Twelve-year-old Ronnie has just made the difficult decision to live for a whole year with his crotchety great-grandfather instead of in a boarding school. Now, stuck in an old house in Ontario, Ronnie wonders what he has gotten himself into as he and his ninety-year-old roommate constantly clash. But Ronnie has no idea that one evening after being sent to the attic for punishment, he will make an amazing discovery that will change his life forever. Ronnie has been haunted all his life by a spirit bear who now seems to be leading him straight to the corner of the attic. Frightened, Ronnie summons his great gran'dad to help him empty a mysterious leather bag he finds inside a dresser drawer. After a necklace tumbles out, Ronnie holds the artifact and is suddenly propelled back in time to the War of 1812 and into the body of one of his ancestors, who has been adopted by the Indian war chief, Tecumseh. Now trapped between the past and the present, Ronnie must overcome great challenges in order to return both the artifact and the bear to their rightful places. Tecumseh's Artifact is a tale of friendship, family, and compassion for others as a boy travels through an exciting period in history and learns more about himself than he ever imagined.
TECUMSEH'S ARTIFACT
By M. Ruth TroughtoniUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2011 M. Ruth Troughton
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4620-6897-5Chapter One
Ronnie's threw himself into the old soft chair sitting beside the small window in this part of the attic. The old B&mdash-- he began to shout, but before the words flew past his lips, he clamped his hand across his mouth and listened hard. Was that a creak from the old bare boards that ran out under the door? Maybe great Gran'dad had sneaked back up the stairs and was listening to find out what he was doing. Great Gran'dad may be over ninety but his ears and eyes are as good as any owls, ran through his mind.
He scowled at the door. It looks like something that should be in a cowshed – old up and down boards with crosspieces in a Z shape holding it together. It isn't locked but it might as well be. That old devil is still strong and although he promised my dad that he wouldn't beat me, I'm not too sure he will keep his word. Just about everyone beat children for being bad when Great Gran'dad was young. One of my friends told me that when he heard I was being sent here.
Well anyway, this isn't a good time to test it – not while my shoulders are still stinging from those bony old fingers that practically lifted me up the stairs. I want to be out of here before dark!
His thoughts turned back to earlier in the day. All I did was to ride the neighbour's stupid horse. How was I supposed to know it was a dangerous stallion? It acted real friendly – well it did until it threw me over the fence. Adults are always taking the worst fits over nothing! I've taken riding lessons. When we lived in Austria, Mom and I went riding every week.
After a few minutes he felt his anger drain away and his natural curiosity kick in. Actually, he thought, this is kind of a cool room. He drew himself up in the old chair and began to look around. Through the small window behind him, light crept in, dim when clouds hid the sun. From here, he could see many lifetimes of the Rielly family's stored and forgotten junk, boxes, trunks and pieces of furniture. The stacks filled half of the long attic room and were piled to the hand-axed rafters. A dusty path wound through these small mountains to the other window in the far end.
Wade, his father had told him that at one time he had planned to set up an office at this end. "I had that skylight built into the roof but when I was offered a diplomatic post in Egypt, I never came back and finished it." He told Ronnie this when he had brought him here and they were looking through the old house, the first time Ronnie had seen it.
Good thing, Ronnie thought, without the skylight it would be really dark even in the daytime. The way the sunlight flickers through the leaves above and those shadows dancing on the walls are really spooky. I wonder how long he's going to keep me here –he was pretty mad after he'd told me to stay away from that horse.
Jerking his eyes from the light patterns, his mind circled back to his ragbag of complaints. They slid into his mind and brought back the anger. Why did I say I wanted to come here instead of the boarding school Dad wanted me to go to? Because you know what they're like, the nasty little voice in his head reminded him. Someone there would be watching you every minute – and you thought it would be easier here at a small town school.
During his father's posting in Vienna Ronnie had gone to the International School and heard other kids talking about boarding schools. Just about every child who had parents in the diplomatic corps had to spend time away from their families and they were sent to those places. Since his mother had died (why did it have to be her?) he hadn't seen much of his father anyway. He's too busy, or that's what he always says, Ronnie grumbled. Now he's in some African country for a whole year and I'm stuck here. There are another couple of reasons, eh? That annoying little voice was back again. What about Paris? And that trip to Jerusalem?
Really it was another case of too much fuss over nothing. The Paris thing was all Andre's fault, and Dad's. If he hadn't left me alone so much I wouldn't have climbed down that vine and met Andre. He was the wildest kid, way beyond cool. We were both ten then. I'll never forget the night he dared me to ride on the top of the subway car ...
A smile crept around the corners of Ronnie's mouth as he remembered. He let himself think for one moment of that wild roaring ride clutching the slippery bar on the car roof. I would've done it again, except they caught me as I climbed in through my bedroom window and the next day there were bars on it when I came home from school. What a row. And Jerusalem; I wasn't trying to start a war like they said. Some kids were throwing rocks at the police before I got there. And that crazy psychologist—with his "I'm your buddy act" – trying to find out why I was always in trouble. Sometimes I have to get out and run and trouble always seems to find me.
