Savage Liberty

by Eliot Pattison

  “Ask Captain Williams. It was his powder horn.”

  “Died months ago of consumption, the cheeky bastard, just a day before we went to interrogate him. I discovered he had led the gang who broke Rogers out of debtors’ prison. I found a letter from Rogers in his hearth, mostly in ashes. But that coin was in his pocket, and two powder horns on his table.”

  Beck was so jealously guarding his secret that he had not inquired more broadly about the fortress etched on the horn, Duncan realized, had not learned where the Celtic cross was. “Two powder horns?” he asked, then understood. “He had Oliver’s horn.”

  Beck spoke impatiently, inching toward the instruments of torture. “And on a slip of paper beside it the words Arcturus, due Boston harbor May.”

  “He was going to deliver the horn to Oliver when the Arcturus docked.”

  Beck’s sneer was the only confirmation Duncan needed.

  The sergeant looked at Beck expectantly, and the lieutenant pointed to an instrument Duncan hadn’t seen, a long sailmaker’s needle, which Wolf now lifted with a moan of satisfaction. “When you hang, no one will care if you still have your eyes or your fingers. Where,” he shouted again, “where is the king’s treasure that disappeared into Quebec in 1759?”

  Duncan roared a protest and tried to twist his body as Mallory moved behind him to pin his head. Wolf was going to pierce an eye.

  “London doesn’t know about the gold, does it?” Duncan tried. “Everyone there has forgotten it, given up on it. You didn’t tell them. You and Sergeant Mallory mean to keep it for yourselves.”

  Beck sighed. “Recovery of the ledger in itself will make us heroes. Surely a man is entitled to some recompense for putting up with this filthy wilderness. Enough! Sergeant, time to show McCallum the point of the—”

  Duncan found purchase with the ball of one foot and shoved hard, jerking the chair so that it tipped over.

  Beck’s temper erupted. He kicked Duncan in the belly. “One eye, Sergeant,” Beck instructed in a boiling voice, “then some fingers.”

  Duncan struggled helplessly as Sergeant Mallory righted the chair and dragged it closer to the table, where Wolf impatiently extended the long needle.

  Duncan was about to twist again when cold metal pressed against his temple. Beck cocked the little pistol. “Lose your brains or lose an eye. Your choice, McCallum. Decide. I haven’t all day, damned you!”

  The door slammed open. Colonel Hazlitt appeared with four kilted guards. Corporal Buchanan leapt forward, knocking the needle from Wolf’s hand. The Ottawa roared with anger and was crouching for an attack when another Scottish trooper slammed his musket into his neck, knocking him to the floor. Beck did not lower the pistol.

  “Stand down, Lieutenant,” the commander of Ticonderoga growled. “You have a warrant to hang him, not to butcher him.”

  “You interfere with the king’s business!” Beck hissed.

  “You interfere with the honor of the army, sir!” Hazlitt shot back. “This is my fort, my garrison! You will conduct yourself as a gentleman or you may leave Ticonderoga.”

  As Beck lowered the pistol, the fire went out of his face. He shrugged. “McCallum keeps getting in my way. He has become the biggest threat to my mission.” He stared at the image of the Celtic cross on the wall, then fixed the colonel with one of his thin smiles. “The king has decreed that he dies tomorrow.”

  Hazlitt briefly met Duncan’s eyes, then looked away. When he spoke, his voice cracked. His reply was a whisper. “The general was most clear. McCallum dies tomorrow.”

  CORPORAL BUCHANAN RELIEVED DUNCAN’S GUARD an hour after sundown, looking in as Duncan stared forlornly at the paper before him on the table, which contained one word, Sarah. The Highlander changed the bandage on Duncan’s arm, where Duncan had extracted most of the barbed quills, then assumed his post. After a few minutes, he began to whistle, one of the Scottish songs Duncan had first tried on him. Dinner came, a fresh loaf, half a roasted chicken, and a jar of ale, the condemned man’s last meal. As he finished eating, a new sound arose from outside, a chorus of singing men.

  Buchanan opened the door and listened at the window, nodding, as if it were an expected signal. “The good Reverend Occom is holding a service on the parade ground,” he announced, “with the colonel and his officers attending. Look lively now.” Strangely, the corporal began laying the accoutrements of his uniform on the table. “There be people who await ye.”

