Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

It was Duncan’s turn to drain his mug. “If I search my memory as you suggest,” he observed after a moment, “I didn’t tell the world about my brother. I told you, with Cameron ten feet away.”

“Even the biggest of birds sometimes sings.”

“The letter. I last saw the letter with Cameron.”

“Cameron’s papers show he started life as a merchant. Perhaps for him everything is still about striking bargains.”

Duncan glanced out the door to the porch, where Fitch had disappeared. “You were going to bring me to America and not tell the general or Pike? Why?” he demanded. “Your duty is to this man you call Calder.”

“My duty,” Woolford said, as if correcting him, “is to bring peace to this land.” He fixed Duncan with a dangerous gaze, then lifted the pitcher again.

Duncan gave up trying to break the strange cipher in which Woolford spoke. “My brother was no coward.”

“I daresay he was a hero to his men,” Woolford turned to Duncan. “Pike did not convey the fullness of the story. Captain McCallum did not flee. He ordered his men to retreat and regroup. By that time the tripe-skulled fool who-” Woolford paused. “By then,” he said in a more judicious tone, “the esteemed commander of our troops, General Abercromby, had already sent a dozen companies into the French guns. A frontal charge against cannon and mortar, when every officer advised against it. We could have cut them off and starved them out. We could have brought in our own artillery in a few days time. But Abercromby was hungry for glory, desperate for a quick victory. At every turn of the battle, mistakes were made. After six hundred of our brave lads had fallen, your brother said it was no longer the bastards in front of them who were killing his men but the ones behind. He called back his soldiers, said he would no longer send more Scots to useless deaths. Pike may call it cowardice. Most just call it mutiny. If your brother had stopped there, the general would not have had the spine to bring charges.”

“Scots?” Duncan asked in surprise, then remembered the kilted officer he had seen in New York.

“The Forty-second Regiment,” Woolford said. “The Black Watch. It’s a Scottish troop, mostly Highlanders. The king permits them to wear kilts. For their bravery, they are even allowed a few pipers despite the laws against them at home.”

Duncan turned away to gaze into the fire, struggling with a pang of guilt, a feeling that he had somehow wronged his brother. Until that morning at the army’s headquarters, while he had not entirely forgotten that the army had allowed a few Scottish troops to be formed, he had always assumed them to be lowlanders living in English ways. Duncan had never considered that his brother might have found a means to come back to the old ways. “Pike said he deserted,” Duncan recalled as he fixed the ranger with another suspicious stare.

“He all but said your brother caused the defeat at Ticonderoga-a strained interpretation of events. Your brother ripped away the insignia from his coat and threw off his gorget, knowing he would be broken, then said he was going to collect the wounded. He had saved another hundred from death by his order to withdraw, then he and a few of those most loyal to him saved another score lying bleeding on the field. But on his last trip carrying the wounded to safety, the survivors say they saw him point to a surrounding hillside, then run into the trees with a dozen of his men. Another artillery barrage from the French prevented anyone from following.”

“Then he could have been killed.”

“He was glimpsed a week later in the forest, with a handful of Highlanders who had been listed as missing. When a patrol followed, they were ambushed at night. Every man was knocked unconscious and woke up tied to a tree, having never glimpsed their attackers. But not one soldier was seriously harmed. On each of their packs was a small bone. Some said it was forest phantoms who’d attacked the patrol.”

“Where would he go?”

“People say he is in Canada. Nova Scotia perhaps,” Woolford said, referring to the colony that had adopted the Latin name meaning New Scotland . “Or in France. Pike has sent letters to every garrison commander in the army, especially in Europe, every commander in the fleets. He insists your brother has betrayed us and is helping plan the next French campaign.”

“Why is Pike so rabid about him?”

“Pike was a senior aide to General Abercromby that day. A victory would have guaranteed him a colonelship. Instead he is assigned to duties behind the front with no hope of promotion.”

“What kind of duties, pray tell, provide for chaining a man to a chair and whipping his face?”

“Gathering information for planning.” Woolford looked up with a sardonic grin. “They call themselves Military Intelligence, to keep us from using the true description. Now he thinks he will rewrite the battle by proving your brother was in league with the French that day.”

There was movement at the outer door, and Sergeant Fitch appeared, nodding at Woolford, then hastened to the bar as the innkeeper refilled his mug. Where had the sergeant gone, Duncan asked himself, remembering the warnings he had received that day. The savages could be anywhere.

“I need to find Jacob the Fish,” Woolford said to the innkeeper. “Tonight.”

Duncan slowly turned toward the officer, not sure he had heard correctly.

“He was arrested, Lieutenant,” the Dutchman replied.

“Captain, if you please,” Sergeant Fitch interjected. “He’s got hisself anointed.”

“Promoted since this morning?” Duncan asked, suddenly suspicious again.

“Since three months ago, apparently,” Woolford replied. “But word did not catch up until I landed.”

Duncan studied Woolford as the officer pressed the innkeeper about the missing Jacob, realizing how little he understood about the man. He did not trust Woolford, but did not hate him as he once had. Woolford was not simply another brandy-swilling bluestocking prig who had purchased a commission and passed his time carousing in garrison towns. He was a brandy-swilling bluestocking who willingly entered the dark hell of the wilderness so he could confront the savages, risking a horrible death again and again-and who, just as strangely, seemed more committed to finding peace than to obeying his own senior officers. But why, in the middle of the war that was so important to him, had he sailed to England? And why, once there, had he decided to accompany, even assist, the pious Reverend Arnold and the Ramsey Company?

Woolford leaned toward the innkeeper. “I must speak with Old Jacob.”

“Gone, sir,” came the reply. Duncan heard the Dutchman say, “He had been planning to leave, told me he had business with old friends. He won’t be back. In the mountains, I daresay, building a hut for winter. He was no threat.”

“Damn you, old man, I know he was no threat.” Woolford’s mouth twisted in frustration. He gazed outside, into the night, for a long moment, before turning back to the Dutchman. “Then I must know what he said when he was leaving. What happened that day?”

“Lord Ramsey,” came the innkeeper’s hesitant reply.

Woolford’s knuckles whitened as he wrapped his fingers around his mug. “Where exactly in the mountains?”

“I cannot say for sure. North and west, I daresay. He won’t be found unless he wants to be.”

Woolford closed his eyes a moment, then cast a pointed glance at Fitch, who quickly reached for his own mug, as if suddenly in great need of the potent liquor.

They drank in silence, stabbing with wooden splints at the slices of hot sausage volunteered by the proprietor. Duncan became aware of a soft, lyrical sound from the dining chamber, gradually growing in volume, that he recognized as the strains of a violin. As patrons in the room lifted chairs, turning them in the direction of the music, Sarah came into sight, standing against the wall, flanked by her siblings. Beside them on a window seat rested Crispin, alternately watching the night and the Ramsey children.