Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

Woolford and Conawago exchanged a troubled glance. “Your ax,” the ranger said, and tossed Duncan a sharpening stone from his pack. “Make it ready for work.” He rummaged deeper into his pack and produced a knife, much bigger than the one Duncan had been given at Edentown. “This was Fitch’s. Use it half as well as he did and you might live.”

“But your rifles-”

“There’s powder enough but only ten balls. The work will be hot, and close, by dawn.”

Duncan clamped his jaw tight, fighting a new surge of fear, and began whetting the stone on his new blade. Conawago followed suit with his knife. They worked with silent, grim determination as the sun set. Duncan suddenly stopped to reach into his pocket and tossed Woolford the bullet he had extracted from the Scot at the mission. “Thirteen balls. This and the two from the farm.”

Woolford silently lifted his rifle and placed the ball on the end of the barrel. “These three are all the same size, all seventy-five caliber, made for the Brown Bess standard of the army. Rangers and Indians use long rifles, with smaller balls, fifty caliber and less. Even the French soldiers use a smaller caliber. If I had a mold, I could melt these down, but I left it at the base camp.”

Duncan looked out into the darkening forest a moment. “I cut it out of a deserter from the Forty-second,” he explained as he tried to reason out the puzzle. “He took it in his leg a year ago. He was a survivor of Stony Run.”

Woolford leaned forward, his eyes flashing with excitement as he hefted the three balls in his palm. “You’re wrong. There were no survivors, only Adam.”

“There were other Indian prisoners who survived.”

“Sarah and Alex weren’t there. Tashgua had sent the council to Stony Run. He was performing a rite nearby. When they came back the carnage was done.”

“You don’t know for certain, Captain. A deserter would never speak with you.”

“No,” Woolford admitted after a moment. “He wouldn’t.”

Duncan bent over his pack and pulled out the high-domed hat he had secreted there, wrapped in a scrap of muslin. He tossed it to Woolford. “Why would Ramsey have this, hidden like a great treasure?”

“Grenadier,” Woolford said as he turned the cap over and over in his hand. “The Forty-ninth. You lied about finding that match case?”

“I found it, but with this hat in the Ramsey cellar. Where were the Forty-ninth Grenadiers last year?”

“In the north. Lake George. Lake Champlain.” Woolford’s face darkened as he threw the cap back to Duncan, and he turned back toward the forest. “They’ll try before the moon gets higher, to use the dark,” he predicted.

“We can jump in the river,” Duncan said, “swim away in the dark.”

“They will have thought of that and will be watching. Right now they don’t know we are short of rounds. Drop in the water, and they will know for certain we could not shoot, even if we kept the rifles, for our powder will be wet. They have enough men to straddle the river and spear us like fish.”

Duncan watched as Conawago lit a small fire then began tying dried grass around the ends of the arrows he had extracted from McGregor.

“The brush at the bottom,” Duncan concluded. “You’re going to light fires. But there’s a gap.”

“Exactly,” Woolford said in a flinty voice and lifted his rifle. “That’s where we greet them.”

It happened exactly as the ranger planned. As Duncan watched in surprise, Conawago produced a long string, which he inserted into notches at the end of his staff, converting it into a bow. The old Indian waited until there was movement at the base, then lit the brush below with carefully aimed shots. With a thundering heart, Duncan watched their attackers move into the darkened gap and climb halfway up the slope before his companions opened fire. He reloaded with shaking hands, spilling precious powder, his gaze shifting often to the sharpened tomahawk lying on the rock beside him. Then there was silence. Below them someone moaned; the fires crackled and subsided. There were bullets left for only two more shots.

Woolford and Conawago arranged their blades in front of them.

“If you keep holding that ax so tightly,” the ranger warned Duncan, “your fingers won’t respond when it comes time to use them.”

Duncan forced himself to set the weapon down and wiped the sweat from his palms. He gazed up at the moon, which had risen high enough to cast a silver glow over the hill. He had a strange sudden desire to be near the ocean. The McCallum clan chiefs almost always died on or near saltwater.

By the end of the first hour, the waiting became unbearable. Duncan found himself shifting positions like a nervous child, then began to notice how differently his companions waited for the final onslaught. Woolford, ever the soldier, watched the shadows with a cool, treacherous anticipation. But Conawago had stopped watching the woods. He had found a small white flower growing out of a crack in the stone, glowing in a small patch of moonlight, and was studying it with a serene expression.

As he watched the old Indian, Duncan found himself growing calmer, inching closer, watching the flower himself, watching the stars reflected in a small pool of rainwater on the ledge by the flower.

“It thrives only in rocks and other harsh places,” Conawago said of the flower as Duncan reached his side. “I found one like this when I was very young, and asked my mother why it would bloom in the night. She said that was a secret between it and the moon, from a time before man.”

Duncan looked away for a moment as he realized he had also been studying the Indian’s face the same way Conawago had looked at the little silver pool. “I’m sorry,” he said clumsily. “It’s just that here we are, with two bullets left and. . ”

“Here we are,” Conawago repeated when Duncan could not finish the sentence.

“I don’t even know who you are.”

“Men can only know one another by their actions.”

“I don’t know who your people are.”

The old Indian offered a sad smile and looked up at the stars. “It’s just another story of old clans fading away.”

“You said they were called the Nipmucs, from Massachusetts.”

“A very old and peaceful tribe,” Conawago said after a moment. “Our troubles began with the Dutch, who enticed us closer to the Hudson for trade, then gradually wore us down. There were wars, small wars that few took notice of. My people were finished by the time I was born, nothing but small family groups left to wander along the river, under the protection of the Mohawks and the Mahicans who were left. When I asked about our tribe, my mother said one day we would all be together again, that for now our family was our tribe. Then some Jesuits came and offered me a new life. They were kind men. They showed my mother the magic of written words, told her that if I could learn the European ways, I could protect what was left of our people. My mother said go with them for five years, that she and the family would not leave, they would be there at their camp by the river waiting when I returned.” Conawago looked at the flower in silence before continuing.

“But the Jesuits kept me for seven years, took me to Europe. I came back with gifts, with books, with new European clothes, with great plans for building a new village for my people. But they were gone. There was a new trading post there, new farms. I could barely recognize the land. There was only one of my family left, an old uncle who had become a drunk. He laughed when I said who I was, said I was dead. I discovered that my mother had refused to leave the land, saying she was waiting for me, until the trader there convinced her I was dead, made up a letter saying so and read it to her. She believed written words were magic, that they could never lie.