Eye of the Raven (40 page)

But each time he tested the wood he caught sight of Magistrate Brindle riding close, between the wagon and the Virginian soldiers, as if to protect Duncan and Skanawati. Brindle would be held accountable, Brindle would be disgraced if Duncan escaped. Once the treaty was signed there would be time, he told himself. There would be a return trip of two or three days before he was consigned to Ramsey's vengeful custody. Though it meant risking his life, though it meant he would be forever hounded by bounty hunters, he would make the attempt and flee to the deep wilderness, Felton at his heels or no.

In waking nightmares, he saw the ranks of conspirators. Ohio George, Red Hand, and Winston Burke hovered over him, with Ramsey standing behind, Felton fading in and out of his vision. Again and again he convinced himself that the Quaker was the missing link to Ramsey, only to recollect there was no real evidence, that Felton could have simply been playing the role of the bounty hunter, even the part of the civic hero in killing Red Hand. He had obscured his past links to the Indians. Yet no one who had been a captive of the tribes advertised the fact, for the stigma it would give them.

His companion in the prison wagon spoke little at first. After the first hour on the bumpy road Duncan had begun to recount to Skanawati the story of his visit to Shamokin and the chiefs village, drawing a smile when describing Mokie's encounter with Rideaux's bear. He even hesitantly described the reburial ceremony, then his visit to the ancient shrine in the Susquehanna with Skanawati's mother.

The Onondaga had remained silent, though listening attentively, and later he asked questions about the reburial, making sure the old chief had been interred in the white fur Skanawati had trapped for him, and that his nephew Johantty had helped with the old chants. He looked at Duncan a long time. "There was a man who came and stared at me in my cell, a weak, pale man who wears lace around his wrists," he observed at last. "They say you are a slave to him."

"That is true." Duncan confirmed, then after a moment explained. "It was my punishment for helping my uncle when he sang the songs of our fathers."

Skanawati studied him in silence, then reached into a pocket on the inside of his beaded waistcoat and to Duncan's surprise produced a single, ragged strand of white wampum beads. Duncan did not move as the Iroquois draped the beads over his wrist. "Tell me more of this."

The story Duncan began took more than two hours to relay, as his companion constantly interrupted with questions. When Duncan spoke of how his clan's entire way of life had been outlawed for their resistance to the distant British king, Skanawati wanted to know what king his people had had before, and he nodded solemnly when Duncan said the Highland clans had never needed kings, had only needed to be left alone. When Duncan spoke of how his uncle, by then an aging, worn-out fugitive, had found Duncan at his medical college, the chief wanted to know the kinds of places where such men in their land hid, and whether the wise men of Duncan's school shared the wisdom of the Iroquois healers, who knew how the stars and moon affected the human body. When the chief asked how singing songs could condemn a man, Duncan finally explained how his uncle, the old rebel, hiding in Duncan's student lodging, had gotten drunk on his eightieth birthday and loudly sung out in the tongue of their people, which the king had also outlawed. "My uncle was hanged, I was imprisoned."

"Is it true then," Skanawati asked, "that your tribe is all gone?"

It was Duncan's turn to look away. He had had one of his recurring dreams the night before, of his grandfather calling him from down a long corridor. He looked down at the white beads, still sitting on his arm. "What I need of my tribe," he said, tapping his hand against his heart as he spoke, "is always with me."

He slid the beads off and draped them over Skanawati's wrist. "I have my own question, only one. Did you kill Captain Burke?"

"I am at war with all those who would take our lands."

"Did you kill Captain Burke?" Duncan repeated.

Skanawati looked out over the rolling hills. "There is nothing I would not do to save my people." Duncan saw that he had slipped the beads off his wrist and was cupping them in his hand.

They watched through the slats as the miles unfolded, passing farmers plowing with teams of oxen, entire families sowing seed in fields, small herds tended by boys who carried make-believe muskets carved of wood. As the farms begin to thin out, small armies of laborers could be seen felling trees.

"You English breed like mice," Skanawati observed in a flat voice. "It is as if you keep pouring out of the ground somewhere."

