Language of the Bear Read online

  In the hostile wilderness of Colonial America, a young Native American warrior and a British officer are forced into a secret assassination mission. But when they learn their prey is more dangerous than they feared, can they complete their mission, protect a dying tribe, confront a madman, and still survive?

  With war rumbling on the horizon, Lieutenant Hugh Pyke arrives in the Pennsylvania Colony hoping to prove himself against the French. Instead, he finds himself blackmailed into a dishonorable mission to assassinate the cousin of the woman he loves.

  Wolf Tongue, a brash warrior of a dying tribe, volunteers to guide Pyke through the dangers of both the landscape and its indigenous nations. Even as he fights to protect his people from European and Native invaders, he struggles to earn the respect of those he would save.

  An action-filled, old-fashioned adventure, Language of the Bear is the first novel in the Tomahawk and Saber series.

  Language of the Bear

  By Nathanael Green and Evan Ronan

  HISTORICAL NOTE

  When writing a historical novel, the demands of drama and the needs of historical accuracy are often in conflict. We resolved these conflicts, most of which we regard as small ones, to the best of our abilities, but when forced to decide between strict historical accuracy and storytelling, we favored drama.

  Our goal was to create an enjoyable story in a believable setting, much like novels set in our contemporary world are plausible, but often not factual.

  The history of the Susquehannock nation, sadly, is largely lost. The details of this people, who once ruled throughout central Pennsylvania and beyond, are now left to speculation because of their swift decline after the arrival of Europeans and the very little documentation of them. Much of this nation had dispersed to other area tribes or died from disease and war in the seventeenth century, and they are largely considered to have disappeared completely by the end of the 1760s. Our presentation of them here, then, is one of best efforts at reconstruction from sparse historical sources and our imaginations.

  For example, their language is documented only briefly by Thomas Companius Holm. The words presented here in Susquehannock are constructed from this small vocabulary and words from their linguistic cousins like Wyandot and other Iroquoian languages.

  Colonial America is a fascinating setting, so rich with conflict and singular history. As we continue with the Tomahawk and Saber series, our characters will become involved in larger historical events such as the oncoming French and Indian War, creating a greater need to weave our frontier-characters into our common historical narrative. We look forward to the challenge of that.

  Language of the Bear, however, takes place primarily in the wilderness away from the major events of the time period. There is nothing in the historical record that we can find suggesting the events we describe here ever took place, but, like they say, absence of evidence isn’t evidence of absence. What would become America at this point was still one big frontier, where the European nations and Native Americans formed constantly-shifting, uneasy alliances, so it’s not a stretch to believe a story like this could very well have happened and been lost to history.

  CONTENTS

  One – An English Messenger

  Two – Code Duello

  Three – Storm-of-Villages

  Four – The Lenape

  Five – An Oath to the Gods

  Six – Better Than Men

  Seven – To the Cliffs

  Eight – The Deed

  Nine – Gohem

  Ten – Proof of the Deed

  Eleven – Awakening

  Twelve – The Hunted

  Thirteen – The Trail to the Town

  Fourteen – Do No Harm

  Fifteen – An Arrow Unloosed

  Sixteen – The Cruelty of Men

  Seventeen – The Ambush

  Eighteen – Azariah Bennett

  Nineteen – Glory and Sorrow

  Twenty – The War Council

  Twenty-One – The Path to War

  Twenty-Two – A True Return

  Twenty-Three – Honor in Valor

  Afterword

  Through the Narrows Excerpt

  “To convince the bear not to eat you, you must speak its language.”

  -unknown

  One – An English Messenger

  Wolf Tongue pursed his lips in a small, crooked smile even while his fingers tightened on his knife. He looked to his right through a gathered crowd to the young woman who stood beside her father and winked.

  Fox's Smile did not reflect his confidence. Instead of her usual, teasing grin, she stared back with a tightness around her lips that spoke more of concern than jovialness. Her eyes, darkened by lowered eyebrows, darted to the strange man who’d come to their village from the English before coming back to Wolf Tongue.

  She was beautiful even when she was worried.

