Eliot Pattison - Eye of the Raven

Felton offered an exclamation of wonder. "I must have driven past this post thirty times," he muttered, then ran his fingers over the carvings.

"Gaondote, it is called in Iroquois," Conawago explained, then fell silent as he moved the lantern along the rows of markings. His expression grew heavy, and for a moment Duncan saw the patient torment of the sin eaters he had known as a boy. At last the old Nipmuc looked up, as if shaking off his visions. "A war post. Used by raiding parties to tether prisoners. This one was used for many years, over generations. The Xs indicate prisoners, the marks above them signifying if they were male or female. Many were fated to be finished at the stake. They would know early in their captivity, for their faces would be blackened with soot. Throughout their entire journey the marked ones understood it would end with their being burned alive."

Conawago looked up at Brindle. "Though you may not sense the pain and darkness in this place, I assure you those of the tribes do. The fear, the hate, it all still lives here. The tribes assume you chose this place to torment Skanawati. You have an Iroquois prisoner proceeding to his death on a British rope."

"Burn it," suggested McGregor.

"There is something else the magistrate needs to fully understand," Duncan interjected, turning to his Nipmuc friend. "The significance of the nails was mentioned in passing at the trial. What exactly do the Iroquois remember about men being tortured with nails?"

"Surely it has nothing to do with-" Brindle's objection was cut off by Duncan's upraised palm.

"The English and the Iroquois have not been antagonists for a long time," Duncan said. "But the nations begin to sense what the English truly think of them, at the worst possible time. Tormenting Skanawati by placing him beside the captive post. Flaunting the nailing of men to barns and trees. Why do the heathen rage," he said, repeating the Psalm.

Conawago gazed at the post as he spoke. "Since before memory Iroquois raiding parties have gone up and down the Warriors Path, through the Virginia country to reach their traditional enemies. But then one year an Iroquois raiding party found a farm across its ancient path. They halted, debating whether to turn around. But the militia had already been alerted and confronted them. The Iroquois said they simply wanted passage down the trail, as was their custom, promised not to harm any settler. The militia refused. The Indians had little food, expecting to live off the land. When they took some corn from a farmer's field, the Virginians called it war. The Indians were outnumbered. Some fled north, a dozen were captured, beaten, tortured, some hanged. Those who did not die right away were nailed to the side of a barn facing the Indian trail as a warning. Some took a week to die."

Brindle studied Conawago in silence, then gazed at the wagon, under which several of his party were already bedding down. "We will move camp," he said with a sigh. "Call out the militia and teamsters to assist us. And I will ask Brother Conawago to extend our apologies to the chiefs. We are but strangers in a strange land."

The moon was high by the time they finished moving the Quakers' camp to the flat below the crest of the ridge, where half the other travelers had already bedded down.

Magistrate Brindle was disquieted, and despite the late hour he had his nephew hang two lanterns beside him so he could read his Bible. His thin face had the expression of one staring into the murk of the wilderness for the first time, a strong man facing evils he never knew existed. The first time Duncan had entered the wilderness he had crawled under a rock and hidden.

"Have you been to treaty meetings before?" Duncan asked McGregor, keeping an eye on the shadows along the treeline. Conawago had disappeared during the shifting of the wagon.

"Aye. In Albany. Grand affairs."

"With as many Indians as here?"

"Here? This is a mere three dozen or so. When the trunks are finally opened expect a hundred or more."

"Trunks?"

"A few chiefs may come to make their marks on the king's paper. But the rest come for the gifts. Blankets will be distributed, and muskets and knives and bolts of cloth. If the gifts aren't there, the Indians won't talk." The big Scot gazed at the row of fires along the edge of the woods, where the Indians had camped. "Except the savages with us keep sharpening their knives and tomahawks. As if they expect an outbreak of hostilities instead of a treaty."

With deep foreboding Duncan ventured toward the Indian camp, desperately hoping for a glimpse of Conawago, nagged again by fear for his friend. It was as if death, having been cheated of him at Ligonier, still hovered near. A dog barked from a lean-to of pine boughs built against a wall of ledge rock. The soft voice of a woman comforted a child, the sound of rushes scouring a pot came from near a dying fire. The quiet domestic sounds reassured him. He quickened his step and ventured closer to the lines of fires along the edge of the woods, pausing at each in turn to look for his friend.

At first he thought he had tripped on a root, not realizing until too late that it was a pole deftly levered between his legs. As he stumbled, the Indian wielding it slammed the pole against Duncan's knee while pushing with a twisting motion at his shoulder. Suddenly Duncan was on the ground, with four warriors atop him, pinning each of his limbs. The one kneeling on his left shoulder held the edge of a tomahawk to his throat. The words that rushed out in the Iroquois tongue were whispered, and too fast for Duncan to understand. But the tone was unmistakable.

They hit him, striking repeatedly with small clubs on his legs, on his arms, not enough to break bones but enough to hurt, enough to bring bruises that would last days. The two men holding his legs uttered sounds of amusement. The one with the tomahawk leaned closer, hissing at Duncan, the hairs of his amulet brushing Duncan's neck, the turtle tattoo on his cheek visible in the moonlight. It was the young warrior from the fort, who had stood at Skanawati's side when he had made his confession. His eyes shone fiercely as he slammed the blade of the tomahawk into the earth inches from Duncan's ear.

Suddenly one of the Indians at Duncan's feet gasped as he was lifted bodily away. As a second assailant mysteriously rose Duncan could see Henry Bythe calmly standing with a lantern while Sergeant McGregor and two more kilted soldiers methodically removed the attackers, lifting them and tossing them away like sheaves. Duncan did not understand why the warriors did not resist, why they did not even rise up from the ground where they landed, then saw that they were looking not at Bythe or the Scots but at a figure in the shadows, an older Iroquois wearing a headdress made of a fox skin, the head of the animal perched over his forehead.

"This is what happens when we journey with such devils," the Quaker said as the Scots faded back into the darkness. Bythe seemed entirely unafraid of the warriors around him.

Duncan struggled to his feet, rubbing the pain out of his limbs as he tried to grasp which devils the Quaker spoke of.

"They have no place in a treaty. The war does not affect them like it does Pennsylvania and New York." Bythe began brushing off the dirt on Duncan's back as he spoke. "They should go home to their easy southern life."

"The devils you refer to are the Virginians?" Duncan asked, about to point out it had not been colonists who had attacked him.

"Of course. What happened here was naught but revenge for the Virginians' attack on our prisoner. The southerners cannot be trusted. If it were up to them we would be driven to abandon this very road."

"The road?" Duncan asked, confused again.

"The Forbes Road. They were furious when General Forbes decided on the Pennsylvania route two years ago. The general even intercepted secret correspondence from their Colonel Washington seeking to reverse the decision. They insisted the western lands were already theirs, that the road to Fort Pitt should run from Fort Cumberland, to ease the travel of Virginians."