Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“What really happened at Stony Run?”

Woolford took a long time to answer. When he finally spoke, he faced the fireplace. “The leaders of the tribes see the future hurling at them, forcing them to new ways, and they don’t know what path to take. Tashgua was arguing that the Iroquois should end their involvement in the war, that the tribes needed to go back to the old ways, before muskets and silver coins and whiskey. Ten of the most important chiefs agreed to meet him, to take part in his ceremony to reach the mother spirit. Where they went, no one was allowed to take weapons.”

Woolford fell silent, and rose to face the window before continuing. “I discovered the bodies, every chief but Tashgua, and many of those who travel with Tashgua as his guard.”

“Pike was there?”

“Came in behind me, hours later.”

“Fitch showed me a piece of tartan.”

“At least three of the dead were deserted soldiers.”

“From the Black Watch?”

Woolford nodded. “They had taken up new lives with Tashgua’s band. I saw to it they were taken back with their fellow warriors.”

“Without telling Pike,” Duncan said.

“He would have strung them up for the crows. That’s when I sent a squad out for reconnaissance. They never returned. Two days later I found them dead, every man. General Calder’s report said they were killed by French Indians, Huron or Abenaki. But each of their guns still held its priming. My men would not have faced the enemy without firing a shot.”

“But why, if you were trying to find the killers, would you suddenly leave for England?”

Resentment filled Woolford’s eyes. “I took leave because there was a surviving witness.”

Duncan grew very still. The realization came out in a hoarse whisper. “Adam Munroe.” I have seen things no man ever should have to see, Adam had told Frasier. He gazed back into the cold fireplace, the haunting words of Frasier echoing in his mind. He had to find the young keeper, had to make him reveal what he knew that could destroy the Company, had to make him understand the danger he was in if he spoke about Adam to anyone else. A dozen more questions for the ranger sprang to mind.

But when he looked up, Woolford was gone. A motion outside caught his eye. Cameron walked past the barn, carrying a heavy sack on his shoulder. No, Duncan saw, as he sprang to his feet, it was a limp man.

He found the big Scot in the open bay of the forge, locking the padlock of the crib. Blood stained the front of his shirt. “Will be no doubts this time,” Cameron growled as he saw Duncan. “Every man in the Company will want to see him swing.”

Duncan pushed past the keeper, struggling to see inside the makeshift cell. “Who-” Duncan began, then his tongue withered as he saw the checkerboard scars on the man’s exposed shoulder.

“Mr. Lister. The bastard killed young Frasier.”

Frasier’s face was frozen in a twisted grin, as if the melancholy young Scot had thought his assailant had been offering a joke. But the prank had included a heavy, blunt object that had been slammed so hard into the side of his head that it had flattened the cartilage of his ear into his skull and knocked several teeth from his broken jaw.

“A commander,” came a brittle voice over Duncan’s shoulder. “That’s what they call these big hammers.” He turned to see Cameron holding one of the long-handled wooden mallets used to pound logs into place in the new cabins. Its head was a tattered cross-section of log ten inches wide.

“Look at him,” Cameron spat. “The young fool treated Lister like an uncle. Wouldn’t have suspected ill of him even when the commander was raised over his head.”

“You can’t know it was Lister.”

“Not just me. It was four of us who found him, sitting there beside the boy, muttering in the old tongue, his hands shaking, trying to put the teeth back into the boy’s jaw.”

“An act of mercy, not the act of a killer.” I know how to slice open Ramsey’s hull now, the youth had said hours earlier.

“At his side was the great hammer, with his own bloody handprints upon its handle. And things taken from the young one’s pockets lying at his knee. With Mr. Evering gone, you should be the one to write the letter to his family, McCallum.”

Duncan’s gaze lingered for a moment on the heavy tool. For a second time, murder had been done with a hammer.

“What things?” Duncan asked. An angry crowd of Company men was gathering, uttering indistinct oaths, spitting toward the forge, some facing the dead keeper and making the sign of the cross on their chests.

Cameron pointed to a flat rock six feet away that held a few coins, several nails, and a set of ox shoes.

“You moved the body?”

“Mr. Lister would not let go of the boy when we approached. There was a wee struggle.”

For the first time Duncan noticed a pool of blood on the ground. Frasier had no open wound, only blood slowly oozing out of his mouth and nose. “Why was Lister away from the barracks in the night? He was under special watch.”

“The work party came in late, by torchlight. Everyone washed up in the basins by the door, grabbed food on the way to bed. When I checked, Lister was on his pallet. So I thought. But he had stuffed sacks under his blanket.”

Duncan surveyed the frightened faces before him, then fixed Cameron with a level stare. “Meet me with bandages at the forge,” he said.

“Like hell,” Cameron spat. “The murderer is proven and there’s the end to it.”

“I have not explained to Reverend Arnold who looted Woolford’s chest on the ship, but he would still listen with rapt attention. They know at least one of their trunks was also sabotaged. No doubt Lord Ramsey, too, would find it of interest. He longs to assert his powers as magistrate. And then there is the matter of your communicating with the army.”

Cameron pulled a plug of tobacco from his pocket, cut its end, and stuffed the piece into his mouth, all the while fixing Duncan with a cold, assessing stare. Without another word, he turned and walked toward the great house.

Lister was lying on his back in the coal bin, his eyes closed. From the quick irregular breathing Duncan knew he was not sleeping. “Where are your injuries?” he asked quietly.

The hoarse laughter that came from the shadows caused Duncan to shudder. “Cameron and I had a bit of a frolic. He took it unkindly when I tripped him, so he used that commander on me ankle. A few days of idleness will be just the thing.”

“Why, Mr. Lister, why did you leave the Company quarters last night?” Duncan inquired.

“The birds. I told ye before, every day I’ve been here the birds have sung as the sun rises, and flowers open. I watched from here, all those days. ’Tis the hour the light penetrates deepest into the wall of the western forest. Yesterday, the birds there stopped singing.”

“You violated Ramsey’s orders so you could watch the sun rise?”

“’Tisn’t poetry I refer to, Clan McCallum. The sun rose, the flowers opened. No birds sang.”

Duncan’s mouth went tinder dry. “You mean someone was in the woods, watching the town,” he said in a low whisper.

“More than one, I’d say. There’s raiding parties, Indians led by French, more settlers being scalped every day. If you open the door of the barn loft, you can see from the fields to the river in the moonlight. Those who run the Company are blind. They keep all those guns locked away at night, with nary a guard along the river. From the loft door I could slide down a rope when trouble comes.”

“And do what?”

“To swing down and run to the schoolhouse would take but a moment. If we were quick about it, we could slip away in the confusion of battle, to the Delaware and Philadelphia. With luck they will think us killed in the fighting.”