“We go now, McCallum,” Ursa stated. He embraced his wife, who waited at the loose plank, then led Duncan outside.
PATRICK WOOLFORD WAITED FOR THEM BY THE LITTLE CEMETERY above the manor house, silver buttons glistening in the moonlight. Duncan had seen him wear his captain’s uniform perhaps five times in as many years but they had always been at formal, social occasions, not for a raid on the king’s own soldiers. Woolford nodded to Tanaqua, Ursa, and Sinclair, best of the sling shooters, who stood at Duncan’s side. Conawago gestured Woolford down the path over the hill as Duncan and his companions slipped into the shadows.
Hobart’s surly sergeant was on guard duty by the brazier where the path split, branching toward the small mill dock and the mill itself. “Far enough, gents,” he barked in his nasally Welsh accent as they approached. Duncan, listening at the side of the mill, gave a nod to Sinclair, who whirled his sling and released. The guard at the rear door to the mill, out of sight of the others, dropped to the ground. “These be restricted grounds,” the sergeant warned.
Woolford stepped into the light. “Stand down, sergeant,” he replied in his best tone of command. “I am here to speak with the officer in charge.”
“The officer in charge right now be me.”
“Sir. The officer in charge right now be me, sir.” Woolford corrected. “You are addressing a captain of His Majesty’s rangers.”
The sergeant hesitated, studying Woolford’s uniform suspiciously. “Thought all the rangers were disbanded after the hostilities.”
Woolford glared at him.
“Sir,” the Welshman stiffly added.
“Not all of us. There’s still much to be done in the northern theater.”
“This be Virginia, sir.”
Woolford nodded toward the man’s blue armband. “And you work for Virginia now. An officer in the standing army always has precedence over a militia officer.”
“Normally that be right, sir,” came the sergeant’s airy reply. “But I just can’t see how some northern forest walker has say over me.” The arrogance on his face faded as Ursa and Conawago appeared at Woolford’s side.
“You have an artifact stolen from the north. That makes it northern business.”
“Art-i-fact,” the sergeant repeated, motioning forward the third sentry, who paced along the riverbank. “Don’t know what you mean, sir.”
Duncan and Tanaqua stole around the building to the spillway by the millpond and knelt in the high grass to study it. The channel that powered the mill was blocked by four slats of wood, letting the force of the water spill into the river. Ursa nodded to Duncan, then threw a stone into the nearby brush. The sentry from the river turned and ventured toward the sound. As soon as he reached the darker shadows behind the building Sinclair dropped him with another stone. Duncan and Tanaqua darted to the mill and slipped through a window.
“A mask,” Duncan heard Woolford say to the sergeant. “Painted red. Taken from our allies the Iroquois.”
“Have to take that up with the chain of command, as they say.”
Woolford impatiently shoved the man aside. The sergeant only laughed and watched the three men enter the mill. Duncan and Tanaqua waited for them at the end of the darkened corridor. As Conawago lifted the lantern that hung inside the door, a woman cried out and Lila rose up from a pallet. Giving up all pretense of subterfuge, Duncan hurried to meet Conawago at the door of the center storeroom. His heart sank as they looked inside. The plate of food offerings was crushed, the unlit candle broken. The mask was gone.
“The Commodore said it had to be secured,” came the sergeant’s gloating explanation behind them. “To keep the heathens down.”
“Secured where?” Woolford demanded.
“Secured by Lieutenant Kincaid.”
The sergeant gasped as a knife materialized from behind him, pressed against his throat. “Where?” Tanaqua demanded. “Where is the Blooddancer?”
“They—they didn’t share the destination with me. I swear! The lieutenant just said it would make a pretty bonfire when all this was over.”
“And she said over her dead body!” Lila inserted. The maid was standing at the doorway.
“Shut up, you bitch!” the sergeant growled.
“Who?” Duncan demanded. “Who said that?”
The sergeant recoiled as he recognized Duncan. “You be one of those Judas slaves, by God!” In one fluid motion Sinclair jerked away the man’s musket and pivoted the stock up into the sergeant’s jaw. He collapsed, unconscious.
