Crown of Serpents

by Michael Karpovage

  Already laid out on an old cherry table was a copy of the post-Revolutionary War Military Tract land map for the Finger Lakes region. This was land confiscated by the Continental Congress and given to the veterans of the war for their service in hopes they might settle the lands once owned by the Iroquois Confederacy. Many vets had taken the opportunity to resettle, but most simply sold their awarded lands to farmers or prospectors.

  Stanton smiled, already perusing the map. It would be very helpful. She was about to compliment the president for being so prepared for her visit when her cell phone vibrated in her pant’s pocket. A quick glance at the display announced the expected text message from Nero.

  It was the deciphered Freemason cave directions.

  She read the code: CAVE LOCATION. FOLLOW BROOK EAST FROM APPLETOWN. STAY ON SOUTH BANK PAST ORCHARDS. AND CORNFIELDS TO BURIAL GROUNDS. DESCEND TO BROOK AND SEE OAK. MARKER TREE FACE LOOKS AT ENTRANCE. ON OPPOSITE SIDE HALFWAY UP SLOPE.

  Huh? Marker tree face? What does that mean, she wondered.

  At the bottom of the text message was another sentence: you are in this too deep, your life now depends on the success of your research.

  After slipping her phone back in her pocket and donning white cotton handling gloves over shaking hands, she leaned close to the map, nose almost touching. She searched the east side of Seneca Lake. “This is an amazing replica Mr. Wood,” she noted to the society president, in a voice veiling her fear of Nero.

  With a lisp in his western New York whine, the man replied, “Oh my God, call me Danny. I’m so glad you like it. It’s an honor to work with the Haudenosaunee Collection. Mr. Nero is a big fan of mine.”

  Stanton thought, if only he knew. She smiled weakly and put on her eyeglasses.

  “I tried to get as much material as possible ready for you after your call yesterday,” continued the talkative Danny. “And there’s more. Just wait!” With a double clap of his hands, he skipped off into the library room.

  Stanton turned back to the map and in Military Tract Lot 66 she found Kendaia Creek. She then opened her briefcase and removed a notepad and pencil, but her eyes wandered to a manila envelope containing a mini-cassette tape recording and a topo map of the Ashokan Reservoir. In just an hour’s time she would turn the package over to the authorities to play her final ace in the hole. She wanted Alex Nero to die in prison where he belonged.

  Danny bounded back into the research room. He carefully placed on the table beside her an oversized, scuffed and stained thick black leather bound book with threads hanging from its linen cover. “You won’t believe what I have here,” he announced with oozing enthusiasm. “It’s a rare, limited edition, one of only ten surviving history books of Seneca County. It covers the years 1786 to 1876, complete with illustration plates and personal accounts of the early settlers.” He drew a breath.

  Stanton whistled softly.

  “And I already bookmarked for you several excerpts on the early Indians, the Sullivan’s Trail, and the village of Kendaia. So, feel free to dig right in. I’ll be downstairs putting some Chamomile tea on. Would you care for some?”

  “Certainly Danny and thank you so much for your hard work already. You’re very thorough. Oh and by the way, I just love your shirt.”

  Danny blushed, thanked Stanton, and told her he’d be back in a jiffy with their tea. With a pirouette he was off.

  Stanton shook her head with a smile, but then delved into the large volume and hit the first bookmark Danny had noted. It was a skewed history on the birth of the Iroquois Confederacy, obviously written from a white man’s perspective. The next bookmark gave a short overview of the Sullivan-Clinton campaign and how it broke the backs of the Iroquois when they aligned with the British. Nothing she didn’t already know. And then Kendaia popped up, also referred to as Appletown. A mere sentence described how it was destroyed in 1779, but that some old apple trees had gone untouched. Finally she hit a bookmarked reference on an excerpt called the Trophy of Indian War, listed on page 143 of the book.

  The following paragraph she read caused a chill to creep up her spine.

