Eye of the Raven

by Eliot Pattison

  Duncan lifted the lantern and studied the Indian’s injuries as best he could without disturbing him. Cuts and bruises on his shoulders, scrapes from the manacles that cut into his ankles, nothing more. “The other Indians,” he whispered to Becca, “why aren’t they helping to guard him?”

  “They did, all day. But when they came to camp tonight they stayed but a few minutes and left, looking like they had seen a ghost. A chief in a fox cap kept muttering something like a prayer, another aimed loud, angry words at the magistrate in the tribal tongue.” Duncan saw now that Skanawati’s hand was closed around the amulet that hung from his neck. He turned to leave and was restrained by a hand on his arm. “You’re a medical man,” the woman said beseechingly.

  “She has a concussion,” Duncan told her. “A bruising of the brain. Some say it means the flux between the inner and outer lobes has been blocked.” He saw the pain in Becca’s eyes. “Could be hours, Becca, could be days. Even if she were with the best doctors in Philadelphia there would be nothing more a medical man could do. The best thing for her is what only her mother can give her.”

  Becca choked back tears, then returned to her daughter, lifted her head on her lap, and began stroking her hair, a moment later beginning a soft, whispered song. As he turned to leave he saw that Skanawati was watching through half-opened eyes. The Iroquois prisoner, he suspected, had been awake the entire time.

  Outside, Conawago stood near McGregor, surveying the campsite, slowly walking around the six-foot stump that was serving as his sentry post. Confused as to why his friend would not want to see Skanawati, Duncan approached and had opened his mouth with the question when three dark figures appeared by the campfire. Magistrate Brindle consulted briefly with McGregor, who pointed at Duncan, then the Quaker leader called for Duncan to join him at his campfire, which the two other men were feeding with fresh wood.

  The magistrate, clearly distracted, quickly introduced his two companions, whom Duncan had seen at Ligonier. Felton, the lanky man who had hovered by Brindle in the major’s office, guided the supply wagons that served the provincial sutler’s post at Fort Pitt. He had the air of a Philadelphia gentleman, yet moved like a woodsman. Felton nodded at Duncan, then tossed him a piece of the jerked beef he pulled from his belt pouch. The stocky man was Brindle’s brother-in-law Henry Bythe, the representative of the province at Pitt. At Brindle’s request Duncan explained what he had found at the marker trees, then Hadley described the skirmish on the Monongahela. He was nearly done when Brindle looked up, as if just registering the Virginian’s words.

  “You say the savages stole Captain Burke’s body?” he asked, visibly shaken.

  “Taken by the Indians,” Hadley confirmed. “I shudder to think to what end.”

  Brindle shook his head. “’Tis an ill wind that blows in these mountains,” he said. “The Indians have all shifted their campfires tonight, as if our presence offended them.”

  “The raiders would never attack us with so many in our party, uncle,” Felton observed. “Their way is to strike where they have the advantage in numbers then disappear into the forest.”

  Brindle fell silent, his face grave. It wasn’t their safety that so worried him. He had one overriding concern on this journey, Duncan knew, and his mood meant he suspected that the treaty was already in jeopardy.

  As Conawago sat beside them at the fire Brindle lifted a lantern and stepped to the wagon to investigate his charges. “The wolf shall dwell with the lamb,” he observed as he returned, “the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and a little child shall lead them.”

  Duncan’s gaze moved back to Conawago. His friend was upset about something, even deeply disturbed. It was not simply that he was convinced that Skanawati was innocent. Something else, unseen by Duncan, was out of balance. The men around the fire fell into a long silence, broken finally by Brindle’s invocation of another Psalm. “Why do the heathen rage,” he recited toward the flames, “and the people imagine a vain thing?”

  “Now ask the beasts, and they shall teach thee, and the fowls of the air, and they shall tell thee,” came a deep solemn voice in response.

  The Quaker looked up with a sad smile. “You surprise me, McCallum.”

  “’Twas not I, sir,” Duncan replied.

  Brindle lifted his lantern, taking notice of Conawago for the first time. The shocked expression on his face was unmistakable. He looked back and forth from Duncan to the old Nipmuc as if they were working some trickery on him. “Sir?” he ventured.

