Original Death amoca-3

by Eliot Pattison

  Two other patterns were woven at either side of the stick figures. The first was a set of wavy lines: three vertical waves then at the top right two similar but much smaller horizontal waves. On the opposite side were two white rings, one inside the other.

  “Water,” Duncan suggested, pointing to the wavy lines.

  Conawago nodded and gestured to the vertical lines. “The big lake, the inland sea called the shining water. Ontario. And at the northeast corner-”

  “A river,” Duncan put in, grasping the simple eloquence of the lines. “My God, it’s a map to a river at the northeast corner of the lake. The Saint Lawrence.” They exchanged a worried glance. The Saint Lawrence was the boiling point of the war. The long river valley was swarming with enemy troops and enemy tribes, with the British army and navy about to descend on them.

  “Some of the tribes call it the River that Never Ends,” Conawago said, foreboding in his voice as he traced the concentric circles with his finger, “for it seems to have no headwaters and two great mouths, one in the inland sea and one in the salt sea.”

  Duncan looked up to see Sagatchie, back from collecting firewood, staring at them. Being given a war belt was always a solemn and auspicious event, and though Sagatchie and Kass seemed confused as to its intent, they knew its source could only have been the Council.

  As his companions laid out their blankets and dropped wood on the fire, Conawago kept staring at the belt, as if he could see things in it that were invisible to Duncan.

  Suddenly Sagatchie grabbed his gun and sprang into the shadows. Duncan instinctively pushed Ishmael down and checked the powder in his rifle’s firing pan as Conawago and Hetty stepped behind trees. A low growl rose from the hell dog at Hetty’s side.

  Duncan’s heart clenched as he heard the determined chant that came from the river, but then he realized it was no war chant but one of the harvest songs used in Iroquois fields.

  Conawago broke from cover, running to the bank with waving arms, then stepping in knee-deep to pull the canoe ashore.

  “Custaloga!” Sagtachie said in surprise as the chieftain stepped onto the bank. The Mohawk ranger gave a respectful nod to the elder and watched in mute amazement as Adanahoe and Tushcona the belt weaver climbed out behind him.

  Adanahoe set a bulging pack down, clicking her tongue in disapproval as she saw the carelessly laid fire. She knelt and began rearranging the logs, then she crisscrossed several more from the nearby pile. “There are huckleberries on the bank downstream,” she declared, pointing to Duncan and Sagatchie.

  “Grandmother,” Duncan said, “why have you left the castle?”

  The old woman stood tall, straightening her doeskin dress. “Jacob Pine,” she said, tapping her breast with her hand, then pointed to Custaloga then to Tushcona, reciting the names of Noah Moss and Hannah Redfern. “They are our children’s children. Their parents are dead or away in the fighting. The other grandparents are too weak to travel.”

  “You don’t understand,” Duncan protested. “Where we go will be a place of great danger, a place of death.”

  The old woman’s face burned bright with determination. “Those who wage a little war still need a little army. Long before he was a peace chief, Custaloga was a great war chief.” As she spoke Custaloga stepped to her side, touching the war ax on his belt with a fierce glint in his eye.

  Duncan looked at Conawago, then Sagatchie, in exasperation, hoping they would know the way to ask the elders to return to their town. “We cannot,” he said. “I mean, you are too valuable to the Haudenosaunee people. We can’t risk-” Kassawaya stepped beside Adanahoe, as though in warning, her face as stern as those of the elders. Duncan turned to Conawago with a plaintive expression. “Tell me what to do,” he pleaded.

  “I think what you need to do,” the old Nipmuc said with a grin, “is go pick huckleberries.”

  A strong northern wind stirred the surface of the great inland sea called Lake Ontario, covering it with short choppy whitecaps. Duncan studied the small fleet of warships trapped by the wind in the harbor below Fort Oswego. Three sloops of war with a dozen guns each lay anchored close to shore, and strung between them like beads on a necklace were two dozen of the long boats used for transporting troops on the inland waters. The fort was being used as the launching point for the troops that would invade French Canada up the Saint Lawrence from the West.