  “Await me?”

  “On the ground. Be quick, McCallum. The moon rises soon, and the singing won’t last forever. Occom and Munro assembled a chorus of soldiers for the colonel’s entertainment. They have been practicing for days, but they keep forgetting the words. Now get up there and knock out those bars ye’ve been cutting at, lad.”

  “It’s thirty feet to the ground, Corporal.”

  Buchanan plucked away the pin that secured his plaid. “Twenty-eight if you credit Mr. Munro’s scouting abilities.”

  “It may as well be fifty, unless you have a rope hidden about you?”

  “Don’t be dense. The Forty-Second wears a full feileadh mor,” Buchanan said.

  Realization finally pierced Duncan’s confusion. A feileadh mor was a full traditional kilt, which was simply twelve yards of tartan wool cleverly wrapped around the body. Buchanan was indeed wearing Duncan’s rope. He sprang to the corporal’s side, helping him unwind the heavy fabric. When Buchanan was reduced to nothing but his long-tailed shirt and his red-checked stockings, Duncan leapt onto the table and with two hammerlike blows knocked away the weakened bars. As he turned, ready to fish the end of the plaid out the window, Buchanan was tying the last two yards around his waist.

  “They’ll save the gallows for you if they find out,” Duncan said to the grinning Highlander.

  “T’is a miracle, I’ll report. I never left my post, never unlocked the door, and no sign of a rope. No doubt something left by that disgraceful Lieutenant Beck, who brought in so many tools to entertain ye with. Now on with ye. The good reverend couldn’t promise more than half an hour of loud song.”

  Duncan hesitated and extended his hand. “Thank you, Buchanan.”

  “Thank yer Mr. Munro,” the corporal said as he gripped Duncan’s hand. “He set me right, speaking of the clans when he took me out to the graves of the Forty-Second. I’ll not help kill more Highlanders at Ticonderoga. And the colonel will be happy not to use his gallows. Now, swift passage, lad, and may God watch over ye.” Buchanan set himself sideways and bent to bear Duncan’s weight.

  Duncan wormed his way out the window headfirst, then pulled his legs out and twisted upright, hearing Buchanan’s grunt as he took the full load. He dropped quickly, hand over hand, feet channeling the fabric, until suddenly hands were grabbing him.

  “McCallum,” came a quiet acknowledgment.

  Duncan took a moment to recognize the voice of one of Woolford’s rangers. More of his Mohawks appeared out of the gloom. “Corporal Longtree,” he said, “I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to see you again.”

  “Yoyanere,” came the Mohawk reply. It is good. The ranger took Duncan’s arm and led him into the darkness.

  They ran not to the forest as Duncan expected, but on a diagonal line that quickly took them to the lakeshore a quarter mile below the fort. The call of a nighthawk split the stillness. Longtree answered, stepping knee-deep into the water, and extended an arm to catch a rope. A long dinghy appeared, rowed by Ishmael and Munro. No one spoke as Duncan and the Mohawks quickly climbed in, the sound of Occom’s hymns echoing behind them. Soon, Duncan assumed, they would be on the far shore, escaping into the dense wilds of the Hampshire Grants.

  Duncan was watching the lights of the fort recede, already calculating how he might complete the long journey to St. Francis, when suddenly the boat shifted course, running parallel to the shoreline.

  “No!” came his urgent whisper. “You’ll put us right under the guns of the ships!”

  Munro laughed. “I certainl
y hope so.” A moment later, as Duncan watched in confusion, their boat nudged against the side of the two-masted sloop and a boarding ladder was thrown down. On the deck, a familiar figure grinned in greeting. His warm, crooked smile was better than any words. “I do hope you’re up to a nautical task, Duncan,” Patrick Woolford said. “The Department of Indian Affairs has requisitioned this vessel, but damned if my Iroquois know how to sail her.”

  15

  WHEN HE CLOSED HIS EYES and set his head into the wind, Duncan was back in his beloved Hebrides, cruising with his grandfather. He had not realized how much he missed being on the open water, had never imagined that he would feel the pleasure of deepwater sailing again. The wind and spray slowly scoured away his despair, and he jumped so thoroughly into the work of sailing the ship with Munro that it was dawn before he collected himself enough to ask about the unlikely events that had allowed his escape.

