Ramsey offered no protest when Conawago lifted away the stack of forged papers in front of him.
“We are prepared to refrain from such harsh actions,” Dickinson announced. “We are willing to hold the writs in a private file and not prosecute them. Mrs. Franklin has reluctantly agreed to suspend publication of this most remarkable story. Provided—”
Ramsey leaned forward, reviving.
“Provided you leave Virginia and the northern colonies. You have plantations in the Carolinas and the Caribbean you can retreat to, not to mention your estates in England. You will discreetly give us the names of all members of the Kraken Club and we will make no official notice of them. You will give employment to Francis Johnson in England, far from the Iroquois and his father. You will abandon all efforts to block the committees of correspondence and the conduct of a colonial congress. And you will report that your informants confirm that such congress will not be held until next spring.”
Ramsey’s eyes were like daggers, stabbing at Duncan. He slowly turned to Dickinson then lowered his head and stiffly nodded.
Duncan leaned over Dickinson and whispered. “Ah, yes,” Dickinson said with a slight blush. “You will abandon all efforts to marry off your daughter.” The magistrate glanced out the window. Sarah had gone outside and was now laughing with Colonel Washington. “I have met Miss Ramsey and assure you she is quite capable of managing her own life. And you will sign a deed.”
“Deed?” Ramsey growled.
Conawago placed another paper in front of the lord. “Sign this and the governor and magistrate will witness,” Dickinson explained. “There was some confusion over ownership of a plantation on the Rappahannock. This deed transfers all ownership rights in Galilee to Mrs. Dawson, the widow and heir of the former owner.”
“Colonel Washington,” Dickinson added, “and Major Webb have graciously agreed to deliver the deed to Mrs. Dawson personally.”
“Impossible!” Gabriel hissed, rising so fast he spilled papers across the table. “That is my plantation! No sotted Quaker prig is going to—” his words died away as Ononyot clamped a hand around his arm. Gabriel tried to twist out of his grip, to no avail. “Get off me you filthy heathen! If I had you back at—” Tanaqua appeared on his other side.
Dickinson raised a hand. “One final thing. Mr. Moon has reminded us that there is an old treaty with the tribes. Never abrogated after all these years. It promised comity, meaning each side would respect the enforcement of the laws of the other. There was an example, right in the text, that a murderer of a tribal member would answer for his crime under tribal law, and it is the policy of Pennsylvania that if any such fugitive from Iroquois justice sought refuge within our borders, we would turn him over. The murder of an aged Susquehannock would be a matter of tribal law, of course.”
One by one Hyanka and the other Iroquois rangers who had been in Galilee filed into the chamber. Gabriel stood stricken, wide-eyed, and unable to speak, then suddenly reached into his waistcoat and extracted a small pepperbox pistol that he swung toward the Iroquois. Tanaqua pushed the barrel upward as it discharged, loosening its load into the ceiling.
No one spoke. Tanaqua pried the pistol out of his hand. As he set it on the table Gabriel gave a terrified squeal. Ononyot had slipped a prisoner’s strap over his neck.
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON WHEN THEY FINALLY LEFT THE TAVERN, having seen Ramsey off with his escort of Philadelphia dragoons. Governor Allen had to leave soon himself, but Adams, Mrs. Franklin, Washington, and Dickinson insisted on hosting a banquet that night for Duncan and his companions.
“In faith, McCallum,” the governor exclaimed, “we are truly and deeply indebted to you. If there is ever anything I could do for you—”
Duncan smiled. He had prayed for the invitation. “We would not have succeeded without the Iroquois,” he replied. “There is a merchant here named Hawley,” he added, then explained what he had in mind.
“My God, McCallum. You presume much, sir.”
Duncan silently returned his stare, until the governor looked away.
Half an hour later Duncan and the governor entered Hawley’s establishment, followed by Dickinson, Conawago, and Tanaqua.
“Mr. Hawley,” Conawago said to the man behind the counter. “Might I present his excellency Mr. Allen, the acting governor of the colony, and Magistrate Dickinson?”
The storemaster’s jaw dropped open. He hastily removed his apron and offered a bow. “Honored I’m sure.”
