Bone Rattler amoca-1

by Eliot Pattison

Duncan had already taken a step toward her when Ravencatcher touched his elbow and gestured him toward the other lodges. Woolford and Conawago were there, stripped to the waist, washing from woodcarved basins, scraping their skin with narrow slabs of fragrant cedar. A boy was helping them, dumping fresh water into another basin. It was Alex, still wearing his shirt without sleeves, looking more at ease than Duncan had yet seen him. As Duncan stepped toward his friends, Ravencatcher held up a restraining hand and gestured at his belt, then at a log at the side of the nearest lodge. Their rifles lay against it, as did his companions’ other weapons and carrying packs. Duncan quickly laid down his tomahawk and knife, then stripped off his shirt.

  As they finished cleansing themselves, Ravencatcher stirred the embers of the fire, placed several coals on a flat stone, and dropped tobacco leaves over them. He stepped to each man with the stone in his hands. Duncan followed the actions of Conawago, cupping the smoke in his hand, washing it over his face, rubbing it over his skin before putting his shirt on again.

  When they finished, no word was offered, no gesture made. Ravencatcher simply set the flat rock on a log, turned, and walked away, up the steep trail. It was a very old path, rutted from decades, perhaps centuries, of use. As they climbed, painted images appeared on the rock walls at its sides, of varying complexity and design, of varying age, though all were of forest animals. On the downward side, all the paintings were of snakes.

  As they descended through the maze of rocks, Conawago began a low, whispered prayer. Woolford kept glancing back uneasily at Duncan. Suddenly they rounded a huge boulder and emerged into a half-mile-wide bowl through which a boulder-strewn stream flowed. The valley was almost perfectly symmetrical, with steep rocky walls rising up on either side and dense groves of white birch trees at either end. In the center was the most remarkable living thing Duncan had ever seen.

  It was a tree, though to call the massive oak before them a tree was to call the mighty Atlantic a lake. It was as tall as the grandest cathedral he had ever seen, its canopy as broad as any village square, its huge lower limbs spreading out like the beams of a castle hall. Its vast trunk, easily a dozen feet in diameter, was split by a jagged, three-foot-wide hole, as high as a man, that seemed like the entrance to a deep cave.

  Conawago noticed the awed look on Duncan’s face and waited as he slowly advanced. “Stony Run is just the name of the stream that feeds into the river over the waterfall,” the old Indian said. “It is the name Europeans use for the place because no one of the tribes will utter the name of the sacred tree itself.”

  “It must be ancient.” Duncan was whispering.

  “Once I met a natural philosopher in Philadelphia who insisted you could age a tree by the number of rings in its cross-section. When limbs blow off in a storm, there is a ceremony for burning them. Years ago I was here when it happened. I counted two hundred rings in the limb alone.

  “The shamans of the Iroquois have been coming here since before memory,” Conawago continued as they walked toward the tree, “since before the Iroquois were even a nation. It is the most pure place on earth, Tashgua says. Wampum beads are not needed here.”

  Duncan weighed his words as he studied the small group of men sitting at the base of the tree. “You mean the tree makes people speak the truth.”

  “When I was young and came here the first time with my mother, there was a woman of over a hundred winters who lived in the bone lodge. She said if a human were to be deceitful here, the limbs would reach down and tear him to pieces.”

  The Iroquois who sat against the far side of the oak seemed to have grown out of the tree itself. He sat between two massive, gnarled, lichen-covered roots that disappeared into the ground at his feet. The lines on his worn face seemed to match the grooves in the surface of the tree. The gray strands in his hair made it blend with the bark. He had a profound stillness about him, like the power of the sea in repose. Nothing moved but his eyes, brilliant as obsidian. Duncan did not need to ask. He had found Tashgua.

  Before the shaman were a dozen men. Ravencatcher and another of their band sat to his left and right, facing eight other Iroquois, older men, though clearly not so ancient as the man who sat against the tree. Together they encircled two men from Edentown. Reverend Arnold was patiently speaking, seemed to be giving a sermon, as Cameron warily watched the Indians. Arrayed on a hewn log before Arnold were printed pages-more of the pages, Duncan saw, that had been ripped out of Evering’s Bible. Beside the pages was the brass cross that had been stolen from Edentown. Every few moments Arnold paused as one of the Indians, a sinewy man wearing the skin of a fox over his crown, translated for the others. They were, Duncan realized, testing the words of the Bible.

