Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  “I keep asking myself, what if something else happened that horrible night at St. Francis?” Conawago whispered. “What if the rangers there saw something that the French desperately don’t want them to remember now?”

  “That doesn’t explain why Mog was in Mrs. Pope’s house.”

  Conawago flipped the line, and another fish soon lay on the grass. “I think we might agree that their interest was not in Mrs. Pope or her overfed daughter. It was about something that happened those last days in Boston, something we haven’t considered yet. I wish I could feel we’ve left Boston behind,” he added. “I can’t shake the suspicion that we have brought the answer to that particular question with us.” Conawago jerked his line, and a third big trout was on the grass.

  Duncan looked down the slope at the campsite and watched its occupants go about their preparations for the night. Sarah bent by the kettle that simmered over the fire as Munro fed wood into the circle of stones. The infantry deserter, on his feet though limping badly, was playing a game of fetch the stick with Molly. Hayes was in the shadow of a wagon, where he seemed to be secretly watching Reverend Occom. The tribal evangelist was kneeling in his own wagon, where he had made a makeshift altar out of some of his Bible crates. He might have been praying or he might have been loading the little pistol Duncan had glimpsed under his waistcoat. Why, Duncan asked himself, had they burdened themselves with these strangers? Their connections were with Hancock, not with the travelers to Edentown. Hancock might have felt obligated to the deserter and might have had respect for the expertise of Hayes on the frontier, even some sort of spiritual bond with Occom, but they were not Duncan’s obligations, his respect, his bond.

  When he turned back, Conawago had strung his fish, now numbering four, on a piece of vine. The old Nipmuc did not miss the flicker of disappointment on Duncan’s face. “I shall roll these in cornmeal and fry them with a little bacon, served with fresh watercress from the stream,” he taunted. “If you are opportune, the wind may at least bring the delectable scent to you.”

  “You will take all four?”

  There was only a hint of apology in the old man’s exaggerated smile. “Surely you understand that you can’t risk a fire here,” he declared, still grinning, and handed Duncan another piece of dried, leathery beef.

  DUNCAN SLEPT, AS HE OFTEN did in the forest, in intervals of two or three hours, gauging the time by the rotation of the Great Dipper overhead. It was perhaps an hour before midnight when he woke the first time. Goliath greeted him with a soft nicker as he approached and stroked the thoroughbred’s neck, looking down at the sleeping camp, marked by a solitary thread of smoke.

  His mind drifted back to the gentle wheelwright in Worcester. Chisholm had been soft-spoken, but Duncan knew that no one survived years as a ranger without a body and spirit of iron. The searing image of the savaged man they had pulled from the windmill had haunted him all day. Now, unbidden, came Chisholm’s unexpected words from the evening before. Our fathers had kings, their fathers before them, and beyond, to before the tales of men began. How could it be otherwise? It shakes my bones to think on it.

  They had been too pressed to weigh the words or ask his meaning. Duncan had ignored them, but after revisiting their time with Chisholm, he wondered now if they weren’t the key, the closest thing to an explanation of some kind.

  Chisholm had been a philosopher in his own way, fretting over the condition of mankind. It had been his reply when he grasped that Duncan had come on secret business for Hancock and Livingston. He had not been ready to turn over the secret parcel buried in the graveyard, but had he foreshadowed the secrets with his unexpected words? Chisholm had been suggesting that the secrets he was entrusted with, perhaps the very secrets that had made Duncan a fugitive, were linked somehow to the possibility of life without kings. And the package, Duncan suspected, would have contained a French gold piece and the mysterious word that echoed in his mind: Saguenay.

  He went back and lay down on his bed of fragrant boughs, thinking of the unseen parcel of secrets from the north. If Hancock and Livingston had been involved, he would assume that the secrets referred to dealings with the merchant houses of Quebec and Montreal, no doubt rivals of theirs. But the packages had not been sent to the two merchants; they had acquired one only because the former ranger who received it had died.

  Had the French identified the Sons of Liberty as the soft underbelly of the American merchants? Why would the secret ledger from the Arcturus—and now the secret packages for the rangers—be so important to King Louis if he was done with North America? When slumber finally found him again, it brought wrenching visions of dead men on fields of battle, not fantastical nightmares, but memories, long suppressed, of friends lost in the French war. Then came images, so seared into his mind that they might as well have been memories, of the heaped bodies of Highlanders killed by the French in the last war and by the English in the bloody Jacobite rebellion.

