Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  Duncan surfaced beside Molly and followed her as she retrieved a stick for an exuberant Will, who stood knee-deep in the water. The boy threw the stick again, and with a long, skimming dive Duncan raced Molly toward it. Dog and boy jumped up and down with delight when she returned with it clenched in her jaw. Duncan laughed and dove again, embracing the joy he felt in the watery underworld, letting it scrub away his fears and anger. A turtle scurried along the bottom. He glided through a school of sleek minnows and watched from below as a large trout shot upward past him, escaping the water for an instant to capture a midge before splashing back home. What did it think of the world above? He remembered afternoons on his grandfather’s sloop, when whales or great basking sharks would follow the boat, one eye rolled up so they could examine the strange human world. More than once his grandfather had shouted the Gaelic war cry, “Buaidh no bas!”—Victory or death!—and leapt onto the back of a leviathan. The massive creatures seemed to enjoy the frolic, and with a laugh that echoed far over the bays, his grandfather would declare that they were undoubtedly distant relatives.

  Duncan surfaced again, wearing a rare smile, to the sound of an excited call.

  “There! In the water, Duncan!” the boy shouted, eagerly pointing. “A piece of treasure!” Duncan reached his side and followed his arm toward a tiny point of color on the bottom that sparkled in the long rays of the setting sun. Will grabbed Duncan’s arm and pushed him toward it. With another laugh Duncan took a couple of steps and submerged again.

  It did indeed seem to be a piece of treasure that Will had spotted, or at least a finely cut piece of crystal. Duncan studied it for a moment, then carefully pushed aside enough of the mud to see that it was part of a bracelet. It would be good for the boy to have a memento, something to distract him from his sorrow. He lifted the bracelet, then recoiled in horror. A skeleton arm rose up out of the muck with it.

  As Duncan flailed in the water, still gripping the bracelet, the skeleton hand disintegrated, the bones disappearing back into the mud. He shot to the surface, his heart thundering, and treaded water as he calmed himself.

  He knew not what to say, so he silently extended the bracelet to the boy, who grabbed it with a gleeful whoop and splashed back toward camp. Duncan, his joy withered, stared back at the patch of blackness where the remains of a woman lay.

  The day was ending in a blush of purples and pinks over the western mountains when Molly sprang up to greet the last two travelers. Hayes and Brandt looked completely sapped from their long trek, and both collapsed by the fire, eagerly accepting the split wood slabs on which Conawago served his fried trout.

  “What ye playing with, boy?” Brandt asked Will after wolfing down his first serving and extending his slab for more.

  Will still beamed with excitement as he turned his bauble over and over. “Pirate treasure!”

  “In the Hampshire Grants?” Brandt scoffed. “Not likely.” The old ranger rose and stepped to the boy’s side, gesturing for the piece of jewelry. He reached for it, but as he touched it, he seemed to shudder and abruptly pulled away his hand. “A bracelet? From the lake?”

  “Mr. Duncan dove for it! He’s like a fish!”

  Brandt fixed Duncan with a look of sober inquiry. “How far out?” he asked.

  “A stone’s throw,” Duncan answered.

  “Give it back, boy.”

  Will looked up in alarm. “Back?”

  “To the dark waters.”

  Conawago stepped to Will’s side. “The boy’s had a vexing time. Go lightly.”

  Brandt shrugged, exchanged a glance with Hayes, muttered something about ghosts, then silently finished his meal and carried his bedroll to one of the piles of fresh pine boughs Conawago had collected for bedding. He spoke no more, and Will soon followed his example, leaving the others staring at the bracelet he had left on a rock by the fire.

  Munro produced his pipe and was coaxing the tobacco with a smoldering stick when Hayes suddenly spoke.

  “Emma Fletcher,” the tinker said.

  Munro lowered his pipe. “Pardon?”

  “That was her name. Emma Fletcher,” Hayes replied. “Captured with several other women in a late-winter raid during the war. I made it my business to track down every tale of female captives, thinking I may find a thread of my Rebecca’s fate. Before the army cleared this road, much of this route was a path used by Abenaki raiders when they came down from Champlain.” He extracted his own clay pipe and lit it, then stared into the flames.

