Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“But Pike,” Duncan said to Woolford. “He and Cameron-”

“Four of Tashgua’s warriors left in two canoes before dawn,” Woolford said in a solemn voice. “With Pike and Cameron both trussed and gagged. His sergeant and I will report they both disappeared in an engagement with the Huron. They will be taken far west and sold as slaves to some unknown tribe.”

Duncan shuddered. It was, he had to admit, perfect justice for such men, and they could never be trusted to an official court without betraying secrets best left unspoken.

“Hawkins?” Duncan asked.

“Not a sign. There’s not a man, Indian or European, he will be safe with, not for hundreds of miles. Five of the surviving settlers have already left to track him, and they will find him, in some camp in some forest when he least expects it. They will know how to deal with him.” The ranger lifted his hand. “I’m leaving as well.” Duncan saw a cluster of men waiting at the forest’s edge-Woolford’s remaining rangers.

“You’re one of us, Duncan. You’d be welcome running at my side.”

Duncan took his hand and the men exchanged a long, sober stare. “You do me honor, Captain, and those are words I never expected to say to a British soldier.”

“American,” Woolford said, as if correcting him. “And not a soldier-a ranger.”

“No Shakespeare for our parting?”

Woolford grinned, and glanced at Crispin. “‘We few,’” he said, “‘we happy few, we band of brothers.’” He unhooked the shiny gorget from his neck, stuffed it into a pocket, and stepped away to his men.

The dust from the coach had barely settled when Sarah summoned the keepers and told them to begin dismantling the palisade, and to use the wood for new cow sheds. She declared that a large meal would be served at the end of the day, under the trees by the house. Duncan joined Conawago and Lister as they worked at the palisade, prying out logs, chiseling new joints so the beams could be reassembled into long lean-tos.

When the men were washed and the meal finally served out in steaming bowls and chargers, the members of the Company hung back, staring at the U-shaped table arranged by Sarah by the garden. They had never eaten with the Ramsey family, knew better than to expect to sit at the same table. But Sarah bent to her brother and sister, then the three of them stepped into the throng, pulling hands, directing men to the benches. When Sarah finally sat, Jonathan pulled Duncan forward and put him beside him his older sister.

The men listened at the end of the meal as Sarah explained the changes in the Company. There would be no more keepers, only foremen, the chief of which would be Mr. Lister, henceforth to be known as Mr. McAllister, who would sleep in one of the rooms in the great house. There would be a new barn, but first the settlers’ cabins would be rebuilt, then some new cabins at Edentown, for Sarah was sending to Philadelphia for a score of women who wanted honest jobs as cooks, laundresses, and weavers. When she described the final change, the sharing out of the Company, few seemed to understand. Then the men who had served on whaling ships described how the proceeds of the work on board were shared out to every member of the crew. Jaws dropped, eyes went round.

“I thought they would rejoice in the news,” Sarah said as they cleared away the table. Most of the men had left with sober, contemplative expressions.

“Their eyes. Did you not see their eyes?” Duncan asked. “They were different men when they left, chewing on something they had not tasted for a long time. You have given them hope.” And he had learned well enough that here, in this strange new land, hope need not be the poison it had been on board their prison ship.

The rejoicing came soon enough. Men began trickling back to the now lantern-lit table, some with musical instruments. There was singing and dancing and, for the first time at Edentown, the sound of grown men laughing.

Sarah brought out a blanket and she sat under one of the trees with Duncan, studying Professor Evering’s comet. Eventually Crispin and the young ones went inside, and as the men wandered back to their barracks, Sarah rolled the blanket over their legs and she put her head on Duncan’s shoulder.

He woke alone in the morning, the blanket empty beside him. Sarah was sitting on the kitchen steps, holding a slip of paper. “He’s gone,” Sarah said with a tone of surprise. “He left a note.”

Spirits do not die, Conawago had written, they just take on new shapes. Duncan turned it over. There was nothing else.

“He was on the porch at dawn and asked if there was a scrap of paper that might be found,” Sarah explained. “I showed him an empty ledger in the library. He spent an hour in there, at the desk, then appeared with his pack and bow. Later, when I checked, he had taken only a page, from the back of the book.”

Duncan found the journal still on the desk, ran his finger along the edge where the page had been cut out. He held the book on edge at the window, seeing the faint indentations on the page underneath. Moments later he was rubbing a quill along the fresh soot in the fireplace. Soon the indentations took shape as he lightly ran the edge of the feather over the page. It was another map, showing rivers and ranges to the north and west. He studied it with an odd longing, trying to make sense of the dozen small circles Conawago had carefully drawn on the map, trying to reconcile them with his strange parting words. Then a glimmer of recognition rose as he examined the lowest circle, the nearest one, and its position between river and range.

Sarah was still on the steps when he returned. “I told him yesterday I had a room for him in the house, that he had a family at last.” Her voice had a strange quiver in it. “I hope you will take it now, Duncan.”

He looked at her without replying, then gazed out into the forest. They sat in silence for several minutes, then she rose and faced him, staring into his eyes. She offered another of her small, knowing smiles and stepped back into the kitchen.

Sarah returned ten minutes later, carrying his pack and rifle. “It seems I am always packing for you, Duncan McCallum,” she said, trying to push strength, even whimsy, into her voice. She tied a small pouch of food to the top of the pack. “You need to be with your brother, and who am I stop you?”

He looked in confusion from the pack to Sarah. “You know I am bound. Still a prisoner in the eyes of the law.”

“I cannot change what the law has decreed,” Sarah admitted. “But you are not an escaped prisoner unless you are reported as such. And the only one who can legally complain of your absence now is myself,” she explained, catching him again with her deep green eyes. She flushed and looked down. “My heart will complain,” she whispered toward her feet. “But that is a crime I choose not to share with the government.”

“They’re inside,” she said after a moment, and stepped toward the riverbank.

He needed but a stride into the kitchen to find all those he sought. Crispin, Lister, and the children sat at the kitchen table, eating bacon and bread. Lister gestured Duncan to sit beside him, then seemed to sense that something had changed. The old Scot glanced outside, saw the pack and rifle past the open door.

“Ah,” he sighed, and his face tightened for a moment, then he rose with a forced smile. “A clan chief has business in many parts.”

Duncan took his hand with a great knot in his throat, unable to speak for a moment.

“I owe you everything, Clan McCallum,” Lister said.

“Not so. It is I who owe you everything.”

“We still have a clan to build.”

“We still have a clan to build,” Duncan confirmed with a smile.