Eye of the Raven (22 page)

"These noble people," Hadley asserted in a near whisper, "have slaughtered thousands of settlers. Witnesses have seen them cut out the hearts of living men and eat them."

"The ways of the forest are absolute. You may as well condemn the bear for his claw or the lion for his fang. They may draw the blood of a few of us, but we draw the words that deny their entire race their future. Is this what eighteen centuries of Christ has meant? That the country with more power has the sacred right to destroy the lesser?" Rideaux leveled his gaze at Duncan. "McCallum is a Highland name. Where is your clan today?" he asked pointedly.

Duncan shook his head. "There is no man here who is an enemy of the tribes."

"Then stop interfering."

"With what?" Duncan demanded. "Your secret protection of runaway slaves? Your efforts to keep Europeans from aiding the Indians? Murder of innocent men on the Warriors Path? The unnecessary hanging of a chief desperately needed by his people? Those behind the murders are seeking to make it appear Shamokin Indians are behind them. Your Indians in fact, for the killers are using the slaves you give shelter to, leaving clock gears behind. You would have us not interfere with the mob that will surely come looking to spill Indian blood? They will start here, I tell you. They will annihilate this settlement. And your compound will be the spark that ignites the flame."

"You understand nothing."

"I understand your notions of societies and civilization in the great frame of history are more important to you than the deaths of innocents here and now."

Rideaux's eyes flared again. "In that case, Scotsman, you do begin to understand me." As he spoke the Frenchman looked toward the window, sudden worry on his face.

The sound outside had been growing steadily louder, nagging at Duncan's subconscious, until suddenly it broke through. Conawago cocked his head then darted outside with Rideaux. Duncan was a step behind. The Frenchman cursed as he saw the yard had been emptied, and he cursed louder as he seemed to recognize the din rising from the other side of the ridge. Reverend Macklin and Moses pushed past, running toward town. The screaming, the musket shots, the frenzied whooping were unmistakable. The battle Duncan had dreaded had already arrived.

Rideaux darted back into the house, fear shining in his eyes now. "Tewaarathon!" he shouted at the Indians still inside. "Make ready!"

UNCAN RAN BEHIND the men from Rideaux's compound, watching with horror as they stripped off unnecessary clothing, pulling knives and war axes from their belts. It had begun. There would be no treaty, no saving Skanawati. The Frenchman sprinted past, carrying bandages, murmuring what could have been a frantic prayer. The men ahead of them reached a low rise above one of the wide fields, and with a collective cry the Indians leapt to the fray. Tewaarathon! Rideaux had shouted. War!

Duncan checked the powder in his frizzen pan, saw Hadley and Van Grut do the same as they arrived panting at his side, then looked to the field in confusion. The Indians who had been with him were not charging into the melee below but instead were running toward a group of women and children at one end of the long rectangular field. Duncan hesitated. Tewaarathon. It meant more than war. Brother and war. Not just brother, but younger brother.

The Indians threw down their weapons onto a blanket already stacked high with other weapons. In exchange each grabbed a long crooked stick with netting woven from the tip of the crook to a point nearly halfway down the shaft. Every man on the field held such a stick, and at the center of the battle, they fought over a small leather ball.

"It is for good reason the Iroquois call it Little Brother of War," Macklin said as he reached Duncan, carrying more bandages. "There are full battles with fewer casualties."

"Tewaarathon is a game?" Duncan asked incredulously.

"That is the Mohawk name for it. The Onondaga say dehuntshigwa es, which translates as man hitting a round thing. Fortunately this is just an impromptu practice. Later in the year, especially after the crops come in, there will be lacrosse gamesthat is the French name-played all day, or even over several days." As he spoke a dozen men leapt onto the man with the ball. When the knot cleared two men lay moaning on the ground.

"What are the rules?" Hadley asked, the confusion on his face replaced by a budding excitement.

"Few enough," Macklin said. "The opposing team must get the ball to your goal to score. The goals today are those old stumps-" the Moravian pointed to two large stumps at either end of the field, more than a hundred yards apart. "They may never hold the ball. They scoop it and carry it in the racquet or with their legs and feet, and the other side tries to stop them using only their bodies or their racquets."

"There're Europeans!" Van Grut exclaimed, pointing to a score of pale-skinned men with their shirts off at the far end of the field.

"Nearly every able-bodied man beneath the age of forty plays. Today it looks like the Iroquois against the smaller tribes and the Europeans."

"Those men on the ground," Duncan said, indicating the two victims of the last pile-on. "They need help."

"Not likely. Mostly the only thing that stops a player is a broken bone." Macklin cast a worried eye toward the tavern. "Afterward the ale will flow for hours." As if on cue the two men on the ground, one pale with red hair, staggered up and set off a slow, limping trot toward the mob that surrounded the ball. More men went down, some leveled by vicious blows to the knees or ribs with opposing racquets, others downed by deliberate collisions that would fell a horse. Still, Duncan could see no rancor on the players' faces, only a spirited joy.

The first player with a broken bone was carried off the field, by two Shawnee who spotted Rideaux and left the victim in the Frenchman's care. The man's shaven temples and short braid at the rear combined with his dark skin to assure Duncan he was of the tribes, until he pressed a splint against the man's arm.

"God's wounds, man!" the patient spat in a thick Welsh accent. "Leave the bone, and take my stick! Ye can't let those Mingoes hoard the ball like that!"

