Pendleton had found his place at last; while the rest gawked, cringed or looked to him for orders or gazed with unconcealed dread upon the Devil Dog Chief, he maintained his palsied hand in a dignified manner behind his slight hip and beneath his coattails, stepped down the stairs leading to the plaza, despite Hempstead’s objection and looked up into the eyes of the savage.

The fellow was wiping blood from his sword on his hairy thighs as he held Pendleton’s gaze, each having eyes only for the eyes of the other. The stunted, palsied and prematurely aging Governor of the nascent Port Drake found himself in the position surely once occupied by some beleaguered hereditary prince negotiating with the lord of the hinterland hordes.

Pendleton, for once, was not tempted from within by his prattling conscience, his self-critical and wonder-filled inner self. Now he was engaged in a test of wills with that most willful beast, Uncivilized Man.

The man did not glower down at Pendleton, but seemed to search within him for some clue as to his nature. The beastly fellow was certainly put aback by Pendleton’s dichotomous lack of masculine stature and haughty bearing.

Pendleton’s voice sounded sure, deep, even big, “You are the image of your father, as if spat out. Do you possess his English as well?”

The man’s voice rumbled up from his chest—which should have been heaving after his sanguinary effort, but was not—and became garbled in his ruined mouth, “Angish granfath’s speak.”

The savage’s very power of speech seemed muddled since his introduction, as if his exertions had not affected his limbs and lungs, as it would a civilized white man or red savage, but instead manifested itself in a draining of the ability to speak clearly in a human way.

“Your grandfather is Jay, the man who slew Don Enrique and burned the Spanish Town that once stood here?”

The savage’s eyes lit up and he nodded “yes” as he pointed with his chin at the journal in Pendleton’s hand and spoke, “Granfath say bookmake chiefs come.”

“Yes, Hush, I am a bookmaker and a chief of my kind and stand wondering what the slayer of mine allied warriors should do to write this wrong, for this was not agreed. How many warriors, Hush, do you swear to lead in my cause?”

Hush then turned and looked at the three pet Indians, standing protectively before their women and children. He made a sign with two fingers upon his forehead, which was returned by the eldest warrior with an affirmative nod. The two other warriors then responded to a pat on their backs by their leader and stepped out to stalk among the dead and dying with their knives, slitting throats and taking scalps.

“These men were already mine,” accused Pendleton, now wondering if this man was not in fact alone.

Hush looked at him with what felt like pity, and slurred, “Body, no soul. Me soul chief.”

Pendleton admitted to himself that these men would now be far more effective than before, when they simply lurked sullenly in the shadows afraid of the Susquehanna.

“What of your men, what warriors do you bring?”

Hush then strode like a mangled little titan over to the stocks, tore off the bear hide that covered the two wretched servant boys and lifted his sword, to which they both howled in silence and closed their eyes. Their tight squinted eyes twitched as the great blade came down. But after the stocks were cleaved and ruined with four strokes—to which the carpenter groaned—their eyes opened wide as their mouths gaped. The savage then motioned for the eldest pet Indian, who gathered the boys in silence and began dressing and arming them with the Susquehanna attire and weapons, bringing to Pendleton’s mind the realization that some of the Susquehanna had very Scottish looking faces.

“Again, Hush, these were mine and now you take them!”

The heathen snarled, “Ye boy, me man.”

“Mine it is to say, heathen dog, that you are even less the sensical speaker as your grandsire and yet half the man of honor. What say you to that?”

Pendleton had lost his temper as he never had in his life—and before such a beast as he could not believe—and felt alive for it.

“Answer me, Dog!” Pendleton snarled up into the crooked-jawed face, only to encounter a dark well as matches on hackbutts and locks on muskets were readied all about, the hunters and marines not about to come to blows with his brute when they could shoot him down like the beast he was.

Hush slowly raised his empty hand and pointed with his chin to the scabbard, dusted now with snow. This was lifted to his waiting hand by one of the pet Indians. He then sheathed the great blade, handed it in it to the same man, who then stood aside, and then cupped his hands about the ruined mouth and gave a weird call. The call was returned from just beyond the gate, which drew Pendleton’s ire when he considered that his sentries on their towers had let the savage owner of that voice without creep up to the wall across a snowy barren.

Pendleton’s gaze returned to settle on Hush and the beastly fellow mumbled bloodily, “Las woman, las son me kin me risk trace ye seven moons deep te Smokey Granz.”

Pendleton nodded for the gate to be opened and so it was, to reveal the small womanly form of a skin-clad squaw, holding a baby on high as if he were the Christ Child beaming good will upon Mankind.

Hush then said, “Moon Dog’s women, chillen?”

With a terrible, sinking feeling Pendleton realized that this savage was asking if they should be killed, driven off or enslaved from their refuge across the snow-speckled river. Not wanting to betray his soft heart he imperiously quipped, “Place them under the direction of your women and dispatch your men to bring in meet for them to butcher and cure.”

Hush nodded with seeming obedience and made a few hand signs to the men and boys he had recently taken from Pendleton, then looked him squarely in the eyes and extended his hand in what seemed awkwardly informal but welcome. Pendleton, mindful not to enter into a pact under hat, reached for his round-brimmed hat of leather and it was already gone, Hempstead having removed it from behind him. Free to occupy his useful hand as the snow melted upon his wispy and quick-thinning blonde locks, Pendleton placed his slight hand in the sinewy, blood stained paw of that monstrous man and heard his name echo down through the ages as the man that tamed this savage land.