Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

The Iroquois were admiring the gifts from the keg, hefting some of the powder horns the sergeant had produced, responding when another of Pike’s soldiers set the keg of honey on a root at the foot of the tree and gestured for them to come and sweeten their cups.

“Your heart,” said a quiet voice at Duncan’s side. “She has your heart in her dreams.”

Duncan turned to see Tashgua, sitting in his chair of roots. The old Indian’s wrinkled face seemed beyond age, so ancient, so full of secrets from other centuries, other worlds. Duncan longed to sit with him for hours, for days, to learn something of life in the forest before the Europeans came, to absorb some of the things that could not be spoken. Then he realized that in the middle of the long-awaited ceremony, the old shaman wanted to speak of Sarah.

“There was a terrible storm at sea,” Duncan said. He had never felt more humbled, more insignificant, before another person.

“A mother storm,” Tashgua declared, as if he had been there.

“I was going to die. Then she was going to die. Then the storm swallowed us and spat us back out.”

“We know,” the shaman murmured. “It was the first miracle. The water miracle.”

Duncan’s breath caught in his throat. The Iroquois had decided that his saving Sarah had been one of their prophesied miracles.

“Part of both of you died in that storm,” Tashgua said before Duncan could respond.

Duncan swallowed hard. He looked up at the massive tree and with a strange sense of release knew it to be true. Since the hour he had saved Sarah there were parts of his life that were indeed dead, never to go back to, just as new parts had been created. “I am not strong enough to be in Sarah’s dreams.” The words came out unbidden, and Duncan looked up with an expression of surprise.

Tashgua, strangely, smiled. “Her dreams are for all of us. We do not control them. She does not need our strength. She needs our understanding. It is not an easy thing to live in this world and another at the same time.”

Duncan realized he did not know for certain which worlds Tashgua spoke of. But then he gazed out among the Iroquois and knew they would have to speak of it another time. “You must tell them to leave,” he pleaded.

Tashgua offered another small, serene grin. “We will all be the same, you know, all of us linked forever by this day.”

“The soldiers and Lord Ramsey, they. . ” His voice trembled as he felt the quiet power of the man beside him. “Please,” he added in a whisper, beginning to lift the stone bear from his pocket.

Tashgua, seeming to anticipate his intention, raised a hand to stop him. “We came so the spirits could speak to us. Nothing else matters,” Tashgua said, then lifted his hand and gently placed his palm on Duncan’s heart. “Do I have your blessing?” the shaman abruptly asked him.

Duncan stared in disbelief as the stiff old hand reached down and clasped Duncan’s. He returned the grip, squeezing tightly, then the aged prophet rose and stepped inside the tree. Tashgua gazed at the log drum in the pool of light in wonder, as if it had magically transported itself into the center of the tree cave, then sat beside it, his fingers running along its ranks of carved animals, the motion slowly converting to the quiet, steady heartbeat sound.

The final realization came in pieces as Duncan walked out among the Iroquois gathering before the tree, some taking honey, some settling onto the ground as Tashgua’s drumming grew louder, amplified by the hollow chamber of the tree. For the first time, he noticed a grenadier’s match case on the chest belt of one of the soldiers. He saw the soldiers all moving, though not in the same direction. One, with a long horn from the keg of gifts, stepped into the shadows at the side of the tree. There was a faint scent of sulphur in the air. Pike stood with Ramsey by the fire, far from the tree. The images came faster. Something red flashing on the rocky cliff above them. The soldier with the match case moving toward the tree. Arnold retrieving his coat from the log by the tree. Conawago, searching among the rocks by the stream, waving something at Duncan. A tool, a large hand auger. As the soldier disappeared around the tree, Duncan saw that the match case was off his belt, in his hand now.

His feet reacted faster than his mind, propelling him toward the shadows as a long, anguished moan escaped his lips. He tackled the soldier from the back, knocking the man to the ground, but as he fell, the soldier adeptly tossed the piece of smoldering match cord to the burly man, Pike’s sergeant, who was emptying the contents of the horn into a hole drilled into the tree wall.

Duncan struggled to his feet and launched himself at the sergeant, who spun about and kicked him as the slow match did its job, lighting the line of black powder now leading into the oak. As the soldiers sprinted away, Duncan staggered to the front of the tree. Arnold shouted at him, holding up his coat, his hand in the empty sleeve, his face draining of color as he understood what Duncan had done. The vicar dropped the coat and flung himself toward the drum in the tree chamber.

Duncan cried out for the Indians to flee. Most of them stared at him uncertainly, then looked back toward Tashgua. Pike snapped furious orders and two soldiers charged at Duncan. There was a sharp crack from the hillside, and the old chief wearing Jamie’s wolf pelt stumbled forward, caught by his companions. Some of the Indians began to move as Conawago took up the warning, then another figure dashed through them, calling frantically in their own tongue. Duncan spun about as Sarah paused in her sprint to push some of the chieftains away, then launched herself toward the opening through which Arnold had disappeared.

Duncan leaned forward as he reached her, his shoulder to her belly, scooping her off her feet, maintaining his frantic pace as she pounded his back, screaming out the same Iroquois word, over and over. He threw her behind a boulder, covering her with his body as with a massive roar the world came to an end.

Duncan was the first to rise in the awful stillness. The scene was like a battlefield. One of the two soldiers who had tried to stop Duncan sat on the ground, blood gushing down his chest, staring numbly at him, holding the end of a thick splinter of wood that had pierced his neck and emerged from the opposite side. The second soldier lay lifeless on the ground, his body perforated with at least a dozen wooden shards, some curved, from the kegs that had held the gunpowder.

Most of the Iroquois lay on the earth, many dead or dying. Duncan slowly pushed himself up, saw that Sarah was numbed but unharmed, then ran to the Iroquois, stopping at the chief who had worn Jamie’s cap and blanket. The back of the man’s head was shattered. He had not been killed by the explosion.

“He flew through the air,” a desolate voice said from behind him, as Duncan bent to the old Seneca with the fox headdress. Conawago was looking at another figure, lying on the ground a hundred feet away. “I saw his face. There was no fear. There was no surprise.” The chief at his feet was dead. Duncan straightened, looking past Conawago, then ran to the inert form as several of the surviving Iroquois began a terrible lamentation, accompanied by loud words from the cooking fire. Ramsey was shouting at Pike, pointing to the ridge above.

Tashgua’s body, incredibly, was intact. He had been at the entry, had ridden the force of the explosion outward. The bones of his back were crushed, his skull indented where it had slammed against a rock. As Sarah rose with an anguished cry, Duncan’s hand shot into his pocket, then pushed under the dead shaman. He stood as she reached him, tears flooding her cheeks, then stepped aside as she collapsed onto the body. As he turned back to the other Iroquois, patches of color appeared on the path from the camp. A line of forlorn men in ill-fitting red coats emerged. Ramsey’s harangue of Pike choked away as the patron recognized the figures on the trail. It was the remainder of his militia, along with Hawkins and his trappers, each man bound by rope to the next. They were being escorted down the ridge by Jamie’s men and half a dozen others wearing the colors of Woolford’s rangers.