Conawago looked out over the shadowed lake. “Twenty-five years ago I went to Canada because I heard that one of my old Jesuit teachers lay dying. I thought I would comfort him, thank him by sitting vigil at his deathbed because all his other friends had already passed. But all I did was make him angry. He shouted at me so loud that nuns came running from down the hall.”
Duncan could not recall ever seeing Conawago in such despair.
“I was a disgrace, he said. I had slapped away the hand of destiny, of greatness, that had been extended to me so many times. I had the best education a native ever received. I had dined with kings and great scholars. I had my feet well planted in both worlds, tribal and European, better than any man alive, he said. I could have built bridges between our peoples, could have prevented so many tragedies, he said. But I had wasted it, wasted everything on my ridiculous quest, which we all knew was hopeless from the start. It was a grave sin, he said, and he hoped the Lord would forgive me because he could not.”
Duncan’s heart seemed to shrivel. In all their years together, he had never heard this confession.
Hayes did not understand. “You knew kings?” he asked.
Conawago, staring at the letters again, seemed not to hear. “Don’t you understand? This was what I did! For sixty years it was all I did! My people disappeared while I was enjoying the pleasures of Europe. For sixty years I searched for them. Don’t do the same, Solomon, I beg you! Don’t throw your life away. You’re a good man, an educated man. You can still do great things with your life.”
Hayes was silent for a long time. The lonely loon called from across the lake. “In the end,” he said in a near whisper as Duncan helped Conawago to his feet, “a man’s years are all that he has. How I spend them is between me and my God.”
“Then your God is as irresponsible as you!” Conawago snapped. He kicked the pile of letters, sending several into the shadows, then stormed away into the night.
THEY MADE GOOD TIME THE next morning, skirting the north end of the lake on a sandy section of the trail before cresting a series of gently rising ridges. Duncan found himself often slowing, falling behind as he studied the forest on either side of the track. There had been no sign of Conawago since he vanished into the night. Duncan had heaped fuel on the campfire and futilely searched for his friend past midnight before surrendering to his fatigue. When he awakened, Conawago’s bedroll and kit were gone.
“I’m sorry,” Hayes said. The tinker had paused for Duncan at the side of the track. “I never should have argued with him. I didn’t know about his life. It is a tragedy of Shakespearean proportion.”
Duncan accepted a drink from the water gourd Hayes offered. “It’s not that. He took no offence from your words, Solomon, it’s just that they deepened his own pain. For weeks he has been out of sorts. Disjointed from the world. You saw him in Worcester. He is not by nature an angry man, but an anger has been growing inside him unseen for years. He grows bitterly angry at the world and doesn’t know how to get past it. The way he finds his peace is by going deep into the wilderness and consulting the ancient spirits who dwell there.”
“I thought he said he was a Jesuit.”
“No. He learned from the Jesuits. But he is fond of observing that they don’t know everything. He enjoys conversations with the European God, as he says, but his soul belongs to the ancient ones.”
“Still, our conversation gnaws at me. I must apologize to him.”
Duncan shrugged. “He’s disappeared like this many times before. He could be back in a week, or a month. Once, it was six months. The last time, he had to go see the great inland sea called Superior because he had a dream about it.” The words brought a stinging memory of his last conversation with Sarah.
“Indians seem to place a lot of stock in dreams.”
“Dreams are messages from the other side,” Duncan explained as he handed back the gourd. “And he’s been having many bad dreams lately.”
“They must have started in Boston,” the tinker said as he heaved his huge pack onto his shoulder.
Duncan had already taken a step up the road, but he turned. “Why do you say that?”
“Two weeks ago I was out taking the air with Sadie. She likes the harbor. I think the tall masts with ropes remind her of her childhood among tall trees intertwined with vines. I saw him, though I didn’t meet him until that night in Hancock’s warehouse. He was sitting alone on a wharf at sunset and speaking toward the water.” Hayes tightened the strap of his pack and fell in beside Duncan. “I remember because there was such despair on his face. For a moment I thought he was going to throw himself in. I began to quickly walk his way. But then he rose, stretched out his hands to the heavens, and shouted a word in a language I do not know. He threw something into the water. It looked like a necklace, a strand of beads.”