  As they spoke, Ravencatcher’s hands began to work at what looked like a linear drum, a hollowed log, perhaps six inches wide and four feet long, carved with images of forest animals. The sound Tashgua’s son drew from it was soft and undulating, like a distant moan of wind on a winter night.

  “Tashgua and the tree are listening,” Conawago whispered, and dropped to the ground, folding his legs beneath him. Woolford, then Duncan, silently followed his example. Though the old sachem gave no acknowledgment of their presence, Arnold stopped his discourse in midsentence, his cheeks filling with color as he jabbed a bony finger toward Duncan.

  “This man is a lawbreaker,” he declared loudly, all patience gone from his voice, “cast out from our God! He must be removed! My man will take him away.”

  Tashgua leaned forward, squinting. A smile lit his leathery countenance as he recognized Conawago; then he studied Duncan, cocking his head, his eyes growing round as if he were surprised at something he read in Duncan’s face. The shaman turned back to Arnold and shrugged. When he spoke, his voice was like leaves rustling in a breeze. “The reason we are here, Major,” he said in slow, imperfect English, “is because it not be for mere men to say who is cast out from the gods.”

  “He has broken his word!” Arnold protested. “Broken his bond! Broken our law!”

  Suddenly Tashgua was standing in front of them, though Duncan had not seen him rise. He examined Duncan again with a gaze that seemed to be aimed at something under his skin. “He has been summoned here, this one, summoned to be dealt with,” the shaman declared to Arnold. The words raised a shiver down Duncan’s spine.

  But Arnold seemed unable to contain his fury. He rose, pulling Cameron up, shoving him toward Duncan. Suddenly a long object appeared in Tashgua’s hand. At first Duncan thought it was a club. Two feet long, ending with a carved head of a raven, the top third consisted of a flattish, ridged turtle shell, the handle below it carved with snakes. As he shook it over Arnold’s head, it rattled with the sound of many small objects inside. Cameron froze, then slowly lowered himself to the ground. Arnold’s eyes flared, but he seemed able to endure Tashgua’s stare for only a moment before relenting and sitting again. The shaman circled the two men, solemnly shaking the rattle, his eyes somehow wild and serene at the same time.

  “Inside,” Conawaga whispered without looking away from Tashgua, “are bones. It is very old, handed down from the first of the holy ones who sat at these roots. They say it has bones of the most powerful shamans from every generation since. Some say it is the most powerful object in all the Six Nations. Like the Jesuits,” he added.

  Duncan could not curb his question. “The Jesuits?”

  “They also carry about old bones of their saints, and ascribe great power to them.”

  As Tashgua returned to his seat, the strange ritual continued, Arnold pointedly not looking at Duncan as he resumed speaking, though Cameron continued to cast resentful stares. Duncan struggled to understand why Arnold would tolerate the demands of the shaman he hated so, but soon forgot about this and drifted into a dreamlike state, somehow mesmerized by the voices and the slow, sibilant sound of the drum. Arnold’s words, about an all-powerful and wrathful god, seemed but a backdrop against something vitally more important, something very old, something
that seemed to bridge the spirits of men and the forces of the forest. The fact that Duncan could not name it, could not put it into words but could only feel it, seemed only to make it more vital. What was it Fitch had said to him, a thousand years ago? The most important things can never be put into words.

  Arnold, finding his pulpit voice, finished with a flourish, with words about Christian soldiers and judgment day. He seemed about to rise when the old chief in the fox skin stood and entered the center of the circle, where he bent over the Bible pages.

  “Seneca,” Conawago whispered, “an old friend of King Hendrick.” The chief spoke in the tongue of the tribes, the ears of the fox head bobbing up and down as he nodded toward Arnold and Cameron.

  “A great man was at your side when you journeyed across the salt-waters,” Ravencatcher translated. The Seneca chief reached inside his shirt and produced a folded piece of paper.

  “The Ramsey Company does great work,” Arnold rejoined.

  The Seneca unfolded the paper and stretched it on the flat rock, over the printed Bible pages. “But your god is wrathful, your god is jealous. He could not abide the starspeaker who was coming among us.”

