I’d say they planned on staying where they are.”
“And how were things at Venango?” Matt asked, giving Shad a nudge to quiet him.
“Much the same. Joncaire is in command there. He has a friend with him, a young half-breed by the name of Cass, I think.”
Matt started. “Cassanna? I know him. His mother was a St. Francis Abenaki and his father a French officer. When I was a youngster the father brought Cassanna to my father’s stockade near Harrisburg and stayed with us for two weeks.”
Washington nodded, staring soberly at the fire. “I couldn’t bring myself to trust those two gentlemen. Oh, they were polite enough, but I discovered later that they’d gone behind my back and had tried to turn Half King against me.”
“Bad,” Chief announced suddenly. “Cassanna—much bad name.”
Washington turned his attention to the old Indian again.
“I see your friend is somewhat civilized. What is he chief of?”
Shad beamed at Chief proudly, saying, “He ain’t chief of nothin’. I just call him that ’cause it makes him happy. He don’t have much to do with them Laurel Ridgers, and they don’t have much truck with him. Tell you what, major, since Chief took up with me, he’s decided that he’d rather be a full-blown American instead a just an old Mingo. That’s why it’s harder’n iron to get Chief to talk Seneca, ’less he wants to tell me something private-like.
“Trouble is, though, now that he’s got himself all civilized with his English words and handshaking and hallelujah religion, his tribe sort a frowns on him—thinks he’s dandified himself a mite too much. But it don’t seem to bother Chief none. He didn’t even kick when they chased him out a the village this summer.”
“Why did they desire his departure?”
Shad looked sincerely indignant. “It’s the fault of civilization, major! Poor old Chief was a victim of the white man’s habits, and when he took to returning each year to his village with them habits it just got to be more than them honest Injuns could bear. Seems that somewhere along the line Chief picked up the habit of walkin’ off with things that was left laying around by careless owners.”
He paused to glance at the sky and swipe at his mouth with the back of his hairy hand.
“I can’t for the life a me figure where he picked up such a habit,” he murmured in conclusion.
Matt felt that they were wandering far from the important matters at hand. He turned back to the young major. “Sir, what do you think will happen if the French decide not to pull back into Canada?”
Washington raised one eye and pursed his mouth slightly. “I personally feel that the French’s attitude is the same as an open declaration of war. It may be that the King will decide to drive them out.”
Shad snorted his disgust. “I’ve seen how that works before. The English get all pop-eyed with alarm over what the French are doing and they scream and wail like tom cats with ice water spilled on ’em—Oh, my goodness! We can’t have this! We’ve got to get in there and whip ’em! We’ve got to drive them nasty Frenchies clear back to the North Pole! And then who finally goes out and does the fightin’? I’ll tell you who—the Americans! That’s who! Look what happened at Louisburg in ’Forty-five!”
“Shad,” Matt said, “this land is as much ours as it is England’s. If we help England to fight their battle, by the same token they are helping us to fight ours.”
Washington nodded, his eyes curiously alight. “That’s a good thing to remember,” he said quietly. “England claims the land, but it is in name only. We are the land. Someday I hope that its name will also be ours.”
Shad turned and peered closely at Chief. “Look at old Chief,” he demanded with a grin, “laughing himself to death.”
They all paused to look at the old Seneca and saw him regarding them with an impassive stare. Gist stepped closer to study Chief’s board-wall expression. “How can you tell?” he asked dubiously.
“You got to know him,” Shad replied. Then he spoke to Chief in his own tongue. Matt, who had picked up a smattering of Seneca, could follow the flowery speech.
“What is it that delights my brother so?” Shad inquired.
“Oh my brother, is it not vastly amusing to behold the French and English and the Seneca Half King running in an endless circle, each shouting tragically: ‘It is my land! It is my land!’ Is it always this way with the civilized? If it be true, then I wash my hands of it. Let any man call it his land if he so wishes. Let him erect his forts and trading posts. Let him lay his boundaries and march his soldiers. I go where I please and when I please; because I know that it is all, all my land, and that to the children of the wilderness a name is without meaning.”
Shad tossed his great head and roared with laughter. He pounded Chief on the back and winked at Washington.
“Chief’s got the whole problem licked,” he said. “He says it’s all his land. So the rest a you fellas might as well pack up your forts and go home!”
Something landed with a flat smack against a tree just beyond Washington’s head and a split second later the six men heard the hollow plam of a musket. Instantly they were on their feet, reaching for their weapons. Half King and Chief turned without a word or sound and blended themselves into the forest.
“Came from behind you, Gist!” Shad bellowed. “Spread out and run him down afore he can reload!”
Matt ducked into a crouch, humping over his musket, and, cutting into an oblique away from the line of fire, ran for the trees. A ragged dead thicket rose to meet him at the edge of the wood. He leaped into the air and came down in its center. He crouched there for a moment peering through the network of brittle branches, opening his mouth wide so that the sound of his breathing would not obstruct his hearing. To the right of him he heard the cush-cush-cush of men running through the snow, and a shout or two. Then, abruptly, a Mingo darted across his path, head down, attempting to reload his musket as he ran.
Matt stood up in the thicket, covering the Indian with his gun. The Mingo came to a startled halt and stared at the young trapper with wide startled eyes.
“Hadi’nonge dedji’aon’gwa!” Matt said. We are all around you.
The Mingo hesitated only a moment, then pitched his musket into the snow. He folded his arms across his chest and assumed an unafraid attitude.
“Shad! Major! Over here! I’ve got him!” Matt called.
In the late shadows of afternoon the six men gathered about the strange Mingo. Shad, catching the would-be assassin by the neck in his great paw, pushed him up against a linden tree and held him there.
“Anybody know this fish-eyed scum?” he asked.
Half King stepped up and raised a finger to show that he was about to speak. “It is a French Indian from Murthering Town,” he said in stiff English. Then, in Seneca, he addressed the Mingo.
The savage from Murthering Town answered glibly, his eyes leaping quickly from face to face as he spoke. Half King grunted and turned to Washington.