  Duncan recalled that Conawago had not spoken at his trial. He remembered his own first conversation with the Jesuit-trained Indian, when he had awakened after being snatched from certain death, his eyes covered by the bandage that wrapped a slash in his scalp. He had assumed from his voice that his rescuer had been a well-educated English gentleman.

  “I too enjoy the Old Testament,” Conawago said thoughtfully. “Perhaps you know the remainder of the verse?”

  “It is Job, is it not?” Brindle tossed more wood on the fire, as if he needed to see better.

  The Indian nodded. “Speak to the earth, and it shall teach thee . . .”

  Brindle, although clearly accustomed to teaching by means of the scriptures, seemed confused. “What is your meaning, sir?”

  “He discovereth deep things out of darkness,” Conawago continued, “and bringeth out to light the shadow of death.”

  It wasn’t the attention Brindle was paying to Conawago that caused Duncan to consider the Quaker with new respect, but rather the sincerity with which he sought to understand the old Indian. “What is the particular light you offer, sir?”

  “You must move this camp.”

  Brindle turned for a moment to Duncan, then to his nephew Felton as if for help. “We will break camp at dawn, of course.”

  “No. Tonight, if you value the hearts of your allies.”

  Conawago, looking grim, stood and extended his hand for the lantern. Brindle hesitated only a moment before complying. Following him toward the tall stump, he watched in confusion as Conawago pulled away the vines that remained on it. McGregor brought another lantern. Scores of marks revealed themselves on the high stump, some symbols of animals, others just notches and lines, many Xs with smaller circles or triangles over their tops.

  Felton offered an exclamation of wonder. “I must have driven past this post thirty times,” he muttered, then ran his fingers over the carvings.

  “Gaondote, it is called in Iroquois,” Conawago explained, then fell silent as he moved the lantern along the rows of markings. His expression grew heavy, and for a moment Duncan saw the patient torment of the sin eaters he had known as a boy. At last the old Nipmuc looked up, as if shaking off his visions. “A war post. Used by raiding parties to tether prisoners. This one was used for many years, over generations. The Xs indicate prisoners, the marks above them signifying if they were male or female. Many were fated to be finished at the stake. They would know early in their captivity, for their faces would be blackened with soot. Throughout their entire journey the marked ones understood it would end with their being burned alive.”

  Conawago looked up at Brindle. “Though you may not sense the pain and darkness in this place, I assure you those of the tribes do. The fear, the hate, it all still lives here. The tribes assume you chose this place to torment Skanawati. You have an Iroquois prisoner proceeding to his death on a British rope.”

  “Burn it,” suggested McGregor.

  “There is something else the magistrate needs to fully understand,” Duncan interjected, turning to his Nipmuc friend. “The significance of the nails was mentioned in passing at the trial. What exactly do the Iroquois remember about men being tortured with nails?”

  “Surely it has nothing to do with—” Brindle’s objection was cut off by Duncan’s upraised palm.

  “The English and the Iroquois have not been antagonists for a long time,” Duncan said. “But the nations begin to sense what the English truly think of them, at the wo
rst possible time. Tormenting Skanawati by placing him beside the captive post. Flaunting the nailing of men to barns and trees. Why do the heathen rage,” he said, repeating the Psalm.

  Conawago gazed at the post as he spoke. “Since before memory Iroquois raiding parties have gone up and down the Warriors Path, through the Virginia country to reach their traditional enemies. But then one year an Iroquois raiding party found a farm across its ancient path. They halted, debating whether to turn around. But the militia had already been alerted and confronted them. The Iroquois said they simply wanted passage down the trail, as was their custom, promised not to harm any settler. The militia refused. The Indians had little food, expecting to live off the land. When they took some corn from a farmer’s field, the Virginians called it war. The Indians were outnumbered. Some fled north, a dozen were captured, beaten, tortured, some hanged. Those who did not die right away were nailed to the side of a barn facing the Indian trail as a warning. Some took a week to die.”

  Brindle studied Conawago in silence, then gazed at the wagon, under which several of his party were already bedding down. “We will move camp,” he said with a sigh. “Call out the militia and teamsters to assist us. And I will ask Brother Conawago to extend our apologies to the chiefs. We are but strangers in a strange land.”