  Wolf Tongue pushed the thoughts away and returned his attention to the old man standing beside her. Their village chief, Lifting Smoke, had wrapped himself in a deerskin and wore a tight, embroidered cap over a wrinkled forehead. A puff of white air hung before his face as he spoke to Wolf Tongue.

  “You challenging for the right to go?”

  Wolf Tongue nodded and fought to keep his lips from curling into a full smile. “This English messenger asks for a single scout to go with him? We should send our best. Not Red Hand.”

  “My name is Kicks-the-Oneida,” came a man’s voice, deep and slow, though the tension in his jaw resonated in his words. Kicks-the-Oneida had seen perhaps eight years more than Wolf Tongue’s nineteen and stood half a hand taller than most of the hundred that gathered around. He seemed almost comically tall standing next to the English messenger at his elbow.

  The messenger looked around with quick-flitting eyes as he scratched his chest through a woolen overcoat. Wolf Tongue guessed he didn’t speak Susquehannock.

  Kicks-the-Oneida stared back at Wolf Tongue with a face of carved wood. He, too, wore a simple hide to fight the cold, though it hung open across his chest. Like many of the men in their tribe, including his seven-year-old son who stood beside him, Kicks-the-Oneida had shaved his head but for a scalplock into which he’d tied two splayed hawk feathers. He had been known as Red Hand until he’d led a war party against the Mohawk and Oneida and driven them back north. It was said he’d killed one with a single kick, though Wolf Tongue hadn’t seen it.

  His narrowed eyes lingered on Wolf Tongue for a long moment before he turned back to the chief. “If he challenges, I accept.”

  Lifting Smoke crossed his arms and nodded to Kicks-the-Oneida. Wolf Tongue thought he saw something strange in the chief’s eyes. Was that a hidden smile? Did he think so little of him that he’d mock him before he even began the fight?

  In less than heartbeat, the look vanished and Lifting Smoke spoke with his usual gravity. “No weapons,” he said. “Our people are too few already.”

  Wolf Tongue nodded and took a long breath. Kicks-the-Oneida was only slightly taller than him, but much thicker.

  He glanced once at his uncles who had taught him to fight and his mother who stood by them. His uncles watched silently, seeming more curious than anything. His mother had her arms folded across her chest and her bottom lip in her teeth.

  Wolf Tongue took his eyes from her and turned to his friend, Runs-in-Water, standing at his elbow. He smiled as he shed his cloak, pulled his tunic over his head, and passed them both over. Runs-in-Water watched him with wide eyes and nodded his encouragement.

  With his chest bare, the air was frigid. Spring should be close, but Kaol, the wind, still carried winter and Wolf Tongue could feel it slip over his skin and rustle the dyed porcupine-hair ro
ach in his scalplock. A shiver shook his shoulders.

  The crowd shuffled away, creating a wider opening beyond the Ring of Ancestors. Twelve carved posts encircled a large open area with a fire pit at its center. Each post, as tall as a man, had the animal face of a clan ancestor carved in it—the twelve Susquehannock totems would observe the fight.

  Across from Wolf Tongue, Kicks-the-Oneida squeezed his son’s shoulder and stepped forward. He had also stripped to his breechcloth and leggings. A particularly ugly vein of puckered skin ran down his left arm from his elbow to his wrist. A tattoo of twisted green lines wound around his neck and down his chest in the angles that represented the Bear Clan.

  Wolf Tongue stepped forward and ran one hand across his own clan’s tattoo from his left shoulder down to his sternum. The wolf’s cunning against the bear’s strength.

  Kicks-the-Oneida rushed in with his teeth bared. Wolf Tongue dove closer, ducking inside the punch and taking the meat of his arm against his shoulder. He shoved at the bigger man, hoping to unbalance him, but Kicks-the-Oneida twisted and pushed him away. As Wolf Tongue stumbled back, another punch swished past as he barely ducked beneath it.

  “You should have stayed as Red Hand,” he said. “I’m no Oneida to just stand here and get kicked.”

  He lunged in with a quick grab at his opponent’s leg. Kicks-the-Oneida shifted and slammed one fist into Wolf Tongue’s stomach. A flare of heat forced his breath from him in a gasp.