  If the solid, symmetrical stone fortress overlooking the harbor was the perfect symbol of England’s military order, the town below was the symbol of the chaos of the frontier. A handful of small inns and taverns, some little more than large huts, rose up along the rutted roads. Ramshackle lean-tos, log houses, even small bark lodges sprawled along muddy paths that led toward piers built along the wide river. Only half a dozen stone houses at the mouth of the river offered any sense of permanence. Scores of tents lined the long flat field on the east side of the fort, with soldiers erecting more as they watched. Militia and regular troops were arriving, assembling for the northern campaign. Duncan looked uneasily back toward their own camp, a quarter mile upstream. They could never maneuver their canoes on the lake in such a wind. They would have to wait in hiding, Duncan told himself, but then Sagatchie touched his arm and pointed to the log piers jutting into the river. The wide cargo canoe with red eyes painted on its bow was beached by the nearest pier. Rabbit Jack and the other traders who had fled from Onondaga Castle were in the town.

  “I don’t know if I would recognize him,” Duncan said.

  “He loves that jacket.” Sagatchie surveyed the riverfront as he spoke, then his gaze settled on a rundown log structure built into the bank. “And he will bear the mark,” he added, and set off at a trot back toward their camp.

  By the time Duncan reached him, the Mohawk ranger was already speaking with their companions. Duncan was about to explain that they could not travel on the lake that day when he saw Adanahoe unrolling their blankets, and he realized Sagatchie had broken the news. Conawago straightened and motioned Duncan in the direction of the settlement. “If someone killed Black Fish for telling the story of the half-king and the spirits, we must know why. Those from that canoe will know.”

  “Perhaps he didn’t die for telling the story,” Duncan suggested. “He had a heavy scent of rum about him. Maybe it had more to do with him getting drunk after telling it.”

  Conawago stared at the river as he weighed Duncan’s words. “You mean he may have divulged something his killer did not want others to know.”

  “A drunk man can boast. A man who played a trick on the Council might be very proud of himself.”

  “No!” Conawago shot back. “You saw him. He held the beads, Duncan!” In the old Nipmuc’s world it was not possible to lie to the Council.

  “A man with a dark heart may not speak with honor,” Duncan pointed out. “Words can become snares for the unknowing.”

  “Stop this!” Tushcona cried out. “I thought you understood our ways. Do not pretend a member of the League could speak other than the truth to the Council. It is the sacred duty of all. It is not possible to hold the beads and lie.”

  “He spoke and then he died,” Duncan replied.

  Conawago frowned at him, unhappy that Duncan would press the elders.

  “Whatever the reason he died,” Duncan continued, “word will get back quickly to the half-king that on the very the night the Council was asked to support him his disciple was murdered. No matter what words we use now, that will be the message the half-king will hear. Vengeance is in his blood. We have seen what he does to those who anger him.”

  Sagatchie slowly led Conawago and Duncan back toward the docks, pausing to step into shadows whenever boats carrying soldiers and militia passed by, then stopping at the wide canoe. Two wooden chests of cargo covered with blankets were still in the vessel, though no guard watched them. The Mohawk stepped into the canoe, threw off the blanket on the first chest, and opened it. There was nothing inside but four small bags of cornmeal and half a dozen o
f the cheap axes used in trade. The second held nothing but a smaller chest packed in straw. Wooden panels divided the inner chest into half a dozen compartments, holding nothing but sawdust. Sagatchie ran his fingers through the sawdust, lifting some in his palm and watching with a confused expression as it blew away. “Those who belong to this canoe were supposed to be traders, who called at the Iroquois castles to spread the promise of the half-king. They received nothing in trade. Their cargo was a ruse,” he said with a pointed glance at Duncan. “Onondaga Castle was their last stop. They are traveling back to the half-king.”

  A cool anger grew on the Mohawk’s face. He covered the chests again and pointed toward the hut built into the side of the bank. Sagatchie and Duncan stepped through its flimsy leather-hinged door into a smoky, foul-smelling chamber where several Indians and rough looking trappers were tossing white and black pebbles in a circle marked with flour on the dirt floor.

