“Who the hell gave you permission to visit with my prisoner?” Sergeant Hawley roared as he appeared out of the shadows. He spat a curt word in the Mohawk’s tongue and Sagatchie backed away, his eyes remaining on Duncan until he disappeared into the shadows. Madame Pritchard rose from her stool, meekly bowed to the sergeant, and followed the Mohawk.
“If I didn’t have to account to the colonel for that dead corporal of his I would string you up right now!” Hawley shouted at Duncan. He extended a small metal token on a neck strap toward Duncan, a familiar bronze circle with a tree etched on one side and a large W on the other. “If ye were a ranger on duty ye would have shown this to us! Which means ye’r a damned deserter! We beat deserters with halberds to break their bones before we hang them!”
Duncan’s mouth went dry as he watched Hawley set the lantern on the stool then pick up a length of rope. “Captain Woolford,” Duncan ventured as Hawley tied a heavy double knot into the end of the rope. “Woolford is my officer.”
“A lie! Woolford and his men are in the North, with the others along the Saint Lawrence.”
“He does special missions for the general in Albany.”
“That don’t include cold-blooded murder of the king’s men!”
“I told you. I was trying to help.”
“I believe yer actions, not yer words! We found what else ye had stowed in yer kit. The dead soldier has a name now.” The sergeant flung two items onto the floor beside Duncan. The first was a tattered pasteboard rectangle printed with a large 42, bearing the handwritten name Jock MacLeod above blocks printed with the names of months. It was a pay chit, the record soldiers presented to receive the king’s shillings. Beside it lay the small, finely worked dirk Duncan had taken from the drowned Scot.
Hawley seemed unable to contain his wrath. He furiously whipped the rope at Duncan. The knot was like a rock against his flesh. It hit his shoulders, his neck, his belly, then drew blood from his jaw. “You bastard! I’m going to drag you behind a horse all the way to the Highland garrison!” he shouted. “Colonel Cameron can decide whether to hang you as a deserter or just as a murderer!”
Chapter Three
This is how we first die. The words gnawed at Duncan. Conawago had never let Duncan hold Hickory John’s letter, only listen to its message. He had not wanted Duncan to see the urgent postscript. Stay silent between the worlds. This is how we first die. Had Hickory John glimpsed the horror that was coming to Bethel Church? Duncan feared for his friend more than ever. Conawago had rushed into the wilderness after witnessing the work of demons at the settlement. He would not have done so in fear. Conawago had retrieved an artifact and had gone to confront the demons.
He tried to sleep, but every few minutes the nightmares returned. He worked at his bindings, but his twisting only seemed to make the ropes tighter. Finally he settled for staring at the rising moon out the rear door of the barn. The demons Conawago sought were creatures of the war. But Conawago hated the war, had warned Duncan again and again that they must not be drawn into it. It made no sense. Nothing of the day’s events made sense.
Suddenly he sensed a presence beside him. Sagatchie held a muted lantern, which he set on the floor beside Duncan.
“Until today I had only met three men who wore the mark of the dawnchasers,” the Mohawk said, referring to the tattoo worn by those who completed a treacherous, sometimes fatal, twenty-four-hour circuit that connected old forest shrines on a run from one sunrise to the next. It was a ritual of the old ones that Conawago had taught to Duncan, a ritual lost to most of the tribes. “They were all old men when I was young, long dead now. At first I could not believe my own eyes when I saw the mark on Conawago.” Sagatchie looked into the shadows uncertainly. “There are those who still say the old ways do not have to be lost. But the cord that binds us to them is so frayed it could break at any moment. And when it does, we will never find our way back.”
“Conawago says the old spirits are not lost, that we have just become blind to them.”
“We? Do not mock my people by pretending you are one of us.”
Duncan twisted, using his elbow to pull his collar tight against his shoulder. “When I was young no one dared to plant the first seed in the spring before one of our old women spent a night in the hills making offerings to the earth spirits. We would never launch a new boat without making an offering to the winds and sea.”
