Old Jaho chuckled. “Stories for children in their beds. My mother used to tell me of a tree that walked and let good children ride on its limbs.”
“Not this one,” Tanaqua said. He spoke in the tongue of the Haudensaunee now, and the other Iroquois listened with rapt attention. Duncan had seen the deference they paid to Tanaqua, and realized they had recognized him as a leader of the secret societies, a famed spirit warrior. “He was real. My grandfather knew him. Our people were so impressed that when the Susquehannocks were finally broken they made him the chief of the south, the half king of the border lands.”
Jahoska smiled again. “I looked for that tree for years but never found it. But my children heard about it, just in case.”
As the men began climbing onto their pallets Murdo bent over Duncan. “Did they take them, lad?”
Duncan looked up in question.
“Your papers. Gabriel had an air of playacting today. I don’t think it was out of perverseness that he made us strip off our clothes.”
“But he made everyone strip.”
“Strip and leave their clothes behind, around the corner of the building. Why leave them where we couldn’t keep them in sight? Because they wanted to search them without us knowing. That cart came up and stopped behind the stable while the pharaohs worked their whips. I reckon it held a maid from the house.”
“You make no sense.”
“If I’m not mistaken, she had needle and thread. Check your leggings.”
Duncan did as he was told, taking the leggings to one of the slits where the last light of day filtered in. He studied the seams then looked up in surprise. “They’ve been opened and resewn, by a hand more skilled than mine.”
“The stamps and the commission?”
“I hid them last night.”
“Gabriel just needs an excuse. If he finds those papers, and discovers y’er are not a runner he may just hang ye as a thief and be done with ye.”
Duncan gazed out at the purple sky, weighing Ross’s words. “Someone told them about the stamps,” he whispered.
“Oh, aye. A bird that sings to Gabriel. Probably the same creature who killed poor Devon.”
There was just enough light left outside for Duncan to make out the corpse propped in the yard. “Why kill him?” he asked.
“You asked hard questions last night. He spoke freely, but you saw how he was wary of being overheard. He had to be silenced.”
“But surely . . .” Duncan’s heart seemed to shrivel. “You mean he died because I asked him questions.” He looked out at Devon’s body. The Virginian would be alive but for him. “Do me a favor,” he said to Ross. “Go down to the end of the building. Distract the men there while I retrieve the papers.”
Ross frowned. “Aye,” he reluctantly agreed.
Moments later, as Ross broke out in a loud Gaelic ballad, Duncan slipped behind the latrine curtain, stood on the bench, and retrieved the papers from where he had jammed them between a beam and a roof shingle. He walked purposefully toward the gathering around Murdo and held out the first of his treasures, the Virginia Gazette with Colonel Barre’s speech. He recounted how he had obtained it, making sure to acknowledge that Townsend had given it to him, earning a grateful nod from the man’s son, then read the speech in a slow, loud voice. Eyes that had lost their fire showed a spark, and several men gathered around the speech.
Larkin urged him to read the last passage again. “About our blood,” the old ranger prompted. “-has caused the Blood of those Sons of Lyberty to recoil with them,” Duncan recited.
“Amen, amen,” Larkin said, and the men repeated his words in a chorus.
Duncan pinned the speech with a splinter into the wall and withdrew the tax commission.
“Mathias Lee, Caroline County,” he read, “is hereby appointed revenue commissioner for His Majesty’s government.” He extended it into the flame of a candle.
“McCallum! No!” Frazier called out, knocking Duncan’s hand from the flame.
“I never meant to be captured with this,” Duncan explained. “Just having these could still be enough to stretch our necks.” He looked up into the grim faces. No one protested.
Burns gave a mischievous grin and called out. “Sinclair, still have that stash of Oronoco in your sock?”
The Pennsylvania Scot grinned and darted to the pouch over his pallet as Burns methodically folded and refolded the commission. He ripped the paper along the fold, then sprinkled Sinclair’s tobacco along one of the halves and rolled it into a tight cylinder. “The king’s cheroot!” he declared, then bent and lit the roll, handed it to Duncan, and began rolling the second one.
Soon the scent of the fragrant tobacco filled the stable as the men, eyes gleaming, passed the cheroots around.
“Shhh!” Murdo called out with a glint in his eyes, and moved to a window slit. “What’s that? Do ye not hear it?” He leaned toward the window, playfully cupping his ear before turning to his companions. “It’s Prime Minister Grenville, lads. He says he has been waiting for his taxes, says we owe him for each puff!” The big Scot blew smoke out the slit. “Here’s what the liberty boys said to that, sir!” he shouted, and made an obscene gesture toward the night.
The little speech, perhaps aided by the tobacco, revived the company, and men pounded fists on the platform to register assent when Murdo proposed that they leave the stub of the cheroot to shove into Devon’s shroud. After Duncan drew on the second cheroot and passed it on he produced the sheet of tax stamps, then laid it flat on the platform. The men watched silently as he folded the sheet then started tearing off the stamps one by one.
When he finished, Duncan had stamps for each of the men in his hand. “These are liberty stamps. Don’t take one unless you believe we will find our liberty. One we save for Devon,” he added, dropping a stamp into his pocket.
As he walked along the men, each took a stamp from his palm with a solemn nod. He felt like a priest giving communion.
The next morning the dense fog that often covered the swamp at night had overtaken the fields. As they stepped groggily along the gruel line Winters moved among them, tapping men with his stick. Old Jaho, Murdo Ross, Frazier of the northern rangers, Burns of the Conococheague, and finally Duncan.
“Work party to plant poor Devon,” he announced.
In the night someone had secretly been at work on the dead man. A sack had been tied around his head, and a garland made of oak leaves wrapped around vines had been draped around his neck. The Virginians were clearly put off by the interference with the body, but Tanaqua and the other tribesman gazed at the garland with sober expressions, as if it secretly spoke to them. Tanaqua saw the inquiry on Duncan’s face and Duncan was about to step to his friend when Trent shoved him toward the corpse, pointing to the lengths of rope and four shovels that had been dropped by the whipping post. Moments later two new overseers appeared to take over the Judas company for the morning.
Their procession through the fog had an otherworldly quality to it. The stable and every other building quickly faded from view. From the direction of the river came the sound of one of the low-pitched horns blown by sailors making way in fog. Ahead of them an owl hooted. Through the murk over the field came a disembodied, mournful African chant. The slaves from the other side of the field somehow knew about the dead man.
Jahoska, carrying a shovel on each shoulder, led the way, sometimes getting far enough ahead that wisps of the ground-hugging mist obscured his lower body, so that he appeared to be some antlered beast floating along in front of them. Winters, walking alongside the men carrying the corpse, seemed oddly contemplative, and not at all disturbed by the Susquehannock’s wandering. “The overseers in the fields are given pistols on days like this,” he declared. “They worry about runaways. No crews go into the fields until the bosses can see the distance of a pistol shot in every direction.”