“Who?” Duncan demanded again of Lila, who was grinning at the sergeant’s crumpled body.
“That nice lady from up north, with the pretty chestnut hair. Mr. Kincaid had two of his soldiers bring her here, to keep her quiet. He told her his men would pack her bags ’cause Lord Ramsey ordered him to take her to London.”
“London?” Conawago asked.
“The lord says he is to take her back to meet the man he has arranged for her to marry. A wool merchant from Yorkshire who is a cousin of the great lord’s, the lieutenant said. They sailed away at last light.”
Duncan sank onto a crate. It was not the first time Ramsey had kidnapped his own daughter. He had been determined to break her strong will for years but Edentown had always been her fortress. She had extorted his agreement to stay out of the New York colony but now, because of Duncan, she had abandoned her sanctuary and against all odds encountered her father.
Woolford saw his anguish. “Duncan, we tried to get her to go with Analie back into the woods.”
“Back?”
“She insisted on riding with Analie from Conococheague, saying it would be faster than a boat from Philadelphia. I told her to go back to her horses and let us deal with her father. But she would have none of it, said she would not leave without you.”
Duncan, numbed, slowly looked up. “You should have forced her.”
“Force Sarah Ramsey? You know better.”
“I can’t help her, Patrick.” The words stabbed at his heart.
“Not now, Duncan. Not tonight. Tonight we need you.” When Duncan did not respond Woolford pulled him to his feet and shook him. “We need you now!”
Half an hour later, with the unconscious marines tied to a tree by the river, they stood on the ridge looking down at the mill. Woolford had had to lead the stunned Duncan away but he had revived when they reached the little pond behind the mill. Ursa had jumped into the raceway and lifted out the four boards that blocked the water from the wheel, then Duncan and Woolford piled four kegs of gunpowder on the flat grindstone in the mill. Duncan had emptied a cask of turpentine onto the stone and set a candle on it, where it would be upended when the grinding stone hit it. They waited until they heard the big wheel moving, turning the stones, then disengaged it with the long lever rising through the floor beside the grindstones. Sinclair would wait there, and when the candle had burned down two finger-widths he would pull the lever to engage the wheel before running back over the ridge.
Duncan nodded to Ursa, who disappeared into the shadows. Then Duncan led Woolford and Conawago down the path toward the manor, pausing as the harbor came into view. The cutter and the brigantine were both gone.
A shadow waited at the edge of the lilacs hedge. Trent tossed a coil of rope and an iron bar, shaped to an edge at one end by the African blacksmith, at Duncan’s feet. “You’re insane, McCallum.”
“You were insane enough to join us,” Duncan rejoined as he began unbuttoning his shirt. He slipped out of his shoes. “The rest is ready?” he asked Trent.
The overseer nodded. “At dusk two demijohns of rum appeared on board, below decks, while firewood was being delivered by slaves to the galley. But the marines on duty will never touch it.”
“The off-duty seamen will,” Duncan said. “The brawls will soon start below decks.”
“And the marines will need to bring order below,” Trent concluded, then helped loop the rope over Duncan’s shoulder. Duncan lifted the bar in one hand
and took a step into the water. Conawago held him back, placing one hand on Duncan’s totem pouch, whispering a prayer to Duncan’s protective spirit. He enclosed Duncan’s own hand around the pouch, within his own, and repeated the words. Duncan felt the power of the sleek water creature rise within him as he slipped into the river.
BY THE TIME DUNCAN RETURNED TO THE JUDAS SLAVE STABLE, the air was what his grandfather would have called “weather heavy.” A slow rhythmic drumming had risen from the African quarters. The old barn that housed the overseers and night riders showed many lamps through its windows. They were awake, as if expecting trouble. But there were no guards outside the stable door. Watching from behind the big oak in the yard, Duncan soon saw why. A squad of marines, bayonets fixed on their long Brown Bess muskets, was patrolling the edge of the field.
