Duncan slowly reached into his own pocket and produced the fossil he had brought from Shamokin. When Jaho saw it a cry of joy escaped his throat. For some reason he seemed greatly relieved. “Intersection of what?” Duncan asked.
Jaho cocked his head as if surprised at the question, then his leathery face curled again in a grin. “The crossroads of old miracles and new miracles.”
“Sotweed!” snapped Trent.
Jaho backed away, closing the fossil in his fist again and raising it toward the sky. When Duncan turned to his work, the big African slave who had greeted him before was standing alone in the field, thirty paces away, staring at him.
THE NEXT DAY TOKENS CAME UP FROM THE EARTH. TANAQUA, AT the head of the line that worked the seedling row, bent to tie his moccasin, then deftly palmed something from the soil. An hour later, as they were begrudged their morning ladle of water, the Mohawk opened his hand to give Duncan a fleeting glimpse. It was a small metal rod. Duncan did not recognize it until Webb walked by several minutes later dragging his chains, which had been left on for more than a week, as if the overseers especially feared him. It was a manacle pin, one of the little rods that when pounded down by a hammer locked the clamps around the ankles, or when pushed against another locking pin could release it.
An hour later they came upon an oak leaf pinned by a squarish, oblong rock with a channel cut into it, a hammerhead used by the old tribes. As Duncan grabbed the stone, he realized the items were not random. They had been left for the Judas slaves. Minutes later Ononyot showed him a packet of leather scraps he had found, with a needle and thread tucked into the vine that bound it.
Three men, including Major Webb, wore manacles. As soon as their door was barred for the night, Duncan and Tanaqua braced Webb’s foot and went to work on his chains, using the little rod, with sharp blows of the stone hammer, to pop out the pins that bound the chains to his ankles. The manacles of the other two men quickly followed.
“Back on in the morning,” Duncan said as they finished the last one. “The overseers must not suspect.”
“But the pigeon will know,” Ross whispered.
“The difference now since Devon’s death is that everyone knows he exists. Everyone is watching for him and he must expect it. He is not as likely to sing and if he does all will be watching for it.”
“I’ve been asking whether anyone comes back from the interrogations without injuries,” Ross reported.
“It would seem the best opportunity for the spy to meet with his handlers,” Duncan acknowledged. “And?”
“No one seems spared the beatings. But a man could fake a limp or even take a bruise to avoid suspicion.”
“It’s not one of the Iroquois,” Duncan whispered. “I’d stake my life on that.”
“As I would on my Conococheague men,” Murdo added.
“Which leaves the northern rangers and the Virginians,” Duncan concluded, “and it won’t be those who are turning to skin and bones. You can bet the spy is given extra food when he goes to the smokehouse.”
He studied the men, most of whom gathered around Jaho as he began applying grease to the chafed ankles. Duncan noticed that Buchanan, one of Ross’s Scots, had tucked his forearm inside his tattered waistcoat. He approached and touched his arm. Buchanan’s haggard face tightened in a grimace of pain, then he froze as Tanaqua clamped a hand around his shoulder. “McCallum is a healer,” the big Mohawk declared.
“He was taken to the smokehouse just this morning,” Ross explained to Duncan.
Duncan pushed up the man’s sleeve, which was soiled with blood and dirt. His forearm was swollen in a massive green bruise. The skin along the underside was stretched in a large, unnatural lump.
“God’s breath, Buchanan!” Murdo gasped. “What have they done to ye?”
“It was in the smokehouse,” the young Scot explained. “They were more angry than before. They kept asking for names of the commissioners on stolen certificates, and hit me harder and harder when I gave them no answers.”
“It’s broken,” Murdo observed.
“Oh aye,” Buchanan agreed, “sounded like a stick of wood snapping.” When Duncan bent to examine the arm Buchanan pulled it away.
“I studied medicine in Edinburgh.”
Buchanan remained skeptical.
“He is a healer in our lodges,” Tanaqua inserted.
