“No,” Duncan said, though the word pained him. “It was not the way at the hearths of my clan.” He looked down at the strange talisman in his hand, the object Hetty so desperately wanted no one to see. The images carved around the cylinder were intricately crafted. A leaping deer, a beaver with a branch in its mouth, a songbird, a horse, a cow, a bow, a hayfork. Tribal images and farming images. He scanned the deck. Hetty was nowhere to be seen.
“She took that off Rabbit Jack,” Woolford stated as he looked over Duncan’s shoulder. “You saw the way she pounced on him, like she was possessed. She tore at his waistcoat and belt pouches and pulled away a small wooden thing. We were so busy dealing with the provosts I forgot about it until now.”
Duncan shook the cylinder and heard a rattle inside, then twisted it. One end moved along a nearly invisible seam. He pried it loose and upended the tube. Four small silver links tumbled onto his palm, pieces of a finely worked necklace or bracelet. He held one up to the sunlight and realized he had seen identical links, in the bowl at the gaming shed in Oswego and with the painted woman at the tavern.
“Grandfather’s.” Duncan looked up to see Ishmael at his side. The boy stared at the cylinder with haunted eyes. “My grandfather carved that.”
“That can’t be,” Duncan said in confusion. “Hetty just took it at Oswego.”
“Look at the bottom,” the boy said.
Duncan turned it over. On the bottom was an elegant mark carved into the wood, the letters H and J between a spreading tree.
He looked back at the hatch where Hetty had fled. Which had she so desperately wanted him not to see, the silver links or the carving from Bethel Church?
Following the storm the night sky was like crystal. A thousand stars beckoned. The wind had slackened, the clouds had vanished, and the reflection of the moon stretched for miles over the still black water. Duncan stood at the rail with Conawago, who fingered the wooden tube carved by his kinsman. He had no words to ease the old Nipmuc’s troubles. The bodies lined up in the smithy of Bethel Church would haunt their sleep as long as they lived. But just as real to Conawago were the killings on the other side reported by the half-king’s followers. Spirits were not supposed to die, and if they did they would face nothing but interminable blackness until the end of time. But that was not the unspeakable horror that kept the old Nipmuc’s face clouded and his tongue uncharacteristically silent. The words of Black Fish had stabbed at Conawago’s heart. When all the original spirits died the gates of the other side would close forever, Black Fish had testified to the Council, holding the truth beads in his hand as he repeated the words of the dead. Then the people of the forest would become no more than dust. They would be no more forever. The looming end of the tribal world had weighed heavily on Conawago for years, but he seldom spoke of it, and when he did it was of events in a possible future, a future that might yet be avoided. But suddenly messages about that ending were coming from the other side. It had become real, happening before them.
“I never meant for you to die, Duncan,” Conawago said suddenly, still facing the water.
“Two lives to stop the Revelator and save the gods seems a fair price.”
Conawago offered no reply.
“I told you,” Duncan said, struggling to keep emotion out of his voice. “My family has been calling me. I never expected to my life to be finished.”
Conwago turned. “Finished?”
“Polished over decades like the gemstone that is your life.”
The Nipmuc slowly shook his head. “Not a life to be envied. A slow torture, watching first your family then your entire world be destroyed over decades.”
“But I have bested you, my friend. I managed to accomplish all that in a few short years.”
Conawago’s eyes narrowed. “In all of the time I have known you, I have never before heard words of self-pity from your lips. They dishonor the clan leader who lives within you.”
It was Duncan’s turn to stare out over the water. “You are right. I am sorry,” he replied after a moment. “In all the time I have known you, I have never feared for you so much. Do not let me believe you would give up life so easily.”
“Our gods are tired. I am tired. I begin to feel as though the bones of my soul are broken.”
“The gods,” Duncan said, “have much to answer for.”
The words brought another brooding silence.
Duncan tried to make small talk with Conawago, pointing out the shimmer on the horizon he took to be the northern lights, even offering to borrow Woolford’s lens so they could look at the mountains on the moon.
