her thumbs under the straps of the cradleboard, holding its weight off her back, relieving the pain in her side.
“Rest him aside,” Isaac said. He set the water containers down to take Jacob from her. “I’ll carry him back to the canoe.”
Greffard looked on curiously. “I did not want to say in front of the others—but I have only just finished the privée.” He motioned to the tiny outbuilding some distance off. “It is new and clean. I have made myself a promise not to use it before my wife. You would be the first.” His embarrassment showed. “If you will.”
“It is a very kind gesture.”
“I will still tell my wife it is yet unused.”
Sokanon was glad for the light amity after the heaviness of the day before. But it was awkward then, excusing herself from Isaac socially, walking away from Jacob to see to herself. It wasn’t as those times to go off alone in the woods, politeness in company not a part of their lives for the many long months stretching into years. She didn’t say anything. It was a moment before she heard Isaac talking while drawing the water.
Isaac wondered after her, vulnerability rising with her going off indisposed. What may be hidden in the forest closed in. He was conscious of Fraser’s words. “You cannot be ever certain, for your family’s safety, especially this far out from the city.”
Greffard followed his gaze for Sokanon. “More certain now, perhaps, that so many English soldiers have arrived.”
Again, Isaac needed no favor from him. He lowered the drawing bucket.
Greffard gave a studying look of his own. “I speak well-enough English, if you are having a hard time in French.”
“That bad am I?” he asked in Greffard’s language.
The man shrugged. “I do not believe that this latest war between our countries has brought you here from—Scotland?”
“I am from Nova Scotia.”
“It is almost as far, eh?” Greffard bantered in English. “My great-grandfather came here from France, from a small village north of La Rochelle, near the Atlantic coast.”
Isaac followed along. “My grandfather spoke of his father. Coming over from what he called the wee county of Clackmannanshire, with William Alexander and the first Scottish colony on this side of the ocean.”
“That is fine ancestry. We are both then, les habitants of third generation.”
“My wife has called me, étranger, which I take to mean, stranger.”
“Yes—” Greffard hid a wry smile. “But your wife could also be saying, in this usage—foreigner.”
Isaac knew it was so. The smile felt good, her joke for him, after the fear and anger of the day before.
———— (dbl sp)
Sokanon passed the two militiamen at the well, Hartley and Greene. They halted their drawing water for a moment to greet her going by. Hartley’s was the warmest. She met Isaac with Greffard at the fence rails of the small enclosure holding a lone milk cow. She wondered how it had survived, how the local tribesmen hadn’t killed it, left it dead for Greffard to miss. She thought of Isaac and Sakima arguing about the land at Gichigami. Isaac saying it was too wild for farms there. She stood next to him, pinched at Jacob’s feet, how small he looked in the cradleboard on Isaac’s back.
She stared at the cow, animal that showed no fear of people, standing just outside the tiny barn. Watched its slow movements. The twitch of its tail. The deliberate chewing cows did that always fascinated her. It turned its head to look at her, big, black eyes amid dark brown coat reminding of the moose that swam out to them, to distract from its calf. But the slow eyes had nothing of the same spirit as the moose, even as a mother in fear for her young one.
Isaac readjusted the carrier onto his shoulders. “I do not know how you are to carry him on your back, so readily,” he said, “it is harder than I thought.”
“The straps too tight for you.”
———— (dbl sp)
The Frenchman may have said to enjoy them as visitors, but Greffard showed relief to see the British soldiers go. An abrupt adieu and he turned away readily, back for his house. It was well. Detroit was still hours ahead around the grosse pointe. Past the other farms, properties running deep inland, narrow frontages along the lake to share water for their fields. Orchards of fruit trees were heavy with their harvest. They returned the greetings from those farmers that gave them any attention.
———— (dbl sp)
The canoes bobbed and tossed erratic where the lake met the contrary waters of the strait. Giving way quickly to the flatter, faster current in the river. The strait brought them immediately back into civilization, that went mostly unbroken all the way to the ocean. A handful of people plied the waterway while bateaux, canoes, watercraft of all shapes and colors floated empty at shallow anchor, or were hauled up onto land. Those on shore grew more numerous. Using the road that followed close along the shoreline from the lake all the way down the length of the riverfront to the fort, and beyond. A man and woman waved from a wagon pulled by a shaggy pony. Sokanon couldn’t remember when she last saw a horse that wasn’t for a military or civilian officer of high command. She wondered of the tiny chapel on one of the farms, small cross on the roof above the door.

14

“I want to pull up here, please, corporal.”
“Mister Dobbins,” Elliot said. He waved the other canoe and they coasted in to a small public dock north of the city.
Close enough to the fort, to those patrolling atop the ramparts, guarding along the new redoubt attached to the north side, white tents of the relieving army showing above the low walls of the barricade. It was strange. Isaac studied, counted, not enough tents for fourteen-hundred men.
“Duty calls me immediately to the commander’s office.”
Isaac nodded. “Yes, corporal, that’ll be fine.”
“I mean, sir—is that, it is because of you and your family that we’re here. I believe I will need you to accompany me to Colonel Bradstreet. He may want to question you after he reads Lieutenant Fraser’s report.”
“Did the lieutenant make it an order for us?”
Elliot stared.
“Well, that’s that, then,” Isaac said. “We are not here to seek redress for the attack on us,” he pressed Elliot, “only to sell our furs. That will be all, corporal.”
Sokanon knew well when Isaac was ready to defend. She stood closer to calm him, the muscles of his arm tight. She guessed at the disappointment from the others, except for John Hartley, who showed perhaps shame instead.
“Husband,” Sokanon said.
He nodded, relaxed his stance. “We thank you men, for our safety. And for the escort here.” But he saw the man giving them a long look from the rampart. His officer’s uniform sash was evident even in the distance. Maybe they were too close to fort after all. “I’m sorry,” he said to Elliot, “it is late, and we will make camp for the night.”
“I think I should have to insist. Sir.”
The other soldier stiffened his stance.
Sokanon’s mind went to Jacob in the rising tension.
“I promise you will have no worry for your possessions.”
It was Hartley, settling for the moment.
But Isaac knew the promise couldn’t be kept, if it was the army to take possession. The officer was gone from the wall. Isaac thought to ignore them, hurry the canoes from the dock, he and Sokanon quickly for the other side of the strait.
She felt his subtle movement, knew he was to confront.
He saw it was too late, the officer issuing from the front gates with a soldier to his side, advancing toward them. He thought to march ahead, meet the man away from the canoes. Away from seeing the furs. Sokanon’s grip tightened around his arm. Only she and Isaac saw them coming, the attention of their escort on what Isaac was to do next in the standoff. He motioned with his head for them to see. Relief showed on their faces, and Sokanon was glad for it. But it seemed to her every eye was on them then, while Isaac’s unease continued to pulse in his arm.
“Sir,” Elliot and Gale greeted the officer.
They did not know the captain. But Isaac thought he recognized the sergeant with him, certain he’d seen him before.
“Stand easy,” the officer said. His tunic was regular army, but he wore the upturned felted hat of a ranger. He reminded Sokanon of the man Rogers. His eyes flashed to Jacob who gave out a cry from the canoe and he watched Sokanon carefully as she went for her child.
“What have we, corporal?” he said.
“Corporal Elliot.”
“Private Gale, sir.”
The captain raised his hand, half-glance over his shoulder ignoring the private, waiting for the corporal’s response.
“There was an altercation, sir,” Elliot said.
Attacked, Isaac wanted to say, but kept quiet, hoping to pass quickly through the situation.
“Altercation?”
“Yesterday, on the lake to the north of the city.”
“There are several lakes to the north of the city, corporal.”
“St. Clair. Sir.”
The officer’s offhand nature was obvious. But Isaac saw the continued keenness of his gaze, swept slow around their group, lingering a longer moment first on himself, then Sokanon and Jacob, and finally on the laden canoes.
“An altercation with this man and woman?”
“Sir,” Elliot said.
“They are your prisoners, Corporal Elliot?”
“I, uh—no captain,” Elliot stammered, caught off guard by the raillery.
Isaac held his smirk. He saw that Hartley, Greene and Potter were doing the same. The sergeant, too.
Elliot straightened. “I have a report, sir. From Lieutenant Thomas Fraser at Fort Sinclair.”
“Thomas Fraser? Fort Sinclair?”
Elliot stood confused.
Sokanon rocked on her feet, impatient at the officer’s amusement.
“Let’s give this report a read,” he said.
Elliot shuffled uneasy. “I, I think I should give it to Colonel Bradstreet. Sir.”
The captain put his hands to his hips. “How old are you, corporal?”
“I’ll be nineteen in December. But I don’t see how that matters here. Sir,” he added quickly, straightening his stance again to make himself the proper soldier.
The sergeant continued to conceal his amusement.
“It doesn’t, corporal,” the officer went on, “you’re right." But I can tell you Colonel Bradstreet’s not here. I am in temporary command of the fort.”
“Sir?”
Isaac knew there weren’t enough tents for fourteen hundred soldiers.
“The report, then,” the captain said. “Come quick boy,” he pressed, his impatient hand out.
Elliot rifled the bag to produce the note from Fraser.
The captain read. Peered to Isaac over the paper. “You’re Dobbins?”
Isaac nodded.
“And your, church-married wife, Marie?”
Sokanon shied from his gaze. From the others, too, even as regard mixed with their surprise.
“There was a voyageur team come through here yesterday,” the officer said, “with a tall native fellow, his eyes bandaged.”
“That’s them,” Isaac said.
Sokanon joined in his apprehension.
The man gave a reassuring look. “They have gone. I personally watched them from the rampart in high speed away, down the river.”
Isaac and Sokanon settled their worry.
“They should be gone to prison,” Isaac said.
The captain continued to read. “You were part of Bradstreet’s transport service?”
Isaac felt the eyes on him from the other men. “Yes. The captain and I were both born in Annapolis Royal in Nova Scotia. I volunteered for his rangers.”
“The captain?”
Isaac shrugged.
“Sergeant Utley here, was with your captain, too. At Frontenac. And Carillon before that.”
“As was I. I wasn’t sure of the sergeant until you said his name.” He remembered the man then, ordering his squad to disembark from the bateau, disoriented in the wild storm, his forceful confident voice rising over the thunder and wind. He gave a nod that Utley returned.
The officer studied him even closer. Brandished Fraser’s report. “The lieutenant writes of your bravery at Quebec, under Admiral Saunders. One of those who landed us at Beauport.”
Isaac nodded. “I piloted a transport.”
The man glanced to Sokanon now. “And then the both of you to Detroit with Major Rogers for the French surrender there.”
“Hauling supplies,” Isaac said of their time with the rangers.
“That’s quite a lengthy service.”
Isaac remained quiet, embarrassed by the words for him that were to be read in private by his old commander. Even if the men around might look at him and Sokanon in higher esteem.
The captain shifted his eyes. “Corporal Elliot—do you have any other orders from your superior?”
Elliot raised his chin. “Only to escort the family here, with Lieutenant Fraser’s report, and to deliver the post from the fort at the Missili-mackinaw.”
“Well,” the officer appeared suddenly bored. “I don’t know what to do with all of this—with you men.” He shook his head. “I’ll have the post, corporal.” He waited for Elliot to hand over the leather satchel. “I’ll send for you in the morning, and we’ll discuss your disposition, as to following after the colonel with your escort.”
Sokanon didn’t need Isaac’s arm in hers to feel his defiance.
“My wife and I will take our leaves,” he said, “if you don’t mind—sir.”
The captain gave a long look. “Sergeant, see to the corporal and his men.”
“Sir,” Utley said.
“You men are under my command until I release you,” the officer reminded. He waited while Utley ushered Elliot and the others with him. He brandished Fraser’s report. “It says your wife shot and killed a man, and that you wounded the other.”
Isaac was indignant. “They assaulted us—sir.”
“Wilkins,” he gave his name. His eyes narrowed then, in a countenance of support. “That’s what Fraser wrote. That he believed they did so. He made them all give their names, next to an official warning of reproach.”
“That’s something.”
“Now I understand why they left in such a hurry. The scandal will proceed them where they go.” Wilkins waved his hand in front of his face. “The big Indian fellow with them was bloodied in pockmarks. Did you use a fowling piece?”
“No, the range was so close he was struck by the powder flash.”
The man couldn’t hide the shock in his eyes.
“Is Father Pierre here?” Sokanon asked.
Her question caught them surprised.
“Pierre Potier is a Jesuit priest,” Isaac explained.
“It is Father Pierre’s mission across the river,” Sokanon said. “He sermons to Detroit church.”
Wilkins nodded slow.
Sokanon held his gaze.
“No Jesuits have come since I’ve been here,” he said, “before Bradstreet arrived.” He gave a slight bow of his head to her. “Father Simple Bocquet is the Capuchin here at St. Anne’s church.”
Sokanon was quiet, searched across the strait. Pictured Father Pierre bent over one of his books. Pictured how happy he would be to see her son. How sad after she told him of the killing.
“And Bradstreet?”
Isaac’s voice calmed her mind.
Wilkins studied Isaac again with close scrutiny. “He is away, with most of his force to Sandusky.”
Isaac stared then. Wilkins didn’t think Old Brad would return. “We are free then, to take your leave?”
Wilkins pondered for a moment. “You and your wife are not licensed trappers.”
Of course he knew. “What did Fraser write?”
“I have eyes.” Wilkins motioned to the canoes. Fingered the satchel. “For the same reason this knave—Aubert, would attack you and your wife. Risk arrest and incarceration—or worse.” He held up Fraser’s report again. “He is a friend of yours. Thinking it well to ingratiate yourself back with your old commander, by reminding of your service to the Crown.”
Sokanon thought the man to help. Wondered why he would.
“Thomas and I fought together in the war. I believe he was trying to warn at Sinclair’s fort, that members of the squadron were looking to confiscate our furs once we reached Detroit.”
Wilkins waited. Watched.
That the man had lingered after dismissing the others made Isaac think he could trust him. Not that he had a choice. “I haven’t a license,” he said. “We’re only finding out the new regulations day by day, coming down from the north. There were no agents up there again this year because of last summer’s rebellion. We hoped to find one here.”
Wilkins shook his head. “Just about all trade seems to go through the Irishman James Sterling. But he is absent the city. It is probably just as well, for you,” he warned. “All other agents for the fur corporations are gone. The last one I know of, left with Bradstreet to Sandusky. A fellow named Christie.”
It was to Sandusky then, Sokanon knew. First across to Father Pierre’s mission. The thought came to her that Isaac would ask her to stay there while he went with hired men to Sandusky, her to follow when Father retired to Sandusky Mission for the winter. She would tell him no.
His eyes were already for her when she looked to him. Reassuring, even through his unrest.
“Are there any merchants here in town we can trust?” he asked.
“It will be difficult for you.” Wilkins refocused his thinking. “There is a Monsieur Campau, a Frenchman of impeccable character, I’m told. Almost all the French landowners retreated into the fort at one time or another when the rebellion started. Many of them still reside there, and go out to their farms during the day. I do not know if this Campau is one of them, but his farm is about a mile upriver from the city. I understand he has erected a small church there, built near the water.”
The chapel Sokanon wondered about when they passed it.
Isaac watched Wilkins close. Was he guiding to covert French trading?
But the captain continued to show indifference. “It is probably too late in the day to see him, but you might ask the vicar, Bocquet, then. His house is directly across from the St. Anne Church, at the end of St. Jacques Street. The Catholics waste nothing for their saints’ names, to be sure,” he amused himself with the thought.
Sokanon frowned at the impolite talk.
“Are you familiar with the city?” Wilkins asked.
“No, sir,” Isaac said. “Major Rogers kept most of us who were not a regular part of his Rangers from entering the fort.”
“Yes—Major Rogers,” Wilkins clenched his jaw. “Always seems to be in the thick of things.”
“We stayed across the river at the Jesuit mission until we headed for the north.”
Wilkins glanced to Sokanon. He motioned to the steeple above the walls. “Tomorrow is Sunday,” he reminded, as if just remembering himself. “It is nigh certain all the French citizens will be at services in their St. Anne’s church. Maybe you can accost the man in the courtyard.”
Sokanon understood. Heard it in his voice. In the courtyard. Outside the church. That they would not allow her inside. An Indian. A squaw. If Father Pierre was there, he’d tell of her devotion.
“Marie is as Catholic as any of them,” Isaac defended the tiring discourse. He’d heard it too.
“Be that as it may, Dobbins—” Wilkins dismissed. “It matters not to me. I am but to put my time in here and sail back for the green grass of England. My apology.”
Isaac wanted to laugh, his honesty refreshing. “We are in your debt.”
“No debt, Dobbins. You’re going to have a hard go of it. But—” Wilkins said, “as you believe I did you a favor, you can me. Your friend writes that you were north of Mackinaw?”
“Yes, we had a cabin west of the St. Mary’s, at the shore of the Gichigami. —Lake Superior,” he said to the man’s questioning look.
“Good. While I’m here, I’d rather not give my scalp to vengeful savages, as those at Michilimackinac.” He waved a hand with disdain. “The area here is still fearful from last year’s siege, and the massacres of our soldiers and civilians alike. Except for the French citizens, anyway.”
Isaac and Sokanon knew.
“What can you tell me of the Indians in the north,” Wilkins went on. “Many of their warriors came south last year to join their brethren in the rebellion. I’d like to know your thoughts on their disposition.”
Isaac sighed. “As I told Captain Howard at Michilimackinac, I only know that if you keep the trade going with the Tribes, the more they will be peaceful.”
“Rum and guns, is it then?”
Isaac shook his head, gave a glance to Sokanon. “Also iron pots and pans, well-made knives, cookware for the women. They will cow the husbands for anything that will make their lives easier. And food, to help during the long winter months.”
“Families,” Wilkins said. “There’s for you, then.”
It has always been, Sokanon wanted to say. She knew he did not have children.
Isaac watched his close scrutiny, the storage of information in the man’s mind. “My family will have their leave, then, sir.”
Wilkins stuffed Fraser’s report back into the satchel. “Not yet, if you will.”
Isaac was already fighting the entire garrison to get him and his family away.
“Hold off your anger, Mister Dobbins,” Wilkins said with a sharp tone.
“He has sent the others away, husband.”
This time Wilkins’ surprise showed of admiration.
Sokanon was still uncomfortable at his gaze.
“I mean for you to stay the night. I have a guest room in my quarters.”
Isaac was skeptical. “Sir?”
“Only the night,” Wilkins returned. “I wish to question you more on the natives in the far north—have you put down the names of those leaders you know, with estimates of their numbers of warriors. You can look up this Campau fellow in the morning. Tomorrow I will decide whether to send the young corporal on to Bradstreet, or not. If I do, and you cannot make arrangements for your stores, I strongly suggest you go with them.”
“Suggest—or will you order it?”
Wilkins raised his jaw.
Isaac felt Sokanon’s desire for him to hold his defiance in check. “My wife wishes to visit with her priest across at the mission.”
“If you would feel more comfortable with them.”
It was a challenge, one another to countrymen.
Sokanon let her eyes fall to Jacob in her arms.
Isaac addressed Wilkins again. “Allow us to confer a moment.”
“I will wait a moment at the gate,” the officer offered, “to see if your canoes are steered for this shore, or for that. But—” his tone warned, “no matter how long you are here, Mr. Dobbins, you will be mindful of the peace. Fraser writes that you brawled with those fellows up at the Mackinaw fort. There will be none of that here. I can warrant you the safety of your stores against theft if you haul your boats up at the main public dock, under the watch of the guard. More than that…” He turned to walk away. He stopped, looked from Isaac to Sokanon. “Well done, defending yourselves from those knaves.”
Isaac was still. He stared off after Wilkins.
“What is wrong, husband?”
He wondered himself. “The captain has made me believe Bradstreet has gone to Sandusky in preparation to drive south into the Ohio territory, to link up with the other British army there. As if to raise bloody hell against the natives yet in rebellion in their villages. Before probably marching back here, in a show of force to cow any others who may be planning resistance to British rule.”
It confused Sokanon. Only for a moment. “He has said, strongly suggests us to Sandusky. He is to mean to help us again—that they may not notice us there?”
Smart as any woman he’d ever known. “Maybe. And if Bradstreet does attack to the south, the agent with him—Mr. Christie—will surely go on ahead to Montreal.” He shook his head. “Something doesn’t feel right.”
She was not used to seeing him so unsure. “Then let us leave now, across to Father Pierre’s mission.”
Isaac wanted to leave. Back to the north.
“Father will too help us, Isaac. You know it.”
Isaac regained his thoughts. “You will see your priest, I promise. But no one will understand the business of our furs more than a merchant of the city. Remember when we first arrived here, with Rogers—the way the British confiscated the furs of the French merchants?”
Sokanon was glad to see his confidence, but his words worried her. “They try to hide the furs. The British still find.”
He agreed with her caution. “We need to seek a meeting with this Monsieur Campau. The fellow may well advise us how to deal outside my countrymen.”
“We can not go against the law, Isaac.”
“We are already, by the law, against it.”
“You know I mean, for you to not, confront—your countrymen.”
He held his thought, that he would do whatever he had to. “The evening is coming on quick. Let’s get the canoes down to the main dockage.”
———— (dbl sp)
Isaac looked back and forth down the wall along the shore of the strait. Studied the blockhouse at each corner, strengthened and enlarged since the last time they’d been here. Cannon barrels jutted menacingly through their openings. The British had made Fort Detroit more imposing in the wake of the latest war with the Tribes. His countrymen weren’t to be approached unawares. Guards showed atop the palisade, walking the scaffolding. Pickets posted at the gates stood alert. A unit patrolled in the early evening as if on marching drill.
Sokanon was uneasy, even with the security the soldiers might offer, whatever their number. The sweep of the long bayonets atop their muskets menaced her. Red tunics against the stark surroundings, reminded the blood-stained coats in her memory, white coat uniforms of the French, soaked British red with blood. The so many being cut away to expose the wounds for the nurses and surgeons. Learned at once whether the flesh torn open from bayonet or bullet. She wanted to be away from the fort, from all these men, targets for the wrath of those opposing their presence. To leave quickly, before she, Isaac and Jacob might be caught up in the fighting.
The guards eyed them going by and they entered the city, Wilkins inviting them along. There was something that made her not worry about him. His amity seemed sincere. He talked openly to Isaac in front of her. And she felt none of the bothers endured from the others who had disdain in their stares for them together.
But she thought the reason evident when Wilkins took a moment to say hello to a woman who appeared to be waiting for him. They spoke in French, and even in the shadowed light their affection toward one another was clear. As was a not-too distant native ancestor in the woman’s past. She lingered behind as they passed, Sokanon and her exchanging common thoughts. The woman’s eyes shined for baby Jacob.
Wilkins swung the door of his housing open for them. “It is Spartan, but very spacious. I only wish if we are to winter-over here, Colonel Bradstreet doesn’t return with the rest of the men to the fort.”
Sokanon leaned forward to peer inside.
“No one shall bother you here,” Wilkins said.
Isaac waited for Sokanon to enter first. The candlelit quarters were very simple, unadorned as a military residence would be, she knew. But it would be warm and dry for the night.
“This, somehow seems too much to ask of you, sir,” Isaac voiced her thought.
“As I said,” Wilkins went on, “it will be only for the night. I can easily excuse it as but a minor breach in army procedure, by declaring your knowledge of the state of affairs in the far north.”
“I want to rest with Jacob,” Sokanon declared, tired of the talk.
Isaac agreed. “It has been a trying ordeal since leaving our cabin.”
“Of course,” Wilkins said. “Johanna—”
Sokanon didn’t know she’d even come in.
“Show Mrs. Dobbins to the room,” Wilkins said.
The misty look between the officer and the young woman continued before he held out his hand, inviting down the hallway.
Sokanon and Isaac understood he was to wait with the captain.
“It’ll do just fine,” Isaac said. “Thank you.” He never liked to feel indebted, but he saw the strain already easing from Sokanon’s face. He had to think the comfort would do him well, too.
Johanna fingered the ring of a chamberstick on the desk and moved with the candle toward a door at the far end of the house, the flame dancing off the walls. She opened the door and stepped in to place the light on the dresser just inside.
Sokanon walked past and laid Jacob onto the bed. He gurgled his freedom to move about freely on the soft mattress while Johanna’s gaze went from him to Sokanon. Another moment of camaraderie shared between them. But not quite, Sokanon feeling the deference paid to her as a married woman. Or it was her own feeling.
“I bring hot water for washing.”
The woman’s crude French was that of trappers. That of Isaac. Sokanon wondered in which language she and her captain spoke to each other.
“And food and drinking water,” Johanna said.
“Merci.”
“Anything too, for the child?”
“Non, merci.” Sokanon palmed the bag off her shoulder.
Johanna retreated from the room, closing the door softly behind her. Sokanon listened, but could not hear her footsteps away, even as Isaac and the captain’s voices came muffled to her. She stood for a moment, listening to herself breathe, the flicker of the candle reflecting in the window glass. She brushed her fingers down Jacob’s face and went to pull the blanket curtains shut.
———— (dbl sp)
“It is appreciated,” Isaac thanked Wilkins again. “The fight against the voyageurs is yet heavy on us. Sokanon will sleep easier in the confines of the fort.”
“It was a damn right affair, from Fraser’s account.”
Isaac shrugged.
“Now, Dobbins,” Wilkins went on, stopping at his desk and tossing the mail atop, “I have some not too bad brandy, made by one of the farmers out there by the lake.”
It came to Isaac how far away from civilization he and Sokanon had been at their cabin. He looked around the house, rearranging his thoughts to note how much finer the construction was, compared to even Michilimackinac.
“Unless you do not drink?”
Isaac brought his thoughts back. “The brandy. Yes. A little.”
“Good.” Wilkins poured a draught and another for himself.
Isaac swallowed, maybe a bit too much. The brandy was hot in his throat, it had been more than a year ago at the Cadot’s, since tasting any spirits.
“Right,” Wilkins said. “About these warriors that came from the north to join against us—have they returned to their villages? Are they stirring discontent for us among their people there?”
Isaac felt the muddle in his head. The spirits were as strong as the taste. He set the small goblet on the desk, determined not to drink any more. “I don’t think I can tell you any more, inebriated than not.” He thought of Michiconiss. “They are short of gunpowder, I know.”
“And short they will remain.”
“They will want, for hunting in the winter.”
Wilkins pulled at his brandy.
Isaac nodded. “Yes. I believe that if someone could unite the tribes, there is enough restlessness among the warriors for them to be incited to attack again.”
“Restlessness—or animosity?”
“Does a war club know the difference?” Isaac thought of Sokanon as the swimming feeling in his head called him back to the brandy. He took another sip. It wasn’t so sharp, the sweetness coming through—apples?
“I worry for the spring,” Wilkins said. “Will the warriors unite again? Where might be their places of concentration?”
“You ask as if planning an offensive.”
“You talk as if it may be needed.”
Isaac knew Wilkins thought as he did, that more fighting was inevitable, everywhere. “What of Bradstreet?”
“What of him?”
“If we go to Sandusky, will he still be there—or will he be campaigning in the Ohio territory?”
“I will only say that the man is getting himself into trouble.”
“Then he will go into the territory with his army.”
Wilkins showed indifference. “Who’s to know. But his trouble is going to be with Governor Murray, I’m afraid.” He raised his hand. “That is all I will say of it.” He finished his brandy. “I like to keep informed. I fought many times against these natives. They are good at war, and I don’t want to be attacked without warning.”
“No one can really say what the warriors will do. That’s what I meant by restlessness. They don’t really need animosity to fight. Warfare is in their blood.”
“No more than a wild Scotlander from the highlands.”
A knock came before the door opened.
Isaac was glad for the interruption, the woman from the street entering, toting an empty bucket and a basket with fruit and bakeries, bleached linens over her shoulder. An older woman followed, white, definitely from old Detroit, Isaac thought. She carried a wash basin filled with towels and candles, and a large ewer with steam coming from its open top.
“Thank you, Johanna,” Wilkins said, his voice lilting. He tipped his hat to the older woman, “Madame Jadot.”
The two shuffled toward the bedroom and Wilkins addressed Isaac. “I am to make my rounds, present for the lowering of the flag for the evening. Do you smoke?” His voice seemed farther away than it should.
Isaac swept his eyes around, the brandy making him concentrate to focus on the several pipes surrounding the decanter on the desk.
“Help yourself to a little Virginia tobacco,” Wilkins offered, “it is almost still fresh,” he bantered. “Johanna and the Jadot woman will see to you and your wife’s needs.”
“Thank you.”
Wilkins gave a slight nod to leave.
The door closed and Isaac moved closer to the bedroom, listening to the woman’s voices. He backed away to return to the desk, set his glass down unfinished and studied the brass tobacco box. Somehow he thought it was just what he needed, even though he’d only smoked once before in his life. Maybe it was the brandy.
He grabbed up one of the pipes, the one that appeared less handled, figuring it was the captain’s least favorite. He packed the bowl, held the blackened end of one of the spill sticks in the candle flame until ignited and inhaled at its flame to the pipe. He shook the spill out and dropped it back into the case, coughing lightly at the burning in his lungs. He laughed to himself how he’d only been back in civilization less than an hour and already he’d indulged in two of its strong vices.
———— (dbl sp)
The women’s voices took Sokanon’s attention from those of Isaac and the officer. She listened to the footsteps down the hall and stood next to Jacob on the bed. The women knew nothing of the attack, of the killings, could not know how much she just wanted to be alone with her husband and son. But honor somehow called her to stand back straight in anticipation of their entering. A soft rap was at the door before opening. A short French woman came bounding in carrying the toilet things.
“I am Marie Jadot.” Hers was as one of the same firm voices of the women in Montreal and Quebec, where Father Armand had tried to settle her in French households.
“I am Marie,” Sokanon said, in amity of her same Christian name.
The woman wavered a moment, where to set the basin and ewer, only the one table top. “Not even a chair,” she said. “Set the basket on the dresser and the bucket on the floor,” she said to the other woman. She held out the basin and ewer. “These too, on the floor,” she directed, sliding the linens off the woman’s shoulder. “You have met Johanna?”
Sokanon and the younger woman nodded to each other.
“Here are clean, comfortable nightclothes for you and your husband.” Jadot draped the linen gowns onto the bed. “You may keep them if you wish. The owners won’t be for them any more. Oh—” she said, “your child is awake. He is so quiet.”
“My son, Jacob.”
Jadot leaned closer to him in the soft candlelight. “His eyes are yet dark. He cannot be more than one or two months old.”
Sokanon almost did not want to say. “He was born in the early spring.”
Jadot’s brow rose. “He is very petite.”
“He was brought forth, early—before the full time.”
She saw a spark of sympathy flash in the woman’s eyes.
“I have lost an early child at birth,” Jadot announced. “And another before she was a month old.” She placed her hand on Jacob’s chest. “Well, he certainly looks hale. But those eyes. Does the child see well?”
Again the question of Jacob’s vision. “He sees well,” was all she said.
“I pray to Saint Mary and Saint Anne for your son’s continued health.”
“Amen,” Johanna said behind her.
Sokanon said it to herself.
“You are Catholic baptized?”
Sokanon nodded. “By Father Armand De La Richardie.”
Jadot stared a moment. Not really jealousy. But she would ask many questions if she could.
“I stood for Communion and Confirmation,” Sokanon said.
The Madame’s quick glance over her shoulder gave Johanna away. “And your child?”
“At the Mackinaw fort, by Father Du Jaunay.”
“Good.” Jadot used her hand to flourish. “We have brought hot water. I am not one of those who believe in the greater health benefits of cold water bathing. If you choose, you may allow the water to cool, of course.”
Sokanon shook her head. “The Sisters in Quebec also use warm water.”
The woman’s brow rose. “Which order?”
“Those of St. Ursuline. I grew up in their care.”
“That tells many things—” Jadot’s many emotions reflected. “Doesn’t it, young lady?”
Sokanon nodded, sudden impulse to hold Jacob.
“And church married,” Jadot said.
Again, Sokanon nodded. “By the Catholic priest, Jean Récher, in the Ursuline’s chapel. The Jesuit priests Father Glapion, and Father Saint-Pé had gone to Montreal.”
“Yes,” Jadot breathed.
Sokanon thought only to confirm solidarity, but the Frenchwoman’s hard acceptance of the new politic, defiance showed behind her eyes.
Jadot regained herself. Raised her chin. “There are towels and more candles, and breads and fruit for after you are finished washing. Johanna will bring another pitcher for your husband, and empty the bucket and basin.”
“Merci.”
“De rien.”
“Do you know of Father Pierre Potier?”
“What of?”
“Is he yet at his mission?”
“I don’t know. I have not seen him for some weeks now. He may have already traveled to the mission at Sandusky.”
Sokanon was quiet.
“Well, then.” Jadot gave a crisp nod and spun on her heels, Johanna already opening the door for them to leave. Not before an easy glance for Sokanon and Jacob. Sokanon wondered if there would be chance to ask many questions of her, how it had been for her, growing up.
She brought Jacob to lay in the basin. He squealed at the cold porcelain. She dipped a corner of a towel in the ewer and rubbed over his skin.
———— (dbl sp)
Isaac retreated the small steps back to the desk when the bedroom door opened, peering past them for the moment before the younger woman closed it behind her.
The older one came to him, scrunched her nose at the tobacco smell. “Good evening, sir—maybe your wife would enjoy another moment of privacy while she washes?” Her French was that of the upper class and Isaac was slow following it, a step behind each word.
He and Sokanon were a married couple, if the Madame had seen their almost total lack of privacy for the past three years… He stared at her while she seemed to stand her ground. He yielded to her, sat in the chair away from the desk.
She swept away the smoke from the pipe. “I shall return with clean water for you, monsieur. You cannot expect to sleep with your wife tonight as you are, after she has washed.”
He nodded, the brandy and tobacco still swimming in his head. He laid the pipe back into its place. “Madame,” he called behind her, already going out through the door. Johanna gave a quick smile and followed after. They left the door open and he was glad for it, the cool air blowing in clearing his head with every deep breath. He peered down the dark hall to the bedroom door. He only wanted the steadiness of Sokanon’s presence. The closeness of their child.
———— (dbl sp)
The women returned quicker than he thought they should. Maybe he’d fallen asleep. He didn’t think so. The Madame sent Johanna for the bedroom with another empty bucket. She held another large pitcher of hot water before him, seemed pleased that he had dutifully waited.
“I’ll come for you in a moment, sir.”
He stood, his head much clearer.
Johanna emerged from the room, full bucket in hand and Sokanon’s wash linens on her shoulder. She did not look at him this time. The Jadot woman stood in the doorway, inviting him to the room.
“We will not return for the evening,” she said, bowing her head slightly, “good evening. You have a fine child.”
She pulled the door closed and Isaac paused for a moment, waiting to hear her footsteps going away to leave him and Sokanon alone. Inside the room was lit by the more candles. But to Isaac Sokanon shone a light of her own, radiant in the white sleeping gown, seated on the bed, holding Jacob. Their wedding night wasn’t as real, Isaac thought.
“I am as a child myself,” Sokanon said of wearing the gown, pinching at a pleat.
“I do not think so.” Isaac was immobile, roving his eyes over her. He followed her look to the wash basin at one end of the long, low chest. A towel was lain on the floor. He pulled his shirt off over his head. “It’s been a long while since I’ve felt hot water on my hands.” A long time too, since he was to feel as clean as the promise of now. “What?” he said.
She said nothing, watching him, her gaze intent. She brought Jacob to the dresser, opened a bottom drawer and laid him in on a bed of blankets. She stood before Isaac and drew off the sleeping gown. The shimmering candles painted her body with the flickering glow. He caressed the bruise at her side with his fingertips. She dismissed his concern and tiptoed back to sit on the side of the bed, watching again. A sense of urgency came to him and he filled the basin part way. Disrobed. Her life with the sisters was so far away while she saw his arousal.

15

Jacob’s murmurings floated in the quiet of the morning. Sokanon went to retrieve him from the drawer of his night’s cradle. Isaac reveled in the sight of her motion, bending down for her gown that had been tossed to the floor. Stepping to lay it over the pile of clothes on the chest. Kneeling for their son to carry back to bed with them.
The candle shine reflected the strained contentment in their eyes.
He lay on his back. “This is what it would be like if we come to a place with fine houses after selling the furs.”
She brought Jacob to her. There was no fire burning with its smoke. No musty cabin smell, or the heavy odor of oilskinned tent cloth. No earthy aromas pungent or sweet to cover over Jacob’s child smell. “Yes, Isaac.”
The low voices of Wilkins and Johanna from the other bedroom interrupted, followed by a door slowly opening and closing. Then another. The rush of air underneath their door made the candle’s flame flutter, telling of someone leaving the house. Quiet came again, only the soft sound of Jacob suckling.
Sokanon thought of what the captain had said, commending them on their fight against the trappers. What Fraser had said, too, making a joke of her as a mother bear. She breathed heavy, and lamented. “I make murder to that man.”
Isaac had been waiting for her to talk about it. He was sympathetic but he held contempt and cold judgment of Aubert and his men. “You’re not a murderer. They tried to kill us. You were defending yourself and Jacob. We were both defending ourselves, each other. It could very well have been me to kill the man I shot at—or both of us.”
“The others—they joke, and cheer for us, as if a great victory after battle.”
“They are soldiers, Sokanon. Living with death in equal measure almost every day. Making light, and cheering, are a soldier’s way to—not be scared—I guess.”
“I am scared.”
“We will always have to be careful and watch for others who might try and harm us.”
She thought not to say. “I mean, I am scared to God.”
“For the sin of killing.”
She was quiet.
“God has to allow for those defending themselves from being killed by others. Otherwise, we would have allowed them to commit sin.”
“You twist meanings,” she said.
“Probably. But not by the law that we must live in. Written or unwritten.”
He was always too smart.
She nuzzled her head under his chin. Jacob fell away from her, asleep and she rested him between them. She wasn’t going to cry, but a powerful sadness came to her. “The first night after, when we slept on the beach amongst Fraser and those men, in my dreams, the man’s blood came to me.”
“We both had fitful sleep that night.”
“But then my mother was there, with the Great Mysterious of her religion. I could the powerful presence. My mother was scolding it, that the man should not enter into the spirit world.”
She was excited and spoke fast in her French. Isaac had to concentrate.
“What if the great mysterious is real,” she ran on, “and will cause the man’s spirit always to come to me in my sleep.”
 He caressed her arm. “No one can control their dreams. But the memory will not be so sharp as we live on. Your sleep—as mine—will fill with worries for Jacob, for our other children.”
Other children. That sad and painful time came to her, alone in the woods with her own blood all at once between her legs.
“But I wonder—” Isaac said, “if, for all your years with the Church, the time at Gichigami has made you confused for your Christianity.”
It scared her even more. She looked quick to her ring on the dresser. “I need see Father Pierre,” she followed in his English, “to confession.”
There was something in it this time. Isaac heard the warning in her words.
Sokanon felt his change. “Is it wrong, only to want to confess?”
“That’s not it.” Isaac kept his voice low. “We will leave as soon as it’s light enough to see.” He scooted off the bed to draw the curtain aside. “I can not tell how long till dawn, nor the wind. Let us rise, and go down to the dock, ready to cross at once.”
Sokanon leaned onto her elbow. Jacob swung his hands. She put her finger out for him to grab. “Do you mean to go so quickly—when to meet the one the Captain Wilkins say—the merchant in the city?”
“I’ll return later this morning and find this Campau fellow.”
She sat up. It wasn’t far, but too far to be apart.
Isaac saw it in her. “You will have your priest.”
“What if he is to Sandusky?”
“Then we will be parted only for the short while I am back here.”
She shook her head. “No, Isaac.”
He motioned for her to lower her voice.
She didn’t care. “Jacob and I will come with you.”
She was never so troubled before. He never thought it possible she could become so upset. The killing weighed heavy. He came to the bed again. “There’s no sense in it, then. We will stay—just the morning. After the Sunday services, when all the French citizens will be on the streets, we’ll find the man and inquire about the furs. If he can not offer immediate industry, we go.”
She couldn’t say again about the furs, she didn’t care anymore. She slid off the bed and grabbed up her smock to dress.
“There is a little time,” Isaac told her, his eyes roving her body.
How could he think it was the right time? Maybe it was. She carried Jacob once again away from the bed to the cradle of the dresser drawer.
——————
“Good morning, Marie.” Madame Jadot’s hard shoes had announced her arrival and Sokanon greeted at the open bedroom door. “I thought to be here,” Madame said, “before you dressed for the day. I have proper church clothing,” the attire stacked in her arm, lit candlestick in her other hand.
The hallway was dark, leading away behind her. “For us, to go to church?” Sokanon asked.
Isaac understood her doubt. The squaw and Anglican heathen attending services in the main city church?
They stared curious to each other.
The candle showed Jadot’s resolve. “After what you told me of your dutiful life in Quebec, devoted to the Catholic church—baptized by Father De La Richardie himself.” She looked to Isaac. “And married, to the Catholic Rite. I will be pleased to escort your family to St. Anne’s.”
Isaac wondered at her temerity, that they should even want to attend the services. But also at who she was in the city to think she could so readily pass them into its society. Sokanon’s confusion continued to show while he addressed Jadot. “We wish to speak with the merchant, Campau.”
Her eyes flashed in the candle flame, as if understanding at once their situation. “Monsieur Campau will attend. Do you know him?”
Isaac saw she knew they didn’t. “We do not.”
“I will introduce you, after services.”
Sokanon shared Isaac’s uncertainty. They could leave right now. Take their chances even, going to Sandusky without trying to sell the furs here. She knew he thought their best chance was with Campau. That Captain Wilkins meant it was so. She let her eyes fall away from him.
“We will attend,” Isaac said.
Sokanon took the clothes from Madame Jadot. She remembered the stiff linen Sunday dresses. Remembered the stares when she was with the French families going to church in Quebec. That the Mission churches were for the native peoples. The quiet, private, Sabbat services with the sisters’ in their own chapel. “Merci,” she said.
“De rein,” Jadot answered. “Mister and misses Dobbins,” she gave her good day, closing the door.
Jacob squirmed on the bed and Isaac pulled at his foot. “It will be good for Campau to see us with him in the congregation.”
Sokanon was quiet.
“I know you would rather not,” he said.
“Sister Marie Catherine would be upset with me.”
“She would be madder at me—for taking you so far away from the church.”
“She did not try to stop me from being with you.”
“She knows we are good for each other.”
She laid the clothes on the bed, hard shoes for her, worn boots for Isaac to the floor. Let the plain, unbleached dress unfold to hold in front of her. “It has become so usual for me to the softened leather smocks of the Ojibwa.”
“The sister’s would believe you have become wild.”
“The only that I’ve become is as your wife—and Jacob’s mother.”
“That is well enough for me.” He thought maybe his entire life seemed to be waiting for her. But he didn’t know how to say.
———— (dbl sp)
Johanna was at a chore fire, stirring at the large cauldron, the smell telling of waterproofing canvas into oilskin. She tried to hide behind a genuine smile of amity, but Sokanon saw her resentment, her captain one day to leave her when he went home. Even if she bore him a child.
Marie Jadot was waiting for them in the courtyard in front of the church.
“We are grateful, Madame,” Sokanon said.
Jadot matched their bows of greeting. Stares from the people were already many. “Of course, I will have to defend myself from their attacks later.”
Isaac pushed at the shirt tucked into his pants that were too small. “Tell them that we suffered in these ill-fitting clothes.”
“Yours are those of my deceased Monsieur Jadot. He was not as tall as you.”
How easy it was for her to talk so light of her dead family. Maybe she honored them with her simple talk.
“Which is Campau?” Isaac asked at the small groups gathered talking.
Jadot searched for only a moment. “There—Monsieur Jean-Baptiste Campau, with his wife and son, also Jean-Baptiste.”
Isaac mused to himself, the many Frenchmen named the same, after John the Baptist.
“Please wait until after the services,” Madame Jadot said. “The Lord first, on His day.”
Isaac thought how many times the boats went out to sea on the Lord’s day. Jesus was a fisherman. Maybe even a Nova Scotian.
The priest was outside the entrance, inviting and greeting people as they entered. The Anglican preachers did the same, and Isaac was hopeful the service might not be too unpleasant. He never liked church in the best of times. The shipmaster’s had to make him attend, even before a far-out quest for ocean fish. So Saint Andrew would know your soul if you should drown, boy, they’d sermon.
Father Bocquet, Wilkins had said. A Capuchin, Franciscan friars Sokanon knew, from listening to Father Pierre talk with a Capuchin brother. That they weren’t Jesuits she understood. She liked that they didn’t clash with the men of Jesus like the Sulpician priests. She worried as they passed, afraid to even greet him as not to be a cause for embarrassment for him and Madame Jadot. His eyes narrowed until Madame Jadot held her arm to guide her through the doorway.
“Beinvenue,” he said.
Isaac greeted silently.
Sokanon stopped at the furthest back pew, against the insistence of Madame Jadot to follow her closer.
“Jacob might cry out.”
Isaac sure hoped so.
“There are other babes in arms here,” Jadot said.
Sokanon held her ground.
“Very well,” the woman gave in. “I will to my usual place.”
“Merci,” Sokanon told her again. She slid into the pew, Isaac following after.
He was unimpressed again by the religious adornments of the Catholics. He knew he would be bored by the liturgy and chanting. Prayer hadn’t helped any of his family. Sokanon’s, either. He put his hand over hers on Jacob. She tried to allow contentment to settle her self-consciousness, with their rough hands together lain soft on their son.
But her attention drifted to the gold crucifix to Father Bocquet’s side on the altar. The shiny image of Jesus dying on the cross. Against the opposite wall, the carved wooden image of Mary holding Him as a baby in her lap. Next was the figure of a woman standing. Sainte Anne, Mother of Mary, Grandmother of Jesus.
She moved her hand under Isaac’s so she could feel Jacob’s little heart beating. The murder of the man was there again, the gunshots, the blood-yelling…the killing of her mother and father, Jacob’s grandparents.
Father Bocquet’s leading of the Lord’s Prayer caught her back to the congregation, where Isaac’s voice was added to theirs. He was sitting straighter, even struggling to try and follow along in French. His hand squeezed tighter. He was remembering his same prayer answered at Jacob’s birth.
——————
“Monsieur Campau,” Isaac greeted.
The man halted with his family. “I am Jean-Batiste Campau.”
Isaac invited them to follow him and Sokanon aside.
Wariness continued to reflect in their glances moving quickly from Isaac, Sokanon, Jacob. Especially the wife, judgment of their character forming in narrowed eyes. Sokanon held Jacob higher on her arm, raised her chin. She was glad for Madame Jadot’s clothes, at least, maybe to ease their caution.
The younger man was around his own age Isaac thought. He moved closer, his posture defending.
Isaac held his hand out to greet the elder Campau. “I am Isaac Dobbins. My wife, Marie. Our son Jacob.”
The woman was still guarded at the introduction, and it was the first time Sokanon was self-conscious Isaac calling her by her Christian name.
Campau gave a hesitant handshake. “Bon matin.”
Sokanon’s ears pricked. Sister would never allow her to use English-French.
“Bon jour,” Isaac returned, Sokanon hearing his confusion as well.
“I speak English,” Campau said, figuring out Isaac at once.
Isaac nodded. He kept his voice low.  “We come from west of the St. Mary’s, with furs to sell.”
Campau flashed a studied gaze. “You are very direct, young man. Out of courtesy, please, my wife, Catherine. My son, Jean-Baptiste.”
“I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You haven’t. Now, Isaac Dobbins—what furs to sell, do you speak of?”
Isaac motioned to Sokanon. “Four bundles—trapped out of our cabin for the past two seasons.”
“Four.” The man was impressed.
“You are not with an agency,” the son said, diverting his father’s attention.
Isaac shook his head.
“I should think not,” the older Campau said, scrutinizing. “And you are unlicensed. With furs outside the territory forbidden by the new Royal Proclamation.” It wasn’t disdain for the law in his voice. Indifference.
“Your countrymen are moving quickly to secure the entire fur trade,” the younger snapped.
The father held his hand up to his son.
Isaac thought to explain. “The Ojibwa at Gichigami accepted us. Grudgingly, I suppose.”
“I’m sure,” Campau interrupted.
“We were able to trade with Monsieur Cadot’s assistance,” Isaac continued. “But with this new war, no agents have come north for two seasons. Our furs kept stacking up. We could not very well sell them to the Hudson’s Bay.”
Campau was amused. “The Company would have probably arrested you, taken your furs.”
Isaac nodded. Maybe the man was sympathetic. “The birth of our son in the spring was with difficulties—”
The woman’s eyes flashed to Sokanon and Jacob.
“—we’ve had no contact with the St. Mary’s post for months, until we left our cabin. We knew nothing of the license requirement until we were at Michi-Mack earlier in the month.”
“Without a license,” Campau said, “I am afraid there is very little any of us can do for you.”
Sokanon saw them leaving immediately for Father Pierre’s mission.
Isaac shrugged. “Captain Wilkins thought you may be able to help.”
“Did he?”
“Not directly, no.” He was embarrassed. “But there was something in the way he told me of you, made me believe so.” He shifted on his feet, dragged the hard-soled shoes on the ground. “If there nothing can be done by you, can you introduce our situation, or give us the name to someone who can be of assistance.”
“The last of the agents has left with the British colonel, Bradstreet.”
“A fellow named Christie,” Isaac said.
“That is correct. What do your furs consist of, young man?”
“Beaver, of course. But also black bear and wapiti. And we have some fisher and mink pelts. All of quality handling.”
Campau’s attention sharpened. He roved his eyes around to those going about. “Four bundles. And no team—only the two of you? That is impressive.”
Isaac remained reserved. “We were under the good graces of the Ojibwa’s in the area. And, we were lucky.”
Sokanon remembered all the hard work.
“Let us walk,” Campau said, offering the way forward with a wave of his hand.
“I will excuse myself,” Madame Campau declared, “if you’re going to talk business.”
It wasn’t business. Sokanon saw her disdain.
“No—you stay with your father,” Madame said when her son held out his arm to escort her.
“I do not need to be protected,” Campau directed.
“I do not need to be escorted,” his wife retorted.
“Yes, Catherine. I’ll have you please, not to mention this matter with anyone?”
Sokanon watched her join the others, their manners prim and proper, in their dresses, bright against the dark and graying wood of the houses, the packed dirt street. She thought of Quebec, the people staying all their lives there in a huge city where everything looked the same.
They moved down the Rue Saint Jacques, both Campau’s nodding their ‘good mornings’ to the passersby.
“There is another tradesman, a friend of mine,” elder Campau said, finally returning to business, a noticed change in his countenance. “Charles Dequindre. He has had dealings with those French who left Detroit after the war to St. Louis.”
Isaac had no idea.
“There has been a not so secret treaty drawn up two years ago by King Louis of France and Spain, Louis ceding all French lands west of the Mississippi to his Catholic Spanish ally, Charles.”
“All the land?” Isaac stared.
“At least temporarily, for safety, is what I and many others think. But there is a new settlement founded by Pierre Laclède from New Orleans named St. Louis, built where the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers meet, across from Cahokia. That is where the many of the French citizenry from Detroit went to live after the war.”
“I am aware of how vast Louisiana is said to be, but that is all of what you say.”
“I only say because, you realize young man, that anything we do, would be counter to your King’s own law.”
“Yes.”
“Charles and I are well-established leaders of the community here in Detroit. The authorities would be hesitant to do anything to us beyond paying a fine. But you—”
Sokanon worried at the warning, the hard look from young Campau.
“Father,” junior Jean-Baptiste scolded.
Campau quieted his son again. “Monsieur Dequindre would agree, any arrangement would have to be on consignment, payment coming only upon the successful delivering of the furs to those in St. Louis. And only to the amount of actual payment from such.”
“Consignment.” Isaac mulled the word, remembering Captain Howard’s suggestion of the same to Cadot. It meant waiting, as it did at Mackinaw, trying to find a way to live until the spring, trusting for payment that could very well never come.
“It’s the best anyone could do for you, here,” Campau read Isaac’s reservation.
“What of an advance?” Isaac asked. He remembered the dealings at the wharves between the fishing boat owners and the town merchants. “Based on a fair loss percentage—until your men return from St. Louis.”
Campau’s brow rose. “I see you are not just a ragged voyageur, my friend. It is refreshing to see a young man who understands business as well as the trap and gun.” He tightened his face and shook his head. “You understand then, an advance would be taking an enormous risk on my money. I will tell you, anyone—even a registered agent—would be taking a risk with your furs.”
Isaac waited.
“Ten percent of value,” Campau said.
His son’s impatience deepened, his face red. Sokanon thought he would drag his father away right then.
Isaac heaved a heavy sigh, warm look for Sokanon. 
She saw his determination rise as he made the decision in his mind.
“No.” He shook his head. “Thank you, Monsieur Campau. But we will continue on. Maybe catch that agent with Bradstreet’s company.”
Campau acknowledged Isaac’s pronouncement with a friendly nod. “That kind of purpose will pay off for you in the long run, I’m sure. For you and your family. It is the course I would have suggested to you as a negotiator.” He put his hand out to bid goodbye. “Maybe your best prospect would be going to Montreal yourselves, taking whatever offer you can find. Clandestinely, I mean.”
“Monsieur, Madame. God bless.”
“The same also to you,” Isaac returned while Sokanon dipped her head.
“Isaac—” Campau called.
They turned back to each other.
Campau brushed away his son’s hand on his arm to edge closer. “I would be very careful with Captain Wilkins,” he warned. “He has been accused of some,” he tilted his head, “—accounting errors, when requisitioning his unit of rangers.”
Isaac was confused. He was always a good judge of people. “The captain appears of good character.”
Campau shrugged. The son gave a last look of bother before leading away with his father toward where his mother was yet in conversation. She wasn’t looking. Not even a mean glance of superiority.
“I wish you would have told her my Cree name.”
Isaac understood. “I would offend King, country, even God, before I do you. Let’s get our clothes and leave, now.”
“Yes, husband.” She shifted Jacob’s weight to her other arm, her side hurting.
“Here, give him to me.” Isaac had to squeeze the boy tighter than he thought he needed. “God willing he won’t have problems with his eyes, but he sure has a lot of energy.” Jacob squirmed again. “Little devil.”
God willing. Little devil. Sokanon wanted to laugh at him. She saw them before he did, distracted as he was, tossing Jacob up over his head to make him giggle. “Isaac,” she said, concern in her voice at the soldiers with Captain Wilkins in front of his quarters.
A civilian man stopped pacing to stand next to Wilkins, hands behind his back. Dressed prim and proper. Isaac could not remember seeing him in church. His self-sure look was forced. Elliot and Gale were with the small detail of red coats behind. Caution broke to rising opposition when Isaac saw them shift awkwardly in their stances and he knew it was trouble.
Sokanon gathered Jacob from him. She slowed her pace to retreat a little behind while Isaac walked directly to the man who was waiting to receive them.
“Mr. Dobbins,” he started, hands clasped in front of him then, “I am Jehu Hay, acting town governor major. I was informed this morning that you have two canoes filled with furs. Unlicensed furs,” he emphasized.
Wilkins stood soldierly, raised his chin. Isaac thought about what Campau said of him, but thought the Captain’s sympathy showed in an obvious powerlessness to the governor major. Isaac addressed the man. “You are to confront myself and my wife, with our child, in public—with an armed squad?”
“I have been warned of your fighting capabilities, and want to show they will come to no avail.”
He drew back when Isaac moved closer.
“Husband,” Sokanon called.
“Dobbins—” Wilkins warned his own insistence, the men behind shuffling at their captain’s movement. “If you will, please.”
“You will take our property under force of arms, as those murderous thieves—after spending the night as guests in your quarters?”
Hay stiffened, tried to make himself more assertive. “The furs are to be considered contraband. I have already had them confiscated.”
Isaac lunged at him, anger snapping his judgment.
Wilkins moved quickly to block him. “Don’t be foolish, Dobbins. You’ve got your family right here. They don’t need to see you forcibly arrested.”
Sokanon was helpless, imagined she could somehow reach to hold Isaac back.
“Messieurs!”
It was Father Bocquet, come through the quieted townspeople who had gathered to watch the commotion.
“Gentlemen,” he repeated as he neared, “please, it is the Sabbath—the Lord’s day.” He stood firm in his vestments, upraised pious hand as counter to any weapon.
Sokanon cheered his intercession.
“Forgive the interruption of the Sunday, vicar—” Hay was arrogant in his words. “But governmental matters can never be put at rest. How else could the city be protected—during the Sabbaths—if the soldiers relaxed their duty to defend the churchgoers?”
“That is a very soldierly logic.” Bocquet’s eyes narrowed. “And blasphemous in its mockery, I might add.”
Sokanon felt all the men’s stances settle at the priest’s rebuke of the governor major.
Hay bowed slightly. “This is a simple matter of economics and should not be of concern to the Catholic church.”
“No,” Bocquet returned, “but the peace of the Sabbath day does concern churchgoers, no matter their faith.”
Hay shook his head. “The peace will not be disturbed so long as the subject in question—the British subject, stands down, in accordance with Crown law.”
“I understand. Yet there is God’s law. Law of respect and decency for others. This man and his family came to our church, even though I know he is not catholic, and it appears—if I can so presume—that while he sat through services, you have moved against his possessions.”
“His possessions, Father, are illegally trapped and unlicensed furs.”
“Of course, furs,” Bocquet said.
“They were not officially illegal when they were trapped,” Isaac said. Sokanon was next to him.
“Are you taking from this man his livelihood, his families’ prosperity?” the priest asked. “No arrangement can be made for recompense?”
“None, sir priest,” Hay droned, “the law is a royal edict, and absolute.” He turned to Isaac, emboldened in his speech. “I could have this man arrested.”
“It will take you all,” Isaac warned. “And yours will be the first nose I bash.”
Hay strengthened his stance. “It does not do your case any good, threatening officers of king and country.”
“No it does not, young man,” Bocquet scolded.
“I have fought for king and country. Now, I am only looking for a safe place to settle my family.”
“It is safe here in Detroit,” Hay taunted, “as long as everyone, citizens or not, follow the law, Mr. Dobbins.”
Sokanon held Isaac’s arm tight.
“The Catholic community would welcome you here,” Father said, “and your family.”
“There’s for you then,” Hay continued to mock. “I’m sure a man of your skills can acquire gainful employ throughout the winter.” His self-satisfied glances went from Isaac to Father Bocquet. “We are finished here gentlemen,” he declared. “Back to your posts,” he ordered the soldiers.
Wilkins held his hand out to stay Isaac. The officer’s irritation at the governor giving orders to his men was apparent. Sergeant Utley waited for his captain’s nod to slowly disperse the squad. Hay made sure to surround himself with their number.
Wilkins came to Isaac and Sokanon. “Don’t do anything foolish,” he said, “you cannot win here.”
All around the people returned to themselves.
Isaac bristled at the helplessness that forced him to tamp his rage. He pressed Wilkins. “Inviting us into your quarters was not to keep us here, for this?” He would not repeat what Campau said about him.
Wilkins showed his own irritation at the accusation. “I had nothing to do with this, Dobbins,” he pushed back.
Isaac only wanted to hear it.
“I believe one of the men,” Wilkins went on, his voice more even, “the corporal or the private who came in with you, told of your furs, and the information found its way—as it always does—straight to the governor major.”
“You could not hold him off, at least until we could get away?”
Wilkins pursed his lips. Stared. Isaac understood the absurdity of his question.
Sokanon bowed her head to Father Bocquet who approached.
“Young man,” the priest said, “if I may interrupt.” He moved closer, his wide vestments rustling together as he shuffled. He was flanked by two other of the Catholic churchmen—boys, trying to appear stout in their timidity. “The major is correct on one matter,” Bocquet said, “there is plenty of paid employment here at Detroit. You can find room and board with many of those who would employ you, especially out on the farms.”
Isaac knew he meant to be sympathetic, but his words stung with defeat.
“Thank you, father,” Sokanon said, continuing to cling to Isaac’s arm, afraid yet that he would charge off after the governor.
“Yes, thank you,” he said to the priest.
“If I can offer any assistance,” Bocquet added.
Isaac nodded quietly.
“Thank you,” Sokanon repeated.
“God’s good day,” the priest offered before turning to retreat back to the church, the boys flanking him.
“Dobbins,” Wilkins said, “Mr. Hay is only in temporary command here.”
“I thought you were in command?”
Wilkins sighed. “You can see that we all have our duties to follow. What I meant was, that if Colonel Bradstreet returns, he may grant a hearing for your grievance. Knowing that you served under him in the war may have him rule in your favor. What that might mean in compensation, I could not say. But it may be something.”
Isaac shook his head. “You do not believe the colonel will return.”
Wilkins nodded. Shrugged. Then I will petition for you with the new military commander who is chosen.”
“What if it is you?”
Wilkins snickered. “It will not be me.”
Sokanon thought of Johanna.
“In any event,” Isaac said, “we are to wait here until…when?”
“As the priest and the major have said, there is plenty of opportunity for you here. I cannot stay any longer, to be seen in your company. Your belongings have been given over to those boatmen you arrived with. I’ve released them with a boat to take the mail to Bradstreet, if you will with them to Sandusky. They are at your canoes. Good day, Isaac.”
He walked away, leaving them again standing out under the gazes of the citizenry.
Sokanon looked around at the town. She wondered why it mattered just then how far it was from the grandness of Quebec. Or Montreal. “We will stay in Detroit, and wait?”
“I don’t know. But I think there is something in what Wilkins has just said. About not being seen too long with us. As I said before, it is hard to tell friend and enemy.”
“Father Pierre will help,” she offered.
Always with the Jesuit was she. But he had no doubt she was right. Even a forced smile from her lifted his spirits.

16

“You have chosen a remarkable place to camp,” Dequindre said, peering to the river.
“It is only a camp until Monsieur Campau arrives with his news for us.”
“Of course.”
Isaac’s patience teetered. “You do not know how close I was to throwing you from the dock into the strait this morning.”
“Husband,” Sokanon scolded, looking across the fire from Dequindre to his wife, a Huron woman he introduced as Inès.
The merchantman hesitated, even as he showed annoyance. “I am here to help, and not the one to be angry with.”
“I’m sorry,” Isaac gave in to Sokanon’s quiet urging. “I am angry at the governor, and would have brought it to any who hailed from the city.”
“It is to be expected.” Dequindre raised his chin. “But you have to remember I am only a decoy in whatever is being planned, and I am here of my own generosity. When Monsieur Campau approached me, he made it very clear that you should not leave before meeting with him. It may very well be in your best interest that you stood to hear me and did not, throw me from the dock.”
“And it concerns our furs?”
“Oui, young man.”
Isaac looked from him. “We are grateful for whatever you do to help us.”
Dequindre relaxed. “We have some time, I think before Jean-Baptiste arrives. I only meant to pass a moment in conversation. Do know of Captain Donald Campbell?”
Isaac lifted a shoulder. “Major Rogers appointed him commander just before Sokanon and I left for the upper lakes.”
“Then you do not know,” Dequindre said with a look of revulsion. “During the siege by the Indian forces under Pontiac, the captain was killed and mutilated by an Ojibwa leader named Wasson. Supposedly in retaliation for Campbell’s killing and scalping of the chief’s nephew.” He motioned with his hand to the shoreline and shivered. “I say you have chosen a remarkable place to wait for Monsieur Campau because right around here is where they found his body, washed up on shore, being eaten by the dogs of the camp. His chest had been ripped open, his heart taken out. The rest of the…pieces…his arms and legs, hands and feet, were floating nearby in the river, tied to logs.”
Sokanon held the grisly vision in her head for a moment.
“That is not a fate I wish on anyone,” Isaac said. “I remember Campbell was going to try and disarm all the French citizens in the city.”
“You are correct.” Dequindre was derisive. “After the treaty in Paris last year ceded all of New France to Britain, many of my countrymen moved from Detroit to Upper Louisiana. But most of the seigneurs that chose to stay—the owners of the farms along the river and Lake St. Clair—they left the city to go live on their acreage being run by their hired tenants.” He surprised with a sudden sarcastic laugh. “After the discovery of captain Campbell’s mutilated remains, all the landowners sure ran back behind the safety of the palisade and the redcoat soldiers then.”
Isaac thought of Louis Greffard, his willingness to live farthest away from the fort. “Did the warriors threaten the French landowners?”
“Not directly, no. But when Monsieur Campbell was taken prisoner he was under the chief Pontiac’s protection. This Wasson, had come down from Saginaw with his Ojibwa warriors to join the rebellion. It wasn’t known their disposition to any of the settlers here at Detroit—British or French. It frightened everyone, not knowing who else might be killed, at any time for some other act of revenge. Captain Campbell’s killing was a shocking brutality. For all of us.”
Sokanon grew agitated. How close was Isaac to being killed and cut up into pieces by the warriors that night who stalked around their cabin, shouting their taunts? Even with Sakima’s protection? She stood with Jacob, restless. Stared across the river.
Isaac peered again over the distance toward the fort. “How much longer?” he asked Dequindre.
“Please, you must be patient. Monsieur Campau said only to meet him here in a short while. I am as much uninformed as you.”
“But you are certain it is about getting our furs back?”
“He said to say so to you, that is all.”
Isaac ran his thoughts again. Wilkins not wanting to be seen too long with them. Being seen talking to Campau in the street. He met Dequindre’s eyes, studied him and his Native wife. Campau was using them as an excuse to meet here. Maybe he and Wilkins had talked. He laid another log into the fire.
“The days are becoming colder, quickly,” Dequindre said. He bundled his coat tighter and moved closer to the warmth of the flames. “Winter will soon be here. Then the strait will freeze over again.”
It was enough to take Isaac’s mind from Hay and the theft of their furs. “Nothing like the icebergs of Nova Scotia,” he said, “when they roll in the tides of the bays.”
Sokanon joined his thought with memories of the ice in tide during Quebec winters. She gazed down the river, the trees early in their fall colors from the cold winds of the strait. She turned and came close to Isaac again.
He traced Jacob’s nose down to her hand held over his chest, then up her arm to touch her cheek. She confused when he kept his eyes on her while he addressed Dequindre again.
“How do you bear yourself at the looks of derision?” He motioned to Dequindre’s wife. “For your union?”
“Our marriage is better accepted by my people. The Jesuits, and before them the Récollets, have been proselytizing with the Native people’s for a long time. Still—” he grasped his wife’s shoulder. “It can be hard.”
“I’ve found ignoring it very hard.”
“Only ignore for so long, eh?”
“The next man doesn’t learn from a row I’ve had with another before him. I cannot fight them all.”
Dequindre waved it off. “It will be better soon, I think. Many of the British are still indisposed to any Natives that weren’t on their side during the past year’s warfare. They are calling it a rebellion, which tells that they look on it as, a treason. The bad blood will pass once there is concord after the peace.”
“Peace?” The word surged through Isaac. Sokanon felt it from him. “For how long—with two British armies campaigning in the Ohio?”
Dequindre held a finger out, as if to teach. “There are rumors that Colonel Bradstreet has been making personal treaties with the local tribal leaders.”
That’s what Wilkins was holding back. “Personal treaties?”
“I see you understand.”
Isaac kicked a spark back into the fire. “If it’s true, then he is playing one tribe off on another. I don’t see how that can help peace in the long run.”
“Maybe it is better to make treaties under pretense than to throw more wood on the fires of war. At least it shows the military leaders are trying to understand the affairs of the local tribes.”
Isaac shrugged. But it meant maybe Bradstreet would remain at Sandusky for a while longer. If they could get their furs back…
“Here comes the man, Campau.” Sokanon drew their attention to the solitary figure making his way slowly along the river.
“It has to be Jean-Baptiste, I think,” Dequindre said. “But my vision is not what it used to be.” He gave a nod to Sokanon. “Your young eyesight is sharp. I trust your judgment.”
“It is he,” Isaac assured.
“What is better than one pair of good eyes, if not another?”
“Jean-Baptiste,” Dequindre greeted.
Campau greeted with nods all around. “I am seen many afternoons and early evenings on a stroll along the riverside. The entire city knows what happened between you and major Hay. It would have been better if you were camped farther away.”
“My wife is impatient to leave to the mission across the strait.”
Campau’s eyes suddenly wandered behind them. “I am an admirer of native canoe craftsmanship,” he said. “Did you build them?”
“I built the freighter. The smaller was purchased here in Detroit three years ago. But I am impatient, too, Monsieur Campau.”
“Please,” Campau said. He swept his hand to lead toward the canoes. “Let Charles and myself talk with you while I study your vessels. The larger, freighter, as you say—it is of a size I have never seen. I believe a single person may be able to guide it. An experienced paddler, for sure. You truly built it yourself?”
“I had some help from a Native boy at the Gichigami, but Sokanon’s hands run through it even more than his.”
Campau looked confused. “Sokanon?”
“My wife.”
He nodded his understanding while she looked on at the sound of her name from Isaac.
Campau ran his hand inside the freighter, up along the top edge. “And it is of your design?
“Yes,” Isaac repeated. “But of our furs, Campau.”
“Of course,” he relented to Isaac’s impatience, “although, if there is time, and you will, I would wish to enjoy a short cruise in the vessel.”
His casual manner annoyed Isaac. He followed the man’s wary look to the fort. “I’m sure we are far enough,” Isaac said.
“I am concerned to see that Governor Hay has not seen me leave the fort, and is neither watching from the palisade.”
Sokanon searched herself to see only the soldiers walking atop the walls.
“Come,” Campau offered. “I know Charles’ wife does not speak English. And I’m certain your wife will not speak of our meeting. But I would feel more comfortable talking more privately.”
Isaac exchanged a smile with Sokanon. She sat again before the fire and he followed away with Campau and Dequindre. The wind was at his face, coming over the strait, down from the north. No salt smell of ocean water, but for a moment he was along the shore at Annapolis Royal.
“Now then,” Campau brought him away, “you have a friend here in Detroit, young man. Captain Wilkins has approached me about your furs. It seems he has a plan to return to you your peltry.”
———— (dbl sp)
“You are not Ojibwa?” Dequindre’s wife asked.
Her refined French surprised Sokanon. “I am Montagnais Cree.”
“The Cree of the woodlands to the east.”
“Yes.”
“And what the French call, Montagnais—people of the high land.”
Sokanon was surprised again.
“Yes. Innu, (Naskapi) in my father’s language.”
“Innu,” Inès repeated. “Your French is very good.”
Sokanon drew in the Huron woman’s questioning gaze. “When I was a girl, my family were killed by Iroquois raiders,” she said.
Inès was quiet.
“My life was in Quebec, with the nuns of St. Ursuline.”
“You know nothing of your first language?’
Sokanon wondered again, how readily they knew, Athanasie, Kiwidinok, now her. She thought to ask what her Huron name was. “I know only some of their words—our words. Even Innu, I know only from Father Armand.”
“You knew him—priest to the Hurons?”
“I was baptized by him. And he was in Quebec when I lived there.”
“We were all sad to hear when he died so far away.”
Sokanon pressed her lips tight, the vision of him dead washing in her memory. She wanted to say, but kept it to herself. How she prayed with the old man just before he died.
The questions were each for the other then. Inès was older, but Sokanon saw a great friend if they should stay in Detroit. She bounced Jacob in her lap.
Inès smiled warmly. “You and your husband were in Sunday dress at church.”
The softened skins of her tight-fitting smock and moccasins to her knees became suddenly aware to Sokanon. But Inès did not look out of place in the everyday dress of the townswomen. She was pretty in her waistcoat decorated with black ribbon ties. She went with no hat, her hair not pinned back but in the braids of a Native woman. “The clothes were borrowed from Madame Jadot.”
“You will not stay in Detroit?”
“I do not know. I wish to visit first with Father Pierre Potier across the water at the Huron mission.”
“Of course you would know him, too.”
“I know him from a long time ago,” Sokanon said. “At the mission on the island of white trees, with Father Armand. We left before the mission was destroyed.”
Sokanon wished she would not have said, at once embarrassed to mention it. The Bois Blanc island mission burned down years ago by some renegade Christian Huron from Sandusky, Nicholas Orontondi, or Orontony. She wondered if the woman knew him of her people.
But Inès’ eyes were soft. “My husband and I were married then and in Detroit. We were worried to hear of Father De La Richardie’s illness, but glad he was gone when the mission was attacked.”
They both knew it would not have been if Father would have still been there.
“When Father Armand was sick—” Sokanon shuddered at the memory. “He could not move his body. My father took him back to Quebec in my father’s canoe.”
“I remember,” Inès continued, “how happy my people were when he was well again, and came back to us.”
Sokanon felt the sadness. “Father Armand did not want my family to return to Detroit with him. He thought too dangerous for us, not being Huron, after the island mission was destroyed.”
“Father Potier is well respected, but Father De La Richardie was dearly loved by all my Huron people. We lived near the Sandusky Mission that he started, and I saw him many times there.” She peered again to Sokanon. “You are too young for me to have seen you at Sandusky.”
Sokanon agreed. “Do you go to the mission?” she asked, excited for anything she could tell of Father.
“Sometimes. Only for my husband’s trade. We attend services only at the Sainte Anne church. Charles gives much to them. It is why we will not move from Detroit like others have.”
“When did you see him last?”
“He was here only days before you arrived.”
Only days. Sokanon looked across the water. “Father Pierre has always been, very kind to me. As was Father Armand.”
“The Montagnais were the first to have Jesuit missionaries.”
Pride and melancholy pulled Sokanon’s thoughts. “My father was he who would take Father Armand in his canoe on his missions.”
“And you traveled with them?”
“Everywhere. Also with my mother.” She did not say of her brother.
“Your mother was Cree—was she also Christian?”
Sokanon shook her head. “I remember her kneeling with the others, listening to Father Armand and Father Pierre say their sermons. But I also remember her trying to tell me of the Cree stories of creation.” She shook her head again at Inès’ curiosity. “I only remember a few things.” She looked down to Jacob. “I can almost not remember her voice.”
She wondered if she should go on when the words just came out. “He wanted my father take other Black Robes from Quebec to the place of a new mission at Chicoutimi, where my father’s Innu people lived. I remember my father and mother both, were happy to go back to where I—and my brother—were born. Then, I only remember when the warriors attacked, at the start of the big river Saguenay, and killed them, with many of the others, too.” Jacob stretched and the fire offered another distraction as Sokanon stared into its flames. “Isaac’s mother and father are also dead,” she finished.
“Your son will not know his grandparents.” Inès understood.
“That is why I desire to see Father Pierre. For him to see Jacob. To bless my son.” Sokanon’s cheeks warmed. Her tears held back. “When we came from Quebec I visit with him at the mission. He told he was happy to see me as a woman. But when we hugged, I was the young girl in his arms once more, the one he protected from the Huron children who pulled at my hair, and pushed me down.”
Inès smiled with Sokanon. “Many of my family remain yet at Sandusky,” she said soft, memories of her own childhood showing in the exchange. “Father Pierre is—maybe, your only family?”
Sokanon started to tell her of Sister Marie Catherine, and Mother Superior Marie-Anne. But Inès spoke first.
“Father Potier may have already taken to Sandusky, to winter there.”
Sokanon nodded. The men’s voices interrupted, nearing in the short distance.
———— (dbl sp)
“You warned me of Wilkins,” Isaac said, caution running apace with his anticipation. “Then our furs are confiscated. Now, you say he wants to help with their return. I am wondering if I can trust any of you. Will the return of our property be contingent on consignment percentages, Monsieur Campau?”
Campau stopped walking, indignity in his gaze. “There will be no money exchanged between my hands.”
“Nor mine,” Dequindre assured. “I am only here to serve as a decoy for Monsieur Campau. I know nothing of this plan,” he insisted.
“I know the captain to be as those men,” Campau went on, “commanders who recruit and outfit their own ranger companies. Fairly well scoundrels all, as I am sure you are aware. But, Wilkins appeared sincere in this offer.”
“Why would he risk court martial to help?”
Campau stared back with a quizzical look. “I do not know. But I know he and Governor major Hay do not get on with each other. I believe that Captain Wilkins can be trusted.”
“I thought so,” Isaac said. “But what of it—” he insisted. “I am not to put myself in opposition to the authorities, or my family to danger?”
“I was told that you are only to be ready to leave Detroit quickly after you’ve been given word as to where and when your furs will be brought. I am not to be directly involved. Neither is Charles.” Dequindre gave a satisfied look. “Unless you wish to accept the offer to Charles’ man in St. Louis.” Dequindre’s eyes flashed. “But—” Campau said, his finger pointing to Isaac, “Charles will agree. His man will guide, but you must act as the captain of the transport of your furs to the Louisiana.”
Isaac stared.
“You must be the one to whom all risk of discovery be shouldered.”
Isaac was quiet, the information processing in his thoughts. It all seemed too mad. “My wife and I are to just wait?”
“That is what I am to tell you. After this meeting, we shall not see each other again. Nor Charles. Only through messengers.”
“Messengers?”
“It seems, also, that your three friends who arrived with you are to be involved.”
“Three friends—Hartley, Greene and Potter?”
“If that is their names.” Campau studied cautiously. “They are not friends?”
Isaac nodded slowly. The comradeship, from even Hartley, maybe especially from him, after the attack on his family. But he could not understand why they would put themselves in such jeopardy. And he already owed them enough. “I would rather there be another way, for me to reacquire the furs myself.”
Campau pursed his lips. “My friend, they are locked with the other furs, many of which have also been confiscated. It would be impossible for you to, reacquire them yourself.”
“We merchants and traders had furs and skins of all types seized,” Dequindre said/
Isaac heard the animosity, perhaps the reason for their aid.
“Worth almost a quarter of a million in British pound sterling,” Dequindre went on, “packed in hidden storehouses in the town before the takeover of your countrymen.”
“They weren’t very well hidden storehouses,” Campau regaled. “The British found them rather easily.” He directed them back toward the fire. “Let us return to look again at your fine watercraft. If I can advise, young Isaac—your government has taken over the naval yard on the Niagara river just last year. I am certain with such skills, you could obtain good employment there.”
Sokanon tried not to ne rude, turning now and then to try and make out their conversation with Isaac. She saw his temperament calmer as he neared. What he talked with to the two men was good. It would wait. He would tell her later. She was happy to see his anger at the loss of the furs gone for the moment from his eyes. But she saw his surrender, too, and was impatient for him to say. She felt bad with him. He disliked yielding himself to anyone’s charge. Except for hers. His hand on her shoulder, body close to hers, gaze for each other in strength for their union.
“We have come to rejoin you,” Dequindre said, warming his hands near the flames.
It was an odd greeting. Odd that the two men should appear to settle once again at their fire, instead of withdrawing back to the fort. Maybe Campau would be for his farm—without his family. The graces of amity smoothed through Isaac. That he and Sokanon should have the offering of coffee. He remembered they hadn’t eaten all day, anticipation for leaving. He wondered how long they would have to camp here. Wondered if they should move farther upriver, away from the watchful eyes of Hay and the sentries.
“I’ve regaled Isaac about captain Campbell’s horrible demise,” Dequindre said to Campau.
“Yes, a very cruel death.” Campau stepped closer to the fire. “But both sides were cruel during this latest fighting with the natives. Massacres and scalpings of many. Including innocent ones.”
“Jean-Baptiste’s home was invaded.”
Sokanon and Isaac waited as Campau appeared reluctant to explain Dequindre’s words. “My home is outside the walls of the fort. While still occupied by us, it was taken over first by Pontiac’s warriors and their allies, and then by the British. It was well at first, when they only used the house for a, headquarters, I suppose. But then the two sides fired at each other through the broken windows, treating my house as a bastion—then to storm, and take. All the while I stood atop the hidden door in the floor where my wife and daughters sheltered beneath the havoc.” His body shook and he folded his arms across his chest, holding his hands in tight for warmth. “Right in the house, an old Ottawa woman cut open one of the British dead and bathed her hands in his blood.” He shuddered once more.
The savagery made Sokanon imagine as she had at times in her life, what the raiders might have done to her mother and father’s bodies. She fought against the vision of her father being tortured in ritual. Her brother’s infant body smashed by war clubs.
“The entire uprising was brutal,” Campau continued. He waved his hand around. “The siege lasted five months. We were well stocked for it, but there were many atrocities in the vicinity. Battles back and forth.”
“But, we don’t have to tell you of war,” Dequindre said to Isaac. “We had not much warning that the city was to be surrendered to Robert Rogers and his—excuse me—damnable rangers. But Detroit was far removed from the fighting between France and Great Britain, and did not see combat. And we have been lucky, Monsieur Campau and myself, we have always been merchantmen.”
“Charles is being too modest,” Campau defended. “We have seen our share of danger.”
“You more than I, Jean-Baptiste.” Dequindre addressed Isaac. “You were here at the British takeover of Detroit?”
“Sokanon and I came with Major Rogers—in the supply bateaux,” he added quickly, thinking to clarify he was not part of the, damnable rangers. “I was released from service right after the provisions were unloaded, and we traveled to the north soon after that.”
“That is why maybe I don’t remember seeing you.”
Isaac shrugged. “Was has happened to Major Rogers? I half-expected him to still be the commander here.”
“I did not like him,” Sokanon announced, Rogers’ loud and aggressive orders bellowing in the memory of her ears.
Dequindre and Campau glanced to each other. Isaac waited for the untoward news that showed on their faces of the last of his wartime commanders.
Campau shook his head. “He did return with another ranger force during this last rebellion. He and a regular captain Dalyell almost broke through Pontiac’s siege of the fort in July—” he pointed upriver, “but their force was ambushed at a bridge going over a creek by warriors led by Pontiac himself. Dalyell was killed with almost his entire command.”
Isaac’s adrenalin pumped as he followed their directions up the strait toward the battle site. Sokanon felt his arm tighten the way it did when his blood was charged. He pulled away, ever slight. Kept his eyes from hers for a moment. He wanted them just to leave. As much as she would like to talk with Inès, she wanted to just be alone with Isaac and Jacob.
“Captain Dalyell had just come from ravaging Huron homes and farms at Sandusky, so it was a sweet revenge for the Indians.” Dequindre looked to his wife, but her expression was unchanged. He shook his head.
“But, Rogers?” Isaac stopped them.
“Yes,” Campau looked embarrassed. As private as the meeting was supposed to be, the cordial nature of businessmen showed in their easy chatting. “Your Major Rogers owed a lot of money for the outfit of his rangers army. It is said—” Campau paused.
“It is said he started gambling,” Dequindre interrupted. “To try and raise the money for his debtors.”
“He has fled to the east, we’ve heard.”
Isaac crouched and stared into the fire. There were many ways for the world to break a man. Or a woman, he thought of Sokanon’s loss.
Campau stood away from the fire in the silence and gave a small bow. “We have maybe been too long in this rendezvous. I think we have spoken too long about things that are maybe best left to the past. I will take your leave,” he said. “Stay for a while longer Charles, so as not to be seen parting all together.”
“Of course.”
“Good day to you all—Monsieur’s, Madame’s.”
Sokanon was glad that he was leaving and hoped Dequindre would be off soon, too. The silence grew longer, she and Inès sharing uncomfortable glances while the men avoided each other’s eyes. Isaac was busy at the fire, more than was necessary. He scratched at his beard, his eyes fixed in thought. She stared, too, her feelings conflicted. Campau and Dequindre both had easy ways of speaking and she worried now what Isaac and they had talked about.
“You are friends with Monsieur Cadot?”
Isaac looked up, nodded to Dequindre. “Sokanon and I are friends to he and his wife. They have a new baby, younger than our Jacob, and were gone to Michilimackinac for him to be baptized there.”
“And the natives are no longer seethed in revolt in the north?”
Isaac shrugged. “Their bitterness is ever just under their skin. But with the presence of so many redcoats, they will not soon, revolt, as you say.”
“We have heard a new fort is being built on the strait above this one.”
“Patrick Sinclair’s fort. We were able to throw in with the Gladwin and its squadron to there from Mackinaw.”
“The Gladwin.” Dequindre showed resignation. “She is the sloop that brought a copy of the Treaty of Paris, that officially gave over New France to the British. We French had to swear allegiance to your king.”
Isaac was the one to return a sheepish face, which Dequindre dismissed.
“It is no matter,” the man said, “maybe one day we’ll all be Spanish citizens. But the Gladwin also brought forty reinforcements and one hundred-fifty barrels of provisions. That’s when Pontiac must have realized the futility of taking Detroit. They are fearful of the warships that can sail both up and down river, shelling them with cannon fire from long range. They did attempt to ambush the Gladwin from Turkey Island, but the ship’s men were ready and repulsed the canoes with cannon and musket fire. When the sloop Beaver also returned, the warriors floated flaming rafts down the river, trying to burn the two ships. But that came to naught, too.”
The battle scenes came easy to Isaac’s imagination as he looked out to the water, remembering the French fire ships sent against the British navy at Quebec. He and the other men in the longboats pulling the flaming hulks clear of the fleet.
“The Ottawa warriors were to sneak into the fort,” Dequindre kept on, “dressed as women, with muskets and arms under their shawls. It is a good thing your Major Henry Gladwin was not indisposed to taking a native mistress.”
Sokanon and Inès looked to each other.
“She warned the major of the attack,” Dequindre made clear.
Isaac thought it an indiscretion, even as his wife was certain to know. He could have just said the man was warned by a woman from the tribes. He dismissed it. “We will heed Monsieur Campau’s caution and move farther from the fort.” He studied upriver. “How far from shore extends public land?”
Dequindre huffed. “Most of the seigneurs probably think of the land all the way to the water, as theirs. Even the shoreline.”
Isaac stared.
Dequindre nodded. “You can safely camp between the road and the water, young sir. The further from the road, the steeper the grade, of course.”
“We will sleep holding each other at the highest elevation,” Isaac joked to Sokanon.
She smiled, happy for his continued higher spirits.
“And it will be easier for us to slide back into our clothes,” he added his own indiscretion.
“Yes.” Dequindre shuffled his feet. “It has been long enough Monsieur Campau away. We will now, too.”
Inès stood and came immediately to Sokanon who acquiesced, handing off Jacob. Inès nuzzled close to him. “He has a strange darkness to his eyes, but there is a brightness to them, also. I pray for him to grow strong, for many years in the presence of his mother and father.”
Sokanon warmed to the older woman’s words, reminding her again of Kiwidinok and Athanasie, women secure in their place.
“May God’s Blessing go with you, wherever you travel to.”
“God’s Blessing to you also,” Sokanon returned, taking Jacob back into the cradle of her arms.
Inès leaned in closer, tapped a fingertip to Sokanon’s chest. “May it also be God’s Blessing for you to one day be grandmother to your child’s child.”
“Yes,” the man Dequindre agreed with his wife’s prayer. He tipped his hat to Sokanon. “Mrs. Dobbins. Isaac.”
Isaac extended his hand to Dequindre. “For your part of what is to come, thank you, Charles.”
“It could be no part at all,” he said while they shook.
They started away from the campsite and Isaac wondered if he’d ever see him again. Or Campau. But there was more too, as he thought of the conversation with two well-versed men of high social rank, who could tell of many things with ease. The rough talk of the men on the fishing ships was always of getting home, to their wives and families. Winter in Nova Scotia always of what the spring season will bring after the long months of ice and snow.
“It is more than the furs in your mind,” she said. “You think for somewhere else. Maybe far to your Nova Scotia.”
“Do you always guess my thoughts?”
“I can guess what you and the men Campau and Dequindre talk of.”
“Then we do not need to talk of it ourselves?”
She steeled her eyes. “Do not, Isaac Dobbins.”
“I only meant—” How could he not tell her? He nodded. “There is a plan to reclaim our furs. I only meant to not talk about it right now. My thoughts are wild.”
“You will not be caused to hazard?”
“It was hazard the moment we left our cabin with the furs.” He bought her to sit with him again. “I don’t know their plan.” He motioned with his head. “Neither do they.”
She stared, confused.
“Captain Wilkins, and Hartley and the others—they have something planned to somehow return our property.”
“They would danger themselves to the major, Hay, and to the army?”
“Hay is not a military officer. So Wilkins probably has more of the soldier’s trust. I’m sure all that needs to be done, is for Wilkins to have a few guards stand down while the furs are removed from wherever they are stored. Hartley and Greene, they have seen our marks on the bundles. They know which furs are ours. There is nothing for us to do but trust right will overcome this confiscation—thievery—by my own countrymen. That others of the same are claiming to help us…” Isaac’s thought trailed off.
“Then we would be thieves ourself? The governor would not look for us—to arrest?”
Of course she understood. That she did made whatever was planned even more impossible to believe would be successful. Isaac shook his head, the absurdity following along with Dequindre and his wife making their way along the shore back to the fort.
Sokanon continued to be bothered. “Furs Isaac, they are always cause for violence.”
“There will not be violence,” he asserted. “I will not fight if it comes to it.”
“It might come to it, anywhere we go.”
“Aubert and his company again?
She was quiet for a moment. “Yes, but, when they talk of the fighting, the killing and blood, and cutting up of that man— It make me think how the same was done to my mother and father, my brother.”
“Oh. You don’t know what happened.”
“My father brought me away to safety, first.”
“And ran back for your mother and brother. It was his first instinct to save you, who was nearest. I’m certain your father fought bravely to save his family. Your mother, too. That is only what you should try and think of. I was not allowed to see my mother, sister and granny while they lay dying, in fear I would be infected with the fever. I saw my father and granddad’s bloodied bodies after they were killed. I don’t know which is worse, seeing your loved one’s dead, or imagining them instead.”
The images were always informed from only the screams while the black robe brother carried her away. “But the Jesuit’s do not fight.”
“They have no family.” Isaac stroked Jacob’s head, the roughness of his hand suddenly feeling out of place on the baby’s soft skin. “I’ve thought about our talk last night, God and killing. I think thou shalt not kill means thou shalt not commit murder. Those men’s intentions were of murder, we acted only by instinct. Fraser may have joked about the she-bear protecting her cub, but he was also serious. He and I have lived many days with other men trying to kill us in war. There is no power greater than natural instinct to save one’s life. Or that of a loved one, I know now since Jacob was born.
“We are just people trying to survive in a wild country. It bothers me that you might be questioning your goodness based on the too-harsh beliefs of the Jesuits. You are a good mother, and a good person. That is enough. It has to be.”
“You are good, too, Isaac.”
“You mean for a heathen?” He scooped Jacob from her and she weaved her arms around his while she watched their baby calm now in his hands.
She wondered what Father Pierre would tell her. One of those who would pray and allow others to kill them. “How long will we have to wait?”
“I don’t know. I have no idea what the others are arranging. Campau said just to be ready when we are signaled.”

