Eliot Pattison - Eye of the Raven

Red Hand leaned forward, swaying back and forth as if he were going to be sick. "I was there. I saw him kill Townsend. Saw him stab Townsend." The Shawnee made a screwing motion over his chest. "I put my mark on a paper that says so."

"Who?" Duncan shouted.

"Skanawati."

The name shattered the air like a cannon shot.

"Surely you must be-" Duncan began, but had no time to finish his sentence.

The Indian leapt into action, slamming his makeshift crutch across Moses' knees, kicking Rideaux's thigh as he jumped up, no longer as drunk as he appeared. Both men dropped to the ground in obvious pain. Duncan made a futile leap for the prisoner, landing in the dirt as the Shawnee disappeared around the corner of the storehouse.

The moon was high over the broad river when Duncan ventured out of the Moravians' house, leaving the pallet he had been given by the hearth after Hadley and Van Grut had offered to stay with Mokie at Rideaux's. He could not sleep, could not penetrate the mysteries that gnawed at him, could not even focus on them for the worry over his friend. Conawago had retreated back inside himself, leaving the cabin with murmured thanks for the evening meal shared by the Moravians but without another word to Duncan.

He found the old Indian on the ledge that jutted out over the moonlit water and sat with him in silence for several minutes.

"You must listen to me carefully, Duncan," Conawago said at last. "I beg you to heed my words."

"No one's words are more important to me," Duncan replied, suddenly frightened by the frailness in his friend's voice.

"You must leave. Go back to Edentown. Hide somewhere from those who would throw you in prison. But leave this place, go anywhere but Philadelphia, where Ramsey will kill you. Leave the mysteries of the tribes to the tribes."

Duncan must leave him, Conawago was saying. "You know I am trying to help, to stop the killing, to stop the hanging."

"You only help to increase the pain." It was, from his comrade and mentor, a stinging rebuke.

Duncan could find no reply.

"What that Frenchman says, about the hearts of the Indian and the hearts of the Europeans being different, it is right. It is not for you and me to pretend otherwise." There was a wrenching tone of surrender in Conawago's voice.

"I have seen European and Indian marry, build families together," Duncan offered, his voice tight. "The Moravians bring comfort to the hearts of some in the tribes." Even as he spoke them Duncan's words felt hollow. For that which Conawago invoked there were no words.

"You will bring more death, Duncan. The spirits have their own ways of dealing with evil. I worry that you interfere with them."

"There is too much death," Duncan said, a hoarseness rising in his throat. "My people became like the leaves on the autumn tree. I do not want the clans of the woods to die too."

"I think what you and I want matters little to the fate of the tribes."

For a moment, Duncan wanted to weep. He could not bear to think this was the end of the life he had started only months before, the end of his time with the remarkable old man.

They sat for a long time, gazing into the stars reflected on the river.

"Will you tell me one thing, Conawago? What happened in the water today?"

His friend gave a trembling moan. He was silent so long Duncan assumed he would not answer.

"I had never been deep in the water like that," Conawago finally said. "Not like the land world. So cold. Dark and yet not dark. I found a gateway to the other side."

The hairs stood up on Duncan's neck. "Gateway?"

"My mother was there, Duncan. I saw her plain, looking as she had the day I was taken from her as a boy. She was smiling, gesturing for me to come to her. She held a basket, like she was waiting for me to go gather summer berries."

The realization of Conawago's meaning stabbed Duncan like an icy blade. "You are not going to die, my friend. More years lie ahead. The tribes need you more than ever. I need you."

"My mother needs me. I think there is trouble on the other side. Maybe that is where the fate of the tribes is being determined, maybe that is where I can best help." Conawago turned to Duncan. "That day at Ligonier," he added, "it was my fate to die. I was ready to cross over. That baby boy had been born to take my place. Skanawati should not have stepped in. He thought he should help me, protect me because of what you and I were doing. But he is more important to the tribes than some dried-up old Nipmuc. I cheated death, don't you see, and by my doing so bring the death of a chief who is like a saint to these people, the only chieftain with a chance of leading our people back to the old ways. At Ligonier death was cheated by a lie. Today it was cheated by the happenstance that you were near. It is wrong to trick the spirits."

Even had Duncan been able to think of a reply, the words would not have gotten past the great swelling in his throat.

"We will meet again, Duncan. I will visit you from the other side." The Indian rose and descended the rock. Ghosts, Conawago had once told him, revealed themselves only to closest family members.

A tear ran down Duncan's cheek. As if it were dispatched from the spirit world a large canoe appeared and nudged the pebble beach below. He watched as though in a dream as Conawago slipped into the vessel and four shadow warriors paddled him onto the silvery water.

"Impossible!" Rideaux spat. "They will roast you alive!"

"Then I will shout out my questions from the stake," Duncan shot back. "One way or the other I will see the family of Skanawati." He had been waiting at the Frenchman's gate at dawn, seeking a guide. "The west branch, thirty miles upriver." A weary Rideaux, looking haggard, had gestured him inside for a cup of birch tea.

"What use could they possibly be to you?"

"I must know what Skanawati has been doing these past weeks. I must know why his adopted sister and her new husband were sent to the western boundary tree. I must know why Skanawati sent men out to investigate old markings on the Warriors Path. I must know what he thought he would learn from the ghosts there."

Duncan dared not reveal the most important reason of all. He had sat for another hour by the river the night before, watching the shadows where Conawago had disappeared, considering how the Indians in the silent canoe had all been from Skanawati's village, then considering again each piece of the puzzle. Finally he had understood that the Iroquois had been thrust into the violence because Skanawati's mother had a dream.

"I will paddle myself," Duncan vowed, "if I cannot find help."

"Not by yourself," came a voice from the shadows. Van Grut sat up from his pallet.

"Fools!" Rideaux snapped. "Any man who consents to guide you will earn the enmity of Skanawati's clan. You understand nothing about them, nothing about the trials they have endured. No one could guarantee your safety."

"Yesterday you asked what you could do to help."

Rideaux buried his head in his hands for a moment. "Word about bounties spreads like wildfire, McCallum," he said when he looked up. "Thirty pounds is a princely sum. The word came in last night with a trader from Lancaster. Stay anywhere near Shamokin and if the killers don't finish you the bounty hunters will take you for certain. Thirty pounds would solve most of the problems of Skanawati's village," he warned.

"You asked what you could do," Duncan repeated.

"Your stubbornness will get you killed," Rideaux sighed. "I will give you supplies, and a canoe. I already have men looking for Red Hand. He went south."

"On the river?"

"On the trail toward the settlements. Tulpehocken. Reading. He stole a horse. He was going fast."

"What is past Reading?"