“Those are just the habits of old-” the Mohawk’s words died away as he glimpsed Duncan’s shoulder. The stern warrior had the expression of a bewildered boy as he held the lantern closer. He muttered a low invective as he pulled away the fabric to study the pattern of the rising sun that had been tattooed over Duncan’s shoulder and right chest. He was silent for a long time, his gaze fixed first on the tattoo, then on Duncan’s eyes. “It is a grave sin to steal such markings,” he finally said. “They are not for Europeans.”
“Do you think Conawago would allow me to run the woods at his side if I had stolen such a thing? We opened the old shrines for the Turtle clan of the Onondaga. We brought the ritual back to life.”
Sagatchie stared at Duncan intensely, fingering his war ax, his face clouded first with anger, then confusion. “There was an Englishman who helped the Turtle clan after his people executed the Skanawati chief.” His hand moved to the sacred totem bag that hung from his neck.
Duncan returned his level stare. “Do not mock my people by pretending I am English. I am a Scot. The English burned my home and slaughtered my clan when I was a boy. I was imprisoned with Skanawati and was proud to name him a particular friend. The English hanged him for a murderer. He was not guilty but he chose to die for the honor of his people.”
Sagatchie looked into the shadows again, then moved to the entry of the barn. He stood in pale light, looking up as if consulting the moon, then stepped back and knelt by the post to which Duncan was tied.
“The boy came back,” the Mohawk declared, now in a hushed, hurried voice. “I saw him in the dusk. He climbed into the window at the back of the schoolhouse, then came out a few heartbeats later and darted into that house where Conawago was taken. He reappeared with a sack and rolled blanket before heading south.” Sagatchie looked into the shadows for a long moment then slowly nodded. “I will leave your rifle and pack in the shadows behind the barn,” he declared. “Be far from here by dawn.”
“Not the barn,” Duncan said. “The schoolhouse. At that window where you saw the boy. And I’ll need your lantern there.”
Sagatchie did not argue, only leaned behind Duncan for a moment, then rose, grabbed the lantern, and faded into the shadows. As he disappeared Duncan discovered his hands were free and his own knife was lying on his lap.
Minutes later Duncan inched around the corner of the schoolhouse. His pack and rifle leaned against the woodshed built along the back wall, the dim lantern on the ground beside them. He stooped to check the contents of his pack then quickly climbed into the window. He entered not the classroom but a small sparse chamber that served as quarters for the schoolmaster. A narrow cot with a straw pallet hugged the back wall. From a row of pegs hung a threadbare shirt, a bundle of turkey feathers, and a tattered green waistcoat. The boy could have just run after the wagon he had seen heading south but instead he had come back to the schoolhouse. He had been in the room for only a few heartbeats. He had known what he wanted, and where to find it.
A table was tucked into the corner at the far end of the chamber, on which lay books, slates, writing leads, two candles in pewter holders, and a wooden candle box. The sliding lid of the candle box was open, and it held not candles but letters, several of which were on the table beside it. Duncan slid up the baffle on the lantern and leaned over the table. They were all addressed to Henry Bedford, all in the same cramped hand, with the return address simply Eldridge, Forsey’s, Albany.
Duncan stuffed one of the letters into his shirt. He hesitated as he turned toward the window, cautiously pushing the latch of the door into the cla
ssroom. With an aching heart he walked along the crude desks. Two of the older students had died from a hammer to their heads, and Ishmael had escaped, but the others had been taken. The raiders, who existed to disrupt the British war effort, had killed Christian Indians, taken a wagon, and kidnapped five children and their teacher.
He paused at the papers pinned to the wall, drawings of animals, trees, and people in different hands, each with a verse and with a student’s name at the bottom. Lizzie Oaks was there, and Barnabas Wolf, the teenagers who had been buried behind the church. With a sudden impulse he pulled away a paper from each of the other students and pushed them inside his shirt beside the letter.
As he began to climb out a hand clenched his extended leg. His heart lurched, then he recognized the Mohawk ranger.
“You will need a writing stick,” Sagatchie whispered.
