“They would have broken your arms, too,” Jamie said, still facing the cairn of the old tribes.
“I should have sung with him,” Duncan repeated. After a moment he sat on the log beside his brother. “You’re going west. You mean to go to the Iroquois towns.”
“No. Tashgua understood before he died. The old ones there understood.”
“Understood what?”
“Do you know how many settlers there are in the English colonies?”
“A hundred thousand, perhaps two.”
“Hundreds of thousands, nigh a million, and increasing every day. There’s maybe thirty thousand Iroquois, far fewer of the Lenni Lenape and other tribes. Every year another twenty or thirty miles of forest is taken. Tashgua understood it. Conawago understands it. Woolford understands it.”
“What exactly?”
“About the future. The tribes all look to the future as a time when white men and red men live beside one another. But the white men, they assume that in the future there will be no more Indians.”
The words raised an unexpected pain. Duncan buried his head in his hands a moment. “The army, Jamie. We can explain things. You have a future-”
Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out a well-worn letter. “Woolford found this on Pike. It cautions me about trusting the king and the king’s army. It reminds me of what the army did in the Highlands, and to the Highland way of life. The one who wrote it suggests that naught but disaster comes when men without conscience take on the mantle of command.”
Duncan stared at the ground. It had taken many weeks, and it had gone through many unintended hands, but the letter Duncan had written the night before Evering’s death had finally reached his brother. “You mean to go far,” he said at last. He was having trouble making his tongue work. He had waited years to speak like this, brother to brother, and now Jamie was leaving.
“There are places beyond the Ohio that will see no settlers for two or three more generations at least. If there had been such lands back home, we would have done the right thing long ago.”
“So you’ll do it now for a few Scots and some of the Iroquois.”
“We’ll do it for all Scots, and all Iroquois.” Jamie stood and, as Duncan watched, opened his pack, pulling out an inch-wide strip of wampum. He placed it over his wrist and finally looked into his brother’s face. “We wish you to come with us. There is a place for the McCallum clan out there, away from the world.” He bent and pulled something from behind the cairn. It was Duncan’s own pack.
It was Duncan who broke his brother’s earnest gaze, looking out into the dark forest as he struggled for words. “You forget who I am. A transported convict with a warrant to send me back to prison.”
“Run. You would not be the only wanted man among us. The wilderness is wide. The king is far away.”
“The war will be over in a year or two. The army will turn toward Europe and Asia and the Caribbean. They will forget you. But Ramsey will never forget me. He would hire more men like Hawkins to find me. And once they did, your secret would be lost.”
Jamie silently paced around the old cairn, his hand on the top stone, then reached into his pack and extracted a tattered piece of wool. “I took leave once from the barracks in Chester, told them I was going to Glasgow. But instead I went back to the old house. It was all in ruins, with gorse and heather growing out of the crumbled walls. But I found this under the remnants of a smashed chest.” He unfolded a piece of tartan, a foot wide and two feet long. It was the brown-and-green plaid favored by the McCallum clan. He handed it to Duncan. “The chief of my clan should have this.”
Duncan’s hand trembled as he reached for the wool. He had never expected to see the plaid again.
“In the shards of the chest were small stockings and britches,” Jamie added in a brittle whisper. “Mother was saving it for him, for when he grew older.”
“Angus,” Duncan whispered back, a new pain rising in his heart. Angus, their younger brother, who had not survived the bloodbath after Culloden.
It was a long time before either spoke. They barely moved, Jamie standing with the truth-speaking wampum on his hand, Duncan with the tartan on his. Finally Duncan stretched the cloth in front of him. “I remember the looms,” he said, an unexpected calm entering his voice. “Out in the islands. The women washed the wool by the sea.”
“Sometimes grandfather piped as they worked. And you and I romped among the seals. He watched us close, because sometimes the seals would take children away for their own.”
