Eliot Pattison - Bone Rattler

“Pike,” Woolford said in a whisper, “has always lost heavily at the gaming table. His debt was huge. But last year he started wearing lace and gold rings.”

All three gazed down the valley in stunned silence.

“It shouldn’t be difficult,” Duncan said, “to find out how soon afterwards his debts were retired.”

“There was one mistake after another made the day of the battle,” Woolford said in a taut voice. “Mortar barges directed into the wrong channel so that they came under French cannons. Units sent to attack abandoned positions.”

The painful silence returned. Jamie braced himself against a boulder, as if he had difficulty remaining on his feet. After a moment Woolford pushed past him and disappeared in the direction of the waterfall.

“It isn’t about Pike today,” Duncan said to his brother.

“He still wants me dead.”

“And me half a minute later, if he had his way. And if not Pike, then Ramsey.”

“I do not fear a lout like Ramsey,” Jamie said, though worry had entered his voice.

“If it was Pike with the Huron last year at Ticonderoga, then surely they must work together. The warning yesterday, it was Huron meant to draw your men away. Half the Ramsey Company, and Hawkins, are still missing.” Duncan turned to face the assembly at the great tree. “Ramsey can’t abide a victory by Pike. He wants you dead, Jamie. Hawkins is his weapon. For God’s sake, take your men and leave.” But when Duncan turned back, his brother was gone.

Tashgua had been recounting the spiritual history of his people and was inviting Ramsey to speak when Duncan reached the tree. The patron seemed to have trouble controlling his emotions, and raw hatred burned in his eyes as the sachem lifted the charter from its bark tube. For a moment it seemed Ramsey was about to berate the old Indian again. But a slender figure dressed in white doeskin appeared between them. Sarah accepted the parchment from Tashgua, then unrolled it and held it in front of her father. Ramsey glanced uneasily at his daughter, cleared his throat, and began reciting the king’s words. At the end of each phrase, Sarah lowered the parchment and translated for the assembled Iroquois, now numbering over thirty. The chieftains listened solemnly, some studying the tree as they did so.

When Ramsey finished, he looked up expectantly, only to find Ravencatcher standing with one of his dress wigs extended on his bear skull stick. “Now become this one, and read it again.”

“Nonsense,” Ramsey said, in the tone he used for addressing servants.

Ravencatcher turned and indicated more wigs lined up on a log. “You will speak it as each of the people you claim to be.”

Ramsey clenched his jaw, glanced at Arnold, and accepted the wig.

It was the chief with the fox skin who stood and addressed Ramsey when he was done. “What is it you will do with the land if your lord presents it to you?” he asked in a contemplative tone.

“I will make it yield to men,” Ramsey replied. “I will build great towns. I will turn rocks into a gun, a tree into a house, a stream into a mill that feeds five hundred. What have you done with the land?” he asked, gesturing toward the wooded ridges. “It is but a wasteland in your hands. Have you improved it in all these centuries?”

Ravencatcher translated, then walked around Sarah and Ramsey as his father watched with an expression of deep curiosity. “What you say is that your way requires you to make things from the land.” Tashgua’s son was speaking for himself now. “Is that the source of your magic?”

For a moment Ramsey seemed intrigued. “Yes. It is the destiny of men to use the tools they have been given.”

“And when all the land is gone there will be only things in your world. Will those things have life?”

“No. They will allow for more people, for stronger people.”

“So you treat the land as a dead thing. You will take the strength out of it. But without the land, without the bear, without the otter, the owl, the deer, what spirits will live in the people? Those spirits will never be stronger than they are today.”

Duncan inched away. Woolford had reappeared among the rocks.

“Ramsey’s two cargo canoes are empty,” the ranger reported when Duncan reached him. “Pike’s men carried the contents up here. I’ll search the far side,” Woolford added, and sprinted away.

Duncan moved obliquely, as inconspicuously as possible, toward the back of the oak. Boot marks, many of them, in the moist soil at the base, showed repeated back-and-forth movements. A shadow flashed over his shoulder. Pike’s ox-like sergeant, the man who days earlier had towered over Duncan with manacles, stared at him with a hungry glint, his fists opening and shutting as if preparing for action. Duncan shifted one way, then another, darting around the man’s side to appear in the open beside the seated Iroquois.

Arnold was speaking, the rolled charter in his hand now, his words like some rehearsed homily. As he finished, he stuffed the charter into the sleeve of his coat, draped it over the log he had been sitting on, then stepped toward the soldiers who, as if on cue, rose from the log some of them sat on and parted, pulling away the blanket that had covered the log to reveal two wooden kegs. The sergeant appeared by the kegs, lifting one onto a rock, and with a flat stone pried up the sealed ring of willow that had secured the cap. Arnold began lifting objects out, unwrapping the leather scraps that covered many of them, passing them out among the Indians. Combs. Flint strikers. Horn cups. Pewter spoons.

A murmur of excitement moved through the Iroquois. Ravencatcher watched with chagrin. Tashgua remained expressionless. The sergeant lifted the second keg, settled it onto two logs, and pulled out the bung at the bottom. A thick yellow substance oozed out. Honey.

Arnold gestured the Indians forward, led them back to the tree and into its dark hollow. Duncan, every instinct screaming alarm, followed. The soldiers had turned the hollow into a warehouse. Kegs were stacked five high, thirty kegs, perhaps forty, all stamped with the Ramsey R -the very kegs he had seen in the Ramsey cellar. As Arnold began speaking about how the gifts would be distributed among all the tribes, Duncan watched soldiers tending a new fire two hundred feet away, holding up tin mugs for the Iroquois.

Duncan lingered as the chieftains filed out for the hot tea being offered by the soldiers. In the light that filtered through the holes and slits along the base of the tree, he quickly searched for hidden weapons. There were none, only the stacks of kegs packed with bribes for the Iroquois, proof of the power of Ramsey’s protecting spirit. He exited the dark chamber and circuited the massive trunk again, to no avail. On the log in front of him were Arnold’s coat and hat. Lying nearby was the carved drum log Tashgua and his son had used the day before. Arnold was at the fire, beside Ramsey, serving out tea from a tall kettle. Tashgua was ten feet away, his eyes closed now as he chanted in a whisper. With one swift motion, Duncan pulled the charter from Arnold’s sleeve and slipped it into the log drum. He lifted the log, a hand at both ends, and ceremoniously carried it into the tree chamber, kneeling to set it in the center of the pool of light cast through the entry. He glanced up to see Arnold watching him now. He offered the vicar a nod, then solemnly ran his hand along the log drum. Arnold shot him a peeved glance, took a step toward Duncan, then was interrupted by Sarah’s outstretched hand. She looped her arm through Arnold’s, then led him in the opposite direction, back toward the fire.

Suddenly Duncan spotted Woolford splashing across the stream, sprinting at a desperate pace up the trail to the camp. With terrible foreboding Duncan watched him disappear behind the outcroppings. He dared not follow, dared not leave Ramsey with the Indians.