Eye of the Raven amoca-2

by Eliot Pattison

  Rideaux's eyes grew round with wonder, then he shot several quick syllables toward the Indians in the shadows. Two of the men darted out the door. A woman came forward with a heavy clay jug and several wooden cups. The Frenchman's dangerous glint softened, and a narrow grin returned as he gestured to the table. "I think we shall have some cider," he announced.

  The telling of a story, Indian fashion, was never in the linear style of Europeans, Duncan had learned. Now he saw that their taking of a story was much the same. He began to explain the death of the Virginia officer, then one of the Indians insisted on hearing about the field of skulls. He described Conawago's arrest and the trial at Ligonier only to be interrupted with questions about whether Iroquois were scouts at that garrison. When Mokie mentioned Penn's birth the night before the chiefs confession, an Indian woman broke in to inquire about the stars and moon that night, to Conawago's approving nod. At last, after nearly an hour the violent and bizarre events of the past week were out, spread on the table before them as it were, where they continued to be dissected and digested.

  "Did Skanawati wear paint when he confessed?" one of the men asked.

  Duncan's confirmation brought a flurry of quick, worried whispers among the Indians.

  "The trees you speak of," an aged woman asked. "Are they all on the old Warriors Path?"

  Conawago slowly nodded.

  "They tried once before," she replied.

  "Tried what exactly?" Duncan wanted to know.

  "The Virginians attempted to take our land. In 1744. They came to a treaty conference and took away a piece of paper from some Oneidas that said they owned all the Ohio country."

  "What happened?"

  "Everyone lied," the woman replied.

  "The Six Nations agreed to sell rights to the valley called Shenandoah," Rideaux explained. "Afterward the Virginians said the wording included all the lands in the west."

  Conawago and Duncan exchanged a worried glance. There seemed too many reasons why an Iroquois chief might want to kill a man from the Shenandoah.

  "The Six Nations had no right," the woman interjected. "It was always Shawnee country, not that of the Iroquois."

  Her words stilled all conversation. One of the men with his hair in the Mohawk fashion snapped an irritated word at her. For the first time Duncan realized the gathering included members of several different tribes.

  "Is he safe?" Rideaux asked at last.

  "Skanawati? For now he is protected as part of the convoy en route to the Lancaster treaty talks. But then there will be a trial."

  "You said he confessed."

  "Even if he were the killer there could be circumstances that might avoid a hanging."

  "You act as though you don't believe him. He is a chief of the Grand Council."

  "The killings continue. At the southern boundary tree we found two who had been murdered last summer. Was Skanawati on the Monongahela last summer?"

  Rideaux chewed on Duncan's words. "He stayed close to his family's village," he revealed in a low voice. "There was sickness, much sadness."

  "But you misunderstand the Virginians," the Frenchman added after a moment. "To their leaders the world is divided between those who have land and those who are slaves in one fashion or another. They are wise to the ways of the tribes."

  "I'm sorry?"

  "A powerful chief like Skanawati is the perfect killer as far as they are concerned."

  "But hanging him will only excite the tribes against them," Duncan countered. "They could hope for no more land, no more treaties."

  "To the contrary, Skanawati will never be permitted to die," Rideaux said. "Have you not heard of condolences? When someone in the tribes is slain the killer's family has the right to offer payment. Blankets. Flints. Baskets of corn. When the victim's family accepts the gifts the murder is resolved, harmony is restored."

  "The Virginians have no need for blankets and corn."

  The Frenchman rolled his eyes upward as if praying for patience to deal with the thick-skulled Scotsman before him. "For Virginia, this new treaty is all about perfecting its claim to the western lands. The Iroquois have protested that the new contract is not valid, that it was signed by minor chiefs in some tavern. But apart from Old Belt himself, Skanawati is the most revered chief in all the Six Nations. They will do most anything to save his life."

  "Land." Duncan whispered. "They would play with his life over land?"

