Bone Rattler amoca-1

by Eliot Pattison

  “We do not doubt you have a strong spirit behind you. We try now to understand if the old spirits who have ruled this land since its creation now wish for your spirit to also become the god of the Haudenosaunee. Then we will finally know about your war.”

  “Our war!” Ramsey simmered. “Now you mock the king! Treaties have been signed in Albany. Pledges have been made.”

  “For those who have to fight and bleed,” came a quiet voice, “war is a very personal thing.” Conawago spoke toward the fire. “It is easy to speak of distant kings and distant battles. It becomes very different when it is the blood of your own sons and daughters being spilled.”

  “There shall come a reckoning for what you have done with my own daughter,” Ramsey spat. “You shall see-” His threat died as his gaze froze on a figure framed by the opening of the lodge. Sarah, in an elegant quill-worked dress, was in the clearing outside, moving with Alex and an older Iroquois woman among the Company men, offering ladles of water and cornmeal loaves. Ramsey leapt to his feet, rushing out, but halted after a few steps, as if uncertain of what he was seeing. The Company men who saw him awkwardly looked away, though Sarah took no notice. She was acting like the matron of the village, the hostess receiving guests. And the look Ramsey gave her was that which Duncan had seen on those who called Sarah a witch.

  “Your daughter is no prisoner,” Woolford said to Ramsey’s back.

  “Then she fled to follow those she saw stealing my charter,” Ramsey said after a moment. “It is the Ramsey blood in her. They acknowledge her due rank.”

  “She is not part of your campaign, sir,” Duncan interjected.

  Ramsey’s face filled with color again as he turned to face him. “Were it not for this-this sanctuary, I would have you hanging by your arms from a tree to begin your punishment. When we are ready, McCallum, we will drag you home in chains.” The patron watched his daughter again. “Reverend Arnold and I have decided what must be done with her. There is a surgeon in Philadelphia who treats brain disorders. He has agreed to a trepanning.”

  “You would open her brain?” Duncan gasped.

  “Drill into it. An accustomed procedure. Based on her behavior, he says there must be a mortifying growth that needs to be excised.”

  “I have heard of soldiers who have had the surgery,” Woolford said in a haunted voice. “Afterwards they stare without seeing, have to be led from place to place. It’s like they are empty inside.”

  “The doctor in Philadelphia has had great success,” Ramsey shot back, then fell silent as his daughter approached. She spoke to him as she had the other men, offering a greeting in the Iroquois tongue, pushing a small loaf into his hand. For a moment father and daughter stared at each other, then Ramsey let the loaf drop to the ground. Sarah seemed about to speak again when suddenly a man in one of the militia uniforms burst out of the woods, gasping for breath, blood streaming down the side of his face.

  “The Hurons!” he cried. “The Hurons approach!”

  Jamie surveyed the confused assembly of men then began barking out orders.

  They made a slow procession over the low, steep ridge after dawn the next morning, Tashgua and the Iroquois first, then Ramsey, Arnold, and Conawago. Woolford and Duncan, in the rear, kept pausing to look back. They had spent much of the night in the forest with several of the Company men, searching for the Huron to no avail. At the crest of the ridge, Tashgua called an unexpected stop, sending Ravencatcher down the trail with all the Iroquois warriors, then waited until his son appeared on one of the rocks below and whistled. The reason for the delay became obvious as soon as they reached the opening into the little valley. Other visitors had appeared on the sacred ground. Cameron sat guarded by the Iroquois, in front of seven scarlet-coated figures. Pike and his squad glared angrily at their guards, who had made a pile of their weapons at the edge of the stream.

  Duncan and Woolford exchanged an alarmed glance. There was not supposed to be another access to the little valley.

  Ramsey, however, seemed not at all surprised by the new arrivals. He simply greeted them with a nod, then pointed to a figure emerging from the trail behind them. It was Jamie, wearing a small fur cap and wolf pelt on his shoulders against the chill. Pike rose and also pointed at Jamie, as if he needed to be sure his soldiers understood that the traitor they had so long sought was at last before them. Jamie glared at Pike then quietly ordered his men to carry away the soldiers’ weapons. He stepped to a thin old chief who stood with his arms clasped together, clearly suffering from the cold dawn air, and good-naturedly set the cap and pelt on the chief, then with a worried expression began to walk downstream. The waterfall. Alex had mentioned that Adam had fled down a trail along the waterfall.

