Eye of the Raven amoca-2

by Eliot Pattison

  "I'm sorry." Duncan puffed on his pipe and looked over at the two Indians. Skanawati was looking up at the sky again as he listened to Moses speak in low, quick tones in their native tongue. "Red Hand gambled. On the frontier such a valuable could have changed hands twenty times in a month." Skanawati leaned back. Duncan followed his gaze toward a circling hawk. He was, Duncan realized, looking for his raven.

  "But whom did he gamble with?"

  Duncan lowered his pipe. "His band. Ohio George. Some Hurons they sometimes ran with in the wilds."

  "And if I understand what Mr. Hadley has explained to me, someone from Philadelphia. A person who knew the comings and goings of Philadelphia surveyors. Suppose such a person," the Moravian said gravely, "also knew the comings and goings of our missionaries. I believe Samuel Felton was brought back to his family three years ago."

  The kernel of truth in Macklin's words began to take hold. Duncan nursed his pipe a moment as he contemplated the genteel Moravian town. "In Pennsylvania, if a European youth is freed from the Indians, might he come here, for the transition home?"

  "It is not only possible, it is almost certain. The governor favors us with the task, knowing we have our feet in both worlds. Our schools have many children orphaned in raids, more than a few rescued from Indian raiders."

  Duncan leaned toward Macklin with new interest. "Would your Sister Leinbach have worked with them?"

  "Of course. It was, one might say, her speciality. The elders prescribe a regimen for all students that teaches them about the tribes. The Indians learn from us English and German, and returnees often need to be taught the same. It takes one who has lived among the tribes to truly understand the returnees. Sister Leinbach's husband was with the Seneca when smallpox hit them. He died tending to them, and she insisted on carrying on his work."

  "Are there records showing which recovered captives were here, at the time she departed?"

  "We are Germans," Macklin reminded him. "Of course there are records, in great quantities. I can probably find out which night three years ago the brethren were served shad, and which night dumplings."

  As the two Moravians retreated, Conawago appeared, holding Mokie's hand. She wore the long dark dress of a house servant. Duncan instantly shot up, hands on the girl's shoulders, knowing the guards could take him inside at any moment. "Tell us true, girl, what did you find that night at the raiders' camp? We saw the guard you knocked down with a stone."

  Mokie winced, like a schoolgirl caught in mischief. "Mama and I needed food. There's always food at those camps. If ever we saw one, Mama would hide and I would go borrow some."

  "My God! You were stealing from the Huron raiders?"

  "From anyone we saw on the trail."

  Duncan shook his head in wonder. "What did you take that night?"

  "That one I knocked down had an old pouch with a little dried meat and some cornmeal, is all." She reached into the folds of her dress. "And this. Mama said I could keep it." She raised the glass ball in her fingers so that it reflected the red light of the dusk.

  Duncan stared in disbelief. "I think it would be safer with someone else, Mokie. Conawago will protect it for you. And you mustn't speak about it, or about seeing Indians that night. And go nowhere alone."

  The girl frowned, clutched the ball close to her breast for a moment, then sighed and extended it to the old Nipmuc.

  Duncan did not have the heart to tell her she had stolen one of the tokens Ramsey handed out to his murderers or that they too had worked out that she had secretly visited them the night before Burke's murder. As she walked away he revisited his memory of that night, and realized he had misunderstood everything about the moonlit camp at the ochre bed.

  He woke abruptly in the middle of the night, his senses telling him that something was amiss. He lay without moving, gazing into the deep shadows of the makeshift jail, then leapt up from his pallet. Skanawati was gone. Impossibly, the Indian was gone. Surely Duncan would have heard if the door had been opened, surely there was no other way for the chief to leave the sturdy little building. He tested the door, tested the window. Both were locked tight. Then he heard a tiny sound, of particles falling from the chimney into the massive fireplace that took up the end of the building. The sole chair in the jail was in the fireplace, leaning against the rear wall.