Buchanan frowned, but slowly extended the arm. Among men of the frontier a university-trained physician was a suspect outsider, but a healer of the longhouses was always respected. In truth Duncan had seen native healers perform miracles with compounds of herbs that would baffle Edinburgh scholars. Old Jaho brought Buchanan a cup of his willow brew, then Tanaqua and Murdo pinned the Scot to the platform as Duncan performed the quick but painful resetting.
“We need a splint, two or three plain slats, and strips to tie them tight,” Duncan declared to no one in particular. The words brought a flurry of activity behind him. He turned to see one of the rangers point up to a splintering rafter and then lean over. In a blur of motion one of the Iroquois rangers took a running jump, pushing off the man’s back and landing on the rafter. Moments later he had peeled away several thick strips of wood, which were quickly smoothed on one of the stones that some used as headrests.
Duncan finished tying the splints around Buchanan’s arm with strips torn from pallets and looked up. Every man in the stable was watching him, many wearing grins. Something had shifted. The company had acted as one. Duncan nodded at Murdo and Tanaqua, and they retrieved the items he had stolen from the dinghy.
Eyes widened as he held them out for all to see. This was resistance.
Webb lifted the knife, nodding his approval, and murmured a command. The rangers from both Virginia and New York lined up. Webb paced the line then handed the knife to Hughes. “I want this as sharp as a razor by dawn,” he said. Hughes pressed a knuckle to his forehead in acknowledgment.
“From now on,” Webb continued as he handed out the spoon and fork with instructions to sharpen the handles, “every man is paired with another. Together in work, when eating, always together outside or we will know why not. Sergeant Morris, sound off the men in pairs.” They would not make it easy for the infiltrator.
The major walked back along the line, tapping several men on the shoulder. “Sick call,” he ordered. The men obediently formed a line by Duncan and Jaho, who grinned at Webb then went to work. The major had apparently seen symptoms that Duncan had not, and soon he was examining boils, deep splinters, aching teeth, and a disjointed thumb. Compresses were heated in one of the mugs over massed candles, the thumb was reset, and long draughts of the Susquehannock’s brew were dispensed. Scottish songs erupted in low tunes, and to considerable amusement Old Jaho and the Iroquois tried to learn the Jacobite songs, making many of the throat-rattling Gaelic syllables sound like bird calls. They went to sleep to the scraping of Hughes’s knife on a stone.
As the charcoal marks on the wall slowly grew in number, so too did their little arsenal. The shaft of a broken hoe was worked by Tanaqua into a club, then, with the insertion of a sharpened stone, turned into a formidable war ax before being hidden in the rafters. One of the Virginian youths recounted how he had often brought down squirrels with a sling. More scraps of leather that could be worked into slings appeared one morning by one of the yard logs, a little pile of round pebbles another morning, and to their great pleasure, eight plump onions on still another. They were quickly hidden until, after the door was barred, Webb used the knife to quarter them then distributed pieces to each man.
Duncan slept lightly that night, then not long past midnight he rose and squatted by a platform where he could watch Jaho’s blanket tent, where the old man was bent over his smoldering pot. It was nearly an hour before the Susquehannock crawled into the tent. Duncan waited a few minutes then crept to the tent, apologized to the spirits, and ventured inside.
It was empty. The spirits protected not just Jaho himself, but also his escap
e hatch. The old tobacco sheds had been built with planks that could be swung out on top pivot pins for ventilation in the drying season but those on the slave quarters were supposed to have been nailed shut. The plank at the back of the makeshift tent, however, was loose, held in place by the peg that now lay on the floor. He pushed against the board and dropped to the ground outside.
Once outside he hurried to the cover of the nearest tree, by the road that separated the fields from the vast swamp that bordered the plantation’s eastern side. He thought the old man would have headed toward the hills and began stealing from tree to tree in that direction, but after a few steps he halted, then followed a low murmuring sound toward the bank that sloped down to the swamp.
The old Susquehannock was not alone as he sat in the moonlight. A deer was at his side, nibbling grass from his hand as he whispered to it. Nearby a tall, graceful shape bent at the edge of the water. A night heron.
