Eye of the Raven (11 page)

"If this is coincidence, then the gods are surely laughing," the old Nipmuc said as he surveyed the leaf-strewn landscape. Duncan, confused, followed his troubled gaze. A small creek tumbled over round white rocks worn smooth as cobblestones. The spring foliage cast mottled shadows over a field of lichened logs and sun-bleached sticks, several of which Hadley broke as he stepped around the tree. Fifty feet away a wood thrush frolicked amid a patch of red blooms.

"Oh, dear Christ! It's Turtle Creek!" Hadley moaned as he stared at the stream, and he stumbled back to his horse as if to flee.

Van Grut muttered an exclamation of alarm in his native Dutch then stepped to the edge of the creek, bending to lift one of the white cobbles and extend it to Duncan. It was no stone. It was a human skull.

Hadley buried his head in his horse's neck as if he could bear to look no further.

Duncan stepped to the shallow creek and lifted another skull from the water. He counted a dozen within ten feet of where he stood before lowering the one he held to the ground and pacing around the clearing. The bleached sticks were arm and leg bones scattered across the forest floor. What he had mistaken for red flowers was in fact a remnant of scarlet cloth with gold braiding, a rotting uniform.

"They say nearly five hundred men died here that day," Conawago explained over Duncan's shoulder. "The British had never faced the French Indians before, knew nothing of forest warfare. They kept forming up in lines of bright red while their enemy just stayed on the hills-" he gestured to the two small ridges on either side, "-and shot them from hiding."

"You speak of Braddock's infantry," Duncan said as he slowly recalled the published accounts. The elderly British general, commander of all troops in North America, had paid with his life for his gross misjudgment of the enemy irregulars.

"They say King George wept when he heard the news," Van Grut remembered. The Dutchman was holding a crushed and moldy grenadier's cap, bearing the number 48 in tarnished brass.

Hadley appeared behind him, his eyes moist. "One of the only officers not wounded was Colonel Washington. He rallied his Virginians to hold off the enemy while the regular army retreated. Scores of Virginia children were left without a father that day." Hadley gazed forlornly at the bones. "I knew more than a few of them. This could be them, could be their bones I crushed," he added in a horrified tone.

Duncan surveyed the scene, trying to shake off the darkness that seemed to be paralyzing his companions. He shuddered as he imagined the bloody July day five years before. He knew only too well the chaos, the terror, the bloody axes of an Indian attack. He searched his memory of the accounts he had read. It had been the first battle of the long war for the French Indians. They had been thirsty for blood, rushing in impatiently to take the scalps of the wounded as they lay bleeding on the ground.

He looked back at Hadley, who had collapsed with a haunted expression onto a rock, seeming to have lost all sense of why they were there. Duncan felt himself also succumbing to despair. There was a Highland field near the village of Culloden littered with the bones of those he had known, and loved. He bent and picked up a skull, placed it in a pool of sunlight, then began gathering large flat rocks. Soon Conawago started helping him, joined a minute later by Van Grut. They had built the large hollow cairn nearly two feet high before Hadley stirred from his paralysis. He rose, staggering, as he approached Duncan with a confused expression.

"They were your friends, Hadley," Duncan said of the bones they were gathering, "or close enough." He pointed to the skull lying in the center of the hollow structure, then placed a femur beside it.

Hadley nodded his comprehension then winced as Conawago deposited another bone. "I can't touch the . . . "

"You don't need to collect bones, just rocks," Duncan suggested.

Half an hour later, when they had nearly filled the cairn, Conawago paused to light a small fire at the base of it, planting several small dried leaves on it.

"Tobacco," Duncan explained to Hadley. "It attracts the spirits."

Van Grut inserted the last of the remains, another skull, as Hadley began covering the top with a flat stone.

Suddenly Duncan put a restraining hand on the Virginian's arm, then reached in and pulled out the top skull. It was brighter than the others, and it had the jawbone attached. "Where did you find this?" he asked the Dutchman.

Van Grut pointed to a fallen log on the far side of the boundary tree.

"Show me exactly."