  "Based on what you have explained lives have been played with for several months over that land. And now Skanawati has made himself the most important bargaining chip of all in the treaty talks," Rideaux concluded. A strangely sad air seemed to descend over the former priest. "You come on a fool's errand. The murders are unimportant. The land is everything."

  "Skanawati would not barter away Indian lands for his freedom."

  "He might for his life, and that of his village."

  Duncan studied the Frenchman. "You said there has been great sorrow there."

  "Thirty miles up the western branch. Their suffering this past year has been of Biblical proportions. Disease. Dissent. Crop failures. A flood. Ten of their people crossing the river ice this winter broke through and were swept away. If the Iroquois open up negotiations for condolences his life will be saved, meaning the treaty will be saved, and he will get the supplies to save his people."

  "Except," the Shawnee woman noted. "He was wearing paint."

  Duncan turned and looked at her questioningly.

  "War paint," was all she said.

  Duncan stared into his cup a long time. He had not heard the whole truth, he was certain, but much of what the renegade Jesuit and his flock had told him had the ring of truth. He absently looked toward the hearth. Mokie was petting one of the large black dogs that slept there. Conawago was gone.

  He rose from the table, uneasy for his friend, taking a step toward the door. Then Mokie screamed.

  In a blur of panicked motion the girl launched herself onto the top of a nearby barrel as one of the dogs began barking and leaping up at her. Rideaux cursed, and two of the Indians ran for the second animal, which ran braying in fright toward the door. It was not a dog, but a young bear.

  "He is very troubled since his mother died," the Frenchman offered with a shrug, then he darted outside after the animal.

  Mokie's screams quickly subsided as Duncan lifted her from the barrel and took her to a window perch, where she could see the chase for the bear. The beast spun around the piles of fur, tipping several kegs over, knocking down a stack of furs, then a rack of drying fish as its pursuers kept slipping on the soft, wet earth. Low giggles began to replace Mokie's sobs, and soon she wiggled free of Duncan and ran outside to join the pandemonium.

  Duncan was about to follow her when he realized he was the only one left in the room. Quickly he explored the doors on the far side, finding first a kitchen, its beams hung with dried apples and quarters of venison, its table bearing baskets filled with wild onions and fern fiddleheads. A dry pantry held baskets of grain on the floor, tobacco on its beams.

  The third room was lost in shadow. He took a step inside, pushing the door open to allow enough light for him to discern three benches and a table. Beyond these was deeper shadow that had the feel of a cavernous space. He took another tentative step then pushed back against the wall, his heart suddenly racing. Something alive lurked in the darkness beyond the table. He could not make it out, but sensed its presence, could even, incredibly, hear a low sound like the beating of a heart.

  Pressing against the wall, Duncan sidestepped to the door then slipped out and shut it. He closed his eyes for a moment, gripping his fear, then lit a candle and opened the door again.

  The flame illuminated a circle of only a few feet. He edged along the benches, studying the careful drawings of animals on the walls before lifting a paper from a bench with words in three columns. Moon, lune, ehnita, read the first words in each column. Man, homme, ronkwe, and water, eau, ohneka, the next two lines. Someone wa
s not only teaching English and French but they were also devising a system for writing down the Iroquois tongue.

  The table, he now saw, was more of a workbench, covered with wood shavings, carving knives, files, the small bars of lead used for making bullets, plus a number of oily rags.

  He halted, gazing into the darkness. The heartbeat was growing louder. Knowing the crowd outside might return at any moment, he clenched his jaw and stepped forward.

  After two steps he gasped in terror, nearly dropped the candle, and would have fled if he had not been paralyzed by the monster before him. His heart was in his throat, his feet were leaden.

  It was some primeval beast of the forest, a bear and more than a bear, a black fanged thing of nightmares, its jaw moving up and down as if preparing to consume Duncan, its yellow eyes shifting back and forth as if to see what other fresh meat might be approaching.