  There had been other words spoken in Worcester that haunted him almost as painfully. Sarah had begged him to drop his pursuit of the killers. I am frightened for us, she had said. That afternoon, as he rested in the forest, he’d realized what she meant. She hadn’t meant she was frightened for the two of them, she meant she was frightened of what was happening between the two of them, worried about their relationship, as if it were in grave danger. The agony of the death surrounding him paled with the thought of losing Sarah.

  He awoke to a low, rattling noise. It was coming from Goliath, who was inching toward Duncan as if needing protection. Something was approaching in the night. Cursing himself for declining Conawago’s offer to bring up his rifle, he unsheathed his knife and rolled into a crouch, ready to spring. It was not a man, he saw, as the creature crossed a patch of moonlight, but something low and bulky, setting itself directly for him. A bear. It had to be a bear. He rose, his heart thundering, knowing he would have to fling himself onto its back if he had any chance of surviving an attack.

  Duncan raised his knife, ready to launch himself; then Goliath seemed to relax, and he heard a low, throaty greeting and saw a wagging tail. “Molly!” he exclaimed, and knelt to embrace the shaggy Newfoundland. She was dragging a piece of rope, ragged and still wet from where she had chewed through it. The big dog licked Duncan; then, with a series of sniffs, got better acquainted with Goliath, who, lowering his head to meet her nose, triggered another round of tail wagging. Duncan produced a strip of dried meat, which Molly eagerly downed. Then she circled his makeshift bed and settled down, taking up more than half of it. With a smile he lowered himself onto his side beside her and draped an arm over her, grateful for the warmth of her body.

  He was awakened for the last time that night by a strange vibration in the ground. Sitting up groggily, he discovered Goliath beside him, slowly stomping a hoof near his head. Molly was up, sitting at the opening in the trees, staring out into the dim grayness that was the first hint of day. Suddenly he realized that horse and dog were watching not the camp, but a copse of alders near the stream. He calmed Goliath, checking his hobbles, then slipped down the slope, Molly close behind.

  When he reached the alders, there was no one there. He knew it could have simply been someone in the camp answering a call of nature, or one of the night creatures that, having satisfied its curiosity, had slipped back up the mountain slope. Then he realized. Molly had disappeared.

  The picketed horse teams began to stir, pulling restlessly at their lines. He stepped to the edge of the camp and gave the low call of a nighthawk. A solitary figure sat up from his blanket by the smoldering fire. Duncan held up a restraining hand, and Conawago stayed in place, listening. Molly barked at the opposite side of the camp, closer to the road. Duncan started toward the dog, careful to stay in shadows. Then Sarah screamed.

  It was not exactly a scream, he realized an instant later, but one of her spine-rattling war cries. Sarah leapt out of the back of a wagon, a blanket flying from her shoulders. She hardly broke her running gait a
s she swooped down to pick up the short ax that was embedded in a stump. Conawago shot up, kicked at two sleeping figures, then raced with Duncan toward Sarah.

  By the time they reached her, she was nearly at the road. “It was him!” she shouted. “I swear it was him, from the Pope house! He hasn’t given up his—” Her words died as a figure appeared in the dim light of the open road, carrying a heavy sack on his shoulder. “Thief!” she cried, then erupted in a tirade of furious Mohawk as she sprinted toward the man. When she was ten feet away, she threw the ax with the skill of a forest warrior. The thief staggered as the razor-sharp blade embedded in his left thigh. The sack fell from his shoulder, and, extracting the ax, he half ran, half limped toward the thicket at the far side of the road.

  “Mog!” Conawago shouted in challenge.

  The Abenaki paused and looked back, but only long enough for them to make out the long, diagonal scar and the stripes of paint on his face before he disappeared into the shadows.

  Duncan sensed Sarah’s urge to follow, clamping a restraining hand around her arm. “We have the object of his theft,” he said, “and he will suffer the effects of that wound for many weeks.” He dropped to his knees and put a hand on the sack. It came away wet and sticky. “Blood!” he cried, and quickly untied the knot at the top. A tuft of hair appeared, soaked with more blood. The boy inside had been beaten so badly he showed no sign of life. The Abenaki had stolen Will Sterret.

