“That’s what we saw today. The death of a noble tribe. He gave their lifeblood to us.”
Winters gave a bitter snort. “Us? An overseer who hates himself and a bunch of slaves?”
“A man like that looks for a good death. The people of the woods are at the end of their time, knowing they were not bred to succeed in the new European world. They are not scared of death. They are scared of becoming beggars, of being cast off as rubbish in some settlement, their scalp taken in some alley to pay for a few pots of ale.”
“He died because of Gabriel’s temper. He died for nothing.”
“Don’t ever say that!” Duncan shot back. “He died for us.”
“Died for us? I am the overseer. You are the slave.”
“No. I am not a slave. I am a prisoner. And you are one of us, Jamie. I know that even if you don’t. He gave his lifeblood to us.”
“You mean for us.”
“No. This was something different. Something happened today such like I have never witnessed. He was transferring something, passing something on to us.”
The owl gave a soft call, answered by another on the adjacent hill. Duncan stared back over the landscape and his heart leapt as he made out the wide strip of silver to the east that had to be the mighty Chesapeake.
“I still don’t understand.”
“He was saving us.”
“You’re still a slave.”
“Not like that. Remember how he reacted to that fossil? It gave him great comfort. He said it was proof that ages rise and ages fall, but that always there will be a next age, and the new age owes its existence to the one before. He knew he had arrived at an ending of the age of the tribes and of people who live close to nature, the age of the forest. But the wonderful thing about Jahoska was that he refused to mourn that age. Instead he rejoiced that he was present for the birthing of the new age. He saw something important in the Judas slaves. The freedom men, he called us. He had decided we had to survive, even at the cost of his life. He gave us hope. Today he gave us strength.”
“I don’t feel strong.”
“Did you not see the fire in his eyes as he was being ripped apart? It spread through the company as they watched him die. The strength and the knowledge of the link between his world and ours. Freedom isn’t something created in books or laws. Freedom was in his veins. If there is any word to describe the way of the wild, it is freedom. That’s what he gave us. That is what we must stand for, he was telling us.”
“Surely you are not saying that opposing the stamp tax is the same as keeping his Council fire alive?”
Duncan hesitated. “Maybe I am,” he said, then rose and began covering the dead man’s feet.
Winters stopped him. “He asked me to do two things,” the Virginian whispered, then extracted a large acorn from his pocket. “He gave me this weeks ago. He said this was the perfect one.” Winters held it out between two fingers for Duncan to see, then extended it toward the moon, as if Jahoska would have wanted it to approve. “I asked him why and he wouldn’t say, just that I was to keep it safe. Then last week he told me what to do with it when the time came. I laughed then, and he just smiled and said he trusted me.” Winters looked down at the corpse in the slanting grave. “It’s why he wanted to be buried like this, with his head near the surface.” As he held the acorn over Jaho’s head his hand started shaking. “How could I do this? It’s a nightmare . . .”
Somehow Duncan understood. He knelt and gently stroked the old man’s hair, as he had seen Iroquois matrons do in mourning their dead. “I will sing a song in the forest tongue,” he said to Winters, “and you will fulfill his wish.”
Winters stared, transfixed, as Duncan began a low mourning chant of the Iroquois, calling first to the spirits to come and greet the dead, then for the forest animals that served the great gods. Finally, with trembling hands, Winters opened the last Susquehannock’s jaw and placed the acorn in his mouth.
When he spoke, Winters’s voice held a tone of wonder, as if he finally understood Jaho’s intention. “He’s going to become a tree,” the overseer whispered, “with the roots following down his remains for nourishment.”
“An oak,” Duncan said. “The heart of the forest.” He picked up the spade and began covering the body. They did not speak until the job was done, and afterwards Winters dropped onto the boulder as if utterly exhausted.
Chuga stood and made a circuit of the grave, touching the earth with his nose.
“Two things,” Duncan said. “You said he asked you to do two things.”
He was not sure Winters had heard. The young overseer sat staring at the mound Duncan was shaping over the grave.
“For you,” Winters explained after a moment. “He wanted you to have this,” Winters said, reaching into a pocket. “He said you were the one who would keep it now.” The overseer dropped a stone into Duncan’s hand.
“I don’t understand what . . .” Duncan began, then his heart blocked his throat. It was the fossil from the ancient altar. Duncan had given him his own seed stone, and Jahoska had given him that of his people. He squeezed it tightly in his hand and turned to face the bay as moisture filled his eyes. The gift seemed to break something inside. A new wave of emotion surged through him. He felt a profound melancholy, but something new was burning now, deep inside.
Chuga opened his mouth and gave a mournful howl that seemed to go on forever, echoing down into the woods. When the dog was done he stepped to Duncan’s side and looked up expectantly. Duncan knelt and put an arm around the dog, then rose and held the stone out in his palm, first for Chuga, then for the moon, to see.
Winters spoke again. “If . . . if you are trying to get the company away . . . I will help you.”
Duncan turned back with a new glint in his eye. He knew with certainty what Jahoska had wanted for them. “We’re not just escaping, Jamie,” he declared. “We are stopping them.”
It was well after midnight when they returned to the fields. They stopped as they reached the stable but Duncan showed no sign of going inside. “Is the manor house open?” he asked Winters.
“Titus sleeps lightly. He will let me in. But if you are caught, Duncan . . . why take such a risk?”
“Because Jaho was not demented. He was telling me something out on the field today. He was answering the question I did not know to ask.”
Titus was instantly awake at Winters’s tap on the door, handing Duncan a candle as they entered the kitchen. He left Titus and Winters behind and stepped into the hall, where bunting was being draped for the coming festivities. He paused by the reproduction of the Virginia charter, holding the candle close to read the artist’s name. Jeremiah Bowen. He then entered the sitting room, forcing himself not to look up at the painting of Lord Ramsey as he studied the three smaller paintings in the room.
There was the Indian maid handing tobacco to the European, by the same artist. He stepped to the next, of the man praying, also by Bowen. The same graceful style and painstaking detail was so obvious in the third, that of the native in full tribal regalia, with tilted feathers on his head, that he did not need to look at the name in the corner. He stepped back so he could see all three paintings. Through the fog of his coma Jaho had heard Duncan speak with Murdo and Webb of the letters from the mill, puzzling over why such mundane writings could be considered so important.
“Is it true?” came a tight voice behind him. “That Gabriel killed Jahoska?”
Duncan slowly nodded at Alice Dawson, standing in the doorway in a dressing gown. She sobbed and sank into a chair by the door, tears flowing down her cheeks.
“He died on his terms,” Duncan offered. “Before he died he was trying to tell me something about this man Bowen.”