“It was always the same war, he said,” Regis murmured. “The kings against the small people. Except we will finish it this time.”
“Your war is over. You have a chance to make things right. Give us the killer of Bethel Church.”
“Each of my men is as good as fifty soldiers,” Regis snapped. “We will leave people writhing in pain all the way to the ocean.”
As if on cue Scar stepped out of the building, dragging young Noah Moss under one arm.
Regis grinned.
Adanahoe pointed.
The arrow went through Scar’s throat so forcefully that its point came out the back of his neck. Hetty turned and kicked the warrior as he dropped to the ground.
Adanahoe silently stepped up to the body and pulled Sagatchie’s war ax from his belt.
Regis seemed to grow weary. He stared again at the beaded belt in his hand. “I did not tell them to kill at Bethel Church. He-”
“Ishmael!” Henry Bedford shouted as he leapt through the kitchen window, a pistol in his hand. The boy twisted, exposing Regis’s chest, and the gun fired.
Regis’s face went empty. He gave a long groan as blood blossomed over his heart. He sank to his knees, reaching a hand out as if to grapple with the schoolmaster, then collapsed to the ground.
Bedford’s own face was a blank as he stared at his work. The prophet, the fierce Mingo renegade who had nearly changed the world, lay sprawled on the ground, his life’s blood flowing onto the grass. There was movement at the windows above. The children were looking down at their dead tormentor.
As the elders gathered around the body, Adanahoe bent and draped the white beads over his lifeless mouth. No more would lies escape his lips.
Conawago’s head snapped up at the whistle of a lark. Duncan followed his gaze toward Kass, who had emerged from the ruins with her bow and was pointing toward the burial scaffolds. The half-king’s Mingoes were there, kicking at the loose dirt beneath the scaffolds.
“Tell them to stop, Simon,” Hetty said.
Duncan was not certain what surprised the schoolteacher more, to hear his true name or to hear his mother give him such an order. He seemed to have trouble focusing on her for a moment, then he darted to Hetty and embraced her. “The ordeal is over!” he exclaimed.
Hetty seemed uninterested in his embrace. “Tell them to stop disturbing our friends.”
Simon shrugged. “They are the Revelator’s men.”
“No,” his mother said. “I watched them leave the back of the house before you leapt out the window. You told them to do so. You should not need a string of white beads when talking with your mother.”
The schoolmaster frowned and backed away from Hetty, then turned and ran toward the Mingoes.
When Duncan reached him, Simon was reloading his pistol as the Mingoes pushed sticks into the loose soil around the scaffolds. The schoolmaster spoke with a new, plaintive tone. “Surely you understand, McCallum. I never planned to kill that man in Albany. It was a misunderstanding over a card game. He said I was cheating. I said he had no proof. He said he would get a constable. An English magistrate will condemn a Welshman or Scotsman as easily as putting an ax to a chicken’s neck.” Simon took a stick from one of the Indians and began probing the soil himself.
“That explains why you were hiding in Bethel Church,” Duncan said, “but not what you did there. And I might understand a death in the anger of the moment. But we had the report from the magistrate who condemned you. That man, your first victim, died hours later tied to a tree in the forest. His fingers on one hand were cut off. You said it must have been a Huron. But it was just what a young Mingo half-blood learned when he ran with Huron war parties. It became a mark of the poet of death. I should have known that first day at Bethel Church. There were almost no clothes in your room there. You had already packed, because you knew the raiders were coming. I should have asked myself earlier who would have known to use Ishmael’s medallion against Hickory John. I should have understood when I saw your mother’s reaction to the deaths of Black Fish and Rabbit Jack, to the way their eyes were cut out. I should have understood when Black Fish spoke of his dream. You liked to use the Bible and verses of poets in your classroom. Writing a script about the other side and the resurrection of your old friend Regis was a lark for you. The two of you must have had a good laugh when you decided he would become the Revelator and you the poet of death.”
The schoolmaster raised his pistol toward Duncan.
“There again I was blind. I did not understand the two of you had been raised together, had gone on war parties and learned to kill while you were still boys. From the same village, where Lord Graham used to call as a trader and kept a wife, where Xavier the Jesuit taught about the sins of the world. Osotku the Delaware warned us about Regis, said he knew him. What he actually said was that he knew the crossed boys. Two boys, two half-bloods who always cheated.”
Simon looked up at the sound of more footsteps on the path. Hetty, Conawago, and Ishmael appeared. As if in warning Simon gestured to the Mingoes who had been with him, who had retreated into the field of boulders but held their axes ready, then to the plain below. Half a dozen warriors were indeed erecting new slave posts. He glanced at his mother uneasily before replying to Duncan. “What I did was teach school. All my students were from the tribes,” Simon added.
“Regis handled the Mingoes and Hurons,” Duncan continued. “Brother Xavier took care of the French and the traffic in secret messages, and old Lord Graham handled the Scots. But none had a connection to Bethel Church. You were the connection. You were Regis’s particular friend as a boy. You learned about Shakespeare with him, and about killing. And you devised the scheme to make a duplicate wagon and steal the payroll.” Duncan produced one of the pieces of paper from the wall of the schoolhouse and extended its drawing of the wagon.
Simon frowned. He wasn’t shamed, he was just impatient. “You must have the coins! It’s the only explanation!”
“Regis was about to say you were the one who swung the killing hammer at Bethel Church. It’s why you shot him. He wasn’t reaching out for help as he died, he was pointing to you. As terrible as the acts of the others might be, they were acts of war. But the deaths at Bethel Church, they were cold-blooded murder. You swung the hammer to crush the skulls of those who had befriended you, even students you taught.”
The schoolmaster leveled the gun with a peevish sigh. “One keg of coins is all I ask. There is a French settlement at the mouth of the Mississippi. I can make a new life.”
“You killed them all, Simon,” came a tight, high voice. “They gave you a home, and you killed them.”
Simon turned to look at Hetty. For an instant he was just a regretful son. “I learned to play war the European way. Come with us, Mother. I will build you a grand house in the Louisiana country.”
Sadness filled Hetty’s eyes. “All these years I spent sewing lace to pay for your lawyer, and you were guilty. You were just planning more murders. I sent you the last valuable keepsake I had from Wales, and you used the silver links for rum and women.”
Simon seemed about to argue when a stone hit his cheek. “You killed my grandfather!” Ishmael shouted, and he threw another stone, then another.
The schoolmaster leapt to the boy, violently slapping him on the face. “Ever the disobedient cub, Ishmael!”
With a shudder Duncan saw the warriors from below ascending the ridge, the ones in the rocks slowly advancing with weapons raised. The hell dog appeared on a nearby boulder, its eyes fixed on Simon. The schoolmaster glanced at the dog and hesitated for a moment. He too would have heard how the creature was inhabited by the spirit of the noble warrior who had been his father.