Chapter 20
Ashes to Ashes
Chogan rushed headlong through the trees as though a herd of moose were chasing after him. Sarah gasped and sputtered as she raced to follow. Despite his speed, Chogan was surprisingly quiet. He ducked branches, leaped over scattered leaves, and avoided splashing through puddles and streams. Sarah, however, was not as fleet of foot. Every branch lashed her face. Every fallen log rose from the ground to trip her. She discovered every puddle or sank knee-deep into every thick patch of mud. But when she fell, Chogan picked her up. When she got stuck, he pulled her out. He didn’t seem angry; it was merely his job to look out for her and keep her moving.
“Will Matt be okay?” she asked. Chogan hissed her to silence. He grasped her hand and pulled her doggedly through the brush. They were travelling upriver in a roundabout way. At one point, a series of rustles disturbed the woods to their left. Chogan yanked her down behind a log and crouched beside her. She caught a glimpse of movement, tan and dark. Then it was gone. Chogan whipped up his bow and nocked an arrow, but the enemies passed by without spotting them.
Sarah tried to quiet her thudding heart as Chogan scanned the forest for several more minutes, his bowstring retracted. Convinced they were safe, he sprang up again and crept forward, beckoning her to follow. They hustled towards the Algonquin camp, but with warier steps this time. The afternoon sun gradually folded into the trees, lengthening the shadows and deepening the gloom. Soon it would be dark, at least providing an additional cloak to hide them.
After an hour of struggling through the web of intersecting branches, the bulk of trees thinned out and the sound of babbling water swelled. They were approaching the clearing of Chogan’s home. But instead of rushing into the camp to warn his family, Chogan slackened his pace. Clouds of thick grey smoke curled into the indigo sky accompanied by an eerie silence. Chogan stopped. He clenched Sarah’s hand, grinding the bones. Her chest tightened as if a python had coiled around her. Beads of sweat welled up on her forehead. Each step she took felt heavier than the one before.
Chogan walked towards the village. His feet dragged and his shoulders sagged. The smoke was so thick here, Sarah began to cough and choke. Her eyes burned. But through breaks in the smoke, she could see . . . Her knees went limp. She fell to the ground and threw up. Chogan shed her hand and kept walking as if in a dream, or a nightmare. Sarah wiped away her tears, but more kept streaming out. When her vision cleared, she couldn’t hold back the screams.
The bodies of Chogan’s family—his aunts, his uncles, his cousins, his friends, his mother, his little brother—were scattered over the village, all dead. The ashes of remnant wigwams smoldered, burned to the ground.
Chogan wandered among the dead, touching each face as if to imprint it in his memory. He chanted a mournful song. Sarah swallowed her screams and looked towards him, trying to find words to comfort him. She couldn’t find any. She missed her father desperately, wherever—whenever—he was, and even her corporate-hungry mother. At least they were still alive. She couldn’t imagine Chogan’s anguish.
At the totem pole in the centre of the camp, Chogan knelt beside a man sprawled on the ground. The man still twitched and moved his feet. Three arrows pierced his chest, yet he still clutched his bow in his hand. He’d gone down fighting. Sarah recognized his prominent nose and pointed chin—Chogan’s father.
Chogan murmured to him and tipped his ear to listen. Sarah leaned forward. Although they spoke in Algonquin, she understood some words. Odawa. Iroquet.
Chogan nodded and wiped his eyes. He cradled his father’s head in his lap and tried to stem the blood flow with a fur quiver laying across the man’s shoulders, but the life drained from his body anyway. The man sagged and died. Chogan eased him to the ground. For a minute he bowed his head, then he stood, his eyes puffy, his cheeks tear-stained, but his lips compressed in a grim line. He squared his shoulders, held his head high, and walked towards Sarah.
“Help me,” he insisted.
Sarah staggered to her feet. She didn’t know if she could handle anything else, but she couldn’t deny him help.
They spent many hours into the night covering the people with stones and brush. Chogan said little except to murmur that they had no time for rituals or mourning.
“We must warn the others,” he said in French.
“Right,” said Sarah. “But what about Matt?”
Chogan looked away.
“He needs us!”
Chogan turned back to her with quivering lips. “Everyone’s dead.”
“Not Matt!” Sarah shook her head wildly. Her hair flew around her face and pasted itself to her wet cheeks. Even though she’d thought her tears had run dry, they exploded from her eyes again.
“We’ll go look,” he said.
He held his hand out to her. She clasped it firmly, trying not to dwell on the horror of the past few hours and the horrible possibility he’d planted in her mind. They stumbled back the way they’d come, their shoulders slack, their heads drooping—spent with grief. Rustles, leaf shivers and padding feet surrounded them. The night teemed with wildlife, but there was no sign of the enemy. Chogan’s keen eyesight led them through the dark as he chose a path closer to the river. He cocked his head from time to time and halted their progress, but the danger had passed. They swiftly made their way back to the rock den where they’d concealed Matt.
Sarah crawled in first. “Matt,” she called. “We’re back, just like we promised.”
He didn’t answer.
Probably just sleeping. She crept farther in, feeling her way in the dark. Her fingers encountered pebbles and dirt but no Matt. She made her way to the back wall of rock, her hands dusting the air and the ground. Nothing.
