Tanaqua was keeping a solitary vigil over Jaho’s smoldering cedar chips when they returned, leaning into the fragrant smoke as if praying. “In the mill,” Duncan whispered as he handed him Kuwali’s drawing. The Mohawk’s countenance lit with a fierce intensity. He looked up at the sleeping platforms and gave the soft cry of a nighthawk. Ononyot instantly shot up, followed a moment later by Hyanka and the other Iroquois.
As they huddled around Tanaqua, Jaho handed Duncan his medicine bag. “Kuwali,” the Susquehannock said, and nodded to the bag. Duncan opened it and extracted a news journal. Kuwali, who had frequent contact with the house servants, had inserted a copy of the Maryland Gazette, only three weeks old. “Annapolis,” the dateline said.
“Riots!” Duncan did not realize he had given voice to his reaction to the lead article until he saw Webb, then Murdo, approaching, rubbing their eyes. “There’s been riots over the tax!” he exclaimed as they reached him. “In Boston, Newport, even Annapolis.”
Webb grabbed a candle. Ross lit another. Suddenly half a dozen men were around them. As Duncan read, more and more men rose, until soon nearly the entire company was listening. The tax commissioner in Boston had been hung in effigy, he read. Commissioners in New York and New Hampshire had resigned under public pressure. There had been a mock trial in Connecticut of a symbolic Stampman.
Ross took up the narrative when Duncan paused for a drink. “He was charged with conspiracy to kill and destroy his own mother, America!” Murdo crowed, to guffaws all around. He turned to the next story, reporting on an exchange in Parliament between William Pitt and Grenville. “‘When were the colonies emancipated to choose what laws apply to them,’ Grenville had asked. ‘When,’ said Pitt, ‘were they made slaves?’”
Even the Iroquois were listening now, as Ross read the final report, about how colonists were signing pledges not to buy anything from Britain until the tax was removed. At gatherings in town squares throughout the colonies, women were sewing hundreds of dresses and britches out of homespun in lieu of wearing British fashions.
The men gleefully passed around the paper, pausing over passages and reading them aloud again. Duncan did not even notice that Frazier had backed away until Larkin hooted. “There’s a bonny lad!” he said, and pointed to the wall.
On a blank space near the door, Frazier had used a piece of charcoal to inscribe the words. “I swer not to by English guds.” With a flourish the young ranger signed his name, eagerly followed by Larkin. A line of grinning men added their names. The Iroquois queued at the end of the line, and when their turn came, inscribed their runner marks on the wall.
Three hours after sunset they waited again by the Africans’ shed, watching from the shadows as a night patrol trotted past. Duncan’s gut tightened as he saw the dogs with the riders. “If the wind shifts they will get our scent when we cross back over to the stable,” he said to Tanaqua, at his side.
“Then we will go around,” the Mohawk replied, pointing toward the river. He meant they would risk venturing closer to the manor compound to get back to their quarters. His eyes blazed with a warrior’s determination, had burned so since seeing Kuwali’s drawing the night before.
Jaho had insisted on bringing Ursa and Kuwali with them, just as Tanaqua insisted on bringing Ononyot. Ursa led the way up the ridge behind the sheds, moving with the stealth of a warrior himself. As they began to climb, a new figure joined them. Chuga trotted silently to Jahoska’s side, who murmured a greeting in his river tongue. The dog hesitated as the others moved up the trail, then turned and stepped deliberately along the bottom of the hill. Duncan and Jaho hesitated only a moment, then followed the dog, who halted at a pile of heavy timber with a long saw laid across it.
“A new outbuilding they say,” Kuwali explained as he and his father caught up with them. “Some of our men have been shaving timbers and making the joints.” Ursa gestured them back to the trail.
Duncan lingered, Chuga watching him as in his mind he tried to match the mortised joints chiseled in the heavy posts. There was a stairway, two long posts cut to make a high frame in the center, and no roof. Something icy seemed to grip his spine and he backed away, then ran to join his friends.
Minutes later they were looking down at the mill compound.
“One,” Tanaqua whispered as he pointed to the guard on the dock.
“Two,” Ononyot added, indicating a shadowed figure at the head of the riverside track to the manor.
Ursa made a clicking sound with his tongue and pointed to the latrine as another soldier emerged, buttoning his britches. In a low whisper Kuwali explained that the mask was in the center of the five storerooms built into the rear of the mill building, two of which were used as quarters for the officers and a third as an office. The Blooddancer had been leaning against the wall, on bags of grain. Tanaqua nodded, then he and Ononyot each scooped up a handful of soil and rubbed it over their exposed skin before melting into the darkness.
In the stories shared in the stable Duncan had learned that Ononyot was famed for infiltrating enemy camps, never taking a weapon other than his belt knife. It meant that he, like Tanaqua, engaged in the ancient form of tribal warfare, which did not aim for the death of enemies but for the release of captives, taking of prisoners, or other acts meant to shame the enemy and bring honor to their tribe.
A moment after the Iroquois disappeared Ursa also faded into the shadows. Duncan saw the proud smile on Kuwali’s face. “My father was a war prince in our tribe, known for leading raids deep inside our enemy’s territory. Once he brought back the headdress of their king, taken from his side as he slept.” Not for the first time Duncan was moved by how similar the African tribes and the woodland tribes were.
“He has told me,” the boy continued, “of how our warriors often fought enemies of much greater strength, pounding their shields like thunder to break the enemy’s will before charging.” The boy leaned forward as if trying to glimpse his father stealing among the shadows.
“That northern god is angry.” Duncan looked up to see Jaho bent over Kuwali now, whispering. “He does not like being a prisoner,” the old man explained in a solemn voice. “No one is feeding him. The living god must be fed like a living human. When that Blooddancer gets angry he plays with bodies like toys. Do you understand me, son?”
The African boy replied with a worried nod.
“Those in the manor house must be warned.”
Ursa’s son nodded once more, and Duncan cocked his head in confusion at the old Susquehannock.
The old man gave Duncan one of his serene smiles. “Is there a river where you live?”
“I’m sorry?”
“I would have to bring Chuga.”
As understanding slowly sank in, Duncan returned his smile. “Chuga could swim in cool, fresh water all day long.”
“In the swamp men could die from one false step.”
“I have a rope. We will get more, to tie men together.”
“In a few days then,” Jaho said, “when the moon is at the quarter. Not too dark, not too light.”
“We should get men to the island of your ancestors, then move them out a few at a time. The Virginia men will help from there.”
No one spoke again until Tanaqua materialized out of the shadows. “He is there, Duncan! Just as this brave warrior told us,” he added, starting a smile out of Kuwali as he offered the boy a quick bow of his head before turning to drop a metal ball in Duncan’s hand. “In one of the sleeping quarters there is an English fowling gun.” Duncan held the small-caliber ball up in the dim light. It was, he suspected, from the same gun that had shot Woolford.
Ononyot appeared, carrying trophies of his own foray. In one hand he held a hammer and a coil of rope. With a proud smile he opened his other hand, in which lay a little gold braid, sliced from an officer’s epaulet, which he presented to Kuwali, and a small square of silk, which he handed to Duncan. “On the entry door,” the Oneida explained. It was small flag, bearing the image of a castle with a gauntleted fist over it. Duncan folded the flag into his pocket.