Language of the Bear Read online

  A fire crackled next to an English-style tent. Around the fire, four men, seemingly two Englishmen and two Indians, warmed themselves. One of the Englishmen sat with shoulders hunched beneath a cocked hat. The other white man sat a foot taller than the rest, his head shaved completely bald. Their conversation carried to Pyke and Wolf Tongue, but at this distance it was garbled and inarticulate.

  “We settle in and scout,” Pyke said.

  The savage stretched out on the forest floor and rubbed his thighs. Pyke kept his eyes on the camp. When Wolf Tongue looked back over the tree, Pyke said, “Can you tell what tribe those men are?”

  “Oneida, perhaps. Not Lenape.”

  “How can you tell?” Pyke asked, more out of a curiosity than out of challenge.

  “The same way you can tell if those whites are English or French.” Wolf Tongue smirked at him.

  Pyke had already pegged the whites as English, so maybe the savage had a point.

  They lay in wait for half an hour, while the sky darkened. Thankfully, the cold wind died down. All the same, Pyke was wishing he’d brought his extra blanket with him rather than leave it with the horse.

  “Perhaps we should scout to see if there are others,” Wolf Tongue suggested.

  Pyke was about to agree with him, when the tent’s flaps were hurled aside, and a fifth man emerged.

  In the flickering light of the campfire, Pyke beheld Azariah Bennett.

  The man’s effect on the group was immediate and profound. Their laughter dried up and their attentions sharpened. Azariah wore the jacket of a red coat uniform but the leather breeches Pyke had seen many Indians wear.

  As if he were some important field marshal, Azariah strode toward the campfire and nudged the man sitting nearest the flames to give up his position. Without any fuss, the man got up and moved to the other side.

  “That is him,” Pyke said.

  “He is different than when he came to my village.”

  Pyke nodded, remembering Wolf Tongue had seen him before. “How so?”

  “I cannot say.”

  At this great distance, Pyke couldn’t see details but the man appeared pretty much the same. If anything, he looked leaner, as if the frontier had hardened his muscles and sucked the fat off him. A distant memory of meeting him briefly at the Colonel’s reminded Pyke of the man’s bearing: he had the face of a politician—open, intelligent, seemingly honest—but the walk of a pugilist—steady, short steps, his body never off balance.

  Pyke asked, “You met with him?”

  Wolf Tongue nodded. “He brought with him silly words.”

  The conversation around the campfire finally started again. Pyke could almost feel the easing of the tension, even from this far away. He listened intently, trying to make out any words.

  “Those two are Oneida,” Wolf Tongue said. “I recognize their tongue. And Storm-of-Villages converses with them freely.”

  “He is also a scholar. The man speaks Latin.”

  “Who are the Latins?”

  “The Romans spoke Latin. Theirs was the greatest empire of the ancient world. Latin is an old language, spoken now for thousands of years.”

  “That is not old. My language has been spoken for tens of thousands years,” Wolf Tongue said with a twinkle in his mischievous eyes.

  They slumped down behind the tree so they were completely out of sight. Pyke rubbed the muscles of his legs. “The day is long.”

  “Now is not the time for this. They have been traveling light and easy, we have been moving hard. And we are two to their five,” Wolf Tongue said.

  Pyke didn’t care for the man’s presumptions, but he did have some valid points. “We will watch and take stock to be certain there are only four plus our quarry.”

  The Indian nodded his approval.

  Pyke slumped down to give his neck a break. “We should rest the night and confront Azariah in the morning.”

  “We should rest half the night and attack before dawn,” Wolf Tongue said.

  “I won’t have it. We are not assassins. In the morning, I will confront Azariah myself, man-to-man. He is a gentleman. That is the way it will be done.”

  The conversation around the campfire suddenly grew heated. Voices ran over one another. Wolf Tongue and Pyke poked their heads up again to watch. In the angry cacophony, it was impossible to understand what was being said. Azariah sat silently, staring at nothing, while around him his men bickered like school children. Pyke smiled to himself: the rumors of Azariah leading a band of men were clearly not true, if he could not govern these four shoddy souls alone.

