Davenport Road

            The two brothers led the four other young men along the soggy trail that late afternoon. For Tahontenrat it had been an uncountable amount of times that he had made his way along this path, but for his brother, Attignawanton, the older one, it had been twice that number.  They had just come down one river by canoe, traded with the villagers at the shore and stocked up on fish from the weir at the river's end.  Now that the business was done they were headed to the other river, a good day's march along the pathway, taking turns carrying the six sacs of goods and the canoe.  It was always an arduous journey, especially after a heavy morning rain like this day, but Tahontenrat knew that this trail was of vital importance not only to his own village, but to all the settlements in the area, even the far off ones.  The trail spanned between two rivers, which in turn were part of a larger network that was the lifeblood of thousands of people from many different nations. 

            About midday Tahontenrat started feeling weary and turned to his brother to propose a quick break.  Attignawanton placed down his two sacs and gave the others his signal to stop.  The three present canoe-bearers sighed loudly in relief and slowly crouched down to place the boat to their side, while the rest of the party sat down on the muddy grass.  Tahontenrat found a rock to sit on and turned his gaze to the rising hillside on the opposite side of the pathway, where large oak trees loomed over the trail, providing what would have been needed shade had this been a sunnier day.  Attignawanton, who rarely ever showed he was tired, just stood in his place.

            “Hey brother,” Tahontenrat called to him. “Come sit down with us.”

            “No,” he said, gazing down the pathway, perhaps seeing something the others couldn't spot. “You all stay here.  I am going ahead to scout the area.”  Attignawanton turned to his right and trekked down into the small ravine opposite the escarpment, disappearing into thick underbrush. 

            Another of their companions, Wendatagan, sat beside Tahontenrat, bringing over the two remaining sacs with him, and started to ask about his older brother and why he had disappeared down the trail so suddenly.  Tahontenrat told him he had no idea why. “Maybe he heard something,” he muttered.

            “Oh!” said Wendatagan, rummaging through one of the sacs. “Look at this.  I traded it back in at lake shore.  I have never seen anything quite like this.  Look!” he pulled out a small shiny object and placed it in his companion's hand.  It looked like a little tool, but was not made of wood or stone or ceramic, but something else, something hard and cold.  It was long like a small stick, one side was a row of tiny sharp ends.  Tahontenrat looked it over, unsure of what to make of it.  He could see his reflection in it as he moved it about in his hands.

            “What is it?” he finally asked.

            “Not sure,” his friend replied. “I was told they had received it from traders who came from the great salty lake on the far side.  Apparently many strange things have been coming from there lately, many objects that people have never seen before.”

            “Odd,” Tahonenrat remarked, handing the thing back.  One of the other men suddenly caught his eye.  He was at the base of a tree that stood nearby, just in front of the raised land, one of the few trees that was still on the actual footpath. “What is he looking at?”

            “Bird,” said Wendatagan, pointing with the end of his silver prize.  The other fellow drew his bow, aiming straight up at the top branches and let loose an arrow.  The bird, a very fat pigeon, cried out and then fell down to the grass at the skilled archer's feet, who flashed a huge grin at Tahonenrat.

            “Nice one!” called Wendatagan. “Now we don't have to eat fish tonight.”

            “Great,” said Tahonenrat, getting up from the rock and stretching, thinking about asking the others to start gathering some firewood.  It was going to be difficult considering the recent rainfall.  He gazed down the muddy path, just barely making out some movements down in the ravine off to the side. “Hey, my brother's coming back.”

            “What did you see?” called the proven bowman, coming over to stand beside Tahonenrat and Wendatagan.

            “Be quiet!” Attignawanton whispered harshly once he was close enough to be heard. “There are men coming down this way!  They will be here soon!”

            “Men?  What men?” asked Wendatagan. “How many?”

            “Strange men,” said Attignawanton as he slid into place in front of them. “I would say there are as many as us.” 