“I understand,” Allen began, “that you hold a commission as paymaster of bounties on—” he cast an uneasy glance at Conawago and Tanaqua. “On hair,” he concluded.
“Aye, sir. An active trade for our establishment, the most active commission in the colony by all accounts.”
“Might I see it?”
Hawley frowned then excused himself as he hurried into a back office. When he returned, the governor unrolled the parchment on the counter. “Have you ink and a pen?” he inquired. As he waited again he read the words and his face clouded. “Not the proudest act of a Christian government,” he whispered, as if to himself. When the ink arrived he lifted the pen and with a flourish wrote the word Terminated across the face of the commission and signed it. “You are done, Hawley. It’s all done.” He rolled up the commission and handed it to Tanaqua. “This colony is no longer in the hair business.”
EPILOGUE
Child!” Conawago growled to Analie. “The king will fall to the deserved victor if you would but stop showering me with Franklin’s sparks! I swear I am going to write the great doctor in London and let him know the French are perverting his science!”
Analie giggled, then drew another spark from Conawago’s fingers with the glass rod sent by Deborah Franklin in Philadelphia and skipped away, raising a deep laugh from their genteel host on the other side of the chessboard.
“I’ve begun to suspect you have bribed the girl to distract me, Sir William,” the old Nipmuc said to his chess partner.
William Johnson, baronet and Superintendent of Indian Affairs, looked up from his troubles on the board. “What an inspired suggestion!” he exclaimed, and tossed a sweet biscuit to the girl before refilling the china teacups on their folding campaign table. She broke it in half to share with Kuwali, who sat on the carpet with Sarah looking at a small slate where Sarah was teaching him the sounds of Iroquois words. Duncan looked up over the gazette he was reading, relieved to see the smile on Johnson’s face. The pain of his son’s betrayal had been easing since joining his friends but the scar inflicted by Francis, now gone across the Atlantic, would mark him forever. Analie grabbed Duncan’s hand and pulled him up from his reading. He handed his paper to Woolford and let her lead him outside.
In his advanced years Sir William liked to carry his comforts with him when he traveled. Duncan and Analie stepped out of the pavilion tent’s European world into a Haudensaunee town of bark-wrapped lodges. The castle of Onondaga, capital of the Iroquois nation, was a beehive of activity. Kettles of maize and venison stew hung over slow-burning fires. Dogs ran playfully with laughing children. Baskets of apples lined the front of one lodge, stacked pumpkins another. Duncan offered respectful greetings to matrons and chieftains as Analie pulled him toward the knoll behind the lodge of the Great Council.
The girl sobered as they reached the cairns of stones that flanked the path up the hill, and the warrior assigned as sentry gave them a stern inspection. She glanced down to make sure her bead necklace was not askew over her doeskin shift, then straightened like a nervous soldier. It was highly unusual for a child to be permitted up the knoll but, as the sentry well knew, she had been given special dispensation. The guard was Ononyot, and though a smile was in his eyes, their Mohawk friend gave the girl a strict examination, solemnly lifting and studying her beads before nodding his approval and gesturing them forward.
A slow, muffled drumbeat could be heard from the lodge at the crest of the hill. They passed the cedar-scented lodge where the sacred mask
s were kept and continued to the smaller, ivy-covered lodge behind it.
The grandmother of the Haudensaunee still lived. Adanahoe was weak but she was not the frail, fading creature to whom Duncan had given a vow months earlier. Her wrinkled face lifted with a smile as she saw her visitors and Tanaqua, so often now at her side, shifted to make room for Analie to sit beside the old woman. The celebration in the town was in honor of the tall Mohawk, for he was to be elevated to the Great Council that night, but he spent most of his time in solitude with Adanahoe. Duncan had seen despair on her face in the spring, and had known it was due not just to the stolen mask and death of her grandson, but also because she had been convinced she was dying and had not completed passing on the ancient ways to the next generation.
