Read Remember the Morning Online
Authors: Thomas Fleming
Remember the Morning (31 page)
She greeted Hanging Belt and the shaman, Black Wing, and the other two braves with her usual warmth. They were delighted to see her, especially when she told them about her dreams. “Now we know there is work to be done,” Black Wing said. “Our long journey has not been in vain.”
The implication was not flattering to the Moon Woman. Her dreams might be caused by eating rotten fish or too many walnuts. But the power of Nothing-But-Flowers's
orenda
was uncontestable. Once more I found myself struggling with my old feelings of inferiority.
orenda
was uncontestable. Once more I found myself struggling with my old feelings of inferiority.
That night, Black Wing instructed us to build a great blaze in the ruins of the old manor house. He donned one of his false faces, seized his rattles and his shield on which were painted signs so ancient no one knew their meaning. They belonged to the warriors who first came to the forests and lakes of New York, a thousand years ago.
“Listen to me,” quavered Black Wing, in the chanting voice of the priest. “I speak as one who knows the way to the land of the dead. It is
written on this shield. Read the signs of deliverance and speak them when the Evil Brother or one of his devils bars your path.”
written on this shield. Read the signs of deliverance and speak them when the Evil Brother or one of his devils bars your path.”
In the grass outside, Clara and I and Hanging Belt and the other Senecas shook rattles and chanted ancient prayers. “No one can trap your soul!” we cried. “See how the Evil Brother flees before the False Face. Draw hope from our voices. Begin your journey now to the land of the dead, where those you love await you.”
Around and around the blaze Black Wing raced, flaunting his sacred shield, shaking his rattles. His false face, red and black and twisted to one side, so that one eye was higher than the other, gleamed in the firelight. Slowly, I began to feel the grip of the evil spirits loosening. My heart began to beat freely.
I turned to Clara. Her eyes were shining in the firelight. “I feel it too,” she said. Tears poured down our cheeks.
“Grieve no more, Father, your daughter is here,” Clara cried. “Accept your fate, however cruel it was. None of us can choose our deaths.”
The fire blazed into the night. In its dancing glow I glimpsed Malcolm and Guert Cuyler watching us, astonishment on their faces. We were revealing the depth, the reality, of our Indian selves.
Somewhere in the forest, a cry of pain interrupted us. “Help. Catalyntie! Malcolm! Help!” A minute later, Malcolm half led, half carried Nicholas Van Brugge into the firelight beside Black Wing. Blood drooled from his mouth. He had been shot in the chest. “They're coming!” he said. “I heard about itâby accident. They're only a few miles away, downriver.”
We abandoned the ceremony of mourning and rushed the wounded man to a tent beside our half-finished fort. “I followed them up the river,” Van Brugge said. “They shot me yesterday. But I managed to escape into the forest. They didn't find me.”
“Who is it?” Malcolm said.
“Philip Van Sluyden and that bastard de Groot,” Van Brugge said. “They've got a hundred men. Fifty Ottawas led by a French officerâthe rest traders.”
A hundred men. We had twenty-four, plus Malcolm and Guert. I turned to Hanging Belt. “These are the same men who brought you here to kill innocent people a hundred moons ago,” I said in Seneca. “Now they are bringing fifty Ottawas from Fort Niagara and another fifty white men from Albany. They're coming to kill me and Nothing-But-Flowers. Will you stand with us?”
“Of course,” said Hanging Belt. “But we cannot sit here and wait for them to devour us. We must ambush them before they see our weakness.”
I called Malcolm away from the dying Van Brugge. “Hanging Belt says our only hope is an ambush,” I told him.
“Where?” Malcolm said. “I'm more inclined to retreat upriver to Oswego as fast as possible.”
“It's too far. They'll overtake us. And we'll have to abandon all our goods,” I said. “We'll be bankrupt.”
“Better bankrupt than dead.”
“Listen to Hanging Belt,” I pleaded. “He's fought a hundred battles like this.”
“Catalyntie's right,” Clara said.