  8

  WITH A DESPERATE SOB, SARAH ripped open the sack. Conawago helped her stretch out Will’s limp limbs. Duncan searched for a pulse. “He lives,” he announced, though the boy’s heartbeat was as light as a feather.

  “He’s been beaten most cruel,” Munro observed over Duncan’s shoulder.

  Will’s bruised and bleeding face had received several violent blows. A gash on his left temple oozed blood where something had been slammed into his head. Duncan gingerly probed the wound, fearing a fracture. The boy’s hand did not respond as Duncan pressed it, hoping for a returning grip.

  Sarah saw the worry in his eyes. The thief may not have been successful in stealing the boy, but he may have stolen Will’s life. She stood, calling for a blanket as the rest of the camp stirred, and a black shape wedged into the opening she made. Molly began gently licking the boy’s face. Sarah bent to pull the dog away, but Conawago stayed her arm.

  “She may be the best medicine we have,” the Nipmuc said.

  Will’s fingers began moving, slowly curling inward, then reaching upward until they found the big dog’s neck. Molly gave an acknowledgment that was half snort and half joyful yap, and she began licking more energetically.

  The wagons were on the road an hour later, leaving Duncan and Sarah by the campfire, still tending to the unconscious boy. Sarah had insisted that the slow-moving wagons continue the westward journey, and Conawago had insisted that Duncan stay with her as he ventured into the forest, hoping to find sign of the boy’s assailant.

  “The ax sank deep in his thigh,” the old tribesman said. “He left much blood on the trail, which means he won’t be traveling fast this day and for many to come.” He gestured up the slope. “But the number of bountymen will only increase as the broadsides are distributed more widely, Duncan. Bring down your horse in case you need a quick departure.”

  Sarah heaped the fire higher and reached for their copper teapot. “There’s food,” she said with a nod to a flour sack stuffed with biscuits and bacon.

  Duncan warily eyed the eastern road and shook his head, knowing that neither of them had any appetite. When he returned with Goliath, Sarah had the boy cradled in her lap. “It’s someone else’s fight. Will is just a bystander. But he had to endure the horror on that beach in Boston—and now this.” She clutched the boy close to her breast and rocked back and forth. “I told him he could join our school in Edentown. He laughed when I explained that sometimes the schoolchildren go out and sit on the broad backs of the oxen while they plow the fields. He’s a good boy, a joyful boy. He’ll like the maize pudding that the new cook makes,” she said in a brittle voice.

  It wasn’t like Sarah to prattle on. She had been deeply shaken by the events of recent days but had maintained her usual reserve. Now, alone with Duncan, her guard was dropping. “You can run in the orchard with Molly, Will,” she whispered. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “You will laugh to see the lambs play with the fawns in our back fields. We make gingerbread at Yuletime,” she added, then changed from English to the tongue of her tribe. “Jiyathontek.” It was an invocation to the forest gods. She held Will out, for the spirits to take notice, and beseeched them. “Bring this brave warrior back to us,” she begged, then paused and looked up at Duncan.

  “He wasn’t just stuffed in this bag and carried away,” he said. “That Abenaki took him into the trees and beat him. I think Will knows something they desperately want to learn. I think he wouldn’t tell them and just took the beating; then Mog put him in the bag for the French to interrogate.”

  “But Molly would have—”

  “Molly came up with me last night,” Duncan said, feeling shamed now at allowing the dog to stay with him. “But I don’t think this was the first attempt, Sarah.”

  She scrubbed at her cheek. “Not the first?”

  “We couldn’t understand why this Abenaki, this Chief Mog, came into Mrs. Pope’s house. He didn’t know you or me. But Will was sleeping in the room down the hall.”

  “Surely he could not have known that.”

  “The French were watching. They were already in Boston, probably looking for the Hancock warehouse. It’s where we took Will when we came back from the shipwreck. They had but to follow us when we brought the boy back to Mrs. Pope’s.”

  “But why?”

  “He’s the sole witness to their horrible deed.”

  “Then why not try to kill him here? Why do they need to speak with him?”

  Duncan could only shake his head. He lifted his rifle and made a wide scouting circuit in the forest beyond the camp. When he returned, Sarah still held the boy close to her heart, but her eyes were closed as if in sleep. He opened the pouch he had retrieved from one of the wagons before their departure and extracted a small vial of amber liquid and a small muslin bag; then he poured a mug of hot water into which he dropped the bag and a few drops from the vial. When he finished, he discovered that Sarah was watching him, and she lifted Will’s head. Duncan held the aromatic mixture under the boy’s nose and gently lifted it to his lips. Will stirred and accepted the brew in slow sips.