Duncan did not question the Mohawk, just darted to the table and retrieved one of the sticks of lead before climbing out.
“I need you to help remember them.”
Duncan still did not understand, but he knew he owed much to the quiet Mohawk and so followed him behind the church.
He glanced at the stars as they reached the burial yard. It was one or two hours past midnight. For any hope of evading Hawley’s rangers, he needed a several-hour head start. He should be away, running in the woods. But then he saw Sagatchie standing with the lantern at the first cross.
“Akenhakeh,” Sagatchie declared. Summer. Duncan looked up in surprise, returning the Mohawk’s solemn gaze for a moment before kneeling in front of the cross to write under the English name of Rebecca Halftree.
They moved from cross to cross, Sagatchie mouthing the tribal names of the dead and Duncan rendering the Iroquois words as best he could into English letters. Tigneni Ahta, Two Moccasins. Wayakwas, She Picks Berries. Yaweko Ogistok, Sweet Star. Skenadonah, Little Deer. Tehatkwayen, Red Wings. Odatschte, Quiver Bearer. Aionnesta, Stag.
When they finished, Duncan swung his pack onto his back. “You said Conawago went north?”
Sagatchie, staring forlornly at the graves, seemed not to hear. He had known these people, members of his tribe who had done more to coexist with the European world than any natives Duncan had ever known. He quietly repeated the question.
The Mohawk nodded. “It is three or four days to the French lines.”
“And two days to Albany, if I go straight as an arrow.”
“Albany is in the opposite direction. You have no hope of finding one wagon on a road filled with wagons. You must not go that way, McCallum. They will run you to the ground, and they will hang you. You must find the old Nipmuc. He has ways of keeping us joined to the spirits. He is needed more than ever.”
Duncan murmured his thanks and slipped into the shadows. Finding his way to a ledge above the settlement, he studied the landscape in the silver light, considering the battering events of the past two days. Conawago, shouldering a terrible grief and driven by a foreboding message, had rushed into the northern wilderness for a reason. The twelve-year-old who carried the last of the Nipmuc blood had shed his European clothes, put on the face of a savage, and gone south after taking something from his schoolmaster’s chamber. Two phantoms, joined by blood, fleeing in opposite directions. South was where a hanging rope awaited Duncan. He raised a hand in a silent prayer toward the phantom in the North and then set out toward Albany.
A mile below the settlement, Duncan emerged from the forest and set out at a steady trot along the packed earth of the military road. He knew the risk he took as a fugitive on a route frequented by the army, but he dared not run in the forest at night, for fear of a twisted ankle or worse. A few minutes later he slowed at the sight of a cabin set back from the road in the center of cleared fields. It was where the terrified boy had run after seeing his grandfather tortured and murdered. It was where the gentle Christian boy described by Madame Pritchard had transformed into a vengeful warrior.
He paused for a moment, staring at the tranquil homestead in the moonlight, a silver thread rising out of its chimney. Once, in another life, he had lived in such a place, and their seaside croft had echoed with the laughter of his family. That life was gone, and the hope of ever achieving it again was as remote as the stars. He pulled himself away, shamed for the envy he felt for the simple farmers who lived there.
The road steadily unfolded before him. Deer grazing at roadside tufts bolted at his sudden approach. Something large, a bear or catamount, growled and sped into the shadows. He rounded a curve and discovered with momentary alarm that he was passing a camp of teamsters with circled wagons, their only guard a barking dog. Duncan hesitated a moment, futilely studying the wagons. Sagatchie was right. He had no hope of finding the wagon. He had to find the world breaker.
As dawn seeped into the eastern sky, he slipped into the forest to the west of the road, slowing, probing the rising landscape until he found the expected game trail running along the ridge, parallel to the road. When he paused on a bare ledge an hour later to tighten his moccasins and chew on venison jerky, he had an unobstructed view of the lake’s shore, less than half a mile away.
