Eye of the Raven

by Eliot Pattison

  Brindle grimaced. “Do not be fooled by appearances, you told me once.”

  “Even in the Old Testament there were wolves in sheep’s clothing,” Conawago observed.

  “This company has become the largest, the most active of the land ventures,” Brindle said. “If the Virginia land claims are defeated, it will mean Pennsylvania will be in line for those lands.”

  “And if Skanawati hangs for killing a Virginian, there is no way the Iroquois will ever cede land to the Virginians. Meaning the Susquehanna Company will have the most to gain from the hanging of Skanawati,” Duncan concluded. As he saw the tormented way Brindle stared at the documents he realized the magistrate had already reached the same conclusion.

  Brindle sighed. “Great things doeth he which we cannot comprehend.”

  “If I am not mistaken,” Duncan said, “those words were written about Lord Jehovah, not Lord Ramsey.”

  Brindle fixed him with a level stare. “Your bitterness over your indenture clouds your vision, sir.”

  Duncan gestured to the papers. “Who are they?” he asked. “Who are the owners?”

  “The records are incomplete. I can find only the initial promoters and owners of the company,” Brindle explained. “Good solid citizens. Old Philadelphia families. Leading merchants. Christians all.”

  “Shares get sold,” Conawago suggested. “Especially when new wealth arrives.”

  Brindle glanced at the doorway. “Be careful what you say, sir.”

  “This is America,” Duncan shot back, “not the fiefdom of a few aristocrats.”

  “I daresay not all aristocrats agree,” came Brindle’s quick reply. The Quaker grimaced, as though regretting his words. “The company was formed before Lord Ramsey arrived in our city, yes.” He gathered up the documents into a pile. “It is beyond my powers to learn more.”

  “Officially,” Duncan said.

  Brindle did not reply. “Even if I do not call the constables down on you, Mr. McCallum, I am not sure I do you any favor. There are handbills with your name on them at every corner.”

  Duncan paused, studying the Quaker a moment. “I encountered your nephew tonight.”

  “He is idle while the treaty delegation lingers in the city.”

  “Of all the bounty hunters, he is the only one who knows my face.”

  Brindle gazed into his folded hands and sighed. “He is a proud lad, trying to make a good start in life. It is no sin to assist the law.”

  “A good start? Is he not already gainfully employed?”

  “He wishes to buy a stake in a commercial enterprise on the frontier.”

  “He tried to convince me to flee into the wilderness instead of going to Shamokin.”

  Brindle offered a lightless smile. “He read a romance about a Scottish highwayman. Perhaps it made him sympathetic to your plight. But now he can’t be blamed for joining the ranks of those pursuing the bounty.”

  “What if he were working for Lord Ramsey?” Duncan asked abruptly.

  Brindle’s eyes went cold. “Impossible. If you are seeking to have me stop him I cannot. And I have not yet decided myself what to do with you.”

  “Do as you will with me, your honor,” Duncan offered. “But after tomorrow. After we catch Red Hand. I am convinced he has the answers to all our questions.”

  “How do you propose to work that magic after he has eluded so many so long?”

  “Call off the constables around the northern docks. Red Hand is, after all, just another mercenary. Tomorrow evening he shall find an irresistible target, an easy bounty for the taking. In the middle of our trap.”

  “No, Duncan!” Conawago protested. “He is a cold-blooded killer!”

  Brindle glanced from Duncan to Conawago, then sighed as he understood. “You are suggesting the bait will be yourself?”

  As he spoke Old Belt turned toward the shadows behind an overstuffed chair at the far end of the room.

  “We will let word spread in the taverns near the Indian barn that I have been seen by the ships,” Duncan explained, “as if I am trying to steal away on the evening tide. Some of the Iroquois guards can hide on the wharf to help me. It’s the best we can do,” he added in a determined tone.

  “Not the best,” a young, soft voice broke in. Mokie sprang up from behind the chair, where she had obviously been listening. “We know whom he seeks.”

  “Never, child!” Brindle gasped.

  “Tomorrow at sunset!” Mokie declared defiantly as she inched toward the wall. “The north docks!”

  An instant before Old Belt reached her, she leapt through the open window and was gone.