  Let the record show that in the year 1801 settler Wilhem Van Vleet, in the northern part of his Lot 79 bordering Lot 73, found a souvenir of Sullivan’s invasion in a large oak tree felled at the rear of his farmhouse plot. The tree measured about three feet in diameter and straddled the brook flowing west to Appletown on the lake. In the crotch about eight feet up, thoroughly embedded in the growths of the tree, a horseshoe of very fine workmanship was discovered. Upon strict examination, a Freemason symbol was found engraved along with a date marked Sept. 5th, 1779, that fateful day 22 years hence when Sullivan’s soldiers torched the Indian village once standing near Van Vleet’s acreage. Wilhelm kept the horseshoe on his fireplace mantle as a Trophy of the Indian War. In 1845, after he passed away, his son J.W. Van Vleet donated the souvenir to the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York.

  Stanton wasted no time. Calling the ever-helpful Danny back upstairs, she showed him the excerpt and explained that she needed to find the present day location of the Van Vleet homestead near the spring and brook where that horseshoe had been found in the tree. Danny jumped at the chance.

  “I need all the maps you’ve got around the Seneca Army Depot area. We’re going to resurrect the lay of the land at Kendaia. Those orchards, brooks, and old homes may not exist anymore today, but they did once on paper as recorded landmarks.”

  In an instant, Danny produced a modern Seneca Army Depot map from a flat file. “We can start with this and work our way back in time. It was rendered by the elite cartographic illustration firm Mapformation. Best big picture 3D view of the Depot there is to date.”

  Stanton observed Seneca Lake, colored in bright blue on the far upper left. Sampson State Park — site of the old Sampson Naval Base — took up the shoreline in a myriad of old roads until it met Route 96A. Running parallel to that main thoroughfare was the north-south abandoned railway bordering the expansive Seneca Army Depot. The Depot’s inner perimeter, east–west parallel bunker roads clearly delineated its sprawl. Centered at the top of the map was the hamlet of Kendaia. She pointed to the label and mouthed its name.

  “That really isn’t the site of the original Indian village you know,” remarked Danny. “It’s just named Kendaia because an old train station for the naval base used to sit there. The real site of the Indian village is actually a couple of miles south on 96A—” His finger drew down the road toward the left. “At this little rest area bend, just across from the Depot’s old airfield. There’s a commemorative site marker there.”

  “Yes,” said Stanton, with a raised eyebrow. “I was aware of that. But in reality, that spot is wrong too. That marker was deliberately put there as a decoy by the state so artifact hunters wouldn’t desecrate the true location of where the Indian village and burial grounds really stood.”

  “Hmmm… That I did not know. Where is the real location then?”

  “Well my friend, all I’ll say is that the true location is a bit closer to the lake. I have a vested interest to reveal no more.”

  “I see,” Danny conceded as he returned to the flat file to conduct another map search.

  This time he produced not one, but three maps of the area — from 1850 down to 1839 and 1812. He carefully laid them out on the table for inspection. “This is all I’ve got.”

  It was easily determined that the 1850 topographical map held the most terrain detail and local landmarks. The earlier versions were just too vague. Stanton leaned in and found the general vicinity of where the Indian village would have stood. It was labeled as Appletown, written on a vertical, bisecting a small brook. From her briefcase, she produced hand-written notes from the Boyd journal entries Nero had allowed her to copy. She thumbed to the September 5th entry.

  She read to herself. “Sunday, Sept. 5th ... Came upon old Indian town call’d Kendaia or Apple Town.”

  “Appletown.” Stanton touched the 1850 ma
p on the shoreline.

  WM. T. Gibson, 1850.

  Looking closer, she noticed a faded dotted line running parallel to the lake a short distance inland from the village name. It too bisected a brook.

  “Check this out,” she said, pointing to the dotted line.

  Danny squinted at the map. Then from a pocket he extracted a magnifying loop. At close magnification he could make out the words, Sullivan’s Tr., clearly in reference to General Sullivan’s line of march up that shoreline in the summer of 1779.

  Stanton clenched her fist in satisfaction. “You see what I’m talking about now.”

  Danny nodded. “And here is a reference to Wilhelm’s son J.W. Van Vleet, right here in Lot 79. You can see how that brook cuts right through his land and ends at the northern boundary with Lot 73, just as it’s explained in the book.”

