Forts of Refuge – Book 2

Chapter 1 – Approaching Fort Detroit, May 1, 1763

She’d come too far to be eaten by wolves. Their gray-and-brown bodies swarmed over a freshly killed doe and its fawn that had come to the water to drink. Growling and snapping, they sorted out their hierarchy of who fed where and on what. Maggie Kerr was not inclined to be the next morsel they squabbled over.

Backing away, her moccasins silent in the damp forest, she left the edge of the lake. She’d yet to come to the big river that would turn north to Fort Detroit, but it must be close. For three days she’d skirted the water and watched her back trail. Nobody had come after her. Yet. But he would.

Tree Sleeper.

Maggie squelched the urge to gnash her teeth like the wolves she’d left behind. Squinting at the setting sun through a canopy of pine branches, she angled to the northwest. Word should have reached him two days past, but she’d traveled fast and slept little. Speed was her only chance against the man who could track a beetle across a dry rock. She’d done her best to cover all sign of her passing in the beginning, and maybe that had bought her more time, but if he found her tracks a day’s walk out, he’d know where she was heading.

Fort Detroit was the only British outpost she could reach without crossing the big lake they called Erie. She had no canoe, nor the strength it would take to paddle across that vast expanse by herself even if she had one.

She settled into a ground-eating lope along a deer trail, keeping her pace until darkness gathered beneath the trees. Her stomach growled in a good imitation of the wolf pack from the lake. There was precious little pemmican left in her pouch. If only she’d had more time to secure provisions before she’d fled. More time to make a plan.

New vegetation sprouted along the sides of the trail. Nothing of use to her rumbling middle. Winter had loosened its hold on the land, but it offered little in the way of fresh edibles this early in the season.

In a gathering of cedars, she found a large windfall that was dry enough to make a good resting place. She gathered handfuls of old needles and lined the depression with them. With the small metal hatchet she’d been able to steal, she cut a few cedar boughs and laid them within reach. Now that leaving signs behind her no longer mattered, she could sleep more comfortably, even though she couldn’t allow herself to sleep much. Dropping her leather pouch onto the makeshift bedding, Maggie sat beside it with a sigh. She dug out the almost flat sack of pemmican and chewed on the greasy mixture.

The fort would have bread. Real bread. The type Mama had made.

She stopped mid-chew. When was the last time she’d thought of Mama? A week? Marking time in the Indian village had been difficult. Many weeks? Perhaps longer for Da. Their names came to mind without sadness anymore. Without expectation. She closed her eyes and tried to picture them, but the images were fuzzy and dark in her mind, like looking through murky water at the stones below.

Swallowing the mouthful of pemmican, she put the rest back in her pouch and curled into a ball in the shelter of the windfall. She pulled the boughs over her. Frost was not uncommon during the nights, but she’d been unwilling to add a blanket to the weight she carried. It would have slowed her down. Her doe-hide dress was thick and warm, as were her leggings and knee-high moccasins. She wriggled into a more comfortable position and grasped her hatchet, holding it close.

Maggie had dreamed of her escape for years, though she hadn’t always believed it would happen. At times she’d been sure it wouldn’t. She’d stayed strong and adapted to the tribe she’d been sold to. She’d learned to survive. When the British had chased the French out of the country two summers past, she’d thought maybe it was her chance, but the Huron village where she lived had seen nothing of the British. Very little had changed until the Ottawa chief, the one called Pontiac, had come to ask Chief Teata to join with him in a great fight against the British in a place called Fort Detroit.

There had been much talk around the fire that night, enough for Maggie to learn she could follow the lake and then a big river to find Fort Detroit—and that it was filled with British soldiers.

The British. Her people.

The Huron chief had listened with a stoic face, seemingly unmoved by the younger Pontiac’s passion for a fight to annihilate the British and restore the French to power. But the more Maggie heard as she’d brought food and drink to those listening to the Ottawa chief, the faster her heart had beat. It had beat for freedom. It had beat for a future among her own people. And it had beat with a hope she’d thought long gone, left at a burning blockhouse on the frontier of Pennsylvania.

Ears tuned to the noises of the forest at night, Maggie let her mind wander to the possibilities ahead. A strong fort filled with soldiers who would keep the Indians out. A return to the world into which she’d been born. A chance to find her brothers and sister again.

If they lived.

