Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

As Duncan climbed back over the ridge, a dozen men in ill-fitting red coats, some stinking of tar, were being herded into the camp from the river by a mixed group of Scots and Iroquois, under Jamie’s command. Lord Ramsey had deployed the rest of his militia. He hesitated, fighting an impulse to flee, then saw Sarah.

The Company men, disarmed and terrified, seemed to sink into a paralyzing confusion when their captors began throwing Gaelic taunts at them.

“In the king’s name!” came an angry voice behind the Company soldiers. Red-coated men were shoved aside as a furious Lord Ramsey appeared.

“How dare you treat us like this! Are we at war with the Iroquois?” Ramsey demanded. “Is not our beloved King George a constant friend of the Six Nations?”

Jamie, at the edge of the clearing, called out in the Iroquois tongue, presumably translating for the Indians who had no English. Iroquois and Scottish warriors reacted alike, with quick whispered mutterings and bitter frowns.

“You will return our weapons!”

“This is a sanctuary,” Jamie declared to Ramsey. “For as long as memory serves, no weapons but those of the guardians, no act of war has been allowed here.”

Ramsey glared at Jamie. “I come as colonel of the Edentown militia to treat with our Iroquois friends,” the patron replied. “Not with Scottish brigands.” Arnold, who had worked his way through the assembly, leaned into Ramsey’s ear. “And certainly not,” Ramsey added with a victorious gleam, “with a traitor to the king. You, sir, will consider yourself under arrest.” His furious gaze rested on Duncan for a moment. “Along with your contemptible brother,” he added. “The army knows how to deal with traitors. But an escaped bond slave will know Ramsey justice,” he hissed at Duncan.

Amusement flashed across Jamie’s face. “You should take to the stage. The public ever thrills at those who playact as soldiers.” His smile disappeared. “The great shaman desires dialogue with you, so you are guests in this camp. Otherwise we would have stopped you and your toy soldiers ten miles downstream. I am here to assure that you abide by the rules of the sacred place.”

Ramsey surveyed the camp. “Do not mock me,” he snarled. “There is but mud and bones and forest debris here.”

“This is but the antechamber. Over the ridge lies the cathedral, as Reverend Arnold will surely attest. There is a cleansing ceremony for any wishing to go beyond.”

“I cannot proceed until what was stolen from me is returned,” Ramsey barked, his hand on his pistol. “I will not endure your ceremony until the thieves clean their own hands. You have a Ramsey paper. You have a Ramsey heir.”

A tall figure stepped in front of Jamie. Ravencatcher did not speak but motioned Ramsey toward the bone-fronted lodge. The patron seemed about to erupt again, then gestured Arnold to his side and followed the tall Iroquois, with Duncan, Woolford, and Conawago a few steps behind.

It was dark inside, the air tinged with fragrant smoke. At the far end, under one of several holes in the ceiling, the chief in the fox skin sat at a small fire, beside a sturdy Iroquois woman in a doeskin dress adorned with dyed quills. The woman extended graceful hands to push the smoke toward the visitors as they sat. From the shadows, Ravencatcher produced a long cylinder of birch bark sewn with leather strips and extracted a large rolled parchment.

Ramsey seemed about to launch himself toward the charter. “It is mine! Return it this instant!”

The Onondaga ignored the patron. “Its words shall be spoken tomorrow at the tree, and we will see. Your man of god has read his Bible. You will read this paper.”

“You, sir, will not dictate to me!”

Ravencatcher leaned toward Duncan and Woolford. “Our people are disturbed. They wonder whether the old spirits hear them anymore. They rightfully puzzle over this new one with the power to give the owning of land.” He turned to Ramsey. “You will go to the tree and speak the charter, to test its truth.”

Ramsey’s face flushed with color. “Truth? These are the words of the king!”

“For as long as trees have grown and waters have flowed, no one of our people has ever taken land for his or her own. We borrow land from the gods, a maize field here, a pumpkin field there, a town of houses sometimes. We give it back when we are finished. Now a new spirit arrives and pushes men to change all that, so that some men must have land and others must not.

“We do not doubt you have a strong spirit behind you. We try now to understand if the old spirits who have ruled this land since its creation now wish for your spirit to also become the god of the Haudenosaunee. Then we will finally know about your war.”

“Our war!” Ramsey simmered. “Now you mock the king! Treaties have been signed in Albany. Pledges have been made.”

“For those who have to fight and bleed,” came a quiet voice, “war is a very personal thing.” Conawago spoke toward the fire. “It is easy to speak of distant kings and distant battles. It becomes very different when it is the blood of your own sons and daughters being spilled.”

“There shall come a reckoning for what you have done with my own daughter,” Ramsey spat. “You shall see-” His threat died as his gaze froze on a figure framed by the opening of the lodge. Sarah, in an elegant quill-worked dress, was in the clearing outside, moving with Alex and an older Iroquois woman among the Company men, offering ladles of water and cornmeal loaves. Ramsey leapt to his feet, rushing out, but halted after a few steps, as if uncertain of what he was seeing. The Company men who saw him awkwardly looked away, though Sarah took no notice. She was acting like the matron of the village, the hostess receiving guests. And the look Ramsey gave her was that which Duncan had seen on those who called Sarah a witch.

“Your daughter is no prisoner,” Woolford said to Ramsey’s back.

“Then she fled to follow those she saw stealing my charter,” Ramsey said after a moment. “It is the Ramsey blood in her. They acknowledge her due rank.”

“She is not part of your campaign, sir,” Duncan interjected.

Ramsey’s face filled with color again as he turned to face him. “Were it not for this-this sanctuary, I would have you hanging by your arms from a tree to begin your punishment. When we are ready, McCallum, we will drag you home in chains.” The patron watched his daughter again. “Reverend Arnold and I have decided what must be done with her. There is a surgeon in Philadelphia who treats brain disorders. He has agreed to a trepanning.”

“You would open her brain?” Duncan gasped.

“Drill into it. An accustomed procedure. Based on her behavior, he says there must be a mortifying growth that needs to be excised.”

“I have heard of soldiers who have had the surgery,” Woolford said in a haunted voice. “Afterwards they stare without seeing, have to be led from place to place. It’s like they are empty inside.”

“The doctor in Philadelphia has had great success,” Ramsey shot back, then fell silent as his daughter approached. She spoke to him as she had the other men, offering a greeting in the Iroquois tongue, pushing a small loaf into his hand. For a moment father and daughter stared at each other, then Ramsey let the loaf drop to the ground. Sarah seemed about to speak again when suddenly a man in one of the militia uniforms burst out of the woods, gasping for breath, blood streaming down the side of his face.

“The Hurons!” he cried. “The Hurons approach!”

Jamie surveyed the confused assembly of men then began barking out orders.

They made a slow procession over the low, steep ridge after dawn the next morning, Tashgua and the Iroquois first, then Ramsey, Arnold, and Conawago. Woolford and Duncan, in the rear, kept pausing to look back. They had spent much of the night in the forest with several of the Company men, searching for the Huron to no avail. At the crest of the ridge, Tashgua called an unexpected stop, sending Ravencatcher down the trail with all the Iroquois warriors, then waited until his son appeared on one of the rocks below and whistled. The reason for the delay became obvious as soon as they reached the opening into the little valley. Other visitors had appeared on the sacred ground. Cameron sat guarded by the Iroquois, in front of seven scarlet-coated figures. Pike and his squad glared angrily at their guards, who had made a pile of their weapons at the edge of the stream.