Eye of the Raven (46 page)

Three hours later Duncan stood panting at the edge of a clearing by the river trail, rubbing the chafed skin where the manacles had scraped his wrists, anxiously watching the wide river trail, resisting the temptation to call out to verify the stage had been set as he had instructed. His freedom, his very life, had hung by a thread after the hanging, for Ramsey had been in a white-hot fury, in no mood to be denied anything. Duncan shuddered as he recalled the poison in Ramsey's eyes when he and Judge Bradford had come upon Duncan and Brindle talking, minutes after Skanawati's body had been cut down.

"You bungling fool!" Ramsey snarled at the Quaker. "You have lost the treaty for us!"

"I prefer to think of it as preserving our honor," Brindle replied in a quiet voice. "I daresay it will be years before the Iroquois speak to us again about land."

"The governor shall hear of this!" Ramsey barked. "The proprietor himselfl" As he signaled for one of his men to retrieve Duncan, the patron's face flushed with rage. He would make Duncan pay for his losses, would start that very day.

"I am afraid," Brindle interjected, "that Mr. McCallum remains my prisoner."

"To hell you say!" Ramsey shot back. "He is mine. Your jurisdiction over him is finished." Ramsey gestured to his judge, as if it was Bradford's cue.

"There are still inquests into the other deaths," Brindle said, staring only at Ramsey. "He will be a key witness."

"Do not be so bold as to suggest you will keep him from me!" Ramsey put a hand on the shoulder of his judge, as if about to push him forward.

"I suggest you will not have him until I am finished with him. You will need an order from the governor, who shall hear from me of the strange dealings in the stock of the Susquehanna Company and the coincidence of calamities that forced the sales of its stock to you." The color began to drain from Judge Bradford's face. He retreated, stepping toward the coach that waited behind them. "We shall see you in Philadelphia."

Ramsey's face grew apoplectic. "You are ruined! No chief judgeship, not this year, not ever! You'll be lucky to keep your post!" Ramsey spun about and climbed into his coach.

"He means it," Duncan said as they watched the dust cloud from the team.

"Men like that will not always have the power in this land," Brindle said quietly. It had the sound of a vow.

Duncan settled now onto a fallen log, pretending to be adjusting his moccasin but instead studying the long latticework shadow at his side and behind him. The old Indian cemetery, this one with aboveground scaffolds traditional to the local tribes, was exactly where Conawago had described. The tall wooden frames had been erected many years earlier at the bend in the river. Some had crumbled to the ground long ago, but at least two dozen still lay in the shadows, feathers and tattered pieces of fur hanging from many, the fur blankets used to cover the dead still intact on several newer ones. The ground was taboo to Indian and European alike.

Duncan was still sitting on the log when the lean blond man rode up and dismounted, calling out to the two Indian companions who had been running alongside him, following the conspicuous tracks Duncan had left from Bethlehem. The two Indians faded into the shadows, flanking Duncan, trapping him.

The timing had been a close thing. It had taken nearly an hour for McGregor to find a position out of sight of the townspeople but still in view of Felton's men who drank outside the inn. McGregor had played his part perfectly. Turning his back for a moment, the sergeant had provided the opening for Duncan to feign a blow with doubled fists onto his neck, dropping McGregor to the ground so Duncan could steal the keys to his manacles. Freed, Duncan had fled up the river trail, with just enough light left in the day for his tracks to be read.

He now watched as Felton paced around the pool of fading sunlight, letting him grow impatient, watched as Felton lifted a skull from where it had dropped from a scaffold, then picked up two sticks and pressed them together into a makeshift racquet. Lifting the skull like a lacrosse ball, he juggled it in the air then lofted it, smashing it against the log Duncan sat on.

"I should have known when I saw you performing lacrosse tricks in the tavern," Duncan said.

The Quaker scout's hand rested on the tomahawk on his belt. "You slipped your master again, McCallum. Please keep it up. I shall make a rich career of catching you and collecting the bounty."

"So it was you who hit me from the back in the Walnut Street prison."

"Of course. Twenty Spanish dollars for that one. I'll demand more this time. The market for your head increases every day."