  Suddenly, Azariah stood and the conversation ceased. He drew his pistol, flicked it at the man in the hat’s face and fired.

  The man slumped over, nearly toppling into the campfire, while the others watched in horrified silence, as if frozen in place by Medusa herself. The only movement was the dead man’s limbs twitching.

  Azariah snarled something in the Indian tongue and flicked his arm across his chest in one broad sweeping motion. Pyke looked to Wolf Tongue.

  “He says that if anyone else feels that way, he will kill them also.”

  Azariah uttered not another word and returned to his tent. He pulled its flaps closed behind him. The men sat uneasily around the campfire, eyeing each other from under heavy brows in silence.

  “Evil bastard. Shot the miserable wretch unawares. He has damned himself.”

  “You still think this man is honorable?” Wolf Tongue asked.

  Pyke was in no mood.

  Wolf Tongue continued. “He is no English gentleman like you. He rides with Oneida. You see for yourself,” Wolf Tongue pointed at the camp, “he has forsaken your ways. He is of the frontier now.”

  “The man may not be honorable, but I am. We will duel, as is our custom.”

  “Duel? How can you be certain you will survive?”

  Pyke was growing tired of the savage’s back-talk. He didn’t care for braggarts, but he said, “I am very good with a pistol.”

  “You would risk your own life. And even if you are good, how can you be certain of his death?”

  “I cannot. But that is how things are done. You wouldn’t understand.”

  Wolf Tongue grew thoughtful for a moment. Pyke wondered what was going through the man’s mind. Finally, the Indian spoke, “At least let us wait till they have been asleep. We can approach with stealth and take them by surprise.”

  Pyke didn’t care for skulking through the darkness. At the same time, he was unnerved by Azariah’s unexpected actions. The man was unpredictable. Wolf Tongue had a point: better to surprise them while groggy. He would still duel with the man, either way.

  “We will pretend that we come with a stronger force, who are positioned in the surrounding woods,” Pyke said.

  Wolf Tongue smiled. “Now you think like a Susquehannock.”

  “A back-handed compliment to be certain,” Pyke said, though his tone was soft. “And I will still duel with our man.”

  “That is foolish. You believe his men will sit by while you two English play your silly games?”

  “You forget your place.”

  “And you forget yours. You are only in this place right now because of the blood oath that saved your life.”

  The man went too far. Clearly, Pyke was indebted to him as he had already owned, but they were not going to sneak into Azariah’s camp under cover of darkness and murder the man like some nefarious road agents. There was a right way and a wrong way to do things, and that was most certainly the wrong way. The Colonel might not have cared how Azariah was dispatched, but Pyke had his own honor to consider.

  “I have thanked you for that, but it cannot be done this way. You do not understand English honor.”

  “You’re right. I do not.”

  Pyke ignored the comment and kept speaking. “He is their master. If he commands them not to intervene, they will not.”

  The savage bristled, readying to respond, but then the moment passed and he wa
s quiet again. Pyke could tell the man wasn’t happy, but that mattered not to him. He had his mission and he had his honor and that was the end of it.

  ***

  They slunk back through the mud, avoiding the crunch of the remaining snow, back to Pyke’s horse and set up a watch. A half-moon loomed high overhead, its ghostly false light playing through the trees, bright enough to cast shadows in the darkness. Despite the cold, they did not build a fire for fear of alerting Azariah and his men to their presence. He told the heathen to sleep first. Pyke would wake him in two hours.

  The Indian settled in and was snoring softly in a few minutes. Their travels had worn on him too. Pyke took some satisfaction in that.

  The temperature dipped and Pyke bundled himself up more tightly. His eyelids grew heavy. To keep himself occupied, he started running through his Latin conjugations.

  Amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

  The image of that rowdy pub in Jenkins Town flashed in his mind. Thornwood’s slight echoed: demirep. He tried to pull his mind from that moment, frozen in time, and focused it on Damaris instead.

  Amabam, amabas, amabat, amabamus, amabatis, amabant.