Still reluctant to admit an Indian was his military superior, Malcolm listened. “First,” Hanging Belt said. “Let us think no more of sleep tonight. Let's explore the river and see where these enemies might land. They won't come ashore here. They know you have cannon in your fort. They will come ashore nearby and approach through the forest and attack without warning. We must be waiting for them as they land and surprise them.”
As I translated this for Malcolm, Hanging Belt ordered the two young Senecas to go downriver in a canoe and try to locate the enemy. Meanwhile, Malcolm and he and I (as a translator) went downriver in another canoe, looking for a likely landing place. The moon was almost full. The river and the shore glistened in its yellow light. We traveled less than a mile when Hanging Belt said: “There is the place.”
A bend in the river had created shallows that were thick with tall fernlike reeds with finely divided fronds. This bracken blended into a grassy bank up which boats could be hauled with little effort. “They will come ashore here,” Hanging Belt said.
“What if they don't?” Malcolm said to me in English. “We're nowhere. They can burn our fort and goods at leisure.”
“And us in the bargain if we sit there waiting for them,” I said. “Trust this man.”
“All
right,
” Malcolm said.
right,
” Malcolm said.
“We will do as you say,” I told Hanging Belt.
Back at our fort, we discovered Guert Cuyler was dealing with a mutiny. At least half our hired soldiers were inclined to take to the woods. They had no stomach for fighting four to one odds. As Malcolm argued with them, the two Senecas returned to report that they had located the enemy. They were about three miles downriver.
That was a moment when Malcolm proved himself a leader of men. “We can beat these bastards if you stand with me,” he shouted. “Do you want Africans to be remembered as soldiers or cowards? We hired you to give you a better life up here on the Mohawk. Are you going to let these murderers steal it from you? Hanging Belt, one of the greatest Seneca chiefs, is going to fight with usâ”
He outlined the tactics for the ambush. Hanging Belt had suggested
them to him coming back upriver. A dozen men would hide in the shallow water among the bracken. Another dozen would take cover in the woods on one side of the clearing. Hanging Belt and his Senecas would raise a war whoop at the back of the clearing. Then the men in the bracken would fire, followed by the flankers in the woods.
them to him coming back upriver. A dozen men would hide in the shallow water among the bracken. Another dozen would take cover in the woods on one side of the clearing. Hanging Belt and his Senecas would raise a war whoop at the back of the clearing. Then the men in the bracken would fire, followed by the flankers in the woods.
“I want everybody to whoop and yell like a tribe of devils,” Malcolm said. “Make us sound like a hundred and fifty, two hundred men.”
Hanging Belt beamed when I translated this. The white chief was getting in the spirit of the ambush. His confidence may have helped steady the Africans as much as Malcolm's speech. The rest of the night was consumed by preparations. Each man was issued thirty rounds of ball and powder. At Guert Cuyler's suggestion, one of the cannon was lugged downriver in a canoe and positioned in the woods where the second detachment would fight. It was loaded with grapeshotâsmall deadly pellets that turned it into a giant shotgun. Hanging Belt and his warriors carefully applied the violent colors of their war paintâand urged it on Malcolm, Guert, and the Africans as well.
At 4:00 A.M. the ambushers were ready to depart. Malcolm turned to me and Clara, his streaked face weird in the fading firelight. “If we fail, head upriver as fast as you can paddle. Keep going until you reach Oswego.”
“I want to go with youâto fight!” I said.
“Out of the question. Duycinck will bring you the news, one way or another. He'll be back in the trees with Hanging Belt.”
He kissed me briefly and said: “You've been a good wife. Raise our son to be a good man.”
He turned to Clara. “Wherever I go, whatever I become, I'll remember you.”
“You'll come back,” she said. “You'll come back to both of us.”
I was devastated. My expedition to the wilderness to make Malcolm mine forever had produced this testament of undying love to Clara. As we watched the canoes vanish down the darkened riverâthe moon had long since descendedâClara said: “I didn't ask for that.”
“I know.”
“You brought me here.”
“I know. I needed you more than I feared you. I still do.”
“How many times do I have to tell you it won't last? He's yours in the long run.”