  He stripped off his shirt then slowly climbed the chair, balancing precariously as he used the slats on the back like a ladder, pushing himself upward until he was in the confines of the chimney itself. Ignoring the pain from his still-healing injuries, he wedged himself into the narrow space, pushing with his hands, bracing with his back. To his surprise he found he could inch upward, pushing alternately with his arms and back. He was up a foot, then two, ignoring the painful scrapes on his bare skin when he slid back against the stone. Finally, his back screaming in pain, his arms cramping, he touched the outside rim of the chimney. With one final, frantic effort he snaked upward another few inches, grabbed the top of the chimney, and pulled himself up and out onto the roof.

  Skanawati sat on the peak, looking calmly into the night sky. Duncan scanned the stars. It was perhaps two or three in the morning, and the town and adjoining camp lay in silent repose. There were no streetlights, only lanterns hung at the doors of the large Moravian residence halls. The Onondaga offered no greeting. Duncan leaned against the chimney, scanning the shadows around the jail. Surely the chief must be holding back on his escape because he had spotted some passing sentry.

  "When my mother found that crack in the world," Skanawati said abruptly, "she wept for hours. When she went back a week later, it was wider. She told me I must go on retreat for a month to speak with the spirits."

  "Which is where you were when you saw Conawago and me at the cave, why you couldn't follow."

  In the moonlight Duncan saw the affirming nod. "She said if the old gods did not understand that we still embraced them in our hearts, then the crack would keep growing wider and drain the river dry." Skanawati turned to Duncan, as if for an answer.

  "It was gunpowder that made it," Duncan said, though the words seemed empty. He felt small and inadequate before a man he had come to realize was one of the most spiritual beings he had ever met.

  "When I first saw it," Skanawati remembered, "it felt like a gash across my heart."

  They watched the stars in silence. There were no patrolling sentries, Duncan began to realize. A meteor soared overhead, so close they could see a trail of smoke behind it. When the chieftain raised his hand to point at it Duncan saw that his arm was wrapped in a snake skin.

  "My nephew Johantty will have a difficult time in the world," his companion suddenly said. "Conawago said the two of you know the old trail of the dawnchasers."

  "We walked along it, cleared away what debris we could." Duncan recalled their three days on the trail, and his wonder over the treacherous drops down cliffs, the crossing of chasms on old logs, the swamps and rocky debris fields the ancient runners of the sacred trail had to endure.

  "Johantty needs to complete that trail," Skanawati said, "the people need to see one of the young ones with the tattoo of the old spirits."

  "We shall show both of you, Skanawati. If I am not mistaken it is near the site you chose for your new village. You will leave Bethlehem a free man, I swear it. You shall guide your nephew yourself."

  "I would like that, of all things," the chief admitted, and he looked back at the stars. "Tell me about it, McCallum. In my mind, let me run that spirit trail."

  Duncan found a small, sad grin tugging at his mouth. He leaned on the roof beside the Onondaga. His heart expanded with the honor done him, and the responsibility. "There is a great cottonwood at the edge of the clearing where it starts," he began, "so large that four men could not join their arms around it. An eagle sat in the tree the day we were there."

  Skanawati offered a murmur of approval, and Duncan continued, seeing in his mind's eye the trail as he and Conawago had traveled on it, taking Skanawati up and
down mountains, across rivers, along cliffs, past drawings of giant bears under sheltering ledges. When the chief asked if he had perhaps seen a bear by a particular mountain or a white otter at a river crossing, Duncan thought carefully and described as best he could the animals that had watched them that day. Skanawati listened for over an hour, once interrupting Duncan to point out another shooting star.

  Each time Duncan paused, he looked for guards again, wondering when Skanawati would finally slide down the roof to freedom. The chief had freed himself from the little jail but was making no other effort to make good his escape. He had by his actions given Duncan his own freedom. When the hour came, it would now be the simplest of things for them to slide down the roof, onto the ground, and disappear into the night. Duncan made up his mind to stay with Skanawati when he finally slipped away, to do what he could to protect the chief.