Of course she hoped they did. Wanted them to be alive and well and not captives of another tribe somewhere. Wanted them to be together as she remembered them. Which was foolish. They would be older now, as she was. Although she’d no clear idea of her age. Indians marked time differently than her parents had, and they didn’t mark it at all for a white captive.

What if she never found her family again?

Her arms ached for the warm press of Redwing’s sturdy little body. The chill of the hatchet was no substitute for the boy she had left behind. She couldn’t have brought him with her. Couldn’t have escaped with his weight to carry, his mouth to feed, his body to keep warm. And Redwing was Huron. The son of her only friend among the Hurons, Wind Over Waters, who had died bringing the boy into the world. Maggie had promised to care for the child, and she had.

Until three days before.

With a wispy sigh, she burrowed deeper into the pine needles. She must find the fort. She must find it before the one who followed found her. And she must be on the move again before the sun broke the horizon.

Clenching the hatchet to her chest, she slept.

***

The sun sank behind the trees on the opposite bank of the river. Baptiste Geroux stretched and yawned, thankful to put a long day behind him. Tomorrow, he would plow the field for planting peas. Those seeds liked the cool ground of early spring and would shoot forth in its dampness. Then he would plow more and plant his wheat, and after that, the corn and squash.

The rhythm of the land was in his blood. Grand–père had toiled in fields across the vast ocean, a body of water Baptiste had never seen. The third son of a large family, Père had left France and brought his young wife to this land.

Here Baptiste had been born, the oldest of five children. Here he had worked from his earliest days, following behind Père and the oxen, dropping seeds into the freshly broken soil. Here he had run ahead of the oxen, an impulsive child who’d tripped and fallen, his leg trampled and twisted. Here he’d survived and learned to live with his limitations. And here he had stayed.

But his eyes were drawn again to the western sky.

Where was Henri? Would he return this summer? It’d been more than two years since his brother had paddled away in his loaded canoe, heading to places west in search of furs to trade, leaving the land he’d been born on to the British.

Leaving Baptiste behind.

He rubbed the thigh of his lame leg. The bunched muscles under his breeches helped him compensate for the twisted calf below. But not enough to sail with Henri.

They’d stood on the riverbank and argued, something they rarely did, the morning Henri’d left. He’d done his best to persuade Baptiste to go west. He’d pleaded, argued, and even bullied, but Baptiste knew the truth. With his lame leg and inability to run, he would have placed Henri in more danger.

The tribes to the west owed no allegiance to the French. They could be hostile to anyone. Probably were. Was that why his brother had not returned? Had he fallen without Baptiste at his side?

He refused to believe it. Nobody was as silver-tongued as Henri or better able to talk himself out of trouble. French, English, or the Indian trade language, Henri was fluent in all three.

So where was he?

One of the oxen snorted and snapped Baptiste out of his melancholy thoughts. He left the riverbank and picked up his willow switch.

“Beau. Pierre. Come up, boys.”

He swished the willow branch through the air, and the oxen leaned into their yoke. It didn’t take much encouragement for them to head to the low-roofed barn for the night. Once in the shelter, Baptiste removed their yoke and tossed a handful of grain into each trough. It should be more for all the work they’d done, but he was almost out until the summer’s crop was ripe. With the grass greening more every day, the oxen had been finding plenty to eat without it.

With a brush in one hand and an old strip of cloth in the other, Baptiste worked over each beast, brushing and wiping the winter hair from their hides. Père had instilled in him the importance of a well-kept team of oxen. Without them, a farmer was at a loss to provide what he needed for his family, much less the gifts the Indians expected as a form of rent for use of the land.

Not that Baptiste had a family anymore. His parents rested under the spreading branches of a tall oak behind the cabin Père had built with his own hands. His sisters were buried beside them in three smaller graves. And Henri was…

What if Henri did not return? What would Baptiste do then?

What did he want to do?

He tossed the brush and rag into the box where he kept his few barn tools, then dusted off his hands. That was the question he needed to figure out. And soon. Tensions were rising between the Indian tribes and the British in the fort.

Baptiste’s little farm sat smack in the middle of it all.

The two farmers nearest him had pulled up stakes and moved out last fall. Both had urged him to do the same, and he might have if not for Henri.

But he couldn’t spend his life waiting for his brother. He loved the land, the river, his sturdy cabin, even the mismatched colored oxen in the barn. It was home. His home. It was all he knew.

