Original Death amoca-3

by Eliot Pattison

  “The proprietor serves an excellent applejack,” Calder said, gesturing to a clay bottle beside several pewter mugs, another deck of cards and a set of draughts. “Sit down, McCallum,” he said when Duncan hesitated. “There is no point to arresting you since you make such light work of my prisons. And last I heard, your dead body had already been dragged out of the hole. I’m not sure even I have authority to hang a dead man.”

  Conawago gave a restraining tug on Duncan’s arm as he stepped to the table. The old Nipmuc seemed more curious than afraid of the general. Duncan followed and sat beside his friend.

  General Calder silently filled four mugs, motioning Woolford to join them, then pushed two across the table before raising his lined countenance toward them. “A dispatch rider off his route, tied to a solitary wheel of an army wagon, deep in a lake. It would sound like one of those ridiculous conundrums posed for the entertainment of philosophers. Except that I was conducting an inspection at William Henry and decided to see for myself. Nothing ridiculous about the bloated corpse of a loyal soldier. Normally a missing dispatch rider means missing dispatches. But his dispatch case was still sealed when the horse you borrowed found its way to its stable.”

  Duncan looked from Woolford to the general before replying. “You haven’t found the payroll,” he stated. Neither man returned his gaze. He pushed his chair back to leave.

  “We haven’t found the payroll,” the general reluctantly confirmed. “And one puff of wind in the wrong direction, and the house of cards built of our recent military successes will collapse.” When he finally looked up at Duncan, his face was dark with worry. “People think we win our wars because we have more troops, more cannon, more bullets. But that is seldom the case. Our secret weapon is discipline. I have the best disciplined troops in America. And that discipline has gone to hell. Three thousand men are en route here, and I don’t know how many I can rely on when I take them north. I have no money to pay them, have had none for months. Many of the best-loved members of their regiments have been imprisoned for insubordination. I have several thousand savages who may turn against us at any moment. When they do, all that will be left of his majesty’s army will be scalps hanging on tribal lodgepoles.” A bitter smile rose on Calder’s face, and he drained his mug. “Where is the king’s money, McCallum?”

  “I did not take it.”

  The general filled his mug again. “That verdict has yet to be rendered. But your friends say I could benefit from your intellect, that you have something of an instinct for the mysterious ways of men in the wilderness.”

  “You cast your net too wide,” Duncan said. “Look to your own.”

  Anger flared in the general’s eyes. Duncan extracted the pieces of paper he had taken from the Bethel Church school. He laid them with the writing of the students facing down.

  “Paper is scarce in the frontier settlements,” he explained. “Everyone uses both sides.” He began arranging the papers to line up the disjointed arcs and lines on them, fitting them together like pieces of a puzzle. “I took these to try to understand the captured children, but they tell me more about the captured coins.”

  Calder pushed the candle closer. “A drawing of a cabinet?”

  “A door?” Woolford suggested.

  “The detail of a chest. Or rather an elaborate coach seat that opened like a chest.”

  The general sighed. “I am weary, McCallum. I have no appetite for your games.”

  “The payroll wagon was built in Bethel Church.”

  Calder frowned. “That information was secret. But yes, the quartermaster chose to contract with the Mohawk builders. A gesture of respect to our woodland brethren. But the drawings for it would have been surrendered on delivery of the vehicle.”

  “As I would expect. But someone made a second set and it was kept even more secretly. When they were no longer of use, the schoolmaster must have found them and salvaged the paper for his students.”

  Calder made a gesture of dismissal toward the papers. “What purpose would a second set of plans serve?” he asked. “The pay chest was impregnable. It could only be opened with two different keys, which had been sent north with different dispatch riders the week before.”

  “Keys that did not work,” Duncan stated.

  Calder offered no disagreement.

  “A second wagon was built with the same secrecy as the first,” Duncan continued. “An identical wagon. The Mohawk builders did not suspect anything because it was arranged for, and paid for, by officers in uniform, perhaps even the same officers. They were building another for his majesty as far as they knew.”