“If you walk slowly they will not shy away. I told them you were coming,” Jaho declared.
As Duncan sat beside him the heron took a step backward, then twisted its neck to give a raspy call before returning to its hunt.
They sat in silence, contemplating the starlit sky, as Duncan and Conawago had so often done.
“People of this world are scared of swamps,” Jahoska said. “They stay away from them, frightened of their creatures, or kill them with wagons of stone and dirt.”
Of this world. The Susquehannock once again spoke as if he were familiar with more than one world.
“But a swamp is the wilds between land and the water,” the old native continued. “It is the breeder of life, the dark place that makes the light place possible.”
“You could run to freedom,” Duncan observed. “Instead you go out in the night and leave presents for the company.”
“Freedom? Here is where you learn about freedom, McCallum. The only real chains you wear are those you put on yourself.”
The deep onk a lunk cry of a bittern rose out of the reeds.
“Why stay in this prison?”
“Here is where you learn about freedom,” Jaho repeated.
Something rippled the water between two islands of reeds. Jahoska made a gesture toward the water’s edge. “She leaves a basket for him sometimes. One of the kitchen maids whose tribe lived by a big river across the ocean.”
Duncan eased himself down the bank and discovered a wicker basket partially submerged in the water. It was half filled with clams, on top of which was a short knife with a thick blade. The disturbance in the water grew closer as Duncan put the blade to one of the clams.
“For your brother,” Jaho urged and somehow, with a tremor of his heart, Duncan understood. “Just crack it open,” his companion said, then erupted in a hoarse laugh.
On the bank, an arm’s length away, an otter had materialized. Water dripped from its sleek fur as it twisted its head, gazing first at the old man, who murmured comforting words in his ancient tongue, then at Duncan.
Ever so slowly Duncan extended the clam. The otter took a step closer and shifted to brace himself upright on his hind legs and tail, then took the clam with his front paws. With a soft sound like a purr it pushed open the loosened shell and consumed the sweet meat. When Duncan offered another it froze, then warily approached. Duncan sat like a statue as it pressed its nose against the totem pouch hanging over Duncan’s neck. It looked up with blazing eyes then with a single leap landed in Jaho’s lap, excitedly pushing its nose into his neck as the old man laughed. “I know, I know,” the Susquehannock chuckled, stroking the animal’s back. “It has taken a long time.”
Duncan felt a sudden and inexplicable joy. Something important had just happened, something he could not describe, something he could not ask about. He forgot about chains and the misery of the slaves, for in that moment Jaho had let him glimpse the other world he lived in. The otter played with the old man as if he were one of his own kind, curling around his body and emerging under his arms before leaping to Duncan and repeating the action. Duncan found himself joining in the laughter then, as the otter hovered like an excited pup, he opened the remaining clams, laying them in a row on the grass. The otter joyfully pounced on each one. When he had eaten them all he nudged his nose into Duncan’s neck then backed away into the water and slipped under the surface, performing a dolphin-like jump before disappearing.
In the silence that followed, Duncan heard a new sound, a heavy breathing behind him. He slowly turned then shrank back as he saw a large animal sitting on its haunches. It took him a moment to recognize that the great square head was that of a dog. The animal’s dark curly coat glistened with water. It seemed to be guarding Jahoska.
“Chuga used to be at the big house,” Jaho explained, “but he decided he liked it in the swamp better.”
Duncan extended a hand for the dog to sniff before leaning over to stroke its back. “In the swamp,” he said after a moment, “there must be islands.”
“Many islands.”
“And perhaps there are paths that connect the islands, that would take a man through?”
“Paths found by my people, yes. Dangerous paths. One false step and you can be in bottomless mud, the killing sands. But a man could get through if he knows the way.”
“And twenty-some men?”
Jaho was quiet for several breaths as he weighed the words. “If I helped you escape I could never come back.”
“You would be welcome among my people.”
The old Susquehannock did not reply, just rubbed the big dog behind the ears with a contemplative gaze.