He slipped inside and paced down the row of waiting prisoners. Most had pouches slung from their shoulders, packed with their meager belongings. Those too weak or injured to move with haste lay on stretchers improvised from sleeping pallets.
“The men are scared,” Webb confided. “Some say better the quick death of the noose than being torn apart by the dogs.” Duncan eyed the men sitting on either side of the aisle in their assigned groups of five and six. At the end of one row Tanaqua stood, ever ready, one of the kitchen knives on a strap around his chest, holding his improvised war club. Every eye was on Duncan.
“This night is why old Jaho died,” he declared to the worried faces. “He had lost his people but he found you, found us. He said it was men like us who would keep this land free. He believed in us and I will not betray his trust. Do this for your wives and children. I am doing this for an old Susquehannock who recognized something in us that we didn’t see ourselves. Freedom is in the wild, he would say. Freedom is the wild, in this land we came to. You can’t love this land without loving freedom—he made me see that.”
He paused, pulling away Jaho’s blanket to expose the escape hatch, and let the rhythmic drumming fill the silence. “The Africans beat their drums for us. They know they will not find freedom tonight. But they know we must. They say they will bring the weather we need. Three of their warriors are carrying meat into the woods, provided by the kitchen slaves, leaving a trail of blood. The meat is laced with laudanum. The dogs will find it and run no more tonight. But if those men are caught, if the kitchen slaves are caught helping, they will pay dearly for it. Do they believe in liberty more than we do?”
Hughes rose, pounding his fist into his chest, followed by Larkin and Frazier. One by one every man gave the old sign of the warrior.
As a gust of wind rattled the roof Duncan gestured the first squad outside, toward the bank along the swamp. As they moved out the door an explosion in the sky lit the fields. A lightning bolt threaded its way down and touched at the end of the field. Duncan, worried it would frighten the company, tried to ignore it, then saw the astonished looks on those beside him.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” Murdo gasped, and crossed himself.
The gallows had been struck. Its top beams had burst apart, and flames were spreading down the upright posts.
“Go!” Webb shouted.
Suddenly the bizarre words of Rush echoed in Duncan’s head. Rush had spoken of the geography of the place, of the way the hills and river served as a weather funnel, had yearned for an almanac. Rush, the student of Dr. Franklin, had arranged for Ursa to affix nails and a metal tray to the top of the gallows, to lure the lightning. Ursa had said he would climb to attract the gods. And the gods had responded.
As Duncan watched, the marine patrol appeared in the light of the flames, frantically running about the burning structure, but powerless to stop the destruction. On the far side of the fields the Africans had started a chant, a weird ululation that seemed in syncopation with the gusts and rumbles of the clouds.
By the time the full company was outside, lying on the bank, the clouds overhead were roaring, the thunder echoing off the hill. More bolts of lightning were striking the hills. He looked one last time over the fields and in a violent flash saw Ursa standing in the field by the flaming gallows, hands raised toward the sky, laughing, as huge drops of rain began to fall.
Duncan led the men toward the washing cove, where Winters and Trent had beached the fishing skiffs. He nodded to Webb, who waited in the shadows with the other men, then with Tanaqua and the other Iroquois he ran to the closest boat. Duncan halted with a shudder as a figure rose up from its shadow.
“Surely you didn’t think I would let you have all the fun,” Woolford said.
“Patrick, you are an officer in the king’s army. If they recognized you . . .”
Woolford stepped closer. His face was smeared with mud, his long black hair hung in braids, and two feathers dangled from a fur headband. “Tonight,” he declared, “I am a Mohawk.”
As he spoke the mill exploded.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The clouds bellowed as the shadows slipped over the railing of the Penelope. Only one marine was on deck, staring in the direction of the conflagration at the mill, whose flames now silhouetted the ridge beyond the manor house. He froze at the sight of the Iroquois warriors who materialized at his side, dropping his gun and not resisting as they gagged and bound him. Two of the marines below were playing cards as the third, their corporal, dozed in a hammock. One of the men sprang up, flinging his cards in Tanaqua’s face and paid for it with a tap of the Mohawk’s club that dropped him to the deck. The other soldier clamped his hands over his crown as if expecting to be scalped, and managed a strangled cry to his corporal, who tumbled out of his hammock and was pinned to the deck with Ononyot’s moccasined foot.