  “Maybe it should be White Hand. I’ll see what color your blood is, quhanstrono,” said Kicks-the-Oneida. Wolf Tongue shuffled away, trying to catch his breath before engaging again. Kicks-the-Oneida stood and watched him with narrowed eyes, his hands dangling at his sides. He smirked and changed to English. “Understand your father’s language better? Let us fight.”

  Wolf Tongue stood upright and took a deep breath. His stomach still ached from the punch, but he smiled anyway. In English, he said, “You have enough trouble thinking in your own language, I didn’t think you were smart enough to learn English, too.”

  And with that, Wolf Tongue lunged. Kicks-the-Oneida grasped with both arms, trying to slow him down. Wolf Tongue slid past and slammed his elbow against his opponent’s ribs. He spun and kicked at the bigger man’s legs as he stumbled back from the shock of the first blow. One leg slipped out from under Kicks-the-Oneida and he pitched forward. A flailing hand slapped Wolf Tongue across the face, and a burning soreness exploding in his jaw.

  Then the two were entangled. Wolf Tongue fought to keep from being crushed or thrown to the ground. His arms writhed like snakes against Kicks-the-Oneida’s, punching, shoving. He forced one palm against the other man’s chin, pushed as hard as he could. He could barely see or breathe for the hand pressing down on his face. It pulled away and air rushed back into his nose, followed suddenly by fist. The blow was from an awkward angle and it blunted the force, though it rose and hammered against Wolf Tongue’s forehead a second time.

  Twisting, he wrenched his body down. Kicks-the-Oneida opened his arms, pulling back for a stronger, heavier blow. He stood for half a heartbeat with his arms wide, his right hand over his shoulder. Wolf Tongue, still crouched low, sprung from his knees and drove his elbow up underneath Kicks-the-Oneida’s chin.

  Kicks-the-Oneida reeled backward. He stumbled once and swerved suddenly to his left and half-fell into the arms of one of his friends in the crowd. The other man struggled for a moment with the sudden weight before Kicks-the-Oneida righted himself.

  He stared back at Wolf Tongue. Blood streamed down his forehead around his eyes. He seemed to ignore the wound on his head as he raised a hand to his mouth. It came away slick and red and he spat a gob to the ground.

  “Enough!” called Lifting Smoke.

  Wolf Tongue allowed his shoulders to relax, though he still stood staring at Kicks-the-Oneida. His stomach was sore to the point of nausea, his jaw ached, his face stung and his head throbbed. He brought a hand to his nose to see if it was bleeding. It wasn’t. He tried to steady his heaving breaths.

  Kicks-the-Oneida spat again and then turned to face Lifting Smoke. Wolf Tongue did the same. The chief looked briefly to his side where his wife, Sits-by-the-Tree, had sat quietly since the messenger had arrived. There seemed to be some unspoken communication between them, and Wolf Tongue glanced quickly to Fox’s Smile. She watched him with a strange, tense look on her face. Was that pride? Concern, perhaps. It did not seem to be the relief Wolf Tongue had hoped for.

  “It’s settled, then,” said Lifting Smoke. “Tell him.”

  Kicks-the-Oneida faced the Englishman. The stranger stood off to the side of the gathered circle, his hands tightly clasped on his musket that was planted in the dirt before him. With a bitter twist to his mouth, Kicks-the-Oneida spoke in English, “You see, quhanstrono? We send our best warrior with you.”

  Kicks-the-Oneida hissed to Wolf Tongue in Susquehannock, “I hope it was worth it.” With that, he paused only for a moment to gather his tunic and cloak from his son and then shouldered his way through the crowd.

  The English messenger spoke. “Chief Lifting Smoke, both King George and Colonel Bennett thank you for your support. We know your people have suffered much recently, and your friendship is much valued by your English fathers.”

  Fox’s Smile translated into Susquehannock.

  “They’re not my fathers,” said Lifting Smoke.

  Fox’s Smile translated. “Thank you.”

