Eye of the Raven

by Eliot Pattison

  Duncan grinned for a moment at the man then, without thinking, reached out to examine the cuts and bruises on the chief’s arm where the Virginians had beaten him. Skanawati pulled away, sitting down on a log to gulp down a tankard of water brought by Mokie. With intense curiosity Duncan watched a small group gathered near the front of the wagon. Magistrate Brindle was leading his Quakers in morning devotions, his nephew Felton now reciting from the Bible.

  “In the village of my family,” Skanawati suddenly declared, looking north, “this is the moon of the singing—” he paused and made a hopping motion with his hand.

  “Frogs,” Duncan offered.

  “Singing frogs. The children catch them on the leaves where they dwell. They bring them into the longhouse to hear them sing at night and laugh when they see their throats swell up with air. Frogs and children share great joy in the spring.”

  They watched the teamsters hitching the mules and oxen to the wagons. Some began moving down the road.

  “A young woman was killed at that last boundary tree,” Duncan announced. “An Iroquois woman, we think. And her husband, a man named Cooper.”

  The news brought pain to Skanawati’s eyes.

  “You knew them?”

  “She was adopted into our village when her family was killed. My mother took her in like another daughter.”

  “Did she understand the old things? The signs made by the ancients?”

  “She would speak with me, yes, even come with me to the cave where the old gods live.”

  “Help me understand why she died.”

  Skanawati shrugged. “She was called away. It is not for us to say why.”

  Duncan extended one of the clock gears from his pouch. “Where do these come from?”

  “It is a European thing.”

  “What does it mean, having one of these in the breastbone?”

  “Asking so many questions is a European thing as well.” Skanawati turned and studied Duncan. “Do not trouble about me, McCallum,” he said, pronouncing Duncan’s name slowly. “I am my own man.”

  “Others have died. Others may die. I must find the truth.”

  Skanawati ate a bite of the bread Mokie brought him before answering. “You mean you must find your truth.”

  The words strangely stung Duncan. The people of the woods may have sprung from the same stock as Europeans, but with a few words such as these it seemed they were from different planets. Despite his months with Conawago he still struggled to understand the many dimensions of truth in the Indian world. They were the most straightforward, honest people he had ever known, but truth for them was not simply a matter of never lying. With a sacred wampum belt in his hand an Iroquois was as likely to lie as to sprout wings and fly, but one still had to be careful with the words that came out, could not truly understand them without understanding the spirit of the man who spoke them. Among the tribes, truth was something between a man and the spirit god that was always with him. Each man had his own truth, for most vital of all was that each, in the Indian way of speaking, maintained his own true skin.

  Duncan realized that he was staring at the small bundle of mink fur with tiny red and yellow feathers sewn around its top that hung from Skanawati’s neck. Inside would be a token of the spirit animal that guided the chief. He flushed as the Iroquois noticed his gaze, then looked away as Skanawati pushed the amulet inside his shirt.

  At that moment a running figure caught his eye. Hadley, eating with Van Grut, had tossed aside his mug and was darting toward a copse of bushes. “Unhand her!” Hadley shouted. Duncan leapt up and ran.

  He arrived at the thicket in time to see Hadley launch himself at one of two large men wearing the colors of the Virginia militia. The second was carrying Mokie over his shoulder, a gag in her mouth, her legs bound with rope.

  The man Hadley knocked to the ground rolled over and deftly unsheathed his knife as he sprang into a crouch. He paused, confused, when he recognized his assailant.

  “She be Virginia property, sir!” the soldier declared in a plaintive voice. “Y’er uncle’s property.”

  “Put her down,” Hadley growled. Mokie began pounding her assailant’s back with her fists.

  The soldier with the knife crouched as if to attack. But suddenly there was a sound of rattling chains and a blur of movement at his side. The knife flew from his hands, his legs flew out from under him, and he was on his back with Skanawati’s foot pressed so tightly against his windpipe he began to choke.