  The general went very still.

  “It would have taken them at least three months to build,” Duncan continued. “Add a month for the second set of drawings to be made and sent to them, say a month of planning. Meaning the scheme was hatched just after the defeat of the French at Quebec. What was it the French needed most then?”

  “A few thousand regular soldiers and a few tons of munitions.”

  “All of which are expected soon, with the arrival of their next fleet any day now. Which means all they really needed was time. They’re getting it. What they did was to assure you lost confidence in your troops, in your ability to act swiftly in delivering the killing stroke. The theft of the payroll was meant to change the tide of war.”

  The general looked like he had bitten something very sour. He lifted the bottle as if to fill his mug once more then lowered it. “You have an active imagination, sir.” There was no confidence in his voice.

  Duncan balanced a structure out of the cards on the table, two walls and a roof. “Those involved knew the routine, knew the wagon’s schedule and that it would stop for a meal at the settlement.” He took a draught piece and pushed it inside the card structure. “The second wagon waited in the barn. Some of the escorts were part of the conspiracy, including the driver. The others went inside for the meal.” He pushed a second draught piece into the back of the house of cards. “The paywagon was driven into the far end of the barn, the horse team switched to the new wagon and driven out.” He extended a finger and pulled out the wooden disc. “It would not have been difficult to make the new wagon look road worn-just throw some dirt on it, maybe add a scratch or two. The only one who would likely notice a difference would have been the driver.”

  Woolford muttered a curse. “He was one of those reported as a deserter.”

  The general frowned again. “You suggest I should act based on such wild speculation?”

  Duncan reached into his waistcoat pocket and dropped a musket ball on the table. “I cut this out of Conawago’s shoulder two hours before we arrived at Bethel Church. A bateau fired on us. We thought it an honest mistake by a British vessel, carrying military cargo north. But this is not the seventy-seven caliber of a British Brown Bess.”

  Woolford scooped up the ball, weighing it in his palm before lifting it to his eye, then nodding. “Seventy-two,” the ranger declared. “A French bullet.”

  “The stolen wagon was on the bateau,” Duncan continued, “without its wheels. One of the wheels was used to drown the dispatch rider. The others will be on the bottom too, in a line going north from that dock. They tricked the inhabitants of Bethel Church with a false contract. They tricked the army into thinking the original wagon was in the North. They tricked anyone looking at the bateau into thinking it was on army business. It is the imagination of your enemies you should worry about. They have been playing you exceedingly well.”

  Calder bristled. “What are you saying?” he demanded.

  The reply came from the shadows. “What he is saying, General, is that you think you have this beast by the throat when in fact all you have is the tail.” William Johnson emerged from a second, darkened chamber.

  “I am going north,” Calder snapped to Duncan, as if he had to explain himself. “Johnson and I will crush the French beast if I have to lead every battle myself.”

  Duncan and Woolford exchanged worried gl
ances. Johnson poured himself some applejack.

  “Then the beast has already won.”

  The general looked up in surprise. Conawago had at last spoken. Duncan would not long forget the stare the old Nipmuc fixed on Calder. Along with cool anger was an unexpected pity.

  Calder’s face flushed with color. He had swallowed enough pride. Being baldly rebuked was too much. Duncan saw him glance at the door, where his provost brutes waited.

  Duncan’s own words came out with more acid than he intended. He would not let Calder harm Conawago. “You listen like a British general. What is needed is an American general.”

  Venom rose in Calder’s eyes.

  “The French did not steal your payroll,” Duncan said. “They simply cooperated with the thieves.”

  “You said it was raiders!” Calder spat.

  “If the French had the money,” Woolford inserted, “they would be spreading bounties so fast every settler in Canada would be racing to join them at Montreal. Our reports say instead they have trouble keeping their existing militia from deserting.”

