His companion in the prison wagon spoke little at first. After the first hour on the bumpy road Duncan had begun to recount to Skanawati the story of his visit to Shamokin and the chiefs village, drawing a smile when describing Mokie's encounter with Rideaux's bear. He even hesitantly described the reburial ceremony, then his visit to the ancient shrine in the Susquehanna with Skanawati's mother.
The Onondaga had remained silent, though listening attentively, and later he asked questions about the reburial, making sure the old chief had been interred in the white fur Skanawati had trapped for him, and that his nephew Johantty had helped with the old chants. He looked at Duncan a long time. "There was a man who came and stared at me in my cell, a weak, pale man who wears lace around his wrists," he observed at last. "They say you are a slave to him."
"That is true." Duncan confirmed, then after a moment explained. "It was my punishment for helping my uncle when he sang the songs of our fathers."
Skanawati studied him in silence, then reached into a pocket on the inside of his beaded waistcoat and to Duncan's surprise produced a single, ragged strand of white wampum beads. Duncan did not move as the Iroquois draped the beads over his wrist. "Tell me more of this."
The story Duncan began took more than two hours to relay, as his companion constantly interrupted with questions. When Duncan spoke of how his clan's entire way of life had been outlawed for their resistance to the distant British king, Skanawati wanted to know what king his people had had before, and he nodded solemnly when Duncan said the Highland clans had never needed kings, had only needed to be left alone. When Duncan spoke of how his uncle, by then an aging, worn-out fugitive, had found Duncan at his medical college, the chief wanted to know the kinds of places where such men in their land hid, and whether the wise men of Duncan's school shared the wisdom of the Iroquois healers, who knew how the stars and moon affected the human body. When the chief asked how singing songs could condemn a man, Duncan finally explained how his uncle, the old rebel, hiding in Duncan's student lodging, had gotten drunk on his eightieth birthday and loudly sung out in the tongue of their people, which the king had also outlawed. "My uncle was hanged, I was imprisoned."
"Is it true then," Skanawati asked, "that your tribe is all gone?"
It was Duncan's turn to look away. He had had one of his recurring dreams the night before, of his grandfather calling him from down a long corridor. He looked down at the white beads, still sitting on his arm. "What I need of my tribe," he said, tapping his hand against his heart as he spoke, "is always with me."
He slid the beads off and draped them over Skanawati's wrist. "I have my own question, only one. Did you kill Captain Burke?"
"I am at war with all those who would take our lands."
"Did you kill Captain Burke?" Duncan repeated.
Skanawati looked out over the rolling hills. "There is nothing I would not do to save my people." Duncan saw that he had slipped the beads off his wrist and was cupping them in his hand.
They watched through the slats as the miles unfolded, passing farmers plowing with teams of oxen, entire families sowing seed in fields, small herds tended by boys who carried make-believe muskets carved of wood. As the farms begin to thin out, small armies of laborers could be seen felling trees.
"You English breed like mice," Skanawati observed in a flat voice. "It is as if you keep pouring out of the ground somewhere."
And that, Duncan thought to himself, was the crack in the world that Skanawati really was worried about. The shifts on the continent were all about population. The British would eventually win the war because their colonials totaled a million, while the French had at most sixty thousand. Pennsylvania alone contained two hundred thousand, while the entire Iroquois league numbered perhaps a tenth that number.
"When I was young," the Onondaga observed, "and first saw an entire valley cleared of trees by the Europeans, I was very scared. I was confused about the great magic it must have taken, since the tribes had never before done such a thing. It did not seem to me they had changed part of our world, but that they had laid down a whole new world and crushed ours underneath. My uncle took me to a debate in the Grand Council. Our wisest men, the oldest of the peace chiefs, were arguing about whether the spirits abandoned a land when all the trees were cut down. Some said the spirits died a small death each time any tree was felled, which is why we always say a prayer before taking a tree, why we speak to it when we shape it into a canoe or bowl or mask. Others said the spirits just moved so that the last trees in a land became very powerful, so much that sometimes in the night a tree might just get up and walk away."
"Trees grow back," Duncan suggested.
"But what we don't know," Skanawati countered, "is whether gods grow back."
So many light carriages and riders had passed their slow-moving caravan that Duncan paid little attention when the elegant coach and four with outriders passed them in the afternoon of the third day. It was only later that Duncan realized the coach and riders had not sped ahead, but were keeping pace with the treaty convoy, and with a sinking heart he realized there would be no chance of escape on his return to Philadelphia. Ramsey had come with his men to join the treaty entourage. The murders would have to be resolved before the treaty was signed, meaning Ramsey would place him in manacles the moment the document was signed.
Duncan had heard much of the Moravian enclave at Bethlehem, and on another day, in other circumstances, he knew he would have taken pleasure in roaming down its well-kept streets, past the massive stone-and-timber buildings housing most of the community's members. The town was renowned not just for its Christian living and training of missionaries for work among the tribes, but for its industry as well. The streets rang with the hammers of forges. Rows of clay pots from a kiln sat cooling in the open air. Planks fresh from a saw pit were being unloaded and stacked.
The elegant coach was standing in front of one of the largest buildings when their wagon finally halted. Duncan barely noticed the hands that reached out and guided the two prisoners into a compact stone building used as a summer kitchen, which had been cleared out to accommodate them. The bars over the solitary window and the heavy brackets for a timber to seal the door from the outside told Duncan it had been used for confinement before.
The two prisoners watched the busy traffic of the street from their little window. There were Indians here who taught the Germans the native tongues, Duncan recalled, and old Germans who set Christian hymns to those tongues. Teams of six and even eight oxen passed by, pulling wagons filled with black stones. The surrounding hills were rich in iron. Duncan touched Skanawati's arm and pointed to a group of Indians carrying quarters of meat to their camp by the river. Long Wolf was with them, carrying not meat but an elegant-looking fowling piece.
He was not surprised at the forlorn expressions worn by Hadley and Conawago when they followed the two Moravian women who brought their evening meal. They watched in silence as the women began arranging the food on the stone counter built over the cold ovens. Fresh cornbread, apples, pickled vegetables, dried venison, and buttermilk. Venison and cornbread. The Germans were attuned to the ways of the tribes.
Hadley waited until the women had left. "Ramsey is relentless, Duncan," the Virginian finally said. "Like a mad dog. One with the resources of Midas to back him."
"What has he done now?" Duncan asked, his heart sinking.
Hadley looked self-consciously at Skanawati, who listened without expression. "He's brought a Philadelphia lawyer with him, who heard of efforts to block the testimony about the trial at Ligonier. Now they have a dozen statements from witnesses at Ligonier stating they heard the confession, all sworn now before a different Philadelphia justice, not Brindle. Philadelphia witnesses, as it were, from a Philadelphia court. That judge issued a new writ for Skanawati. With a trial to be held, immediately. I don't understand the game he is playing," Hadley confessed. "He ignores the Virginians now."