“Doctor?”
“From the ship we think. Sometimes he is in the smokehouse, watching, but only when the brig is in. The Ardent she’s called. He makes sure nothing is done to us that would impede our ability to work. It’s why Morris says they are only looking for free labor. In the smokehouse they mostly use clubs wrapped with rags unless a brand has been earned but Hobart shows up for special cases. And my God, you were a special case yesterday. What did you do to raise such a rage?”
Duncan shuddered to hear how matter-of-factly Devon spoke of torture, then he paused and twisted toward Murdo as he remembered. “The letter! Hobart had left a letter on the table at the inn, gloating over it like it is a trophy. Something he had brought from the north. I was already drugged but I was able to throw it into the fire before I passed out. He was furious. It must be why they beat me after I lost consciousness. Beat me before they threw me into the wagon and after I arrived here.”
“Did ye read anything of it?” Murdo asked. “See an address?”
“It bore no address. No words of any kind. A big square that was bounded by a river, forest, and a swamp.”
“A map of Galilee you mean.”
Duncan hesitated. “I didn’t realize it then, but yes, it was a drawing of the tobacco fields here. Inside the square were runner marks, over a score. A stick-figure deer, a square divided into fourths,” he began, “a beaver, an apple, a candle, a pine tree, a bell, a dog I think. Along the bottom were buildings. A house with two chimneys, a barn, what may have been a native lodge, and a church or schoolhouse.”
Murdo scratched at the stubble on his face. “All the station marks are buildings. Johnson Hall has the two chimneys, the barn is mine, the lodge is Shamokin, and the schoolhouse is Edentown.” Murdo surveyed the Judas slaves, several of whom had approached to listen, and indicated Burns. “The beaver,” he explained, then pointed to half a dozen others in quick succession. “Pine tree, apple, bear, bell, candle, dog.”
“There was blood on the letter, a few drops on the edge,” Duncan recalled.
The words brought a grimace to Murdo’s face. “Atticus couldn’t write,” the big Scot declared.
The realization stabbed Duncan like a blade. “When he left your farm you said he acted like he knew where the missing runners were.”
“He was the only runner who had served in both Virginia and the north,” Devon put in, and saw the confused looks on his companion’s face. “Don’t you see? He knew all the marks, or more than anyone else.”
“Jesus wept!” Murdo muttered. “Atticus came here alone to confirm which runners had been enslaved, and made a list, in the only way he knew how.”
“For the Krakens such a list would be a key, to unlock the system. Atticus gave them an unexpected treasure.”
“And you destroyed it,” Tanaqua observed.
“If they had made an extra copy they would not have beaten me so. No one else must have such a key.”
“No one but Major Webb,” Devon inserted.
They looked up in surprise at the young Virginian.
“Major?” Ross asked.
“Major of the militia in the Indian wars. He runs the last station before Williamsburg, in Louisa County. The letters go to him and he sees them to Williamsburg, where he sits in the House of Burgesses. He’s the only stationmaster who sees all the marks that authenticate letters from the north. When the water route fell apart I went to see him.”
Duncan chewed on the words for a few heartbeats. He had heard the name Webb before. Benjamin Rush had reported that a Virginian named Webb had attended a committee meeting in Philadelphia. “You knew the water route?”
“It took too many losses so the northerners laid out the land route. I was the only one who crossed over from water to the land routes. But the Major had me run up the Chesapeake one more time to tell Philadelphia all the messages over water had to stop. That was three months ago. Urgent, he called it, to go straight to the Franklin house.”
“As if,” Ross said, “the trouble had started in Virginia.”
Devon agreed. “All the first Judas slaves were Virginians.”
Duncan leaned toward Devon. “You were captured three months ago?”
“In Philadelphia. When I delivered my letter to the Franklin house the noble matron expressed concern that I could have been followed. She kept peeking out the window and finally sent a servant out the back to circle the block. He reported a big man with black curly hair watching from an alley. She showed me into a chamber that had been converted into a laboratory with wires and glass rods and rows of jars with metal slats sticking out of them. The electrical studio, she called it.”
“You speak of Mrs. Franklin?” Duncan asked.
