Eye of the Raven

by Eliot Pattison

  He studied the silver dagger, which the dead man held like a trophy. The silver wire of its handle said it had been more an object of adornment than of utility. Wealthy fathers often bought second sons commissions, and sometimes commemorated the event with such a token.

  Twisting the dagger free from the stiffening hands, he tugged at the handle. It would not come free of its sheath. He set it down to study the hands themselves. A man’s hands could tell as much about him as his face. Every trade had its distinctive pattern of calluses and wear, sometimes its own coloration. A professor in his medical college had once traced an unidentified corpse back to a cobbler’s shop from the calluses at the tips of his fingers and heels of his hands, as well as the stains along the outside edge of each hand, marks made by the shoemaker’s tacks and the dyes of the leathers the man had held steady at his workbench.

  He had almost forgotten the terrible wound on the left hand until he pulled the right one away from it, exposing the mangled flesh. The handsome Burke, a man in his prime, with the soft hands of a man of stature and wealth, had been nailed to a tree. The jagged, ugly hole in the palm gave a glimpse of bone and muscle, the back of the hand still showed a smudge of color from the bark of the tree. He paced around the corpse once more as the burly drunk in the corner began to snore, now examining the discoloration at the man’s temple. The skin was slightly abraded, the tissue underneath showing the shading of a contusion that had not bloomed to full color because death came so soon after the blow. Duncan lifted the lantern, holding it over each wound in sequence, the head, the thigh, the hand.

  “All the doctors I know tend to the living,” came a low, whimsical voice from behind him.

  Duncan sprang about to see Johan Van Grut pushing the door shut behind him.

  “I did what I could for those in the wards.”

  “And now you minister to the dead?”

  Duncan paused. There was no alarm in the Dutchman’s eyes, only intense curiosity. “I do not wish to mislead you, Johan. I was arrested and deported before finishing the final phase of my training. I was still learning how to minister to the living, but my professor said I was perfect with those who had already passed over.”

  “Meaning,” the Dutchman asked in a slow, uncertain voice, “you are a reader of the dead?”

  “A corpse can be like an open book.” He quickly demonstrated what he had learned thus far, pointing to the deep wound on the thigh and the punctured hand.

  “Mother of God!” Van Grut exclaimed as Duncan laid open the mutilated palm. “He was crucified!”

  “I have seen many violent attacks,” Duncan continued as he unfastened the buttons over Burke’s chest, “but never have I seen such a piercing, nor the likes of this,” he declared as he pulled open the shirt.

  The color drained from Van Grut’s face as he saw the gear wheel in the dead man’s chest. The fear on his face, however, quickly migrated to confusion. “It was not the cause of his death,” he observed. “Then why mark the body so?”

  “It was done while he yet lived. See how the blood has flowed into the adjoining skin.”

  “Are there more?” the Dutchman asked with a grisly fascination.

  “More?”

  “Gears. In Germany once I saw a mechanical woman in a glass box who lifted her hand and waved. Clockmakers in Zurich had constructed her for a prince. People often ran in fear when they saw her. Others dropped to their knees and prayed for her.”

  The words strangely disturbed Duncan. “Burke was flesh and blood.”

  “But if he died this way, was he not becoming a machine in the end?”

  Duncan stared at Van Grut, not entirely comprehending, then lifted the dagger and with effort jerked the blade free of its scabbard. He twisted the blade in the light, showing a dark red line that ran along its edge, more red that covered its tip. It had been blood that had glued the blade into its case. With the tip of the blade he began to pry up the gear.

  “McCallum!” the Dutchman protested. “You know not what you meddle with! We must study the gear’s function. In Germany I was told the clockmakers started with a living woman. What if you find another gear connected underneath?”

  Gooseflesh rose along Duncan’s spine. For a moment he froze, caught up in his companion’s irrational fear, then with a wet sucking sound he pried the gear out of the breastbone.

  “May the hand of God smite you demons!”

  The hoarse disembodied voice sent both Duncan and Van Grut leaping back, gazing in horror at Burke’s bloodless face. The Dutchman seemed about to seize the gear to place it back in the chest when a specter emerged from the darkness.

