War Path by Kerry Newcomb Page B

steering oar, his coarse hands the color of the weathered oak. “Mais oui , our brothers and sisters to the south cannot go another day without salt pork and dried apples and flint!” The freighter spat on the floor of the bateau. He could sense his crew watching him and did not doubt they agreed with him. He was certain Captain Barbarat and his aides would find time for a taste of wine and a lady’s caress. Officers never went without. But there was not a man in uniform that could have endure the rugged life of a voyageur . Of that Turcotte was certain.
    Yes, he wanted a woman. He quietly appraised the eight men that made up his crew. Ha, they all did. And five miles from Fort Carillon, fortune provided. Here along the rocky lakeshore, where the tail of the lake angled off toward Lake George, the forests of pine, oak, maple and birch grew down to the water’s edge. Back beyond the trees a network of shallow caves and overhanging shale ledges had provided shelter for Abenaki hunting parties since time immemorial. But a new resident had taken over one of the natural caverns and hung a wide wooden sign down by the shore for all the rivermen to see.
    Corette’s La Chute.
    It was a natural landing, a perfect site. And as Benoit Turcotte and the voyageurs perused the cavern in the trees, three lovely femmes strolled from the shadowy recesses and hurried down the shaded path to the water’s edge where they called out to the men in the bateau and urged them to come ashore and pass the time in song and drink and perhaps a dalliance or two or ten.
    â€œSacre bleu , will you look at that?” another of the men spoke up, leaning forward on his oar. He gestured with his stocking cap and then waved at the woman who had just lifted the hem of her skirt to permit them a glimpse of her ankles. She wore no cotton stockings and was a comely lass with long, thick, fiery red tresses and oval features like fine rare china. She must be new at her trade, he decided, because there was a freshness about her, a virginal spring to her step as she waved to the river men and invited them to join her and her sisters.
    â€œBonne journee, mes chers. Que les jeunes hommes étes beaux.” The woman’s voice carried to them across the sun-dappled surface of the lake. It was a sweet sound, like the wind in the hemlocks or dewdrops on lady slippers, lo, the pale pastel sky captured in a water bead. “Good day, dear ones. What handsome lads you are. Jouez avec mes amies et moi . Come play with my friends and me.”
    Turcotte glanced over his shoulder. “Que dites-vous, des hommes? What do you say, men? Captain Barbarat is twenty miles behind downriver. His orders cannot reach us.” That settled the matter. The rivermen cheered and began to pull in earnest for the landing. Fort Carillon could wait, as long as they reached the settlement by sunset, where was the harm?
    As Turcotte looked on, eyes aglow with excitement, the other two ladies, both of them taller than the first who had called to them, waved their kerchiefs and beckoned the freighters who took lustful note of how tightly the women’s bodices were laced about their abundant bosoms and how they flaunted their charms, these wantons in their drawstring skirts.
    â€œPull, my brothers. Bring us quickly to shore,” said the man at the stern. The oarsmen did not need to be told what to do, they could hear music now. Someone was playing a fife within the cavern. And a couple of men who appeared to be the proprietors emerged to see what all the commotion was about and on seeing the bateau, quickly set a pair of oaken kegs on the wooden tables in the shade beneath the ledge. Turcotte imagined the interior of the cave provided entertainment of a more intimate nature. M’lady would have her boudoir set to the rear.
    â€œPull on those oars, lads, pull I say for I have a powerful thirst.”
    â€œDrink can wait,” said the man closest to