Devon nodded. “Deborah, she prefers to be called. An ample and jovial lady but not one to be crossed. She had me touch a silver wire that came out of a jar and I swear it sent lightning through my body, and put my hair standing on end. She laughed and had me help her rig a wire across the sill of an open window, powered by six such jars. Then she locked all the other doors and windows.
“He came in the middle of the night and yelped like a frightened goat when he touched that wire. When we saw him running away we figured he was done, and I went out to sleep in the stable. But before dawn he was back. He hit me on the head, knocking me out. The bastard kept a bag over my head until I was thrown into a boat on the Chesapeake. A big Irishman.”
“Teague!” Tanaqua spat.
The name seemed to frighten Devon. “A devil incarnate. Wouldn’t give me any food for all the days it took to bring me here, only water to drink.”
Teague had lied, Duncan realized. He had known exactly where Galilee was.
“So the danger started in Virginia,” Duncan said, “but no one in the north got the warning until that night at Johnson Hall. Red Jacob and Woolford weren’t summoned urgently to Johnson Hall but they were dispatched urgently once they arrived. It all happened that night, Murdo, the night Francis Johnson arrived from London.” Duncan recalled Analie’s description of the events at Sir William’s home. “His son had acted as though he had just rushed to the Hudson to return but in fact he had lingered with others at Albany for a week. Then he arrived at Johnson Hall, alone. I think it was that very night the Blooddancer mask was stolen in Onondaga.”
“The others,” Tanaqua said. “The ones who parted company with Francis Johnson in Albany went to Onondaga.”
“But Sir William’s alarm didn’t arise from speaking with Francis,” Duncan said, “it came from reading a letter from Benjamin Franklin. And then Johnson said the men of Galilee will die when the lie is written. But not until then.” He turned back to Devon. “The Chesapeake station. Where is it?”
But Devon seemed not to hear. “It’s all true,” the young Virginian said in a hollow voice. “They killed Atticus and they will kill us.”
Duncan asked the question again.
“Leave the boy alone, damn ye!” Sergeant Morris growled. “Ain’t ye caused him enough grief?”
Devon’s wan face took on a remote look. “It’s planting time back in Culpepper. Not much tobacco there, mostly maize and wheat. I love the smell of the fields in the spring. I told Sally Mullin I’d take her to the midsummer fair.” He sobered and his hand went to his neck. “I never really understood,” he said, looking up at Duncan. “When the noose tightens, will I die from choking or from my neck breaking?” he asked.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Frightened cries woke Duncan before the dawn bell. Men were rolling out of their pallets, gathering at the far end of the sleeping platform. As Duncan sat up from his pallet, two men darted to the necessary bench and vomited down the holes. He pushed his way through the crowd, then wished he hadn’t. Devon would not take his Sally to the fair. His lifeless eyes gazed up at the roof.
“Christ!” Sergeant Morris muttered. “I didn’t know he was so frail. The cursed overseers are responsible for this. Worked him too damned hard.” Duncan tried to push p
ast the sergeant but Morris shouldered him aside. “I’m his sergeant, damned ye,” he snapped, then called for Virginia rangers to rip open the pallet for a shroud.
“McCallum will have a look,” Murdo Ross insisted.
Morris glared at the big Scot and seemed about to swing at Duncan when Tanaqua seized his arm. The Virginia sergeant backed away.
Duncan touched Devon’s neck. It was not yet cold. He had been dead no more than two or three hours. There were bruises around his nostrils. His unseeing eyes were stained red from burst vessels. The young ranger’s hands were in tight fists, the knuckles drained white. The company grew quiet as they watched Duncan lean over the dead man’s head. Dried blood clung to the corners of Devon’s mouth. He pulled back a lip. Two of his incisors were broken.
“He was—” Duncan began, but Tanaqua cut Duncan off, pulling him away.
“He was what?” Trent stood in the aisle, most of the other prisoners now behind him. Winters stood at the entry. “Lookee here, Mr. Winters,” Trent called to him, gesturing him forward. “The new Scot is playing with a dead man.”
“He is a doctor,” Ross said.
