The Whites ran out of the fort. Even though Ta-Kumsaw and Lolla-Wossiky stood in the open, in plain sight, the White soldiers did not see them. Or no, they saw; they simply did not notice the two Shaw-Nee. They ran past, shouting and firing randomly into the woods. They gathered near the brothers, so close they could have lifted an arm and touched them. But they did not lift their arms; they did not touch the Red men.
After a while the Whites gave up the search and returned to the fort, cursing and muttering.
“It was that one-eye Red.”
“The Shaw-Nee drunk.”
“Lolla-Wossiky.”
“If I find him, I'll kill him.”
“Hang the thieving devil.”
They said these things, and there was Lolla-Wossiky, not a stone's throw from them, holding the keg on his shoulder.
When the last White man was inside the fort, Lolla-Wossiky giggled.
“You laugh with the White man's poison on your shoulders,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
“I laugh with my brother's arm across my back,” answered Lolla-Wossiky.
“Leave that whisky, Brother, and come with me,” said Ta-Kumsaw. “The redbird heard my story, and remembers me in her song.”
“Then I will listen to that song and be glad all my life,” said Lolla-Wossiky.
“The land is with me, Brother. I'm the face of the land, the land is my breath and blood.”
“Then I will hear your heartbeat in the pulse of the wind,” said Lolla-Wossiky.
“I will drive the White man back into the sea,” said Ta-Kumsaw.
In answer, Lolla-Wossiky began to weep; not drunken weeping, but the dry, heavy sobs of a man burdened down with grief. Ta-Kumsaw tried to tighten his embrace, but his brother pushed him away and staggered off, still carrying the keg, into the darkness and the trees.
Ta-Kumsaw did not follow him. He knew why his brother was grieving: because the land had filled Ta-Kumsaw with power, power enough to stand among the drunken Whites and seem as invisible as a tree. And Lolla-Wossiky knew that by rights whatever power Ta-Kumsaw had, Lolla-Wossiky should have had ten times that power.
But the White man had stolen it from Lolla-Wossiky with murders and likker, until Lolla-Wossiky wasn't man enough to have the redbird learn his song or the land fill up his heart.
Never mind, never mind, never mind.
The land has chosen me to be its voice, and so I must begin to speak. I will no longer stay here, trying to shame the wretched drunks who have already been killed by their thirst for the White man's poison. I will give no more warnings to White liars. I will go to the Reds who are still alive, still men, and gather them together. As one great people we will drive the White man back across the sea.
Chapter 3 – De Maureas
Frederic, the young Comte de Maurepas, and Gilbert, the aging Marquis de La Fayette, stood together at the railing of the canal barge, looking out across Lake Irrakwa. The sail of the Marie-Philippe was plainly visible now; they had been watching for hours as it came closer across this least and lowest of the Great Lakes.
Frederic could not remember when he had last been so humiliated on behalf of his nation. Perhaps the time when Cardinal What's-his-name had tried to bribe Queen MariemAntoinette. Oh but of course Frederic had only been a boy, then, a mere twenty-five years old, callow and young, without experience of the world. He had thought that no greater humiliation could come to France than to have it known that a cardinal would actually believe that the Queen could be bribed with a diamond necklace. Or bribed at all, for that matter. Now, of course, he understood that the real humiliation was that a French cardinal would be so stupid as to suppose that bribing the Queen was worth doing; the most she could do was influence the King, and since old King Louis never influenced anybody, there you were.
Personal humiliation was painful. Humiliation of one's family was much worse. Humiliation of one's social standing was agony to bear. But humiliation of one's nation was the most excruciating of human miseries.
Now here he stood on a miserable canal barge, an American canal barge, tied at the verge of an American canal, waiting to greet a French general. Why wasn't it a French canal? Why hadn't the French been the first to engineer those clever locks and build a canal around the Canadian side of the falls?
“Don't fume, my dear Frederic,” murmured La Fayette.
“I'm not fuming, my dear Gilbert.”
“Snorting, then. You keep snorting.”
“Sniffing. I have a cold.” Canada certainly was a repository for the dregs of French society, Frederic thought for the thousandth time. Even the nobility that ended up here was embarrassing. This Marquis de La Fayette, a member of the– no, a founder of the Club of the Feuillants, which was almost the same as saying he was a declared traitor to King Charles. Democratic twaddle. Might as well be a Jacobin like that terrorist Robespierre. Of course they exiled La Fayette to Canada, where he could do little harm. Little harm, that is, except to humiliate France in this unseemly manner–
“Our new general has brought several staff officers with him,” said La Fayette, “and all their luggage. It makes no sense to disembark and make the miserable portage in wagons and carriages, when it can all be carried by water. It will give us a chance to become acquainted.”
Since La Fayette, in his norinal crude way (disgrace to the aristocracy!), insisted on being blunt about the matter at hand, Frederic would have to stoop to his level and speak just as plainly. “A French general should not have to travel on foreign soil to reach his posting!”
“But my dear Frederic, he'll never set foot on American soil, now, will he! Just boat to boat, on water all the way.”
La Fayette's simper was maddening. To make light of this smudge on the honor of France. Why, oh, why couldn't Frederic's father have remained in favor with the king just a little longer, so Frederic could have stayed in France long enough to win promotion to some elegant posting, like Lord of the Italian March or something– did they have such a posting? –anyway, somewhere with decent food and music and dancing and theatre– ah, Moliere! In Europe, where he could face a civilized enemy like the Austrians or the Prussians or even– though it stretched the meaning of the word civilized– the English. Instead here he was, trapped forever– unless Father wormed his way back into the King's favor– facing a constant ragtag invasion of miserable uneducated Englishmen, the worst, the utter dregs of English society, not to mention the Dutch and Swedes and Germans– oh, it did not bear thinking about. And even worse were the allies! Tribes of Reds who weren't even heretics, let alone Christians– they were heathen, and half the military operation in Detroit consisted of buying those hideous bloody trophies–
“Why, my dear Frederic, you really are taking a chill,” said La Fayette.
“Not a bit.”
"You shivered.
“I shuddered.”
“You must stop pouting and make the best of this. The Irrakwa have been very cooperative. They provided us with the governor's own barge, free of charge, as a gesture of goodwill.”
“The governor! The governor? You mean that fat hideous red-skinned heathen woman?”
“She can't help her red skin, and she isn't heathen. In fact she's a Baptist, which is almost like being Christian, only louder.”
“Who can keep track of these English heresies?”
“I think there's something quite elegant about it. A woman as governor of the state of Irrakwa, and a Red at that, accepted as the equal of the governors of Suskwahenny, Pennsylvania, New Amsterdam, New Sweden, New Orange, New Holland–”
“I think sometimes you prefer those nasty little United States to your own native land.”
“I am a Frenchman to the heart,” said La Fayette mildly. “But I admire the American spirit of egalitarianism.”