Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“Why would he do such a thing?” Duncan asked.

“He was deranged. Delirious. His grief erupted anew. Perhaps he saw something that set off a powerful memory. He was sending a final message to his wife before he took his own life.”

“He was murdered. Not a suicide,” Woolford reminded Arnold.

“He planned to commit suicide, McCallum may take that as certain,” the vicar replied. “He was deeply troubled. I am unable to divulge the secrets of prayer, but suffice it to say we often knelt together. He must have gathered the objects in the compass room as one last expression of his anguish. Nothing more than the work of a highly literate man whose emotions overwhelmed his intellect. Bones means death. Two stacks of bones means two deaths. His and his wife’s. The buckle signifies himself, a token from his own person. The eye is the evil that had stared down at him since his wife’s passing. The claw symbolizes the agony he has felt, the feather his plan to join his wife in the ranks of angels. The heart is his own broken heart, the salt the earth that he is about to leave.” Arnold’s words, tentative at first, finished with a triumphant flourish. “Evering,” the vicar concluded in a superior tone, “was a romantic. The ritual at the compass proved it.”

“Salt is also used to purify,” Duncan suggested. “And metal, even in a buckle, can be used to fight demons.”

Arnold gave an impatient, warning sound. “Not by any Christian.”

“The church I knew as a boy,” Duncan continued, “kept one foot in the old ways.”

“At last we get to the truth of it,” Arnold said in a smug voice. “I have explained why it had to be Evering who began the ritual. You have given us proof of the origin of the one who interrupted him. You shall record it so, McCallum. The killer committed his heinous deed, then rearranged the objects in a way that would have meaning only to an illiterate whose priests were little more than Druids.”

Duncan fought down the bile that rose with Arnold’s words. But he had to concede one germ of truth in what Arnold said, that the ritual seemed to have been prepared by two very different people, from two different worlds. “If it was not Evering who completed the ritual,” he pressed, watching Woolford carefully, “then perhaps that part not made by the professor was meant to be read by a mortal.”

“Meaning what?” asked the lieutenant.

“Meaning perhaps you will accept that it was a message for someone on board.”

Woolford buried his head in his hands. When he looked up, his jaw was set in grim determination, as if he were about to do battle. “Half,” he said. “Half the men.”

Duncan did not miss the way Arnold’s knuckles whitened. “I’m sorry?”

“You asked me how many had been in the New World before.”

“Half would seem more than coincidence. It would take some effort to find so many who had both fallen out with the law and been in America.”

“A credential much to be desired,” Arnold interjected. “We had several weeks to fill the Company ranks, time to be selective. Experience in the colonies told us they were strong, that they would require little time to adjust to the rigors of their new life.”

Duncan had never known a man of the cloth who was an outright liar, but indeed had known many who chose to focus on pieces of the truth rather than the whole of it, when it served to make the point of their homilies. “The objects used that night,” he said. “I would like to see them. Perhaps a closer examination would-”

Woolford raised a hand to cut Duncan off. “The crew was terrified of them. Mr. Lister and I wrapped everything in a canvas weighted with rocks from the ballast and tossed it over the stern.”

Duncan stared at him in disbelief. “They would have told us more.” It was as if Woolford, too, was interested in only fragments of the truth.

Woolford stroked the long scar on his neck again. It seemed to have become a nervous habit, one Duncan had not noticed before the storm. “Your pipe,” he said abruptly, remembering now the clay pipe Woolford had often carried during the voyage. “You are no longer smoking. It affects your nerves.”

Woolford grimaced. “Someone stole my tobacco,” he admitted.

“And burnt it in the compass room,” Duncan concluded. “I have never heard of such a ritual in the Old World,” he added after a moment.

“There are other people,” the officer observed in a hesitant voice, “people who burn the leaf to attract spirits.”

“What kind of people?” Duncan pressed. “Who prays to spirits with tobacco?”

Arnold’s glance of warning was quick but obvious. Woolford looked away from the vicar, into the shadows. He seemed to struggle to get the words out. “The people of the forest.” Woolford’s haunted expression as he spoke toward the darkness caused Duncan to twist about to study the shadows. It seemed Woolford’s meaning was grasped first by something in his gut, turning it cold, sending an icy tentacle up his spine until it touched his brain. The savages. Woolford was speaking of the dreaded aborigines of the American woodlands.

No one spoke for a long moment.

“So tobacco was burned to gain the attention of Mrs. Evering in the next world,” Duncan suggested in a careful tone, feeling Arnold’s withering glance.

“Most of the men partake of tobacco when they can,” Arnold interjected. “One of them stole it from the lieutenant, who was well known for having fine twists of Virginia leaf.” He paused, taking note, as Duncan already had, of the sudden melancholy that had overtaken Woolford. “Evering brought the brazier for warmth. The tobacco fell as the murderer struggled with him.”

“I must see the professor’s quarters,” Duncan finally stated. He dared not openly express interest in Evering’s journal.

“The captain gave his orders,” Arnold said. “You’ll not be leaving the cell deck.”

“I must see the other letters at least.”

“Equally impossible,” Arnold said. “You will not be permitted to tamper with the royal mails.”

Duncan gazed at the letters in front of him. “Then surely you will return these to the mails.”

“They have become evidence.”

“There is but one killer. Even were it one of these men, the other is innocent.” He searched Arnold’s unyielding face. “Bring me paper and ink. I shall transcribe them. You can witness them as true copies. Surely,” he entreated, “we will not punish the innocent. When will word reach their loved ones again? A child needs his buttons.”

Arnold cast a disappointed glance at Duncan. “Innocent, Mr. McCallum?” he asked, as if unfamiliar with the term.

Woolford rose. “I shall make it so,” the officer said, and hurried up the ladder.

Arnold paced around the table. “Paper and ink will provide an opportunity to commence your report,” he observed. “Lord Ramsey is fastidious about records. He will desire a quick conclusion, but a complete written account. Flavor it with your science. The army will soon know of a killing in the Company,” he added, with a glance toward the gangway where Woolford had disappeared. “Lord Ramsey will not desire a military inquiry to be opened.”

“It could be useful to one writing such a report, Reverend,” Duncan pointed out, “to know why the military would be interested.”

Arnold considered the question for a long moment. “The Ramsey Company and the army share many of the same goals, but we are oceans apart in how to achieve them.” The vicar gazed toward the cells. “Your report. It shall point out the sins committed along the way, with the truth shining like the light of the Almighty at its conclusion.”

“You make it sound as if I am writing a sermon,” Duncan replied. “And you forget I have been locked in a cell,” he added.