With one firm stroke, Duncan tore the cloth in half. Jamie’s momentary chagrin turned to solemn acceptance as Duncan handed him his half. As Duncan set his piece in his pack, he paused, looked at his brother, and pulled out the pipes.
He played tunes from their youth, bringing faraway smiles to their faces, before switching to one used by their clan in battle, facing Edentown as he played. When he finished and turned back to the log, Jamie and his pack were gone.
When he finally emerged from the forest, the coach that had brought the Ramsey children was at the front of the house, its team hitched, baggage being loaded onto it. Duncan hurried to the house, reminding himself that he had not seen Sarah all day, remembering with a shudder Ramsey’s vow to dispatch her to the trepanning surgeon in Philadelphia.
His throat tightened as Sarah emerged from the house with a load of baggage. But she wore no travel clothes, and instead of returning into the house she began speaking with the bearded driver, who was nodding repeatedly, nervously, as if receiving directions from a new employer.
Duncan left his pack on the schoolhouse steps and eased himself onto the end of the porch of the great house, staying in the shadows, then settled into the one of the chairs near the door. He had no reason to believe she had noticed him until after she had retreated inside.
“Please fetch Mr. McCallum a mug of cold milk,” he heard her call through the open door as she hurried upstairs.
Duncan drained the milk when it was brought, then slipped inside, aware that Ramsey could explode out of his library at any moment. But then his eye caught movements in the sitting room, where still the curtains were drawn. Crispin was there, looking as frightened as Duncan had ever seen him. Ramsey was sitting on the day bed where Duncan had left him, mindlessly letting Crispin lift his limbs as the houseman dressed him.
Crispin’s fear spread to Duncan. He backed out onto the porch, but as he turned, he found himself face-to-face with Sarah. She offered a shy smile and seemed about to speak when her gaze abruptly shifted over his shoulder.
“There are blankets and pillows in the coach,” she announced in a flat voice.
“Are you traveling, daughter?” came a thin, unsteady voice from behind Duncan. Crispin had led Ramsey outside.
“When our business is complete, you are traveling, sir,” Sarah explained in a new, resolute tone, then pointed to a small table that had been placed on the porch beyond the door, with an inkpot, a quill, and several documents secured under a candlestick holder. She was wearing her mother’s ruby cross.
Duncan edged away, was about to step off the porch when Sarah touched his sleeve and pointed him to one of the chairs by the table.
“I don’t understand.” Though Ramsey had slept for hours, he seemed as weak as when Duncan had led him inside at dawn. Crispin appeared, carrying a cup of tea, which he set on the little table. The tea seemed to persuade Ramsey to sit. He lifted the porcelain cup, holding it in midair. He seemed to see something in his daughter he had not noticed before.
“You are leaving Edentown,” Sarah announced. “Go to New York town. Go back to England. Go to your southern plantations. Anywhere but here. I am staying here, with Jonathan and Virginia.”
Ramsey slowly lowered the cup. A spark flickered in his dull eyes. “You cannot just-”
“I have not finished.” Sarah seemed to have lost interest in his words. “Crispin stays with us.” It was indeed a new Sarah, wrought from the fire of the
night before. “And you will sign these papers. The first withdraws your request for Mr. McCallum to be sent back to prison in Scotland. The second sets forth your finding as magistrate that Mr. Lister is innocent of all charges related to the murders. The third certifies over your name as magistrate that the deserter Captain James McCallum and his men are all dead, killed by Hurons. The fourth grants a power to me for the conduct of all affairs related to the Ramsey property at Edentown. The next states your decision to convert the Ramsey Company to a true commercial enterprise. One half will go to me, for the betterment of this settlement. One half will be shared among all the men of the Company, the proceeds to be held until the end of their indentures.”
Duncan tried in vain to read the papers from where he sat, but he could see that two different hands were used in their drafting. Crispin’s and Conawago’s.