            “Mississauga?” asked Tahonenrat.

            “No,” he replied. “Stranger.”

            “What should we do?”

            The elder brother looked about. “We cannot hide,” he said. “They will see the canoe.”

            “He is right,” said the archer, taking his bow off his shoulders. “We will have to confront them.  If they see the canoe here they will know we are nearby.  All we have to do is make sure they see us as too much of a risk to attack.”

             “Okay, but who says they are our enemies?  There are so many peoples living here,” said Tahonenrat, a bit annoyed at his friend's eagerness for antagonism.  He was younger than Tahonenrat and his brother, really still a boy despite his skills with his bow. “It is the heart of the whole area's trade network, so of course men from far away will be coming through here.”

             Attignawanton sighed. “I have never seen men like these, pale skinned with lots of hair on their faces, carrying long poles in their arms.  I have heard of elders in other towns talking about strange men coming from far away beyond the lake-lands.  They say all kinds of strange things.”

            “I have heard of such talk,” said Wendatagan. “I hear that they are dead already, maybe they are born dead, and that they try to bring everyone else to the place of the dead.”

            “They are just men,” said the archer, tightening the grip of his fingers around his bow. “They can bleed.”

            “They will be here soon,” said Attignawanton, turning back to the direction he had just returned from.  He instructed the others to line up in a row to face them.  Already the men could see the figures emerge into sight, an opposing row of them, with two dark figures in the lead.  With every step it became more apparent that the two leaders were clad in black robes, while the others wore various furs.  Their faces were odd, like Tahonenrat's brother had described, all wearing thick beards, the two in front both had brown beards, but some of the others had gold and reddish ones.  The ones other than the two dark-robed ones had long silver poles that they carried like one would carry a piece of wood.  Tahonenrat assumed they were weapons, maybe like clubs they would hit their opponents with.

            The other men saw the trading party, paused for a moment when one of the dark-robes spread his hands out in front of the others, and then started approaching at a slower pace.  Eyes went back and forth on both sides, checking out every potential rival.  As the leaders, still standing in front of the weapon-bearers, came within throwing distance Attignawanton took a step forward, slowly raising a hand to them and widening his legs apart. 

            The strangers stopped.  One of the robed ones slowly stepped forward, the bottom of his clothing caked in mud, and then stood face to face with Attignawanton.  He then started speaking, his words completely foreign to the band.  Attignawanton turned back to look at his companions, unsure of what to do.  The bowman grabbed an arrow.  A bearded man raised his pole, pointing the end toward him. 

             Tahonenrat, for a moment, braced himself for a fight, cautiously reaching for the hatchet strapped at his belt.  Attignawanton raised his hand again at the other emissary.  He said some greetings to him, but to the others they seemed just as alien.  Tahonerat's brother took a step back.

            “They have no translator?” asked Wendatagan, who took a step forward to his side.

            “Doesn't look like it,” replied Attignawanton, looking past the first man to the others.  One of the weapon bearers coughed loudly, taking a winded wheezing breath in right after, sounding as if he were ready to expire. “Maybe the translator died?” 

            “They must have come from far,” said the archer, relaxing the grip on his bow.  The man with the raised pole lowered it in turn.  Tahonenrat sighed and smiled, glad to see that they were not going to be fighting.  He was a skilled warrior in his own right, although second to Attignawanton who was once an experience raider in his prime, but Tahonenrat enjoyed trading goods far more than he did fighting.

            The first man spoke again and this time the second robed man came to his side.  Both started speaking in unison and pointing upward toward the sky.  Everyone in the trading party looked up, confused.  The sky was clear, unclouded now.  A flock of black, brown and white, long-necked birds flew by in a chevron.

            “Oh!” cried Tahonenrat, thinking he finally figured it out. “They want birds!”