  The Philadelphia waterfront was so alive with activity Duncan wore himself out watching it from the high east-facing window of Marston’s attic. Ships and boats of all sizes and shapes were astir under a steady spring breeze. Fat shallops heaped with shad and oysters were delivering their loads to the kitchens of Philadelphia. Slow-moving barges stacked with lumber were poled into the city from upcountry. Stevedores swarmed over square-rigged merchantmen bound for Europe or the Indies.

  Duncan watched as one of the big ships was towed to the center of the river and slipped away for the broad Atlantic. It would be such a simple thing, to dart out of the house and leap onto the deck of one loosening its moorings. Such far-ranging vessels were always in need of able-bodied sailors and would not press him for his real name. He could leave everything behind, make a new life. As a tutor perhaps. Maybe he could even establish himself as a doctor in a distant port town.

  The sound of the thin plank door scraping on the floor broke him from his reverie.

  Expecting Conawago with news of Mokie, Duncan did not turn right away, then heard a groan and spun about to see Conawago and Marston carrying Van Grut to the low bed at the wall. The right side of the Dutchman’s face was bruised and swollen, his hair matted with blood. Duncan’s quick examination showed four broken ribs—not cracks but clean breaks that would greatly pain Van Grut when he regained consciousness, long bruises on his forearms from fending off clubs, several slashing cuts on his scalp, and a stabbing wound in the thigh.

  The Dutchman’s eyes fluttered open and shut several times before he seemed to recognize Duncan. The guilt in his eyes was obvious even through his pain.

  “Perhaps you understand now,” Duncan said. “This was not someone trying to send a message. You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Van Grut’s words came out garbled, and he paused, confused, rubbing his cheek. Duncan pushed away his hand, studying the bone underneath. “They fractured your jaw as well as your ribs,” he explained. “Not broken clean, but it will take some weeks of healing.” He showed Van Grut how to press the jawbone in place to speak.

  “At the Broken Jug I heard there was a lacrosse game, at a field north of town.” The Dutchman’s words were twisted and slurred, as if his tongue were swollen. “A dozen Indians, as many townsmen. I think they were after me in the game, trying to kill me like they killed Ohio George. I was tripped several times with the sticks. An Indian jumped on me, but an Englishman fell on top, then scolded the Indian for forgetting to take his knife off before playing.”

  Van Grut paused as Miss Townsend tipped a glass of water onto his lips. He winced as he swallowed. “I was so tired afterward I wasn’t paying attention, just wandered toward town to find some ale. Four of them cornered me by that big barn where the Indians stay. One was that Shawnee who knew Ohio George. Red Hand. He kept shouting encouragement as they used their sticks on me. They were dragging me toward the barn, would have finished me, but some of the European players came by and assisted me, started yelling that the Indians shouldn’t be bad sports because they got beaten, that if they wanted a fair match they shouldn’t come to the game half-drunk.”

  Van Grut winced as he pulled on his watch chain, the only adornment left on his body. The device was smashed, its crystal shattered, the face and case dented. He stared at it forlornly. “My father’s,” was all he said.

 
“Half an inch to one side and the blade in your thigh would have slashed an artery. Like Burke.”

  Van Grut’s eyes widened. “Red Hand! He stood back from the others, with a hammer and something else in his fingers. Christ in heaven!” he gasped. “They weren’t taking me to the barn, just to the wall. He was going to nail me to the wall!”

  “What did you expect?” Duncan’s voice held little sympathy. If Van Grut had not held the truth back he would be days ahead in his search for answers.

  Marston cast uneasy glances at the two men. “I will get more bandages,” he said and retreated.

  “You were gambling again,” Conawago deduced. “You were at the Broken Jug.”

  It took a moment for Duncan to understand what his friend was saying. “My God, Van Grut, surely you weren’t hoping for another offer of work?”

  The Dutchman winced and pushed at his jaw again to speak. “I lost everything but my watch in a card game in Lancaster,” he confessed with downcast eyes. “Burke had allies here. I thought if they saw I was not intimidated, that I was still willing and able to work in the Indian country, they would hire me. If need be I would step forward and declare myself to the Virginian delegation, saying they must honor the contract made by Captain Burke. Once the land claims are settled by the treaty they will need more surveyors than ever. The right men in the colony could get me a teaching position at the College of William and Mary.” Van Grut seemed to see the anger in Duncan’s eyes. “I would never do anything to hurt you, I swear it! It’s just that . . . I must make my own way in the world, McCallum. What choice do I have?” he asked in a cracking voice.