  “And?” Munro asked.

  Long moments passed before Hayes spoke. “She died,” he finally said.

  No one seemed inclined to push the tinker, knowing the pain it cost him to speak of Indian captives. The weary silence remained unbroken except by the haunting, echoing cry of a loon. Molly sauntered to Will and lay down beside him. Munro rose, completed a night scout around the camp, and returned, joining again in the silent vigil at the fire.

  “Scarce out of her teens, they say,” came a voice from the shadows. Brandt, in his blanket now, was still awake. “Fresh married. The raiders slaughtered her husband before her eyes. Took a dozen women up to the St. Lawrence, where the western tribes came to trade for slaves. One of ’em got bought by a Frenchie whose priest made him give her up. She told the story, how this Emma cried and tore at her bindings, even tried to bite open her own veins. They stopped here on their run north.

  “There was a winter moon,” Brandt continued, “shining on the snow and ice over the lake. Emma made like she had a call of nature, and her captor led her off with a loop around her neck. When they got to the lake, she jerked it from his hand and ran out on the ice. They could all hear the ice cracking, and the other women called and begged her to come back. But she kept going and finally turned. She stretched her arms out and called her dead husband’s name out to the heavens, then started jumping up and down. After four or five jumps, the ice opened and she was gone.”

  Duncan sensed motion behind him. Will darted past them, snatching the bracelet from the rock and running toward the lake as if to pitch it back into the water. But as he passed the tinker, Hayes grabbed his arm.

  “It’s all that remains on earth of her, boy,” Hayes stated. His voice was fierce. “She reached out to you today, to keep her memory alive. Only you felt her summons. Don’t deny her this.”

  The sudden alarm in Will’s eyes ebbed, and he stared at the bracelet in his hand.

  “Say her name,” Hayes told him. “Emma Fletcher.”

  The boy took a deep breath, then looked back at Duncan, who knew the boy was acquainted with angels. Will solemnly repeated the name and pushed the bracelet into his waistcoat.

  As the boy settled again, Duncan wandered down the shoreline and sat on a ledge that had the shape of a natural chair, its granite still warm from the sun. He gazed out over the long, shimmering blade that was the moon’s reflection on the lake and found himself whispering a prayer for the soul of young Emma Fletcher.

  As he watched Conawago and Munro stoke the fire and lay out their blanket rolls, it occurred to him that he was witnessing an age-old ritual. The camp, the trail itself, had been established long before the army arrived, before colonists arrived. At the intersection of the route between the mountains and the fertile lake, it was a perfect resting place, probably once a perfect hunting place. Tribesmen had been coming here for decades, probably centuries. It had clearly seen tragedy and despair but also no doubt great prowess and celebrations. Secrets were soaked into the soil of such places, Conawago would say, and some might rub off on the observant.

  Natives had no doubt been exactly where he was, sitting on this granite slab, the likeliest of perches, and fished, watched sunsets, made love, committed mayhem, and witnessed death. Duncan somehow knew that men and women sat in his stone chair long before anyone had heard of Europeans or conceived of their distant lands. It made him feel small yet somehow more alive, the way he felt as a boy when sitting alone by the ancient standing stones of Scotland
. Something timeless surged through him, something fierce and free, something shared by the natives of this land and the Highland clans. These were people who would reject the harness of a distant king and laugh at those weak enough to let such kings steal their freedom and honor.

  Duncan had felt adrift for too long, uncertain of anything anymore. He could not shake the feeling that he was losing Sarah. He had let himself become a minion of merchant lords whose motives he did not grasp. He had let himself be used and become a fugitive for reasons he did not even understand. But here on this ancient granite, with the moon slicing silver into the dark, remembering waters, he felt an unexpected strength. He was the head of Clan McCallum, and though it may be nearly extinct, he would keep its honor as long as his heart kept beating. He leaned back, feeling, if not contented, at least at peace, and he shut his eyes.

