Eye of the Raven amoca-2

by Eliot Pattison

  "You mean it blocked his tongue?" Duncan ventured.

  "No." Long Wolf lifted a kindling stick and pushed the lump back toward Duncan, gesturing for him to put it away. The copper scared him. "It is his soul," he declared matter-of-factly, "shriveled and melted. Without a soul the dead will never speak, never see, never find the other side."

  An unnatural chill gripped Duncan's spine. He too was now strangely scared to touch the metal. He pushed it back into his pouch with a fingertip.

  Old Belt produced a little bag of deerskin and upended it by the fire. Three more molten lumps dropped out. "The killer did the same to the warriors Skanawati sent," he said in a mournful tone. "We cannot let this happen to Skanawati." He stared pointedly at Duncan. "He is the best of us. We will need him on the other side."

  Duncan looked to Conawago for help. But the expression on his friend's face said he too was frightened, more than Duncan could have imagined.

  "Tell us what the words of the dead say on the trees. Perhaps it is how they speak when they have no tongue." Long Wolf tossed wood on the fire, making it flare up for more light. He then carefully extracted and unfolded a square of finely tanned doeskin, laying it beside the fire. The skin showed signs of wear, of being folded and unfolded and handled often. A shiver ran down Duncan's spine as he saw the geometric shapes painted on the skin. The treaty chiefs had recorded eight groupings of the shapes from the trees. He returned the somber gaze of each man in turn. The chiefs were trying to reconcile the deaths in their own way.

  "I have not unlocked the magic of these shapes," Duncan replied, "but I can tell you each set marks a death along the Warriors Path. I think it is the killers, not the dead, who make them. And," he added, "I am aware of only four, maybe five." He reminded himself that the surveyor Putnam had never been accounted for.

  "The three members of the turtle clan Skanawati sent down the trail late this winter," the old Mohawk chief said in a heavy voice. "They were killed at such trees as they tried to clean the old shrines."

  "Why?" Duncan asked. "Why would he have sent them?" He stared at the molten lumps. They would be a perfect shield for a murderer among the Indians. Any body discovered with such a lump would be taboo. No one would have touched it, no one would ever have tried to learn more about it.

  "Skanawati told them the old trees, the marker shrines, needed to be cleansed, needed to have the dust removed from their eyes and ears."

  Duncan looked at Conawago. The chief was referring to a greeting ceremony, like that performed at the edge of the woods between travelers. It was what Conawago had performed at the western tree. Skanawati had guessed the other trees were also ancient shrines.

  "None of this explains why they wanted the dead Virginian," Conawago pointed out.

  Long Wolf frowned. "There is a French shaman who could put more of those wheels in his chest and make him live again," he said. "Neither warrior nor soldier could stop such a creature."

  The words hung in the air. Duncan wanted to dismiss them as absurd. But then he saw the frightened way the other chiefs reacted to them.

  "Before he left for the western lands," offered Old Belt, "Skanawati argued to the Grand Council that the world was coming to an end, that the Iroquois had brought it upon themselves by ignoring the ancient, honored ways. There is an old tale told at our campfires of how our world will end with a great monster of rock eating everything." The chief paused, drawing deeply on the pipe, letting the smoke slowly waft out of his mouth as he seemed to consider his own words. "After Skanawati left, an old woman of our tribe had a dream that a monster came to her village, some sort of European man machine with a chest of metal, and he began eating the village, starting with the children."

  Duncan wanted to shake the chiefs, to reason with them, to tell them it was impossible. But he dared not break through the solemn, anxious atmosphere. Dreams could never be ignored or denied, for they were considered messages from the other side. And the moment a man had been found with a gear in his chest, the terrible vision had become possible.

  "You are the one who possesses the power to reach across the edge of the worlds, to the spirits of your tribe," Old Belt declared to Duncan. "You must ask them to speak with the Iroquois spirits on that side. Ask what we must do so our children will not die."

  It was Duncan's turn to despair. He did not know how to say yes, was not certain what was being asked of him, yet could not bear to refuse the wise old man, who reminded him of so many Highland chieftains he had known, vital, courageous men, now in the ground, whose children, whose world, had been destroyed. He found himself struggling against one of his recurring visions of his dead family, reaching out for him.

  "We will need more tobacco," Duncan said at last.

  The despair that seized him every few weeks was like a living thing, a beast that burrowed into him, devouring his vital organs so that Duncan could not see, could not feel, was sometimes not even conscious of his whereabouts. It was a cold winter dusk when he had found himself sitting on the lip of a hundred-foot cliff with Conawago an arm's length away, ready to grab him.

  "You need to let them go, Duncan," the old Indian had said. "You need to let your dead family go."

  Duncan flinched. As ever, Conawago's arrow had hit the mark. "It's a dark, cold spot in my heart that seems to ebb and flow like the tides. I don't think it will ever go away."

  "How old were you? Eleven? Twelve?"

  "Ten," Duncan replied. "I was ten when the English killed them."

  "And hundreds of miles away at school. Do you possibly think you could have stopped it?"

  "I would have died with them. I should have died with them."

  "I was the same age when the Jesuits took me away," Conawago said after a long silence, "promising I would return with knowledge to help my people. When I finally came back I had all the knowledge but my people had vanished. I spent most of my life looking for them. You must not spend the next fifty years looking for ghosts." The old Nipmuc extended his hand to guide Duncan back from the edge.