  Duncan put a restraining hand on the Iroquois. “The girl is under the protection of Pennsylvania province,” he declared to the militiaman with Mokie.

  “That be only her mother and the infant,” the soldier protested.

  “Not since the attack at Braddock’s field. She was there when your captain’s body was taken. They sought to take her as well. She knows matters important to the investigation. She has become a witness required by the magistrate.”

  It was only partly a lie, yet enough to make the man hesitate. Mokie squirmed, bit her captor through her gag, and rolled off his shoulder. In the next instant she lifted a rock and smashed it down on his foot. The soldier hopped backward, clutching his boot.

  “Ye little black bitch!” he howled. He seemed to consider whether to charge at the Iroquois who had pinned his companion when a hulking presence loomed at Duncan’s side. With one look at McGregor the man limped away, his companion frantically following the instant Skanawati lifted his foot from his throat.

  Mokie was at first so relieved, then so preoccupied with untying her feet that she did not notice that the pouch she had tied around her neck had slipped out of her shirt, or that the paper inside it had nearly fallen out. But Duncan saw and grabbed the pouch before the girl could react.

  “No! You mustn’t!” The mulatto girl was fast, and surprisingly strong, but Duncan was prepared for the tug of war. He held on with one hand, the other on Mokie’s shoulder, until the leather strap broke in her hand. She erupted into tears. Duncan released her and stepped back to the wagon, knowing she would follow.

  The markings on the paper were crudely made, but they were unmistakable. The geometric symbols from the marker trees he had visited had been transcribed. There was writing on both sides of the paper. Behind the rows of symbols duplicated from the trees was a crude map of the trail showing its starting point and the places where it crossed the Forbes Road.

  “Where did you get this?” Duncan demanded as Mokie ran into her mother’s arms.

  Becca’s eyes flared when she saw what Duncan held, and she seemed about to snatch the papers away. “You think we just wander into the wilderness and expect to be free?” she asked with fire in her eyes. “Freedom is hundreds of miles away. We need supplies to travel so far.”

  “You go north because the French offer freedom and land. Are you saying they actively assisted in your escape?” Duncan asked.

  “What duty do we owe to your king?” Becca demanded.

  The words stung, in more ways than one.

  “People have been killed because of the boundary trees, and these markings seem to lie at the heart of the evil being done. More may die yet.”

  “I pray, Mr. McCallum.” Brindle appeared from behind the wagon. He had been listening. “Do not foment more fear among our party. We have but one crime, and one who has already answered for it.”

  Duncan turned to face the magistrate. “I beg you not to be deceived by appearances, sir. So far I have seen these runes on two trees, and at both, men were nailed to the trunk and then slain. There is reason to believe others have died in the same fashion these past few months.”

  Duncan marked that there was no surprise in Brindle’s reaction. “There are no other bodies. There are no other complaints to the authorities. We have but one crime,” he repeated. “Surely that is more than enough.”

  “How many more boundary trees are there?” Duncan asked. “Fifteen? Twenty? The Pennsylvania colony will run out of surveyors before this is over. Y
ou might view it as one crime, but it has meant multiple killings.” He faced Becca again. “Winston Burke helped you escape, did he not?”

  Brindle stiffened.

  “He helped you and perhaps died for it,” Duncan pressed.

  The Quaker seemed about to protest but instead looked at his brother-in-law Bythe and grimaced.

  Defiance still burned on Becca’s handsome face. Then the infant, Penn, in a basket inside the wagon, stirred, offering a cooing sound, and her expression softened. Her son’s fate, and that of her daughter and herself, were in the hands of the Pennsylvanians. Tears filled her eyes. “Shamokin,” she whispered, referring to the large Indian town on the banks of the upper Susquehanna. “A man in Shamokin was to give us supplies if we brought these to him. He would give us directions to the place where slaves are settling in the French country.” She put her arms around her daughter, as if the confession placed them in new jeopardy.

  “And the trees?”

