Her chest was covered with scars and tattoos, a maze of small deliberately inflicted scars and ink depicting stick figures of humans, a tree, and a bear. Around and through it all was a tattoo of a long snake, its head facing a sun rising over a vertical line. Her torso began to undulate, and the snake began to move. A small, fearful cry escaped Duncan’s throat. She was a witch after all.
“You won’t even know what to say when he finally speaks to you,” she said in a surprisingly level voice. It had the sound of an accusation.
As Duncan gazed at her hideous disfigured torso, his jaw moved up and down but no sound came out. “Whom must I speak to?” he finally asked.
“The Revelator,” she replied, her eyes wild again. As she laughed the snake writhed on her naked flesh. “The Revelator summons you! He will seize the heart from your chest and wring the truth out of your miserable life!”
He dropped the beads, grabbed the crumpled paper, and fled.
Chapter Four
“People say Albany is at the edge of the world,” the man in the brown waistcoat observed. “But they’re wrong. We live between the edges of two worlds. The pressing blade of European settlement and the sharper edge of the tribes.”
Duncan had found Thomas Forsey, one of the two brothers who owned the clothier, smoking a long-stemmed pipe on the back step of the big brick building. He nodded to his workers as they filed out, murmuring polite farewells, at the end of their workday. Duncan had told him he was a scout, looking for Mrs. Eldridge. “Her son is a schoolmaster. He and his students are missing.”
Forsey tilted his head and studied Duncan as if deciding whether to believe him. “Who did you find?”
“She was there, in that hut with the skins and skulls.”
“There is a fortune-teller who lives there,” Forsey said, taking another puff on his pipe. “‘The Welsh Oracle,’ some in the taverns call her. People buy her a drink and ask when to plant their grain. For a whole bottle she’ll tell you what to name your child and how you will die.”
“I thought I was going to meet Mrs. Eldridge.”
“When she is here, the meek Hetty Eldridge is the best seamstress we have. There is also a drunk who lives in that hut, though thank God no man’s ever been drunk like her. And there is the ghostwalker.”
A ghostwalker. It would explain much, Duncan realized. Inhabitants of the settlements used the term to refer to the uncertain souls who had been captured by the tribes and later released, usually after many years of living as a member of a tribe. “How long?”
“Who knows. Long enough. I remember Mr. Conrad Weiser of the Pennsylvania colony coming here many years ago, looking for signs of her. She had been taken in a raid on a farm in the Tulpehocken country long before, just after being married. There was a deal struck with some Mingoes ten or twelve years ago. They agreed to return captives to the army in exchange for some guns and blankets. She came back dragging a half-blood son with her.” For many captives the return to European society was more difficult than their original capture. It was why they were called ghostwalkers, for the way many never fit back in, for the way they stayed between worlds, often wandering aimlessly.
“She has her job here,” Duncan observed. “Why does she live in such squalor?”
“Hetty and I have a game we play. Every time she collects her monthly wage, I offer her a room in our attic. Every month she thanks me but refuses. She wants full wages, nothing deducted for room and board. But she never collects them. She worked hard to educate her son, but after he left her nest he went back out among the Mingoes for a few years. A month after he finally returned, he murdered some Dutch patroon’s son over a card game. He escaped custody but he was still found guilty. She is convinced of his innocence and has me send every shilling to a barrister in New York town who is petitioning the crown for a pardon.”
“But she has two sons? There is one who is a schoolmaster.”
Forsey held up a hand, as if he did not want to hear more. “One son. You must be thinking of someone else,” he said pointedly.
Duncan was more confused than ever about the woman and the hell dog that had watched him so ravenously when he had retreated from her hut. “She smelled like she was drunk but. .” he searched futilely for words, “but she wasn’t.”
“The rum doesn’t go into Hetty like it does other humans. It’s like it becomes a spirit of another kind, a spirit of the other side, some say, that possesses her at such times.” Forsey seemed to try to grin but the effort became a grimace, which quickly faded as he looked over Duncan’s shoulder. He dipped his head in greeting to someone and slipped back into his building.
