Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

At last a glimmer of dawn appeared in the east, and the shouts faded, then ceased. Duncan heard nothing but the tired calls of work parties running buckets of water to the smoldering foundations of the cabins. As he walked back, emotionally and physically drained, he was surprised to find no wounded men on the ground, no bodies strewn about the village. But then he passed the cooper’s shed and with a groan of despair discovered a green-clad figure lying face down in a pool of blood. As he rolled the body over, the man’s hand reached out as if to throttle Duncan. But the fingers that gripped his neck had no strength left. He looked into the desolate eyes of Sergeant Fitch. Blood oozed from a gaping wound in his chest, more from his mouth. Fitch opened and shut his jaw as if trying to speak, but only coughed, choking on the blood that now began to flow more heavily over his lips. The sturdy old Indian fighter had taken a tomahawk in the chest, and they both knew he was close to his last breath. As his eyes glazed over, he raised his trembling hands and made a series of motions. With what appeared to be great effort, he ran his open hand down the side of his head to his shoulder. As bubbles of blood appeared on his lips, he clenched a fist then under it stretched two fingers of his other hand, moving them back and forth, rapidly at first, then more slowly as the strength left them.

As Duncan watched with an aching heart, the old ranger closed his eyes and drifted away, then abruptly opened them and with a heave of his chest coughed up more blood. One hand, limp as a ragdoll’s, gripped Duncan’s as the other fumbled with something on a leather strap hanging from his neck. Fitch freed it from his tunic and closed his hand around it a moment before the light left his eyes. As Duncan hung his head in grief for the steadfast sergeant, the closed fist rolled off his chest. Fitch had been gripping the small metal badge used to identify Woolford’s rangers, around which he had fastened a dozen little yellow feathers.

Suddenly Duncan became aware of weeping behind him, and he turned to see Crispin, his clothes torn and sooty, cradling Jonathan in one arm. The boy sobbed against the big man’s shoulder.

“They’ve taken her,” Crispin declared in a tormented, cracking voice. “They’ve taken our little girl again.”

The sorrow that had overtaken Duncan transformed into something dark and angry and fearful. “Sarah?” His groan seemed to come from somewhere distant. “Which way?” he demanded.

Crispin stared at the black forest beyond the gray, dawn-lit river. “Gone,” he said with such despair Duncan thought he, too, was about to cry.

Duncan battled an impulse to race into the forest himself, then he glanced back into the forge and looked at his hands, still covered with Fitch’s blood. “Have them bring the wounded to the schoolhouse,” he directed, and stepped to the nearest water trough to scrub his hands.

A quarter hour later, having covered the school desks with linens to take the wounded, Duncan was tying a strip of cloth tightly around the ankle of a man who had twisted it running in the dark fields, having already set the broken arm of a man struck by a falling timber, when Crispin entered.

“There is no one else,” the big man announced in a puzzled tone, “only a few who need salve for their burns. No one wounded by the Indians. Only Fitch killed.” He glanced wearily toward the great house. “I must see to the children.”

At least ten men with muskets were guarding the house when Duncan entered it a few minutes later. No one stopped him at the entrance, nor at the door to the library. Ramsey sat at the edge of his desk chair, head in his hands, a half-empty glass of gin at his side.

“The soldiers found her before,” Duncan said. “They can do it again.”

“We never expected something so foolhardy,” Ramsey said in a brittle voice. He drained the glass and slammed it into the empty fireplace, bits of glass exploding across the hearth. “We’ll have guards with guns, every hour of the day.”

“They have destroyed us.” The words came from Arnold, in a bleak, hollow voice.

The younger children are safe, Duncan was about to say, the main compound is intact.

“The house seemed secure enough,” Arnold said. “The attack was on the north side, at the cabins. We set men to watch at the south side of the house, the point nearest the forest, and I went to help at the fires. Lord Ramsey went to safety in the cellar. They came right into her bedroom, from the river. Wet footprints were all over the upstairs hall. They took wigs,” he added in a confused whisper, “half His Lordship’s hairpieces.”

“Wigs?” The news seemed so odd that Duncan almost asked Arnold to repeat himself. But then he followed Arnold’s gaze to the desk in the corner. It was in ruin. The top leaf had been levered open, splintering the wood around the lock, and the small drawers inside had been tossed on the floor, some crushed underfoot. The panel behind them-which, Duncan knew, had enclosed the paper safe-had been forced open, and bits of its wood lay strewn on the desktop.

“They stole the king’s charter?” Duncan asked, not bothering to conceal the disbelief in his voice.

For the first time since Duncan had known him, Arnold was at a loss for words. He glanced at Duncan with a helpless expression. “Our sacred grant,” he groaned.

“There must have been a hundred of the savages,” Ramsey said. “They were everywhere. It would have been a massacre but for our valiant defense.”

“No more than ten,” a deep, fuming voice interjected. Woolford stepped into the room, his face soot-stained, his clothes spattered with mud, in his hand a red-painted club that ended in a large knob with an iron spike protruding from it. “And if they had come to kill, there would be damned few of us left standing right now.”

Ramsey quickly closed the desk, then rose and stood to lean against it. “It was a pitched battle,” he protested. “You heard the gunshots. Doubtless French troops as well. My brave lads kept them at bay.”

“Every shot I heard came from an English Brown Bess. Only our guns were fired,” the ranger said. “And if you wish to know the fettle of your brave lads, look to your pasture. There are two champion milk cows lying dead by the hands of your Company marksmen. And a chestnut stump with enough lead in it to sink a boat.” When he met Duncan’s gaze, he sighed. “They took her across the river. Their tracks lead northwest.”

“My little Sarah,” Ramsey moaned. Tears erupted on his cheeks. “Dear God, my Sarah. Enslaved again. . Thank God her mother is not here to relive the anguish.”

“What did they take from here?” Woolford demanded.

Duncan watched Ramsey, who even in his weeping exchanged an uneasy glance with Arnold.

“They killed your sergeant,” the vicar stated. “Destroyed our new barracks for the Company.” He advanced on Woolford, as if trying to force a retreat. “We will collect the bodies of those we killed. At least we can tell the world the price they paid for their atrocity. If we are fortunate, we may have shot a French officer or two.”

“There won’t be any bodies,” Woolford shot back. “Even if the Company bullets connected with any of them, which I doubt, they will have taken away their casualties. And you will certainly find no evidence of the French.” The ranger studied Ramsey and Arnold a moment, then cursed under his breath. “Is it truly possible you could be at the center of this maelstrom and not comprehend it?”

“We do not need the army to explain our suffering,” Ramsey rejoined icily, and turned his back on the ranger.

With a vengeful glare Woolford raised the lethal spiked club in his hand. Duncan leapt forward, for a terrible instant thinking the ranger meant to strike Ramsey. But with a blur of movement the ranger brought it down on Ramsey’s delicate porcelain teapot, the spike embedding in the refined mahogany table. Ramsey spun about, a snarl on his mouth, but as he saw Woolford’s face, white with rage, he shrank back and fixed his gaze on the shards of painted flowers that covered his carpet.