  Duncan looked out the window as he spoke. “You’ll need rest, weeks of rest. I will impress upon Marston that you are a man of science. He is seeking a collaborator for writing up his experiments. He may be willing to let you stay here. But your jaw will need to be wrapped in place. It will be egg in milk for you, through a reed.”

  Van Grut did not try to speak again until Marston reappeared with strips of linen and a basin of steaming water. “I tried to help,” he said in a pleading tone. “I discovered there is a glassmaker named Wistar who specializes in fine containers and instruments.”

  Duncan looked up. He had almost forgotten his request of Van Grut.

  “His agent in Philadelphia recognized the little ball when I showed it to him, said it was unmistakably from the Wistar works. But the rest of his explanation made no sense.”

  Duncan signaled for Marston and Conawago to prop up the Dutchman as he wrapped his ribs. “What explanation?”

  “Smaller balls they sell as marbles, for those who can afford something more than clay balls,” Van Grut said with a wince of pain. “But he has a special customer for the larger balls. He sold a gross of them last autumn to him, to one of the Philadelphia aristocrats.”

  Duncan looked at Conawago. His whisper was full of foreboding. “Ramsey.”

  Van Grut nodded. “He labels them as trade baubles in his invoices.”

  Conawago sighed, then pointed out the window at one of Old Belt’s men, approaching from the docks, and slipped out of the room.

  Duncan was showing Miss Townsend how to change Van Grut’s jaw bandage when Conawago returned ten minutes later and sat heavily on a dusty stool by the window. “Mokie is moving in and out of the market. She stole an apple at one stall, upset a basket of onions at another. She is,” Conawago added pointedly, “better than that.”

  Duncan instantly grasped his friend’s meaning. “She is trying to be seen, letting it be known there is a runaway slave girl working mischief near the docks.” Several watchers, including Marston, Miss Townsend, and some of the Iroquois, had been trying to find the girl since dawn. But Mokie would not be caught unless she wanted to be caught, and she would gladly face Red Hand if it would help her friend Skanawati.

  “Will Brindle cooperate?” Duncan asked.

  “Call back the constables? Not likely. I don’t think he has the power to do so. Not now.” Conawago reached into his belt and dropped a copy of the day’s Pennsylvania Gazette on the table. In the bottom corner of the cover page was a primitive cartoon, with an image of a man with the face of a cat tied at a pole, encircled by Indians with torches. On the man’s chest in crude letters was written Brindle. Underneath was the uncharitable caption, The stink begins to rise from the polecat.

  “Then I shall rely on Old Belt and his men.”

  “The bounty on your head will draw the constables like flies. They will surely take you.”

  Duncan noticed a short article on the page, above the cartoon. Iroquois Chief Rots in City Prison, read the headline. “The girl will be dead a moment after Red Hand sees her. Saving Mokie and capturing him will be worth the price. Easily worth six more years of indenture.”

  Conawago watched the ships with Duncan in silence. “You know you wouldn’t survive another year, Duncan. Once in Ramsey’s hands, hidden from public view, he will eventually kill you. Or sell you as a slave to some Jamaican sugar plantation. Either way you die in months.”

  “Sarah will hear. His daughter can stop him.”

  “That prospect will serve only to accelerate his plans.”

  Another ship began pulling away, its deck laden with cut lumber.

  “It seems to me,” Duncan observed in a distant voice, “we should focus on the certain death on a gallows two days from now, not the merely possible one months from now.”

  “You’re a damned fool, Duncan McCallum. Ask Skanawati and he would tell you to stop interfering, just flee to safety in the wilds while you can.”

  “Then we all agree. I am a damned fool,” Duncan replied, and he began outlining his plan for sunset.

  The lamplighters had begun their evening rounds when Duncan and Conawago slipped out of the building, one of the soot-stained men walking in advance with a ladder and keg of whale oil to fill the city lanterns before they were lit. The day sailors and fishermen were moving home, a woman who had been selling fresh oysters lowering her baskets into the river for the night.