“Christ’s Blood, Duncan!” a man behind him snapped, then pulled him off the step. “You must have a death wish!”
Captain Patrick Woolford was a man who looked elegant in any uniform, even the roughspun ranger tunic he often wore, but the man before Duncan was haggard and nervous. A pistol was stuffed in his belt, and the pan of his rifle was primed as if he expected an attack at any moment. He spoke no more until he had led Duncan into the shadows of the stable at the rear of the property.
“My God, man! They are searching for you up and down the lakes!” Woolford exclaimed. “Murder of a corporal in the 42nd they say.”
“They are wrong, Patrick.”
“Of course they are. But this army is in a hanging mood. You have to flee. Come back to my room above the old tavern, then tonight slip into the forest with Conawago for a month or two. Go to the Iroquois towns. Go to Sarah Ramsey. Anywhere but here.”
“And what are you doing here? You are supposed to be in the North striking the coup de grâce on the French.”
“I am in the North, in the West, even in New York town. My men are scattered. General Calder says rangers are good at operating in the shadows, and he has taken to using my company for shadow errands. I was heading for the fort at Oswego when he summoned me back.”
“Because of the murders?”
“Not exactly.” Woolford cocked his head. “I heard of but one murder.”
Duncan gestured him toward two thick cut logs used as splitting blocks. They sat among the woodchips, and he explained the journey he and Conawago had taken to find Conawago’s long-lost kinsman and the horror that had awaited them when they finally reached Bethel Church.
“I know Bethel Church,” Woolford said in a hollow voice. “A village of Christian Mohawks.”
“Who were forced to stand in a line and wait for a hammer to their skulls. Women and men in the full of life. A young maiden. And one Nipmuc, tortured as if he were the object of the raid.”
Woolford clenched his jaw. “A Nipmuc?”
“Conawago was with me. But he fled. There was something he recognized, something that caused him to run north after my arrest.”
“But you came south.”
“His great nephew, the very last of his blood, escaped, and seeks revenge. The boy came here. He spoke with the mother of his schoolmaster, though I can’t fathom why.”
“The provosts had word there was a stranger seeking the witch of the boatyard.”
Provosts. The mention of the army’s brutal enforcers caused Duncan to cast a nervous glance toward the street. “Forsey says she is a ghostwalker.”
Woolford pushed back his long black hair and nodded. “She had been taken as a teenage bride by the Iroquois who migrated west, the Mingoes. Twenty-five years ago, or more. Settlers say she was rescued in a negotiation to free captives. But the tribes say she was forced out, for being a witch. They were terrified of her.”
“But she had a family among them.”
“She married a great Mingo warrior, a subchief. He died in battle with a western tribe, and she was taken in by his clan for a few years. But she scared them. They turned her out, sent her to the settlements, though for half a shilling most in Albany would run her out of here as well.” Woolford studied Duncan and shook his head. “You have to leave, Duncan. I don’t know if-”
“Not w
ithout Conawago’s nephew.”
“You can’t know he is here.”
“He was with her, only hours ago.”
“You don’t understand, Duncan. There’s dark things afoot. I’ve never seen the general so worked up. The provosts are like mad dogs. They’d as likely skewer you on their bayonets as arrest you.”
Duncan studied Woolford’s worried countenance. “You mean there’s more than murders hanging over the army. What else happened?”
Woolford stared at him in silence. There was a reason the general trusted him for clandestine missions. “Most think the war is almost won,” he said in a lower voice. “But our successes have been built on sand.” Suddenly the captain’s eyes went round with surprise as he looked over Duncan’s shoulder and cursed. Duncan heard the running footsteps behind him and was about to turn when Woolford spoke.
“I’m sorry,” the ranger captain said, and he slammed a fist into Duncan’s jaw. Duncan staggered and dropped onto his knees. “Stay down, damnit,” Woolford pleaded.