  “They have to bet to play, but first they pay the owner,” Sagatchie said. As he spoke a stout man in a leather apron took a coin from a tribesman, who then extended his forearm. The proprietor reached out with a stick of chalk and left a broad white mark on his skin then dropped the coin into a bowl on the table beside him. “With that mark he can play all day,” the Mohawk explained and gestured Duncan toward the plump man’s side.

  “Five men from that red-eyed canoe woke me up this morning to buy a jar of rum,” the proprietor explained, “and to begin their games.” Duncan saw that his bowl held not just coins but silver links from jewelry, brass pins, and even a piece of crystal rock. “My customers usually play for hours. Those five left around noon, the only ones to leave so far today.”

  “Meaning the only ones with the mark will be those from that canoe,” Conawago observed when Duncan reported the news, and he gestured Duncan onto the muddy street.

  The settlement was alive with activity. They found themselves weaving around women carrying huge piles of firewood on their backs or dragging branches on the ground. An old tribal woman sold fish strung on vines, another small pumpkins stacked at her side. A boy carrying a bundle of sassafras roots on his shoulder passed by, leaving a scented trail. Conawago and Duncan had reached the end of the outermost street and were about to continue their search closer to the fort when Sagatchie stepped out of the shadows. “Two of them are in the stable below the fort, sharing a jar of ale.”

  “You found them so soon?” Duncan asked. “How did you. .” As he glanced further into the shade of the trees, he realized he did not need to finish his question. Patrick Woolford sat against a big oak. “You were already looking for them,” he concluded.

  Woolford nodded. “I saw the canoe this morning. Red eyes on the bow. It’s been calling on every Iroquois settlement this side of Lake Cayuga. Even here they have been recruiting men for the half-king, offering a new ax and a pint of ale to each man who agrees to go north.”

  Duncan quickly explained the murder at Onondaga Castle.

  “If we had any sense we’d throw the lot of them behind bars,” Woolford groused. He rose and made a quick gesture toward the trees, and four more men wearing ranger green emerged from the deeper shadows, two Iroquois and two sturdy bearded men. Woolford offered a few quiet words, and the men left at a brisk walk toward the fort.

  “There’s an old stable behind these trees where we made our camp. We will bring them all back for a chat. We want none to flee to the renegade camp. Wait there, Duncan. Need I remind you you are still a fugitive from the army’s justice?”

  Woolford took off down the street with Sagatchie. Duncan and Conawago waited until the ranger was out of sight and resumed their own search. They had wandered down nearly half the town’s paths and streets, studying every man they passed, when Conawago grabbed his arm in alarm. Provosts were walking down the street toward them. As they watched, however, two of the old women carrying a bundle of wood between them stumbled before the provosts, scattering the wood, then falling to the ground to block their path. Duncan did not understand Conawago’s chuckle until the women raised their faces toward them. It was Hetty and Tushcona the weaver. They had interfered with the provosts to give them time to hide.

  As they watched from the shadows, Conawago silently gestured to an old man dragging several long branches along the road. Custaloga glanced up but pretended not to know them. As he watched, the old Oneida seemed to stumble, turning the branches sideways as he did so, blocking the path of two tribesmen walking up the track. Duncan did not notice the white marks on their forearms until two of Woolford’s rangers suddenly appeared behind them and grabbed their elbows. Their army of Iroquois elders was at work.

  A moment later a sharp whistle rose from further down the street. Woolford and Sagatchie were pulling Rabbit Jack between them.

  “Hold there, Captain!” The sharp, angry command came from the prim and powdered officer who had sent Duncan to the iron hole. Duncan lowered his head and fought the impulse to run.

  Woolford stiffly acknowledged the older man. “Colonel Cameron.”

  Cameron wore the scarlet, gold, and lace of a senior British officer, but beside him were two stern grenadiers in Highland plaid. “Have you no grasp of our sensitive relations with the tribes?” Cameron snapped.

  “I have some experience in that regard, sir. I mean to question these men.”

