Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

The response came in a low, impatient voice.

“He says he did not come to weave words in empty air,” Woolford explained. “He wants to know if you are coming or not.”

“If I say no, are they going to attack us? If I say yes, are they going to attack you?”

“I don’t know,” Woolford admitted. “They’re angry as hell. It’s a killing season like no other.”

Duncan searched Conawago’s face. The old Indian shrugged. “The tracks before us are like none I have seen before.”

If he left his friends alone, Duncan realized, they still could face the Hurons, with one bullet left. Before he could reply, the Onondaga took another few steps forward and lifted the dead thing in his hand. Something in Duncan wanted to laugh, something else wanted to cringe. It was a wig, one of Ramsey’s short powdered wigs. Exposed underneath it, at the end of the stick, was the skull of a young bear. “Tell him the three of us go or none of us go.”

Woolford studied Duncan a moment, betraying no emotion, then translated.

The Iroquois spat an unhappy syllable, spun about, and without another word stepped back down the hill.

“He reluctantly accepts your terms,” Woolford explained, hastily gathering his equipment. “But he’s waiting for no one.”

Moments later they were leaving the rocks, Woolford in the lead. Duncan followed for several paces, then paused. The Pennsylvania long rifle was still leaning against a boulder. He hesitated a moment, scrambled back to retrieve the gun and its powder horn, then ran to join his friends.

The uneasy procession increased in number as they reached the adjoining ridge, with warriors materializing from behind trees and boulders, some even rising from shallow hollows in the forest floor, until they were a dozen in total, moving silently along the well-used trail at the gait of the forest runner. The scalp lock of one of the men in front of Duncan showed russet hairs. Another man, the only one with long locks, wore them plaited and pinned at the rear in the style of a sailor. His hair was the color of ripe barley.

As they paused at a spring to drink, Duncan approached the man with the plaited hair, who dressed with the breechcloth and leggings of the other Iroquois. To his arrow quiver was tied a small swatch of black-and-green tartan. Duncan asked him in Gaelic if he were a Gaidheal, a Highlander. The man’s reply was in the Indian tongue, spat over his shoulder as he rose and resumed the trail. Duncan recognized only one word. Haudenosaunee. When he looked to Woolford for an explanation, he saw the ranger on his belly, drinking from the stream. A passing Indian paused long enough to kick him in the ribs.

They were nearly inside the village before Duncan noticed the bark-covered longhouses in the shadows along the bottom of a low, steep ridge. At first the camp seemed abandoned. There were no dogs, no children, no crops, no sign of any activity. Four of the five habitations were in the shadow of large trees, beyond which lay a long, sandy groin at the edge of a river. In the distance was the low rumble of a waterfall. The fifth house was set apart from the others, beside two tall outcroppings like pillars, which flanked a well-worn trail up the ridge. The entry to the thirty-foot-long lodge was hung with animal skulls of all sizes and shapes. Over the door was one so huge it seemed impossible that it could ever have belonged to a flesh-and-blood creature. Its massive teeth seemed ready to close over anyone who dared trespass inside. A long string of massive bear claws hung down one side of the entry. Duncan found himself clutching the stone bear in his pocket as the Indians gathered up the rifles he and his friends carried, and he fought the temptation to offer it up and flee.

He was led to the far side of the clearing, a hundred feet from the solitary lodge, where a heavy log, stripped of bark, had been sunk in the ground. It was covered with painted images of animals and men. At its base, the bare earth was covered with ominous stains. With a start he saw that Woolford and Conawago were being led into the shadows by the other longhouses. As three somber warriors moved toward him, Duncan retreated, until suddenly he found himself backed against the painted post. His hands were seized from behind, and before he could resist, they were bound behind the post. Three more Indians appeared. Not Indians, he saw. Though their hair was darkened with grease, all of their locks were fair.

“My name is Duncan McCallum,” he declared in a taut voice. “From the Highlands nigh Lochlash.” He saw that each of them held stout lengths of wood only an instant before the nearest one hit him.

The blow to his abdomen doubled him over. “I am called Duncan, of Clan McCallum,” he gasped in Gaelic as he straightened. “From the-” The next blow took him on the shoulders, slamming his head against the post.

“From the English sewers where spies and other rodents are bred,” spat a lean, muscular man with the left half of his face painted black. The blows came quicker now, on his legs, on his ribs.

“The Pied Piper for all the redcoats,” one of the Scottish warriors snarled.

“The king’s lapdog,” muttered another as he landed a club on Duncan’s thigh.

But then he forgot the blows, let them fall as they would as he stared into the blue eyes of the black-painted man who seemed to be the leader of the Scottish warriors. His blond hair was shaved deep along the temples, but the remainder was plaited down his neck. There was hate in his eyes as he returned Duncan’s stare, but there was also something familiar.

“Jamie!” Duncan gasped. “Don’t let it be like this!”

His brother muttered something in the Iroquois tongue. A man produced a switch and slapped Duncan’s shoulder, raising a sting like a cat o’nine tails.

Words rose behind Jamie, Iroquois words in a low, forceful voice. Two of the Scots instantly backed away. The words grew sharper. Jamie launched the club from his hand into the air so that it tumbled end over end above them. As everyone else, even Duncan, watched it, Jamie seized the club in the hand of the nearest man and pummeled Duncan again, with a quick, vicious rhythm. “Don’t ever use the name of my clan again,” he warned in a scalding whisper. “You forfeited the right long ago.”

“Cut me loose and I’ll teach you not to speak to the eldest of your clan so,” Duncan shot back, in the Highland tongue.

Jamie’s club, aimed now for Duncan’s head, slowed, then twisted downward. Someone was pulling the end. He resisted with a violent shove, knocking the interloper to the ground, raising the club again only to have it seized in mid-swing.

Everyone seemed to freeze for a moment. As Jamie spun about in anger, all the other Scots stared uneasily toward his feet. Duncan’s mind, clouded by pain, saw only a pile of feathers at first, then as the onlookers gasped and rushed toward the feathers, they took on a feminine shape. It was a cloak of feathers, Duncan saw, and inside it was a woman with russet braids.

“Sarah!” he cried, twisting in his bindings, struggling now to be free, to help her.

But she needed no help. As Jamie looked down, he seemed to shrink. He released his grip on the club and silently watched as half a dozen hands reached down to help Sarah to her feet.

“What have you done?” she asked in an injured tone. It took a moment before Duncan realized she was addressing him, not his brother. “You made a promise.”

Before Duncan could reply, more Iroquois appeared, pulling Sarah away as he stared after her. She was alive. She had changed. She was no longer pale, no longer fearful. The Indians who escorted her did not have scorn in their eyes, but worry.

In a moment no one was left but his brother. Jamie’s eyes flared as a blade appeared in his hand. For a moment his brother hesitated, as if deciding where to sink it, then it flew downward to cut his bindings, and Jamie slipped away as a new figure materialized in front of the post, glaring at Duncan.