  The small sailing crew of the sloop, named the Osprey, were all Scots, and Munro had made a point of befriending them from the first hour they had reached the pier. He had been generous in buying them ale at the tavern near the fort’s gate, and they soon wanted to show off their sloop to their fellow Scot after he boasted of his own Atlantic sailing adventures.

  “Full set of charts,” Munro explained as he held the long handle of the tiller. “Most of the bays in the north have not been closely surveyed, so we brought a pilot vouchsafed by Ethan Allen,” he added, nodding toward the foot of the mainmast. What Duncan had taken for a pile of blankets held down by a demijohn began to move, revealing the unshaven, gaunt, and drunken form of Rufus, the ferryman.

  “And the crew?”

  Munro’s face clouded. “The marines stationed on her were all ordered by Colonel Hazlitt to attend Reverend Occom’s service, at the good reverend’s request. We couldn’t be sure if her sailors wouldn’t call out to shore once they smoked our intentions, so for now, they’re locked up in the galley.”

  Woolford had not flinched when Duncan suggested that he could be arrested, and worse, for taking the sloop. Duncan had never heard of the Department of Indian Affairs taking over a vessel larger than a canoe.

  “Borrow, only borrow. She was slated to sail today for a few days of survey work.” Woolford winked at a grinning Conawago. “We made up a contract of charter on a napkin at the tavern, all formal and proper, and left it for the colonel. I arranged for one of my scouts to conspicuously deliver a dispatch bag with an urgent message to me. As far as everyone in Fort Ti knows, the Department of Indian Affairs is pressed to pursue a report of a possible rebellion in the north country. Official business.” He grinned. “Official enough.”

  Duncan shook his head in wonder. Did Woolford know how close his fictional excuse could be to the truth? “Horatio Beck will know what happened.”

  “You were his business. His business no longer concerns Ticonderoga, meaning the colonel will not tolerate his presence much longer. If he wants to pursue, he can return to Albany for assistance.”

  Duncan was by no means confident that Beck would wait for orders to pursue him, not after Duncan let him believe he too was pursuing the treasure. “I pray you are right. It won’t go well if we are intercepted by that brig.”

  Woolford frowned, looking back toward their wake, then conspicuously pushed down his worry and pounded Duncan on his back. “Don’t darken this magnificent day with thoughts of what lies behind,” he said, gesturing at the dawn landscape. The Adirondacks rose majestically along the western horizon, reflected in waters that glowed with the blush of sunrise. The lower, verdant mountains of the Hampshire Grants rolled toward the east, and in between, stretching to the north, lay the vast inland sea.

  Duncan slowly nodded. The torment of his imprisonment still hung over him like a cloud, and his arm throbbed from where Conawago had carefully excised each of the quills that had broken off in his flesh, but he knew he would never find true release from his agony until he discovered the truth. It was a debt he owed to the dead, and he would not stop until it was paid, whatever the cost. “I don’t even know how to find St. Francis from the lake,” he confessed to Woolford.

  “Rufus will land us as far northeast as is safe, and Brandt will find the route,” Woolford stated. “There’s still a ranger inside that grizzled shell of a man. How far by your reckoning?”

  Duncan did a quick calculation. They had passed the narrows at Crown Point in the night. “Not much more than a hundred miles. Surely sometime tomorrow morning, if the wind holds. I won’t want to navigate the northern isles in the dark.” Duncan felt a thrill in his bones as he realized he would have a long day of sailing along one of the most magnificent lochs he had ever seen.

  “Your friend Hayes seems to be urging her along on sheer willpower,” Woolford said, nodding toward the bow.

  The tinker leaned out over the slanted prow, staring northward. What had Hayes said? He felt a sense of destiny, as if his Jehovah were finally playing a hand in leading him to his lost wife. What will you tell her owners when you find her, Duncan had asked. Hayes had touched his belt. “Show them my purse. They sell their slaves as readily as skins and furs.”

  Standing a few feet from Hayes, holding a stay and awash in the spray, was the tall lean figure of Noah, who watched the water with a faraway expression.

