“If it can tell us anything, Ganeodiyo will make it speak,” Shikalimo said.
“Shall we invite Captain Greeley and Lieutenant Lucas here, so they can learn whatever your man finds out?” Bushell said; he was not about to try to pronounce the name of the Iroquois technician on one hearing.
“Very well, since you ask,” Shikalimo said, and rang the local RAM offices. When he got off the telephone, he glanced Bushell’s way in some amusement. “You seem surprised at my hesitation.”
“Not at all,” Bushell said, though astonished would more accurately have described his feelings. Anywhere else in the NAU, constables would have leaped to seek help from the RAMs. Shikalimo spoke to precisely that point: “Within our borders, Colonel, the Six Nations are autonomous, and we take that seriously. From time to time, officials of the Crown, no doubt with the highest of motives” - an eyebrow-twitch showed irony - “have tried to lessen that autonomy. As might not surprise you, we’ve also been training lawyers since Sosehawa’s time.”
They made idle chitchat while waiting for Greeley, Lucas, and Ganeodiyo. Bushell said, “I heard last night that Washington” - he nodded toward the print of The Two Georges - “is reckoned the only white man to reach your heaven.” When Shikalimo nodded, the RAM went on, “How did he earn such a literally singular honor?”
“Not least by enforcing, for a while at any rate, the ban on white settlement west of the Appalachians His Majesty’s government had laid down in 1763,” Shikalimo answered. “Eventually, of course, even King Canute couldn’t have held back the tide, and the ban was lifted. But the thirty-five years it was in force enabled us to consolidate as a nation, and set the stage for Sosehawa’s reforms. Washington could have turned a blind eye to the ban; it would have been a popular thing to do. But he upheld the law. We honor him for that.”
It occurred to Bushell that the Iroquois no doubt viewed the spread of British settlers and provinces in a light different from the one shone on it during his school days. Who could say which perspective, if either, was the true one?
Sylvanus Greeley and Charles Lucas arrived just then, making him lose that train of thought. “Thanks for including us,” Greeley told Shikalimo; he recognized he was here with the Iroquois’s permission. Both local RAMs accepted Bushell’s introduction of Kathleen Flannery with what he thought of as polite horror. Since he outranked them, though, they had to make the best of it. Ganeodiyo returned a couple of minutes later, triumph lighting his solemn features. “Deohstegaa district, on the lakeshore,” he declared. “Now we know where to focus our efforts.”
“Good work,” Shikalimo said in English, and then added several sentences in the Iroquois language. Then Sylvanus Greeley spoke in the same tongue, not with great fluency but plainly making himself understood. Ganeodiyo answered; they went back and forth for a minute or so. Greeley turned to Bushell. “I’m conveying our gratitude.”
“Thank you,” Bushell said. He was impressed the local RAM could do so in the language of the Six Nations. He’d picked up a fair amount of Spanish since coming to New Liverpool, but Spanish came easy to a man who spoke French and had had Latin drilled into him since boyhood. Acquiring Iroquois struck him as an altogether more difficult undertaking.
“That will help us narrow down our search, as Ganeodiyo said.” Shikalimo spoke with great satisfaction.
“We shan’t neglect the rest of Doshoweh, but we will concentrate on men with homes or businesses in that part of the city.”
“The Great Spirit has guided our hunts for longer than the memory of our people reaches,” Ganeodiyo said. “He will smile on our work again.” With a nod to Shikalimo and a grudging one to Sylvanus Greeley, he left the office.
“Forgive him,” Shikalimo murmured to Bushell. “He thinks those who don’t speak our language are slightly less than human. He might almost be an Englishman in that regard.”
The major had a knack for coming up with quietly devastating asides. Having got in the way of one, Bushell felt like an airship with a punctured coronium cell. Rallying, he said, “How can we help you in sifting through whatever evidence you have about white men here who aren’t fond of you Iroquois?”
“Colonel, meaning no disrespect, but that would be difficult for you,” Shikalimo answered. Bushell was irked to see Sylvanus Greeley nodding agreement. Shikalimo went on, “Most of it is not evidence in the proper sense of the word, certainly none that would stand up in a court of law. We know some of the whites who despise us. We’ll ask around in the Deohstegaa district and undoubtedly uncover the names of more. All that, of necessity, is work for our local constables. My people would not be nearly so forthcoming for white men - or even for the charming Dr. Flannery.” He smiled at her. That irked Bushell, too, partly because she was a suspect in his mind and partly because he didn’t want anyone else trying to charm her. He made himself stick to the business at hand. “Very well, Major, you have a point.”
“I’m not putting you out like maize to parch, I promise you that,” Shikalimo said. “Once we have an idea of whose associates may be involved with the Sons of Liberty, we’ll need to avail ourselves of your expertise in picking our most likely targets.” He laughed. “We of the Hodenosaunee have been trying to understand the white man, and the Englishman in particular, for several hundred years now, with results decidedly mixed.”
Bushell got that punctured feeling again. For the most part, Shikalimo behaved like any well-educated subject of the British Empire, but showed now and then that he was at bottom the product of a very different tradition. He seemed to enjoy showing that, rocking Bushell back on his heels and making sure he himself was not taken for granted.
An exceedingly decorative young Iroquois woman in a calico tunic and blue broadcloth skirt, both elaborately embroidered with beadwork, came into the office and smiled at Shikalimo as she set some papers on his desk. Several pairs of male eyes followed her when she swayed away. Charles Lucas laughed. “Ah, Major, it’s a rough duty you have here.”
“What?” For a moment, Shikalimo obviously hadn’t the slightest idea what the RAM was talking about. Then he snapped his fingers. “Oh. I understand. You mean Dewasenta. She is pretty, isn’t she? Till you alluded to it, though, I’d never thought of her that way. She’s of the Turtle clan, you see.”
He spoke as if that explained everything. It evidently explained enough to Lucas, who nodded and subsided. Once again, though, it gave Bushell the feeling that, although Shikalimo spoke impeccable English, he used it to convey alien thoughts. Coughing a little, he said, “Excuse me, Major, but - “ He paused, unsure how to go on.
Shikalimo got him out of the predicament by laughing out loud. “But you haven’t the slightest idea what I’m talking about, you mean. We Hodenosaunee divide ourselves into eight clans, in two groups of four: the Wolf, Bear, Beaver, and Turtle on the one hand, and the Deer, Snipe, Heron, and Hawk on the other. I am of the Bear clan; men of the Bear clan from all the Six Nations are my brothers, and so, in lesser degree, are Wolves, Beavers, and Turtles. And the women of those four clans are my sisters. We do not marry our sisters any more than you do, Colonel.”
Kathleen Flannery nodded along with Shikalimo; she’d known what he was going to say. Bushell hadn’t. Eliminating half the women of your nation struck him as unduly narrowing your choices. . . until he remembered that, with all the women of the NAU from whom to choose, he’d picked Irene. A man could be dead wrong under any circumstances.
Samuel Stanley asked, “Do boys and girls from the wrong clans ever fall in love and run away from the Six Nations to be married?”