17

It was John Hartley, defender of them now, that brought the signal in the evening.
“Captain Wilkins has had your bundles moved to the powder house.”
Isaac was wary, waited for Hartley to go on.
“Wilkins had them delivered there earlier this afternoon with an ordnance transfer from the storehouse. He didn’t even hide them.”
“And from there?”
“Tomorrow morning.” Hartley turned serious. “Wilkins is sending Elliot and Gale, with the rest of us, to Sandusky. That is his justification for the ruse. Elliot is to take the mail and Fraser’s report on the progress at Fort Sinclair to Colonel Bradstreet, along with dispatches from governor Hay. The captain is requesting some expendable stores that won’t be missed to load with our bateau for Sandusky. Your furs will be loaded onto the same wagon and brought from the fort.”
“They’re just going to carry our furs out in the open?”
Hartley wagged his head a little. “Wilkins said to be ready with your canoes at the first dockage for the farms upriver.”
“Upriver?”
“That is the side of the fort the powder house is on. It will be hard enough to justify going even that far with the wagon to load our boat.”
“Why not load them into your bateau first, and meet us downriver where the transfer won’t be seen?”
“We are only going to be given one of the smaller boats, not one for cargo.” Hartley rolled his eyes. “We will be elbow to elbow in the boat. Your bundles will not fit.”
Isaac looked at Sokanon, the madness of the plan showing in her eyes as well. He questioned further. “And how can it be assured the governor major will not see the furs taken from the fort?”
“Hay will be meeting with some important merchantmen in his office.”
Campau and Dequindre, Isaac knew. He pressed once again for confidence in the plan. “This is Wilkins’ idea? How is it that the captain has entrusted you?”
“Only Elliot meets with us. It was me, Greene and Potter who first went to the corporal with the idea to get your furs back. Then he went to the captain. Elliot was able to convince him of our steadfastness.”
Isaac was contemplative. He still didn’t like that he would owe them his surety. “Why the unexpected interest in our safety, especially from you, Hartley?”
The man kicked at the ground. “When I saw how your family was attacked by those savages.” Hartley looked from Isaac to Sokanon, and then away. “I mean all of them fellows, savages to attack your family. I realized that it didn’t matter to them Frenchy’s, or them Hurons, that your wife was Native, Catholic, or spoke French. And one of them voyageurs was even a Britisher like ourselves, who didn’t care that you were a countryman and fought in the war against the French and their Indian allies.”
“And the rest—they all feel sorry for us as well?”
“It is that, I think, the others feel you should be given an opportunity to retain possession of your property, license or not.”
“Still. Wilkins is risking his career for us. It doesn’t make sense.”
“I think that maybe the captain is making it so we, Elliot and Gale will be the one’s taking the risks. Plus, it’s obvious to all that Wilkins doesn’t like that the governor treats him with the same disregard officers do us militiamen. Especially that Hay is not a regular officer. You should know though,” Hartley turned serious. “Captain Wilkins has strongly made a point for you to accompany us to Sandusky.”
“Strongly?”
“If you were yet on the Royal pay, I would think it an order.”
“An Order? We are for Sandusky, anyway. But we will visit first the Huron mission across the river.”
Hartley puzzled at the announcement.
Sokanon thought Isaac too dismissive.
“You have to go now then,” Hartley said.
“It is too late.” Isaac swept his arm. “Our camp is still out, pitch still drying on the canoes. We have waited all day. After being accosted by the two merchants yesterday with nothing to say, except wait.”
“It could not be helped, Dobbins,” Hartley offered.
Isaac’s animosity pierced the space between them. “Husband—” Sokanon came closer with Jacob. She spoke to Hartley in English so he would understand. “The mission is river down, away from the fort. Those who watch can not see canoes and bateau that cross. If we get the furs, and are travel with you, it matters not, which side of river we go the Erie lake then to Sandusky.”
Isaac was quiet, nodded defiance for Hartley and pride for Sokanon at the same time.
“I only wish Father Pierre’s blessing for our child,” she went on, “I will only stay as long with Father Pierre that is thought safe for us. But if there is to be not the time, we can wait at Sandusky mission for him when he comes for the winter.”
Hartley tried to hide the discomfort for his prior judgment, but it showed through even as his sudden regard for her.
“There you have our minds, Hartley,” Isaac announced.
“It will be up to Corporal Elliot, of course,” Hartley said, apology in his tone. “We are anxious to leave, too,” he asserted, “to get back to our families. But, if you were to suddenly steer for the opposite shore, I am certain Greene and Potter will join with me to follow your course.”
“No,” Isaac continued to put it to him, “tell it to Elliot the others, so they will have it in their minds before we leave.”
“I will then.” He put his hand out.
“We will clasp hands once my wife and I are safely away.”
“Fair enough, Dobbins,” Hartley gave a sharp nod. “The first dockage,” he reminded.
“I understand, Hartley. We will be ready.”
“Tomorrow morning then.”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“I’ll take your leave.” Hartley addressed Sokanon. “Ma’am.”
She returned his respect. She waited until Hartley was away. “The governor Hay will send soldiers after us?”
Isaac wished he could tell her no. “All they can do is take the furs back.”
“And arrest us, I think.”
Isaac was silent.
“They will arrest the others, too,” she said.
“That’s where Wilkins is not thinking straight. I didn’t say it to Hartley, but once our furs are back in our possession, it would be best for the others not to be seen with us. And our contraband,” he chided.
But the thought came clear to her. “The Captain Wilkins is to see to our safety, the way he looks at me with Jacob when he reads your Fraser’s letter.”
Clearer thinking than his. “Yes, you’re right. It has been a confusing last few days. I am not used to being drifted in so contrary winds.”
“Perhaps tomorrow will bring the wind steady for us.”
——————
Isaac paced nervously at the shore, making sure over and again that the canoes were ready. Hartley hadn’t set a time and he needed something to do while waiting.
Jacob was restless.
Sokanon troubled, both her men irritable. She squeezed her ring and drove away the thought to fear the day because of it.
“Hallo!”
The loud voice distracted her worry, she startled at how close the vessel was without noticing it coming in to land. A slender bateau with a high bow and stern, piloted by a single man leaning wobbly on a pole, working clumsy to bring the boat in close.
Isaac was surprised, too, both of them anxious for the untimely arrival.
“Hallo!” the man hailed again.
They saw it was a plea for help, the small vessel lumbering in, under inexperienced handling.
“This is why I questioned meeting out in the open at the public pier,” Isaac grumbled. He skipped down to the dock and out onto the floating wharf. He timed the choppy current to catch the tall bow of the bobbing boat, stopping its ungainly bouncing into the wooden platform.
“Merci,” the man called, his face ashen, eyes filled with dismay under lowered brows. “Thank you, very much, friend.” The man’s awkwardness with the long pole continued. “I do not travel often by bateau, I’m afraid.”
“I’m certain of that.” Isaac grasped the side of the boat filled to the gunwales with cargo and pulled it in tight to the wharf.
“The morning meal is rising from my stomach.” He matched Isaac’s English.
“Step out quickly, then. I have her steady.”
“Thank you, once again,” the man said. He wavered. “Oh, the landing is moving, too.”
“Maybe you should go ashore, so you don’t keel into the water. I’ll secure your boat.”
“I don’t mean for you to trouble yourself, monsieur.”
He was trouble just being there. “No trouble,” Isaac said over his shoulder.
The man sidled off unsteady while Isaac amused himself with the thought of wanting to throw Charles Dequindre in from the same dock. “Are you to continue further upriver?”
The man straightened his back. “I am to meet friends of mine. They have a farm not too far.”
Sokanon followed Isaac’s anxious gaze toward the fort wondering how much longer. She rocked Jacob against his little whining complaints, squirming in her arms. He would settle in the canoe, bundled into the cradleboard.
“We only agreed to the morning,” the man said, “I was hoping they would be here already. I have cheeses and butter, to trade for bushels of fruit.”
Isaac hand-lined the bateau around the dock. “Moor it tight to the upstream, so the current will push the boat into the dock. It will be steadier to load and unload.”
“Ah yes, thank you.” The man continued to right himself, breathing deep. “But I will have nothing to load. We have already received the fruit from here some days ago, when the trees were ripe for the harvest.”
Isaac nodded and dismissed himself.
But the man invited himself to follow. “I am Isaac Beaufait,” he introduced himself. He removed his hat in greeting, revealing a bare skull, the little hair ringing his baldness turned gray. His wrinkled weathered face added to his aged appearance.
“Isaac Dobbins.” The farmer’s hand was even rougher than his. “My wife, Sokanon. Our child, Jacob.”
“Good greetings it is then, my friend of the same name. A fine family you are. Good day to you, Madame Dobbins.”
“And to you,” Sokanon returned.
Beaufait replaced his cap. “I see you wait for someone, like me. You are voyageurs of a sort, maybe?”
“It will be an even rougher ride for you returning with an empty boat,” Isaac said, drawing the man’s attention back to the river. “You should have some ballast lain in the bottom.”
Sokanon thought of the empty canoe spinning on her in the channel by the St. Clair fort.
Isaac motioned around. “Anything will do. Rocks, logs…if you can find them lying close by. But your gorge will also not rise as much from your stomach if you keep your eyes fixed on the shoreline.”
 “It is always good to meet people who are familiar with watercraft.” Beaufait pointed across the river. “It is not my bateau. I borrowed it from my neighbor. We have adjoining farms on the other side. It was a hard row across by myself. I had forgotten, too, how strong the current is.”
Isaac stepped from the dock onto land. “You’ll have the current with you going back, if not the wind. I don’t know how far down you’re going, but you should maybe head straight across, so the current does not drift you past your destination.” He turned away from Beaufait, to retrace the few yards back to Sokanon and Jacob. “Good fortune to you, then,” he called over his shoulder.
The farmer milled around, unsure of himself at Isaac’s abrupt ending of the conversation. “Good luck in your travels.”
Sokanon sat, drew Jacob to her, but he didn’t want her.
“Even the little one is impatient,” Isaac said.
“Sit with us then, husband. Take him in your arms. Maybe you both will settle.”
“I can not sit. But give him to me. He can join me in my pacing. Maybe the movement will settle him as it does in the canoe.”
His hands were around their son. How easy it was for him to hold the baby. She wondered how he could have such strong hands, to swing the axe, spilt the logs for the cabin, bend the wood for the canoes, and yet hold Jacob so soft. So natural. As if he had been a father many times over. In the same strong arms that held her when they lay together, arousing in her more than pleasure, more than admiration. She wished that it would be over, their property returned so that they could be off, to wherever may be. As long as they were together.
“What?” he said to her.
She said nothing.
He gazed at her and his troubled mind eased, even for the moment, tracing her bright sad eyes, the beautiful shape of her face, cheeks to her mouth turned into the slight smile that he’d only ever seen on her. He almost forgot their purpose there.
Movement caught their attention, the man Beaufait waving his hat to a farm cart coming from in the distance. The clop of the pony and the shaking sounds of rickety wheels came to them as the cart neared. Sokanon remembered the little wagon, and those who waved to them out in the canoes going by when they arrived after the attack on the lake.
“Bon jour,” Beaufait called. “Denis! Margrete!”
“Hallo, Monsieur Beaufait!”
They welcomed each other and Isaac shook his head.
“These farmers don’t have sons?” he said to the sight of the aged couple descending the wagon to greet the grandfatherly Beaufait.
She knew he would help them.
“I may as well,” he said, enjoying the easy moment as she laughed. He laid Jacob back into her arms. “If nothing else to get them on their way.”
It was wonderful, their light moods. Even as they waited so uncertain of what would ensue—and when. She gave a quick look to see no one coming on the land or water and watched again Isaac’s easiness with others. He waved them all aside to take down bushels of fruit from the cart, before going for Beaufait’s bateau. The smells of milk cream and overripe peaches excited his senses, made it worth lifting out and carrying the heavy goods by himself.
Even Jacob settled, attentive to the activity and the voices. His father’s, continuing to turn away the entreaties to help. His goodwill came through his annoyance. The same willingness to help as when Sokanon first saw him aiding the wounded men after the battle at Quebec. Helping to carry one after another, French and British, from the bateaux to the hospital and the nursing of the Nuns. It would always be her earliest memory of him.
“The bushels of fruit are for you, Isaac,” the woman said.
Sokanon confused until Beaufait took his hat off to address her. “I cannot accept it, Margrete. Our agreement has been paid in full.”
“Look at it,” the old farmer countered, “the fruit is mostly beyond human consumption.”
“We thought your animals would enjoy them,” the woman Margrete said.
Beaufait toed the ground awkwardly. He put his hat back on. “Oui. Thank you then, my friends.”
“It was a very productive season,” Denis said, “there were more fruit than anyone of us can use. It was going to rot on the ground. No worries about payment. Return the bushels next time you cross the strait.”
“Merci,” Beaufait thanked them. The shine on his face told the gift was very welcome.
Margrete addressed Isaac. “Who is our strong young British helper?”
“Isaac Dobbins, Madame,” he introduced himself.
“Thank you—young Isaac,” she amused at the same names.
“De rien,” Isaac returned.
“You speak French?”
He wagged his head. “As much to converse to my wife—Sokanon.”
Sokanon saw, not judgment, but curiosity in her glances that moved from her to Isaac and back. “We are Denis and Margrete Marchand. And the little one?”
“Our son, Jacob,” Sokanon said.
Margrete tilted her head. “Isaac and Jacob—” she looked to father and son, Sokanon musing the first time anyone had mentioned the two bible names together.
Isaac dismissed the reference. “Named for my grandfather.”
“And your father’s name?” Margrete went on with a disarming manner.
“David.”
“My apologies,” Denis interrupted. “My wife will know the name of your pet squirrel as a child.”
“You appear to be waiting for something?” Margrete went on. She looked past Isaac again. “You have trapper’s canoes, that are mostly empty, as if you are neither coming or going.”
Isaac and Sokanon stared.
“Come, Margrete,” Denis said. “Forgive my wife.”
She gave a slight bow. “We are old, and stay to our farm on most days. It is not often we get to meet visitors who are young, and with such interesting adventure about them.”
Her husband replaced his hat. “Perhaps the young couple do not wish to share their adventures.”
“It is well,” Sokanon said.
Denis resigned himself.
As did Isaac. But he hoped for a rude goodbye, as quick the others would come.
“Let’s get your bateau loaded,” he said to Beaufait and led the man away, Marchand trailing.
Margrete, hesitated, her eyes on Jacob again, an easy smile. “How old is your boy?”
Sokanon invited her to come close. “He was born in May, I think. Maybe late in April. It is hard to know, spring was early this year to Gichigami.”
“My, all this way, with an infant.” Margrete’s voice was full with wonder. “And I think you are not yet finished.” She looked keen. “You have no cargo, yet you have two canoes. I think you are still waiting for something. Or someone. Rather impatiently, too. I feel your eagerness to move on.”
“It is strange to be always traveling after our years at our cabin.”
“Yes. I can also feel a misplaced wandering. Are you returning to your cabin—after whatever it is you wait for?”
“We will not return to our cabin. There is a new law that prevents it.”
“Then where to now?”
“We are unsure. Other than to go to the Huron mission across the river, then to Sandusky.”
“You are Huron?”
Sokanon shook her head.
“Your French is well that of higher education. I would expect it, maybe, to be more, rustic. Like your husband’s, learned as a second language. But I’m embarrassing you. I do not mean to pry. I was only remarking how unusual it is for a person to speak so well, that which is not their first language.”
Sokanon held a straight face. “My first language—” She paused. “I have, spoken French since I was a child in Quebec.”
“I thought there were no longer schools for native girls there.”
Sokanon shrugged, always having to tell her story. “My family were killed when I was young. I lived with the Ursuline sisters of Quebec. They taught me so well their language over my mother and father’s. I do not know any of my native language.”
“Oh, I am sorry. But I am the one embarrassed now. I just thought...”
“It is well. All of Isaac’s family are dead, too, from war and illness. But war was what brought us to each other, after the big battle at Quebec.”
“An Englishman at that,” Margrete remarked. “That is how—well, it is that it is more usual to see a French man of the woods with a Native wife. But misfortune is often like that,” Margrete said, her voice firm. “Bringing some people together who otherwise would not have been.”
Sokanon nodded.
“Your son has changed your fortunes,” Margrete went on, “not only for you and your husband. But Jacob—named for his grandfather—has brought both your families’ from the darkness they have gone to.”
Sokanon stared. “I have told so, many’s of times, to Isaac—” she stumbled in and out of French and English in her excitement.
Margrete steeled her eyes. Looked to her husband who questioned her gaze. “My appendix burst when I was a teenaged girl. I fell gravely ill, with a great pain in my side for many days. After that, I never again, well—I was made barren of having children.”
Sokanon felt the pain again, the dead birth of her first child. Driven to her knees in pain in the forest, calling out for Isaac who was too far to hear.
“The bateau is loaded,” Denis said, coming to Margrete.
Isaac and Beaufait were yet at the dock.
“I hope my wife has not asked of your entire life.”
Sokanon shook her head.
Margrete took his arm. “My father decided to involve me into his trading business, to take my mind off my troubles,” she continued to Sokanon. “I went with him on many trips, that took us far from New York. I met Denis in Montreal on one of those trips. I told him of my condition right away when he professed his love for me. But he married me anyway.”
Denis rubbed the back of his neck, uncomfortable with his wife’s words. “And now we are here,” he said.
“And I’ve done my best to give him a good life.”
“You have regaled the young lady enough, I’m sure.”
“I’m not looking for pity,” Margrete addressed Sokanon again. “None more than you and your husband, who are maybe owed more than a share of sympathy. Denis and I have been blessed with lots of other family. Brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews. Unlike you young ones, starting from nothing.”
Sokanon nodded. Isaac and Beaufait returned to them.
“But it is a hard life, trapping for a living.”
“Please now, Margrete.”
“You two look like you could use a good meal.”
“Margrete,” Denis admonished. He turned a sheepish look to Isaac.
Her eyes probed, softening first for Sokanon, then more for Jacob in her arms. “Surely, after your important meeting, you can join us at our supper table. Especially with a young child.”
Denis removed his hat, bowed his head to Isaac and Sokanon. “My Margrete has always a tender thought for children.”
Sokanon saw the longing in her eyes, earnest in her invitation. The task at hand would not allow for it. “Thank you, no,” she said politely to the woman’s offer. “We do await a party, and then we will be going.”
“If you two change your mind, our farm is not far. It is the one with the two poplars astride the small tenant’s house near the water.”
“Thank you, Margrete,” Sokanon said.
She and Isaac stood away while the farmers bade their farewells, Beaufait helping the old couple onto their wagon, himself unsteady in the task.
The pony clopped its slow steps, shaggy mane waving.
“I will push you off,” Isaac said to Beaufait, leading to the dock, impatient not to give any time for chatting.
“Yes. Thank you again and again, young Isaac.”
Isaac motioned to the bushels. “They will be very good ballast.”
“So they are.” Beaufait cast a sly look toward the cart moving away from them. He tapped a foot against the side of a bushel. “Feed for the animals, I think not. Hard cider will see this lot,” he finished with a scheming smirk.
The sour fermentation odor was already strong from the turning fruit. It reminded of the brandy in Wilkins’ quarters. Isaac palmed out two of the best peaches from the bushels and set them on the dock after a nod from Beaufait. Isaac held the vessel steady while the man entered. He shoved it off slow, amused again at Beaufait’s clumsiness, the boat banging back into the wharf before he could get the oars into the rowlocks.
“Godspeed,” Isaac called.
“To you as well.”
He walked back to Sokanon and offered one of the peaches. Overripe and full of juice that spilled from their mouths as they bit, snorting to each other, wiping their chins. She let Jacob suck at hers, the baby swinging his arms in delight. Isaac spit his pit into his hand and tossed it into the water. She watched the wagon going away while he amused at Beaufait, struggling still at the oars. They looked together for the hundredth time downriver.

18

“It’s past morning,” Isaac said. “I fear something’s wrong. I only hope they are not found out. They are good men to try and help.” He let out a deep sigh. “I have to go try and find out what has happened.”
She knew it.
“You’ll know what to do if they come when I’m gone. Do not let them tell you otherwise.”
“I will have them load the canoes the way of us, so we will be ready to leave on your return.”
He nodded. “If they wish, have them move even farther upstream away from the fort.”
“Hartley, and the Corporal Elliot will see at once they get here, how it is best to cross right to the other side.”
“Not until I return,” he joked.
She did not laugh. But was glad to see his spirits up. She watched him stride off. Watched for as long as she could see him until he was amongst the fruit trees, houses and buildings of the farms. She laid Jacob onto his cradleboard in the freighter. His cheeks were warm in the crisp air. His ears and forehead, too. She covered only his legs and ran her fingers down his face, tickled his neck to make him giggle. She wondered of the old couple, how it would be if she and Isaac were to live that long. Grandparents to Jacob’s and their other children’s children. She never asked Inès if she had children. She thought she must have, the easy way she gathered Jacob in her arms.
The farmer Beaufait was yet making his crossing of the strait, the tiny figure that was him in his bateau. Her gaze drifted farther to where the river disappeared on the horizon. Where she tried to count the miles running with her thoughts, to the island of the white trees at the mouth of the river, before the Erie lake. A young girl happy with her family at the black robe mission. Even through the teasing from the Huron children. Father’s Armand’s illness. The fear in everyone’s eyes as her father loaded the priest in his canoe for the trip back to Quebec. The going forth to take the black robes to the new mission in Montagnais territory. The one who carried her away to safety. His hands on her as they lay together that night.
She turned her eyes again toward the fort.
——————
Isaac saw something wasn’t right. The settlers were restless. There was no panic, but children were being ushered close to their homes, livestock into the barns and pens. Even as they nodded their greetings to him they were wary of his presence and he kept as much distance as he could. He slowed his stride when he came near enough to the fort to see more men moving along the ramparts than was usual.
He tried to spy without appearing to, using a copse of trees as cover, skirting around to keep the sparse grove between him and the lookouts. The side gate was open with a strong guard of six men. They weren’t moving with alarm, but he heard the bustle of people and draft animals from inside the fort. He told himself there was no way Wilkins’ little scheme could cause all this. Something else was happening. He turned back for Sokanon and Jacob, pushing his pace.
——————
Excitement and concern ran together, Isaac striding quickly toward her, commotion coming from the fort, the small rowing-bateau was making its way upriver, familiar figure of the man Greene at the steering oar. The other rowers were backs to her, but certainly Corporal Elliot and Private Gale. Potter and John Hartley. There was no wagon yet. That Isaac wasn’t running eased her worry.
She waited for the bateau to slide onto shore. Potter leapt out to steady the craft for the others. The men avoided her eyes in turns and she saw that Isaac was right. Something was wrong.
“Where is your husband?” Elliot asked for all of them.
“He comes now,” she pushed her hand out toward him.
“Good,” Elliot said, “the sooner we are on our way, the better.”
“Our furs are not to us,” Sokanon reasoned from their long looks.
“They are not,” Hartley said straightforward, his sympathetic expression at once serious.
Sokanon was already securing Jacob in her thoughts, riding the canoes with Isaac across to Father Pierre’s mission. She welcomed him to the circle of men around her.
“Mister Dobbins,” Elliot greeted.
His calm deportment was forced. “What has happened?” Isaac asked.
“There is an Indian deputation coming here from the Ohio country in the south.”
“Is there to be more war?” Sokanon’s eyes were already for his.
“Who can say?” Elliot continued his cool boldness. “The fighting in Ohio has ended a few days ago, and our armies have forced the tribes there to surrender. The rumor is the delegation is to come for negotiations.”
“Why then they should the Ohio Tribes come here, to attack the fort?”
All of them stared back at Sokanon’s studied gaze.
“The tribal delegation is being led by the Seneca Chief Guyasuta.”
Sokanon saw that she was to be intimidated by the mention of his name. “Who is Guyasuta to us?”
Isaac held a hand up, not to silence her but calm her agitation while the men continued with brows risen for her.
“Guyasuta was one of the war leaders with Pontiac,” Isaac said. “Fraser told me of him.”
“He was just as powerful as Pontiac during the uprising,” Hartley went on. “Leading his warriors to burn homes and forts, kill women and children.”
He did well to hide his prejudices.
“No one wants to take any chances, Mister Dobbins,” Elliot said. “Governor Hay has ordered increased patrol to guard against another possible sneak attack. It is obvious we can not go on with the plan to return your furs.”
Isaac had understood it the instant he saw the extra guards around the fort. “I saw the activity of the soldiers, and the wariness of the settlers.”
“After all the fighting and massacres last year, word of that sort travels fast,” Hartley said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if every farmer up and down the strait has already heard.”
“A runner has been dispatched overland to Bradstreet,” Elliot announced, “but we have been given orders to proceed to Sandusky immediately. I risk disciplinary action coming here,” he said, eyes askance to the bateau-men.
“To try and convince you to come with us,” Hartley offered.
“Maybe you can try to appeal for your property to Bradstreet,” Greene finally spoke, “at least to allow for payment in kind from some trader, in lieu of government notes.”
“Are you an advisor of the law, Greene?”
“I work for a solicitor in New York.”
“There’s nothing for you here,” Hartley said, “except for trouble—of your own making?”
Isaac shook his head.
Sokanon saw his resignation. Acceptance.
“No,” he said, and she heard the easiness after all in his voice. “Our furs are forever lost in the important matters of state.”
Sokanon wrapped her hand in his as they stood adamant against the prospect of going with them.
“We will go to the Huron mission so my wife can have our son blessed by her black robe priest. Maybe—” he said, “if he has already gone to his winter quarters in Sandusky, we will see you there. Either way, we thank you all for what you’ve done for us.”
Jacob let out a cry and they laughed.
“There—” Isaac said, “even from our son.” He motioned to the bateau for Elliot.
“Yes, sir,” the young man said. “To the boat gentlemen,” he ordered. His voice was sharp and Isaac hid his satisfied smile.
They all shook hands with Isaac. Sokanon wasn’t sure how she felt when they did the same with her, grasping hands with men. Elliot stood aside, motioned for Isaac to join him while the others readied to embark.
“Mister Dobbins.” His nervousness had returned. “I overheard Governor Hay and Captain Wilkins talking. They think Colonel Bouquet and Colonel Bradstreet are at odds with each other.”
“Corporal?”
“It wasn’t a secret conversation, sir. I was waiting for their orders to be drafted.”
Isaac almost asked to see the draft.
“Colonel Bouquet has ordered the tribes to return all their white captives,” Elliot went on, “even those taken as children years ago.”
Isaac returned a skeptical frown. “Those who were babies, raised in their ways—many of their own families long dead?”
“I thought you would understand, sir. More than me. And now the colonel is sending Guyasuta and other Seneca, Shawnee and Delaware clan leaders north to ensure the Hurons around Detroit release all their captives, too.”
“Tribal leaders?”
“They are themselves to enforce the colonel’s orders.”
Isaac nodded. “Setting one against another, as I suspected.”
“I thought you should know, maybe if there is trouble amongst your wife’s Hurons across the river. Maybe you should come with us.”
Isaac shook his head. “We will only delay your orders more, corporal. Perhaps we’ll meet in Sandusky, though. Thank you again, Mister Elliot.”
“Sir,” the corporal said. He stepped his way into the bateau.
“Godspeed, gentlemen,” Isaac said as they pushed away from shore.
Hartley held Sokanon’s eye before an apologetic nod from the man. She turned away. It didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if she never saw him or the others again.
They stood together in the aftermath disappointment, the sounds of activity coming from the fort even farther away than the distance told. Isaac was too worn out for anger. Sokanon saw frustrated defeat on his long face.
“We hardly need two canoes now,” he said. He scratched at his neck. “I’ll wager Campau would give a good price for the freighter.”
It was terrible to hear. There was much pride in the vessel. For her small part in its construction, too. “We will go into the city?”
He understood. “We may be welcome, but with all the maneuvering and re-stationing of troops, our purpose may be trampled under boots.”
“Maybe Campau has gone back to his farm.”
“We would have seen him, I think. Unless he did not use the road. But—” Isaac said, “you may have the right thought. Maybe the man will return to his farm.” Isaac looked. “Wilkins said it was about a mile. We could be there very quickly, wait there for him.”
“The Marchand’s,” Sokanon reminded.
Isaac was already agreeing. “I haven’t forgotten. We could set ourselves at their supper table. Maybe they would put us up for the night and we could inquire after Campau tomorrow, when things are settled more.” He held her by her shoulders. “If you can wait one more day to see your priest.”
She turned from his hold, knelt at the canoe to play with Jacob’s fingers. “The Marchand woman, Margrete—she has made me wonder how it would have been had I stayed with one of the families’ Father Armand and the nuns tried to settle me into the community at Quebec. We I was always returned, unruly, to the hard discipline of the Ursulines.”
“I thought she was just a nosy old woman.”
Sokanon nodded. “Yes. But she listened close. Would help me if I asked her.”
“Help what?”
“What a mother would do. Grandmother.”
“To Jacob?”
“You did not see how she look at him?”
“I find all old women are drawn to babies.”
She continued to grab at Jacob’s fingers and hands. “Do you think we could be farmers?”
Isaac was surprised.
“I meant as to be tenants, for them,” she said.
Isaac searched after the Marchand’s. “Did the old woman offer it to us?”
She shook her head. “Non.”
“What if they will not have us? They might not even need us.”
Sokanon knew different. “It is why she talked so long with me. Invited us to supper. You see how hard it is for them to climb even into the wagon.”
Isaac didn’t like it. “Farmers?”
“We only have to, until the spring, husband. And maybe you can try get the furs back.”
The logic was brutally sound. “What of Potier—Father Pierre—confessions and blessings?”
“We can visit him and then return here.”
“I cannot believe you are well to not seeing Father Pierre until tomorrow or after.”
“I have already said.”
“Wife—you have my head turning with even more thoughts than the last few days. It makes me desire more of Wilkins’ brandy.”
She was quiet.
——————
“There is the tenant house, with the two poplars.”
The shore was steeper and they came in, Sokanon waiting until Isaac had a firm grip on the tall grass to hold them tight. She slipped anyway, onto her bottom, foot in the water.
“Not a good way to begin our life as farmers,” Isaac teased. “I hope that’s not how you plan to plow the fields.”
“Go to, Isaac Dobbins,” she said the closest to cussing. “Besides, it is fruit mostly grown here. The grain is for the animals that make milk.”
“How well you are already a farmer.”
“How well I watched those that have farms around Quebec, listen to the Father’s and Sisters of gardens and growing.”
“You have never said before.”
“There was no need for a garden at our cabin. There was the forest, fish in the waters.”
“We are to become civilized again.”
She pulled at the bow rope while he got out to lift Jacob to her. He watched from behind her going up the embankment. He tied a long line to the front of the freighter and followed after her, mooring the canoes to where a bateau lay atop the bank, overturned onto a platform of timbers. He knotted the line to the pulley used to drag the heavy boat up, and let it down into the river on the ramp of logs. The bateau was unpainted and weather-beaten, its planks separating from dry rot. The Marchand’s hadn’t floated it for many seasons.
Rain sprinkled and Isaac descended again to check the tarpaulin covering their gear in the freighter. He thought for a moment to haul up the smaller canoe, overturn it against a harder rain. But it would give him a reason to excuse himself from the old couple, returning to bail.
He held his face up to the drizzle. “Let’s hope their hospitality still holds.”
Sokanon had no doubt. She turned her back to Isaac for him to lift the cradleboard onto her shoulders.
The tenant house was close and they stopped before it. Some of the tan clay mixed with stones had fallen away from between the wall beams. But they could see no wood rot, the rough shaggy cedar shingling showed no bare places. It reminded of the solid home of the Cadot’s at the Sault.
“No one is living here,” Isaac said.
It was as Sokanon thought it would be.
He looked up to the wide chimney flue. “A separate fireplace for the kitchen—in this small of house?”
“It will be very warm in the winter.”
“Very warm,” Isaac agreed. “Even with the wind howling up and down the strait.” He stood closer, tried what would be the view from one of the windows. He nodded.
She smiled.
They started again toward the main homestead. Smoke rose from the chimney and a large barn stood away, where a person emerged, then another, each of them going for one of the yawning doors. They looked for a moment before finishing to swing them shut. They stood together, waiting close to the barn in the lee of the rain and wind that had started to blow in gusts.
“Hallo!” they called, waving.
“We have the right farm,” Isaac said. “Good day,” he and Sokanon greeted.
Margrete moved closer, trying to see the baby over Sokanon’s shoulder. “Ah, the little one all wrapped up safe and snug.”
“Beinvenue,” Sokanon said.
“Yes, welcome.” Margrete’s smile was soft, inviting.
“Is your business concluded at the docks?” Denis asked.
Isaac worked his mind at the question. “Yes. It came to naught.”
“I am sorry to hear that.”
Margrete’s face brightened. “Then you are here to accept our invitation to supper.”
Sokanon nodded.
“If it is no imposition,” Isaac said.
“None at all,” Margrete said, her voice rising. “We are happy to share our home with you. Especially on such a cold day as this.”
“There is news of a tribal delegation arriving to Detroit from Ohio,” Isaac told them.
The couple cast curious gazes.
“The fort is on alert,” Isaac went on, “and the other settlers are bracing uneasy.”
“There is nothing for us to do,” Margrete said. “We will defend ourselves, if we have to. But we are old, and we are not going to leave our farm.”
Her husband gave a silent agreement. “Come,” Denis waved his hand toward the house.
Margrete was at Sokanon’s side to walk with her, glances for Jacob. They entered the home where Sokanon and Isaac were struck by the immediate heat, penetrating their clothing, hot on their bare faces and hands.
“My Denis likes it warm,” Margrete said to their flushed looks.
“It is the dampness I can no longer tolerate,” he answered, moving close to the fire in the great room to hang his heavy coat on a wall hook alongside the fireplace.
“There are stands and racks to hang what clothing you wish to dry,” Margrete pointed. “Be careful. My husband’s fires will sometimes snap out embers over the grate.”
——————
“I say again,” Margrete said, “it shows, your many years in the city, your French well-spoken.” She turned her attention to Isaac. “It is fascinating to me that your wife also speaks English better than you do French.”
“She’s learned it from having to talk to me in English. I’ve never had a good ear for language.”
Sokanon mused. “Isaac is always from, here to there.”
“One thing to another.”
“Yes,” Sokanon said, matching the other woman’s understanding.
“Do not mind my wife,” Denis offered a welcomed interruption. “Margrete is Dutch anyway.”
“Oh, you go on,” she said back to her husband. She whirled with their plates from the dining table to that near the stove. “I was speaking French right along with Dutch as a child. I can speak it as good as you, or any other.”
“The vulgar French of Flanders you speak,” he teased in an obvious old mocking.
“You understand me enough, Denis Marchand, to know when I call you to supper.” Margrete gave a friendly expression to Sokanon. “Again, please forgive me. I am a busy-body.”
Sokanon didn’t understand the saying, but the older woman continued to make her feel comfortable, as if she’d known her for years. “I need to see to Jacob,” she said, excusing herself to him near the fire.
“You can have the privacy of our room, if you need,” Margrete offered.
“Merci. But I only want to see to his comfort while he is sleeping.”
A quiet moment came to the room, watching mother and child.
“Tell us of your travels,” Denis said into the peace.
“Well Denis Marchand. Now look who’s not ashamed to press our guests about their lives.”
“As you have said, it is not often we get to hear from young adventurers.”
“That we ever have,” Margrete huffed and returned to her work.
Isaac waved off Denis’ embarrassment. “There is much to tell,” Isaac said, waving off Denis’ embarrassment. He and Sokanon glanced to each other, their thoughts the same, wondering how they might all talk if they stayed the winter. “I am not certain I could say all, in French.”
“And you don’t have to,” Margrete said. “Not now, anyway.” She stopped her work to stand with her husband, wiped her hand on her apron, placed it on his shoulder. “It seems the proper time for Denis and I to ask something of you. The three of you,” she looked to Sokanon and Jacob. “As I said at the dock earlier, I am a good judge of character. We would like you to stay with us the evening, in our home. And more—” She looked again to Denis. He nodded, as if an assent. “We would like you consider staying on after—as tenants to our farm.”
Sokanon’s gaze flashed across the room to Isaac. He saw it, in the firelight reflecting in her eyes. Her brilliance of the world.
“It is why we came here,” Isaac admitted. “Sokanon was convinced you would ask.”
They stared.
“Was my French not understandable?” Isaac said.
“Yes it was, young man,” Denis said. “We are only waiting for your answer.”
Isaac laughed. As he hadn’t in a long while.
Sokanon wondered if it wasn’t disrespectful. But saw the Marchand’s understood.
“We would not be wanting rent money,” Margrete went on, “just trade in kind for help around the farm. And, if you decide after the winter you’d like to settle here, we pay an allowance on the labor, over room and board. It is not total serfdom like a lot of the other farms.”
“No, we are not lord and lady of the manor by any means,” Denis laughed at his own joke. “And there will be plenty of idle time for you to hire yourself out to the other farmers and homesteaders—if you have the drive, and talent for skillful work. And, living the subsistence life of trappers, I’m sure you both do.”
“There is a lot of work to be done before the real cold comes,” Margrete continued her directions. “But of course chores will slacken after that. You can leave in the springtime, too—if that is your thinking.”
Isaac’s wonder was utter. But it shouldn’t be. Of course Sokanon knew. A calm bridged the small space between them across the room.
She knelt to her haunches, sudden need to cradle Jacob. The feeling of contentment was strong. Maybe the strongest ever in her life. It was strange to her that Sister Marie-Catherine would come to her before her mother or father. She stared into the flames. Listened to their crackling. She had a vision of just her and Jacob, alone with a daughter. “Your sister,” she said to him in her thoughts. Jacob’s weight pressed her ring into her chest.
“It is a fine offer,” Isaac said. “We will stay the night. And in the morning we will head away for her priest.” He thought for only a moment. Traded looks with Sokanon. “We will return in two weeks time, if we have to travel to Sandusky.”
“That is fair enough,” Denis said. “The work will not go away in that time.”
“It will be hard work done,” Margrete added, “when it needs be done.”
“Of course,” Isaac said.
“Neither will we hire anyone else in that time,” Denis said.
“Not that anyone will be looking for the job.”
“Margrete is right,” Denis admitted, “the tenant we had was one of those who fled inside the walls of the fort during the fighting last year.”
Margrete shook her head. “But he never returned.”
“Up and gone back to Montreal we heard. Not even a goodbye.”
“Now we do most of the work ourselves.”
“With help from the other farmers,” Denis allowed. But it would be good not to have the house vacant for another winter. Keep the fire going, so the inside doesn’t collect moisture, freeze and rot.”
Sokanon thought of their cabin on Gichigami. The layer of fuzzy white ice that would form on the inside walls during the coldest times. What Isaac called hoar frost.
Margrete moved closer to Sokanon, watching her with the baby. “Denis and I will have the tenant house ready for you when you return. But it is not set for sleeping in. You’ll stay here tonight, in our house. We have plenty of blankets for you to spread on the floor of the guest bedroom.”
“Now it is a guest bedroom,” Denis droned, “like we are lord and lady of the manor?”
“Oh, you go, Monsieur Marchand. You know it was always a guest bedroom. You just filled it up with your things so our family would not try and move in.”
Denis gave a guilty look while Sokanon and Isaac laughed again to themselves.
“Sokanon and I would be satisfied in the barn.”
“Nonsense,” Margrete returned. “I know you’re used to sleeping under a voyageur’s tarp or tent cloth, but I’ll not have you staying in the barn with the draft horses. Especially with a baby.”
Sokanon agreed.
Isaac, too. “Leave the tenant house as it is. It will be our first chore to get it ready for the winter ourselves.”
“Yes, please,” Sokanon insisted.
“Fair enough,” Margrete acceded.
“Two weeks,” Isaac reiterated. “At the most.”
“It is good you have retained your faith,” Margrete said to Sokanon, “and that you support it,” to Isaac. “I’m afraid Denis and I have not been to church in quite a long while.”
“It is none of my wife’s fault I assure you,” Denis went on. “She is a Dutch Reformer and I took her away from her church in Albany. And I am, well, not such a good Catholic.”
“You’re a good man, Denis Marchand.”
“And we have guests, now, Margrete Marchand.”

19
	
“There’s a floor in there somewhere,” Margrete said.
Isaac helped Denis push aside a storage crate enough to set the candlelamp down on top of a low dresser.
“Oh it’s not that bad,” Denis said while she elbowed past him into the windowless room, carrying another lamp that cast moving shadows of the many items of the couple’s repository.
“Much better than a barn,” Margrete emphasized. “Or under a trapper’s tarpaulin.”
“We would have been fine in either. Thank you,” Isaac said. “We have to go down to the canoes. May we store our food bags in the tenant house?”
“Yes,” Denis nodded. “Do you need any help?”
“I will go,” Sokanon said.
“You’ll take the baby? Out into the cold rain?”
“Leave them be, Denis. Go bring some wood in for the fires.”
“I’ll get it if you like,” Isaac offered.
“No, my Denis can get it. It’s just out the back under the overhang. He won’t even get his feet wet. Go now, before the rain is yet too hard, and the room will be clear enough for you three to sleep in.”
Denis waved a hand to the fire in the great room. “You can leave the door open and get the warmth from here all night.”
Margrete wrapped her arm around her husband’s. “The prior tenant was at least a very decent mason. He and Denis put in a small fireplace in our bedchamber.”
“Just like a lord and lady of the manor,” Denis continued his jest. “Margrete and I will retire to our room in a short while.” Denis motioned out into the house. “You’re welcome to sit by the fire in the sitting room if you’d like until you shall retire.”
Margrete gave a soft smile to Sokanon. “Our door will be closed all night.”
“It is very well,” Sokanon said. “Thank you.”
“No thanks needed young lady. Everyone around here would put your family up in their home for the night.”
Sokanon wasn’t so sure.
———— (dbl sp)
She and Isaac pulled on their overcoats again, gathered up Jacob and left the couple to themselves to head for the river. They were quiet when they passed the small tenant house, leaving each other to their own thoughts. They stood together before the shoreline, peering out to the strait, the water reflecting gray in the late day rain clouds.
“It is well, Isaac.”
He ran his hand down his wet face. “I want to discharge all the weapons. Give them a good clean that we are to spend the night in luxury.”
She laughed. “Is it not good fortune that has come to us?”
“As much as can come from misfortune.”
“We are never to our cabin again.”
He watched the lines of ducks fast-flying just over the water, their wings flashing white against the dark background. “It’s strange to think our time there has come for nothing.”
“We were together, husband. Do other husband and wife spend so much time alone together after they are only married?”
“It was a time of great solitude and contentment.”
She was quiet. The cold rain was exhilarating against her cheeks.
“It has probably already been overrun by the Ojibwa up there. Michiconiss’ people, I would lay a wager on.”
She wondered that it didn’t bother her. “They will use the rocking cradle you made?”
“They will break it apart to use the wood, I would believe.” He went to retrieve the guns.
Sokanon backed away with Jacob while Isaac reprimed the flash pan of the first gun and pointed it out over the strait. The weapon fired smoothly, the flash bright in the dusk.
Jacob didn’t eve flinch behind her.
The second pistol misfired, the old powder too damp.
“No sense trying again,” he said, shaking his hand. “I’ll retract the ball after we settle in the house.”
He pulled out the muskets and they fired, first one after the other, smoothly. “Probably wasted those two shots, the loads were yet strong.”
“There is all the shot and powder we need here,” she reminded what he already knew.
“I will hand up our gear, then we can together drag up the empty canoes.”
“Yes, Isaac.”
She let Jacob down, leaned him up and turned him toward Isaac. “See how strong is your father, little one.”
Isaac stopped for a moment, for his wife and child.
“We are to here conceive for him a sister,” she said.
“Or a brother,” Isaac teased. “Either way, I’m all for the many attempts it may take.”
She smiled. “Yes, husband.”
——————
They reached the tenant house where Isaac had to push hard to unstick the door. They stepped in and set their loads aside. Sokanon stared out through the glass windowpanes at the last light of the waning overcast evening. The darkness of their log home came back to her. When the heavy shutters were closed for the night. Or boarded up month after month against the cold.
They stood, listening to the rain drum on the roof.
“I’m sure it doesn’t leak,” Isaac said, breaking the hypnotic sound.
Sokanon thought he was making a joke about their cabin, the many times spent patching the roof. But she saw his seriousness in the dim light. She looked up to the ceiling. “We do repairs, even if it does.”
He nodded softly. Stepped a few paces on the sturdy floor. Let his hand brush over the top of the chair set with another at a large table. He leaned into one of the two side rooms. A bedroom. He pushed against the solid door jamb.
She ducked under his arms and peered into the room. There was a small window that would give light, and another outside view. The bunk bed was built into the corner of the inside walls. A pair of long-handled bed warmers were leaned to one side.
Isaac dropped his arms around her and Jacob, a timely interruption of her faraway thoughts. It was a welcome closeness too, the intimacy at Captain Wilkins’ quarters feeling longer ago than just the two days before. She pressed herself to him, his overshirt wet against the side of her face, his heartbeat in her ear at his chest. She slid away from him to sit on the bed. It was comfortable and their eyes met.
“I was thinking of Nova Scotia,” he said. “It rained there all the time when I was a lad. I remember waiting for my father and grandfather to come home from fishing, the rain-sound hard on the cedar-slat shingles. Not like lying together and listening to the soft drone on the bark roofing of our cabin.” He leaned his head back against the jamb. “This would be the most comfortable house I have lived in since before I was orphaned.”
She had to remember sometimes how hard and lonely his childhood was. Even more than hers.
“I promise, husband.”
“As I to you, wife.”
They left the food bags and muskets in the house and headed for the main homestead.
——————
A candlelamp burned on the table when they entered the house. Its light shone on the closed door of the Marchand’s room. Only silence from within. The floor creaked lightly beneath their feet to the fire that glowed orange. A fresh pile of wood stacked to the side. Isaac set the ammunition bag and pistols down and turned aside one of the cast iron screens standing on the hearth to direct sparks onto the tiled floor before the fireplace. He laid a log into the embers and low flames.
Sokanon swung Jacob off her back and rested him behind the other fire screen. She ran her fingers down his sleeping face, unbundled him in his carrier. His skin was warm, dry. Soft. Her coat was heavy with rain and Isaac helped her off with it. She hung it on one of the mantle pegs awaiting wet clothes to dry. Isaac struggled with his shirt, clinging tight to his body. She wondered at first, his baring himself, glanced to the Marchand’s door, and knew the couple would not betray their privacy. She pulled at Isaac’s shirt to help him. Ran her hand down his chest, through the dark red hair. Their eyes penetrated.
He hung the shirt next to his coat and pinched at the front of her smock. She shook her head and went for the bedroom with her things. He followed to see the Marchand’s had cleared a large space on the floor for them. Blankets were folded atop the dresser. He watched her pull off her moccasins then her smock. He breathed heavy while she came into the blanket held open by him to cover her wet nakedness.
“I have kept the Jadot woman’s nightshirt,” she whispered, “and her husband’s ill-fitting clothes for you.”
She watched him then, first to remove his tall moc’s, then his breeches, bright white skin there showing just for her. She opened the blanket to be in each other’s arms. Jacob gave out a cry.
“He doesn’t want to share you just yet.”
She went to the child as Isaac rifled through her bag for the husband’s trousers. Jacob flinched at the touch of her cold skin, but hunger ruled and he went eager at her. She pulled awkward at one of the long braids in her hair until Isaac moved behind to unwind the twists for her. Her black hair glistened in his hands in the shifting light. He finished and sat away to work on the handguns, his red hair glinting for her in the scattered glow.
They smiled to each other in the quietude of the crackling fire. How often they sat in their cabin not saying anything while their thoughts drifted, each to their own, watching the flames swirl around the logs.
———— (dbl sp)
They were warm and dry when they retired to the bedroom. Isaac crawled to lay next to Sokanon, rolling onto his back on the blankets covering the floor. She was sitting up, rocking Jacob to sleep, the light of the candle lantern dancing off her. The bruising of her side showed dark in the faint light.
“Does it still hurt?” he asked, touching the purple discoloration.
She nodded. “Some.”
“It seems a long time ago.”
She agreed, and followed his gaze up to the ceiling where the lantern continued its flicker, mixing with the radiance filtering in from the sitting room fireplace.
“Once again we are guests in someone’s home,” he said. “Who we didn’t know, even yesterday.”
“Father Pierre would remind of our fortune.”
Isaac nodded.
Sokanon went on. “Sister Marie Catherine would admonish with it. That God is to be thanked for all blessings.”
“And of our trials?”
“That they are to be accepted, as His will.”
She thought he might remind to forgive herself for the killing of that man. But his roving eyes told of his physical thoughts of her. There would be no more words tonight. She rested Jacob aside into a bed of blankets. They disrobed, the colder air away from the fire greeting their bodies. Their breaths grew deeper, arousals quickly rising. She nestled into him and he laid back, drawing her with him. She slipped atop and they thrilled in the feel of warm touches on skin prickling in the chill.
——————
They were awake with the Marchand’s in the morning. Isaac was away with Denis to the barn and Margrete couldn’t wait to mother Jacob.
“His eyes, they are so dark,” she said of Jacob in her arms. “I thought so yesterday, but now that I can see him up close, in the light of the morning—they are almost black.”
“He was not born, proper,” Sokanon said. She reached to touch Jacob’s hand, his fingers curling around hers. “He was upside down. And the cord—” She made a circular hand motion, “it was around his neck. And he was not breathing.”
Concern washed over Margrete’s face. “My goodness.” She directed her worry to Jacob, nuzzling her cheek to the boy’s forehead. “That must have been horrible.”
“I do not know. I was not well, either, and was mostly unconscious and not aware. Isaac was certain we both were to be dead. I hear Ojibwa women in their deaths chants. I try, call out to them, to stop. That we were alive.”
Margrete’s eyes were wide.
“I dream the day my family killed,” Sokanon said. “And then I hear my child’s cries and I wake up. And I hear Isaac saying Lord’s Prayer. In French. The older woman, Sheshebens, not Christian, say Jacob and I were, in shadow world of the Great Mysterious. The great power of all things—no one can know.”
Margrete was staring a questioning look. “Your speaking—your language has become more ragged in your excitement.”
“I sometimes, maybe, think I can know to speak the language of my mother and father. But then it goes away.”
“As it has appeared to, now.” Margrete shook her head at Jacob. “It is an incredible story. And to that of when you were a child. I see on your cheeks, the scars of the illness that has killed so many of your people.”
The old woman shook her head again, this time to dismiss Sokanon’s self-conscious scars.
“You must be a very strong person, Sokanon.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“Does your name mean something, in the language of your mother and father?”
It had been a long time since anyone had asked. “It means, Rain, in Cree. I always remember that.”
“Rain. And you have a Christian name?”
“Marie.”
Margrete only just held back a smile. “So many French girls named Marie.”
“And Anne, also.”
“Grandmother to Jesus.”
Sokanon nodded. “I did not know my grandparents. (We were always traveling.) They were of those who died, along with many aunts and uncles, cousins, too, from the smallpox.” She felt for her ring. “I have always, even as a girl and my mother not Christian, felt a great comfort in Our Lady, Mary.”
“The Great Mother.”
Of course she would understand.
“I say again—” Margrete’s voice rose, “my goodness, indeed. But mother and son are alive and well now,” she asserted with a confident faith. “Glory to whatever power there is.”
Sokanon gave an awkward smile.
“Yes, I know,” Margrete said. “I still try to be a good Christian believer, even if I do not regularly attend church. We cannot know our place in the world all at once,” she went on. “After my appendix burst I bled continuous for weeks, and then nothing. The doctor warned I could be barren. I was saddened almost to my end. When I confessed to the pastor my feelings, and also that my faith was never strong, he said that trusting in the Lord can give hope when all is lost. I’m not certain trusting in the Lord has really given me comfort throughout my life. Or, if it was only my will to live. But pastor’s words gave me the strength just to get through one more day. And then another. I believe in the power of goodness, as pastor was that day, when he could have chastised my lack of faith, instead.”
Sokanon wasn’t sure if Sister Marie Catherine would comfort, or scold this Margrete Marchand. That she was a good woman was easy to see.
“Father Armand’s words were of great comfort to me after I returned to Quebec. He was kind, and gave me the two-hearted ring of Jesus and Mary that I keep around my neck, to remind me that family will be united in the hereafter.”
“That is a beautiful thought.” Margrete nuzzled with Jacob again. “But, no matter what you believe of God in your heart, your mother is right here, in my arms. A piece of her in your child, from you. Sokanon.”
——————
“Neither Sokanon or I accord anywhere,” Isaac said, happy to speak English to Marchand, even if the man could only understand to listen. “My father and grandfather were killed in the war with the French in Nova Scotia. Then my brother and sister, my mother and grandmother died in the Typhus epidemic. I lived near the docks after that, with an old Mi’kmaq employed by the shipwrights. Then I ended up as every other Nova Scotian, on the fishing boats. The war came and I fell in with the army as a bateau-man, where Sokanon and I met after the battle at Quebec.”
It took a moment for Marchand to respond. “And with your wife’s childhood? Then in the forests of the far north? Margrete and I can not claim half as much life, young Isaac, even with three times as many years.”
“I am not certain we will be able to quickly welcome back into civilization.”
Denis nodded, thought. “It may be easier, out here on a farm—not so close to the city.”
“I have had that thought. My wife, too.”
“She appears to be a very bright young woman.”
“It was her thought to ask you of staying on as tenants.”
Marchand knew. “This one is Rossinante,” he said of the draft pony. He patted hard on its neck just above the shoulder.
Isaac stood back from the lively animal. “Rossinante—the red one?”
“No. It is from the Spanish word for work horse. Rocinante was the name of Don Quixote’s horse in the Cervantes novel.”
Isaac shrugged. “I have only read school primers.”
“It is commendable to be able just to read.”
“I have been a long time out of the practice of it.” Isaac watched as the black eye of the horse appeared to follow him.
“Margrete was a teacher in New York for a time, before we met. And then again in Montreal when we lived there. She still has her primers in Dutch, French and English, from her tutoring of the children on the neighboring farms. I’m sure she would be delighted to tutor you, if you wish.”
“A schoolboy again?” Isaac teased.
The horse snorted and shook his mouth away from the grabbing hands and probing fingers of Denis. “Come now, Rossi, my old friend.” He reached again for its mouth. “You have to let me check your gums.” The horse reared back again but Denis stroked from its forehead to the nostrils, calming the animal. “It is alright, my friend,” he whispered soft. “He is not used to strangers,” he said what Isaac thought most obvious. “He has gotten into some foxtail grass that was growing behind the barn some days ago. We did not find it before he ate some. It is very toxic to animals and his gums are still inflamed.”
“What do you do for that?”
“There’s not much to do. He is an old horse and his teeth are already gone bad. Just like mine,” he jested.
“I have not spent a lot of time around draft animals.”
“I could tell. So can he.” Denis let go of the horse’s muzzle and pushed him back so he could swing the door of the stable closed.
Isaac patted Rossinante’s nose on the way past to the other horse, the one that had been used to deliver the man Beaufait’s bushels of fruit to the wharf. It was black-red, with a striking black mane that hung in long, wavy strands.
“This is our girl, Manon,” Denis said of the other. “He sire was part Friesian. See how stout is her body, on the short legs of her pony mother.”
“Yes, she’s a beautiful horse. I thought so when I saw her before your wagon.”
“That’s where she is best, easy on the traces. Rossinante was never very good for carriage. He’s too old now and set in his ways, anyway, for harness work. Still plenty strong enough for hauling downed trees and the like. We hire out our service together to other farmers.” He motioned to the male horse. “He is the only true workhorse for miles. Maybe you can be friends with him, so that you may know how to work him. Maybe you can be friends with both of them.”
“How were they both not killed in the rebellion?”
Denis pinched his mouth. “It had nothing to do with our standing with the Tribes, I’m certain. But I think rather there is a respect somehow for horses in their culture.”
“How were they not stolen then?”
Marchand showed he didn’t know.
Isaac thought maybe the old couple did have good standing with the people.
Denis tossed an armful of hay into the female’s stable, where she went right at it. “We’re still feeding old Rossi soft mash, so as not to inflame his mouth more,” he said. “Margrete or I will mix it up for him later in the morning.”
Isaac cast his eyes around the barn, the gray light through the spaces between the planks. “Sokanon and I are to be away now.”
The older man gave a sober look. “For the Jesuit Mission across the strait?”
“Yes.”
“For your child to be baptized?”
Isaac didn’t say of the service at Mackinaw. “Sokanon has known the priest Potier for a long time. It’s important to her for him to affirm Jacob’s Catholic faith.”
“Yet you are not Catholic.”
“No, I am not. But our son is, eh?”
Denis chortled. “There are worse things, I suppose. Although my wife might argue sometimes. As I said last night, she is a Dutch Reformer. She is not very God-fearing, though.” He lowered his voice unnecessarily. “I’m afraid she has made it easy for me to backslide from my faith, too.”
“We are heathens, all, my granny Dobbins used to say. Our souls saved only by the grace of the Almighty.”
“Amen,” Denis clucked.
Isaac reached a hand out slowly for Rossinante’s snout. The horse bobbed its head in delight under Isaac’s rubbing.
“He is beginning to like you already.”
“They are fine animals, Denis.”

20
	
Sokanon peered again to Margrete, no judgment from her as the Campau woman had, the other women in the city. Affection for her went beyond their single day friendship. Maybe she and Jacob would both have a grandmother, after all. Denis held her arm at the top of the embankment.
“We’ll return in two weeks time,” Isaac said to them, convinced as she that they’d be for Sandusky after Father Pierre.
“Margrete’s only thoughts until then will be for the child,” Denis said.
“All three of you,” Margrete insisted. “It will be good having a strong, young family with us. The winter will go much quicker.”
Sokanon entered the freighter with Jacob, bracing for Isaac hopping in and pushing off from the steep shore.
“Two weeks,” Isaac said again.
“Until then,” Denis answered.
Sokanon secured Jacob and settled into her position.
“Bon voyage, cher,” Margrete wished to her.
“Au revoir, Margrete,” Sokanon called over her shoulder, waving with her paddle before starting in.
At once Isaac felt the liveliness of the freighter, packed light for the fortnight trip down the strait and open lake, released from the drag of the trailer. He hoped the Jesuit had gone to Sandusky. He wanted just to go. Fly. Tire out his frustrations paddle to water, stroke by pounding stroke. Later. “Stay close to this side until we pass the fort,” he directed. “I wish for Wilkins to see us pass if he will. I’d like to give him a salute of thanks.”
“The Governor Hay, too?”
“To give a sneer—why not.”
The current hurried them a quick half mile, the Marchand’s long from her sight. Sokanon’s attention went suddenly to a wagon coming up the river on the shoreline road. The silhouettes of driver and passenger were familiar even in the distance, and as they neared to be certain, she wondered why Isaac wasn’t calling to their presence. She turned to see his blank stare across the river.
“The Campau’s,” she announced, “the father and son, Jean-Baptiste.”
The passenger figure was waving to them, it was the elder Campau, he and his son bouncing along on the spring seat. The younger pulled on the reins to halt the ox. The father stepped into the bed and lifted the cover off the load enough to show the bundles, Isaac’s wavy blueberry stains marked on the canvas.
“Mon Dieu,” Isaac exclaimed, slipping into French in his excitement.
Sokanon swept her paddle out wide to turn the bow inshore. But Isaac was still caught in his thoughts, wonder for what was happening. He studied the road going back toward the fort, certain of British troops marching after the wagon.
“Isaac,” Sokanon called. It was the first time she’d ever felt his attention slack behind her. In an instant the current was taking the stern around. She struggled to swing the front back toward downstream.
Isaac struggled, too, his draw stroke not enough and the canoe was spun right round. “Damn,” he swore and fought to keep from spinning again as he and Sokanon paddled against one another in the confusion.
The freighter came to shore stern first, Sokanon unable to keep the front from another full turn around. She thought of the empty spinning canoe when she paddled out to draw water at the St. Clair fort.
Isaac grabbed at the long grass along the shore, quick view of the Campau’s staring in their own wonder. The canoe stopped, Sokanon with her paddle ready for another free drift. Isaac leapt out, up to his knees in the water, pulling hard to keep the boat from slipping from his grasp. He worked his way down the steep shore edge, sliding his hands along the gunwale until he could hold it tight amidships.
“You can step out now,” he said to Sokanon’s perplexed stare.
“I think not.” She handed him the bow line.
Jacob was giggling from the sudden movement and Isaac thought to laugh if not for the Campau’s incredible appearance. He let the stern out again, bow rope tightening in his grip. Hand and knees up the embankment until he could pull the bow far enough for Sokanon to step out and help.
“Can you hold it, please?” Isaac said.
“Yes, husband,” to Jacob’s continued giggling amusement.
Isaac kept the line in his hand for assurance and ascended the embankment, questions flying in his head. “How is it—” he said, catching himself from slipping, “how is it you have our furs?”
“We must hurry,” the junior Jean-Baptiste warned.
Isaac’s head cleared with the son’s nervousness. “To the farm of the Marchand’s,” he motioned, “where our other canoe is hauled.”
The elder Campau nodded, directing his son to continue ahead, young Jean-Baptiste snapping the traces immediately at the rump of the ox.
“Get in,” he said to Sokanon.
He didn’t have to say it, she was already moving. He tossed the bow line in to her and ran the canoe once again hand over hand until he leapt into his seat in the stern. Sokanon swept a deep stroke to keep them straight in the current before Isaac joined and they were back upstream once more. She wondered what the Marchand’s would think. It made her hesitate for a moment, that they would not now, return in two weeks. She pulled at her paddle again, the uncertain thoughts of the past days returning, their future yet running out before her in the front of the canoe.
———— (dbl sp)
Isaac expected any moment for troops sent by Hay to be marching up the shoreline road in chase of the wagon. He ran through his mind, the measure of their movements to haul the bundles down the embankment, load them into the canoes, be off across the strait. No. “We’ll load all the bundles into the small canoe,” he said, “lower it into the water, tie off bow to stern, and be away.”
“Yes, Isaac.”
“We’ll correct the loads on the other side,” he finished.
She turned and looked herself, to see no one coming up the road after them.
Isaac watched the wheels of the wagon, the spokes stopping for the first moment his eyes twitched to them. Neither Campau was watching back. It flowed through his mind, how the providence of their meeting the Marchand’s had become this stroke of luck. But it seemed the Campau’s were avoiding his studied glances. The younger was driving the wagon, sure. But elder Campau’s gaze looked too fixed to the road ahead.
“Daft Frenchmen,” Isaac said low to her as they passed the wagon.
“They are to aide us, husband.”
“Are they?”
She understood immediately. But she didn’t want to believe it. The Campau’s farm farther upstream. With the little chapel built there. That they would take the furs for themselves. 
They reached the Marchand’s farm before the wagon, Sokanon disappointed not to see them. She stepped out and held the canoe. Jacob watched her, following with his dark eyes gray, reflecting the low hanging sky. He was yet happy at the continued wild movements. She climbed the embankment with the bow line tight, disappointment deeper at the Marchand’s nowhere in sight. She thought of the fire, too hot for Margrete, just right for her husband.
“There is no time,” Isaac said to her.
She nodded.
“Hold the line and stand away,” he directed, “they will help do all the work.”
He unlashed the canoe from the bateau platform and turned it upright, dragging it ready to load and let down into the river.
“Hallo, Isaac,” elder Campau called.
“Campau’s,” he greeted them, “a very, opportune encounter,” he chose his words carefully in French. But if the translation came out as accusation, so be it. He thought to be disappointed when neither they nor Sokanon gave an indication of offense. He searched their faces for impropriety. “How is it, you have found us?”
“Father,” the son urged, ignoring the question. He leapt into the bed of the wagon.
“My son is right.” Campau was nervous looking back toward the fort. “We are far enough away, I’m certain.”
Isaac went for the back, reaching to drag the ninety-pound bundles down. He  swung the first one onto the ground. Younger Campau struggled to slide the next to his grasp.
“We were taking them to our farm,” the son said.
“To hide them,” the father said quickly, stepping from the wagon, “until we could find you.”
“And had we already gone, and never to return?”
The son looked away.
Campau frowned. “Then your furs would have rotted in our barn, to be thrown away.”
Isaac nodded as Sokanon’s hard stare checked him. She was right. It didn’t matter.
“I am certain Governor Hay does not know of this?”
“No, my friend,” Campau said. “It was your Captain Wilkins,” he explained. “He is leaving Detroit at this very moment, heading overland back to New York. Somehow, at the same time, he freed your property, unknown to the governor major. He and Monsieur Hay have never gotten on.”
“I knew that well enough, the short time with the captain.”
Isaac directed the son as they loaded the furs into the canoe.
“Are you certain for their sale where you travel to?”
Isaac shook his head to the father.
“Maybe you might want to rethink your furs to St. Louis?”
“You have already advised that I should not.”
“Yes, but you must know how difficult it will be for you to sell the furs, by legal means. It is not that I will make much profit for myself, you understand.”
Isaac met Sokanon’s continued dismissal. “It is enough,” he said to father and son, “to know how much so many people are willing to risk to help us.”
Campau held a straight face.
“No,” Isaac went on, “we will take our chances on our own.”
“So long as you do not remain at Detroit,” the son pushed.
“Do not worry, master Campau. We will be across the strait before you and your father return to either the city, or your farm. Thank you, again. If you see Wilkins before he is gone, thank him for us, too.”
The son hesitated for only a moment. He climbed back onto the wagon. “Father,” he said.
A quick bow from Campau to them, and up he clambered. “Adieu.”
“Adieu,” they returned.
Isaac moved fast, pushed the canoe until he had to pull against its sliding weight splashing into the water.
Sokanon gave another long look, hoping for at least a wave goodbye to Margrete.
“There is no time,” Isaac said again.
She made her way down to him. They were aboard, tied off. Away.
“Daft Frenchmen,” Isaac said.
Sokanon looked over her shoulder to watch for a moment, the Campau’s wagon rolling on upriver toward their farm. She felt the weight of the canoes, heavy once more against her paddle.
———— (dbl sp)
Fort Detroit was the opposite shore then and they stared across, imagining the eyes that could not make them out at this distance with their furs. Stolen contraband now, Isaac supposed. Sokanon rested her bruised ribs, her paddle hardly needed with Isaac’s strong-swinging pace in the fast downstream current. They would be quick to the Jesuit Mission at la pointe de Montréal Mission.
She drew Jacob from behind her, rested at her feet while they passed along the shoreline, the last of the Ottawa village giving way to the French settlers houses between them and the Hurons. Where old and young women worked hard at their chores, exchanging brief glances with Sokanon. Smoke from family fires drifted in the background, and the communal fields of corn stood as stumps, thousands of harvested stalks cut off near to the ground.
The stark mission buildings arose from the stubbled fields, dark structures unadorned of any symbols or embellishments, telling of the Black Robe’s themselves. She was anxious to see Father Pierre but no one was about, and the silent surroundings after the empty cornfields gave the feeling of abandonment.
“It looks as they may have gone,” Isaac announced into the long silence.
His voice startled Sokanon in her disquiet. He steered them for the shore and she worked to unbundle Jacob. His cheery face helped to brighten her blank thoughts.
“It is good though, Sokanon.”
She knew he meant it was better for Father Pierre to be gone. They could stay here but a short while. “Yes, Isaac.”
The freighter slid into land and a black-robed figure emerged from one of the out-buildings. She was eager, but satisfied when it was not Father Pierre. The man watched their canoes come into shore, then strode toward them with the confident bearing of all their order.
His gaze narrowed. “Good morning?” he guessed at Isaac’s English.
“Good day to you also, brother,” Isaac returned.
“Yes. I am Brother Béquemont.”
Sokanon did not recognize the young man.
“I am Isaac Dobbins and this is my wife, Marie.” He was swift to the reason for their stop. “Is the vicar Potier here?”
The brother was wary. “Why do you wish to see Father Pierre?”
“I lived at the Mission on Bois Blanc when he and Father Armand De La Richardie were the Superiors.”
Béquemont’s eyes widened for Sokanon. “You knew Father Armand?”
She felt him come closer to her, even though he didn’t move. “Oui. He traveled in my father’s canoe many times.”
“Many times?” Béquemont’s emotion rose.
“He was the priest for my family.”
“I have heard much of him. He was a great man of God. You are Huron—a Catholic?”
“I am Catholic. Has Father Pierre gone already, to Sandusky?” she pressed.
“For the winter, yes,” Béquemont sais, “along with most of the congregation. Well, the Hurons, anyway. Since the British takeover, there has not yet been assigned to us a second superior. But the elder brother’s are very capable of caring for the mission flock.”
“Yes,” Isaac dismissed his rambling. He addressed Sokanon. “Do you need to go ashore?”
“Non.” She was already pushing off shore. “We cannot stay.”
Isaac poled his paddle too.
The young brother was confused. “You are for Sandusky, then?”
“Is there something for Father Pierre?” Sokanon asked.
Béquemont shook his head, his confusion continuing. “No, no. But, God be with you,” he offered. He said a novice’s awkward prayer while making the sign of the cross over them.
“Merci,” Sokanon said. “God be with you also.”
——————
Sokanon stood holding Jacob looking across the water to Île des Bois Blanc. She couldn’t remember what the Hurons called the island of the white woods. They were showing bright in the distance, their golden leaves resplendent in autumn color, even more brilliant in the late day sun.
She felt the fear again for Father Armand, lying sick in their canoe. Saw his pain as he couldn’t move on one side. Heard once more his words slurred and slow. All the Huron people of the mission sure he was dying, trying to keep him from being taken away. The new black robe Father Pierre unyielding, sending their beloved priest to get good medicine at Quebec. Sokanon’s father leading the group hurrying Father Armand back there.
“That is where I lived with your grandmother and grandfather,” she spoke soft into his ear. “Your uncle was born there. Tipishkau-pishum,” she whispered in the Native way, not to say aloud the names of the dead. “Named after the moon,” she would never forget, even if she was unsure if he’d held the pronunciation correct all these years. She could not remember if the black robe’s had given him a Christian name.
“The Huron children were mean to me,” she said. “They were jealous of my closeness to Father Armand. It was always in our canoe he traveled.” She nuzzled Jacob again, making him laugh.
“I thought we were supposed to be hiding,” Isaac said, coming to stand next to her. “Are we not worried his squeals will echo all up and down the strait,” he teased.
But she knew he was worried. First Aubert and his men, come to kill them and take the furs, then, his own countrymen, by law of confiscation. There would be no fire tonight, hauled up for the evening on a point near the end of the giant Grosse Ile, close to the mouth opening into the Erie lake.
“The white trees stand out,” Isaac said peering with her to the island. He steadied his feet on the rocks at the shore before holding his arms out for the baby.
Sokanon gave him over reluctantly. She wasn’t finished telling her son of her time at the Huron mission there, first with Father Armand, then with Father Pierre. “We cannot ever go back to the Marchand’s farm house.”
“I don’t know of—never.” Isaac raised Jacob over his head.
“Isaac,” she frighted, held onto his shirt to keep him balanced.
“After we sell our furs, I see no reason to fear Hay—or any other official.” The thought soared in him. He wanted to head out for Sandusky now. Paddle straight through without stopping until they were there. “But, I do not think it wise to return soon to Detroit. This late in the season, our net is cast anyway. Not until the spring, if we shall.”
“Please,” Sokanon said, stepping back and tugging on Isaac’s shirt to follow off the rocks.
He slipped and she help pull him straight, Jacob squeezing between them. She gathered the child from him and started back to where the canoes were hauled up.
“He laughs,” Isaac said, “he liked it.”
“It is late for him to eat.”
“I am yet hungry, too.”
“There is enough pemmican.”
“I continue to enjoy it.”
———— (dbl sp)
He leaned his head back against the tree, hand on Jacob’s chest between them.
She drew her knees up tight to her chest, the sounds of the bullets from Aubert’s men thudding against the trees echoed in her head.
“Cold?” Isaac asked. He knew she wasn’t.
“A little,” she lied.
The night sky showed between the shaking leaves above them. “As long as the wind does not blow too hard contrary for us, we should be in Sandusky day after next, I think.”
“I am not worried,” she told him.
“We have to keep thinking we’ll make things right for us.”
“What if soldiers are being sent for us right now from Detroit?”
He ran his fingers down Jacob’s face in her way. “We’ll give them a real fight then, won’t we?”
Light from somewhere glinted on the musket lain next to her. “Do not make joke.”
“I’m sorry. We’ll just keep making quickly for Sandusky, and if I have to, I’ll try and plead our case to Bradstreet. The time I spent with Old Brad rowing and fighting with his transfer corps during the war. That we were both born at Annapolis Royal, should mean something.”
“What if your, old Brad, is not there—what if he to Niagara, or south, for the other army in Ohio?”
Isaac stared for a moment. “You would make a good general.”
“I hear you and the Captain Wilkins talk.” She thought of Sister Marie Catherine, how well she knew the movings of soldiers and armies, how well she would inform Mother Superior of what was to come.
“You would truly have wanted to tenant on their farm?”
She brushed something crawling off her arm, brought Jacob into her lap, ran her hands over his body. “Margrete was—” she was unsure.
“A doting old hen for Jacob?”
She drew the blanket over herself and Jacob, held it to her chin. “She would not have made me feel the child.”
Isaac thought he understood. Missing family. “Like a favorite aunt.”
She didn’t say. As a grandmother, maybe.
“It would have been easier to Sandusky paddling without the furs, in only the freighter.”
The water lapped gentle against the shore.
“They all had to die, I suppose,” he said into the silence, “our families—all of them—for us to be here, together.”
“We have said, many times.”
“Yes, but the feeling is deeper all of a sudden.”
“Going back the way to our homes.”
It surprised him. “Maybe that’s it. Nova Scotia. Quebec.”
“Quebec not really my home.”
He breathed. Rolled his head back and forth on the tree, feeling the crevices of the bark against his scalp. “Hopefully that agent is yet at Sandusky and we can sell our furs. We can overwinter there. Decide where to make our new home, after.”
She nuzzled closer to him. Tried to remember the Saguenay River where she was born. “I remember a story from my mother. When we were in the canoe for a long time, with the black robes. About a boy who stole tobacco for his grandmother, using a magic canoe that would speed across the water.”
“A magic canoe,” Isaac repeated.
“It was made from a white stone.”
Like a flat skipping rock, Isaac thought. “Who’d the laddie steal the tobacco from?”
She shook her head to the darkness. “It is all I remember. I can hear her voice, in Cree, but the words do not form in my mind.”
“It’s a good story, even from what little you do remember.”
“Yes, husband.”

USE SOMEWHERE ELSE.
Her father’s stories about a people from the north of where her ancestors lived came to her suddenly. People who live where it was always winter, and made homes of snow. Travel over the frozen water, wearing coats of sea animals, and hunt the giant fish in the great ocean. Only they could live there he’d told her, where all others would starve and freeze to death. The stories could not be true. Of a people too far away, from everywhere. Safe from everything.