            The archer protested, but Attignawanton shouted at him.  Wendatagan pulled the hunter aside and said some things to him.  Attignawanton, now feeling confident too that no blood was going to be shed, smiled at the robed men.  They smiled back and continued trying to speak with him.  Seconds later Wendatagan and his friend came forward with the bird in hand, dangling it upside down to display to the strangers.  The two in front gave one another a look, spoke to each other, and then backed away.  The weapon-carrier, the one who had raised his pole at the archer, came forward and took the bird from them, bobbing his head slightly as he did.  Some of the other men smiled. 

            “Okay, great gift,” said Attignawanton, smiling back in approval.  He held out his hands to the robed men and said: “Do you have a gift for us?  A gift?  You know, a trade?”

            Again, they looked at one another, said some words in their language, and then the first diplomat grabbed something from under his robes and handed it to Attignawanton.  Everybody in the party moved forward, huddling around Attignawanton, trying to see what he had.  In his hands was a stick, or what looked like a piece of wood, although it was shaped in a with four equal points, like a criss-cross. 

            “What is it?” asked Wendatagan. “It looks like something you would dry meat on.”

            “A symbol,” said Attignawanton. “To them this must be a symbol.”  He turned it over in his hands.  The first stranger pulled out another one, and then raised it in his hand like one would raise a torch.  He said some words and the others repeated.  The traders smiled in return.  The two robed men came forward again and they both handed these cross shaped pieces of wood to the others until each of them had one. 

            “What now?” asked Tahonenrat to his brother. “Should we bring them back to home?”

            “Unless they have a boat they can't follow,” said Attignawanton.  He called to three of the others to take the canoe and then backed away to get his sacs back.  Tahonenrat did the same.  As they started to depart the robed men started speaking loudly and quickly, making hand gestures at them.  It looked like they wanted them to stay.

            Tahonenrat called out to them, telling them that his party had to go and that they could not follow.  They followed for a short while, but once Tahonenrat's company picked up their pace, despite carrying their things, the strangers fell behind.  When Tahonenrat took one last glance back at them he noticed how sickly and weary some of them looked.  Sometime later they saw a pillar of smoke back down the way they had left.  The strangers had made camp on the trail.

            Later on, when evening fell, and the party had settled at the edge of an immense field of corn, beans and squash, they started their own fire.  They would reach the river in the morning, having been slowed down by their encounter, as well as the spongy ground.  Once the fire was started the group sat around discussing the strange meeting.

            “Who do you think they were?” Tahonenrat asked his brother.

            “I cannot say,” he replied.  It was strange to Tahonenrat, to see his brother so unsure, when usually he was very learned in the different peoples of the country. “They may have been the ones we have been hearing about.”

            “I can tell my wife and my family that I made contact with a strange, new people,” said Wendatagan, who was busy cutting up the fish with his knife.  At one point he took the strange, shiny object and started poking at the food with it, still unsure of how to use it.  He coughed then, breathing in harshly like the bearded weapon-bearer had done earlier, then wiped his mouth and went back to his fish.

            “Yes,” said the archer. “And that we saw their strange weapons.”

            “And strange symbols,” Tahonenrat said, looking at his own gift. “What do you think these pieces of wood mean to them?”

            “Again, I cannot say,” he said. “We should ask the elders back home tomorrow.”

            The bowman laughed. “You can keep yours and show them if you want.  I think they were trying to help us and that they only thought it was fair to give us something in return.”

            The fire died down then.  Tahonenrat poked it with a stick, realizing that the wood must have been too damp.  Only a few struggling flames shot up, desperate for something dry to burn.  Tahonenrat looked down at his gift again. 

            Without a further thought he placed it on top of the dying fire.  The flames curled around it slowly at first, but within seconds fully engulfed the new fuel.  A sharp splitting noise came out from the fire and the flames shot up, strong again.  One by one the others threw their gifts, their firewood, into the make-shift hearth, all save Attignawanton.

            “They just wanted to trade with us,” he said. “That had to be all they had wanted from us.”