Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

Duncan remembered the way Crispin always quieted nervous horses. “Adam Munroe was one of the others with her? He was at the mission?”

“Gone by the time we arrived. He had been in the militia, captured by Hurons who traded him to some Ohio Indians, who then traded him to the band that held Sarah. The army wanted to learn secrets from him, about the tribes, but he fled.”

“And after another month in New York town, she ran away to Argyll to hide with Adam.”

“We thought she had gone north,” Crispin explained, “to be with the other Indian captive she had been rescued with, the one who had stayed at the German mission. Lord Ramsey and Reverend Arnold spent days with him, speaking about her, about their lives with the tribes, trying to understand her, to understand what she might be doing, then he had a mental collapse and stopped speaking. I stayed in New York, asking questions wherever I could. A boatman remembered rowing a woman in a cloak to a ship in the night, bound for Glasgow on a dawn tide, saying she was returning home after visiting relatives in Albany. Major Pike came to the house, demanding to know where Adam Munroe had gone. I didn’t know, I told him. But I told Reverend Arnold that Adam said his home was in a place called Argyll.”

“So Arnold went to look for her in Scotland,” he said to Woolford. “Where you were already looking for Adam.”

Woolford cracked open the door. “It is a dangerous night for such discussions,” he observed in a voice heavy with warning.

“When exactly,” Duncan asked, “did Lord Ramsey decide to recruit a company of prisoners?”

“Last autumn,” Woolford replied.

“After Sarah fled,” Duncan concluded, “after Ramsey spent time speaking with the other ghostwalker about her time with the tribes, after his hate for the Iroquois began burning as hot as his feeling for the French.”

“You are dabbling in what some would consider affairs of state. Treacherous ground for an indentured servant.”

“A danger I readily accept when others dabble with the life of an old man and an innocent girl. What is Ramsey going to do with an armed company of men?”

“Defend his land,” Woolford said.

“Fifty men for ten thousand square miles?”

“Ridiculous. He has only ten thousand acres.”

“Arnold did not only cross the Atlantic for Sarah,” Duncan explained. “I have seen the charter he brought from the king. All the lands to the great lakes in the west.”

Woolford eased the door shut and stepped to Duncan’s side. “Impossible.”

Duncan quickly explained what Ramsey had shown him.

The ranger reacted as if he had been kicked. “He and Calder both aspire to be governor,” he said in a hollow voice. “With that land Ramsey would have by far the stronger claim.” Woolford looked at Duncan. “But he can’t take the land. It belongs to the tribes.”

The chamber went deathly still. Somewhere in the distance an animal brayed.

It was Duncan who broke the silence. “Calder has his own means of taking the land, by building forts across the territory. Ramsey accomplishes things more subtly. By bargain and bribe.”

“God preserve us,” Woolford said with something like a moan. “The charter would be meaningless with the tribes still on the land. The king wants them to compete, and let the one who expands the colony westward be the victor.” A darkness fell over his face, and his warrior’s eyes returned. When the ranger spoke again it was in a worried whisper. “There was a new wampum belt this afternoon, another I had never seen before. Fitch was upset by it. He thinks it says the world is going to end at Stony Run in ten days.” He spun about and disappeared into the night.

Duncan wanted to ask who would make such a prophesy, then knew it was not necessary. There was indeed a prophet they knew, who would speak with beads. Tashgua, Sarah’s former tormenter.

Duncan stared into the darkness, recalling the map he had taken from Ramsey’s secret cellar room. “What price would be put on ten thousand miles of virgin land, Crispin?” he asked after a moment.

“Not the lives of his children,” Crispin replied in a hoarse voice. “Never the lives of his children.”

Duncan stared in surprise at his friend, chilled that the thought would enter his mind. The big man’s face swelled with emotion. As his eyes moistened, he stepped into the night.

Duncan followed a moment later, wandering alone across the barnyard in the moonlight. He leaned against a rail fence, drinking in the night air, trying to reconnect the pieces that had fallen apart that night as he stroked the nose of the plow horse that came to investigate him. There could be no denying that the Company had been created by Ramsey to help cement his land claim, though Duncan could not see how, or his own role in it, despite Calder calling him Ramsey’s secret weapon. Adam and Sarah had apparently discovered their roles and flung themselves into the sea.

He had given Ramsey reason to divert his attention from the Scots in the Company, but Duncan was not so beguiled by his own words to think any of them safe. He had bought time, but seemed no closer to the truth about Jamie or Stony Run. Now his failure to find the truth had meant Frasier’s death, and Lister’s being prepared for the gallows. His emotions swirled, blocking any rational thought. Flora had been in the barn, was no longer a vague, helpless longing but a flesh-and-blood woman who lived in the great house.

The horse started and as Duncan turned to follow, shadowy forms closed about him. He ducked, twisted, and ran. As he reached the schoolhouse, hands closed on his shoulder, more hands than he could resist, and something slammed into his head. He collapsed, had a vague sense of being caught before hitting the ground, then of being carried. When he recovered his senses, he was in one of the sheds, his hands tied to a beam over his head. In his groggy state, he was not even aware of others present until a spike of pain on his spine jolted him awake.

“What are you-” His protest choked in his throat as the lash hit him again, like a red-hot poker pressed to his skin. Again it hit, and again, shredding his shirt. Five times, ten times.

“You are fortunate,” came a slow, refined voice through the darkness, “that we could not bear to have our children’s tutor the subject of a public flogging. And we understand how a man of deep feeling can become reckless with his own life. So let us explain what will happen if you demonstrate such seditious tendencies again. We shall select the oldest Highlander remaining among the prisoners, and we shall whip him to an inch of his life. I do not expect you to cease this insolence because you fear me. You will stop because you fear causing your precious Scots more harm.” Ramsey’s silhouette was barely visible against the moonlight that seeped between the logs. “Be assured, we shall find your wretched pipes, and we shall burn them. You will soon realize how merciful we have been, out of the debt we owed you. And did we mention your Mr. Lister shall be deprived of food for two days?” Ramsey spoke no more, just stood silently as Duncan received five more lashes. He clenched his teeth, determined not to cry out, remembering how Lister had broken three splints of wood when taking forty.

At last the searing stabs ceased, and in a blur of pain Duncan saw a flash of steel as the strap that bound him was cut, heard the shuffle of feet that meant his assailants were gone. He did not know how long he stayed slumped on the ground, fighting the agony, but eventually he staggered outside and dropped beside the barn’s water trough, submerging his head, scooping water into his palm and sluicing it down his back. He sensed movement in the shadows, but did not care. If they came again he would resist, he would show Ramsey that not every Scot retreated. The thought reminded him of someone else. He found another ax handle, picked it up, and marched to the forge.