The sparse chamber offered few clues about its inhabitant except for some small mottled feathers stuck into the bark, a long peg on which hung several bird skulls, and a worn pair of leather slippers hanging from one of the beams. As Duncan stretched the candle toward the roof, a silent figure stepped behind him.
Duncan pointed to the blood on the floor. “Why would he come in here and not stay on his pallet, why go back outside?” he asked Woolford.
The ranger knelt and examined the crimson drops before answering. “So he would die under the open sky.”
“Why the skulls?”
“Alive or dead, the birds of the forest are considered by the tribes to be messengers.”
“Messengers?”
“To the gods. They whisper in the gods’ ears, report back what they see.”
What, Duncan asked himself, would the skulls at the bloody compass have reported? He knelt by the pallet and turned over a flat slab of bark lying beside it. Underneath, etched in the dirt, were two curving lines, parallel except where they connected at top and bottom. He had seen it before, drawn on the mast by Adam before he died. Duncan pried up the slab of bark on the wall at the head of the pallet, revealing perhaps forty more sets of curving lines drawn on the side of the barn with a charred stick. It was as if Jacob drew the symbols before he slept at night.
“The messengers can carry words beyond. But the snake,” Woolford explained in a near-whisper, “is especially sacred, the bringer of dreams, the guide to the other world.” He cast a self-conscious glance toward Duncan. “I mean it is what they believe. The snake lies on the edge of this world and the next. You visit the other world, where the spirits live, the real world, through dreams. Dreams are sober business to the Indians. They will entirely change their lives based on one dream. In many tribes those who lead in battle may achieve great power. But the greatest power of all is reserved for those who can explain dreams.”
“His shoes,” Duncan said, pointing to where the line of blood led, toward the hanging slippers.
“Moccasins,” Woolford said, then stepped to the beam, where the red, still-moist trail led.
“Why would he come inside to change his moccasins?” Duncan asked. He handed the candle to Woolford, then lifted them from the peg, probing them with his fingers. “Not to change them,” he corrected himself. “To leave something in them.” Duncan extracted two small pieces of paper. “Could he read?”
“Passably well, though he never took to writing. For each one of us who trouble to speak their tongue, ten of the Iroquois speak a European language.” Woolford extended the candle toward the paper on Duncan’s palm, and uttered a small gasp as the words came into focus. Anna Rose, said the first line. First acorns, bloom of the asters, said the next. Duncan recalled the green acorns in the barnyard, and the flowers along the front of the house, which would have begun opening not many days earlier. It was a way of conveying a date to one who used only a natural calendar, a way to convey a message about the arrival of their ship.
The second paper held an effort at only one word, written in a crude hand. Tshqa. The word and the stick-figure animal beside it-a bear, Duncan guessed-were surrounded on all sides by stick men bearing axes and bows. At the very bottom were two rows of what appeared to be ornamentations-lines of ovals, some filled in, some hollow.
Woolford seemed to have stopped breathing. The sudden desolation on his face seemed to make him a smaller, older man.
“What is it?” Duncan asked.
Woolford offered no reply, only looked at the empty pallet, as if trying to see the man who had slept and dreamt there.
“He had no ink,” Duncan observed.
“What are you saying?”
Duncan bent to retrieve a small feather from the pallet and held it close to the candle, showing the hue at the end of its shaft, then pushed the candle closer to the paper. “He drew this in his own blood.”
Woolford closed his eyes a moment, then spoke the words Duncan struggled to avoid. “This is why he died,” the ranger said, “to bring this message.”
Duncan stared at the earthen floor. Another man had died on the path of the Ramsey tutor. “Adam spoke of Tashgua,” he said after a long moment.
“Impossible,” the ranger rejoined. “Why would he speak to you of such things?”
“Not to me. To Evering, who wrote the name in his journal. At General Calder’s office, the army’s chart of Stony Run bears the same name.”
Woolford paced along the wall of the lean-to. “Tashgua is an aged priest,” he said in a reluctant tone. “A shaman. One of the fifty chiefs who govern the Iroquois nation, though unlike any of the others. They say he is from an unbroken line of shamans dating back centuries. They say he speaks languages no man alive understands. They say he is the one who connects them to the way things used to be, before the Europeans came, to the old spirits who always protected the tribes. A sage. A sorcerer. A prophet. Take your pick. Most hated by some in the tribes, most beloved by others. A small band of warriors protect him, including what’s left of Hendrick’s men. They call him guardian of the gods. Tashgua complains that his people are moving away from their ancient roots, that being a tool for either side in a European war will spell destruction for his people. But most in his tribe are more interested in muskets and brass kettles.” The ranger stared intensely at Duncan now, as if seeing something new in him.
“Tashgua was there, wasn’t he?” Duncan ventured. “At Stony Run. He was the reason for the massacre.”
Woolford stepped to the door, pausing to look back at Duncan. “In England, pretending to know more than you do is a national pastime. Here it can get you killed.”
“How many have to die,” Duncan retorted, “before you tell me why the Ramsey Company is in such danger?”
“The Ramsey Company?” Woolford asked in a bitter tone. “Look to yourself, McCallum.”
“I don’t understand?”
“You said Jacob was attacked four or five hours ago. Fitch found his trail nearby, marked by drops of blood.”
“I still don’t-”
“It was someone in the Company, someone you told about Old Jacob.”
“No!” Duncan protested, then with a terrible stab of guilt understood Woolford’s words. The Ramsey tutor was meant to meet the Mahican, who would explain everything. Duncan had spoken of the fishspeaker when in the bilges with McGregor and his men, which would have been as good as telling the entire Company. Jacob had come back from his safe exile to meet the Ramsey tutor, and he had died for it.
“Damned your eyes, McCallum, I will know what Evering told you!” Woolford growled, suddenly full of wrath.
“Can’t you see, Captain?” Duncan said in a tormented voice. “Evering was killed to prevent him from passing his secrets on.” Duncan knelt by the pallet as though in prayer, as if to beg the old Indian for forgiveness. Now Jacob had died for the same reason.
When he looked up, Woolford was gone.
He sat very still, overcome with grief for a moment, as he began to accept the truth. Jacob may have known he was on a path where death lurked, but it had been Duncan who had sealed his fate. He lifted the stone bear from his pocket, comparing it to the animal in the drawing Jacob had left. As he bent toward the light, the bear dropped from his palm, rolling on the dirt floor to settle beside another large piece of bark leaning against the wall. Let the old one take you where she needs to go. With a cautious, tentative finger he lifted it, then jerked backward with a twitch of fear. Drawn on the smooth back of the bark were scores of snakes, at least a hundred. Jacob may have belonged to the adjoining land. But he had also belonged to the world of the spirits.