Duncan lifted the boy’s hand and gripped it tightly before leaving, but Ishmael only fixed Duncan with a reproachful gaze and clutched the medallion and protective amulet around his neck. The boy had been abandoned too many times in his short life.
Chapter Six
Woolford entered his room above the tavern in a great hurry, quickly closing the door and locking the latch as though he were worried about being followed. The ranger captain pressed his head against the door then splashed water on his face from the basin on the nightstand. As he reached for a towel he froze, at last spying Duncan’s rifle on his bed.
“His majesty’s army has misplaced a payroll,” Duncan declared from the shadows.
Woolford forced a small smile of greeting. “There are those who would kill you just for knowing that. Personally I am inclined to praise God that you still live. Your pack is under the bed.”
Duncan rose to retrieve his kit. “I kept wondering what might distract the general from hanging a hated murderer. But then I began counting all the Scots in the iron hole. They give the impression that their biggest crime was complaining about not being paid for months. They were promised hard coin last month, then again this month. A dangerous thing, not to pay the units that anchor your line of battle. It’s what you meant when you said the army’s victories are built on sand. The army itself is about to collapse.”
“The last units of the Highlanders are heading north soon,” Woolford replied in a worried voice. “General Amherst has promised them great glory in Canada. And their pay.”
“But now all his coins are gone. What are you doing in Albany without your men?” he asked when Woolford did not reply.
With careful disinterest the ranger wiped his brow.
“Seven thousand five hundred thirty-two was the number the general’s nephew recited. I thought it was supplies of some kind. Cartridges perhaps.”
“I am sorry Duncan. For hitting you. If I hadn’t the provosts would have used their halberds on you.”
Duncan ignored him. “But it was pounds sterling. A veritable fortune. Enough to finance the war for months.”
Woolford stepped to the smoldering fireplace and eyed Duncan in silence. “It would be irresponsible to speculate on such matters. Traitorous even.”
“It’s remarkable how easily speculation comes when your neck is to be stretched.” Duncan knelt and pulled his pack from under the bed. “Especially when so many seem so hell-bent on hiding the truth. Maybe that is my real crime, being the only one outside the general’s circle who knew enough to sense the disaster about to strike. Do you have a map?” he asked.
“Not here.”
Duncan glanced at the table by the window, where a quill lay by a pewter inkpot. “Paper then.” When Woolford gestured toward a drawer, Duncan extracted a sheet of paper, dipped the quill, and began drawing. “About ten miles below Bethel Church is a dock where bateaux call. Off this point of land,” he explained as he kept drawing, “is this small island with an aerie, just a few trees and rocks. The eagle is still on the nest.” He placed an X to the southeast of it.
“Get a swimmer. The bottom is about fifteen feet. Another soldier was killed there. Tied to a wheel and dumped into the water while still alive. Bring up the body. He was a dispatch rider. He confronted the thieves as they used that dock and paid for it with his life. Conawago and I saw a bateau going north above that dock. They shot at us. I think they were the ones who beat the rider and dropped him in the water.”
Woolford’s eyes narrowed. “One of the thoroughbreds reserved for dispatches showed up at the stables without her rider two days ago.” It was Duncan’s turn to stay silent. “It was you. You rode her here.”
“The raiders at Bethel Church stole the payroll and escaped in that bateau.”
The ranger captain slowly shook his head. “Impossible. If they had tried to open the strongbox there would have been evidence of it. It had not been tampered with. It was only that. .” he frowned, then lowered his voice. “The keys to its two locks did not work. They had to chisel the box open, then found it empty. The provosts were heard to speak of magic being used.”
“Is that the official explanation? Sorcery? The provosts don’t deal well with subtlety.”
“The money was loaded into that wagon in Albany. Thousands of coins. Shillings, crowns, guineas, though most of it Spanish dollars with the army’s broad arrow mark stamped on them. The wagon was not disturbed en route. But there was not a coin left when it arrived in Quebec.”
“Arrived without all its escort.”
Woolford cocked his head at Duncan. “A Scot was missing. At the time he was treated as another deserter.”
“Jock MacLeod. The escorts were participants in the theft, except for him. He confronted them in the barn at Bethel Church, and they killed him.”
“Impossible. None of them knew anything about the treasure. They were assigned to the escort only an hour before its departure from Albany. And this morning Colonel Cameron ordered you brought back for interrogation. He is better with subtlety. They have indeed realized the man you are accused of killing was with the missing payroll. Right now you are more important to the Colonel and General Calder than any number of French raiders.”
Duncan looped the straps of the pack around his shoulders and began to tighten them. “You’re not normally so blind, Captain. Bring the body up out of the lake. There was a reason so many died at Bethel Church the day the pay wagon rolled through, a reason why a young Scot was drowned and another stabbed to death.”
“We’re at war. Our enemy is desperate but very clever.”
“That’s it? The citizens of Bethel Church slaughtered like animals, their children kidnapped because of the war? This wasn’t the war, Patrick, this was something else, something that so unsettled Conawago he disappeared into the forest without even trying to account for his long lost nephew.”
Duncan finally had Woolford’s attention. “Conawago wouldn’t run from-”
“Exactly. He wasn’t running away. He was running to something, somewhere in the wilderness north and west of here. His kinsman Hickory John was tortured for a secret then killed. There was a message sent by Hickory John to summon Conawago. This is how we first die, he wrote. Conawago and Hickory John were guardians of ancient secrets. The others may have died because they witnessed the theft. But not Hickory John. He was tortured for one of those secrets.”
Woolford lowered himself onto the bed, as if suddenly weak. “Not Conawago,” he said in an anguished tone.
“I must find him,” Duncan said, not certain how to read the alarm in Woolford’s voice.
“The war hangs in the balance, Duncan. If the French have the treasure they will turn the tide. The generals will no longer be able to rely on the Highland troops. The French can buy every Canadian who can hold a rifle and arm every Indian north of the Saint Lawrence. This damnable war will go on another five years, and thousands more will die.”
“I’m talking about Conawago and captured children. But you are more concerned about the king missing some coins.”
“You are the one who suggests they are connected.”
“The army can’t have it both ways, Captain.”
“Both ways?”
“It either has to treat me as a murderer or treat me like the one man who glimpses the truth about the killings and the theft.”
“The court-martial will clear your name.”
“Then you’re a bigger fool than I thought.”
“Come with me to the general.”
“You can’t be the dutiful soldier and still seek the truth.” Duncan opened the window onto the rear porch roof.
“Damn you, McCallum. You don’t understand.”
Duncan handed the paper to Woolford. “Find the drowned man. Even the general would have to admit that I could not have left a body strapped to a heavy wheel a hundred yards offshore. And the Forseys know of a lawyer in New York town who represents a man named Eldridge who was convicted of killing a Dutchman in Albany a few years ago. Find a way to ask him about the murder.” He lifted his rifle and moments later dropped from the roof onto the grass below.