The King's Beast

by Eliot Pattison

  The mate shrugged. “And didn’t I say someone tied a yellow cloth to a tree at that landing so we knew it was the Arabella? He waved to us, a little man dressed in black.”

  The captain insisted on joining Duncan and Ishmael as they searched the taverns of Pittsburgh. They found their quarry in the fourth one, slumped over a table in a shadowed corner with a tankard of ale and a half-eaten sausage beside a leather purse, his drowsy head supported with one bent arm. The captain dropped several silver coins on the table beside him.

  Reverend Podrake looked up with a startled expression, which instantly turned to worry as he recognized the three men. “What’s this?” His words were slurred, but he was alert enough to lean back to avoid the reach of their arms.

  “Yer passage money,” the captain said. “We’ve decided to take it out of yer hide instead.”

  Podrake’s face drained of blood. A croaking sound rose from his throat, and he attempted to rise, only to be shoved back into his chair by Ishmael.

  “You joined us just to spy on us and sabotage our boat,” Duncan accused, then turned to Ishmael. “What do we do with spies and saboteurs?”

  “In my tribe,” the young Nipmuc said, “we would put such men in a kettle and slowly boil them, slicing off the meat as it cooked.” It was a lie, but it had the desired effect. Podrake was so stricken his hands began to shake. “Though I think in old England it was just beheading. A lot cleaner. I’ll go find an ax. There’s a pigsty over by the hill. The hogs will know what to do with the body, though I hear the flesh of a liar is always sour.”

  Podrake’s hand shot to his neck. “Dear God, no! You misunderstand!” His drunkenness had burned away.

  “What do we misunderstand?” Duncan demanded. “Your pretending to discourage our expedition on religious grounds? Trying to steal the Arabella? Throwing our poles into the river? Were your prayers just as false?”

  Podrake frantically looked about as if seeking a way to flee, then sagged. He clutched his tankard and stared into it. “It wasn’t like that,” he said. “I am a servant of the Great Jehovah. My prayers are true.”

  “Yer soul to the devil!” the captain spat, and turned to Duncan. “Let me take him, McCallum. My crew will pry his limbs off one by one. He’ll be feeding river eels by morning. If we had known earlier, he would have been thrown in the Ohio with a rock bound to his foot.”

  Podrake let out a terrible wail, so loud it silenced the rest of the tavern.

  Ishmael turned to the other customers. “Sore tooth,” he loudly explained, “poor wretch just learned it has to be pulled.” Several customers laughed, and others raised their tankards to Ishmael and turned back to their business.

  Podrake clasped his hands and raised them to Duncan as if in prayer. “I beg Christian mercy, sir! I was lost and they gave me shelter. I knew nothing of their wretched business when they hired me. I never imagined bloodshed!”

  Duncan pushed the reverend’s leather pouch and heard the clink of coins. “They paid you well,” he countered. “Judas silver.”

  Podrake covered the pouch with his hands. “The money is for my church,” he protested.

  “You have no church,” Ishmael growled.

  Podrake’s face twisted with torment. “I was pastor with a respectable church in Lancaster town. But there was a misunderstanding over the miller’s daughter. It seemed a propitious time for me to take the word of the Lord to the frontier.”

  “In other words, ye hightailed it out of Lancaster ahead of a tar and feather mob,” the captain said.

  “They say the frontier is a place for new beginnings, do they not?” Podrake replied, steadier now. “It seemed the hand of Providence at work when they approached me in this very tavern.” He clutched his purse more tightly. “Jehovah was interceding in my tragedy. They paid enough for me to build a new chapel in the wilderness. God will forgive all if only—”

  The captain’s hand hit Podrake’s jaw like a slab of wood, knocking the pastor against the wall. “Enough! Ye shared bread with us for weeks and then tried to steal my boat! Mr. Boone frightened away yer conspirators but ye still cast off my poles!” He leaned over Podrake with a menacing whisper. “There’s military justice in this town. We could give evidence that would have ye hanged in a week!”

  Podrake pressed his hand against his jaw, already discoloring from the blow. A strangled noise came from his throat. “Hanged? I committed no mortal sin.”