21
	
“They are wary,” Isaac said of the Ottawa villagers at the mouth of the river into Lake Erie.
“I see how they watch us.”
“Not you. They are wary of me, the British. Before I even speak, my red hair gives me right away.” He brought their wet gear closer to the fire. “It is a welcome change—from those suspicious looks of my countrymen for you.”
“The Ottawa know I am not of their Tribe. And also, the woman of the British man of red hair.”
The lightness shined in their eyes.
She cradled Jacob in her arm. “Maybe they want to trade.”
He lifted the end of the freighter, leaning the bottom nearer to the drying warmth of the flames. “The only thing they would want from us, is food. But I would like to know if they have any information from Sandusky.”
“And they will tell us how far.” She teased at him, four days now from Bois Blanc. “I will ask?” She helped steady the canoe with her free hand while Isaac positioned it again.
He peered around the village.
“I wish to walk,” she said to his caution. “I will leave Jacob with you, take some pemmican to give.”
He nodded. “Please do not go far from our vision.”
She laid Jacob into the blankets in front of the tent and rummaged for the cakes of dried meat, wrapping a large handful in cloth. She kissed her son and smiled to her husband before starting away.
———— (dbl sp)
She thought to feel a union amongst the domed and cone shaped homes that circled a peaked birchbark longhouse at one end of the village. But the people were not quite welcoming. She understood the burned remains of homes.
“Parle Français?” she asked an old woman in a worn buckskin smock who knelt at a fire. An iron kettle hung by a tripod over the flames. A small girl stopped a naked boy toddling around the wigwam and they stood, staring.
The woman said something to the children and the girl ushered the boy back, where another woman in a native dress, not many years older than herself Sokanon thought, showed from the bark home. The children gathered to her.
“Français?” Sokanon asked again. “Anglais?”
The woman gave a studied look, shook her head, then pointed toward the plank houses that stood farther from the shore. “Henriette,” she said.
Sokanon nodded her thanks and offered the parcel. “Pemmican.”
The younger woman waited.
“I make,” Sokanon told them.
The older woman gave her assent.
“Mer-ci,” the younger said, avoiding the look from her elder.
Sokanon raised a hand in amity and headed on. She turned to see Isaac busy at the canoes.
———— (dbl sp)
The people at the other end of the village wore the cloth fabrics of the French and British. Two women were to a large washing pot over a fire, others working in and out of a smokehouse, drying and curing meats and fruit. Men labored at the repairs of the rough-built houses and barns. A wagon was being loaded and a plow hammered at. Children waited nearby for orders from parents and grandparents.
“Henriette?” she asked and was directed to her, standing in a blue dress. Almost matching blue eyes, gave her halfness away. Her gray apron was tied with brown ribbons around her chest, in a way Sokanon remembered from long before on some of the older women at Quebec. Her dark hair was braided, the long knots brought up and pinned to the back of her head. She watched workmen replacing a window frame of the house. It was only then Sokanon saw there was no cross on any of the buildings. No Christian symbol of a place of worship.
“Henriette?”
“I am she,” the woman said, backing away a step from the workers.
“I am, Marie,” Sokanon offered clumsy.
Henriette nodded, darted her eyes when one of the carpenters raised his voice to the others.
Sokanon watched her. Studied the building. “This is, a schoolhouse?”
“Yes,” Henriette motioned to the village, “but not many send their children to attend. Most wish to remain in the old ways of our people. Even if it is necessary for us to trade now for iron pots and tools.”
Sokanon was embarrassed the woman saw her questioning.
Henriette looked past her, to Isaac at the canoe. “I have only lived with my father’s French people.”
Sokanon saw him in her face. She thought, for only a moment, to say of her own life in Quebec.
“I do not know much of my mother’s ways.” Henriette said. She stared close. Touched her own face where the pock marks showed on Sokanon’s. “She died from smallpox. I was not infected. Neither was my father.”
Sokanon knew her loss. “My grandparents died from the illness. My mother and father and I lived through it.”
“You are fortunate to have your parents alive, then.”
Again, Sokanon did not say. “We are to Sandusky, my husband, and our child. Isaac wishes to know if there has been any word from there about the army.”
Henriette shook her head. “I have not heard anything. I only know they have not returned here.” She addressed the villagers again. “We are wary of the events around us.” She pointed. “Especially from the village up river, where the one the whites call Pontiac lives with his band of our Tribe. But—” she shook her head again, “there is much work to be done before the season changes. No one ventures far from their homes.”
Sokanon watched again, the workers raising the new window frame, with its glass panels. Only a few hundred yards away were the wigwams of…how many generations of native peoples?
“Thank you,” she said to Henriette. “We only stay until the morning.”
“You have two canoes, and much gear, for only husband and wife. Are you traders?”
“We do not mean to be. We have furs from the last two years we wish to sell.” She waited, hopeful, but Henriette’s expression did not show knowledge of a potential buyer. “The war, and the new laws disrupted trade for us at Sault Sainte Marie.”
“The falls of Saint Mary? You have traveled far already. I wish you well.”
“Thank you,” Sokanon said again.
——————
The pine gum was soft from the warmth near the fire and Isaac worked it over the stitching along the seam of the freighter. He looked up from the canoe to see Sokanon in the distance talking with the woman. He stirred the resin and brushed over another small crevice forming in the caulking.
He thought maybe he could connect again with each seam, each hole punched, even those by Sokanon’s hands. Pushing the spruce root thread through, pulling it tight. The joints were tight, caulking fixed solid over the threads. Still, he smoothed resin over some spots.
He wondered of Ahmik, in his canoe they built together. It came to him that Sakima may be jealous of the gift, the grudging respect he had to give after saving the boy’s life. He felt the sting, submerged in the icy water again, searing at his face, head, hands. Penetrating clothes, skin, arresting the strength in his arms, barely able to pull himself and the lifeless teenager again and again onto the ice, cracking from their weight.
 “Yes,” he spoke to Jacob. “Old Sakmowk might think me the master after studying this one. She’s as stout as that first day. It was an auspicious beginning. You remember the bull that came to protect his cow and calf—how you cried from the loud musket shot?” He ran his fingers over another seam that was yet tight. Pressed and pushed to test the bark skin, solid against the frame, the water-soaked and softened ribs bent just right. “The wood is seasoning perfectly. We should have no problem trading her when the time comes.”
The breeze from offshore caused a shiver across his bare back. He stared out to the lake across the mouth of the river, watching wary anyway, even if unlikely Hay would dispatch soldiers to bring them back to Detroit.
He set the resin container down and went to bring the blanket tighter around Jacob. “I will not say to your mother, our son—but I am growing weary. It is not enough to know the day, as it was at our cabin. We must outthink tomorrow, as well.”
He looked to see Sokanon making her way back.
“Your mother returns directly. It is the farthest she’s ever been from you.” Jacob gurgled at his touch. “She hurries, I think. And I’m just as glad for it, as you.”
———— (dbl sp?)
She slowed as she neared, watching him work, muscles pulsing along his bare chest and arms. “Nothing is known of Sandusky,” she said when he greeted her. “Only that the army passed by some days ago in many boats. They did not land here.”
Isaac nodded. Bent for the water jug.
She went for Jacob. “All the village is readying for winter. No one travels.”
“I see their industry,” Isaac said, wiping his mouth. “I am—we are,” he included Jacob, “glad you are back.”
“I was but a short time away.” Her calm was a lie. She’d felt the absence of husband and son together, even if never out of sight. “They say Sandusky can be reached in a day and a half of hard paddling.”
He lifted his chin to the light breeze. “If the lake lays down like I think it will, we should start out in the night. If you’re up to it.”
“The pine resin will be dry enough?”
“I hardly had to do much.” He plugged the water jug and set it down. “The canoes are ready. The freighter fairly calls itself to the water.”
She heard his easy boasting. It was not something he did often. “They will go themselves—” she teased anyway, “as magic canoes?”
His smile was broad. “A hard paddle for a few hours before the daylight, will be good as magic.”
“Only sleep then, in my tent.”
He stared. “You know we both sleep better, after.”
It was true. She let her eyes rove on him.
—————— (MAYBE CHAPTER END HERE?)
The two spits of land went by left and right, only maybe a mile apart, arms welcoming them into the sheltered bay at Sandusky. Just in time, as the northeast wind had freshened coming across the length of the lake, cold reminder of the power to swamp them. Sokanon’s side ached, her hands and fingers cramped around the shaft of her paddle, shoulders collapsed from Jacob’s weight on her back.
“Rest, now.” Isaac’s voice rasped with heavy breaths.
They hadn’t said a word to each other in hours, their singular thought to paddle, for their lives. Against the lake that would drown them for daring its great waves.
Sokanon fought for the strength to let Jacob off, the straps of the cradleboard slogged against the leather of her coat. She had to pause, force herself to move again.
Isaac wished he could help, clothes soaked through and squeezing at him, as in the coils of the giant sea monsters told of by the old salts. He looked over his shoulder, waves pounding out on the lake. It didn’t seem possible, the bay so enclosed as to be a lake itself. Gliding almost effortless in the flat water, long swells rolling beneath them, gentle waves seeming to draw them, as the ocean sometimes did at Nova Scotia, in—apology? reverence? pity? taunting?—toward the safety of shore.
He wanted to apologize to her. But he also wanted to champion their effort, in the canoe from their own hands. He was quiet, in the wondrous peace of her with Jacob, the hood of otter thrown from over the head hoop of the board, eyes full of wonder at mother and the wide gray sky. His spirit strengthened at the many campfires, even as he looked to the charred remains of the stockade.
“The fort has been burned down from the latest war,” he said, “but Bradstreet’s army is still here.”
She saw his satisfaction, wouldn’t dare to admonish him for the dangerous passing on the open lake. She waited for him to say ‘we have made it’, but he was silent. Paddled slow, as if in confident command of the world around them.
The Huron mission buildings rose, cross signaling from the steepled roof of the chapel that Father Armand had built. She had the strange sense of coming home, even though she had only been her before for a day, on their way to Detroit with the wild rangers. It was the anticipation for Father Pierre. Wanting so much for him to see Jacob and receive his blessing for her child. For him to see the woman she had become.
Isaac steered toward the mission, away from the main mass of soldiers, white tents stretching out, bateaux lining the shore. Sokanon searched back and forth, attention taken until the canoe slid to a soft but abrupt stop. She set Jacob down and stepped out, aware then that she didn’t feel her pains anymore. The area was wild with people. Groups huddled on the ground here, stood in circles there. Native children ran all around, while cook fires were worked by women at their wigwams and soldiers at the tents. All the while looking for Father Pierre.
Many of the redcoats were standing to, a large picket guarding the perimeters of the expansive camp. Old Brad wasn’t going to be caught unawares, Isaac told himself. He untied the small canoe and dragged it to shore where Sokanon helped him pull the bow up onto the sand. She reached into the freighter for Jacob. Felt Isaac’s hand on her shoulder.
“There is your priest, Sokanon.”
How hadn’t she seen him?—he was so close, coming to them. An eager moment of expectancy was rewarded with his bright eyes for her. She brought up Jacob in his cradleboard into her arms. Father’s look went from surprise to joy, and her widening smile matched his.

22
	
“Marie, my child.”
“Father.”
He moved closer, touched his fingertips to her forehead. “Even more a women than only three years ago when last we met. And a mother, with a child of her own. A son, I think.”
“Jacob.” Her joy reflected by the pride in his eyes.
“Jacob,” he repeated, brow raised to Isaac.
“Yes, it was my grandfather’s name.”
“The providence is manifest, nonetheless.”
“Potier,” Isaac greeted.
“Good day, Isaac, father of Jacob. You have traveled far.”
Isaac watched him scan the canoes. “From the St. Mary’s.”
“And done well for yourselves. —Furs?” His eyes went from Isaac to Sokanon. “They weren’t trapped, not by only the two of you?”
Sokanon heard the many emotions in his voice.
“From this season and last,” Isaac said.
Potier breathed, understanding coming with narrowed brow.
Sokanon was impatient for Father’s attention, but worried that he could see the guilt in her conscience. She joyed when he gave his interest again to Jacob.
“I trust your son has been baptized into the Church?”
She hoped he would not ask. Prayed that he wouldn’t. She would not lie. “Yes,” she said before Isaac might for her. “At the fort Michilimackinac.”
“By father Du Jaunay?”
Sokanon nodded, happy that he looked pleased. “Can you also baptize?” she said.
“A second baptism is forbidden under church rules, I’m afraid.”
Isaac distressed at Sokanon’s dejection. He spoke harsh, in English, so there was no mistake of his words. “Du Jaunay frightened her with the death of her child—the way the priests do.”
He and Potier stared at one another.
“It is one of the duties of the priests, Isaac, to ensure a child does not die unconsecrated.”
Isaac pressed. “Duty yes, Pierre. But it is one of my duties—ours to each other—to ensure the happiness to our union. From goodness of devotion to your bond, my wife has wanted you to perform the rite. It is one of the reasons she so readily accepted leaving our life in the north.”
It confused her, supporting Isaac over the church teachings of Father. She wanted him stop. To go on.
“I wanted to draw our son away, but Sokanon—Marie—felt duty-bound, to your religion, to not go against Du Jaunay’s urging.”
“I do not wish to go against your words, Father.”
He thought for only a moment. “You will be present at the next Mass?”
“Yes, father.”
Isaac knew he had to give in, furs or not.
“After the Eucharist, then,” Potier said, “I will bless your child at the font with baptismal water.”
Sokanon felt the light around her. She beamed while Father held out open hands.
“Let the child from that conveyance, into the Godly air.”
Sokanon laid the cradleboard into the canoe and unbundled Jacob to place into Father’s hands.
“He is a fine son for mother and father. Strong, and attentive to the world.” He squinted, focusing. “He has the clouded black eyes of a newborn. Yet he is some months old. I have seen this before.” Potier looked to Sokanon. “Was there trouble at his coming forth?”
Sokanon shied from the question. “He was born…not alive.”
Father’s eyes narrowed.
“I can attest to it,” Isaac said. “The Ojibwa birthing women were singing their death chants. They were Christian’s, Potier,” he dismissed the priest’s frown.
The man’s eyes flashed. “Then I’m sure our Lord Jesus heard the chants as prayer.”
Potier was always quick with his wit. Isaac shook his head, bested for the moment. “Yes, Father.”
“I say again, the boy seems hale.” Potier turned his eyes away from Jacob to study his parents. “You all look in fine form. You’ve done well, Isaac, it would appear,” he motioned to the canoes, “in the far north, to provide a good home for your family.”
“We built a cabin west of Sault Ste. Marie. Sokanon made it our home.” She gazed to him and he said the words in her eyes. “As I said, she did not want to leave.”
“And now you are here.” Another warm smile for Sokanon and her child. He handed Jacob back to her, turned to Isaac. “Are you stay for a time? Or are you quick to keep ahead of your pursuers?”
It was a keen judgment. But maybe it was obvious. Isaac felt Sokanon’s worry. “I don’t believe we are being pursued,” he told Potier.
“No? Then you will stay for a time?”
The Marchand’s came quick to her mind. But she was happy to say. “Yes, Father.”
“Good.” He addressed Isaac again. “But, I’m guessing your son’s birth kept you from coming down earlier in the season. And that you’ve probably been chasing the fur agents ever since.”
His shrewd perception continued.
“I have been here a long time, Isaac. Do not mistake my scholarly ways for inattention. It has been difficult for you to sell or trade them?”
“Damned impossible.”
“Please, husband.”
Potier hid a smile. “Profanity is often the first language of frustration.” He motioned to the throng. “There is a fur agent with this rabble. Someone named Christie. I know nothing else of the man.”
“Yes, I was told of him at Detroit.”
“He won’t be too hard to find. The Hurons have been treating to him almost as much as they have to the British commander.”
Isaac thought of what Wilkins had said of the colonel’s private dealings with the tribes. He put his hand to his hips. Searched through the many tents. “We had some trouble at Detroit, Potier. The governor major had our furs confiscated.”
The priest’s gaze sharpened. “I should not ask how you reacquired them? —Your countrymen are moving very quickly to take advantage of the fur trade.”
“I would like to get our furs hidden from the eyes of my countrymen. They are ours, rightfully gained.”
“I had no doubt on that.” Potier tilted his head. “But profit can make a man want more. And then want even more, chasing gain to ruin.”
“Would you have me be a poor brother of Jesus?”
Potier smirked. “Poor brothers who can offer haven from mean eyes. And a warm room indoors.”
Isaac kept silent.
Sokanon was restless of their talk. She shifted her weight on her feet, filling the space between the two men with her feelings, if not her body. “We are wet, and tired, Isaac.”
“I will try and find out this man, Christie.”
“No, Isaac,” Sokanon said.
“You can surely wait until the morning to find him,” Potier matched her entreaty.
“You are tired, too, husband. You will not be at your best when you are to parley.”
He thought she may be right. But he couldn’t trust the volatile situation, that may ignite any moment. He feared its burn again as they lay asleep.
Potier saw him out, too, as he had Sokanon. “I will have Brother Francois and Brother Jacques bring your wares up to the mission,” he offered.
“No, Pierre. Leave them here at the canoes, for now. We don’t need anyone seeing the furs if they don’t have to. You go with Jacob,” he said to Sokanon.
She was already protesting.
“I’ll be along later, and carry everything up, myself and bail the canoes.” He stared down both of their pleading. “If it’s as easy to find this Christie fellow as you say, I want to see him now, before the sun sets. Maybe I can get him and his men to take our furs tonight.”
He loosed a knot to toss over a corner of the canvas. The butts of the muskets showed.
“There will be no trouble here, Isaac,” Potier said. “No weapons brandished near the chapel.”
Isaac wanted to tell him how very good it was they had the weapons to brandish when attacked by those of his faith. “No trouble, Pierre. I am only getting Marie’s bags for her and Jacob.” He held Sokanon’s gaze for a moment before sliding the bags onto her shoulders. He saw the strain of her confession coming with the same thought for the weapons.
The priest nodded. “Very good. There are dry clothes in the bags?”
“Yes, Father,” Sokanon said.
“Then, come Marie. A warm fire, hot brandy and bread will chase the cold.”
Church brandy, Isaac thought of the quickly-inebriating drink of Wilkins. “I will return to you and Jacob soon.”
“You will come for me. I will help carry our things.”
He nodded. “Potier.” He started off.
She followed his progress, watching him stride with confidence through the crowd. But she saw them, then. Shivered at the memory of their faces painted red and black. Nose and ears pierced with silver rings, caps of red feathers atop shaved heads. Quilled knife cases slung from halters around their necks, the sheaths held tight against their chests. Weapons—hatchets, war clubs, muskets—clutched in their hands. Iroquois warriors, allies to the British, enemies to the French. Killers of her mother, father, brother.
“He is a good man for you, Marie,” Father Pierre interrupted. She welcomed the certainty in his voice, while the aching tiredness returned suddenly upon her.
“I think you are good for each other,” he continued, “orphaned as the both of you were.”
Orphaned. The word cut deep with the sight of the Iroquois. Murder darkened in her mind.
“I’m sorry,” Father said soft. “I only spoke to the Lord’s good wisdom to place you in each other’s lives.”
She looked away from him, her eyes to the ground. Tears came with his hand to her shoulder.
“There is something else troubling you, deeply, I fear.”
There was a long time in the moment of silence. Maybe he would know it from her, the way he could see her mind when she was young. So she wouldn’t have to say.
“You are tired from your long travels,” Father offered. “Let us get you and your child settled indoors.” He led her toward the buildings.
The small Huron chapel was unchanged, from even when she was here as a girl with her family, she thought. She was glad it was not burned down as was the fort there.
“You will have our room,” Father said, pointing to the small new-built outbuilding. “Do not worry, there is nothing of personal value to move. Only blankets to cover for the night. We are men of professed poverty you know.”
“What of your books and papers?”
He couldn’t hide his broad smile this time. “I will have them put aside. Brother Francois and Brother Jacques will sleep with me in the chapel tonight.”
“Isaac will not like that.”
“It will already be so before he returns. There will also be room in the storehouse for your wares. If you do choose to stay the winter, the storehouse can be made over for you. Your handy husband can make it more insulated from the weather, build a fireplace into the wall.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“After you are redressed, and have seen to your child, there is food and a warm fire in the kitchen. —What is it, child?”
She looked down from the cross atop the chapel. Started to say. “Thank you, Father,” she repeated.
——————
“Mr. Christie?”
The man drew deep on his pipe, exhaled, clouding his face with the mouthful of smoke before answering. “And you are?”
“Isaac Dobbins.” He met the stares from the watchful men standing near. The two big ones moved closer, as if to challenge. “You are the fur agent, Christie?”
“I am he.” He studied Isaac. “You look rugged and well worn. Are you seeking employment, young man?”
The question caught Isaac off guard. “No.” He darted his eyes around. Tried to speak with purpose as he lowered his voice. “I have furs to sell.”
“Have you now?”
“Four ninety-pound trapper’s bundles.”
The man’s closer scrutiny showed while the men shuffled in their places.
“Pressed tight, and wrapped in oilcloth,” Isaac finished.
“You have a team, then?” Christie asked.
“My wife and myself.”
The agent stood. Held his pipe in his hand. “Only the two of you? Four(yes) bundles?”
Isaac heard the suspicion in the man’s voice. “They are from last season and this,” he explained. “The war with Pontiac kept us from trading at the Mackinaw last year, and we had a child born sickly this past spring.”
“You were at Mackinaw?”
“Farther north. West of the St. Mary’s on Gichigami.”
“With no team?” one of the big men said.
Christie held out his hand to silence him. “No affiliation with another company?”
Isaac shook his head.
“The Chip’s up there would have killed and scalped you,” the other spoke again. Piercing ice blue eyes inside thick black hair and beard made his contention more menacing.
“Hold now, Henry,” Christie admonished.
The man sneered. Isaac thought as much for his boss, as for himself.
Christie ignored it, addressed Isaac again. “Is your wife a Chip?”
Isaac shook his head again.
“Native, though, I’m sure?”
“Of course.”
Christie sighed, motioned with his pipe to Henry. “I have to agree with my somewhat rude employee, Mr. Dobbins. I’m surprised the natives allowed you to trap so much. Or keep your scalp.”
“My wife and I were friends with the Cadot’s, at the St. Mary’s. And, we were under the protection of the Ojibwa leader near our cabin, Sakima, and his wife, Kiwidinok.”
“I have not met Monsieur Cadot myself. But I know of him, and his sway over the Tribes near his little post at the St. Mary’s rapids. What of this Chippewa leader Sakima?”
“His village of Ojibwas is small and isolated on a peninsula in Lake Superior.”
“And they accepted you and your wife into their band?”
“They, tolerated us, Mr. Christie.” Isaac stood straighter. “When we first arrived, I thought to work for Monsieur Cadot, but one day I was scouting and heard a cry from out in the bay. There was early ice and a boy’s dog had wandered out and gone through. The boy followed and—well, by the time I got to him, he was under ice for a long time. I had to pump the water from inside him. Turned out he was Sakima’s son.”
“Very propitious.”
Isaac paused at the meaning of the word. He went on. “Never saw the dog again. But afterward, the boy was ever at our cabin. His mother is a Christian, as is my wife, and the two grew, to the bond of women, I suppose.”
The sizing up of each other went on. “What is your accent—New Englander?”
“Nova Scotia.”
Christie drew again on his pipe. “And you have these furs here, with you?”
It was Isaac’s turn at suspicion.
“I am a reputable man, young sir.” Christie must have sensed it. “But, no affiliation means you are unlicensed, and will have a devil of a time even avoiding confiscation, let alone selling. It seems that you are forced to trust me. Or go on your way.”
Isaac nodded, and over his shoulder. “They are in my canoes.”
“Well, let us to your furs. Henry, Conall(red-haired),” he called, “follow along.”
Isaac was uneasy with both the big men. Not taller but each outweighing by a large amount. He thought maybe Christie was using them to intimidate. Not a word from Conall, hair redder than his own, and with the name, probably a Scot, too. But his beard and mustache showed a constant derisive little smile underneath, and Isaac was even more wary leading through the mass of people.
“I’ve seen canoes like that before,” Christie said as they arrived at the shore. “When I first came here from London.” He ran his hand along one high-peaked side of the freighter. “Canoes such as these were everywhere in the estuary before the Saint Lawrence River. Bobbing up and down as if the tidal surges were nothing but ripples. It appears relatively new-built—you didn’t paddle this all the way from Nova Scotia?”
Isaac forced a small laugh through his weariness. “I made it just this year. Up at Superior.”
“Well done, Mr. Dobbins. I say again, very fine craft.”
“It can be had, too. If the furs are sold, we will have no more need for a freighter.”
“We have our own Montreal’ers,” Henry sneered.
Christie continued to study the canoe.
Isaac was anxious to move along with the more important concern. “What of the furs?”
Christie straightened. “Fair enough. To business then.” He stood back, pipe between his teeth again.
Isaac pulled at the first knot to remove the canvas, while the two big men moved rudely, mistrust for them rising for their rough hands at the tie-downs and then the canvas. He held them away from the bundles. “They are not your furs, yet.”
“Shall they not be?”
It was enough of a challenge for Isaac to want to send them away. But Christie was right. He had to trust him. he untied the ropes around the first bundle, folded back the canvas. “These are the oldest, from last season. They are well-stored, though.”
“I see that they are,” Christie said, moving closer. He approval was obvious as he shuffled through the furs. “Have you trapped before your time at the St. Mary’s?”
Isaac shook his head. “I only thought we would trap as a living occupation, anyway, trading at the Cadot post for our needs.”
Again, Christie swept his hand over the laden boats. “You have gone beyond simple trading my young sir.”
“We have been fortunate.”
“You and your woman?”
Even Henry and Conall showed grudging respect going through the other bundles after Isaac revealed them from under the oil-cloths.
“But you are unlicensed.” Christie said, standing.
The words stung at Isaac’s confidence. “I have no license.”
“Why didn’t you just stay up there?”
“We have a baby now.”
“Well then,” Christie declared with a casual shrug, “I suppose that’s reason enough, isn’t it?”
“A bastard baby?” Conall mocked. “With your, country wife?” He shared his derision with Henry.
Isaac wearied of them. He would not explain. He saw it didn’t matter to Christie, who was absorbed, anyway, again admiring the freighter.
——————
The two men stood abruptly, surprised at the sight of her.
“This is Bother Francois and Brother Jacques,” Father said.
She greeted them while they continued to shuffle awkwardly. The one called Jacques was a giant of a man, the bench he was sitting on tumbling over from his hulking size.
“Marie and her husband will sleep with their child here tonight,” Father went on. “We will to the chapel. The men nodded dutifully. “Bother Francois, you will bring cider and bread after she and her child are settled. And take up blankets to the chapel.”
“Yes, Father.” He scrambled to the task.
“Brother Jacques, lay more wood into the fire.”
The big man set the bench upright making the heavy wood seem as nothing. He paced to the hearth to immediately stoke at the low fire, logs easy in his huge hands.
“There you are, Marie. I will return soon, we will talk.”
There was something else in the way he looked at her. Other than searching for the sadness she showed in her eyes. He was the same last time they were together. Different than when she was a child. She felt the distance from him then, from her as a woman now.
“Yes, Father.”
She watched as he gathered the pile of papers and books from the table. “I will have Brother Francois bring another candle also.”
“Thank you, Father.”
Francois gathered the blankets and hurried out.
“Brother Jacques,” Father directed.
“I will be only another moment,” the man answered.
“But a moment,” Father said, “mother and child are both wet from travel on the lake.”
Jacques gave a quick studied glance before returning to the fire. There was a seriousness in his eyes. As if figuring out her story.
“Marie,” Father called her attention to his leaving.
“Father.” That she couldn’t bring her confession to him made him already seem far away again.
Jacques finished at the fire and swept his great size from the room. He never looked up again, and left silently, closing the door softly behind him.
The suddenness of being alone brought its own collapse to her weariness. The fire crackled loud in the silence. She sat heavy on the bed next to Jacob. He gurgled to her and the lightness of it settled her. “I know, little one.” She released him from his board, naked save for nappy, kicking his hands and feet, happy to be released from the bundling. “It is well. Now that we are to stay here, there will be no more need for you to be so carried.”
——————
“Only to Niagara, then,” Isaac said to Christie.
“That is my offer.”
“And you pay then?”
Christie nodded. “But only if—”
“Winter quarters in the north.”
Again Christie nodded. “It is not the far north, Mister Dobbins. It is a very comfortable cabin. You can take your freighter, and I will pay you paddler’s wages on top when you return in the spring with it loaded.”
Isaac tossed the canvas back over to cover the furs while Henry and Conall continued to menace. He’d refuse if there was to be any dealing with them after Niagara. He could feel himself scrapping with them already. The taste of his own blood. Theirs on his cut and battered knuckles. “I will tell my wife,” he agreed to the arrangement.
——————
“Should you be yet with your child at the fire?”
“No, Father. —I mean, that I am not cold.”
“Your feet are bare, and your hair is still wet.”
She was quiet.
He stood from his knees at work in the garden. His gaze softened. “Have you come to tell what I see when you look away from me?”
She knew she had to say. That he wouldn’t just give absolution, no matter how much sadness he could see in her eyes. The weight of the long days since the attack sagged at her shoulders. She gathered her strength. Didn’t look away this time. No tears either.
“I have, killed a man.”
She saw his questioning disbelief turn serious.
“Come, out of the wind at least,” he said, leading her into the lee of the chapel. “Now, tell me child.”
“I was afraid for Jacob.” She stopped herself, Isaac’s convictions in her mind. “That is not true, I do not think. But, I was afraid—for him—” her racing thoughts confused her words.
“Slow down, Marie.” Father’s hand was at her arm. “Now take a breath. Why were you afraid—were you set upon?”
She nodded. “The men, they attacked us. They came from the woods. I shot the man, a Huron warrior. He had death in his eyes. He— I killed him. His blood was much, and bubbled for a moment while there was yet breath in his lungs.”
She had said it. Hung her head down.
“So these men, Huron warriors—they attacked you?”
“Yes, Father.” She wanted just to stop. To hear Father’s words of admonition now that the weight of the sin was from her breast. “Isaac shot another,” she went on, “blinded him in the face.”
“Blinded? When was this?”
“Not long. I do not know. It was on the lake St. Clair, before we came to Detroit.”
His eyes opened wider in astonishment. “God’s own mercy. I know the story.”
She stared, her thoughts whirling, crazy to understand.
“I will show you,” Father said. “—Jacques,” he called to him going in and out of the storehouse, “bring Joseph here.”
The brother hesitated for only a moment before hurrying to a nearby wigwam, lighter on his feet than she thought the big man in sandals should be.
Father’s look was that when he would teach a lesson. “What I will show you is yet another proof of tour Lord and Savior’s almighty will.”
She watched the wigwam as Jacques emerged, holding away the hide over the door opening.
Father motioned with his hand. “Here is one who tells the same tale as yours.”
Another man clambered out, stood almost as large as Jacques. In fabric clothes instead of the tanned skins last she saw him. Bandages over his eyes. Cheeks red with small wounds and flash burns. The Huron warrior that Isaac had shot in the face. The one called Atironta.
“Joseph?” Sokanon reeled with confusion. “He is Christian?”
“Yes, he is a member of our congregation here.”
Jacques helped to guide and the two men started toward them.
Each step brought them nearer, and Isaac’s certainty of their actions to defend themselves. She saw this Joseph—Atironta—for what he would have been, killer of her husband. Maybe of her and Jacob. She brought her hand up to her ring, this time to thank Our Lady for guiding their hands to defend their family. For bringing about the snap of the warrior’s step that alerted them to the danger. Her chest heaved, and she wanted to strike at the man.
“Joseph has confessed to me his transgression. Although he has not told all of the incident, I see.”
Father’s words pierced suddenly through her anger. “Confessed—his transgression?”
“Yes, Marie. I see your sadness turned anger at Joseph’s appearance. But, I have believed his contrition to be genuine, from the moment he came back to the forgiveness of the church, when he could not have. He says he feels his blindness as the Lord’s punishment.”
“What of the others—of his friends?” Sokanon’s thoughts were still unsettled. She worried more for Isaac, what he might do if they were present there.
“Those that traveled with him, have gone their own way. Joseph chose to stay here. To be welcomed back into the graces of the Lord Jesus.”
The man was brought before her, then. She looked close at his wounds, face still blackened by the powder burns.
Father spoke in Huron.
Sokanon thought Jacques could understand. But it was clearly admonition from Father, as he motioned to her. That Joseph had not said the full account of the attack.
He stood firm, saying nothing.
Father waited for a moment and turned to her. “Joseph told me he was driven by his comrade’s revenge against Isaac. Of course, I didn’t know it was he who Joseph was talking about.”
“Revenge?” Sokanon spoke directly to the warrior. “For the fight at the Mackinaw?”
He didn’t answer, standing still and rigid. She thought it doubtful he did not know French.
Father continued to address them. “Joseph told me that the man he and his comrade assaulted—Isaac it turns out—had been with a party of British soldiers who attacked the other’s village during the war. Joseph’s friend was seeking revenge for his brother, and the brother’s wife, who were killed during the attack.”
“Isaac killed them?”
“I’m not sure if Joseph knows that. But he is very repentant of what he did. That his friend who was killed was taken over by rage. His heart consumed by it. And that the others in their party were so, by greed. Joseph sees that he was not killed, even though shot in the face. And in the darkening of his eyes he sees the Lord reminding him his life was spared, but his sight taken because he was blind to the others’ rage and greed.” He placed a hand on the man’s shoulder. “He says he had a vision in his blindness, of God telling him to cease from all violent behavior.”
Jacques’ eyes darted before he caught himself, looking down quickly, folding his hands in front of him.
Sokanon’s own uncertainty deepened, sorrow creeping in for the man with bandaged eyes. “He will never see again?”
Joseph raised his chin, setting his jaw tight with confidence. He knew French.
“The light grows more and more for him each time we remove the bandages.” Father crossed himself. “Lord willing he will regain his sight.”
“Lord willing,” Jacques repeated.
It was without emotion, out of respect only, Sokanon thought, for Father Pierre.
Father spoke again in Huron and Jacques guided Joseph back toward the wigwam.
“I am unable to know what to think,” Sokanon said. “The British soldiers, Isaac too—they think it a good thing to me to kill Joseph’s friend. That I killed who would kill us. It was not like when I see the blood of those in the hospital after the battle. I can not stop seeing it in my thoughts before sleep. Even in my dreams.”
Father’s hand was around her arm. “I can hear your confession, Marie. But absolution can only come from the Lord in the final judgment of all souls.”
“Amen, Father.”
His grip tightened. “But, Joseph holds no malice, Marie. And neither should you, for him, or the other man. Forgiving your enemies is the first step to a conscience that is clear to feel the Lord’s continuing presence in our sinful lives. I know—as you do—the killing was not done with malice in your heart. That, yes, you were defending yourself, your child. And that it was God’s Will the man should die and not you.”
It felt in her chest that she breathed fresh air after being held underwater. “Thank you, Father.”
“Now please, Marie, go inside out of the wind. We can talk all you want in the coming days and months.”
“Yes, Father.”
The setting sunlight shone soft on his face. Large eyes shining over large nose, slight beard along his jowls, chin to ear. Like Isaac, confidence and compassion at once. Unlike him, very small, smaller than she remembered. He tapped her forehead with a smile and went back to work at the garden. She stood in the doorway for a moment and he looked up to her once more. The last man who knew her close when she was a girl. The only one left she might call father.

23

The big man pointed, directing Isaac to the small house where another robed brother of Jesus had just left. Potier wasn’t in sight, maybe inside with her. Good. Hopefully they had talked, and he could tell her after her priest had brought her some peace. She will be sad leaving him. He couldn’t even tell her when, the army could leave any day. At least he knew they were headed for Niagara, and not back to Detroit. She would be sad about that, too.
Potier wasn’t there, but her bright face told she had talked with him. She sat near the fire with Jacob, comfortable in the clothes from the Jadot woman. Something else bothered in her eyes then. He wondered if she already saw it in his.
“Warm and dry.” he said.
“Yes.” She stood to lay Jacob onto the bed. “You are to be, also.” She tugged at his tunic, still wet and clinging tight.
“I have unloaded the canoes and dumped them free of water, But our possessions still need to be brought from the shore.”
“You can change from the wet clothes first. Then we will both to the shore.”
He let her undress his shirt, pulling it over his head, the release from its close weight wonderful. Steam came from the red hairs on his chest.
Her hair glistened black in the firelight. He liked it let down from braids, framing the beauty of her round face. “I have something to tell you.”
“And I, you.” She started to kneel to remove his moccasins.
“May I say first?” he said.
“That is so bad, I would not want to help disrobe you?”
“Ha,” he challenged. “I forget we are of the same will.”
“That for each other, my husband.”
“That for my wife.” He let her untie his boots. “I need to sit,” he said as she struggled to remove them. She tried to trip him up as he skipped to the bench, dropping heavy onto his bottom just in time to catch from tumbling to the floor. 
“We have come this far, for you to break my back in a fall?”
The amusement gave way as she loosened at the long lacing, seriousness coming to her again.
“You have talked with your priest?”
“Yes.” She slid the moccasin off, his bare foot white as bone. “Father Pierre has made me to be more at ease.”
“There is something else.” Her sharp eyes flashed the color of the sweet maple syrup of the Ojibwa.
She worked at the other boot, a moment of satisfaction for the way her stitching was yet tight. She moved to set the moccasins near the fire. “The Huron warrior that you shot in the face, and grappled with—he is here.”
Isaac stood abruptly. “You saw them? Aubert’s men, where?”
“No, Isaac, only he is here. Father say all of the others have gone. That Joseph wished to remain here, to be accepted back into the graces of the church.”
“Joseph?”
“It is his Christian name. He is a member of Father’s congregation.”
Isaac’s thoughts were wild. “You have talked with him?
She nodded. “He stays in a closeby wigwam.”
The fire was in his eyes then. Rage had him think to grab up his weapons and stalk the area for the man.
She stood before him. “He is yet blinded, husband.” She slipped her fingers into the waist of his trousers, for him to take them off. “Please, Isaac. It is well.”
She took her hand away and he pushed and pulled at his pants.
“You say the man is blind?”
“Father and the brothers are trying to heal his sight. They say he might see again.”
Even then she gazed long at his naked body before the fire, shadows dancing here, there. Red hair and beard made more amber in the glow. She hoped he would stand so for longer while he dried.
“Aubert, and the others are gone? You know this, for certain?”
She hung his wet clothes and went to bring him those of Madame Jadot’s husband. “Yes, Isaac. Father Pierre say so. When I tell Father of the attack, he already knew. He had the man brought before me. He say he is sorry. That God took away his sight to punish him for the war on us.”
“God from the end of my musket. Hellfire to be sure.”
“Non, Isaac,” she scolded. “He said confession. Father Pierre say the man is forgiven.”
Isaac was unmoved. “I cannot forgive him—Joseph, Atironta, whatever he is called.”
“You say I am forgiven for killing the other.”
“That’s different. You were defending against his attack.”
“Is it different, in the eyes of God, who does kill who?”
He wearied of it. “I have said before—it has to be. Defending oneself. Soldiers under orders. Punishment from a real god cannot be the same as those who rape and murder.”
The words were harsh to her mind. She laid the clothes on the table. Nodded, cast her eyes down and turned away to sit on the bed with Jacob. “Joseph say more.”
“If it is that he forgives me, I don’t want to hear it.”
She thought for a moment not to say. That if he’d wanted her to know of that which happened in the war, he would have said, in the long nights together at their cabin. Neither had she told him of that she saw in the hospital.
“The other one, Sondok, the one I—that was killed. Father Pierre said that Joseph told him you killed his brother. That is why they try to kill you.”
“What brother? When? Where?”
“Sondok’s brother—and the bother’s wife were killed. During an attack on his village in the war.”
Isaac had no hesitation of thought. “I was never involved in such an assault, ever. Never on a village. Our job was to transport the soldiers and supplies of the army. We landed men for attacks and battles, and I saw plenty of fighting against tribal warriors. But not against defenseless villages of women and children. The man is wrong,” he went on, anger rising. “If he is not lying, he has confused me for another.”
It made her happy she would not have to think of his guilt or innocence. “When I saw him, Joseph, Atironta—I was scared. Then I was angry. Then I was afraid for what you might do.”
He was calm at her questioning gaze. “I will do nothing. As long as he stays away from us. And as long as his boss, and the others, are not here.” He started to put on the dry clothes. Stared into the fire. “Old Brad led us to try and relieve Fort Oswego with supplies—”
“Do not, Isaac.”
He shook his head gently. “When we had to retreat, we were set upon by the French and many tribal warriors. The screams of our mates killed by all means of savagery, are yet with me. But I never looked for revenge—”
His eyes focused.
“I knew as a boy what my countrymen did in their revenge to the Mi’kmaq’s in Nova Scotia.”
“Yes, husband.”
“I have never spoken of it because of what vision you might have of when your family were killed.”
Never a vision. Always the screams. “We have seen much of war.”
“And there will be more, to be sure.”
The too-small pants showed high over his ankles and brought her amusement at his sigh.
“It is good to hear you laugh,” he said. “And maybe after all this somber talk, it is better news I bring than I thought.”
She waited.
“I talked with Christie. He has agreed to purchase our furs. But only if we agree to enter into his employ.”
She understood. “We shall not stay here.”
“Again, you see all my thoughts.”
“We are to, Montreal?”
“No, not that far,” he assured. “Christie will give us payment when we reach Niagara.”
There was more, she knew as he nodded to it.
“Then, we are to join the wintering partner at their wilderness post.”
She was quiet. Waited.
“The post is less than a hundred miles north of Niagara, on a narrows called Taronto between two lakes.”
She looked from him to Jacob. “We live in a tent in the wilderness?”
He grinned. “I’m glad to hear you jest. Christie has said it is a stout cabin, spacious. There are two bedrooms and we’ll have to share it, but it will be with the partner and his wife, only.”
“A country wife?”
“I don’t know.” Isaac gave an embarrassed look. “But we have to assume so.”
“They have no children then?”
“I don’t know that either. We can find all that out on the way to Niagara.”
“It is no matter.”
“Then you agree?”
“Must I agree?”
He looked away. Paced in the roiling currents of the long day.
“This man, Christie, he will for certain, not make exchange for our furs unless we agree?”
Isaac halted his steps. “He says he cannot. That he will be breaking the law.” He kneaded the rough wood of the floor with his bare feet. “But, I believe he uses the condition to get us to agree. He said he has full confidence in our abilities. And if we like it, and we prove ourselves invaluable, maybe they might consider us for a minor partnership.”
“They would do that, after having only just met us?”
“You know how well we’ve done, how well-prepared our furs are. And my knowledge of canoe-making continues to impress.”
“Many others have abilities such as ours. I understand what partner means. I know they are wealthy businessmen.”
She would never let him forget how smart she was. “Wintering partners do not have to be wealthy. Only willing to do the job that those who are wealthy, wish not to do. This rebellion stirred up by Pontiac and Guyasuta has created an opportunity. Many of the companies’ employees are afraid to venture now for long periods into the wilderness.”
“Are we not, now afraid—to return to our cabin?”
She saw his apology.
“This is different, Sokanon. The winter will not be so harsh there. The cabin will be more solid. There will be others, to help. And Christie said the people up there are part of the greater Anishinaabe, the Mississauga’s. That they have a treaty with the British separate from the other tribes, and are very keen to keep their exchange for European trade goods. “It will be safe for us—for Jacob.”
He moved close to her. “One winter,” he pressed, “that’s all I ask. We can do one winter there, no matter the conditions. You know it. The time will pass fast. In the spring, we will then travel with his company to Montreal. From there, if they do not offer partner, we can go anywhere we choose. Quebec, Detroit, here at Sandusky. This will be good for us. I cannot believe our good fortune. It may well set us up for a good life together.”
She leaned into him, arms around each other as it always should be. “Wherever we are together, we have a good life.”
——————
“No sir, Pierre, I will not meet with the man.”
“Joseph only wishes to say he is sorry.”
“And then am I supposed to forgive him? He attacked my family. He can go to hell.”
Potier frowned. “Forgiveness is yours to give or not. But it is a virtuous act that will release the malice in your heart, Isaac.”
“That may be good for you men of the robes—” Isaac shook his head, “but malice keeps a man sharp to the many dangers of this land.”
“It can also make a man hard. And fill his life with bitterness.”
“Better bitterness than sadness when my wife and child are killed.”
“Well then, Isaac. But Joseph will be present at the Sunday Mass, after which I will give blessing over your son.”
“I will cause no trouble in your church, Potier. But neither will I give anyone who would do harm to my family the satisfaction of apology and forgiveness. There will be trouble if he approaches us.”
Potier nodded slightly, dipped his head to Sokanon.
“God’s morning, Marie.”
“Go with God, Father,” she said before he walked away.
“I’m sorry,” Isaac offered.
“You are not, husband.”
“I mean for raising my voice and swearing to your priest.”
She gave a little shrug, bounced Jacob on her hip. “I wish for you and Father not to argue. But I know your heart. I will always be with you.”
Isaac put his finger in Jacob’s hand. “I wonder how well priests would proselytize if they had families of their own to protect.”
“You have said, Isaac.”
“Well, then you know I mean it.”
“Even as you go with me to church.”
“Somewhere in all that gabbly-talk are things I remember when a child in Sunday mass. Sitting all together with my family. And after they were gone, the vicars, and many of the old salts on the fishing boats—their prayers to Saint Andrew, patron of fishermen, for a good catch and safe return. There were times I called to Andrew myself in a storm.”
“No longer.”
He shrugged. Shook his head. But he couldn’t deny what he witnessed at Jacob’s birth. “It is enough now, for me to know that it brings you comfort.”
Her hand was to her ring. “Our Lady brings me comfort, when nothing else can.”
“Yet you hold such high esteem for the Jesuit priests. As many other women do. Men who profess to Saint Mary, yet I have not known many to be consenting of any woman.”
“Mary is Mother to Jesus, who they serve.”
“I understand, and that is—” He stopped himself, not wanting again to be drawn further into the argument.
“What?” she said.
“Nothing. You go on trusting in the Mother of Jesus. I would rather that than the priests anyway, you know.”
“I can only say that I no longer feel heavy in my heart, after talking with Father Pierre.” She looked at him and smiled. “I even feel, not so sad for my mother and father, for my brother.”
Isaac squeezed Jacob’s hand. “I’m glad that one of us has strong faith for our son.” He held his face up to the sky, squinting in the sunlight just come through the clouds. “I wonder what your priest would say of Jacob’s birth. I forgot to thank him for giving over their house to us.”
A sharp pang wrenched in her stomach before she could answer. She leaned heavy into Isaac and he put his arm around her.
“Are you unsteady?”
“I feel, a little pain.”
He thought to take Jacob for her.
She held his hands away. Pressed low on her belly. “It has passed.”
“It’s the strain of the hard days in the canoe. We both are weary. The sooner to Niagara, the better.”
She agreed.
“Maybe a walk would help?” he said. “I want to check the canoes again, now that the wood is dry.”
“No, you go. I will take out and repack the food. Open the tent to the sun. And fill the water containers.”
He made a face. “Not from the well? I’d rather that from out on the lake.”
“How can we? It is too far past this surrounded bay, and the canoes are dry now. Father has fresh cider to mix with it, to make it good.”
“There churchmen certainly know how to make hard spirits. Only do not work too hard. I will see Christie again, to make sure he still honors our agreement. and try to find out if he may know when the army is to leave.”
“There are those who help us to Detroit. John Hartley, and the others.”
“I’ve thought of that. I will look for them, too.” He searched her eyes. “I cannot tell you not to talk with that man, even if I will not. But I wish you would not, either.”
She was silent.
“Rest, if you need,” he said and started off.
She watched him for a moment. Past Jacques the big man, splitting firewood with single strokes.
——————
She walked past where they had lain blankets over a bed of hay for them to sleep on.
“It is at least as comfortable as the rough manger Our Lord was born in.”
“Yes, Father.”
She sat with Jacob onto the last pew. Father stopped his sweeping, the straw on the old broom worn down far, to make him struggle at the task. She remembered the same short straw on the broom the sister’s used to make the girls sweep with as penitent punishment.
“So, you will soon depart again.”
“Yes, Father.”
“We have come far together, in our friendship.”
“Friends?” Is that all it was. She supposed maybe it was so. Maybe it was enough, after all.
“You are not the little girl anymore, Marie. Although you were forced to grow up faster than most, not only orphaned, but very much the last of your family. You were everyone’s favorite. Father Armand, Mother Superior Marie-Anne, Sister Marie Catherine. Even as you exasperated them.”
She saw in his easy smirk the times of his returning to Quebec, laughing after being told of her pranks played on the priests and sisters. His delight watching the other girls following her as ducklings. Commending her in private for her taking the blame for their transgressions, or sharing in their punishments when she did not have to.
“Your favorite, as well?” she teased.
“I will not give you the satisfaction of that,” he laughed. “We all tried not to let God’s severe testing of the little girl Rain make us feel sorry for you.”
She looked close. “Sister, never.”
“Ah, but she did feel sorry for you. It was a test as well, for her, not to let you see it. We have to try and not live in the tragedy’s past.” His voice was teaching again. “It is God’s will we strive to live for His glory each day.” He laid his hand on the crown of Jacob’s head. “Your mother and father will live on through your children.”
The word caught at her thoughts, for when she was driven to the ground by the pain of the bloody form issuing forth of the child she was only just becoming aware of inside her. Children. No, she wouldn’t tell Father even. Not even him. A secret to herself, even from Isaac. “God’s will then.”
There was a long time she couldn’t believe it. She wondered if she believed now. She stood from the bench, away to the doorway of the chapel, the sounds of the many people bringing her to watch the bustling crowd. Hoping for Isaac. But there were only the soldiers with their weapons, the other camp followers, men, women and children, going about their lives.
“When I was brought back to Quebec,” she said, “after the attack by the painted men, I wished desperate for my mother and father, to hear my baby brother laugh, or even cry in the night. But after many days I knew I was alone. Father Armand was gone to Detroit, to be with you at the new mission, after the island of white trees was burned. The sisters, the brothers, the priests, would not bring me to Detroit.” She looked up to the ceiling, creaking in the wind. “Not even here to Sandusky, where I could see you and Father Armand in the winter. I was angry.”
“It was probably thought best not to bring you to the remoteness of the missions here. That you would feel safer—be, safer—in Quebec with the many thousands of residents there.”
She brought her eyes back to him. Tried to tell him without saying. “I was angry—” she let the words out, “at Father Armand.”
“For not sending for you?”
She pressed her lips tight together and fought back tears. She had to say. “For having my father take the Black Robe’s up the big river.” 
“Father Armand sent your father because it was to his Montagnais people the priest and brothers were to minister to. To try and nurture the mission for them.”
“Why did Father Armand not instead have us go with him back to Detroit?”
“You blame Father Armand for the deaths of your family.”
“No. He—and you—were all I had left in the world. The only one’s I know. I was only mad at him.” She looked away, watched the people again. “I blamed God. Yours and Father Armand’s, and the Great Mysterious my mother taught me of my first people.”
“Marie,” he came to her, “there is only one God. And we cannot know His ways. That is why we pray to Jesus, His only Son, our Lord and Savior, to intercede for our souls—if not our lives.”
“When Father Armand returned to Quebec, I was angry with him no more.” She pressed against her chest, squeezing for his gift of the ring that always braced her. “He was old, and I was very sad when he died. Again I felt alone, and all I wanted was to cry in the arms of Sister and Mother Superior.”
“But they taught instead.”
She nodded. “Of the strength of Our Lady.”
“A mother who watched her son—God’s only Son—be crucified. Into the Light of the world, to save us from all darkness.”
“Oh, I was mad at them, then.”
Father couldn’t stop himself, and she laughed with him.
“I yelled at them,” she went on, “more than ever to come to your Huron missions at Detroit after that.”
“That definitely would not have been a good idea at the time, with renewed war between Britain and France.”
“And I would not have met Isaac, not have Jacob.” She kissed her son’s forehead.
“All God’s will, Marie.”
“Yes, Father.”
——————
Isaac saw them first. “Greene, Hartley,” he greeted to their surprise.
“Dobbins.”
“When did you arrive?”
“Late yesterday.”
“I honestly figured I’d never see you again.” Hartley darted his eyes past. Isaac knew he was looking for Sokanon, embarrassment if not apology, for his unpleasant remarks for her. “How did it come out with your furs?”
Isaac glanced around, scratched at his neck, unsure if he should say.
“Sorry, Isaac,” Hartley offered.
“No—we have them.” Isaac watched their stares of condolence turn to disbelief.
“How?” Greene’s voice rose.
Isaac shook his head. “We have our furs. That’s all.”
They straightened. “No one will hear anything from us, Dobbins.”
“Thank you again, for your attempt to help us.”
“We are only glad that you have your property back.”
Isaac shrugged. He looked close. Motioned toward the mission. “We have found out from my wife’s priest that Aubert and his men were here.”
Their concern was genuine.
“When?” Hartley asked.
“I’m not certain, only that they were here.”
“But they are gone?” Greene said. “We have not seen them,” he answered Isaac’s nod.
“You can be sure we would have run them off if we had.”
“Yes,” Greene seconded Hartley’s assertion.
“The one that I blinded—he is yet here, in the care of the mendicants.”
“You have seen him?”
“No. I won’t meet with the man. I’m not certain what I’d do if I did.”
“Here, here.”
“He can still not see?”
Isaac shook his head. “That’s what the priest has said. But they are nursing to him, that his eyes may heal.”
Hartley huffed. “It would be his damnable punishment if they didn’t.”
Isaac was quiet for a moment, Potier’s words of malice and forgiveness a sudden bother at his steady thoughts. “Where are the others?”
“Elliot and Gale are off being soldiered about,” Greene said. “And Potter and Wayne—” he scanned through the throng, “they’re here somewhere.”
Silence came again, reminding Isaac the strangers they were to him. “Any news on when Bradstreet might order away to Niagara?”
They looked with question.
“You have heard we are to Niagara?”
“By who?”
Isaac’s reticence continued. “Maybe I should not say.”
Greene shrugged. “We have been told nothing.”
“They don’t tell us boatmen anything,” Hartley seconded. “You know that, Isaac.”
“I thought maybe you have heard rumors.”
“They don’t let us in on the rumors, either,” Greene joked.
“Yes, I suppose not,” Isaac laughed. “And I do not want to be the one to start one.”
“Just to get home before winter, is all I pray for.”
“Here, here,” Hartley shared Greene’s hope.
“Where is home for you two?” Isaac was keen for their answer, maybe missing talking with other Englishmen more than he thought.
“New York.” Greene peered off as if he could see the city if he strained his eyes hard enough.
“Albany, for me,” Hartley told his town.
“Both Hudson River men,” Isaac noted, “born to the water.”
Hartley shook his head. “Not as much old sea hands like you ’Scotian’s.”
“Yes, how of you, Isaac?” Greene questioned. He lowered his voice. “Where to, now that you again have your property?”
The warning came again, of telling too much. “We have some plans.” The three of them shuffled about, and Isaac’s thoughts bothered again. He would learn nothing from them anyway. The anxiety to move, to return to Sokanon and Jacob, was strong. “Maybe we’ll never see each other after this,” he said, “so, thank you again for what you’ve done for my family.”
“Here, here, Isaac,” Greene said, “it was good traveling with you.”
“Dobbins—”
“Hartley— It’s fair enough, how we part, for how we first met.”
“Fair enough, then.”
——————
Sokanon watched brother Francois unwrap the bandage from around Joseph’s head. She couldn’t place the smell of the medication on the eye patches. Maybe flowers. And tea.
Joseph opened his eyes unable to control his blinking. He shielded against the light with his hand.
“Slowly,” Francois encouraged.
Joseph squinted, then tried one eye at a time until he was able to stare straight ahead. He looked from the brother to Sokanon. “I still cannot see your faces, but your shapes are more clear.”
“Excellent,” Francois said. “Let us leave the bandages off for a while. But do not overuse your eyes, just glimpse and don’t try too hard to bring things into focus. And keep your eyes closed if they become too tired.”
Joseph stood. “I would like to go outside, now, without the bandages.”
“That will be fine. It is a cloudy day. Not too bright.”
“I will take him,” Sokanon said, reaching her arm out for Joseph.
Brother Francois held away. “That would be good,” he said. His look of satisfaction told Sokanon he knew their story.
Jacob was on her arm while she waited for Joseph to hold her sleeve and she led to the door and out to the yard.
“Marie—” he startled her with his sudden speech.
“Yes.”
“—It is your Christian name.” He waited. “I remember another, told by your husband afterwards…”
“Sokanon,” she said. She felt the growing awareness between them.
“Father Pierre has told me your family was killed by the Iroquois.” He took a great intake of air. “I am Huron. The Iroquois nations are the great enemies of my people, too.”
She shuffled with him to a bench against the wall of the mission. She let go his arm and he felt his way to sit.
“Your friend—” she said. “The one who was shot from my musket…”
“Sondok. Father Pierre has also said you have regret for killing him.”
She was silent, uneasy for what he would say next.
“Sondok was blinded by rage and sadness for his family, killed defending their village from the British.”
“My husband was a bateau-man with the army.” She was deliberate. “He says he was not a soldier involved in any attack on a village.”
He shaded over his brow. “There were many faces during the war. Maybe your husband was one Sondok saw to remember. Our boss, Aubert. He thought for us to steal your furs. After the fight at Michilimackinac, Aubert used Sondok’s bad blood with your husband to make him even more to seek revenge.”
“And you were to follow your friend in his rage—to kill my family?”
Joseph thrust his chin out. “I— It is not right what I did.” He leaned back and closed his eyes.
The distance between them grew in the long seconds of silence.
She turned to start away. “I am to find my husband.”
“Your husband, the Englishman,” he called from behind, “he fights well. His woman, too.”
She walked toward the mass of people. Jacob was awake and making sounds, alert to the sound and movement. Their activity was alive in her senses. Reminded of the soldiers gathered at Quebec with their martial spirit. But she felt a calm from the large camp, relaxed in the safety of their numbers. Women and scampering children among the lodgers settled just outside the sentries.
She halted before the troop of Iroquois allies, camped nearest the water, their many canoes pulled up on land. She stared at them, tattooed faces and bodies painted for war, red, black, crooked lines of lightning bolts, headdresses of red feathers, knives slung from their necks hanging down over their chests, muskets and war clubs. Some stared back, some barely a notice of her and her child. She tried not to think any of the old ones were those who had killed her family the years ago. She shuddered a moment, squeezed Jacob tighter, breathed deep and continued on, wondering if Isaac was already making his way back to the chapel.
But, he was with two of those who were their escort down to Detroit from the St. Clair lake.
“There is your father,” she said to Jacob.
John Hartley saw her, motioned to Isaac who was already turning from them.
She waited away, returning nods of greeting to the two men.
“Are you still unwell?” he asked.
“No, husband.”
“Oh. You looked troubled.”
She shook her head.
He understood then. Put his hand to her arm. “They are camped as far away from the Huron community as they can be,” he said of the Iroquois.
She knew he meant to ease her mind, that the warriors were surrounded by their enemies and would be at once to their canoes if there was trouble.
“It is well, Isaac.”
The sun came through the clouds to shine on the chapel, then opened onto the lake to shine like jewels on the rippled water.

24

“Something’s going on,” Isaac said of the sudden commotion of the army. He stepped from the doorway for a better view. “They are mustering, I think.”
Sokanon followed him out. “Is there to be fighting?”
“The Tribal warriors would be foolish to attack such a strong force.” He studied their movements. “No—they are not gathering to arms.”
“They are breaking camp,” husband.
Isaac thought so, too. He didn’t want to believe it. “It appears so.”
“Where are they to go?”
“I don’t know. But Mr. Christie will not stay, no matter where the army goes. We must ready to leave.”
“What if the agent stays at Sandusky?”
“Then we do.”
She hoped it to be true.
“But I doubt he will,” Isaac said what she already thought. “Not with the army moving off.” He saw her steady resignation. “I will go to Christie, find out his plans.”
“Jacob and I will be ready to leave before you return.”
Isaac was quiet. Nodded.
“Father Pierre will follow us to the canoes.”
“I have no doubt,” Isaac said. He started off.
“Isaac!” Potier called. He was with Brother Jacques in the distance away. “Marie—”
They waited for him.
It was always a wonder for Isaac, these clerics shuffling in their robes held away from tripping on sandaled feet.
“What is the news?” Isaac said. “Are they leaving?”
Sokanon was impatient for Father’s answer.
“At once, from what brother Jacques says. The men are none too happy. They say there are even those out fishing yet for the Colonel’s meals.”
“Fishing? Why are they in such a rush?”
Potier shook his head to Isaac. “I do not know.”
“Where to then?”
“Jacques has heard the soldiers say your Colonel Bradstreet has ordered the army to Niagara.”
Isaac nodded softly to Sokanon. “It is what we had been told by the agent.”
“And there is no news of an attack?” she asked.
“No, Marie.”
Isaac looked, incredulous. “I don’t understand.” It was an immediate withdrawal. To the bateaux, directly. It didn’t make any sense. “I have to find Christie.”
“We will be ready,” Sokanon said.
Isaac looked from her to Potier and back. “Pierre—if we have to leave immediately, can you say your blessing over our son?”
She had fallen in love with him the moment she saw him, same as he. Her feelings had only grown stronger in their life since then.
“Yes,” Father said to her anticipation. “We will do it at your canoes, with water from the lake itself. It is well, my child,” he said to her, “—aren’t all God’s creations blessed, including the waters of these mighty lakes?”
It made her happy. “Yes, Father,” she smiled.
“Thank you, Pierre,” Isaac said. It was strange, the sudden easy relationship with this French-speaking Jesuit.
“I will have Brother Jacques and Brother Francois carry your belongings to the shoreline.”
Isaac widened his eyes. “The big one could carry them all at once by himself,” he said of the brothers. “I will return quickly.” He was off.
“Go, Marie,” Father urged, “prepare yourself and your child for the journey. I will ready myself.”
They went away, Isaac and Father, each to her future. “And yours, little one,” she said to Jacob. Her feeling of loneliness came. But it wasn’t as sharp. Too many thoughts to the day at hand helping to push her worry away.
She cradled Jacob and waited for a time amid the soldiers marching about, the clanking of arms, the shouts of orders and their returns. She mused at the small cannon wheeled to the shore, stared in wonder as the gun was heaved from its carriage by many men, who splashed steps in the shallow water to load it into a bateau.
The wind was light and blew from off the land behind her shoulder. She thought the lake would not be so rough, the breeze at their backs, helping, as they traveled east. She wondered if the agent would assign men to help paddle. Maybe they would tow both canoes behind their boats, and she and Jacob would ride as they did from Mackinaw in the army bateau.
——————
“We have to hurry,” Isaac said. “I’m sorry, Sokanon. As you see, many of the bateaux have launched. Christie and his team were already to their boats and would not wait. Bradstreet himself hurries on, and the squadron will be stretched out far apart in the haste.”
“It will not take long,” Father said.
Sokanon eased at his calm voice.
“Come,” he went on, and led into the shallow of the water.
It was cold through her moccasins, she held her smock up, readying to kneel.
“It is not necessary,” Father said. “It is but a blessing, remember.”
“Yes, Father.”
“It is with all felicitations from Our Lord, Jesus,” he told her.
She smiled.
Isaac wished she would have stayed on dry land. It was well for the priest to suffer discomfort for his faith, but her feet and legs would be wet and cold before they even started out. The sounds of the army rushing from their camp bothered at him. But the brightness on Sokanon’s face was well. A calm he hadn’t seen from her since they left their cabin. He nodded to her simple beauty, same as the first time he saw her, and let his thoughts drift easy away, how quickly the canoes could be loaded and be off themselves. Jacob’s sudden crying brought his attention back, Potier pouring the water over the boy’s forehead.
“Let this water call unto our baptism with Christ Jesus, who has redeemed us by His death and resurrection…”
Sokanon had to let go her smock and hold Jacob tighter against his kicking and squirming. It was strange his fussing from the water, which she was ready to laugh with Father at her child’s playful giggles.
“...in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti…”
It was wonderful hearing Father’s holy words for her child, the softness of his speech warming, strength of his conviction bracing.
“Amen,” Sokanon joined in.
“It is cold for him,” Father said.
Sokanon wondered at it, stepping from the water amid Jacob’s loud cries.
“He is telling the world of the Lord’s Grace come into him,” Father announced.
She nodded to his smile while the two brothers repeated “amen.”
Isaac hurried then to the task of loading.
Sokanon stood away and struggled to wrap Jacob still twisting restive into his blanket.
Another pat on his head from Father. “He is a fine son, Marie.”
“Thank you, Father.”
“The army has not been called to arms?” he said to Isaac.
“No.” Isaac stopped for a moment. “It doesn’t make sense. Everyone appears to have been caught by surprise by this withdrawal.”
“It is on to Niagara, then.”
“That’s what I’ve been told.” Isaac went back to work. He grabbed at a fur bundle, struggling off balance with its weight. Brother Jacques was there to help, the heavy load appearing easy in his huge hands. The man’s instincts ran apace with Isaac’s ordering of the loads. “You have experience, hauling in canoes.”
He shrugged.
Isaac knew, as Jacques handed a corner of the canvas cover to Brother Francois, directing where to hold it so it could be tied down over the load in the trailer canoe.
“We part again, Marie.”
“Yes, Father.” She finished with Jacob, who continued to whimper after being bundled into his cradleboard.
“He is not hungry?”
“No, Father. He has just been at his mother. He is dry and clean, too.” He shook his face away from the soft touch of her fingers. “He will become calm once he feels the motion of the canoe.”
“A born traveler.”
She nodded. “It has not been enough time, with you.”
“You may return. We shall meet again, I think.”
“Maybe in Quebec?”
His brow rose. “You are going that far?”
She peered from Isaac and the brothers working, out to the water, the bay filling with boats hurrying to the lake. “I do not know. Maybe someday to my husband’s Nova Scotia?”
“Wherever you settle, you will do well, Marie. You are a strong woman. And, I say again, you and Isaac are good for each other. I feel providence at work watching you two together.”
She breathed heavy to hold back her tears. “You will give us your blessing?”
“Of course.” His eyes brightened. “But you know you already have it.” He put his hands on hers and Jacob’s heads. “Go with the Grace of God.” He made the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.”
“Amen,” they said together.
“Amen,” again from the brothers.
“And also for you, Isaac,” Potier said. “By the Grace of Our Lord and Savior.”
“Thank you, Pierre.” He waved his hand to draw Sokanon to the canoe. “We must be away, now.”
She was grateful for his patience.
“Thank you,” Isaac said to Jacques and Francois.
Potier walked with Sokanon. He clasped Isaac’s arm. “I do not think you understand how much it is respected when someone not of our Catholic doctrine allows for our Faith to continue to grow in their families.”
“Well—” he gave an easy nod to Sokanon who watched him close for what he was to say. “You Jesuits are very, persistent.”
Potier wagged his head a little. There are few of us men of Jesus remaining in what was New France.” He lifted his hand. “It isn’t only the British. We are becoming outcasts in many countries. The suppression of our order has been ongoing in Europe for some years.”
Sokanon struggled to her thoughts at his words.
Isaac shrugged. “Maybe your society are too political.”
“Husband.”
She didn’t like that Father laughed.
“It is well, Marie. Your husband has maybe a valid point. But—” he looked to the brothers. “In the call of our founder, Ignatius Loyola—by God’s Grace, we will go forth and set the world on fire.”
“Amen. Amen.”
Isaac shook his head to them. “The entire world, you will set on fire?”
Potier gave his scholarly reserve away with a broad smile. “By God’s Will, we will endeavor to persevere.”
“I’ve no doubt, Pierre.”
Sokanon swung Jacob onto her shoulders.
Isaac held the weight of the cradleboard for her to pull the straps up. “Why not rest him into the canoe?”
“I will wait until we are onto the lake, to see its waves.”
Isaac gave in, slid the freighter farther into the water.
“How do you manage such a load, with only the two of you.”
“We have gotten much help on the way down, Pierre.”
“It is still quite a chore, I think.”
“It is a fine vessel,” Jacques said.
Isaac turned to Sokanon. “We must leave now.”
“Yes, Isaac. Goodbye, Father. God’s grace.”
“And to you, my child.”
Isaac and Jacques muscled the trailer out until it floated free. Sokanon sat into the freighter. Jacques helped to shove off and Isaac slipped into the canoe. They poled their paddles into the bottom until they were deep enough to swing them free. She felt for her ring and turned to see Father, his hand raised. She waved, and started again at her paddle.
“Jacob continues to look unsettled.”
Sokanon felt him squirm behind her. “He does not like being back into the cradleboard.”
“I’m sorry. We will soon be to Niagara, and then quickly to the winter camp.”
“He will take his first steps there.”
“I’ll make a sled, and we’ll pull him around in the snow.”
———— (dbl sp)
They pushed through the ragged line of bateaux, the forty-foot boats running from the shore north, across the bay. Some were still on the shore waiting to launch, while others bunched close to funnel through the small opening out to the lake. Many of the men were yelling, calling for right of way, cursing others racing to cut to the front. Christie’s Montreal’er wasn’t amongst them, and Isaac knew they were already on the open water, maybe even at the head of the squadron.
The Iroquois canoes were beyond the row of bateaux, going up the eastern arm of the bay. They were tight together too, but from confusion, their slow paddling, wary stares telling. Their voices carried, words unknown, but sounds of suspicion, even contempt, easy to discern. Isaac steered to come behind the tribesmen, to follow out with them. Through banks of stick reeds that slapped and scraped against the canoes.
Sokanon’s thoughts ranged, so close to the wild painted warriors that haunted her dreams for so long. Visiting with Father had deepened the peace that started with Margrete Marchand. Seeing Joseph, Atironta. Feeling sorry for him. Her guilt and anger for Sondok quieted, even as she knew the blood might never stop troubling. On to Niagara, then. To the winter camp. How she and Isaac might get on with the Mississauga there, and the other trapper man and woman.
They emerged from the bay through the last of the reeds, to pitch gently, bow to stern in long swells. The breeze was fresher beyond the shelter of the bay. Not quite at their backs, but offshore, its strength checked by the dense trees of the forest.
“It is the best we could wish for,” Isaac said.
Sokanon felt the canoe was unmindful of it, graceful build and their two paddles forward on. Even towing the trailer. But she was happy to see the squadron follow close to land, angling down to the southeast, rather than cut straight across the open lake to the far shore that drew away toward the long distance to the great falls.
The bateaux were strung out, the farthest away maybe a mile already. Isaac squinted to see far ahead, wondering in which boat Old Brad sat. He was watchful, but untroubled to be amongst the little armada, their many hulls smoothing the water even more. “A mighty escort we have.”
Sokanon looked around. Noticed. “The warriors watch us.”
It wasn’t fear. It was pride in her voice Isaac heard. “It’s not like you to be boastful.”
She was silent.
“You don’t have to prove yourself carrying Jacob on your back.”
Not for that reason he was right. The water was calm enough. She worked at the straps, slipped the board off and propped Jacob in front of her.
“You hide him from his father.”
“It is drier,” she lied, wanting to see her son. He was still distressed, his face in a pout. “Only a few more days,” she said of his confinement in the carrier. Back to her paddle, the many loud voices in the wind. “The men in the bateaux yell at each other, in much anger, I think.”
“Frustration—” Isaac understood. He was one of them for many months of war. Ordered about with no warning. “For being called away so abruptly.”
He spied Greene, bright red toque upon his head, again at the tiller of a bateaux. Hartley, Potter and Wayne were with him. They waved. Help was only a short call away if the lake should suddenly come up. He didn’t see Elliot or Gale, but thought again of Fraser. His friend saving their lives.
——————
“The boats gather again, Isaac.”
Her voice cut through the silence, the many hours of hard paddling. He strained to see. “Your eyes are sharper than mine.”
She pointed ahead with her paddle. “Maybe your old Brad is to wait for the others.”
Why would he now? Isaac thought to chide his old commander. The rushing ahead, stringing out the squadron, for miles, maybe. The few slow longboats carrying the heavy cannons their only company for more than an hour since they’d seen the bateaux in the lead. Greene’s boat and the Iroquois canoes long out of sight, too. He turned his face to another sharp chill from over his shoulder. North, out over the lake. “It’s good we are nearing the end of the day,” he said.
“There is a cold coming.”
Isaac felt again for the weather on his cheeks. “The wind is about to turn away from the southwest.”
She worried. “Do you think a storm?”
“I don’t know.” He looked from the longboats. Searched the rugged shoreline. “We better hurry on, there’s nowhere to land here if it blows a sudden hard onshore.”
She turned to hear the wind in her ear, still from the southwest behind them. “Maybe that is why the boats wait—maybe they have found a place to land.”
“Soon enough, for us. I will insist on help from Mister Christie tomorrow.”
She felt his energy increase and leaned deeper into it, pulling hard as she could. Whatever caused Jacob to cry for so long still bothered on his face as he slept. He’d have to wait for mother’s breast now if he wakes and cries again.
———— (dbl sp)
“They are going ashore at the headland,” Isaac said. He squinted in the late day dusk. The area hardly looked wide enough for all of them. “There’s a break in the treeline about a mile further.”
Sokanon saw the break in the last of the sun’s dull shine, a shadowed cleft in the trees.
“Even if it’s not another river mouth,” Isaac went on, “it has to be a better place than the narrow swale they land onto. It’s wide open to the surf, and probably muddy beyond the beach, the high land behind draining down onto it.” He started to say it didn’t make any sense, landing there. After a day of scuttling confusion.
But he stopped in mid-stroke.
Sokanon halted too, in the abrupt silencing of the wind.
They wondered together at the lake at once lain down flat, not a ripple. The bateaux were hushed, no voices from the men, no creaking of oars in oarlocks, everywhere stilled in the ghostly calm. Their canoe seemed to settle into the water, tow rope slackened, trailer joining the freighter, suspended, as if being cradled in some giant hand.
They heard it together, the roaring sound warning in their ears. Their eyes met just before it burst upon them. A gale, from the northwest, cold fury borne unimpeded from across the many open miles of water, the lake everywhere at the instant turned white. Wind and waves crashed crosswise, throwing them about sideways, as if in a sudden current of cascading river rapids. The towline yanked taut and the bow of the freighter weathercocked into the wind, the trailer doubling around, slamming into them. The next wave surged and the trailer came over the side, knocking Sokanon against the other, almost into the water. “Isaac!” She jammed her paddle into the bottom of the canoe and levered it against the trailer, holding it away from her and Jacob.
“Sokanon!” Isaac leapt atop the fur bundles, throwing his weight against the trailer to shove it off. He pushed and held it away with his foot, straining to keep leg stretched between the two canoes. “Paddle!” he directed.
But the next surge came over, flooding beneath Jacob’s carrier. Instinct confused for a moment, Jacob or paddle.
“Paddle!” Isaac yelled again, and she drove her blade deep while he continued to hold the trailer away with his foot, colorful cross design on his moccasins a flash in his frenzy. “Keep paddling!” he commanded and the bow turned slowly, the freighter gaining headway from her effort. “Good,” he thought to say, but the waves were too strong and broke his leverage, his foot slipping from the trailer, one leg in, the other submerged in the water while he straddled the side of the freighter.
The trailer came again, more violent this time and crashed onto him, into his side, hard into his ribs, knocking his breath out.
“Isaac!”
Her voice was as if from down in a deep well, but called to his will and he fought against all that would destroy them. The tin taste of blood was in his mouth, his insides crushed from the blow. He shoved against the canoe, screamed with gritted teeth to push it off again. He drew his knife and tumbled backward onto his seat, elbowing himself up to the stern, where he hacked at the towline, severing the rope. The trailer fell away. He watched it tumble over and again, swamped in the waves.
“Isaac!” he heard again from that deep well.
“Paddle,” he forced encouragement through the pain stabbing at his ribs. He wasn’t even sure if it was out loud, or only choked gasps in his mouth. He struggled to paddle himself, strength from the same will to life, destruction so close, to be crushed between sea and land.
“Isaac!” Sokanon called again, turning quick to see his face wrenched in pain, paddling weak, blood from his mouth onto his beard. “Isaac—”
“I am, well enough,” he forced his breath to rasp. “Have to stay out from shore—be smashed in the surf.”
She knew, worked hard to save them from the lake trying to kill them now. Her foot was hard on the cradleboard, Jacob crying in the wind howling, crashing breakers thundering. They broached in the following seas, stern to bow, and she understood Isaac could not steer them to angle away from shore. To where the shadowed cleft offered the protection of the river. To both sides she paddled, arms to the elbows submerged in the high waves.
Her strength lifted Isaac, as it always had. She was pulling them to safety, and he forced his broken body to help as he could. Jacob’s wailing joined the wind, he felt a spirit rise. The bateaux ashore went by one by one as they passed. The men’s yells were muffled in the gale, but the panic of their mistake told in the fury.
But the shouts were near then.
Too near.
Isaac turned to see the massive wave risen up, made monstrous in the shallow water near shore. Two of the bateaux carrying cannons were slammed into each other, overturning, screaming wild-eyed men spilling over the side. “Sokanon!” he yelled before all of it crashed down upon them, throwing them into the flood.
Sokanon surfaced coughing water, choking for air, Jacob’s cradleboard tight in her arms, the headpiece broken and ripped away. He wailed, telling her he was not drowned. She fought to keep them afloat from the surge sucking deeper, her clothes weighted, squeezed tight against her skin, constricting her movements.
She kicked and flailed to try and reach the nearest overturned bateau, when all at once it was thrown into her by the waves, knocking the wind from her. She dug her fingers into the planks, but lost her grip in the violent rocking. She clawed again just to hold on, just to keep their heads above water, the weight of the cradleboard sinking them lower and lower against her struggles. Jacob’s cries were choked from going under time and again. She listened to hear the sound of Isaac’s voice through the roar of the crashing wreckage, calling to their salvation, while her strength was draining away.
Isaac rolled in the surf, the flotsam banging into his body from everywhere. He struggled to right himself on the surface. Sokanon was away, in her own struggle to life, to pull herself and Jacob onto an overturned bateau. She slipped back into the water and he saw their death, his death. But the strength was there, enough through the pain, to kick and thrash until he was to them, found in the desperation. He pushed her and the cradleboard up with all the might he had left, till he knew she had a hold of her own. Satisfaction accomplished before he was taken away. A fur bundle came to him and for a brief moment he held on, but it had no stability and turned over with him. A lightness flashed through him. He wanted to laugh.
Sokanon felt his hand lifting her onto the bateau, where she could grab at the thick keel-plank, a hand-hold to safety for her and Jacob. She looked back to see Isaac close by, his face contorted in pain, and defeat. He struggled to stay afloat on a rolling fur bundle. She he smiled then, and for a moment she held providence would save them. But the waves resounded back from the shore, engulfing him and swamping over her and Jacob. The crash like cannons thundered from the pounding of bateaux piling onto each other, slammed onto the land in the great heap she was being driven toward.
“Isaac,” she gasped, searching.
He was gone.
She held Jacob tight and shut her eyes when they were sent crashing into shore, atop another great wave. Everything went quiet in her head, the prayer for her and Jacob her only thought, even as they were hurtled over and again, finally, mercifully, to be landed onto the unmoving ground.
She clutched at the glorious earth, against its going away. It felt strange, at first as if grass. But her fingers grasped wet fur, instead. It was the moosehide, trace of smoky scent rising even through the soaking. It was heavy, but she dragged it with Jacob, away from the tangling wreckage. Only the few yards up into the tassel of tall grass. She felt the cold then and drew Jacob close to her, his face against hers. He was quiet, but his breath was warm on her cheek. She pulled the wet hide over them, unsure whether it would warm them, or freeze them to death. In her ears, the howling wind, the yelling, screaming men, scrapes and battering of objects knocking together. Exhaustion was complete and the sounds faded with each moment her body shut down.
——————
The hands on her were rough. Or they weren’t, she couldn’t tell. Her body was numb.
“The baby is dead,” one of them said.
My son is alive! she wanted to say.
“No, the child breathes,” another voice said.
“They will both die from exposure this long.”
“Isaac,” she breathed.
The voices didn’t answer. Maybe she only thought she said it.
“Quickly, to the fire.”
Was she being carried? Where was Jacob.
“Isaac,” she rasped again, for her husband to send the men away. To cover her and their son in warm blankets. Pile the logs high in the fireplace. Tell her about his Nova Scotia. Their jostling of her continued. Careful of Jacob, she pleaded. Past frantic men rushing this way, toward the water, they brought her far enough that the sounds were muffled. Jacob nestled into her arms. The flames were hot. “No,” she cried from the heat. They were too close.
The hands were gentle, settling her into her place. A blanket over her. Another. Jacob cried and his renewed strength made the faceless voices around her delight. She listened close. Isaac’s wasn’t one of them.