He gazed at the lake absently, rubbing at the bruises left by Hawley’s rope, and did not realize he was staring at the island he had visited at Conawago’s request until an eagle crossed his vision. He knew it was there, not the settlement, where he should mark the beginning of their misery. There the eagle had shared with him its secret of death under the water, there in an unguarded instant when Conawago had revealed a dark foreboding in his eyes. With a terrible wrenching of his heart, Duncan realized that things might have gone very differently if he had not held back from his friend, had spoken of that first dead Scot. Conawago had a way of understanding things that extended beyond Duncan’s senses. What if Duncan had spoken of the death and Conawago had decided to rush straight to the village? They may have arrived in time to stop the massacre. They may have missed the men on the boat who had accidentally wounded the old Nipmuc. But then he recalled the strange writing on the back of the letter from Bethel Church. This is how we first die. It had been an urgent summons, more important even than the long-awaited reunion, and something Conawago had found at Bethel Church gave it a sudden desperation, even perhaps a destination.
Duncan recalled how Conawago had prepared for his reunion with Hickory John. There had been joy on his face, but also reverence. Although his friend never spoke of it, Duncan had learned from others how the Nipmucs had been one of the most spiritual of all the woodland tribes, how their small tribe had evolved into keepers of sacred secrets, like the guardians of secret temples in ancient lore. If Conawago was such a guardian, then Hickory John must have been as well.
Duncan followed the shoreline with his eyes, noting the little coves, seeing now a solitary man rowing a boat in the open water a mile below the eagle’s aerie, coming out from the shore near where a narrow track left the main road.
He descended to the road, then lingered to listen and watch. A northbound dispatch rider galloped by, then Duncan crossed the little intersection and followed the rutted track to the lake.
The pier of rough-hewn logs at the end of the track had been designed to accommodate wagons. Split logs laid lengthwise along the pier were splintered and torn where heavy wheels had rolled over them. Wagons were loaded here onto the bateaux used by the army for hauling supplies. The string of forts along the lakes had their own piers, but where he stood was in the longest gap between forts, a likely place to take on loads of supplies from the nearby farms and timber camps. He cast a nervous glance toward the main road then backed into the shadows. It was also a place where patrols might be off-loaded, or where they might rendezvous. He crouched beside a large boulder, watching the still waters for a moment, studying the little isles that speckled the lake, some of them barren mounds of rock, others sprouting pines and cedars. Around the bend in the northern shoreline was the isle of the eagle and the dead soldier. Around the bend after that was where the crew of
the bateau had shot Conawago. Once again he struggled with the impulse to reverse direction, to run north to find the old Nipmuc. But he knew that Conawago cared about the boy more than life itself. The youth they had never met kept the blood of his people alive. Duncan could never face his friend if after all their struggles he had let the boy’s trail grow cold.
Duncan dropped to a knee as a twig snapped and brush began shaking in the thicket nearby. He cocked his rifle and began inching toward the sound.
The riderless horse, a powerful bay wearing a light saddle, had snagged its reins in an alder. Its eyes grew wild as its efforts entangled the reins further. Duncan rose and moved slowly toward the animal, speaking in low, reassuring tones.
When he had freed the horse, he led it out onto the open track. The well-polished brass and leather of its tack marked it as army property as clearly as the broad arrow brand on its rear flank. He studied the animal as it grazed. Its legs were not built for hauling wagons or caissons, nor for carrying an officer into battle. It was built for speed. He found himself looking back to the north shoreline, toward the eagle’s isle. The drowned soldier had been traveling light, with neither sword on his shoulder belt nor cartridge box at his waist. He walked around the animal and saw now the stiff leather cylinder tied to the saddle, sealed with a waxed string. The man had been a dispatch rider. He had been forced onto the lake from this very dock, and his horse was still waiting for him, not knowing he would never return.
Duncan’s hand lingered on the dispatch box for a moment, but he resisted the temptation to open it. The man had not been killed for his dispatches, but for challenging something suspicious. Duncan tied his rifle and pack on the saddle and eased himself up. Taking a government horse was a hanging offense, but they could only hang him once, and with a mount he could be certain to leave the pursuing rangers behind.
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