Duncan’s relief at having the chafing metal off his ankles quickly faded as the guard gestured him into the murk of the descending tunnel. Lanterns hung from support beams every ten paces. After ten lanterns, the tunnel made a sharp turn and the guard paused to stuff two pieces of what looked like raw wool up his nostrils. As they rounded the corner the stench of human filth struck Duncan like a physical blow.
“Two levels,” the guard explained as he pushed Duncan forward. “No one goes into the main tunnel without permission. No one disturbs the candles, no one upends the pisspots, no one fights with another prisoner. Break those rules and ye get sent to the bottom level. Half the men there get carried out in shrouds. The stench be so thick in the bottom ye can carve a slice and eat it for breakfast. And try to go into the old mine beyond the second level and the mountain will kill ye,” he added as he halted at the low entrance to a side chamber. “Took three bodies out of here last week,” the guard added. “Which means ye might be able to find a blanket.” He gestured Duncan through the low arch. “God save the king,” he said with a mock salute.
A dozen specters looked up as Duncan entered the dimly lit chamber, the pale, hollow faces of emaciated prisoners. He had seen such faces before, when he had been imprisoned in Edinburgh and on the prison ship that had transported him to America. They were drained of strength, drained of hope. Some wore vestiges of uniforms, others just filthy grey tunics. This was no holding cell, no simple brig where soldiers were disciplined. This dungeon was of a kind Duncan did not know existed in America.
The chamber, at least twenty paces long and ten wide, was lit by only three stout candles resting on squarish boulders evenly placed along the center. The prisoners sat in small groups on filthy straw pallets along the near end. They offered no greeting, just watched Duncan with empty eyes as he retrieved a moth-eaten blanket from a pile inside the entrance. Nearby, two men eyed him, muttering to one another, then each tossed a button on the floor between them. He carried the blanket to an empty place along the far wall and was beginning to fold it into a cushion when it seemed to move. He dropped it. The blanket was crawling with lice.
One of the two prisoners at the entry gave a victorious guffaw and swept up the buttons.
Duncan kicked the blanket away and moved farther down the chamber, settling down against the cold wall near the third candle. He could see now the small alcoves at the end of the cavern where miners had once chiseled out iron, and the waste buckets in them, and he understood why the prisoners gathered at the far end.
His head sagged. It felt like he hadn’t had real sleep in days. The despair that seized him seemed to block all conscious thought, but it fought a losing battle with his exhaustion. He touched his belt and realized that in their haste the provosts had not searched him thoroughly, seizing only his obvious weapons. In a pouch on his belt he found one of the fragrant chips of cedar wood he kept for Conawago’s spirit fires. He pulled up his knees, crossed his arms over them, and cupped the cedar under his nose as he surrendered to his fatigue.
He was a young boy again, running over the hills in defiance of his father’s stern command to stay at home. His mother had sent him to his room, saying it was no business for children, but she had not known that Duncan had learned to drop out of the upstairs window. As he peered around a tree trunk, he was filled with pride at having reached the men at the grove of trees undetected, and he was about to race to his father’s side when the company suddenly went silent. A terrible inhuman cry rose from the tallest tree, then a riderless horse galloped away. As the company parted for it, Duncan saw the man swinging from the limb, struggling with his noose as his face turned blue. The cattle thief had taken a long time to die.
A low, steady voice crept into his consciousness, a new voice singing one of the net hauling shanties of his youth. He lifted his head, his eyelids heavy, to see another gentle old Scot cleaning his net on a twilit beach. He shook his head to clear his vision. He wanted to be asleep. His waking world was nothing but nightmare.
He paused, studying the figure before him, and realized he was no longer dreaming. The man was not as old as he had imagined, but he wore the kilt of a Scottish regiment over his brawny legs. He was holding the corner of the blanket Duncan had cast away over the naked flame of the candle. The other prisoners lay on their pallets at the far end of the cell, most of them snoring.
The soldier glanced at him. “I do me best work at night,” he said, as if to explain himself.