“You go too far.” Ramsey’s voice was still weak, but now not entirely without venom. “I will not tolerate-”
“Mr. McCallum, would you please summarize the new report you and Captain Woolford will prepare for us to dispatch to the governor if Lord Ramsey does not comply?” Sarah did not look at Duncan as she spoke. He saw now that she was struggling to keep control. Crispin stepped closer, to her side. Another figure had appeared by the steps. Woolford was wearing his dress uniform again.
Duncan glanced at Ramsey, then chose to speak to the stack of papers. “There would be many pages dedicated to review of the evidence. But the conclusion will be straightforward. Agents in the employ of Lord Ramsey were the murderers of four men.”
“You’re nothing, McCallum!” Ramsey spat. “A convict, a damned Highland mongrel!”
“Lord Ramsey,” Duncan continued, “persuaded the royal court to create the Ramsey Company under false pretenses.”
“You wouldn’t dare!” Ramsey snarled.
“Then Lord Ramsey further obtained a land charter from the king under false pretenses, knowing he could never meet his promise to the king without committing crimes against homesteaders and our Iroquois allies. In time of war, Lord Ramsey violated the governor’s orders against the taking of scalps. He joined with a traitor in the ranks of His Majesty’s army who had conspired with the French at Ticonderoga, who had murdered the king’s own rangers to hide the evidence of his treachery.”
“I never knew about Pike and the French!” Ramsey protested.
“It would not take a stretch of a barrister’s tongue to suggest that Lord Ramsey conspired against the king himself,” Duncan continued. He looked out over the town, his gaze sweeping across the bitter homesteaders and the former members of Ramsey’s militia. “We could obtain fifty, nay a hundred, signatures to vouchsafe every word.”
Ramsey threw his tea into Duncan’s face. As Duncan calmly wiped it off, the patron began signing the documents.
When he finished, Ramsey fixed Duncan with a poisonous glare. “You’re still a Ramsey slave for seven years,” he spat. “By order of an English judge. There is naught anyone here can do to change that.” Without another word, with no effort to bid good-bye to Jonathan and Virginia, who watched from the doorway, Ramsey mounted the coach and snapped orders to the driver.
“But Pike,” Duncan said to Woolford. “He and Cameron-”
“Four of Tashgua’s warriors left in two canoes before dawn,” Woolford said in a solemn voice. “With Pike and Cameron both trussed and gagged. His sergeant and I will report they both disappeared in an engagement with the Huron. They will be taken far west and sold as slaves to some unknown tribe.”
Duncan shuddered. It was, he had to admit, perfect justice for such men, and they could never be trusted to an official court without betraying secrets best left unspoken.
“Hawkins?” Duncan asked.
“Not a sign. There’s not a man, Indian or European, he will be safe with, not for hundreds of miles. Five of the surviving settlers have already left to track him, and they will find him, in some camp in some forest when he least expects it. They will know how to deal with him.” The ranger lifted his hand. “I’m leaving as well.” Duncan saw a cluster of men waiting at the forest’s edge-Woolford’s remaining rangers.
“You’re one of us, Duncan. You’d be welcome running at my side.”
Duncan took his hand and the men exchanged a long, sober stare. “You do me honor, Captain, and those are words I never expected to say to a British soldier.”
“American,” Woolford said, as if correcting him. “And not a soldier-a ranger.”
“No Shakespeare for our parting?”
Woolford grinned, and glanced at Crispin. “‘We few,’” he said, “‘we happy few, we band of brothers.’” He unhooked the shiny gorget from his neck, stuffed it into a pocket, and stepped away to his men.
The dust from the coach had barely settled when Sarah summoned the keepers and told them to begin dismantling the palisade, and to use the wood for new cow sheds. She declared that a large meal would be served at the end of the day, under the trees by the house. Duncan joined Conawago and Lister as they worked at the palisade, prying out logs, chiseling new joints so the beams could be reassembled into long lean-tos.
