Eye of the Raven amoca-2

by Eliot Pattison

  "Then I shall rely on Old Belt and his men."

  "The bounty on your head will draw the constables like flies. They will surely take you."

  Duncan noticed a short article on the page, above the cartoon. Iroquois Chief Rots in City Prison, read the headline. "The girl will be dead a moment after Red Hand sees her. Saving Mokie and capturing him will be worth the price. Easily worth six more years of indenture."

  Conawago watched the ships with Duncan in silence. "You know you wouldn't survive another year, Duncan. Once in Ramsey's hands, hidden from public view, he will eventually kill you. Or sell you as a slave to some Jamaican sugar plantation. Either way you die in months."

  "Sarah will hear. His daughter can stop him."

  "That prospect will serve only to accelerate his plans."

  Another ship began pulling away, its deck laden with cut lumber.

  "It seems to me," Duncan observed in a distant voice, "we should focus on the certain death on a gallows two days from now, not the merely possible one months from now."

  "You're a damned fool, Duncan McCallum. Ask Skanawati and he would tell you to stop interfering, just flee to safety in the wilds while you can."

  "Then we all agree. I am a damned fool," Duncan replied, and he began outlining his plan for sunset.

  The lamplighters had begun their evening rounds when Duncan and Conawago slipped out of the building, one of the soot-stained men walking in advance with a ladder and keg of whale oil to fill the city lanterns before they were lit. The day sailors and fishermen were moving home, a woman who had been selling fresh oysters lowering her baskets into the river for the night.

  Conawago grabbed Duncan's arm as a long droning whistle broke through the background of sounds. Iroquois bowmen with signal arrows had been concealed at the head of every other pier, and the signal they heard came from one of the docks above Market Street. They moved at the fast, stealthy pace used when chasing deer in the forest, in and out of the shadows, slowing when the cover diminished, arriving at the dock five minutes later. An Indian rose up from behind stacks of crates and pointed to a diminutive figure perched on a mound of thick hawser rope.

  Where are the constables? Duncan asked himself. Conawago had convinced him that a trap would indeed be set for him, but there was no sign of the city's enforcers. He inched along in the shadow of a row of tall hogshead barrels, then used the cover of a slow-moving freight wagon to reach the foot of the long pier that extended from the wharf that fronted the river. Mokie seemed to sense something behind her, but turned and saw nothing. Duncan, with no cover left, strode purposefully toward the girl. He was perhaps forty paces away when a shape materialized in the gray light behind Mokie. Red Hand had been under the wharf, hidden in the timbers below, and now he climbed out only a few feet from the girl.

  "Mokie! Behind you!" Duncan shouted, then sprang forward. Another signal arrow sounded. A shout rose in Iroquois from the shadows of the warehouses. The girl spun about and screamed as Red Hand coolly approached, his long knife glinting in the dusk.

  Duncan was in the air, leaping toward the Shawnee as he reached the girl. He hammered the Indian's knife hand down from its killing stroke. Red Hand delivered a savage kick that knocked Mokie to the ground then turned to Duncan with hatred in his eyes.

  Waiting with a blade half as long as his assailant's, Duncan feigned a thrust as Red Hand charged him then landed a vicious kick on his enemy's knee. Red Hand rolled onto the planks of the pier, grinning now, and was instantly back on his feet. He fixed Duncan with a treacherous gaze, then paused as he heard the running feet on the wharf. The Indian grimaced, not with fear but with disappointment. "Another time, Scotsman," he spat, then turned and ran.

  Duncan turned to quickly scan those approaching. Only his Indian allies, no constables. Had Brindle used his influence after all? He spun about to pursue the Shawnee. The Indian had fled not toward the town but further down the adjoining wharf, where two wide ships were berthed so closely together they could provide a platform to leap across to the adjacent dock, where no pursuers awaited.

