“He asked about the boy, about the boy’s life here, and I told him what I knew, about the preacher who had helped look after him until he died last year, about the joyful songs the boy sang sometimes, about how he was able to call in butterflies and the vigil he kept with the dying when the smallpox hit the village three years ago, even how Hickory John sat with the boy for four days and nights without sleep when the pox then struck Ishmael.
“When he finally asked me where the boy was, if he was safe, I had to tell him I did not know. When I returned to my house, Ishmael had stripped off most of his clothes. He had leggings over his britches and had untied his long hair. I tried to stop him. Mon Dieu, he’s only a boy. He had used soot and whitewash to paint his body like some savage warrior. He said-” the woman’s voice broke and her hand went to her mouth.
“Said what?”
“He wasn’t the boy anymore. The look in his eyes scared me as much as seeing those bodies today. It was like he had been possessed. He had the look of a wild beast.”
“What did he say?” Duncan insisted.
“‘Now is the time to shake with fear,’ he declared, then he looked up as if speaking to something in the sky. ‘The world breaker is here!’ he shouted. Then he ran into the forest.”
“World breaker!” Sagatchie repeated the word in alarm.
Duncan looked up at him.
“It is a monster from the old stories, a demon from the end of time when the world has to be destroyed to save the gods.”
Madame Pritchard crossed herself. They remained silent for a long moment, the name of the spirit monster seeming to hang in the air. Then the French woman dipped the ladle in the water bucket again. She was lifting it to Duncan’s lips when it was knocked out of her hand from behind.
“Who the hell gave you permission to visit with my prisoner?” Sergeant Hawley roared as he appeared out of the shadows. He spat a curt word in the Mohawk’s tongue and Sagatchie backed away, his eyes remaining on Duncan until he disappeared into the shadows. Madame Pritchard rose from her stool, meekly bowed to the sergeant, and followed the Mohawk.
“If I didn’t have to account to the colonel for that dead corporal of his I would string you up right now!” Hawley shouted at Duncan. He extended a small metal token on a neck strap toward Duncan, a familiar bronze circle with a tree etched on one side and a large W on the other. “If ye were a ranger on duty ye would have shown this to us! Which means ye’r a damned deserter! We beat deserters with halberds to break their bones before we hang them!”
Duncan’s mouth went dry as he watched Hawley set the lantern on the stool then pick up a length of rope. “Captain Woolford,” Duncan ventured as Hawley tied a heavy double knot into the end of the rope. “Woolford is my officer.”
“A lie! Woolford and his men are in the North, with the others along the Saint Lawrence.”
“He does special missions for the general in Albany.”
“That don’t include cold-blooded murder of the king’s men!”
“I told you. I was trying to help.”
“I believe yer actions, not yer words! We found what else ye had stowed in yer kit. The dead soldier has a name now.” The sergeant flung two items onto the floor beside Duncan. The first was a tattered pasteboard rectangle printed with a large 42, bearing the handwritten name Jock MacLeod above blocks printed with the names of months. It was a pay chit, the record soldiers presented to receive the king’s shillings. Beside it lay the small, finely worked dirk Duncan had taken from the drowned Scot.
Hawley seemed unable to contain his wrath. He furiously whipped the rope at Duncan. The knot was like a rock against his flesh. It hit his shoulders, his neck, his belly, then drew blood from his jaw. “You bastard! I’m going to drag you behind a horse all the way to the Highland garrison!” he shouted. “Colonel Cameron can decide whether to hang you as a deserter or just as a murderer!”
Chapter Three
This is how we first die. The words gnawed at Duncan. Conawago had never let Duncan hold Hickory John’s letter, only listen to its message. He had not wanted Duncan to see the urgent postscript. Stay silent between the worlds. This is how we first die. Had Hickory John glimpsed the horror that was coming to Bethel Church? Duncan feared for his friend more than ever. Conawago had rushed into the wilderness after witnessing the work of demons at the settlement. He would not have done so in fear. Conawago had retrieved an artifact and had gone to confront the demons.
He tried to sleep, but every few minutes the nightmares returned. He worked at his bindings, but his twisting only seemed to make the ropes tighter. Finally he settled for staring at the rising moon out the rear door of the barn. The demons Conawago sought were creatures of the war. But Conawago hated the war, had warned Duncan again and again that they must not be drawn into it. It made no sense. Nothing of the day’s events made sense.
Suddenly he sensed a presence beside him. Sagatchie held a muted lantern, which he set on the floor beside Duncan.
“Until today I had only met three men who wore the mark of the dawnchasers,” the Mohawk said, referring to the tattoo worn by those who completed a treacherous, sometimes fatal, twenty-four-hour circuit that connected old forest shrines on a run from one sunrise to the next. It was a ritual of the old ones that Conawago had taught to Duncan, a ritual lost to most of the tribes. “They were all old men when I was young, long dead now. At first I could not believe my own eyes when I saw the mark on Conawago.” Sagatchie looked into the shadows uncertainly. “There are those who still say the old ways do not have to be lost. But the cord that binds us to them is so frayed it could break at any moment. And when it does, we will never find our way back.”
“Conawago says the old spirits are not lost, that we have just become blind to them.”
“We? Do not mock my people by pretending you are one of us.”
Duncan twisted, using his elbow to pull his collar tight against his shoulder. “When I was young no one dared to plant the first seed in the spring before one of our old women spent a night in the hills making offerings to the earth spirits. We would never launch a new boat without making an offering to the winds and sea.”
“Those are just the habits of old-” the Mohawk’s words died away as he glimpsed Duncan’s shoulder. The stern warrior had the expression of a bewildered boy as he held the lantern closer. He muttered a low invective as he pulled away the fabric to study the pattern of the rising sun that had been tattooed over Duncan’s shoulder and right chest. He was silent for a long time, his gaze fixed first on the tattoo, then on Duncan’s eyes. “It is a grave sin to steal such markings,” he finally said. “They are not for Europeans.”
“Do you think Conawago would allow me to run the woods at his side if I had stolen such a thing? We opened the old shrines for the Turtle clan of the Onondaga. We brought the ritual back to life.”
Sagatchie stared at Duncan intensely, fingering his war ax, his face clouded first with anger, then confusion. “There was an Englishman who helped the Turtle clan after his people executed the Skanawati chief.” His hand moved to the sacred totem bag that hung from his neck.
Duncan returned his level stare. “Do not mock my people by pretending I am English. I am a Scot. The English burned my home and slaughtered my clan when I was a boy. I was imprisoned with Skanawati and was proud to name him a particular friend. The English hanged him for a murderer. He was not guilty but he chose to die for the honor of his people.”