“We will find a way,” Duncan said at last. “We have to find a way to survive, for Ishmael’s sake.”
The desolate expression with which Conwago answered his words chilled Duncan to his heart. His friend felt honor-bound to die, despite the terrible cost to Ishmael. After several more minutes of painful silence, he wandered toward the stern, where Woolford, doing his best to help the elders forget the torment of the storm, had persuaded the Iroquois to sit and listen to him recite his favorite bard.
The ranger captain had just completed a soliloquy from one of Shakespeare’s comedies, to the obvious enjoyment of the elders, and he began a dialogue from Romeo and Juliet, engaging the grinning captain as the officer stood with one hand on the wheel. It warmed Duncan to hear Custaloga, Tushcona, and Adanahoe laugh.
As the cook brought mugs of hot tea to the Iroquois, Woolford enthusiastically began his favorite soliloquy from Hamlet. “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Well into the famous passage he slowed his tempo for dramatic effect. “To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there’s the rub, for in the sleep of death what dreams may come.”
“This Hamlet,” Custaloga interrupted, suddenly very sober, “he had trouble on the other side too? So after he died, what dreams did come? What were the visions in the death he spoke of? What did his people do about them?”
Woolford reacted at first with the impatience of the actor interrupted. “It was just Shakespeare’s way of expression.”
“But this Shakespeare is from the place of your birth. Have you not asked him?”
“He crossed over more than a century and a half ago.”
Custaloga nodded, as if it somehow proved his point. “Then he must have powerful dreams from the other side, to make you speak his words today.”
Woolford looked to Duncan as if for help. Neither was inclined to argue.
“Speak more of his dreams tomorrow,” Adanahoe said as she rose and stretched, ready for slumber. “Tell us what the spirits told him. Tell us of the time of night when the graves gape wide.”
The woman’s words seemed to surprise Woolford. He stared at the woman as she stepped toward the ladder that led to the cabin hatch. Conawago stepped out of the shadows, looking at the ranger with intense curiosity.
Tushcona yawned and followed Adanahoe. “Did he speak of the beasts with wings?” she asked as she passed them.
Woolford seemed to grow uneasy. “Why would you ask that?”
The woman seemed not to hear as she disappeared down the ladder. “They are creatures of the spirit world,” Custaloga explained. As he stepped across the moonlit deck, he looked into the sky as if he might glimpse the creatures, then spoke in afterthought before descending the ladder himself. “The four beasts had each of them six wings, and they were full of eyes and did not rest night and day.”
Woolford grabbed Conawago’s arm, as it to keep the Nipmuc from leaving. “Where did they get those words?” he asked in an urgent tone. Sagatchie, who had been watching the water, turned in confusion toward them.
Conawago shrugged. “The elders are famed for their memories of speeches. It is how the culture of the Iroquois is passed down. They are Black Fish’s words, from his dream, from his visit to other side. .” The old Nipmuc hesitated as he felt Duncan’s intense stare.
“You never told me,” Duncan said.
“I did not translate every word. I
told you there were beasts guarding the original spirits.”
“And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not night and day,” Woolford recited.
Conawago cocked his head. “You were at one of the other villages where Black Fish told his dream?”
“It is from the Bible, Conawago. A passage about the end of the world.”
Conawago began to shake his head as if in disagreement, then paused as he saw the way his companions gazed at him. “What book?” he asked the ranger in an uneasy voice.
“Revelation.”
“Revelation,” Conawago repeated in a whisper. His face clouded as he looked at Duncan. “I am sorry. I am an Old Testament man.” He seemed to grow weaker, and he lowered himself onto the stern bench. “The graves gape and let forth ghosts,” he said.
“Now is the time of night that the graves gape wide and let forth the ghosts,” Woolford recited. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Why would you and Adanahoe both-”
“Something else Black Fish said that night. Words he repeated all over the League.”
“Surely not,” Woolford said. “Why would he. .” His words drifted away as he looked from Duncan to Conawago’s ashen face. “What else?”