  “Unhand the dead, you thief!” the shadow boomed, and one massive hand seized Duncan’s wrist as a second rose toward his throat.

  A sign of relief escaped Van Grut as he raised the candle. “Corporal, you’re drunk!”

  The burly man from the rocking chair hesitated, then dropped his hands and stiffened as if an officer had addressed him. “No drop will e’er prevent me from protecting them what gave their lives for blessed King George.”

  Duncan recognized the thick northern accent and saw now that a Bible was tucked in the waist of the man’s britches.

  “Mr. McCallum’s a medical man,” Van Grut explained.

  The soldier, tottering slightly now, eyed Duncan suspiciously. “Beg pardon, sir, but this one’s beyond servicing.”

  “In Yorkshire,” Duncan ventured, “There are those who sit with the dead and absorb their sins so they can pass on to heaven. It is an honored profession.”

  The corporal paused as if he had to consider his answer. “It was how my mother, poor widow as she was, kept bread in our mouths. She died all twisted and gnarled for it.” He shrugged. “I know most of the dead I sit with. Ye catch the flavor of a man’s sins, well enough, when ye sit with his body through the night. Not for me to play a hand in the fate of their soul, just want them to know they ain’t alone. As to why I do it, back home a man with but one root lives on alms until the winter, then dies frozen in the gutter.” He tapped his right leg and for the first time Duncan saw the worn oaken stump that extended from his britches. “Lost it to a French cannonball two years ago. They keep me on the roster because I do that which no one else will do.”

  “Like getting drunk with the dead?”

  “The dead be perfect company with a bottle. N’er disagree, n’er take a drop, always listen and—” the corporal added with a perverse gleam, “after the first hour or two they sing right along with ye.” He punctuated his explanation with a belch, then reached down and carefully straightened Burke’s shirt. “A soldier’s got to be strong all the way to the end, especially if there be enemy in earshot. I remind them they still be in battle until their final breath. Chin up and mind the colors. N’er let the French frogs see ye weak.”

  “Mr. McCallum helps the dead, same as you,” Van Grut explained. “He reads their body, like an aborigine reads a trail.”

  The corporal wiped at a spot on the body’s brass gorget. “Didn’t know this one, hard to read.”

  “The killer struck him in the head first,” Duncan explained, pointing to the bruise at the temple. “Burke was dazed, or unconscious, long enough for his hand to be nailed to the tree, probably with the same ax that laid open his thigh a moment later—” Duncan paused as he looked at the dagger again. He gestured for Van Grut to hold the lantern close to the exposed thigh wound as he pressed back the flesh. “His own dagger was used to finish him. An ax leaves an ugly wound, a crippling wound even, but not always a fatal one. The killer was not satisfied with the flow of blood, so he jammed the dagger into the artery. My friend and I found him minutes later.”

  “Did he not speak of his killer as he lay dying?” Van Grut asked.

  “He seemed unable . . .” Duncan replied, realizing he had no ready explanation for Burke’s inability to speak. The jaw did not readily yield when he pushed it, the rigor beginning to hold it tight. The crunching noise when he push
ed harder caused Van Grut to visibly shudder, but he held the candle close as Duncan bent to look in the mouth. Pausing in confusion at what he saw, he reached in deep with a finger and scooped out a lump of metal. He extended it on his open palm to his companions as if for explanation. It was a lump of copper, melted and hardened, as if dropped from a forge.

  “Jesu’ protect us sinners,” the corporal muttered fearfully.

  Duncan and Van Grut exchanged a confused glance. The metal made no sense, except for that which had occurred to the worn-out soldier. In the old ways that lingered in Scotland and the north country of England metal was used to fend off the devil.

  “The major is in a great rush to resolve this killing,” Duncan said to the soldier after a moment. “Who is he expecting?”

  “They be passing through Ligonier on the way to Lancaster.”

  “Who exactly?”

  “The dignitaries,” the corporal replied. “The treaty conference between Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the Indians.”

  Duncan studied him, confused. “But surely any peace treaty will be made in Europe. And surely there would be no participants from the wilderness.”