  “Danny listen, no offense, but I need some privacy now.”

  “Absolutely,” Danny responded. “Stop downstairs for some tea when you need a break.”

  28

  Alan Payton residence. Varick.

  WHILE SEVERAL WEST Highland terriers milled about sniffing her pant legs, Rae informed Mr. Payton that her crew was finished with evidence collection. She also told the dog breeder that none of the hospitals had reported any finger injuries, and that he should set up a video surveillance camera should the dog killer return again.

  She continued. “And what we’re going to do is get that severed tip to our lab and run a fingerprint and pull DNA to see if we can make a match in our database. But it may take a few days.”

  “Can I shoot the bastard if he comes on my property again?” asked the breeder.

  “Mr. Payton, you’re not going to shoot anyone,” admonished Rae. “Just set up the camera and call us if you see or hear anything unusual. I hope your day goes better, sir.”

  Back inside her sedan, Rae watched as the state crime scene van rolled away. After gathering her thoughts, she placed a call to the sheriff’s deputy. He had just located Tommy Owens Junior at the pizzeria. She was informed he had all of his fingers and furthermore, refused to speak to any law enforcement officials because of the public harassment his father received earlier that morning.

  Rae ended the call and squeezed the steering wheel in frustration. “Dammit! I’m out of leads.”

  She checked her watch and realized she’d be five minutes late to her appointment at the Papa Bear. Hopefully she would find out where the man who had shot at her was located. And if it was true that The Mouth was dead, then she had to find out who killed him and why.

  So many questions — and all intricately related somehow to Army Major Robert Jake Tununda’s meddling. She couldn’t help but speculate what kind of trouble that fine specimen of a man was causing right now. She would call him back in due time to try and arrange their delayed dinner date. Heck, she even wondered if he was missing a digit. There was something he wasn’t revealing regarding this whole mess. She just hoped she hadn’t judged him wrong or even cleared him too quickly.

  Same time. Three Bears Courthouses.

  Stanton referred back to Boyd’s September 5th entry and read out loud. “The finest Indian village yet with about 20 well-finished houses. They have an extensive apple and peach orchard within a half mile of Seneca Lake situated on a level ground with a brook running through it. Some apple trees look ancient in growth. We counted over 100 trees.” She peered at the 1850 map again, her eyes following the brook across open land.

  “We find 2 Indian Chiefs’ vaults in their burying grounds. One of these was some great man and was buried in this manner...” She skimmed ahead. “We later burned these vaults to the ground. We burned it all down, the orchards, the cornfields, the village. This was for Wyoming.”

  She blinked. Revenge was never pleasant, but it is necessary.

  “We rescued a captive, Luke Swetland, taken prisoner by the Savages near Nanticoke in the Wyoming Valley in the summer last. He was most overjoyed at making our acquaintance. He was brought to this town and given to an old witch who kept him as her adopted son. He said she cursed him from leaving. He showed us her sacred location in a nearby ravine, a ten minute walk east. Much to explore here. We also see a site never encountered before. A pure White-furred deer. Swetland warns that evils await those who kill a white deer. McTavish shoots and misses the trophy much to Swetland’s relief. Swetland says much about Butler and Brant and disposition of the enemy’s men.”

  “Okay, the sacred location in a nearby ravine. A ten minute walk east. White deer seen. Now we’re getting somewhere.”

  Stanton flicked open her cell phone and produced the completed cipher code directions in Nero’s text message. CAVE LOCATION. FOLLOW BROOK EAST FROM APPLETOWN. STAY ON SOUTH BANK PAST ORCHARDS. AND CORNFIELDS TO BURIAL GROUNDS. DESCEND TO BROOK AND SEE OAK. MARKER TREE FACE LOOKS AT ENTRANCE. ON OPPOSITE SIDE HALFWAY UP SLOPE.

  “If I follow the brook east along the south bank — that’s where the apple and peach orchards and cornfields must have been,” she mumbled, tracing her route with a finger. “So, ten minutes at a walking pace—” She estimated another half mile or so and found where the brook ended, or rather began. It was right where a tiny asterisk marked a location of a spring at the northern sector of Lot 79. Sure enough, next to the spring symbol was a small black box labeled, W. Van Vleet in almost unintelligible lettering.