  More Indians started arriving from the camp. The okewa, the death anniversary ceremony, was due to begin later that day. Tashgua’s work with Ramsey, Conawago had warned, was likely to take all morning. There were prayers to offer, tobacco to be burned, pipes to be lit and shared, and Tashgua would not want Ramsey to recite the charter until his full council was present.

  As the new arrivals spoke with the other Iroquois, Duncan and Woolford slipped away, walking along the high walls, looking for anything Pike might have brought with him-a secret weapon cache, evidence of a trap-and, finding nothing, their anxiety mounted.

  “You’re nigh to offending our host,” came a voice from the rocks as they approached the waterfall. Jamie stepped in front of them, blocking their path.

  “You’re the guardian of this place,” Woolford said in an accusing tone. “How did they get through?”

  “There are too few of us,” Jamie said. “Some had to watch Ramsey and his men in camp. Some had to watch for Hurons in the forest.”

  “A distraction. The warning was a distraction. What did Pike and his men do here?” Duncan asked his brother.

  Jamie pointed at Woolford. “Here’s one. Ask him.”

  “You know that is not true,” Woolford snapped.

  “Is not your paymaster the same as Pike’s?” Jamie demanded with a chill tone. “You all look after your own. Back home in your New York mansion houses, you can’t wait to pour the brandy and boast of all the heathens you killed.”

  “A damned lie and you know it!” Woolford spat. He seemed about to launch himself at Jamie.

  “If I am not mistaken,” Duncan said to his brother, “their paymaster was also yours for a few years.” He looked over Jamie’s shoulder. “Did they come up the waterfall?”

  “Aye. We usually keep a sentry on the path to the tree. Tashgua said it was no longer necessary. He has no fear. He is incapable of fear. The spirits have already decided what is to happen-this is what he said when I tried to argue.”

  “It’s not spirits I am worried about,” Duncan pressed. “It’s Pike and Ramsey. They hate each other, but suddenly they seem friends. Did you follow the trail they took up here?”

  “There were marks of three canoes on the bank.”

  “Canoes?” Woolford asked. “Pike had no canoes.”

  “Ramsey,” Jamie said. “The Ramsey militia had canoes. There were two covered with canvas, big cargo canoes with kegs of rum and flour.”

  “Then someone must find them,” Duncan urged, “see what was taken.”

  “And walk into another trap? Not my men.”

  “The trap,” Duncan shot back, “is already laid.”

  “Pike’s men have no weapons,” his brother said. “We took the flints from their guns, hid their blades.”

  Duncan surveyed the valley, tasting fear now. “You must run, Jamie. Pike wants your blood more than anything in the world. He would not give up his weapons with you so near, not unless he had another plan.”

  Jamie gazed down the valley, at the tree where the old sachem sat. “I’ll not leave Tashgua. He kept us alive after Ticonderoga, shielded us when the other Iroquois said we should be surrendered to Albany. When most of his men died last year, those who were left of us vowed to protect him.”

&n
bsp; Woolford took a step forward, toward the waterfall. “I’m going down there, to read the trails.”

  Jamie raised the war club in his hand.

  “Woolford had men who died last year, too,” Duncan reminded his brother.

  “Aye. And the army blames us for that as well.”

  “Perhaps they have reason to blame you,” Woolford observed in a brittle tone.

  “To hell with you, Englishman. You are not interested in the truth.”

  “He crossed the Atlantic to find Adam, just to hear the truth,” Duncan said.

  “Then why ask me?”

  “Because Adam died,” Woolford shot back. “Because he refused to speak with a king’s officer.”

  “You did a lot of traveling for no good reason. To Scotland. To here. All in search of Scots who will not speak with you.”

  Woolford looked away, the pain in his eyes obvious. “We once ran in the woods together, Jamie,” the ranger said after a moment.

  “That was a different life.”

  “Rangers and your men, they have much in common,” Duncan ventured.

  “Don’t presume to speak of my men,” Jamie snapped. He raised the deadly spike of his war club toward Woolford’s head as the ranger inched closer.

  “They were together a year ago,” Duncan said, “trying to track the killers from Stony Run.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Odd, that you and your men would hate the rangers so yet tend their graves at the mission. I saw him at the mission, Jamie, the sergeant who was shot when he was with the rangers last year, the only one to escape.”