  Calder stared into his mug for several long breaths then turned to Duncan. “Tell me what you mean to do, McCallum.”

  “Five Iroquois children were kidnapped by the thieves. I thought at first it was just an afterthought, that some warriors saw an opportunity to win a few pelts in the slave market. But now I understand. Taking those children was as important to the raiders as taking the king’s silver.”

  “What do you mean to do?” Calder repeated.

  “The coins were meant to reach the French, but it was never a French conspiracy. The half-king is at the center of this. To him the French are only a stepping-stone. What he needs, what he must have, is the Iroquois Council. Silver means nothing to the Council. The children are the descendants of the Council, future members of the Council. They are the real treasure of the Iroquois. I am going north with my Haudenosaunee friends to save five innocent children.”

  “Five innocent children,” the general repeated in a mocking tone.

  “I admire your charitable instincts,” Johnson offered as he lifted the candle to light his pipe. “But the lives of every European and half the Haudenosaunee will be forfeit if we don’t stop this damned half-king. We have been so obsessed with the French that we have let this monster rise up right under our noses. He has slipped past and is closing in on the Saint Lawrence. Once he truly combines with the French, our path to Montreal is blocked. They will close the choke points on the river, and our campaign will be finished. Once he combines,” Johnson added, “the French will have King’s George’s treasure.”

  “Without the children,” Conawago inserted, “the half-king does not have the Iroquois. Without the Iroquois his plans fail.”

  Calder had had too much. “Ridiculous! Do not presume to teach me about diplomacy! You will not go another mile north!” the general barked. “I have sent trained emissaries to treat with the renegade. My nephew Marston is a lieutenant on my personal staff and is seasoned as a diplomat in the Low Countries. This damned mischief maker will be bought off like every other savage, and I will rally my troops to finish this war.”

  “Have you heard nothing I’ve said?” Duncan demanded. “The Revelator is not acting alone. He has powerful allies. He is convinced that he has a destiny of greatness. He will not treat with you. There is only one authority that troubles him, only one that will cause him to hesitate.”

  The general’s sneer was aimed first at Duncan, then Conawago. “A dead Scottish clan? An extinct woodland tribe?”

  Johnson blew a plume of smoke into the general’s face. Calder’s hand closed into a fist and then relaxed, as if he accepted the rebuke.

  In the brittle silence, Conawago produced the belt of purple beads and solemnly unrolled it on the table.

  The general began to wave his hand as if in dismissal, but Johnson pushed the hand aside as he leaned forward. “God’s breath!” the Irishman gasped. “What have you done?”

  Duncan had no reply. Woolford bent over the belt, tentatively pushing its edges, turning over one end to study the knots. He and Johnson exchanged somber glances. “It is indeed the work of the Council weaver,” the ranger whispered.

  “A bunch of cheap beads,” Calder said. “A child’s plaything.”

  “I assure you,” Johnson said, “this is anything but child’s play. If you understood, General, you would be shaken to the bone. Such a belt carries the full power of the Iroquois League, the word of the Council, and the touch of the gods. It has to be satisfied, as the elders would say. And this kind of belt is only satisfied with blood.”

  “You are speaking like some drunken mummer.”

  Johnson looked at Conawago, as if for help, but the Nipmuc would not speak. The Irishman paced around the table, feverishly working his pipe. “These gentlemen,” he finally said, indicating Duncan and Conawago, “are on a mission of blood for the Grand Council of the Iroquois League. A secret mission.”

  “Nonsense,” Calder snapped. “We are all on a glorious mission for our blessed King George, to assure British victory over the damnable French. To establish British freedom over this continent.” The general’s words were dismissive, yet he could not take his eyes off the belt. The longer he stared at it, the angrier he seemed.

  “And what, General Calder,” Conawago asked quietly, “does this continent look like when it has become entirely British?”

  “Sir?”