  “The trail was to take us all the way to Shamokin. When we reached the wide Susquehanna we were to tell the Indians at the village there that we sought the great bear and they would ferry us across.”

  Duncan realized there was something else in Mokie’s pouch. A chill went down his spine as he upended it and a clock gear tumbled out.

  “That was there when we received it,” Becca quickly explained. “We never understood. But it wasn’t ours. We didn’t dare remove it.”

  “The gears,” came Hadley’s frightened whisper as he looked toward Duncan. The Virginian understood the reason. The killers had stopped the Indians from pursuing them with lumps of molten metal. Here was another defense in case the slaves were taken. “Word already spread about the killings, and the gears in the bodies. If they found such a gear with escaped slaves,” Hadley said with a shudder, “they will assume it is the slaves doing the killing. None will ever be brought back alive.”

  By the time Duncan had discussed his discoveries with Conawago, the magistrate’s massive wagon was nearly half a mile down the road, the treaty caravan already stretching nearly a mile before and behind it, lines of Indians on either side like an honor guard for the prisoner. Shamokin, Conawago quickly explained, was the population center for both the tribes of the Susquehanna and the southern villages of the Six Nations themselves, the southern capital, as it were, of the Iroquois empire. At least a dozen tribes were represented there, as well as sutlers who sold wares to the Indians, missionaries, fur traders, and Pennsylvania’s Fort Augusta, guarding the colony’s northern border, sometimes garrisoned with militia.

  “This news of Shamokin,” Duncan said, studying his friend’s face, “brings you new worry. Why?”

  Conawago seemed reluctant to reply. “We should go, Duncan. Back into the forest. That is our place, that is where my work lies.”

  “Why?” Duncan pressed.

  “Because Shamokin is full of renegades and outlaws. And there will be many there who oppose a new land treaty, whether or not the Grand Council seeks to sign it.”

  Duncan began his loping run toward Brindle’s wagon with the intention of warning the magistrate, but by the time he reached it he realized there was someone else he must speak with first. Long Wolf, the chieftain of the Iroquois living in the Ohio lands, was walking beside the team, admiring the heavily muscled mules.

  “You spoke last night of a French shaman,” Duncan said. “Where will I find this man?”

  “He is a man of powerful medicine. He goes where he wishes.”

  “If you were to seek him where would you start?”

  “Do not seek to interfere with the work of nations,” came a stern reproach from behind. He turned and looked into the wrinkled face of Old Belt.

  “Did you not come here,” Duncan asked, “because you think the treaty important?”

  “There is a covenant chain that links our peoples since the days of my father’s father. We protect their borders. The British provide us with clothing and goods.” Old Belt cast a long, worried glance toward the wagon where Skanawati lay in manacles.

  “What happens to the chain when the British decide the Iroquois are killing all their surveyors? There will never be another treaty.”

  “But we are not killing surveyors. We will tell the British so.”

  “If I place a burning ember in your hand and tell you it is ice, which will you heed, your hand or your ear? Someone is making it appear that the Iroquois are killing the surveyors. If they succeed you will return home with empty hands, Skanawati dead, and the covenant chain shattered.”

  The two chiefs spoke with each other in low, worried tones. “Shamokin,” Old Belt finally announced. “The Frenchman you seek is in Shamokin.”

  Duncan spent another half hour in search of the magistrate, who had ridden forward to hurry the convoy along. When he finally came upon Brindle’s large black mare, his nephew was leading it. Felton explained that his uncle had joined a group of teamsters trying to hoist a heavy wagon to shift a broken wheel.

  “Impossible,” the magistrate replied when Duncan explained his proposal. “I will not surrender escaped slaves to you. And I will not let you force us into greater difficulties. Already the treaty hangs by a thread, the Virginians ready to steal away Skanawati to hang him, the Iroquois ready to attack them if they try. I will not entertain your fantasy that some broader conspiracy is afoot.”

  “Only Mokie need go with us. Let Mr. Hadley accompany us so that you can tell the Virginians she is in the custody of a member of the Burke family.”