When the men were washed and the meal finally served out in steaming bowls and chargers, the members of the Company hung back, staring at the U-shaped table arranged by Sarah by the garden. They had never eaten with the Ramsey family, knew better than to expect to sit at the same table. But Sarah bent to her brother and sister, then the three of them stepped into the throng, pulling hands, directing men to the benches. When Sarah finally sat, Jonathan pulled Duncan forward and put him beside him his older sister.
The men listened at the end of the meal as Sarah explained the changes in the Company. There would be no more keepers, only foremen, the chief of which would be Mr. Lister, henceforth to be known as Mr. McAllister, who would sleep in one of the rooms in the great house. There would be a new barn, but first the settlers’ cabins would be rebuilt, then some new cabins at Edentown, for Sarah was sending to Philadelphia for a score of women who wanted honest jobs as cooks, laundresses, and weavers. When she described the final change, the sharing out of the Company, few seemed to understand. Then the men who had served on whaling ships described how the proceeds of the work on board were shared out to every member of the crew. Jaws dropped, eyes went round.
“I thought they would rejoice in the news,” Sarah said as they cleared away the table. Most of the men had left with sober, contemplative expressions.
“Their eyes. Did you not see their eyes?” Duncan asked. “They were different men when they left, chewing on something they had not tasted for a long time. You have given them hope.” And he had learned well enough that here, in this strange new land, hope need not be the poison it had been on board their prison ship.
The rejoicing came soon enough. Men began trickling back to the now lantern-lit table, some with musical instruments. There was singing and dancing and, for the first time at Edentown, the sound of grown men laughing.
Sarah brought out a blanket and she sat under one of the trees with Duncan, studying Professor Evering’s comet. Eventually Crispin and the young ones went inside, and as the men wandered back to their barracks, Sarah rolled the blanket over their legs and she put her head on Duncan’s shoulder.
He woke alone in the morning, the blanket empty beside him. Sarah was sitting on the kitchen steps, holding a slip of paper. “He’s gone,” Sarah said with a tone of surprise. “He left a note.”
Spirits do not die, Conawago had written, they just take on new shapes. Duncan turned it over. There was nothing else.
“He was on the porch at dawn and asked if there was a scrap of paper that might be found,” Sarah explained. “I showed him an empty ledger in the library. He spent an hour in there, at the desk, then appeared with his pack and bow. Later, when I checked, he had taken only a page, from the back of the book.”
Duncan found the journal still on the desk, ran his finger along the edge where the page had been cut o
ut. He held the book on edge at the window, seeing the faint indentations on the page underneath. Moments later he was rubbing a quill along the fresh soot in the fireplace. Soon the indentations took shape as he lightly ran the edge of the feather over the page. It was another map, showing rivers and ranges to the north and west. He studied it with an odd longing, trying to make sense of the dozen small circles Conawago had carefully drawn on the map, trying to reconcile them with his strange parting words. Then a glimmer of recognition rose as he examined the lowest circle, the nearest one, and its position between river and range.
Sarah was still on the steps when he returned. “I told him yesterday I had a room for him in the house, that he had a family at last.” Her voice had a strange quiver in it. “I hope you will take it now, Duncan.”
He looked at her without replying, then gazed out into the forest. They sat in silence for several minutes, then she rose and faced him, staring into his eyes. She offered another of her small, knowing smiles and stepped back into the kitchen.
Sarah returned ten minutes later, carrying his pack and rifle. “It seems I am always packing for you, Duncan McCallum,” she said, trying to push strength, even whimsy, into her voice. She tied a small pouch of food to the top of the pack. “You need to be with your brother, and who am I stop you?”
He looked in confusion from the pack to Sarah. “You know I am bound. Still a prisoner in the eyes of the law.”
“I cannot change what the law has decreed,” Sarah admitted. “But you are not an escaped prisoner unless you are reported as such. And the only one who can legally complain of your absence now is myself,” she explained, catching him again with her deep green eyes. She flushed and looked down. “My heart will complain,” she whispered toward her feet. “But that is a crime I choose not to share with the government.”
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