The Way Lies North Read online

  THE WAY LIES

  NORTH

  JEAN RAE BAXTER

  RONSDALE PRESS

  THE WAY LIES NORTH

  Copyright © 2007 Jean Rae Baxter

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher, or, in Canada, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright (the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency).

  RONSDALE PRESS

  3350 West 21st Avenue, Vancouver, B.C., Canada V6S 1G7

  www.ronsdalepress.com

  Typesetting: Julie Cochrane, in Minion 12 pt on 16

  Front Cover Art: Ljuba Levstek

  Cover Design: Julie Cochrane

  Paper: Ancient Forest Friendly “Silva” — 100% post-consumer waste,

  totally chlorine-free and acid-free

  Ronsdale Press wishes to thank the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP), and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council for their support of its publishing program.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Baxter, Jean Rae, 1932–

  The way lies north / Jean Rae Baxter.

  print ISBN 978-1-55380-048-4

  ebook ISBN 978-1-55380-244-0

  pdf ISBN 978-1-55380-243-3

  1. United Empire loyalists–Juvenile fiction. 2. Mohawk Indians–Juvenile fiction. I. Title.

  PS8603.A935W39 2007 jC813’.6 C2007-902434-3

  For

  Elizabeth and Peter

  Alison and Marc

  John and Anne

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  It was the late Dr. Shirley Spragge, then Chief Archivist of Queen’s University, who introduced me to such historical figures as the Reverend John Stuart, Sir William Johnson and Molly Brant. With Shirley as guide and learned commentator, I visited the Mohawk Valley and saw the places where these people had lived, and which they lost in consequence of choosing the Loyalist side in the American War of Independence. If in this novel I have succeeded in creating a sense of place and time, I owe that to Shirley.

  The fictitious characters in this book came into being when Ronsdale Press proposed an anthology, Beginnings: Stories of Canada’s Past (2001) and invited submissions. I am grateful to Ronsdale Press for including my short story, “Farewell the Mohawk Valley,” and to the editor, Ann Walsh, for her keen eye and helpful suggestions. “Farewell the Mohawk Valley” became, in an altered form, the opening chapter of The Way Lies North. I would also like to thank Ronald B. Hatch for his editing. Whenever I was the slightest bit unclear in my thinking or presentation, he helped me to clarify it. His literary sense and deft editorial touch kept me from countless errors of commission.

  To Chris Pannell and the other members of Hamilton’s New Writing Workshop, my heartfelt thanks. Special thanks also to Linda Helson, Barbara Ledger, and Debbie Welland of the Creative Writing Group of the Canadian Federation of University Women, Hamilton Branch, for their insightful suggestions. To Karen Baxter, Alison Baxter Lean and Janet Myers, who read the original manuscript of this novel with tough and generous criticism, my abiding gratitude.

  Prologue

  May 1777

  The trees were coming into leaf, and from the valley a warm breeze wafted the scent of blossoms and wild honey. Charlotte and Nick sat side by side, yet not touching, under the sycamore tree at the edge of the ravine.

  “We’ve had word from my brothers,” Charlotte said. “They’re all in the same battalion. Isaac writes—–”

  “Stop! Don’t tell me about it. I hate this war.” Nick was staring across the ravine to the hills on the far side. His jaw was clenched. He’d been moody like this for months. She wanted to reach out her hand to brush back the lock of blond hair that fell across his brow, but a sense of hard separateness prevented her.

  “We have to fight for what we believe in,” she said.

  “Why?”

  “Because duty matters. I would fight if I were a man.”

  “Thank God you’re not.”

  A hopeless feeling came over her because Nick was a Whig and she was a Tory. He loved her, and she loved him, but that seemed to matter less and less.

  And yet — God be thanked — Nick had not joined a Rebel regiment. She thought about it all the time: Nick in a blue uniform and her three brothers in red, bayonets drawn, advancing toward each other in battle lines. With every prayer for the safety of James, Charlie and Isaac, she also prayed that Nick would not take up arms on the Rebel side.

  Nick spoke suddenly. “My father thinks I’m a coward. He said so when I told him that I don’t believe in war. He said that if I were a real man, I’d want to fight.” A bitter laugh. “That’s what you think too, isn’t it?”

  “I never said so.”

  “You said that you would fight if you were a man.”

  “I said we have to fight for what we believe in.”

  “So you think I should kill another human being because I want to live in a republic and he doesn’t? Charlotte, I don’t think war is glorious or heroic. I cheered for those fellows who dumped the tea into Boston harbour. Yet I can’t understand why your brothers are ready to kill or be killed for mad King George, who doesn’t give two hoots for any of us even when he isn’t stark out of his mind.”

  “My brothers aren’t like you. To them, war is an adventure.” For a moment Charlotte felt uncomfortable, almost ashamed.

  “Some adventure! Neighbours burn each other out. Fathers and sons become enemies. Lovers are divided.”

