Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“He died helping a woman named Sarah Ramsey,” Duncan offered, having explained how the ship’s most important passenger had attempted suicide, “and celebrating his love for his dead daughter.” He could not understand why he felt so comfortable speaking of such things with a stranger.

“A fine way to die,” Conawago affirmed with a slow nod.

Duncan paused, realizing he had never considered the point.

“And on that very day, this woman and you were summoned by the same spirits,” Conawago summarized, as if Duncan had been called into the ocean to confer with some deity.

“I just jumped into the ocean to save her,” Duncan countered.

The old Nipmuc gave a patient smile. “Do you remember anything at all about what happened in the water?”

“No,” Duncan admitted

Conawago nodded, still smiling, as if Duncan had proven his point.

Duncan spoke on, of landing in New York, of the trip across the Hudson, of the duck Sarah had released, of the Stag’s Head Inn and life in Edentown. He became aware of rain softly falling, though he could not say when it had started.

After one of the silences that punctuated their conversation, Conawago looked up, cocked his head, and spoke quite somberly. “Tell me, Duncan McCallum, how many are left of your tribe?”

It somehow seemed the wisest and most terrible question the Indian could ask, and it took a moment for Duncan to fight through the ache in his heart to answer. “My tribe, like yours, is almost gone. There is one other with my blood.”

Conawago did not seem surprised, and he spoke on, softly, asking about the color of lightning in Scotland and the books in Lord Ramsey’s library.

Finally words seemed to fail the old Indian, and he stared into the embers of the dying fire.

“Am I permitted some questions myself?” Duncan asked as he reverently lifted the wampum from his arm. Conawago looked up with wary eyes but did not object when Duncan laid the belt on his own arm. He lifted a stick in the dirt and traced the shape of a round creature with round, flat tail and wings. He had not forgotten the signs Adam had left on the mast.

Conawago stared at the drawing, then a slow, reverent sweep of his hand obliterated it. “We do not speak of sacred totems with human words. It is between a man and his totem, his protector spirit.”

“Why would it have wings?”

“A greeting, from one who is about to become entirely a spirit being.” Conawago dropped another leaf of tobacco on the embers and fanned the smoke toward Duncan, as if he needed particular attention from the deities.

“Do you know a man named Hawkins?” Duncan asked suddenly.

Conowago studied Duncan’s wound again, cupping smoke over it, before he replied. “I know many like him in the forest north of here. I wouldn’t necessarily call them men. More like wolves on two legs.”

“Okewa,” Duncan tried. “What is the meaning of the word?”

The old Indian stared into the embers before answering. “A dance,” he said in a voice suddenly gone hoarse. “A ritual. It starts at dusk and goes until morning. Women sing all night long.”

“A ritual for what?”

“The dance of the dead, performed with the family a year after the death. It allows souls to make the final crossing to the other world.” Conawago fixed Duncan with an inquiring glance. “Where did you hear this word?”

“It was written on a secret map in the home of Lord Ramsey.”

Conawago’s face went still as death. The old Indian stared into the fire again, added more tobacco to the flat rock. Duncan watched as his companion silently brewed one more cup of tea for him, then held his hand over Duncan’s injured head and offered a whispered prayer. Duncan fell back, able to comprehend neither the reactions of the old Indian to much of what he had said, nor the unexpected calm that had settled over him when speaking with Conawago.

In the morning he awoke slowly, groggily, a strange dream about swimming with otters flickering at the edge of his consciousness. He tried to rub his eyes but could not feel his hands. He shook his head several times but still had difficulty understanding his surroundings. Conawago’s last mug of medicine had done more than relax him.

He lay in the stream. His legs, nearly covered in water, were pinned by a heavy log that he could not budge no matter how hard he flexed and pushed his legs. His hands were behind him, arms straddling a tree, bound at the wrists behind the trunk. Their campsite, fifty feet away, was abandoned, with no sign of Conawago. Duncan’s pack, neatly tied at the top, sat on a rock two feet away, a piece of white bark pinned to the side with a sliver of wood, bearing words inscribed in a neat, decorous hand.

The storm in the north last night means the stream will rise by noon and lift the log that imprisons you. When it does, push up against the tree. Your ax is embedded at the height of your waist and will cut the strap around your hands. Then run south and thank Ramsey for preserving your life by allowing you to be his servant. If you survive to wisdom, you will see there is no mystery about Jacob, Adam, or myself, only one simple truth. There is no better death, at any age, than standing up to an overwhelming enemy to defend the bones of your fathers and the refuge of your gods. There will be another Okewa, twelve months from now. Stay alive, and sing then for the red men and the plaid men.

Duncan stared at the note, reading it again and again, leaning back against the tree, listening to the forest, sensing the warm, subtle pulse from inside the tree, reading the note once more, trying to grasp the war within a war of which Conawago seemed to be speaking. His anger soon burned away, replaced by an unbidden ache in his heart and a question that tugged at the edge of his mind.

The final realization came slowly, only after countless readings, only after recalling everything that had happened between himself and the old Indian, every word they had spoken the night before. He might not have recognized him from Lister’s description of a dark, educated gentleman who traveled with Sarah, or from the careful way the old man’s questions had sidestepped Sarah. But the handwriting, the unique looping of the double O ’s, left no doubt. Duncan had discovered Socrates Moon. He had found, and lost, the one man at the intersection of the mysterious paths of Sarah, Jacob, and Adam, and the only way to find him again was to reach Stony Run, where, Moon seemed to warn, everyone was going to die in seven days.

Okewa. The full significance of the death rite did not dawn upon Duncan until the pool was an hour behind him. Conawago’s instructions had proven perfect, and once the water had risen he had quickly freed himself, stuffed the Indian’s note in his pack, and headed north. Now, as Duncan read the note again while he rested, he understood Conawago’s alarm when he had heard that the word appeared on the map in Ramsey’s safe room. Ramsey might not have known about the council of old chiefs called at Stony Run, but he had been advised, probably months earlier, that the Indians who had enslaved his daughter-and who controlled much of the land to the west-would all be back at Stony Run on the anniversary of the massacre.

With new determination he tightened the bandage over his head and rose from the log he sat on. He had taken two steps when his heart stopped beating.

The massive black creature that stared at him, though fifty yards away, looked as big as a horse. It was watching Duncan, its head cocked to one side. Duncan retreated a step. The bear took a step forward, approaching a fork in the trail. After a moment the beast turned its gaze toward the path that led to the north, Duncan’s trail, then opened its huge mouth, revealing its long, treacherous teeth. The biggest of the beasts could pluck off your head like a ripe berry, men in the Company had told him. Duncan felt his knees weaken. The meager confidence he had been building since he left the pool evaporated with one glance at those fangs.