  A small chuckle escaped Wolf Tongue and he marveled at the woman’s straight face. She flicked a sly glance his way.

  “The matter’s of utmost importance, and I would hope we could leave immediately. Is that amenable?” asked the Englishman.

  “I need only to gather my things,” replied Wolf Tongue. Fox’s Smile translated for her father. “We’ll leave before midday.”

  The Englishman nodded and his long hair swung in the breeze like a woman’s. “I’ll wait for you on the road outside your village and escort you to Jenkins Town. Colonel Bennett will have more information for you there.” He turned again to Lifting Smoke. “Chief, thank you again. May God guard you and your people.” Taking his musket in one hand, he turned and walked through the tangle of bark longhouses out toward the fortified outer wall of the village.

  Wolf Tongue stifled a snort. The white god was as unsuited for the wilds as the English were.

  “Let us speak,” said Lifting Smoke in a quieter voice. Most of the crowd began to disperse as the spectacle had ended and the strange English man left.

  The chief narrowed his eyes. “I do not know what the English want with you. But they have been friendly to us, and our village needs more friends than enemies.”

  Wolf Tongue looked over his shoulder at the back of the English soldier. “If he’s looking for a scout and warrior, I don’t think it’s to help him make us more friends.”

  Lifting Smoke made an ill-humored sound and Wolf Tongue turned back. The chief wore a mask of annoyance mingled with sadness. Despite his words, Wolf Tongue agreed with what he assumed the chief was thinking. The Susquehannock had once been so powerful that even the six nations of the Iroquois feared them. But lately, after the Mohawk and the Oneida had pushed them so far south and so many had died of fever and the pox, their once overwhelming numbers had dwindled. The two hundred villagers here were some of the last of their tribe.

  Lifting Smoke was right. The Susquehannock needed more friends than enemies, and the English could be strong ones.

  Wolf Tongue stretched his aching jaw, then, with as much seriousness as he could gather, said, “I know. They’ll ask something dangerous of me. But I’ll bring honor on our people and show them the strength of the Susquehannock is still here.”

  Lifting Smoke grunted again. “It’s good that you go. Perhaps you’ll do well among your father’s people.”

  Wolf Tongue grit his teeth as the chief turned his eyes on his daughter, who still stood at his side. He squeezed her arm as he turned, and then he and his
wife stepped away toward their lodge.

  Fox’s Smile watched her parents go for a handful of heartbeats, then whispered, “Meet me by the entrance to the village.” She paused long enough for him to stare into her eyes, a glossy brown of polished walnut. Wolf Tongue nodded. She forced a small, hesitant smile, and then she turned and followed her parents.

  The wind, Kaol, rolled past and Wolf Tongue felt his sweat like icy fingers trailing down his chest and back.

  ***

  Wolf Tongue rummaged through the supplies in the longhouse and loaded a bundle of tobacco into his bag.

  “You should have been the one to go without the challenge,” said his mother.

  He turned to her and paused. She sat on a pile of robes on her bunk with her hands folded atop a plain, woven dress. River Mist’s hair was smooth and black with only a handful of gray strands pulled back into a braid. Even in the gloom of the longhouse, her ears glistened with silver hoops Wolf Tongue’s father had given her. She looked down and smoothed the fur beside her leg for a moment before she turned her eyes back to her son.

  “You don’t look like your father in the least,” she said. “But there’s more of him in you than anything else.”

  Wolf Tongue set his bag aside and sat next to her. “You miss him.”

  She smiled and wrapped her arm over Wolf Tongue’s shoulders. It seemed as if it were an uncomfortable position, to reach so high for her, but it was a familiar gesture and Wolf Tongue said nothing.

  As if she hadn’t heard him, she continued. “He came to us because he wouldn’t be held to the quhanstrono laws. He would have been a slave, even though his skin was as pale as the snow.” She turned wide, knowing eyes on him. “He didn’t like to listen to his elders, either.”

  “I listen. I just don’t agree sometimes.”

  “That’s why I had your father deal with you when you were young.” She shook her head. “Now your sisters, they’re different. They’ve got more of his looks, but their spirits are content.”