Eliot Pattison - Blood of the Oak

The Seneca glanced up at the window of the small third story of the house, then fingered his ax. “Not possible. I would know.”

Tanaqua was done arguing. He abruptly raised his forearm, letting the moonlight catch its tattoo, evidence of his sacred trust. “I am the keeper of the secrets of Dekanawidah!” he recited in a furious whisper. He seemed to grow taller, more formidable, as he spoke, edging closer to the Seneca. “I am the shadowkeeper! I am the blade of the ancient spirits! Defy the spirits and the gate to the next world will be forever closed to you!”

The Seneca’s jaw dropped open as he recognized the words of an Iroquois spirit warrior. His face clouded, his eyes widened. He backed away, all sign of resistance gone, then spun about and disappeared into the shadows.

In the corner of the kitchen Duncan opened the narrow door and climbed down. As they descended they saw light flickering on the stone flags and heard a quick metallic rattle. Tanaqua and Duncan exchanged a knowing glance. It was a sound they had heard often at Galilee.

A stooped, lugubrious-looking man sat on a stool in a corner of the cellar set apart from the barrels and crocks used for food storage by sheets suspended on ropes. From an iron ring in the stone wall a chain ran to the manacle around the man’s ankle. A well-appointed bed, a nightstand stacked with books, and a commode with a pitcher, basin, and pot suggested he was not being altogether deprived.

Along one side of his linen-walled chamber was a long table bearing two bright whale oil lamps, with papers, paint pots, and brushes scattered across it. An easel had a muslin cloth tossed over it. The artist glanced nervously up at them, then back down at the floor.

“Mr. Bowen? Jeremiah Bowen?” Duncan winced at his fearful expression when he looked up again. “The miller of Galilee?”

“Miller no more,” the man replied in a forlorn tone.

“Yes, well,” Duncan said awkwardly. “I must confess we had to burn your mill.”

Bowen cocked his head at them for a moment then shrugged. “Navy’s loss, not mine. They requisitioned it. That was the word they used. Requisitioned in the name of the king. One lieutenant gave me a note saying they owed me seventy pounds sterling for it. The other gave me a note saying I owed them seventy pounds for not killing me. They had a great laugh over it, then fed both papers to the candle flame.”

“Your work is most authentic,” Duncan observed as he looked over the papers on the table. “I saw your replica of the Virginia charter.”

“I describe it as the school of authentic painting,” Bowen answered.

Several letters sat in a row as if awaiting inspection, each appearing to be in a very different hand. One was signed by Benjamin Franklin, one by Samuel Adams, one by William Johnson. Pinned to the sheet above the table were lists, notes, even ledger pages in different hands, but each with identifying names written in block letters at the bottom. They were the samples being collected by Kincaid’s bounty hunters, the actual writings that provided the basis for the forgeries. Benjamin Franklin, said the first. As he pulled it down he saw the bloodstain along the top. There is treachery in Virginia , it said. Hold all messages in Pennsylvania. Webb sent word. Let no one venture south. It was signed simply Franklin .

A chill ran down Duncan’s spine. It could only be the message taken from Ralston when he had been tortured and killed on the Susquehanna.

He examined more of the papers on the wall. Patrick Henry, he read, then James Otis, Samuel Adams, John Dickinson, Peyton Randolph, and half a dozen more. They were samples of actual handwriting. He paused as he studied the last letter in the row, then pulled it from the wall and stuffed it in his waistcoat before picking up the letter on the table bearing William Johnson’s signature. It was an invitation to a French general to send troops up the Ohio Valley, and a description of the weaknesses of the British outposts, with an authentic-looking signature by Johnson. He remembered the list he had retrieved from the mill. Johnson would die for trunnel nails and teapots .

Beside the forged letter from the baronet were three more, each signed by one of the governors whose handwriting appeared on the wall. They were instructions to the chief officers of their legislatures, ordering that no members of the colonial legislature were permitted to travel outside the colony without their governor’s permission. The Krakens were getting desperate in their efforts to block the feared congress.

When he finally looked back, Bowen gave him a bitter smile. “As you see, they keep me alive for my art. Using the stolen handwriting samples I have mastered fourteen different hands at last count. I could hang for even one. I have fourteen nooses waiting. After the first it didn’t seem to matter.”

“Not if you have been compelled against your will, sir.”

Bowen hesitated, his brow creased with inquiry. “Why would you burn my mill?”

“To escape. We have a ship waiting. You no longer work for the Commodore.”

Bowen’s reaction was one of alarm, not relief. He shrank back as Tanaqua approached, but did not resist as the Mohawk bent over his manacle, taking out one of the pins they used to pop open such restraints. “No! No! He vowed to crush my hands if I tried to escape!”

“Do what we say, Mr. Bowen, and your hands will remain intact.”

As Tanaqua worked, Duncan studied the room. The lamps had been positioned to illuminate the easel near Bowen’s stool. A drop of chestnut-colored paint fell into a pool of a similar color at the foot of the easel. Bowen had not been working on another forgery when they disturbed him. As Tanaqua tapped at the pin with the hilt of his knife, Duncan pulled away the muslin cover.

His heart leapt into his throat. Although the portrait was not yet complete, the fiercely determined eyes, the high cheeks, the auburn hair, and soft yet firm chin were unmistakable.

“Where is she?” he demanded of Bowen. “Where is Sarah Ramsey? Where did you see her?”

“They didn’t tell me her name. I-I didn’t ask permission, sir, beg pardon. But she was so striking. Sometimes-” he gestured toward the table. “After all this sometimes I just want to paint a thing of beauty. I only saw her but a few minutes when she arrived, while I was in the kitchen, then again at noon today. I was showing the lieutenant some letters upstairs. She was asleep on a chaise by the window, with the sunlight playing on her hair. I didn’t mean to . . .” his words faded into a stammer. He looked down nervously as Tanaqua pried open the manacle. “Please, sir. You misunderstand. I can’t go up without his permission. Without my hands my life is for naught.”

“Kincaid?”

“Not the lieutenant. The Irish giant. A gentleman named Teague.”

A hungry, angry sound rose from Tanaqua’s throat.

They had to practically drag Bowen up the stairs but he did not protest as they led him out the door to the print shop. They assured him he would be safe as they lowered him down with Prindle, who was snoring again.

From the house they finally heard movement. Shapes dropped from the lower windows into the boxwood and rhododendron around the house. The Seneca guards were positioning for battle.

Suddenly it was quiet. The boisterous men in the cobbled street had disappeared. An owl hooted from the stable across from the house. A whippoorwill answered from somewhere near the church, and urgent whispers rose from the Seneca hiding among the plantings. They recognized the Iroquois calls. An eerie drumming began from the loft of the stable. Hughes had found a drum in the church.

The owl called again, and the baffles of two lanterns fell away, one in the church steeple and one in the open door of the stable loft. Frightened gasps came from the shadows around the house.