The Iroquois elder had insisted on hearing every detail of their experiences with Jahoska, and now had asked Duncan to come to relate what he had learned about the remarkable life of the half king of the south. She chatted amiably about the autumn harvest of pumpkins, the cherished gift of a teapot from Sarah, even the rumors of a white stag in the forest, until the cloth at the entry stirred and a young woman entered, carrying a small piece of skin stretched on a willow frame. As she settled in the shadows and extracted a charcoal stick from her cartouche, Duncan recognized her as one of the inscribers of the Iroquois records, an artist who produced the large pictorial chronicles on deer skins to memorialize people and events for the tribes. Adanahoe was making sure Jahoska was not forgotten.
For the rest of the afternoon they spoke of the half king and his long eventful life, with the Iroquois chronicler sketching notes as they spoke. By the time they finished, more drums were beating, and joyful chanting could be heard in anticipation of the approaching ceremony. Tanaqua seemed reluctant to leave the old woman, even when she struggled to her feet and pulled his hand to urge him to rise. Duncan did not understand the sadness on his face when he finally stood, nor the tear in Adanahoe’s eye.
An hour later, the clans of the six great tribes—Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and Tuscarora—marched up the pathway to the circle of the Great Council, past trees whose gold and scarlet splendor was embellished with garlands of berries and gourds. The final clan to climb to the ceremony was led by Conawago, Sir William and his wife Molly, followed by Duncan, Sarah, Woolford, Analie, and Kuwali. The moon was rising. Torches were being lit along the path. Bowls of smoldering cedar lined the earthen amphitheater where the joyful investiture was to take place.
“Jiyathondek! Jiyathondek!” the eldest of the chieftains finally called, silencing the assembly with a call to the spirits of the forest. The other great chieftains of the League joined in the opening rituals, in which the gods were reminded of their faithful children the Haudensaunee, and the great things they had accomplished through the centuries.
The moon had arced through a quarter of the sky before the speeches were completed and Tanaqua had accepted his honor. Duncan cradled Analie against his shoulder as they finally made their way back to Johnson’s comfortable encampment. He laid her down beside Kuwali on the blankets inside Johnson’s tent, near Sir William’s own cot, rubbing each of the children on the head. The two had quickly won the hearts of those in Edentown.
As he left the tent Ononyot was waiting for him. The Mohawk motioned Sarah and Woolford out of the shadows and silently guided the three of them back into town. Only Adanahoe’s lodge remained lit with torches. Ononyot gestured them inside then turned to guard the door.
There was an unexpected heaviness in the air, a melancholy that seemed out of place in the festive night. Conawago and Tanaqua flanked Adanahoe at her fire ring. The ancient strand of wampum that had been awarded Tanaqua as a symbol of his new rank hung around his neck, but so too did a bundle of feathers and bear claws, wrapped in white ermine. The Mohawk was there not as a chieftain but as the head of the secret society that protected the ancient spirits, a shadowkeeper. With a chill Duncan saw that he had painted white and red stripes on his face, the sign of a warrior embarking on a dangerous mission.
“Jiyathondek,” Adanahoe began, calling those on the other side to come witness. At first she used the familiar words of Iroquois ritual, but then after several minutes any sign of a ritual halted and she spoke in the tone of a eulogy.
“The spirits of the forest world grow weary,” she said, “and are in danger of becoming distracted by fear and worry. It is time to find rest for the old ones, time to let them turn away from this world so they can grow strong in the next.”
Sarah suddenly gasped and straightened. “Grandmother! No! You must not!” she interrupted. Duncan looked at her in alarm. It was unthinkable that she would show such disrespect for the venerated matriarch. He stared at her, confused, and with rising fear. She stood and leaned forward, as if she might physically stop Adanahoe. “You must not do this, grandmother! The people need—”
Conawago interrupted. “The people need to know their spirits are secure,” the old Nipmuc said.
“Not like this,” Sarah pleaded. “I beg you!” There were tears in her eyes as Conawago, rising, gently pushed her back to her seat on the packed earth floor.
“I had a dream,” Adanahoe declared. “There was a cave on an island in a great lake. There were many white birches and an eagle lived in an oak atop the cave, a sentinel sent by the spirits. Conawago says he knows where that cave is, in the western lands beyond the inland sea.”
