Eliot Pattison - Eye of the Raven

"We will have the one called Red Hand," Old Belt repeated.

Duncan sprang forward the instant one of the Indians glanced toward a shadow in the far corner. In two leaping strides he found himself going down a short, narrow passageway into a storeroom, then spotted the open hatch used for loading supplies by pulley and rope. He leapt to the opening, steadying himself by grabbing the rope that still swung in the darkness.

Red Hand, having made good his escape, stood in a pool of moonlight fifty paces away, his arms thrust toward the sky as he taunted Duncan. There was no hope of catching him. By the time Duncan slid down the rope and reached the pool of light the Indian would be lost in the labyrinth of the city.

"He comes and goes," Conawago reported as Duncan returned to his friends. The Nipmuc dropped onto the table a tattered pouch on which lewd figures had been drawn over old tribal decorations, the pouch Red Hand had carried at Shamokin. "His kit."

Duncan upended the pouch onto the table. A deck of stained and dog-eared playing cards. A gold cross on a strand of beads. The remaining two silver buttons from Winston Burke's uniform. Three of the crosshatched nails from Shamokin. The chipped head of a small china doll. Several soiled silk ribbons, two tied around locks of delicate blond hair. The meager, macabre belongings of an Indian outlaw. Duncan pushed the ribbons aside and lifted an object from underneath them. A glass ball, nearly an inch in diameter, larger and more refined than a gaming marble, identical to the one found with Ohio George.

He pocketed the ball, then turned toward the Indians who had been in the room, lined up against a wall now. As he did so one of the Iroquois guards appeared, shoving another Indian in front of him, speaking quietly to Old Belt.

"This one was in the jakes," the chief explained, "using this." The guard extended a black book, a prayer book. Nearly half the pages had been torn out, starting in the rear.

"Some will take such books because they are sacred," Conawago said with a sigh. "Others take them for pages to wipe themselves in the jakes."

Duncan lifted the bloodstained book and opened it to the first page. Inscribed in a refined hand across the top were a date, 1749, and a name. Henry Bythe.

Conawago paced along the Indians at the wall, who fearfully watched Old Belt, then spoke in low, terse syllables to each, striking up a conversation with the last man in line. "Red Hand owes this one much money," he related after a moment, "and told him he would soon have it. Red Hand bragged about what fun he would have earning the money."

"Fun?" Duncan asked.

"Red Hand said to expect the money tomorrow night since he had to earn it before Skanawati's trial. He said," Conawago explained ominously, "that he is going to kill a black girl, a runaway from Virginia."

It was Old Belt himself who insisted they stop at the magistrate's house despite the late hour. Brindle was sheltering Becca, Mokie, and the infant, Penn, in his own household pending the decision of the governor on their fate. What's more, the magistrate had confided to the Iroquois chief that he was keeping hours past midnight every night with his law and philosophy books, seeking an answer to his treaty dilemma.

The door to the large clapboard house was quickly opened by an austere woman wearing a white apron over her black dress. She did not greet them, did not react to the tall warriors who positioned themselves on either side of the door as sentries, simply ushered the visitors into a spacious room lined with bookshelves. Magistrate Brindle sat staring at the embers in his fireplace, the candlelit table by his chair heaped with documents bearing the wax seals of the courts, beside a law book whose pages gently stirred in the breeze coming from the open window beyond the fireplace.

Old Belt, motioning for Conawago and Duncan to wait, stepped forward. The Quaker looked up with a melancholy nod. "My servants say I should be abed. But we workhorses feel the harness every hour of the day."

The chief said nothing, just placed Bythe's prayer book on the table. The magistrate's hand trembled as he lifted the bloodstained volume. He opened it and stared at the inscription for a long moment before looking up.

"Your brother-in-law discovered the killers," Conawago declared as he approached. "But they were not the French, as he sought."

Duncan hung back in the darkness, acutely aware that he was a fugitive in the house of a high-ranking judge. When Brindle spoke it was in a near whisper, directed toward the little Quaker book. "When we took his body down there was a long spindle gear hammered into his eye." His voice cracked. "There were bloodstains around the eye. I think your medical friend would say it means he was still alive when it was done."

"We have seen other such gears," Conawago reminded the judge. "And in Shamokin we have seen the death of one of those responsible. Another walks these very streets. Perhaps in the employ of a merchant named Waller."

Brindle's countenance swirled with dark emotion. "I am no longer responsible for dealing with the deaths. With the murder of a family member I was considered too close to the crimes."

"A great benefit for those behind the killings," Conawago observed.

Brindle looked up. "I do not understand."

"Are you not still responsible for the treaty negotiations?"

"That duty has not yet been removed from me. We speak for hours every day, but little seems to get done," Brindle acknowledged. "We arrange and rearrange chairs at tables, organize meals, listen to speeches about why each of the delegations deserves the greater esteem."

"Not all at the table are telling the truth," Conawago ventured. "What does the Psalmist say? The words of his mouth are smoother than butter, but war was in his heart."

"His words were softer than oil," Brindle continued the verse, "yet were they drawn swords." He leaned forward. The Iroquois had their wampum for assuring a listener's attention. Magistrate Brindle had his Psalms.

"Your removal from the murders keeps you from seeing that they are just one more device being used to manipulate the treaty.

Even from the shadows Duncan could hear the Quaker's sharp intake of breath. After a moment he rose from his chair and laid another log on the fire. "Day unto day uttereth speech," he recited, and night unto night showeth knowledge." He lifted a quill to continue the notes he had been taking, then nodded to Conawago. "Speak to me, my friend."

As the old Nipmuc began to relay the events of the past ten days, the log flared and Duncan stepped back, deeper into the darkness. His heart shot into his throat as someone touched his elbow. The stern woman who met them at the door had materialized beside him, gesturing him into a spacious kitchen with an immense stone fireplace, then lifted a glass of milk from the counter and handed it to him. Duncan was about to whisper his thanks when he saw a figure huddled on a stool by the remains of a small fire in the huge hearth.

Duncan did not return Van Grut's greeting when he rose from the stool, only grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled him close. "You lied to me!" he growled. "You were with Burke in Philadelphia! He's the one who hired you!"

The Dutchman sagged as Duncan released him. "It didn't seem important. Not a lie exactly. I told you I was hired by the Virginia company. He was part of the company."

"You heard me puzzle over connections to Philadelphia and never said a word about how Burke was here, in Philadelphia. You knew the killers were trying to implicate Indians in Shamokin and never said a word."

Van Grut dropped back onto the stool. "Surely it was only happenstance that he was in Philadelphia. And there were Indians in Shamokin doing the killing … " The Dutchman paused, as if beginning to recognize there could be several reasons for Burke's presence in Philadelphia, not all innocent.