  When he woke, the moon had moved more than an hour through the heavens. The loon’s lonely signal still echoed across the lake, joined now by the questioning call of an owl. Duncan stretched, then paused, hearing a strange murmur along the shoreline. He stole toward the sound, which had the cadence of rhythmic speech, though in words he had never heard. They were harsh and guttural, nothing like the Gaelic, Mohawk, English, French, Latin, and rough Spanish he knew. He recalled that the tribes of the north spoke Algonquin, a unique and very different tongue with which he was not familiar.

  It was several minutes before he located his quarry. Hayes was sitting on a different granite ledge near the lake, writing on a paper placed between two candles. The tinker wore his wool cap, and a shawl hung on his shoulders, though it was so small and thin Duncan doubted it offered much warmth. He seemed to be speaking to someone in the shadows, Duncan was sure of it, someone who did not want to be seen.

  “Barukh ata Adonai,” Hayes intoned, “eloheinu melekh ha-olam.”

  All of Duncan’s frustrations surged within him. Here at last was an enemy he could confront. He sprang forward, shoving Hayes off his knees. “Enough!” he shouted. “You will poison us no longer!” His knife in hand now, Duncan reached for a candle and held it high in a futile attempt to see Hayes’s secret contact. Failing that, he aimed the blade at Hayes, cautioning him to lie still, then looked down at the objects of the tinker’s treachery. The paper he had been reading from was so long it was rolled at each end, held in place by two narrow metal bars bearing inscriptions. Above the paper was a morsel of bread and a small mound of salt, and beside them a sheet of paper and a writing lead.

  “What treachery is this?” he demanded. “Who do you work for?”

  Hayes slowly straightened, keeping his eye on Duncan’s knife. “McCallum, surely you misunderstand.”

  “Who is it you communicate with?” Duncan pressed. “Someone from the French court? Or is it an agent of Beck’s?”

  “I speak to Him,” came Hayes’s simple reply.

  “Who, damn it? Whom do you write to?” Duncan gestured to the paper scroll. “Is this your codebook, then?”

  “I suppose in a way,” Hayes said in a level voice. “Deuteronomy is filled with enigma.”

  “You will tell me whom it is you sneak away to write to, damn you!”

  Hayes sighed. “My wife.”

  “So you have lied from the start!” Duncan accused. “She serves your masters in the north?”

  Melancholy filled Hayes’s face, and he looked down at the unfinished note beside the bread and salt. “It’s difficult to keep track of the calendar sometimes out here, but I do believe this is Friday night,” he said, as if this explained everything. “If you would just allow me to finish, I will answer your questions back in camp.”

  “You are finished now!” Duncan insisted. “I want your papers!”

  “Not possible.”

  “I can’t arrest you, but at least I can put an end to your deception. And if I find that you were involved in killing the crew of the Arcturus, I vow that I will—”

  “You will let him finish, Duncan,” came a voice from the shadows. Conawago stepped into the circle of light, Sadie asleep in the cradle of one arm. Duncan hesitated. The old Nipmuc had the air of a coconspirator. “As Solomon said,” his friend continued, “it is Friday night.”

  Duncan’s head swirled. He could not understand why Conawago would take the side of a traitor. “Look at this!” he said, pointing to the note. “A code! He is writing with secret symbols!”

  Conawago sighed. “You are better than this, Duncan.” He lifted the incomplete note. “I am rusty, but once I had a good Jesuit teacher. ‘My dearest Rebecca,’ ” he slowly read. “ ‘My Sabbath begins on the shore of a beautiful lake.’ ” The old man looked up. “Not code, Duncan. Hebrew.” He looked back at Hayes. “Barukh ata Adonai,” he said, repeating the words Hayes recited; then “eloheinu melekh ha-olam. Pardon me, Solomon, if I mangle the translation, but if I am not mistaken, it means, ‘Blessed are you, eternal one our God, our universal . . .’ ”

  When Conawago hesitated, Hayes finished the sentence. “Our universal ruling presence.”