So why weren’t the everyday chores and rhythm of the farm enough for him anymore? Was it the unrest of those surrounding him? Or was it something else?

The aloneness pushed in on him as it often did toward the end of the day. He scraped the bottoms of his moccasins on the board positioned for that task. A half-smile tugged at his mouth and in his mind’s ear, he could hear Maman telling him to do a good job. She’d been so proud of her wooden floor, put in years after the cabin had been built.

He stepped into the cabin on that floor, littered with clumps of dirt, dried grass, and leaves tracked in since he’d swept last, which had been sometime last fall before the snows came. He took a deep breath and grimaced. The barn smelled better. He scanned the single room for his broom. It must be around somewhere.

The gurgle in his middle distracted him in the direction of his meager larder. He wished—not for the first time—that a hot meal bubbled over the hearth, and with a warm smile on her face, Maman stood nearby.

Or someone else.

He rubbed the back of his neck. The pull of nature was for a man to have a mate, but what woman would want a lame husband?

***

Something jerked Maggie from sleep. Heart racing, muscles tightened to the point of pain, she slowed her breathing and remained motionless, keeping her eyes closed. The sounds of the forest surrounded her. The brush of a bat’s wings against the air, the clicking of insects on the move in the dark, the sway of branches sighing in the breeze.

A grunt, the scuff of a foot against last fall’s leaves, a whuffling snort.

She relaxed and opened her eyes but kept a firm grip on the hatchet.

Old wood popped beneath powerful claws, followed by the slurp and smack of a tongue lapping bugs from their hiding places.

Hungry from its long sleep, the bear would be feasting on everything it could find, but not on Maggie. It hadn’t smelled her yet, or she wouldn’t have heard it. Bears were solitary creatures, not given to provoking trouble with people. Unless, of course… she strained her ears, but no sound of cubs reached her. A single male then, or perhaps a female too old to breed.

Maggie remained motionless until the bear had moved past her range of hearing. She couldn’t see much of the sky through the branches covering her but judged she’d slept half the night. It was enough. She pushed the boughs off and rose from the windfall, brushing debris from her clothing and hair.

Eyes accustomed to the darkness, and with the aid of a half moon, she picked her way along the deer path she’d been on the evening before. Her sense of direction was generally good, and when the trees parted, she could see enough of the stars to get her bearings. Da had taught her of the North Star. She only needed to find it and keep it on her right.

Where was Tree Sleeper? Did he rest yet? Or was he also on his feet, slipping beneath the trees, perhaps not far behind her? She quickened her steps and ignored the chill that had little to do with the damp night air.

She’d lost count of the years since Fort McCord. Sold after two winters by the Indian who’d captured her, she’d been bought by an old Huron medicine man and his elderly sister. Stone Foot had treated her fairly well—he hadn’t beaten her, at least. Long Pouch, his sister, had done that. Until the old woman had died, she’d worked Maggie like the slave she was.

Had been.

She was free.

Gaining her freedom had come unexpectedly and far too easily. Easy except that she’d had to leave Redwing behind. Keeping her freedom? That would be the challenge. She’d seen an escaped captive who’d been returned to the village. What had happened to him had both solidified her desire to escape and instilled a terror that had prevented her from forming a true plan of action.

Then Pontiac had arrived, and everything had fallen into place.

As the inky sky behind her showed the first blush of a new day, her feet were almost flying along the path to find Pontiac’s river. All her hope rested on finding and following it to Fort Detroit.

Once there… her steps faltered for a couple of strides.

Would the British in the fort believe her? Would they let her stay? Would they protect her from Tree Sleeper?

Or would they turn her away?

She was Maggie Kerr, a British citizen. She’d stayed strong and survived. They must listen to her. They must protect her.

Her stride faltered again, and she slowed to a walk.

Why would they, though?

Nobody else had protected her. Nobody had come for her. She’d been abandoned. Someone should have come for her.

Someone should have cared about her.

She pressed her fingers against the stinging in her eyes. Crying was not permitted. Crying earned Long Pouch’s hard slap. And crying—even in the depth of night when no one in the longhouse was awake to hear—solved nothing.

If Maggie was going to survive, she’d have to do it on her own.

Again.

paperback ISBN: 979-8985027822 – ebook ISBN: 979-8985027839

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