Duncan’s throat felt dry as a bone. “How-how do you know it’s night?” he asked as he rose to approach the man. The scent of singed wool hung about him.
“The wee ones tell us,” the big man answered good-naturedly, with a vague gesture toward the cell’s entry. “Y’er going to get cold, lad,” he declared, and stooped over his task. He was slowly passing the fabric of the blanket over the flame. Duncan heard tiny popping sounds as the lice were burnt away.
“Tapadh leat,” Duncan said, thanking the man in Gaelic.
The prisoner looked up with a grin. “Se do bheatha,” he replied. “I love to hear the little buggers pop.”
Through his pain and despair, Duncan recognized the man’s accent. “My grandfather would say those of the outer isles had salt and peat in their voice. Never in my wildest imagination would I have thought to meet a man from Stornaway.”
The man’s face brightened. “Be that an echo of the western coast on yer own tongue?”
“My clan is McCallum, of the western coast and the Hebrides. My grandfather and I used to fish the waters of the Minch off Lewis when the weather was fair,” Duncan replied, referring to the western isle for which Stornaway was the main port.
“Macaulay,” the man offered. “Corporal William Macaulay of the 78th. Fraser’s Highlanders.” He finished at a corner of the blanket, then rose to hand it to Duncan. “Free of the wee beasties for a day or two.”
“Long enough then,” Duncan replied, trying to keep his voice level.
Macaulay hesitated, then noticed the twine around Duncan’s upper arm. “By the blessed saints,” he muttered. “I’m sorry, lad.”
Duncan followed his gaze. “I didn’t ask what it meant.”
“T’is the mark of the king’s rope, son. Surely the provosts mentioned the gallows.”
“It was a colonel named Cameron who did most of the talking. There is supposed to be a trial.”
Macaulay cocked his head. “But the army don’t hang civilians. Ye need a magistrate for that.”
“I’ve done tasks now and again for Woolford’s rangers. It was enough for them.”
The big Scot sighed and shook his head heavily. “So what was it? Spilled your ale on our priggish colonel’s boots?”
Duncan met Macaulay’s level gaze. “They claim I killed a corporal of the 42nd.”
The soldier’s eyes narrowed.
“I found him in a pool of blood. I was hoping to help him, but he was already gone. It was just my bad fortune that a patrol happened by.”
“What corporal?” The warmth had gone out the big Scot’s voice.
“His name was MacLeod.”
Macaulay muttered a curse. “Jock MacLeod of the 42nd? The bare-fisted champion of the regiment? Not likely.” He shrugged. “He’d never be taken by a child like ye. No offense lad.”
“None taken. It’s welcome to find at least one man in Albany who believes me.”
“And my testimony will count like Bibles before the bastards who will judge ye.”
Duncan fingered the piece of twine. The vow to hang him the next day had seemed so remote, just another of his terrible dreams. But the twine made it real. The pain of his beating, the desolate cavern prison, the promised noose. He had come to Albany in search of the truth and a boy he had never met. But he had really come to die. His father had been summoning him to the gibbet, to join the rest of the clan. This was the ending of his short and tormented days. He had to find a way to write a letter to Sarah Ramsey, to let her know she should
wait no more.
Macaulay, seeming to sense his strange paralysis, took the blanket out of Duncan’s hands and draped it over his back. Then he settled onto the floor on the opposite side of the candle, holding his open hands toward the flame as if it were some comforting hearth.
“Jock was a Lewis man too. He loved the war,” Macaulay said in a soft voice. “He was fond of reminding me that the men of Lewis were descended from Vikings, that we were meant to die in battle, with a weapon in our hands.”
“He had a sword in his hand when I found him. His fists were bloody.”
“Amen,” Macaulay said with a satisfied nod. “Tell me about it lad. Tell me all.”
Duncan began with the morning of the terrible day of death, speaking of his discovery of the dead dispatch rider in the water.
The big Scot spat a curse when he heard it was another trooper wearing the plaid. “A sad waste of life. Always the Highlanders, eh?”
“I’m sorry?”