  “Us?”

  “Van Grut and Conawago will come with me.”

  “Mr. Hadley is an official record keeper of the treaty proceedings. And of the trial.”

  “You will take nearly a week to reach Lancaster at the speed of these wagons, more days to organize the proceedings. Give us fast horses to get to the river and we can meet you there with no disturbance to your schedule.”

  “I will not have you destroy my treaty over a few rumors,” Brindle replied in an insistent tone.

  “The government of this colony cannot make light of this trial. You know it will need to be precise, correct in every detail, if you are to carry out justice and still maintain relations with the Iroquois. Letting us go shows them that Europeans are trying to get to the bottom of this affair. Do not forget I can offer the precision of science in my report.”

  Brindle looked at Duncan with new interest but said nothing.

  “Of course,” Duncan continued, “a scientific expert is duty bound to tell the complete story. I will speak of another murder, at a different boundary tree, exhibiting the same method. Hanging one man for one act in the drama will solve nothing. The Iroquois will be wrathful, as will the Virginians. When the truth reaches Philadelphia you won’t find a surveyor ready to set foot in the wilderness for years to come. And when the treaty is ruined the news will be passed on to the king and the Parliament, to the proprietor,” he added, referring to the heir of the godlike William Penn. “You will have single-handedly brought to pass the worst interruption in relations with the Iroquois since the covenant chain was formed over a century ago.”

  For the first time since Duncan had known him he saw heat on the Quaker’s face. He had gone too far. “You are insolent, McCallum! A feral Scotsman does not dictate affairs of state!” As Brindle fixed Duncan with an angry gaze his nephew rode up, leading the magistrate’s horse.

  “The Scottish highlands were scoured clean of resistance in but a few short years,” Duncan shot back. “The Pennsylvania wilds and the western forest are vastly bigger. It will take twenty, maybe thirty years to clean them out if the Iroquois fight back. Thousands will die. Expansion of your province will be a distant dream if you alienate the tribes. Fort Pitt will be gone in a day if they choose to attack.”

  “The biggest threat to our treaty conference is you yourself, Mr. McCallum. I should have heeded Major Latchford’s warnings and banned you from our company.” Brindle paused. “Before we left Ligonier the maj
or informed me he had sent a dispatch rider to Philadelphia with written inquiries about you.”

  Brindle mounted, but before riding away he gestured Felton on and turned back to Duncan. “For many weeks Mr. Bythe has been investigating the matters that so upset you. He is fully capable of reconciling the facts to appease the tribes. The tribes will see that we of Philadelphia are their true friends, and the army can stop troubling itself.”

  “The army?” Duncan asked uneasily.

  “You cannot use a smith’s hammer against the hornet when it stings.”

  “Sir?”

  “The army is incapable of dealing with stealth, with spies. Bythe knows the tribes, and the nature of the war. It was not by coincidence he was sent to run the provincial outpost at Pitt. He has been collecting evidence of French saboteurs. And if you breathe a word of it I will have you in chains.”

  “The best chance the French have now is to turn the Iroquois against us,” Duncan observed.

  “I am painfully aware that if we lose the Iroquois nations the bloodbath will last a decade. There are hundreds of brave young families on the frontier. Many years ago I had the misfortune to arrive at a frontier village just after a raid. There was but one sobbing old woman left, twenty others hacked to pieces, several of them my own relatives. She said there was no warning, not even a barking dog. She said they just rose up out of the ground, sent by the devil himself.” Brindle’s voice trailed off, as though he was revisiting the horror of that day. After a moment he turned and spoke in a near whisper. “Bythe found a French spy among us.”

  “Here in the convoy?” Duncan asked in alarm. “How could he know?”

  “The man’s a n’er do well, a Delaware who sometimes mingles with the army scouts. Bythe saw him carrying the rifle of Captain Burke, his initials carved into the stock. He fled to the north when Bythe tried to press for an explanation.”