  Arnold’s patience seemed to be coming to an end. He glanced warily at Cameron and sighed. “Starspeaker?”

  The fox dipped and rose as the Seneca lifted the paper for Arnold to better see. It held a maze of lines, words, circles, and arrows. Arnold’s jaw dropped. Duncan stared at the paper in disbelief. It was the missing chart from Evering’s cabin. Cameron’s head jerked up, and he seemed about to rise until he noticed that one of Tashgua’s warriors had materialized behind him.

  The fox-draped chief spoke again. “Why would the god you describe take such a powerful shaman from his people? Can you speak to the stars? Can you persuade them to tell us where they will be at the rise of the next full moon?”

  “Evering,” Arnold sputtered. “Evering was no shaman. He was a. .” His voice trailed off and he cast an accusing glance toward Duncan. “You could not have known this man. We cannot know what these scratches on this paper are.”

  “But we do,” the Seneca said, and turned Evering’s chart over. “There is a prophesy of miracles this year. A water miracle, an earth miracle, a sky miracle that will confirm our gods are still with us.” Cameron moved again, as if to snatch the chart away, then froze as the hand of the warrior behind him settled on his shoulder. Arnold’s face swirled with emotion as he gazed at the reverse of the paper.

  The back of the chart offered a chaos of words, drawings, and Iroquois symbols. An image of a feather, not just any feather, but the vermilion-marked feather that had been left at the bloody compass. Iroquois words, sounded out in English. Crude images of men and animals like those Duncan had seen on the wampum belt at Edentown, but also images of snakes and longhouses and birds. Some had been drawn by Evering, but some, Duncan realized, had been drawn by Sarah Ramsey.

  The Seneca chief turned the chart over, back to the sky map, and stared gravely at Arnold. Tashgua’s eyes, fixed on the paper, had a strange longing in them.

  “Your god is wrathful,” the Seneca said. “He could not bear to have such a prophet on the earth.”

  Duncan watched as Arnold’s eyes flared with emotion. Then the vicar seemed to collect himself. “You and I,” he said to the chieftain in a strained voice, “have our own appointed turn to leave this world, and it is useless to resist it. Even a prophet has such an hour.”

  A single syllable from Tashgua broke the silence that followed. The Indians began to rise.

  “We have received our benediction,” Conawago announced, and rose, offering Duncan a hand.

  But Duncan, as if under a spell, did not rise, only stared at Evering’s chart. He extended a finger, touched the whitened edge of the chart, then brought his finger to his tongue. For one raised in a seaborne clan there could be no mistake. The paper had been soaked in the ocean. He suddenly realized the others were gone, all but one. He was alone with Tashgua, and the tree. The shaman fixed him with a calm, weary gaze. For a moment Duncan considered bowing his head to the ground. But then the shaman lifted his hand, closed it into a fist, tapped it against his chest, then raised the hand, extending two fingers as he lifted them in a spiraling motion toward the sky. Duncan, without thinking, repeated the motion. The wrinkles on the shaman’s face rearranged themselves, and Duncan realized he had smiled. The shaman motioned Duncan toward him, and he advanced and lowered himself onto the ground between the outstretched roots. With a chill he watched Tashgua’s rattle rise, and fought an impulse to flee as the rattle shook at one side of his head, then the other.

  The shaman smiled again, capturing Duncan with his eyes. Suddenly Duncan was aware of Tashgua’s hand on his, guiding it over the hollow log, letting his fingers touch the carved bears, then showing him how to make the subtle rubbing, tapping motion that produced the undulating, otherworldly moan of the log. Once, twice, three times Duncan opened his lips to confess he was carrying the sacred stone bear, but each time something held his tongue until finally he knew words were unnecessary. Tashgua’s tired, wise eyes watched him with an odd contentment, and Duncan realized the shaman’s hands were clasping the roots again and Duncan alone was making the quiet throbbing sound, like the heartbeat of the ancient tree.

  He slowly pushed back the chaos of his thoughts, letting the murmur of the log take over his mind and body. When he finally rose, Tashgua’s eyes were closed. He studied Evering’s chart one more time then stepped backward for several feet before turning toward the trail. He understood little of what the shaman had done that day, but somehow at the tree he had finally seen the truth of what had happened on board the ship. At the trailhead, he paused for another look. From the distance Tashgua looked like part of the tree.

