The Old American Read Online Free PDF

be brothers in the heart”—he thumps his chest with his fist—“instead of just allies of opportunity, we could take this continent for our own, make it one country, free ourselves from all European influence.”
    â€œYou mean French and Americans without France?”
    â€œThat’s correct, my friend; that is my vision.”
    â€œA very ambitious idea that could get you stretched on that Old France torture machine in Montreal,” Caucus-Meteor says.
    â€œYes, the rack—it frightens me not. I used to keep my ideas to myself, but now I don’t care any more because I’m likely to be killed anyway, either in combat or through betrayal. So I’ve resolved to speak with an honest voice.”
    â€œAre you disturbed by thoughts of death?” Caucus-Meteor asks, and now he is thinking of his own death. Surely, it must lurk close by. He remembers the words of his captive, “a far place …west of here.”
    â€œOn the contrary, thoughts of death relax me,” the French ensign speaks with the confidence of a young man unable to contemplate his own mortality. “Dead, I won’t have to carry on my father’s despicable business. Dead, I won’t have to wrestle with my confessor, who questions my ideals. The only fear I have remaining is death not by violence, but by disease or starvation or exposure alone in English territory.”
    â€œWith no priest to give you absolution.”
    â€œYou are being sarcastic again, Caucus-Meteor. It’s the reason I befriend you.”
    â€œHow would you feel about being shot and scalped by an English bounty hunter?”
    â€œIt pleases my vanity to imagine a lock of my hair hanging in a Boston government office.”
    After that there’s a long silence until St. Blein says, “You seem a little frail for the rigors of war, old interpreter, and a little too philosophical for the enterprise.”
    â€œYou thought I came out of retirement because I like war so much.”
    â€œI’m afraid I didn’t think anything. We needed an interpreter, and when Adiwando wasn’t available we were happy that his mentor and father-in-law agreed to accompany us. Nor did I think my interpreter, during the inquiry of a prisoner, would burn himself.”
    â€œI had private reasons for involving myself in this campaign. I thought going to war would take my mind off my grief. The throat distemper took thirty members of my village, including my son-in-law, two of my grandchildren, and my dear wife, Keeps-the-Flame. All that remains of my immediate family are my two daughters, my youngest, Caterina, and Adiwando’s widow, Black Dirt. It was the grief of my daughters that drove me away. I couldn’t bear their suffering.”
    â€œWar with nature is far more terrible than war with man, Caucus-Meteor. I knew Adiwando had died; I didn’t know about the others. You have other reasons?”
    â€œWho can say why a man does what he does when the man himself is not so sure?” Caucus-Meteor is thinking about his captive and his decision to leave the stockade. “I will say that my village has use for the interpreter’s salary.”
    â€œConissadawaga is poor? I thought your village did well in the moccasin trade.”
    â€œWe do, but because we’re cold to the priests who come to take our souls, the church will not protect us from …” Caucus-Meteor cuts himself off. “Do you know what I’m saying, good ensign?”
    â€œFrançois Bigot!” He emphasizes the name in his musical language, bee-goh!
    â€œCorrect. I am required to pay the intendant a tribute every spring. You see, twenty years ago I negotiated with some Montagnais for property where our summer village now rests and for hunting rights in the hills beyond the lake. We didn’t bother with French legal documents. Naturally, from the intendant’s point of view, the legal documents are