  Yet curiosity began to overcome his fear. The eyes moved without ceasing, the jaw shut in time with the eyes, and with the heartbeat. He lifted the candle higher, advancing, seeing now how a bearskin had been stretched over a frame that gave exaggerated bulk to the shoulders and kept the forelegs extended like encircling arms. It was a bear and not a bear. Over its shoulder were draped other skins, with heads intact, of a red fox, a mink, and a marten. Here and there feathers from birds of prey had been sewn along the forelegs. He stepped warily around the creature, discovering that the rear was uncovered, exposing the intricately constructed frame of carved wooden struts joined with straps of sinew that gave it its shape. Its heart was a box of clockwork gears, from which a wooden pendulum swung, its shaft extending through the gearbox into the head, so that each swing not only gave motion to the black and yellow discs suspended in the eyeholes but also tripped a lever that opened and shut the jaw. From the rear the rhythmic ticking of the clockworks was unmistakable. The fur had muffled the sound, softening it to the heartbeat he had heard.

  He returned to the worktable, setting down the candle as he lifted the rags. Underneath was another gearbox, this one largely disassembled, its gears, pinions, and screws piled beside it. With a thrill of discovery he lifted one of the gears, equal in size and shape to the largest one he had found at the murders. As he spun it between two fingers a floorboard creaked. Too late he sensed the movement at his back, too late he smelled the animal grease with which braves anointed their skin. As he turned, a club slammed into Duncan's skull, and he sank onto the floor.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A concussion could bruise the brain, a distant voice recited, sometimes destroying all function of the limbs. A crack in the skull plates made vital fluids hemorrhage, causing slow death as the victim descended into lunacy. Duncan hovered in a distant place, where lecturing voices seemed to come down a long pipe. He had the sense of being carried, but he was strangely disinterested in reacting, simply wanted to linger in the warm, welcome lethargy of this lightless place. Duncan wasn't conscious, he was having a strange dream of being conscious. In his dream came the sound of water lapping on rocks, a wetness on his legs. He was dropped onto something hard, with an object protruding so painfully into his belly that it seemed to stir a new voice, one screaming at him to awaken.

  "Duncan!" came the frantic, forlorn cry, followed by splashing. "You must come back to us!"

  His eyes flickered open. As he floated away Duncan watched dreamily as Conawago frolicked in a pool of water.

  A gust threw cold water onto his face. He blinked, becoming aware of the river and the log that was rapidly carrying him out into the treacherous main current. He shook his head and saw Conawago struggling in the water as he tried to save Duncan, then saw his friend disappear under the water. Suddenly he was painfully awake, and he saw death before him. He rolled off his log and dove.

  Conawago had never learned to swim. He had told Duncan that his spirit protector was a creature of land, as if it excused him. As Duncan swam he could not see his friend through the clear river water, could only see one of the many deep holes that pockmarked the bottom of the Susquehanna. He surfaced, gulped more air, and dove again. Downward he went, deep, into the hole, flipping his legs like the seals he had swum with as a boy, down until the light began to fade. Then finally Conawago was there, not trying to swim, his arms extended as if to embrace someone, his eyes open and puzzled as he hung suspended in the murk.

  Duncan emerged coughing, with barely strength enough to drag his friend's body onto the pebble shore, frantic that he could see no movement in Conawago's chest. He turned him over and pounded his back, wondering at the strange voice beside him until he realized that the desperate prayer in Iroquois was coming from his own mouth.

  Then suddenly, miraculously, the old man was coughing, spitting up great quantities of water, and there were feet running on the pebbles, hands reaching down for them as Duncan collapsed onto the beach.

  He awoke under a stack of blankets on a cot set next to a blazing fireplace, basking in dull, splendid warmth.

  "God's bones, McCallum, you both nearly died." Van Grut handed him a steaming mug.

  "Conawago-"

  "Is just beyond the door, drying in the sun."

