Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  The Apostles seemed to strike fear in most of the townspeople, who always gave them a wide berth, even though some had passed the prior afternoon in acts of charity, cutting firewood for a widow and replacing the rotten corner post of the schoolhouse porch. They had frightened not just the bounty riders from Worcester, who quickly fled after encountering them, but even Will and Sarah, who had carefully stayed behind Duncan as the Apostles silently led them down to the ferry to the western bank. In those first hours the Apostles struck Duncan as something of an imperial guard for the self-important Wheelock, but he had come to see them more like muscular monks in the service of charitable works.

  They had all been together that first night in Agawam, at a dinner hosted by the Reverend Wheelock, and several of the Apostles had opened up with animated questions about Occom’s travels through England, where he confessed that he had sometimes been paraded onto stages to demonstrate how the hand of God could not only tame the savage but could teach one to speak Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. Occom took it all congenially and even assented to Will’s request to bring Sadie to the table, where she walked along the linen, pausing to clasp her hands as if in prayer and bow before each guest. Only when she jerked a solitary red feather out of the hair of one of the Indian elders was there a flush of disapproval, which quickly faded as Will called her to his side with one of the whistle commands he had learned from Hayes.

  The Apostles, who seemed to all belong to the Mohegan, Pequot, and other southern New England tribes, grew even more sober after the meeting between Wheelock and Occom. Duncan had watched Conawago speak with two of the austere men as they were admiring a huge fawn-colored mule. Whatever they told him seemed to have struck him like a physical blow. He slightly staggered as he walked away from them and went to sit alone on a ledge overlooking the river. He had not spoken with Duncan since.

  As Conawago and his new friends disappeared into the barn, Duncan pulled down the new tricorn hat Munro had purchased for him and made his way to Dr. Simons’s house, where Hayes still lay in a front room next to the surgery. He knocked on the door, then, hearing no response, let himself into the short outer hallway that allowed visitors access to invalids without disturbing the main residence.

  Hayes was sleeping as he entered and did not react when Duncan lifted his wrist, finding a strong pulse. He lowered himself into the ladder-back chair by the bed and studied the secretive tinker. His guilt over nearly killing the man had clouded his perception of him. Duncan saw now that the man’s strong, thin face was nicked by several small scars, as if from close infighting. Laying two fingers on Hayes’s forehead, he found him too warm and flicked off the woolen cap on his head. Sadness seemed etched on the man’s long countenance, but even in this deep repose Duncan sensed a fierce determination.

  Did Hayes, who had devoted himself to rescuing his lost wife, truly understand the brutal world of most Indian captives? The few who returned to civilization were often called ghostwalkers, for the dull, empty expressions that were often permanently fixed on their faces. Sarah had been one of the ghostwalkers, and Duncan’s first encounter with her had been when he saved her from suicide in the middle of the Atlantic. Even if Hayes found his wife, she would likely be another ghostwalker when he brought her back to the settlements.

  Duncan picked up a Boston Gazette lying on the nightstand. The newspaper was dated only a few days earlier, and it provided a detailed account of how the British navy had seized Mr. Hancock’s sloop the Liberty. As usual, it reported the comings and goings of ships and the activities of the customs and tax commissioners, a topic that preoccupied many in the colony. The editor endeavored to set forth a chronicle of the feud between Boston’s merchants, led by John Hancock, and the commissioners. Months earlier, Hancock’s brig Lydia, he reminded his readers, had been illegally boarded by customs officials at her wharf in Boston. When they attempted to search belowdecks without a writ, Hancock had expelled them. When the commissioners tried to prosecute Hancock, the attorney general had sided with the merchant, infuriating the commissioners. They had lain in wait for Hancock’s aptly named sloop the Liberty, which they immediately boarded for inspection. Hancock paid the duties on the wine that was unloaded and quickly replaced it with an outbound cargo of whale oil and tar, hoping for an early departure. The commissioners refused to provide the papers needed to clear the harbor, and days later, Duncan read, the government seized the vessel, saying that the Liberty was not licensed to receive cargo in Boston. The customs inspector from the original inspection claimed that Hancock had bribed him to turn a blind eye on cargo other than wine. The commissioners petitioned the navy to haul the sloop away, which had indeed happened the night that Mog had struck Hancock’s warehouse.