I struggled against my combative, avaricious nature, the soul that fate had bequeathed me. “I'll try to believe that,” I said.
Clara began loading a canoe with food and muskets and ammunition. “If they lose, you must stay alive for Hugh's sake,” she said.
“I suppose so,” I said, still disconsolate. Motherhood barely mattered. I only wanted my heart's desire.
The light along the river began changing from inky black to grey. It was less than an hour to dawn. “I can't stand waiting here,” I said. “Let's join Hanging Belt in the woods. We can yell as loud as a warrior.”
“I feel the same way. Shall we put on war paint?” Clara said.
“Why not?”
We found the paints that Hanging Belt and his Senecas had used to streak themselves in red and blue and yellow. Quickly, we coated our faces and arms and pulled on leggings and moccasins I had brought with me to wear in the wilderness. In less than an hour, we crept through the trees to the place where Hanging Belt and his warriors were lying in wait with Adam Duycinck.
“The blood of our fathers brought us here,” Clara said in Seneca. “We want to help you wipe away the stain on your honor.”
“Do you think we shall win?” Hanging Belt said. “We are few and many of the black men are terrified.”
“They're new to this kind of war,” Clara said. “But they are led by a true warrior.”
“The one you call Mal-colm?” Hanging Belt said. “Yes. He has a warrior's heart. Let us hope he acquires a war chief's head.”
The rising sun was beginning to tint the eastern sky. On the river, with its great guardian trees on both banks, the light remained grey. Morning fog added to the dimness.
Panting into our midst came one of Hanging Belt's Senecas. “They come!” he said. He had been scouting downriver.
Hanging Belt rose to his knees and hooted like an owl three times. From the bracken in the shallows came three answering hoots. Malcolm was ready.
Around the bend in the river came a squadron of canoes. In the lead was de Groot, studying the forest with his murderer's eyes. Behind him in another canoe was Philip Van Sluyden. In each craft, a half dozen Indians drove them toward the bank with swift strokes of their paddles.
They cut through the bracken on the downriver side of the little bay. Malcolm and his men were crouched less than two dozen feet away. They had cut some of the fronds and planted them in their caps, so they blended perfectly with the swaying greenery.
One after another, the canoes landed and their occupants sprang out and congregated in the meadow. Soon the last canoe was making for the bank. Crowded by the others already ashore, the rear paddler steered for the bracken where Malcolm and his men were hiding. As the prow entered the weeds, Malcolm's gigantic form rose from the shallows and dragged the lead paddler out of the boat, cutting his throat in the same deadly motion. Behind him his men repeated the murderous performance on the others in the boat.
In the same instant, Duycinck, Hanging Belt, and his warriors opened fire from the rear of the clearing and the dozen men in the woods on the left flank poured in another volley. Within sixty seconds, Malcolm and his men had unlimbered their muskets and blasted the stunned foe with a volley from the river. It had not gone exactly according to plan but ambushes seldom do.
Hanging Belt and the Senecas bellowed war cries as they swiftly reloaded their muskets. Clara and I shrilled them as vigorously as the warriors. They were a terrifying combination of the howl of the wolf and scream of the panther. Anyone who had spent some time in the north woods recognized a Seneca war cry. It struck consternation into our frantic opponents.
Similar if less recognizable howls poured from the flankers in the woods, as they too reloaded and blasted another volley into the milling mass in the clearing. “No quarter!” roared Malcolm from the bracken. “No quarter for traitors.” His muskets boomed again and another half dozen Van Sluydenites went down.
Such punishment would have been too much for even professional soldiers to endure. These were not professionals. The traders were mostly bullies who were heroes only when they were dealing with drunken Indians. Their coup de grace was the cannon, which Guert Cuyler had shrewdly kept silent. Just as de Groot managed to form some of his men into a shaky battle line, the gun boomed, flinging hundreds of deadly chunks of metal into their ranks.
Wailing with terror, the survivors took to the woods. Several who could swim leaped into the river, where Malcolm and his men finished them off. The surviving Ottawas also fled. Indians do not believe in fighting to the death. If the enemy has outgeneraled you, far better to run away and fight another day.
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