“Is he now? Must be a damned good one if he is going to help this sorry fool.” Trent gestured to Duncan. “Go ahead, McCallum, practice your skills on the corpse. Isn’t that what the doctors like most, a patient who can’t complain?” He gave a throaty laugh.
Duncan lifted the dead arms, already stiffening with rigor, then pushed on the chest. When air did not rush out of the lungs as expected he opened Devon’s jaw and extended two fingers down his throat. They emerged holding a strip of cloth. He had to pull it hard, for it had been rammed in with force, and finally turned to Trent with a dirty strip of sack cloth nearly as long as his forearm. “Torn from the curtain,” he said, then saw a stubby piece of wood that had rolled against the wall and pointed at it. “Pounded down his throat with that planting stick. His eyes have blood in them. He struggled mightily for air. The killer held his nostrils closed until he stopped breathing.”
Trent seemed barely able to control his rage. “Blow the horn for the superintendent!” he shouted to Winters.
A quarter hour later, their breakfast in the kettle untouched, the company stood in a line by the yard’s whipping posts as the superintendent paced before them.
“Five lashes for every man!” Gabriel boomed. “That’s how you apologize to me for destroying the property of the plantation! You shall pay for your sin!”
Up and down the line, men cursed.
“Silence fore and aft!” Trent barked, then whirled his stick through the air so hard the split ends whistled.
Gabriel’s temper seemed to boil over as he passed along the line of Judas slaves. “Ten lashes then, damned you all!” he screeched. “None for the first man who steps forward to tell me who the murderer was.”
Not a man moved.
Gabriel made a strange hissing sound that propelled drops of saliva from his mouth. The braying of hounds broke the silence as he moved along the line. Four men on horseback rode along the end of the fields, escorted by the dogs. Gabriel stopped in front of Tanaqua. “Take off your shirt,” he ordered. The Mohawk glared at him but complied. “You damned bucks love killing Virginians. None of the others ever lifted a hand against them. But you arrive and now I have a dead one.”
“It was not him,” Duncan said again. “He slept beside me and never rose.”
“That’s right,” Murdo confirmed. “He would have had to climb over me. Never moved.” Burns and Larkin murmured agreement.
Gabriel’s icy smile disappeared. His jaw clenched. His face turned a deep purple. “Strip them all!” he screamed, then grabbed Trent’s stick, waved its treacherous knob in front of Duncan, and abruptly slammed it into Tanaqua’s ribs. “You want to sass me boy? Your companions will pay for it.” He looked up as two of the wagons used for transporting seedlings to the fields approached, and ordered them to drive to the edge of the yard. “Ten lashes to every man! Fifteen for McCallum!”
The Judas slaves wordlessly followed the superintendent’s orders, dropping their clothes in a row around the side of the building then standing back in line for punishment. A horse-drawn cart coming up the perimeter road from the manor house halted a hundred yards away until the naked men retreated back to the yard. Black-clad pharaohs arrived, lifting coiled whips from their saddles.
Four men at a time were tied to the wheels of the wagons and the lashes began raising bloody welts. The pharaohs were efficient at their task, quickly untying men from wheels as the cat finished with them, and as quickly binding new victims. Gabriel saved Duncan for last, and began by pressing the pewter pommel of his whip against the scabs of his prior flogging, until Duncan felt blood running from them. The superintendent had Trent count the strokes, aiming them not just at Duncan’s back but also his buttocks and naked legs. Trent stopped looking at Duncan after the fifth, just calling out the numbers each time he heard the leather bite into Duncan’s flesh. As Duncan was untied and dropped to his knees, gasping, blood streaming down his back, the superintendent leaned over him. “Y’er the damned troublemaker from Townsend’s. God damned ye for y’er interference!” He hissed, and kicked Duncan’s raw, bleeding back, sending him sprawling on the ground.
“Into the fields with the lot of ye!” Gabriel shouted. His voice had gone hoarse. “Ye’ll git y’er clothes back tonight!”
“Oh nae,” came a loud but steady voice. “I do’na think so.” Murdo Ross had found his britches. “I will nae offend the African ladies.” He tightened his belt as he spoke.