  The story closed with what read like a news bulletin. The publisher had just learned that the captain of the Liberty had mysteriously died the night after the sloop was inspected by the government.

  “Why do you suppose the captain would die that particular night?”

  Duncan’s head snapped up. Hayes was staring at him.

  “I’ve read that piece again and again,” Hayes said. “Someone in government tried to search the Lydia and didn’t find what they wanted. Hancock convinces the attorney general to take his side. Then the Liberty arrives after a stop in Halifax. The government seems to prevail in inspecting that cargo, but only later is it reported that the captain died. Then, the day after Hancock’s warehouse is raided by the Abenaki, the ship is impounded, as if someone in government had to search it from keel to topmast. Hancock didn’t know about the captain’s death when we were there, only said that he had gone missing. Consider the sequence, McCallum. The Arcturus blows up, the wreckage is searched the next day. The Abenaki raids the warehouse; then the Liberty is searched and the captain dies. It had to be that man Beck. He is the fulcrum, the hinge on which these events turn. John said they tore that sloop apart. Ship’s records scattered, crates of provisions opened, berths ripped apart. Just after, the Arcturus was sunk, as if Beck had to be sure that what he sought had not been hidden on her. Then the captain dies. Could it have been in a rough interrogation by Beck?”

  As he spoke, Hayes touched his bare head, then rather urgently looked about for the cap Duncan had removed. He found it on his blanket and set it back on his crown. “Reverend Occom kindly bought it,” he said, as if in explanation. “And it was a Hancock ship arriving from Halifax,” the tinker added.

  “Signifying what?” Duncan asked.

  Hayes shrugged. “Perhaps I have too much idle time lying here on my back. But it would seem that Beck gave up on his search of the wreckage of the Livingston ship and went right to a Hancock ship. As if he knew that what he sought related to both merchant princes. As if,” Hayes said pointedly, “he had learned that you didn’t have the ledger at all by the time he searched the Hancock sloop.”

  Duncan chewed on the words a moment. “Are you suggesting that there was an informer in Hancock’s warehouse?”

  “If you consider the sequence, it would seem so. Maybe the captain knew something Beck didn’t want shared with anyone else. Or the captain knew the secret that you didn’t have the ledger despite the charade on the harbor, but Beck wanted to be certain it was shared with no one else.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he planned on getting a writ against you. Beck gave up his direct approach against Livingston and Hancock and decided to apply himself to a surrogate.”

  “Meaning me. You are right—your idle mind works too much, I think.”

  “Perhaps. But I was in the warehouse having lunch with John after stocking up on trade goods when he received two separate reports about Beck asking questions pertaining to a Mr. McCallum who was associated with Hancock. Those asked tried to disincline him, to make him think you had nothing to do with Boston, so they told him you were a man of the frontier, someone who spent much time with the distant tribes.”

  Duncan was still suspicious of Hayes’s motives in explaining his theory, b
ut the explanation gave him pause. “So why didn’t Beck drop his interest in me?”

  “Because that was exactly what he wanted to hear, assuming by then that he had learned of the Abenaki and that the French spies were heading to the northern frontier.”

  “Impossible. That was far from public knowledge.”

  “How many were in attendance when you and Conawago discussed the Abenaki? Five? Six? Not to mention the guards coming and going. He knew, and he adapted his plans. Forcing you to go after the ledger makes his mission much easier. He could never follow the Abenaki, but he could follow you.”

  Duncan studied Hayes in silence, trying to convince himself that Hayes was playing his own peculiar game, but he could not deny that his words had a disturbing ring of truth. Still, although Sarah seemed to trust Hayes implicitly, Duncan found he could not. The secrets of their traveling companions, Conawago had said, may be the most important secrets of all. Hayes gave the impression of being an impoverished tinker, but he had given the astounding sum of five pounds to the starving farm family. Duncan’s life had been saved more than once by the call of his instincts when danger lurked, and they always screamed when Hayes was near. Was it possible that Hayes himself was the informer?