25

“We knew it had to be you.” John Hartley checked the canvas stretched over the half circle of boxes someone had set up to protect her and Jacob from the snow and sleet that continued to blow in from the lake.
“We feared the worst when we heard a mother and child had been found almost frozen to death,” the man Greene said.
“I still cannot walk,” she rasped.
Potter was there, too, and their care went from Jacob to her, making sure mother and child were covered well from the cold. Over the blankets, the moosehide, dry and warm. She thought their concern too much for how recent was their friendship. But they could not hide their gloom at the disaster.
Sokanon strained to give sound to her voice. “Isaac?” she pleaded. Sadness stabbed at her heart when they looked away in turns. Her warm tears ran slow down cold cheeks.
“There were many drowned,” Potter said.
“Not Isaac,” Hartley was quick to stop her panic.
“He could still be alive,” Potter said. He shied from the stern looks of his friends.
“Isaac was not among those dead,” Hartley said again. “There is a—a grave, being dug for them.”
Their grimaces were sharp and she felt their sorrow with hers. “The drowned—they are, where?”
Hartley turned his head, grimaced again, as if he could see them. “Away from the camp.”
She wanted to rise, push past them to there. She tried to sit up, but her body was as if caught in a trap. She fell back, before they could stop her, her vision blurred with aching from everywhere at once. “I must see myself.” She tried again.
“You are not strong enough, I think.”
“It is not well that you should see such a terrible sight.”
“I have seen terrible from war,” she snapped at Potter. “Arms and legs gone. Stomachs torn open. Death in my arms, as we prayed for their souls.”
They continued to dissuade her.
“Sokanon—” Hartley said. His hands were light on her. “I assure you, Isaac is not among them, we all looked.”
The others nodded with a solemnity that struck at her.
“We helped ready them for burial, identified those we knew.”
“It was a gruesome task,” Potter said. “We worried that the reports were wrong. That the mother and child were not found alive. That—” he took a long breath, “that we would find you and your child, dead.”
Greene gave him another frown, motioned for him to leave.
Potter retreated a step. “I am glad you and your child are well,” he said before going away.
“We looked for him last night after we found it was you who was rescued,” Hartley said.
“And again this morning,” Greene added.
There was a hollowness to their words. She settled back and fought against the dizziness. She turned her attention to Jacob in her arms.
“You rest,” Hartley broke the sudden silence.
“Yes.” Greene patted Jacob. “Take care of your baby.”
“We’ll come back later,” Hartley said.
They stood away, bracing from the icy weather. They nodded and smiled to her and started off toward the activity of the men on the beach. She followed their progress until they disappeared into the crowd. Stared into the fire, still raging in the morning after burning huge all through the night. She was desperate to join the search for Isaac. She wondered of the mass grave, were they wrapping the bodies in blankets, or canvas sheets. How terrible it would be, uncovering the dirt to search the cold, lifeless faces.
The wind whipped at the flames, snapped at the canvas overhead. It took all her strength to move Jacob atop of her, slide her ring from between them, stroke his head while sleep forced its way on her senses. Her husband would soon be with them, she wanted to believe. Her family complete again. She fought against the same emptiness as when she’d waited for news of her mother and father, her baby brother. But the destruction of the towering wave that overwhelmed him was utter. She panicked for a moment until her ring was still there, and she prayed for the new black vision to go away. Isaac, his eyes frozen in distress, floating dead in the water.
——————
She awoke again to the constant noises, the mass of men working to regroup and repair what they could of the wrecked fleet of boats. The exertions of working their tools, lugging and dragging, stacking and crating into dry containers. She listened to their talking, blame for the disaster. God’s will. No, incompetence. Arrogance. Punishable offense, even for a colonel. Especially for a colonel. Not enough provisions for the fleet to make it to Niagara. Not enough boats left to carry them all, anyway. Where were the native allies from Detroit? Deserted in the storm to return to their homes.
“It was a seiche wave,” she heard one of the working men say about the huge swell that had been raised against them. His accent was Dutch. “Seiche wave,” the man repeated when the others asked. “When the seas turn over onto themselves,” he continued. “Probably caused by storm surge in the shallow water of the lake.”
“It was the hand of God,” someone argued.
“Aye, lad,” another agreed.
“Science tells us the nature of the powers around us,” the Dutch man declared.
“The power is still from God. Science or no.”
A giant wave. From the hand of God.
Sokanon felt her spirit slip further away. The ring at her breast was cold and lifeless. She settled Jacob into her lap and pushed herself to sit up to see the disaster on the closed-in beach surrounded by rocky cliffs. Smashed bateaux and supply barrels. Crushed crates of military equipment. She spotted Hartley and the others through the blowing snow, who stopped working one by one to wave to her.
John Hartley started for her.
“You still do not look well enough to get up on your feet,” he said.
She shook her head. “Isaac?” was all she wanted.
He was downcast. “No more personnel have been reported missing. At least none of the militia or regulars.”
“No one looks for Isaac, because he is no longer a soldier?”
Hartley shook his head. “The army isn’t looking for anyone. I only meant that all the soldiers and militiamen have been accounted for. They have sent men to search the shorelines for the missing supplies. But no boats have been allowed to be taken out to search from the water. It’s still too dangerous. And all the natives have left. Gone away in their canoes that might have helped.”
“You have searched, more?”
He tucked his hands under his arms for protection from the cold. “There has been no one found, Sokanon. Only some gear and other few provisions. Everything else was just, swallowed by the wave.”
She stared. Cast her eyes down. “I hear men say too many boats were destroyed from the storm. That there are not enough to carry everyone.”
“Yes,” he said after hesitating, “the regulars, most of the militia, and all the rowers will travel in the remaining bateaux. Many of the others who know they will not, have already left this morning overland for Niagara.” He looked in the direction. “They carry many of the wounded with them.”
She shot a hurried look to the treeline.
“Who knows how far down the lake the waves might have taken your husband. Maybe they’ll find him and carry him on to Niagara.”
Shook her head. “No, Isaac would tell them to bring him back here for me and Jacob.”
“Unless he is too injured to say.” Hartley shuffled uncomfortable again. “Or, they found him—and buried him. I—I wouldn’t know. I don’t know if anyone would know.”
She was glad for the cold wind that made her eyes water, masking her tears.
Hartley tossed a nod to the mass of men. “We have been given orders that we are to move our encampment to the river, about a mile away, to finish our repairs out of the weather.”
The was no remorse in his voice. How could he know Isaac had understood not to land here, tried to get free of the other boats, get around the point, away from the force of the storm? That it was their Old Brad killed him? She drove the thought away. Wished for the sight of him coming to her, striding through the wreckage.
“When?” she asked of the move.
“We have not been told. Soon—but I doubt if it will be today. But, of course, we’ll embark for Niagara from there.”
“You can search for Isaac?”
She knew they wouldn’t.
“We have our orders, Sokanon.”
“Your colonel will not allow to look for my husband—who has fought with him many times?” She tried to gain her knees. “I need only to look for Isaac.”
He held lightly against her shoulder. “Whoa, I don’t believe you’re strong enough to go anywhere.”
He was right, weakness and dizziness causing her to lean back again with Jacob.
Hartley wagged his head. “Maybe we can find a place for you and your child in our bateau when we leave for Niagara.”
Her eyes pierced. His words were even more hollow than before.
She looked away from him.
He started to leave, turned back to her. “There is talk that a few people have gone back for Sandusky. We can give you food, of course.”
There it was. He thought Isaac was dead. That she should go on to a life without him for her and Jacob.
“One of us will check on you later.” He left her to return to his duty.
She watched him walk away. Followed his progress through the mass of people packed tight on the small flat. The thought troubled her, that she might have to go with them to Niagara regardless, carried helpless into the boat. She shook her head. Straightened and bent her legs one at a time, determined to force them to work for her. “We will look for your father,” she said to Jacob.
——————
The broken headpiece of the cradleboard told again how close Jacob was to being killed. Isaac’s hand was under her, lifting them onto the bateau. It gave her strength. She struggled to stand and pull the board onto her back, then the weight of the thick moosehide. The muscles in her thighs burned and she fought to steady herself for a few steps, set her balance again and limped through the splintered equipment, her legs as wood, feet heavy and numb.
The fur agent Christie was pointed out to her amongst his men, but when she came close she wondered at the sight of him. He appeared in a daze, confused and fearful.
“I am wife to Isaac Dobbins,” she announced.
Christie was unresponsive.
“We were to your winter camp, at Taronto.”
His men stirred, two of them stepping closer. They were both big, matching each other’s size almost perfectly. She thought them brothers, one black-haired, the other red. Their eyes, small inside faces covered in dense beards past their cheeks, were displeasing. She saw the many notions in each of their long looks, and disliked them at once. But she drove it away. She wanted their help.
“He is the one with all the furs,” the one with dark red hair said, “and the fancy canoe.”
Sokanon nodded.
“Where is your husband?” the man leered, as if he knew. He moved closer.
“He was,” her voice caught, “swept away—by the hand of God wave.”
“The hand of God wave—” the other man said. “That’s fitting, if not blasphemous.”
“We have lost everything,” Christie said suddenly, his vacant stare cast out to the lake.
The first man shook his head. “I’m afraid captain Christie has been knocked around in the head by the storm.”
Sokanon brought her attention away from Christie. “I wish for you to take me in your Montreal canoe to look along the shore for my husband.”
“That was yesterday,” one of them from behind the two said, “surely he is drowned, or frozen to death,” he finished, to the agreement of the others.
She knew it might be so. But to hear it said out loud made her sadden. They did not have to remind. It only mattered now as to when Isaac could be found. Whether he was alive, or not. She stood, firm. “The army is to move to the river—” She thought to motion in the direction, but saw she didn’t have to, their eyes narrowing at her knowledge, confirming what Hartley had told her. “I ask that you go now, take me with you, allow to search along the way, and into the river mouth.”
The two men looked to each other.
“We have lost everything,” Christie said again to no one.
The others ignored him.
The red-haired man put his hands on his hips. “Contrary to what the captain says, we haven’t lost nearly everything. But we won’t chance losing what’s left, looking for a man who’s most likely dead. But we can take you with us to Niagara.”
Sokanon tensed at the lingering stares.
“We will leave with the army,” the other big man said, his wild hair and beard black as a bear’s. “As Conall said, we can take you with us to Niagara. And we can still employ you at the winter camp to the north.”
She glared at their waiting eagerness for her answer, their continued untoward attentions of her coarse and crude.
“You will have to come with us,” the man taunted. “The army won’t take you in their bateaux. No matter what they say.”
That was all there was for it. If she could, she’d fight them all. Punch, kick, scratch, bite, anything to take her frustrations out on them. Sister Marie Catherine would scold her thinking, even as she knew she would want to do the same to these men. She strode away toward the long, dark mound of overturned earth. Ugly against the snow around it. Passed it, alone then with her determination. She stood at the edge of the land, the small crevasse in the forest, as if a giant hand had scraped it out from the shoreline.
The waves were unforgiving, crashing onto rocks and thick forest in either direction from the beach. Impossible to traverse any way. Wet snow hung heavy from the leaves and branches. Piled atop the boulders. Thick slush turning over and over in the water.
Movement down a ways caught her eye and she wondered at it, the high bow or stern of the freighter in her imagination. She dismissed its apparition, shook away the hope as dream. How could the canoe have drifted to the west, into the wind of the storm? But it came again, strange in its reflection of light under a dark gray sky. She was at once unbelieving as buoyant. Even at the great distance, the striking profile of Isaac’s canoe.
She thought to wave to Hartley and the others, bring them on with her. But there were the two big men of Christie’s team, watching her from between the confused mass of people. She turned from them, looked down the shore, waited. It wasn’t there anymore, her imagination mocking her. She charged off anyway, the movement and exertion to challenge the death and destruction in her mind.
She climbed the steep embankment from the beach, kicking steps into the hard-crusted snow. She marched along the crest of the rocky height until reaching the promontory overlooking the lake. The voices and other noises of the activity on the beach were muted by the wind and waves. She didn’t stop to look, didn’t care, marched on.
There was a path, easier to follow in the snow, made by the lives of a thousand years passing under the crunching of her steps. Her legs were tight, ached, she drove herself on still. Jacob called to her—hungry?—jostled by the wild movement? She worried for the headpiece gone, concentrated to push the low-hanging limbs far up over their heads.
“I am sorry, Jacob,” she panted.
She wondered if his calls were a good sign, his voice for his father found.
The forest gave way to long stretches where she could see the water, walk close to where the waves continued to roll in. She couldn’t see the canoe. But the land went down, to the level of the lake. A small cove driven into the shoreline. There was a dark form and she pushed to it, through the tangled brush toward the water, snow knocked onto her and Jacob. He cried louder. The trees parted to a small opening, and she saw him, leaned against a dead trunk, head down, covered in snow and frost.
“Isaac!”
She hurried to him, faltered at the sight of his blue hands clenching the musket rested across his folded legs.
“Isaac,” she said again, fearful it was too late. She reached for his frozen hair, to lift his head to see his face. The ice on his neck cracked, falling away in little pieces.
“He is dead.”
The woman’s voice in French behind her startled her at the same time she let go her hand and fell back, away from he who wasn’t Isaac. Her panicked breaths were solid in the cold air, a heavy weight pressing in on her from everywhere at once. She continued to stumble backward, trying to understand. Finding the unseen voice while Jacob continued to cry.
The woman was there, weary eyes showing over the blanket pulled up to her face. The sound from the water caught her attention though, and she shuffled past the woman to the lake. Isaac’s freighter was real in the surging waves, upright, going in and out from the shore, as if by a spirit guide.
She let Jacob down, a gentle moment for him before she went for the canoe. The tow rope was its guiding spirit, caught between the rocks, playing out its length to be drawn back in. She yanked the line free and pulled the freighter around the rocks, craning to see. But the rush of desperate hope that Isaac was yet inside was gone and she maneuvered the boat into the cove, far onto land as there was. She collapsed, worn out.
The waves slapped against the boulders, cold spray pouring down onto her. She let her tears fall with it, in the great sadness of the view, barren of anything. The sky and water, the mist that shrouded, everywhere gray. Dull and lifeless. Isaac had died for the second time in her heart. Jacob’s cries were from some other place, far away in her thoughts. She regathered her resolve. “Yes, my son,” she said to his complaints of neglect. She had barely eaten through the day. She overturned the freighter, tied it securely to a tree. Scooped up Jacob and went back to the woman. Her eyes were closed, Sokanon roused her gently.
“How do you have the canoe?”
There was pain in the woman’s look. “It was found. We were to Sandusky.” She moved her sight to the man. “He was crushed under a cannon, from the bateaux. He coughed blood. He is dead.”
Sokanon thought of Isaac holding his side after being smashed into by the bateau. “Was there a man with the canoe?”
“There was no one. The canoe was thrown up onto the rocks. We found it, tried to get to Sandusky.”
Sokanon looked around at their little camp, disheveled. “You saw no one else with the canoe?” she pressed.
The woman’s blank stare frowned to confusion. “No one. There were only those who were to Sandusky with us.”
“There were others?” Sokanon’s eagerness swelled. “An injured man in buckskin, red hair and beard, crosses of beads on his moccasins?”
“No. Only those who left us here.” She motioned the way back to Sandusky. “My husband—” she said of the dead man. “He would not let them take the canoe, needed it for me.” She pulled the blanket back to show her leg in a dirty, bloody bandage. The hump in the bandage, awkward angle of her shin, told her bone had broken through the skin. “But he could not go on. He died this morning.”
Sokanon thought she would die, too. “You are Huron?”
The woman nodded. “I am called Aiana.”
Was it her Christian name? Sokanon wondered if they were church married, the way people thought of she and Isaac.
“This man,” Aiana said, “with red hair—he is your husband?”
Sokanon nodded. Rested Jacob away. Gently lifted the woman’s leg to see to her wound.
Aiana winced. “Your child—is hungry?”
Sokanon nodded again to his crying for her.
Aiana laid back while Sokanon unwrapped the bandage. The smell was not bad, the terrible wound not yet festered. The blood was clotted well, probably from the cold. Unlike those bones she’d seen shattered from musket balls, Aiana’s leg might be reset and saved. She might survive.
Sokanon unbundled Jacob and slid his baby blanket out from around him. He kicked wildly, and continued crying. She wrapped Jacob’s blanket around the leg, over the fracture, used the old bandage to tie it. Aiana gritted her teeth until the dressing was done. Sokanon sat back with Jacob, his mouth going already as she brought him to her. She listened to the wind in the trees overhead. Wondered if they could launch the freighter past the breakers that flattened inside the cove. She looked to Aiana again.
“You will die if I take you back to the army.”
Aiana was quiet.
Sokanon saw her willingness to just stay where she was. Fall asleep and freeze to an easy death. “Can you paddle?”
Aiana’s eyes widened. She nodded slowly. “I will have to—no? But what of your husband?”
Father Pierre would help her. Help them both. Sokanon roved her eyes around. “Do you have paddles?”
Aiana shook her head. “There is an oar, from one of boats. Samuel—” she said of her husband, “chopped it shorter to use. He started to make another, but—”
Sokanon saw the long piece of unfinished wood, a thick seat plank from one of the smashed bateaux. “You have a hatchet?”
“It is there.”
“I am sorry, Jacob,” Sokanon said, pulling him away to lay again on his board. He whimpered his protest, but then swung his arms and legs in the joy of being free. She worked fast, snatching up the hand ax to chop at the middle of the plank. She thought of those people of the far north her mother and father spoke of. Short and stout, in their tiny, skin-covered boats that they used in the great waves of the ocean. How fast they stroked their two-ended paddles in jerky motions, instead of the long drags of the blade was normal for a canoer. “You have food?”
Aiana blinked slowly, stared.
Again Sokanon saw her intent. That Aiana would have just given over to death if she hadn’t found her. She went again at the plank.
———— (dbl sp)
Aiana gave no protest when Sokanon pried open her husband’s frozen hands from around the musket, his fingers cracking. “I will take his coat, for you.”
Aiana looked away.
“We will bring him with us,” Sokanon continued. “For to bury there.” She hesitated for a moment, told her. “His weight will help steady the canoe.”
Aiana understood. “I am grateful, even if it is so.”
“We will use the blanket to cover him while we travel.”
“It will not be necessary.”
Sokanon nodded. “It will help to cushion your leg to wrap in the blanket.”
She pulled at his coat, thinking at any moment he would try and stop her. She laid the coat over Aiana and dragged at her husband, through the brush to the canoe, needing all her strength to lift and tumble him in. The dull thuds of his lifeless body against the wood were loud in the sudden silencing of the wind. It could not be helped that the sounds would carry back. But Aiana would have her husband’s burial. The knowledge of his death and final resting place. She wished the same for her to Isaac.
She studied the waves coming into the cove, the space between the breakers longer than past the tiny inlet. Aiana would probably scream in pain as they bucked in the surf. She would remind her that to fail meant her death, to fight through the pain. Isaac’s freighter will show its way once out on the lake. Answer to the path she would guide.
———— (dbl sp)
“We can not be to Sandusky tonight?” Aiana asked.
“No. But we will paddle until you can suffer the pain no more.”
Aiana shook her head. “If I cannot, and you can yet paddle, then until weakness calls to your arms to stop.”
Sokanon gave a nod. Stroked her fingers over Jacob’s face before covering him over with the hide. She made the Sign of the Cross and called on Mary, Queen of all Saints to help her for Sandusky. Pushed the canoe until the water was up to her knees. Threw her legs in.
“We go!” she called.
——————
The fire was bright. As if a protest to the darkness all around. In her heart. Aiana moaned a fitful sleep. Guilt pricked at Sokanon’s spirit, the woman’s will against the pain, even for the two or three hours paddling. That she was using Aiana’s will for herself. Using the body of her dead husband, for help to find hers. But could it really be bad, when it is also with selfish thoughts, when helping someone? Sister’s voice was in her mind. If you think it’s a sin, then it was. There is no thinking for right actions.
She felt no fever at Aiana’s forehead and cheeks, fortunate infection was yet unset. She laid in more wood, wrapped herself and Jacob in the moosehide, sounds of his quiet breaths joining Aiana’s moans, the crackling fire, waves of the lake onto the shore.

26

It came again, a slight breeze from the south, between the gusts at their faces to the northwest. Aiana struggled at the paddle and Sokanon thought to move her to the middle seat, where the rise and fall of the canoe was less than the front. But then she would look down upon her husband, covered over with pine boughs, but repulsive enough certainly, to know it was his dead body rolling around under. Sokanon started to say—to encourage her—but kept to herself, pulling harder instead.
The shoreline unfamiliar, even though it was only two days before when she and Isaac passed the same, from Sandusky. She wondered how much farther. The breeze from the south was there again, unmistakable.
Another while in the time stood still and the southerly freshened. And then freshened more, blowing hard at their backs, pushing them on faster and faster. Lowering the bow in the carrying waves from behind. Smoothing the ride for Aiana. Just in time, Sokanon thanked Jesus and Mary. A stream of sunlight surprised then, shining down on the water only a few yards in front of them. She looked up to see the dull light forcing its way through the clouds. It was gone sudden as it appeared, the gray sky closing again, giving nowhere for the sun to come through.
——————
They entered the bay where the wind was at their faces again as they went south toward Sandusky. It showed Sokanon how strong it was, driving them on. They had to paddle harder though the bay was but ripples of small choppy waves. She could only wonder at Aiana’s pain, but felt her effort redoubled by plumes of smoke from homes, giving strength to aching desperation.
The canoe slid onto the shore.
Aiana slumped forward onto her paddle stretched across the sides.
Sokanon wanted to help her, but she couldn’t make her legs work. Huron villagers stared curiously while she yelled as she could, her voice cracking from the arduous task. She had no idea how long it had taken, but there was still daylight left. She dragged herself over the side, splashing awkward onto her knees, hand over hand on the canoe until she was on land, next to Aiana. She took a deep breath and screamed again, her throat cracking hoarse. She prayed that Isaac’s ears were among those who may hear.
“Père Pierre,” she gasped to the first of the people finally come to them.
One of the women tended to Aiana and spoke Huron with emergency to another, who drew back from the dead man Samuel.
Sokanon coughed and wheezed. “Army bateaux, in the storm. My husband Isaac, missing.”
They stared with wide eyes.
“A baby.”
Sokanon understood the exclamation. “Has anybody come—” she pointed, “from the woods?”
“No one has come,” a man with strong hands answered her French. He lifted her to her feet. Another man was there then, her arms held across their shoulders.
“Father Pierre,” she said again.
“Yes, he studies in his quarters.”
They carried her between them quickly toward the church buildings.
“Jacob. My son.”
“They will bring him along,” the first man said.
———— (dbl sp)
“Bring her close to the fire,” Father Pierre said.
His voice sparked her with hope.
The men lowered her into a chair. It was the same room where she and Isaac had just stayed.
“Warm wine.” Father Pierre took the cup from the brother. Handed it to her. “Do not worry, the wine is mixed with water and will not cause you to become inebriated.”
She cupped her hands around its warmth. She shivered and Father helped her to sip. The tartness rose deep into her nose and she coughed. “Jacob?”
“He is with Sarah. A woman closeby here. She feeds him and keeps him warm. Tell me what has happened. Who are the man and woman with you?”
Sokanon shook her head. Watched the brother place a log onto the fire, stoke it with the poker. “The storm. Isaac is lost.”
She saw his disbelief also with his confusion.
She steadied herself. “The army, a swift storm came up. The bateaux are smashed, and they are camped a short distance. They are making repairs for Niagara.”
His questioning look deepened. “And what of Isaac?”
“We have to look for him,” she repeated, “he may be coming with others from the woods.”
“Others, from the woods?”
“Some are returning here, with those wounded. Isaac may be one they bring.”
His eyes pierced with the same suddenness that had always told her he understood everything.
“Mathieu,” he said to the man who first lifted her at the canoe. “You have heard—the British army has been caught in a storm on the way to Niagara, and some of the force may be returning here overland. They may have wounded with them. Take a few men and head east along the trails, to help guide them here.” He grabbed the man’s sleeve before he could walk away. “Have Brother Jacques go with you.”
“Yes, Father,” the man said. He rushed away.
“Thank you,” Sokanon said.
“You have to get out of your wet clothes, maybe eat something, and rest.”
“I only need to find Isaac.”
“Mathieu and the others are very skilled woodsmen. They will find anyone who is out there.”
“Yes. Thank you, Father,” she said again.
“I will have the women come to help you. And for Sarah to bring your son. Rest now, Marie. I will return shortly.”
She stared into the flames. “There was a hand of God wave.”
Father stopped at the doorway. “A what?”
“A giant wave.” She swept her hand over her head. “It covered everything. Bateaux. Men.”
His understanding showed. “A storm surge wave? I did not know they could be that large on the lakes.”
“It has taken my Isaac.”
“God works miracles every day, Marie. But we must trust in His holy judgment.”
“Yes, Father.”
She thought of the miracle, her finding Aiana, Isaac’s canoe bringing her to the woman who would have died. Still might die. Now the hope and prayer for him. She wondered if heaven was not too full with those she loved. If there even was heaven. That of Jesus and Mary. Or the Great Mysterious of her mother.
Her arms were heavy. She sipped at the wine. It was hot in her stomach. Sweet and sour at the same time, making her think of the overripe pears she and Isaac shared at Detroit. She wished maybe for the spirits to be stronger. For the inebriation she’d seen in drunken men, the alcohol at the same time rousing, and dulling their minds.
———— (dbl sp)
The shivering was gone, as the cold yet ran up her back. Worry pounded in her head, but her body was as a stone, her eyelids heavy. She couldn’t fight off sleep for much longer, forcing the little hope she could bring herself to. It was different than that for her mother and father. She couldn’t conceive them not returning to her then. Isaac’s contorted face, then his smile was right there, just behind her eyes.
The fire and candlelight flickered around the room. It was good, Father asking the Huron woman Sarah to stay with her, for Jacob. It reminded the contented sight of Pahmahnee holding him after the exhaustion of his birth. She wondered of Aiana, guilt returning, of asking Jesus and Mary to count the saving of her life against the sacrifice of Isaac’s.
She dismissed the low noises, far off voices in the growing dark. The beginnings of dreams or nightmares. But the sounds grew until a commotion of calls and footfalls. She swung her feet over the side of the bed without a thought, her weak legs reminding her to go slow. She fell back to lean on the cushion, Sarah standing aside, looking to offer a hand while holding Jacob.
“Isaac—”
Sarah looked down at Jacob and back, confused. Sokanon wondered if she’d been told of her husband. She offered Jacob, her Huron words lost again.
Sokanon shook her head, steadied herself to stand and walk.
Brother Francois was already there to meet her when she opened the door.
“They have found someone,” he exclaimed.
It stunned her sense of balance and Francoise took an awkward step to help, reaching ill at ease in his religious order’s discomfort with the company of women. She held him away.
“Is it my husband?” she asked.
“I do not know. I have only heard in the distance what Mathieu’s search party are saying.”
“Father Pierre?”
“He is outside already. He was as usual by candlelight at his studies and has hurried to meet them.”
Sokanon turned to Sarah, their eyes meeting in accord, the woman nodding to say Jacob would be well with her. Brother Francois’ hand was there on her arm then. His grip was hesitant yet, and she limped alongside him with heavy steps into the cold darkness.
“Isaac!” she called, hoping to hear Father’s wonderful testament to her entreaty. “Is Isaac there?” she said after getting no answer.
She halted at the sight of someone being lain onto the ground, already dead, by the way he was crumpled, lifeless. Panic stung while she listened.
“It is a white man,” one of the Hurons said.
“I have not seen him before,” she heard Father’s voice.
Her throat caught when someone else was being carried toward the church, feet dragging in the snow between the big man Jacques and another. White plumes of breath in the cold told he was alive.
“Neither are your husband,” Brother Jacques said as he noticed her.
“Were others found?”
“No.”
She was grateful for his quiet tone. Even as her legs weakened again, a shudder once more in her spine. She paced to see Father, joined him in kneeling while he finished a prayer over the dead man’s body. They stood and he squeezed her arm, came closer for her to lean.
“Isaac has not been found.”
She nodded slowly.
“There were no signs of anyone else,” he went on.
“Did they go to see the army?”
He shook his head. “Mathieu and Brother Jacques returned with the two men.”
“They must continue,” she pressed. “I forgot to say, “the army was soon to move farther down the shore, to the river close by.”
Father guided her on, back toward the house. “The darkness is too severe, Marie. There is no moon. Marie—” he felt her resistance. “They had to bring the men back here. The one who died was alive when they found him. He died being carried on the back of Brother Jacques. I will send Mathieu back out in the morning.”
“I must talk to the one found alive,” she said.
“He is not well. We will talk with him as he has the strength.”
She wanted to say she didn’t care. That she needed to talk with him before he died.
“It is because of you he is alive,” Father reminded. “He would have frozen to death if he had not been found tonight. Not only Aiana owes her life to you.”
He did not praise the Lord’s providence, but her will only. His eyes were soft, filled with sympathy. He thought Isaac dead.
“Come,” he urged, “let’s inside from this cold.”
“Yes, Father.”
They walked together. Just a few short days ago, she was alive with possibilities in his presence.
“The woman, Aiana, she will live?”
“I believe so. There is no sepsis. And she is strong.”
“What of her leg?”
“It is reset. But it will take many weeks or months before she can walk without support. I can not be sure it will ever heal as normal. It is best for her to happen as an adult.”
She thought of the orphaned boy brought to the hospital for the Ursulines to nurse. His leg broken at the shin as Aiana’s. Reset as hers. The boy’s leg deformed and weak, causing him pain as he grew older.
——————
She lie awake in the early morning after the fitful night had chased her in her dreams. She stared idly in the gray light, the terrible feeling holding her in its sway. Isaac dead. Drowned and adrift, or washed ashore and frozen to death. Adrift would be best, she let herself think, his body taken down the great lakes, into the great river and out into the great ocean. Returning all the way to his Nova Scotia. She faltered at the thought of him going over the great falls, his body being smashed in the violent water.
Her stomach called sudden, harsh to her, and she sat up quickly, leaning over to throw up, her gorge rising too fast to grab for the chamber receptacle at the foot of the bed. She rolled from the mattress to her hands and knees and waited for the unsteady feeling to pass, finally sitting to the floor, leaning on one hand, holding her stomach with the other.
She shuffled to Jacob asleep in the cradle Sarah had brought from her home, made by her husband for their babies. She used one of the nappy cloths to wipe her mouth and looked from her child in the dull shine of morning coming through the window, to stare at her mess on the floor.
Her swoon passed and she dragged the receptacle to mop with the cloth rinsed in the water. She carried the bucket outside, dumping it away from the building into a clump of grass standing out of the snow that was refreshing on her bare feet. She stood for a moment, taking in heavy breaths of the cold air to cool her throat and lungs. The wind had stopped and the clouds were higher in the sky, not so dark as the days just past. It set her determination. It would be a good day for paddling. She filled the bucket with snow and turned to see Father just then before her.
He glanced down to the bucket. “The brothers will empty and clean those, and refill them with water from the river. And with no shoes, Marie?”
She held her hand to her stomach. “I—” she didn’t want to say, “it was easier to fill with snow.”
He looked close. “Are you feeling unwell?”
She shook her head. “Only a little unsteady. It is passing.”
“Good. I have come to see if you would like to eat. We are having a breakfast in my cell. Warm cornbread and milk are ready. Unless you feel not ready for food, then there is tea.”
“I am very hungry, father.” She set the bucket down near the bed and sat, lifting her legs to dry her feet with the bottom of her bedgown. He looked away. “Have you talked with the man who was found alive?”
Father’s blank stare made her think he had died.
“Yes. I have just now come from him. I was to tell you. He was not with Aiana and her husband. He and the other who was with him tried to make it back to Sandusky after the storm. They had to stop and camp when they could march no longer in the snow that was frozen over. Their packs were taken in the night, either stolen by Indians, or dragged away by animals. They did not see anyone else.”
She heard her breaths hollow in her head. “Father— I must search for Isaac. I returned for you to help me find him.”
“Yes, Marie. I have already sent Mathieu out again this morning to search farther along the trails.”
“Thank you, Father. His body—” she braced herself, “if he is dead. I am, this morning thinking, how well it should be if he is never found, and should be, taken by the waters. Would it not be the same as, in the ground?”
“It would be God’s will then.”
“But I must—if he is dead—try and find his body, for a proper Christian burial.”
“I understand the need to know of his fate. But for now, we must be patient and wait for Mathieu’s return.”
She breathed. “You do not believe he is yet alive.”
He put on his face of the teacher. “We must trust in the will and judgment of Our Lord Jesus Christ.”
“Yes, Father.”
“Come and eat a good meal then. Regain your strength.”
He started away.
“Wait for me Father, please. So we may walk together.”
“I will be just outside, child.” He stepped out, closing the door behind him.
She was naked, and pressed her hand to her stomach, feeling for… “It is too soon,” she whispered. She held her ring to see. Fingered the two hearts together. Why? Only to be ripped apart. She drove away the thought. Looked down to her sleeping son. Two hearts. She let go the ring, felt her stomach again. “Too soon,” she repeated.
She ran her fingers down Jacob’s face then stepped for her smock, dry, smelling of smoke from the fire that made it so as she pulled it over her head. She sat back on the bed and slid her feet into her moccasins, laced them, tied tight.
Father was there when she opened the door.
“You are to leave your baby?” he asked.
“Jacob sleeps. I will not be away from him long.”
Father led away to the church, along the hard path through the small garden.
“It is not as cold,” she said. “Maybe the late warming season will return.”
“It has every year since I came to New France.”
Inside the church, where her soft soles shuffled silently while his hard shoes clicked their echoes. Past the pews and candles lit either side of the small altar.
“Today Sabbat?” she asked.
“Yes, Marie.” He faced the altar and made the Sign of the Cross. “We will have Service in a few hours.”
Father waited for her to enter his room. It surprised her to see Joseph seated at the table, bandages removed. He was quiet, head leaned back against the wall, eyes closed. Jacques sat next to him, readying to repair a torn garment.
“Brother Francois has again turned my office into an area for our meals.” Father invited her to the table where Francois, yet awkward in her presence, set a plate in front of her. The smell of the cornbread was pleasant.
“Thank you,” she offered and started at the food.
“Thanks be to the Lord for our meals.”
“Yes, Father,” she answered and waited for him and Brother Francois to sit, say Grace.
“Amen.”
She ate eagerly. The milk was thick, tasted of tart butter. She watched Jacques start at his repairs again, the sewing gear clumsy in his huge hands.
“I will search for my husband,” she announced, “with his canoe.”
Jacques stopped his work. Francoise was still, the brothers waiting for Father’s answer.
He nodded softly. “I know it is hard to wait. But please be patient for Mathieu’s return.”
“I will wait,” she said to him. “I must wait. And hope he returns with of Isaac. But I want to be ready to leave, if there is nothing of him. Those in the camp of the army told of, refugees, continuing on to Niagara on foot, carrying wounded with them. Maybe Isaac is one. I can try and find those who walk, and catch up to the army in their bateaux.”
Father raised his chin. “Who will you have go with you, with your husband’s canoe?”
She wondered of it, then. But she searched his eyes for condescension. “I am not the little girl any more,” she repeated his words from the few days earlier.
“That is not, entirely, what I meant.” He hadn’t had to apologize to her often, but it was always sincere enough to make her cheeks warm.
“I will go,” Joseph spoke, his voice sounding with purpose. He squinted to search the faces around the table, resting on hers. She nodded to him, unsure if he’d seen, his stone countenance unchanged. “If Marie is to look for her husband—then I will help her.”
“You still cannot see well,” Father said.
“I see well enough, to guide a canoe.” He held his eyes open, unblinking. “My sight comes back to me more and more each day. I no longer have to shield my eyes from the sun.”
He and Brother Francois shared a common glance.
“Her husband—” Joseph continued, “him who I would have killed if not for him blinding me—should it not be me to help her?”
Sokanon remembered the times she overheard others talk of Father Pierre and his studies of what they said, logic. She thought she saw it now, flashing across his face, widening in his eyes. He brought his hands up to his face, prayer hands, pressed to his mouth. But he wasn’t praying, contemplation instead. He lowered his hands. Gave a slight tilt of his head.
“Let us please,” he finally said, “wait for Mathieu.”
“Yes, Father.” She understood he thought he was dead. All of them did. And that looking for his body was bound to come to nothing. She set her determination once more. “But I will ready as I can. I am only meaning a little food and water. To borrow good paddles.”
She waited for him to look at her. Confident, learned. But he only nodded slightly and started to eat again.
“Thank you,” she said, “for turning out from your sleeping quarters again for me and my child.”

27

She was at Isaac’s canoe when they approached, Mathieu and the three others of his company. It was later in the day than she thought they’d be. They did not hurry, the three going off toward the homes, Mathieu continuing toward the church.
“I know you are to steer,” she said to Joseph.
He was quiet. Gave a nod.
It was to be anyway, twice her size weighing the front down to make a plow of the bow. Twice her strength to power them, while steering at the same time. She wanted their understanding of each other to start off from the first.
She continued to watch Mathieu, Father Pierre issuing from his cell to meet him. Father’s deliberate manner continued to tell. “We must try to make it before nightfall,” she went on, “to where the army was camped.”
“I do not know to how far is it,” Joseph answered. “But we will together paddle strong.”
She forced a smile, nodded her agreement. Father started toward them. Mathieu was the opposite way, for his home. She looked to the house where Sarah watched after Jacob. “I will say goodbye to Father, and then for my son.”
“I am ready.”
Sokanon watched him. She was certain she shouldn’t doubt his sincerity. But, with Isaac’s malice marked severe on his face…the wounds, still red from her husband’s gun, defending his family…it seemed betrayal. Her thoughts wavered. It would be him, and not Isaac behind her. She peered to his place in the back. Followed the lines of the canoe he was so proud of. How alive it felt on the water. How lifeless it was to her now. 
“Father,” she greeted.
“Marie, my child.”
She looked from his empty gaze, any questions for him stopped in her throat.
“Mathieu has found no one,” Father said what she’d figured. “They went all the way to where you said the army would be, to the river. But they had already left. Mathieu believes they had left around noon, less than an hour before arriving there themselves.” His hand was at her elbow. “We can only assume that your information is correct, that some of the force is by land to Niagara, while the rest of the squadron is lakebound.”
There was nothing she could say.
Father leaned to see inside the canoe. “It is dangerous this late in the year to be on the lakes,” he warned, “as you know. You have just been witness to a sudden violent storm, with an entire squadron of bateaux inundated. What if another should strike you—again, with your child?”
“It is the best way,” she countered. “I can search along the shoreline where I cannot, walking.”
“You were near dead from exposure when you came here yesterday,” Father continued his warning. “If you should only just tip over—if your son doesn’t drown, the cold water will kill him in a very short time.”
She let her gaze fall. “It is to Niagara I go, if I have to. If the lake does not reveal him to me.”
“Will you leave the child here?”
She shook her head. She couldn’t be angry at his question. He thought Isaac was dead. Afraid that she would die too, searching for husband and father who would never be found. “I must take our son.”
He nodded. “Maybe Mathieu would be better to go, than yourself, Joseph.”
“Mathieu has a family,” Joseph argued. “Maybe we are gone long. Maybe to Niagara.” 
Father paced for a moment. He clasped his hands together in front of him. “Perhaps it is as it should be. God’s will, Marie and Joseph. Traveling together, the Lord will take away the demons between you. But—” he fixed his gaze. “You will take Brother Jacques with you, also.”
She and Joseph stood unmoving.
“You will find him a very capable companion,” Father said.
“If it is as you wish, Father. But, I wish to leave immediately. There are many hours left in the day.”
“That is well, Marie. Brother Jacques has denied himself most of the comforts of the world. It will not take him long to ready himself. ”
“I will to Jacob,” she said.
———— (dbl sp)
“I pray God’s Grace, my child,” Father said, “to guide you in your search.”
Sokanon wondered if his voice sounded with his usual strength of his conviction.
He waved his hand out to the lake. “We must be thankful for the good, as God’s gifts, and accept the bad, as His will, Marie.”
She stopped herself from saying. That all God’s gifts are just as well taken from her.
“It is natural for us all to question faith after disaster.”
“Isaac tells many times, that I always know his thoughts.”
Father nodded. He patted Jacob’s cheek. “I will pray for the safety of you and your little one.” He helped her to bring his straps onto her shoulders. “You can paddle with this carrier on your back?”
“Yes, Father. He is almost too big for it, now. But I must, while we are traveling.”
“I am certain.” He motioned to Jacques and Joseph who were already easy with one another. “The two will be of great assistance in your search. I pray that you find your husband alive and well. For his son, too.”
“Thank you, Father.”
The few steps together to the canoe where Jacques and Joseph held it steady while she stepped in. They lifted it, bow then stern, until it floated before climbing in themselves over the sides.
“All God’s Blessings, Marie,” Father said a last farewell. “To you all.”
“The same to you.”
They were quickly away from shore and she looked back to see Father Pierre making once again the sign of the cross, in a last blessing. She watched him for a moment longer, then started at her paddle, surprised at how far they’d already gone, Joseph and Jacques matching each other’s fast cadence. They were as strong as they looked, Jacques, even bigger than Joseph, pulling with powerful strokes, yet practiced enough not to splash her.
The arms enclosing the bay went by and she felt new strength as their speed increased out on the lake, the short and choppy waves nothing for them. They would very quickly recover the distance to where the bateaux had been swamped.
——————
She recognized the cove where she and Aiana had launched the freighter from, only the morning before. Where the woman would have slowly died if the towline hadn’t been caught in the rocks, the canoe drifting out at the moment for her to see it.
“We must go slower now.”
She didn’t mean for it to sound as an order, but they said nothing, dragged their paddles before paddling again with slower strokes.
“Can we move in closer?”
Again, they were quiet, Joseph steering them in. She thought she felt it from them, in their silence. The hopelessness of her search. She straightened her back and looked sharp along the shoreline. Every bobbing log was for a moment Isaac, behind every boulder was hidden his body, before it wasn’t. She was already weary of the search.
They came ashore amid the wreck of the army’s fleet, the smashed bateaux, and broken and discarded baggage littered ugly. The ill-omened long mound of the mass burial. Jacques knew what it was, made the sign of the cross and waved them past to come ashore farther away. He looked around and shook his head.
“This swale would not have been the right place to land a squadron of bateaux in an onshore storm,” he said, studying the closed-in area. “Unless the boats were hauled farther up from shore away from the breakers.”
Sokanon stood away from the canoe with Jacob. She peered to the high outcroppings to either side that formed the small landing, the high wall she’d climbed with Jacob to find Aiana. The place all at once looked the trap it was for them.
“Isaac tried to go around,” she said. “But there were too many bateaux.” She motioned to the east. “There is a river a mile from here. Where the army moved, after the storm.”
“Only a mile? That is where they should have put in,” he chastised. “They should have known better.”
The image haunted. Isaac struggling in the waves, face twisted in desperation before disappearing, crushed under the mountain of water.
“Those are not—graves?”
She followed to where Jacques questioned.
“No,” she said of the smaller mounds of fresh dirt. “They are cannons buried. There were not enough boats left to carry them, so the men put the heavy guns into the ground to hide them.”
Jacques huffed. “It will protect them from the elements, for a while.”
He and Joseph pulled the canoe farther up and she stepped out, settling Jacob’s carrier on her shoulders. Jacques followed with her a few steps before he went about on his own. She plodded through the broken frames of bateaux, smashed crates and barrels, pieces of clothing stamped into the ground by the many boots of the army.
She went for the ridge behind the beach, to scale the same high ground she had climbed the short time ago. She grabbed handholds on tree roots and started up. Jacob’s weight was nothing compared to then, when her legs were yet weak after surviving the storm. She reached the top and it came to her that she had completed a giant circle.
Joseph was yet at the canoe, she understood his eyes would not allow him to search well. Jacques strode through the disorder, grabbing at things here and there, kicking at the small piles of snow covering other debris. She wondered not for the first time in her life, how it was that the Jesuits could go around in the cold with only the black robe and open sandals of their order.
“Marie,” he called, when he saw her. He was dragging a large piece of canvas away from the wreckage. He waved at her to come down. “Marie!” he shouted for her then when she ignored him, determined to walk in the footsteps of those who had left for Niagara. To track the course to the river where the army had gone.
She passed along the top of the ridge and around to the eastern promontory to look down onto the swale, as Jacques called it. She remembered it was Isaac’s word for it, too. Up and down the lakeshore was barren. As it always had been, she supposed.
Jacques was there, at the base of the rise, spying for her.
“Marie—come away.”
“I am well,” she said, catching her breath. “I will to the river along the trail.”
“Then wait for me to accompany you.”
“No, Jacques. You must stay here. With the canoe.”
She saw he understood her meaning. That they shouldn’t trust Joseph. She saw he knew she was being what Father called, disingenuous. That she just wanted to go alone.
“Only come for me if I do not return before it is dark.”
He put his hands on his hips. “If it is only a mile, I will give no more than one hour from now. Then I will track after you, down the trail.”
He spoke in a way that told more than that he would follow after her. Also, from where she should expect him to arrive, if there is trouble.
“I understand.” She started away.
A crow cawed from somewhere far off and she stopped to listen in the stillness of the forest. The feeling was strong.
“Kakatshu, Jacob—the black bird—your grandfather again.”
The crow sounded again and it was closer and more strident, and made her start. Black wings flashed and she looked to where the bird landed close, staring right at her. Those at Quebec thought the crow and raven omens of death and destruction. To the tribes totems of wisdom and strength. She wondered if either mattered to her. The crow flew off, cawing all its way deeper into the woods.
The tangle of the forest was too dense to walk close along the shore. The course the army had taken was easy, trampled down by the steps of so many hundred people. It seemed to her, more than one boat had been carried on their shoulders, so much of the brush snapped off at that height from the ground. She thought maybe she should slow down, but the drive forward was too great. She could go slow and search if she was to return to the swale.
——————
But there was nothing either, on the return. Only the tamped down forest floor by the many marching feet. Jacques and Joseph were at the canoe. Jacques was already watching for her, as if he expected her to be there. He came to meet her, help her the last few feet down from the rise.
“We go,” she said.
Jacques braced the cradleboard while they walked. His strength surprised her, one hand holding the entire weight away from her back and shoulders.
“Must you tote this carrier while you paddle?” he asked.
She kept walking.
“At the least,” he continued, “only paddle when a third is needed.”
Already she knew the two of them were strong enough paddlers to power through anything. But it didn’t feel right, not working for her husband’s canoe. She looked from him.
“There is not much daylight remaining,” he offered.
“The river is only one mile.”
“We will camp there, then. If…” he let his voice trail off.
She understood.
———— (dbl sp)
Only a mile. 
Joseph continued to steer close to land, while she and Jacques watched along the shoreline. They said nothing when she directed them again and again to go right in, where she could step out to search on foot. Each time she peered around boulders or behind log jams, was another prick of fear, yet wrench of anticipation. Another breath of relief, yet choking sense of loss.
“Your husband’s canoe is very fine made,” Joseph said.
“I have rarely seen as good,” Jacques agreed.
Isaac’s skill was everywhere on the canoe. The birchbark he laid down for the outer skin. The cedar ribs, soaked in water to bend just so, for the frame. She saw their hands working together as he directed. Touched where she and he wrapped and tied with the spruce-root threads. Ran her fingers along their tedious effort of sewing the pieces of birchbark together. And she saw him re-caulking the long seams while they traveled, always checking for wear.
“The river mouth is just ahead,” Jacques said, bringing her attention back. “There will be good light to see for another half an hour or so.”
She stared closer along the shoreline, worried if she’d missed seeing Isaac, for her thoughts of him.
———— (dbl sp)
They were quiet, hardly a word said between them amidst the crackling of the flames. She wanted to hear Isaac’s voice, to share her French coffee with him, and cakes of her pemmican. The silence, and hard cornbread with weak tea, spoke to his absence.
She lay back with Jacob while the two men went on silently with their tasks. Jacques sewed at the canvas he’d found, using thin strips of the same cloth as cord. The waterproofed oilskin would make a better shelter than anything they’d packed. But it seemed to her, as in Father’s study, there was something in the tedious task that soothed him. The big sailcloth awl he was using looked less awkward in his giant hands than the little clothing needle. She thought it odd that he would bring it and watched his skill to cut it apart and match the pieces together to a design in his head. Maybe he was a sailmaker before the Robe. But that didn’t seem to suit him. Or maybe it did. She imagined him raising a sail to the top mast by himself. A task she’d seen two, three, even four men do on the ship from Mackinaw.
Joseph piled logs onto the fire for light more than warmth and sat back, continued to squint for his vision while wiping down and reloading the muskets. He was diligent to put the gun she’d taken from Aiana’s husband into working order. The weapons were easy in his hands. She would follow the army, the refugees, all the way to Niagara if she had to. If she should not find Isaac’s body. She saw that they had already planned for it.
It was not right, that she should need them. That again in her life, she should have to trust others, with her family gone. She felt these two men were the best for her to be with. She forgave herself that only then did she have a thought for Our Lady. That all through Father’s church service, she fought the bitterness inside her. All the Lord’s gifts, good and bad. Her prayer to Mary felt empty. That Isaac was yet alive.
——————
Another sudden fit of unsettled stomach overwhelmed her and she leaned against a tree to expel the sickness. Jacob squawked at the sudden tipping movement.
“You are unwell,” Jacques said.
He wouldn’t let her go alone this time. No thought to the deception of not trusting Joseph. Maybe she was glad for his company. Once again his strength eased the weight of the cradleboard.
She threw open the blanket around her, breathed in the cool refreshing air. “We have come, two miles?” It wasn’t for him to know she was only sick in the mornings.
He let the board slowly back onto her, thought for a moment. “Yes, I would be confident to estimate two miles.”
She listened for the crow, but there was only the sound of the wind. The skittering noises of the little striped squirrels through the leaves on the ground around them. She looked up, to the shaking leaves, branches creaking and scraping. How many times had she seen Isaac, standing still and quiet doing the same?
“We should have to use the canoe only, now,” she said. “No more both, following after the marchers, then to paddle. Continue to search along the shoreline, until we have advanced beyond the marchers. Then we can track back to them.”
He nodded. Behind his eyes was that he had thought so from the start.
“I am grateful for your patience,” she said, “and that of Joseph, as I am uncertain what to do.”
“Your effort serves, at the very least, to help alleviate your sense of loss, looking for him.”
“I thought to follow behind them on land, in case Isaac had died in their company, and they had buried him. Marked his grave with a cross.”
His eyes widened and narrowed then, understanding. The terrifying, and unholy, disinterring of unnamed graves, for her husband’s body.
“I have seen many dreadful things,” he said, “but I am only understanding now, the darkness that must rule your thoughts.”
She was silent.
“We must pray,” he went on, “that if those in the squadron have found him, dead, they will bring him along, to bury alongside other Christians in a cemetery.”
Joseph was waiting dutifully when they returned. They were barely able to power the freighter out past the breakers, where the hard offshore wind was blocked by the forest. But the lake was too rough to stay in as close as she wanted. She waited for one of them to call a stop, but they kept at their paddles while she looked as she could.
———— (dbl sp)
The end of the day and Jacques and Joseph guided the canoe skillfully into another river, the surf sending them soaring into the small waterway. They pushed deep into its course to escape the wind changing yet again. They were soaked through, and exhausted, making camp amid another gale from the northwest.
The fire was raging, its warmth reflecting into the lean-to made from Jacques’ sewing. He said it wasn’t finished, but they lashed it down tight enough that it would stand, breathing as a ship’s sail in the wind. She fought hard to stay awake while Jacob fed, lest she fall asleep on top of him. She worried that her dreams would be even more terrible than her waking thoughts.
——————
The wind was still there in the morning, after blowing a gale all night. Her spirits sunk lower. She sat up, checked on Jacob sleeping.
“We will not be able to launch until this surf subsides,” Jacques said her thoughts.
“The waves coming in will only get worse in the day,” Joseph said.
“Do you think it wise to dare them now, with a child?” Jacques countered.
“Her husband’s boat has a good spirit.”
Sokanon watched between them. Jacques showed his caution. She saw that he wanted to say spirit did not save her husband.
He shook his head. “We will wait.”
Joseph’s blank eyes showed not as indifference, but deep patience. It didn’t matter to him if Jacques was the one giving orders, or how long they would travel.
“It should be that the squadron will also not be able to embark,” Jacques offered.
Sokanon appreciated his encouragement, however empty in the pit of her stomach. She felt there, instinctively, wondering if the sickness would come again this morning. “I can walk, where I can, along the shore.”
“We shall again, go together. I can search where it is hard to walk, while you hold away with your child.”
Her sadness continued. That the assistance he offered now, was the best way, far beyond what she could well do herself.
Joseph handled his musket, the one with which he would have killed Isaac. “I will take the canoe up the river and hunt.”
Jacques stared, his eyes as slits, piercing. “You can see, to hunt?”
“The daigh-ton-tah are many in these woods.” Joseph cupped his hands to his mouth, let out the loud gobble of a turkey.
As if a spirit rising to itself, a return call came from far through the trees, sounding exactly as Joseph’s counterfeit. “I do not have to see well,” he said, “only to listen well.”
Jacques eased his doubt. “We will take the food bag, and water, with us,” he challenged anyway.
Sokanon worried of her earlier thought to Jacques, to not trust her recent foe. “It is well, Jacques.”
He took a deeper breath. “What if our friend is killed?”
It was true.
“Or if he should trip and fall—” Jacques pressed, “from your husband’s canoe with good spirit, and drown?”
Joseph said nothing.
Sokanon worried then of Isaac’s canoe lost, stolen, no way to catch up with the army or the refugees. But it was the same if he just stayed here. That he was a Huron, in the land of his people, settled her fear. “I am restless to start away,” she said to Jacques.

28

“Three days,” she lamented. When she and Isaac were laid up for the time before Mackinaw, it was as nothing. The patterns of the bark on the trees were welcoming to her imagination. They were taunting here, with their dreary repetition.
“It has allowed us the time to more thoroughly search the shoreline, than we could have from the water.” Jacques was again with his quiet encouragement.
“And now that we have?” There was no keeping the desperation from her voice.
“As I said,” Jacques continued, “the bateaux of the army will also be hindered by the winds. We may yet catch them before they are beyond Niagara. There is no doubt, that we will advance beyond the refugees.”
Emotions swirled. “I wish, only, to know of my husband.”
“That will only be after we exhaust ourselves in the search.”
“Why would you?” she asked. “Either of you?”
The two men were quiet.
“Are not the both of you unwilling to continue?”
Jacques shrugged. “It is for you to say, Marie. Father Pierre has instructed me to help you. Maybe to advise, but not to order. Unless it is wise to do so, for the safety of you and your child.”
She stared then. “When will you say it is yet wise, to venture out onto the lake once more? I believe, as you do—but do not say—there is no more reason to search the shoreline, now that we have, so far in both directions.”
He nodded softly. Glanced to Joseph. “We must push on, then.”
Sokanon saw Joseph’s readiness, unchanged in the three days. Even though she thought him willing to retire into the forest, hunting daigh-ton-tah all winter.
——————
They entered the bay at Fort Presque Isle, slowing their paddling as if called together by some invisible captain. None of them had to say, their relief at the shelter from the strong winds and high waves. There were more hours left in the day, but they would use them to dry out and warm themselves from the sleet that made them stiff with cold. 
The bay reminded Sokanon of that at Sandusky, except in reverse, entering through an opening on the western side here. She remembered the name, thought she remembered stopping here on the way to Detroit after she and Isaac were married. But the fort was burned down, and nothing was familiar.
They entered the little river along the eastern side of the fort and came ashore. She dropped the moose skin cape off her back, her arms and shoulders going light without the weight. She wondered if it wouldn’t have been better without it. But she looked at Jacques’ back, his dark robe white with frozen rain, and for a moment she saw his fatigue when he hesitated to step out. She couldn’t blame him. It was the hardest she’d ever paddled. Joseph was quiet behind her. She knew neither of them would complain. The man of Jesus, devoted to denouncing the comforts of the world. The Native warrior, self-tasked to be in harmony with the same.
What remained of the fort, the old charred outline of the stockade, lie beyond the black circles of recent cook fires. The tamped down areas where tents had stood. The tossed aside clutter, frayed pieces of rope, worn leather straps. A pair of old boots with the soles gone made Sokanon pause her low spirits to wonder if the soldier was now barefoot. She breathed easier that there were no graves here, either.
“What’s left of the fort,” Jacques pointed, “after Pontiac’s warriors set it to flame last year.”
“The English burn it first,” Joseph countered, “years ago against the French.”
Sokanon wondered where the energy came, for them to taunt each other.
“The footprints are still fresh,” Jacques said. “As is the charring on the wood of the fires.”
“The smell of the fires is still strong,” Joseph added.
Even in the sleet, they could tell. “How long ago?” she asked.
“Day before yesterday,” Jacques assured.
“Two days,” Joseph said at the same time.
She looked closer. There were not enough footprints. Too few fires. “The refugees were not here when the army was.”
Jacques agreed. “It is highly improbable the two groups would be able to coordinate with each other. I’m certain neither of them know where the other is.”
“They will come here, will they not?”
“I would lead them here if I was their captain.” Jacques shook the ice from his robe. “We have been out from Sandusky, nine days.”
“It is very hard wilderness,” Joseph said.
It was always a surprise when he talked without being spoken to.
They were trying to figure the distance. And time. She could guess at it by canoe. She knew it was more than a hundred miles they’d come from the disaster at the swale. But she had no experience as to how long, or how hard, on foot. They both knew. Joseph was familiar with the area. She wondered of Jacques’ talking of being captain. She appreciated their thoughts to help her reason what was best. 
“We make camp,” she drew their concentration away. “Until the morning.”
They showed their agreement.
“Until the morning, then,” Jacques said.
———— (dbl sp)
They used a taller pile of the burned logs as a windbreak. The working of the tools to finish the logs for fitting as walls still showed on some of the wood. Some of it was still useful as charcoal logs for a deep base for the fire.
Jacob cooed soft and she settled with him onto the tarp of the shelter floor, over cedar boughs to keep them off the wet ground. The smell from the boughs was pungent and pleasing, reminding of when she and Isaac had shingled their cabin with cedar bark. The fire’s heat gathered hot into the recess of the lean-to. The flames danced off their faces. Jacques making the sign of the cross before silent praying. She watched his lips move and imagined she could hear the prayer in her mind. Joseph, with his turkey feathers, lashing them onto a leather thong for something only he knew was to be. She wondered if he could see well enough for the design. That maybe he would want her to help if she asked. She heard Sister’s voice, praising her letting go the animosity between them. Even as she heard Isaac’s questioning of the same. Atironta was helping to find you, she told him in her thoughts.
——————
The wind rose during the night, changed to the northeast. Cold. They were glad for the windbreak as the gale continued once again in the morning. Father’s warning was yet in Sokanon’s ear. That it was dangerous on the lakes so late in the year. It was always dangerous on the lakes. The wind was forever from here to there. Changing to blow from two different directions at once. She and Jacques him would track back for the refugees. She would ask Joseph to accompany them. Even if he couldn’t see well, he would have an instinct for the way.
Jacques stoked at the fire until a small flame caught and he piled in kindling. She set Jacob aside into the hide, brushed her fingers down his happy face. She went through the food bag, with its dwindling supply. Joseph’s turkey meat was gone three days ago. Hard bread and water to eat again. She had to force Jacques to take some. He knew how short of food they were.
“We will not starve to death,” she said to him.
“Not too soon,” he jested.
She watched the canvas ripple in the wind. “You will go with us today?” she said to Joseph.
He nodded. “We take both muskets. The wind is wrong for us, it will be at our backs as we walk. But maybe if the ones walking are close enough, they will drive deer to us.”
Jacques huffed. “Shooting a turkey blindly, with fowling shot is one thing. How will you see to shoot a deer?”
“She can shoot.” Joseph returned. “And you were not always in the black robe. I know.”
“It matters not,” Jacques said. “It will cause us to be too slow, stalking deliberately for game that may or may not come.”
“We will need food to get us to Niagara.”
“If we even have to go that far.”
“Non,” she stopped them. “It is already that you do much for me.” But she couldn’t have them stop. Not now. “It has been hard paddling to here. And my thoughts are to the darkness each day. I am farther from finding my husband than when the wave overtook him, when I could not reach out to save him.” She felt their retreat, even though they didn’t move. Her obligation to them was too great. To find Isaac…then be away from needing them, forever, after that. “I do not wish to ask of your help. I would look for him alone, if I could.”
She stood away from the shelter, the wind stinging on her cheeks, making her eyes water. She stared into the trees. Wished for Isaac’s spirit to call amid the sound of the ice falling from the drooping leaves and branches.
“Someone should stay by the canoe, anyway.” Jacques had the satisfied look of a child who thought he’d won at games.
“I thought to ask Joseph,” she said, “because he is Huron. If we should encounter any of his people.”
“I speak Huron,” Jacques countered. He met her questioning gaze. “Father Pierre and I have regular lessons, to keep our knowledge of the tongue sharp.”
Joseph said something to him in the Native language. Something derogatory, she thought.
Jacques ran the words through his mind, answered back.
Joseph’s eyes narrowed. He raised his chin, stopping a tight smile, respectful not to laugh in front of her. “We will sink the canoe in the river with stones,” he said. “Hide it from my people.”
Jacques ranged his eyes to the trees. “Unless they are watching now.”
Still they taunted at each other, and she wondered not for first time, if any men could cease from challenging each other.
———— (dbl sp)
The sadness was deep, quick to her, the freighter filling with water. To sink by their hands, that the storm could not do. She turned away to wait for them. Listened while they spoke of how many stones it took for Isaac’s canoe to be set onto the river bottom. Jacob gurgled his sounds. “It is well, what they are doing to your father’s canoe.”
Joseph carried both muskets, hers wrapped in a blanket slung tight across his back. Jacques had the food and water. Only a few steps and the wide cleared yard of the fort was as it had never been. Their steps were as quiet as they could make, but she knew it was a roar to the forest. Even as the wind squalled through the trees. A branch broke off from somewhere, crashing down through other limbs. Widow-maker, Isaac said of the heavy branches that may fall and kill someone beneath. He told once of a sail spar breaking in a storm, to kill old Henry Gollins down on the deck. But he didn’t have a wife, he would always remind. She always knew what he meant. That maybe being a memory in her thoughts, was enough of him to ask of life.
Her legs were yet strong and she welcomed the halt Jacques called for a rest after her second stumble. He helped her let down Jacob and she knelt with the food bag.
“We have come five miles,” Jacques said. “Maybe six.”
He declined the wedge of army bread she offered. As did Joseph. They drank from the waterskin, and she ate the smallest piece of the hard biscuit. She unbundled Jacob but he declined to nurse, captivated by the movement of the trees. They all heard the sound and Joseph dropped to his knee. The moment jabbed with intensity. She wondered if it was his misstep, or that of Sondok, had alerted her and Isaac. He readied the musket, fingering lightly to make sure the powder in the priming pan. Jacques remained standing, watching intently, his hand out to his side to steady her. She was shaking, but his hand was not.
The sound was there again. and then another. She stood with Jacob.
“They come,” she said.
She drew in a great breath of anticipation, her heart beating faster in the quickened rise and fall of her chest. Jacob squirmed as if feeling her excitement and she clutched him tighter.
“I see them,” Jacques said.
He lowered his hand when she moved toward the growing mass of disheveled stragglers filing through the woods.
“Isaac?” she called out, “—Isaac Dobbins,” again to the first to appear. Their worn faces, limps and stooped backs told of the already hard march.
She stepped in front of a man. “I am searching for my husband, Isaac Dobbins.”
The man stared, his tired, wrinkled eyes moving slow as he studied her. “Husband?”
“If he is here,” she said. “I need to find him.”
His blank look turned cold. “You need?”
Sokanon braced herself at his rising wrath.
“Her husband was lost in the storm that hit your squadron just out from Sandusky,” Jacques interceded. “Their canoes tipped over and he was taken away in the waves.”
“What concern is that for me—someone lost in the storm? This ragged company you see has been thrown out by that storm.” He looked them up and down. “You are probably some of those who steal our food in the night while we are sleeping.”
She backed away as the man pushed past her.
Jacques grabbed him by the arm. “Was there anyone found by your comrades, in the woods or along the shore?”
The man jerked himself away. His eyes were wide, half-crazed.
“The Colonel Putnam—” one of the Native women said, bent over from her heavy load. She pointed to the man moving at an energetic pace, encouraging those around him. “He leads us on.”
He saw her, immediate recognition that she, Jacques and Joseph were not part of his band. He called a halt to the marchers, drew another close to him, instructing while gesturing to their three. The other saluted, went off yelling orders through the trees, motioning for everyone to gather where he pointed. Sokanon peered deeper into the forest, movement flashing from many place, far as she could see. The Native woman dropped to her knees, relieved for the stoppage. The colonel started toward them, pausing to help the woman off with her load.
“Lieutenant-Colonel Israel Putnam,” he said, “commander of the eastern states provincial troops.”
Sokanon was surprised at his energy, far beyond the others.
“I search for my husband,” she said. “His name, Isaac Dobbins—he’s lost in the storm.” The words thudded in her own ears, how he might answer.
“Husband?” Putnam studied their strange trio, the baby in her arms. “Where are you come from?” he questioned then.
“From the Presque Isle fort.”
“Has the army arrived there?” His voice rose, not quite giving away the desperation showing in the others. “Have they brought bateaux to relieve or resupply us?”
Sokanon stared, her mind tangled with thoughts.
“Sir—” Jacques spoke. “Marie is trying to find her husband. He was lost in the storm that overtook the squadron out of Sandusky. She has been told you carry wounded with you. And that maybe you have found him afterward.”
“His name, Isaac Dobbins,” she entreated again.
That he shook his head pained.
“No one has been found,” Putnam said. “And none of the wounded are of that name.”
“You are certain?” Jacques persisted.
Putnam stood straighter. “I cannot be certain of many things. Like how many people have already been lost and frozen to death. But I am certain there has been no Isaac Dobbins with us. And I am certain no one has been found since we started our trek.” He darted his eyes between them. “I have taken personal responsibility for my men, and those who travel with us. I would have known another mouth to feed, another back to clothe. Another grave to dig.”
His voice was solemn, and Sokanon appreciated that he might see her despair. That what he said, could be trusted as truth. She thought it strange the wave of relief come to her.
“And the army is not at Presque Isle?” Putnam asked again into the silence.
Sokanon shook her head. She thought not to say of the canoe.
Putnam sighed. Nodded slowly, then stood straighter. “How far to Presque Isle?”
“About six miles,” Jacques said. “The army have already been there.”
“How long ago?”
“A few days. There have been high winds on the lake. I am certain their progress is slow.”
Putnam huffed. “Not as slow as ours. And it appears they have abandoned us.” He turned to peer into the trees. “My aides tell me there are ten miles between our van and the rear.” He started away without another word.
“Thank you,” Jacques offered at the man’s back.
Putnam only paused to encourage the woman, went back to where his group were gathering more and more.
“He has forgotten about my Isaac even now.”
“He has the great worry of all these people. It will be a very hard course for them.”
“That is what I mean. Everything continues. No matter how much is lost.”
They were sober. Whatever their own loss, it was reflected dull in their eyes.
“Come,” Jacques said, “let us hurry back to the canoe. Hopefully the wind will allow us to be off before they get there.”
She wondered of the woman, and younger than herself. She had the secure look of one who was not alone as she appeared. Maybe she was the consort of one of the provincial militiamen. But what after he was to return to his home? Isaac was another distance gone.
She felt the tug at her arm.
“Yes, Jacques. I will away.”
He and Joseph waited while she bundled Jacob back into his carrier.
“How is it you spoke in English so well, Jacques—without any accent?”
He contemplated for a moment, as if thinking whether to reveal a secret.
“I also know Dutch, and of course, German.”
“Along with Huron?” Joseph questioned.
Sokanon agreed. It was with good reason Father Pierre had entrusted Jacques to her.

29

“I have heard there is a fort being built at the mouth of the river.”
Jacques’ voice was strained with the many hours heavy breathing, fighting against the cold wind in their faces.
Sokanon followed his announcement to see yet another new fort, again, the wood yet grayed with age.
“We have not overtaken them here,” Jacques said.
He didn’t have to. She knew. There weren’t enough smoke plumes. Only those few from inside the fort, she thought.
“We shall attempt to trade for food,” he went on.
The words were harsh. All they had to trade was the musket she’d taken from the frozen man. What need of guns at an army fort? Maybe there would be a trader. Any tribespeople would be there for the same, or hoping for goodwill from those in the fort throughout the hunger months. Harsh, for another reason, too. Their journey to continue, chasing Isaac’s shadow. She remembered something of a story from her mother, as a girl, running under an eagle flying high over her head, believing she could reach its spirit if she caught its shadow.
———— (dbl sp)
The many footprints told the army had been here and gone. There was a graveyard of two outside the fort. Neither were fresh. There were markers on the crosses when Sokanon came close enough to see. Neither name was Isaac Dobbins. No lodges stood near the fort. Too new, maybe for the people to trust in its largesse. She and Jacques approached the guards stationed at the front gate.
“Where do think you two are going?” one of them confronted, grizzled face, older than she thought a sentry would be. He dropped his musket from his shoulder to present before them. The other guard was more relaxed, but followed the same.
“We wish to inquire of the army in their bateaux.” Sokanon waved her hand out to the water. She saw the man was surprised at her English. His eyes shifted. Not nervous. Dark and warning. This man was a bully, Sokanon thought, and saw again the same kind of man at Quebec, dressed down for drunkenness, made to guard duty for his crime. Hissing at her and the Sisters, calling them Catholic trollops.
“There ain’t no army in no bah—tow here,” he growled. He smiled an ugly mug to the other guard, who gave a forced, awkward sneer.
“We are looking for the young woman’s husband,” Jacques said, “he may have been wounded, traveling with your squadron landed here recently.”
The clomping of hard shoes on the rampart made Sokanon look up to another sentry.
“Who goes there, Teasdale?” he said.
“Spies, I think, Corporal,” the grizzled man said, taunting jollity in his voice. “They both speak the King’s own.”
“She has a child,” the man standing aside said.
“Maybe it’s a made up little shaver,” Teasdale mocked.
Sokanon drew back. She felt Jacques’s lean forward.
“That’s enough, vicar.” Teasdale saw it, too. He eyed Jacques. “You don’t look like no mendicant robe’r to me. And that other there, by the canoe—he ain’t no beggar neither.”
“Hold off, Tee’s,” his mate said, consideration if not sympathy as he looked to her. “There aren’t nobody in the infirmary.”
“There’s for you, then,” Teasdale barked. “Be off with yourselves.”
Sokanon hid her anger. And her tears. When she turned quickly, Jacob made his sounds. Kept at them while she walked away. She made them as his taunts to the bully, Teasdale. Jacques was not right at her side, and she knew he’d waited a moment longer, staring the man down.
“We know he’s not here, Marie,” he said coming to her.
“He is dead,” she said.
His hesitation spoke to it. “We will continue to follow the squadron. To Niagara, if we have to. As Joseph and I said we would.”
His hand was at her arm. She just wanted to keep walking. Straight into the waves, if she could.
“Marie—”
She breathed heavy, the long paddling in rough water weighing then with her drained emotions.
“You said you know some of those of the squadron.”
She nodded. Wondering which would be worse. Seeing Hartley and the others, who taunted Isaac for his native wife. Who were alive, as he was not. Who she owed her own life, and that of Jacob to. Or, the leering looks of Christie’s men.
“It is important we continue,” Jacques went on, “for you to hear them say they have not found your husband.”
He was right. “I am tired, Jacques.”
“So am I. So is Joseph. But how much more tired will your thoughts be, for your husband—for the rest of your life—if you do not make as certain of him as is possible?”
She peered across the river mouth. “I do not wish to stay here. Even for only the night.”
“All the forts up the strait are on the eastern side anyway. We will shake the dust of this place from off our feet, and cross directly.” He welcomed her toward the canoe.
“Tomorrow, then,” she put forward, “we will go on. Thank you.”
“That is well then, for tomorrow,” Jacques said. “You have had no food since this morning.”
“Neither you or Joseph have eaten in the same time.”
“We do not have a child that depends on us for nourishment.”
Children, she said to herself.
“Marie wishes to leave at once, Joseph,” Jacques said. “We’ll cross to the other side here.”
Joseph stared for a moment. “It is Seneca land.”
“Only since they took it from your Erie allies a hundred years ago.”
“You know too many things, Black Robe.”
They moved to unload the canoe, empty it of water.
Sokanon let Jacob down, lowered to her knees for the short time, to check his bundling after the many hours bucking in the high waves.
The wind was light, cool on her skin, her wet hair clinging against her face. She gazed out to the open lake, where they had come from Sandusky. The restless feeling came to her. As it always had when she was a girl, looking over the far expanses of the great waters. She had almost forgotten the feeling until Isaac. The constant waves that ever called—ever threatened?—to take her away from where she was. Always leaving. Always arriving. In her father’s canoe. In Isaac’s. The noises the two of them made with the canoe gave her the thought, for the first time, that the freighter would be hers now.
She lowered her head, and there was a flat white stone in the water just before her. She was surprised she hadn’t seen it in the few moments she had been there, so stark it stood out in the sand. She leaned to draw the stone from its ancient place. Drew it up to close her fingers around it, where it moved in her hand. She squeezed and it yielded easy to her grip, breaking in half along its length.
A marvel, she stared at it—a rough-carved face showing on one of the coarse broken surfaces. The other half was nothing and it fell from her hand, useless back into the water, and she continued to stare at the wonder. It fit perfectly in her grasp and she ran her fingers over the image carved by no person in this world.
Her mother’s story was with her again, as she told what she remembered of the tale to Isaac, when they were camped across from the island of white trees. The boy, in the magic canoe made from a white stone. She swept nervous glances all around, as if all the world was watching her. Father Armand, Father Pierre, the sisters at Quebec would all disapprove of her thoughts. As if the face of Isaac’s spirit had been given over to her by some Great Power. Guilt forced her hand up to her Jesus and Mary ring. She had no words, no understanding who to pray to, or what even to say, silently only holding the stone against her breast.
She turned back to Jacob and spoke soft. “Your father is no more alive in this world, little one.”
“Then we shall pray, Marie,” Jacques said from behind, overhearing her. “For faith, too, as much as requiem.”
He crossed himself, bowed his head and started, “Our Father...”
It struck her somehow, when Joseph joined in, and she thought for herself—Hail Mary, but there was no life to it. She said the words to herself anyway. The prayer that Sister taught her during their lessons in French. The prayer that gave her strength as a girl. Then as a woman. Even more, as a mother. “Hail Mary, full with grace, the Lord is with you. Blessed you are among women. Blessed is your baby, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother to God, pray for all the sinners, now and when we die.”
“Amen,” Jacques and Joseph finished together before she was done.
She slipped the stone into her medicine pouch without them seeing. The little leather bag that held the many items of importance she’d found during her life. Symbols she’d had to keep hidden away from Sister and Mother.
“With St. Christopher before us,” Jacques jolted her thought, “we leave.”
“I do not believe Father Pierre thought we would be gone so many days,” she said.
They stepped in and pushed off with the noises from the soldiers fading apace behind them. She didn’t even look back.
———— (dbl sp)
They ran many yards away from the wind, up a small creek coming into the Niagara strait. Away from the wind. She was glad for it, where she could soothe in the quiet of the trickling sound of the creek running over the rocks. Where they could fill the water containers with the cold, clear water.
Rumbles of thunder were in the distance, always reminding of the fearful sounds of the cannons during the long battle at Quebec. Realizing later, that those she heard in the distance from the battle at Beauport, had announced Isaac coming to her.
“We have made camp just in time,” Jacques said as rain started.
Sokanon thought it was a jest. How could they get more wet, than that of the waves splashing constantly upon them? But when the rain came harder, and the fire could not be kept going, she saw his truth. There was nothing but for her to let them know her nakedness, having to strip off her wet smock, to sleep dry in the blankets. Both of them kept their backs to her lying under the shelter.
Jacob was in his carrier, breathing his soft sounds, between her and Jacques. She caressed the stone from the lake, imagining its face in the darkness. She laid a hand on her stomach. The sickness in the mornings, the ceasing of her bleeding harmonies. She tucked under the blanket, tossed it over Jacob, and drifted on the sounds of the storm, the stone clutched tight in her hand.
——————
Rain continued in the morning, soft, but cold, and drenching what was already soaked through. But it had to be done. Rising and donning her wet clothes. To nibble at what little was remaining of the food. At least the paddling now would be in the strait, with its smaller, predictable waves. Its current helping to rush them to the older forts along the way, offering certain chance to trade for food. Even as with the uncertainty of Isaac’s fate. Her thoughts closed in on her, this last distance traveled looking for him. Strange to be near the end. Forced once again, to a new beginning.
There were no sounds when these came. Not as the refugees, rumbling wild in their horde. They revealed themselves from behind trees. Deliberate. One, then two. Warriors, showing their muskets, bows, war clubs. Sokanon’s eyes darted, Jacques and Joseph stood still beside her.
“Seneca,” Joseph said.
Sokanon was calm. “They can see we are but travelers,” she voiced low. She tilted her head side to side. “They are families.”
Three of the men came closest. Two women followed a little behind, trade blankets over their shoulders. Tattooed lines decorated the men’s faces, necks, bared chests and shoulders. A single feather stuck up from the backs of their leather head covers. One of the men moved to address them, spiked war club folded across his chest in his arms, while the two aside held muskets, sight fixed on Jacques and Joseph.
“You—” he said to Joseph, using the English word. His eyes probed, hard but not menacing. “You are, the Huron, to the Français?”
Joseph nodded silently. “Wendat.”
The man set his jaw, understanding Joseph using his own language name for his Tribe.
“You—” he said to Sokanon. “Not Huron.”
She shook her head. “Innu. Cree.”
His eyes narrowed as he studied her then, Jacob in her arms, back to Joseph. “This, not your woman.”
Joseph stood rigid.
“He does not know English,” Sokanon answered for him.
“Our peoples have fought many battles against each other,” the man directed. “He can see to what I say.”
Joseph raised his chin.
“I search for my husband,” Sokanon asserted. “The child’s father,” she added.
“Your husband—” he said, “he is also—Innu, Cree?”
Sokanon shook her head. “He called himself a Scotsman.”
“Yet, of the British?”
Sokanon wagged her head.
The older woman spoke from behind. A question for what was being said. She and the other woman were too near, too watchful, not to be important matriarchs of the band. The man deferred, more than Sokanon had ever seen a native man to woman, and returned an answer to her in their language. Both women eyed Sokanon and said something to each other. About Jacob, she knew, as the man glanced once more to her child.
The woman spoke again. The man listened, and was for Jacques— “Man of the Christian God, Jesus, do you speak the English?”
Jacques nodded.
The Seneca man was quiet for a moment. Sokanon saw his same confusion at their trio as that of the Colonel Putnam.
“I am Secanyadiyo,” he announced, as if suddenly remembering to the posture of a warrior.
Joseph tensed then, Sokanon sensing his muscles twitching, ready.
“My grandfather—” the warrior continued, “tells of his father killing the men of Jesus, who did not fight back. So, my grandmother was Catholic, by your Black Robes. My mother, also.” His face flared looking from Jacques to Joseph. “My people were friends to the French. Then to the English. Now we are forced from our right by conquest to be the caretakers of the portage over the great falls.” He swung his war club in an arc. The warriors beside him tensed. “Now, we are forced from our land,” he went on, “away from the river that connects the two lakes. We see you come from the new English fort. This not all land taken by William Johnson—you are trespass here. You must go.”
Sokanon remembered the tribespeople, men, women, children old enough, carrying her father’s canoe, all the gear—up and down the high stone embankment. Escorting her family, Father Armand and others on the portage road around the great falls. When she came again with Isaac, in Robert Rogers’ ranger army, the ranger’s themselves hauled with great excitement up the great escarpment.
She challenged lightly. “We are only here because those at the fort treated us harshly, would not give us food. We are away soon, to follow the many boats that passed carrying the army back to Niagara. We are looking for my husband only. He was lost in the lake during a storm many days past.”
She thought him running the words in his mind.
“Many days in the lake?” he said. “Perhaps dead.”
Sokanon steeled herself. Challenged more forcefully. “Perhaps those in the boats know if he is. So I can know of his spirit.”
Secanyadiyo looked sharper. “Then your husband is one of the soldiers with the English.”
Sokanon shook her head.
“Or he is their friend.”
She wanted to say no to that, too.
“Seneca have no friends—” Secanyadiyo’s eyes flashed, “not English, not French.” He pointed his war club at first Joseph then Jacques. “Not the Huron, or the followers of the Christ god. Only Seneca, are friends with themselves.”
The woman from behind called out loudly and the warrior stood down, with a suddenness as if he had been pulled back a step, made smaller.
She felt it from Jacques and Joseph, too. All attention was to the woman, who called over her shoulder to summon a nearby girl, invisible only the moment before, carrying a large basket on her back, beaded strap tight to her forehead. The woman drew off her blanket and Sokanon stared at her. Beaded headband, hair draped in two long braids. Talismans of carved stone and worked metal hung from necklaces of beads around her neck. A large metal cross with bent arms in the center of it all. Her smock was decorated and tasseled, ornamented with colorful pouches. She was even more regal than Athanasie. Than Kiwidinok. Than any woman Sokanon had ever seen.
Secanyadiyo listened to her speak, his nostrils flaring at her words. She finished and he said something to one of his men, sending him to where he waited at the woman’s side. Sokanon watched the older woman reach into the woven reed container, bringing out a bundle wrapped and tied with grass around it. She gave the bundle to the man, who returned to hand it to Sokanon. It was odd he should avoid her eyes. She smelled the jerked meat and nodded her thanks. The woman flattened her hand against her stomach, then brought her ringed fingers to her mouth gesturing to make what Sokanon understood as the sign for child. Not a matriarch. A Priestess.
“Now, you must go,” Secanyadiyo pushed. He directed the club back over his shoulder. “We are to the Seneca winter villages, before the snow falls.”
Just for a moment Sokanon wondered if she should tell of the refugees who would make their way through the Seneca’s land. She decided not to say. Jacques was already receding, waiting for her to follow his lead. Joseph waited for his own reason, staring coolly at Secanyadiyo. Neither wanted to be the first away.
“Joseph, please,” Sokanon said.
He yielded, and the three of them started together at packing and loading.
When Sokanon looked back, the Seneca were already disappeared silently into the trees. She could feel that they were yet there. Feel their spirits holding close with her own. The priestess revealed herself again and they reflected each other’s gaze, sharing same thought. The woman pushed her hand out forward in goodbye. Secanyadiyo showed himself, too. Sokanon thought it a sorry last show of force.
——————
The far off clatter interrupted the many long hours of only quiet sounds between. Throats clearing. Seats creaking. Jacob cooing. Always their paddles, dipping, pulling, lifting. Plunging. Swirling. Dripping.
“It is where the British have last year set up their shipyard,” Jacques said, his words even more abrupt, and interrupting.
Sokanon was too dulled to be startled.
“The French used to harbor their vessels at this island,” Jacques continued. “Now the British are building new ships here, to consolidate their conquest of Canada.”
Joseph’s remark that Jacques knew many things ranged through her thoughts. As did the man Campau’s words, that Isaac’s skills would employ him at the shipyard. She laid her hand to the side of the canoe. Ran her fingers across his handiwork, his hands alive again, his voice speaking to her through the soughing as he would say, of the canoe rushing through the water.
She listened close to hear the tools of the navy workmen, hammering and hacking at shaping the wood. As that of the Gladwin, rough saw cuts of timber, but how well the ship’s build worked. Sails pulling at the masts held by ropes everywhere. How alive the ship was catching the wind to carry it over the waves.
She hadn’t noticed when the rain had stopped. Everywhere was still gray, the same dullness reaching down from the clouds to the mist left over, hanging to the trees and floating above the water. She tossed the cover from over Jacob’s carrier to see his eyes sparkle in the gray that looked so bright then reflecting. Even as he squirmed his protest at the tight bundling. How would he grow without his father? How did she? A soft pang in her stomach called to the life inside of her, and she wondered how the woman, decorated with the many talisman’s hanging from beaded necklaces, knew.
The many plumes of smoke told of the fort at the head of the escarpment portage. The smell from the fires blown toward them taunted to life there. Farther on, and the rapids would begin, leading beyond to where the river would tumble down the falls. Jacques did not announce its place. She didn’t need him to say. Rather to be quiet. Rather the entire world to pause, for the forever until she would know. What she already knew. She slid her paddle through the water that at once was not real. The shaft in her hands not real. In the apparition of the canoe. Even the continuing ache in her side, not connected to the man sitting behind her. She looked from the water going by, to Isaac’s son, back to where the smoke came from the nearing shore. The distance was yet too great, the space ahead not yielding fast enough.

30

They landed and she was everywhere at once in her mind. She didn’t know if she’d expected Hartley, or Corporal Elliot, or some other of the militiamen or soldiers who knew her, to see her arrival, come for her with news of Isaac. The camp was drawn up orderly between the river and the fort, and she peered past the guards posted, who cast their dutiful looks. She saw the Iroquois allies, who had rejoined them, painted bodies covered in blankets, while red and black feathers danced from the backs of their shaved painted heads. Returned the stares from those others close enough to see them. She was glad none were the leering eyes of Christie’s men.
A fit of sickness started to rise again from inside her. Different from that of before, more violent. She couldn’t make her hands work, tussling with the cradleboard. The straps caught on her arms, the wet leather of her smock. Her stomach continued to toss and her ears warmed sudden, before her face flushed and she grew lightheaded.
Jacques came close to help. “You are faint.”
His words were as if from far off. Purple flashes stole her eyesight and she fell to her knees.
“Marie.” Jacques’ strong grip was all that held her from collapsing fully to the ground. The weight of the cradleboard was eased from her own grip failing.
They lifted her to set back into the canoe.
“Hold tight.” Jacques guided her hands, squeezed until he was certain of her hold. He and Joseph hauled the freighter with her in it high onto shore. One of them wrapped the moosehide over her shoulders.
She shook her head, desperate to fight off the dizziness. “Isaac,” she said. Her voice sounded hollow.
“Yes, Marie. But you continue to be unwell in fits. I think you are still not recovered from your ordeal after the storm. And it has been a hard paddle since, with very little food. We have made it here just in time.”
Just in time. In his words for her was his thought to Isaac being gone.
“My husband,” she insisted. She drew air in and out in even breaths. “I am well.”
“I don’t think so,” Jacques cautioned. “It is a swoon. It will pass directly. Then we can inquire of your husband.”
She continued to steady herself. “I am well,” she forced out as strongly as she could. She concentrated to stand and step from the canoe.
“Very well,” Jacques relented. “Let us to the sentries, then. Do you wish for me to carry your child?”
She nodded.
Joseph stayed by the shore while she and Jacques made their way toward the closest guard posted at the perimeter of the camp. Each step felt a going away as she neared what was her end. She had to drive away the thoughts at once pounding then. Would she continue to be married to Isaac…continue as Mrs. Dobbins…in royal law, as well as God’s? “No,” it slipped out aloud.
“Do not let the rudeness of those at the new Fort Erie unsettle you,” Jacques encouraged.
She only shook her head, continued to walk.
“Nor that of the Seneca leader,” he said.
Her thoughts seized again. This time that she would have wanted to follow off with the Seneca woman and her band. She dragged her feet while guilt weighed its burden, that she had reconciled herself to Isaac’s death. That she had already ceased to hope that he would be found alive. She felt the great need to tell Jacques—to confess to him. No, not him. Not Father Pierre. Only Sister Marie Catherine, then. Only her strength was enough. ‘Come—’ Sister’s voice directed against feeling sorry for oneself, ‘did not Mary bear witness to her only son on the cross?’
“How am I to bear, Jacques?”
“You will much better, Marie—knowing that you have done all that you could. And have faith that all is right, in the workings of the Lord.”
“Is it to remind yourself too, Jacques?”
His mouth twitched and he looked away. They were both surprised now fast the openness had grown between them. She needed Jacob in her arms. She saw that somehow, so did Jacques.
“I am stronger now,” she said, to excuse the awkwardness when she drew her child from him.
The young sentry presented his musket across his chest. Not as aggressive as the man at Erie, but that it was his duty to do so. But he straightened as they neared, made himself look bigger, intimidated by Jacques’ huge frame. “What have you, priest?” he said.
“I am no priest, young private,” Jacques said. “Only a lowly brother in the Society of Jesus.”
The guard looked past them. “And your other traveling partner?” he said of Joseph. “Is he too, a lowly brother?”
“He is our guide,” Jacques answered the easiest explanation, his voice calm to the young man’s challenge.
Sokanon was reminded of the meeting with Israel Putnam, soldiers always to their duty. She had her own. Impatience jabbed in her unsettled stomach. “We search for my husband,” she interrupted.
The soldier’s sharp gaze went from Jacques to her. “Yeah—you both speak the King’s own well enough. But who is your husband to me?” He fixed his stare. “He was one of them native allies that fled us in the storm?”
“No,” she said. She held Jacques away, determined to speak herself. “My husband is a Britishman. We travel with the army from Sandusky. He was lost in the storm that came to the swale where the boats landed. My husband, Isaac Dobbins, was swept away by the…hand of God wave.”
The sentry’s confusion grew while his consideration measured on Jacob.
“They were husband and wife trappers,” Jacques explained, “not attached to the force, but traveling with them.”
“I get that, sir vicar. But many were drowned there.” His voice was more edged. “I helped lay the bodies into the ground.”
Sokanon winced at the words. “No,” she said, “my husband was not one of them. John Hartley, and other militiamen, say so. They too, helped bury.” She was dizzy with frustration while he continued to idle. She noticed the next guard closest starting toward them. “I need speak to Corporal Elliot,” she announced.
“I know of no Corporal Elliot.”
“He was at the new Sinclair Fort.”
“There’s for you, then.” The young man’s look to Sokanon was vacant. “Your Corporal Elliot, if there is such a man, is not of my company.”
The other guard reached them. “What have we, Hoppy?” he asked the first soldier.
“I’m not sure. They are a ragged trio, with a baby. Looking for the Indian woman’s husband, they say. A Britishman, supposedly lost in the storm.”
The second soldier stared now. “Maybe he was drowned.”
“That’s what I told them, Jonesy.”
“Is there one of your superior’s we may speak with?” Jacques asked.
The guards looked to each other.
“Why should we bother our officer?”
Sokanon stepped back, exhausted already from the exchange.
Jacques motioned to her. “Surely we can trouble your officer for a moment. The missing man is the child’s father.”
“It’s too late in the day,” the one called Jonesy said. “He would have our arses for sure.”
The soldiers nodded between themselves.
“Please,” Sokanon said. “My husband was a soldier in the war against France. He was bateau-man with your Bradstreet, commander.”
The two guards turned to each other and Sokanon saw the feelings change in the young men.
“My older brother was wounded fighting the French,” Hoppy said, “with General Edward Braddock in the Ohio Country. He was invalided out of the army.”
Jonesy shuffled on his feet. “Yeah, my father was taken prisoner landing in France with Thomas Bligh.” He looked them over again, his lips set thin. “What say, Hoppy—how about I get Corporal Maxfield?”
The other thought for a moment. He nodded his assent. “Hurry on then,” he said to Jones, who trotted off.
“Thank you,” Jacques said.
“Maxie’s just a lowly corporal, vicar. You may get no further with him than from private’s Hopper and Jones tonight.”
Sokanon wanted to thank him, too. But the energy wasn’t there. She wondered if he even cared. Of course it wasn’t his place to have to care about her. She continued to sweep her eyes over the mass of people, trying to catch sight of the men she knew. Those who might care, even a little. She backed away and rested with the cradleboard onto the ground, sitting with her legs folded under her.
She watched Hoppy watching her, covering up his fascination by looking away, standing more to attention. She still thought it almost unbelievable that soldiers would be landed from across the great ocean. To fight so far away from home, and return when war was over. She wondered if he was among those from the other world. She was uneasy, the way he kept moving his sideways glances at her.
“They are approaching,” he called, relief showing on his young face. “Jonesy has roused the lieutenant with Corporal Maxfield after all.”
Sokanon rose with Jacob and moved closer, standing aside Jacques again. She saw the soldier Jones with two others making their way toward them. One of them carried a musket, his uniform trim and proper. The other was unarmed, his officer’s tunic open to a ragged undershirt.
Hopper stiffened and presented his musket again, saluted when they arrived. “Sir,” he said smartly. “Sorry to call you from your tent, sir.”
The officer waved off the trouble. “Stand easy, private. Mr. Jones has informed me of our guests. That will be all, Jonesy,” he directed, “back to your post. There’s a good man.”
The lieutenant addressed Sokanon, his slovenly appearance nothing as that of an officer. He gave a studied look from her and Jacob, to Jacques, and then to Joseph. 
“Now then,” he said, “I understand you say your husband is missing—a Britishman, lost in the storm?”
Anticipation grew at the officer’s easy manner, and her voice caught in her throat. “Yes,” was all she could say.
“And that he was supposedly a member of our force?”
“No lieutenant,” Jacques spoke, “the couple, with their child, were only traveling with your force.”
The man gave a wary stare. “And you are her, spiritual guide, brother?”
The other soldiers smirked at the jest.
Jacques motioned with his head over his shoulder. “Joseph and I are helping Marie to find her husband.”
“Yes, her husband.” The lieutenant’s close attention returned. “The child’s father.”
“Yes.”
His eyes flashed a moment of softness for her. Or for Jacob. But it was only a moment. “I’m told you say he fought against the French under Bradstreet?”
She nodded. “My husband, Isaac Dobbins, was bateau-man at many battles with his Captain Brad. He was at Beauport, and Quebec, also.”
“Beauport?” The lieutenant’s voice was spirited, before he stared again, skeptical. “This, he told you?”
“This, I am certain,” she asserted. “We met after the fighting at Quebec. When he bringing wounded men to the hospital of the nuns.”
He put his hands on his hips. “Corporal Maxfield and I were at Quebec, for the entire siege. Our Company didn’t fight at Beauport. But I know of the bravery of the militiamen there, dregs or not.” He turned to his man standing aside. “Maxie, have you heard of this, Isaac Dobbins?”
“No sir, I have not. But if he was with Old Brad, and at Beauport, he’s a good chap.”
“Yes, Corporal. I agree.” The lieutenant scratched at the side of his neck. “How is it your family was traveling with the army?” the lieutenant asked. “Have you been with us from Detroit?”
She didn’t want to answer. To speak anymore. Isaac had not been found by them. “We were only from Sandusky,” she said, “with furs to sell at Niagara.”
“Oh—was your husband one of the agent Christie’s men?”
She bristled. “No. He was to buy our furs. Isaac and I came down from the St. Mary’s. There was trouble on the lake St. Clair and we were to Detroit with your Corporal Elliot, and another soldier named Gale. And the bateau-men Hartley, Greene, Wayne and Potter. They said they would look for Isaac, on the way to Niagara.”
He raised his chin. “Did you really expect they could?”
“No, I did not.” She breathed. “I prayed that, any, would find, his body, in the water. And that those who know of him, would…”
“I’m sorry young lady, but without your husband’s name on the roster, I’m not sure what we can do for you. There were no reports of any personnel found after we launched again after the storm.”
She breathed. She had expected it, but held her emotions.
The lieutenant peered intently. “I can appreciate your solidarity with soldiers of the British Empire. And, that you were at the hospital during the campaign for Quebec. The sister’s there fixed up a lot of our boys, too. It makes up for a lot of mistrust.”
She couldn’t stop the anger rising behind her eyes. “What is need for you to, mistrust? I am only to ask of my husband.”
Jacques’ hand steadied at her arm.
“Considering France was our enemy only a short time ago—” the lieutenant went on, “and all the Tribes save our Iroquois allies were out for our scalps even more recently—an Indian maiden with a French accent, traveling with a Jesuit, equally French? And, I’m betting your Indian is a French Huron.” He motioned to Joseph. “You can see how I might not want to bother my superiors with this?”
“I am sorry,” she said.
The lieutenant’s expression didn’t change. “I do not know of a Corporal Elliot. And I know very few of the militiamen’s names. As I said, dregs, most of them, to be sure. I did have a private Christopher Gale under my command. These men can attest for your missing husband?”
She nodded.
Waited.
“I will send a runner to command, inquiring about your husband.”
It surprised her. It was all that she could have hoped. She pressed him, though. “You will send the runner, tonight?”
His eyes darted with impatience. “Corporal Maxfield.”
“Sir,” the soldier answered. “There’s to it then, Maxie. Send over to the infirmary tent, too.”
“I will ask there myself, sir, on the way.” He saluted before trotting to the order.
“Thank you,” Sokanon offered a grateful smile.
He shook his head. “I warn you again. I have heard of no one found after the storm.”
“I know.”
“Good luck, miss. Stand fast, private,” he said to Hopper.
“Sir.” The young man straightened to attention, musket continued presented across his chest.
Sokanon watched the lieutenant stride away. Corporal Maxfield was already out of sight in the rows of tents.
“Let us keep faith, Marie,” Jacques said.
She turned her eyes away. She knew he didn’t believe in the chance.
He went to the canoe and she knelt again, laying Jacob on the ground to release him from the cradleboard, where he waved his arms and legs, loosed from the bundling. He shivered, his bare skin against the chill, until she drew him with a blanket into her arms, still squirming his freedom.
Jacques and Joseph were quiet, working with each other, pulling up Isaac’s freighter to unload. There was nowhere for the lean-to. She thought there was no need to it, anyway. Only to stretch the canvas over the canoe, then weigh it to the ground with heavy rocks, in the way of the voyageurs. Isaac was not found. She would search for Hartley and the others to be certain of their details. Even just to know they had not given Isaac a thought. Maybe get food from them. Then she could forget about them, forever. Tomorrow, would be off, to return to Sandusky. Her life to be there, with her children. Isaac’s children.
“Come and sit at the fire.”
She wondered how Jacques was to her again without her noticing. The crackling of kindle behind made her question how much time had passed. The flames were bright and inviting.
“Yes, Jacques.”
He carried the cradleboard and she made sure Hoppy saw them before she shuffled with Jacob the few feet away, to where she could yet cause the young man to look away from her gaze.
Her thoughts were sullen. “Perhaps we can find those who will add their paddles with us to Sandusky.”
Jacques and Joseph were quiet.
She embarrassed, uncomfortable with how easily they had allowed her trust over to them. “I am again, grateful for your amity,” she said.
Joseph gave a nod. Jacques, a relaxed smile. “The falls are quite astonishing, are they not?” he said.
Sokanon tilted her head at his easy change of discourse. “I have never seen the falls.”
“Never?” Jacques questioned. “In all your travels with Father Armand, and then with your husband?”
Even Joseph softened his stone face in surprise.
She shook her head. “No,” she continued to deny their wonder. “Always with my father and Father Armand, we used the portage road. We were always in a hurry, to go or return. And then with Isaac, with the Rangers, we were advancing too quickly to Detroit.”
“Well—” Jacques peered down his nose into the fire, as if searching for the right words. “It might be good for you, to stand before the enormity of the falls. The amount of water going over is very remarkable. The closer you stand, the more you feel its power. As if every lake and river we’ve ever seen, traveled on, drank from, or stepped into, is rushing to be rid of all our actions.”
It was as if his own confession. It was strange talk from a follower to the Black Robes Society of Jesus—the power of the natural world. Father Armand never talked about the falls, power of the natural world. Father Pierre would, if only to explain God’s miracles in all things.
“Everywhere is so far from here,” she said. “The Saguenay, where I was born. Gichigami, where I lived with my husband. Detroit. Sandusky. I do not know if I’ll ever be here again.”
Jacques appeared suddenly as if Father Pierre, as if to teach with what he would say. “Then, Marie, I would urge you. A few moments atop the escarpment, to see, and hear, might allow you a sense of—renewal, I would say. That over the falls go the endless troubles of our lives, and yet come more, never ceasing.”
“A life of troubles, big man?” Joseph said.
Sokanon waited for Jacques to answer, thankful for restraining his smile, even as his face glowed. 
“Troubles,” he said, “are all that some of us have, as proof we are alive.”
She stared at him, trying to see his life of troubles, through her own. It was a test for him, too, Father sending him with her. “All of you believed Isaac was dead, before we left Sandusky.”
Their looks told, they didn’t have to say. She knew then, too.
———— (dbl sp)
“Marie.”
She was roused by Jacques’ voice. The few bright evening stars told she had fallen asleep. They twinkled in the darkened last few minutes of the blue hour. Joseph sat aside, watching, as he always did. The straightforward look from Jacques told her.
He shook his head. “There are no reports of finding anyone.” He fixed his stare. “The information comes straight from Colonel Bradstreet’s aides, the corporal said.”
As if that helped. Maybe it did.