  The corporal shook his head at Duncan’s obvious ignorance. “Affairs of the wilderness don’t get settled over lace cuffs and tea. I speak of an Indian treaty. Chiefs from the Iroquois towns and western lands be attending, the black-and-white prigs from Fort Pitt along with them.”

  “Black-and-white?”

  “Goddamned Quakers,” the corporal spat, then looked down. “Beg pardon, sir. The gentlemen representing the provincial government in Philadelphia. A magistrate and his kin what they sent to run the new provincial trading post at Pitt.”

  Latchford, Duncan suddenly realized, was trying to hang Conawago before the treaty delegation arrived. “Was it you who cleaned the body, corporal?” he asked.

  “I assisted. ’Twas a frightened lad with red hair. A cousin, he said. Weeping so hard he had to stop several times to collect himself. ‘Who will tell his mother?’ he kept muttering, and ‘oh this cursed struggle.’ I told him what I tell all the forlorn creatures, that where the good Lord directs the metal is for no mortal to question.”

  “Metal?” Van Grut asked.

  “’Tis always metal, ain’t it? Be it blade or ball, ’tis metal that takes the soldier.”

  Van Grut cast an uneasy glance at Duncan, as if to suggest it had not been a blade or ball but a malfunctioning gear in the man’s chest that had killed him.

  Twenty minutes later Duncan leaned against a tree in the shadows by the Virginians’ camp as they finished their evening meal and began to make ready for the night. Burke’s cousin had not been difficult to identify, a young man with russet hair tied at the back who uneasily sat on a log apart from the others, a quill in his hand, gazing forlornly at a half-written letter.

  “So what is the tally of heathen bodies heaped about your captain?” Duncan asked, coming near.

  The confusion on the Virginian’s countenance quickly changed to rancor as he recognized Duncan.

  “I once saw an officer tear up a letter being sent by a subordinate treating the loss of a recruit who drank himself to death,” Duncan explained. “He explained that those back home must always believe the dead died as heroes, for king and country. He wrote a new letter reporting that the soldier died protecting a family of Episcopal missionaries, with six dead Indians piled at his feet.”

  The Virginian, barely out of his teens, gestured to the sheet of paper in his lap. “He died at the hand of a savage while scouting safe passage for his troops. That will make him hero enough.”

  Duncan studied the dead man’s cousin. Was there a note of bitterness mixed with his remorse? “What senior officer leaves his troops behind to make a solitary scout?”

  “Do you not know who we are?”

  “Militia from Virginia.”

  “We are, sir, Burke’s Shenandoah Company. The senior Burke makes the rules.”

  “And are you now the senior Burke?” Duncan watched the knot of men around the cook fire as he spoke, well aware that the brawny sergeant there had unfinished business with him.

  “Far from it, thank God. I do not even bear the name. My mother is a Burke. I am Hadley, Thomas Hadley. There’re two other cousins here, both older than me.”

  “But you are the one who cleaned the body, the one who is writing the difficult letter.”

  “I had the misfortune of being home from my studies at the College of William and Mary when the company was being raised. My uncle offered a few extra shillings if I would be company clerk. In the past all the militia did was hold parades and ox roasts.”

  “But here you are.”

  “I protested when my uncle suddenly ordered us north. I resigned. I packed my books and was on my mule headed back toward Williamsburg when they rode to fetch me,” Hadley explained in a hollow voice.

  “My uncle reminded me that we keep Virginia safe by fighting Indians in Pennsylvania and the Ohio country. He said my sacred duty was to chronicle the glory of the Burke expeditionary force. That’s the way he speaks of us, like we are builders of empire instead of farmers and students. Following in the footsteps of Colonel Washington and General Braddock, who both led scores of Virginians to the glory of early graves in Penn’s woods.” Hadley’s resentment was undisguised as he spoke of the first skirmish of the war, led by Washington, and the first battle, the bloody massacre on the Monongahela that had become the shame of the British army. “Making history on the military and political fields, my uncle reminded me as we left.”

  “Political?”

