Broken Trail by Jean Rae Baxter Page B

had a gift for healing. Some had power to find things that were lost. Some had the power to know what they did not know. To him, this was the most mysterious gift of all. How could you know what you did not know? Yet it was this power that he sometimes felt stirring within him, giving him an unsettling feeling, like being helpless and powerful at the same time.
    Sensing Elijah’s eyes on him, he turned his head. It was too dark to distinguish his brother’s face.
    â€œYou awake, too?” Elijah said.
    â€œI can’t sleep. I’ve been thinking about everything that’s happened, like finding you, and what it all means.”
    â€œI always thought we would meet again. After you ran away, I never stopped wondering what became of you.”
    â€œThat’s a long story.”
    â€œReckon it must be.” He hesitated. “Tell me about it. Start where the Oneidas carried you off. What did they do with you?”
    â€œThey adopted me to replace a boy who’d died. My new mother’s brother became my teacher. That’s the Oneida way. I was nearly ten, and I knew nothing that an Oneida boy that age should know.”
    Once Broken Trail started talking, he found it easy to go on. He described how the Oneidas had brought him up as one of their own, although some rejected him. He found himself opening up to Elijah about his fears, about how long he had waited for his
oki,
his totem animal, to appearand how terrible it had been when the vision of his future was snatched away at the last moment. Then he described how the two soldiers had taken him to their camp, where the captain had promised him a rifle as payment for delivering the warning to Major Ferguson.
    Elijah listened with complete attention, asking a question now and then, as if determined to understand. When Broken Trail had finished, he asked, “Do you reckon your
oki
will come back someday to let you see that vision?”
    â€œAs soon as I return to my village, I’ll ask my uncle about that. He’s very wise about such matters.” He paused. “Now tell me your story.”
    â€œI’ll start where you did. We were camped by Oneida Lake with two Mohawk warriors to protect us.”
    â€œAxe Carrier and Okwaho.”
    â€œYes. Okwaho was my hero. You were jealous when he took me hunting.”
    â€œCan you blame me? Back in Canajoharie, we used to do everything together. You taught me to fish. You promised that you would take me hunting as soon as I was old enough. But after Okwaho took you under his wing, you had no time for me.” He paused. “And then Ma made me gather nuts with the little girls. That was more than I could bear.”
    â€œMa blamed me when you ran away. I would have run away too, but Okwaho wouldn’t take me with him. ‘My path not good path for you,’ he told me. That nearly broke my heart. But then he gave me a medicine bag.”
    â€œI saw it.”
    â€œI never take it off. Okwaho promised it would keep me safe. There’s a stone the colour of blood inside, and dust made from the skin of a rattlesnake and the beak of an eagle.”
    â€œPowerful medicine,” Broken Trail said. “Hundreds of soldiers died on Kings Mountain, but you’re alive.”
    â€œIt was Okwaho who turned me into a sharp shooter. You might say, it’s because of him I’m here today.”
    â€œI remember how he hung a dead squirrel high up in a pine tree and made you keep trying until your arrow hit it.”
    â€œHe was a good teacher. When I joined the Royal Greens, I was the only recruit who could hit a blessed thing with those muskets they issued. That’s why Major Ferguson picked me for his rifle company. Ferguson invented a new kind of rifle, a breech-loader. Very fast. I figure he was the smartest man in the world… except he got a lot of us killed.”
    â€œThat wasn’t too smart.”
    â€œWell, he didn’t know how to