Stunned silence.
The Delaware apparently hadn’t planned on facing down artillery.
“Go! Now!”
Behind him came the sound of retreating feet as the remaining men turned and ran straight for the cover of the glacis. Once inside, they’d be only footsteps away from the safety of the ravelin, bearing a sizable harvest.
But Nicholas stood his ground.
Ahead of him, on the main path that bisected the garden stood Shingiss. The upper half of his face was painted with vermilion, a scar clearly visible where a hunter’s bullet had grazed his forehead long ago. A single eagle feather stood up from his scalp lock. Turkey feathers hung from his pierced ears. A copper ring hung from his nose, and many strands of wampum decorated his throat. His breechcloth, belt, and the deerskin mantle that hung over his right shoulder were embroidered with quills, wampum, and moose hair. His hands were empty and turned palms up in a stance of peace.
Nicholas lowered his pistol.“Hé, Shingiss, Sakima Lenape.” Greetings, Shingiss, Great Chief of the Delaware.
Shingiss acknowledged his greeting, spoke to him in Delaware. “Ken-lee. You fight with these Long Knives?”
Nicholas searched for the right words. The man Shingiss had met years ago would not have been here. “I stand beside men who want only to feed their wives and children and to live in peace. Why do you make war upon them?”
“We make war upon those who take our lands, kill our game, treat us like animals, bring sickness, deny us weapons and trade. My people go hungry on their own land.”
It was true, every word of it. Governor Amherst had placed strict limits on the goods being traded to Indian people of all nations, forced them into a state of poverty and hunger, denied them rifles for hunting, as well as powder and lead. He meant to weaken them, drive them away. But clearly it was a policy that had blown up in Amherst’s face.
“You speak the truth, Shingiss. I have seen this. And yet you will not bend the ears of the English or turn their hearts toward your words by slaughtering their women and babies still at the breast.”
“They cannot remain. Is not the land east of the mountains enough for them?”
“The men whose families you have killed came here from lands even farther away than the English. They came because they had no food.”
Shingiss’s face grew taut with anger. “They kill all the game in their own hunting grounds and come over the sea to take from ours! They are a savage, sickly people who do not know how to live. They cannot stay!”
“They have no place else to go.”
“Will you die with them?”
“If I must.” Nicholas met the chief’s gaze head-on. “My woman and her baby are here. I would not risk them falling to a Lenape warrior’s arrow or coming under a Shawnee knife.”
“So Ken-lee has taken a woman.” A faint smile played on Shingiss’s otherwise grim visage. “If you wish to leave this place and lead her over the mountains, none of my men will stop you. No one of them will raise a hand to you or your woman. I give you my word.”
“Thank you, great Sakima. I will think upon what you have said. I ask you to hear me as well. It is better to make a new treaty with the English than to fight them.”
“No, Ken-lee. The time for words and treaties is past. We will fight. Go, Ken-lee. Return to your woman. Lie with her. When the fort is taken, I will do what I can to see that you are both spared.”
“Làpìch knewël, Shingiss.”I will see you again. Nicholas turned and walked down the path toward the fort.
He’d gone but a few steps when he heard someone running toward him through the corn. A catch of breath as muscles tensed. The whoosh of a tomahawk as it swung toward his skull.
Nicholas dropped to his knees, the tomahawk missing him by inches. Then in one move, he pivoted, slit the belly of his attacker wide open with his knife.
The warrior, a young man of perhaps eighteen, stared at Nicholas in surprise, fell to the ground with a groan, clutching his intestines.
Shingiss gave an outraged shout, and Nicholas knew it was not directed at him. The young warrior had shamed his chief by attacking Nicholas. Now the boy would die unmourned.
Nicholas wiped his blade off in the dirt, stood, walked back to the fort without once looking over his shoulder.
***
Bethie stood on the ramparts, a scream caught in her throat. She’d seen Nicholas take his leave of the chief, watched in silent horror as a painted warrior, war club raised, had run stealthily up behind him. She’d seen Nicholas drop, turn, and kill the man with one cut of his blade.
Barely able to breathe, she watched him approach the fort until he disappeared in the shadow of the glacis. Then she hurried to the front gate to meet him. But she wasn’t the only one.