Duncan stumbled as he fought down a wave of emotion. They walked in silence, passing a woodpecker hammering on a birch.
“Jiyathontek. Is that what he shouted?” Duncan finally asked.
“Jiyathontek,” Hayes repeated slowly, then looked at Duncan in surprise. “I can’t be certain, but yes, that was the sound of it. So you know what he was saying?”
“I know whom he was speaking to,” Duncan said. “It’s a summoning, in Mohawk, the tribal language he most often uses. It means hearken or listen to me now. It is used to get the attention of the old gods. He shouts it because he says the old ones are getting hard of hearing.”
Hayes digested Duncan’s words for several steps. “So he called on the gods to watch him dispose of some beads?”
Something squeezed Duncan’s heart as he spoke. He recalled burying old beads by the river at Agawam. “No. He carries strings of wampum beads in an old pouch, some given him by his mother and some from his grandmother in the last century, who remembered seeing the Pilgrims land at Plymouth as a child. He was asking the gods to witness an ending, to accept his sacrifice. His people are all but extinct. He knows he has but a short time left in this world. He has taken on a somber responsibility.”
“I don’t follow.”
“He isn’t saying goodbye for himself, he is saying goodbye for his entire people. Though it rips his heart apart, he knows they are ended. But that isn’t the worst of it. He has known about his tribe for years, but now there is something different, something we saw at Worcester. Now he fears their gods are dying, too.”
It was midafternoon when Munro, on a rise ahead of them, yelled at their short column. Duncan followed his extended arm toward a cloud of dust behind them. “Riders!” the Scot shouted.
They were well hidden behind boulders and trees by the time the horsemen approached. To his surprise Duncan recognized the big bearded man from the Fort at Number Four, singing a bawdy song while leading five other riders. Duncan tried to recall the boisterous man’s name. Allen. He seemed to have a personality as oversized as his frame, which itself made his horse seem too small. His song, extolling the contours of a barmaid named Maggie, faded, and he reined in his horse. He studied the track with the eye of a seasoned woodsman.
“Hell, boys,” Allen called out. “We ain’t the ones you want to be hiding from.”
Corporal Brandt stepped out from behind a broad hemlock. “We ain’t hiding, Ethan,” he quipped. “We’re just running from the stench of ye.”
Allen gave a whoop and slid off his mount. “Ebenezer, you sneaky piece of gristle! You got a monkey, a dog, and a tinker with you?”
“Why?” Brandt shot back. “Ye grown particular about the company ye keep?”
Allen guffawed and tossed the grizzled corporal a canteen. “Hell, no. Now if you can just round up a drunken bear, we’ll have a real soiree tonight.”
Duncan, Munro, and Hayes ventured warily into the sunlight as the other riders dismounted. Allen muttered an urgent command, and they began quickly unloading their packhorse. The big man scanned their party and stepped toward Duncan, extending a hand. “You must be McCallum. Allen be my name, but you can call me by
my Christian name, Ethan. Now mind me sharp and you’ll survive the day. T’ain’t their land to be riding so roughshod over.” His men were straightening out a long chain of metal rods. “Know anything about surveying?”
“I don’t understand,” Duncan confessed.
“Those lobsterbacks, boy! More boats arrived yesterday with their horses. They weren’t for the garrison at Number Four, they were dragoons coming this way with a warrant!” Ethan Allen urgently pointed to the southeast. A second cloud of dust could be seen now, moving rapidly toward them.
“We can hide,” Duncan suggested.
“No. My way’s better. Hide, and they’ll be searching the road for days, doubling back and hounding your tail.”
By the time the soldiers caught up with them, Allen had deployed their party across the landscape, stretching the chain of rods to its full length, then marking its spans with stakes. The big frontiersman had settled on a flat boulder with a ledger he produced from his saddlebag and was busily writing on its pages. He greeted the soldiers with careful disinterest, warning them not to disturb the true line he was measuring. “Tell me, General,” he said to the officer in charge, “do you spell woodpecker with one u or two?”