  Duncan had not known such a glorious day since his voyage to Bermuda. It was as if he were cruising into an entirely new world, a bright, clean world where a comforting sun raised diamonds on the water. A pair of mergansers watched them glide by. As he took the tiller from Munro, the wind freshened, stretching the canvas, and the sloop leaned her shoulder into the water. The tiller became like a living thing in his hand, and he thrilled as the rigging groaned and a long plume of spray shot up from the bow, leaving Hayes soaked but uncomplaining.

  Rufus revived and walked along the rail, grinning with delight as the Osprey plowed through Champlain’s waters. After a few minutes he wandered over to the Mohawks, who had been trying to use a spare line to tie the knots they saw in the rigging overhead. Rufus helped them, good-naturedly laughing at their frequent mistakes, then approached Duncan and Munro at the stern. “If we have a blow, we’ll need more than those dusky landlubbers,” he suggested. “No doubt they be true Vikings of the forest when they raise their war axes, but on water they don’t know chalk from cheese.”

  Munro considered the words, caught Duncan’s approving glance, then disappeared down the hatch. Minutes later he led a line of six worried men onto the deck. “The crew says they want no trouble,” he declared.

  The compact man at the front of the line spoke in a tentative voice. “It’s our little lady, sir—the Osprey, I mean, sir. She deserves to be well tended.”

  Duncan smiled at the thick burr in the man’s voice. Munro had said they were Scots, but he assumed they would be lowlanders, like most he met in America. “Ghaidhealach?” he asked in surprise.

  The man tapped a knuckle to his forehead. “First Mate Sinclair, sir, of Caithness. We all be of the Highlands, sir, took the bounty to stay in America after the war.”

  “Where’s your captain?”

  “Likely lying passed out in the tavern at Ti. He ain’t much of a sailor, just an infantry officer who thought he found a cush way to avoid long marches.”

  “And, First Mate Sinclair, what would you say of the set of our sail if you returned to duty?”

  Sinclair studied the canvas with a thoughtful eye. “Trim the topsail a might, sir, and it wouldn’t hurt to tighten the jibstay.”

  Duncan grinned. “Make it so, Mr. Sinclair.” A smile creased the first mate’s square, windburned face and his men sprang into action. Will and Molly ran onto the deck and joined Hayes and Noah at the prow.

  Several minutes later Duncan became aware of Munro lingering at the stern rail, anticipation on his sturdy countenance.

  “Fort Ti had a postmaster,” the Scot said abruptly. “I sent a letter to Mr. Hancock.”

  “A generous thought, Munro, but
John would not have been able to help with the army.”

  “No, not that. I wrote to say I was done, that I was no longer in his pay.”

  Duncan looked at him in surprise. “You quit?”

  Munro gave only a curt nod in reply.

  An empty place seemed to grow inside Duncan. He had come to rely on Munro’s steadying presence. He recalled now their conversation on the shallop, and he grasped why Munro had not come to his cell. “I understand,” he said. “It’s too much to ask of a man. I never wanted to taint you with the charges against me. Perhaps a man needs his king, like he needs his God.” He hesitated, wondering why Munro was still with him. “But you should have stayed at the fort, my friend.”

  “Ye nay ken me. I meant I didn’t want anyone, including ye, to think I was doing this for coin. We owe justice to those dead, like ye said, Duncan. I want them to understand clear that I do this for them. And for ye.”

  “For me?”

  “Mr. Noah, he said to me that we are all moving toward a battle that we are destined to fight. But it came to me, sitting out on the pier under the moon as I watched yer cell window, that maybe we don’t have to do battle because of what ye are doing. I mean, well . . . I’m nay so good with putting grand thoughts in words, mind—”

  “Just say what is in your heart, my friend.”

  “Well, if ye ken my drift, I believe ye be correcting mistakes made by the king. I think ye be a sin-eater for the king.”

  AN HOUR LATER THE BIG dog barked and one of the Iroquois gave an astonished cry. An older sailor leaned over the rail, following the ranger’s outstretched arm, then staggered backward and dropped to his knees, crossing himself. Duncan looked at Conawago, who had risen to investigate, and he watched as the old man’s face filled with excitement. The kneeling man found his voice. “T’is herself! The monster of the lake!”

  The sloop canted to starboard as every man ran to look over the side; then it began to level as several backed away, three of them crossing themselves and another clasping his hands in prayer. Will leapt up in the shrouds for a better view, followed an instant later by Ishmael.