  Hadley cast a confused glance at Duncan. “My cousin. Surely you knew. He was also to be senior treaty negotiator from the Virginia province.”

  The words caused Duncan to pause and sit on the log beside Hadley. This particular Virginian on this particular day, Latchford had stated. “Tell me, Hadley, where did your cousin keep that little silver dagger?”

  “He had a loop sewn into the inside of his waistcoat, whereby to hang the sheath. Why?”

  “Because I think whoever killed him knew where to find it. It was that little dagger that killed him, by slicing deeper into the artery, through the wound made by the tomahawk. Did your captain not have any weapons?” Duncan kept the surly sergeant in sight.

  “A pistol, and an elegant rifle, a gift from his father, with his initials carved into the stock.”

  “Where are they?”

  “The pistol was found in the bushes nearby. The rifle was gone.”

  “We arrived minutes after the attack. We would have heard any shots. Captain Burke let his killer get close, without challenge.”

  Hadley bit his lip.

  “I told you my friend didn’t kill him. We were trying to help him.”

  “It means nothing. The killer could have found the dagger by chance.”

  “How will you feel, having reported to your family that Conawago was hanged for the murder of your cousin, when we later find that the real murderer was someone who knew him?”

  Hadley gazed up in confusion. His jaw opened and shut, but no words came out.

  The bearded sergeant was looking directly at Duncan now, his eyes flaring. Duncan bent to the young Virginian’s shoulder. “Go to the guardhouse at midnight,” he hurriedly instructed. “Tell your man there you are relieving him.”

  The sergeant shoved his way through the throng of men, grabbed a piece of firewood for a club, and was halfway to Hadley’s log by the time Duncan disappeared into the shadows.

  The sentry argued with Hadley only a few moments before shouldering his musket and marching off into the moonlight. The company clerk was probably the youngest of the Virginian troop, and his every movement betrayed his lack of seasoning. But he was of the Burke clan, and the guard was of the Burke company. Duncan watched from the shadows for five minutes before approaching the earthen ramp, his eyes not on Hadley but on the sleeping provost guard slumped on a stool against the wall at the jail entrance
. Duncan put his fingers to his lips as he reached the Virginian, who grimaced but lifted the solitary lantern from a peg on the wall and followed. They paused when they reached another peg near the strap iron door that held a single large key.

  “Tell me why I am doing this?” Hadley asked in an anxious whisper.

  “Because, like me, you seek the truth.”

  “All I seek,” came Hadley’s sullen reply as he lifted the key and opened the door, “is a quick return to Virginia.”

  Inside there were no more doors, only several low vaulted chambers carved out of rock and earth. The first two held empty gunpowder kegs. Duncan almost passed over the pile of rags at the rear of the third chamber but then glimpsed the familiar pattern of red beads along the edge of a piece of soiled linen.

  A despairing cry escaped his lips as he turned his friend over. Conawago’s right eye was nearly swollen shut, the whole right side of his face an ugly mass of bruises and cuts. Duncan unbuttoned Conawago’s shirt to reveal more contusions and a swollen, oozing lump over the left side of his rib cage. Duncan’s probing brought a gasp of agony from Conawago. His good eye fluttered open. It seemed to take great effort for him to focus on Duncan. “That Onondaga was right,” he said in a hoarse whisper. “The gods are not happy with me.”

  Duncan fought against a surge of emotion. The ribs under the swollen lump were badly bruised, if not cracked. Conawago’s leggings were torn, the gaps revealing more bloody abrasions. His right hand was clenched. Conawago groaned as Duncan raised it. The little finger hung at an unnatural angle.

  “They tried to take the other one after they destroyed the first,” the Indian said, wincing with each exhalation. “But I was disinclined to release her. She’s old and worn like me, but one day she may speak to the other gods for me.” He had let his assailants break his finger, Duncan realized, rather than release the little clay deity.

  But now his friend opened his hand and extended the figure to Duncan. “She needs to go outside. Do you have my things? The pouch of ochre?”

  Duncan nodded, then lifted a ladle of water left on a stool beside Conawago and pressed it to his lips.