  The moon was high by the time they finished moving the Quakers’ camp to the flat below the crest of the ridge, where half the other travelers had already bedded down.

  Magistrate Brindle was disquieted, and despite the late hour he had his nephew hang two lanterns beside him so he could read his Bible. His thin face had the expression of one staring into the murk of the wilderness for the first time, a strong man facing evils he never knew existed. The first time Duncan had entered the wilderness he had crawled under a rock and hidden.

  “Have you been to treaty meetings before?” Duncan asked McGregor, keeping an eye on the shadows along the treeline. Conawago had disappeared during the shifting of the wagon.

  “Aye. In Albany. Grand affairs.”

  “With as many Indians as here?”

  “Here? This is a mere three dozen or so. When the trunks are finally opened expect a hundred or more.”

  “Trunks?”

  “A few chiefs may come to make their marks on the king’s paper. But the rest come for the gifts. Blankets will be distributed, and muskets and knives and bolts of cloth. If the gifts aren’t there, the Indians won’t talk.” The big Scot gazed at the row of fires along the edge of the woods, where the Indians had camped. “Except the savages with us keep sharpening their knives and tomahawks. As if they expect an outbreak of hostilities instead of a treaty.”

  With deep foreboding Duncan ventured toward the Indian camp, desperately hoping for a glimpse of Conawago, nagged again by fear for his friend. It was as if death, having been cheated of him at Ligonier, still hovered near. A dog barked from a lean-to of pine boughs built against a wall of ledge rock. The soft voice of a woman comforted a child, the sound of rushes scouring a pot came from near a dying fire. The quiet domestic sounds reassured him. He quickened his step and ventured closer to the lines of fires along the edge of the woods, pausing at each in turn to look for his friend.

  At first he thought he had tripped on a root, not realizing until too late that it was a pole deftly levered between his legs. As he stumbled, the Indian wielding it slammed the pole against Duncan’s knee while pushing with a twisting motion at his shoulder. Suddenly Duncan was on the ground, with four warriors atop him, pinning each of his limbs. The one kneeling on his left shoulder held the edge of a tomahawk to his throat. The words that rushed out in the Iroquois tongue were whispered, and too fast for Duncan to understand. But the tone was unmistakable.

  They hit him, striking repeatedly with small clubs on his legs, on his arms, not enough to break bones but enough to hurt, enough to bring bruises that would last days. The two men holding his legs uttered sounds of amusement. The one with the tomahawk leaned closer, hissing at Duncan, the hairs of his amulet brushing Duncan’s neck, the turtle tattoo on his cheek visible in the moonlight. It was the young warrior from the fort, who had stood at Skanawati’s side when he had made his confession. His eyes shone fiercely as he slammed the blade of the tomahawk into the earth inches from Duncan’s ear.

  Suddenly one of the Indians at Duncan’s feet gasped as he was lifted bodily away. As a second assailant mysteriously rose Duncan could see Henry Bythe calmly standing with a lantern while Sergeant McGregor and two more kilted soldiers methodically removed the attackers, lifting them and tossing them away like sheaves. Duncan did not understand why the warriors did not resist, why they did not even rise up from the ground where they landed, then saw that they were looking not at Bythe or the Scots but at a figure in the shadows, an older Iroquois wearing a headdress made of a fox skin, the head of the animal perched over his forehead.

  “This is what happens when we journey with such devils,” the Quaker said as the Scots faded back into the darkness. Bythe seemed entirely unafraid of the warriors around him.

  Duncan struggled to his feet, rubbing the pain out of his limbs as he tried to grasp which devils the Quaker spoke of.

  “They have no place in a treaty. The war does not affect them like it does Pennsylvania and New York.” Bythe began brushing off the dirt on Duncan’s back as he spoke. “They should go home to their easy southern life.”

  “The devils you refer to are the Virginians?” Duncan asked, about to point out it had not been colonists who had attacked him.

  “Of course. What happened here was naught but revenge for the Virginians’ attack on our prisoner. The southerners cannot be trusted. If it were up to them we would be driven to abandon this very road.”

  “The road?” Duncan asked, confused again.