  But Skanawati just kept watching the stars. When at last he stood, stretching, there was a faint, gray hint of dawn in the east. Instead of sliding down the roof shakes he stepped back to the chimney and lowered himself inside. Duncan watched in disbelief. In his mind's eye he was already running, free, over the laurel ridges beyond the town. With painful effort he inched toward the chimney, casting one more longing glance toward the forest, then followed the Iroquois back into their jail.

  The rattle of the timber bar the next morning brought Duncan to his feet instantly. He was halfway to the door when something in the window caught his eye. He halted with a shudder. A small squirrel hung dead. A piece of twine had been tied in a noose, suspending it. He touched it. It was still warm. It was one of the nocturnal flying squirrels, considered by some in the tribes to be a messenger from the spirit world.

  He untied the twine, letting the creature fall to the ground outside, just as Macklin stepped through the door, closely followed by Mokie carrying a covered tray. As the girl uncovered bowls of cooked oats, fresh bread, and tea, she turned to Duncan with a determined glint. "He will be fine, Mr. McCallum, Mama and I will see to it."

  Duncan lowered the spoon in his hand. "Who is going to be fine, Mokie?"

  "Mr. Hadley. They came for us last night again, when I was returning to Mama's room. He wouldn't let them take us."

  Macklin touched Duncan's arm. "The Virginians insist that Hadley sit with them as part of the treaty delegation. He is part of the Burke family, they remind him. He has taken notes from his travels with you, and they insisted on seeing them. Then the Virginians made Hadley go with them to the women's quarters, but when he realized what they were about, he resisted. They gave him a good thrashing, nothing too serious because he is family. There is a doctor here," Macklin added quickly. "No broken bones. Mokie nursed him most of the night."

  Duncan now saw that the girl glowed. "What else, Mokie?"

  "Sometime in the night, when he told me I should get some sleep, I told him it was right I tended him, after the way you and he helped deliver our precious Penn. That's when he said it."

  "Said what?"

  "He had me lean over him so he could whisper." The girl grew very serious, her eyes wide. "He told me I was his sister. He told me no matter what it cost him, Mama and me were done being slaves."

  Duncan grinned. At least some justice was being found along the tortured path of the treaty convoy.

  Macklin pointed Duncan to a corner as Mokie, to the chiefs obvious amusement, presented Skanawati his breakfast with a curtsy. "I sat into the night reviewing the journal books in the Gemeinhaus, the main administrative building. Then later I found one of the teachers debating European politics at the Sun Inn down the street.

  "There were four youths returned from tribal captivity that year. Sister Leinbach worked with all of them. Two eventually went on to Philadelphia, two were adopted by farm families. The names were Mueller, Rohrbach, Gottlieb, and Smith."

  "No Felton?"

  "I was as disappointed as you at first. No Felton at all for the past five years. But the teacher explained that those who were captured very young often forget their names. When that happens those who seem to remember some German get German names, those who seem English, English names. One of the boys, the one named Smith, was quite difficult. Rebellious, even violently so. The teacher recalls once Sister Leinbach gave him extra prayers to read as discipline, but," Macklin said in a tight voice, "the prayers were found the next morning impaled on an arrow, shot into the statue of the Holy Mother in our chapel. Still she was very patient with him, made him her special project that year. Improved his English tremendously, nurtured his soul, used the rod when she had to. Smith showed up at a Christmas service with stripes painted on his face.

  "He had been brought back under duress from a Huron village by some trappers who thought a bounty would be paid for him. But no one knew who his family was, and they just left him here. It was only when Smith finally began to enjoy some of the pleasures of European life that he began to speak of memories as a small boy on a farm near Tulpehocken. They started to piece together the truth, although that took months. The elders came close to ejecting him many times. He would mock the Christian Indians, saying they had all been neutered by magic words out of a black book, he stole things from the kitchens. But Sister Leinbach persevered, as if the boy had become a spiritual test for her. Small mutilated animals would be found at her doorstep, once even in her bed. He seemed to nurture a particular hatred for her.