  “Are you divided from me?” Birds were singing, but a silence fell upon her heart.

  “That’s how it feels.”

  They stood up at the same moment, staring at each other. This was the closest they had ever come to a quarrel. Nick looked away first. He placed his fingers upon the heart that he had carved one year ago in the smooth bark of the sycamore tree, with their initials C.H. and N.S. entwined.

  “Remember this,” he said.

  When she saw the sadness in his eyes, she could not bear it.

  “I must go,” she said. Straightening her shoulders, she turned and walked away.

  “I’ll always love you, Charlotte.” His voice followed her along the path. She did not look back.

  Chapter one

  “Why is your father galloping off down the road with supper almost ready?” Mama exclaimed as she turned from the window.

  “He has to see Mr. Herkimer about something,” Charlotte answered.

  “He’s trying to sell the livestock, isn’t he?”

  Charlotte looked away. “We have to leave, so he might as well try to get somet
hing for the animals.”

  “I told him I’m not leaving this house.” Mama stood firm, her arms crossed. “Until Isaac comes home, this is where I stay.” She looked determined, but her lower lip trembled just the same.

  “Papa says the Rebels are going to drive us out.”

  “Not me.”

  Straightening her narrow shoulders, Mama marched from the window across the kitchen to the open fireplace, grasped the crank that rotated the roasting pig on the spit, and turned it. Dripping fat sizzled in the flames

  “We’ll wait supper till your father gets back,” she said.

  The platter of fresh bread was already on the table, and the pot of turnips ready to be mashed sat on the hob. Mama had the table set with three places. Papa’s place was at the head, with Charlotte’s on his left and Mama’s on his right. The other end of the long wooden table looked empty without places set for Charlotte’s brothers. The room, too, felt empty without them there, joking and whistling and shoving each other around.

  “Papa won’t be long. Maybe an hour.” Charlotte figured that Mr. Herkimer wouldn’t take more than a minute to refuse him. “While we wait, I’ll let the cows into the barn.”

  She lifted the latch and hurried out the kitchen door. It was not yet dark, although the sun had set. Papa had five miles to ride, then five miles back. The moon would be up before he reached home. Charlotte smelled frost in the air.

  In the barnyard, the ten cows stood in a huddle, steam rising from their warm flanks. Charlotte grabbed the collar of Daisy, the lead cow, and led her into the barn. Cowbells jangling, the others followed. Charlotte forked hay into their mangers before leaving the barn.

  After closing the barn door, she glanced toward the house. Mama was standing at the window again. She looked as if she was marked off into little squares by the panes of window glass. With the light of the fire behind her, her hair was the colour of flame.

  When Charlotte returned to the house, Mama was still watching out the window. Charlotte pulled off her boots — work boots that had belonged to her brother Charlie — and padded across the kitchen floor to the bottom of the staircase. She wanted to go up to her bedroom. There was still time, before Papa came home, to brush her hair and change her gown for one that didn’t have cow dung on the skirt. As Charlotte set her foot on the first tread, Mama turned from the window.

  “Charlotte?” Her voice was low, almost a whisper. “You do believe that Isaac is … alive?”

  “Of course I do. They didn’t find his body on the battlefield.”

  “But you don’t think he’ll come home, do you?”

  “Oh, Mama!” Charlotte turned back and walked up to her mother. “He may have been captured. You heard the same report I did, how James and Charlie died at Saratoga, but there was no trace of Isaac. You heard how the Rebels marched their prisoners off to Boston. If Isaac was among them, he’ll be there until the end of the war.”

  “But he may have escaped,” Mama insisted. “We were told that those Indians who had been helping the British simply melted into the forest. Isaac could have escaped with them.”

  “Mama, that’s what I hope too. But General Burgoyne surrendered a week ago, and it’s only a three-day journey from Saratoga, even through the bush. Isaac would be here by now, if he were coming home.”

  “He might be hiding … or wounded.” Tears brimmed in Mama’s eyes.

  Charlotte gathered her mother into her arms. There was nothing more she could say, so she said nothing. Mama might be right. This very night there might be a rap at the door, and Mama would rush to let him in, for she slept downstairs now, in constant readiness for Isaac’s return.

  “Mama, all we can do is pray.”

  Charlotte’s mother pulled gently away. “I know that God will hear our prayer.” She rubbed her eyes with the corner of her apron. “Now you go change your gown, while I mash the turnips.”

  What chance was there, Charlotte thought as she climbed the stairs, of Isaac returning before the family left their home? They had to leave, and soon. It was no longer safe for Loyalists to remain in the Mohawk Valley.

  Charlotte put on her grey gown, the one with lace at the throat, and tied the strings of a clean white apron around her waist. She brushed her black, unruly hair and twisted it into a knot at the nape of her neck, and settled her white, ruffled cap onto her head. Over her shoulders she draped her deep red woollen shawl. Inspecting her reflection in the looking glass that hung above her washstand, Charlotte considered that she looked quite fetching, for a girl who had spent most of the day mucking out a barn.