  Red Hand's outstretched knife warned away the sailor standing sentry at the gangway of the first ship, allowing the Shawnee to vault onto the wide deck, but a group of sailors emerging from a hatchway spotted the intruder, causing him to veer away. Duncan made a frantic leap onto the ship's bow and discovered that the rigging above was in the process of replacement, leaving several lines hanging down from the yards. He grabbed one near the far rail, pulled it back, and with a running leap and a swing across the open water he propelled himself onto the deck of the second ship. By the time Red Hand reached it Duncan was standing before him, a heavy marlin spike in his hand. The Shawnee eyed him for an instant, glanced at the pursuers, then launched himself up the shroud lines of the mainmast. It was a large ship, so large its upper rigging disappeared into the night shadow above. Duncan leapt onto the shroud lines on the opposite side of the mast and scrambled upward.

  Red Hand was like a spider on the ropes, scampering over them without hesitation, leaping, twisting in midair, catching a strand as he flew. But Duncan had spent his early boyhood playing in ships' rigging, was as at home among the ropes and spars as any seasoned sailor.

  It was a bizarre game of cat and mouse fought in the air. For long, agonizing moments Duncan could not see Red Hand, but each time the Shawnee was betrayed by the moonlight reflecting off his proudly oiled skin. Up the shrouds and ratlines, running out on a yard, leaping onto a stay to propel himself hand over hand from the foremast to mainmast, dropping into the broad platform of the main top, Red Hand moved with amazing stealth and speed. Pausing for a moment to study the pursuers on the wharf searching the stacks of cargo, he glanced at Duncan and disappeared. There was only the mizzenmast then the dark water of the Delaware, where Duncan would surely lose him. Duncan grabbed another stay and half-climbed, half-slid toward the maintop, watching for any sign of the Shawnee in the rigging beyond. Missing his footing as he landed on the platform, he landed with a staggering fall. The stumble saved his life, for Red Hand had concealed himself behind the broad mast and greeted Duncan with a violent lunge that would have gutted him had he not fallen. He flung out with a fist, knocking Red Hand off balance long enough to regain his feet.

  The Shawnee mocked him as Duncan lashed out futilely with his own blade. "Your god is waiting for you," Red Hand called out.

  "McCallum!" came the gruff tones of Sergeant McGregor from below.

  "McGregor!" Duncan called back.

  Red Hand, knowing he would be an easy target for the soldiers' guns once he was spotted, cursed, then slashed one of the stays and swung away. The Indian was, Duncan suddenly realized, retracing his path in the rigging, bound not for the river but the city. "McGregor!" Duncan shouted again. "The girl!"

  Mokie still stood by the mound of rope, watching the pursuers as if it were a grand entertainment. There was still no sign of constables, but McGregor's entire squad had appeared and was trotting with their long muskets at the ready.

  Red Hand descended to the deck as Duncan swung across the gap between ships, then leapt onto the long bowsprit that extended over the wharf near Mokie. Duncan recklessly shoved off with another rope in hand, shouting Mokie's name as he swung. The girl wandered a few steps down the wharf, looking up in confusion as through the shadows a new band of men emerged. Seeking protection, she ran to the side of the lampman who had been filling the lanterns and was still looking down the long pier when Red Hand landed a few feet away. Duncan dropped down a backstay, burning his hands on the rope, landed on the deck, and vaulted over the rail.

  As the Indian ran toward the girl the lampman fled, abandoning his keg and ladder. From the opposite direction came a solitary figure, charging at Red Hand. Hadley had no weapon but his fists. Red Hand took a step backward as Hadley reached him, and with a stroke of his tomahawk knocked the Virginian to the ground. The sound caused Mokie to turn. She screamed but was paralyzed with fright.

  Dunc
an was seconds away when he saw one of the men from the street wrestle with a soldier, pulling away his musket. He froze. The soldier was down, being pummeled by three ruffians, and beside them Felton was aiming the gun directly at Duncan as more of his companions fanned out to surround Duncan. The men from the street had come not to help the girl but to help Felton trap Duncan. Red Hand, seeming to understand, grinned, then saw the soldiers approaching from the wharf, McGregor in the lead.

  With a lurch of his gut Duncan heard Felton pull the hammer back, saw the fiery discharge. The bullet hit not Duncan, not Red Hand, but the keg of whale oil that Red Hand stood beside. As Mokie darted away the keg exploded into white flame, propelling its contents upward. An instant later, the volatile oil soaking him, Red Hand burst into flame. The tomahawk fell from his hands as the Indian desperately, futilely, tried to rub the flames out. His loincloth and leggings ignited, his lock of hair ignited, his very skin caught fire as with a terrible bloodcurdling groan he staggered toward Duncan, his oil-soaked body now completely in flames.