  “Where in your British freedom are the Iroquois, where are all the men chained to labor by British indentures, where are the Lenni Lenape, the Huron, the Shawnee, and the African slaves?”

  Duncan shifted to the edge of his chair, ready to stop the blow that surely would come.

  But the general only clenched his jaw. “When the French are defeated, you will see that the hand of the king is merciful.” He saw Conawago’s disapproving frown, and his anger ignited once more. “And if you are not prepared to make sacrifice in that cause, then you are my enemy!”

  Conawago replied in a quiet voice. “Then you do not understand who your enemies are, sir.” He sipped from his mug before continuing. “For generations,” Conawago explained, “the Iroquois tribes have been the bridge, the buffer between the French and the English. The English have supplied guns and goods and signed treaties with them because they kept the French at bay. After so many of their people were lost to war and disease in the last century, their connection with the British became the real source of Iroquois power, assuring they would be respected by all. They have fought as surrogates for British soldiers, died instead of those soldiers. Do you need reminding it was they who died for Colonel Johnson’s victory at Lake George, not British troops?

  “Remove the French threat, and the leverage of the Six Nations is gone,” Conawago continued. “They become just another impediment to British expansion.”

  “Nonsense,” the general snapped back. “The king has always remembered his friends. They have nothing to fear.” The general looked to Woolford, as if for confirmation, but the ranger captain just stared impassively at the belt.

  “You do not know who your enemies are,” Duncan repeated. “Let us go north. The half-king has no tolerance for diplomats. He has warned that any outsiders who came before him would become his men or hollow men. Your nephew is in grave danger.”

  “This half-king is little more than a child who speaks in the riddles of children. And you, sir, are so naive in the ways of the world that you are frightened by him.” The general abruptly rose. “Damn you, McCallum! If you had not connived to obtain the protection of the Iroquois Council, I would have you in irons! You will not go north! You will not meddle in affairs of the state! You will not interfere with the progress of my northern campaign! Venture another mile to the north, and I will forget my generosity. You will be dragged back to Albany and chained to the wall of the iron hole until you rot!” Calder marched to the door and turned. “This tavern is closed! You will sleep here tonight while I decid
e what to do with you!”

  Duncan watched the door, half expecting provosts to bring manacles. When he turned he found Johnson and Woolford still staring at the wampum beads. Conawago had taken his mug to the water barrel on the far side of the tavern.

  “Do you have any notion of the gravity of this belt?” Johnson asked Duncan. The Irishman kept his hands away from it now, as if he were frightened of it.

  “I have seen war belts before.”

  “Not like this you haven’t. These aren’t just two men on the belt. They are you and Conawago. It’s a very old thing, something I have only heard about at council fires but never seen.”

  “They knew Conawago and I had a chance of getting through where a large war party would not.”

  “When I was a wee lad, my grandfather would speak of the heroes of old,” Johnson explained, “who would leave on holy missions to slay dragons and other preternatural beasts. The names of the heroes were inscribed on stones out on the moors where they had fallen. The Haudenosaunee have similar legends of heroes sent on impossible missions to save the tribes from grave harm. Solitary warriors sent to turn back huge war parties or force fierce beasts back to whence they came. There are still shrines at special trees deep in the forest kept to honor them, though more and more of the trees are being forgotten. Those heroes are said to have carried belts like yours, for their missions of little war.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Johnson looked to Woolford as if for help. The ranger’s face took on a melancholy expression. “Accepting this belt is like a vow. The images aren’t just a map, Duncan.” He pointed to the rays over the stick men. “Do you understand what this is?”

  “We both ran the dawn runner course. They sent their dawnchasers.”

  Woolford grimaced. “Would that it were true. No. It is a gate, a threshold. He pointed to the waving lines, then the concentric circles. Two men must go up the Saint Lawrence, to a place the Iroquois call the hole in the world. Then the two men must go into the hole, across to the other side. It is not just a prophesy. It is a truth in the eyes of the tribes, a promise, a duty now.”