  “The blood of Ezra is on your hands,” Duncan said. He recalled how Podrake had been almost invisible during their return voyage, growing more pale, and more nervous, as he spent hours every day reading his Bible in the hold.

  “Never! How was I to know?”

  “I recall you favor brightly colored handkerchiefs. You signaled the killers with your yellow one tied to a tree!” Duncan shot back. “Do you deny it? I recall seeing it on the passage down the river. Where is that handkerchief now?”

  Podrake looked down, avoiding Duncan’s eyes. “The wind,” he said, his voice cracking. “You know how the wind on the river snatches things.”

  The captain slapped him again. Blood swelled up from his nose. “Just a signal!” Podrake cried. “How was I to know what purpose it would serve?”

  “How did they know Ezra was on that boat?” Duncan demanded.

  “I don’t know. They knew everything already, knew you would be going down the Ohio, knew about Ezra, knew about your intentions for the old bones.”

  Duncan chewed on the words. Nothing in the plan Reynolds had described, the plan betrayed in London, would have mentioned the incognitum.

  “You prayed with Ezra sometimes,” Ishmael recalled. “I remember when he asked you to pray for his wife, because he worried about her.” The heat had left his eyes, leaving only sadness.

  “How could I have known a murder was intended?” Podrake groaned.

  “Three murders,” Ishmael corrected.

  “No, no. Not possible.”

  “Ezra, his wife, and their son, soon to be born,” Ishmael spat. “He was killed in the womb, before he could even taste the breath of this world.”

  Podrake seemed to shrink. His mouth moved but nothing came out except strangled murmurs. “Not possible,” he finally repeated.

  “They were murdered by your employers,” Duncan stated in a flat voice. “You were part of their conspiracy. You made the murders possible.”

  Podrake spoke into his tankard. “I had a church in Lancaster,” he repeated in an anguished whisper, then reached into a pocket and produced his tattered Bible.

  “The only chance you have to avoid the rope, Reverend,” Duncan growled, “is to tell us everything you know about the two men who employed you.”

  Podrake, his hand shaking, lifted his tankard and drained it. “I was only with them a few hours, here in Pittsburgh. They said their names were Johnson and Pope. Pope had the air of a strong, vigorous man, with a roundish face. Johnson had a long face with dark, penetrating eyes. He had a more polished air about him, like he had finished one of those colleges in England. They had come from New York, they said, and were with a land company, though they didn’t strike me as men of commerce.

  “I was down on my luck, you might say, needing a fresh start. They bought me a pitcher of ale and told me the Arabella was going downstream to retrieve the bones of the famous incognitum that the London journals speak of. The bones were very valuable, they said, though I couldn’t imagine why. They needed an educated gentleman like me to compose an eyewitness report for one of those journals, and they said the value of such a report was in surprising the public, and they couldn’t allow the chance of the secret leaking. They said the report would drive up the prices of land they had purchased, allowing them a quick profit. First they suggested I sign on as crew, but I protested that I did not have the physical resources to push a pole all day. Then they suggested that I offer to go as a missionary scouting out a site for a new school in the Ohio lands. That’s how I got the idea for my new church, a
nd I saw then that Jehovah was playing a hand.”

  Podrake clutched his Bible in both hands. “What I said at the Lick wasn’t a pretense,” he continued in a bitter tone. “I meant my words about the monstrosity. It is an act against God to glorify those bones or speak of the creatures as extinct. It is not possible that Jehovah would create entire species only to cruelly destroy them.” It was an argument that had already surfaced in articles about the incognitum, written by men who had never seen the bones.

  “No one knows if the creatures were extinguished. All we know is that no one in these lands has ever seen them alive,” Duncan pointed out. “The continent is vast, and one day men may yet find them in America.”

  “It has to be so,” Podrake said in a desolate voice.

  Duncan studied the shattered man, then called for the barmaid to bring a bowl of stew and a mug of strong tea.

  The captain pushed the pouch of coins toward Duncan. “Yer going to need to rent the best horses at every coach stop from here to Philadelphia,” he stated. “Ye can’t stay with the bones, McCallum, or ye’ll never catch up with the bastards.”

  Podrake lifted his head. “It’s mine!” he whined.