Gabriel pulled a heavy horse pistol from his belt. The veins on his bald pate were throbbing. “I’ll spill y’er brains, I swear it!”
Murdo stepped closer to Gabriel. “Good. I’m tired of looking at y’er ugly face.”
No one breathed. Gabriel aimed the weapon at Ross’s head. The faint tone of a bosun’s whistle could be heard from the river.
A low rattling sound rose from Gabriel’s throat and the skin of his jaw drew tight as a drum. Duncan struggled to his feet, then sprang forward, thrust his foot around Murdo’s ankle, and with a mighty shove knocked him to the ground. He hit the Scot hard, in his mouth. “You’ll not wage my fights for me, damned you Ross!” he shouted. He slapped the unresisting Scot, hard enough to draw blood.
Gabriel gave one of his icy laughs, then tucked the pistol back into his belt. “Now who has the ugly face?” he quipped, and glanced back at the manor house, where figures could be seen in the yard, watching them. “No midday meal. Put your damned clothes back on before you frighten the dogs.” He glared at Duncan. “What do I care if you kill each other? Put enough rats in a cage and they’ll always wind up eating each other.” He marched away, his rough companions a step behind.
“I’m sorry, Murdo,” Duncan murmured to the big Scot.
“So ye do ken, lad, that this is only Galilee, not ancient Sparta? I donna’ fancy this naked wrestling of y’ers.”
The men beside them grinned and helped them to their feet.
“But it’s like you said, Duncan,” Murdo stated. “He was never going to pull that trigger. They’re saving us for something.”
“Don’t bet your life on my word!” Duncan said, flinching as Tanaqua ladled water over his raw back.
Murdo grinned as he wiped blood from his jaw. “I think I just did.”
BEFORE THE RAVENOUS COMPANY WAS ALLOWED TO TOUCH THE kettle of fish stew waiting for them at the end of the day, the overseers lined them up to view the shrouded body of Devon, propped now in a sitting position against one of the logs. His head had been left uncovered, and his unseeing eyes seemed fixed on the kettle. No one moved toward the stew. Trent, standing near the kettle, cut a piece from a tobacco plug and popped it in his mouth with a grin.
Finally Murdo Ross stepped to the dead man. “Sorry you’re dead, lad, may God forget all your sins and pull you up to his blessed embrace. Now I’m bloody well famished,” he added, then crossed himself, a
nd shut the dead eyes before turning to dip his bowl in the kettle. His actions broke the paralysis of the others but seemed to set a rule for the meal. Each man paused in front of the hideous corpse, dipped his head, and muttered a few words before taking supper.
As the sun was setting, old Jaho instructed those with the worst lash wounds to drape themselves over a log while he applied grease to their backs. He distracted the men with tales of great bravery in tribal wars, speaking of the natives who faced down the first Englishmen with bows and spears against English guns. One Susquehannock warrior had earned the name Eight Breath Wolf, Jaho recounted with pride, after he learned that he had time to rush and kill an adversary during the eight breaths it took the Englishmen to reload. Ononyot and Hyanka offered tales from the fires of their youth, about how the Susquehannocks would attack three or four times their number, of the terror caused by the wild men wearing bear skulls over their heads or shoulders who leapt out of the shadows and with three strokes of their war axes left as many dead. The company listened with solemn attention as, his eyes round with the telling, Ononyot spoke of the greatest warrior of all, the Susquehannock who not only wore a bear skull helmet but had two bear heads tattooed on his shoulders that came to life in battle, snapping at any enemy who tried to flank him.
Old Jaho chuckled. “Stories for children in their beds. My mother used to tell me of a tree that walked and let good children ride on its limbs.”
“Not this one,” Tanaqua said. He spoke in the tongue of the Haudensaunee now, and the other Iroquois listened with rapt attention. Duncan had seen the deference they paid to Tanaqua, and realized they had recognized him as a leader of the secret societies, a famed spirit warrior. “He was real. My grandfather knew him. Our people were so impressed that when the Susquehannocks were finally broken they made him the chief of the south, the half king of the border lands.”
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 21