Bone Rattler (52 page)

Duncan clamped his jaw tight, fighting a new surge of fear, and began whetting the stone on his new blade. Conawago followed suit with his knife. They worked with silent, grim determination as the sun set. Duncan suddenly stopped to reach into his pocket and tossed Woolford the bullet he had extracted from the Scot at the mission. “Thirteen balls. This and the two from the farm.”

Woolford silently lifted his rifle and placed the ball on the end of the barrel. “These three are all the same size, all seventy-five caliber, made for the Brown Bess standard of the army. Rangers and Indians use long rifles, with smaller balls, fifty caliber and less. Even the
French soldiers use a smaller caliber. If I had a mold, I could melt these down, but I left it at the base camp.”

Duncan looked out into the darkening forest a moment. “I cut it out of a deserter from the Forty-second,” he explained as he tried to reason out the puzzle. “He took it in his leg a year ago. He was a survivor of Stony Run.”

Woolford leaned forward, his eyes flashing with excitement as he hefted the three balls in his palm. “You’re wrong. There were no survivors, only Adam.”

“There were other Indian prisoners who survived.”

“Sarah and Alex weren’t there. Tashgua had sent the council to Stony Run. He was performing a rite nearby. When they came back the carnage was done.”

“You don’t know for certain, Captain. A deserter would never speak with you.”

“No,” Woolford admitted after a moment. “He wouldn’t.”

Duncan bent over his pack and pulled out the high-domed hat he had secreted there, wrapped in a scrap of muslin. He tossed it to Woolford. “Why would Ramsey have this, hidden like a great treasure?”

“Grenadier,” Woolford said as he turned the cap over and over in his hand. “The Forty-ninth. You lied about finding that match case?”

“I found it, but with this hat in the Ramsey cellar. Where were the Forty-ninth Grenadiers last year?”

“In the north. Lake George. Lake Champlain.” Woolford’s face darkened as he threw the cap back to Duncan, and he turned back toward the forest. “They’ll try before the moon gets higher, to use the dark,” he predicted.

“We can jump in the river,” Duncan said, “swim away in the dark.”

“They will have thought of that and will be watching. Right now they don’t know we are short of rounds. Drop in the water, and they will know for certain we could not shoot, even if we kept the rifles, for our powder will be wet. They have enough men to straddle the river and spear us like fish.”

Duncan watched as Conawago lit a small fire then began tying
dried grass around the ends of the arrows he had extracted from McGregor.

“The brush at the bottom,” Duncan concluded. “You’re going to light fires. But there’s a gap.”

“Exactly,” Woolford said in a flinty voice and lifted his rifle. “That’s where we greet them.”

It happened exactly as the ranger planned. As Duncan watched in surprise, Conawago produced a long string, which he inserted into notches at the end of his staff, converting it into a bow. The old Indian waited until there was movement at the base, then lit the brush below with carefully aimed shots. With a thundering heart, Duncan watched their attackers move into the darkened gap and climb halfway up the slope before his companions opened fire. He reloaded with shaking hands, spilling precious powder, his gaze shifting often to the sharpened tomahawk lying on the rock beside him. Then there was silence. Below them someone moaned; the fires crackled and subsided. There were bullets left for only two more shots.

Woolford and Conawago arranged their blades in front of them.

“If you keep holding that ax so tightly,” the ranger warned Duncan, “your fingers won’t respond when it comes time to use them.”

Duncan forced himself to set the weapon down and wiped the sweat from his palms. He gazed up at the moon, which had risen high enough to cast a silver glow over the hill. He had a strange sudden desire to be near the ocean. The McCallum clan chiefs almost always died on or near saltwater.

By the end of the first hour, the waiting became unbearable. Duncan found himself shifting positions like a nervous child, then began to notice how differently his companions waited for the final onslaught. Woolford, ever the soldier, watched the shadows with a cool, treacherous anticipation. But Conawago had stopped watching the woods. He had found a small white flower growing out of a crack in the stone, glowing in a small patch of moonlight, and was studying it with a serene expression.

As he watched the old Indian, Duncan found himself growing
calmer, inching closer, watching the flower himself, watching the stars reflected in a small pool of rainwater on the ledge by the flower.

“It thrives only in rocks and other harsh places,” Conawago said of the flower as Duncan reached his side. “I found one like this when I was very young, and asked my mother why it would bloom in the night. She said that was a secret between it and the moon, from a time before man.”

Duncan looked away for a moment as he realized he had also been studying the Indian’s face the same way Conawago had looked at the little silver pool. “I’m sorry,” he said clumsily. “It’s just that here we are, with two bullets left and. . . .”

“Here we are,” Conawago repeated when Duncan could not finish the sentence.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“Men can only know one another by their actions.”

“I don’t know who your people are.”

The old Indian offered a sad smile and looked up at the stars. “It’s just another story of old clans fading away.”

“You said they were called the Nipmucs, from Massachusetts.”

“A very old and peaceful tribe,” Conawago said after a moment. “Our troubles began with the Dutch, who enticed us closer to the Hudson for trade, then gradually wore us down. There were wars, small wars that few took notice of. My people were finished by the time I was born, nothing but small family groups left to wander along the river, under the protection of the Mohawks and the Mahicans who were left. When I asked about our tribe, my mother said one day we would all be together again, that for now our family was our tribe. Then some Jesuits came and offered me a new life. They were kind men. They showed my mother the magic of written words, told her that if I could learn the European ways, I could protect what was left of our people. My mother said go with them for five years, that she and the family would not leave, they would be there at their camp by the river waiting when I returned.” Conawago looked at the flower in silence before continuing.