  "Finally it was decided that all his immediate family had been massacred, so other relations had to be tracked down. When his Philadelphia relatives finally came he saw they were all somber Quakers and at first declined to see them. One of the brothers who was in the school says he thinks he dropped his objections to them when he saw they were wealthy, although others insist he finally came to be bathed in their Christian love."

  A chill had descended over Duncan as Macklin had spoken. "Did he take his leave for Philadelphia before the departure of Sister Leinbach?"

  "Two days after her departure."

  Duncan stared at the piece of bread in his hand. He had lost his appetite. "And she was never seen again? Surely she had an escort.

  "Sister Leinbach was a strong-willed woman, with a very particular vision of God's calling for her. Her only escorts were the mule she rode and a pack pony. She insisted on traveling alone to Shamokin for the first stage of her journey, to talk with God and build her spiritual strength for the challenges ahead. She meant to travel far into the Ohio country."

  "Surely there was a search for her?"

  "The road from here to Shamokin can be difficult because of the river crossings. There had been heavy rains. Sometimes in such weather our people will be taken in by a settler's family and shelter for a week or two. I waited a month before I decided to send a query asking when we could expect her. Many searchers were sent to look for her, but by then the trail was long cold, and the Huron raiders were getting active again."

  Duncan watched Skanawati speaking with Mokie, smiling patiently as the girl traced with her finger the complex tattoos on his arm. When she was done he reached into his blanket and pulled out a little doll fashioned of straw from his pallet, expertly woven and pinched to give it shape. Duncan remembered seeing a similar one, made of corn husks, at the chiefs village. The girl's eyes lit with excitement, and Skanawati glanced with embarrassment at Duncan as the girl hugged him.

  "The treaty negotiators are at the end of their patience," Macklin declared. "There will be further conferring today. Magistrate Brindle has clerks in the Gemeinhaus preparing terms on parchment for signature. The trial may be tomorrow." Macklin looked uneasily at a group of men who were erecting a wooden structure near a corner of the main street. "Lord Ramsey has contributed a large sum for the expansion of the chapel here. That man in the lace collar who always sits with Ramsey isn't just his lawyer, Duncan, he is a judge. The one who has all the other witness statements. The one who is now to determine Skanawati's fate."

  With those words the door was flung open. One of the kilted guards s
tood with an expectant gaze, waving the visitors out. Mokie solemnly shook hands with Skanawati, then Duncan. "Mr. Hadley says I must stay in my service for now, until it is over."

  "Service?"

  "With the great lord from Philadelphia. Lord Ramsey thinks he will buy us when this is over." The words were spoken not with foreboding but mischief as Mokie offered an exaggerated curtsy and skipped away.

  McGregor soon appeared, the hobbles in his hand, gesturing Duncan and Skanawati outside once again for fresh air.

  "Sergeant, have you heard of any other Indians camped in this valley?"

  "The treaty followers have been drifting away. The villages need them for spring planting."

  "I mean a small band, trying to be inconspicuous. Perhaps some from that barn in Philadelphia."

  "I'll ask. That Moses seems to know everyone, German and Indian alike."

  As McGregor moved purposefully toward the huge Single Brethren house where Moravian visitors stayed, Duncan stretched and caught a scent of spring in the air, of apple blossoms and fresh tilled earth. He wandered around the corner of the building, testing the length of his chain, and he was glancing back toward Skanawati when something slammed into his back. As he staggered forward his hobble was pulled out from under him, knocking him to the ground. It took only a moment for him to come to his senses, but by then Felton had seized his collar and had dragged him to the rear wall, slamming his back against it.

  "You interfere with the affairs of your betters!" the young Quaker hissed. His eyes were wild. For the first time, Duncan saw a line of thin oval scars that ran around his neck like a necklace, an adornment used by some of the western tribes.

  Duncan cast a desperate, searching glance for the sentry who was supposed be guarding the rear of the jail. The man lay in a heap against a stack of firewood.

  "Not for a slave to decide anything!" Felton growled. He nodded at Duncan's hobble. "Now run."

  The heavy leather of the hobble had been sliced apart.