Duncan replied with a low laugh, but then saw the anticipation in Hadley's eyes. He picked up the man's racquet and tossed it to the Virginian, who caught it with a wide smile then began stripping off his shirt.

Duncan found himself focusing on the little deerhide ball, marveling at the skill of the Indians who deftly juggled it as they ran, cheering when a colonist wove through a line of Iroquois defenders to score. As a Swede was brought in with broken fingers, Van Grut too pulled off his shirt and launched himself into the melee with an uncertain but joyful cry.

An hour later, battered and smiling, the players staggered off the field as bells starting calling them to chores and supper. The Iroquois had won, though only by one goal. Three men still lay on the field, and he now ran to join Rideaux and Macklin as they examined them. Two had cracked ribs. The third, a Delaware, lay motionless on his side. Duncan heard Macklin's mournful cry before he reached the young warrior and knew there was no hope as soon as he saw the purple color of the man's face.

"His windpipe was crushed," Duncan declared, pointing to the deep, ragged bruise at the front of the throat.

"It's meant to be a game," Macklin sighed, then murmured a quiet prayer.

"Whoever did this played no game," Duncan replied.

Rideaux stared at Duncan. "Surely it was an accident."

"Trust me. I have attended many corpses in medical school. This required a deliberately aimed blow with tremendous force behind it."

"Just bad luck, surely," Rideaux said.

Then a hand reached out to push the dead man over onto his belly, revealing a large tattoo of concentric circles on his shoulder. "I saw this pattern today, at the river bank. He died in the way he meant for you," Conawago declared. "Choking for air."

Duncan looked at the dead man, then remembered how the Indian boy had sketched such circles on his slate, trying to tell Duncan something about his would-be murderer. Lenni-Lenape, the boy had said, the tribes' term for the Delawares. The Indian who had attempted to kill Duncan hours earlier had just been murdered on the lacrosse field.

"He failed to kill you," Conawago ventured, "so he had to die." He untied a familiar doeskin pouch from the dead man's belt and handed it to Duncan, who dumped its contents onto the packed earth of the playing field. Out fell the two nails from the boundary trees, the buttons he had collected, his own flint and steel. Nothing seemed to be missing. Rideaux reached with a tentative hand, rolling the nails in his fingers so he could see their heads, then picked up one of the buttons with the fish worked in the metal.

Duncan watched as worry mounted on the Frenchman's face. "Do you recognize them?"

"I knew someone ... " the Frenchman murmured, his words trailing away.

"There was a fine young man from Connecticut, named Cooper." Reverend Macklin picked up the explanation. "Trying to make his way as a surveyor. He lingered a few months here, and in the little English settlement called Penn's Creek across the river. He took up with the daughter of an Onondaga village. They showed great affection for one another ... " the Moravian said awkwardly.

Rideaux took over the story. "They gave offense to Reverend Macklin's wife. She told the congregation she saw them swimming under the moonlight, bare as fish. Cooper promptly asked the good reverend to marry them so no one would think them sinners. The surveyor had the buttons made as a gift to his bride. Everyone laughed when they saw the fish."

Rideaux stared at the buttons in his hand, watching in silence as Duncan took them and returned them to his pouch.

"She was not from any village," Macklin reminded them. "She was from Skanawati's village, from his own hearth."

Rideaux lifted one of the long nails. "And these?"

"Used to nail the hands of the victims to their trees. One went into Cooper's hand. He probably was still alive as they murdered his wife in front of him."

Rideaux's face sagged. He stared at the nail, squeezing it until his knuckles grew white. "What do you want from me?" the Frenchman asked in a hollow voice.

"Did you send this man to kill me?"

"Like lots of the tribesmen, he appears every few weeks to wander about town. They called him Ohio George."

"Did you send him to kill me?" Duncan repeated.

"No. I just want you to leave us alone. There are other ways of getting rid of you without committing such a sin."

"Like hiding your involvement with the escaped slaves. Like warning the merchant Waller to leave town. Like pretending you know nothing of intrigue over land claims."

"I did not warn Waller," Rideaux said in a brittle voice. "As far as I know he is but doing his Christian duty in helping the slaves."

"You can either deal with us or else with two hundred vengeful settlers when they hear of Shamokin Indians brutally slaying surveyors. What do you know about this Ohio George?"

"What I know," came a new voice, "is that we should not speak over his dead body." Moses was kneeling beside the corpse now, removing the lacrosse stick still clenched in his hand.

Duncan conceded the point with a nod. "Does he have family here?"

"Not likely. He's a Delaware, from the Ohio. We will take him to the compound. His body should be cleaned for his journey to the other side."

It was a slow, silent procession up the hill, the body on a blanket carried at each of its corners. They set it on a trestle table in the yard of Rideaux's compound. As an older woman brought water to wash the dead man, Rideaux gestured for Duncan to follow him back outside, leading him down the path to town. They stopped at the lean-to sheltering the smith's forge. The Frenchman lifted a hammer left on the anvil where it lay beside half a dozen newly forged nails and extended it to Duncan. Confused, Duncan turned it over in his hands then understood as Rideaux held up one of the fresh nails. The head held a rough crosshatched pattern, identical to those used in the murders.

"It's just something the smith does, to distinguish his work. He smashes the heads with this hammer. I've never seen it elsewhere."