“When he started to relate his dreams it was like theater,” Conawago recalled. “But speeches before the Council often have a theatrical flair. At some of the smaller castles it was said there was a burst of yellow and red smoke in the fire which he leapt through. There is a certain expectation of drama. The words are supposed to be long remembered.” The old Nipmuc shrugged. “He started by saying it is time to be frightened because now the lion roars and the wolf howls at the moon.”
Woolford shook his head as if in disbelief. “Now the hungry lion roars and the wolf behowls the moon. Shakespeare again. A Midsummer Night’s Dream again. Next you’ll tell me he saw men with the heads of asses.”
Conawago’s voice grew small. “Men with the heads of horses were among those attacking the gods.” He looked up sheepishly. “Not many in the tribes have seen an ass.”
Water lapped at the side of the ship in the silence that followed. In the distance came the mocking cry of a loon.
“My God, the Delaware,” Duncan said, looking at Sagatchie now. “He was telling us before he died. He knew the boys in the Ohio, he said, and they liked to cheat. We thought it was just more raving. He was talking about the half-king. He was warning us!” He saw the confusion on Conawago’s face. “They gave you mushrooms to bring hallucinations,” he said to his friend. “The words spoken by Black Fish weren’t his words. Someone prepared a script for a disciple of the half-king to use with the League.”
“Someone at the Council saw through it, and killed him,” Woolford suggested.
“No. Black Fish was no great orator, or traveler to the spirit world. He had a good memory, as his uncle does, but also a taste for liquor. He was watched over by his companions in the red-eyed canoe. He was killed by one of them. He had found some rum and couldn’t be trusted to keep his secret. He was likely to boast that he was part of a ruse against the Iroquois League.”
“If men cannot be trusted before the Council,” Conawago murmured toward the water, “then the world indeed collapses around us.”
“It was meant to be his final performance,” Woolford said in a near whisper. “Spread the tale among the other castles, sow the seeds of fear, then finally present to the Council.”
“But shrines were destroyed,” Conawago pointed out. “More than the hand of man was involved. A sacred cave was buried when the mountainside above it shifted. I heard a sacred tree burst from the inside.”
“Either could have been done with gunpowder,” Woolford observed.
“Gunpowder doesn’t burn rocks,” Duncan said. “We saw it, at the mouth of the gods near Onondaga Castle. It was as if lava had risen out of the earth and melted the stone.”
“Certain gunners can burn rocks,” came a voice from the dark, “burn the earth, like the devil himself.”
Duncan looked about in the darkness for the speaker before realizing it came from the captain, still standing at the wheel.
“Beg pardon,” the officer said. “None of my concern.”
“How?” Duncan pressed. “How do you burn rocks?”
“Why with water, what else?” came the bitter reply. When the captain saw the insistent look on Duncan’s face, he called for the first mate to take the wheel and gestured them below.
A minute later they stood before the heavy door that marked the ship’s magazine. “Not just gunpowder in here,” the captain explained as he unlocked the hatch. “There’s always signal rockets and flares. But lately the navy board is experimenting with old recipes for Greek fire, the fluid that ignites with water and burns like the fire of Hades. Made of quicklime, saltpeter, sulphur, and bitumen, though the exact recipe is a secret kept by London. They heard rumors the French are equipping their fighting ships with it.”
“We need to see how you burn a rock,” Woolford said.
The officer seemed reluctant to go further. He sent for the gunner’s mate, who knelt at a wooden chest lined with straw. Inside was a smaller chest that was divided into a dozen smaller compartments, each of which was lined with sawdust. He carefully extracted a small glass jar. Duncan exchanged a pointed glance with Sagatchie. They had seen such a chest, in the red-eyed canoe.
