They had paddled for four hours, with Analie perched backward, watching for pursuers on the moonlit waters, then hid the dugout and lit a fire on the far side of an outcropping, hidden from the river.
Duncan held the letter that had been saved by the dead Rohrbach near the flames, pointing to the opening with the images of the deer, for dear, the pea pod for the first half of the addressee’s name, and a human toe for the second half. “Dear Peter,” he read, then pointed to the syllable comm followed by a human eye, a teacup, then an ax and the word cept followed by a small globe, the words end aft, then another toe, the equation 2+2= and the syllable er. “The committee,” he deciphered, “accepts world’s end after summer.” He ran his finger along the other combinations of letters and images, indicating a saw, a star with a tail, a knife, and a pig, interspersed with human eyes. “Then perhaps I saw a comet and I dissected a pig.” He pointed to the final image at the bottom of the letter-the cattails. “Rushes. It’s your way of signing. I think you were there when Peter and his wife died. Their murders might easily have been accomplished with scalpels. There are scratches on your hands, as from a struggle.”
Rush pressed a hand against his mouth as he was wracked by a dry, heaving sob. “Dear God, no! I beg you, do not suggest such an unthinkable thing! Peter and I had become particular friends. We wrote each other often. He said he and Rachel always enjoyed my rebus letters. He said they helped Rachel learn to read. I was going to surprise him. I had a gift for the new baby, a little linen blanket. They knew I was coming but not the day of my arrival. Ralston insisted he needed to go up river, so I decided to spend the day with them. When I found the cabin empty I looked in the outbuilding. But they were already . . . tied to those posts, their eyes unseeing.” He hung his head. “The horror. I think I shall never sleep again. I covered dear Rachel’s head with the blanket and ran. I fell in the woods and cut my hands.”
“What are the committees?”
“Not for me to say. I gave a vow.”
“Why would they speak of the ending of the world?”
“It’s all secret. There are words used between those who know. Identifying words.”
“To what end?”
Rush just stared into the fire.
“How many of these have you sent? How many rebus letters?”
“A few.”
“By post?”
“Of course.”
“Meaning they passed through at least a score of hands. Do you have any idea how most would view such letters? Dark business. Codes are used by spies, and worse. And if someone wanted to pierce the conspiracy, you pointed them right to Rohrbach, the recipient.”
Rush seemed to grow gaunt. “Surely you misunderstand. I would never . . .” his words choked away. A chill gust bent the flames and he crossed his arms over his chest.
Duncan tossed Rush the mink cap. He put it on without thinking, then hesitated and removed it with a confused expression. “But I gave this to Ralston.” He glanced up warily, and tried to be inconspicuous about checking the folds of the hat.
“We found it on the river, on the backs of the shad.”
“The shad! That explains it. Ralston wanted so much to observe the fabled running of the shad as Dr. Franklin had described it to us. He would have lingered to sketch them like he sketches his birds.” Rush saw the tip of a feather and pulled it out of the little brim pocket. “See! He found his ducks. Mergansers I should think. We shall laugh about all this when he returns. He will be mortified over having lost my cap.”
“Ralston is already mortified, Benjamin.”
The forced smile on Rush’s face disappeared but he did not otherwise react. Duncan tossed the old enameled box on the ground beside him. Rush snatched it up. “His snuffbox, from his grandfather! He’ll be so pleased you found it.”
“It was on his body.”
Rush kept turning the cap over and over in his hands. “We have to be in Philadelphia by the end of the month,” he said in a hollow voice. “There is a harpsichord recital we don’t want to miss. He is to attend the College of New Jersey in the autumn.”
“His face was skinned away. His nose was cut off. The work of a medical man, some might say. Just like Peter Rohrbach and his wife who were carefully sliced and mutilated. Just like Analie’s friend Red Jacob whose arm was neatly amputated. If the crown were to bring a prosecution for repetitive murders, you would be the logical suspect.”
Rush slowly looked up, stricken as the horror of Duncan’s words finally sank in. A tremor shook his body. “Ralston!” he cried in anguish. Tanaqua, standing guard above them, looked down in warning. Rush stared at the rebus Duncan had dropped in his lap, grabbed it and threw it in the fire, then wiped at his tears.
Duncan said no more until he had shared out some venison jerky. As he reached for his pouch of corn balls, Analie stopped him and produced a flour sack with three fresh loaves in it, taken from the supplies Bricklin had been stockpiling that afternoon. He watched in confusion as she cut a loaf in quarters with her little belt knife. “How would you know to take those?” he asked the girl. “Our departure was too sudden.”
“Bricklin was after you, with all those angry men,” she said with one of her innocent smiles. “I told you but you didn’t believe me the first time. But I knew you would eventually. Remember? We don’t surrender,” she reminded Duncan and tossed a piece up to Tanaqua.
They ate in silence, then Duncan stood and studied the sky. “Two hours sleep then we push on. You’re staying right here, Rush, unless you explain yourself. You want words to release your vow? How about the words I speak to the magistrates when they swear a warrant for your arrest? A man with his belly incised, his hand amputated and buried in his intestines. A man from a prominent Philadelphia family with his face peeled away like the skin of a fruit. A God-fearing Moravian with his hair removed and his beautiful pregnant wife mutilated with something like a scalpel. In your cap you carried the names of two of the dead, and of a third nearly so lying now in Edentown. The trial will draw great crowds in Philadelphia, your hanging even more. You’ve probably been to hangings. They sell pastries and ale. People always clap when the hangman tests the trap door.”
Rush buried his head in his hands.
“The message in your cap. Was it from Benjamin Franklin?”
“He was sent to London on the colony’s business,” Rush responded. “Since he embarked his wife Deborah has carried on certain . . . sensitive business for him. She sits in on committee meetings.”
Duncan began reciting the names from the note. “Red Jacob, Patrick Woolford, Peter Rohrbach. All dead or nearly so. Were they part of the committee you speak of?”
When Rush still did not answer Duncan reached down and roughly pulled his head up. “This is the frontier. There are those who would string you up from a tree if I explained those deaths to them and showed them your treacherous instruments.”
“You know I did not . . . could not.”
“I will put the rope around your neck myself if it means I can save nineteen innocent men. These killers are not going to stop.”
Rush looked up with red-rimmed eyes. “Not one committee. A committee in Boston, one in New York, in Newport, in Philadelphia, and Williamsburg. Maybe more. They exchange ideas and sentiments. Those you cite just help with the committees. Months ago Woolford came to Philadelphia with an older, very refined gentleman from New York who was asked by Dr. Franklin about the health of William Johnson, as if they were friends. Captain Woolford brought a native ranger who stood guard outside the door, a sturdy fellow with a red ear.” Duncan and Tanaqua exchanged a grim glance. “I don’t know about the end of the world, just heard them talking about it. I am just their clerk, fetching them books or meals or anything else they want.”