“’Tis always the Highlanders who pay the butcher’s bill in this army.” He shook his head and stared into the flame for a moment. “But what of Jock? Where was this settlement he fell in?”
Duncan continued his story, telling how an entire village was slain, even how he had come searching for the Nipmuc orphan who had gone to the river witch.
“Hetty the Welsh sorceress,” Macaulay said. “When I was young ye wouldn’t go near such a fearful hag without clutching a piece of iron in your hand.” Superstitions ran deep in the Hebrides.
Both men remained silent, staring into the solitary flame. A moth appeared and circled over the candle.
“The Highland troops,” Duncan asked at last. “They are all supposed to be in the North.”
“One company from each regiment was held back for the western campaign up the great lake to the Saint Lawrence to steady the fresh troops coming up the Hudson, called up from the Indies. Orders are expected to go west with Cameron to Oswego any day.”
Duncan gestured to the other prisoners, several of whom wore kilts. “Some of them sit in the iron hole.”
Macaulay spat a curse. “Some don’t lick the boots of English officers quick enough.”
Duncan tried to clear his mind, to consider what had transpired in the general’s office. “A soldier works hard for his shillings,” he observed. He had not forgotten the general’s despairing gaze upon the dead man’s pay chit, nor how he had angrily flung it into the fire despite it being presented as evidence against Duncan.
“Not in this man’s army,” Macaulay rejoined. “Nigh a year without pay.” His face darkened. “We didn’t come all this way to be English slaves.”
Duncan shivered again and glanced about the cold, dark chamber. “This place is a chamber of torture. How do you stand it?”
“I was raised in a black house, lad,” the soldier said, referring to the houses of unmortared black stone common in Scotland’s western isles, known for their cold and damp.
“How long have you been in here?”
“Just yesterday. But I’ve been a guest before.”
“For insubordination?”
“This time for taking a sick friend’s place on sentry duty without asking permission. Then not groveling when an English officer expressed his disapproval.” Macaulay shrugged, then stood, stretching. “Get some sleep. Ye’ll need your wits about ye tomorrow. Tell them ye want a rasher of bacon and a piece of apple pie from the officer’s mess.”
“I’m sorry?”
“They’ll come a couple hours before yer trial. They’ll clean ye up, make ye presentable for the English prigs who will condemn ye. They always give a man his request for a meal before. .” Macaulay hesitated. “Before such things,” he finished awkwardly, then moved away.
Before his hanging. The prisoner was given his choice for his last meal on earth.
Duncan sat against the wall again, huddled in his blanket, futilely trying not to stare at the twine around his sleeve. He was strangely scared to touch it. He desperately tried, but failed, to summon visions of his youth or memories of his days learning of the forest from Conawago. All that came were visions of the many McCallum clansmen who had swung from the king’s gibbet.
Death was a beast that had to eat its fill, his grandmother used to say of the epidemics that sometimes swept the Highland towns. The deaths at Bethel Church were no mystery for him to resolve, they were just another sign that death was calling him.
He woke to a hand gripping his shoulder. Macaulay hovered over him, holding a wooden bowl of porridge under his nose. “Better when it’s warm, lad,” the big Scot offered.
The other prisoners sat on their pallets, scooping porridge from bowls with their fingers. Duncan dipped a finger into the lukewarm gruel and hesitantly touched it to his lips before ravenously scooping it into his mouth.
“I thought I was to have mounds of bacon and pie,” he said when he had finished.
“Don’t tempt the fates, lad. They do their trials and hangings in the morning. If they ain’t come for ye by now then ye have another day. But they’ll ne’er forget a prisoner with the twine on his arm. There’s no. .” Macaulay’s words faded as a man with a bloody face was shoved into the cell, followed an instant later by two more prisoners. Macaulay sighed. “There be the reason. The hounds have been busy chewing up others this morn.”
The three men all fell to the floor of the cavern, holding wounds that oozed blood. They all wore the kilts of the Highland regiments. The forearm of the youngest hung at an unnatural angle. He clutched it in obvious pain.