As Duncan tried to shake the pain from his head, a second blow came, a glancing strike of Woolford’s rifle butt onto the side of his head. Duncan sank into darkness.
His sense of smell woke first. Wood smoke. Tea. Candle tallow. The talcum used on wigs. His eyes fluttered open to see burning logs in a huge hearth at the far side of a spacious chamber and candles on a long table near the fire. He lifted his head and shook the fog from his eyes.
Woolford sat at the table with three other men, conferring urgently over a large map. More maps were pinned to the walls of the room. The bronze glow of dusk filtered through two windows along one wall. Between the windows stood a heavy desk on which papers and quills were strewn. The door opening into a corridor was blocked by a stern guard in a scarlet coat holding one of the army’s deadly Brown Bess muskets. Outside the windows the sound of heavy boots marching in unison echoed off stone walls.
Duncan stirred, trying to rise, and discovered that his feet were bound with chains, his arms tied to the chair with sashes. The rattle of his manacles caused the men at the table to turn toward him.
With relief Duncan recognized the man who stood and approached him. He had met General Calder on his first day in the New World, and he knew him to be a fair man of moderate temper. He had been tied to a chair on that day as well, and Calder had called off the officer who had been assaulting him with a horse crop.
Duncan forced a respectful nod as Calder approached. “Good evening, General,” he offered.
The general slammed the back of his hand across Duncan’s jaw. “I should have kept you in chains that first hour I met you, McCallum!” Calder snarled. “I will not have you destroy my army!”
Duncan looked in desperation at Woolford, who hesitantly rose from the table. “I have always found McCallum to be a man of integrity, sir,” the ranger captain ventured. “He states that all the killings occurred before he arrived at Bethel Church.”
“The word of a murderer and traitor means nothing!” Calder snapped.
“It will be for a magistrate’s court to decide if he is a murderer,” Woolford said in a level voice.
Calder’s face flared with anger. He stepped to the desk and lifted a bronze disc dangling from a leather strap. “Did you not issue this to McCallum, Captain Woolford?” the general demanded.
Woolford glanced at Duncan apologetically. This was treacherous ground. If he lied, Duncan would be guilty of falsely claiming to be a ranger, the act of a spy and traitor. But they both knew what it meant for him to admit the truth.
“For safe passage through the frontier. He assisted us, as a scout. He never received a farthing of the king’s pay.”
One of the other officers, an elegant middle-aged man with eyes like two black pebbles, rose from the table. “Answer the general, Captain,” he growled. “Did you issue a ranger’s badge?”
“Yes, Colonel Cameron, I did.”
“Which means he will not be subject to a civilian court proceeding.” Cameron approached Duncan as he spoke, walking around his chair. “He will be prosecuted by the army, in a closed chamber. We can spare an hour tomorrow morning. The witness statement will suffice for the court-martial. We can have him strung up before lunch. A least we can bring one of the McCallums to the king’s justice.”
“Witness?” Duncan asked.
The colonel’s eyes flared at being interrupted. “Sergeant Hawley signed an affidavit attesting that he saw you stabbing the poor man.” He leaned over Duncan as if about to strike him. “The soldier you killed was well-liked in the 42nd. We should turn you over to them. They would pull off your limbs before they strung you up.”
“Hawley lies!” Duncan spat. “I had no connection to Bethel Church. They were all dead before we arrived.”
Colonel Cameron raised an eyebrow. “We?” He turned to Woolford. “Who else was with him? Where is his accomplice?”
When neither Woolford nor Duncan replied, Cameron raised a crumpled piece of paper. “You would have us believe you were a stranger to those at Bethel Church! Yet you walk around with a letter addressed to Bethel Church!”
Duncan swallowed hard. “It was raiders! The enemy!”
“Raiders who didn’t steal anything. Raiders who left without burning a single building or destroying any stores.”