  Jamie said nothing. Duncan pulled the musket ball from his pocket and tossed it to him. “I took this out of his leg, where he had carried it for the past twelve months.”

  Jamie’s face darkened as he rolled the ball between his fingers.

  “Ramsey hates the army,” Duncan continued. “Why is he so friendly with Pike?”

  “You’re a Ramsey man, you tell me.”

  Duncan pulled the grenadier hat from inside his belt, holding it in front of his chest. “This I took from a safe room of Ramsey’s, hidden as if it were his greatest treasure.”

  Jamie’s eyes stayed on the cap as he spoke. “The Forty-ninth has been deployed in the north. Nowhere near here.”

  “It doesn’t necessarily mean the Forty-ninth was here,” Woolford said. “Just someone with access to central stores, where uniforms are shipped out. Like someone on the staff of a general who works in secret.”

  “What if the killers last year didn’t come to kill the Iroquois?” Duncan ventured. “What if they came to kill the Black Watch deserters and the Iroquois just happened to get in the way, happened to be witnesses to something that could never be spoken of?”

  Jamie grew very still. “They wouldn’t know. What happens here is secret, even to many of the Iroquois. Outsiders don’t even know where this place is.”

  Woolford made a small choking sound. The color drained from his face. “Last year Pike asked for the ranger companies to report where the Iroquois sacred sites were so he could assure troop movements would avoid them.”

  “The bastard doesn’t care what-” Jamie began, then his voice trailed away as realization struck.

  “What happened on that hill above Ticonderoga?” Duncan asked.

  “Someone was there, in an unmarked English coat, speaking to Hurons and a man in a white hunter’s frock.”

  “A traitor!” Woolford spat.

  “We never saw his face. He sent the Hurons after us, cut us off from the battlefield. They would have cut down Tashgua if we hadn’t stayed with him.”

  “Pike,” Woolford said in a whisper, “has always lost heavily at the gaming table. His debt was huge. But last year he started wearing lace and gold rings.”

  All three gazed down the valley in stunned silence.

  “It shouldn’t be difficult,” Duncan said, “to find out how soon afterwards his debts were retired.”

  “There was one mistake after another made the day of the battle,” Woolford said in a taut voice. “Mortar barges directed into the wrong channel so that they came under French cannons. Units sent to attack abandoned positions.”

  The painful silence returned. Jamie braced himself against a boulder, as if he had difficulty remaining on his feet. After a moment Woolford pushed past him and disappeared in the direction of the waterfall.

  “It isn’t about Pike today,” Duncan said to his brother.

  “He still wants me dead.”

  “And me half a minute later, if he had his way. And if not Pike, then Ramsey.”

  “I do not fear a lout like Ramsey,” Jamie said, though worry had entered his voice.

  “If it was Pike with the Huron last year at Ticonderoga, then surely they must work together. The warning yesterday, it was Huron meant to draw your men away. Half the Ramsey Company, and Hawkins, are still missing.” Duncan turned to face the assembly at the great tree. “Ramsey can’t abide a victory by Pike. He wants you dead, Jamie. Hawkins is his weapon. For God’s sake, take your men and leave.” But when Duncan turned back, his brother was gone.

  Tashgua had been recounting the spiritual history of his people and was inviting Ramsey to speak when Duncan reached the tree. The patron seemed to have trouble controlling his emotions, and raw hatred burned in his eyes as the sachem lifted the charter from its bark tube. For a moment it seemed Ramsey was about to berate the old Indian again. But a slender figure dressed in white doeskin appeared between them. Sarah accepted the parchment from Tashgua, then unrolled it and held it in front of her father. Ramsey glanced uneasily at his daughter, cleared his throat, and began reciting the king’s words. At the end of each phrase, Sarah lowered the parchment and translated for the assembled Iroquois, now numbering over thirty. The chieftains listened solemnly, some studying the tree as they did so.

  When Ramsey finished, he looked up expectantly, only to find Ravencatcher standing with one of his dress wigs extended on his bear skull stick. “Now become this one, and read it again.”

  “Nonsense,” Ramsey said, in the tone he used for addressing servants.

  Ravencatcher turned and indicated more wigs lined up on a log. “You will speak it as each of the people you claim to be.”

  Ramsey clenched his jaw, glanced at Arnold, and accepted the wig.

