Drums of Autumn - Diana Gabaldon [147]
“Ye said it might have happened in the war,” Ian said, lifting the bones from a steaming trout, then shaking his fingers to cool them. He passed a section of the boneless flesh to Rollo, who swallowed it in a single gulp, temperature notwithstanding. “Will that ha’ been the war wi’ the French, then? I didna ken there was any fighting so far south.”
Myers shook his head, chewing and swallowing before he answered.
“Oh, no. It’ll be the Tuscarora War I was meanin’; that’s how they call it on the white side, at least.”
The Tuscarora War, he explained, had been a short-lived but brutal conflict some forty years before, brought on by an attack upon some backcountry settlers. The then governor of the colony had sent troops into the Tuscarora villages in retaliation, and the upshot was a series of pitched battles that the colonists, much better armed, had won handily—to the devastation of the Tuscarora nation.
Myers nodded toward the darkness.
“Ain’t no more than seven villages o’ the Tuscarora left, now—and not above fifty or a hundred souls in any but the biggest one.” So sadly diminished, the Tuscarora would quickly have fallen prey to surrounding tribes and disappeared altogether, had they not been formally adopted by the Mohawk, and thus become part of the powerful Iroquois League.
Jamie came back to the fire with a bottle from his saddlebag. It was Scotch whisky, a parting present from Jocasta. He poured out a small cupful, then offered the half-full bottle to Myers.
“Is the Mohawk country not a verra great distance to the north?” he asked. “How can they offer protection to their fellows here, and they with hostile tribes all round?”
Myers took a gulp of whisky and washed it pleasurably around his mouth before answering.
“Mmm. That’s fine stuff, friend James. Oh, the Mohawk are a good ways off, aye. But the Nations of the Iroquois are a name to reckon with—and of all the Six Nations, the Mohawk are the fiercest. Ain’t no one—red or white—goin’ to mess with the Mohawk ’thout good cause, nossir.”
I was fascinated by this. I was also pleased to hear that the Mohawk territory was a good long way away from us.
“Why did the Mohawk want to adopt the Tuscarora, then?” Jamie asked, lifting one brow. “It doesna seem they’d be needing allies, and they so fierce as ye say.”
Myers’s hazel eyes had gone to dreamy half-slits under the influence of good whisky.
“Oh, they’re fierce, all right—but they’re mortal,” he said, “Indians are men o’ blood, and none more than the Mohawk. They’re men of honor, mind”—he raised a thick finger in admonition—“but there’s a sight of things they’ll kill for, some reasonable, some not. They raid, d’ye see, amongst themselves, and they’ll kill for revenge—ain’t nothin’ will stop a Mohawk bent on revenge, save you kill him. And even then, his brother or his son or his nephew will come after you.”
He licked his lips in slow meditation, savoring the slick of whisky on his skin.
“Sometimes Indians don’t kill for any reason a man would say mattered; specially when liquor’s involved.”
“Sounds very much like the Scots,” I murmured to Jamie, who gave me a cold look in return.
Myers picked up the whisky bottle and rolled it slowly between his palms.
“Any man might take a drop too much and be the worse in his actions for it, but with the Indians, the first drop’s too much. I’ve heard of more than one massacre that might not have been, save for the men bein’ mad with drink.”
He shook his head, recalling himself to his subject.
“Be so as it may, it’s a hard life, and a bloody one. Some tribes are wiped out altogether, and none have men to spare. So they adopt folk into the tribe, to replace those as are killed or die of sickness. They take prisoners, sometimes—take ’em into a family, treat ’em as their own. That’s what they’ll do with Mrs. Polly, there.” He nodded at Pollyanne, who sat quietly by the fire, paying no attention to