He kept a tight grip on the sporran as he searched the other buildings, finding all of them empty. The cow bleated again, and he turned toward the barn. It was a large structure, built to accommodate at least two wagons in its long center aisle. The floor of the first stall was covered in straw bedding, with a milking stool in the corner. The walls of the next stall were lined with careful rows of woodworking tools hanging on pegs, with the body of a small wagon under construction resting on trestles. The third chamber was dark, its window shuttered. He opened the shutter and gazed outside a moment at the mare pacing skittishly along the side of the pasture. As he turned away he tripped on something, falling to a knee, then gasped. The face of a dead man stared back at him.
The soldier had fought, taking several bruises and slices on the back of his hands and cheek before receiving the wound in his chest that had killed him. His right hand still held his broadsword. He had been in his thirties and, judging from the scars across his jaw and hands, was the veteran of more than one battle. The tartan of his kilt was black and green, that of the Black Watch, renowned as the toughest, most seasoned troops in America. The sight of another dead Scot seemed to sap Duncan’s strength. The deaths suddenly bore down on him with a crushing weight. Despite all their efforts, he and Conawago had stumbled into the war. He had to pull Conawago away, had to flee into the mountains. But instead he found himself kneeling in front of the dead Highlander. Something inside Duncan seemed to find familiar features in the dead man. He did not know the man, but he knew the long craggy features, the aquiline nose and unkempt blond hair with a red ribbon twisted into its braid. The man was the image of so many who had visited his family’s croft and danced at their gatherings. His gaze paused on the man’s dirk, whose hilt bore the embossed image of a bull between two flags, and his heart grew yet colder. The man was a MacLeod, the largest clan of the islands and coasts where Duncan had been raised.
He was so weary of death, so weary of it always taking the ones the world needed the most. His eyes misted and his hands rose in a strange pantomime, reaching out to touch the man’s wounds as if he might yet save the Scot. He did not know how long he knelt, desolate and numbed, probing the wounds without conscious thought. Suddenly a whistle broke the stillness of the dead town.
“Allons!” someone shouted from the road. The French command triggered a cold fury inside him. He grabbed his rifle and was rising when he heard the hammer being pulled back on a gun and spun about.
“Mon Dieu! T’is a fine gory mess ye made of the place.” The man who spoke was in the shadows, but the barrel of his pistol was not.
“If this is how you wage your war,” Duncan snapped, “then the sooner Montreal falls the better.” He began shifting his weight back and forth, readying to throw his gun and leap, praying he could make the man shoot wild.
“If we was French, lad,” the man said, “we wouldn’t be having this entertaining conversation. Ye’d be dead already. We shout a little Frenchie just to flush out bastards like ye.”
Duncan tensed for his jump then froze. The blade at his neck seemed to come from nowhere, pressing against his skin. He instinctively pulled away, only to be jerked back by someone gripping his shirt. As he turned a gasp escaped his throat.
The first time Duncan had encountered a native warrior adorned for battle, he had felt like a child cringing before some mythic monster come to life. Even now as the Indian came into view, a shiver of fear ran down his spine. The man was taller than Duncan’s six feet, his flinty countenance decorated with a horizontal band of black paint that ran over his eyes and back to his ears, with parallel red stripes below it on each cheek. The front of his scalp was shaven, the remaining hair tied in braids into which bits of fur had been woven. The bare skin of his scalp had been adorned with red paint, with streams running down the side of his head to resemble dripping blood. His naked chest was covered only by a tattered sleeveless waistcoat. The warrior fixed him with a cold, hungry stare. As the man reached for his rifle, Duncan thought he recognized the wolf tattooed on his shoulder.
“I am a friend of the Mohawk,” he said as he yielded his gun.
“No,” the man with the pistol declared as he stepped into the light. “Ye killed a friend of the Mohawk. Which makes ye an enemy of the Mohawk, an enemy of blessed King George, and especially an enemy of my friend Sagatchie,” he said with a nod to the warrior. The Englishman had a square, brutish face, scarred from battle. He was dressed in a green wool jerkin with leather leggings over his britches.
“Perhaps one of us committed murder,” Duncan shot back. “But it was not me.”
The Indian lowered his blade to lift a piece of rope from a peg on the wall, then roughly pulled Duncan’s hands behind him, tying them tightly together. The man in green bent over the dead soldier and cursed. As he straightened, his fist slashed out, slamming across Duncan’s jaw so hard it knocked him back to his knees.
His assailant whistled and another figure emerged from the aisle of the barn to confer with him. As his head cleared, Duncan saw that the sinewy newcomer was dressed in the same green jerkin as his companion.
“If you are truly rangers you have a chance of catching these killers,” Duncan interrupted. “My name is McCallum. I just arrived in search of someone who lived here. This happened only two or three hours ago. The raiders probably fled up the slope into the mountains.”
The man with the scarred face turned with a sour expression. “I am not inclined to take advice from a murderer.” The cow bleated again, and the man kicked a pail to the second man. “Get someone to milk the damned beast, Corporal,” he spat, “then search every house and find me a witness.”
“Sergeant Hawley,” the soldier acknowledged with a knuckle to his temple and disappeared.
“Don’t waste your time,” Duncan said. “Everyone’s dead. The children must have-”
“Sagatchie,” the sergeant muttered impatiently.
Duncan only saw a quick motion out of the corner of his eye before something hard slammed into his skull. He collapsed unconscious to the floor.
He awoke choking on dirt. A cruel laugh rose nearby, and more dirt landed on his face. Despite the throbbing pain at the back of his skull, Duncan shook the dirt off his head and struggled to rise. He was being buried. His legs and half his torso were under a foot of fresh earth. He tried to push himself up only to find his hands still tied. He spat a Gaelic curse, then leaned back on the ground and with great effort heaved his hips upward, pushing away enough soil to free his legs. Duncan rolled and began to stand, only to be pulled backward by a sudden strangling pressure on his neck. He was bound to a tree by one of the neck straps used by the tribes to restrain their captives.
He turned toward the jeers, louder now, discovering three men leaning on shovels, staring at him in amusement. “Every hour you wait,” he growled, “makes it more likely these killers will not find justice.”
The nearest man, the wiry corporal from the barn, swung his spade as if to spray more dirt at Duncan, then laughed at Duncan’s reaction and lowered it. “We don’t waste time, lad. We be giving these poor souls the Christian burial they deserve. And the king’s justice has already found the one who did this butcher’s work. Your hands were covered with their blood when we found you.”
“I did nothing more than try to help a fellow Scot,” Duncan snapped. His voice trailed away as he surveyed his surroundings. They were behind the little church. Along the building’s rear was a row of bodies wrapped in blankets, makeshift shrouds no doubt taken from the beds of the houses. Crude plank crosses leaned on the wall above all but the last two bodies. Joshua Halftree read the first, then Rebecca Halftree, Martha Strong, Ezekial Strong, Barnabas Wolf, and Lizzie Oaks.