31? (Book Two?)

She stepped softly over the broad shelf of rock, inching close to the edge, spray blowing cold onto her face. The sight was a wonder, her eyes trying to see it all at once. She was struck motionless in the immensity, the noise of the great falls the only sound left in the world. It was as Jacques told her, and she felt her knees shaking, legs weakening in the power too great for her to grasp. The urge came to give herself over to it, just tumble with Jacob into the torrent to be taken away with Isaac. She imagined him scolding her for even thinking it, and the weight of just the thought caused her to falter.
She backed away and dropped to her knees, the rough surface of the rock scraping through the softened leather of her smock. She set the musket aside and released the straps to lay the cradleboard down. 
“Jacob,” she called soft. Not to him, but as an announcement of his presence. Jesus and Mary knew his life through the baptized water of the priests. But she thought of her mother’s Great Spirit, that maybe she should ask the spirit of the great falls for her child, too. “Son of Isaac Dobbins. Grandson of David and Martha. Kakatshu, and Oota Dabun.”
She lay next to him, her emotions too flat to even cry. She was lost again, not knowing where to go, where she belonged. The water going over the edge didn’t have a choice, always to the ocean that surrounds the world she was taught was round, as the sun and moon. The giant circle that would maybe bring Isaac back to this same place one day, mixed with the great water from around his Nova Scotia. She wondered if she stayed long enough, if she would see him going over the rim to begin his great journey.
She drew the stone from her pouch and brought it to her face, smelling its soft scent of the ancient, feeling its ancient surface against her chapped lips. Guilt pricked at her to grab at her Jesus and Mary ring along with the talisman from the water. Another moment of forfeit forced its way into her numb thoughts. The impulse to throw the ring, and the stone, into the cascade. The least sacrifices of her spirit, once again broken. She stopped herself and watched the black bird flying high in the sky.
It was too quiet to be a crow, who always announce themselves. Raven, maybe, big cousin, quiet and cunning. Kakatshu, in his place again, watching over daughter and grandson. But it came down closer and started to circle, wings up, carrion eater. She wanted to scream at it, or laugh, tell it she wasn’t dead.
The monotonous rush of the falls went on and brought a deep tiredness and she rested her head onto her arm. She watched Jacob close his eyes and fall asleep under the same spell. She fought for a while, giving over her own consciousness, but slowly she was taken by its healing call of peace. Even as dark visions of Isaac, and her mother, father and brother crept from behind her eyes. She thought she was smiling then, when the visions faded into the sounds of her name being called from some dreamland far away. It was Jacques’ voice. Maybe that of Joseph, too.
She was jarred awake, her vision blurred, squinting into the dusk of day’s end. It was impossible that she’d slept for so long. Movement caught her attention and she sat up quickly, instincts calling to reach for the musket. She knocked it instead in her haste, down the few feet of a step in the shelf. The wolf was standing close, sniffing the air, hesitant at her scent. It was alone, the recent wounds of an eye torn away, slashes at its legs, flanks and shoulders. A large animal, but old, beaten up and forced from its pack. Its one eye remaining stared with the desperation of its injured state, left to scavenge or kill only the weakest of prey.
Sokanon made a move toward the musket, and the wolf threatened closer.
“Marie!” she heard her name louder now, sighing in the trees.
“Jacques!” she yelled to the searching calls for her. “Joseph!”
The animal backed away, only just. Starvation drove it to be not afraid of voices, and it sniffed the air again, advancing with the danger of gunpowder far enough away. Its mean stare and scenting nose followed Jacob as Sokanon stood slowly, bringing the cradleboard up with her into her arms.
“Here!” she yelled again, but there was no response.
Her mind ran before her and she reached for her knife. The wolf tested again, stepping forward. She screamed at it. But it didn’t retreat this time, followed her as she inched her way toward the falls and the precipice, where over the rim was a ledge. Maybe the wolf wouldn’t follow if she jumped. It moved closer, maybe sensing her try for escape. She held the cradleboard tight and yelled once more. “Jacques! Joseph!” The wolf charged and she went over the edge.
She landed heavy, Jacob thrown from her grasp to the ground, where he started to wail. She looked up to see the wolf pawing at the edge, testing the height. If it leapt at her, she would try and throw its weight in the air over the rim. She braced herself, but the animal felt the danger and stalked away. She followed its course until it disappeared, and she saw there was a narrow ridge leading along the rock to the ledge. The wolf would figure it out.
“Jacques! Joseph!” she yelled again. How could they hear her over the falls.
She looked around, her own desperation whirling in her body. Nowhere to climb down any farther. No way to climb back up. Not with Jacob. She would have to fight and she studied again. Not the knife. The animal would have to come at her unbalanced along the ridge. A fallen branch hung in the tree that jutted out from the rocks just below her perch. She sheathed the knife and hung over the edge and grabbed at the branch, screaming when it fought against her effort to raise it, stuck fast by the green gray moss that grew everywhere. She screamed again, pulled harder and finally tore the branch away. It was heavy, but she knew she could use it, and she aimed it toward the way the animal had to come for them.
It was yet cautious when it showed and she yelled and speared at it with the long branch. It started for her and Jacob again, unsteady on the ridge. But its gone eye faced the fall down the gorge, blinding it to danger. It came, driven by death hunger. She jabbed again, trying to force the animal to lose its balance and slip off the shelf. The wolf snapped its jaws at the branch, strength enough to almost rip it from her hands. It growled deep and advanced over and over, looking for a way around the point of the crude weapon. She stabbed, trying for its good eye.
The wolf reared to its haunches, and in one motion leapt up the ridge and over the branch to crash down, landing on top of her as they smashed to the ground. She held the tree limb between them tight in her hands, punching with it at the snapping teeth, saliva slinging onto her face from slashing jaws. Over and over until the dripping fangs found their mark in her shoulder. From somewhere she heard Jacob cry out and she yelled her death scream and shoved again, determined now to take the wolf over the edge, with her if she had to.
She pushed hard as she could, trying to make it lose its footing, the animal understanding, clamping its jaws onto the branch to hold itself from falling. Sokanon saw her chance and spun to kick at the wolf which bit again and again at her legs and feet, tearing a moccasin from her. But a kick finally found a good mark, knocking the back legs of the animal out and over the rim. The wolf grabbed with its front paws at the moss covered rock, trying to regain the ledge as it slipped farther down. She stood away from its snapping jaws, animal instinct to keep fighting even while desperate to save itself from falling. She swung the branch and crashed it down on its head, the wolf whining a weak yip before it was gone, down into the gorge.
She dropped heavy to her hands and knees, her strength drained, muscles aching with the contractions of her heavy breathing. Senses came back to her slowly, until Jacob’s cries filled her ears over the roar of the falls. She dragged the cradleboard to her and she thought to try and comfort him with a touch and a kiss.
“Jacob,” she panted.
He could not yet be soothed and her fear grew apace with his cries. She felt all around her stomach for any bruises, calmed herself just enough to listen to her body for any hurts from that within.
She heard her name called again.
“Here—” she tried to yell, her voice coughing in her throat. “They are looking for us, Jacob,” she rasped. “But we must not stay here.”
She forced herself to stand through the pain and exhaustion. Dragged Jacob onto her back while her shoulder throbbed its wound. Started with small steps, suffering the many slashes on her legs.
She pressed tight against the wall, leaning the unbalance of the cradleboard away from the open well of the gorge behind her. The weight and strap abused at the bitten shoulder. Pine needles and stones assaulted her bare foot as she slid along the ridge.
Almost straight up to climb the last few feet to the top and she had the thought to wonder how the wolf had made it down. Her first step up slipped and she flattened herself, clutching with every surface of her body, the side of her face scraping on the rock. She stepped up again. Then again, grabbing holds scraped out of crevices with her fingertips.
“Marie!”
They were closer this time, but she was too afraid to try and answer. She feared losing her grip. On everything she had left in the world. She found the moment to scold herself for the earlier conceit of ending their lives with a leap into the falls.
She collapsed atop the summit, her face against the cold granite. The dank, earthy smell drifted into her nose with every breath, calling her away to some childhood memory, flashing half-remembered in her slipping consciousness. She wondered if she was still asleep, dreaming. Jacques and Joseph called again to show the truth she knew. She didn’t have the energy to answer.
When their hands were on her it was as if it was a dream, her body numb to their handling. She fell back into arms that rested her gently on her back. Jacob was still crying and she turned her head to the sound, trying to see him through blurred vision.
“He is hungry,” she said.
“He will be taken care of,” Jacques said, his voice hollow, far away. “He is unhurt. We need to see to you.”
She felt her smock being peeled away from her shoulder.
“We carry her back to the fort doctor,” Joseph said.
“We have to bandage her wounds now. The jostling will make them bleed more.”
“Bleeding is good,” Joseph pronounced. “It will take away the bad sickness from the animal bite.”
“She could bleed to death before that if we don’t stop the flow.”
Their calm deliberating soothed her and she thought of the Ojibwa we-eh’s and their tending at Jacob’s birth.
“I am with child,” she said, finally announcing it into the world.
She felt their pause. She laid her palm to her stomach.
Jacques stared. “So soon, after this child?” His narrowed gaze widened with wonder and he placed a hand over hers. “We will be as gentle with you as possible.”
She heard ripping sounds and wondered what he was using for a bandage. Then she was exposed, the cool air refreshing against her skin. A tug from her neck told that the lanyard holding her ring was being severed. She wanted it in her hand, but decided not to ask, afraid she would lose it in the forest if it slipped from her grasp.
Jacques worked his big fingers smoothly. She watched him make small wads of fabric torn from Joseph’s flannel cloth shirt. Stuffing them gently into the punctures in her shoulder.
“Where the wounds are, there is no good way to stanch the blood,” he said. “No bandage will put enough pressure. I have to sit you up, so I can do the ones in back.”
She saw her movement, but could not feel it. Maybe that was good, the pain causing her no discomfort. Then she remembered the nuns talking of wounded soldiers going into shock from their injuries. She thought her mind was clear, though, her thoughts sharp. But she watched Joseph dressing at the slashes on her leg, and she had the sensation it was someone else he was working on.
Pushing from her back told that Jacques was working there. He grumbled his frustration, struggling to wrap bindings around her shoulder, across her chest, to hold in place the square bandages he had made to cover the wounds.
“I am finished,” Joseph announced about her leg bandages.
“Take up the child,” Jacques said to him. “I will carry Marie.”
When he lifted her, she felt his strength. He did not strain, did not bounce her into a better position. He just grabbed her up and started off at a quick pace. She looked to be sure of Joseph’s attention to Jacob. She laid her head on Jacques’ shoulder, turning her face away from the low hanging foliage. She thought it good that Jacob was not crying.
“What was it?” Jacques confused her with his question. “A coyote—after the baby?”
“It was a wolf.”
“My goodness.” His voice sounded a mixture of disbelief and admiration.
She thought of the wolf Isaac had killed near their cabin. Gaunt, half-dead, driven to foolishness by the hunger of one that could no longer hunt, its pelt useless. “It was very old,” she said.
“It is good that it ran off.”
“Yes.”

32

She fought back the pain of the cradleboard on her hurt shoulder. The bites and scratches would not let her bend her ankle and she limped, leading Jacques through the lanes between the tents pitched around the yard of the fort.
He caught her gentle by the arm. “It has been but two days since the wolf attack,” he scolded. “You shouldn’t be so active. Your wounds are not yet healed.”
“My wounds are for me to feel.”
“At least let me carry the child.”
She dismissed his frown and continued at a pace to halt beside the wagon, waiting for him to stand with her. She motioned for him to duck behind, out of the view of Christie’s men. She pointed to the cargo the trappers had stacked together.
She kept her voice low, even though the noise of the soldiers would keep them from hearing. “The two bundles on the bottom, the ones in the canvas cloths bleached white in the sun, they are our furs.”
Jacques peered over the wagon. “How do you know?” he questioned.
She motioned again. “The marks, they are what Isaac did. He used blueberries to stain the designs. They are waves.” She snaked her hand through the air. “Waves from the great ocean, around Isaac’s Nova Scotia.”
“They appear to be only smudges.”
The vision of Isaac caught in the storm ached in her chest. “That is from the water.”
Jacques continued to question with his gaze. “Do you think they are trying to steal them? If they are yours.”
“They are, ours.” She felt the jab of his unexpected doubt, after showing her such devotion in the short time together. “When I talked with them after the storm, they did not say of the furs. They knew who were the owners. Isaac show them at Sandusky. They knew he was my husband. I did not notice because they hide them. And—”
“What?”
“I was looking for Isaac. I did not care at that time about furs. Or anything else,” she glanced over her shoulder, “besides our son.”
“Of course.” Jacques focused again. “They are the only ones with those stains,” he said of the two large bundles. “Why would they keep them out  in the open?”
“Maybe they don’t know the markings are Isaac’s. Maybe they think I am not smart. Or they did not care if I saw. They have seen me, walking with Jacob to regain my strength. They did not say now of the furs when they could have.” She was adamant. “They are trying to steal.”
“We shall go to the proper authorities.”
“You know they will laugh at me, Jacques, for being a, squaw. And if they do not, they will take the furs as the colonel at Detroit did, contraband he calls, unlicensed crown property. Will you confront them with me, now?”
“I suppose you will on your own, eventually.”
She breathed heavy. “I have to. It is not only for me, or Isaac. It is for Jacob.”
He nodded and loosened his stance. “But you must not quarrel, with your injuries.”
He followed as she strode toward them.
The man with the red beard noticed her first. Conall. His thick mustache and hair were even dirtier than last she saw him. He got the attention of his mate with the black hair. Henry, she thought, although she couldn’t remember hearing his name said. They either had Christie kept away, or maybe he was in the infirmary.
“Look here, lads,” Conall said to the others nearby, “Scratches on top of the pox marks on her face, and still as pretty as ever.”
A few laughed, the rest watched close.
Sokanon bristled, remembering their leers, the untoward offer of going into winter camp with them. “Those are my furs,” she asserted with a heave of her chest that made her shoulder throb under the strap of the cradleboard.
The men hesitated and she noticed the hiding gazes of the quiet ones to the rear. She hoped Jacques would see it, too, understand even more her truth as they turned away uncomfortable from their crime.
She pointed to the bundles. “Those markings.” She waved her hand to imitate their shape. “Put there by my husband.”
“So you claim,” Conall challenged. “What say you, Henry?”
The man with black hair squinted, his eyes full of deception. “Those are the markings of the original sail maker, to tell the grade of the duck.”
“That is a lie,” she hissed to the man’s satisfied look at his deceit. “Those are our furs,” she said again, “mine and my husband’s.”
“And where is your husband, to claim them?”
Her anger rose.
“Good Christians do not steal,” Jacques said.
She wished Isaac was there instead.
“You have brought along your dress-wearing friar, to damn us all with his Catholic witchery.”
The men laughed again and Sokanon suffered for Jacques.
“Good men, do not steal from women and children.” She heard the challenge in his voice.
Henry came forward. “You dare call us thieves, vicar?” he demanded. “Those furs were bought at trade in Detroit. Purchased from a licensed trader,” he went on, unconvincing. He gave Sokanon a laughing smirk. “Do you have a license?” He man looked from her to Jacques. “There you go, vicar. We are licensed to trap and trade in peltry.” He shrugged. “Even if they were hers, the authorities would confiscate them as soon as she tries to move them down the portage.”
“If they are hers,” Jacques offered, “then it would be right to at least pay her for them. A fair price, too, gentlemen,” he defended further.
The trappers were confused at his calm challenge. A quick glance to each other regained their rude posture.
“A fair price?” the one called Conall sneered. “For what is already in our possession?” His little eyes, made smaller by his huge beard, roved Sokanon up and down. “But my offer stands, to join with us at our winter camp. We will take good care of you—and your child.”
Henry smirked with him.
Jacques put his arm out to stop her.
“Maybe you see my husband in the water after the storm,” she spat. “And steal the furs instead of saving him.”
“We saw no one,” the man dismissed.
“You are like the thief on the cross,” Sokanon said.
He gave an arrogant smirk. “Then, we are forgiven, as Jesus did the thief.”
Jacques raised his hand in front of him. “Not only a thief, but you speak of Our Lord with contempt.”
The man recovered his mean expression and moved forward. “I speak as a citizen of the British Crown. Not a defeated subject such as yourself.” He sneered again at Sokanon. “And not a piece of Crown property. Like this squaw.”
She leapt at him, but he caught her fist before her blow could land.
He showed his teeth in an ugly smile through his facial hair. “Even with an arm in a sling, and a child on her back. What a wild one she is.”
But the grin left him when Jacques grabbed the man’s wrist and twisted his grip away from Sokanon. He tried to pull away but Jacques held him tight, squeezing. The man swung his free hand and hit Jacques full in the side of the face, but still Jacques did not let go, and the man could not free himself from the grip. His eyes were wide now, fiery blue as lake ice, and he and Jacques stared at one another until Jacques released his hold. The man stumbled back, rubbing his wrist.
“Yeah. A pretty good fighter you might have been, brother.”
“Maybe I’d like to see how good.” Henry moved closer.
Jacques stood his ground. Sokanon wondered at his readiness to fight.
But the trappers stopped, their eyes darting glances behind her and Jacques.
“What are you looking at?” Henry said past them.
Joseph was there, confident determination as he moved toward them. A few of the soldiers started to gather at the commotion. It was enough for the men to back off.
“Come, Marie,” Jacques said. She gave no protest when he ushered her away. “I know now that the furs are yours,” he said.
——————
“I am sorry for your husband,” Hartley said.
His words were hollow to her, pained to hear him speak of Isaac. She needed his help again, but he was alive and Isaac wasn’t. She hated that she should have to put aside her mourning for her husband, while seeking the aid of Hartley and the others. “I shall miss him always,” she said.
He shuffled on his feet. “But you are doing well?”
A natural impulse brought her hand up to her shoulder. “Yes.”
“It is good that you are. And that the child was unharmed. It was a wolf that attacked you? Just over at the top of the falls?”
“Yes.”
“That’s more than a mile,” he said, peering into the distance that could not be seen. “That’s still closer to civilization than I’d like to know of wolves. There are stories of them sneaking right into camps at night, tearing out men’s throats while they sleep.”
“John Hartley,” she stopped his talk.
Embarrassment flushed in his face.
“I need your help,” she announced, impatient with even her own feelings.
Hartley waited, rubbed at his neck.
“I have discovered two bundles of our furs,” she spoke. “The fur agent, Christie, his men have them,” she said to his quickly changed look of puzzlement.
“We were glad to hear at Sandusky that you and Isaac got the furs back. But he also told us he was to sell them to the Christie fellow at Niagara. I don’t understand.”
“They must have found them after the storm,” she went on, “now, they are thieves to our furs.”
“I have heard Christie to be made daft by a blow to the head during the storm. Maybe his men do not know of the arrangement? Have you confronted them?”
“Yes. They mock at me. They know of the arrangement with their boss. They talk with Isaac at Sandusky, look over the furs with him.” She shook her head. “They know.”
“Why would they keep them now, without recompense?”
She set her lips tight and fixed her stare.. “They keep them because my husband is dead. Because I have no license. Because I am a, squaw.”
Hartley’s eyes narrowed. “Christie’s men are attempting to take advantage for themselves from his condition.”
She shrugged. “How to know if the agent would not have done the same, with Isaac gone? They are our furs,” she reaffirmed.
“I believe you.” He continued his careful look. “There is a reason you have come to me, taken me aside to tell me of this.”
“Yes. We have a plan to take the furs back.”
“We?”
“After I returned to Sandusky, I asked Father Pierre Potier to help me look for Isaac, when no one else would. It is well,” she told him, holding her hand up to stop him as he started to say. “Father set two men to help me.” She thought to tell him of Joseph, that he would remember him as one of those from the attack north of Detroit, and of Jacques in his religious robe. “They are both with much, skill.”
“And these men are willing to help, what—steal them from the trappers?”
She nodded again.
He gave over to thinking again.
“You were going to help at Detroit,” she urged.
“Yes, but there the soldiers were going to deliver the furs to us.” He tilted his head side to side. “Here, we are to take them outright ourselves? With so many people looking on? Could not you go to the authorities of the Fort?” He caught himself. No license. A squaw. “What if the lot of us went with you—bear evidence that the furs are yours?” Again, the folly of his question drifted in the air. “I guess not,” he apologized. “Maybe we could confront them with you. Bring the question of the furs ownership into the open.”
Sokanon shook her head. “They would only continue to deny. And it would bring too much attention to the furs afterward. We would never have chance to take them. I am afraid now, they will watch them too close, that I have already confronted them.”
“That might not bode well for your plan, then,” he frowned, “whatever it is.”
“I must try,” she said.
“With a bandaged arm and leg? And a child still bundled to your back?”
“Yes. I try for the child, for Jacob. For Isaac, too. He was to sell the furs to start a good life for his family.”
“Well, I can go to the others. We can at least listen to your plan.”
“Thank you,” Sokanon said. “That is all that I ask.”
“Where are you camped?”
She pointed. “A little way—out of sight of the fort.”
“When?”
She lifted her chin. “The army could be called to depart at any moment.”
“I will get the others,” Hartley said. “We will meet you directly.”
“Thank you,” she said again.
———— (dbl sp)
She sat, rocking Jacob in the crook of her arm while Jacques spoke. His voice was quiet, but direct, and it was as if she was hearing him, seeing him, for the first time. He commanded attention, and Hartley and the others listened. Joseph stood near, quiet as was his way. She saw that the men recognized the Huron warrior from the conflict on Lake St. Clair. They glanced at him in turns as Jacques told of the plan to take back the furs after they are loaded onto the wagons for the portage over the upper escarpment.
“Christie’s men have already seen Joseph and me,” he said. “So, we cannot show ourselves.”
He stopped, hands on his hips, waiting for their reply.
It was Potter spoke first. “You make it sound too simple for us to pose as teamsters and steal a wagon.”
Sokanon was silent. She wished she didn’t need any of them, that she and Isaac were here with the army, waiting to go into Christie’s winter camp.
“It is not stealing,” Jacques said, “you are only to borrow the wagon for a time.”
“You twist words, vicar,” Potter snorted.
“Yes—” Greene said, “how are you to reconcile these actions with your faith?”
“It is far from the normal actions of a Jesuit,” Potter added, suspicion in his gaze.
Jacques clasped his hands to his front. “I think the Lord will look aside our actions as they are to right a wrong.”
She watched for their reactions wondering how it was that they might listen to one recently considered an enemy, not only of country, but religion, too. His black robe was dirty and she thought of Father Armand having a second to wear when the other was being cleaned. She remembered the brothers rushing to be the one to wash it.
“What if someone gets hurt, Brother?” It was the always quiet one, Wayne.
“I have already told Marie,” Jacques turned to her. “My vows preclude me from doing harm to any of Christie’s men.”
“Just what is to be your involvement, then?” Potter turned to Joseph. “And that of our silent Indian friend here? We have not forgotten your attempt to harm this woman.”
Joseph remained stone-faced, and stood unmoving, rigid as ever. Something told Sokanon he understood exactly the words spoken in English.
Jacques steeled his eyes. “Gentlemen. It does not matter our religious affiliations, or our past transgressions.” He turned an open hand to Sokanon. “In the short time we have been with Marie, Joseph and I have, for each our own reasons, come to be committed to her and her child’s well-being. It would be best, I understand, that we just take them back to Sandusky, and not risk this adventure. And if it does not work out, we may just do that. If that’s what she wants.
“Joseph and I will be waiting, off in the woods, away from the portage road. We will unload the bundles and you can do what you will with the wagon. We will take the furs ourselves down the steep elevation from there. That is the extent of your involvement, get the furs away from Christie’s men, only. We will do the rest.”
Sokanon wanted to say something, but could not find words. It was not right for Hartley and the others to do this for her, but she thought of Isaac, what he’d tell her about his time as a bateau-man in the war. How he was part of those who made sure others had the materials not only to do battle, but also food and shelter. How scared he was, but staying with his boat, being shot at by muskets and cannons waiting for his mates to be brought away to safety. These men maybe, were to do now, as he had done, then.
“What if Christie’s men insist on riding in the wagon?” Hartley shook his head.
Jacques shrugged. “We know that is a possibility. We were hoping, posing as porters, you could persuade them away from riding along.”
“And what if they will not be persuaded? How are you going to keep your vows not to do harm, then? They will not just let you take the furs.”
Sokanon addressed them finally, breathing calmly. “I will be well, if you do not wish to help,” she said.
“I am willing to help,” Greene offered. “As I think the others are. But I don’t see how it can work. What if the fur men don’t wait for the army to depart? What if they decide to leave today—right now? How are we to know exactly when—and exactly where—to have the wagon waiting, specifically, for your fur bundles?” He threw up his hands. “I just don’t see how it will work.”
Sokanon looked down in despair at the uncertainties she knew were true. “I understand, there is only this one chance.” She raised her chin. “There is no other chance to take the furs back while the soldiers are there. I can not go to the authorities. No one will care that the furs are rightfully mine. If Jacques’ plan will not work, then it will be as it is.”
“If it is to be right in the eyes of our Lord Jesus,” Jacques said to them all, “He will see the plan through to its success.”
The men sighed as one, and even Sokanon continued in her doubts.
——————
She was restless, waiting as the army did for the order to depart Fort Schlosser. She hoped the trappers would not decide to leave before then. She walked with Jacob amongst the soldiers, hearing again their camp talk about the Colonel Bradstreet. Their complaints had grown meaner, Old Brad’s decision to leave Sandusky suddenly leading to the disaster in the Lake Erie storm. His entire operation against Pontiac a disaster, many said. It was the first of November others grumbled, worried for the long, slow return to their homes.
The men gave her little notice, even with her bandages, and child on her back. She thought it was good she could walk amongst them almost invisible, listen for information. But the protests made her sadness for Isaac strike at her thoughts. His death even more meaningless in the company of their harsh words for the commander he had always spoken well of. She was cautious keeping a watch on the trappers, spying looks to them in the blue hours of morning and evening. They stayed mostly to their camp and only once could she be certain they saw her.
Jacques and Joseph had taken the canoe down the steep escarpment and hidden it there, past the fort at the lower landing. Her gratitude for their continued help welled again. That they were willing to help even more, she couldn’t understand. But what after they had the furs—if they could get them? She couldn’t sell them in Niagara. They would have to go on. They had to know it meant helping her to Montreal. At least. To Quebec, too? She wasn’t even certain that’s what she wanted. And what if they couldn’t get the furs away from Christie’s men? Jacques and Joseph would have to carry the canoe back up the long, portage for them to return to Sandusky. How would they manage on the big lakes in the unpredictable weather of the late season—whether they down the waterway, or up?
She thought maybe it should be enough just to escape somewhere with Jacob, with the new baby. It was the first time she’d thought about herself, going on, without Isaac. She felt ashamed, told herself she shouldn’t be. He would want it—demand it—for her to make a life for their children. She fought for strength from her faith failing. Fought against her spirit falling away into the pieces of her life. She wished not to need Hartley, and the men Greene and Potter and Wayne. She knew she couldn’t blame them for not doing more for her after the storm. They were going back to their lives, their homes and families. Leaving her to her own end. The walk tired her. More than the other times. It lifted her resolve seeing Jacques and Joseph at their camp. She struggled the cradleboard from her back and sat to rest.
“You are to too much activity,” Jacques said. He brought the pot off the fire to her.
She couldn’t hide the sadness that she only barely kept spilling from her eyes, but he said nothing, giving a kind look of encouragement instead. To her wonder again she felt the gentleness of his big hands as he worked to remove the bandages, clean her wounds with rags from the hot water.
“Even with all the activity—” his voice was lecturing as he wiped, “and toting the child on your back, your wounds are healing very well. Soft scabs are starting to cover the punctures. It is good they were not very deep.”
She thought of the wolf’s old, blunted teeth.
“And no sign of infection,” he noted. “I’d like to continue using the poultice, though, at least for another day.”
“It itches,” she said, her voice cracking. “What is the medicine made from?”
“Mashed pumpkin as a drawing salve, and willow bark for pain.”
“I know of willow. Pumpkin? Where did you get it?”
“In the military term I, requisitioned it.”
“The garden is surrounded by fence. You, stole it?”
“Good men of Jesus do not steal,” he said. His face did not change. “I do not think the gardeners of the fort will miss one gourd. It was not yet ripe, anyway.”
“Ripe or not, it makes me want to scratch when it dries hard.”
“But I see you are strong enough not to scratch at it. That is good. The poultice has kept the wounds from festering. It is a good trade, I think. Itching for pain and infection. Death.”
She nodded. “I can not paddle for some time.” It was more than not being able to help with her own escape. She and Isaac paddled together as if one spirit. It was all she had left of him, the canoe she helped him to build.
“Do not worry,” Jacques said. “Your paddling is for me and Joseph to do.”
The question rose again. She couldn’t stop it. “Why should you?”
She waited for his answer.
He looked off, in the way he did when he was not with his head down and eyes closed in silent prayer. “Why not?” he asked.
“Joseph—why he?”
“I cannot know that, Marie. You will have to ask him. If you really need to know. But I suspect he would be unhappy, living a settled life at Sandusky. Each of us have our own course.”
“And yours is with me, and my son? If we get the furs, we have to go to Montreal once we leave here. Maybe farther.”
“I know. Joseph does, too. His main concern is the same as mine, though—other than to take back your furs. It is traveling on the Lake of Ontario this late in the season. We may have Christie’s men chasing us, and we will be forced onto the lake no matter the conditions to keep ahead of them.”
“And still you go with me? As a thief in the night?”
He took a long breath and set his lips thin before speaking. “I have been struggling in the Robe. Father Pierre—” He sighed again. “He knows my struggle. I think he has sent me with you, not only to protect you, but also to test me. Challenge my loyalty to the Order.”
“I have had the same thought.”
He brightened into a broad smile before moving behind her to work at the wounds on her back. “You know, the founder of the Society of Jesus, Saint Ignatius, was a soldier himself. Until he was wounded in battle, and had a spiritual conversion.”
She felt his chest heave.
“You have been wounded, in battle.”
“I have…fought.”
He didn’t want to say. She thought she understood. “You have, killed…those that are innocent?”
He hesitated again. “I have made widows and orphans.”
A twinge of fear ran through her. “Is it that you speak Huron so well, because you too, were a raider?”
“No.”
She was glad to hear it.
“But,” he went on, “my knowledge of the language is why I was sent to take my novitiate with Father Pierre in Sandusky at the Huron Mission.”
“Then Father does test you. He expects you go back.”
“I suppose he does.”
“No, suppose.”
He laughed. “Yes, you are right. But there are many ways to serve the Order and Our Lord Jesus in Montreal, and elsewhere.” He returned to her front and only when Joseph looked away did she think to hold her smock up to cover herself.
Jacques started at wrapping the bandages again.
“The Jesuit Prefect in Montreal,” he said, “Jacques-Francois Le Sueur was the one who introduced me to the spiritual teachings of Ignatius of Loyola. I took to them with a passion I did not know I had.” He looked at her straight. “I think it helped that Loyola was a fellow warrior. I decided to join the Society of Jesus and took the name Jacques, after my mentor, Le Sueur. My birth name is René.”
She looked from him to Joseph. “We are all three, born to two names.”
“I do not know of Joseph’s first name. But, I know your husband called you, Sokanon. Do you wish for us to address you as such?”
She shrugged. It mattered not.

33

The bustle was everywhere and Sokanon stood anxiously watching, listening.
“It appears the British Colonel has finally given the order,” Jacques said. “I will go to our co-conspirators and ask about.”
“No need, Jacques. They come.”
Sokanon motioned to the wagon moving toward them, Potter driving, Greene seated next to him. The Campau’s came to mind, the confiscated furs on their cart at Detroit. Anticipation surged through her and she looked close, wanting to cheer the militiamen already in possession of her property. But she saw when it neared, the wagon was empty.
“Hold up there,” Potter called to the horses, pulling back on the reins.
The draft animals stopped, but danced their feet at the unfamiliar voice and handling.
The two men wore the matching shirts of the gang of teamsters whose job it was to work the portage road. How they attained them, Sokanon could only be thankful for. That no one around even gave notice lessened her worry.
“What goes?” Jacques asked, and she waited with him for their answer.
“Well, vicar,” Greene started. “Your plan is working so far. We acted as teamsters passing by and stopped to offer the services of a wagon to Christie’s men when the order was given to depart.”
“For a price,” Potter said. “Figured it would be more believable our asking.”
Sokanon saw a little pride show through their uneasiness.
“And we did not have to steal the wagon.” Potter eyed Jacques. “But we paid a bribe for it. Getting a stipend from the trappers will almost pay us back.”
“The Lord heaps his praise on almsgivers,” Jacques said. “And comforts those in poverty.”
“Do not preach, sir,” Potter said. “It is still thievery, I think. And now thieves will try to steal from thieves.”
“The Lord will forgive this transgression, I think—sir,” Jacques taunted back.
“Please,” Sokanon reminded.
“Yes,” Greene said, “what now, after we load the property?” He joined Potter in sneaking glances to the activity of the army.
Sokanon knew the plan, waited as Jacques told them.
“After you load the furs, go around the fort that way—” He pointed. “You can still drive the wagon to the road, but you will be hidden for a time by the fort from the other portage workers.”
She watched as Greene and Potter settled themselves.
Jacques swept his arm to direct anew. “There is a wood of evergreen trees near the top of the iron rails the British have built. Joseph will show himself to you and you will know it is ahead. Drive the wagon into the trees. As we planned, we will be waiting.”
Potter’s worried expression returned. “And as I inquired before, how are we to do that if they insist on trailing along with us?”
“Everyone has needs for, bodily functions.”
Their eyes widened at Jacques’ suggestion. They shuffled in their seat and kicked at the floorboard.
“We will try,” Greene sighed.
“Good,” Sokanon said. “That is all I ask.”
The two nodded their assent. “Hartley waits for us with Christie’s men. We will do our best.”
Sokanon placed her hand atop the reins laying over the buckboard. “Remember, please, the two bundles marked with wavy signs on them. They are mine, the one’s that you must be certain are loaded.”
She lifted her hand and Potter snapped at the harness. “Go on, then,” he called the horses to their duty.
“We must hurry,” Jacques voiced what needn’t be said.
Joseph had already been decamping, bundling their equipment onto the frame that he had made to haul their load across the escarpment. A travoy Jacques called it. They were packed light, leaving things behind, most of their gear already down the slope, hidden with the canoe. All they needed now was the lean-to cloth, blankets, food, water canteens. And their guns. She and Joseph paused with same-thought as she handed him a musket.
They were ready and she grabbed up the heavy walking staff she had fashioned, while Jacques and Joseph balanced the poles of the sled-frame on their shoulders. She stopped her racing mind for a moment to think again how fortunate she was to have them. She swung the staff in rhythm to her steps, fighting through the pain in her arm and leg to carry a bag across her shoulder, Jacob on her back. They circled around the fort and made for their ambush spot.
“You struggle,” Joseph said to Sokanon after only a little way.
She halted and leaned on the staff. “The pain is not bad. But I cannot stay on my footing. It is not much farther.”
“Wait,” Jacques said. “We will tie the cradleboard to the handbarrow.”
“We will not allow the child to fall,” Joseph added.
She was still not sure.
“Come,” Jacques said. “You will have to carry the child down the escarpment. Do not wear yourself down before.”
Sokanon agreed and stood while they took Jacob from her and lashed him on.
“Better,” Joseph said to her after she’d started again.
“Yes. Thank you.”
———— (dbl sp)
They came to the place they’d scouted, a long, flat part of the escarpment. Where the drop-off that descended was not so steep.
“I will go now, and watch,” Joseph announced. He slid his musket from the gear and checked the flash pan.
Jacques stared his concern at the weapon. Joseph gave a shrug and headed off.
She watched him until he disappeared and she peered intently in the direction of the portage road. She could hear no sound and was afraid the distance was too great. That if the trappers rode with them, they would become suspicious driven so far from the road. But their actions would not be heard so far away.
“It took us about an hour to get here,” Jacques answered the eagerness she could not hide. “I’m certain that’s long enough for the wagon to be loaded. Have faith, Marie,” he encouraged.
“I think of Isaac. More than I have been lately.”
He gave a soft nod. “These men you have chosen to help you, who helped you at Detroit—they are very willing to do so now.”
Jacob let out a cry and they turned their attention to him when he continued. Loud.
“We can not have that,” Jacques teased. “He will alert the entire army to our presence.”
“He is hungry.”
She knelt to unbind him, sat on her haunches struggling at her smock until he was feeding, sucking heavy.
“I have never heard your child wail like that.”
She had, of course. Last time was when they were leaving Sandusky. Before the storm.
“Faith, Jacques. It did not bring Isaac back to me and our child.” She didn’t know why she said it. It was as if someone else had spoken for her. “The Britishmen I have asked to help me—they were with those who saved us at Lake St. Clair.” She motioned with her head. “Father Pierre has told you of Joseph? That he was with those who attacked us?”
“Yes. And of Joseph’s wounding by your husband.” He paused. “And of your killing the other warrior.”
She was silent, eyes down to Jacob who grasped her ring in his little hand.
“Surely you see you can trust him, now,” Jacques said. “I know he has gained my confidence. I watched him close at first,” he went on, “as Father asked me to. But he has not shown a moment of hesitation in his sincerity to you. It is a strange twist of fate has brought you and him back together. As if a penance.”
“A penance—for me, too? For killing the other warrior?”
Jacques tilted his head and thought. “We all carry sins with us, some worse than others.” She felt his self-reproach. “Maybe it is the Lord’s way not only for Joseph to do penance, but also to show you are forgiven. There is faith, I think, for you. I do not believe I will ever get such a sign.”
She understood. He had been very good at his killing. There were none alive that could offer their hand to him in forgiveness. She felt sorry for him, even as her sorrow for herself ran apace.
“The man John Hartley,” she said. “Isaac wanted to fight him for mean words he say about me from when we were at Mackinaw. Others were mean to us too—the Britishman married to a French squaw. A country wife, they thought. Only together until he went back to his real wife at home. How is it that they are alive, and Isaac is not? I pray to God, but all my family are dead.”
“Not all your family, Marie.” His smile was warm, watching her with Jacob.
“Yes,” she said, “after the attack, Hartley, and the others, were kind toward me.” She held Jacob tighter. “It was because of the baby, I think, the mother and child.” The contempt came to her again and she twisted her face. “Their Lieutenant, Isaac’s friend Thomas Fraser, he make joke about a she-bear protecting its cub, say that’s why I kill the other warrior. All the men laughed.”
Jacques smirked, then tried to hide it.
“Even you, laugh?” she scolded.
He turned away. “We have to be ready to move quickly once Joseph returns.”
“I will be ready.”
“I have no doubt.”
———— (dbl sp)
But Jacques’ voice sounded, calling her from her dream, she and Jacob lying together atop the escarpment, holding on to keep from falling into the great falls.
“Marie.”
She sat up abruptly. “I fell asleep?”
“Only for a few minutes. You have been through many ordeals. Your child also sleeps. Joseph returns,” he said.
She stood, shielded her eyes in the bright sun, followed to where he motioned to Joseph sneaking quickly to them. She knelt and bundled Jacob gently, not to wake him.
“We must go,” Joseph said, “I showed myself to the men Greene and Potter.”
Sokanon had never heard him say their names. It spoke to his awareness.
“Hartley sits in back of the wagon with the two big men of the trappers.”
“The two of them?” Jacques questioned.
Joseph nodded.
“Are they armed?”
“I saw no weapons. Their guns are packed away, I am certain.”
“How certain?” Jacques pressed. “With your vision not yet healed, I should have been the one to go.”
“I am certain. The trappers are loud talking, and laugh to each other.”
“What of the other boatman, Wayne?” she asked.
Joseph shook his head. “I do not see.”
Sokanon gave a wary look. “Maybe he follows with the other trappers.”
“There are no others following,” Joseph said. “I watch until Potter starts to drive the wagon off the road, while the man Hartley feigns illness. We must go, now,” he repeated.
Sokanon went for her musket.
“Please, Marie,” Jacques warned against the weapon.
“Another musket will threaten more,” she defended, “maybe make them more to not fight. Do you wish to carry it?”
He shook his head. “Come then,” he said and grabbed up Jacob without asking her.
They halted at the open grove of stunted spruce trees around a large sandy clearing. Joseph concealed himself away and Jacques guided her with him to hide at the edge of the clearing. They were near enough to the road to hear the noises of the portage wagons and she thought now they were too close. She expected at any moment to be seen by the column that must be passing. 
Excitement ran with fear. The bullets from Aubert’s men were all around again, the whiz and thud of death from battle. She backed away an imperceptible step and knelt to stop herself from going further. She leaned the musket into the branches and held her hand close o Jacob’s mouth, a finger ready for him to suckle if started to stir.
Jacques held his palm out to still her. “They are coming,” he whispered, “just where they are supposed to. I should never have doubted those friends of yours.” His face was calm, but his eyes were steeled. He brought up her musket, by instinct, she thought, a gun never more at place in someone’s hands than his.
A shiver coursed through her with the thought that she didn’t want him to be a man of Jesus then. But what? she asked herself. That he would become again, for her, a killer of men? A bringer of death in revenge for Isaac, for their furs—the contempt for her showed by the trappers? She thought to grasp at her ring, pleading Mary to ask God to forgive her thought to vengeance. But there was no time.
The wagon came, right down the lane of sand where they waited. She shifted her sight to catch glimpses of it through the boughs, continuing to offer Jacob her finger to keep him hushed. Joseph circled slowly as they passed, keeping the trees between him and the cart until he could get behind them. They were close enough to hear voices. Hartley’s moans. Laughter as Joseph said from the trappers. She startled when Jacques moved. Readied herself to follow his actions when he would charge out.
But he didn’t charge, Jacques calmly stepping forward from their ambush to show himself.
“Beinvenue!” he called out sharply, his voice mocking the welcome.
She brought Jacob with her to stand behind Jacques, Potter pulling up on the reins, Greene jumping down from his place next to him, Hartley leaping over the side.
The trappers were surprised, but only for a moment. Conall, seeing Jacques bounded to the ground to come at him. Jacques stood firm, cocked the musket. Sokanon drew back a step, certain he would shoot. The trapper halted, wild eyes for Jacques, gauging his next move.
“Do not make me forget my calling,” Jacques said, pointing the gun.
“I do not have a calling,” Joseph announced, in English, his musket on Henry, yet in the wagon.
“He has a pistol in his waist band,” Hartley said of Henry.
Sokanon heard his nervousness.
Greene leapt from the wagon while Potter held the reins tight, to keep the horses still. Greene and Hartley backed away as Jacques advanced, pushing hard at Conall with the barrel of the musket. The man grudgingly gave ground, teeth gritted, face twitching with anger. When slapped at the gun, Jacques was quicker to pull it away for a moment. Then right back at his chest, jabbing this time, making him move until his back was against the wagon.
Joseph moved closer to thrust his musket too, point blank at the trapper Henry. “Out,” he ordered.
“You’ll not get away with this,” the man said, holding his hands away from his waist.
“None of you will,” Conall spat.
“Out,” Joseph repeated to Henry. He gave the butt-end of the musket to the side of his head, knocking the man to his hands and knees.
“Is that called for?” Potter cried. “They can see they’re caught, out-gunned.” He wound the reins around the brake handle and jumped down from the wagon to stand with Greene and Hartley.
Sokanon felt the ferocity from Jacques and Joseph as they ignored the boatmen’s reserve, their number welcome, but not needed. Only that they were deliverer’s of the furs. The militiamen retreated even further when Jacques menaced anew with the musket while Joseph moved to disarm the one dazed from his blow.
“Ropes,” Jacques commanded to the others.
Potter scrambled up into the wagon to throw down a coil of heavy line.
“On your stomach,” Jacques directed Conall who lowered himself reluctantly, rage seething in his eyes.
Jacques held the musket out for Sokanon and she set Jacob away to brandish the weapon. The man saw a chance and pushed himself up suddenly to rush at Jacques, who was bending for the rope. Sokanon tried to move to position but Jacques was between them. He set himself and caught the man in the throat, sweeping his legs forward out from under him at the same time, slamming him down hard onto his back, causing his body to go limp, his eyes rolling away into their lids.
Joseph didn’t give Henry the same chance, butting his musket again against him, this time in his back, driving him to his stomach in a great groan of pain. Joseph slammed him a third time, pounding the stock into the soft of the man’s back. He writhed, then stiffened, where Joseph flipped him to his back to take the pistol from his belt.
To Sokanon everything was moving slow. She could see every movement paused for a blink, hear every sound as if even before it came. She only realized then that her arm was out of the sling, hands gripped tight around the musket. She had no doubt she would do what she had to. “Please move Jacob away,” she said, not watching, but seeing John Hartley come quickly for her child.
Jacques moved fast now, snatching the coil of rope. He yanked the knife from Conall’s sheath at his belt and flipped the man just then coming to onto his stomach to tie his wrists behind his back. He ran the rope down to his feet and twisted hard knots around his ankles. Drew his feet hard back toward his hands. Conall groaned from the severe handling. Jacques cut off the remaining length, then went to tie the other trapper while she and Joseph continued to guard.
The militiamen continued to stand away, stunned to silence at the flurry of action. They made hesitant steps unsure yet of what to do. Conall regained himself enough to squirm and pull at the ropes behind his back. Sokanon worried for a moment until she saw his effort was nothing against the knots. He rolled to his side screaming obscenities until his beady blue eyes, hot with fire, met hers.
“All this, for a squaw?” he railed. “I’ll remember the whole lot you,” he spat.
He ceased his yelling when Joseph moved to stand over him, casting his shadow down onto the trapper.
“And I remember you, red hair,” Joseph said. His tone was severe. The first time he’d shown other than his reserved manner. “North of Quebec,” he continued. “Near the place the French call Lorette and my people call Wendake. You and other white men raid my village with your Iroquois allies, looking to capture slaves to sell.”
Sokanon stiffened at his recounting, the talk of Iroquois raiders arresting her thoughts.
Joseph straightened his stance. “I was a young man—and afraid of your hair of autumn fire, your voice of thunder.” He ceased his words and Sokanon saw the pain in his face at the admission of fear. Maybe it was he that had not been too young when he ran away from the warrior-man with red hair, and that he carried the guilt of cowardice since. He stepped back as Jacques came to them, twisting a cloth in his hand to use as a gag.
“Turn my hands loose,” the man fumed, “then see if you can exact your revenge.” He shook his head against Jacques with the gag. “If I ever catch any of you, I’ll…”
Joseph put a foot hard on the man’s neck while Jacques tied the cloth tight around his mouth. They returned to the other trapper to do the same. Jacques stood away after checking the restraints again.
“What do we do with them, now?” Greene asked.
Jacques waved his hand. “Leave them to us,” he said low. “Do not worry, they will not be harmed. We’ll tell those at the lower landing about them—let them know they are the fur agent Christie’s men. They’ll come for them.”
The boatmen shuffled on their feet. 
Hartley motioned over his shoulder, acting to guard over Jacob at his feet. “What if the others of their team see you down there, with the furs?”
“We will have to take the chances.” Sokanon sneered at the trappers. “These two were the worst ones. The most mean to me and Jacques. Maybe it was good they came with you in the wagon. Maybe the others of Christie’s men will not dare to bother us without them.”
“You men return to your places with the army,” Jacques directed.
“What do we say if we are pointed out in this conspiracy?”
“Say they do not speak the truth,” Sokanon said to Potter. “Call them the liars. I hear it say, many times—it is word against word.”
“Yes,” Jacques said. “Even after they are found, it will be many hours before they are able to descend the falls. They have to secure their gear and property, load their canoe, all while caring for their injured boss. The days are short. It will be nearly dark before their team is even assembled at the lower landing. We will be well gone by then.”
“And well you are, vicar,” Potter said. “You are more than you reveal, sir.”
“I’ve told you, I am but a lowly Brother. As yet unlearned in all the ways of my Order.”
Sokanon waited for the militiamen to say something while they exchanged looks.
“I salute you,” Jacques turned the matter to them, “all of you. The counterfeit sickness was a great ruse.”
They showed awkward pride.
“And what of the wagon?” Potter asked, again showing his worry of the theft.
Jacques shook his head. “Once you are away from here, it is our concern.”
They stood for a moment before taking off the shirts of the portage workers tossing them into the wagon.
“We can manage from here,” Jacques said. “Our gratitude again.”
“You’re on your own then, vicar,” Potter said, and followed away with Greene.
“Good day, miss. —Farewell,” they offered.
Hartley came to Sokanon.
She greeted him.
“You have your furs back—again,” Hartley said.
“We do not have them just yet,” she reminded, “we still have to get them away.”
“Of course.”
“I pray you no bad will from what is done here.”
“We are all from New York,” he told her, “once we are paid and signed out of our service at Niagara, we will all be to our homes hundreds of miles away. They will not chase us. But you—” he motioned to Jacques and Joseph. “They appear to be very protective of you. You have done well to gain their service.” He averted his eyes. “They can do more for you than us. The military dictates our course, you understand.”
She nodded softly. “You have done enough.” The air was cool on her face just then, her senses returning in the calm after the skirmish. She breathed in the freshness. “Jacques and Joseph will see me and my child safely from here.”
“And after that?” Hartley’s face was sincere.
She shrugged. “I feel I am as much following their path, as they are mine.”
“There is a bit of the rogue in each of your companions. With the aid of such as those two, I’m certain of your escape.” He rubbed his neck. “I should say I’m sorry, for—well, many things.”
“I know those many things, John Hartley.” She looked past him to the wagon. “But I must say thank you, for many things you do for me and my son.”
“I guess we should leave it at that. I am sorry for the loss of your husband. I will always think of him as a good man.”
She knelt for Jacob, his eyes wide from the mad activity. She ran her fingers down his face and smiled.
“God’s speed, wherever you go,” she heard Hartley say.
“And to you also,” she offered.
He fled away, disappearing into the trees after only a few steps. She wondered if she’d ever see any of them again. If it even mattered. The past was leaving with them.
“We must go,” Jacques said. “We have your furs. We need to move quickly.”
He joined Joseph who was already working to pull down the bundles.
“Jacques,” she called suddenly. “Joseph—we drive the wagon. Then carry the loads down the portage road, in the old way.”
They stopped. Stared at her. At each other.
The trapper Conall fought again against the ropes, screamed through the gag.
Sokanon stood over him. “Do not worry, we will not steal anything of yours.”
“I don’t know if driving the wagon  is wise,” Jacques said. “They will question why we have the it.”
“As you have said,” she countered, “I do not think the workers will protest our returning to them that which is theirs.” She looked down at the trappers with contempt. “We will throw their gear off the wagon here and there. It won’t be seen with us, and it will give us longer as they have to retrieve it.”
Jacques smiled in his way. Joseph was stone-faced, in his way, leaving the decision to them.
“We must still hurry,” Jacques asserted.
“The trapper Henry, still does not move,” she said. “You should check his ties again.”
Jacques shook his head. “They are Gordian knots, Marie.”
She didn’t understand.
“They will not break loose,” he assured.
She held his gaze.
“I will check them.”
Joseph strode off to retrieve their gear from behind the bushes.
“The knots are just as tight,” Jacques said, holding up Conall’s restraints till he screamed in painful anger.
“Is the other hurt badly?”
Jacques glanced over his shoulder. “He is well, I think. He’s just quiet. His eyes are just as full of hatred as the other.”
She lifted Jacob and walked past them, trying to force indifference for the two. They would hurry away from the great falls in case they chased, but she hoped it was the last she’d ever see of them.
———— (dbl sp)
She stood in the wagon and showed Conall’s knife to him. She threw it far into the spruce trees.
“Why did you do that?” Jacques protested.
“What if those you tell of these men do not come to find them?” His eyes narrowed as he thought. She tried to wave away his concern. “The way you have them tied up, it will take them a long time to find the knife.”
He gave a slight nod at her judgment, turned away and covered his black robe with a blanket over his shoulders. “I am anxious to see this tramway the English are said to have built,” he said.
Joseph donned one of the worker’s shirts and snapped the reins onto the backs of the horses to start them.
Sokanon sat with Jacob in the wagon, leaned against one of hers and Isaac’s bundles. “See your father’s mark?” she whispered, tracing the lines of the design. “I will decorate a pair of moccasins for you one day with the mark.”
She kicked at the first of the trapper’s gear to go, watched it tumble off the wagon into the tall grass.

34

“It is, a trackway?”
“Tramway,” Jacques corrected.
The machine was built in sections and she stared at it with the wonder of a child. Wooden rails leading down the steep escarpment to a landing that connected another set of rails going still farther, all the way to the bottom. They stood aside. Sokanon felt as if everyone was watching them.
“A simple design,” Jacques said. “Clever at the same time. The car going down, at the same time one is going up. The full one at the top lowered, its weight pulling the empty one up. Very clever.”
“Clever,” Joseph said, “to make the Seneca people not useful.”
“Clever,” Jacques repeated, “as you, keeping from us that you know to speak English.”
Joseph surprised whenever he spoke, but it was the first time Sokanon heard what she thought was scorn in his words.
“Besides,” Jacques went on, “Seneca are your Huron’s long-time enemies.”
“All but the Iroquois joined with Pontiac’s Ottawa to make war on the British—who are to take all the land. This was their land, the Seneca. They were the ones that brought other people and their supplies up and down the great falls. Crawl on all fours they called it.” He moved his hands as if climbing. “No more,” he finished.
Sokanon remembered the many native porters carrying the canoes and gear up and down in turns of teams. The chair her father made for Father Armand, to carry him down when his body was struck still by illness. She tested the weight of Jacob and her bag of gear pulling on her shoulder.
“The Seneca might as well help us now,” Jacques mocked at Joseph, “we will not be allowed to use the tram.”
He helped Sokanon adjust the load. She took a few steps on the trail down, using the staff for support. She turned and looked back up to them, nodding her well-being.
“It is a long way to the bottom,” Jacques stressed.
“I have done it before, with Isaac. And, as a child with my mother and father, traveling with Father Armand.” She looked to Joseph. “I did not understand then it was Seneca who helped carry me.”
Joseph squinted, pointed to a place down the far ledge. “Somewhere there, is called the Devil’s Hole. Where Seneca warriors kill many English soldiers and wagon transporters.”
Jacques shouldered the food bags and hauled one of the heavy fur bundles onto his back. “You have chosen an odd time to champion for your race.”
“Yes, long ago,” Joseph said, “the Huron and Seneca fought—” He brandished the musket in his hands. “Using guns given by white men.” He stood, defiant, before laying the gun in its sling on the pile of their gear hidden away.
“Well, we are soon to be chased by white men,” Jacques reminded. “And we don’t have anyone’s help, now. We must move quickly.” He waited for Joseph to take up the other bundle.
They started down, Joseph in the lead while Sokanon followed, Jacques behind her.
“The old trail down will be difficult,” Joseph said over his shoulder. “We will go to the first flat, and I will return for the muskets and tent cloth. Then we descend again in another stage.”
“That is well,” Jacques agreed. “Your profession serves us well, my friend.”
But Sokanon saw Jacques had lifted up his bundle to carry in the same way same way she’d seen all the trappers do.
———— (dbl sp)
She welcomed the halt at the first flat, glad for the delay to rest her leg and shoulder. Jacques and Joseph made no complaints, but she saw they were tired, too. She wondered how Joseph would make it, going back up and down the stages from each flat. At least they were more than half way down.
 She sat on a natural bench of rock, leaned against the boulder. Jacob was making happy sounds, and she drifted on his soft noises, thoughts coming easy, for the time here with Isaac. The excitement of their new professed marriage. The uneasiness of being with the aggressive man Rogers and his rangers. Watching her husband carrying more weight than was necessary. The memory was there again, of those carrying her on their backs as a child, when she would tire of the climb.
“Now I carry you, little one.”
Jacques glanced to her, then continued his nervous pacing, looking up the trail for Joseph. “Once he returns, it should be another hour to the next flat.”
She didn’t answer, concentrating on controlling the throbs of pain from her wounds. The sound of the falls was a constant drone, muffled by the dense forest, the wall of rock that was slowly rising behind their descent. The gorge was close by, she felt the chill of the mist from the cascade coming through the trees. She had to focus her eyes at the colored autumn leaves stripping away, falling everywhere in the cold air and rushing wind of the flume. She stared at a stump covered in rows of soft white scales, the tints of pink and green color at their edges.
“Do you think they found the knife?”
Jacques stopped his walking back and forth. She thought maybe he didn’t understand when he didn’t answer. “I hope not,” he said finally. “Well, not yet, anyway.”
“I thought to not trust their lives with that of the workers.”
“I know.”
“Do you think if they are not found, and if they die, it will be the fate of God that I give them the chance, with the knife.”
“They are probably pulling at each others’ ropes as we speak.”
Sokanon almost laughed in her tired state. “I thought you say the knots were as from a, spirit god.”
“You do know the Gordian legend of Alexander the great?”
“No, I only guessed.”
Jacques did laugh. “I hope Joseph does not tarry.”
“I do not know, tarry.”
He laughed again. “It is an English word. It doesn’t translate well into French. It means to be tardy.”
She wondered if she’d ever heard Isaac say it. “I do not think Joseph ever to be tardy.”
He laughed yet again.
She stared again at this man of Jesus. His knowledge was as that of Father Pierre. Of the Jesuit priests who taught at the college in Quebec. His strength and conviction as Isaac. As she championed that of her father.
———— (dbl sp)
“There is no sign of anyone,” Joseph said.
His voice seemed a dream as Sokanon roused.
“They all take the tramway,” Jacques said. “That is good. We are off in a few moments, Marie.”
She wondered why he would tell her, then realized her eyes were closed, her head leaned back.
“I am awake,” she said.
Jacques had made another staff, too long to use as a support for walking. She watched as he and Joseph tied the tent cloth with the muskets and gear wrapped inside as a sack onto the staff. She thought the pole was made to carry balanced between them, but saw Jacques meant it to be dragged behind, the branch rested on his or Joseph’s shoulder in turns. She nodded her assent at the skill and was glad for only the weight of Jacob now, struggling to pull him onto her back.
“Not as clever as your travoy,” Jacques said to Joseph who worked to center the load better on the pole.
“It will save time,” Joseph commended.
———— (dbl sp)
She had no more energy when they finally made it to the lower landing. Jacques guided her to sit, his voice hollow in the fatigue of her brain. She felt cold water offered at her lips, so cold it burned in her throat. Made her shiver as she swallowed. The cradleboard was rested at her feet and a heavy wrap was lain over her shoulders.
“Thank you,” she said to one of them.
It was Jacques. “We can only rest for a few moments.”
“Yes, thank you,” she said again.
She saw the blur of movement of those around them. Commands and responses ringing in her ears. She clamped her eyelids tight, opened them with determination to focus. “There are others, watching?”
“No need to worry. It is the same as at the top of the escarpment. They are giving us no mind.”
She wondered how anyone could not be looking at their odd trio. Her, bandaged and stumbling along with a child on her back. The guiding hands of a black robe Jesuit, and Huron warrior. Their heavy loads of furs and gear.
“How much farther?”
“What the English call in yards—” Joseph’s voice sounded through her haze, “many of the long paces.”
Jacques reset her arm in the sling. “It will be mostly level from here past the rapids to where we have hidden the canoe. We are rearranging the loads again to make it easier to transport. You must come when we are ready, even if we have to carry you, too.”
She nodded, sipping from the waterskin again. Jacob’s noises told her he was uncomfortable, but she could only offer gentle touches for his cheeks. Her soft voice to his ears. She leaned far over onto her knees, not trusting to open her eyes while the spinning went on in her head.
“Do not worry child, mother is well. I will take care of you. I only cannot sit up yet.”
———— (dbl sp)
“Come, now, Marie. We are ready.”
“So soon?” She thought but a few seconds.
“You must continue to carry your child on your back,” Jacques said. “If I or Joseph should stumble and fall with our load…”
He didn’t have to say, Jacob crushed under the weight of their heavy bodies.
“You can hold on to me if you have to while you steady your weight on the staff.” Jacques guided her hand to his shoulder. “We will go slow.” He lifted the cradleboard for her. “Jacob has quieted,” he said.
“I do not like him to be bundled so, every day.”
“There is no easier way, Marie. The child is tiny, and right now as much baggage to be carried, while we travel.”
“It will be well, to finally stop.”
“That time is not now. Nor in the near days to come.”
“Yes, Jacques.”
They passed the trading post at the lower landing and the voices, thuds and clangs faded with their steps. The river quieted the farther they strode and she wondered how that could be, its roar so loud only seconds before. The quieting bothered at her, leaving the falls behind, leaving Isaac to its song of the broken waterway. Like a wound that bleeds before it heals, covered over by scars of memory.
The sounds of birds returned to her hearing, making her think of when she and Isaac burst forth from the marshes on Lake St. Clair to the thousands of water birds, and their many calls, hoots and whistles. Maybe they will announce the arrival of Isaac, ushering him past as a procession.
——————
They halted at the shore where the canoe waited for them. Jacques and Joseph moved to uncover it, load in their things. She peered out to the widening river, studying the last of the white water smoothing to the flat surface swirled with whirlpools. How far was this last distance, she didn’t know—four miles, in her counting of the steps?—the only thing that kept her going through the throbs of pain in her leg and shoulder stabbing as she moved.
“Let us be off, Marie,” Jacques said.
She drew back a step.
“I am sorry for startling you,” he said.
She shook her head. “You thought to keep my hope, Isaac was still alive.”
He nodded.
“And now,” she said, “there is hope to my future—that of Jacob and his brother or sister?”
“The past will always prod at us, Marie. But we only have that which may come tomorrow.”
She studied him. “You have much schooling, I think, Jacques. You have read as many books as Father Pierre.”
“We all have our pasts.”
“Yes,” she agreed, and limped to follow him slowly.
The canoe was tethered at both ends to trees either side of a small beach of coarse sand. Just enough of a flat area to enter into the boat without stepping across the rocks along the shoreline. She sat and struggled to bend her leg, laid Jacob onto the bottom in front of her, tested her arm out of the sling before settling. She thought she might be able to add her paddle to theirs, if needed.
The canoe rocked with the weight of the men as they launched away fro shore. The vessel twisted in the churning water before they set to their paddles to guide in the swift current. Sokanon closed her eyes, turning her face up to breathe in the fresh, cold air.
———— (dbl sp)
Six miles to the fort at Niagara, their escape in the current rushed on. Sokanon felt the eyes from the soldiers atop the thick earth and block walls, the inhabitants at their lives all around the fortification commanding the gateway in and out of the immense area of the upper lakes. Jacques and Joseph continued at their paddles, pulling hard and fast, and she understood.
“I am well, Jacques,” he said to his glance over his shoulder as she struggled to put Jacob on her back again, labored to sit on her haunches into the bottom of the canoe, securing herself.
Past the dock and harbor they pushed, past the three warships at anchor in the quiet water of the river. She wanted to tell Jacques she understood, too, his saying of the British building ships at the navy yard above the great falls. It wasn’t here, past the falls, but up the great waterway, to Sandusky, Detroit, Mackinaw, where the ships would, consolidate, the conquest of New France. She thought of Joseph’s telling of the Iroquois invading these same lands, with the guns of the white men. None of it mattered as they pushed past the fort, beyond the point, out onto the last of the great lakes before the great channel to the great ocean, no hauling up to wait out the wind and waves. 
The canoe rode deeper with the weight of the furs, steadying it, even as she felt its slower response to Joseph’s correcting paddle, the extra strain to make it up and over the crests. She wondered if in his belief he matched his strength against whatever was the Huron’s Mannegishi. It was an exhilaration, the bucking of Isaac’s Mi’kmaq canoe, to slam down into the troughs, sprays of water over the high sides. It was hers the task to bail then, working the bailing cloth continual over the side, and again. And again. Enduring the pain in her hurt limbs when her body was flailed back and forth. Time coursed and Jacob pleaded for his feeding, impossible in the struggle against the waves.
She watched her gray shadow against the stack of furs in front of her, measuring the hours that passed by how much daylight remained, while the shore went by in a slow, steady pace. She wished she could add her paddle to her companions’ strokes, help in their decision to charge straight onto the lake for her escape. It was for themselves too, they paddled then. There was no choice now but to damn the wind and waves for the assurance of their own lives, refuge but the strength of her husband’s boat, and that of their paddles in hand.
She felt the bark skin of the canoe bend, the ribs flex, as if a body. As if a watersnake gliding itself somehow, forward on the liquid surface. She tried humming again what she could of her Cree mother’s song, thinking that the songs of the we-eh’s were confusing in and out. The wind came in surges of warm air, then cold, the waves sometimes giving way to long swells that lifted them, sent them down the backside as if tobogganing snow-covered hills.
They labored on when at once the waves went slack and the wind calmed, just as the sun broke through to show its amber glow, just as it touched the tips of the treetops far in the west behind them, as if calling to their rest for the evening. But Jacques and Joseph set themselves even harder then. She knew they would. Faster, to race the canoe however farther in the smoother water, gaining the last few miles before gliding into shore behind a rocky point that would shelter them in the night, allow them the few yards to launch again in the morning, from behind its protecting arm.
She was exhausted. How much more Jacques and Joseph? She forced the straps of the cradleboard off her shoulders, one then the other, continuing to strain to bring Jacob around to her front. She leaned on her free arm next to him, pushed past the pain to straighten her legs, bent for hours in the passing. She closed her eyes and imagined Isaac speaking well of it. Maybe boasting of his canoe. Telling of his friend, the old Mi’kmaq Sakmowk.
——————
The time between the blue hours, morning to night blurred as they raced again, the fading day’s light. Paddling. Bailing. Today better at fighting through the pain of her wounds. She knew Joseph was one of those experienced paddlers who could measure their distance in time by studying the shoreline going by. Jacques probably could too, she thought. It didn’t matter now, how far they’d gone. Only that her two friends went all day, hard as they could. If they were, friends. They had to be, she told herself. How much more work would they do for her until they reached Montreal?
“There, Jacques,” she said into the long quiet.
She pointed ahead, along the shore. “There is a large tree downed, running into the water.”
“I do not see,” he said. “But your eyes are younger, and sharper than mine.”
Joseph was already guiding the bow over, slowly, to angle into the waves that broke finally behind the small spit of land jutting out like a hand to welcome them into shelter.
“That will do well,” Jacques said, seeing in the growing darkness where the canoe could be hidden behind the downed tree’s trunk. Where its huge uprooted base would give them a barrier to conceal a fire behind. Where they wouldn’t have to suffer the cold in wet clothes, as last night’s bare camp.
——————
She came to stand next to Jacques, watchful to the last second of gray light.
“We have to think they might come,” he said.
“With yours and Joseph’s efforts, it is certain we are a day ahead of them, if they do.”
He gave a shrug.
“Isaac say they had business at Niagara,” she told him, “before they were to their winter camp.” She forced herself to dismiss the rot of contempt for them.
“I know men like them, well.”
“As does Joseph.”
“Yes. And I know our friend does not like that he cannot stand watch himself.”
She was glad when he didn’t say again of the past between her and Joseph. “The weapons are always at his hand, loaded and primed.”
“Let’s hope it will not come to that.”
She wondered at it.
“Do not fear, too much,” he said.
She shook her head. “I am not afraid. For a long time, I was afraid. My whole life—after… Except for when I was with Isaac. But—” She thought not to say. “Even then, sometimes. But I am not afraid now, somehow.”
“I’ve found it’s good to always allow a little fear.”
She couldn’t think that he had any fear at all. But she understood. Fear will keep you alert.
“The fire is well hidden from the water,” he said. “Its glow cannot be seen, even from here.”
They followed together back to it, where Joseph waited. Alert. She doubted he had any fear either. They were both too severe to all that was around them. She sat, checked on Jacob sleeping, pulled the blanket tighter around her. Poured tea into her mug.
Joseph passed around army standard rations of hard biscuit.
“This what the soldiers eat, not good as that the black robe’s make,” he said.
“That is not a compliment that can be accepted by me, my friend,” Jacques said. “I’m not allowed near the cook stove.”
Joseph handed one of the rations to him. “These are too hard.”
“I’m sorry we could not acquire for you any of the salted pork of a voyageur. Please forgive me,” he said to Sokanon.
Again, he misread her feelings. Not reminding of her and Joseph, but of Isaac alone, sadness as she dipped the hard flour cake in her tea to soften. That which she and Isaac had to eat when the late winter snow their first season locked them up into their cabin. All their pemmican and jerked meat eaten. The days spent close with each other, not even a year married. Their hard, calloused hands, soft with the many idle weeks, exciting the private parts of their bodies. Afterward, telling of each other’s families, always having more to hear than to tell.
She listened to the surf, gently rolling in. She looked up to the moon, breaking almost full through the thinning clouds, taking for itself much of the light from the stars. “Should we travel in the night?” she asked.
Jacques showed uncertainty. “What if the wind should pick up, and we should have to land perilously in the dark?”
She waited for Joseph to say.
“How many miles can we gain—” Jacques continued, “to make it worth the risk?”
“We will soon be dry,” she said, “and I can be on guard while you rest.” She looked from one to the other.
Joseph gave a little nod to Jacques.
“I will gather more firewood,” Jacques said. “If in a few hours it is yet calm, we’ll go, before the dawn.”
She was satisfied. “It is good—” She caught herself from saying Isaac’s name. “Jacques.”
She finished eating and piled more wood onto the fire while Jacques was away in the dark for more fuel. She brought her musket to lean next to her, held out her hand for Joseph to give her the pistol he took from the man Henry, to lay on her lap while she would stay awake. 
She rested her hand on Jacob’s little heaving chest, thinking of when she would lie with her brother, his tiny body stilled with his infant’s sleep. She leaned back and peered at the moon, Tipishkau-pishum—her brother’s cheerless face returning her own.

35

The narrowed course continued to tease at her thoughts. Many weeks on the wide expanses of the great lakes giving way to where the trees on the far shore were less than a mile away. To her imagination the branches here were arms stretched out as if to a passing procession, holding out handfuls of fresh snow. She watched the ships going by, wondering if the Colonel Bradstreet was on one of them, bounding in the current for Montreal and beyond.
“I’m certain even they are happy to be off the lakes,” Jacques said of the ships, “and into the long waterway before the ocean.”
“What is this place, Jacques?”
“Oswegatchie,” he told her. “After the local Tribes.”
“I remember being here…” she strained to think, “with Isaac—with the ranger army.”
“The British had to repair it after the war. The French called it de la Présentation before that.”
The memory was hard, then. She drew her hand to her chest. “That is what I remember. De la Présentation—in honor of the Feast of the Blessed Mother Mary. It was when my father had us back to Quebec, with the black robe brothers who were to the mission to the Montagnais. When my family…” She let the words again drift away from her thoughts. She loosed the knots at the sides of Jacob’s nappy. “The fort was new then, I remember. There was a man of St. Sulpice talking with the man of Jesus.”
“Probably François Picquet,” Jacques said, “he who had the fort built.”
“I did not know what a Sulpician was then, but I thought his hat was funny. Maybe I only remember because they were not talking nice to each other.”
Jacques set his jaw. Lifted his chin. “Abbé Picquet was another in the line of warrior priests. The man traveling with you probably heard the stories of Picquet encouraging the warriors of his Mohawk Iroquois flock to raid British settlements.”
Ever the Iroquois(Mohawk), she thought. “They were allied to the French then.”
“Expedience is ever shifting, Marie.”
She understood. She stared at him, did not question further to his knowledge of the raids.
“But—” he said, “I have seen very heated exchanges between those of the two orders, regardless of practical affairs.”
She had seen it, too. She shrugged.
“I see you clutch for your ring,” Jacques said, “your silent prayers to Our lady.”
“Not so many times in the days past, since Isaac is gone.”
“A test of faith, Marie. We all have them. We will all continue to have them.”
“Yes.” She doubted Father Armand did. Or Father Pierre. Certainly not Sister, her almost every breath spent in reminding of the Lord’s will be done.
“We leave in the morning and reach Montreal day after next.”
His voice was lively and sounded of reassurance.
It made her miss Isaac even more.
Jacques excused himself to return to the fire with the others gathered around. All their voices were full of the life they thought was promised for them tomorrow. She finished wiping Jacob clean and tied the fresh baby cloth around his bottom. Laid him into his cradleboard and swung the hanging ornaments on their cords tied to the hoop of the headpiece. She wondered if he was slow to watch them, or if there were too many for him to focus his vision. She held all but the largest feather, from the turkey Joseph had shot. It was his same slow reaction to the movement. Still the darkness to his eyes, barely separation around the black in the center. But he watched her then, with an attention that made her worry less. She ran her fingers down his cheeks before stepping away the few feet to the water, to scrub the soiled cloth with sand from the shore. The thought rushed in, that when summer came she would be doing the chore for two babies. She put her mind on her unborn, to believe that she could already feel the soul of the life inside her.
Shouts from the fort caught her attention, the orders directing soldiers to their duty, lowering the British flag for the night. The cloth came down and she mused again at the colors, same as the flag of the French. The tall pole stood bare against the darkening sky where a slit in the clouds showed a slash of silvered sunlight behind, making a crude cross out of the pole. The clouds closed, just as sudden ceasing the sign of the cross. She labored her mind, confused at the gathering failing comfort of Mary, her holy ring feeling again more an empty talisman against her heart.
Jacob was wild at play with the feathers and other dream catcher toys above his face.
“Jacob,” she said soft, kneeling next to the only one left to her. He stopped his play for a moment at her voice then went back to swinging at the playthings. “You must grow strong with your brother or sister. Strong for your father, strong for our families.”
Laughter and voices went on from the people around the fire. She watched the circle of revelers, their faces aglow from the fire and the cask being handed around. Jacques and Joseph passed the flagon without drinking. She’d seen Joseph take in his share of the spirits at Mackinaw. The feeling was strong that Jacques would not have declined the rum jug in his past. They each glanced to her in turns, a studied watchfulness that continued to bring as much confusion as comfort. How long before they too would not be in her life.
——————
They were with her in the cold under the canvas, where she lie awake with Jacob, listening to the wind that had brought snow in the night. She had a moment to wonder what Sister would think, her with the two men in the same shelter. She wished for the warmth of Isaac’s body against hers. Silent tears ran down her cheeks imagining the children together with their father at the Marchand’s farm had they stayed at Detroit.
She crawled out from under the shelter to see the snow had ceased to a clear sky, morning stars on the still-shadowed horizon. She put her face to the breeze, the crisp air turning her breath to frozen smoke. She wondered if there was time for a fire, warm tea in their stomachs. Or if they would want to hurry to the canoe, warming with the efforts at their paddles. The snow scrunched beneath her feet while she stretched the stiffness from her leg, the wounds calling less to pain. She tested her arm, lifting it up and down again, thinking she could paddle now, even slowly. For warmth, too.
Jacques and Joseph stirred, Jacques first out after her. If he was cold in just his robe and open shoes, he didn’t show it.
“The Frenchmen from yesterday have invited us to share their breakfast,” he said. 
No skipping the morning meal.
“They were very agreeable to feeding a young native woman of the faith,” Jacques went on. “With a child, escorted by a Jesuit brother and a Catholic Huron,” he added.
“It is most welcome,” Sokanon replied.
Joseph emerged and immediately set to work breaking down the shelter.
“Maybe we should have slept in one of the abandoned wigwams,” she said.
“There are a great many of them,” Jacques said. “But most are in bad disrepair.”
The weathered bark yet hung over the structures and she imagined the ones who built them gone from war, maybe hunger or disease. “How many stayed here?” she asked at the number of lodges and cabins, the villages in the near distance.
He shook his head and shrugged. “This was a very important fort before the war.”
“There were many families here—” Joseph said. “Hurons also, with the Iroquois. The British attacks drove them away.”
She saw the memories from each of them for the place.
——————
“Kahnawake,” Jacques said, just as she brought her attention to the buildings.
She waited, but he said nothing more of the old Jesuit mission there. They followed along, past the palisade protecting the chapel that was built with stones mixed with the bone dust and ashes of the venerated Mohawk Catholic convert, Kateri Tekakwitha. She wondered if she should ask to stop. To pray, or only pay respects, to her that miracles were said to emanate from after her death. She paused another moment, thinking Joseph might…say to her, at the least.
The place terrified her when she was a girl, her mother thinking it haunted, and would not approach the shrine She’d felt nothing from the pilgrimage with the nuns and priests here, to celebrate the anniversaries of Kateri’s death and that of the Mohawk’s giving up celebrating their feast of the dead, beginning their conversion to the Christian God. She looked away, barely a notion to the mission and chapel. She laid her paddle down against the side, drew Jacob close to feed. He protested his waking, before taking to her.
“We will not be able to rest at the portage around Lachine rapids,” Jacques said, glancing over his shoulder. “Not if we wish to make it to the city before nightfall.”
“It is well,” she told him. “It is good to be active again in the canoe. I only need a little while to rest my shoulder. I will paddle again once Jacob is finished.”
“Whether you can, or cannot—the current is strong and takes us quickly on.”
Quickly on. Not the least thought to Christie’s men, either. Nor for the weather. Only now to Montreal, and hope the fur men would still be dealing in their trade. If they would, or even could, buy the unlicensed peltry from her.