  “The Forbes Road. They were furious when General Forbes decided on the Pennsylvania route two years ago. The general even intercepted secret correspondence from their Colonel Washington seeking to reverse the decision. They insisted the western lands were already theirs, that the road to Fort Pitt should run from Fort Cumberland, to ease the travel of Virginians.”

  Duncan had not appreciated the political significance of the road. It did indeed open the western lands to Pennsylvania settlers.

  “’Twas but a game. Those bucks meant to frighten, not seriously injure you,” Bythe declared.

  Duncan rubbed his shoulder, realizing that indeed the aches from the blows were already receding. “How could you know what they—” Duncan’s question died away as the Indian wearing the fox headdress stepped to Bythe’s side with a casual nod at the Quaker.

  Bythe lifted a hemp bag from where it lay by his feet and extracted a slab of bacon and sack of flour, dropped them back into the bag, and handed it to the Indian. “Johantty is Skanawati’s nephew,” Bythe explained with a gesture toward the youth who had led the attack, “the others also from the chief’s village.” As Bythe explained to Duncan, Johantty rose, glowering at Duncan, then motioned his comrades back into the shadows.

  “The future of the western lands, Mr. McCallum,” Bythe declared in a genteel voice, “is properly a matter between the Iroquois and the Penn province.”

  Duncan considered the words for a long moment, uncertain whether he was meant to take warning or invitation from them. “Would you consider it possible, sir,” he ventured, “that Skanawati is innocent?”

  Bythe did not hesitate. “We would consider it certain, sir,” he countered, “that even if Skanawati killed a solitary Virginian that act would not explain all the other deaths along the Warriors Path this year.”

  Duncan stared at him in astonishment, then reminded himself that Bythe was the provincial emissary at Fort Pitt, which meant the nations he dealt with were not European.

  “The surveyors Townsend, Putnam, young Cooper, and his bride,” Bythe recited. “Brother Brindle and I sent out secret inquiries about them months ago.”

  “Skanawati himself was seeking to understand the deat
hs,” Duncan observed.

  “So my friend Long Wolf has led me to understand,” Bythe said, with a gesture to the Indian in the fox headdress, still at his side. “Perhaps you have not met the chief of the Mingoes, the western Iroquois?” The chieftain nodded silently at Duncan. “He is one of those who understand our true enemy is the French. Just days before Burke’s death Skanawati warned him of Hurons in the area of Ligonier.”

  “Yet you let your brother-in-law hold Skanawati as a prisoner.”

  Bythe raised a hand to cut off Duncan’s protest. “Simply because he warns friends about raiders does not mean he is not secretly allied with them. That is a question we are still seeking to settle.”

  The two men looked at Duncan expectantly. “Does Long Wolf perhaps know of the signs on the trees?” Duncan asked Bythe awkwardly. “Conawago suggests that—”

  Bythe interrupted by holding a finger to his lips, then pointed to the chieftain, who gestured for Duncan to follow toward a lodge at the rear of the camp.

  Duncan hesitated as Long Wolf disappeared into the entrance of a structure made of skins draped over a framework of bent saplings.

  “The fire is made and the smoke rising,” Bythe said, motioning Duncan inside.

  “I’m sorry?”

  “It means a council has been called.”

  Duncan eyed the Quaker uneasily, then saw that Johantty and his companions were standing nearby, watching him, and stepped inside.

  Conawago sat on the earthen floor of the makeshift shelter with Long Wolf and three other Indian elders, sharing a long stone pipe of tobacco. Knowing better than to interrupt the intense, fevered conversation that was underway, Duncan found a space and sat cross-legged on the floor, wondering for a moment why the five Indians sat in a lopsided circle, with an empty place at the far side.

  The others took no notice of him and continued speaking in low, fast voices that allowed Duncan to catch only a few words, though not the sense of the overall discussion. Wolf, he heard, then tree, turtle, Onondaga, and Skanawati. The solitary life he led with Conawago gave him few opportunities to listen to conversations between Iroquois, and now as he gave up trying to make specific sense of their words, he opened himself in the way he’d been taught to listen in the forest. There was eloquence in the voices, but also something else. Conawago had told Duncan if he listened carefully he could tell the difference between the call of a young owl and an old one, for the older bird spoke with wisdom and melancholy over all the death it had witnessed. The voices he heard now were those of old owls.