His question took the young officer off guard. “I am an ensign, sir. And I do not follow.”
“Woodpecker Hollow. That’s what I’ll call this tract when we finish the survey. On account of all the trees have holes in ’em. The great swordsmen of the feathered world. Lord, imagine if the king could train a company of woodpeckers, eh?”
The ensign shook his head as if to dispel his confusion. “I seek a fugitive from the king’s justice,” he sternly intoned. “Charges of treason are levied on his head.”
Duncan glanced up at the riders, careful not to make eye contact with any. He had had only a quick look through the tavern window, but he was certain that the three soldiers riding behind the officer had been in Worcester with Beck.
Allen seemed reluctant to change the conversation. “How would you train ’em, I wonder. Aim to pierce the hands of your enemy or go straight to the eyes?”
“Sir! A man who is an enemy of blessed King George is known to be in these parts.”
The alarm on Allen’s face was worthy of the theater. “God protect us, sir! You should have said so! This traitor got a name?”
“I will have yours first, sir,”
Allen stood up and soberly saluted the officer. “Ethan Allen, sir, of the Hampshire Land Company.” He gestured at his party. “And these be my mountain boys, as folks call ’em. Commissioned by the governor hisself to set out ten thousand acres in this paradise.”
The officer narrowed his eyes. “The governor of New York or the governor of New Hampshire?”
“Why, New Hampshire, of course. He says New York lies over in the Hudson Valley.” Allen turned back to his crew. “Keep it straight, damned yer eyes! The governor must have a straight line!”
Duncan, far up the slope, kept working, sharpening stakes for marking the supposed line.
“God’s fire, boys! A traitor’s on the prowl!” Allen shouted. “Keep a sharp eye to help our heroes on horseback! Looking for a varmint named—” He turned back to the officer.
“McCallum. Duncan McCallum. He left Fort Four two days ago. We believe he was using this road.”
Allen looked back at his work crew and raised a finger, pointing at each in turn as he recited names. “I got Ben, Thomas, Rafe, Silas, Solomon, Asher, Levan, the boy Will, and Learned, though that’s a hoot for such a dull fellow. Nope, no Duncan, though you’re welcome to Rafe, he’s an awful cook and snores like thunder.” Allen wiped the sweat off his brow. “No concern of ours, boys!” Allen shouted up the hill. “Just another damned Scottish troublemaker!”
The dragoon officer rolled his eyes.
The burly frontiersman shrugged. “Only strangers we’ve seen was three we passed a day ago. But they was leaving the road.”
The ensign leaned forward with great interest. “To where?”
“This be the only colonist road, to be sure. But the Injuns, they got paths aplenty. There’s trails intersecting this road what’ll take you all the way to Canada.”
The ensign nodded vigorously. “He is reported to travel with an old savage,” he confirmed.
“Those Scots are cunning bastards, to be sure. Put that McCallum with a savage or two and God knows what they be capable of. Might have walked right around us as we slept. That would be just like such a devil, to put us in mind they are going north, then sneak around us to the valley. That’s where they would get food and supplies, the valley. So that’s where they have to end up.”
The officer studied the road that led west to the safety of the British forts in the Champlain Valley. He was clearly not comfortable with the idea of riding up Indian trails. He drew himself up and with a sharp command led his men at a trot up the westward road. Allen watched until they had crested the next hill, then stuffed his ledger back into his saddlebag, summoned his men, and broke out in laughter. “Lord, don’t it give you comfort to know we got such sheep protecting us wolves?”
When they had repacked the equipment, Allen and all but one of his men remounted. The brawny man motioned Duncan to the riderless horse. “You’re with me,” he said in a voice that would brook no disagreement. He turned to the others. “There’s a river in about ten miles, no deeper than your waist this time o’ year. A couple miles beyond is a good campsite, on a flat by a stream. We’ll be there. You can’t miss it—by the big chimney rock.”