36

“They are fur traders,” Jacques said of those busy at the upper landing before the Lachine portage.
Sokanon knew, already watching the crew, measuring their work until she would see who was their leader. They were diligent about their business. Those that noticed, gave hardly a quick glance to the woman with the child on her back and her two companions.
A small gang of Iroquois in their Tribal regalia hung close, too dignified to carry loads other than their muskets. Hunters, guides, hired killers. In their breechcloths and knee-high moccasins, blankets slung over their shoulders against the cold. They looked stern, more to Joseph than she and Jacques.
The rest of the workers chattered to each other, a few complaints, coarse talk amongst mentions of family and home. She saw the one giving the orders, confident of himself, directing the line of workers hauling canoes held over their heads on their shoulders, others with backs bent under the weight of packs. Their voices were all in English. Thoughts of Isaac were her confidence to confront the man on her own.
He turned his attention to her as she neared, obvious in her intention to meet with him.
“I have furs to sell,” she said.
“Do you.” He glanced to Isaac’s canoe before looking her up and down. The corner of his mouth turned up. “In whose employ?”
She thought to say of Christie. She met his eyes. “My husband and I caught them before the license law.”
He spied beyond her again, studying. “Your husband—the man with the Jesuit? Does he not speak English? I know a little of the Chip’wa.”
The questions distracted. “No,” she said of Joseph. She steadied herself to make her English natural as she could. “My husband—” she paused to gather the thought in, yet unnatural to her heart and mind. “My husband is dead. Drowned in the storm by Sandusky. With your Colonel Bradstreet.”
Alarm and disbelief flashed across his face. “Bradstreet—drowned in a storm?”
Some of those close by stopped their work to listen.
Sokanon’s confusion continued. She shook her head. “No. But others, my husband included. Isaac Dobbins. He was British, from Nova Scotia.”
The man tried to see her thoughts as they stared at one another. “We have not heard of any storm.” He was belligerent. His eyes pierced, accusatory.
The others around crowded in.
Sokanon saw their mean looks for her, Jacques and Joseph. French. Indians. Enemies. “I have thought messengers would come, to say with reports.”
“We have only just arrived from Nipissing—” the man said, Athanasie flashing in Sokanon’s thoughts at the name of her ancestral home. “The news of Bradstreet’s advance to Detroit came to us some days before we left our camp. But we have heard nothing of a storm,” he repeated. He looked past her suddenly.
The men around gave way for Jacques to stand at her side.
Her confidence rose. “Sir,” she said, regaining her thoughts. “We were with the Colonel’s force at Sandusky. A storm came up, no warning, on the Erie lake, against us. Many boats were destroyed,” she explained. “Many men drowned. My husband was drowned. I was almost drowned. Our baby, too.”
He shot a quick peek over her shoulder to Jacob.
“Marie’s story is true,” Jacques said.
“And, the colonel—” the man pressed, “remains at Sandusky?”
She wondered if she should mention the ships from Niagara. She waited, but Jacques was silent to let her speak. “Some of the army stays Detroit,” she said. “Those at Niagara with the colonel were readying to leave when we departed from there.”
“This is very strange news. Even stranger to be brought by a party such as yours.”
“We are not, to brought this news,” she challenged, her mind racing ahead of her words. “I only say to how we are come here. Try to find a sale for my furs.”
The man’s eyes narrowed again. “You and your child almost drowned with your husband at Sandusky. Why did you not remain there, instead of continuing on with the army? Why did you not wait at Niagara, to continue traveling in the safety of the squadron?”
“Marie returned to the Mission after the storm,” Jacques said then. “She did not see her husband drowned, only that he was lost in the storm. The Superior at Sandusky instructed Joseph and myself to help her try to find him.”
“Find him? What—yet clinging to an overturned bateau?”
A few laughs went around.
“You men go back to your work,” the man ordered.
“It was hoped,” Jacques said, “that Marie’s husband was maybe found after. That, maybe he was injured, and taken in the bateaux to Niagara.”
Sokanon welcomed his even voice, masking his own improbability at it against the man’s skepticism. She thought again to say of Christie, his getting knocked about in the head.
The man’s hands were on his hips now. “And the army yet returns in force to Montreal?” Mistrust continued to show through the slits in his eyes. His question was yet sharpened with it.
Sokanon despaired. How could she know not to say of Bradstreet and army?
“They return in force,” Jacques said. “It is not a retreat.”
The man nodded. Relaxed his stance.
“Please sir,” Sokanon said, “will you see to my furs? They are well prepared, two of the heavy trapper’s bundles.”
He looked past her again. “Two bundles? Trapped by you and your, late husband.”
She nodded.
“This fellow from Nova Scotia,” he said.
“Isaac Dobbins.”
He nodded. “You were his country wife?”
“No,” she defended yet again. “We were church married,” she asserted. “In Quebec, after the long battle there.”
“Quebec? He was a soldier then?”
“He was, bateau-man, to the transport of men to battle.”
“And married, in a Catholic ceremony?”
“Yes.” She held her chin higher. “My husband, not Catholic. But we stood together before the priest Father Claude Coquart to our marriage.”
“Damned peculiar.” He studied her again. “You speak the King’s own well enough, for a Huron.”
She did not say.
“I’m a Nova Scotian,” he went on. “And a good Presbyter. Your husband was truly English, not a French Acadian?”
She studied him then, his beard red, and thick, his skin freckled and pale. “My husband would say he was Scottish—and make jests of the English.”
He laughed. “But what of you, Jesuit? I hear no Français from your tongue.”
Jacques shrugged.
“And that fellow?” The man pointed to Joseph. “Certainly a Huron if he came from the mission at Sandusky—both of you recent enemies of our king. How do I know you haven’t stolen these furs, and are on the run from the authorities. How do I know you are truly a man of the cloth—given to an oath of poverty?”
Jacques lifted his cloak to show his cut and worn feet in the open shoes, bruised legs, skin raw and scraped. “And, I do not tell falsehoods.”
Jacob cried out, as if once more knowing when Sokanon needed to hear him. She saw the flicker of consideration from the man. She spoke to it.
“My husband fights with your Admiral Saunders in the transport bateaux at Beauport. And with your General Wolfe at Quebec. Then we go to Detroit when they surrender to your Captain Rogers. My husband take us to Gichigami for a new life after there. Away from war.”
The man scratched at his beard. “Let’s say I believe you. Even so, you have no permit, no license to trap. Without the proper documentation—what am I supposed to do for you? Trapping on crown land without permit is grounds for confiscation of goods and a revocation of license—if you had one.”
“Only look at the furs, monsieur,” Jacques said. “Full ninety-pound bundles, and very well prepared. Surely you can purchase them,” he challenged. “Outside the technicality. Even for a discount favorable to your company. Marie understands that it would be a personal favor to her—and her orphaned son.”
The man straightened. “Don’t try and test my patience with sympathy. And it is more than a technicality. It is a crown law, mon ami,” he mocked.
“I do not want sympathy,” Sokanon said. “Only, what am I do with the furs—three years of our live together? If you mean to confiscate them, then do it.” Her chest heaved, sound of her heart pounding in her ears. Her eyes glassed wet. “Bad blood has already stained these furs. Stained the animal spirits in them. Leave them with the white men.” She backed away toward the canoe.
“Young lady,” he scolded gently. “I would not be the one to confiscate your property. That would be up to the authorities. Yes, they would ask an agent to sell them to market, so the proper—” he wagged his head, “taxes, could be collected. But I have more than enough of my own business to deal with, without fighting you for yours. And—” he pushed back, “I would, surely but pay a rate favorable to my company.”
“You will pay, then?” Jacques said.
Sokanon heard it, too.
“William!” His sudden exclamation startled her. A call to the young aide who rushed forward with a limp, from where he had loitered unnoticed the entire time.
“Sir!” the boy answered.
“Be easy, son. William, have these people follow you to the office in town. Tell Master Douglas to consider purchasing this woman’s furs—under my suggestion to do so.”
The young man showed confusion at the order. “Mister McPherson?”
“There’s a good man, William. Master Douglas will understand.”
“Yes sir,” he answered, standing unsure.
“I want two men to help them over the portage.”
“Sir.” The boy bounded away, skipping on his bad leg.
“Thank you,” Sokanon said.
McPherson shook his head. “I’ve never seen or heard of any fur company dealing direct with a native woman, permit or no. It is good that you are Christian. But, it is only a recommendation to my partner I’m giving you. We own the company, but the agents sell the furs to the open market. If Master Douglas feels it is not in our interest to purchase your furs, then he will not.”
She nodded.
“Again, I warn you,” he continued. “Master Douglas is the senior partner. If he does not agree, your furs may be found out by the authorities and seized as illegal goods.”
The memory of the Colonel Bayard at Detroit made her shoulders droop, suddenly feeling the weight of Jacob on her back. All the tiredness of the past weeks.
“It is the best I can do for you,” McPherson said. “It is because of your late husband. He and I must have fought at each other’s shoulder against the French more than once.” He flashed a brash glance left and right to Jacques and Joseph.
“Thank you,” Sokanon said again.
“I wish you well,” he offered before starting away to rejoin the others bustling along the portage.
“It is something, anyway,” Jacques said.
“Something.”
“Even if only the help with our gear.”
“Yes.” The world was at once quiet and noisy around her. The workers moving this way and that along the portage. The crisp autumn leaves, rattling in the light wind. Even her breathing, loud in the hollow of her mind.
“Let’s be off, Marie,” Jacques called to her detachment.
The portage was long, and there was still the distance after, paddling down to Montreal. Jacob continued to pull heavy on her shoulders. She felt no will from anywhere. Even with McPherson’s benevolence. Even close as she may be to her purpose. All forced on her by Isaac’s death.
 “Yes, Jacques.”
——————
William was waiting at the lower portage, leaned with his mates against the big Montreal’er of the company. McPherson was just away in a bateau. One from the stash of the heavy boats, each painted with the name of the owners and overturned on the raised platforms.
Jacques and Joseph moved the canoe close to the water. Held it ready for Sokanon to enter with Jacob.
“I’ve never seen a canoe like that before,” William said. His limp was heavier after the long portage and he used a paddle for support as he and the others crowded in for a closer look.
“My husband build it.”
The lad’s brow rose. “A fine trapper and canoe maker? My father would have hired him at once.”
His father. She wondered at that. Another partner, maybe? It explained why the other workers, some old enough to be his grandfather, called him sir, responded to his orders after McPherson’s. Grudging obedience rather than respect, but showing his importance in the company. She tried to guess at how he would present her to Master Douglas. If he was the boy’s father, McPherson had given no indication.
“We are ready to leave,” she said.
Jacques frowned at her impatience.
William looked from Sokanon to Jacob. “Do you require another paddler?”
She shook her head and stepped into the canoe, setting Jacob in front of her.
“You will outpace us,” Jacques said, “regardless of another paddler.”
William nodded. His displeasure for them returned after the easy camaraderie over Isaac’s canoe. “Our landing is beyond the public waterfront.” He pointed with the paddle. “You will meet us there.”
“We will follow along, young sir.”
———— (dbl sp)
They glided through the vessels at anchor. Not many, but more than Sokanon thought might be this late in the season. In a few weeks, certainly a month, none would be here, the harbor once again as if nothing had ever disturbed its water. Bateaux and other small boats pulled up onto land, along with the floating docks. Away from the ice that would lock them in, crush and carry them down the waterway in the spring. The larger ships sailed to their last trip before winter. Those that had passed at Oswegatchie were not here, and she knew they had already gone on. Old Brad to report to his governors in Quebec, maybe. Of course there would be no mention of Isaac. Why would there be?
The public shore was crowded with bateaux and people. Cargo being loaded and unloaded, boats knocking against the planks and supports of the quay. Voices carried, in mixed languages, and pricked at Sokanon’s busy mind. Laughter, sounding enough like Isaac’s to remind her she would never hear his again. Meeting with the partner was all at once unimportant to her. The piercing thought knifed through her gut again, better the furs had been lost with Isaac.
The shoreline cleared to a wide beachfront and he was even more to her mind, amid the many boats and canoes of the trappers, emptying company men and the wares of the trade. She felt safe with Jacques and Joseph, but the fear was strong, of being swept along and crushed in the hustle of the hardened voyageurs. Isaac would understand without her saying, and already be easing her worry for herself and Jacob.
“Stand aside with your child,” Jacques offered over his shoulder as the canoe came ashore, speaking effortlessly again to her intimate thoughts.
“Do you see them watch me?”
“Yes, Marie. It appears the news you brought of Bradstreet, is being confirmed to the trappers. I see young William casts a long look, more than the others for you.”
She was uncomfortable at his words. But she didn’t say.
Jacques stepped from the canoe. “Joseph and I will unload, while you see to the young man’s orders for your furs.”
The hard-packed sand gave way to close-cropped grass going up the slight rise in the land. William waited at the top of the rise, leaned on his paddle again, away from the workman who turned from her to busy themselves at their tasks. Two ramps of logs laid side by side to haul up bateaux and canoes for washing out, and platforms of sturdy lumber where the boats were turned upside down and rested upon for dry storage. She felt in their bustle the hurry to get paid before laying off for the winter, another hard season over.
“A few more feet away,” Jacques directed, motioning farther down the beach.
Sokanon drew up Jacob from the freighter, onto her back with only a little discomfort yet in her shoulder. She saw Joseph’s stare. For the first time on his stony face a hint of danger, as he squinted his still-poor vision past her. It caused her alarm and she followed to where the man was looking back, the same sly, mousy face from when she first saw him at Mackinaw.
Aubert.
Fear turned to anger, back to fear again, causing her the panic to defend herself, rage to attack. She saw the many questions mix with Aubert’s look of arrogance. Saw him tap the arm of the man next to him, drawing the attention of the others of his team who she recognized. Others she did not. A few shied away, hiding guilt, embarrassment that showed hard on their faces.
“Who is that man?” Jacques asked.
It seemed to Sokanon he should know.
“He was, my boss,” Joseph said. 
Sokanon cast her fury to him, but was disarmed when contrition showed in his steady gaze returned. She studied the flash blisters on his face, felt her own scarred marks on her warming cheeks. She knew then that she had forgiven him.
They gave a nod to each other before he looked over her shoulder.
“He comes.”
“Aubert,” Sokanon said to Jacques. “It was he who set his men against my family, before Detroit.”
“And he has the audacity to approach you, now?” Jacques released his grip on the canoe. Stood tall against the capitaine.
Aubert hesitated, letting his two followers get a step ahead of him. His assurance wavered as then Joseph stepped forward. Sokanon smirked at his sudden uncertainty. He came only so close.
“You have healed quickly, my friend,” he said to Joseph. He shifted his eyes to Sokanon. “And you have gained new friends, it seems. —Big friends.”
Jacques didn’t move, but Aubert drew back another step.
It was only then that Sokanon saw how small he really was.
“Or maybe your husband and you have only hired these two for protection.”
She leapt at him in her thoughts, striking at him for speaking of Isaac.
“Her husband is dead,” Jacques answered.
Aubert held his hands up, palms out. “No fault of mine.”
She was disgusted by him. “I will speak with William.”
She started away toward the young man.
“I am sorry for the loss of your husband,” Aubert said. “Truly. And I am happy to see your child is well.”
She did not answer. Wished she could take his words from her ears. Remove forever the memory of them she knew would follow her for the rest of her life. Loneliness continued to drag with her even as she felt Jacques and Joseph’s protection of her. Aubert went on talking, his voice fading behind her as she went to try and hurry William along to take her to the man Douglas.
——————
Joseph stayed with the canoe while she and Jacques followed along with the young man. The workers guided the wagon loaded with furs slowly, to keep pace with the limping William. She stared idly at the mud falling from the spokes in the wheels going around.
William halted them in front of the office when they arrived. “You were talking with the one they call Aubert la Méchant. Not too fondly, I saw.”
Sokanon nodded. “Is no friend of mine.”
“He is no friend of anyone.”
She wondered if she should say of Aubert’s crime against her. If it might garner sympathy to help sell her furs.
“He’s a good trapper, though,” William said. “Always brings in a high quota.”
She showed indifference.
He ordered her furs down and she didn’t know what to think when they were set aside alone, separate from where the workers would stack the other bundles. The workers were indifferent to the task.
“You two stay here until I talk with my father,” the young man announced.
Master Douglas was his father, then.
She watched him continue to struggle not to drag his leg in the mud, then one at a time up the two steps leading into the office. She wondered if he had been born so, or if an accident had befallen him, like so many others she’d seen in her life.
Jacques invited her to her furs, where she rested Jacob onto one of her bundles. She brushed her hand gently over his face.
“You do not favor your shoulder much any more,” he said.
“It still hurts.”
He nodded. “But not as much. And enough time has passed to know the animal was not rabid.”
She was quiet.
The muffled sounds of the voices from inside the agent’s quarters told there was a third person.
“They were not to steal mine and my husband’s furs.”
Jacques stared.
“Aubert,” she stopped his confusion. “He always has a high quota,” she repeated William’s words. “It was all from the warrior Sondok, the one I killed, believing Isaac killed his brother. It was to be a revenge killing, only.”
Jacques frowned, thinking.
“Might Sondok’s family come after me, now?” she asked.
“You can’t really believe they would?”
She poked at Jacob’s side. “I do not know what to think. When me and Isaac were gathering the furs together, it was great work. Now, they are only a burden.”
“I heard your frustration at the Lachine landing, when you said to let the white men have them.”
She looked away.
“It is nothing. Hopefully they will buy your furs, and you and your son can have some good from it.”
“If they are willing to excuse the license.”
“We must be ever hopeful in the eyes of the Lord.”
She nodded, looked to her hands, dirty and cracked with the efforts of the past three years.
“Have you been to the Church of Our Lady?” he said suddenly.
She peered up the street toward the city, where the familiar cross showed over the peaked roofs and chimneys above the top of the walls. Guards were posted and walked along the ramparts.
“It is under the support of the Sulpicians,” she said.
Jacques laughed at her light taunting the rivalry of the two orders.
“I know the Sulpice priests do not fair well with your Black Robes.”
Jacques dismissed it with a wave of his hand. “They do not take our vow of poverty, is true. They are not beyond accepting a rich man into their number, and allow him to…donate his wealth to them. But the Sulpicians and the Jesuits are both concerned with saving souls and doing the work of our Lord Jesus.”
She wondered at him again. The faith of religion he seemed to have to force onto himself, yet his knowledge of its workings that she’s had her entire life to watch and learn.
“I heard the Sulpice priests arguing many times with Father Armand,” she said. “And, I hear other things.” She hesitated, keeping her voice low. “People say the Black Robe’s in France country are being treated badly. That the men of Jesus like you are put in jail even.”
He drew his head back in surprise. “That is remarkable, Marie. With so many things to worry about, you have the thought to be concerned with my well being.” He put his hand on her shoulder, before standing. “We are far away from the politics in Europe, old animosities living too close together, I suppose.”
“I hear Fathers, Sisters, talk of…Europe. Isaac, too, even though he has never been. But what of the British, who make the laws now in New France? The Black Robes are their enemies as well.”
“You have seen how the Anglicans are mostly tolerant with Catholics. We are of the same God, you know.” He pinched his lips tight in a light smirk before tracing out the sign of the cross. “The British will be as the French before it. Governments certainly do not mind when the Brothers risk their lives to open the wilderness paths to the Tribes, and all the bounty of the land therein.”
“Is that what mine and my husband’s furs are—bounty, from the lives of black robes?”
He was quiet while the desire came to her again to just gather up Jacob and leave the furs and go away.
“The St. Sulpice priests are Catholic and French,” she said. “They go amongst the Tribes, too. But they have made their buildings here in Montreal, out of stone.”
Jacques took a breath. “Yes, I understand. As I said, the Sulpicians have in their Order those of noble birth. They do not take vows of poverty. They will pay government’s their taxes. But, none of this is for you to worry about. You have observed too well, I think, the machinations of the world.”
“And you talk as well as Father Pierre and Father Armand.” She cast her gaze back to the town. The sadness rushed back into her thoughts, spilled from her mouth. “Yes, I have been to the Notre Dame Church,” she said. “After my family was killed Father Armand thought first to have me stay at the Grey Nun’s Hôpital Général. With Sister Mademoiselle Marguerite d’Youville. I did not want to stay—either here—or go to Quebec.”
“It must have been hard.”
She didn’t answer, the memories too close to her life now. “How do you know so much of paddling and furs?” she asked instead. “Of fighting and getting men to follow you?”
He hesitated. “It was a different life for me,” he answered into the moment of silence.
“Yes.” She knew. “I remember how strange the black robes were to me when I was young,” her thoughts rambled on. “Especially their strength against danger—yet how many times they had to be defended by others, like my father. Father Armand was a brave man,” she said, feeling the sudden need to apologize.
“Armand de la Richardie. There is one whose reputation traveled far. But for a different reason, to be sure. You knew him well, didn’t you?”
“Yes. And I have known Father Pierre for a long time, too.”
“He is a man of books, writing, studying. But don’t think he is not also brave.”
“I know.” Father Pierre was standing next to her, shielding her, berating the Huron children of the Mission who teased her without mercy.
“It is the unwavering conviction of the Brothers in the Lord Jesus makes them brave,” Jacques said. “That the Society members were willing to die for their faith to bring great numbers of the native peoples to the side of Our Lord. More than any number with guns ever will.”
“And you are willing to die, for your faith?”
“It is your faith, too, Marie—is it not?”
She felt the touch of her ring beneath her smock.
The office door opened to a man dressed in merchant’s clothes. Not Douglas, Sokanon thought. He studied them both, glanced down to Jacob, walked away without a greeting.
“Maybe they will hurry on, now,” Jacques said. He looked impatient, turning his ear to hear inside.
“You wish to, hurry on, back to Sandusky?” she said.
He shook his head. “I too, worry of the authorities. Not for me, but you. As I said, Father Potier told me to see to your safety. If your journey ends here, I will return to mine. But, I believe coming once again to this city has upset your thoughts. Do you now, give mind to return to Sandusky?”
She stood mute, confused.
“It is very late in the season for travel on the great lakes,” Jacques continued. “You will only become more with child in that time.”
It was as if sparks flew from a fire, and she brought her hand to her stomach, the vision calling at once. The Sisters’ nursing hands on her. Helping to guide the new baby to life, as the Ojibwa we-eh’s at Jacob’s birth. She ran her finger down his nose to make him smile. Then she lifted her chin and set her jaw straight.
“I wish to go to Quebec,” she announced. “No matter what happens in there.”
His expression showed he already knew. “So be it,” he said. “And whether we, hurry on, or go slowly, Joseph will travel with us. I am certain of it. No matter what has transpired in the past between the two of you, I see his devotion for you and your son, now.”
“Yes, Jacques.”
She needed them. If they left her now, she would have to hire out someone like those in Aubert’s company. Men she wouldn’t be able to trust as she did them. As much as Isaac she had to admit, then.
“Thank you,” she said. “And I wish Joseph to travel with us.”
“By God’s Grace then, we will go forth and set the world on fire.”
“It is what Father Pierre said to us before me and Isaac set off from Sandusky.”
“Yes. They are the words of Saint Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Society of Jesus. I say the words to myself every day.”
She nodded. “I have been remembering the words since we left. It is what Father Armand told the Priest and the Brothers…and my father, before he was to escort them to the new Mission at Chicoutimi.”
“Where they were set upon by the raiders.”
 “I only knew a few words in French—how to count, say mouse—so I didn’t understand. But I knew it wasn’t like a usual farewell. Afterwards—” She tried to settle her mind. “I thought for a long time afterwards, that Father Armand knew the raiders would attack us. Many times he tried to comfort me by saying they were martyrs, gone to Heaven for doing the great Lord’s work.” She couldn’t stop her words. “Just because he wasn’t afraid to be killed—it did not mean that Father Armand should have not cared whether my family would be.”
“You blamed him for the deaths.” His hand was on her shoulder. “Father Armand could not have known.”
She reached for Jacob. She needed to touch him. Make sure of his life. She palmed against her chest at her ring. “It wasn’t until the Sisters of St. Ursuline promised me the Grace of Mary, Queen of all Saints, that I stopped being angry, stopped being afraid.” She caught herself. “Well, tried not to be afraid.”
“You don’t seem to be afraid of anything.”
She kissed Jacob’s forehead. “I am afraid of death.”
“I am not surprised. Death has followed close to you, Marie. Stay close to the Mother of our Lord. She will continue to bring you great strength.”
Her thoughts narrowed. She wanted to tell him she’d felt the strength failing. But that maybe Sister and Mother would comfort her again, once she returned to them.

37

“You both speak English.”
His office was warm, the large fireplace glowing orange coals. Douglas eyed her and Jacques sharply, the light from the candlelamps on his desk reflecting in his calculating eyes. Sokanon understood. He was a businessman, tasked to make money for the corporations. Or their agents would find someone else who could.
“Yes,” she answered him.
“Good,” Douglas said. “Then you’ll waste the least amount of my time.”
His gruff tone dashed the faith McPherson had allowed her to believe. She held Douglas’ penetrating gaze for as long as she could. Jacob squirmed on her back and she used the moment to look away.
“And your husband is dead?” he asked.
She refocused her attention, nodded quietly.
“Dobkins, is it?”
“Dobbins,” she corrected.
“Dobbins,” Douglas repeated. He motioned to William, in a chair behind and off to a side before a window. “My son says you told mister McPherson he was from Nova Scotia.”
“Yes.” She tried to be more forceful with her voice.
“That is why mister McPherson allowed for this meeting. He is a Scotsman, as am I. And so might this Dobkins fellow be.”
She waited, but he didn’t say of Isaac in the war. She wondered if this man was not one who would not regard it for her consideration. Maybe he had not been told of it.
“Never had a friar at a negotiation.”
“I am only here to lend Marie support,” Jacques told him.
Douglas snorted. “Well, she may find little support from me.”
She was weary, wanted the dealings to be quickly concluded. There was nothing to do but keep silent and look straight at him, hoping he would sympathize with the tiredness in her eyes.
“You come with a store of furs, no license, no proof of ownership,” Douglas went on. “And accompanied by recent enemies.”
“My husband was a loyal to the English king.” She didn’t mean for her voice to be so brusque.
“King George the third is your sovereign too, young lady,” Douglas snapped back. “—If you wish to be treated as a subject, with all the rights thereof.”
She felt Jacques’ presence set against the man’s temper.
“Don’t say a word, Jesuit,” Douglas warned, pointing his finger out.
“He has protected me to here,” Sokanon defended. “And my baby—who is subject of the King George.”
Douglas glared. “He may have protected you and your child, but I see your, priest, here, differently. I see him wielding weapons against the subjects of King George.”
“I am only a novice of my Order,” Jacques said.
Even Sokanon heard it in his voice. She saw the changed look on the agent’s face as he stood. William rose, too, as his father walked around the desk toward Jacques.
“A novice, is it?” Douglas said. “I think not. You have the look—the stink, of another of you repentant killers of men. A warrior following in the tradition of hiding in the habit of religion. What have you, black robe?” Douglas pressed. “I am not wrong, am I?”
Jacques remained silent.
Douglas waited for a moment before backing away to lean against his desk. He folded his arms across his chest. “Now, I need a few questions answered.” He glanced to his son who was lowering himself back into the chair, then continued his scrutiny. He fixed his attention on her. “We’ve heard about Bradstreet’s army, the storm. From the colonel’s own staff, when they passed here a few days ago. What can you tell me of what has transpired with the campaign?”
Sokanon confused. “You would, truly, want to hear of a squaw to say—about the army?”
He hid his embarrassment.
“I did not see it,” Jacques said into the new silence. “It seems some were drowned in the storm. How many? I could not say. But the army was in large force, newly-arrived at Fort Niagara, as of a few days ago, when we left.”
“And your husband, was one of those some, drowned?”
“Yes.”
“Uh, huh,” Douglas said slowly. His quieter tone was no relief for Sokanon. He walked around the desk, returning to sit in his chair. “William has also told me of your confrontation with the man, Aubert. Why?”
She was growing even more fatigued and again Jacques answered for her.
“He and his men attacked Marie and her family. Somewhere along the shores of Lake St. Clair.”
Douglas’ eyes narrowed. “Attacked? When was this?”
“Some time ago,” was all Sokanon could answer. She thought of Isaac’s friend, Thomas Fraser, his rescuing of them, his report on Aubert carried with Bradstreet’s army in Niagara, if it still existed or even mattered.
“And for what cause?”
Sokanon took a deep breath. She wanted just to rush from his office. “The Huron warriors with Aubert—they were to a revenge killing against my husband.”
“For what?”
“They thought he was one who had joined in the murder of their village.”
“And was he?”
She was silent.
Douglas was the one to sigh, then. “I ask about monsieur Aubert because I’ve just today hired him. I was looking only for a reference to his character. I’ve heard he was a bit of a rascal. But he has a very paddle-worthy Montreal’er, and a crew who follows his orders.”
The talk of Aubert struck at Sokanon’s patience. “What of my furs?” she insisted.
Douglas flared at her boldness. “Your furs?”
She stood fast against his challenge. “Yes. Mine.” She threw a glance over her shoulder. “And my son’s.”
“Your partner—McPherson?” Jacques interrupted. “He advised your son to have you buy her furs.”
Douglas huffed. “Mr. McPherson can advise all he wants. But, how do I know you were married to this Dobkins fellow, and not just a country wife? And how do I know he was in the war?”
Then he was told. “Dobbins,” Sokanon corrected again. “Isaac Dobbins. He was bateau-man with your Colonel Bradstreet. And later at Quebec, he was one at Beauport.”
“He told you this?”
She felt her back weakening. It wasn’t just the weight of Jacob. “It is where I first saw him that would be my husband.”
“Where?”
“Quebec. At Hôtel-Dieu monastery.”
His movement stopped at her words. He stood again, set his eyes to hers. “The hospital?”
“Yes.”
“Did you work with the Ursuline Nuns, there?”
“Yes,” she said again, her chin higher.
Douglas looked to William. His face smoothed. “Those Catholic ladies saved my son’s life after the battle between Wolfe and Montcalm.” He shared a seriousness with his son. “He was hit in the leg. Almost bled to death.”
Sokanon saw the blood again. The groans of the wounded, legs and arms blown right off. The silence of the dead, mouths and eyes still open.
“He was only fourteen,” Douglas huffed to his son. “A clerk’s mate, supposed to stay to the rear at the camp.”
Sokanon and William stared at each other, searching for a memory that wasn’t. “There were many young men,” she said.
“He didn’t even have a weapon,” Douglas went on, pride sounding through his scolding. “Not sword or musket. But the French nuns patched him up. Even though he was an enemy.”
Sokanon stood mute. Her stomach rose into her throat and a sudden dizziness was growing.
“You look unwell,” Douglas said.
She waved his concern aside even as she faltered more. She felt Jacques move closer.
“Young lady—” Douglas paused. “Not just for my son, but I thank you for the many British lives saved that day in your hospital.”
His words faded in her head. She tried to fight it off, but the swoon was too strong and she felt herself start to fall sideways.
There were hands under her arm.
“Isaac?”
“Come, Marie. Sit down.”
Jacques’ grip on her was tighter than she thought it should be until she realized she wasn’t standing on legs she couldn’t feel anymore.
“What’s wrong with her—you think maybe she’s got the pox?”
“There hasn’t been smallpox around here for years,” Jacques said, his tone too full of scorn, Sokanon thought. The voices clouded in her head while she thought only to Jacob. She struggled to see to him.
“Be still, s’il vous plaît.” Jacques’ voice was at her ear and she calmed at his pull on the straps of the cradleboard.
“What’s wrong with her?” Douglas insisted.
“Elle est—” Jacques said, his words in French for her. “She is, with child,” he went on in English.
“With one who looks like he is yet at her breast? And the father dead?”
Jacques had the cradleboard off her back. Laid Jacob onto her lap. She could see no farther than her son’s face.
“Mr. McPherson believes the furs are worth purchasing?” Douglas continued to be an unseen voice.
“Yes,” William answered, “very high quality.”
There was movement at Douglas’ desk, the sound of a drawer opening. Sokanon heard paper shuffling. “You understand I can not give you a proof of sale,” he announced. “I’m giving you sixty-percent of the standard rate for each of two ninety-pound bundles. No negotiations. Here, William.”
The drag of the son’s limped steps came closer. A loose handful of printed money was held out in front of her.
“Bills of credit?” Jacques questioned. “Have they not been recently banned by your Royal?”
“Paper currency has only been banned in the colonies,” Douglas said. “The Virginia financiers have ruined credit for them all.”
“You cannot pay in coinage?”
“Gold? No one pays in gold. Especially to a Catholic Native girl. No matter how many Anglican lives she may have helped save at the hospital.”
William pressed the bills into Sokanon’s hand.
“You can use them anywhere in the city,” Douglas said.
“What of Quebec?” she asked, fighting to regain her balance and vision.
“Quebec? Don’t worry,” Douglas said. “The bills will be accepted there, too.”
“For how long?” Jacques pressed.
“No more,” Douglas returned. “The negotiation is over.”
William stepped away.
“And now my son and I have furs to count and sort. Young lady, I will need you to recover yourself outside of the office—s’il vous plaît,” he taunted.
Sokanon welcomed his arrogant tone returned. It saved her from having to offer demeaning gratitude. She kept her voice flat. “Merci,” she sneered.
——————
Joseph was standing next to the canoe, alert, his gaze penetrating, making Sokanon think he had regained his full eyesight. She watched him close as she and Jacques neared. He never wavered, rigid in his stance, on guard, deflecting the shifting looks from Douglas’ and Aubert’s men. She wanted to apologize again to him. But she remembered when his warrior spirit was against her and her husband. Against her baby.
She greeted him, went to it, straightaway. “I have said, to Jacques—I wish to go to Quebec.”
Joseph was still for only a moment. He nodded, and it was done. He would continue to help her.
“Our powder is not fresh,” he said.
“If we need it,” Jacques countered.
Joseph looked from them to the canoe. “How long shall I stay in Quebec?”
She understood. She knew Jacques did, too. They would have good shelter in the city. Joseph might have to survive the winter by hunting.
“Regardless,” Jacques said. “The British tradesmen in the city would not sell.”
“The French merchants had none to sell,” Sokanon went on.
“The British are yet controlling weaponry,” Jacques explained.
Joseph motioned. “Aubert’s team is soon to leave for Quebec. I will get what we need from his men.”
Sokanon chafed. “Quebec?”
“I have heard they are to transport the season’s final load of furs for Douglas and McPherson to the merchants there.”
It stabbed at her heart. The thought of hers and Isaac’s furs being carried by Aubert.
“Here,” she halted him. Let down the new blanket from her shoulders and rested Jacob against the canoe. Reached in her pouch for the money and held out some of the bills of credit. “I will not have anything from them for free. Pay them.”
“They will accept this paper?”
“It is everywhere in circulation in the town,” Jacques said. ““The trader was very reticent to accept our money, but we did procure some materials.”
“The man Douglas has said the paper money is good also at Quebec.”
“I will make them accept it,” Joseph said to her, confident.
Joseph nodded, took the bills.
“Joseph,” Sokanon halted him again, the notion spilling from her mouth before she could stop it. “You may have my husband’s canoe once we reach Quebec.”
The many thoughts exchanged between them in an instant. He was happy to accept. Even as she knew she was giving up the last piece of Isaac. It caused him embarrassment to accept. Even as she gave freely.
He strode off.
“A constant source of wonder, Marie.”
She said nothing, laid Jacob aside, covering him with the blanket. She started to load the canoe.
“I know you are restless to leave—” Jacques set the bag of provisions into the boat. “And I’m glad you are recovered from this last spell. But we should wait until the morning.”
She straightened her back and watched Joseph talking to the voyageurs whose faces she remembered, if not their names. “I do not wish to camp here, even for just the night.”
Jacques turned his attention to the trappers. “They will do no malice, I assure you. That is why we should stay here. It is safer nearer the city.”
Sokanon peered up the trail leading toward the town where she had lived for a brief time. Visited since then, traveling with Sister to see the Grey Nuns and Mademoiselle d’Youville’s Sisters of Charity. She wasn’t sure if Jacques could see the slight shake of her head.
“I wish only to go to Quebec now.” She turned her head downriver. “I can carry Jacob, and walk the road from here.”
A frown wrinkled on Jacques’ face. “It is almost a hundred miles just to Trois-Rivières,” he scoffed. “And it can hardly be called a road. You task me.”
“Yes I do. But I will ask you if I must. Please, Jacques. I do not care to see our furs loaded into Aubert’s canoe.”
He was serious then. “I had not thought of that possibility. Joseph might counter us on it.” 
“He will not. You know.”
He sighed and stared up into the sky. “We have enjoyed much fine weather this autumn. Perhaps it will be the same to Quebec. I still think it is best to ready ourselves to start in the morning for a full day of paddling, rather than leaving now in a rush to the sunset. We might pass up better campsites to get in a few more miles, then end up on a shoreline of rocks in the dark.”
“I have slept on rocks before. You have also.”
“What of Jacob, and the little one that is just a spark inside you? Do you want them to be dashed about in the darkness?”
“We would be careful, you know.”
“Of course.”
“I do not wish to be here,” she said again.
Jacques gave himself away, his little smile, eyes brightening, at the prospect of movement. “Well then, we go. With God’s Grace,” he added quickly.
“Thank you.”
“I will see if I can help Joseph expedite his tradings. It looks as if his former comrades are not being very welcome to him.”
“You make other men more fearful than any black robe I have ever known.”
He tilted his head in his unconcerned way before heading off toward those gathered around Joseph. The image of killing the warrior Sondok invaded her mind for the first time in a long while. How little she’d pictured it, how indifferent she felt of her murder, since Isaac was gone.
The money was lifeless in her hand, traded for the furs. Sixty-percent the standard rate for a ninety-pound bundle. No proof of sale. No license number for them. Maybe Douglas and McPherson were to keep the pelts, not report them to the fur companies in Quebec. To sell to the townspeople of Montreal, themselves. She didn’t care, stuffed the bills back into her pouch and went back to loading, where Isaac was everywhere again in the canoe. The lines, the curves, the shape of the wood.
“Your father would be happy for us, Jacob.”

38

They crouched together, silent and motionless at the edge of the wood line, watching the Montreal’er go past. Capitaine Aubert standing in the stern, working the long steering oar and calling out the cadence to his crew of paddlers, heads down, busy at their jobs. The memory felt a lifetime ago, hiding from them with Isaac and Jacob. That Joseph—Atironta—was next to her, that she felt safe in his protection, was difficult to grasp.
He squinted his bad vision, kneeling at the ready, musket in hand. His fingers were steady around the weapon, but Sokanon sensed a great force alive through him. Jacques gripped a paddle for defense, but she felt only calm from him. His righteous duty, maybe, to flail and fell unrighteous men. She thought if the voyageurs even just came ashore, the two would charge out before Aubert and his men could get out of the canoe. The villain wouldn’t dare to cause real trouble, but it was well they made certain their overnight camp was hidden in the forest, away from the water. Working hard together to conceal the canoe, erase the drag marks and their footprints in the sand. She turned her attention away and continued to caress Jacob, to make sure he didn’t cry out while the trappers passed, slashing at the water in the fast pace of their captain’s commands.
“They’ll do the hundred miles to Trois-Rivières in quick time,” Jacques said low.
Three Rivers. The first place she knew by its French name, when she was learning to count in the language of Father Armand and his black robes. Aubert wouldn’t stay there long, tasked by the fur agent to Quebec. He’d be gone at least two days before she arrived. Jacob looked up at her with a serious stare that made his dark eyes even blacker. She tickled him for a smile, kissed his forehead. Put her mouth to his ear. “You need not worry for mother,” she whispered.
It came to her only then. That French from her would be Jacob’s first language. She would have to make the time for his father’s English. Montagnais and Cree were lost to her past. Aubert and his team were well out of sight when they shoved off themselves. Into the sharp autumn wind, from the northeast, straight up the channel into their faces. But the current was still powerful, and the paddling would keep them warm.
——————
It was cold, even with the fire banked to reflect its heat into the lean-to. Either rain or snow, or both, the frozen blobs splattered against the canvas, hissing when striking the flames. The three of them were hushed, Jacques and Joseph quiet after grunting out tired words. Sokanon was used to Joseph’s detached nature, but not Jacques. No one had readied a meal, started a pot boiling. The fire felt too good, log after log tossed in for reviving warmth. Jacob was asleep in her lap, his tiny breath hot on her breast. The pouch stuffed with the money for her furs was icy against her skin.
“The Lanoullier road runs close to the water’s edge,” Jacques said suddenly, peering into the trees.
Sokanon wondered if he was teasing her, after what she’d said about taking Jacob and walking to Quebec from Montreal.
“Monsieur Lanoullier came into the hospital in Quebec when I was there,” she said.
“Lanoullier de Boisclerc himself?” Jacques’ brow arched over his eyes.
“I knew you would know of him.”
“Only of his road.”
She nodded. “He was ill before he died. The sisters made a fuss over him. Grand Voyer, they called him. I thought it was his name.” She grinned as she made Jacques laugh. Joseph was not interested. She went on. “It was not until I knew French better that I know they say, grande voyer—as leader of the road builders.”
Jacques continued to show amusement at her story. “It was a monumental undertaking,” he said, “even if only barely passable most of the year.”
Joseph was not interested, but the talking sparked his energy. He dragged the gear bags closer, rifling out the kettle and tripod legs to hang it.
“Yes,” Jacques said. “Let us warm ourselves with your coffee, Marie.”
She laid Jacob to her side and grabbed the kettle before Jacques could reach it.
“I will go,” she said, looking down to his feet where he continued to be a source of wonder, open shoes sloshing in the ice and snow. It was only a few feet and she returned quickly.
He thanked her through his look that her concern was unnecessary.
“I hope the water is not too brackish,” she said, “with the wind blowing this hard up the river.”
She hung the kettle over the fire, while Jacques tightened the ropes of the lean-to, working to re-stretch the canvas taut. Joseph set in more wood to raise the flames against the snow.
“I only go in canoe,” he said, confusing both her and Jacques. He waved his hand back and forth up and down the river. “Never have I even seen this road.”
Sokanon grinned with Jacques. “I remember—” she said, “when people say, Quebec to Montreal by wagon in only eight days.”
“Well, we will arrive in Trois Rivières tomorrow,” Jacques said, sitting again under the shelter. “After that, with our quickened pace, Quebec in three or four days.” He looked to Joseph who nodded his agreement.
——————
But her eyes opened to the morning covered in ice, the lean-to sagging under its weight. She rose to her elbow to see the smoldering campfire smoke drifting straight up in the day’s beginning with no wind. Everywhere, a gray veil hung, the air thick with fog that clung to her as if a tide had rushed and receded into their shelter overnight. She rose and Jacques and Joseph awakened at her movement.
“The canvas drips from moisture inside,” Jacques said.
She was careful not to touch the heavy cloth. “Shall we use the fire to dry it before we leave?”
“I doubt we will want to wait that long.”
“I need to tend to myself,” she said. “Please be careful to Jacob.”
“Of course.”
Her steps crunched in the crust, breaking through to feel her moccasins sink into the few inches of accumulated ice. She waited a moment and kicked at the stack of frozen logs in case they would restart the fire. Her eyes darted to the branches breaking from the heavy ice, tumbling down all around, rattling to the ground with dull sounds. Their camp was sited well, away from the falling debris, the lean-to sheltered among the green cedars that bent under the weight.
She continued on until she crouched hidden behind the brush and watched the slush of snow floating thick in the water. What Isaac called clabber—his granny Dobbins’ word for milk curds. There was her father, then, scooping a handful of the slush from a pond to show her what he said was the frozen breath of a giant snake, who had been captured by the spirits of the water. She knew it was only the snow, and her father’s playful fooling with her child’s fear. But she stayed away from the pond after that just in case. The memory made her thoughts spirited, of Jacob and his brother or sister inside of her, at one day telling them of spoiled milk and terrible beasts.
How well would they be able to travel today, paddling in the clabber? It was too warm for it to freeze and lock them up, but it would be a chore anyway. She thought of Quebec, close enough to the great ocean for the tides rushing in and out to keep the slush from turning quickly to ice. Maybe the middle of the wide river would be open in the stronger current there. She finished and stood, and peered out to the water trying to see, hoping they could still reach Trois Rivières by the next day.
She hoped too, the Ursuline convent was still there, its school of learning for girls, chapel for the nuns to worship. Isaac wouldn’t let her visit the sisters three years ago with the army, in their dash down to Montreal to meet up with Rogers’ force of rangers. Worried for his new bride to be accosted in the commotion after more than one townsperson told of her similarity and same name to an Ottawa slave girl also named Marie, executed by hanging the year before for attempting to kill her mistress.
She felt the thrill from that time again, the rapt feeling of fear and excitement on the passage to Detroit. New-married and immersed by the many soldiers and militia, camp followers, men and women.
——————
The waterfront was quiet in the still morning, the sucking, whooshing, dripping of their paddles sounding soft with the cries and chatters of waterbirds. Loons yodeled to each other, echoes of the calls returned from the high rocks either side of the small bay. A square bateau, the size of a ship, was anchored fore and aft, sail furled atop the cross mast, as if ready to be lowered to the day’s wind.
Flat, sandy hills rolled down from high ground inland to where the settlement stood. The church steeple and roofs of other buildings showed above the walls, and houses went out all around the fort. The landing of their single canoe was interesting enough only for a passing glance from the sentry atop the corner bastion of the rampart. He continued on his patrol, Sokanon letting her thoughts linger on the row of British cannons along the edge of the escarpment that were not there last time she stood at this same spot. She was anxious again for the convent of French sisters, in the French-named town, under Protestant British control. She turned her ear suddenly. Not the harsh notes of military corps. Pleasant tones drifted in the breeze she only felt now they were landed. Music. Real music.
“I hear it, too,” Jacques said.
“As do I,” Joseph agreed.
Sokanon listened closer. “It is the music of the church. A harpsichord—and a galoubet. I have heard many times at the monastery, and the homes at Quebec.”
Jacques shrugged. “I have never denied being a heathen.”
“Your robe does not hide it,” Joseph challenged. It was the closest he’d ever come to telling a joke.
Jacques amused himself at it. “Wearing this robe means I can hide no longer, my friend.”
Sokanon figured it was only a matter of time, even these two sober men, acting the brute to each other. “I wish to visit with the Ursuline sisters, if their convent has yet to be allowed.”
“Should we prepare to stay for the day, and travel again in the morning?”
“No, Jacques. I only wish to pay my respects at the convent and we shall depart.” She opened one of the bags to pull out the sack of oat grain. She swung Jacob onto her back and lifted up the grain sack, cradling it in her hands. “A gift to the sisters for the abandoned children.”
“As you will. Joseph and I will tend to ourselves, and be ready to leave as soon as you return.”
“Merci.”
She strode up the land rise from the water her thoughts a flurry. Past the row of silent cannons, ready at a moment to explode with the thunderous roar she’d heard many times. While the music played from one of the houses outside the walls, across the road from the heavy guns. The melody of worship stopped and started the same again. And then once more. Lessons maybe, as she had also heard many times, taught to the French children. How strange it was, the soft music in the air between the big weapons of death and destruction. A family was busy in their yard. The woman at a hoe in the garden with her daughters. The man working at the wattle fence with his son. She wondered if they were more fortunate for the protection of the cannons, or for the music filling the spaces of their chores.
The town’s grain windmill stood opposite the houses, behind the cannons, its arms moving slowly around, creaking as she passed. The activity unseen from the water continued, children playing, running around and around the mill tower, and her child-wonder returned, remembering the first time seeing a windmill, a giant bird-god from one of her mother’s tales.
The bitter odor caught in her nose and she knew there was a forge here. Which of the columns of smoke rose from where iron was being made? She understood then why there were so many cannons.
Wigwams were put up to either side of the way leading to the fort. The pole and bark homes were of many seasons, the wood aged, and they might have been thought abandoned if smoke wasn’t rising through the roof openings. When she was close enough she heard the low sounds of daily life from behind the woolen trade blankets hanging as doors. The large lodges spoke of families whose hard times were coming in the winter months, the season of hunger, even so near the town.
She gripped the sack of grain. Sister would chastise her thoughts, if the grain was enough of a gift to gain the favor of St. Ursula, patroness to orphaned children. Maybe the money, then. To rid herself of it, that pulled her thoughts darker the longer it hung from her belt. How then, could she tell her companions all they’d done for her, was for nothing?
Three years since last with the sisters. Would she know any of those here? If they were still here. Maybe it was better if she didn’t know any. The less she would have to say of her troubles newly brought, for them to remind how blessed she was for what she yet had. There would be enough of that from Sister Marie Catherine at Quebec. A moment of fear flashed, that Sister was not yet alive. What then, she wondered. The winter spent with Jacques and Joseph? Her child born in the cold of a bark lodge, attended by Native women whose traditional way of birth was to go off into the woods to have the baby alone?
Red-coated soldiers patrolled along the top of the walls, where more cannons were set on the gun platforms, their barrels pointing out from the openings. Once more, two sentries guarded the entrance and it frustrated her that she might again have to endure humiliation and apprehension. These two were very young, she doubted they had even started to shave. She hesitated, but they only glanced at her as she started through the gate.
“Bon jour,” she said. It was a reflex, having spoken only French with Jacques and Joseph.
“Arrêt,” one of them stopped her, mispronouncing the word.
“Leave her go, Geoff,” the other said.
“She might be one of them French Hurons, tried to sneak arms into the other forts.”
“I am not Huron,” she said. “And, I talk English, well.”
The soldier shuffled awkwardly.
“I am to the Ursuline convent,” she went on, presenting the sack of grain. “A gift. For poor children.”
“There you are, mate,” the other guard said. “And that looks like a real baby to me. Leave her go.”
But her attention was taken away by the one inside the fort, in the dark gray habit of the Ursulines, holding a bucket in each hand. She was smiling, familiarity coming slower to Sokanon than was obvious in the young woman’s warm gaze. Another moment and there she was, older now, Isabelle. Pretty Isabelle, the petite, gentle girl all the others said would eventually run back to the comfort of her wealthy parents. Fourteen years old and a novice last Sokanon saw her at the hospital in Quebec, dragging the heavy wash buckets over the floors she was tasked to keep clean.
Isabelle set the buckets down and walked toward the gate, the guards at once quieted at her arrival. It wasn’t the first time the young men had noticed her graceful beauty, even in the dull dress of a nun.
“Good day, miss,” one said, fumbling with his musket while tipping his hat at the same time.
“Yes, bon jour Madame,” soldier Geoff greeted her in rough French.
Isabelle gave them a shy smile before extending her hands to Sokanon. “Marie,” she said.
“You know this, person?” the guard asked.
“Non, Anglais,” Isabelle answered.
“You know that, you dozy,” the second man continued in mocking his mate.
Sokanon looked to them and spoke in English. “We were together, at the convent in Quebec.”
“You have a child,” Isabelle said to her. She frowned at the guards. “Un bébé,” she scolded.
They stood straighter.
“Yes, miss.”
“Oui, Madame,” Geoff misspoke again. “If the lady can warrant for you, it will be very well for you to enter.”
Isabelle moved past the soldiers to take Sokanon’s arm to lead her into the fort.
“Good day, miss. —Bon jour.”
It was the same here as in Quebec, it didn’t matter that Isabelle was covered in the plain cloak. All the men were taken by her. But there was no vanity in the girl’s face. Her small hand slipped into Sokanon’s, while her other gripped her arm. Again and again she peeked over her shoulder at Jacob. They halted at the buckets, filled with water.
“You have taken the vows?” Sokanon asked.
“My first vows.” Isabelle’s pride showed. “I was sent here in the summer. I have taken the name Théresè-Louise.”
“Sister Théresè-Louise.”
“Yes, one day. The life of charity and poverty begins for me. But what of you?” Her bright eyes were again for Jacob. “You have a child. Have you and your husband come here to stay, or are you on your way back to Quebec? I was sad, and afraid for you, when you left with that rabble of boatmen. But it was easy to see you and that young British soldier were in love. Tell me everything.”
Sokanon laughed. “I am happy to see you are still our little Isabelle.” It was the most genuine warmth since Isaac was lost.
The girl looked away. “I am, sorry Marie.”
“Do not be. Only from my child have I felt—such eager to be innocent.”
She saw Isabelle concentrating to correct her words.
“Such—bright innocence,” Sokanon said.
“I understood. But truly—” Isabelle went on. “What of yourself? I hardly ever talk with anyone from outside the convent. And never one such as you, who has gone to see the world.”
Maybe she had seen the world. Enough of it anyway. She thought not to say. Not to burden little Isabelle, who she tried to shield from the strictest of the Ursulines. No more then, if she was to be Sister Théresè-Louise.
“My husband, Isaac, is dead.”
Isabelle stared.
“I am sorry,” Sokanon offered. “I did not mean to say so harsh.”
Isabelle’s shock continued. “But, you have a baby.”
“Our son. Jacob.”
“When did this happen?” Isabelle’s eyes searched for the answer. “How?”
“It was last month.”
“Only last month?”
“A storm came up on the lake after we left Sandusky. Our canoes were overwhelmed by the bateaux of the army and, Isaac was lost.” Sokanon looked to the cross on the steeple of the church. “I searched a long time for him.”
“He was never found?”
“No.”
“Not even his body—for a proper burial?” Isabelle’s head dropped in sadness. She tightened her grip on Sokanon’s hand. “I am the one sorry, for your loss.”
“I say—Isaac was returned to the great waters where he was born.”
“He will be in the well of water, springing up into everlasting life.” Isabelle tried to hide her embarrassment. “I’m sorry, Marie.”
“Do not be.”
“I know sometimes it is best to only listen, to comfort, and not too soon offer encouragement—even from Our Lord’s good book.”
“That, you have learned on your own. —Théresè-Louise.”
Isabelle embarrassed again, blushing at Sokanon’s affection.
“I was only trying to remember if I had ever heard that you said before.” Sokanon touched Isabelle’s arm. “You always read more than the other girls.”
“And you were always more unsettled than the rest. Even the other girls from the Tribes.”
“Now I am even more, unsettled.”
There was silence between them. It reminded of the times in her room, quiet with each other.
“I am glad that the convent is yet here,” Sokanon said. “I wish this offering of grain to the convent. For the charity.”
“Yes,” Isabelle’s voice rose, conviction showing stronger. “Let us to our chapel. I will introduce you and Jacob to Mother Superior Benedicta and Sisters Helene and Margaret, and we will join in a prayer for your husband’s soul.”
“I can not stay long. I have companions who wait at the waterfront for me. They will worry for me, the longer I am gone.”
“Companions? Who worry for you?” Isabelle continued to shine. “I feel you have a great tale to tell.”
“I am to Quebec. They are helping me. That is why they would worry.”
“Quebec? Sister Marie Catherine and Mother Marie-Anne will be so happy to see. To see you have a child. But surely you can stay for the length of a prayer.” She strained at the water buckets.
Sokanon saw the memory flash between them. Both of them punished when she was caught carrying the wash buckets for Isabelle, when they thought the sisters weren’t watching.
They were always watching.
Sokanon knew better than to help now.
———— (dbl sp)
The little convent house was the usual of the nuns, clean, ordered and comfortable even in its plainness. Sokanon knelt in the tiny chapel for the women. There was no familiarity of them, no memory of having seen them before. But that there were three, intense kneelers, reminded of the Ojibwa women in their chants for Jacob at his birth. Isaac would be upset with her, the Catholic Sacrament asking forgiveness for his sins, to welcome him into the ever after. Sokanon thought Mother Benedicta shrewd to see her discomfort for the rite, making it important to Théresè-Louise by allowing the withdrawing novice to lead the invocation to Saint Mary for her friend’s husband’s soul.
“Amen,” Sokanon joined in ending the prayer. “Thank you,” she offered to the women as they stood.
“Novice Théresè-Louise—”
“Yes, Mother Superior.”
“Wait outside with Marie. I will join you in a moment. I wish to speak with your well-traveled friend.”
Isabelle bowed, kept her eyes down. “Yes, Mother.”
Benedicta moved with self-assurance, erect, tall as Sokanon. She worried for Isabelle when she saw the rigid discipline in the Superior’s gaze. She hoped she wasn’t of those who held cruelty the same as instruction. Sokanon watched her directing Sister Helene and Margaret to their tasks until Isabelle’s tug at her arm brought her along with Jacob outside, where fog had risen over the river with the warming day.
“I wish you could stay,” Isabelle said. “Even for a short while.”
“I can not.” Sokanon wanted to hold her close, as she used to, when the girl cried under the harsh discipline of the convent. “Your superior comes. After we talk, I will be leaving. Maybe she will allow you to walk to the canoe with me.”
Isabelle smiled. “I will ask.”
“I will ask,” Sokanon told her.
“No, Marie. No more protecting me. Not even from Mother Superior Benedicta.”
Sokanon nodded. Raised her chin when Benedicta arrived.
“There was news brought recently of the British army being overwhelmed in a lake storm. And Théresè-Louise has told me you have the same information.” She questioned as a military officer would and Sokanon nodded to her.
“I wish for you to tell me what you know,” Benedicta went on. “You understand that we have to come by most political events by watching, or by listening. It’s not often one of our own appears to have first-hand knowledge.”
“Our own?” Sokanon asked, confused.
“Yes, young lady.” The Superior looked sharp. “Now, what can you tell me of this report?”
“The Colonel Bradstreet left Detroit for Sandusky,” Sokanon told her. “He took half the soldiers with him. He ordered them suddenly to leave for fort Niagara, and the storm came upon us in the Erie lake the same day.”
“And how many were lost?”
The question pained.
“I do not know,” Sokanon said.
“The British have not retreated, then?”
“No. And there is another army in Ohio.”
“Has the Indian uprising been halted?”
Indian.
“Yes. The colonel in Ohio has made them surrender, return all their captives, even those who have lived all their lives with the Tribes.”
Benedicta stared. “You are an observant young woman.”
Sokanon shrugged. She did not say of Michiconiss and the warriors north of the St. Mary’s. “The soldiers were yet at Niagara when we left there.”
“The river is open from Detroit, then?”
Again Sokanon nodded. “Open—all to Mackinaw.”
The Superior was surprised. “You have come a long distance.”
Sokanon felt Isabelle’s wonder at her words.
“And you are to Quebec,” Benedicta went on, “with your baby in tow?”
“Yes. I wish to see again, Sister Marie Catherine and Mother Superior Marie-Anne.”
“Marie-Anne is no longer superior in Quebec.”
Sokanon feared it, but Isabelle would have said. “She is not, dead.”
“No. But she has fulfilled her allotted time as superior.”
Relief caught the sadness away from the pit of Sokanon’s stomach, even as she heard the dismissal in the woman’s voice. “Mother Marie-Anne was very old when I left,” she said, “but she had just been elected superior again.”
Mother Benedicta shook her head. “The British liked her, so Bishop Pontbriand made sure she was reelected. Mind you—even though it was beyond Ursuline custom for her to be so again.”
It was jealousy Sokanon heard now and she defended against it. “When the British came to attack Quebec, Mother Superior Marie-Anne and the priests led all the sisters to stay and guard the hospital and convent. When the city was finally surrendered, the nuns were almost starved to death.” Sokanon lifted her chin. “I brought the sisters whatever food I could find.”
“It was awful,” Isabelle said, catching herself at her superior’s narrowed eyes..
“The war caused deprivation for all of us,” Benedicta admonished. “It raged in Europe for seven years. My village was marched through many times.”
Sokanon didn’t waver. “After the long battle at Quebec the British General Murray, he go to Mother Superior, thanked her for how well the sisters took care of wounded soldiers, if French or British. After that, the general had his men repair all our buildings, so we could take care of even more soldiers.”
They were quiet for a long moment before Sokanon calmed.
“That is when I met my husband, Isaac.”
“Everyone has lost,” Benedicta instructed. “But take solace that those who are in the Lord and have gone, have gained eternal life through our Savior, Christ Jesus.”
“Amen,” Isabelle followed.
Sokanon was silent. She watched the drifting fog again, a long line of ducks shooting down the river, going in and out of the sunlight breaking here and there through the mist.

39

The landing was busy in the late morning. Jacques and Joseph were standing ready. They had brought the boat away from the commotion, close to the escarpment. Patches of mist hung yet in the crags of the rise. Isabelle slowed her steps. Their intimacy returned as Sokanon felt her unease. Discomfort going toward the rough activity of those working at the landing, shielding herself from the way men looked at her.
Sokanon halted them. “Winter is very soon coming.”
“Yes, but Quebec is only three or four days, in your odd-looking canoe. You know I am not supposed to, anyway, to think of myself, but it would bring me joy having someone close, who knew me before,” her voice lowered as she spoke, “as I used to be, as Isabelle Gaultier.”
“I cannot stay. And my companions. I can not ask more of them than to help me quickly to Quebec.”
“One of them are a Jesuit Brother? And he did not come into town to pray at the church?”
“Jacques is—I do not know. He is only recently in the black robe.”
“Black Robe. That sounds so…” She looked away. “I am sorry. What I meant was—you were always so strong in our faith. Your faith and mine.” She stopped again, before gathering herself.
Sokanon amused at her rambling, more words than she’d been allowed to say in—how long?
Isabelle breathed before rambling on. “I thought that you wanted to be as the great Kateri Tekakwitha, a great holy woman of your people. That you would be like her and give up, wholly, your life outside the church. That we would take the vows together.”
Sokanon felt the warmth come into her for a moment before tempering her thoughts. “When I met Isaac.”
“Yes.” Isabelle blushed. “You and he looked very much in love. I was sorry not to be a witness at your wedding. Your marriage was told to me on the same day of my Sacrament of Penance at the shrine of miracles at Beaupré.”
Sokanon thought of the pilgrimages from Quebec to Chapel Sainte-Anne de-Beaupré. Where the finger-bone relic of saint Anne waited for devotions. Praying at the shrine of miracles with those in need of healing. She’d seen people get well. Could she go there and entreat for Isaac—that by a miracle he could be raised from the waters?
“I am sorry I could not say goodbye to you.”
“It is well, Marie. We will not part now without a warm farewell.” Isabelle smiled to Jacob. “And now another blessing, and adieu for your child.”
Sokanon’s attention wavered, and her hand came up on instinct to her stomach. She decided still, not to tell of the coming little on.
“Mother Superior did not tell you—” Isabelle said, “but Esther Marie-Joseph is the new superior at Quebec,” Isabelle said.
“Sister Esther?”
“It is a wonder, I know. She is not who you would think would be elected. But the British control New France now, and she is English. And she learned her French and Catholic ways when she was a captive of the Tribes allied to France. Everyone has said it was a decision by affairs of state.”
“It is no matter to me.”
Isabelle showed confusion. “Is it not good for continuing our Order—now that the British sovereign rules the land?”
“Yes, I am sorry. I love Marie-Anne. But Sister Esther is good as any other.”
“Mother did not say of her because, well, I do not think she likes Esther.”
“She made it as she did not like Marie-Anne either.”
“Maybe that is why she is here, in Trois Rivières?”
“You are learning—affairs of state, I think, Sister Théresè-Louise.”
Isabelle dropped her eyes to her hands folded in front of her. “I only want to serve our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.”
“You will learn much things, as you get older. As will I.”
Isabelle’s hand was again at Sokanon’s arm.
“You are like her, I suppose, Marie, like Sister Esther, having lived in the cultures of French, British and Native.”
“I do not remember the language of my birth. And I was never the Anglican.”
“Mother Esther only learned French from her captives. And your husband was very well a Reformer, was he not?”
“Isaac was—I have said. I think he looked for God in the great waters.”
“I, I can not answer to that,” Isabelle stumbled over what Sokanon knew she thought blasphemy. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
“You have not. I am only weary.”
“God satisfies the weary ones and refreshes those who languish.”
“I think, more reading of comfort I never learned?” Sokanon shook her head. “I have thought, often, of Jacob being born of many ways of life. But I have seen bad come from many people. And those who do good, sometimes cause bad anyway.”
“Now you are phrasing from the bible.”
“I did not know.”
Isabelle’s gaze sharpened. “Having faith, and the love of our Lord, I believe, helps in all things.”
Sokanon peered to Jacques, his simple black robe calling to the same thought. “Father Armand said the same to me many times after my family were killed.”
“And what, now, Marie? You used to believe it, too.”
“I believe— I think, I should have faith and love for my children.”
“Only?” Isabelle reached to touch Jacob. “Leaving no room for God?”
Sokanon raised her hand again, another impulse for her ring. She pinched at it, through her smock.
Isabelle saw. “You continue to carry the ring around your neck—the same one, the one from Father Armand? I am happy to see you have not lost it in all your ordeals.”
Sokanon didn’t want to say how cold it had felt since losing Isaac.
They were silent for a long time.
“There has always been strength in you,” Isabelle spoke, “even when you were quiet. But there is more sorrow in you now. More than before, of course.” She let go of Sokanon and shook her head a little. “I know I can not understand fully, your pain. But I am trying. I have always tried.”
Sokanon smiled. “You have always done well to know the sufferings of others.”
Isabelle was fixed in thought. “I would like for you to have my Rosary,” she said, reaching suddenly to unhook the prayer beads from her belt. “My parents presented them to me after I took the first vows. The beads are made from the ocean coral.”
They were beautiful pearly pink, the crucifix and the images of Jesus and Saint Mary, in gold. It was a wonder, made in heaven itself.
“I cannot accept this,” Sokanon said.
“I insist, Marie. Perhaps it will strengthen once again your faith. Also, so you remember me, that I will pray for you, for your child, for the rest of my life.”
“I can not forget you.” Sokanon clutched the rosary, running the beads between her fingers. “Merci.”
It was Isabelle who started for the water this time, Sokanon taking a long stride to come aside her.
“God’s good day, sister,” Jacques greeted.
But Isabelle stood engaged, and Sokanon followed her gaze to Joseph, who strained to focus his crooked vision. It was as if he was struck by her. Sokanon backed her away.
Isabelle regained her modesty. “I—Yes, God’s good day, brother. It is God’s good work you do for Marie and her son.”
“Sister Théresè-Louise was my friend in Quebec,” Sokanon said. “Before she was to the convent, I lived with her family for a short while when she was a child.”
She lowered to her knees and laid Jacob onto the ground, loosening his bundling before she would rest him in the canoe.
Isabelle knelt, too. “He still has the shadowy eyes of a newborn.”
Sokanon had a moment to worry. She watched Jacob’s eyes follow the movement of her face. “He sees well.” 
Isabelle confused a moment, before smiling to caress his cheek. “How do you not fear for him—traveling so far on such dangerous waters?”
Sokanon shuddered, caught in the storm, Isaac pushing her and Jacob up onto the overturned bateau just before the wave took him under.
“Marie is a very experienced voyageur,” Jacques said into the hollowness of her mind, “and very watchful with her child.”
Conviction showed again on Isabelle’s face. “I am sure you all are watchful.” She leaned closer. “The way they look at you,” she said low, “and now to hear him speak of you—it is as if you are a princess in their sworn protection.”
Sokanon nodded blankly. “I must leave now, Isabelle.”
“Goodbye, little Jacob.” She kissed him and they stood. “We shall meet again, Marie, somewhere in God’s Mercy.”
Their hug was long, stretching back the many years together.
“God be with you, sister Théresè-Louise,” Jacques said.
Joseph was quiet, giving only a slight bow of his head.
“I wish you gentlemen—” Isabelle hesitated. “Godspeed I believe, is the proper salutation for seafarers. It is good that Marie and her son have you who she trusts travel with her. For that I give you my thanks. I will pray for all of you.”
“And I you,” Jacques said.
———— (dbl sp)
Isabelle remained at the shoreline for a long time. When she walked away, Sokanon continued watching her going up the incline of the plateau toward the fort. It felt good to be back on the water, free of snow and ice, the breeze risen to cause small, regular waves across the way. Thoughts of Isaac swayed with the motion of the canoe.

40

Joseph saw them first. Sokanon turned to see him squinting his clouded eyesight. She saw. So did Jacques. Drag marks of canoes, and footprints in the sandy bottom of the shallow water leading into a small creek that came into the great river.
Sokanon sensed their instincts charged. Joseph steering the canoe in toward shore. Jacques backing his paddle, making it harder for him to guide.
“What are you doing, my friend?” Jacques challenged, keeping his voice low but direct. He was troubled, his eyes darting, keen. “Do not,” he commanded when Joseph was unrelenting.
Sokanon tensed, her grip tightening around her blade held slack in the water. She studied again the drag marks. One wide, from a heavy vessel, the other two narrow, light. She saw then, where the marks ran to trampled cuts through the swaying tall grass.
She looked to Jacob asleep at her feet. “Joseph,” she implored her own protest.
But he had already brought them close enough to slip from the canoe. He bounded off, agile as never before, making no noise as he dashed, disappearing into the brush.
A crow cawed from somewhere amongst the trees, then another, and Sokanon thought Joseph had been seen by them. But a black form flitted through the branches to land where they could watch them, followed by others continuing to call their own voices, making the only sounds in the world.
“Damn him,” Jacques swore low and poled the canoe with his paddle away from the opening of the creek.
 “No, Jacques,” she said seeing it in his eyes, that he would leap into the stern to paddle off from Joseph’s sudden rashness.
“Damn him,” he swore again, through his teeth.
They held the canoe close in. The crows flew off, lazy, the last with a final caw, leaving the silence a riot in Sokanon’s ears turned to listen in the wind. She frighted as Jacques tensed when Jacob gurgled soft. She put her finger to his lips, where he suckled quiet. It scared her to see Jacques continue in his panic. He wouldn’t give Joseph much longer before he would take them away. She breathed again when Joseph returned. But he started to grab up two of muskets.
“Do not,” Jacques again persisted his dissent.
“What is it, Joseph?” Sokanon questioned while he checked the breech and lock of the guns.
He motioned with his head. “Leave now Jacques, with Marie. Go to Quebec. I will be to my own end.”
“This cannot be of our concern,” Jacques said to him.
Sokanon started to understand. “Jacques is right, Joseph. Come away.”
“I cannot.”
She knew, then. “You will give your life—for Aubert?”
She saw him questioning her reasoning.
“I forbid it,” Jacques commanded once more.
But Joseph would not yield. “Aubert is dead,” he said low. “Others, too. The rest are—” he let his words trail off. “There is a man and woman with them, dressed in fine clothing. They are being held by five Mohawk warriors. One of them lay dead, also.”
“The fools,” Jacques said. “The river is no more a lawless land. They will be hunted down by the military. Their Tribe will face sanction until delivering up those guilty.”
There was no emotion from Joseph when Sokanon looked to him.
He shook his head. “I do not think it matters their purpose. They are painted for battle.”
“You are correct,” Jacques rasped. “It matters not,” he caught his too loud voice. “We are to leave, now.”
Joseph held his hand out for the powder bag. Sokanon gave it up to him.
“I will wait for my attack until you are away,” he said. “But you must go, before the warriors come back to their canoes.”
“I cannot countenance it,” Jacques pressed, grabbing the front of Joseph’s coat. “You must come away from here. Leave them to their fate.”
“No.” Joseph jerked free from Jacques’ hand. “The Mohawk are from the Iroquois federation, sworn enemies of my Huron people. And you were a warrior once, I know. By both the Great Mysterious, and a warrior’s blood, I was brought here to those who were once my friends. I cannot abandon them to this.”
“Friends? They are the ones who led you almost to blindness.”
“I see now.” Joseph stood stone-faced.
“Come Marie,” Jacques said. “We are away, quickly.” He started to push at the canoe.
“No, Jacques,” she defied again, thinking of her mother and father, the others with her family, taken in surprise by the warriors. “Joseph’s friends are men of violence. But what of the man and woman? You know what the warriors will do to them.”
Jacques’ eyes were fire. “I have seen what they will do.”
“As they did to my family?”
“Revenge—is that drives you, Marie? Your family is here. Do you wish to kill Jacob—the one inside you?”
Sokanon felt the ardor rise in her. “Jacques, we must help. Maybe the warriors will run—we will be strong and they will flee from our attack.” She grabbed for the other two muskets, taken from the trappers atop the great falls.
“You are a warrior, now—” Jacques said, “a killer again? We must go,” he pleaded his disbelief. “I will carry you away if I have to.”
“I will call out if you try.”
Jacques gave a sly nod. “So you shall. And alert them, so we have to flee.” Sokanon backed away. “You must come,” he said. “Shall I subdue you both and throw you into the canoe?”
Joseph looked to Sokanon. “Go now.” He turned quickly and stole through the tall reeds, musket in each hand.
“I will yell out myself,” Jacques threatened.
“Then you will kill Joseph, too,” Sokanon countered. “I see the way you are. How powerful. Even Joseph is watchful around you. He is right. The mysterious way of the world put us here right now. I am asking you to put off the black robe and fight as the warrior you once were.” She edged further away. “Come, Jacques. Please.”
He heaved a deep breath and gave the slightest nod of his head. “You will take the food and water. You will stay back and hide in the forest with Jacob. Travel to Quebec using the road.”
“Yes,” she agreed, “if it is necessary.”
He snatched one of the guns away from her. “I will go first,” he said.
They went up the slight rise and crouched into the tall grass. She hesitated for a moment at the canoes, the two smaller war vessels alongside the big Montreal freighter.
“Stay close,” Jacques whispered and they continued to follow after Joseph.
———— (dbl sp)
They heard the yips and yells of the warriors and caught up to where Joseph knelt, hand held out to caution them. He pointed toward the sounds. Jacques ushered Sokanon away to a stand of small pines.
“Do not leave from here,” he said, “unless you hear us call, or there are no more voices. You have traveled the road before Marie, I know. It is not too far inland. If you have to use it, it will not be in good repair after the rain and snow, you will have to traverse through mud.”
“To my comfort, even now,” she said. Her long sense of loss squeezed at her breast. She met his eyes, searched his calm face.
He nodded soft. “I am committed to Christ, and do not fear for my life. If today is my last day, I will see you again in the Lord’s Kingdom.”
The words jarred then, the thought of him being killed. Even Joseph. Her own voice caught in her throat and she clutched at his robe, but he pulled away and stalked off.
“Jacques,” she called low. But he was too far already. She laid the food and water down and dragged the cradleboard with her, crawling after Jacques and Joseph.
They were on their stomachs, voices beyond them through the grass. She left Jacob where she could see him and came quietly between them. Jacques’ eyes pierced once more, his calm turning to anger that bled from his stare. He glanced back to see Jacob and shook his head. There was nothing he could do to make her retreat without alerting the warriors.
She looked away from his judgment to see the five of them with their captives as Joseph had said. On a small island formed by the stream in low water that split and flowed to each side. Three of the warriors squatted around a small fire while the other two were dancing, parading, threatening in front of the three captured voyageurs, stripped to their waists. Burning their pale flesh with the red hot ramrods of muskets. Screams muffled by gags tied between their gritted teeth.
Strewn around were the abused bodies of those already killed. Blood ran from the living and dead, fingers cut off, ears lopped. She didn’t know how to feel seeing Aubert’s stark white corpse. The young couple were lashed together, back to back sitting on the ground. They were yet dressed in the fancied traveling clothes of people of the higher-born—from Montreal? Trois Rivières? They were also gagged, their faces smeared with blood, and Sokanon wondered what cruelties would be for them.
Another body was set away, the Mohawk warrior laid reverently on animal skins, the bloodied trophies of flesh displayed on his body as tokens and talismans for their brother. And there were her and Isaac’s furs, one of the bundles still wrapped in the canvas with his mark on the side.
Snow fell soft, fluttering in the breeze. Sokanon watched the flakes gather along the barrel of Joseph’s musket as he slid it forward to aim through the grass. A silence interrupted just as he thumbed back the hammer. She wondered how the warriors did not hear the click that echoed in her ear. Her gun grew hot in her grasp. She thought of the warrior she’d killed, Sondok, and found it terrifying that she would now be lying beside his friend Joseph, violence burning in her hands. This would not be as the ambush of the trappers at the great falls. There would be killing. Father Pierre was with her, his shame at what she was about to do. Mother and father again. Jacob. Isaac. Their unborn. Please, she thought she said out loud. But to who?
“No,” she cried.
The blast from Joseph’s musket thundered in her ears, heat from the flash pan hot against the side of her face.
“Do not move!” Jacques commanded, his words as if far off in her deafened hearing.
She felt the weight of his hand on her hurt shoulder, pushing her into the ground before he leapt to rush forward. The report from Joseph’s second gun sounded and at once he was up and charging. She strained to see through the smoke of the blasts, Joseph’s strides splashing with Jacques’ in the stream. 
One warrior was down and another reeled from a bloody wound to his side, a shot that did not kill him. Joseph clubbed him aside and went for another. Bare-skinned to the cold save for loin cloth and leggings, beaded straps across his chest, red feathers atop his head bouncing as he moved. Tattoos of lightning bolts went up his arms and around his body. He came against Joseph who caught the warrior’s strike from his war club with his musket over his head.
Jacques was a black demon, his robe swirling as he swung his musket and bashed a warrior down, the side of his head splashed with blood. He jabbed the barrel at the next one’s chest, putting him off balance where Jacques keeled him over, thrusting down hard at his midsection with the butt end of the weapon. The warrior squirmed before arching his back, desperate to regain the breath driven out of him.
Joseph and the Mohawk traded missing strikes in the air, until he dropped his musket and lunged to clutch at the other’s arm and neck. They fell to the ground where Joseph used his knee to the man’s face, gaining the war club away. He drew the weapon back. She wanted to stop him, but it was too late as he struck again and again, crushing the man’s skull in an explosion of gore, at once crimson and pallid.
He moved quickly to dispatch the first warrior, down but alive yet with the bullet wound. The war club pounded over and over, same as the other.
It was finished, and the moment of silence was piercing before Joseph’s loud voice cut through the air. He stood over the body, captured war club raised overhead, foot pressed onto the man’s bleeding, lifeless chest, shouting in his Huron language.
“…I am Atironta!…” was all Sokanon could understand of his war chant, boasting of his own warrior’s strength. He leapt suddenly from his triumphal stance, advanced anew at the two near Jacques who were yet alive. He lifted the war club to strike the finishing blows.
“Arrêt!” she screamed, standing as her shout echoed in the trees. “Arrêt!” she yelled again for Joseph to stop, even as Jacques was moving to intercede.
Joseph’s chest heaved great gasps of air, he was spattered in blood, his eyes still burning with the fires of war. She’d seen that look, charging at her and Isaac and Jacob. Seen him laid low from the blast of Isaac’s gun. Felt sorry for him with those same eyes blinded and bandaged. Reconciled to his violence toward her by Father Pierre.
“No more,” she said and Joseph lowered his arm, while Jacques relaxed his stance. “Good.” The captives mumbled their screams through the gags again, now for their salvation. “Release them, Joseph,” she directed, before she turned away for Jacob.
She was stopped in her urgency by her son’s wide eyes and happy giggles for the snow that fell and melted on his cheeks, his child joy calling to a different life.
“You task me,” she said to no one in particular. Maybe to all the forces of the universe. Whichever of them were listening now. She ran her fingers gentle over Jacob’s face then slung him quickly onto her shoulders and strode back through the grass to cross the stream stinging ice cold through her tall moccasins. The snow fell harder, disappearing as it hit the water. Was it her own life, a fleeting moment, to be swallowed as if though never there?
The pungent smell of gunpowder stank its death as she walked through the scene, the dead all around, the captives’ crying their thanks to Joseph as he cut their bonds. The first warrior Jacques had overpowered moaned, dazed, bleeding from his ear, nose and mouth. The other was recovering his breath, rising to his hands and knees. Jacques stood before them, threatening with his musket still as a club, and she understood then, that he had not fired it.
They nodded their amity for each other.
He kicked the knife on the ground toward her, away from the one kneeling who had started to sing his death song, to show his bravery. She bent down for the knife, its handle decorated with the faded markings, at once familiar from the hand long ago.
The world became hollow and all the years past rushed to her, flushed to her heart at the carvings. The worn dashed lines covering one side of the handle, symbols of the rain, Sokanon. On the other, a circle with no rays between two crescents, symbol of the moon, her brother, Tipishkau-pishum.
It was impossible that she would hold it after so long.
She saw through his face painted for war in the Iroquois (Mohawk) way, half black, half red, that the warrior was a young man, a teenager. His eyes were not for her as he looked down, continuing in his private song of death. She moved closer to him, her mind wild with wonder.
“Is this yours?”
He gave a quick glance to her, went on singing.
“Where you come by this?” she pressed in English. “Iroquois Federation are allies to the Anglais. I see in your eyes, to what I say. You talk the language.”
The young man raised his chin and gave himself further away.
“This knife—” Sokanon held it out, her hand shaking. “It was my father’s.”
He ceased his chant and sneered a defiant look. “My father—he give to me. Maybe he kill your father, take for himself.”
She knelt and studied him and saw now he was not like the others. She knew it with the certainty of her love holding him as a baby. Her father…was their father.
“Tipishkau-pishum,” she said.
He stared straight ahead and resumed his song.
“Joseph.” Jacques’ voice caused her to start.
She stood, backed away while Joseph came with the same ties from the captives, to bind the two warriors’ hands. He was rough with the one who was her brother, forcing him to the ground on his stomach, knee hard to his back. He ceased his death song, winced from Joseph’s forceful handling. She said nothing and returned his stare until he looked away.
“Do you see the warriors?” Jacques said to her. “Except for the one with the designs on his body, I believe all the rest are young men, too.”
She looked close, and agreed. She confronted again who she knew as Tipishkau-pishum, motioning to the older man Joseph had killed. “Your father?”
He shook his head. “My mother’s brother. And I will avenge his death if I am freed.”
His eyes were those of Sondok the moment before she shot him, enraged by pride turned to hate. Anger gripped her and she moved suddenly toward him, brandished the knife in front of his face.
“Marie,” Jacques called.
She ignored him to menace further. “Your father took this from—” She caught herself. What should she say? Would he even believe her? He was Mohawk now, one of the Iroquois. Someone else’s son. Another’s brother. She spoke again. “If your father took this knife from my father, shall I avenge now, by killing you?”
“It is your right.”
Sokanon laughed at him. “No. It is not revenge. I understand your death song. You wish to be killed to save from dishonor with your Tribe.”
He was defiant still.
“Look about at those who are dead,” Sokanon pressed, “if I kill you, and the other, you will all lie dishonored, unmourned, your bodies to be scavenged and eaten by animals. Not only wolves, or bears, but the lowly ones, also.” She watched his eyes dart, becoming unsure in his judgments. “I will release you so you can give your fallen Tribesmen their proper—honor. Then you will not avenge, but honor those who understand honor.”
He cast his eyes down and the strength of their mother and father came to her. She felt maybe she had taught him a great lesson as a man. She felt the need to comfort him, but backed away again to hand her musket to Jacques. “It is yet loaded.”
“I know,” he said.
“I will see to their wounds,” she said of the others.
“I will aid you, once Joseph is finished.” He caught her arm. “They are in your debt, for their lives.”
“It is you and Joseph who saved them.”
Jacques shook his head. “Yes, and you called me to help. But I speak of the two warriors. I do not think I could have halted Joseph from killing them. Not both of them.”
She nodded. She glared at Tipishkau-pishum once more, then stabbed the knife into her belt and went to minister to the voyageurs, not that long ago, enemies of hers, too.

