Read The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin for Free Online Page B

As they began to be seated, the men produced clay and stone pipes painted with fantastic designs and almost human images. As they began smoking tobacco, Shaw turned to Browne and said: “I doubted they might be here this season, things have changed so much for the Indian these last ten years.”
    â€œEnglish and disease,” Browne said.
    â€œAnd tribal war. Some have removed farther west,” Shaw said. “Eat your fill.”
    Browne could not join in the talk that continued throughout the eating. He might have been a deaf man at a stranger’s marriage feast. But once the eating abated, Shaw turned to Browne again and said: “Higgins is not among them. They tell me he is with the Penacooks, several days journey upriver and through the forest. They will likely be by the lakes. How far up country are you willing to go to find him?”
    â€œAs far as need be,” Browne answered.
    â€œThere is no other choice,” Shaw said and turned away.
    Browne heard owls and wolves far away in the woods. Then the dancing started, absorbing the sounds of the night. Shaw joined in the celebration, seeming to abandon himself to the chants and rhythms as completely as the Indian men and women. There was much in their adorned nakedness, in their gestures and movements, that disturbed and excited Browne. But he merely watched, eating some final portions placed before him. Much later, both Englishmen grew tired and, at their request,were led to a wigwam where the opened area met the margins of the deeper woods.
    Pleased now with the sweet fullness of his stomach and his dry, comfortable bed of animal skins thrown over flooring raised a foot off the earth, Browne felt his exhausted body glide toward dreamless sleep as he listened to Shaw’s deep breathing and to the songs of Indians celebrating the renewal of their earth’s gifts.

VIII

    Able to travel by canoe only part of the distance to the village of the Penacook, Shaw and Browne finally had to strike out through the wild woods. During their three-day journey Shaw explained some of what he knew of this tribe. The two men talked during their breaks for rest or meals, conserving their energy while they moved by saying little and concentrating on their way through the woods. What intrigued Browne most during these conversations was what Shaw said of the sachem Tantpasiquineo, a true Indian prince and powah, or magician, who could raise a living serpent from a snakeskin, create ice in summer and fire from ice, make trees dance, and heal the dying back into life.
    Browne also wondered how Shaw kept track of where they were going. They were moving at a near trot without any apparent hesitation.
    â€œIndian path,” Shaw said. “Thousands of years old. Unless accustomed, white men don’t see these paths. They lead in every direction through the forest.”
    â€œI see no paths, no markings or indicators.”
    â€œJust as I say,” Shaw returned. “You’d as well look for churches and fair houses as for milestones and way markers among the Indians. Although such is what many English do.”
    They never stopped for long because of the swarms of black-flies. In the interior these “black devils,” as Shaw called them,were a worse plague even than the mosquitoes in the humidity of mid-summer near the coast. Browne especially suffered, until Shaw gave him some greasy, malodorous ointment out of the little he had left in a container made from a small animal’s skull.
    When they finally approached the village Browne saw wigwams along the lakeshore and, far into the forest, cooking fires and groups of people. There were scores offish and pelt-drying racks scattered about; in certain places of the visible lake were fishing weirs. Here was an Indian city, unlike any of the clusters of savage dwellings Browne had ever seen. Were they all gathering here under the great sachem against the onslaught of their afflictions? Or