“But the Jesuits kept me for seven years, took me to Europe. I came back with gifts, with books, with new European clothes, with great plans for building a new village for my people. But they were gone. There was a new trading post there, new farms. I could barely recognize the land. There was only one of my family left, an old uncle who had become a drunk. He laughed when I said who I was, said I was dead. I discovered that my mother had refused to leave the land, saying she was waiting for me, until the trader there convinced her I was dead, made up a letter saying so and read it to her. She believed written words were magic, that they could never lie.

“For years I tried to find them, following the trail of every camp of Indians forced to move by the settlements. Some old Lenni Lenape said I should go to the Ohio for them. In the Ohio country they said maybe I should look along the Niagara. There they said to try the Kentucky lands. Eventually I went back to the Mohawks, lived with Hendrick, sometimes Tashgua.”

“In New York harbor,” Duncan ventured, “there was a man with a staff walking away after the attack. It was you who shot those arrows, and the staff was your bow.”

“It was a signal Adam had arranged, to let the Ramsey tutor know I was there. We were supposed to meet at a tavern the next day. I waited two days, but you never came.”

“The first arrow wasn’t a signal.”

“I had seen how the captain mistreated the old one, kicked him even when they were dragging him to the wagon. I feared he was about to do the same to you.”

“If it weren’t for that arrow,” Duncan offered, “I would be on the way to Jamaica.”

“You gave up all that sunshine for this,” Conawago said.

They exchanged small, melancholy grins.

Their silence was broken by the loud crack of Woolford’s rifle. An arrow whirled overhead, then another. Two rifles answered the ranger’s shot. Conawago leapt to Woolford’s side, his ax in his hand. The Huron war cries seemed to come from every direction. Duncan
grabbed his tomahawk. Then, as suddenly as it started, it ended. His companions settled back as Woolford loaded the last round in his rifle. The forest went deathly quiet.

“I want to attend to McGregor,” Duncan announced after another long silence.

“Attend?” Woolford asked.

“A funeral of some kind. A farewell for an old Scot forced from his Highland home.”

He felt Woolford’s withering gaze through the darkness. He expected a rebuke, a curse, even a bitter laugh. “What would you say to a burial at sea?” the ranger asked instead.

Woolford joined in preparing the body as Conawago watched the moonlit forest. With small vines they tied his feet together, then bound his arms across his chest after setting several flat rocks inside his shirt. Duncan retrieved his pipes from his pack as Woolford dragged the body to the edge of the cliff, then began a slow, sad tune. When he finished, they flanked the body.

“He died on his feet, in battle,” Duncan offered.

“‘He who dies pays all debts,’” Woolford added, ever ready with Shakespeare. Then they tipped the body over the edge. Duncan lingered, gazing into the silvery water, then lifted his pipes again.

“Enough,” the ranger said. “It just makes you a better target.”

Duncan ignored the warning. He played another lament, and another, not aware of when Woolford returned to Conawago’s side. An icy hand gripped his heart as he realized it was for his own funeral, too. By dawn he would be scattered in pieces among the rocks, his scalp hanging from some Huron’s belt.

The thought caused him to falter, to break the rhythm of his song. But then he smelled fresh heather and the scent of wool long steeped in the smoke of peat. He dared not turn for fear of ending the spell, but he knew his grandfather was lingering close by. He remembered that in the old Highland regiments there were those who did not fight but only played the pipes throughout the heat of battle. They were always conspicuous targets, but they never
stopped playing. If a piper received a mortal wound, he would be braced against a tree and keep piping, his last breath on earth exhaling through the reeds.

He played as he had never played before, drawing the notes out, pausing only to slip the tomahawk and knife into his belt, at the ready. After several minutes he leapt atop a tall, flat column, silhouetted against the moonlit sky. He would make it a Highland death after all, with a blade in one hand, pipes in the other, and his grandfather at his side.

T
HE FIRST RAYS OF THE SUN woke him where he had leaned against a rock an hour before dawn. He leapt up with a groan, tomahawk in hand, shamed at not having maintained the vigil.

Conawago and Woolford were watching the forest intently, chewing on strips of dried venison from Conawago’s bag. Woolford’s weary countenance remained fixed on the shadows below as Conawago nodded to Duncan and offered him a piece of the meat.

“They never came,” Duncan said in a confused tone.

“In the forest,” the old Indian said, “there’s always a bigger predator to steal your kill.”

Duncan looked down the slope in alarm. The three bodies that had been visible were gone. The forest was silent. No birds greeted the dawn, no small animals scurried among the trees. He shuddered to think of what possibly could have frightened the fierce Huron warriors.

Duncan bent to stow his pipes in his bag, wondering whether he should ballast it and throw it over the cliff to rest with old McGregor instead of allowing the pipes to be destroyed in the final attack. He chewed the venison, gazing for a moment at the pool below, where the old Scot lay, then took a step toward Woolford and abruptly flung himself against a rock. A warrior stood at the bottom of the hill.

Duncan grabbed the third rifle, aimed, and was about to pull the
trigger when Woolford pushed the barrel down. “Aiming a gun, even an empty one, is not what you want to be doing to this gentleman,” the ranger said in a strained voice.

“Haudenosaunee,” Conawago whispered. “An Onondaga,” he added, though there was no relief in his voice.

Duncan would never have guessed the man was an ally. He was dressed in a breechcloth and leggings, his body adorned with red and black paint in a speckled pattern, a war ax in one hand. In his other hand the warrior held a painted stick on which was impaled a small creature, clad in white fur. He searched his memory for what he had learned of the Iroquois tribes. The Onondaga were the center nation, the keeper of the council fires for all the tribes.