41

“Joseph saw them first,” she said, tying a compress over the man’s missing thumb.
“Joseph?” he said.
Sokanon nodded. “He saw where the raiders dragged their canoes up into the creek after your rabaska. He knew immediately of the trouble.”
He gave an awkward look, then held up his other hand for her. “When we left him at Sandusky, we all thought he would be forever blind.”
“He sees well enough now, eh?” Jacques said. He was wrapping the bandage around another captive’s head, dressing the bloody wounds where his ears used to be. The man showed he could not hear, and looked with worry and confusion. “I tried to call your friend away,” Jacques said. “Before I could stop him, he was off to his discovery of your predicament. I scolded him not to intervene, but he—and Marie—were determined for us to engage the war party.”
“Very glad Atironta didn’t listen to you.”
Hearing him say Joseph’s first name, Sokanon placed his voice to the attack on Lake St. Clair. The one who first came to see about Joseph and Sondok after the shooting stopped. She thought she remembered him from Mackinaw. Bowles, maybe was his name. His face was shaved, now.
“And thank you,” he said low.
She finished with the other thumb and he strode off past the high-born man and woman, toward Joseph. She moved on to the man with burns, blood oozing from some of the blackened wounds. She had seen victims of burns this deep at the hospital, and thought that these would in time fester too, and kill the man. She gave a weak smile that he forced to return. She wasn’t certain she recognized him, either. None of them wore the rough looks of the brutes who were together when she first saw them at Michilimackinac, urging on Joseph and Sondok in their brawl with Isaac.
“The wounds should not yet be covered,” she told him. “It is good that it has snowed enough.” He moaned, but yielded to her gentle push, lying him on his back. He cried out louder when she covered the burns with snow. “We will not remain long here,” she told him. “Before we leave, I will dry the burns and have you wear a light shirt only. The cold will help with the pain.”
“Are we to return to Trois Rivières?” the woman asked.
“Quebec is closer,” Sokanon said. She countered the woman’s frown. “The Hôpital-Général will give much better healing for them.”
The woman nodded slightly, averted her eyes, then returned them. “Thank you again, for rescuing us,” she said. “And with a child.” She looked to Jacob, leaned away against a fur bundle. She put her hand on the arm of the man next to her. “I— I don’t know what they would have done with Antoine and me.”
“It is your husband’s fault we are almost all dead,” the one with burns sneered with a weak voice. He coughed. Sokanon laid her hand to his chest.
“They came to kill us, anyway,” Antoine countered. He tried to look strong, but Sokanon saw the terror still in his eyes. “As my wife said, thank you and your companions. God Bless you all.”
Sokanon dipped her head silently, continued to work snow onto the man.
“Will I live long enough to get to Quebec?” he rasped.
She pressed her lips tight together. “We will stop at the farms along the way and ask for medicines they may have.” She started to walk away and he clutched at her arm. “I will return in a few moments,” she calmed him and laid his hand bleeding into the snow.
Jacques pulled a wool cap over the head of the one whose ears were lopped. The man sat stunned, in shock for his injuries. The canoeman with his thumbs gone was pleading with Joseph to turn his back to the warriors, allow him to exact his own revenge. Sokanon wondered how he was to wield weapons in his disfigured hands. Joseph’s expression remained unchanged, his attention keen while he reloaded the muskets.
She marched around the area, found a shirt for the one with burns, another blanket. Jacob was alert, following all the movement and sounds. She peered from him to his uncle he would never know. Tipishkau-pishum was silent and kept his eyes closed at the verbal taunts from the voyageur. She turned away to collect more things they could use.
Jacques was at the dead then, dragging the bodies to rest side by side.
“We are close enough to Quebec to take them for a proper Christian burial,” he said to her. “Our canoe and the ones of the Mohawk can be floated up the stream, to load them in.”
“Have the husband help,” she directed. “We must leave quickly.”
“Yes,” he nodded, and called for the man.
She passed him, and his wife reached out a hand to her.
“You are, unharmed?” Sokanon made sure.
“Yes.”
“That is well. We leave soon.”
The woman cast her eyes around. “My husband and I wish to return to Trois Rivières. We are from there. We are the Tonnancour’s, Antoine and Renée. You are, Huron?”
She shook her head. “I am,” she hesitated. “Sokanon.”
“I heard the Jesuit brother call you Marie.”
Sokanon was silent.
“That is my mother’s name,” the woman said. “Thank you, Marie.”
“We leave soon,” Sokanon said again.
———— (dbl sp)
She guided the man in the snow onto a bed of furs and then to sit up, where she patted dry his skin, blotched bright crimson around the wounds from the cold. She helped him with a hat and draped blankets over his legs. “The wounds must dry more to the air before wearing the shirt,” she told him. It was stained with blood, but was the only one not torn to shreds.
“Thank you.” He peered to the others. “The Mohawk,” he whispered while she tended to him, “they were here to take the furs.” He gave another nervous glance, making certain he could not be heard. “They were to make it appear as if they were stealing them. Aubert—” He motioned to the bodies being loaded into the canoes. “He made the arrangement. The warriors would take the furs, we would return to Three Rivers with news of the theft. Then we were to, together with the Mohawks trade the furs ourselves, for muskets and other goods.”
“You should be still,” Sokanon urged.
“Those two,” he continued. “The Tonnancour’s. Their families are very rich. After they joined us, Aubert had the idea to, arrange personally for their release, with a ransom.”
She shook her head.
“But, young Antoine there had a muff pistol in his coat pocket we did not know about, and produced it and shot and killed one of the Mohawk.”
Sokanon met his guilty eyes.
“Aubert was killed when he tried to intervene in the Mohawk’s revenge, and then there was all fighting.”
“Aubert, intervened, to save the Tonnancour husband?”
The man nodded. “Saved his life. Well—at least until you and your friends arrived.”
She cast her eyes around, everywhere she looked made darker by his words. All for nothing. The dead. The living in shock, or half dead. He who was her brother, alive, but to remain unknown to her. Even his life, and the other warrior’s, a moment away from being meaningless if she would allow Joseph and his friend to make their revenge. Jacques was himself, strong, in motion with his tireless effort to make the world bend to him. She felt a closeness from his strength, but she knew it was only because of destruction that he was in her life.
“We are almost ready to depart,” she said. “If the cold is too great once we are in the canoe, use the blanket over you.”
“I am forever grateful,” he said.
She drew away to stand alone before hers and Isaac’s furs. They continued cold and empty in her mind. The destruction that followed with them would forever make the labor shared alongside Isaac lifeless in her heart. A curse, she thought, questioning again the faith she’d clung to for answers. Maybe her mother could explain it, in her stories of the how and why of things. Somehow, she thought not.
She stared at Isaac’s mark on the canvas and it pained her to think it might be the bundle he had tried to cling to in the rolling waves of the storm. The last thing on earth he had touched before the world destroyed him. She used her father’s knife to cut the ropes binding them, slashed at the canvas covers to cast the furs this way and that, expose them to rot in the earth and sky. Then she drew the paper money out, the bills desecrating the sacred items in her dream pouch. She pitched them into the running water of the creek.
Joseph was there to see her. He nodded and turned away.
Further down the small stream the others watched the bills of credit float by. She saw they understood to let them go. She went to Jacob, knelt before her son, hale and bright, attentive to the movement and sounds all around. The knife was still in her hand and she pointed it.
“Do you see your uncle?” she whispered. He was stopped to her voice, watching her mouth as she spoke. “He will grow strong, as you will. We will keep his memory alive in our hearts, now. Not the lost thinking’s of the mind.”
She touched his forehead and strode to her brother. His defiance for her was less in his eyes, understanding it was only she who stayed the killing hands of those around.
“What are you called?” she asked him.
“What I am called—” He looked away. “You speak true. My name is dishonor to me, now.” He showed the vulnerability of his youth, just for a moment, before gathering his emotions again. “I am of the turtle clan, the A’nó:wara of the Mohawk people.” 
She stared at him, looked into his eyes, even more certain he was who she saw. “I knew a Montagnais Cree boy your age who was called Tipishkau-pishum—Moon.”
He thought for a moment. “It is a good name,” he said. “Ehnita, in my language. Moon.”
“Ehnita,” she repeated.
Jacques caught her attention, nearing, hesitating for a step studying them with sharp judgment.
She gazed again a lifetime at the brother who would never know her as sister. She moved behind him, lifted his hands and cut at the bonds around his wrists.
“No!” Jacques warned, moving closer to threaten.
“I am Sokanon—Rain,” she said to the young man. “Sokanon and Ehnita,” she went on,.
He flinched when she brought the knife up. Watched her cautiously, bore the tearing as she cut a lock of his hair. Questioned as she cut off a tassel from his shirt bead tied to the tip. She held out the knife then, showing the markings on the carved handle.
He took it and puzzled a look from her to the blade in his hands. She motioned to his tribesman and he moved to cut him free as well. He dipped his head in thanks and returned their father’s knife to its ornamented sheath at his waist.
Jacques was between them then. “Come away now, Marie,” he demanded, his hand tight at her arm.
“They will take their own dead,” she said of the Mohawk.
“I do not trust them,” Jacques argued.
“They are but boys.”
He huffed. “Boys enough to torture and kill.”
“Are we to take them with us, as prisoners?” She waved her hand around the scene. “It is the fault of all things, Jacques.”
He wagged his head side to side, exhaled deep. “Come then,” he ordered the young warriors, pushing at them to be quick toward the canoes.
She was certain now too, that Jacques had once been a violent soldier, trained in warfare by other skilled destroyers. He knew how to fight and overpower his foes without killing them. She was glad for that. Glad his new faith and service to the Lord Jesus in the black robe had spared the life of her brother. Father Pierre’s protection was with her still.
She wrapped the tassel around the lock of her brother’s hair, tied it tight. Placed it into her pouch.
——————
She held Jacob to herself and watched the Iroquois canoes push across the river. They struggled with only the two of them paddling the boats loaded with the dead and tethered in tandem, being pushed about by the gray waves. If they went overboard where they were, the cold water would kill them before they could outpace the current to shore. Her worry eased when they passed beyond the middle, near enough to the other side. She watched until they disappeared into the snow that was falling heavier.
“I still do not trust them,” Jacques said from behind her. “We must be off, quickly.”
“Yes.” Jacob had stopped feeding, settled in her arms. “What of the others?”
“The young couple changed their minds about returning on foot to Three Rivers. They are afraid to be alone, I think, and choose now to throw in with us to Quebec. I have been hurrying them along.”
He went away and she knelt to wrap Jacob in the cradleboard. She smiled and wiped at his face, twitching from the snowflakes. “There is always the place we are going to—where I am taking you.” She nuzzled her nose to his. “It is not far to the next place, to Quebec.”
She greeted the couple guiding the voyageur’s to the canoes. She thought of what the one with burns had told her, and how at odds it seemed the couple’s helping hands on him. She held them off until Jacques and Joseph arrived and together they slid the Montreal’er to the water’s edge. The three steadied the big boat until the others were in.
Joseph tied Isaac’s canoe to the stern and the strange feeling deepened. His canoe loaded with the dead trappers, his furs used with the others as shrouds to cover them. She wondered if instead of taking the trappers to Quebec for burial, it would not be just as well to slide their bodies into the middle of the river, the current to take them to the great ocean. It was well enough for Isaac. She held out paddles for the Tonnancour’s and motioned for them to turn around, face to the bow.
“They cannot paddle,” Sokanon said about the wounded men.
The couple nodded, reluctantly. Spun on their seat.
The husband took a paddle.
Sokanon stared at the wife, hesitant to take hers up.
 “Yes.” Renée uncovered her bare hands from the blanket held tight around her. “But I’m afraid I might not be very much help.” She steadied herself, practiced gripping the paddle, she and her husband encouraging each other.
Sokanon drew away a large beaver skin from those scattered around. “Use this, Madame Tonnancour, “over your legs, against the spray.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Get in, Marie,” Jacques called.
She climbed over the side and laid Jacob at her feet, covering him with the mink pelts while Jacques and Joseph scrambled in.
“Go,” was Jacques’ simple direction.
She was in the bow, the long paddle of the Montreal’er to reach over the side. The rabaska was heavy, pushing aside the waves. She worried that she should feel so free, so at peace with all that was. Worried, that even for a moment, the thoughts were distant, of Isaac, her mother and father. Her brother. She peered across the river after him, but the far shore was only snow, at once a squall that made a shroud all around. She stared ahead again, mesmerized by the giant flakes flying this way and that. She closed her eyes and held her chin up to the flurry, alighting cold and refreshing against her face.
——————
The shoreline drifted in and out of full view, the time between summer and winter teasing its amusement. Soft breezes of warm air pushing fog down from the patches of snow on land, rolling clouds along the water. How long before blizzards would come and blanket the ground not for hours or days, but weeks and then months? Before the great waters would freeze over until spring?
Her emotions changed along with the open fields of the farms and homesteads giving way to the docks and structures of Sillery town where a ship was anchored. Certainly not Old Brad, there. Unless he wanted to use the road into the city rather than announce his arrival by sail, before he was ready to explain his actions.
And, finally to the walls of Quebec, high on its tall plain, where the snow hung down in filled crevasses, as if decorating the heights with ribbons. The sight of the city brought the weight of sadness, pressing heavy against the joy filling at the same time in her chest.
Even in the distance she saw that all the last of the defenses built in haste during the war were gone. It was well, she thought, that the snow and mists might hide the ground where the trenches had been dug during the British siege. Hide where the cannonballs had blasted deep pits of dirt and mud.
She put her mind on the many boats ahead, moored in the calmed harbor, and the shorefront, the wharves and piers still, the city appearing peaceful, lazy in the quiet morning. The mist cleared for her to see the spires of the churches above the rooftops. To quickly search between them to find the crosses of the convent and monastery, where the nuns would be well into the day’s many tasks. She was anxious to see Sister and Mother. The feeling of peace set against her discouragement. She held tears back that would burst from her eyes if she let them.
“We are here, Jacob,” she whispered over the tiresome talking of the Tonnancour’s behind her.
“…it is James Murray’s town, now,” Antoine continued in the politics talk of les Habitants. “Governor of the new British province of Quebec,” he spoke.
“I am glad to see, that Jeffery Amherst gone,” Renée said between heavy breaths. “The way, he treated the Tribes.”
“He was very bad towards them,” her husband added.
Sokanon wondered how it might matter to her whether Jeffery Amherst was governor, or James Murray, or some other. Maybe the couple were trying to show amity toward her and Joseph. It helped distract her mind to hear in their straining speech that they were putting real effort to their paddles.
“This General Murray,” Antoine went on, “he is said to be very amiable to us French.”
“We French-speaking people,” Mrs. Tonnancour said, “and our Catholic religion.”
“We will have to awaken those in the city who will help,” Jacques spoke over them.
Sokanon welcomed his voice, interrupting the couple and helping to check her emotions.
 “We should tie off to the main dock,” he said. “The proper authorities can come and take the bodies from there.”
Sokanon’s tears were stopped. She shook her head, admonished over her shoulder. “No, Jacques. I do not want them any longer in Isaac’s canoe. I will take them out myself.”
“We will haul up onshore,” he yielded, “where we can take them out ourselves.”
Silence after that spoke to her will. The Tonnancour’s quiet all the rest of the way through the harbor, only the coughs and low moans from the voyageurs sounding.
“Hold your paddles if you please,” Jacques said and Sokanon braced herself, the Montreal’er coming fast into shore, the bow of the rabaska sliding easy onto land in the snow.
She grabbed up Jacob and stepped away while the Tonnancour’s helped the bandaged voyageur’s out. Jacques and Joseph dragged the canoes farther up.
Sokanon took Jacques aside. “Make the husband help,” she said. “The woman Tonnancour and I will take Aubert’s men to the sisters.”
He tried to see her thoughts. “Is there something you know, to again want the man to personally see to the dead as if a penance?”
“It is not for me to say. But I would also that the others were to help, too. If they were not injured.”
His gaze shifted. “Monsieur Tonnancour,” he called the man to him.
“Renée,” Sokanon called her own instruction. “I am to help them to the hospital. The Augustine sisters there will see to their health. I need you to accompany us.”
She stared to her husband confused, before— “Yes, of course.” She took the arm of the man with no ears, his balance continuing to be affected by the injuries.
Sokanon drew up Jacob and allowed Bowles to lean on her. She was glad to see his strength improving through the deep burns. That her ministering to him might yet save his life. Jacques and Joseph were at their task and she thought of the first time seeing them working together, before leaving Sandusky. She wanted to rush to the Ursuline convent, but the feeling of separation pulled hard at her. As if she would never see them again. As if she wanted also, to continue on in the canoe with them. To where?
“We will tell the soldiers of Aubert and the others,” she said.
“That will be well, Marie,” Jacques said, “we will be waiting for them here.”
Waiting here. As they had for her the many times over the past weeks.
“Yes, Jacques.” She gave a nod to Joseph then led away with the Tonnancour woman and the others. Up the rise, to the city. Home for over half her life. Where she’d learned to live without her family.
——————
“We thought we would never see you again, the way you and that British boy took after one another and ran off together.”
“Isaac. —Sister Marie Catherine.”
Sister halted for a moment. “Yes, I remember. Isaac. I am very sorry for the loss of your husband. He seemed a fine young man.”
“He was, very strong.”
“Now you have to be strong, Marie, for your son.”
“Yes, Sister.”
She’d disciplined the hardest, to tame the wild spirit, she would say many times.
“It is another loss for you, child,” Sister went on, “and no one can know of the pain inside of you. But there is great suffering in all life. We must trust in Our Lord’s infinite wisdom that both gives, and takes away.”
Sokanon held her tears against that wisdom, so harsh to her. “I—” She stopped from telling of the baby inside of her. When they were together with Mother. She would need the strength from both women.
 They led through the chapel and Sokanon’s thoughts retreated with her steps, to her life before. Father Armand was there again. Come from the College, and leading people in prayer. Baptisms. Funerals. Sabbat sermons. Weddings. There was Isaac, kneeling with her at the altar to be married.
“We have Catholic and Anglican services in the chapel now,” Sister spoke to Sokanon’s thoughts. Even the hint of animosity was a great collapse of Sister’s discipline. “Your Isaac showed great affection for you, marrying in our Catholic rite.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Marie Catherine turned and stopped again. “You are to be praised again, too, to marry first in the holy service to Our Lord, instead of rushing away to the wild ways of the world.”
Sokanon met her eyes this time. “Yes, Sister.”
They walked again. “I am told you have arrived escorting wounded men. Are they those that have helped you in your return?”
“No, Sister.” She wondered how she might tell of that what happened. “I have been aided by two others, set by Father Pierre to the safety of myself and my son, from Sandusky.”
“Father Potier is a good man. He is still with his studies, I’m sure.”
“Yes, Sister. He is very well on with the Huron. He speaks their language well, and has a very large parish at Detroit and Sandusky.”
“It is a long way from the stockade at Detroit, to our city here.”
“It is well he stays there—I think, Sister,” she said quickly.
“Yes. It has been quite understood that Father Pierre may never return to Montreal or Quebec.”
“I mean that the Black Robes—forgive me, Sister—the Society of Jesus members, are being treated badly in many places. It is well, maybe, that Father Pierre is the long way away to the stockade.”
“You are still paying close attention to that around you, Marie. You would have been a great asset in the Habit of our Order.”
“Yes, Sister.”
Marie Catherine waited to allow her to pass with Jacob. She stopped her with a hand to Jacob’s chest. “He was born in the spring?”
Sokanon nodded. Waited for her to say.
“It is far too long for his eyes to be yet so opaque.” Sister moved her head side to side, concern showing. “Do his eyes follow movement well?”
“I believe so, Sister. He knows my face. Knows that of his father.”
“Good. I have seen this before. We will have to watch, to learn early if he will need special training.”
“You think there is a problem?”
“We won’t know until he can say for himself. There are lenses that he can look through to help him if needed, when he is to learn to read and write.”
Read and write. Isaac had said of the schooling for their son, as another reason to leave their cabin. The tears pushed again. Once more Sokanon pressed back against them.
Through the doorway then to descend the few steps to the basement. How many times had she gone down these stairs? To where the sisters would gather at the end of the long days in front of the fireplace in the winter, then to the coolness of the room in summer.
Mother Marie-Anne was sitting in a chair, warming herself before the fire. Sokanon saw her younger self there on the floor beside Mother, her prized Jesus and Mary ring from Father Armand himself cupped in her hands. Listening to the prayers or lessons from Mother or one of the sisters.
“Mother Superior,” Marie Catherine announced softly, “we have a guest.”
Sokanon wondered at that. A guest.
The old woman opened wider her resting eyes. Her smile was bright, and invited away all of Sokanon’s sadness.
“My goodness, our Marie has returned.” Her eyes flickered to Jacob. “And with a child of your own.”
“Mother,” Sokanon greeted. She lowered herself to her haunches with Jacob in her arm and kissed the Superior’s hand.
“No, Marie,” Sister said. “Up in a chair with your child.”
“Yes,” Mother agreed.
Marie Catherine helped her to stand, her strength making Sokanon feel as the young girl again.
“Thank you, Sister.” Sokanon sat in the chair brought closer. “My son, Jacob,” she presented him to mother.
“Jacob,” Marie-Anne said soft, “the Hebrew patriarch son of Isaac, in the Book of Genesis. Is your husband more religious than what he had shown?”
Sokanon was silent. She looked down to Jacob’s face for strength and started to say—
Sister said instead. “Marie’s husband has died.”
Mother’s pleasant look turned solemn, going from Jacob, to Marie Catherine, her gaze finally to rest on Sokanon.
“Oh my darling, I am sorry.” She touched Jacob’s forehead. “But with a child, not so alone as misfortunes have made you before.”
“I have reminded Marie that the Lord both gives and takes away.”
Sokanon thought of Isaac and imagined feeling the life inside of her, growing toward the world, kind and cruel.
Marie-Anne slid her hand from Jacob’s head to Sokanon’s arm. “Sister Marie Catherine is correct. With so much loss in your life, my child, you must be strong in your faith. Draw nearer to Our Lady, Mary. Do not ever forget, her only Son was crucified before her eyes, for the salvation of the world.”
The cold feeling shivered through Sokanon. “I, have faith, Mother Superior.”
“I do not doubt it.” Her warm fingers lifted Sokanon’s chin. “And, you have always had a strength of your own—a strong woman of the world.”
Sokanon stared with new vision.
“What?” Mother said. “Do you think I do not understand the passions of a young woman—the call to life, and motherhood?”
Sokanon smiled when her entire body told her she should cry. She didn’t know how she could feel so alone, yet so welcomed at the same time. “There is another life growing inside me.”
The sudden announcement startled.
“How could that be?” Marie Catherine said into the abrupt silence. “So soon? You know this, for certain?”
Sokanon was used to her firm voice. “Yes, Sister. I am certain.”
Then the cold feeling reached again, and she would not stop its harsh call this time. She laid her hand on her midsection. She would tell those who she’d loved the longest in her life. “I was overcome with a pain in my belly two summers past.” She squeezed at her stomach, an embrace for the new life within. “I was only just becoming certain of a child, when I fell to my knees, and out of me came the bleeding illness of an unborn.”
There was silence again.
Sokanon went on while a soft tear that couldn’t be stopped spilled from each eye. “That is how I know,” she said of the new child.
Sister brought a chair for herself, sat next to Sokanon, her hand comforting around hers. As much comfort as she’d ever allowed. “It is well you have returned to us, child.”
Sokanon squeezed Sister’s hand. “I was alone when it happened, away from our cabin. The pain made me to the ground, where it—the bloody form of a child, came forth. I buried it with my hands, deep so the animals would not find it. I went back many times to try and find where it was in the ground, to pray for the soul, but I could not.” She raised her chin, determined to say. “I was angry with God.”
“It was His will the child’s soul would not see the sin of this world.”
“That is not all,” Sokanon spoke again. “Jacob was born too early. So tiny, without life in his chest. I felt myself being taken away by darkness when I heard him cry out.” She breathed, unsure how to say. “Isaac says it was a miracle that he lived. That I did not die, too. The darkness in his eyes is the same as at his birth, and speaks to the shadows that called our spirits.”
“There is only Heaven and earth,” Marie Catherine said. “It was not time for you, or your son, to enter God’s Kingdom. You both appear hale, now. And your child appears to see well enough, his eyes follow movement.”
“Yes, Sister.” Sokanon wiped at her cheeks.
“No one shall make of themselves a graven image.”
“No, Sister.”
“That is enough,” Mother scolded gently. “I believe what Sister Marie Catherine is saying, is that all life is God’s miracle.”
“Yes, Mother,” Sister said.
Sokanon was embarrassed for Marie Catherine. “I meant no disrespect,” she offered.
“It is well,” Sister dismissed.
“Let us pray,” Mother said, “to Mary, Queen of All Saints, for the souls of your lost child and husband, and the lives of your son Jacob, and unborn.”
Mother and Sister brought up their prayer beads.
Sokanon could not hide drawing forth Isabel’s rosary from her pouch. Sister saw, a soft sigh of admonishment at the Native talisman bag.
“Are those not the beads of Novice Théresè-Louise?”
“A gift, Sister,” Sokanon said. “I visited with her at Three Rivers.”
Mother held her hand out to see the beautiful rosary of coral. “I believe our little Isabel might have left the convent if it hadn’t been for your strength for her to lean on. Don’t you agree, Sister Marie Catherine?”
“Yes, Mother Marie-Anne.” She began— “Hail, Mary, full of grace…”

42

“Marie.”
Her voice was always solemn. Time crossed again with the steps, the little girl to Sister’s call.
“Yes, Sister Marie Catherine?”
“You have brought a spark to Mother Marie-Anne with your child. Your son is in loving care.”
“Yes, Sister. But it is that I am saddened not to hear her addressed at Mother Superior.” Her firm look did not change.
“But, also,” Sokanon admitted, “never has Jacob been so far from me. Even in the confines of the church buildings, the short distance feels as a dangerous journey away.”
“I can see it in your preoccupation. Maybe a little separation will be good for you both, then.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“I need to talk with you, before you visit with Sister Agnes Marie.” She stood even straighter, more than her usual serious manner. “It is for Agnes Marie to say, but her husband did not treat her well. That is why she returned to us.”
Sokanon stared, curious for her openness with another’s concerns. “Yes, Sister.”
“It was a noble plan for those who started this school to at first teach only to Native girls, even when most of the early converts did not remain with the Ursulines. It was well, it was thought, that they carried the Christian Word with them when they returned to their people. It has been a very long time since the Tribes stopped sending their girls, for fear of disease, and their Native superstitions.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“You, and Agnes Marie, have shown that the school can still be more than only for French girls.”
“Yes, Sister.”
“And soon, we may very well have British girls amongst our students. Mother Superior Esther Marie-Joseph was British herself, and an Anglican, before being converted to our faith—while a captive of a Native Tribe.”
Sokanon nodded.
“When Agnes Marie was taken in, it was thought maybe a way to begin to teach to those girls who are born—” Sister stopped, brought her shoulders back again.
“Born to country wives,” Sokanon said. “As was Agnes Marie. —Sister.”
Sister’s gaze sharpened. “Frenchmen—and Britishmen in greater numbers, are leaving their children in the wilderness when they return to their sanctified wives and families. Agnes Marie has come back to us, and only recently taken public vows.”
Sokanon continued to wonder. Sister was pushing her to be forward. “You are afraid Agnes Marie may not be, loyal, to her vows—that she may wish to leave the Ursulines again.”
There was approval in sister’s gaze. “I like to think we here had much to do with your quick understanding of things.”
“You wish for me to put off her leaving, if she confess it to me.”
“Confesses,” she corrected before lifting her chin, waiting.
“Agnes Marie is my friend,” Sokanon spoke, “if she asks, should I not counsel her to what she desires?”
“To go back to her husband’s violence?”
“Would she so, Sister?”
Marie Catherine sighed. “We have spoken too much in secret of Sister Agnes Marie. I only wanted to inform you of your friend’s disquieted thoughts, before you went to her. If neither culture is welcoming to her, I feel it best that she makes a home with us, to her calling. You too, Marie, now that you have returned.”
Sokanon was confused. “You speak also to my, disquiet?”
“Am I wrong to feel a wavering in your devotion, too—a struggling with the world that seems cruel and harsh?”
“It has been cruel and harsh.”
“We must overcome our troubles by drawing nearer to the Lord, Marie. Not becoming fearful of the world that can only kill our bodies, not our faith.”
“It is not enough, sometimes, Sister.”
“That is what those of weak character say.”
Sokanon’s ill feelings ran apace with her sadness. “Can there not be any softness in your words? Would your character be so strong if your family have been killed?”
Marie Catherine did not answer, watched.
“It is too much,” Sokanon’s eyes filled, “for God to, always take from me.”
“God gave it in the first place, Marie.”
“Yes, everything—His to take, because He gives it.”
“To think otherwise would bring a lifetime of sadness. But it would be a sadness borne of the sin of pride.”
“Are you not—proud? Do you not believe what you say is always correct? And that I must do what you tell me to?”
“I have strength in my convictions, yes. And, when you were growing up here, it was my duty to the faith to instruct you.”
“To the faith, only? What of love? Could you not love me, too—the way Father Armand did, the way Mother Superior did?”
“Marie.” Sister drew her head back. Never had Sokanon seen her face flushed so bright. “I love you very much, my child. More than I could ever show.”
Sokanon searched her mind for all the times she could have.
“You were always a special girl, to everyone,” Sister said. “How quickly you took to the lessons, and the ways of our convent. You were always the first to offer assistance, even when you very young and afraid, and could only speak your mother and father’s Native language.
“It was I who championed your staying at the convent. I saw you would not be happy in the homes of the French families. I fought against you being sent away those many times, especially when you were taken away to Montreal to the Sisters of Charity. I saw the sisters here were the only ones that could bring peace to your life.”
Sokanon’s chest heaved, and her thoughts pierced at the words, overwhelming in their sincerity.
“Never did I not love you, Marie. But it was charged to me to be the one to keep you disciplined, teach you humility. Because you were the favorite of Mother Superior and Father Armand. All the other girls were jealous of that, even though you were all their first choice as friend. You thrived on my discipline, and I gave it to you generous.”
They shared a smile that reached back all the years.
“Not only for you,” Sister continued, “but I felt I owed it to the other girls to show them that none were more special than the others. But it didn’t work as I thought it would.” She shook her head. “You were always able to suffer punishment more than the French girls. They were jealous of that, too.”
“They said this?”
“It is a sign of your humility, that you should not have known. And yes, some of the girls have said once more of it, hearing that you have returned.”
Sokanon’s smile widened.
“Mother and I both can feel the faith is still strong in you, even if you doubt it.”
Sokanon brought her eyes away again. “Yes, Sister. I am sometimes, not certain, of many things.”
“I understand. It will be good for you to visit with the other girls once you have seen Agnes Marie. They will be strengthened by your example, of someone who overcomes great hardship through conviction. And it will help bring your conviction into your heart. Show you the strength of your faith.”
“What if it shows, weakness, instead?”
“I do not believe that possible, Marie.”
To have Sister’s confidence was as much as her love, and Sokanon was embarrassed for her outburst. “Thank you, Sister. I am sorry for the things I say.”
“Do not be. I have told you many times that you can confide anything to me.”
Sokanon nodded softly. “Yes, Sister. But what do I tell to Agnes Marie if she does not wish to rejoin her husband, but yet to return to her mother’s Abenaki people?”
Sister only just hid her smile. “I don’t know whether to praise again your perception, or to reprove myself for not just being direct about your friend. Say what is in your heart. It will be enough.”
“I will ask her, whether she would be accepted to the Abenaki. That she has been a long time from them. —Sister?” She had never seen her so unsure.
“I am sorry, Marie. It was not my place to have asked you to dissuade Agnes Marie from leaving us again, if she is so inclined.”
“Shall we not all try to help each other, Sister?
Her warm expression returned. “Yes. Our Order is more than any one of us. And it comes to us—easier to some—that as we help others, we learn to help ourselves. I only wish to see the patronage of St. Ursula continue for the education of girls. Especially orphans.”
“Sister Agnes Marie is not orphaned.”
“Isn’t she? It is a hard life, that of the Tribes. Even if her mother is yet alive, will she—will her new husband, their village—allow another mouth to feed? I am afraid to lose her from the Ursulines, from our faith. But—dear Mary, Mother of God forgive my weakness—I would be as much afraid for her life. As I would be for yours.”
Sadness cam deep again. “Where shall I go, Sister?”
It was crushing, the silence borne in the world between the living and the dead.
——————
“Marie,” her friend greeted, warm and inviting.
Her oldest friend, adopted as big sister from the first she came to the city. They clasped each other’s arms in front of them.
Sokanon lowered her voice. “Are we never again to be Sokanon and Bright-Dawn, amongst ourselves?”
“I am Sister Agnes Marie, now. My Abenaki name is no longer important to me.”
Sokanon wasn’t certain of it, seeing the moment of bitterness before it was gone.
“She has told you then—Sister Marie Catherine?”
“Yes.”
“Guy took me away with him to Montreal, where he believed I was to be his servant.”
Sokanon had seen Native girls as servants, knew of some to be made slaves to their masters. “You were church married.”
“He was, unkind, even so.”
“I have seen the priests counsel husbands.”
“There is not much you did not see, sneaking around the halls you knew so well.”
Sokanon amused, but stopped her humor at her friend’s unsmiling expression.
“The priests,” Bright-Dawn said, “many of them are, disagreeable toward women. Especially to the Native wives of the white men.”
Such talk out loud made Sokanon uneasy. “I have seen very few that way.”
“The Jesuits are the worst. You didn’t see because Father Armand treated you kinder than most. Your father was said to be a favorite of his.”
The silence was awkward between them.
“It has been many years since last we walked together,” Bright-Dawn spoke first. “Let us go into the crisp air, while the sun is shining.”
Sokanon agreed. It came to her that Bright-Dawn’s French was even more perfect. As proper as any she’d heard. She reached for her friends’ hand. “I am, happy to see you again.”
“Your hands—” Bright-Dawn said, “they are so rough. Even more so than mine.”
“I have worked hard, to get here.”
“Yes, your husband has died. Sister and Mother talk of him as a good man.”
“I will miss him all the days.”
“It does not seem fair,” Bright-Dawn said, “even for God, to take your good husband, and leave me with mine.”
It cut into Sokanon’s thoughts as improper. That the past was far from behind her friend. “We must talk of other things, Sister,” she said into the soft sounds of their footsteps.
“I don’t want to talk of other things. Not as I have my oldest friend to say to.” Bright-Dawn paused, her look telling of distress. “I would like you to know.”
Sokanon nodded softly.
“I did not want to come back to the convent. When I left Guy, I returned to Quebec, and asked to live again with my father’s family. But my husband followed me here and caused much trouble in the city, trying to force me to come back with him, as his legal wife.” She sighed. “Even though I lived with them for many years, the Rollette’s did not want to bring shame into their house. It didn’t matter that my father was their nephew. I am only half French, you know. And a bastard.”
Sokanon remembered the times she would say it when they were younger. Bastard. Unholy, some of the others teased. How could that be? Bright-Dawn did not choose her birth. And she always prayed devoutly Catholic as the others.
“They said they would write to my father in France,” Bright-Dawn went on. “But he is returned to the French wife of his church vows. “He is gone away from me, never to be seen again. That is why he brought me here.” She swept her eyes around. “I would that he had not brought me away from my mother’s people.”
Her bitterness was sharp, and cut into Sokanon’s own. But she had only God to be angry at. That was easy. Hating those yet alive would continue to strike blows. She understood why Sister spoke with her first. It was a warning, for her.
“I am sorry,” Bright-Dawn said. “Your losses have been greater than mine.”
“And you should not be so unforgiving in the cloak of the Ursulines.”
She shook her head, pressed her lips together. “Yet I am back, and have taken the public vows. I am to be,” she announced, “Sister Agnes Marie of the Immaculate Conception.”
It brought Sokanon away from herself. She stared with surprise. “The nuns will allow you to take the solemn vows?”
“I wasn’t even to have a child with my husband. It was an unholy marriage and I will have it annulled, by a priest. I will become then, in the eyes of the Lord, chaste once more.”
“And this is what you want? Truly?”
“It is what has been chosen for me.”
Sokanon turned her friend to face her. “It is not with pure heart you do this. It is not right. You should return to your mother’s people.”
“I have learned too well at the school,” Bright-Dawn dismissed. “I do not even remember the Abenaki people of my mother. Do you think I could return? Could you so, with your mother or father’s people?”
The question hit Sokanon as thunder in her chest, coursing through her body to connect every movement with her thoughts running away to her childhood. When her entire life was ripped away. “I am not certain where I could return to them.” Had it been that long since she’d contemplated it, that it seemed a new thought now? She looked to her friend for the answer that could not be there.
“I— I am again, sorry,” Bright-Dawn offered.
“Be not sorry for me,” Sokanon scolded. She understood only then, how she’d always wanted Sister to feel sorry for her, and why she had not. “But you must not take the solemn vows. You will only break them.”
Bright-Dawn confused with her pleasant smile. “I was afraid when I first came here. But being with you, as young as you were, yet leading around the buildings and houses so confident, I was no longer troubled.”
She took her arm again, walked slow.
Maybe it was well to talk of something else. “You were accepted very quickly in the city.”
“I was wild and untamed. But because of my French father, I was more, acceptable.”
“You were the smartest one. Even over the—French girls,” Sokanon stumbled over her words.
“Maybe at the work of the books and classrooms. But none were as you, Marie. Smart, to know the ways of all around you. Stronger, too—than even Sister Marie Catherine, I know.”
“I never feel stronger than her, even now.”
“She was one who was never soft with you. But you were always stronger because you allowed her discipline to be harder than the rest.”
Sokanon regretted her earlier mean words with Sister. “Save for my son, I love her as no other.”
“It has always showed that Sister loved you the most.”
Sokanon distracted her tears by watching the courtyard ahead full of students. “The girls appear joyous,” she said.
“It is November, and yet warm enough in the sun to be comfortable outdoors.”
“Sister Marie Catherine believes I may be lifted in spirit, speaking to them of my motherhood.” She did not say of her unborn. All would know soon enough any way.
“I know it has brought me great joy, that you have a child. Even if I am maybe, forced not to be a mother.”
Sokanon faltered for words in Bright-Dawn’s once again cheerless talk. She grasped her friend’s hand tighter.

43

The city came to her again as she walked. Where she tried to play with the French children, always an outsider, picked on by the older ones. Where she walked with Father Armand, from the convent chapel to the Jesuit church or college, her hand in his, or his arm across her shoulder, her head held high as the other children watched then. Where she stayed for short times. She thought to knock on their doors.
People were the same passing by, some giving sideways glances, to the unescorted Indian maiden. Some exchanging longer looks, the hesitant recognition of the many faces in a city of thousands. Women already in their long winter coats of beaver, or long woolen cloaks with hoods pulled up over their heads. Their men, husbands, sons, brothers, in the clothes of gentlemen. One of the fine covered carriages rolled by, horses stepping high. The curtains were pulled back from the windows, to see those of the wealthy riding within. Maybe on their last country ride of the season, out maybe to check on the tenants of their seigneurial farms.
Passing the spaces where once stood a home or building, reminding of the long siege. Nearby were the stacks and piles of charred bricks and wood to be reused. She knew to look to see where the barricades to protect the city had been placed, through the many years of war. Fortifications of logs and earth where the French soldiers stood watch, while word of battles far from the city raged. British victories. French victories. Massacres and starving encirclements of people and places she’d never heard of. The constant threat of the war coming to Quebec.
The guns were firing once again, when the British finally came. She felt the cannons boom in her chest. The constant crack of muskets sting in her ears. She saw again the blood of wounds, opening men’s flesh to expose entrails. Arms, legs, heads blown off at the battlements. Working with the nuns and sisters to try and save the lives of those not killed directly.
Isaac appeared from out of the tumult, helping the wounded to the hospital, fiery red hair flashing his bold presence. Not enough was the entire world when she saw him, when they first looked to each other. As if there was no life for either of them before, but to give to each other that moment.
“Watch out there!” a British soldier said, bringing her out of her thoughts.
She stood aside for their small troop while Our Lady church waited, still in ruins. The flames leapt up the bell tower, the cross atop the steeple traced with fire. The people screamed all around in the streets, everyone fleeing the bombardment from the British cannons on their gunboats. She followed the shots in the sky, bending their way through the air to crash through the roof. Why that God would allow the church, her church, of most beautiful Saint Mary to be destroyed? The British soldiers marching past gave no attention to her or the desolate place of worship.
The walls were the same as when she last saw. Blackened from the fire. Standing proud, that services were yet being held inside? Humbled, that there was yet no roof? Not even a door—but why? With the inside open to the wind and sun, and rain and snow. The plain benches reminded of the remote Saint Anne church at Michilimackinac.
It suddenly felt strange to cross herself and kneel. To pray Hail Mary. Inviting the simple presence of Our Lady in hopes to bring her peace. But she asked for her children’s safety. Thanks for Jacques and Joseph. Even for guidance now with her friend Bright-Dawn. The entreaties were left cold in her thoughts.
“Amen,” she whispered.
She strode slow for the side exit, past the closed door that she guessed was yet the sacristy. Out to the once-covered aisle that ran along the outside of the church, roof planks burned away there, too. Past windows once framing stained glass, now open down both sides, looking into the church, out to the lawn. Voices sounded, and neared so she could recognize Antoine Tonnancour’s talking.
“We thought maybe she was some kind of princess of her Tribe.”
She waited, listening while Mademoiselle and Monsieur Tonnancour walked past the windows with Father de Saint-Pé. She thought of when she was caught at one of her childhood places in the corridors of the college, listening to Father Armand in conversation reprimanding one of the brothers. The punishment severe from Sister Marie Catherine, for what she thought a small offense. No. Espionnage, Sister called it. Snooping. Sin enough to make her wash the floors of the college, monastery and convent by herself.
“The two who are with her protect her like she is royalty,” Antoine went on.
“And she gives orders to them,” Renée added. “Even to my husband and myself.”
“Our Marie is no princess,” Father de Saint-Pé answered. The old man’s voice was weak, but the softness for her came through. “But she has always been special to us. The two with her have been charged with her safety by Father Potier at the Huron mission in Sandusky.”
She retreated back into the church, moving quickly to meet them as they came quietly through the front door.
“Father,” Sokanon greeted, bowing her head and kissing his offered hand. “Hallo,” she said to the Tonnancour’s.
“It is good to see you,” Renée said. “We have only just concluded our inspection of the church with Father and have told him of you and your companions’ rescue of us.”
“A very providential rescue, thanks be to God,” Father Saint-Pé said.
“Amen,” Antoine and Renée said together, while Sokanon acknowledged Father’s words with a nod.
It was awkward knowing what she did of Antoine’s part in the matter.
“It was Joseph first saw your trouble,” she reminded. “Even with his vision not yet healed from wounds, he sees where the canoes had been pulled up and hidden. He knew.”
“It sure appeared to my husband and I that you ordered him and the big Jesuit brother to it.”
“Yes,” Antoine said, “I’ve never seen a man of the Society of Jesus fight like two demons, the way he did. My wife and I figured he had to be ordered to it.”
Sokanon felt Father’s unease. She saw the Tonnancour’s noticed, too.
“We were walking with Father Saint-Pé when we saw you enter the church,” Renée said quickly, “we wanted to pay our respects.”
“We hope we did not interrupt your prayers.”
Sokanon shook her head to Antoine, hiding her embarrassment at stealing in on their talking.
“We were very surprised to find out how well you were known by the sisters and clergy,” Renée told her.
Father turned to the couple. “I knew Marie’s parents before she was born. Her father was of great service to Father De La Richardie.”
“I met Father Armand,” Antoine surprised at the announcement, “when I was a boy, in Montreal.”
“I should have liked to meet him,” Renée said.
“He was, very kind to me,” Sokanon told them. She hoped they would not ask about her father.
“We will have to take your leaves,” Antoine said instead. 
“Yes, good day, Father,” Renée followed. “Thank you again…” she looked with confusion to Sokanon. “—Marie,” she decided on, “good day.”
“Father,” Antoine bid goodbye before he and Renée bowed to kiss the ring on his hand.
They started away, and Sokanon thought them different than after they first met and traveled in the wake of the ordeal to Quebec. She thought them pleasant, mannerly, not given to prejudice. Maybe because they were in their proper place, comfortable in their class. She thought of the tortured voyageurs, how they would suffer their maiming the rest of their lives.
“They are wellborn,” she said, watching the couple in their expensive clothes under beautiful, thick coats of finely-finished buckskins.
Father took his attention away, already given to the study of the church. “The Tonnancour’s? Yes. Children of very wealthy seigneur’s from Montreal, major benefactors to the church. Monsieur Tonnancour will teach at the Seminary, giving British young men lessons in French. He and his wife will help in the full restoration of the church, once the new government give the order to do so. And her mother’s family here in Quebec have provided funds to rebuild the flour mill at Château-Richer.” His eyes returned to the heights of the walls. “The British have allowed the Society of Jesus members to oversee the construction.”
Sokanon shook her head in wonder. “It is, confusing to me, Father, what I have heard of the Black Robes are treated bad. Not only by British, but also in your country of France.”
Father’s gaze focused. “It is nothing for you to be concerned with, Marie. Especially now that you are a mother.”
She listened for the condescension in his voice.
“Your child is at the convent?” he asked.
Sokanon nodded, brought her arms up in an instinct to cradle Jacob. She crossed them instead. “I am finally able to release him from his cradleboard, and now the sisters all day hold him off the ground.”
“They who have no children of their own.”
She said nothing. Followed him deeper back into the church.
“It is a good thing the walls are of stone,” he said.
“It was still a very big fire.”
Father was awkward avoiding her eyes. She saw his regret at leaving the city when the British brought up their army.
She spoke to his judgment. “It is said the new British governor is fair. He will allow the French to continue to pray in the Catholic faith.”
He stared again. “I have not forgotten how astute you are, Marie. Always listening. Always learning. I am impressed with you, as ever. Times are not the same,” he said, his view returned to the ceiling. “I’m afraid the British will continue their push to suppress not only the Society of Jesus members, but the Catholic faith itself in their newly-won territory.”
“It is not the same at Detroit, at Michilimackinac, this, suppress of Catholic’s. I do not think in Montreal, too.”
“They still need those of our faith, especially the Jesuits, to liaison with the Tribes in the remote regions. But this war with Pontiac has made the British very afraid. It doesn’t help, that most of the Tribes in the rebellion continue to see the French as allies.”
“But they are, no longer so.”
“The British have quickly increased their power to rule all of what was New France.”
She saw in him the self-preservation of his people. “I do not believe much will change for most people. The Tonnancour’s, I think, are just as wealthy as before.”
She looked away. “I am sorry, Father.”
He nodded slowly. “It is well for the Ursulines that you have returned to them.”
She was silent.
“Michilimackinac,” Father said, surprising with his lighter tone. “I took my final vows there more than forty years ago. Did you know that?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Of course you did.”
She let him walk on without her, decline from old age in his frail steps, long life in his continuing far away gazes at the church. He stopped at the altar while he studied back and forth the wall behind, where the niches used to hold sacred images.
“I will return to the convent now,” she said.
“That is well. I wish to remain and pray for a while. I am sorry for the loss of your husband,” he said over his shoulder.
“Thank you, Father.”
——————
She walked back through the convent, staring to the familiar arched ceiling where she still could not quite make out the angles and distance. The scared little girl, lying on the floor, imagining the domes as the rounded insides of giant wigwams erected by her mother and father.
Her steps were lively, bringing her closer to Jacob. She landed in the basement and there he was, nestled in Mother Marie-Anne’s arms, naked save for his nappy, the fire reflecting in his eyes.
“Oh—Marie, my child,” Mother said, interrupted from her quiet recline. She cuddled Jacob tighter. “We were just napping.”
Sister Marie Catherine turned from her place standing at the fireplace hearth. She glanced up and down for her smock of tanned hide, judgment sharp for her talisman pouch.
“You are so quiet, in the soft shoes of the forest dwellers.”
“It has been a long while, Sister, that I have worn hard shoes.”
Jacob gurgled his cheerful hello at her voice.
“He knows his mother,” Sister said. “The child is ever awake,” she remarked.
“He, watches,” Sokanon said, speaking also to his vision.
Sister moved closer. “He is also mostly quiet.” Her face was serious. “I have always believed it sound guidance for children to be surrounded by other children, especially. To stimulate his observations. To make sure he does more than, just watches..”
“It is never too early,” Marie-Anne said.
“Knowledge of child training is becoming more profuse, Marie.” Sister put her finger out, then inside Jacob’s hand for him to grab hold. She smiled, and it disarmed Sokanon’s worry. “He is hale enough. But with his birth as difficult as you described, his undersize and his eyes still unusually dark, it may be well for your son, that you have come back from the wilderness.”
Sokanon looked from Jacob to each of the women. Sadness touched again. “It is what my Isaac has also said.”
“Well—” Sister’s gaze narrowed, even as it softened. “You are home now, Marie.”
It was strange, hearing it from someone else, even Marie Catherine.
“Yes, Sister,” she said. “Yes, Mother.”
She wondered if her thoughts could be seen as Sister continued to watch her close. That the cabin she and Isaac built at Gichigami was the only home ever really hers. That she wished they would have stayed, to talk him into asking Sakima to be accepted into their village. Pahmahnee, Migisi, and the spirit of Sheshebens would be Jacob’s we-ehs, protect him from harm, help him grow into the world.
“Home, Sister,” she said.
She lifted Jacob from Mother’s lap into her arms.
——————
She reclined on the cot, cradling him after feeding, cool air feeling good on her bared shoulder. She drifted on the breathing of Jacob’s sleep until the dream of soft rapping gave over to the door being opened, Esther Marie-Joseph entering her room.
“Mother Superior,” Sokanon roused, “why did you not summon me?” she asked, covering herself not quickly enough.
“Let me see, child,” Mother said.
Sokanon yielded to the elder woman who turned the night shift away again from her shoulder.
“These wounds are recent.” Reproach sounded with the concern in Mother Superior’s voice as she studied the punctures closer. “I would say scattershot from a gun, but there is no bruising, as would be if they were.”
“It is the bite of a wolf.”
“A wolf?” Mother Superior repeated, her face twisted in doubt.
“It was very old,” Sokanon explained at the fantastical story. “His scenting was for Jacob.”
Superior’s gaze pierced. “How was it, you allowed your child to be stalked?”
She scolded more than Sokanon thought she should. She wished she would not have told the truth. “We were alone on the escarpment at the great falls,” she defended, “we had fallen asleep and I could not reach for my musket in time.”
“This bruise is older—have you also broken your ribs?”
“No, Mother Superior.”
She didn’t say as Mother waited, finally to pull the shift up to show the scars on Sokanon’s leg.
“And these?”
“From the struggle with the wolf.”
“This is the life you and your friend want—where you are bruised and battered, and have to carry muskets for protection, from wild animals that hunt your children?”
Sokanon didn’t understand. She stared blankly.
“I have just spoken with Sister Agnes Marie,” Mother Superior continued, “she wants to leave the Ursulines.”
Sokanon was cautious. “Sister Marie Catherine was worried that she might, and warned me of it.”
“She warned you for good reason, Marie.”
Sokanon heard it clearer this time. She was blaming. 
Mother Superior covered her shoulder and leg again and stepped away. “Sister Agnes Marie has told me, seeing you, with your child, has brought out the instincts to motherhood.”
Sokanon troubled. “I can not say to that. She will not go back to her husband?”
Superior shook her head. “Agnes Marie talks of returning to the village of her mother’s people.”
She saw Mother understood she knew.
“Yes,” Mother Superior said. “And that you will lead her to this? Now that you are a captain of canoers?
It was a strange question. “I have not to say—”
Mother held her hand up.
“I am sorry, Mother Superior,” she lowered her voice, “I have not say to Agnes Marie that I am to go with her.”
“I believe you, Marie. But you may disrupt Sister Agnes Marie with your presence. Maybe the other girls’, too. Many of them look to you as an exemplar, and may think to emulate.”
“Disrupt?”
“You wear the buckskin smock and moccasins during the day. And hide your Rosary in a medicine pouch.”
“I will not renounce my faith.”
“That is not what I meant.”
She shrank under her sharp judgment. As if Mother saw deeper inside her than she could herself. “I should not have said, Mother Superior.”
“I was not questioning your faith, Marie. Our founder, Mother Angela Merici gave up her life and chose St. Ursula, the patron saint of education, as guide to our Mission. That mission comes with a great price—sacrifice. But with great sacrifice for others, there is great reward.”
“Yes, Mother Superior.”
“We are losing too many of our Order, at a time when we need to show strength in numbers for the Anglican British to not cause us to disband, as they are trying to do with the brotherhood of the Jesuits. Sister Agnes Marie has taken her public vows and has already petitioned for her perpetual profession to take her solemn vows. You understand this, Marie.”
“Yes, Mother Superior, I understand the vows of a nun.”
“I know you do. It would not do well for Sister Agnes Marie to abandon the habit before her initial period of vows is over.”
“You would try and force her to stay?”
Mother folded her hands in front of her, held her gaze.
Sokanon saw it, then. She wanted to brush her fingers down Jacob’s face. She didn’t have the energy. “You wish for me to leave.”
“Only to the Augustine convent. And only until I can try and dissuade Sister Agnes Marie from leaving.”
“And if I leave, you can better do this?”
“Sister Agnes Marie has only wavered since you arrived.”
What Sister Marie Catherine did not say.
“I will arrange it with the Augustine’s,” Mother said. “And the Ursulines will help at the Augustine hospital when it comes time for the birth of your new child.”
Sokanon remained quiet, tried to hide her tears.
Mother Superior stepped forward again and played with Jacob’s hand, dancing her fingers atop his. “I am sorry, child. I have to trust that Sister Agnes Marie will see the wisdom in her fulfilling her vows.”
“Wisdom?” Sokanon wiped at her cheeks.
“Afterward,” Mother Superior went on, “in the habit of a nun, she will be an exemplar for her mother’s people to emulate. I myself, was converted when I lived with the Abenaki, rebaptized to the Catholic religion and renounced the Anglican teachings of my birth. I do not regret the decision to take the vows as an Ursuline nun. I wish the same for your friend.”
“What if my friend decides to leave anyway?”
“I understand the allure of the Native ways. I lived five years with the Abenaki. I know the attraction of the great personal freedoms in life with the Tribes. Freedoms for women not readily available to European culture. But it is also a hard life. I trust, if anyone can, I can dissuade her.”
“As I am gone from the Convent.”
Mother Superior stood mute.
“Does Sister Marie Catherine approve of my leaving?”
“I am Superior here. Sister Marie Catherine’s approval is not necessary.”
Sokanon heard the desperation in her voice of superiority. And she knew then, why Mother had come to her room instead of summoning her. “Sister does not know of your decision.”
“I know how she has protected you all the years. It is only to the Augustine Convent I am asking you to go.”
“Yes, Mother Superior.”

44

“Hello, Jacques.”
His back was turned, but in a troop of black robes she would know his size, in his dark cloak reminding of a bear. He worked with an old man and woman, bracing the bark covering a wigwam. He spun around, his wide smile ready for her, turned into a questioned look at the bags hanging from her shoulders.
“Marie,” he greeted, “and Jacob under the blanket? I hope baby and mother are well.”
“We are. I am happy you are yet here. I only had to talk with one of the Hurons who knew French, to be directed to you—the big black robe who is willing to live, and work among them.”
His robe was washed, hair trimmed neat, battered hands from their long journey showing now on clean skin. She was glad to see him relaxed. “What came of Aubert? Will the British authorities go to their Mohawk allies, to try and find out the raiders?”
“I don’t know, Marie. They did not question me or Joseph much. The others told what happened and we left them to it. I know that Aubert and his men were given proper Christian burials.”
She was quiet, nodded.
“Did they seek you out, to question you?”
She shook her head. “No, Jacques—I am yet, only an Indian maiden.”
He gave a small wave of his hand.
“What of your returning to Father Pierre?” she pressed.
He motioned to the old couple and spread his arms out wide. “As I said before, there are many ways to serve our Lord here in Quebec.” He narrowed his eyes in new thought. “I will always think of Father Potier with respect.”
“Then, you are never to Sandusky again?”
“Never is something that can never be certain.”
Sokanon forced a smile at his jest, before he turned serious.
“What of you? How is it you once again have your bags, and carry water, appearing to be going somewhere?”
She hesitated, even though she’d come to tell him, say goodbye, or…
“Something troubles you,” he said.
“Mother Superior—” She stopped herself. Started again. “I am to leave the Ursuline convent.”
Jacques stared, his eyes full of questions. “We are almost finished,” he said of the wigwam. He spoke Huron to the man and woman, excusing himself to them to step aside with Sokanon. “I don’t understand,” he said to her. “Mother Superior?” he repeated. “The Ursulines do not welcome you?”
“I—” She searched the distance to the walls, the long battlements, cannons and soldiers along their lengths. Behind were the familiar heights of the rooftops. “I do not want to say.” Her thoughts continued to be uneasy as she allowed the words. “I am, to Father Pierre at Sandusky Mission.” The shame was great enough for her to be uncomfortable with Jacques. All that he and Joseph had done for her, the dangers and hardships she’d asked them to endure. For nothing, now.
Confusion deepened his frown. “Even more I do not understand, Marie. You are leaving the city?”
She was quiet.
“You know it is not wise to return yet to Sandusky,” he said. “And not this year, besides. It is very late in the season.”
She nodded. “I have sought out the Tonnancour’s. They offer much help. I will go to Sillery town first. The husband, Antoine has given a letter for me to be conveyed by a business there to Montreal. And the wife Renée another, an introduction to her family in Montreal. I will stay the winter there, first.”
Jacques eyed her, curious. “What of the birth of the new child?”
“Madame Tonnancour has assured me there are many servants. And the sage femmes, hired midwives to the women in her family.”
“It is good to have wealthy friends,” Jacques said.
“They are grateful to you and Joseph, too,” she reminded.
He nodded, unconcerned.
“In the summer,” she continued, “they will bear me and my children on one of the ships to Sandusky.”
His face went from surprise to worry. “You may still encounter the trappers,” he warned.
“I have told of those of the agent Christie’s team. Monsieur Tonnancour knows the agent, and when I described the trappers to him he told their names, Conall and Stephen. He assures of our protection to them.”
“Well then,” he said, “I am truly grateful for the generosity to you and your child. But I still do not understand. What happened with Mother Superior at the Convent?”
His question showed he knew enough. She looked along the shoreline and did not see Isaac’s canoe. “Is Joseph here?”
Jacques gave a low snort. “Yes, but he goes only by Atironta to the Hurons,” he teased. “It is a small community,” he motioned to the few wigwams, “mostly old people looking for assistance from the city authorities. They have already looked to Joseph—Atironta—for his strength and leadership.”
“As well as yours, you say.”
Jacques shrugged. “Joseph is away with some of the younger ones, throwing spears and nets for the eels and fish where the streams come into the river. You know he is fond of the boat. It was very generous of you.”
Sokanon searched again, scanning out to the water. “May we wait here for him? I wish to thank him again, say goodbye.”
“Of course. But he might be away until the evening. When do you wish to depart for Sillery?”
“Soon as I can.”
He looked to her with as much care as he ever had. She knew she couldn’t hide her somber feelings.
“You do not make me understand, but I will accompany you to there,” he offered.
She didn’t want to say she’d hoped for it. “It is less than three miles. The road is well used. I have walked it sometimes from Quebec. It will not take me long.”
He shook his head. “I will accompany you.”
She gave a thankful smile, and glanced to the old couple. “I will help with their lodge.”
He nodded, moved to hold the weight of Jacob off her back.
She slipped her arms out from the straps. “I am sorry that all you and Joseph have done for me, has no meaning now.”
Once again his caring look shone brighter than for the short time knowing each other. “I believe it is easy to see, that your life’s path has once more been chosen for you.”
“I am again—” she started to say she was without direction. “I do not know what to believe,” she lamented, instead.
“The Lord’s ways are a mystery, Marie. Do not give up your faith.”
She watched him close, wondering if his encouragement wasn’t also for himself.
He held the cradleboard out and made faces to amuse Jacob.
“And Father Saint-Pé—” she said, “does he approve of your living outside the city with the Hurons?”
“We have not spoken.”
It seemed strange that they would not have. “He is worried for the Jesuits,” she said, “here at Quebec especially, where the British take control of all the land.”
“Father Saint-Pé was very old last I saw him. We did not get on with each other then. He arrived with the others to Montreal, when the British threatened Quebec.”
“You judge?”
“You stayed. And the nuns.”
She wagged her head. “I do not know we had a choice.”
Jacques gave in. “Maybe, if he was younger, he might probably return to France, to try and fight the enemies of the Society there.”
How easy he dismissed those who he was, by vow, to give obedience. She searched again for meaning in his words. “Are you to France, Jacques?”
They traded long looks. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “I will remain in the new land. It is very vast. Many places to roam.”
She thought of Joseph’s words, that Jacques was hiding in the Brother’s garment. “You will remain in the black robe, then?”
“Yes,” he asserted. “I am certain of it.”
It warmed her, reassured of at least his conviction. She wondered if Mother Superior would convince Agnes Marie to it.
He handed Jacob over to her and grabbed a handful of the heavy robe. “This I will wear for the remainder of my days, regardless of who is in control of the country. That is what I meant, when I spoke of its vastness. There are many missions far away from Quebec, if I choose not to remain.”
She had heard of the places, farther away than even Detroit and Mackinaw. Another land, the Spain people call Louisiana. She let her guilty mind roam away from not saying goodbye to Sister and Mother to imagine.
———— (dbl sp)
She waited amongst the Huron villagers for Joseph. The old couple’s home was small, tiny compared to the great lodge of Sakima, where she and Isaac and Jacob were able to have comfortable privacy together with the village leader’s sons and two wives. There were only a few items inside the wigwam. No Christian symbols. The many blankets told of the coming winter.
The couple were quiet, the man rested back on their sleeping platform, the woman on her knees on the ground. Both with their eyes closed. She watched them through the smoke softly rising from the small fire. Frail, but with looks of peace on their wrinkled faces. She had the feeling they were inviting the Great Host of all things into their aged lives. Content to listen to their breaths, feel the heart beat in their chests. She wondered at what age she would have sat so, with her mother and father.
The old woman’s eyes opened when Jacob gurgled to bring his mother’s attention back to him. Sokanon gave an awkward smile to her who brightened at the child’s sounds, full of life just beginning. At his squirming, to remind mother of her first duty. The woman motioned to him and said something in non-understandable French. Sokanon smiled to her again. She thought of the things Mother Superior had said, the attractions and freedoms of tribal life. There was a great comfort here. The same simple existence as she’d felt at the cabin with Isaac.
———— (dbl sp)
The commotion outside brought her and the couple from the wigwam to see Joseph and the others returned from their fishing. He recognized her and they addressed each other across the short distance. He stepped away from the boats to allow the other fishermen, full of pride, to carry the fish baskets to give off to the eager hands of the villagers. The old woman drew out a large eel, a nod of thanks to Joseph. It was a favorite of hers, too. Cooked and served often by the Sisters, she hadn’t had eel since going away with Isaac.
Joseph started toward her. Not as big as Jacques, but he stood out from those around him, those younger and smaller, many of the older bent with age. She thought of when he and Isaac fought at Michilimackinac. How well-matched in size. That he still squinted his unhealed vision brought back the enmity she had to keep far away. The low red sky cut by long lines of dark purple clouds shone behind him, and another vision of Isaac standing below the same sky, flashed from somewhere closer in her mind.
Jacques was looking on from where he was away, helping to erect a smokehouse for the coming winter’s stored meats. The villagers were steady in their activity, deliberate to ensure survival through the hunger months. She peered past Jacques, upriver, imagining the house at Sillery, with its servants and sage femmes.
Joseph greeted her.
“Atironta,” she said.
He nodded. Peered confused to the wigwam she’d come out of. “Is it yet, Marie?” he asked of her name.
She shrugged. Studied the burn marks on his face. They were permanent, she was certain. “Are you to no longer believe in the Christian God?”
He set his jaw tight. “Father Pierre is a good and fair man. Others of the men of Jesus. I will believe in their example.”
She understood he was not to return to the Huron Mission at Sandusky, either.
“I go again to Father Pierre,” she told him, and waited while he gave the same questioning look as Jacques. But same as with him, more she would not say. “I came to thank you again,” she said, “and to say goodbye. I am sorry for all that you have done for me and my son, to Quebec, only for me to leave here.”
He remained still.
“I leave for Sillery town tomorrow,” she said. “I will to Sandusky in the summer, after my baby is born.”
There was no emotion as he nodded.
But hers ran apace with thoughts of Isaac. And what she would say next. She started to speak… But she shook her head and let the weight of things come onto her shoulders, pull against her back.
“Tomorrow, then,” Joseph spoke, “we will say goodbye.”
“Yes, Joseph.”
——————
She stood from the morning cook fire to watch the smoke from the other fires drifting. Already the smoking of the fish had been started, and added the aroma of its meat to the smells of the others’ days beginning. The quiet of the villagers spoke again to their diligence. Jacob made soft sounds, bundled in his cradleboard for the departure, soon as Jacques returned. She smiled to her son.
The old couple barely set their attention to them, even though she and her son had slept the night in their lodge. The woman tightened her blanket robe, craggy fingers sticking out, holding the garment snug. She spoke to her husband who only mumbled, engaged with the pot on the fire, impatient for the British tea set to boil.
Jacques was coming, off in the distance from the woods, dragging a sled loaded with firewood. She thought it well he would go with her, this one last time. It came to her then, that he might try and travel with her to Montreal. And then on, back to Sandusky, after all. She smiled at the thought.
The old woman said something, motioning toward the city. Sokanon saw the figure, appearing confused, walking unsteady toward the little village. The man went back to himself, but the woman came to stand next to her, curiosity matching Sokanon’s concern at the person. A woman, barefoot, nightshirt waving with her uneven steps. Close enough for familiarity…Bright-Dawn. She darted an uneasy look to the couple, knelt to toss the cover over Jacob’s head, started away.
“Seten,” the old woman stopped her, held out her blanket.
Sokanon nodded her thanks and hurried for her friend.
She stared at her in wonder. Shivering under the sleeping shift only, feet bared to the snow the onshore weather had brought in the night. She draped the blanket over her shoulders.
“Agnes Marie,” she scolded. “Why are you undressed so?”
“I don’t own any clothes.”
“What have you done?” She took her by the arm to rush her along.
Bright-Dawn halted them. She shivered. “I am to leave the sisters.”
“Yes. Come, now,” Sokanon ordered, dragging harder at her, directing her to sit when they reached the fire.
The old woman disappeared into the wigwam while her husband was hesitant, staring at Bright-Dawn with confusion and indifference.
“Please,” Sokanon said, pouring a mug of the weak tea, as he acceded.
The woman emerged from the wigwam wrapped in another blanket, bringing forth a pair of crudely repaired woman’s dress boots.
“Thank you,” Sokanon said to her.
The woman stepped back and squatted next to her husband to watch.
Sokanon tucked the blanket tighter around Bright-Dawn’s feet. “These boots will be difficult to put on until you are dry.”
Bright-Dawn grabbed her hand. “When I heard you had left the Convent,” she said through clattering teeth, “I knew it was because of me.”
Her lips were pale, cheeks and ears red. “Drink,” Sokanon told her before going for a blanket from her bag.
Bright-Dawn sipped. “I went first to the Augustine’s,” she continued, “where Mother Superior said she would send you. When you were not there, I returned to the Ursulines and put off the nun’s gown.”
Sokanon draped the other blanket over her legs. “You did not argue with Mother Superior.”
Bright-Dawn’s defiant stare told that she had. “Then I went out of the city,” she said, “where I hoped you would be, with those who had helped you after your husband died.”
“What if you would not have found me? Would you have expected these people to give you clothes—and shelter?”
“Do not be mad at me,” she said. “I had harsh words with Mother Superior because I knew you would never leave the Ursulines by your own will, especially with another child to be born. That I knew it was she who was forcing you to leave.”
“It is my concern what Mother Superior say for me.” Sokanon continued her reproach. She searched her friend’s face. Her oldest friend in the world. Closest she’d ever had to a sister. “You thought to bare yourself to the cold, as—penance, for abandoning your vows?”
Bright-Dawn was silent.
“Sister Marie Catherine would think you are only being prideful,” Sokanon admonished. “As do I. Drink,” she said again.
Bright-Dawn swallowed another mouthful.
“You are fortunate I am still here,” Sokanon said. “I am to Sillery this morning. We were to leave in only a few moments.”
“Sillery? Bright-Dawn looked, curious, troubled. “For how long?”
Sokanon did not say.
“Perhaps I could go with you. We will leave together.”
“You can not accompany me,” Sokanon asserted.
Disappointment showed in Bright-Dawn’s eyes cast down. “Then, you return to the Convent. I am the one to leave,” she argued, her words stronger from the tea. Her face returning to color, always more French than Native.
Sokanon directed her to drink again.
“Sister Marie Catherine,” Bright-Dawn continued to speak easier, “Mother Marie-Ann, they are already upset to find you gone yesterday from your cell. Others are angry, too. Together they will stand against Mother Superior. She won’t be able to lead with them united against her.”
“I understand this,” Sokanon said. “And I will not allow it to be so, for Sister and Mother. That it is why I left without seeing them.” She nudged the mug, urging it again. “You must return to the Convent, Agnes Marie.”
“You will not address me with my Abenaki name—as when we were children together?”
“You are acting as the children, now, Bright-Dawn.” Sokanon breathed to herself and backed away to flip the cover off the headband of Jacob’s cradleboard. The boy’s face was alive to the light, his eyes dancing to the movements around him.
“His eyes,” Bright-Dawn said, her voice straining in her excitement. “Have I not seen them before?” she continued. “They are so dark.”
“They are more so, in the small light of the day with clouds.”
“It is in the firelight at night, they are almost black,” Jacques said into the exchange, arrived with his sled of wood.
Bright-Dawn snapped her attention to him, eyes focused in curious wonder.
Sokanon was taken in by his words, too. “My friend is Jacques,” she said.
He and Bright-Dawn greeted each other silently.
“The woman is Otter Robe,” Sokanon continued to introduce, “and her husband, Shines in the Sky.”
Bright-Dawn spoke to the couple in their language. The man did not look up, but the woman nodded and knelt again to her husband’s side, their attention once more to the cook fire.
“I know their language from my husband’s trade with the Huron near Montreal,” Bright-Dawn explained.
Sokanon took her cup and refilled it. The man gave the slightest displeasure.
“More,” Sokanon directed Bright-Dawn, who made sure to touch her hand while taking the mug.
The warm exchange receded a lifetime.
“Remember when we were younger—” Bright-Dawn said, looking to Jacob, “and the French children in the city would tease us? At least until you chased them away.”
Sokanon didn’t answer. Of course she remembered. She thought to protect her friend once more. “You will return to the convent.” She halted her protest. “At least to make it right before you leave. You owe the respect for the sisters. And for yourself.”
Sokanon returned Jacques’ look of understanding before he backed away to unload the wood with the couple.
Bright-Dawn frowned, then returned her easy look for Jacob. “Maybe I should go back to my husband.”
“Do not, Agnes Marie.”
“Then where?” she huffed. “Is it fair, that because of my husband I should have to return to a convent? I could not take up with the Sisters of Charity there in Montreal, and Trois-Rivières was not far enough away, either—so I came back here. But still my husband came for me.” She gave a long look. “Doesn’t that mean I could go back to him? That he still wants me as his wife?”
Sokanon put her hands on her hips. “You are tiring, Bright-Dawn. You know the Ursulines would help you, even if you chose no longer to the nun’s cloak.”
“Yet you are not done traveling,” she said, her expression turning serious. “Are you to look again for your husband on the way back to Sandusky? Do you yet have hope in your prayers he is alive?”
“Again you weary me, with your talk from that and this.” Sokanon pressed her hand to her shoulder, the sudden need to remind herself of the pain there. “My Isaac is dead. I can feel it. I always could, from the moment I last saw him struggling only to stay alive, taken away in the storm. I searched for him long, in the canoe. He was nowhere. Now, he is everywhere.”
Bright-Dawn narrowed her eyes. “He is in your babies.”
Sokanon nodded softly. “You are not the first to make me to remember.” She felt Jacques’ presence grow nearer.
Bright-Dawn followed her direction. “He is one who helped you?” she said. “The Jesuit?”
“Yes.”
“The other—he is also a man of Jesus?”
“No.” Sokanon pointed. “Joseph is the one working at the boats. He is Huron. The villagers have accepted him into their community of lodges. He is known by them with his birth name, Atironta.”
“Would your friends help again?”
Sokanon stared.
“To Tadousac,” Bright-Dawn said, pausing to bring her eyes slowly to meet Sokanon’s. “Only to Tadousac,” she urged.
“For what reason?” Sokanon asked.
“Merchants to my husband once spoke of the Abenaki trading at the post there. I listened. I remember the names of the traders. I will ask of them. I may find someone who knows my mother—her village.”
“And what if you can not? Who is to wait with you through the winter?”
“There are villagers who still live at the post.”
“You will ask of them to give you shelter, feed you during the hunger months?”
Bright-Dawn handed the empty mug to her. “You are not the only one who has learned to survive in the world, Marie.”
They were quiet again.
The old man continued to give them no attention, but Sokanon saw that the woman was listening, that she understood French better than she could speak.
Bright-Dawn peered down the river. “Tadousac was the place my father took me first when we left the village.”
Sokanon felt her own past shiver into her thoughts.
“I can walk—alone,” Bright-Dawn pressed. “But the merchants said the Abenaki go there especially in the autumn before winter. I may reach Tadousac too late if I use the trails. The trip by canoe there and back can be done in one week’s time.”
“I know how far to there,” Sokanon said. The memory of the trip was quick…while they rested at the trading post before continuing up the river on the way to take the black robes to their new mission. The eager voice of her mother was once again in her ears, excited to return to Chicoutimi, where Sokanon was born. The words teased at her thoughts. The idea came to her that the language mother and father spoke to each other, spoke to her, could somehow rush back into her understanding. In a confusing wave, she thought to speak it to Jacob.
“The land where are the Innu of your grandfather,” she uttered slowly, “and the Cree of your grandmother.”
Jacob was stilled, quieted to her voice, his dark eyes watching her speak, the new sounds coming from her.
“Have you learned again, the language?” Bright-Dawn wondered.
“I am not certain,” Sokanon told her. She worried that she would forget again, and wanted to tell it even to the wind before she did.
“It has happened to me, too,” Bright-Dawn said. “When Mother Superior Esther Marie-Joseph spoke to me in the Abenaki language, thinking I might not remember. To try and dissuade me from leaving the Ursulines. But I did remember. I understood all at once and spoke it back to her.”
Sokanon tried to hear more of her mother and father’s words, but her ears were empty in her mind’s confusion. She stared again. To the familiar walls of the city. To Jacques and Joseph. To the old couple and their small lodge covered with bark. To Jacob. Out to the river, its course widening to the far horizon. Where Isaac was to be borne. “Tadousac?” she said. “You are certain in your desire?”
Bright-Dawn nodded. “You do not have to go. Only your friends need help me. I have heard, at the convent. If you order it, they will take me.”
“I do not speak for my friends, any more than I would for you. They helped me to here. And now I am leaving.” She saw Jacques heard. She went on the Bright-Dawn. “You are to live, with your back turned from a marriage of Christian vows before the eyes of God and Jesus, in the church of Our Lady?”
Bright-Dawn looked curiously. “Is that not what Sister Marie Catherine would ask me?”
Sokanon felt her cheeks warm. “Sister might only wish you well, even if she would worry for your soul.”
“And I am just as certain in that she should not have to.”
It was strange, how easy for Sokanon to agree. She squeezed the ring under her smock as guilt rose into the tension of her twisting thoughts. “I only mean Sister would want to pray for you.”
“And what of you, Marie?”
Sokanon caught the eyes of Jacques, waiting for her answer, too.
“I am finished here, Marie,” he said. “I am ready to leave when you. I will go and help with the smoking and wait for you there.”
“Yes, Jacques.”

45

“You care a great deal for her,” he said. Caution hinted in his words.
“Bright-Dawn is my good friend. We were as sisters, the only girls from the Tribes.”
“Your good friend appears, not well.” Jacques halted his work on the smoking rack. “I mean that she is maybe, unbalanced,” he finished.
Sokanon wondered if she’d ever heard the word before. But she knew what he meant and the corners of her mouth rose, thinking how absurd her friend must have looked to him, barefoot in the snow, exposed to the cold. Jacques shook his head and rubbed at his face, leaving gray streaks of ash smeared over his cheeks and chin. Her laugh came on now. A little at first, then uncontrolled. She thought it improper, but couldn’t stop.
Jacques’ eyes opened wide.
Sokanon settled herself, glanced at the people near them, brightened by her gaiety.
“In the weeks I have known you,” Jacques said, “you have never laughed so much. It is good to see, after all that has happened to you. But maybe I should apologize.”
 “Agnes Marie,” she started, calming her fit. “—Bright-Dawn. One time, the Sisters were to pilgrimage for Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré chapel. I was to go, so some of the girls wanted to also. The Sisters were without shoes, for penance.” Another giggle forced its way. “Agnes Marie said she would go barefoot, also. But she had a pair of babouche, slippers made from cuttings of quilt she tied around her ankles hidden under her gown.”
“I would not blame her,” Jacques said, “it’s almost twenty miles from the city.”
“She could hide the shoes at night, even from me,” Sokanon went on, “because they looked as pieces of cloth only. Agnes Marie would act as the Sisters, to stumble when they did, over rough ground. But then she did, when the ground was not rough—and Sister Marie Catherine saw her trick.”
“Did the sister punish your friend?”
“No. We all laughed so hard at her she was so embarrassed. She cried so hard, and we laughed more. Sister said that was punishment enough.”
“Did she go barefoot the rest of the way?”
“She tried,” Sokanon amused again at the memory, “but she cried so much, Sister made her wear her babouche again.” She searched the distance for her friend at the wigwam, holding Jacob. She sobered her thoughts. “Bright-Dawn has maybe been, unbalanced, always. Her father was French and left her with his family in the city, when he go back to his Christian wife. She talked much at first, of the Abenaki, thinking to return to one day, but, that maybe she was not enough of either her mother or father, that neither wanted her.”
“Is it much unlike you?” Jacques said.
Again Sokanon shook her head. The laughter was gone. “My family were dead. I had nowhere else to go. I needed the sisters. Needed to love them as my family. But I see that Agnes Marie does not need the sisters, neither to be a nun. She needs only to be Bright-Dawn.”
“And you are to be only, Sokanon?”
They stared intently, he studying her thoughts that she did not want to say.
“Winter is soon upon us,” he said. “Montreal yet awaits you and your child—your children. Your friend, unbalanced or not, shall make her own way.”
 She could hear Isaac’s counsel in his words.
“There is time yet this morning. It is only an hour’s walk to Sillery town. I will speak with Joseph, also,” she said.
———— (dbl sp)
He was yet at the shoreline, laying out the fishing nets to dry. Isaac’s canoe was overturned and she traced her view up and down the long lines of the pine pitch covering the stitching they’d done together. She thought the canoe payment enough, and equal barter for the one more chore for her.
“Joseph—”
He gave his greeting and she waited for him to finish and approach her.
She said it right off, as she hadn’t with Jacques. “I need you to help me to Tadousac.”
The corners of his eyes wrinkled in the curiosity that had grown for her since Sandusky. “You are not, for Montreal?” he said.
Even his concern had deepened. She heard it in his voice.
She waved a hand away to Bright-Dawn. “My friend wants to return to her mother’s Abenaki people.”
His eyes were slits now, curiosity turned to worry, maybe. No, not as Jacques. She saw it, then. Eagerness.
“The big man,” he said of Jacques, “he will, too?”
“If you will, yes.” She challenged his questioning look. “Please. -I’m sorry,” she offered, then. “I do not ask against the sincerity of my gift of my husband’s canoe.”
He gave his nod that was his word. “We are to leave soon,” he said into the quiet that fell between them.
“Yes,” she agreed, allowing him the order. “When you say.”
He was for his task and she started away.
“The big man, Jacques—” he called.
She turned to him.
“He will go—if you will,” he finished.
She knew. “Yes.”
———— (dbl sp)
“We are to travel to Tadousac,” she announced.
Jacques peered to the river. “We have been fortunate in weather ever since we left Sandusky,” he warned. “It was a bad squall we paddled through after Trois Rivières.”
“Then we can do it again.”
He had his hands on his hips. “You know you should not jest of such seriousness. Especially with a child. That is why I said your friend should be left to her own. Why to Tadousac, besides?”
“She believes she can find her mother’s people, who trade there.”
Sokanon watched his studied gaze.
“She believes?” he huffed. “What if they do not?”
“I question her the same.”
“What did she say?” He stopped her before she could answer. “As I said, you care for her a great deal. But should you risk your life, those of your children—for her?” He continued to hold her off. “Joseph has agreed to it?”
“Yes.”
“Then you remain here. He and I will guide her.”
“No, Jacques. I must go.”
“I do not know what has made you suddenly wish to leave Quebec, but I feel your friend has something to do with the decision.”
“It is, for me, too.”
He stared close. “To what end for you, Marie? Will you stay the winter at Tadousac—and return to your mother and father’s people? With a newborn birthed in a Native lodge?”
“You know that most are born in the forest, by the mother unattended.”
His eyes were wide. “After the problems you have told of Jacob’s birth—you will risk this one’s?”
The question had already been as the rhythms in her chest, those of Jacob’s heart. She shook her head and paced. “I have not said I would remain at Tadousac.”
“Then do not go,” Jacques repeated.
“How can I ask for you to take my friend, without my help?”
“We would not need your help,” he challenged. “There was much time when Joseph and I paddled while you viewed for your husband. And many days where you could not paddle after Niagara.”
“Maybe I wish to travel once more in my Isaac’s canoe—that I was with him to make. You have seen our son, how comfortable he is on the water. Maybe it is because I was heavy with him in my belly while I paddled with his father when we worked our traps. Maybe our new child will be the same.”
Jacques set his eyes sharp again. “Then we shall return quickly. And if you cannot be brought to Montreal, with your friend gone, you can return to the Ursulines.”
She nodded. Unsure in her new thoughts. “To Tadousac, Jacques.”
He relaxed his stance. “When?”
“Joseph says to leave now.”
“Well, I think we’ll need a little more time than that.”
She smiled at his pleasant nature returned.
———— (dbl sp)
But Joseph was quick to ready the canoe. Their gear was even lighter than that after Niagara. No lean-to this time. They would sleep close side by side under the slant of the canvas stretched from the canoe to the ground. Bright-Dawn had nothing but the scant clothes she wore and what Sokanon could scrounge for her. The few mink pelts she had would trade well at the post. The vision of the paper money floating away in the rush of the stream toward the river came to her and she gazed to the city walls. Sister Marie Catherine would have helped them to gain things needed, even if she disagreed with their course. She was certain the Tonnancour woman would have ensured anything she asked.
It would be to Tadousac and back, as lightning between clouds, seen and not seen, heard and not heard. But that wasn’t quite right, she thought, the lightning only in one direction, never going back. She wondered if she would be so, and fear gripped at her. It was strong, and pulled hard at her thoughts in the moments before departure. She could feel Sister reaching out for her, sturdy hands both severe and loving. Mother Marie-Anne’s arms, warm and safe. The new fear came then, leaving without saying goodbye. Would it be forever?
Jacques worked with Joseph, and she was reminded again of them at Sandusky, when they first set out together to search for Isaac. And the strange closeness she felt for them in the short amount of time since. Joseph would have the lead in things this time. Jacques was easy, and in accord to it, but she knew he would be forceful in protection of her and her son. She held Jacob, waiting to place him, yet again bundled in his cradleboard, into the canoe. Bright-Dawn’s voice brought her mind away.
“Where do I go?”
“In front of Joseph, and behind me,” Sokanon told her. “There is not much gear, so we will balance Jacques’ weight in front. You will paddle only on this side,” she instructed. “Unless Joseph tells to switch.”
Bright-Dawn nodded. “It was as a girl last I have been in a canoe. I have never paddled.”
Sokanon looked again, back and forth over the canoe to the paddles. The new one for Joseph, rough and unfinished, lightning bolt carvings started on the long, wide blade. She motioned to the paddle, set, waiting for Bright-Dawn, one of those from Sandusky, the faded red and black paint side by side the lower half length of the blade, small black circles on either side running up to the base of the shaft.
“If you tire,” Sokanon directed further, “lay it secure in the bottom, so it can not be knocked over the side in high waves.”
“There will be high waves, in the river?”
“It will be wet and cold, Agnes Marie.”
“You do not worry for your child?”
“We are ready,” Joseph halted their talking.
“Marie,” Jacques said with his even voice, holding the canoe steady, bidding them in.
———— (dbl sp)
She looked back to the city, the clouds over the church spires. The same clouds over Gichigami. The clouds always changing. Always there. Bright-Dawn splashed at her paddle, already struggling. She started to tell her—
 “Set your blade lower in the water,” Joseph said, his voice calm. “Use shorter stroke, then lift the blade straight up and out. —Good,” he encouraged, even as Sokanon still heard the untrained splashing.
The river flattened out off to the left, curious for a moment before she made out the water lapping onto the long shoal. She had not been on the river this way from Quebec since that last time with her mother and father. She ceased her paddle at the sight of Beauport ashore beyond the wide tidal flat. Tried to feel as Isaac had told of that day. A bateau-man at the oar in one of the boats that ran aground, not seeing the shoal in rough water in the sudden storm. Stuck on the flat while the rain drenched them and their powder. Their muskets useless while they struggled to try and make it to land in the assault.
She followed to the shore, running her view up the embankment where she remembered the French cannons behind barricades to fire down on the British boats. She felt the terror of the guns amid the close lightning strikes of the storm. The shoal struck its menace and she turned away, the terrible vision flashing of Isaac’s body to suddenly roll up onto the shoal.
“The shallows where the British troop transports were stranded in their assault on Beauport.”
She was glad for Jacques’ words, to call her thoughts away. She wanted to ask him how he knew of the exact locations, but she thought she could ask a thousand questions, how he knew any of the many things he did. She was at the water again, digging her paddle in deep, pulling hard, using the exertion to dull her mind.
“Marie,” Bright-Dawn said low, after many strokes. “I cannot paddle as you do. Won’t you tire going so hard?”
Sokanon caught her stroke, only for a moment. She hoped so.