The bare patch of earth, still showing the indentation of the skull, was clearly visible. Duncan carefully probed the dead leaves around it with his fingers, quickly finding more bones. Vertebrae, broken ribs, a small, nearly intact skeletal hand.

Van Grut leaned over his shoulder. "What do you find?"

"A female."

"Surely you can't know that," protested Hadley, now at his side. "There's only bones."

"The posterior ramus of the mandible makes it certain," Duncan said, pointing at the skull. He looked up apologetically as he realized he had spoken as if in his old classroom, and he was about to explain when Van Grut excitedly grabbed the skull.

"Here," the Dutchman explained as he pointed to the rear edge of the jawbone that hooked up into the cranium. "McCallum is right! See how it is straight! Look at all the others. The male's jawbone always curves inward there." As if to confirm he lifted another skull from the stream and pointed to the arc in the jawbone.

"But there were no women at the battleline," Hadley said. "These troops had pushed on in a forced march, leaving the supply train with the women behind."

"She wasn't in the battle." Conawago's announcement came from the shadows of the big beech. "Look how fresh the bone is." The worry in his voice told Duncan he too had begun to grasp the implications. "This woman died less than a year ago." Conawago began brushing away the fallen leaves among the tangled roots and produced another skull, as fresh as the first. Duncan caught his eye, then pointed to the vine that twisted in and out of the sockets in the skull.

"You're making no sense," Hadley complained.

"This man and woman died here at the boundary tree," Duncan said, "but in the past few months." He examined the female's skull again, pointing to a narrow crack at the rear. "She was struck from behind and died soon thereafter."

Hadley stared at Duncan as if he were some kind of sorcerer.

"Mr. McCallum," Van Grut explained in a sober voice, "is a reader of dead."

Duncan ran his finger along the crack in the bone. "This is a fracture line. The blow might not have killed her, but it certainly rendered her unconscious." He slid a fingernail inside the tiny crack. It was a clear, crisp fissure. "If she had lived long after, this gap would have started to heal closed."

"You can't know she died less than a year ago," Hadley argued. "It is nothing but bone."

"When you enter the forest you must learn to look as if you never had eyes before, learn afresh how to experience things." Duncan exchanged a glance with Conawago as he spoke. The old Indian had used the very words when beginning to teach Duncan how to interpret the landscape around him. "Everything is connected, and it is how they are connected that tells their story." Before lifting the second skull he extended the vine trailing from it toward Conawago.

"The last two feet of the vine, the part through the skull, is green," Conawago explained. "That is one season's growth. Last summer's growth. They died no earlier than July, though I'm inclined to say August or September."

Hadley looked in wonder again at Duncan, then his gaze drifted over Duncan's shoulder. Duncan turned to see Van Grut collapsed on a log, his face in his hands. Something about their explanation had deeply shaken him. Duncan took a step toward the Dutchman, only to have a low warbling whistle draw him away. Conawago had returned to the tree and was now pointing to a nail driven into the trunk three feet above the ground. Duncan reached into his pouch for the one he had taken from the tree where Burke had died. He held the two nail heads together. Each had the same checkerboard pattern on its head.

Duncan dropped to his knees, joining Conawago's search of the loose forest debris beneath the nail. They quickly uncovered another skeletal hand. Though it was incomplete, the bones remaining at the center of the palm were crushed. Conawago gave a low whistle, then blew debris away from more bones. Another hand, clutching a large, tarnished compass. And several small brass buttons.

Suddenly Hadley was beside Duncan, staring at the compass, then extending his hand to touch the nail, halting, the fingers trembling before hastily withdrawing as he saw the dark stain on the wood below the nail.

Duncan extracted the nail with his tomahawk and studied the buttons, worked with a pattern of leaping fish, before dropping them into his pouch and turning to face Hadley. "If you came for the truth," he said to the Virginian, pointing to the collapsed Dutchman, "you'll have to start with him."

Van Grut did not look at them, just clutched his arms together and huddled over the little fire. He was visibly shivering.