They quickly searched the ship, distributing the weapons of the marines and others they found in a locker, then signaled for the other boats to approach. Tanaqua emerged from below with half a dozen weary sailors who were clearly terrified of the Iroquois.
“We be no enemy of yours,” a wiry middle-aged man in a red cap ventured in a shaking voice, as he eyed his captors. “Whosoever ye be.”
Duncan pushed Tanaqua’s club down.
“You serve on the sloop?” he asked the man.
“Aye. First mate,” the man said with a thumb to his own chest, and pointed to the man at the end of the line, then the others. “Bosun, the rest able-bodied seamen all.”
“The Penelope is ours,” Duncan declared. “If you’re so inclined we could use your help. If not you can join the others,” he said, motioning toward the marines, who were being gagged and tied like the sentry.
The mate looked back toward the dim shape of the brig. “The Virginia navy’s claimed the boat, sir. And damned them to hell for killing the captain.”
“Men pretending to be the Virginia navy took a pretend prize.”
The mate pulled off his cap and scratched his head. “Everything on this river seems irregular.”
“Completely irregular.”
The man’s expression softened. “The captain was a good man. They had no right.” He shrugged. “But whatever the right of it there’s no escaping those guns when she chases.”
“She’ll not be chasing. Not for hours yet. We’ll be far out of sight by the time she reaches the bay.”
“You mean because she’ll not dare the river shoals in the night?” the mate suggested in a skeptical tone.
“Or with a broken rudder.”
The mate frowned. “Rudder on a navy brig don’t just break away.”
“The Ardent spent too much time in the waters of the Indies without proper sheathing on her hull. Her wood is worm-eaten, which helped when I gouged out the planking around the rudder bolts. They are tied to two different pilings of the dock. The crew will be in a hurry to give chase when they discover the Penelope missing, and the current is strong. They will spring the bolts or at least bend them. If the pilings rip away they will foul the rudder. Either way, even with the best of luck they will be hours behind us. Most likely she will need a tow to a shipyard.”
The mate contemplated Duncan in silence, then watched as more of the Judas company began climbing over the sides. “Ye be those white slaves they were fixing to hang,” he said, more a statement of fact than a question. His men’s eyes were all fixed on him.
“By the same men who killed your captain.”
The mate gave a slow nod that sent a murmur of excitement through his men. “When do ye need the anchor hauled?”
Duncan surveyed the men who were climbing up from the boats. Trent and Woolford were rigging slings for the disabled. “In a quarter hour. We await a boat from the manor house. I need our injured safe in hammocks below. Is there a telescope on board?” He was troubled by the lights that had just appeared in the house.
A minute later, through the strong lenses provided by the mate, he could plainly see the figures of Rush, Conawago, and Alice Dawson in the open doorway. He confirmed that Winters and Sinclair waited for them in the cove with a scull, then saw a lamp lit in Ramsey’s second floor bedroom. These were the most treacherous moments, when the guns of the brig at its moorings could easily reach them, when a single well-aimed shot could destroy their only chance for escape.
Five minutes later the skiff nudged the sloop and the mate barked out a command to weigh the anchor. Duncan ran to the rail as Winters, Sinclair, Rush, and Conawago climbed up.
He looked down into the empty boat. “Mrs. Dawson?” he asked.
Conawago shook his head. “She wanted so much to come, was talking about the new life she would be able to start with us. We were almost outside when he awoke, shouting for her, roaring with rage when he saw the burning gallows, screaming out the window for the marines. Then she brushed away a tear and said there was only one thing that would distract him, that something inside her had known she was not meant to leave her children. Then she went up to his bedroom.”
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 35