  He held up two fingers in front of the tinker. “How many?” At least he could be the man’s doctor if not his confidant.

  Hayes sighed, as if disappointed. “A pair. The fourth time you’ve asked in the past two days. How much longer must we play at this?”

  “Until I know you are healed. Extend your arm, then touch your nose with your index finger.”

  “I assure you, my brain is not leaking out through some fissure in my skull,” Hayes said peevishly as he complied.

  “There is a membrane around your brain called the dura mater,” Duncan explained. “There are blood vessels that feed it. If one ruptures, the hemorrhage will squeeze your brain. It can affect your sight, your breathing, and your ability to move your limbs.”

  “I am not blind, I am not suffocating, and I am prepared to waltz with Miss Ramsey the moment she asks.”

  “Have you been given any hellebore?” Duncan asked. “Or perhaps James’s powder?”

  He realized the tinker was looking over his shoulder, grinning.

  “You are welcome to visit my patient, sir,” came a gruff voice over Duncan’s shoulder. “You are not welcome to play the charlatan.”

  Duncan turned to see a tall, ruddy-faced man in the doorway, wearing a deeply annoyed expression.

  “I do not mean to presume, Dr. Simons,” Duncan said. “But hellebore is often effective against swelling. And swelling is the great foe of the concussed.”

  The doctor stepped forward and lifted Hayes’s wrist. “And where exactly did you study your medicine, sir?” he asked in a mocking tone.

  “The University of Edinburgh,” Duncan shot back. “And you, sir?”

  The doctor lowered the wrist and fixed Duncan with a skeptical gaze. “Such claims may buy you respect among the uneducated of the frontier, but they can get a man arrested in civilized society.”

  “Epidural sanguinem is what I fear most, though subdural remains a possibility. I think we would have seen paralysis if the bleeding were intracerebral.”

  “I warn you, sir,” the doctor replied, suspicion still in his voice. “I had the good fortune to spend several months studying with Dr. Hunter at the very university.”

  “John Hunter or his brother William?”

  The doctor could not hide his surprise. “It was John Hunter.”

  “I studied anatomy with William and assisted him in the Royal Infirmary there, before all those tales about the brothers and body snatching, but my real love was the botanical garden and the study of materia medica. I wrote recommendations for my friend Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, who is now a student there, I am happy to say. Now, have you thought of a few drops of laudanum for the swelling?”

  Hayes and Simons both stared at Duncan in astonishment.

  “I—I have exhausted my supply of laudanum,” the doctor sputtered. “I applied some Peruvian bark.”

  “But he shows no fever.”

  “What is a fever but a swelling, and you and I both fear epidermal swelling. I sent to Boston for—” The doctor was interrupted by a scratching at the window. Sadie, one arm around Will Starret’s neck, was trying to get Hayes’s attention. With a congenial laugh the doctor gestured the visitors to the door. As Hayes joyfully extended his arms to welcome the capuchin, the doctor motioned Duncan inside his sitting room. His housekeeper served them tea while they spoke of Edinburgh, then of Reverend Wheelock’s very stern, very charitable Apostles.

  “He’s going to recover, McCallum,” the doctor said of Hayes as Duncan glanced not for the first time toward the sickroom. “I didn’t understand fully until Miss Ramsey explained the . . . incident. And I did not fully appreciate your professional interest.”

  “I will pay for his expenses,” Duncan offered. “I have little cash, but my rifle is valuable.”

  “No need. Miss Ramsey has been most generous. After hearing of Hayes’s tragic story, I said I would have extended my services gratis, but she insisted.”

  Duncan sipped at his tea, uncertain how to take the news. “I am curious, Doctor. Does Reverend Wheelock often stay in Agawam?”