46

“The Saint Anne shrine is just ahead.”
Jacques’ words surprised again. “So soon?” she said, not believing they had covered the distance already to the chapel at Beaupré.
“I am not surprised you haven’t noticed,” Jacques spoke, “you are trying to bear us on your own to Tadousac, I think. Your friend is correct, you will wear yourself out.”
The heavy effort weighed in her arms and shoulders. Her breaths were deep. She heard them echo in her head. “I wish to stop,” she said.
“Unless you need to,” he glanced over his shoulder. “But we do not have to land for you to rest from your exertions.”
“There is a natural spring running from the rocks near the chapel.”
“Yes,” Bright-Dawn said. “It is always cold and sweet.”
Her weariness set in Sokanon’s judgment. “We stop, Joseph,” she urged.
Joseph turned his paddle, Jacques sweeping his wide to push the bow faster over to the new movement.
“We can visit at the St. Anne shrine,” Jacques said.
Sokanon felt his hesitation for their answer.
None came.
“I have never been,” he finished.
They glided in, where the water was calmed behind the small cape protecting the landing. The dock platforms of the seigneurial farms had been pulled off their pilings onto land, safe from the coming winter’s ice. The current swirled at the rows of posts sticking up out of the water. The story came, of the original wooden church built too close to the water, destroyed by tidal flooding and ice floes. The new building was of stone and shined. Bright with the same whitewash paint she’d used with the Sister’s at Quebec for buildings there.
Jacques steadied the front, but the back of the canoe started to drift, Joseph careless as never before. He was staring, transfixed, squinting eyes roving slowly back and forth.
“Joseph,” Jacques called.
He backswept his paddle, drawing in to land.
“This a special place for my Huron people,” he said.
“Many healing miracles are said to come from prayers here,” Jacques said.
“No.” Joseph shook his head. “It is the voices of my ancestors, those killed by the five nations of the Iroquois. Driven from this side of the great river by them. With guns from the English.”
“The French gave muskets to the Huron.”
“And built towns and churches, to be attacked by the British.”
“Whose crown possesses the land now.”
“Still you challenge as the boys in the streets of Quebec.”
Bright-Dawn amused at Sokanon’s admonishing.
Sokanon wanted to remind how the Mohawk of the Iroquois killed her family, not for land, but to gain the strength and spirit of warriors’ deeds. To remind of the violence always around men like Aubert. Of how her father’s Innu ancestors had fought against the Abenaki of Bright-Dawn’s mother.
“I wish to say a prayer at the shrine,” she said.
“I have made the pilgrimage here many times,” Bright-Dawn said. Her eyes were down, and then away.
Sokanon understood, and it was well. “To yourself then, Bright-Dawn,” she faulted any way.
Jacques took up the water skins. “I do not know where the spring is.”
“I do,” Bright-Dawn said. “The water is said to have healing powers, too.”
Joseph reached out to Jacques for the containers. “I will go with her.”
“Marie and I will to the shrine, then,” Jacques said.
“I only want to be a short while,” she said, bringing up Jacob from the canoe and onto her back.
She was quiet and to herself when they started from the shore. She watched her shadow before her and looked up into the sunlight that came through a break in the sky. It was warm on her face, even so near the arrival of the hunger months. The river shined in the endless sparkle of waves, widening out to the great ocean. She gave a peek before going out of view, to see Joseph holding a blanket open for Bright-Dawn, to wrap over her head and shoulders.
The rough road ran close to the chapel and they stepped to miss the ruts scored into its muddy way. The ruts gave her pause and she hesitated, peering back down the trail leading to Quebec. She calmed herself. There was not enough time, even in a wagon. How would anyone know they would be here? Maybe she wanted Sister to come for her.
“You should have stayed there,” Jacques told her.
Bright-Dawn looked away.
The man in the dark robe and cowl, three-pointed hat of the Sulpicians, was bent over working a hand shovel, tearing out brown and faded flowers from the approach to the chapel. He stood to greet them, his gaze lingering at Jacques in his black robe of the Jesuits. Sokanon wondered at the rivalry of their Orders.
“Good day, Father,” Jacques said warmly.
“Brother,” the priest returned. He cast a curious glance beyond them toward the river. “You are, travelers? Members of a larger party?”
“We are to Tadousac,” Sokanon told him.
“Oh?” he showed surprise. “There have been none I have seen that way for some days now.”
“You are alone here, sir priest?” Jacques asked.
“Father Étienne,” he introduced himself. “And we are never alone in Christ Jesus, Brother.”
“Of course,” Jacques said.
“I have only just returned from France,” the Sulpician went on of himself. “Now that the war with the British is over.”
“We wish to give supplication in the chapel.”
“That is very well,” Father Étienne beamed. “I am glad to see you are not only here to draw water from the spring.” His voice was soft and pleasant, reminding of Father Pierre. “You are Christians—” he asked their three. “Huron?”
Sokanon nodded, too weary to explain. She started up the walk to the chapel.
Father Étienne looked to Jacques. “You do not wish to give your devotions before our holy image of Saint Anne and Saint Mary?”
“I will give Marie some time alone first.”
Sokanon turned to see he was not following.
“And you?” Father said to Bright-Dawn and Joseph. “The chapel is open to all. Enter and give to Christ and the saints your prayers.”
“We are for the spring,” Bright-Dawn told him.
Sokanon waited before sighing. It was not right of Bright-Dawn to not acknowledge him as Father. She continued up the rise of land, the last few yards to the tiny church. She hesitated at the door, turned to see Jacques and Father Étienne relaxed in their talking.
Everything was the same in the church. A few long seats, rough cut, darkened with stain and rubbed smooth by many hands. Beside the plain altar was the beautiful statue of Saint Anne, blessed daughter Mary, as a child in her arms. Carved wood and painted in bright colors, lit by the dim light of sun coming through the small windows and the candles burning on the altar. She still thought the look on Anne was too set with a mother’s lesson, with no joy at holding her daughter. Mary’s was a little smile, listening maybe, to her mother.
She let Jacob down and was surprised at him asleep, even through all the jostling. She knelt and laid him to her side, the prayer for him and her unborn child ready on her lips. And again for Isaac’s soul. She almost felt his presence, how he would tease her for it. She sat, rested down onto her heels, staring at the faces of the statue, remembering the times here before. When the faces of the two saints were full of wonder and mystery. And when she had asked the wonder and mystery of things if it was a sin to imagine the women not as saints, but as she and her mother—being held in her arms. She tried to imagine one day holding her own grandchild. She began her silent prayer.
But Jacob yelped into the quiet. Loud, his echoing cry piercing the silence and causing her to startle. His eyes sparkled in the low light while he blew out a wet giggle. She calmed, and laughed with his happy discovery of the bubbling slabber between his lips.
“How loud you are, my son.”
“Marie!” Jacques called from behind, alarm in his voice.
She rose quickly, bringing him up with her. “What is it, Jacques?”
He stood in the doorway. “Oh,” he said, stepping into the church. He cast his eyes about in panic and confusion. To the ceiling. The walls. Back to her. “There was a flash of light.”
“I feared you had overturned a candle and a fire started,” Father Étienne said from behind.
“No,” she shook her head and drew her arms through the straps of the cradleboard and onto her shoulders. The statue was lifeless, somehow and she spun away, her prayer lost in Jacob’s cry, in his laughter. The two men in their robes still showed confusion. They moved to let her pass.
“I will tell Joseph and Bright-Dawn I am finished and we wait for you.”
“Marie—” he said. “You truly did not see the light?”
“No, Jacques.” She stared at him, wondering at his continuing distraction. Father Étienne, too. “The light was all around?”
Jacques shook his head. “It was only from inside the church. It was as if lightning—all at once bright, and then gone.”
“Did the sun shine for a moment—” she said, “and reflect in the windows? God’s good day to you, Father Étienne.”
“And to you, my child.”
A short way to the spring that ran down from the hillside, where Joseph and Bright-Dawn were together. Talking close, the water containers on the ground. They were surprised by her, strange to sneak up on him so readily, curious that she knew Huron better than she’d thought.
“You are finished already?” Bright-Dawn said.
“Jacques is there with Father Étienne. He will not be long.” She didn’t say of the light.
“We have not filled the water containers yet.”
Joseph took them up to pour out the old water.
The spring ran a trickle from the rock wall in the late season, and Sokanon leaned to cup a handful, cold and clear. Brought it to her lips, refreshing, tasting exactly how the smooth and pearly, wet granite smelled.
“Your son’s eyes, Marie,” Bright-Dawn said. “They are no longer dark.”
Sokanon’s worry turned to wonder and she hurried Jacob down. Wonder then to astonishment. “They are green,” she said. Joy then to sadness. “Like Isaac’s.” To wonder again, and she knelt with him, ran her fingers down his face, peered back toward the chapel. Her body tingled and her mind swirled with emotion. Her only thought then was to lean a hand under the falling water, wipe it to Jacob’s face, onto his eyelids. He stopped his gurgling. The bubbling of the spring was at once the only sound.
“Have they finally settled their color since his birth?”
Sokanon wanted to reproach. Could Bright-Dawn not think it more? How could she fall away so quickly? Joseph was strange, quiet and deliberate, even for him while he finished emptying the containers to fill with water from the spring. The thought was only for herself it seemed. “By Saint Anne and Our Lady, his eyes are green.”
Her direction was once again unknown to her. Other than to see Jacques, show Jacob to him. “I will to the canoe,” she said and started away carrying the cradleboard before her.
Jacques was at the bottom of the walkway leading up to the chapel. Father Étienne was not in sight. He met her bright face with a questioning gaze.
“See, Jacques—see my Jacob’s eyes.”
“My goodness. They are green.”
“Yes, as were his father’s.”
Jacques moved his head side to side and studied the boy’s face. “He has not been blind all these first months of his life. I know he has not. I have seen him attentive to the movements of the world around him. I know children’s eyes change color in the months after birth,” he went on. “You have not noticed any changes earlier?”
“Have you? It was the light you saw, Jacques. By Our Lady,” she said again.
“I have been standing here, thinking maybe it is only coincidence. Or that my eyes deceived me—a strain from all the traveling. But Father Étienne saw it, too. He is inside, at prayer before the shrine. We will show him.”
Her thoughts continued to call against it somehow. She stepped back, peering to the chapel.
“No, Jacques. I— I do not know. Just, I wish to leave.”
Jacques gazed back toward the chapel. “The shrine is noted for its healing. If this is not a healing miracle, what then? It should not be hidden under a bushel, away from the light of the day.”
“I, can not.” She started away.
He followed quickly after her. “What is it, Marie?”
At the canoe she halted. Handed Jacob to him. Her hands shook as she dug into her medicine pouch, fingers passing over Isabelle’s prayer beads, the broken flat stone with Isaac’s face on it. Over the lock of Tipishkau-pishum’s hair.
To the two tiny heavy green stones Sheshebens had given her, said by the older woman to have healing power. Given for Jacob after his birth. Pieces of copper, Isaac told her. Metal, not stone. Valuable trade for the Ojibwa. She held out Jacob’s eyes for Jacques to see.
He gave a puzzled look.
She went on. “Am I to always wonder, to the true spirits of things?”
“All things in our Lord and savior Jesus Christ, Marie. He is the only true spirit.”
“You sound as Father Pierre. And scold as Sister Marie Catherine.”
He showed his sympathy. “A great many things have happened to you in your young life. And it does seem to me, in the short time we’ve known each other, that there is a great connection between you and the, spirits of things, as you say. Maybe they are wondering of you, too—Sokanon.”
“I do not understand in which direction I should go,” she said. “I want to tell the world of my son. But I want to scream at it, too. For all that has happened to me.”
“Yet you are still here. With your son, and another soon.”
“Alone, Jacques.”
He shook his head. “Never. The direction you take is with your friend now. Then back to your Sister Marie Catherine and the others.”
She shrugged. “The new Superior has made me not welcome.”
“It doesn’t seem like you, to hold a grudge against her. Do not make yourself so, to the help I’m certain the Ursulines would yet give. —We will talk of this to each other for the rest of our lives,” he whispered soft as Joseph and Bright-Dawn’s arrival interrupted.
Jacques had the great thing close to his thoughts. Sokanon saw it while he made the sign of the cross and touched his fingertips to Jacob’s forehead.
She wouldn’t let herself cry until they were in the canoe and no one could see.
Jacques waited for Joseph to lay the containers in then slid the canoe into the water.
Sokanon looked again to Joseph when he held his view to her for a moment. Something was changed about him, too. Then he spoke in Huron to Bright-Dawn, directing her in while he held the canoe fast for them.
They were away and Jacob’s eyes continued to be a wonder, the open sky reflecting. So much like Isaac’s now. Her tears were different, yet the same, at another reminder, if she needed one, that he was truly dead. While all the joy she’d ever felt before, was at once all around her.
“I am so helpless to my own escape,” Bright-Dawn huffed, her paddle continuing to splash its untrained wildness.
Joseph encouraged, again in his native language.
Sokanon thought of her friend’s words and supposed it was an escape.
——————
It was scary in the dark, the canoe snaking in the eddies of the small bay where a river came in from the north. Where a large island narrowed the channel in the same place, the tide forcing the two currents into a giant whirlpool of shifting surges. The ocean was still thousands of paddle strokes away, yet it pulled the water away from the land, showing long, muddy flats.
“There,” Jacques said, pointing with his paddle to a headland far ahead jutting out into the river.
“Among the rocks?”
“It will be easier than it looks to land there,” Sokanon continued to calm Bright-Dawn.
“In the dark?”
“It will be well,” Sokanon assured. “We have done it many times. Ready yourself to step out and help hold the canoe fast.”
“I am ready.”
They were hard against the rock shelf, scrambling out one after the other to first steady, then lift the craft onto the broad ledge.
“It is lighter than I thought,” Bright-Dawn said.
“The sky clears to make it colder tonight,” Joseph said, turning his face into the cold breeze that blew straight up the river.
Bright-Dawn turned her back to it, tossed the blanket over her head.
“We can shelter with the rocks behind us,” Sokanon said. “Make a fire and rest.”
“It will be hard sleeping.”
Sokanon nodded. “We will not be long here.” She motioned to Jacques and Joseph. “They will want to depart again before dawn.”
Bright-Dawn showed her fatigue.
“We are to hurry you to Tadousac,” Sokanon reminded.
“Yes. I’m grateful. —To you all.”
She reached her hand to Joseph’s. He brought his view down from the stars in the clear sky again.
——————
“I knew your friend would sleep well,” Jacques said to Bright-Dawn’s heavy breathing. “Even among the rocks,” he joked.
The flames of the fire danced and whipped in the wind. She followed beyond where the sparks flew away to die in the water.
“What is that island, Jacques?”
“Île aux Coudres,” he said.
“The island of hazel bushes?”
“There is a seminary for priests.”
The darkness drew in closer. She pulled Jacob tighter.
“I remembered the swirling water we passed through.”
“The whirlpool? It is called the Gouffre, named by Champlain himself a hundred and fifty years ago.”
“How do you know so many things, Jacques?”
“I watch,” he said. “I listen.”
“You always make it, as you do now, so you were there hundred fifty years ago, with the man Champlain.”
“I’m not that old.” There was weariness in his dry laugh.
“We stopped there,” she broke into the quiet again, “the island. I know it now. It is why I asked. On the way to Chicoutimi, in my father’s canoe. One of the Black Robes from the school joined us there.” She felt his hands again. “He was the one, Jacques, the one who picked me up and escaped with me, away from the warriors who were killing the others, my mother and father.”
“I am glad that it was a fellow Brother of Jesus.”
She didn’t want to say, how she thought of the man many times, when she was old enough to understand. That she knew he was afraid for himself. That he carried her so the others that were escaping might help him more, with a child in his arms. The way he’d hidden deep down in the canoe to shield himself from the guns of the raiders as the others paddled hard to flee.
“The first bullets came as hornets,” she finally said. “But they whistled just before the thuds into the men, their backs and chests.” She shuddered. “Then the warriors came screaming, painted in black and red, just as those who attacked Aubert.”
“Just as your brother.”
“And, just as Joseph against them they struck and pounded with their war clubs. I saw it over the shoulder of the man who ran with me. He was afraid, Jacques. I knew it later, he was afraid for himself.”
“If he was, then his fear saved your life.”
“I thought they were to leave me at Tadousac,” she couldn’t stop now. “They argued with the Black Robe against taking me with them. But he made them. And he held me close, for the first time as we slept that night. And then again the next night. When I cried out that time, the men were mad at the Black Robe, made him sleep away from the fire. Away from me.”
“The robe offers only what you are inside of it.”
She felt his discomfort.
“The Black Robe argued with the men again when we returned to the island as you call, aux Coudres. He wanted me to stay there, I knew. But I kept calling for Father Armand, and they bore me away instead with them back to Quebec.”
“It is well they did. How old were you?”
She shrugged and shook her head. “The Ursuline sisters have told me I was seven or eight years. Do you think, Jacques—” she said as he was quiet. She’d never thought it before. “Do you think that maybe the warriors would have taken me prisoner, too, to be raised with my brother as Mohawk Iroquois?”
“It matters not any more, Marie. Your parents would still have been dead. And you were old enough to remember what they’d done, you would have rebelled. You have once again met your brother—by an amazing stroke of providence. And now the same providence I’m certain, shows itself to you through your son. Maybe it is blasphemous, but as I have said, it is hard not to see a great connection between you and the God of all things. His hand on you. It is a wonder to me, after all I’ve done, to be witness to it.”
“What have you done, Jacques? Have you need to confess it—have you to Father Pierre?”
He was quiet.
“Tell me,” she said. “I am curious. And that I may be as witness to you.”
He showed he did not want to say for the others to hear.
Or maybe it was an excuse for him to not say.

47

Jacob finished and she propped him into a bed of blankets next to the canoe. She felt the nearness of the Saguenay coming down from the north and listened to the swells, the tide from the ocean joining with the river of her birth. She stretched on her knees to dip her hand, touch her wet fingers to her lips. To Jacob’s. While crows and seabirds cawed and screeched. All the sounds were held as magic in the solid air.
“They call to us, maybe,” she said soft and his eyes stopped their wild ranging to focus on hers. She thought she would never tire of looking into them. “The birds feel our presence. They speak with voices of all our ancestors, maybe. And the water makes its rhythm,” she said of the surf. “The rhythm that will carry your father’s body to the great ocean, where he will drift forever around the world.”
She squinted with her face up to the dense fog.
“It is round, you know, little one—this world. I do not know how. But it is as I have been told by the Sisters who raised me, with their education. ‘Look at the sun,’ they say. ‘The moon—they are round’. Maybe everything is round.” She cupped her hands and laughed. There was never a time when she felt in so good spirits. “Maybe we are being held in the Hands of God the Father. Protected from what is outside the round. While the Great Mysterious Spirit watches over us inside, causes us to joy and grief, gain and loss.”
Her ring called to her presence, as it hadn’t as never before since Father Armand had given it. Even at first, when it was only a golden object of beauty and pride, it was at her thoughts, in her hand, most constantly. “Sister will be worried for us, Jacob.”
Footfalls from the trees took her attention. The heavy steps told of Jacques pushing his huge frame through the brush. He had to come close to see them through the mist.
“I am glad I do not interrupt a more intimate rendezvous with your child,” he said, his voice low.
“Jacob has already fed.”
“I—” he stopped and was to himself again. The mystery of mysteries changed over and again in his expression as he stared and looked away from her son in turns. What happened at the shrine at Beaupré was most in his thoughts now. He returned to the world made flesh and motioned with his head. “They are quickly becoming close, Joseph and your friend.”
“Yes.” She peered into the nothingness all around.
“It is not only for the chance to travel blind on the water. I do not trust such a dense mist, that can hide adversaries when we land at Tadousac.”
“I know, Jacques.”
“Joseph is with the same thought. Although I feel the chance of it very doubtful.” He crouched to set his finger into Jacob’s. “We should have pushed through the night. It can only be three miles across the bay to there.”
“We should have stopped before the night came. We would not be so tired, and would be paddling close to shore this morning, even in the fog.”
“I thought we could make it. Joseph was right to say we could not. Especially after your friend had been worn out.”
“Wet through, and freezing, too.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“It is good for her.”
Jacques caught his smile. “That it was penance for her, or that it gave them the excuse to sleep in close company for her warmth?”
“You speak too crude,” she scolded.
“Yes. I’m sorry.”
“Agnes Marie is yet married. And only a short while until her holy vows would make her not so. Make her a bride for Jesus.”
Jacques stood. Crossed his hands in front of him. “I truly ask your forgiveness.”
She caught her laugh away at his contrition.
“You tease,” he said. “Now you are the crude one.”
“Yes, Jacques,” she grinned soft. “Although it is not right, what Bright-Dawn has done. At least it was done before she had made herself into the sisters to the citizens. The talk would be worse.” She put her head down. “There would be shame for Sister and Mother.”
“I know why you had to come, now. To make sure she didn’t try and change her mind again. You were to leave her at Tadousac, even if no one from her Tribe appears.”
She stared back toward their camp. “I do not know how it will be now, with Joseph.”
Jacques showed surprise. “He will return with us,” he said in his full voice. “He must,” he lowered his tone, “he can return in the spring, if he and your friend will be together.”
“It is his canoe now, Jacques.”
“I don’t give a damn,” he swore. He paced a few steps. “This is why you should have stayed behind.”
“You would have brought Agnes Marie back with you.”
He breathed. “So, she’s out of the Ursuline’s care, and into ours.”
“It has been, since we left.”
“Of course,” he sighed his exasperation.
They were quiet for a moment.
“There is another chapel to Saint Anne at Tadousac,” she said.
His brow rose. “I do not believe I wish to witness another miracle.”
“No. I mean that if there is a missionary there, priest or brother, they must have to care for Agnes Marie. If you tell them.”
“Why would they listen to me?”
“You will tell them that Bright-Dawn is Catholic. And that her husband strikes her, contrary to the laws of Christian marriage. And that she wishes to return to her mother’s village, to live as a Christian with her first people.”
He shook his head. “You are the most astute woman I have ever met.”
She peered up into the fog again. “My Isaac would know exactly where to paddle. To cross the bay. “He would feel the two currents, where the river is coming into the channel. He would then know when we were here or there. Even in the mist.”
“Your husband was from Nova Scotia. Born to the water.”
“I was born not far from here,” she said instead, “you know, Jacques, up the course of the Saguenay river to the north.”
“Near the mission at Chicoutimi,” he said.
“You have been to the mission, as well?”
“No, I have not. But I will endeavor to there, if asked.”
She smiled and gave a nod. “Father Claude Coquart is the one who built the Tadousac chapel. Unless he has retired to the school on the island of hazel bushes, he should yet be missionary leader at Chicoutimi.”
“I have heard of Father Coquart, but I have never met him.”
“He was confessor at the Hospital after Father Armand died, before the British came to Quebec. He left, but was forced to return by the British ships. He stayed at the Ursuline convent when the British took over the Jesuit College after the battle. When we talked I understood he was leader at Chicoutimi mission when we were to there, when my father was to take the others. He said he thought he remembered my family, that maybe it was my father who took him once to mission to Tribes at Lac Saint-Jean.” Jacob’s green eyes were for her again. “Father Coquart was the one who gave the blessing for our marriage.”
“You have traveled far to meet so many of my countrymen.”
“It is the ones who trap, and Christian men in robes, Jacques, who cause to travel far.”
“I only travel now,” he said, “because you do.”
“We are grateful, forever.” She brushed at Jacob’s head. “What are you born to, Jacques?”
He leaned on the canoe. “I was born in a town called Rouen.”
She sat straighter at the new thing they had in common. “I remember the sisters speaking of the place called Rouen. They say, where there are many beautiful churches.”
“A cathedral city. A beautiful city.”
“I thought you were born here. And a voyageur.”
He shook his head. “I worked for the Hudson Bay Company for a while when I first came from Europe. That is where I learned to paddle and handle a canoe in all types of water. But I never learned to trap or skin very well.”
“You were not a hunter?”
“No.”
His face became pained. She pushed to know why. “What did you do in Rouen—in Europe?” She guessed it was from where he was escaping.
“I went off to war at a very young age,” he continued slow. “I was—” he caught his words, “very good at it.”
There was delight in his voice, and she saw the spark, for a moment, flash in his eyes. She felt herself cringe away a little. From a man she trusted as much as any other. “You liked the killing in battle,” she spoke.
He stayed silent.
“My husband, Isaac,” she spoke again, “he told of the excitement of warriors. How men can be taken over by the blood of battles. I have seen this excitement in the warriors who came to kill my mother and father. And also those in uniforms, with cannons, and great ships, who attack each other for the rule of land. Even with the same God of their enemies.”
“I hope you do not think me that way now.”
“I saw how you charge to fight those Mohawk warriors after Three Rivers. Also, that you did not kill them.” The rush of emotions flushed into her. “Was it by God—that it was you to spare his life, and not Joseph to kill him?”
“Yes, that weighs on me, too. How—why—I was chosen to be at your side through this part of your journey.”
“I only know that Father Pierre is a wise man. I have said before, I see he tests you also.”
He was to himself still.
“It matters not to me Jacques, especially after what has happened at Beaupré. I also only know I am glad for your help. How was it, that you came to New France then, to be chosen for my journey?”
His look returned rigid. “You have heard, my English is perfect enough to fool the British. I was charged by my government to work in clandestine affairs. I also know to speak Ojibwa and Huron. But do not tell Joseph.”
“I will not. But I do not know this, clandestine.”
“I was a spy, acting as if British.” His voice rattled. “I worked for Hudson Bay only to gather information on the company’s operations. Until the war between our countries started. Then I, well, I will only say that my superiors ordered me to more serious matters, than only gathering information.”
“More, serious matters,” she said.
It was what he did not want to tell.
The unseen birds continued to cry out their calls and whistles.
“What, Jacques?” she pressed. “You will say, everything to me.”
He pressed his fingers hard to his brow. “I have already told Father Pierre. You are to be my confessor, too?”
“I have already said. I will know your secrets, Jacques. We are, as I hear many people in Quebec say to each other, confidantes. Why do you now wear the black robe, even though I see your effort to have faith that is true?”
“Why do you wear the two-hearted Jesus and Mary ring around your neck—and carry the rosary in your native bag of talismans?”
“You tease, when you know you should not.”
“Yes. It is enough, Marie, for you to know that I was a royal spy, in the direct employ of the crown of France. And, there were times—more than I will ever say—when I had to silence those who might, find me out. War is one thing, this other…”
She followed as he looked up into the trees, where together they watched the fog drift through the branches. He was hidden in the mist in his clandestine, concealed yet knowing where to strike.
He rubbed his hands together.
She had seen their strength, even when he used them both clumsy and gentle. Strength enough to kill, silently, without weapons. She knew. There was murder on those hands. She had always known.
Jacques stood straighter and stretched. “It was the first time I ever confessed, that to Father Pierre.”
She stared, curious.
“I was never a good Catholic,” he said. “I was not a good child and was put out by my mother and father before I came of age. I have not seen them since. I survived by being good at hiding in the shadows of things,” he said.
“You were also as an orphan.”
“Not as you, Marie.”
“It is worse, maybe, to be sent away by your mother and father. Is it enough for me, to see my brother?”
He was quiet, didn’t answer.
She thought to ask him once more, one more time, if he was hiding still. “It is much of you I did not know.”
“It is enough then,” he said again. “Come away now, you and your son to the morning meal. I have forgotten it is what I have come to say. That there will soon be coffee. Biscuits of flour that Joseph and your friend have mixed with bacon grease.”
———— (dbl sp)
Bright-Dawn held out a mug of coffee. “It is always you I think of, when I drink it.”
Sokanon nodded her thanks. She smelled at the cup, so near with her friend from then, and let the aroma distract her mind. Sister Marie Catherine thinking it a vice, for the drinker to seek its quickened energy. Mother Superior Marie-Anne saying it was well, long as they used the energy for good. But the coffee was boiled in secret, away from the eyes of the priests, even though the sisters knew they could not hide the aroma. The merchant Van Hove, come from Montreal with small bags hidden from the traders in Quebec, and it was always she who would retrieve it from him. The mug warmed between her hands and she sipped at the hot drink, tasting of all the years of her life.
The soft rustle overhead had them all look up.
“The trees move,” Joseph said.
“There is wind to push the mist away,” Sokanon said to Bright-Dawn.
“It is not far now,” Jacques said.
“Yes,” Joseph agreed. “The crossing will be swift.”
———— (dbl sp)
“It is as if we are lost in the clouds,” Bright-Dawn said.
“It will clear soon,” Sokanon said to her nervousness. “We can already see the water. It shows the mist will rise under the wind.” But the feeling was ghostly, paddling in the air made solid. It tasted it on her lips. Why it was not salty, as the water?
She felt for the currents, pressed to flatten her feet against the floor of the canoe as Isaac had taught. She waited. And there it was. The flow of the Saguenay river coming into the channel from the north. Swells were deeper, higher, tidal. Seabirds continued their sounds, loud from everywhere and nowhere. Then an opening around them in the fog, as if giving way to the canoe, sparkling shimmers of light shining at the edges. Sunlight trying to come through.
The water boiled to one side, then the other. Bright-Dawn shrieked at it. Sokanon startled too, turned her head back and forth to see the white whales, long as the canoe, swirling at the surface. Bright-Dawn shrieked again as they appeared, two, then three, then more. Jacques and Joseph caught their paddles, all of them taken in by the sudden emergence of phantoms.
The whales swam with them, pushing the water over blunt snouts, up and over bumpy heads. Forked tails lifting and slapping. They dove and came up again, spitting from holes atop their heads that showered with spray that smelled of something deeper than the salt sea. The smell of life and waste at the same time.
“Mon Dieu,” Jacques cried.
“They are as if they would crush and devour us,” Bright-Dawn said.
“It is well,” Sokanon calmed her. But the vision of Isaac’s bare body came again, drained white as the whales, who might, maybe devour him. She thought maybe he wouldn’t mind, even if she couldn’t bear the thought.
One of the creatures brushed along the canoe and she reached her hand toward the bulging head, black eye staring right at her. It turned away and then on its back, showing a stomach swollen with new life. She touched her own stomach while further away a smaller whale, darker and half the size, swam alongside another, working to keep in unbroken touch its mother.
Again and again they nudged the canoe, teeth showing from mouths that appeared to smile. They made sounds as if they were playing, laughing, squealing, chattering to each other. Talking to those who were paddling the canoe across their home.
“They are all as children,” she said.
“They know we are not hunters,” Joseph said.
“They guide us along our way,” Sokanon agreed.
She joined the others again at their paddles, slow sweeps, careful entry into the water. The pregnant one was gone with her young, as beasts even larger closed in upon the canoe, like bull moose maybe, herding the cows and calves from danger. The herd moved away, a few tails showing, sprays shooting up from breathing holes, then they were gone, the water flat and unmoved as if the great fish were never there.
“There is the shore,” Bright-Dawn called and the two round hills showed, side by side that welcomed the entrance to the bay where Tadousac stood. “It is as you said, Marie. The beasts did not eat us, but have shown the way.”
“The glory to God and his creations,” Jacques said.
Sokanon heard the confession in his voice. She wondered if she would always hear it now.
——————
The quiet attraction of the little settlement opposed her dark memories. The post on the rise, worn track in the grass leading up. Faded red paint on high-peaked roof. Ragged rough wood fence, tall planks cut to sharp points on top. Chapel standing away, in better condition than she thought a building should be, even a church building, exposed so to the fierce weather up the great channel.
“The first trading station in New France,” Jacques said of Tadousac.
She watched Bright-Dawn and Joseph going up the track toward the outpost, muskets in Joseph’s hands for exchange. “I— I was as a child since I was last here.” The view continued to disarm her. “I do not remember.”
Forested hillside climbed behind the buildings, fog yet twisting through leaves of changing colors swaying in the light breeze. As if a painting in one of the homes in Quebec, or Montreal. She peered along the rise, followed the woods line to the few Native homes rested at the edge of the trees. “There are not many wigwams.”
“They appear to be in good order, but unoccupied,” Jacques said, “Are you still in mind to abandon your friend here, at whatever her detriment?”
“Detriment, Jacques?” A spirit of peace was with her, the mother whale in her thoughts. She brought her attention back to the little church house, Its cross atop the peaked roof to announce the presence of the Christian God to all who neared the post. “Was the chapel here, when I was as a girl?”
“That, I do not know. It is in very good repair.”
“I remember workers, building at some task. Maybe it was the chapel.” She shook her head. “But maybe it was work of some other.” She tucked her hands under her folded arms against the cold.
Jacques motioned to the post, his eyes up to the smoke from its chimney. “Are we to stand in this damp cold, when there is a warm fire inside?”
“I only needed to watch, for a while. I feel as if the whales were telling me to this place. It is fine, with the hills looking down onto the bay.”
“Not so fine, I’m certain, when the winter brings its full wrath. It is why the settlers to the new land were able to build first here. The Native people know not to live here in permanent homes.”
“Yes. And knowing the long river yet goes far to the north. To where the snow falls deep, yet it is not so cold amongst the forests. To where are my mother and father’s people.”
“Your people, Marie. —But at some other time,” he said. “If you will.”
Jacob shivered when she threw back the cover over the head ring of the cradleboard and felt his cheeks, pink with warmth. She brought him out from the canoe, carrying the board in her arms as they went up the sandy rise.
He waited for her to enter first through the open gate of the trading post.
She halted. “I am always of my own survival, Jacques. Even with yours and Joseph’s help. That of Father Armand and Father Pierre. Sister and Mother. Isaac. Jacob’s we-eh’s of the Ojibwa women.” She stared. “Even after Beaupré, with my son’s eyes. When will be, the life of my own? When can I know, God has taken the last from me? As you said, all the powers of the world are maybe of the life of my children and myself. Maybe here, with my people, I can be where not to worry of the world.”
He was lost to his thoughts, staring himself to Jacob.
“Jacques—” She put her hand to his arm. His muscles were taut, clenched.
He nodded. Pressed his lips together. “It was better when his eyes were black, even though I could not understand the reason for it. For I see them as they are now, after what has happened, and I understand even less.”
She wanted to say it didn’t need to be understood. That she wouldn’t even try, in the new lightness that was opening to her senses. She said nothing more and walked before him through the gate.
———— (dbl sp)
“Brother,” the trader man past Joseph and Bright-Dawn.
“Sir trader,” Jacques returned his greeting.
“I am Jean Blanchet.”
“I am Jacques. This is Marie, and her son Jacob.”
“Welcome Brother.” His gazed roved between their four. “We saw you only as you landed.”
It spoke to the danger of concealment in the fog.
Sokanon saw Blanchet’s we then, in the open, but so still as to disappear before the wares stacked and hung and leaned all around. The slight Native woman, eyes piercing and aware. She watched close, gazed her interest to Jacob as Sokanon sat on a crate and propped the cradleboard down on the floor to lean against her knee.
“Welcome to you all,” Blanchet said. “I was telling your companions, I don’t know when the Abenaki might come again to the post. I never do. But I expect a few more to come in before the winter sets in. And even more, if they know I have been resupplied. But, I was just getting ready to say, I cannot trade in weapons, gunpowder, or shot, to any of the Indians.” He gave a quick glance to the woman, who was wary of the exchange.
“You can give other trade for these muskets,” Joseph said.
Blanchet leaned away from the counter. “By the law, I probably should not.” He addressed Jacques again. “I don’t know how much longer the British will allow me my posting here.”
Sokanon saw the money again, tossed into the flow of the creek, the paper colored red and black being taken away, out to the great river. She was glad to be rid of it, paid on Isaac’s soul. But she understood now, more than ever before, the power of governments beyond armies and warships.
“The muskets are all perfect working condition,” Joseph said.
“I can see that.” Blanchet lowered his brow again. “But, because of their perfect condition, how do I know they have not been stolen?”
“You do not say,” Joseph defended.
“They have been rightfully gained, sir,” Jacques asserted.
Sokanon thought it was not a lie. But, by the law, they probably had stolen the muskets. At least those of Christie’s men. Even if taken in self defense. She wondered of those from Aubert and his men. Or her brother and his companions. That of the frozen man. Her thoughts dropped away for the sight and sound of prying the weapon from his frozen fingers.
“No weapons,” Blanchet continued, “but the British are allowing the sale of liquor to the tribes.” He pointed to the barrels of spirits.
“And you are selling it to them,” Jacques charged.
“It is what they want.” Blanchet stiffened again. He was self-conscious of the woman. “The good priest at Chicoutimi is said to be chastising his flock more often than not.”
Sokanon stood. “Is it Father Coquart, yet at the mission?”
The woman’s eyes narrowed, going from Jacob to her.
Blanchet’s stare also ranged. “You all speak French well. You are not the usual visitors. Especially at this late season. Yes,” he said to Sokanon, “Father Coquart is the priest there. He is a good man, but we hear the Montagnais up the Saguenay are becoming more unruly. They fear the British are making preparations toward appropriating more of their land. There are, rumors,” he said nervously.
“Rumors?” Jacques asked.
Sokanon was impatient for his answer. But she saw he knew.
Blanchet held his hands up in front of him. “I am French, you know. Many of the British still show their mistrust, and wish to replace me with one of their own officials.”
“What of the chapel?” Sokanon asked.
“Yes,” Jacques was keen for the answer.
“There is no one now,” Blanchet said. “But Father Coquart sent a volunteer down from the mission last winter to seclude himself there as a monastic. Perhaps it will be the same this year, but—” he shrugged. “the man was nearly starved, and spent many weeks here in the post.”
Sokanon looked away from Jacques, his rebuke warning, sharp.
“We are here to wait for her people,” Joseph interrupted, motioning to Bright-Dawn at his side.
Blanchet’s gaze was full of questions again. Sokanon thought the woman knew the answers. Even as her interest returned to Jacob.
“We must trade.” Joseph brought attention back to the muskets.
Blanchet’s reticence was feigning. “I suppose—” He studied the guns again. Lifted one of them.
Sokanon saw his muted gleam, the profit flashing once more as he inspected the weapon, set it down for another.
“Very well conditioned,” he said, testing the flint striker and powder frizzen of the flash pan. “I will give the fair price,” he offered then.
“We do not want paper bills,” Joseph told him. “Only food, and blankets.”
“Of course,” the trader said. “Goods, only. There will be no bill of sale.”
He gave no mind to the woman who quietly left the room.
Sokanon shied from Jacques’ stern posture to release Jacob into her arms.

48

She knelt with Jacob in their house to bundle him into the carrier. He was fed and content, flashing his clear eyes while playing with her ring on its cord. Blanchet leaned on the counter, making notes to paper, talking to himself of the counts of the trade goods. His glances were uncomfortable, but at least they weren’t as those of Christie’s men. Disdain, not as that of Douglas who was more arrogant, intolerant, yet she knew his word could be trusted. She thought this Blanchet might only see other people by how he could gain from them.
Elise-White Owl moved silently around. Older than him, by more than ten years Sokanon thought. He showed superiority to her, but that he was always careful not to push at her too hard. It was easy to see her life lived between two worlds, as she and Agnes Marie. When she disappeared behind the door to their private quarters, Blanchet followed.
Their words were in her Maliseet language, until his voice rose and he spoke in French to argue with her. About she and Jacob, their staying in the house. He stopped abruptly and Elise reentered the room. Blanchet followed, brusque admonition for Sokanon as he walked past her outside.
“You and your child are welcome to stay as long as you wish,” Elise said in well-educated French.
Sokanon gave a polite smile and exchanged a nod. “Je vous remercie,” she thanked her. “It has been already two days. Jacques will not allow us to remain much longer.”
She saw her wanting to move closer, reach for Jacob.
Elise straightened her apron. “I was, with the last trader,” she said.
Sokanon knew.
“He worked with the French government at Quebec,” Elise went on, “as agent to the tribes here. I was Christian, and spoke good French, and he brought me away from my village to stay with him, to help at the post. When he returned to his family, I remained here with the new agent.” She continued in her relaxed manner, wiping at the front of her dress again. “Jean is a decent man. At least I am his only family.”
Another reach for Jacob across the distance between them.
“He is afraid,” Elise explained. “That the British will come any day and send him from here, with nowhere to go. He does not want to go with me to my people. I am not sure I could go back.”
That she could return any time to the sisters at Quebec made it unseemly to ask her what she would do. But she didn’t know of herself either.
She brought up Jacob. “Thank you,” she said again and went outside. She waited for Blanchet to go farther beyond the gate. “I am unsure of many things, my son,” she whispered over her shoulder.
She shifted his weight and stared at the bundles of furs stacked against the side wall of the trading post. The numbers and writing on the canvas covers searched back in her thoughts the long from to Gichigami. Isaac’s cheerful confidence making his own marks on their bundles. Directing to the confrontation with Aubert, the authorities at Detroit, Christie’s men. With her brother and his raider companions. Cruel taunting as a shroud for Aubert’s dead and mutilated body.
She turned away, through the gate, past the chapel and Jacques inside. It came again, wondering that he might be for the chapel. Maybe he would chase his dark memories in monastic prayer. That together with Bright-Dawn and Joseph, they could all dull their dark memories for the rugged solitude here. It would be spring, and then summer, until the baby would be born. But she knew Jacques wouldn’t have it for her. Two days already, and he was anxious to return to Quebec. He would make her into the canoe, steal it from Joseph and paddle it himself she knew.
She went a little further so he would not see her through a window and stop his prayers, maybe for the mysteries of the world. Back up beyond the post, up the hillside to where Bright-Dawn and Joseph were yet working on the wigwam, the two of them sharing the lodge from the first night. Readying now it for the winter, just in case. There was a mystery, she thought. How the two of them were found to each other. She returned her friend’s wave as Bright-Dawn saw her in the distance.
The canoes were there, then, rounding the point into the bay. She wondered immediately if they were from Chicoutimi. A Montreal’er full with paddlers and gear. Two smaller vessels trailed just behind with crews of tribesmen. The bay was calm and flat, and the ripples ran far from the canoes, one chasing the others on the surface. Voices echoed, calls from Blanchet and the paddling company back and forth.
Jacques exited the chapel and didn’t see her. Even if she couldn’t tell his excitement, it was certain this new occurrence would hasten their departure.
“Jacques,” she called him and he waited for her and they went to where Elise stood at the gate to the post.
“It is the last of the voyageurs come from their season of trapping.”
But there was something more as Sokanon started down the beach with Jacques. She stopped when she saw him. Stared when he stepped from the big cargo canoe. Took a step and halted again, eyes fixed on the man who would be her father. His greatcoat of caribou, she knew by instinct. Fine, softened gray leather, designs of red, yellow, green, blue. Scrollwork not beading, she also knew at once. Embroidered and painted. Magnificent. Same as her mother had done for her father’s coat, in the style of the Montagnais. Innu.
For a moment she wanted to run and throw her arms around him, her thoughts confused in the time of the world. But the man was young, as her father would look all those years ago. Not the grandfather he would be today.
He leaned to reach where she could not see behind the other men, and there she saw herself, the girl lifted from the canoe into his arms, to carry to dry land. Set down to stand, scared. Sokanon moved closer, the voices of the others fading as bits and pieces of the languages swirled all around her.
The girl looked up to meet her. “Kuei,” she said with a confident smile.
“Kuei,” Sokanon returned, the word for hello coming to her from the growing place of memories.
The man studied Sokanon closely. He said something to her she knew was Montagnais, but it was too much, too fast, and she was upset that she could not understand.
“Français?” she said to him.
Disappointment followed his vacant look as he stood mute.
“I say, French,” the girl spoke. She came closer.
“Âpikusîs,” her father called, surprised at her easy manner to slip from his reach.
She stopped, scrunched her nose. “Chloé Sainte-Marie,” she told him.
Âpikusîs. Sokanon repeated the word to herself, her mind swirling then with memories. Âpikusîs—the baby mouse at the island of white trees that would sneak into the wigwam and feed from her hand.
“Christian,” the girl said, reaching up to touch her ring hanging outside her smock.
Sokanon brought her hand gently to the side of the girl’s face, close enough now to see the pockmarks, same as hers, but not as many, the same survival of disease. The father’s grasp was to his daughter’s shoulder, back to his side.
Sokanon stared long into his eyes, his apprehension strange.
But the years fell away again when he stepped from the canoe amongst the men trudging ashore with their loads. She drew a step back, recognizing the Jesuit brother. He who carried her in his arms, running with her from the warriors. She knew it was him, even with his face scraggly, his black robe ragged. He gave no thought or care to her staring at him while he shuffled around, lost in some self thought, looking tired, worn out.
He started at the men then, trying to give orders. The tribesmen ignored him, while the voyageurs nodded from custom, if not respect. He was saying to one of them that they were to leave soon. The man spoke English back to him, as if he did not know French, continuing with his work. Some of the others laughed and the black robe stood still for a moment, his eyes wide, while the workers hauled past him. She waited for him to see her again, but he was to himself and he drew away down the beach, angry.
The canoemen were louder, as if the absence of the man of Jesus had freed their wildness, their language rough and animated.
“Come,” Sokanon said to the girl and her father, motioning for them to follow out of the way, toward the post.
The girl squirmed away from her father again to play with Jacob’s feet through the blanket.
“Âpikusîs.”
“Chloé Sainte-Marie,” she corrected her father again.
He started to scold but Jacques arrived, sweeping his gaze from the commotion at the shore to Sokanon, to the father and daughter, back to her. “Who are your friends, Marie?”
“Marie?” The girl’s eyed widened. “Chloé Sainte-Marie,” she said of herself.
Sokanon smiled. “I do not know who they are, Jacques. But they are Montagnais.”
He cast his caution to the canoes. “As are the others, so wild.”
“They all are.”
“Yes. I have heard enough to know the two Britishmen are in charge, but I do not know how just yet. Only that the one there, is the captain. The voyageurs are anxious to leave for Quebec. They are all worn from the many months in the wilderness.”
The reason didn’t matter. He would use their hurry if he had to, to rush her away. Regardless of Joseph. She thought how well it would be for Bright-Dawn.
“It seems strange the tribesmen are here,” Jacques said. “Especially one with a young child.”
“They do not speak French. The girl may know a little, but I do not believe much. I cannot follow the words in Montagnais.”
“You are, saddened by that.”
How easy he saw it.
“The daughter is Chloé Sainte-Marie. I do not yet know the father.”
“Miristou (Pastedechouan?),” the man said, understanding the exchange.
“Anglais?” Jacques asked.
Sokanon was hopeful, but the man shook his head.
He spoke to them in Innu as before. He thought to try the language of signs and pointed from his daughter to the Brother who was farther down the beach. Pointed to the canoes, pushed his hand to show movement up the great river.
“The girl is his niece,” Elise said, coming near.
Not father and daughter. Sokanon felt the disappointment. His way with her bothered then.
The man waited while Elise addressed him.
He spoke.
“She is the daughter of his sister,” Elise passed his words on— “His sister was taken by Atikamekw raiders. She was Christian, and after some days, she was brought back to their village by a black robe. It was found out later that she had been made pregnant by one of the warriors.”
Elise pointed to the girl.
“Her mother died last winter, along with the girl’s grandparents—Miristou’s and the sister’s parents—from the smallpox sickness. His wife,” Elise continued, “is not Christian. She blames them for the sickness, and is afraid for their own children.”
The uncle halted to look down to his niece, then away. He went on.
“She does not treat the girl well.”
Sokanon understood the story. It was her story. She felt the need to draw Chloé closer to her. She searched after the brother. “He is to take her. Where?”
Elise asked Miristou.
His eyes darted to Sokanon.
“He is taking her to the Christian school of women,” Elise gave his answer.
“What school?” Sokanon felt the suspicion rise. The schools had ceased taking in girl’s from the tribes even before she was brought to the Ursulines. She started to say, but asked instead— “Does Father Coquart send her?”
“He is not certain,” Elise answered, “he has only spoken with Brother Henri.”
Sokanon shivered at the sound of his name. She remembered. Remembered when one of the other men took her away from Brother Henri in the night, to sleep by herself at the fire. She wanted to gather up Chloé, for what—she wasn’t sure.
“What is it, Marie?”
“Not here, Jacques.”
The girl tugged at her. “Marie?”
Sokanon smiled, nodded. “Yes.”
The little one brightened, shook Jacob’s foot and questioned.
“Jacob,” Sokanon told her.
——————
The glow from the low flames rolling in the firepit danced all around the wigwam. Sokanon held Jacob to her and listened to the wind blowing outside. It hissed as it came against the lodge, finding its way through the cracks in the frame. Cold. But she was just as warm, warmer, than at the Blanchet house.
Joseph and Agnes Marie lay together, behind the screen, and she thought of the night in Sakima and Kiwidinok’s lodge, husband with the younger, second wife, Ominotago. Maybe the raging storm then was trying to tell them. Warn them.
“Isaac,” she called softly to herself.
Jacob gurgled at her whisper, but fell away from her, asleep.
She chased her unsettled thoughts in the flickering shadows across the dome above the fire. Quiet to stand and pull her smock on over her head. The screen pulled open, the fire reflecting in Joseph’s eyes on her for a moment before he lay back again. She sat to retie the moccasins up her legs. Bright-dawn rose to her elbow and watched curious until Sokanon motioned to Jacob. The understanding was there, her friend swinging the curtain open so she could watch Jacob. Sokanon gathered one of the blankets for herself going outside.
The cold was sharp and she wrapped the blanket tight around her shoulders. The sky was gone, the trees overhead were gone, everything the same in the black night. She waited to let her eyes become used to the dark, listening to the surf roll into land. Down the rise, in the far way along the beach, was the tiny glow of the fire of the voyageurs and the Montagnais. Their voices were in the distance, and laughter.
She stayed atop the incline away from the shore, moving slowly, keeping hidden in the shadow of the trees. She watched close going by, looking down to the trappers and her tribesmen, awake and loud around the fire. Chloé was sleeping somewhere amongst the men passing the jug to each other. It bothered her again, the uncle refusing her offer for he and Chloé to join her in Bright-Dawn and Joseph’s lodge..
She walked, Jacob closer to her thoughts the farther away from him. A flash behind the window shudder of the trading post while sparks flew up from the chimney told of someone throwing firewood into the hearth inside. Where Brother Henri preferred to stay the night in the warmth of the house, making her choose gladly to the wigwam.
She stood quiet at the chapel, wondering if she shouldn’t just enter for Jacques. If she could make him for her. She looked up for the small cross on the roof and strained her sight until she saw it in the small gleam from somewhere. She started again, continuing on around the bay, toward the end of land at the river.
Her steps were heavy, shifting in the sand. The beach narrowed and the darkness grew nearer in front of her until she came to the wall of rock. She gathered the blanket over her neck and shoulders to climb. It was rough and gritty to her hands, scaling the few feet to stand at the top. The wind gusted, blowing spray from the surf, cold against her face. The rock rose high behind her, she couldn’t see it in the blackness, but during the daylight was pink and red, telling her the French name, Pointe Rouge.
Waves surged over the ledge, into the cracks and crevices, splashing high onto the stone. She backed away a few steps and sat, wrapping herself tight again in the blanket. Sleep seemed close and she laid onto her side, the feel and smell of the rough rock telling of the escarpment of Niagara. She squirmed until she found the ache in her shoulder to remind the wolf was real. The surf was constant, quieter than the great falls and she wondered as then, on the mysteries of God in the soothing sound of the living water. She held her ring and closed her eyes and let the rhythm dull.
———— (dbl sp)
She awoke from the dream, the vision of Isaac suddenly thrown from the waves onto the ledge in front of her. She sat up quickly, the cord catching in the coarse rock and snapping from her neck. The ring went off with a tiny chime and she grabbed after it, the jagged edge of a crevice sharp at her palm. She was mad to find the ring and felt on hands and knees, sliding her hands gently around, not believing it had gotten so far from her reach. Her fingers skipped across the barren surface, into empty cracks. 
She stayed in her place, sitting back on her haunches, too weary to laugh or cry. Not tired enough to be angry with herself for coming here, allowing the alone time to call her again, as she had so many times. Isaac understood, and let her to herself. She’d felt safe, whole, knowing he would be there when she returned. Jacob was the one to wait now, and he was too far away. She reproached herself for the distance she’d put between them, no matter how much she trusted him with her friends.
She felt around again, worried she might push the ring into a deep crevice, or farther down the shelf to fall into the water, never to be found. She took her knife and scratched at the stone, not caring the blade dulling as she carved a circle around her, deep as she could in the rock.
She stood, and there, over the dark heights, the clouds were giving way to the stars and the shimmering lights that slashed in the sky in waves, silver white, green blue. Aurora, she told herself. How Isaac said it would be a good name if their child was a girl. But he wasn’t sure it would be right, naming a child she would insist be baptized into the Christian faith, after an unholy goddess. She put her hand to her belly.
 “Aurora,” she said out loud. It caught on her tongue, harder to say than she thought it should be.
She wrapped the cord around her hand and started away, careful with her steps while she watched the waves of light grow overhead. They seemed to move with the same motion of the water. Down the short face of the rock shelf, moccasins pressing into soft sand again as she walked. The surf was quieted behind the embankment and she turned her ear to hear again the voices at the fire, louder. Louder, she thought, than just from their revelry. Closer. Shouting. Closer. Words of violence. And they were between her and Jacob. And close enough to see shapes moving in the space from the canoes to the post. She hurried along in the shadow of the tree line.
“Marie.”
It was Jacques, standing in the same hiding eclipse.
His calm voice dulled the sharp edges of her fear and she drew near him.
“Jacob is with Agnes Marie and Joseph,” she said.
“I knew as much when I saw you pass earlier. Come,” he said, halting her question, “we will go around the post to your son.”
“What is it?” she asked of the commotion.
They were interrupted by the blast of a musket shot. The echo of the discharge followed the flash reflected through the trees. Instinct drove her immediately toward the post, but Jacques’ hand was tight at her arm, halting her.
“The girl, Jacques,” she told him, pulling at his grip.
He held tighter.
“The uncle will take care of her,” he said. “Come!” he demanded. “We will not be involved this time.”
He dragged her along, bulling through the crude path worn through the woods, until the voices were behind them. She was anxious for Jacob, but grabbed hard at Jacques’ arm to halt. She squinted to see in the dark as they approached the wigwam.
“Joseph will be watchful,” she said, “call out to him first.”
He agreed and they sneaked closer.
“Joseph,” Jacques spoke to the darkness.
She stretched her neck to search the area again.
“Joseph,” Jacques called louder.
“Big man,” came his answer. “The child’s mother is gone.”
“I am here, Joseph,” Sokanon said.
He stood naked to the cold, musket at the ready.
Agnes Marie came from the lodge wrapped in a blanket. She draped another over Joseph’s shoulders and he gathered it around him in the way to leave his arm free to wield the weapon.
Sokanon moved past them to the door of the wigwam.
“He continues to sleep,” Bright-Dawn said.
“You must dress,” Sokanon said, pulling her to follow into the lodge.
Jacob was peaceful, even as Sokanon laid him into the cradleboard to be ready in case they had to leave quickly.
Bright-Dawn sat away, trying not to look afraid. “What has happened?”
“We do not know if there is trouble,” Sokanon told her. “Do not worry. You do not know of Joseph and Jacques. They are as two bears fighting. But we must be ready to escape into the forest if we have to.”
Agnes Marie shuddered. “What of Joseph?” she cried.
“He and Jacques will fight, if they have to. Dress.”
Her friend nodded, her eyes blinking slowly. She stood without the blanket, skin pale from her life spent indoors. Her worried look continued and Sokanon saw it then. It was with Joseph that she would feel safe here. Even if her Abenaki tribespeople showed.
“You continue your walks alone,” Bright-Dawn said.
Sokanon didn’t answer. She finished with Jacob. Laid her hand to feel the breaths in his chest. It scared her that if not for Jacques, she would have charged straight away for Chloé. She leaned back, the girl hard in her thoughts.
“What are we to do now?” Bright-Dawn asked.
“We wait.”
“Are you to sleep?”
“I do not believe I can. But sleep will come easier with Jacques and Joseph standing guard. I will wake early to watch for them, so they may rest.”
Morning was too far away to learn whatever trouble was at the post. The light of day would shine on it. And it would show the way back to find her ring. She wound the cord again around her fingers.
“Am I wrong, Marie? To leave my Christian life?”
Sokanon rested her head back, the question hard in her own thoughts. “You can not be Christian with the Abenaki?”
“Can I? But you know that’s not what I meant.”
“It is that you not only turn your back to the sisters, but your church vows to your husband.”
Of course it was. Bright-Dawn was silent.
“All I will say. Joseph is a good man.”
——————
Her sleep was light, waking through the night, listening for their stirrings outside. It was Jacob this time in her dream. As a young man, mask tied over his eyes, holding Isaac dying of sickness in his arms. She breathed heavy for a moment, rolled off the sleeping platform and stooped through the door of the wigwam. Jacques was alone in the crisp morning, sitting with his head down, asleep. She was able to touch his shoulder before he stirred awake.
“Marie,” he greeted, focused his eyes. “The dawn is yet to fully arrive.”
“Clouds have returned,” she said.
He looked up, tiredness in his eyes. “The aurora filled the sky, last I remember.”
“Maybe you slept well, then.”
He stood, stretched. “I am getting old.”
“Not too, old, Jacques.”
He peered around, covered his yawn with his hand. “Joseph has gone to see what transpired with our drunken friends.”
“It is quiet. Should we also go? I fear for the girl.”
His expression narrowed. “We have to wait for Joseph, Marie, you know that. At least to allow more light to show what may come to pass in the day.”
She squinted in the darkness, folded her arms against the cold. “Agnes Marie has rekindled the fire,” she told him. “There will be warm water soon to soften the hard biscuits for the morning meal. You did not eat yesterday. I know.”
They met each other’s gaze.
“I saw you last night from the window of the chapel,” he said.
She was silent, embarrassed.
“You were as a shadow,” he went on, “but I knew it was you. I was going to announce myself, but I understood you were for another of your times in quiet privacy. I am glad you returned when you did—I did not have to worry for you.”
She felt the distance close between them. The child inside of her called her away from him before a shape out on the river caught her attention.
“Jacques—look.”
She pointed to where it was crossing the bay of the Saguenay river toward that of the trading post..
“Your eyes are better than mine,” he said.
“The sail of the ship.”
“It is the last voyage from Sillery,” he said what she knew.
She remembered passing the ship at harbor. And the Tonnancour’s talking of it to each other in Quebec, while their generous offer for her to stay the winter at Sillery swam in her head. Shouts from the beach told they saw the ship too, and made her wonder if its sudden appearance would be good or bad.
“Here is Joseph,” Jacques said.
Sokanon was surprised at his sudden appearance, so close.
“I have talked with one of the voyageurs,” he said. “The Montagnais broke into the trading post last night.”
“For what purpose?” Jacques asked.
“They are angry not for powder and shot to hunt in the winter. They threatened Blanchet to show them where the arms are stored. There are four of them still in the post, holding the trader and one of the British men.”
“Holding?” Jacques said.
“What of Elise—” Sokanon pressed, “and the Montagnais girl?”
“The Blanchet woman is with those outside the post. They are using her to make their say to the Montagnais. I did not see a girl.”
Sokanon wanted to ask more of Chloé and her uncle. She tried to see down to the shore, through the trees to the post. “What was the gunshot?”
“The two Britishmen with the voyageurs are officers of those who own the fur and fishing rights to Tadousac and Chicoutimi. When the Montagnais tried to come from the post, the men ordered their arrest. The British man who is captain of the team tried to disarm one of the warriors and there was a fight, the man was wounded.”
“Wounded?” Sokanon said. “How badly?”
“It is only a scratch. But the four warriors took the other Anglais and retreated back into the post. The other tribesmen who could not be arrested, left in the night in their canoes. The captain wanted to arrest me, but I made him understand—I am not Montagnais.”
Sokanon pictured the man fearful of trying to arrest Joseph.
“The fools,” Jacques said, his voice full with scorn. “I am certain they see in the sober light of the day, the foolishness wrought in the drunkenness of the night.”
“Maybe they are still drinking,” Joseph mocked.
Sokanon stood away, the cord yet wrapped around her hand, the words in her mind. Foolishness in the night. She watched the fluttering sail in the distance. “Do they see the ship?”
“Yes,” Joseph said. “The Britishman tell those in the post that more authorities will land from the ship. The Montagnais yell back, threaten violence.”
“Would they dare?” Sokanon said.
“They would be dead fools then,” Jacques sneered.
“The Frenchmen trappers show much reluctance to the orders of the Anglais captain.” Joseph pointed up the river. “They are want to leave quickly for Quebec, and have told him to allow the warriors go, so long they do not steal anything from the post.”
Jacques huffed. “Well, there’s something. Have the two captives been harmed?” Jacques’ disbelief continued to sound in his high voice.
“None have been bad harmed, except the black robe.”
Sokanon heard Joseph’s sly delight at the plight of Brother Henri.
Bright-Dawn came from the lodge, she and Joseph greeting each other before he spoke again.
“When the Montagnais broke in, the man of Jesus ran out, afraid. He ran into a tree in the dark and knocked himself unconscious.” Joseph looked to Sokanon. “The Maliseet woman has tended to him, sewn and bandaged his head. His face is bruised and bloody, too. The Anglais is very angry,” he went on, “and vows to bring them to authorities, for them to take what he calls, hostages. He is for retribution, and threatens to charge the gate.”
“Fools, all around,” Jacques admonished.
“There is a morning meal,” Agnes Marie invited Joseph away from the troubling talk. She pulled at him when he was reluctant to retire with her.
Sokanon stood in the quiet, trying to imagine, hoping, that Chloé was away with her uncle.
Jacques glanced behind them. “Your friend has almost ceased looking to you for strength.” His voice was low. “I see how she would not want Joseph to leave her. They are attracted to each other so much, so quickly.”
Sokanon crossed her arms, held herself tight against her own attraction. She did not say how when she saw the Montagnais she thought it well a sign to return with them to Chicoutimi. To where she was born.
“I am very afraid for the girl,” she said.
“I know you are.”
“Maybe the uncle is one of the drunk fools in the post.”
“Or maybe he is one who fled—with the girl. You have to believe he will protect her.”
“He is to send her away, Jacques.”
“It is the way of things, sometimes.” His look was awkward. “You know that, better than most.”
It bothered her all at once, that he did not see. “I had nowhere else to go. You listened to Elise tell us, Miristou sends her away because of his wife, because that Chloé is, Christian.”
“I think there is more reason than that. The girl is a survivor of the pox, and the aunt fears for her own children, even if it is unwarranted fear. And the girl adds another mouth to feed. Perhaps it is difficult for this Miristou to provide enough. It is a concern for you, with your child and another to come soon, that the Montagnais community would be reticent to accept you into a probably already demanding habitation.”
“How much you know my thoughts. So much, so quickly.”
“My fondness for you has also grown much—quickly.”
She twisted her thoughts in the many paths that continued to change as much. As quickly.
His eyes were warm.
But movement behind the wigwam interrupted.
“Jacques,” she said softly.
He turned to follow her sight to the Montagnais tribesmen, wary to show themselves from the trees.

49

There was Miristou, without his niece.
“Âpikusîs?” she said. But she knew by his same guilty look.
They came nearer as Joseph and Bright-Dawn issued from the lodge.
“Chloé?” Sokanon pressed, pointing toward the trading post.
“Yes,” she understood. And more when he spoke, motioned with his hands to show he’d sent her off to the chapel during the confrontation. Sokanon couldn’t understand why and she turned her glare from him to the others where one spoke in very bad French. She yielded to Jacques who gently guided her away from them.
“They will try to free their friends,” he said.
“Of course.” She continued to stare. “And he his niece—Chloé?” she charged again.
Miristou went on but she stopped him.
“I will go for her. Agnes Marie—you will watch Jacob.”
Jacques’ hand was at her arm again. “The girl is safe where she is.”
“Is she?” Sokanon flashed her anger. “The brother Henri, that will take her, is the one as to carry me away—he who would draw me close to him at night.”
Jacques’ bewilderment turned to clarity.
“She will not be sent away with him,” Sokanon pushed, defiant to the uncle. “I will not wait,” she said to Jacques’ disagreement showing.
“I will go with you,” he said.
She pulled away from him. “No, the more, will be seen. I will go get her—that I know she is safe.” She glowered at all of them. None who could understand. Not even Jacques. “After that, it matters not to me what happens to the rest.”
“Joseph and I will make sure they do not attempt the rescue of their comrades.”
“Thank you, Jacques.”
She bolted off.
“Marie—” Bright-Dawn called from behind.
But she was already lost to them.
———— (dbl sp)
She halted away from the trading post, watching for a moment to see there were no guards. Not as surrounded as Joseph was told. She crouched, and crept to the tall fence to peer through an opening between the boards. She wondered how they wouldn’t escape through the fence here. But the voices coming from the post sounded debauched. Were they even now at the rum jug? Maybe they deserved punishment. She bolted off again, feeling small against the foolishness of the entire world.
“Chloé,” she whispered, rapping soft while opening the chapel door.
“Marie,” the girl answered and ran, her arms open.
Sokanon gathered her in. “Âpikusîs.”
The girl looked up and smiled.
“Come,” Sokanon urged, hand in hers.
They stole to the path, where Sokanon halted them for a moment. A tug from Chloé, who tapped Sokanon’s chest and pointed to the roof of the chapel.
“Christian,” she said of the cross.
Her ring called from its place on the rocks before a yell came from the beach and she pulled Chloé to duck lower into the brush. She peered through the branches and leaves, expecting that they’d been seen, wondering if they’d stop her from bringing Chloé away.
But they were gathering instead close to the water, their backs toward her while they looked out onto the bay. She led along a few steps until she saw the ship’s boat rowing toward shore. The idea came in an instant, but the trust and innocence in Chloe’s eyes forced the insistence of clarity.
“Come,” she said again and rushed with her to the fence back of the post.
She waited, watched. Her fingers just slipped into the crack between and the boards gave way grudgingly at her wrenching. She held her finger to her lips to make sure Chloé stayed silent. The girl panicked and clung to her. Sokanon settled her back down into the tall grass and kissed her forehead. Ran her fingers lightly over her face to make her smile. She took out Isabelle’s rosary from her pouch. “Chloé—” she said to the girl’s widened eyes. “Sainte-Marie.” She kissed the holy images of Jesus and Mary and laid the beads into Chloe’s waiting grasp. She nodded brightly and blinked. “I will be back soon,” she laid her hand flat to her heart then to Chloe’s.
She squeezed through the boards and ran bent over to the door. She leaned her back against the building and looked to see Chloé peering at her through the opening. A light rap sent those inside to panic until she heard the latch unlock before the door pushed slowly open. She waved again to Chloé then forced the man to give way as she entered.
Blanchet and the British man were tied and gagged, the trader sitting up and the other on his side on the floor. Sokanon’s eyes adjusted to the darkened room to see better that neither man appeared harmed. The Britishman mumbled loudly to her and she was reminded of the trappers bound and gagged atop Niagara. There was the smell of the rum on the breath of the Montagnais who prodded at her.
She ignored their protest to untie Blanchet’s gag.
“You know their language,” she said to him.
He nodded.
“Tell them we escape—now.”
Blanchet looked relieved. He told them. They were silent, vacant stares for her.
She was not to wait. “I am going.”
One of them blocked her way, unsteady from the drink.
She took him, how Isaac showed her, easy as he was drunk, sweeping his legs out from behind while striking hard at his face with her elbow. The man fell, knocked hard to the floor. He moaned, eyes rolled back, blood at his mouth and nose.
The others fell in, grabbing at their mate to leave.
“The powder and shot are mine,” Blanchet hissed.
“Non,” Sokanon scolded them carrying the ammunition bags. She stood firm against the opening.
Blanchet yelled for his own liberation and the Montagnais dropped the wares they would steal. She stopped them again.
“Are the muskets theirs?” she asked Blanchet, but he only screamed louder.
That was it, and she escaped from the strange incident, leading back to the opening to shimmy through to run with Chloé into the woods. The noises from the men chased stumbling behind, while Blanchet’s yelling continued to sound from the post.
She burst onto the hill with Chloé, Jacques, Joseph and Bright-Dawn incredulous at her arrival.
“Marie,” Jacques exclaimed and he and Joseph rushed to her defense from those following.
“The Naskapi,” Joseph said, and she wondered at the word even as she guided Chloé away from the others, running to defend their astonished tribesmen.
“Marie,” Jacques said again.
“No one follows,” she told him through gasps of air. “Yet.”
Miristou came to Chloé, kneeling for his niece. Sokanon felt her hand tighten around hers. She smiled to the girl who released her hold to allow her uncle to gather her into his hug.
Bright-Dawn stood, frozen before the wigwam.
But she saw it in Jacques’ and Joseph’s eyes.
“Go with Joseph, Agnes Marie.”
Joseph was past them then, into the lodge.
Sokanon motioned for her and the understanding flashed, Bright-Dawn following after Joseph for their things.
“You too, Jacques.”
He nodded.
“Father Coquart will welcome you,” she said.
He continued to stare. He was searching her face, searching the emotions between them.
“Isaac didn’t protect me, Jacques. He loved me.”
“Yes.” His smile grew wide. He looked past her. “And the girl?”
“I will take her with me to Quebec.”
“You will, protect her?”
She glanced to her with her uncle. “I will love her, I think.”
“It appears the uncle is changing his mind about sending her away.”
Sokanon shook her head. “You see how she shows him Isabelle’s rosary? The aunt will cause her to trouble for it. Chloé returned her gaze. “She tells him now, that she will be with me.”
He mused in his way. “You are incomparable to any woman I have ever met.”
“And you are a good man. Good as any I have known.”
“I wasn’t always so.”
She shrugged. “You and Joseph have done more for me and my son than I could have ever asked, or hoped.”
His look was distant. “I am sorry we could not find your husband. For even a proper burial.”
“We look for Isaac. He was not to be found. He is the great hand of the mystery that surrounds us all.”
He laughed. “Are you certain the sisters, Father Pierre, are ready to hear you speak of such things?”
“I will only say, in private, to my children.”
“As I must keep my thoughts private, to myself.”
She motioned to where the river came from the north. “It is far away from those that are against the Catholic men of Jesus. Go, Jacques. You will do well, amongst my people.” She laid her hand on his forearm. “Your worry for us is finished. You go now, to Chicoutimi mission, to Father Coquart, in place of your black robe brother, Henri. The trappers desire not more than to return to Quebec. In their rabaska they will in two days take us hundred miles to Quebec. And they will show us no attention.”
“That is to reassure me?”
Chloé pulled away from her uncle. Sokanon knew Jacques saw it, too, the man’s hold slipping too easily from his niece.
Sokanon laid her hand across her shoulder. “I will stand well, against anything that would harm us.”
“Of course you will.”
Joseph and Bright-Dawn came from the lodge
“Sokanon,” she said.
“Goodbye Agnes Marie. I hope you will find peace and happiness where you go.”
“I—” she faltered. They hugged. Agnes Marie kissed her, on the lips, the way they used to in secret when they were girls. “Thank you, Marie.”
Joseph took her by the arm as the Montagnais were hustling away.
“Thank you, Joseph—Atironta. I will tell Elise and Blanchet the canoe is yours, for you to come for it later.”
His nod goodbye was enough between them.
They were off.
Jacques’ hesitation told of their time together.
“I am still of the mind your friend is unbalanced,” he said.
She saw his joking. If it was the last she’d see of him, it was enough. “You must leave now. The sisters will help me,” she told him. “Marie Catherine—no matter the thoughts of Mother Superior. In the summer, after my child is born, I will to Father Pierre at Sandusky mission. He will help us into the Huron community there. We may well meet again. The Lord be with you, Jacques.”
He brushed Jacob’s head. Made the sign of the cross. “May God bless you,” he said, “and keep you and yours well.”
He started away, turned to wave once more and then he was gone, into the woods to chase after the others. It was the first time that she didn’t feel sadness at that going away from her.
Miristou stood in his greatcoat of caribou. She thought it well that they couldn’t speak to each other. She didn’t want to tell him how much he looked like her father. He didn’t even need to know that she understood his decision to send Chloé away. But she saw his trust in her for his niece. And that was enough.
“Aiame—” he said. “Âpikusîs.”
Chloé smiled, even as she clutched tighter to Sokanon. “Aiame.”
“Aiame,” Sokanon said to him.
“Tshinashkumitan,” he returned. Thank you, she knew as he pushed his hand out to his niece. Then he was away.
In the quiet the commotion came from the beach and made Chloé frighten. Sokanon reached for the rosary, drew it over her head to hang on Chloe’s neck. She brushed her fingers down her face to calm her. Their hands were together as they entered the wigwam for Jacob.

kissed the image of Mary on the rosary.

50

She guided Chloé up and climbed after, the girl’s hands at her arm and Jacob’s cradleboard to help in return. They stood atop the ledge and Chloé was taken in immediately. No more curiosity in her eyes at why they were there, gone for the wonder of her first time seeing the huge expanse of the great river, going on forever toward the end of the earth.
Her body was shaking from the enormity of the sweeping sight. Sokanon wrapped Chloe’s blanket tighter around her, under her arms. She gave her own blanket against the wind, covering over the girl’s head. Sokanon watched with her and saw everything new again. The power of the tide rushing in surges amid endless waves spilling over themselves, crashing white, impossible to look at one at a time, disappearing and reforming. The wide open sky, clouds hanging low here, towering high there, menacing and fascinating.
Chloe’s amazement continued at the different colors, pale reds of the rocky heights that rose straight up it seemed from the shoreline. And the incredible sight of the ship that loomed huge even in the distance at anchor in the wide bay. She let Jacob down and leaned him against a boulder and bade Chloé to remain with him. She didn’t have to, the girl’s wonder so fixed, and already so attentive of the boy.
She found her circle and stepped into it, searching around for only a moment to see her ring, lying plain and visible in an open crevice. How simple it should have been to find it, even in the darkness. She bent to retrieve it, slide it onto the cord where she retied a strong knot, hung the strap over her head. As lifeless as the ring had felt since Isaac, back around her neck it brought the warmth of being whole once more. As whole as the world would allow her.
Chloé saw and worked through the blankets and her clothing to hold up the rosary.
Sokanon sat with her.
“Notre Dame,” she told her of Our Lady’s medallion.
“Jesus,” the girl said of the crucifix.
“Oui,” Sokanon gave a nod. She showed her ring. “Jesus and Mary.”
Chloé held up the rosary, patted to herself.
“Yes, it is yours.”
“Tshinashkumitan,” she said.
Yes, thank you. “Tshinashkumitan—” Sokanon repeated the word. “Merci,” she told her in French.
Chloé excited, nodded at the familiar word. “Mer—ci.”
“De rein,” Sokanon made her understand you’re welcome.
“Merci,” Chloé said again, “de rein,” she struggled.
Sokanon laughed. “We will teach each other, Âpikusîs.”
A shout came, in English, and made Sokanon start from the reminder of Isaac, calling through the trees at Gichigami to find her. The man’s voice was as an echo in the wind. Comforting even in the sad reminder of whose strong voice would never come to her ears again. There was the same reassurance, someone coming to look for her, even though his shouting was telling they were eager to leave, and would not wait for her much longer.
“Do not worry, little one,” she said to Chloé. “It is time to go.”
Sokanon beamed her appreciation at Chloé helping again when she lifted Jacob onto her back. She allowed another moment for her to take in the sight and sounds before starting back for the post. She climbed first down the ledge and made sure of Chloe’s footing on the rocks. It felt right, the girl with her, their hands in each other’s, bringing back her memories of holding her mother and father’s hand.
The man was still close and she saw his awkward stance at whether to wait to escort them or not. He was the one held in the post by the Montagnais. He finally turned as they neared, walking on his own, his back to them. There were more people at the shore. The cloth of dresses flowing in their movement showed that women had been landed from the ship’s boat. Maybe many weeks before tending to themselves again on dry land. She knew what it was to be on a ship sailing, even if for only a day. Even if she didn’t cross the ocean. Even worse there, she thought, the ships so big from the shore, so small to stand on the deck surrounded in a world of water.
They were a French noblewoman, her daughter and two servants in the dresses. One of the servants was part native. It wasn’t obvious, maybe a grandparent or past. But her contempt for Sokanon and Chloé was unconcealed. She ushered the two ladies away from the tribal girls with the pockmarks on their faces.
It started to rain and the daughter opened her umbrella, the screen puffed out as a ship’s sail.  Chloé frighted from it before becoming entranced when the servant slid open the mother’s rain shield. The older woman looked intently at them, curiosity going from her, to Jacob on her back, to Chloé and the rosary hanging from her neck. Sokanon gave a gentle tug to pull the girl’s fascination from them. She led past the women, slipping quickly between the workers coming from the trading post carrying the bundles.
She moved close to the trapper’s canoe. It was packed light, they would be fast to Quebec. One day she would tell her children her mother’s story of the grandson in the magic canoe made from the white stone that could fly through the air. When she leaned Jacob aside, Chloé was already drawing one of the furs from Sokanon’s bag to drape over his head from the rain. One of the few soft pelts, the only remaining things of her and Isaac. Except the canoe. Except Jacob and the little one to be born. She felt no emotion at the fur bundles being loaded into the ship’s boat.
Her spirit warmed watching Chloé making Jacob giggle, even through her own excitement. Playful touches before slipping her head under the hoop of the cradleboard to nuzzle his nose before covering with the pelt. There was a faint memory of doing the same with her baby brother.
She listened to the older woman with Blanchet. The ship was the Marie-Madeleine and was taking them to New Orleans, where her husband and the girl’s father had made a new home for them. The woman did not keep her voice down, telling the trader they no longer wished to live under Anglican rule. If the Britishmen knew French, they gave her scorn no mind. Blanchet looked to be forcing interest himself, maybe hoping for some of what she held in her purse. Elise-White Owl was in the open gateway of the post. She offered a blank look and wiped her hands on her apron before retreating indifferent back into the building.
The Captain of the trappers excused himself from the group and approached her.
“Sokamon,” he greeted, mispronouncing her name.
His tone was direct.
She was still.
He motioned to Chloé. “The vicar—the Jesuit Henry—he is insisting that when we reach his parish, we land the girl with him on the island.”
“Insist?” She swept her gaze around, but did not see Brother Henri. “I insist—Chloé is to me, to Quebec.” She felt the girl stir and calmed her with her outstretched hand.
“That’s what I told him, miss, when he asked why you were accompanying us.”
“We will remain here, than she goes with him.”
The man stared. “I do not like that you helped those criminals escape.”
“You should have more surrounded them,” she challenged.
She saw he wanted laugh. He changed his stance, tried to make himself intimidating. “It is little concern of mine, about the girl—who she goes with. But the brother says that the old priest up at the mission has ordered it, Father Coquart—that he is to take her, to become a good Catholic Indian.”
He was mocking. She ignored it.
“There are no more schools for girls from the tribes,” she told him.
“Again, that is of no concern to me. Hell, his parish might have already been shut down by my government.” He motioned to the north with his head. “But I have to care about the trade,” he went on, “that the area remains peaceful, so that nothing disrupts the business for my bosses and their partners. The way I see it—the way I will report it to my bosses—is the old vicar Coquart is the only one that can control the warriors. Keep them from the liquor.”
“It is no concern to me,” she mocked back. “I will take my husband’s canoe and go to Chicoutimi alone with her.”
His brow rose. “Your husband’s canoe?”
“I helped him make it, at our home at Gichigami.”
“That’s a long way from here. Where is he—your husband?”
She shook her head. Chloe’s hand was in hers. “It is well,” Sokanon calmed her.
“The canoe stays here?” the man asked.
She saw. If she gave it to him, he would give her what she wanted.
“I have given it to my friend.”
The man looked up the river. “One of those who absconded with the Montagnais.”
“Yes. But he is Huron.”
“And you would truly go, alone—with the girl, and a baby in a carrier?”
She was quiet again.
He shook his head. “I believe you might just try it.” He fixed his cap against the rain. “If this keeps up, it will turn to snow tonight.”
She knew it, their breaths coming as smoke in the air. She looked up into the sky. Isaac didn’t mind the cold rain on his face, either.
“My husband was British. From Nova Scotia. He fought in the war with your Colonel Bradstreet.”
“The boy is a half-breed?”
She nodded. “Born a subject of your English king.”
“That’s how you know the language so well.”
She shrugged.
“I will tell him,” the man relented, “—Henry. I will say that the girl goes with you, to Quebec.”
Sokanon looked close. “When will you say?”
He pressed his lips together to stop his smile again, wiped his hand down his mustache and beard to his neck.
“You need tell him now,” she pressed. “So he will know, she is to be my daughter.”
Her conviction was in his eyes then. “I will tell him before we leave.”
“That is well.”
“To hell with it, if he wants to go back and complain to the old vicar.”
“How would he get there?” she teased.
“Yes.” He laughed now. He nodded, looked with bright eyes to the canoe. “Those Scotian’s are sure born to the water.”
She wanted to tell him of Isaac, maybe he would be interested. Maybe he had fought with her husband as so many she had met. Maybe they would talk together at the fire on the way to Quebec. “Isaac and I,” she said, “were born for each other.”
——————
Brother Henri was complaining, holding his jaw while hissing through his smashed mouth.
Sokanon didn’t care. She sat away with Chloé and Jacob and listened to him rail against her. That she was going at all appeared to bother him more than anything.
He would say anything he wanted. It didn’t matter. The world had called Chloé to her. God. The Great Mysterious of everything. Jesus. Our Lady. She truly was her daughter now. She could feel it as deep as anything she’d ever felt. And she knew Chloé felt it, too. They had found each other in the mean world.
“Mary,” she said softly. “If it is to Your Glory, I pray thanksgiving.”
Chloé questioned, while she continued to finger the beads of the rosary, delighting at the beauty of the coral, the images in gold. Sokanon felt her ring spark inside her smock and knew it was well. She saw herself in the girl, remembering when Father Armand presented the two-hearted Jesus and Mary ring, his warm patience to explain, more than the shiny beauty of the gold, that hers was the same name as the Mother of God.
Sokanon pointed to the icon of Mary on the rosary. “Chloé—” she started, “Sainte-Marie,” she continued the girl’s full Christian name.
Chloe’s eyes were bright and she brushed her hand down Sokanon’s face in the way. “Marie.”
The word came to her. “Nikaui,” Sokanon said of herself. Mother.
Chloé blinked soft. Peaceful. She understood.
The commotion grew around Brother Henri, his voice rising loud over the din. Then he did the strangest thing, boarding the ship’s boat just as it was to be pushed off. The shore captain ordered him out, but he sat fast. Two of the trappers tried to remove him, and he screamed and kicked, punched, until they let him be, to depart on the ship for the Louisiana. Henri turned away from her gaze. The yellowing bruises around his eyes made his pathetic look even more worn. She saw the opposite of Jacques, the warrior broken by the world full of unkind choices, choosing the way of the black robe. Maybe Brother Henri would renounce the hard life of a Jesuit. The hard lives expected of the men of Jesus.
He’d saved her life. She owed him all she’d ever had, since that terrible day. Her short time with Isaac. The lives of her children. But dislike for the man Henri was strong. It was always there, in her heart, in her mind. Seeing him again after all the years forced the contempt close into her awareness. She hoped he’d never get the chance to be alone with another girl.
The voyageurs pushed the boat off, their steps splashing in the shallow water until they were up to their knees to get the heavy vessel off the sand. She thought the oarsmen were working hard and fast, anxious, as if even seconds would matter in the race against the coming winter. Maybe they just wanted to get away from the trouble. She thought for a moment, wondering what would happen if the ship’s captain refused Brother Henri boarding. She only knew he’d hate her more if he would be forced back to shore.
“We are away as soon as they reach the ship.” It was the one that had been held hostage. He did know French. “Captain wants to give the chance for the Jesuit to be put off,” he told her.
She wasn’t the only one who thought it.
“We are ready any time,” she said.
He lingered, awkward again. “Your French is not that of the rough wilderness. You are, from Quebec?”
“It is where I spend most of my life. In the convent of the Ursuline Sisters (sisters of Saint Ursula).”
He nodded. He did not say of the sister’s nursing to the wounded after the battle. She looked close. Maybe he was too young to have fought.
“I suppose I should thank you for freeing me,” he said instead. “In their drunken state, who knows what they would have done.”
“You take us to Quebec,” she told him, “that is thank you enough.”
“It will be hard— I think,” he offered, “alone with children.”
“I will not be alone.”
“No, I suppose not. Not with so many of those frocked Catholic ladies of the convents. I saw them grey nuns once in Montreal, out in their troop, trying to round up all at once, all the children of the poor to help. I had to run away to my mum and dad before they tried to take me, too.”
She fixed her stare. Defended the sisters. “I know Marguerite d’Youville of the grey nuns of Montreal. It is good and decent things the Sisters of Charity do, those frocked Catholic ladies.”
“Yes, miss.” He kicked at a broken white shell in the sand. “You are free to keep the oilskin, to cover yourself and the children in the canoe.”
“It is very heavy, I will have to cut it smaller for us.”
“Yes, miss.”
“Thank you.”
He gave a nod, backed away to join the others watching the ship’s boat being oared steady toward the ship.
——————
Blanchet barely allowed a farewell, waving a simple salute from the shore. Sokanon hoped to see Elise once more, and she waited for a short while before turning away. The Marie-Madeleine’s sails were full in the wind, Chloé engaged watching the ship bound over the water.
The Montreal’er raced in the waves. She imagined the man standing in the back at the steering paddle as her father. But it couldn’t be, if she was as her mother. Sadness struck and she had to fight against the tears. Only for a moment, when her eye caught him on the rise near the wigwam.
Jacques was standing, hands on his hips, looking down from the distance. He was joined by Miristou, his gray coat of caribou stark next to the black robe. Sokanon darted glances to the paddlers, but the men hardly bothered to look when she showed Chloé. They waved together and Jacques and the uncle disappeared.
She watched for another moment, certain of Joseph and Agnes Marie off already to their lives together. Mother Superior was right, she had brought Bright-Dawn away. It didn’t matter. She felt Sister Marie Catherine’s strong arms already around her. Thought sister might now, try and hold her from continuing on to Father Pierre at Sandusky mission. She gave a long last look up the Saguenay, the spirits of her mother and father close in her thoughts. Across the great river, where her brother would grow amongst his Mohawk Iroquois family.
———— (dbl sp)
The white whales weren’t there when they crossed where the rivers joined. She searched for them, disappointed, thinking the wonder of the grand creatures would be a good farewell for Chloé to remember. But the girl was content in her place next to Jacob, and once again Sokanon saw herself, the times with her own brother. The new life of the little one inside her would change everything, and she wished again Isaac was with her. Prayed again for his place in heaven.
Jacob’s green eyes, so much now like Isaac’s, sparkled in the dreary overcast light, and the stone with the face on it came to her. She thought maybe to throw it now, back into its place in the water, here where her two lives met. But she stopped her hand from her pouch. The stone had come to her, too—providential, Jacques would tell her. She’d keep it. Show it in secret to her children, tell them she wished it to be buried with her on that day. With her ring.
“Nishiuen (I’m hungry),” Chloé interrupted, patting her stomach.
“Hungry?” But Sokanon knew. “Faim,” she said in French.
She rummaged the bag for food, the packages of the hard biscuits amid the wonderful smell of bacon Joseph had placed in her bag in the wigwam. She thanked him to herself and tore off a piece for each herself and Chloé.
“Eat,” they shared the words in their languages.
Sokanon chewed the bacon soft, fingered a small bit from her mouth and fed it to Jacob. Chloé giggled as the boy made joyful sounds, loud and eager.
THE END.
.