Ronnie jumped to his feet and walked up and down. Then he tiptoed over to the door and put his ear against a crack in the old rough boards. There was nothing on the other side but silence. He continued to finger over his complaints. As if I could tell the real reason! I bet lots kids have imaginary friends and so what if mine is a bear? I just wish he wasn't getting bigger, and scarier and closer. Ronnie shivered although the attic had felt hot when he had been shoved in there.
Doing dangerous things let him forget his fear for a while. He flung himself back into the chair and forced himself to think of something else. He hoped the old man hadn't forgotten him.
He thought of the two hundred years that had passed and all the members of his family who'd spent their lives in this house. The Riellys settled here when they had come across the Niagara River after the long trek from Boston. The American rebels had driven them away from there because they stood for the British king. That war back in the 1700s sent them looking for a country where the king of England still ruled. The place they'd found was here across the wild Niagara River – a land still British Territory.
Ronnie's mind moved to Uncle Jack who now ran the vineyard with a new house and winery. 'The Loyalist' they called it, built near the road that ran along the Niagara River gorge. He wasn't that fond of Uncle Jack. I have been here two weeks now, he thought, and I have only once been in the big house when Dad took me to see Mom's sister, Aunt Jen. She's sick most of the time. Great Gran'dad likes this old house where he was born and lived in it with Great Gran'mama for sixty-five years. No way would he move into the new house after she died.
When he had first seen Great Gran'dad's house, Ronnie had been surprised. Beside the awesome new house, this one looks like some old forgotten barn back at the end of the driveway with trees and bushes almost hiding the walls—and I'm going to be stuck here for a whole Year! For a second Ronnie felt like saying all that nasty words he knew – and tearing his hair out.
You would never think they had pots of money, Ronnie groused. I know Uncle Jack would give Great Gran'dad a television if he wanted one. He pictured the huge set in Uncle's house but he wouldn't be welcome to use it. Especially, since he'd turned on that tap last week looking for a drink of water. Wine shot out and he was ankle deep before he could get the tap turned off.
Boy, had Uncle Jack been mad! You'd think he didn't have about a million barrels more! Ronnie couldn't stop himself from chuckling, remembering Uncle Jack swearing a blue streak, but he'd been scared at the time.
The sun had shifted lower and the cooling wall behind the chair creaked. Ronnie's heart jumped. Bear! There isn't any bear! Don't be so dumb, he told himself, but he couldn't stop from darting a quick look into the darkest corner under the eaves. Then the breath caught in his throat again – there was a dark splotch that resembled a bear on the floor in front of him.
After a second, Ronnie sighed in relief. It's only the shadow of the chair with me sitting in it, he assured himself, waving his arm to prove it.
The shadow waved back.
Chapter Two
Four days later Ronnie was back in the attic. Great Gran'dad was out of the house and Josie, the woman who came to clean and cook, had finished and gone home. It wasn't punishment this time. He just couldn't get it out of his head that somewhere in the attic was something ... He stopped to think. He closed his eyes and relived the dream. It seemed the bear came and took me by the hand and led me up the stairs to the attic and pointed to that pile of wooden boxes there in the corner by the far window. I knew some secret was hidden there. I began to pull at the boxes that were piled so high they disappeared into the sky. At the first tug, the pile started to fall—like in slow-motion. It was going to crush me! I screamed for the bear and jerked awake.
It had seemed so real when he woke up, but standing here now, nothing was the same. Many of the objects were just dark shapes because it was raining today and very little light came in through the skylight. They'd stood by the far small window because he remembered it there in the dream.
Funny, in the dream he wasn't afraid of the bear. It was only when he was awake that the idea of being haunted by a bear bothered him.
Ronnie carefully made this way between the piles of stuff until he stood with his back to the window. A wall of old boxes with rope handles reached to the rafters above his head. Where to start? He would need a ladder to reach the top one and there was no way he could get a ladder up here without being seen. He might have tried to climb them but the memory of their tumbling towards him in the dream nuked that idea.
It's crazy to believe in dreams, he told himself. Then he noticed that the boxes were piled on top of an old hand-made dresser. Its drawer pulls were rope, like the box handles. That was why he'd not seen it at first in the dim light.
Ronnie squatted and very carefully put a hand under each rope of the bottom drawer and gently pulled, looking up all the while to make sure the top boxes weren't going to fall. The drawer was stuck fast so Ronnie pulled harder. With a puff of dust one rope broke. Ronnie stumbled backwards against the dresser behind him. It was stacked with china dishes and glassware so draped with cobwebs and dust that no one looking at it could tell what was what.