  Wilhelm’s farm. It’s where the Boyd marker tree once stood — the marker being the old horseshoe with the Freemason’s symbol.

  And where the cave entrance to the Crown of Serpents awaits.

  Same time outside. Three Bears Courthouses.

  Rae donned her bulletproof vest, patted the service weapon hidden under her coat, and walked up to the largest of the Three Bears Courthouses — the Papa Bear. After greeting the flamboyant president of the historical society, she informed him that she was simply there on a mental break to browse around the new facilities. Danny offered to take her coat, but Rae refused, saying she wasn’t staying long. He said feel free to roam about through the library on the first floor and the research room and mapping archives on the second level — that there was only one other guest upstairs conducting research. He even offered her tea.

  After posing her way through various rare books and asking general questions, Rae made her way upstairs when the clock hit 11:10 AM.

  The New York Yankee baseball cap was the first thing she noticed as the woman wearing it was hunched over several maps. Her next reaction was surprise at the woman’s age. She had expected an older academic to be heading Nero’s Iroquois artifact collection, not a good-looking woman in her mid-to-late twenties.

  “I’m here about Kantiio,” Rae whispered to her from across the table. She flashed a state police badge.

  The woman stood up, eyes bright. “Does the man downstairs know who you are?”

  Rae confirmed that her voice matched the one on the phone. “He does not. I told him I was just browsing about.”

  The woman extracted an envelope from her briefcase. “Everything you’ll need is in this package. Take it and leave please,” she pleaded. “Time is running out.”

  “Certainly,” said Rae, stepping around the table to receive the envelope. She quickly hid it in her coat. Her eyes then darted down to several scattered documents on the table. She noticed a map of the Seneca Army Depot, as well as a blown up drawing of the same deer and snake engraving found on the Cranberry Marsh Indian corpse broach. The woman stepped in front of her and blocked Rae’s view.

  Rae spoke. “Anne Stanton, I presume? The head of the Haudenosaunee Collection? I recognized your voice. Remember the day you called after that broach, with that same deer engraving, was found in Cranberry Marsh.” She pointed to the drawing on the table.

  Stanton blinked. The blood drained from her face. She looked away.

  “I take it this all has to do with the white deer and some guardian cult they represent, right?”

  Stanton issued not a word.

 
; Rae pressed further. “This cult protects some ancient Iroquois relic hidden in Seneca County — wait let me guess, on the Depot lands. Am I getting hot?”

  Stanton glanced back, anger in her eyes.

  Rae took a step closer and whispered to her, face-to-face. “And I bet this all-powerful relic is what you and your boss Alex Nero are after? And that he would kill for?”

  Stanton flinched, then finally gave in, whispering back, her eyes locked with Rae’s. “Listen, I detest the bastard. I’m on your side. That’s why I gave you evidence of Ray’s murder. And yes, we are looking for a legendary Indian treasure. I just — well, I just have other motivations for helping him find it, okay?”

  “Is everything alright up there?” shouted Danny, from the first floor.

  “Doing just fine, Mr. Wood,” Stanton answered. “I’ll be down for tea in a minute.”

  Rae shook her head. “There have been three people killed, and a dog. And another person badly burned, and yours truly shot at—” she said, tapping her chest. “All because of this treasure hunt you’re on. I appreciate the package you gave me, but I’m also very aware you’re using us too. For what, I don’t know. But I will find out very soon. So, you keep in mind that if this information doesn’t pan out I’ll be breathing down your neck as an accessory to murder. Good day.”

  Ten minutes later, as Rae turned into the entrance to her Trooper station, she couldn’t help but notice all the commotion up near the old Army airfield control tower. Four news reporter vans and a slew of media types with flashing cameras indicated Nero’s press conference was already under way. She then noticed a crew of contractors erecting a new chained-linked fence separating the road to the control tower from the law enforcement and fire training structures. One of the contractors was tossing a lock in the air as he leaned against the fence.