  "Mother of God!" McGregor moaned. The smell of charred flesh bit into their nostrils. The sergeant grabbed a musket from one of his men and fired. Red Hand jerked backward then dropped to his knees, raising his burning arms to the sky as a second soldier fired. He collapsed in a ball of fire to the planks of the pier.

  Duncan lingered for a breathless moment then leapt to the wharfs edge and dove into the black waters below.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Duncan swam underwater with the long, sweeping strokes he had learned as a boy, keeping overhead the lighter shadow that marked the gap between the ships, swam until his lungs screamed, then surfaced to gulp fresh air and submerged again. With every stroke he was moving closer to the way of the outlaws, defying the entire city now, with every stroke the prospect of freedom and a new life tugged more strongly at his aching heart. He could climb up onto any of the great ships coursing out into the spring tide and leave his misery behind. Surfacing, he held on to the anchor rope of a dory left beyond the moored ships, watching as more and more torches were lit, as more and more men ran up and down the wharfs. Some searchers were being lowered on ropes to scan for him under the docks. A woman screamed, then another, as a crowd gathered around the charred remains of Red Hand.

  Releasing the rope, he let himself be pushed by the current down the broad river, past another wharf, then another, letting several ranks of the big ships pass, until suddenly a large vessel loomed over him. He let the merchantman pass, then without thinking grabbed a trailing manline. For a moment, as he climbed up the rope enough to rest against the great black hull, he was free, for a moment he was on the way to the Indies. With an instant's effort he could pull himself onto the deck and all would be behind him. The lights of Philadelphia passed alongside, and as they began to fade he looked up with longing at the ship's rail and dropped away. Minutes later he found an algae-covered ladder built into a pier and climbed back into the world.

  The guard had been doubled by the time Duncan arrived at the tribe's compound a quarter hour later. He watched from behind the trunk of a great elm, then slipped into the shadows under the high brick wall, worried now that the militia may have started patrols around the government house, worried too that the new fortune on his head might mean bounty hunters seeking him at all hours. He had no refuge left. His link to Marston was too thinly concealed for the scientist's house to be safe now. Barns and outbuildings would be searched. By now, for all he knew, his gun and kit had been found and confiscated. If by Ramsey's men, the lord would order his pipes be burned, as he had tried to do the year before. Duncan braced himself against a tree, fighting what seemed an overpowering weakness. He was cold and wet and bone weary, and hope seemed forever beyond his reach.

  Breathing deeply, refusing to succumb to despair, he suddenly sniffed the sweet, acrid scent of the tobacco used by the tribes and was buoyed for a moment by the memory of sitting in a sweat lodge with Conawago. He edged along the ivy-covered wall, discovering a small door, which he tried and found locked. Then hearing footsteps coming down the street, he launched himself into an awkward, desperate ascent, using the thick vines for support. He reached the top and rolled over, dropping onto the soft, moist earth of the garden.

  The Indian camp was quiet, its occupants all asleep save for the two men who were replenishing the small fire in the herb garden.

  Conawago said nothing, just reached out and embraced Duncan when he approached. "Still playing the fish," he observed, his voice cracking with emotion.

  Old Belt threw more wood on the fire, then gazed at the lighted window of the kitchen. "I believe," the Iroquois chief declared with whimsy, "we shall ask our servants to make us some English tea."

  Mokie had been escorted to Brindle's house by McGregor and his men, the Indians reported, while the charred remains of Red Hand had been wrapped in a sailcloth and taken to the pauper's cemetery.

  "Felton will have drinks bought for him for a month," Conawago remarked. "The Quaker hero saves an innocent girl, kills a fugitive murderer."

  Duncan leaned over the fire, soaking up its warmth. "When the Shawnee died the truth died with him," he stated.

  "With the Shawnee gone," Conawago rejoined, "you can concentrate on making yourself safe."

  Duncan did not have the strength to argue. He hovered over the fire in silence, pushing the river chill out of his bones, then watched with amusement as Old Belt led a small parade of the house staff out the kitchen door, the English servants carrying a tray with a teapot and fine china cups, chairs, and a small table. They watched in silence as the table was set for them by the fire and grinned as one of the women delicately poured out the tea and sliced a fresh loaf she had brought with it. Finding himself famished, Duncan quickly covered his bread with butter and chewed as Old Belt described the day's futile treaty deliberations.