“But the people . . .” Sarah said, her voice thick with emotion. “Our own world could become so hollow. Hope is already so difficult to . . .” Her voice trailed away as tears flooded down her cheeks.
Duncan’s fear was turning to desperation. Something terrible was happening but he could not put a name to it.
“Not all go, child,” the matriarch said. “The Blooddancer is restless and needs a new home, and four of the others. The Council met through the night last night to decide which ones.”
Sarah’s hand gripped Duncan’s. Suddenly he understood why Tanaqua wore the badge of his secret office. The gods were leaving their centuries-old home with the Haudensaunee.
“It is only for a time,” Adanahoe said, forcing a smile. “Surely there will come a day when our chiefs will decide it is safe for them to return.”
Woolford’s voice trembled as he spoke. “Grandmother, I beg you to speak no more with us of this thing. Do not let Europeans know of the destination. This should be a secret only for the tribes.”
“The number of those we can truly trust grows smaller each year,” the matriarch replied. “Only a few will know, but those that do must be those who know how to turn back evil when it seeks us. You stand with us. You have bled with us, and for us. We know now that your blood and our blood comes from the same ancient source, from the oak of the forest. And it will be those of that blood who will shape the coming age.”
The honor being shown to Duncan, Sarah, and Woolford silenced all protest. They were three outsiders who would be trusted, three not from the tribes but still of the tribes. It did not include any of those from Johnson Hall, where betrayal had triggered so much death and suffering.
Only now did Duncan see that Conawago too wore a bundle of feathers, claws, and ermine fur on his arm, and his heart sank further as he realized what it signified. The old Nipmuc twisted two fingers around the bundle as he spoke now of their distant destination. There would be long rituals to perform once there, and a small, stealthy group of human shadowkeepers would be left behind to aid the eagle.
They left in the predawn greyness, a file of a dozen solemn men led by Conawago and Tanaqua, five of them carrying on their backs the special doeskin pouches in which the sacred masks were transported.
Duncan and Sarah watched from the shadows, their hearts laden with emotion. They were witnessing the retreat of a great people, for centuries the masters of the forests and guardians of the forests’ secrets. The Haudensaunee would endure but part of their hearts would be empty. They watched in silence as the last of the sacred war
riors disappeared into the morning mists. Not for the first time in watching his friend depart, Duncan wondered if this was the journey from which Conawago would never return.
Sarah led Duncan back to the little lodge where Adanahoe now slept, and they sat outside the doorway in silence until the sun had cleared the top of the trees.
Their encampment was full of laughter when they finally returned. Sir William had organized a lacrosse game among the adolescents, and Analie and Kuwali had accumulated so much grime from rolling on the soft earth that they were almost indistinguishable from their Iroquois playmates. A messenger had come from Edentown with letters, and Duncan sat with Woolford as they listened to Sarah read an account from Alice Dawson.
Smiles grew on their faces as they heard how surprised Alice had been when Colonel Washington and Webb had called on her, how shocked she had been to receive from the colonel the paper that returned the plantation to its rightful owner. Gabriel’s overseers had been dismissed the following day. Ursa had taken up duties at the smithy and his first task had been to melt down all the leg irons. Alice was teaching Ursa to read and write so he could correspond with his son at Edentown. Winters had been put in charge of rebuilding the mill for Mr. Bowen. Chuga had miraculously appeared on the porch one morning, and now stayed at the manor house most days, though always leaving at dusk to sleep on the high bluff with Jahoska.
Sarah pulled a new Pennsylvania Gazette from the bundle and broke into a wide smile before handing it to Duncan. The Stamp Tax Congress so dreaded by the Krakens had been officially announced, and would soon take place in New York, with at least nine colonies attending.
Reaching the final letter, she paused and pointed to the runner marks along the top. “It’s for you, Duncan. Urgent committee business, the runner notes.” Sarah looked up in surprise. “From that genteel Samuel Adams of Boston.” She puzzled over the envelope. “But what’s this? To Duncan McCallum; it says, Son of Liberty.”
Blood of the Oak: A Mystery Page 40