  Conawago grabbed Duncan’s arm as a long droning whistle broke through the background of sounds. Iroquois bowmen with signal arrows had been concealed at the head of every other pier, and the signal they heard came from one of the docks above Market Street. They moved at the fast, stealthy pace used when chasing deer in the forest, in and out of the shadows, slowing when the cover diminished, arriving at the dock five minutes later. An Indian rose up from behind stacks of crates and pointed to a diminutive figure perched on a mound of thick hawser rope.

  Where are the constables? Duncan asked himself. Conawago had convinced him that a trap would indeed be set for him, but there was no sign of the city’s enforcers. He inched along in the shadow of a row of tall hogshead barrels, then used the cover of a slow-moving freight wagon to reach the foot of the long pier that extended from the wharf that fronted the river. Mokie seemed to sense something behind her, but turned and saw nothing. Duncan, with no cover left, strode purposefully toward the girl. He was perhaps forty paces away when a shape materialized in the gray light behind Mokie. Red Hand had been under the wharf, hidden in the timbers below, and now he climbed out only a few feet from the girl.

  “Mokie! Behind you!” Duncan shouted, then sprang forward. Another signal arrow sounded. A shout rose in Iroquois from the shadows of the warehouses. The girl spun about and screamed as Red Hand coolly approached, his long knife glinting in the dusk.

  Duncan was in the air, leaping toward the Shawnee as he reached the girl. He hammered the Indian’s knife hand down from its killing stroke. Red Hand delivered a savage kick that knocked Mokie to the ground then turned to Duncan with hatred in his eyes.

  Waiting with a blade half as long as his assailant’s, Duncan feigned a thrust as Red Hand charged him then landed a vicious kick on his enemy’s knee. Red Hand rolled onto the planks of the pier, grinning now, and was instantly back on his feet. He fixed Duncan with a treacherous gaze, then paused as he heard the running f
eet on the wharf. The Indian grimaced, not with fear but with disappointment. “Another time, Scotsman,” he spat, then turned and ran.

  Duncan turned to quickly scan those approaching. Only his Indian allies, no constables. Had Brindle used his influence after all? He spun about to pursue the Shawnee. The Indian had fled not toward the town but further down the adjoining wharf, where two wide ships were berthed so closely together they could provide a platform to leap across to the adjacent dock, where no pursuers awaited.

  Red Hand’s outstretched knife warned away the sailor standing sentry at the gangway of the first ship, allowing the Shawnee to vault onto the wide deck, but a group of sailors emerging from a hatchway spotted the intruder, causing him to veer away. Duncan made a frantic leap onto the ship’s bow and discovered that the rigging above was in the process of replacement, leaving several lines hanging down from the yards. He grabbed one near the far rail, pulled it back, and with a running leap and a swing across the open water he propelled himself onto the deck of the second ship. By the time Red Hand reached it Duncan was standing before him, a heavy marlin spike in his hand. The Shawnee eyed him for an instant, glanced at the pursuers, then launched himself up the shroud lines of the mainmast. It was a large ship, so large its upper rigging disappeared into the night shadow above. Duncan leapt onto the shroud lines on the opposite side of the mast and scrambled upward.

  Red Hand was like a spider on the ropes, scampering over them without hesitation, leaping, twisting in midair, catching a strand as he flew. But Duncan had spent his early boyhood playing in ships’ rigging, was as at home among the ropes and spars as any seasoned sailor.

  It was a bizarre game of cat and mouse fought in the air. For long, agonizing moments Duncan could not see Red Hand, but each time the Shawnee was betrayed by the moonlight reflecting off his proudly oiled skin. Up the shrouds and ratlines, running out on a yard, leaping onto a stay to propel himself hand over hand from the foremast to mainmast, dropping into the broad platform of the main top, Red Hand moved with amazing stealth and speed. Pausing for a moment to study the pursuers on the wharf searching the stacks of cargo, he glanced at Duncan and disappeared. There was only the mizzenmast then the dark water of the Delaware, where Duncan would surely lose him. Duncan grabbed another stay and half-climbed, half-slid toward the maintop, watching for any sign of the Shawnee in the rigging beyond. Missing his footing as he landed on the platform, he landed with a staggering fall. The stumble saved his life, for Red Hand had concealed himself behind the broad mast and greeted Duncan with a violent lunge that would have gutted him had he not fallen. He flung out with a fist, knocking Red Hand off balance long enough to regain his feet.