  An hour after leaving the council fire Duncan sat on a solitary ledge, the moon high overhead, scanning the low starlit horizon of the lands below. He gazed down at the Indian camp three hundred feet beneath him, where he had sat in silence after the haunting words of the chief, letting the tobacco smoke waft around them, until finally Conawago had turned to explain.

  "I spoke about you," he had said in a near whisper, "and of our time in the great woods. Old Belt believes there is a reason men like you and me survive the loss of our tribes, believes that we have special voices that reach the spirits. He says the Iroquois must learn all the ways to connect to those spirits. Word has come to him of a plaid man who can make the voice of the old ones."

  When Duncan had raised his brows in confusion Conawago motioned toward the shadows. There he saw his friend had brought his tattered haversack into the lodge.

  Understanding at last, Duncan had taken the bag and disappeared into the darkness, alone. Conawago knew well the solitary communion Duncan now needed as he unpacked the bundle wrapped in tattered muslin. With slow, reverent motions he laid the intricately crafted pieces in a pool of moonlight before assembling them. The first test of a reed brought a reply from a whippoorwill.

  "You are clan chief," a familiar voice called from inside him, in the tongue of the Highlands, "which means you must show the others the right thing to do." Though he had first heard them spoken at his father's investiture many years before, his father often repeated them to him in his dreams. "Never mind that we will never see the Highlands again," an exiled countryman had declared to him the year before. "Your clan is all those under the boot of the world."

  At last the bladder bulged with air, the reeds were wetted and set, the drones tuned. He clamped the blowstick in his teeth and began fingering the chanter. He could not have foreseen how every fear, every resentment, every longing for the justice that always seemed to elude him would crest in that moment when the first notes sounded, swe
eping over him in a heart-thumping crescendo. By the end of his first tune he thought he would weep. By the end of the second he was no longer mournful, he was fighting, he was standing against the world, he was the last pipe speaking for the lost clans and dying tribes, and in that moment he would have charged a line of infantry alone, sword in one hand and pipes in the other.

  He did not know when Conawago arrived to sit on a moonlit rock nearby, did not see the painted Iroquois bucks who had earlier assaulted him arrive to sit facing outward as if to protect him. He played the rally songs of long-ago battles, the airs from Highland romps, the ballads of women sending their men to do battle against impossible odds. As the moon crested he discovered the great brute McGregor sitting beside him, sobbing like a bairn.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Magistrate Brindle was ill-pleased with Duncan's musical performance, his nephew Felton reported as Duncan rose up from under the wagon after a few hours' sleep. Horses had been spooked. Several of the Welsh teamsters had insisted a banshee was descending on the convoy. As more grievances were recited, McGregor appeared at Duncan's side. Something like rancor flashed across the gangly young Quaker's face, then he shrugged, offered an exaggerated bow of his head, and retreated.

  As Duncan made ready for travel he glanced up at the high ledge where he had played the pipes. Conawago was there, stretching in the dawn light, waking with the Iroquois chiefs. They had arrived the night before with wondering eyes to listen as he had played, had nodded solemn approval when he had finished. When Duncan had left them they were settling down on a bed of moss as Conawago pointed to the sky. "Ootkwatah," he had heard his friend say as he stepped away. "Pleiades." He was explaining to the chiefs the European names for the constellations.

  Van Grut now approached, extending a tin mug of tea, which Duncan ravenously swallowed. He uneasily eyed the four young red-painted warriors who had followed him back to the magistrate's camp. They had been highly animated since hearing his pipes, pointing at Duncan and making low exclamations to each other, words that might have been praise or might have been the opposite. He no longer knew whether they plotted to protect him or harm him, though he had no doubt about their intentions for the breakfast the Quakers had been cooking.

  "Yo ha!" one of them suddenly moaned and held his cheek, dropping a piece of bacon he had furtively lifted from the breakfast pan. When a companion bent to retrieve the meat a pebble flew from under the wagon and hit him in the temple. He cursed, but the other bucks laughed and pointed to a diminutive shape hiding behind a wagon wheel.

  "Mokie!" Duncan called out and scooped up the girl as she darted toward him. He found himself embracing the girl with more emotion than he would have expected. He released her, turning her around to examine the wound on her head. "I proclaim you healed," he offered good-naturedly.

  "They say it was you making that music last night," the girl said. "I heard it like in a dream, far away but asking me to come to it. Something kept pulling me back, but I went toward the music. Then suddenly I opened my eyes, and I was in Mama's arms."

  "Bagpipes, lass. I breathe into a little pipe, and the voices of all my grandfathers come trilling out the other end."

  She embraced him again, then insisted he sit while she brought him a meal of bacon and bread, the best breakfast he'd had in weeks. She disappeared inside the wagon with more food, but was chased out by her mother, who declared they would eat in the fresh air. Becca climbed down from the high gate then reached up. To his surprise it was Skanawati who handed down the infant, Penn, then with a rattling of chains the Onondaga chief climbed down. He smiled not with his mouth but his eyes as he recognized Duncan, then cupped his hand over his heart and swept it toward the sky. "I too heard your grandfathers," he said. "My heart was soaring."

  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.