  Duncan’s confusion was like a paralysis. He gazed in painful silence at Conawago, then at Hayes, then down at the items on the ledge, which suddenly took on the appearance of an altar. Memories flashed in his mind from his youth in Holland, where somber men wearing black shawls hurried down the street on Friday evening. “The Sabbath starts on Friday night,” he said in a hoarse voice. He lifted the unfinished letter. It had been many years since he’d seen the strange language, written from right to left, and he had never expected to see it in America. As he handed the letter back to Hayes, more memories flashed before his eyes, of Hayes often reaching for a cap or hat even when one seemed unnecessary. “Your hat. Your wool cap. You always have something on your head.”

  Hayes nodded.

  “It’s why you struggled so when the spiny pig stole your hat. The night in the tavern you wouldn’t touch the pork. The shawl. I used to see more elaborate ones in Holland.”

  “A tallith.”

  “They had fringes at the corners. And some wore something like aprons.”

  “I just frayed a few threads on mine,” Hayes explained, and opened his waistcoat to show he was wearing a ragged cloth belt.

  Duncan knelt and reverently rearranged the objects of the makeshift altar, then looked up to the tinker. “I have wronged you.”

  “I am sorry, Duncan,” the tinker said. “My people have been forced into habits of secrecy, even in America.”

  Duncan found that he had difficulty speaking. “I am the only one here who has been shamed,” he finally said. “I offer my apology, sir, though I don’t expect you can ever forgive me.”

  “The Sabbath is the perfect time for forgiveness,” Hayes replied, extending his hand.

  Duncan accepted the handshake. He had so many questions. “You could have just told us.”

  “No, and even now, I must beg for your discretion,” Hayes said with a sad smile. “The Jews were driven out of Massachusetts decades ago. The Puritans came to America to escape intolerance in Europe only to practice it themselves in the New World. It is not safe to advertise my faith outside of Rhode Island. I would only put my traveling companions at risk and assure that I was shunned in my journeys. It was a mistake I made all those years ago when I agreed to come into the Hampshire Grants with my family. We didn’t hide our faith, for we never had to in Rhode Island. We had forgotten that in much of the world, my people are creation’s scapegoats, blamed for every misfortune. Teamsters deserted us. Accidents happened. Sometimes I think we were deliberately put in harm’s way in that Indian raid. No family suffered like ours that day.”

  Sadie stirred, and as Conawago handed her down to Hayes, Duncan’s gaze settled on the writing lead and paper. “Will told me you wrote secret letters.”

  “Yes, as often as I can.”

  Conawago shot Duncan a cautioning glance.

  “To do so in the wilderness seems odd,” Duncan said.

  “To my wife. My heart says she still li
ves. That hope is all I live for,” the tinker confessed. He bent and opened the knapsack that lay near his altar, tipping it. Sealed letters spilled out, dozens of letters. “When we reunite, I will share all these years of my search with her. It will . . . help repair things, I think, bridge the gap so we can put these painful years behind us, and when we are old, we will take them out and tell our grandchildren about our grand wilderness adventure.” He looked at Conawago and gestured to the letters. “Many are in English, some in Hebrew. Open one or two, my friend. You will find them filled with boring details of a solitary existence.” He lowered his voice. “Sometimes I write of Sadie,” he admitted, as if in confession, “and, fool that I am, speak of her as my child.”

  Strangely, his words seemed to stab Conawago. The old Nipmuc sagged, then slowly dropped to his knees before the mound of letters, each addressed simply Rebecca, with a date. He picked one up, and another, and Duncan saw that they were of many types and sizes of paper, with the message written on one side, then folded and sealed into an envelope. Some were jagged along one side, as if on paper ripped from bound volumes; others looked as if they had been salvaged from newspapers, with the typeset ink painstakingly scraped away so new words could be written.

  Hayes wordlessly watched as Conawago emptied the sack. There were scores and scores of letters, the oldest ones, from the bottom, on good linen paper. Many were stained with sweat, with water, food, and sometimes blood. As the old Nipmuc ran his hands through the evidence of Hayes’s solitary, secret existence, his eyes filled with moisture. When he finally looked up, he gave a long sigh that seemed almost a sob. His voice cracked as he spoke. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” the old Nipmuc said.

  “Like this?” Hayes asked.