"Your career is over," came another voice. Moses stepped from behind a tree.

"Come to offer me a prayer, old woman?" Felton sneered.

"Everyone was always looking in the wrong direction," Duncan observed, keeping his eye on Felton's tomahawk. "First suspecting the French, then the Iroquois as you intended."

"I hate the Iroquois. Always have."

"You were a Huron most of your life."

"I had taken five Iroquois scalps before I was fifteen."

"Then," Duncan continued with a shudder, "we kept puzzling over different bands of Indians who might be the murderers, wondering why Burke would have been involved. Of course if I had but known Ramsey had his hand in, I would have looked for bribery and subterfuge in Philadelphia from the outset."

"An outlaw and a dried-up old Jesus Indian," Felton said. "You're wasting your breath to complain."

"It was that connection between the violence and the band of Philadelphia investors that was so well-hidden. A killer in the wilderness who knew all the surveyors seemed so unlikely, a savage who knew the pigpen code impossible. Were you also involved in those accidents that beset the investors in the land company? There was a ship burned in the harbor, a warehouse leveled near the wharfs."

"A lantern through a cargo hatch, another thrown through a window. The work of a few minutes, for so very much money."

"And you and Burke needed money, for your new enterprise."

Felton looked back toward the broad river path, where his horse stood grazing in the moonlight with his rifle on its saddle.

"I doubt Lord Ramsey understands how fastidious the Moravians are about their records. Every orphan is recorded, every returned Indian slave, every former captive has entries, because they mean to keep helping those unfortunate souls whenever they can. Of course you had no need. You left them behind. You turned your back on their charity."

"They are women," Felton scoffed.

"They wrote things, in the interest of helping you. You were one of the most difficult of all the captives who returned from the tribes. They thought it was because of the trauma of shifting between worlds. Their hearts were too generous to see that it was because you had already become a predator years earlier, because you ran with Huron raiding parties for years and took scalps of settlers and Iroquois alike. You had a blood lust that would not be cured by soap and britches. A Huron raider in Quaker clothes. Your relatives in Philadelphia gave you every privilege, a scholar's education, rubbing shoulders with scholars, but there was a place inside none of that could ever reach. Even when you had decided to take on your Quaker mantle to exploit the pleasures of Philadelphia you couldn't resist killing Sister Leinbach."

"All the syllables in all their books," Felton said in a tone that sent a chill down Duncan's spine, "don't begin to equal the thrill of the war cry when you descend on an enemy camp."

"She was just a woman full of her God," Moses interjected. "There was never evil in her hand."

"She would beat me, invent punishments meant to shame me. A true warrior never forgets a captor who beats him. I had to gag her when I brought her here, to stop all those damned prayers."

The light was fading fast now. Duncan pressed on. "It seemed an impossible combination," he said, "the bloody violence and the scholar's code. It was a unique puzzle. And you are the unique solution."

Felton grinned and took a sideways step toward his horse. He was fast, Duncan knew. If he reached his rifle he could kill them both, one with a bullet, and one with his tomahawk.

"Did you kill them all yourself or just watch as your renegades did it?"

"You were there today. The killer was hanged, on the word of a senior judge, after a proper trial."

"Not a trial. A theatrical performance staged by Ramsey. You killed Burke. You were visiting your Huron friends just down the valley the night before. Mokie saw you. I saw you, the back of your head, though I didn't realize it until now. I had you in the sights of my rifle. You were expecting Van Grut at the tree. Finding Burke there alone was a bonus, a victim sure to heat up relations between the Iroquois and the Virginians. Your plan had already been launched, you had no need for Burke any longer. You could probably convince Ramsey to pay extra since Burke's death would mask crucial evidence and save Ramsey the considerable money promised Burke."

"He refused to pay. Because Van Grut was still alive."

"So you tried for Van Grut in Philadelphia."

"Interfered with again."

Felton glanced back at the trail and froze for a moment. His horse was gone. He retreated a step and gave a low whistle.

"It is blasphemy to disturb the graves the way you did," Moses put in. He was there not because of the murders on the Warriors Path but because of Sister Leinbach.