“Oh no,” she said, biting her lip. She shuffled back out and stood beside Chogan. His eyebrows were raised, but he had his arms crossed as if he’d known what she would find.
“He’s not here,” she said. She swiped at her eyes with the back of her hand.
“Le Mohawk,” he said.
“No! Why would they take him? He was wounded. What would they do with him?”
Chogan turned away and kicked a stone into the river.
“You knew this would happen,” said Sarah, rounding on him.
Chogan said nothing.
“You left him to die.” She grabbed his shoulders and turned him back to face her.
“He was already dead,” said Chogan. “One way or another.”
“I could have stayed with him. I could have fought,” she said angrily.
“You would have died, too.”
“No,” she denied. “I . . .” Words failed her. How could she argue against his cruel logic? He’d sacrificed Matt to save her, save himself, and perhaps save his family, although it had been too late for them. She sank down at the water’s edge and wailed.
Chogan watched her, his own tears flowing again. He savagely swiped at them, his lips compressed. “We must go,” he said.
“Where?” asked Sarah.
“The Asticou.”
“Where is that?”
“The Boiling Kettle,” he said.
Sarah frowned. “Odawa?”
“Oui,” said Chogan. “We must warn Iroquet.”
“Aren’t the Iroquois our enemy? Aren’t they the ones who did this?”
Chogan shook his head. “Iroquet is the name of a great Algonquin chief. His summer camp is at Odawa. We must warn him so he can defend himself and alert the other villages along the river.”
“Oh, right,” said Sarah, now remembering the chief’s name from history class. “Do you know him well?”
“My uncle,” he replied.
Chogan helped her to her feet. “Won’t the Mohawk get there before us?” she asked.
He scanned the riverbank—which was clearly defined in the moonlight against the star-like reflections off the river’s waves—and pointed downstream. “The canoe.” On the opposite side, the flipped prow of a vessel poked out of
the reeds, looking like a large curved vulture’s beak.
Sarah stared at it uncertainly. She eyed the fast-flowing stream of water just below the rapids where they’d nearly drowned. “You’re going to swim over there and get it?”
Chogan nodded. He shrugged. A faint grin appeared on his face.
“Piece of cake—um, une morceaux de gâteau?”
“Une morceaux de gâteau?” he asked, his eyebrows pinched together.
“C’est une expression,” said Sarah. It’s an expression. “Oh, never mind. Just be sure to come back.”
“Soon,” he said before he dove into the river. At first the current whisked him downstream, away from his objective. Sarah crossed her fingers and held her breath until he bobbed up and began to fight the current, striking out determinedly for the opposite bank. His arms lashed the water, churning forward with each rhythmic stroke. He was halfway across the river when a large wave engulfed him. He went under. Sarah ran along the bank looking for him, searching for his bobbing head, but she couldn’t see anything in the murky water. Chogan had disappeared.
“Not you, too,” she moaned. Her vision blurred as the tears flooded her eyes again. “Darn you, Chogan! You can’t leave me all alone here, in this backward time, in this strange land, surrounded by hostile enemies. I’ll die!”
Sarah shivered. Her teeth clacked uncontrollably. She crossed her arms over her chest as she went numb with cold. The haunting hoot of an owl piped from a nearby tree. A wolf howled in the distance. In this daunting country she had no friends. What could she do? Where would she go?
A splash down the river halted her spiral into self-pity. She’d been looking at the canoe. She looked farther downstream and there he was. First his head broke the surface. Then he climbed, sopping, his shoulders heaving, onto the opposite shore. He was a good ten metres beyond the location of the canoe, but he’d made it. He was alive. But he looked exhausted as he turned and waved at her. She waved back, quivering with relief.
Chogan staggered over the rocks along the riverside, heading for the canoe. Along the way, he plucked something from the bank that resembled a branch. When he reached the canoe, he lifted it easily from its perch between some boulders and flipped it right side into the water. Into the hull he tossed the branch, which Sarah now realized was a paddle. Before trusting that it was watertight, he walked around the canoe, inspecting and prodding suspicious cracks or splinters. Satisfied, he climbed in and motioned for her to meet him farther downstream. Sarah signalled that she understood and began walking along the bank. Chogan aimed the prow perpendicular to the flow and paddled with broad strokes across the river. He made good headway and landed just ahead of Sarah.
“Come in,” he said.
Sarah, still reluctant, climbed aboard the S.S. Algonquin.
Chogan thrust his paddle against the bank and steered the nose of the canoe downstream. The current was swift but smooth, with no other rapids in their path. Sarah spied her sodden backpack flattened against a rock, and was surprised when Chogan angled towards it and fished it out of the water with his paddle. He tossed it into the bottom of the canoe with a quick nod at her. She smiled her appreciation. Then he resumed paddling down the Gatineau River.
Sarah couldn’t believe it. For a boy who’d suffered so much loss, he had unwavering courage. He was pressing on to honour his father’s last request, while at the same time protecting and caring for her—an unusual, inexplicable girl who’d interrupted his quiet life. She had to follow his example. Forget about Matt and her father and her impossible situation and simply live. Continue on. Help Chogan to save the rest of his people. It was a noble quest—even one worth living for. She set her jaw and slapped the water with her hand, as the canoe nosed into the mighty Ottawa River. She would do more than let the current take her.