  Suddenly the chief paused, grabbing his belt ax at the sound of a cry in the shadows. Long Wolf appeared, dragging a man bleeding from several scratches. Hadley grinned sheepishly as he saw Duncan and Conawago, did not resist when Long Wolf shoved him into the firelight.

  "This fool," the Mingo chief declared, "climbed over the wall into a bed of thorn roses."

  Duncan knelt at the Virginian's side, first inspecting his head to confirm that Red Hand's tomahawk had done no serious damage, then handing him a napkin to wipe away the blood on his arms.

  "When I came to, she was gone," the Virginian reported in an anxious voice.

  "Mokie is safe for now, back with Brindle," Conawago said.

  Hadley gave a sigh of relief then reached inside his shirt and handed Duncan a tattered piece of paper. "You wanted to know about the owners of the Susquehanna Company. Being a Burke has its advantages. I spoke to the man who is the tobacco merchant who acts as agent for the Virginia land company, then the family banker here. They made some inquiries. Before leaving for the pier, I took their reports."

  The paper contained a list of eight names, with numbers beside each indicating a number of shares. "Eight of the original owners have sold their shares. Each of them had a tale of reversals. A ship lost at sea. A sugar mill burned in a southern colony. An unexpectedly adverse judgment from a Philadelphia judge. Orders for timber or turpentine cancelled. Contracts with the army suddenly terminated. They all suddenly needed cash."

  "And Ramsey bought them out," Duncan suggested.

  Hadley nodded. "He promised to do it quietly, so as not to cause public humiliation. It seems he now has a controlling interest in the company opposing Virginia for the western lands." He pushed Duncan's hand back when he tried to return the paper.

  "No," Duncan said. "Get this to Brindle. Tell him everything you've just told me. Tell him if he looks he will find Ramsey's hand in at least some of the calamities that forced the sales of shares."

  Hadley nodded and secreted the paper back inside his shirt.

  "And ask the magistrate's help in finding the merchant Waller. We must know who replenishes
his accounts, who instructed him in dealing with the slaves."

  The Virginian nodded again. "I will ask if I might stay in his stable, to help watch over Becca and Mokie and the little one." He hesitated, looking up at Duncan. "What did you mean, the girl's safe for now?"

  "In the race to protect Mokie," Duncan replied, "has no one asked why they want her dead? She is still somehow a threat to the killers."

  "But she is only-" Hadley began, then paused.

  Voices were being raised in the house. In the light cast through the open window Duncan saw something fly across the kitchen, heard the shattering of china dishes and the frightened cry of a woman.

  "What kind of bull have they released in there?" Conawago wondered out loud as a pot flew out the window.

  It was, Duncan saw a moment later, the most vicious bull of all.

  "Go!" he yelled at Hadley. "Find McGregor!"

  "Run, Duncan!" Conawago gasped.

  But Duncan did not move. "No. I am too weary," he said, then a glance at his friend showed him Conawago understood the real reason. Most of those approaching from the kitchen door carried muskets. If they spotted Duncan fleeing they would fire into the Iroquois camp.

  From the light of the torches his escort carried, Duncan could see that Lord Ramsey had thinned in the past months, his plump face now much harder, though his fleshy jowls had not entirely receded, giving him an unflattering, half-made appearance. But his burning eyes, lit by arrogance and hate, had not changed.

  Not even his escort, four militia soldiers and two rough men with the look of stevedores, seemed prepared for Ramsey's wrath. The lord, shoving the man in front of him out of the way, stepped to Duncan and began beating him. "You worthless pig!" he cried in a cracking, high-pitched voice. "You Scottish scum! You damnable worm!" He slapped Duncan, then slapped him again, before pummeling him with his fists. Another curse came with each stroke. Duncan did not react, did not move. The great lord could put little power behind the blows, and any resistance would only invite his escorts to join in. Duncan staggered, taking the blows, returning Ramsey's malevolent stare until Conawago finally seized Ramsey's collar and pulled him away like a misbehaving child.