  Duncan glanced at Ishmael, who nodded agreement. “Dumont and I will stay with the wagons,” the Nipmuc said. “But you must go.”

  Duncan opened the pouch and extracted five of the heavy coins and dropped them in front of Podrake. “A friend of mine named Frederick Post, a Moravian, has started a mission for the tribes on the Muskingum River north of the Ohio. You will go to him and say I sent you. You will tell him you played an inadvertent role in the deaths of two Shawnee and must serve penance. One of these will pay your expenses. You will give Post the rest to help the mission and you will work for him for one year.”

  A murmur of protest rose from the captain. “The devil should hang! One word to the provosts and he’ll be in chains before dark.”

  Podrake looked up at the Cornishman with a terrified expression, then leaned toward Duncan.

  “Do you understand?” Duncan demanded. “One of the sutlers, Mr. Reynolds, will be traveling there soon. I will speak with him this very night. You will go with him, and I will get reports from him and Post. If you leave in less than a year, I will let the Shawnee know you aided the murderers. They will find you, and they will make sure you suffer a most unpleasant death.”

  The reverend nodded stiffly. “Post. Muskingum. One year,” he murmured.

  “Ye can’t trust ’im,” the captain warned.

  A long, dry sob wracked Podrake’s body and he bent, arms crossed over his belly. He seemed to have shrunk.

  “We can trust him,” Duncan said, studying the miserable man, “because he knows it is the only way he can wash his blackened soul clean.”

  “Prithee, sir,” came a soft, consoling voice. “Take a sip of my good black tea.”

  Duncan opened his heavy eyelids to see a woman in a gray apron bending over him with a steaming mug. He shook his head to clear his senses.

  “Is my stew so bad that you had to mix the dust of the road into it?” the woman said as she sat the tea beside him.

  With a mumbled apology Duncan moved his hand from the edge of the bowl in front of him, where his sleeve had been soaking in its contents.

  “When did you last sleep, lad?” the woman asked with matronly concern.

  Duncan tried to push the fog from his mind. “Nearly four days ago, in Pittsburgh, not counting a few naps along the road,” he mumbled. “The moon was bright enough to ride through the nights.”

  “Blessing to good General Forbes,” she said, “God rest his soul.” The Scottish general had broken his health in building the western road to Pittsburgh during the French War, and died not long after its completion. Troop commanders may have boasted of their victories, but it had been the Forbes road that had defeated the French in the west.

  Duncan had gulped half his tea before he realized the woman had spoken Gaelic, and with a familiar accent. He lowered his mug and saw now her ruddy cheeks and the red curls that strayed from under her linen cap. “The west of the Highlands?” he asked in the same language.

  “Isle of Skye, my dear, clan of McCrae. My father was forester for the great laird.” The woman glanced about the tavern, confirming that the other patrons were well tended, then pulled out a chair and sat. “It’s been too long since I was able to speak the tongue of the isles.”

  Duncan recognized the inquiry in her eyes. “Clan McCallum. Nigh Lochalsh, so we were neighbors. My people built boats and raised hairy cows. I am named Duncan.”

  Mrs. McCrae’s face broke into a faraway smile. “Oh, the bonny coos. I dearly miss the sight of their shaggy ginger coats scattered over the high braes.”

  Duncan, fully awake now, began eating the stew with great relish. The Scottish woman’s smile grew as she watched him. “Ah, look at ye,” she said. “Ye put me in mind of the braw lads competing at the gatherings whilst we kept great kettles of cock-a-leekie soup warming on the fires.” She turned and called for a barmaid to bring Duncan a second bowl and a pot of ale. “It’s a poorly kept secret that I mix ale in my stew,” she confided, “but I save the best for washing it down.”

  Duncan only had a vague recollection of stumbling into the Lancaster tavern, barely able to keep his eyes open, but now took a moment to admire the tidy, spacious, open-beamed chamber with a large fireplace at one end and a bar cage at the other. “I take it you belong to this fine establishment,” he said between mouthfuls.

  “Oh, aye. My husband and I opened it years ago but he went to Abraham’s bosum these two years since. And my son is at sea so I manage the tavern myself.” She saw the way Duncan kept glancing at the other patrons. “Who is it ye seek, Mr. McCallum?”