  He wondered what she had done that evening, while he slithered through the darkness with Wolf Tongue, readying to kill her cousin. Perhaps she had attended some ball in Philadelphia, or she had settled down for a quiet dinner with the Colonel. And he pictured her in her bedchamber. Their bedchamber.

  But thoughts of the duel flooded him. Thornwood had wandered into his mind much the last few days. It had been this way after his first duel as well. Despite the fact that the man had given offense and deserved his fate, still Pyke’s conscience pricked him over and over about the deed. Eventually, though, the niggling guilt disappeared. It was just a matter of waiting it out.

  He offered up another prayer to the Father and asked that God forgive Thornwood. If he had actually died of his wounds, Pyke hoped the man might rest in peace and be accepted into the Kingdom of Heaven. It was still difficult to think Thornwood might have died—at the time, he’d been certain that Thornwood was only clipped.

  Amabo, amabis, amabit, amabimus, amabitis, amabunt.

  The duel in its entirety played in his mind again. The same feelings of panic and dread, though diminished, assaulted him as if he were experiencing it anew. In his mind, he watched as he took true aim and fired, hitting nothing twice. He had never missed a man twice. It must have been the Colonel’s pistol … but that didn’t make sense, either, because the Colonel would have only the finest and tested equipment.

  Some vague, ominous notion danced around in the corners of his mind, not fully revealing itself. He thought more of—

  The crunch of leaves startled him from his reverie. Immediately Pyke assumed Azariah had sent a midnight scout into the forest. He snatched his pistol and saber and jostled Wolf Tongue awake. The man came fully to and rolled to his feet.

  Pyke peered around the side of a tree into the gloom, but spotted no one.

  A bird chirped, and Pyke realized it was Wolf Tongue trying to get his attention. The savage held up four fingers in the blue-black of the night. He had spotted four men, somehow, in this darkness.

  “Lieutenant.” The familiar voice echoed through the woods and sounded friendly enough, but Pyke couldn’t place it.

  “Identify yourself at once and keep your damned voice low,” Pyke said.

  The voice dropped. “We have met. I am friendly with Mr. Fletcher of Millers Town. I am Nederwue.”

  “What business do you have following me around? I’m on an important mission for Colonel Bennett.”

  “Apologies, Lieutenant. We’re not here for you.”

  Pyke peered around the tree again but saw no man. If they meant no harm, they should have showed themselves. He flicked a glance to Wolf Tongue, who mimicked holding a musket.

  The men were armed.

  “You skulk in the shadows and you do not state your business,” Pyke said. “At this rate I would be justified in coming out shooting.”

  “We have no quarrel with you, Lieutenant. We have come for your friend.”

  Pyke looked again at Wolf Tongue, who frowned and shook his head.

  “My companion has done nothing to you. You will be on your way presently,” Pyke said.

  “The savage’s tribe attacked our town last autumn, and we aim to make things right.”

  Finally, the voice triggered the memory of a face. This was the man from Millers Town who had spoken of scalpers and how much money they could earn from the French.

  “How much will the French give you for this man’s scalp?” Pyke scoffed.

  The men from Millers Town then spoke in hushed tones, their puerile ruse having been laid bare. Pyke eyed their surroundings to make sure no one was attempting to flank them in the darkness.

  Pyke scooted down the tree till he was almost squatting and signaled for Wolf Tongue to do the same.

  “I repeat, you had best be on your way,” Pyke said.

  “Lieutenant, we have no grievance with you. It’s just the winter has been hard and we still have no road by which to transport supplies. Our women and children go hungry and sick. We need coin to feed them,” said Nederwue. “We have no wish to shoot a fellow Christian. We only want the savage.”

  Millers Town had been Spartan in its design, but not impoverished. Pyke didn’t believe him for a second. They came for Wolf Tongue’s scalp out of greed alone. He could not let them earn money in such a dishonest way.

  On the other hand, it would solve a lot of his problems. If he let them take the heathen quietly away, Azariah would not be alerted to their presence. It would settle the matter of how to deal with Azariah as well: with the Wolf Tongue out of the picture, Pyke could go to Bennett and stand man-against-man with him.

