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Power corrupts.
King Henry VIII decreed that any person having no land, nor master, nor using any lawful merchandise or craft, should be taken to the nearest market town and there be tied to the end of a cart and whipped throughout the same town until his body is bloody. When Elkanah Smith, landowner in Harwich, Massachusetts, learns of the massacre of frontier families, he volunteers to serve as a soldier in hopes that by killing enough Indians, he will eventually achieve revenge on those who slaughtered his wife's kin. He is a good Indian fighter but, eventually, he is wounded and must return home. With the birth of his children, he and his wife decide to move to where the French have been cleared out and the land is free. They immigrate to Nova Scotia becoming close friends of William Gray. William has need of friends because his enemies are in power. The power brokers of Halifax abduct his youngest son, Thomas Gray, who is not heard of again. Back on the frontier, however, there were some survivors. A Huron leader, Joseph Tsawenholi, takes Mary Kendrick, sister to Elkanah's wife, captive. Joseph is a renowned warrior but his people have lost many battles to the Iroquois; he and his small band are the last of the Ataronchronnon Ouendat. Each foray against the English and Iroquois further reduces his band of followers. He is captured. He guides the English Rangers during the attack on the Saint Francis Mission, hoping, by doing so, to save the last of the Ataronchronnon (his daughter by Mary Kendrick), Marie Celeste. Robbie Cameron, son of Reine Leblanc and Robert Cameron, is a Northwest Company agent. He has two native women: one in the west where he spends half his year; and the other in Montreal, Marie Celeste. They have a child. When it is time to return home, Robbie abandons his women, steals his one son and leaves. Marie Celeste begins her quest for the return of her boy. She is marooned in Newfoundland where she meets Ethan Hiltz. They flee the authorities, seeking refuge with the Masterless Men of Butter Pot Mountain. In 1812, the Masterless Men are granted amnesty and transportation to Halifax. Hiltz has no memory of anything beyond his early days on a privateer. He does have a weathered coat label that contains the word, Sambro. He and Marie Celeste go to Sambro where they live out their lives as Marie Celeste and Ethan Hiltz. At Sambro, the Grays have continued with their sea-faring lives but anyone who would be old enough to recognize Ethan as Thomas Gray, has passed on. Of course, none of the Smith family would recognize the half-breed Marie Celeste as a cousin. Members of the Smith and Gray families have intermarried, extensively, and the head of the combined clan is James, second son of William Gray. Warren Gray, the youngest male of the family, is introduced to the ways of the sea. | ||