  As Duncan climbed back over the ridge, a dozen men in ill-fitting red coats, some stinking of tar, were being herded into the camp from the river by a mixed group of Scots and Iroquois, under Jamie’s command. Lord Ramsey had deployed the rest of his militia. He hesitated, fighting an impulse to flee, then saw Sarah.

  The Company men, disarmed and terrified, seemed to sink into a paralyzing confusion when their captors began throwing Gaelic taunts at them.

  “In the king’s name!” came an angry voice behind the Company soldiers. Red-coated men were shoved aside as a furious Lord Ramsey appeared.

  “How dare you treat us like this! Are we at war with the Iroquois?” Ramsey demanded. “Is not our beloved King George a constant friend of the Six Nations?”

  Jamie, at the edge of the clearing, called out in the Iroquois tongue, presumably translating for the Indians who had no English. Iroquois and Scottish warriors reacted alike, with quick whispered mutterings and bitter frowns.

  “You will return our weapons!”

  “This is a sanctuary,” Jamie declared to Ramsey. “For as long as memory serves, no weapons but those of the guardians, no act of war has been allowed here.”

  Ramsey glared at Jamie. “I come as colonel of the Edentown militia to treat with our Iroquois friends,” the patron replied. “Not with Scottish brigands.” Arnold, who had worked his way through the assembly, leaned into Ramsey’s ear. “And certainly not,” Ramsey added with a victorious gleam, “with a traitor to the king. You, sir, will consider yourself under arrest.” His furious gaze rested on Duncan for a moment. “Along with your contemptible brother,” he added. “The army knows how to deal with traitors. But an escaped bond slave will know Ramsey justice,” he hissed at Duncan.

  Amusement flashed across Jamie’s face. “You should take to the stage. The public ever thrills at those who playact as soldiers.” His smile disappeared. “The great shaman desires dialogue with you, so you are guests in this camp. Otherwise we would have stopped you and your toy soldiers ten miles downstream. I am here to assure that you abide by the rules of the sacred place.”

  Ramsey surveyed the camp. “Do not mock me,” he snarled. “There is but mud and bones and forest debris here.�
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  “This is but the antechamber. Over the ridge lies the cathedral, as Reverend Arnold will surely attest. There is a cleansing ceremony for any wishing to go beyond.”

  “I cannot proceed until what was stolen from me is returned,” Ramsey barked, his hand on his pistol. “I will not endure your ceremony until the thieves clean their own hands. You have a Ramsey paper. You have a Ramsey heir.”

  A tall figure stepped in front of Jamie. Ravencatcher did not speak but motioned Ramsey toward the bone-fronted lodge. The patron seemed about to erupt again, then gestured Arnold to his side and followed the tall Iroquois, with Duncan, Woolford, and Conawago a few steps behind.

  It was dark inside, the air tinged with fragrant smoke. At the far end, under one of several holes in the ceiling, the chief in the fox skin sat at a small fire, beside a sturdy Iroquois woman in a doeskin dress adorned with dyed quills. The woman extended graceful hands to push the smoke toward the visitors as they sat. From the shadows, Ravencatcher produced a long cylinder of birch bark sewn with leather strips and extracted a large rolled parchment.

  Ramsey seemed about to launch himself toward the charter. “It is mine! Return it this instant!”

  The Onondaga ignored the patron. “Its words shall be spoken tomorrow at the tree, and we will see. Your man of god has read his Bible. You will read this paper.”

  “You, sir, will not dictate to me!”

  Ravencatcher leaned toward Duncan and Woolford. “Our people are disturbed. They wonder whether the old spirits hear them anymore. They rightfully puzzle over this new one with the power to give the owning of land.” He turned to Ramsey. “You will go to the tree and speak the charter, to test its truth.”

  Ramsey’s face flushed with color. “Truth? These are the words of the king!”

  “For as long as trees have grown and waters have flowed, no one of our people has ever taken land for his or her own. We borrow land from the gods, a maize field here, a pumpkin field there, a town of houses sometimes. We give it back when we are finished. Now a new spirit arrives and pushes men to change all that, so that some men must have land and others must not.