“He was very strong,” Duncan said as if to correct her.
A sad smile broke across her countenance. “You do not understand, McCallum.” She flattened her palm over her abdomen. “I carry Sagatchie’s son in my belly.”
For a moment Duncan wanted to say it was impossible, that they had been together less than a month, and they were antagonists for the first days. But he saw the radiance that shined through her despair and the certainty of her voice. The people of the forest had their own instincts, and they knew to trust them. He knew better than to doubt her words.
It was early evening before their long, slow procession emerged upon the ridge and made for the rangers’ camp. Bedford had scavenged a pistol and knife from the dead Hurons and had nervously patrolled all afternoon. Although he was obviously impatient to leave his captors behind, the Iroquois would not be hurried in their rites, nor in the slow cleansing and wrapping of the bodies. The sun was touching the western treetops when the cry of a killdeer broke through the silence of their grim column.
The ranger captain spun about, rifle at the ready, and Duncan realized it was a warning cry from one of his men. When the call repeated, Woolford ordered the company to continue, then set off in the direction of the call, toward the rising bluff that hovered over the river. Duncan followed a few steps behind.
The ranger captain was above Duncan at the top of the bluff when he froze. Duncan watched in confusion as Woolford seemed to sag, leaning on his rifle as if he were about to fall.
“The bastard,” Woolford spat as Duncan reached his side. “The contemptible scheming priggish bastard.”
Duncan tried to piece together the puzzle on the river. Two frigates had materialized half a mile away as well as four of the squat barge-like vessels the British called gunboats. In the fading light they were securing their moorings in a wide arc parallel to the island on which the rebel Scots and the half-king’s warriors were camped.
Woolford extended the tube of his telescope and studied the vessels. “It must have been his plan all along.” He turned to Duncan with a grim expression. “He brought his long boat into shore to make certain he knew where we were, and that we knew he was leaving. One of his own rangers sought us today while I was up here watching the island.”
“You make no sense.”
“They’ve been using us. Before I could stop them, my men revealed that you had gone to the island to meet with the half-king. Amherst has been away with the navy. He knows about Cameron’s falsified report on the payroll theft. He didn’t fail to act against Cameron. He is acting against him now.” Woolford extended the telescope to Duncan. “But this,” he shook his head forlornly. “Look at the gunboats! Every gun is a mortar!
“It was no coincidence that the canoes were set adrift. Those men towing away the long boats had been at the camp, brought in casks of rum despite the colonel’s edict against spirits. They were Amherst’s men, sent to make sure the camp was drunk tonight.
“And to make sure those on the island are trapped with no way off.” Woolford gestured toward the ships. “Those are siege guns on the gunboats, fortress breakers, deployed against mere tents and huts. Amherst barely tolerates the Scots in the best of times, and he despises the Indians. This is what he wanted all along. Now his most troublesome foe and the Highland traitors are stranded in one small place. The island will be a killing ground. There won’t be a man alive by dawn.”
Duncan discovered he had dropped to his knees as the horror of Woolford’s words sank in. Amherst had deceived them all. He had openly rejected all suggestions of a supposed conspiracy between Scots and the rebel Indians, allied to the French. But secretly he had followed events, had bided his time so he could trap the reviled Scots and Indians together and unleash his killing machines. He intended total annihilation. Most of those on the island would be drunk, and Cameron would no doubt be distracted by his dying laird. The ships would be obstructed from view of the camps by the bluff that swept up at the eastern end.
“We have to go!” Duncan cried. “We have to take them off the island!”
“We’ll be dead as soon as we are in rifle range. You killed half the Wolverine warriors. You stole the half-king’s treasure.”
Duncan grimaced, knowing the ranger spoke the truth. There were scores of Highlanders on the island, good men who, like so many before, had linked their fates to a losing cause. The nightmare image of his dead father flashed in his mind’s eye, pointing at Duncan. His father had been telling him that he was supposed to die with the Scots on the island, the last of the Highland rebels.
Conawago appeared at Duncan’s side and took the telescope from Duncan’s hand. “The guns are all pointed upward,” the Nipmuc said as he studied the boats.
“The mortars on the gunboats will throw explosive balls high in the air, over the bluff, and down into the camp,” Woolford explained. “If there are canoes left at all, the cannons on the ships will destroy any leaving.”
“The river runs fast through here,” Conawago observed after a long, painful silence. “They have difficulty getting anchorage.”
He offered the glass back to Duncan, who quickly saw that his friend was right. “The frigates have set their anchors at the two ends of the line,” he reported, “and the gunboats are being moored to lines secured to the frigates.”
The three men stared in grim silence at the vessels. Ishmael appeared at their side. “If the anchor lines were slipped, they would all be at the mercy of the river,” Conawago pointed out.
“The British navy knows how to set its anchors,” Duncan countered. He was gripped by a terrible, helpless paralysis. Everyone on the island would die.
Conawago bent over the boy, speaking in low tones. Ishmael broke away, running to the nearest trees.
Duncan, transfixed, lost track of how long he stared at the ships. He was vaguely aware that the boy had returned, and he cast an absent glance as Conawago and Ishmael cleared away grass and arranged a small fire.
He seemed fated for constant torment. There had been a few moments when he had glimpsed a Highland kingdom in America, but he would never give up the Iroquois children and the Iroquois League for it. Duncan had felt a glimmer of victory when he had finally freed the children. But then they had lost Sagatchie and Custaloga. Now he had helped seal the doom of dozens of Highlanders and betrayed his father. Voices rang in his head. Take a canoe and warn them, at whatever the cost, one shouted. No, another said, you will die. They will never believe you in any event. Light a warning fire on the shore. No, even if they were warned, Amherst’s intended victims still would have no way off the island. He doubted one man in fifty would be able to swim the treacherous river.
There was more movement beside him. Hetty and Tushcona were there now, kneeling by the fire, dropping tobacco and other aromatic leaves on it. The death rites would continue into the night.
“We must take a swift canoe to Amherst,” Duncan said to Woolford, “to explain why the rebels are no longer a threat, to plead for leniency.”
“Even if we reached him,” Woolford replied in a taut voice, “he would never agree to see us. He is probably drafting his report to London already, describing how he cleverly disposed of the Jacobite and Indian threat in one sweep. He has his eyes on a high title and estates from the king.”
“We have to try!” Duncan pleaded.
“Night is falling,” the ranger pointed out. “We would never make it in time. Those naval commanders love their fireworks at night. I wager they will start the bombardment within the hour.”
Several items had appeared on a flat rock beside the fire. A small soft doeskin pouch. A little object rolled up in fur. The hollow wooden tube in which Sagatchie had kept his paint. On the far side of the rock the hell dog sat, looking at Duncan expectantly.