  “Not often. But always,” the doctor replied, and seemed to weigh his words, “very conspicuously, you might say. He is a godly man but always seems to move with his disciples, as if he were royalty with his courtesans. And some of our self-righteous folks are quick to point out that they are all Indians.”

  “Folks?”

  The doctor lowered his voice. “Mostly pastors and deacons. This time when he came, there was a delegation of them waiting for him, with special emissaries from afar.”

  “A Boston pastor?”

  “Representatives sent by Governor Bernard and Governor Wentworth in New Hampshire.” Simons raised a palm, as if to ward off further questions. “Don’t ask why. I avoid politics like the scurvy.” He sipped his tea and contemplated his visitor. “Did you find the tribal man with the leg wound?”

  “No luck.”

  “I have been considering your quest. My housekeeper says that one of Wheelock’s Apostles came to her and asked her for an old sheet.”

  “As if for bandages,” Duncan suggested.

  Simons nodded. “Sometimes injured natives prefer to take healing from their own.”

  DUNCAN RETURNED TO THE STABLE at the edge of town, where he had left Goliath. The owner had asked no questions about the government brand on the horse’s flank, and later Ishmael had found some axle grease that, mixed with a dollop of pine tar, effectively concealed the brand to all but the closest examination. The horse offered a nicker of acknowledgment, and Duncan stroked his neck as he surveyed the stable for signs of Conawago and his nephew, whose packs lay by his in the next stall.

  He dropped to a crouch as he heard someone in the aisle, then rose as he recognized the tan britches on the small legs that appeared on the opposite side of Goliath. Will Sterret jerked back in surprise as he saw Duncan. “Sorry, sir,” the boy said. “The storekeeper gave me an apple, and I thought . . .” He shrugged and backed away, as if worried he was being too bold.

  “I’m sure Goliath would be pleased to share it.”

  Will took a big bite of the fruit and held the remainder out for the horse. “No sign of soldiers anywhere,” he reported in a low voice. “I keep watching, like you asked. Not at the inns, not at any stables, not at church.”

  “Bountymen?”

  “That one party came through, heading westward without stopping. And a man rode in from Worcester. He ordered half a dozen broadsides to be nailed up. At the printing shop, at the mercantile, on the message boards by the churches.”

  Duncan’s gut tightened.

  “But Mr. Conawago went to the printer after the rider took the ferry back across the river. He said he was surprised that the printer would allow suc
h a trespass on his domain, then pointed out that the broadside was printed in Boston, not even in the same county, and why should those city crusts take business from a good journeyman in Agawam? Surely, if it was so important, Mr. Conawago said, the government could find a few shillings for the town printer to take care of town broadsides. So the printer thought a bit, then gave me a ha’penny and told me to correct that rude behavior.” With a mischievous grin the boy pulled out several papers from inside his shirt. “I got ’em all, Mr. Duncan,” he declared, then handed Duncan one and began to rip the others.

  Duncan’s belly turned to ice as he read the announcement that was being circulated throughout the colony. Across the top of the broadside was a row of skulls. HEINOUS MURDER OF THIRTY-SEVEN! the headline read in one-inch font, then: Treason! His Majesty’s Royal Governor Bernard by the writ of his sovereign authority gives notice to the citizens of Massachusetts to seize and restrain one Duncan McCallum, late of New York colony, to be returned to Boston to answer for the heinous murder of the crew of the good ship Arcturus and treasonous theft of articles belonging to His Royal Majesty King George III, long may he reign.

  At the bottom was a description, fortunately ambiguous, of the fugitive: McCallum, known to be of a violent nature, stands six feet tall. His reddish-blond hair hangs long down his neck when not braided, and he is known to hold sympathies for the Scottish Jacobite cause. We weep for the wives and mothers he has so cruelly deprived of love and comfort. All men be duty-bound to avenge his dark deeds by his capture and return for swift punishment.

  When Duncan looked up, Will was still smiling. He had a wad of four-inch paper squares in his hand. “I’ll remember ye in the shack of convenience,” he happily declared, and stuffed the squares back in his shirt.