Eliot Pattison - Blood of the Oak

The thickset, bearded man held a heavy horse pistol at the ready, but did not aim it. “That remains to be seen.”

Duncan slowly stepped into the light, leaning his rifle on a log. “I seek swift passage to Shamokin, or Harris’s Landing if that be your destination. I can pay.”

The big man spat tobacco juice toward Duncan’s feet. “I don’t run a damned ferry,” he groused, a Dutch accent heavy in his voice.

Duncan calmly studied the men. Four appeared to be Iroquois, who stood together, hands on their weapons. Seven Europeans, including a huge ox of a man with black curly hair, were passing around a gourd filled with spirits. “You gentle your men with easy liquor. It makes them slow to react and slow to reach full strength in the morning. I won’t touch your spirits. I have paddled the length of Lake Ontario with Mohawk friends. My rifle, and my eye, were trained by the best of the rangers.”

One of the natives, a tall sinewy man wearing a tattered brown waistcoat over his naked chest, stepped closer to study him.

The bearded man rubbed his hand through his long, unkempt hair, wincing as if he had a headache.

“My name is Duncan McCallum,” Duncan offered.

Instantly the tall tribesman darted forward. Duncan did not resist as he unbuttoned the top of Duncan’s shirt to expose his shoulder. The muscular native, wearing the scalplock and shaved pate favored by the Mohawk, studied Duncan’s tattoo of a rising sun for a long moment, then offered a quick, respectful bow of his head to Duncan and murmured several words to his tribesmen. They moved to Duncan’s side, smiling, patting him on the back. The dawnchaser tattoo, symbol of an ancient and tortuous ritual, had been earned by only one European and it meant most of the Iroquois accepted him as one of their own. “You are the one who walks with the Nipmuc elder,” the Mohawk declared.

“I am honored to be able to call Conawago a particular friend,” Duncan replied.

“I am Tanaqua,” the Mohawk explained, and clamped his forearm against Duncan’s in a tribal greeting. As he did so, he revealed his own tattoo, an intricate design of snakes and birds on the inside of his arm.

“I guess we’ve decided,” the trader said with a reluctant grin. “Hans Bricklin” he offered, and gestured Duncan to the fire, where a stew pot was suspended on an iron tripod.

He found unexpected camaraderie at the campfire. Two of the Iroquois had seen Duncan introduced at the fires of the Grand Council in Onondaga, and all knew of his frequent aid to the tribes, more than once finding them justice when colonial governments offered none. They spoke of mutual acquaintances among the tribes and the rangers. Tanaqua had served with the rangers and his face flickered with pride when Duncan mentioned the legendary deeds of Woolford’s and Major Roger’s men during the recent wars.

Bricklin, a veteran of thirty trading seasons, was carrying bales of pelts, casks of maple syrup, and, in the big dugout that was his personal craft, a box of specimens for Dr. Benjamin Franklin and his circle of scientist friends in Philadelphia. Duncan eased into the questions he had for the trader, sharing some of his precious tea leaves and talking about the weather and poor state of the fur trade before asking about other travelers on the river. Since leaving the headwaters of the river, Bricklin explained, no other southbound travelers had passed them other than a family of Iroquois who, when hailed, said they were en route to relatives in Shamokin, the town at the junction of the Susquehanna branches that served as southern capital of the Iroquois Confederation.

The grizzled Dutchman gave orders for the night watch then laid out a groundcloth for Duncan in front of the canvas-wrapped bales. In the warmth of the fire, reflected off the bales, Duncan’s exhaustion quickly overwhelmed him.

He awoke suddenly, not in heart-pounding fear but with an unfamiliar, empty feeling. This had not been one of his nightmares of dead Highlanders. He had been in the Iroquois lodge where the sacred masks lived-they were always deemed to be as alive as any man or woman-and the hideous masks had started a death chant, a chant used in battle by those who knew they were about to die. He stared for several minutes at the brilliant carpet of stars overhead, pushing down the foreboding brought by the dream, then finally rose. It was past midnight. A solitary figure sat on a log at the water’s edge. It was Tanaqua’s turn as sentinel.

Neither man spoke as Duncan sat beside him. Out on the river a silver ribbon erupted and, as quickly, merged back into the water. “My Nipmuc friend insists that fish try to touch the stars on nights like this,” Duncan finally observed.

Tanaqua nodded. “I am certain of it. Have you never done the same?”

Duncan smiled. “When I was a young boy I burned my hand trying to catch a star. My father said I was a fool not to realize it was a flying ember. My grandfather said to keep trying.”

Tanaqua gave an amused grunt.

“Bricklin says he hasn’t seen other travelers except an Iroquois family,” Duncan observed.

“This river has always been a place of shadows, full of islands, cliffs, coves, and swift currents,” Tanaqua said. “A man can disappear at sunset and reappear thirty or forty miles away at dawn.”

Duncan hesitated, careful about his reply. Tanaqua did not drink spirits, and carried a bow. He was one of the few, Conawago would say, who still walked the ancient paths. Talking with such men was like talking to the forest, the old Nipmuc once told him, for the threads of their souls were woven into the fabric of nature. The warriors of the old ways saw life differently, experienced the world in ways unknown to Europeans. Sitting beside the man Duncan felt very small, and saddened. They both knew his breed was disappearing from the earth. “Are you saying I should not trust Bricklin?”

The Mohawk shrugged. “We keep watch. It is what we do.”

Duncan turned back and surveyed the sleeping camp, wondering whom Tanaqua was including in his reference to “we.” Bricklin slept with his pistol, rolled in his blanket against his dugout. The big-boned, curly-haired man, an Irishman named Teague, slept nearby with a musket at his side. Why, Duncan wondered, did the Dutchman keep a box for Dr. Franklin guarded in his dugout?

“Tomorrow the water becomes moving land. Quicksilver land,” Tanaqua observed after another long silence. “Some of the gods still favor us.”

Now Duncan was certain he did not understand. “Captain Woolford was attacked and nearly killed while coming into Edentown,” he ventured. “An Oneida with him named Red Jacob died in an ambush, shot in the back.”

Tanaqua, like Conawago, could express volumes in single syllables. “Ahhh,” he said, drawing it out, filling it with pain and sorrow. “ Sakayengwaraton will be missed at the Council Fire.” Duncan realized it was the first time he heard Red Jacob’s tribal name. It meant Mist that rises from the ground in autumn . The Mohawk murmured something toward the stars, then turned to Duncan. “It is why you are here.”

“You ran with the rangers.”

Tanaqua nodded. “In the French war, yes. Elders in our clan said we had to choose one king or the other.”

“Rangers are missing, some of them Oneida and Mohawk. Red Jacob and Woolford set out to look for them.”

“It is a bad death for a warrior, to be shot in the back,” Tanaqua observed. “Whoever did such a thing is less than a man.”

“The killer left four slash marks on his face. His arm was taken. His belly was sliced open and his severed hand placed inside. Conawago said it is the sign of the Trickster. Two days before this I was in Onondaga. Grandmother Adanahoe told me the Trickster had been stolen from his home. Her grandson was killed trying to recover the mask. She asked me to get Conawago and find the Trickster. But then the killers came to Edentown. They tried to kill Woolford but missed and killed a woman and wounded Conawago.”