Munro’s head rose, and he met Duncan’s gaze. A chimney had been prominently etched on Brandt’s secret map of the Crown Point road.
“I take it this is not your first encounter with His Majesty’s troops,” Duncan said after they had been riding a few minutes.
“They be right handy when we’re at war,” Allen said, “but otherwise they want to nibble away at a man’s lawful business.”
“The business of land speculation.”
“The business of opening these grand vistas to fruitful labor. Making it possible for honest men to raise new families in this forest paradise.”
Ethan Allen had already shown that he was savvy about surviving on the frontier. He was also fluent in the language of the land huckster.
“A noble calling,” Duncan observed. “I was impressed that you have a commission from the governor. These grants are hotly contested by New York and New Hampshire. So you’ve sided with New Hampshire, then?”
Allen gave another of his crowlike hoots of laugher. He patted his saddle bag. “Depends on who’s asking. Got one from each!”
Duncan raised his brow in surprise. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”
His companion laughed again. “Hell, McCallum, we ain’t so fastidious here on the frontier. They ain’t exactly what a lawyer would call genuine, just close enough. And those soldiers didn’t care. The king tends to dismiss what goes on in the Hampshire Grants as a dispute between two governors. That officer was on London business.” Allen abruptly leaned over and grabbed the bridle of Duncan’s horse. “And it’s time you told me what that business is.”
“Nothing that concerns the Hampshire Grants.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. Why do they call you a traitor?”
“Nothing that reaches into this land. Do not invent new troubles for yourself, Allen.”
“I correspond with men in Boston. Mr. Hancock, Mr. Samuel Adams. You’d be surprised how long the arms of Boston can be.”
“And those of New York,” Duncan added.
Allen looked away for a moment. “Go too far west and you’ll be forced to navigate a Livingston maze,” he muttered. “Now, speak to me, Highlander!”
“You have business with the leaders of the Sons of Liberty?” Duncan asked as Allen’s words sank in. What could this burly frontiersman have in common with the likes of Hancock, Sam Adams, and Livingston?
“Speak, damned you!” Allen insisted.
“T
here was a Livingston ship named the Arcturus returning from a voyage to England.”
“I know her. I have a friend on her.”
Duncan hesitated. “Then I am truly sorry. It called at Halifax, where two French agents cajoled their way on board. As the Arcturus approached Boston, they stole something that was of great importance to the Sons, a ledger of some kind, then blew up the ship and fled. Thirty-seven men died.”
“Jesus bloody wept!” Allen groaned. “Thirty-seven? Please tell me not my friend Jonathan Pine!”
It was Duncan’s turn to be stunned. “He was chosen for special punishment before the ship was destroyed. It was he who was protecting the ledger, secreting it on his person. They tortured him and left him to die. He saved the life of the boy Will, then died in the explosion.”
“God Almighty,” Allen murmured. “Poor Jonathan. A’fore Reverend Occom sunk in his claws, Jonathan was the best of traveling companions.” They rode on for several minutes in grim silence before he spoke again. “Jonathan was with me when I got my first bear drunk,” Allen recalled, as if beginning a eulogy. “It was he who set the rule we still abide by. No harm must ever come to the bear. Hell, that first night the bear finally crawled onto Pine’s blanket and curled up around him to sleep it off. Damnest thing. Pine didn’t budge, just stroked the bear’s head and sang him some old tribal ditty.” He sighed and looked at Duncan. “None of that explains a warrant on your head.”
“The king had his own agents looking for that ledger. Without understanding the consequences, as a favor to the Sons, I led them to believe I had recovered it from the ship. Now I must find it to prove my innocence and avenge the dead. The spies who took it have killed two more men. Former rangers, both with Rogers on the St. Francis raid.”
Allen looked away, as if trying to hide his reaction. “You encourage your imagination over much, I suspect.”
Allen had not been surprised by Duncan’s mention of St. Francis and had been quick to try to steer him elsewhere. Instead, Duncan explained his suspicions about the connection of the dead men to the famous raid. He watched Allen carefully as he offered his last suspicion. “I am not the only one accused of treason,” he said.
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