  Molly, who had stayed at the boy’s side since the wagons departed, raised her head toward the forest and gave a tentative wag of her tail. Will looked pale and sapped of all strength, but his eyes had opened.

  He stretched an arm out, as if trying to reach something in the direction Molly was staring. “Come back!” the boy said in a strangled cry, grabbing frantically at the thin air. “I did not mean it!”

  Sarah stroked his head and murmured words of comfort.

  “I can’t see the face!” the boy cried, and looked frantically toward the shadows of the forest.

  “Don’t fret so,” Sarah said. “We saw his face. We will not long forget it.”

  “So bright,” Will said, still looking at the shadows. “The color of fresh snow! And when she approached and spread her arms, I saw the feathers! Wings!” Will twisted as if to trying to rise. “I have to go to her! Don’t you see? It’s my mother! She died when I was but four, but I am sure of it! Her face! I want to remember her face!” He grabbed Duncan’s hand. “Why couldn’t I see her face?” the boy asked in a forlorn voice.

  Duncan found himself following the gaze of the boy and the dog back toward the trees, for a moment looking for the angel himself. He turned the boy’s head and looked him in the eyes. “Because it wasn’t time, Will. Because you’re needed in this life for many more years. She just wanted you to know that, and that she will be waiting, biding her time for the blessed day in the next century whe
n you’re old and weak and surrounded by adoring grandchildren.”

  The boy chewed on Duncan’s words, slowly calming. “The next century? Really?”

  “I am certain of it. And an amazing time it will be.”

  “But will she know me then?”

  “Mothers always know,” Duncan assured him.

  Will gazed back into the shadows, then accepted the still-steaming mug Sarah offered him and silently sipped. “Maybe it wasn’t because it was not my time. Maybe it was to say there was still hope despite my sin. Maybe it was because of the way I killed all those others.”

  Sarah and Duncan exchanged an alarmed glance. “You’re too young to be troubled by sin,” Sarah said, encouraging the boy to drink more of Duncan’s brew.

  “What if Jonathan told her?”

  With a chill, Duncan realized that he was talking about the dead Jonathan Pine speaking to his dead mother.

  “Would he be there yet? Reverend Occom consigned his soul to the angels. I heard him say it in that Boston cemetery. You have to tell the important truths when you meet them. No secrets in heaven. Jonathan would have ciphered it out.” The boy looked back toward the shadows. “She knew, that’s why she turned her back on me. Fifty or sixty more years won’t matter. She’ll never want me again.” Will began weeping.

  Duncan braced the boy’s head between his hands. “He would have ciphered what out? What secret sin?”

  Tears streamed down Will’s cheeks. “When those two were in Halifax, I thought they were so entertaining. They told me riddles when I met them on the wharf there. What cheese is made backwards, Philip asked me. Why, Edam, says he, and when I puzzled it out, that the letters are just reversed, I laughed so hard. The captain, he didn’t like us speaking to strangers about the Arcturus and her ports, but I didn’t mind telling them. They bought me candy in Halifax, and a whole orange from the Caribbean, just for me, my first ever. Henry wanted to know the captain’s name, and whether we had sailed from London, and did I know the name of our shipping agent there. I asked them why they were writing all those things down and they told me more jokes and bought me a cup of chocolate. Once, Philip started telling me about a great circus he saw in Paris, with lions and elephants, but then Henry cut him off, though I didn’t think anything of it then. Later, they asked if we was carrying military supplies, and they watched as the army loaded a few barrels of gunpowder, supplies for the fort in Boston. Then they asked if we had any of those remarkable natives of America who sometimes went to sea, and I told them of my good friend Jonathan. Next day they were there with a letter, addressed to the captain. I didn’t think anything of it until we sailed with them on board, but I realized it was curious that they didn’t know the captain’s name one day and had a letter for him the next. Then they had more candy, sweet molasses candy, and after the first day they observed that Jonathan Pine worked long hours, standing double watches, and they asked why he didn’t strip off his shirt like most of the other men.” Tears began flowing down the boy’s cheeks again. “Don’t you see! He died, they all died, because I wanted molasses chews.”