“They took horses and a wagon,” Duncan explained. “They took children. They killed nine settlers.”
Cameron sneered. “If there had been-”
The general looked up from the desk. “Children?” he interrupted.
“There were eight children in the settlement. Two were killed with the others in the smithy. One escaped. The others were taken.”
“French raiders don’t risk such a deep penetration into our lands to take children,” Cameron declared icily.
“I didn’t say they were all French. There were natives too. The Hurons and Abenaki who run with the French take children. They sell them as slaves in the North.”
General Calder studied Duncan in silence then lifted two more objects from the desk. Duncan shuddered as he recognized the little dirk and the pay chit that Hawley had claimed to take from his kit. He extended the dirk to make sure Duncan saw it, then dropped it on the desk and approached Duncan with the chit raised before him. “Why take this?” Calder demanded.
“I did not steal it. Hawley planted it in my pack. He found me bent over MacLeod trying to render aid. I had medical training.”
“You said they had been dead for hours,” Cameron snapped.
Duncan looked at the floor. “The residents of the town, yes. But he was not a resident. I was hoping it might be different for him, that he may have just been left wounded by the raiders. There was yet warmth in his body.”
The general did not seem to hear. He paced across the room, staring forlornly at the little piece of pasteboard. As he approached the hearth he spat a bitter curse and flung it into the fire.
“There was another dead soldier. That was his dirk. A dispatch rider,” Duncan said to his back. “In the lake. Tied to a wheel. Hickory John made wheels for the army.” He realized the others were all staring at him as if he were mad. Duncan himself did not know why he had spoken the words. Even to him they sounded like the ravings of a desperate man.
The fourth man at the table, a wan junior officer wearing lace cuffs and a stiff collar, had kept busy with his quill but now looked up. Cameron hastened to his side and looked over his shoulder. He gasped and hung his head.
“Marston?” Calder called.
The young officer looked up. “Uncle, I don’t think that-” he began, gazing pointedly at Duncan.
“Just tell me!” Calder snapped.
“Seven five three two, sir,” Marston stated morosely. The pronouncement had the sound of more raving.
But the general seemed to make sense of it. The words struck him like a physical blow. He sagged and sank into a chair at the end of the table. “We can deal with mere murder tomorrow,” he declared in a v
oice that was suddenly weary.
Colonel Cameron spoke into the ear of the guard at the door, who leaned his musket on the wall and marched to Duncan’s chair. Cameron fixed Duncan with a cruel grin as the soldier tied a piece of twine around Duncan’s upper arm before releasing his arm restraints. “The iron hole,” Cameron barked.
Woolford gasped. The color drained from the ranger’s face as Duncan was led out.
Chapter Five
The iron hole. Duncan could not fathom what the reference meant, but the provosts who escorted him clearly were pleased with the prospect. They shoved him out of the fortress, not reacting when a handful of men in kilts threw stones at him. When the last stone, a sharp blow to his knee, caused him to stumble, his guards simply swung down their muskets, bayonets at the ready. He struggled to his feet with a clanking of chains. As they passed a stable, a man pitched a forkful of manure at him, eliciting a growl from a provost only when some landed on his boot.
They marched to the edge of town then onto a rough road before turning into a narrow gully through a gate of timbers where another squad of provosts stood guard. The twisting gully quickly darkened as they descended, the walls growing close together, until they suddenly rounded a turn and faced a large opening in the rock wall.
A shiver ran down Duncan’s spine as he saw the gate of stout iron bars. A guard stepped out of the gloom to open the gate, casting a glance of contempt at Duncan, then shoved him into the cave so hard he fell onto his knees.
As the gate slammed behind him, a soldier with a hard, sour face appeared from a side chamber and pointed Duncan to a low stool. He set a lantern on the ground as Duncan sat down, then lifted a hammer and a short iron punch. With two quick taps he released the pins from Duncan’s manacles and hung the chains on a peg.
Original Death amoca-3 Page 7