  “Two men riding hard from Pittsburgh.”

  “I’ve not had any others falling asleep in their stew this week, if that’s what ye mean.” She shrugged and surveyed the room. “The secrets of my travelers are theirs to keep,” she said in a stiffer tone, then rose, as if wanting to avoid trouble.

  “Redeat,” Duncan said as she turned away.

  The word stopped her.

  “You have a white rosette in your apron,” Duncan observed.

  She self-consciously lifted a hand to the silk rosette pinned to an apron strap. “A worn-out memento. I keep forgetting to remove it.”

  “I was imprisoned and transported to America for giving aid to the Jacobite cause, years after Culloden,” Duncan confessed. “Kings come and go, but the truth endures.”

  Mrs. McCrae sat again, glancing about as if for eavesdroppers. “At every Sunday meal Mr. McCrae would set a bowl of water on the table and hold a glass of wine over it.”

  Duncan was well acquainted with the simple ceremony. “To toast the king over the water,” he said. The cherished Young Pretender who had led the last Scottish rebellion, Bonnie Prince Charlie, was across the ocean living in Rome, but was still revered by many Highlanders. Duncan chose not to mention that friends who had been to the Holy City reported that the true king had become an inveterate drunkard.

  Mrs. McCrae’s face brightened. “There’s more of us in America than ye might suspect,” she said.

  He paused at the hint of invitation in her words. “I was only a boy at school in Holland at the time of Culloden. I wasn’t there, but I still have nightmares of the massacres that followed. My father and his brothers were hanged. I see the troops abusing and killing my mother and sisters. Sometimes I see them bayoneting my six-year-old brother.”

  The tavern keeper studied him with a gaze that was at once stern and sympathetic, one that he had often received from the aunts of his youth. “Finish yer stew, Ghaidhealach,” she said, using the Gaelic for Highlander, then abruptly rose. She soon returned with a dusty bottle and two dram glasses. She silently filled the glasses, pushed his empty bowl away, and set one in front of him. “Slainte,” the Highland matron offered as she put her glass to her lips.

  He downed the wh
isky with a grateful smile. “I recall that it was Clan McCrae who defended Eilean Donan castle for the McKenzies when the McDonalds attacked it.”

  She beamed and filled their glasses again, then quickly drained hers. “And were made hereditary constables of the castle for the service. We had many fierce warriors. But my favorite was Duncan of the Silver Cups because he put down his sword and became a poet. They say he was a braw, handsome man with wheat-colored hair like yer own.” She filled her dram and lifted it once more. “To Duncan of the Silver Cups and Duncan of the four-day gallop.” She emptied her glass again, then leaned forward. “Now tell me of these two men ye seek, Ghaidhealach.”

  Mrs. McCrae listened attentively as he related what he knew of the men, just saying they had murdered friends of his. She turned to study the dining chamber. An adolescent boy appeared carrying an armful of firewood, and she had a barmaid summon the youth. “Mathias tends the stable,” she explained. “And to other special tasks,” she added as she bid the boy sit.

  Mathias immediately knew the two men Duncan sought. “Coldhearted bullies they were,” he said. “They had nigh killed their mounts but showed no mercy, and one cuffed me when I suggested the poor creatures had earned extra oats. Seeing how the horses were shaking so, I said I hoped they survived the night. The other says if not, no doubt the tavern stewpot would be full on the morrow. ’Tweren’t right. What did they care, their friend was waiting with fresh mounts.”

  “Friend?” Duncan asked.

  “Aye, they asked me did I know of a man wearing a red feather in his blue hat who was waiting for them. I said sure, a man with a blue hat and a big S-shaped scar on his cheek. He said he had come up from Virginia, and had been waiting three days at the tavern down the street. Except the groom there said he hadn’t been idle, he was keeping busy in town,” the boy confided.

  “Speak clear, lad,” Mrs. McCrae said. “How do ye mean busy?”

  “Us grooms stick together,” the boy explained to Duncan, “ ’cause we share rental horses and stalls when one tavern fills, and such like that. He was asking questions, pressing coins in palms, and said he was interested in a big Conestoga wagon that had came up from Virginia filled with barrels of flour.”