  Duncan sat up, sipping the mug. It was not tea but a beefy broth. He drank half then quickly surveyed his surroundings. He was in a spare but comfortable room. The split log that served as fireplace mantel held a small wooden cross, a Bible lay on a plank table surrounded by rough-hewn benches. The needlepoint sampler hung by the door spelled out a blessing in German. From one of the two partially closed doors behind him wafted the smell of baking bread.

  "Moravians?" Duncan asked as he drained his mug, referring to the German missionaries who often lived among the Indians of Pennsylvania.

  As if in answer a girl with two blond braids stepped into the house, accompanied by two Indian children, a boy and a girl. All three carried small writing slates, covered with chalked words from the Bible in English and German.

  The children watched in apparent fascination as Duncan swung his legs onto the floor. The boy wiped his slate clean and began working with a piece of chalk.

  "Did you see who did this?" he asked Van Grut, rubbing his throbbing head.

  "Greta-" the Dutchman nodded toward the blond girl, — saw Conawago running into the water, shouting in fear, and ran for us as we sat with her parents. We saw you lying limp, adrift on the log, and realized he had gone to rescue you."

  "He can't swim," Duncan said, shuddering at the memory of his friend suspended as if dead in the clear river water.

  "But you!" the Dutchman exclaimed. "You were like a beast bred in the water."

  "I nearly was," Duncan absently said as he stepped to the doorway, checking his clothes. The small pouch that usually hung from his belt was gone, and with it the evidence taken from the murders. "We were a clan of the islands." He could see Conawago now, sitting cross-legged on a flat ledge stone jutting over the broad river.

  "Do you suppose I could get another?" he asked, extending his mug toward Van Grut. He found himself shivering. The cold of the water had seeped into his bones.

  "The kitchens of the Dutch and Germans overflow with warm concoctions," Van Grut replied with a smile, and he disappeared behind the door nearest the fireplace.

  Duncan turned to Greta. "You brought our rescuers," he offered in a grateful tone.

  "We prayed for your deliverance," came the reply, not from Greta but from the native girl beside her.

  The boy held up his slate. At the top he had drawn an image of a great fish spewing up two men. Duncan studied the trio. The Indian children were as well-groomed, as well-fed, as the German girl.

  "God watched over us as he did Jonah," Duncan agreed, then watched as the boy covered the fish with his hand, showing another image at the bottom, a series of concentric circles.

  The boy, apparently lacking the language skills of his sister, pointed meaningfully to the strange circles. "Lenni-Lenape," he said, then repeated the words, the native term for the Delaware Indians. Duncan
was about to press the two girls to explain when Van Grut returned with another steaming mug, announcing that a meal would soon be served.

  Duncan took the nourishing broth outside and sat beside Conawago. "Thank you," he said.

  "I was an old fool," Conawago muttered. "Nearly got us both killed."

  The river had harrowed him to the core. Duncan had never seen his companion so pale, never heard before this hollow tone in his voice. He remained silent a long time, watching a flight of geese, staring at the living, rippling water of the mighty river, worrying with all his heart about the old Indian. "The cold of the deep water is like no other," he said. "I've seen it affect people in many strange ways."

  Conawago did not reply, nor did he react when Duncan set the hot mug on his leg and wrapped his fingers around it. "Drink. Please."

  After a moment the old Nipmuc abruptly looked down at the mug, as if he had not heard the words, only sensed its heat.

  "You need to push the chill from your belly," Duncan urged, and finally Conawago complied, sipping at first, then quickly draining the contents down his throat.

  Duncan watched with relief as the color slowly returned to Conawago's cheeks. "Did you see who put me on the log?"

  "Just their backs. Two bucks, one with an eagle feather dangling in his braid, the other with red leggings with tattoos on his back."

  "You saw them carry me from Rideaux's compound?"

  "No. I was behind it, circling it, trying to understand it. I have never seen such a place."

  "Nor I," Duncan agreed, and he quickly described the clockwork creature he had found.

  "It was meant to be a bear?"

  "More like an amalgam of many forest creatures, or a symbol of all."