  To think of it, he did not even need the Indian now. They had located Azariah and Pyke had a good idea where his more permanent settlement was. The men from Millers Town could even probably direct him to the cliffs where Azariah had established his stronghold, should Pyke need to journey there. He needed no tracker now. Especially one with a sharp, insolent tongue.

  Wolf Tongue searched him with penetrating eyes, as if trying to read his thoughts.

  Free of Wolf Tongue, he could face Azariah and then ride hard for Jenkins Town, into the loving arms of Damaris Bennett. They would be married presently, and he would find favor with the Colonel as the man’s son-in-law. He would serve with honor, provide his family with some much-needed income, and prosper as a merchant or as a barrister. Damaris would give him a brood of wonderful children.

  He checked his pistol and felt the handle of his saber. Then he leveled his eyes on Wolf Tongue, his expression was inscrutable.

  No matter what justifications he gave himself, he could not forget his debt. Even if it meant risking the mission. His honor would not allow it.

  He raised his pistol and mimicked firing it to Wolf Tongue. The Indian gave him a lopsided grin and brandished his tomahawk.

  Pyke stood and peered around the tree. He saw two of the four to the north, sticking mostly to the shadows. Their muskets were lifted to their shoulders.

  “Sir,” Pyke called out. “You may take the Indian.”

  In unison, Wolf Tongue and Pyke broke cover and darted through the forest toward their attackers. Clear of the thickest trees, Pyke saw all four men advancing with muskets.

  The nearest one fired wildly, surprised by the attack. The ball flew so wide, Pyke couldn’t tell whether he was firing at him or the Indian. Pyke leveled his pistol and fired, sending the man spiraling to the ground.

  The second nearest man, who had a steadier nerve, aimed at Wolf Tongue and fired. The savage was not hit by some miracle, and then Pyke could hear the tomahawk whistle through the air before it buried in the man’s chest.

  There was no time to reload his pistol. The remaining men had not fired yet and were taking their aim cautiously. But they had blundered in their plan: in the thickness of P
enn’s Woods and in the shifting moonlight shadows, it was difficult to shoot a man. The trees provided countless barriers and defenses. Pyke dashed between this one and that and in the blink of an eye saw that the Wolf Tongue did the same thing.

  Pyke drew his saber, just as he heard the blast of another musket. He had no time to make sure his companion was not hit. He took cover behind another tree, hoping the fourth man would fire out of turn. But there was no blast.

  He caught his breath and lowered himself to the ground, all the while listening to the frantic fumbling of a man trying to reload his musket. He feinted moving one way, and drew the fourth man into firing, an ill-advised shot that hit nothing but dirt. Then Pyke rolled the other way and met the two men.

  Both men were drawing their ramrods from their muskets. Pyke closed the distance between them and slashed with his saber as Nederwue brought up his gun. The blade caught under his arms and slice upward, knocking the musket for a harmless shot.

  The other was bringing his musket to bear on Pyke. There was too much ground to cover between them, so Pyke readied to throw his sword, but before he could, Wolf Tongue caught the man from behind and carved his throat. The man didn’t even get to shoot. The strength left his legs and he crumpled to the ground, clutching at the black, gurgling wound in his throat.

  Nederwue was lying in the dirt, trying to retrieve the musket he had dropped. Pyke stepped on the man’s wrist and put his weight down. With a quick glance over his shoulder, he made sure the other two men were down and not merely wounded.

  “Their souls fly,” Wolf Tongue said, reading his mind.

  Satisfied they were dead, Pyke returned his attention to Nederwue, who groaned and gave up trying to snatch his weapon. Pyke put the tip of his blade against the man’s neck.

  “Of all the bloody times to accost us, you miserable wretch!” Pyke stomped on the man’s stomach. Nederwue coughed and moaned in agony. Pyke had slashed him from gut to chest, though the wound appeared superficial.

  Nederwue said, “We tracked you from Millers Town. We had no other chance till now. We couldn’t come after you at the Delaware village.”