"I am beginning to change my mind about taking a bounty," Felton mocked them. "I can find enough room for both of you right here." He gave another soft whistle, then looked into the shadows with new unease.

"They're not coming," Duncan said. As he spoke four more men appeared, all Iroquois in the black coats of the Moravians.

Felton merely lifted an eyebrow. "Do you have any idea what Ramsey will want me to do to you when I bring you back?" he said to Duncan. "I might make more if I just sell the parts of your body to him, piece by piece. I believe I shall take you with us, find a quiet place in the woods to finish you slowly. Once when I was ten the Hurons brought back a Mohawk prisoner who was given to us, the children of the village. We tied him to a post and kept him alive for ten days, slicing a little more meat away each day. Don't cut any big blood vessels, was what the squaws taught us."

"I would gladly give up my freedom to avenge Skanawati."

"Avenge?" Felton snorted. "You and these women? I know these Christian Indians. If I told them I was going to chop them all to death right now they would stand in line waiting, reciting from their little books." Felton looked into the shadows again.

"Your band is gone, those two and all the others," Duncan explained. "They will be taken before the Grand Council as traitors to their nation."

Felton took a step toward the path, as if he were retreating, then crouched and spun about, cocking the little pistol that appeared in his hand as he brought it to bear on Duncan. He offered a victorious grin, but an instant before the pistol discharged his arm jerked up and the ball was lost in the foliage.

Felton gazed in disbelief at the arrow in his shoulder. Conawago stepped out of the shadows, holding his bow.

"I think," Duncan said, "you misunderstand something." He signaled to the men in the dark coats, and they dropped them to the ground. Their chests glistened in the moonlight, reflecting fresh war paint. "We only borrowed the coats so they could move about the town freely." The four men stepped out of the deep shadow. One of the Indians tossed something into the moonlight at Felton's feet. A painted turtle shell. Another raised a strand of beads, a sign of Old Belt's authority. Felton's eyes suddenly went round with fear.

"You no doubt know the chiefs Mohawk escort. From the turtle clan, Skanawati's clan. And you just had more of a trial than Skanawati was given. I expect they will find a quiet place in the woods for you between here and Shamokin."

The color drained from Felton's face. He darted one way, then another as the Iroquois closed in, then one raised a small war club and gave him a blow on the side of his head that dropped him to his knees. When he rose they had fastened a leather strap around his neck, attached to a pole, the traditional way to transport war captives. One of his captors snapped off the arrow shaft, leaving the head in Felton's flesh to torment him. His last protest was choked away by a twist of the pole.

As Duncan watched the shadows where they had disappeared, another figure stepped forward. Magistrate Brindle had his collar turned up against the cool evening breeze.

"You'll never see him again," Duncan said.

The Quaker nodded solemnly. "I think," he said with a heavy voice. "I have never seen him. Sometimes," he added after a long moment, "we let our charity blind us to the evil in the world."

To Duncan's surprise Brindle stayed as a wagon pulled up bearing a coffin, driven by Reverend Macklin. The Quaker silently held one of the torches as Macklin, Duncan, Conawago, and Moses eased the remains of the dead Moravian missionary from the Indian grave scaffold and placed it in the coffin. He did not move even as Conawago and Moses returned and offered a low prayer to the disturbed dead.

The moon was high overhead when they finally had the wagon loaded. As Duncan began to climb up beside the driver, Brindle restrained him with a hand on his arm. "No, McCallum. This wagon goes south."

Duncan glanced in confusion from the Quaker to Conawago and Moses, who had appeared beside Brindle. "I will not dishonor you, sir. You are obliged to return me to Philadelphia."

"There are higher laws than those of Philadelphia," the magistrate said. Duncan now saw his own pack hanging from the shoulder of Conawago, his rifle in the Nipmuc's hand. "The new indenture Ramsey tried to force on you was never signed. And as a judge of this province I have received an affidavit in elegant handwriting from a highly revered man named Socrates Moon. He attests, has sworn before me, that he is an agent of a different bondholder. I have been made to understand from him that someone on the New York frontier has a superior claim over you." Brindle extended his hand.