Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

Fitch’s chipping stone lost its direction, slicing into the back of his hand. He gazed at the oozing blood a moment, then returned the flint and stone to his pouch. When he rose, a look of wonder had entered his eyes. “There was a settler who took a huge bear a few years ago. He boasted about it, told how he would make a fine bear blanket and mittens from its paws. But that bearskin disappeared from his barn, along with the skull and paws and claws he had cut out. His maize crop failed that year. Since then I’ve heard of three or four other bears shot in these parts. Each time the skin disappeared. Folks say those skins got up and walked away to some bear paradise deep in the woods.”

“Do you believe that, Sergeant?” Duncan asked, sensing in his empty hand the cold touch of the bear stone.

“There’s old ones among the Six who won’t speak openly about bears, because they are the most sacred of all creatures, like gods walking on earth, the spirits that anchor people to this world. There’s a great shaman who can take the shape of a bear whenever he wishes.”

“Do you believe it?” Duncan asked again.

“What I believe is that I won’t be shooting any bears,” the soldier had replied, and had walked back to the coach.

The fields of Edentown radiated outward from a compound of nearly twenty structures, including one large, two-story house of stone and a huge, elegant, English-style barn, four times the size of the house. The barn was made of stone, squared logs, and a shake roof, and stood on the eastern banks of a wide, shallow river. In the fields, teams of oxen with plows broke the earth for winter wheat. In one pasture, enclosed with a zigzag snake-rail fence, a dozen milk cows nibbled at high clover; in another, two score sheep grazed. In a field of golden hay, men labored with scythes. To the north, others were felling trees along the edge of the tall, dense forest that surrounded the estate to the north, south, and beyond the river to the west. Logs were being dragged by heavy horses toward new cabins, and a palisade wall was being erected along the north side.

“The Lord be praised,” Crispin sighed. Duncan followed his gaze to a solitary figure in a green dress, waiting on the steps of the house. Sarah Ramsey had indeed found her father’s town.

As they drew to a halt by the barn, Jonathan and Virginia Ramsey erupted from the coach with an exclamation of joy, running toward their older sister, who swept them up in a wide embrace. On the steps behind Sarah a solemn, bewigged figure appeared, dressed like a country squire. He waited for Jonathan to bow and Virginia to curtsy before kneeling and taking them both into his arms. Lord Ramsey had lost weight since the portrait in the New York house, but Duncan could not mistake the close-set, steely grey eyes that turned to him as Crispin led the children into the house.

“Mr. McCallum,” Lord Ramsey said in greeting, “we have so anticipated your arrival.” Duncan recognized his careful, clipped tones as the product of England’s elite schools.

Duncan’s uncertain nod of acknowledgement froze as he met the gaze of the older Ramsey daughter. Sarah looked like a thin porcelain statuette, but her countenance seemed free of the effects of opium. Although melancholy still ruled her features, there was also a fire in her eyes that he had not seen before. Her father, noting Duncan’s distraction, stepped in front of Sarah as she offered him a shy smile.

“Mr. McCallum,” she announced, “has reached the edge of the woods.” The unexpected words seemed to mean more to her father than to Duncan. Ramsey’s eyes flared and he turned to his daughter with a censuring stare. Sarah retreated up the stairs.

“Professor Evering was ready to move heaven and earth to reshape the Ramsey heirs,” Ramsey proclaimed, addressing Duncan again. “We have equally profound hopes for you,” he added, then pointed to a broad-shouldered man in a brown waistcoat waiting at the corner of the house, and marched back inside the house.

“Consider yourself well and truly blessed,” the man in brown said as he approached. “We had to stand for an hour’s speech when we arrived.” It was Cameron, only changed in appearance: scrubbed, clipped, and neatly attired. “I’m to see you to your manor,” he said, pointing to a compact log structure across the stretch of drying mud that served as the main street of Ramsey’s town. Duncan pulled his bag from the wagon and followed the keeper, who explained that the Company had been divided into parties of wood clearers, builders, and farmworkers, joining a dozen craftsmen already employed at the town. Cameron recited the function of each of the buildings as they walked. A summer kitchen, a smokehouse and butcher’s works, a springhouse, a carpenter’s shop, a milking stable, a forge, a cooper’s shop being used temporarily as a chapel, a spinning shed, a kennel with huge hunting hounds, and finally several long log structures, the newest of the buildings, that served to house the men of the Company.

“He will send for you when tea is ready,” Cameron announced as he opened the door to the schoolhouse.

Duncan paused on the threshold, glancing back at the house as he wondered why Ramsey would consider his heirs in need of reshaping, then stepped into an austere room with a large fireplace, lit by a single window and furnished with one table in front of a piece of slate on the wall, facing three smaller tables. Through a narrow doorway he spied a bed and a chest of drawers in a smaller chamber. “What happened after you crossed on the ferry that first day?” Duncan asked abruptly. “Another man was murdered. An old man with a fish on his cheek.”

“You mean an Indian then. Beg pardon, sir. I think Indians just die. Never heard that one could be murdered. May as well call a farmer a murderer for turning a pig to bacon.”

Duncan gripped his emotions and pressed on. “Did you see him?”

“Heathens have their own strange ways,” was Cameron’s only reply.

Duncan stepped to the window and gazed out.

“There’s a crib in the forge for charcoal,” Cameron declared to his back. “The smith put a lock on the door.”

“And who keeps the key to this dungeon?”

“In the main house.” As Duncan turned to confront Cameron, a grimace creased the keeper’s face. “Lord Ramsey says if any man disobeys the law, he has the authority to punish. He says those who survive the full seven years will be given fifty acres of good bottomland.”

“Those who survive?”

“We’re in a war, His Honor reminded us that first day,” Cameron continued in a stiff tone, “and the way we win is by cutting down trees, building cabins, and obeying his commands.”

“You had a letter of mine, Cameron,” Duncan said as the keeper withdrew. “Who did you give it to?”

“Didn’t need it anymore. Murder’s been solved. We know who is going to hang.”

“We had a bargain,” Duncan pressed. “You keep the letter, I steer suspicion away from you.”

The keeper’s face darkened. “Like I said, the murder is solved.”

“Not until the trial.”

“There’s another piece of paper, my certificate about seeing your name on Evering’s body. I have that in a safe place, McCallum.”

“Excellent. You understand my point. We still need each other. Is there a guard on his cell?”

“I need you for nothing.”

“You misunderstand. I know you gave the letter to the army. Captain Woolford knows. How do you think Reverend Arnold and Lord Ramsey will react when they learn you had contact with the army?”

A silent snarl formed on Cameron’s face.

“Is there a guard on the cell?”

“Most times,” Cameron spat.

“Then call him away, now.”

Duncan watched as Cameron left the building, calling out to the men carrying rocks from the fields, retrieving a stick where it leaned on the side of the barn and twitching it on the backside of old McGregor for moving too slow.