  It was the chief with the fox skin who stood and addressed Ramsey when he was done. “What is it you will do with the land if your lord presents it to you?” he asked in a contemplative tone.

  “I will make it yield to men,” Ramsey replied. “I will build great towns. I will turn rocks into a gun, a tree into a house, a stream into a mill that feeds five hundred. What have you done with the land?” he asked, gesturing toward the wooded ridges. “It is but a wasteland in your hands. Have you improved it in all these centuries?”

  Ravencatcher translated, then walked around Sarah and Ramsey as his father watched with an expression of deep curiosity. “What you say is that your way requires you to make things from the land.” Tashgua’s son was speaking for himself now. “Is that the source of your magic?”

  For a moment Ramsey seemed intrigued. “Yes. It is the destiny of men to use the tools they have been given.”

  “And when all the land is gone there will be only things in your world. Will those things have life?”

  “No. They will allow for more people, for stronger people.”

  “So you treat the land as a dead thing. You will take the strength out of it. But without the land, without the bear, without the otter, the owl, the deer, what spirits will live in the people? Those spirits will never be stronger than they are today.”

  Duncan inched away. Woolford had reappeared among the rocks.

  “Ramsey’s two cargo canoes are empty,” the ranger reported when Duncan reached him. “Pike’s men carried the contents up here. I’ll search the far side,” Woolford added, and sprinted away.

  Duncan moved obliquely, as inconsp
icuously as possible, toward the back of the oak. Boot marks, many of them, in the moist soil at the base, showed repeated back-and-forth movements. A shadow flashed over his shoulder. Pike’s ox-like sergeant, the man who days earlier had towered over Duncan with manacles, stared at him with a hungry glint, his fists opening and shutting as if preparing for action. Duncan shifted one way, then another, darting around the man’s side to appear in the open beside the seated Iroquois.

  Arnold was speaking, the rolled charter in his hand now, his words like some rehearsed homily. As he finished, he stuffed the charter into the sleeve of his coat, draped it over the log he had been sitting on, then stepped toward the soldiers who, as if on cue, rose from the log some of them sat on and parted, pulling away the blanket that had covered the log to reveal two wooden kegs. The sergeant appeared by the kegs, lifting one onto a rock, and with a flat stone pried up the sealed ring of willow that had secured the cap. Arnold began lifting objects out, unwrapping the leather scraps that covered many of them, passing them out among the Indians. Combs. Flint strikers. Horn cups. Pewter spoons.

  A murmur of excitement moved through the Iroquois. Ravencatcher watched with chagrin. Tashgua remained expressionless. The sergeant lifted the second keg, settled it onto two logs, and pulled out the bung at the bottom. A thick yellow substance oozed out. Honey.

  Arnold gestured the Indians forward, led them back to the tree and into its dark hollow. Duncan, every instinct screaming alarm, followed. The soldiers had turned the hollow into a warehouse. Kegs were stacked five high, thirty kegs, perhaps forty, all stamped with the Ramsey R-the very kegs he had seen in the Ramsey cellar. As Arnold began speaking about how the gifts would be distributed among all the tribes, Duncan watched soldiers tending a new fire two hundred feet away, holding up tin mugs for the Iroquois.

  Duncan lingered as the chieftains filed out for the hot tea being offered by the soldiers. In the light that filtered through the holes and slits along the base of the tree, he quickly searched for hidden weapons. There were none, only the stacks of kegs packed with bribes for the Iroquois, proof of the power of Ramsey’s protecting spirit. He exited the dark chamber and circuited the massive trunk again, to no avail. On the log in front of him were Arnold’s coat and hat. Lying nearby was the carved drum log Tashgua and his son had used the day before. Arnold was at the fire, beside Ramsey, serving out tea from a tall kettle. Tashgua was ten feet away, his eyes closed now as he chanted in a whisper. With one swift motion, Duncan pulled the charter from Arnold’s sleeve and slipped it into the log drum. He lifted the log, a hand at both ends, and ceremoniously carried it into the tree chamber, kneeling to set it in the center of the pool of light cast through the entry. He glanced up to see Arnold watching him now. He offered the vicar a nod, then solemnly ran his hand along the log drum. Arnold shot him a peeved glance, took a step toward Duncan, then was interrupted by Sarah’s outstretched hand. She looped her arm through Arnold’s, then led him in the opposite direction, back toward the fire.