  “Nonsense!” Cameron thundered. “Do not play the magistrate, Woolford. I will not abide insults to our brave companions in arms!” He gestured to his escort, who pulled the prisoners from the rangers. “You are too bold, sir, entirely too bold!” the colonel snapped.

  The ranger officer was clearly struggling to keep his temper under control. He glanced at Duncan, whose face was known to Cameron, then brought a knuckle to his temple like an obsequious recruit. “Too bold,” he repeated. He was about to turn when a figure leapt out from an alley and launched itself onto Rabbit Jack’s back. The Mingo seemed more amazed then hurt as Hetty screeched Indian epithets and pummeled him with her small bony fists. Rabbit Jack laughed as the grenadiers began prying her off. She did not want to give up, and she clutched his blue jacket as she was dragged away. As she dropped into the dirt the hell dog leapt beside her, baring his teeth at the Mingo as he retreated, still laughing.

  “There was another man in that canoe,” Woolford reported to Duncan. “Before that fool Cameron interrupted, I told Rabbit Jack he was going to hang for murder. He laughed and said we had the wrong man, that we should speak with the poet. He said it is the poet of death who teaches the flock how to leave bodies behind.”

  The poet of death. He sounded like a European. Duncan looked to Sagatchie and Kass. “We were all at the Council,” Sagatchie said. “No one watched the landing where those from the red-eyed canoe made their camp.”

  “Several men arrived together at the council fire,” Duncan said. “But only two came forward, Rabbit Jack and Black Fish. The others backed quickly away. One of them was a tall man in European clothes, wearing a wide-brimmed hat.”

  “The fox will back away when it sees a wolf at a kill,” Sagatchie observed.

  Duncan broke the silence that followed. “If this poet is here, then Rabbit Jack will probably be running to him now.”

  “I think that particular hare will hop to a tavern,” Woolford said. “And poets are known to be partial to ale.”

  They resumed their search, more wary than ever of the scarlet coats, tracing reports of Rabbit Jack calling at two taverns, asking after a tall man in a black hat. At last an old Oneida hawking baskets pointed to a two-story stone structure overlooking the river, the most substantial of the town’s taverns. With a glint of victory in his eye, Woolford directed Duncan to enter the rear door while he and Sagatchie stood outside the front. They would snare Jack as he fled.

  Duncan entered the back of the building and stepped to the cage-like alcove built into the corner from which the tavernkeeper dispensed his beverages. Beside the cage a plump woman with rouged cheeks sat, rolling three silver beads
back and forth on the table. Duncan hesitated a moment, realizing they matched the beads he had seen in the bowl at the gaming hut. When he asked for a warrior in a naval jacket, the old Dutchman pointed toward the entry. “Left not five minutes ago.”

  Duncan darted out the door so quickly he did not see the halberd that tripped him until he was sprawled on the ground.

  “Not so fast, laddie. You could crack your brainpan.” An ox of a man wearing the bearskin hat of the grenadiers bent and pulled Duncan to his feet. Duncan looked through the ring of provosts that surrounded him to see the red-eyed canoe gliding past the tavern. Rabbit Jack made an obscene gesture at him then with a laugh slapped the back of a lean, black-clothed man who sat on one of the wooden chests. The brim of his black hat was too wide for Duncan to see the face of the poet of death.

  The big grenadier pushed Duncan back inside, to a table where Conawago now sat. The old Nipmuc absently lifted the deck of worn playing cards on the table and began shuffling from hand to hand. Duncan kept his eyes down, painfully aware of whispered commands and grumbling, of chairs scraping the floor.

  Suddenly the tavern was quiet. There were no more soldiers, no more patrons, not even the tavernkeeper. Duncan rose uneasily and was eyeing the rear door when Woolford stepped out of a doorway along the opposite side of the room. With a look of apology he opened the door wider to reveal a private dining chamber. The ranger captain gestured them toward the candlelit table where a solitary man sat waiting.

  Duncan at first did not recognize the figure since he had never seen him in civilian clothes. “General Calder!” he said with a shudder, and he spun toward the rear door before realizing provosts were undoubtedly standing outside.