For a second he thought – the whole thing is going to come down and bury me! The dusty glasses struck together with a warning chime, but nothing fell.
"It's OK, nothing happened, nothing happened," Ronnie whispered – more convinced than ever that whatever the bear wanted him to find was somewhere near.
Standing up and dusting off his hands he checked that nothing was broken among the dishes on the dresser. There near the front, as if it had been put out for him alone, was a sturdy knife with a short blade and a bone handle. Sliding the blade inside the edges of the drawer at the corners, bit by bit, he worked it open. When he could get his fingers in, he hauled it out onto the floor. So far so good, he congratulated himself, pushing and tugging it over to where the dim light from the window fell into it.
His heart pounding, Ronnie leaned forward and reached for the piece of cloth covering the bear's secret. This must be it! He wiped the sweat off his forehead with his sweater cuff. A dart of fear stopped his urge to tear aside the covering and discover the mystery! What so awful could be in an old drawer – a few spiders? Well, here goes! Inch by inch he pulled aside the faded cloth.
As he bent over to look inside, he felt an odd sensation in his chest, pain and a sting in the back of his nose as if tears were pushing to get out. It came and went in a second.
At first he couldn't make out what was there except for the smell of old dust. He lifted a leather bag, cracked and discolored as if it had been soaked in some black liquid. "I hope that's not blood," he said as his hand shook a little. And what's this? They're like the pair of Egyptian bracelets Mom wore to that costume party in Paris, but these are tarnished black.
Under another covering, which felt like leather, Ronnie's hand traced a wooden circle woven across with narrow strips of a material as hard as wood. It's like the dream-catchers, fake Indian stuff, I've seen in cheap tourist shops. I can't really make it out it's so dark in here – I'm going to lift it out.
With a yell, he flung it away, scrambled to his feet, raced down the path through the piles of stuff and out the door, flinging it shut behind him.
With the door still dancing on its hinges, he tore down the stairs and collided with his great-grandfather on the bottom step, almost tumbling both of them to the floor. He grabbed Great Gran'dad around the waist and buried his head in the old man's bony chest.
"Whoa there, Young Feller," Great Gran'dad exclaimed trying to get his balance and his breath back. "Where are you go'n like the devil wus after you and gain'n every jump?"
Ronnie realized he was hanging on like some little baby and loosened his hold. He still held on to the sleeve of Great Gran'dad's shirt as the old man steered him into the living room where they could sit down.
"Come on now, what were ya doing in the attic, and what scared ya?" Great Gran'dad's voice for once sounded as if he really cared.
Ronnie expected he was going to be in trouble again but his experience with whatever he had seen was too awful to keep to himself. He could've sworn he'd heard a scream when he lifted that thing. But no one would believe that, so he would have to lie.
"I opened the drawer of that old dresser in the back of the attic," – he began to feel a little foolish. "Remember how Mom loved old things and she taught me a lot?
For a moment these two people, so far apart in age, pictured the lovely person they'd both loved.
"Yes. And ..?" Shaggy white eyebrows squirmed on a forehead as furrowed as a plowed field.
Good, Ronnie thought, he doesn't sound mad yet. "Well, I thought maybe some of her stuff from when she was a kid, might be in there, books or something."
He was making this up as he went along. What a lie! But it sounds like a good reason to be snooping in dresser drawers and it never hurts to remind him that I am an orphan, well half a one anyway. People always feel sorry for an orphan. "There was this, this thing. A wooden circle with leather laced like a snowshoe, but there was something living on the back of it, an animal with long black hair." The tiny shiver of the fear he'd felt in the attic ran up his back.
Old crooked fingers, on a hand mapped with wrinkles, slid around Ronnie's shoulders and squeezed. "Yep, seeing your first scalp can be pretty scary." A cackle of laughter escaped his shrunken lips.
"Scalp!" Ronnie yelled, almost as loud as he had in the attic. He jumped to his feet as if he were going to run again. "What's a scalp doing in your attic!?"
"Well now Boy, that thar's a story, and not for everyone to know. Family secret. Let's go look at the scalp and the other things and I'll decide if you're a good enough person to be told. There's only one Rielly boy told every fifty years or so. I told your grandfather. He had a son who died and his daughter only had you. Lucky she gave you the family name, ain't it? By the way, ever seen a bear?" He'd turned and headed for the stairs.
Ronnie stumbled on the bottom step. "Bear, what bear?" he croaked.
"I never saw him myself but my Gran'dad swore his father never a-feared anything because a ghost bear kept him safe. Other people's cattle died, his got fat – neighbours got fever, his family never. Every house around here wus burnt by the Americans, this house weren't! Maybe ya'll have the Rielly luck!" Another snort and crackle of laughter floated back over his shoulder.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from TECUMSEH'S ARTIFACTby M. Ruth Troughton Copyright © 2011 by M. Ruth Troughton. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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