Duncan, feeling an unexpected anger, leapt forward, yanking the Dutchman up by his shoulder. Dragging him to the far side of the tree, he pulled away tendrils that had partially obscured another set of carvings, six geometric shapes. Van Grut did not react when Duncan reached into his linen bag to extract his journal. He quickly turned to a sketch of still another boundary tree. Previously he had looked for the signs on the sketched trees, now he read the detailed description. It had had a nail driven into the trunk, approximately three feet from the ground.

"Why is someone killing the surveyors?" he demanded.

Van Grut stared at the shapes with wild, frightened eyes. He began to tremble again.

Conawago rested a hand on Duncan's arm. "I will make tea," he suggested.

Taking an ember from the small fire by the cairn, Conawago quickly lit a cooking fire beyond the log. As he set his little copper pot to boil, Duncan, joined by the old Indian, probed the forest floor near where they had found the fresh skulls. Ten minutes later Van Grut let himself be led to the fire, where he silently accepted a tin mug of tea.

"You said there were other surveyors," Duncan prodded. "You never said what happened to them." He dropped a new discov- cry in front of the Dutchman, a small moccasin of fine doeskin, once exquisitely decorated with dyed quillwork, now stained and mildewed.

Van Grut took a deep sip of the tea before answering. "My employers did not provide many details. It was the sutler in Carlisle where I bought supplies on the company account who spoke of the others, said surveyors must be cheaper by the half dozen. He shared some rum when I sketched his wife and gave him the rendering." He stared into his mug.

"There were three others he knew of in the past few months," he continued. "One named Townsend, the first, a friend of the Iroquois, who was reported dead by misadventure in the wilderness. Another called Cooper, from Connecticut, who traveled with his wife, who was half-Iroquois, half-French, from the Iroquois towns. Very young, very pretty, he said. The only other I know of was the former infantry officer named Putnam, from Philadelphia." Duncan closed his eyes a moment. Townsend and Putnam. Skanawati had mentioned finding dead Europeans on the trail.

"They were to be given tracts of land in payment for their efforts," Van Grut continued. "I asked for cash money, to pay for my travels. It was a big tract, and the Virginians were in a great hurry to get their claims registered. Using only one surveyor could easily have taken over a year."

"Why the hurry?"

"I didn't ask. The job they were offering fit my plans perfectly." Van Grut thought for a moment. "Because of the constant disputes between Pennsylvania and Virginia over land claims. Because no one gets any more big tracts until the Virginia tract is settled. Because the victories over the French have whetted voracious appetites for western lands. Because of the treaty," he added after a moment.

"Did you ask what happened to the others?"

"Like I said, it is a huge tract. I assumed they were working elsewhere."

"Did they assign you only one section then?"

"I was to describe the last fifty miles of the trail, then write my report. I was not inclined to ask questions. It was a great boon, to have my expenses paid for my explorations of the west."

Duncan stared at the Dutchman, certain he knew more than he was letting on. "Were you attacked?"

The Dutchman's face darkened. He didn't reply.

"This pour soul was nailed to the tree like Burke, probably practiced on with a knife like Burke. The woman was no doubt bending over to help him when she was struck from behind. It appears she was then dragged to that log and killed, probably had her veins severed while she was unconscious."

"You don't know with certainty that they were murdered," Van Grut argued.

Duncan went back on his knees beside Conawago, searching the ground again. It was the old Indian who found the final evidence, pointing at it with a grim expression. Duncan stared at it for a long, despairing moment before stepping toward the Dutchman.

"No I don't know," Duncan admitted, his voice tight. "Perhaps his mainspring just wound down with no one to wind him up." He dropped the object at Van Grut's feet. A human breastbone into which was embedded a bloodstained clockwork gear. "This is how you will die, Van Grut, unless you tell us all you know."

The color drained from the Dutchman's face.

"They sent you to replace this one who was killed, to work the section of trail north of here. It's only a matter of time before you become another clockwork man. Shall we place you in a box, then wind you up and charge a shilling for a glimpse?"

Van Grut pressed his hand against his chest, as if to protect his heart. He looked as if he would weep.

"Why are surveyors being killed at boundary trees?" Duncan demanded again.

"Burke told me to go to tree four, the next morning after we met. But I had just been paid, hadn't played a game of whist or touched a drop of rum in weeks."