“You are welcome in our house,” came a soft, refined voice behind him.
Turning to greet the European woman who spoke, Duncan could not hide his surprise at seeing instead a comely Iroquois woman dressed in a simple vermilion dress. She smiled at his reaction. “Although the anniversary of my birth is not for some weeks, William will soon be off to war once more and has decided to celebrate today. He likes to call our little settlement Fort Johnson, but I prefer to think of it in more hospitable terms. All travelers are welcome in our humble home. Let us pull the thorns from your feet and wipe the dust from your eyes so we may speak as friends.”
The woman in the European clothes, in her very European house, was offering the Iroquois words for welcoming travelers. Duncan grinned but was suddenly very conscious of his unkempt appearance. She smiled again as he pushed back the long strands of hair that had escaped from the tail at his neck. “We have no call on your hospitality, ma’am,” he said awkwardly.
“Of course you do, and I am no madame. I am Molly Brant, and we welcome all visitors, of all nations,” she said and cocked her head at Ishmael in curiosity for a moment before gesturing to the tall, lithe woman who had appeared at her side. “Kass will see to you,” Molly said, then hurried to a group of men carrying chairs from the dining room.
They followed the woman named Kass out the rear door to a bench set by a hand pump where buckets of water and towels lay waiting. Ishmael could not take his eyes off the woman. “You are Mohawk?” the boy blurted out.
“Molly is Mohawk. I am Kassawaya of an Oneida clan.” A gentle smile lifted her high cheekbones. “Many Mohawk and Oneida reside in the household of Colonel Johnson. When the last of my family was sent by the Council to fight in the North, Molly and the Colonel asked me to stay with them.” As she glanced toward the river, Duncan saw the little tattoo of a fish on the woman’s neck, above her necklace of glass beads.
“You can bring the big Scot who hides by the canoes. He has nothing to fear from us.”
“He is shy,” Duncan replied, realizing she suspected he was a deserter. “If he smells the ale he may come yet.”
Kass’s dark eyes flickered with amusement, then she grew serious. “It is dangerous to travel on the river alone. You will have to choose a binding or one will be forced on you.”
“Binding?” Duncan asked.
“Will you be bound to the king’s army? To the French? To the tribes? To the rebels in the West?” With a quick deft motion her hand went to Duncan’s belt and pulled away the leather cap Woolford had given him. “Or perhaps to the half-wild rangers?”
“We are bound to an old Nipmuc who protects the old spirits in the wilderness. And to five children captured by Mingoes.”
Kass seemed unhappy with his words. “That is no binding at all. That is a wish for death,” she declared, and without another word she stepped away, the ranger cap still in her hand.
“Mind your feet!” a good-natured voice called out, and a bucket of water was tossed onto their hands. Duncan looked up into the broad walnut-colored face of the man who handed him a towel. He smiled at the African and nodded toward Kass’s departing figure. “Colonel Johnson seems to enjoy the company of Iroquois women.”
The servant laughed. “The Colonel, he enjoys the company of all women, but Mohawk and Oneida most of all. Miss Kass, she’s just a friend. Miss Molly, she’s the mother of two of his children. They play and learn alongside those of his first wife, a good German who was taken by a brain fever.”
By midafternoon, the banquet was underway. Colonel Johnson, seated with Molly at the head of the table, was a man who laughed much and deeply enjoyed the motley assembly of neighbors, Iroquois, militiamen, and traders who were perched around the table on stools, kegs, and upended logs. Molly had brought the Colonel to Duncan for a hasty introduction before the meal. His greeting to Duncan had been cordial if perfunctory, but he had turned back as if in afterthought. “There was a young Scot who visited that Welsh woman who kept dying. But he was imprisoned so that cannot be you,” he observed pointedly. “I’d like to chat with someone who met the witch of Albany. Mingo runners came through here urgently looking for her. Now people say enemy tribesmen attacked her cabin there,” Johnson added.
Duncan studied the man with new interest. It was too early for the colonel to have picked up casual rumors. Johnson had specific intelligence sent by courier from Albany. He had to remind himself that the affable head of the household was also the most important military figure on the frontier. “People?” he asked.
The big Irishman shrugged. “The king looks to me in matters of the tribes. Reports of Huron raiders in Albany would not only be inaccurate but irresponsible.”
“I agree. They were Mingo. At Albany and at Bethel Church.”
“That, sir, is not possible.”
As if on cue Ishmael pulled the stub of the Mingo arrow from inside his shirt. Johnson’s brow furrowed, and he reached out for the arrow. The white chieftain studied the fletching with intense interest. “You could have gotten this anywhere.”
“We have not come for your food, sir, nor to ask for men at arms,” Duncan said. “We only seek information and will be on our way. The Mingo half-king is approaching from the west. Where is he now?”
“You speak of matters that are the concern of the government.”
“Our concerns with the half-king are private.”
Johnson grimaced. “Lad, there is no private business with that damned renegade, and you will never reach him alive. There was only one who had a chance of acting as intermediary, and I was about to send for her when I learned she had burned alive in her cabin. I’ve heard half a dozen stories about her deaths through the years. She turned into a skeleton when Shawnees were chasing her, got eaten by a bear another time. This time witnesses swear she burnt alive.”
“And didn’t we see the earth give her up again last night at the witch’s hole!” Ishmael shot back.
Johnson’s breath seemed to catch in his throat. He quickly looked about as though to be sure no one else had heard then put a hand on the boy’s shoulder and seemed about to usher them back inside the house when Molly pulled him away, declaring that forty hungry guests waited his arrival at the table.
Duncan stayed at the feast for Ishmael’s sake, but he watched with interest as the tribesmen listened with rapt attention to the colonel’s flowery speech about the covenant chain that bound the Iroquois and British peoples. For the first time he saw the boy relax, enjoying himself as an adolescent should. Duncan knew the young Nipmuc was in sore need of good food, and he grinned with pleasure as the boy consumed huge servings of mashed pumpkin, succotash, roasted venison, and corncakes.
One of Johnson’s sons, who was nearly of an age with Ishmael, struck up a conversation with the Nipmuc boy, and when the young Johnson announced he had an albino raccoon in the barn, Ishmael looked up at Duncan, who nodded his consent. As the boys scampered away, Duncan too rose, grateful for the chance to explore the estate. Soon he found himself at the mill, first admiring the big waterwheel then following the sounds of the great gears through the open door.
As he opened the shuttered window to admit the fading light, a thick timber materialized from the shadows and slammed into his belly. He lost his wind, lost part of his meal, and was on his hands and knees when his assailant flattened him with a kick to the ribs and a knee on his chest.
Duncan’s raised fist froze as a blade touched his throat.
“I could save the king a lot of trouble,” the man snarled.
“Hawley!” Duncan gasped.
“Slowly lad,” Sergeant Hawley instructed as he pulled Duncan up by his collar. “General Amherst needs yer tongue to work, but he won’t mind at all if the rest of ye be in pieces.”