Trouble at Fort La Pointe (Mysteries through History) by Ernst Kathleen

Author:Ernst, Kathleen [Ernst, Kathleen]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781497648357
Publisher: Open Road Media Teen & Tween
Published: 2014-07-08T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 9

ARREST

The soldiers jerked Papa away. Suzette watched them disappear into one of the fort buildings with d’Amboise. The door slammed behind them. The onlookers wandered away, muttering to one another, looking at her. Suzette felt helpless as a snared rabbit.

“Suzette!” Monsieur Roussain had to shout her name before she realized he was standing beside her. “Come inside.” The clerk pulled her toward the store. He had to turn a key in a big lock before they went inside, and he shut the door behind them—a sign of how shocking the day’s events were. Roussain never closed the shop so early. That closed door seemed to slam in Suzette’s heart.

Hot tears spilled down her cheeks. “Why did they arrest Papa?” she demanded, scrubbing at the tears with her fist. “What proof does Captain d’Amboise think he has?”

Roussain led her toward his stool. “Sit down. I’ll tell you everything. I want you to hear it from me, not those telling tales outside.” He took a deep breath. “This afternoon, two of our soldiers were cutting firewood on the interior of the island. They found a bundle of furs hidden behind a tree. That’s not so unusual, but because of the theft, the soldiers brought them to me. There were a couple of rabbit pelts, and an otter. But there was also one beaver pelt. This is it.”

The clerk pushed the pelt toward her. It lay fur-side down on the counter. The skin had been washed and scraped free of flesh and fat, stretched into a neat oval, and dried stiff as a slice of pine—just like any pelt. But Suzette’s hand shook as she turned the skin over.

The animal had been trapped in deep winter—perhaps the moon of crusted snow—for the dark fur was lush and thick. Running down the middle of the pelt was something she’d never before seen: a golden streak. There’s one more of those pelts to come in, Dupré had said …

Suzette shoved the pelt away as though it burned her fingers. “What of this?” she demanded. “Yes, it’s one of the stolen furs. But you must listen to me!” Quickly she told him what she had overheard in Dupré’s camp. “Dupré said he had two of the striped pelts already safe in some cave. And he said, ‘There’s one more of those to come in. But don’t look for any more after that. Our man said they came from somewhere west of here …’” Suzette sputtered into silence. She hadn’t said anything that would clear Papa. “Anyway what does this pelt”—she gestured angrily—“have to do with Papa? Why should anyone believe he took it?”

“The soldiers found something with the pelts, dropped by the man who put them there.” Roussain’s eyes were sad as he opened his palm. Something small fell on the counter: a silver cross hanging from a band of fine blue, red, and yellow wool, finger-woven in an ornate lightning pattern.

Papa’s crucifix. The one he had brought from Montréal, and kept on the band Mama had woven for him, hung at his waist.

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