Back on the main deck the gunner’s mate produced an old cracked ceramic bowl, a bucket, and a long grappling hook. He upturned the bowl in the bottom of the bucket and poured the jar’s acrid-smelling contents over it. “Ye paint yer rock like this,” the mate explained, “then toss on some water.” He quickly hung the bucket at the end of the pole and extended it from the ship’s side, over the lake. “Greek fire be like a viper. If y’er gonna release it git away fast.” As he spoke the captain used the ladle from the water butt to toss a few drops into the bucket. Instantly the bowl burst into white flame, and the mate lowered the pole to set the bucket adrift. “It has to burn itself out. Water just makes it angrier.” The bucket began to tilt, its molten contents spilling into their wake. They stared in uneasy silence as a narrow line of burning water traced their passage over the blackened lake.
It seemed Duncan had barely lain down when the pounding of feet overhead awoke him. He rolled off his hammock and was far enough up the ladder to hear the frightened shout that came from the lookout.
“Boat ahead, port bow!” came the call from the mizzentop. The sailor quickly corrected himself. “Vessels on the starboard and port bow!” he called to the deck. “Blessed Mary!” he moaned a moment later. “The buggers are everywhere!” he shouted in desperate confusion.
Moments later Duncan had joined the captain on the lower shrouds, studying the shore they were now hugging. At first he saw nothing but a long point of land, then he thought he was glimpsing scores of logs in the water beyond the point. As he focused his glass the captain uttered a fearful gasp and cast a worried glance at his limp sails, then extended the telescope to Duncan.
It was not logs coming toward them. Duncan looked down into the anxious faces of Woolford and Sagatchie.
“Canoes,” he reported, “Fifty or more, full of warriors. The half-king’s men.”
The captain’s voice cracked as he called out orders to his meager crew. “Battle stations!”
“No,” Duncan said.
“My cannons may be small, sir, but those vessels are fragile.”
“They are fast and able to come at us from all sides,” Woolford rejoined from the rail below them. “If just twenty of those warriors make it on board, we are finished.”
“What do you suggest?” the captain asked, looking in despair at his pennant. The wind was quickly dying. They were as unlikely to outrun the canoes as outfight them.
Duncan and Sagatchie stepped to the rail and studied the advancing warriors. The sailors on deck seemed frozen in fear. They had all seen the gutted men sent
back by the half-king.
“I always wanted to play the admiral,” Conawago suggested with a sly grin.
Duncan gazed at his friend in confusion, but Woolford’s eyes lit with understanding, and the ranger turned to the captain. “You’re going to surrender the ship to the tribes.”
“Never! You saw what they did to the last British who fell into their hands!”
Woolford held up his hand. “Not those tribes.”
Duncan slowly grasped Conawago’s intentions. “You and your men must go below and stay out of sight,” he instructed the captain, then he quickly conferred with Woolford and Conawago.
The old Iroquois reacted energetically. By the time the canoes reached the sluggish brig, they were ready. Conawago, with a light in his eyes Duncan had not seen for weeks, stood at the wheel wearing the uniform jacket of the captain, looking every bit the mariner. Ishmael, attired like a cabin boy, stood at his side holding a compass box. All of the old Iroquois were on the deck, each of them wearing an article of clothing borrowed from the crew, who were concealed below, some holding slow match to fire the cannons if desperate measures were called for. Hetty was stretched along the bowsprit, her flinty face aimed outward, looking for all the world like a ship’s figurehead.
Sagatchie stood in the mizzentop with his rifle, Kass in the foretop with her bow and quiver. Duncan, alone of the Europeans, stood on deck.
The half-king’s men slowed as they reached the ship, spreading out to encircle the brig at the radius of a bowshot. Only one canoe glided forward, its passenger standing, holding a long ceremonial spear. With a chill Duncan recognized Scar, who had directed the torture of the Delaware Osotku and taunted them with his necklace of the man’s fingers.
“These are the waters of the Revelator’s nation!” the half-king’s Huron captain shouted. “You will surrender the king’s ship to us!”
Conawago made a show of working the captain’s sextant, seeming not to notice the intruders at first. He handed the sextant to Ishmael then made a dismissive gesture toward the Huron. “As you can see, this king’s boat has already been surrendered to the tribes in a greater cause.”
Original Death amoca-3 Page 24