Duncan shot up and went to the young soldier’s side. When he reached for the arm the man pulled it away. “It’s broken,” Duncan said.
“Goddamned right it’s broken,” one of the other newcomers spat. “Didn’t it sound like a snapped spoke when that provost bastard pounded it with his halberd!”
“I attended medical college in Edinburgh,” Duncan explained.
“You’re a doctor?” the young asked with a grimace.
“Close enough. They arrested me for aiding my old Jacobite uncle before I got the robe.” He nodded at the arm. “If you don’t let me splint it, it will never heal straight.”
He became aware of Macaulay at his side. “He’s one of us, lads,” the corporal explained, and he gestured to the twine on Duncan’s arms. The anger left the eyes of the new prisoners. The young Highlander gritted his teeth but did not resist when Duncan touched his arm again. Duncan frowned, then looked around the dim chamber. As the others silently watched, he stepped to the empty porridge bucket and slammed it against the wall, extracting two of the grooved, slightly bowed slats from its loosened hoops. Macaulay, quickly understanding, pulled out his shirttail and began tearing away a strip. Duncan nodded, then gestured to his patient’s shoulder. The corporal planted himself behind the man and gripped his upper arm tightly as Duncan lifted the broken forearm. “What was the name your mother gave you?” he asked the man.
The young soldier looked up in confusion. “Colin,” he murmured.
“I can’t hear you, trooper,” Duncan taunted loudly.
Anger swirled on the man’s face for a moment then he shouted, “Colin Mc-” The words died away with a wince as with a quick pulling motion Duncan snapped the bones back into place.
The onlookers laughed. His patient looked at him sheepishly and nodded his thanks as Duncan placed the makeshift splints on the arm and began wrapping it tightly with Macaulay’s strip of linen.
The two other new arrivals quickly warmed to Duncan, letting him look at their bloody cuts and bruises, none of which were severe.
“Damn the provosts and damn the officers who unleash them,” growled Macaulay. “What happened, lads?” he asked.
“On the parade ground, standing in ranks,” explained the oldest of the newcomers. “Colin called out to ask where our pay was. The major didn’t take to men speaking without permission. He demanded that the man who spoke step forward. He was even less pleased when all three of us
stepped out of the ranks.” The man paused to push at a bloody tooth, which was obviously loose. “He said the paymaster waited for the others in the North but that we three would learn a hard lesson for our rudeness.”
“That ain’t why we’re here,” Colin interjected. “We would have just gone to the brig in the fort for a few days, but we were being held by the stables when the major met Colonel Cameron around the corner from us. They didn’t know we were listening until the provost shouted a warning to the colonel. But it was too late. We heard the report, that the king’s payroll never made it to the northern troops, that the paywagon was empty when it arrived. As the Colonel walked away, the major shouted that it was impossible, that no one could steal from such a wagon, that the report had to be a mistake. When he realized we had heard, he was furious, and he ordered the provosts to send us to the iron hole. We put up a wee protest,” Colin said, nodding to his arm. “We’ll be down here until they find that chest of coins.”
Duncan considered the words. “What kind of wagon would it have been?”
“Purpose built. One-of-a-kind. I’ve been a guard on it more than once on runs to Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Like a heavy coach, but it has a special box bound with iron, built into the inside where the seats would be. Like a rolling safebox.”
“Jock MacLeod was one of the escorts?”
“Colin!” Macaulay barked in warning.
“They have shit for honor!” the young soldier shot back. “You think I care about their damned secrets?” He nodded to Duncan. “Jock was with it.”
“Ye don’t know that, son,” Macaulay interjected. “The escorts don’t know their assignment until they report to duty.”
“But I was on sentry duty at the gate when the wagon pulled out. Jock waved at me, from the top of the wagon.”
“He died at Bethel Church,” Duncan said, “when the wagon passed through.”
Macaulay frowned. “Then the poor lad must have seen sign of those raiders and stayed behind to make sure the wagon was safe. He was always bigger than life, our Jock, probably thought he could take them single-handed. He died a hero to be sure.”
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