Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“What if it be true,” Lister pressed, “what Reverend Arnold said not a quarter hour ago, that ye may be the one who could save the ship?”

“Arnold?” Arnold was the one who had snatched him from court, who had committed him to the prison ship. “I owe him nothing.”

“Then what if it be true, that the professor needs y’er help?”

Duncan twisted his head toward the old sailor. “Evering?”

“That last night as he sat by the hatch, Adam told me to say to you that Evering found the key to save us all but knows not how to use it. He said to help McCallum protect the professor.”

Duncan looked back at the waves, not wanting to betray his surprise, to acknowledge the sudden ripple of hope in his sea of despair.

“He said to heed how Evering explains his comet,” Lister added in a perplexed tone. “Save us all,” he repeated. “As if we all be going to die elsewise.”

Duncan gripped a rope and leaned out, as if the wind might clear his mind. The storm still called him, but in a corner of his brain something was recounting ways he might reach Evering hiding in the holds below. No, it was impossible to descend without being snatched by the other keepers.

“My grandmother was a McCallum, came from y’er islands,” Lister ventured when Duncan did not reply. “My own clan is shattered, lad, ashes lost to the winds. Long ago we came from those same islands.” The old mate’s voice cracked as he spoke.

“What are you saying?”

With a strange contemplation in his eyes, Lister ran his fingertips over Adam’s scratchings on the wood, then fixed Duncan with a solemn gaze. “I petition for protection, Clan McCallum,” he said in a slow, deliberate voice, using one of the old ways of addressing a clan chief. “I swear me blood to ye.”

Duncan felt a bitter grin tug at his mouth. “You pledge yourself to a condemned convict? This is playacting, Mr. Lister. I am nobody. Less than nobody.” Duncan was but a thin shadow of his grandfather. But his grin froze as he saw the earnest, hurt expression on Lister’s countenance. It was an ancient tradition, that Highlanders who shared blood ties with a clan could offer their loyalty in exchange for its protection.

“I swear it to the laird of the McCallum clan.”

Duncan stared numbly as Lister spat into his hand and extended it toward him.

“As God is my vow,” the old sailor solemnly declared.

“People want me dead,” Duncan said. “And I don’t even know why.”

“In the place of our birth, lad, that be a badge of honor. ’Tis my experience that the best of the clan chiefs be tougher than a shaggy ox to put down, and when they finally die, they do so on their own terms. It’s easy for a king’s convict to die. But a clan chief is duty-bound to stay alive, just to spite him.”

At home there had always been a grand ceremony when a chief was installed, with pipes and sword dancing and, in the tradition of his own clan, the beating of the earth beside the new chieftain with knotted ropes to drive out the demons, then the presentation of a bundle of dried thistles. But in a world where pipes and tartans were outlawed, traditions were thin.

Duncan let Lister’s callused hand close around his own, then returned the grip uncertainly as the sailor squeezed. As he did so the wind rose again, shifting, pushing the ship about so that for a moment it rode before a steep, following sea.

“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” the old mate moaned, and grabbed the mast as tightly as a landsman.

As Duncan followed Lister’s gaze, something frigid clutched his spine. A man was suspended in the wall of water behind the vessel, his pale face fixed on the ship, his arm gesturing as if beckoning the crew to join him. It was what had terrified the two sailors who had followed the lost sail. It’s too late, one had cried, they’ve come for us.

“The dead shall rise up,” Lister said in a haunted tone. For the first time real fear entered the keeper’s voice.

Duncan did not will himself to move, only seemed to watch as his body leapt to the side of the platform, grabbed a line, and quickly climbed down.

“Prisoner!” a keeper shouted as he bounded toward Duncan. An arm hooked around his neck. Another man slammed an elbow into Duncan’s side, trying to knock him down. Duncan twisted free, running for the port rail.

“’Tis McCallum! Leave him!” Lister called out behind him as a young sailor leapt onto Duncan and began wrestling him to the deck.

“He isn’t following!” Duncan shouted, pointing to the rail. “He’s being dragged!” The sailor released him with an uncertain look, then helped Duncan untie the tangle of knots lashing a barrel to the rail. Duncan pointed to a rope tied at the base of the rail behind the barrel, chafing the wood where it hung over the side.

“A lifeline!” the sailor gasped as they pushed the barrel aside, and began hauling the rope with Duncan.

Lister appeared at his side and joined in the task. “What good’s a lifeline,” the keeper muttered, “if no one be there to see ye tumble o’er the rail? ’Tis an accident, nothing more,” he added as if to assure the gathering men. But when they heaved the grisly thing onto the deck, even Lister shuddered and stepped back with a moan. The rope was not fastened around the man’s waist. It was tied around his neck.

“Professor Evering!” the young sailor gasped, clutching his belly as he retched over the rail.

Duncan’s heart lurched. He forced himself to look at the bloodless face, its empty brown eyes gazing up in surprise. It was indeed the kindly middle-aged professor who traveled with them to join the Ramsey family as private tutor; it was Evering, who had found the key that might save Duncan from those who would kill him.

“The rope,” Duncan observed in a hoarse whisper. “His arm was tangled in the rope. It’s why he appeared to be waving for us.”

“It be the work of man, not demons,” Lister declared to the terrified sailors, who gave no sign of hearing. He grimaced, then pulled Duncan away toward the hatch in front of the helm. “The captain,” he said with foreboding.

A moment later they were in the chamber that the sailors called the compass room, where, amid crates painted with the name of the Ramsey Company, the ship’s carpenter had raised a stanchion for the elegant compass that Lord Ramsey had ordered from a London craftsman, set out for final calibration during the voyage. Lister pushed Duncan toward a circle of grim men that included the bearded captain with his first mate; Reverend Arnold, the stern Anglican who regularly prayed over the Ramsey Company; and Lieutenant Woolford, the army officer taking passage to New York with them. Behind, in the shadows, several sailors lurked, some watching the captain and his companions with wild eyes, one kneeling, frantically praying as tears flooded his cheeks.

Lister leaned into the captain’s ear for a moment.

“Your damned fool scholar!” the captain snapped to Arnold, then spun about to face Duncan. “Was Evering’s chest split open?”

Duncan stared at him in mute confusion.

“Is it so difficult to tell if a man’s lost his heart?” the captain demanded. “Speak up, damned your eyes!”

“His body appeared intact,” Duncan stammered, scanning the faces of the others in vain for some explanation.

The captain spat a curse, dispatched his mate to the deck, then abruptly grabbed Duncan’s shirt and pulled him into the circle. “There! Tell me, you wretch! Is it a man’s?” The captain’s voice was full of anger, but the fear in his eyes was unmistakable as he pointed toward the compass.

“I don’t understand what-” The words choked in Duncan’s mouth as he saw the instrument. It was covered in blood. On the floor below, arranged in a small circle, were the feather of a large bird, two stacks of small bones, a huge black claw, a metal buckle, a two-inch-wide yellow eye, and, resting on a pile of salt, a large, bloody heart. At the edge of the circle, opposite the stanchion, was a small brazier, the kind the cook sometimes used, which held the smoldering remains of a twist of tobacco. Above the gruesome circle, hanging on one of the brass swivel pins, was a colorful medallion on a leather strap, a medallion Duncan had often seen hanging inside Adam Munroe’s shirt.