“The moon will set soon,” he finally said. “We should go now.”
Duncan dutifully followed Jaho along the bank until they reached a drainage ditch that cut across the fields towards the ridge on the north side of the plantation. Chuga stayed at Jahoska’s side, matching his steady trot with long powerful strides, as watchful as a warrior. When they passed the sheds for the Africans, Duncan heard the sound of a lonely chant.
The mill and its outbuildings sat along a stream that emptied into the river, just as Larkin had drawn on the wall. Dinghies from the larger ships were tied to the small dock. The big water wheel was not turning. A soldier sat by a flaming brazier at the door of the mill, his musket leaning against the wall. Lights flickered in the windows of the long structure built into the back of the mill, confirming that it was used for sleeping quarters.
“How long have they been here?” Duncan asked.
Jaho ran his hand along Chuga’s back. “Nearly six moons. The miller disappeared and they moved in. Half a dozen of them usually, more when the bigger ships come in.”
“What do they do?” Duncan spied a second guard, sitting on a keg by the dock.
“They do what soldiers do. They make war.”
The improbable words tore at Duncan’s gut. They were the truth no one would speak. The Judas slaves were victims of a war, a silent, anonymous war. Now at last their foes would have faces.
THE NEXT MORNING HE WAS SHOVED OUT OF LINE AS THEY HEADED to the fields. Two of the pharaohs, rough men with dull, cruel eyes, dropped a loop over his head and led him onto the perimeter road toward the manor compound. They answered each of his questions with a jerk of the neck strap, which they did not remove until they had shoved him into the smokehouse and thrust his shoulders through two loops tied to the center beam.
He was left hanging between two hams, steadied only by the balls of his feet on a low milk stool. Each movement brought spasms of pain to his shoulders. No runner had died in the smokehouse interrogations, Larkin had said. But Duncan was not a runner.
The two men were laughing as they entered. The bespectacled man Duncan now knew to be Lieutenant Hobart accepted a pinch of snuff from a little silver box offered by the taller of the two, a man of thin, refined features and icy eyes wearing a wig that was askew enough to reveal his blond hair. A shorter, darker man with the boxed braid of a seaman hanging over his neck followed them inside, shutti
ng the door and dropping a leather bag on a barrel head.
“At last we meet our would-be nemesis,” the taller man said. It was, as Duncan expected, the peremptory voice he had heard calling down the stairs at Townsend’s inn.
“Lieutenant Kincaid I take it,” Duncan stated. “Did Townsend ever bring your tea?”
“Excellent. A civilized conversation! What a relief. So many of your companions want to start with crude suggestions. So refreshing to have an educated man with whom to transact business.” Kincaid paused to press snuff up his nostril, held out a palm, as if to ask Duncan’s indulgence, then released a formidable sneeze. He shook his head, smiling. “Much better. And you, Mr. McCallum. Are you perhaps an officer of some kind yourself?”
The question took Duncan by surprise. Then he recalled they had tried to kill Woolford, captain of rangers. “If I told you I was would you cut me down or cut my throat?”
His interrogators seemed amused. “Just another complication on the landscape,” Kincaid replied. “A good field officer always gets the lay of the land.” Kincaid bent so close Duncan could smell the tobacco and brandy on his breath. “Who the hell are you?”
“Just a tracker from the north. Asked to find some murderers. A tall blond man aided by an Irish giant named Teague. And the man who waited for them on the Susquehanna after they killed a young Scottish woman and an Oneida.”
“Asked by whom?”
“The army,” Duncan tried.
He did not miss the confused glance that passed between them. Kincaid shrugged, and picked up a slat of wood. He faced Hobart for a moment as if to converse, then with snakelike speed slapped the wood against Duncan’s cheek.
Pinpoints of light exploded in Duncan’s eyes.
“You could be valuable to us, McCallum. Or you could be just another doomed Judas slave.”
The sting of the first blow had not subsided before Kincaid struck him again. “What other commissions do you have? What commissioners do you know of?”
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 24