  Charlotte had a bedroom to herself because she was the only girl, although for the past year she had not lived a girl’s life. With her brothers gone, she had to help bring in the hay, slaughter pigs and chop wood just like a man.

  There was a framed hole in the floor of Charlotte’s bedroom, as in all the bedrooms, to allow warmth to rise to the upper storey. Sound also rose, so nothing happening downstairs was secret from anyone upstairs.

  She was still studying her reflection when she heard the snick of the door latch. Papa was home. As soon as the door closed, she heard her mother’s voice.

  “You sold Herkimer the livestock, didn’t you?”

  “I tried to.” There was a long pause. “But he wasn’t buying. Herkimer figures they’ll soon be confiscated anyway. By waiting a bit, he can get our animals dirt cheap.” Charlotte heard the thump of her father’s boots on the floor, first one then the other, as he took them off.

  “Martha, there’s nothing we can do. We can’t stay here any longer. The law won’t protect us.”

  “Henry, I don’t want to leave.”

  “I know, dearest, but we must.”

  “How will Isaac find us if we’re gone when he comes back?”

  “He’ll find us. We’ll go north to one of the British forts. Isaac will seek us there. He’s a sensible young man. If we aren’t with the refugees at one fort, he’ll try another. Never fear.”

  “Henry, please. Can’t we wait just a few more days?”

  Papa hesitated. “We leave the day after tomorrow.”

  Charlotte listened as she walked slowly down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she saw that her mother’s face was turned away.

  Papa hardly noticed Charlotte entering the room, though he usually looked at her with a smile when she appeared with her hair dressed, wearing a fresh gown. He did not like to see her skirts trailing in the mud or stained with barnyard manure. But when all three boys went off in the same week to join the New York Royal Rangers, it was Papa who had said, “Well, Charlotte, I reckon you’ll have to put away your knitting and help me run the farm.”

  Charlotte had not complained. At fifteen, she knew her duty and was proud to do it. She was strong and tall — her father’s child, with the same big frame, brown eyes and black, curly hair (though Henry’s was grizzled now). Solid as a rock, people said.

  In no point of appearance did Charlotte resemble her brothers. Most people found it difficult to tell one Hooper brother from another, though the three, taken together, with their flaming red hair and freckled skin, looked different from anyone else in the Mohawk Valley — except their mother. They had the same hair, the same lightly built frame. They were Martha’s boys, flesh and bone, body and soul.

  The boys were all fire and air — quick to ignite and fast to burn. They had taken the King’s shilling before the ink was dry on the Declaration of Independence, never stopping to think how Papa would manage with all of them gone. But how dashing they had looked in their new uniforms! They had strutted about in their red jackets with the blue lapels and the black feather in their caps. Charlotte had hugged her handsome brothers and wondered whether she would ever see them again.

  The boys had always been Charlotte’s heroes. They had seemed so exciting when she was still a little girl. She remembered how they used to arrive home from the village schoolhouse, bold, boisterous and carefree, bursting in like a whirlwind — all
fists and freckles, shouts and rude jokes — while she, too young for school, sat playing with her doll in the chimney corner. James and Charlie had paid her little attention, beyond a smile. But Isaac, the youngest, had taught her how to roll a hoop and play jacks.

  As the family ate supper, Papa had more news to relate. “On my way to Herkimer’s farm, I passed by the church in Fort Hunter. There was singing and shouting inside that did not sound like a joyful noise unto the Lord. I stopped my horse and went to the door. My dears, they have turned our church into a tavern. The scoundrels had a barrel of rum set upon the reading desk. I looked, then rode away.”

  “You were lucky they didn’t stop you,” said Charlotte. “There’s no telling what they might have done.”

  “Reverend Stuart has angered every Whig in the valley,” said Mama. “He preaches loyalty to the Crown and never omits prayers for the King. Now it seems that he has lost his church. I wonder what will happen to him and his family.”

  “They’ll not come to harm,” said Papa. “John Stuart is respected by people in high places. But plain folks like us are not safe. We should have left a year ago when Sir John Johnson asked us to join his group of Loyalists. We would all be in Montreal by now.”

  “Not the boys,” said Mama.

  “No. Not the boys. They were bound to go for soldiers. Not even you could have stopped them, Martha.”

  “I wouldn’t have tried.”

  “What are we going to do?” Charlotte asked. “Will you try to sell the animals in town?”

  “No, daughter. Forget about the animals. We’ll put them out in the pasture and leave them there. While I was riding back from Herkimer’s place, I thought it over. We must go while we can. But first I want you and your mother to do some sewing.”

  “Sewing?” Charlotte asked.

  “Yes. Tomorrow, take whatever money we have in the house, and your rings and brooches, and any other small things that are valuable, and stitch them into your petticoats.