And that, Duncan thought to himself, was the crack in the world that Skanawati really was worried about. The shifts on the continent were all about population. The British would eventually win the war because their colonials totaled a million, while the French had at most sixty thousand. Pennsylvania alone contained two hundred thousand, while the entire Iroquois league numbered perhaps a tenth that number.

"When I was young," the Onondaga observed, "and first saw an entire valley cleared of trees by the Europeans, I was very scared. I was confused about the great magic it must have taken, since the tribes had never before done such a thing. It did not seem to me they had changed part of our world, but that they had laid down a whole new world and crushed ours underneath. My uncle took me to a debate in the Grand Council. Our wisest men, the oldest of the peace chiefs, were arguing about whether the spirits abandoned a land when all the trees were cut down. Some said the spirits died a small death each time any tree was felled, which is why we always say a prayer before taking a tree, why we speak to it when we shape it into a canoe or bowl or mask. Others said the spirits just moved so that the last trees in a land became very powerful, so much that sometimes in the night a tree might just get up and walk away."

"Trees grow back," Duncan suggested.

"But what we don't know," Skanawati countered, "is whether gods grow back."

So many light carriages and riders had passed their slow-moving caravan that Duncan paid little attention when the elegant coach and four with outriders passed them in the afternoon of the third day. It was only later that Duncan realized the coach and riders had not sped ahead, but were keeping pace with the treaty convoy, and with a sinking heart he realized there would be no chance of escape on his return to Philadelphia. Ramsey had come with his men to join the treaty entourage. The murders would have to be resolved before the treaty was signed, meaning Ramsey would place him in manacles the moment the document was signed.

Duncan had heard much of the Moravian enclave at Bethlehem, and on another day, in other circumstances, he knew he would have taken pleasure in roaming down its well-kept streets, past the massive stone-and-timber buildings housing most of the community's members. The town was renowned not just for its Christian living and training of missionaries for work among the tribes, but for its industry as well. The streets rang with the hammers of forges. Rows of clay pots from a kiln sat cooling in the open air. Planks fresh from a saw pit were being unloaded and stacked.

The elegant coach was standing in front of one of the largest buildings when their wagon finally halted. Duncan barely noticed the hands that reached out and guided the two prisoners into a compact stone building used as a summer kitchen, which had been cleared out to accommodate them. The bars over the solitary window and the heavy brackets for a timber to seal the door from the outside told Duncan it had been used for confinement before.

The two prisoners watched the busy traffic of the street from their little window. There were Indians here who taught the Germans the native tongues, Duncan recalled, and old Germans who set Christian hymns to those tongues. Teams of six and even eight oxen passed by, pulling wagons filled with black stones. The surrounding hills were rich in iron. Duncan touched Skanawati's arm and pointed to a group of Indians carrying quarters of meat to their camp by the river. Long Wolf was with them, carrying not meat but an elegant-looking fowling piece.

He was not surprised at the forlorn expressions worn by Hadley and Conawago when they followed the two Moravian women who brought their evening meal. They watched in silence as the women began arranging the food on the stone counter built over the cold ovens. Fresh cornbread, apples, pickled vegetables, dried venison, and buttermilk. Venison and cornbread. The Germans were attuned to the ways of the tribes.

Hadley waited until the women had left. "Ramsey is relentless, Duncan," the Virginian finally said. "Like a mad dog. One with the resources of Midas to back him."

"What has he done now?" Duncan asked, his heart sinking.

Hadley looked self-consciously at Skanawati, who listened without expression. "He's brought a Philadelphia lawyer with him, who heard of efforts to block the testimony about the trial at Ligonier. Now they have a dozen statements from witnesses at Ligonier stating they heard the confession, all sworn now before a different Philadelphia justice, not Brindle. Philadelphia witnesses, as it were, from a Philadelphia court. That judge issued a new writ for Skanawati. With a trial to be held, immediately. I don't understand the game he is playing," Hadley confessed. "He ignores the Virginians now."

"Because he believes the Virginian claims are defeated. They will have to be satisfied with the return of prisoners and nothing else," Duncan said, looking at Skanawati. His fellow prisoner had taken an apple to the window and was eating with no sign of listening. "Now Ramsey needs the Iroquois to think it is Pennsylvania who controls the life of their chief."

"But why?"

"So Pennsylvania will receive the condolence offering, to the benefit of the Susquehanna Company. The tighter Ramsey makes the noose, the greater the offer when the tribes finally step in to save his life."

"The tribes have so little to offer a man like that."

"They have the only thing he desires," Conawago said. "Do you forget he has become the biggest shareholder in the Susquehanna Company?"

"The land," Hadley said in a hollow whisper. "It was always about the land, wasn't it?"

"Ramsey resents the fact that some of the noble families received proprietary colonies in the last century. He means to make his own." Ramsey, if nothing else, was predictable. He tried the year before to steal a colony for himself in western New York and was now seeking the same in the lands west of the Pennsylvania colony.

"He has made an understanding with the western tribes. He has told the Pennsylvania delegation that those Indians will rebel against their Iroquois masters if they must leave without treasure."

Duncan looked at Hadley in confusion. "No. I don't believe it."

Conawago shook his head. "Ramsey has a piece of paper with the marks of half a dozen western chiefs on it."

"My God," Duncan said, realization sweeping over him as he recalled the new fowling piece he had seen Long Wolf carrying. "He will flood the western chiefs with rum and guns to get their support. He means to drive a wedge between them and the Iroquois."

Duncan turned to Conawago. "You have to explain to Old Belt. You have to make him see the shadow descending upon the Iroquois, make him understand how Ramsey seeks to undermine him with the western tribes. Make him ask Long Wolf to look into his heart." He paused, looking to Hadley. "How do you know these things about Ramsey?"

"Mokie," the Virginian replied uneasily. "She hears things now."

"Hears things? I told you to keep her close."

"I tried. She was in Brindle's rooms in one of the great residence halls. But the Moravians in charge of the accommodations claimed she was needed to help with other guests, and she went away, willingly. We didn't know she was being dispatched to their most important visitor. Ramsey made a large contribution to the Moravians here, is not likely to be denied favors. Now she is in his household, for his tenure at Bethlehem. Ramsey was making light, saying what a valuable girl she is. He described how a mouse had appeared in his room and Mokie pulled a pebble from her pocket and threw it, killing the creature."

Something in his words nagged at Duncan.

"Al yi," Conawago sighed and looked to Duncan. "With a bigger stone a man could fall."

The memory of their night at the ochre bed washed over him. "She was there!" he gasped. "In the camp of the renegades, the night before Burke was killed!"

An hour before sunset they heard the rumble of the bar being slid out of its brackets. The door cracked open to reveal the ruddy face of Sergeant McGregor. In his hand were two long sections of handwrought chain. "I have explained to the honorable magistrate that without fresh air ye may just wither like last year's roses," he said good-naturedly. One end of each chain was already affixed to a set of horse hobbles, which were quickly buckled onto the prisoners. Once the men were outside, the other ends were fastened to a heavy iron ring built into the side of the building. Sentries stood at a distance in front of and behind the building. Like dogs in a kennel, Duncan thought to himself, but he nodded gratefully, then even more vigorously when McGregor produced two clay pipes and a small pouch of tobacco and sent a soldier for a burning brand to light them.

Moments after Duncan and Skanawati had taken seats on upturned fire logs, smoking their borrowed pipes, two familiar figures emerged from the shadows. Duncan had forgotten that Reverend Macklin had left Shamokin for meetings with Moravian elders, but now Duncan stood for a warm handshake. Moses, at the German's side, bent and stirred Skanawati from his contemplation of the clouds. The Onondaga greeted the Christian Indian like an old friend, gripping his forearm tightly.

"I should have recognized that a meeting with elders meant Bethlehem," Duncan said to the German.

"I am grieved to find you in chains," Macklin replied. "I know you well enough to know it is undeserved."

"You do me kindness, sir," Duncan replied, then remembered one of the reasons Macklin had gone to the church elders. "Have you found your missing missionary, Reverend?"