Eye of the Raven (27 page)

OCRATES MOON WAS the name Conawago assumed in the European world, the swarthy exotic traveler who had crossed the Atlantic several times, looking and speaking the part of the educated gentleman when need be. Duncan watched with a weary grin as his friend completed the transformation by donning a crumpled waistcoat he kept rolled in his pack over his linen shirt, covering the long trail of hair gathered at his back.

"You will put me to shame in the taverns," Duncan chided.

"No. Because you are staying here," the Indian said, with a gesture toward the little clearing they had found in the forest overlooking the city. It was an argument that had risen with increasing frequency during their days of hurried travel from Shamokin. "Lord Ramsey is somewhere on those streets," Conawago reminded him again. "He will have you in chains a moment after he spies you. And once he has you, Duncan, you will be lost forever." The old Nipmuc had once told Duncan that Ramsey was a manifestation of the malevolent spirits that dwelled in certain corners of the wilderness, waiting to commit mayhem.

They eyed the city that stretched below. "It is a big city," Duncan observed. "And he but one man. In all the city he is the only one who knows my face."

"Only London is greater in the English world," Conawago said. "But the places we need to visit are ones likely frequented by Ramsey. He despises you. He considers you a traitor to his house, knows you removed him from the affection of his daughter and caused the loss of his New York estate. His evil cannot be defeated, Duncan, only avoided."

"I will not hide. Every hour the hangman's noose is closer to Skanawati's neck. Every hour the real killer draws closer to another murder."

Conawago frowned. "Are there no words I can say?"

"I seem to recall Stone Blossom saying we were fated to find the path together."

Conawago sighed, then reached into the pack hanging from his horse and unfolded a second waistcoat, lent by Rideaux. It was threadbare in spots but would cover Duncan's own shirt, tattered and soiled from hard travel.

Rideaux had remembered the Englishman whom Skanawati and his brother had followed the year before. "Townsend came back weeks later with a commission as a surveyor," the Frenchman had confirmed. "A quiet, intelligent man. Thin like a rail." Townsend had stayed at Rideaux's compound en route to Philadelphia and had exclaimed over the grandeur of the mountains and shown his map. The Frenchman had been the one to describe the markings on Townsend's map to Skanawati. "It was as if I had kicked him in the belly," Rideaux recalled. "He wanted to know who else had seen it. As far as I knew, no one, and I told him so. He then asked me to tell no one else, never say such a map existed. He asked me to write Townsend's name on a piece of paper. He asked for some food, and a second pair of moccasins."

"Moccasins?" Duncan had asked.

"It meant he was going on a long journey. I put everything in a pack, and off he went, running like a deer. Next day his brother comes in, cheerful and laughing. But the moment he heard that Skanawati had abruptly left for Philadelphia his merriment stopped. Notwithstanding my vow I knew I had to explain to him about the map, and when he learned it showed Skanawati's secret village site, he suddenly turned grave. Minutes later he was gone. I never saw him again. Later I discovered he had asked for some paint, as if going to war."

Rideaux had searched their faces, seeing the worry. "The fastest way to Philadelphia," he offered at last, "is on horse, over the trail to Reading."

"We have no horses," Duncan said. "We have no money."

The Frenchman left them to engage the group of Indians working outside, soon returning to retrieve a heavy wooden box from a cabinet. He counted out a stack of coins and pushed them toward Duncan. "Horses will be in the yard in five minutes. A canoe will take your friends back to the treaty delegation. Go with God."

Now, walking slowly, they led their horses toward the sprawling city. A hundred things could happen when they stepped onto the cobblestone streets, almost none of them good. Duncan's foreboding was so great that only when he heard Conawago negotiating with him did he notice the stout bearded man who offered to stable their mounts.

Minutes later, their packs and weapons entrusted to the stableman for an extra coin, Duncan walked uneasily into America's metropolis. The smoke of hundreds of stoves and fireplaces drifted over the rooftops. Small, well-tended farms stretched from the outskirts, many with children hoeing rows of vegetables. Ox-drawn wagons stacked high with firewood, charcoal, or sacks of grain lumbered toward the city.

Duncan had almost forgotten that a visitor to any city first experienced it through his nostrils. Wafting through the underlying scent of sewage and wood smoke were lighter hints of tallow, freshly tanned leather, and beeswax. Soon came the sounds of hooves on stone, smiths at forges, hammers on the planks of new houses.

The street underfoot felt unnatural, like solid ground after months at sea. The two men exchanged uneasy glances and kept moving. A girl chased hens away from a bed of tulips. A boy loudly hawked a slim broadsheet. A youth in a white apron pushed a handwagon stacked with freshly baked loaves.

Conawago approached the boy and proffered a coin, speaking with him as he took a small loaf, half of which he handed to Duncan. "I asked where one goes to find maps of the frontier," his friend reported. "He replied that he surely doesn't know, but if it's men of learning we want, best go closer to the government house and the steeples." Conawago gestured toward the white towers extending above the trees in the distance.

Half an hour later they stood below the glistening spire of Christ Church, splashing their faces with water from a stone trough. Twice Duncan stopped passersby to inquire of Mr. Townsend, receiving only frowns for his trouble. Then he spied a man in a black robe weeding headstones in the small cemetery.

"Excuse me, father," Duncan began, then saw the wince on the man's face and corrected himself. "Reverend. We are travelers seeking a family named Townsend."

"I could think of a dozen who answer to that name," the pastor replied in a tentative voice.

"Our man is a surveyor. In the western country last year."

"Francis Townsend?" The pastor's face darkened. "A tragedy, that." He studied Duncan, as if suddenly suspicious. "See for yourself," he said and pointed up the street. "Three blocks up, one toward the west."

A squad of soldiers marched by as they proceeded up the street. A man in dark clothes carrying a long staff walked past them, a constable on his rounds. Reaching the intersection, they surveyed the buildings. "The Townsend residence?" Conawago inquired of an elderly woman with a cane, who used it to point before hurrying on.

They looked in confusion to where she had indicated. It was the ruins of a house, burned nearly to the ground. The few scorched timbers and mortared stones that remained were weathered, weeds growing among them. The fire had been months ago.

Conawago nodded to a tavern across the way, where they sank gratefully into chairs at a table by the front window.

"That was the Townsend place?" Duncan asked when the proprietor brought them two mugs of strong cider.

"Aye. A damned shame."

"Did the family suffer injuries?"

"Only Townsend and his maiden sister lived there, neither hurt. A sad case, always down on his luck. An educated man, you know, but forever restless. Off in the wilds and such. Trapping, prospecting, trying to get this book on birds or that on animal husbandry commissioned."

When they ordered a second round the proprietor brought them a length of dried sausage on a board with a knife. Seating himself, he cut several slices, taking one before pushing the plank toward his customers. "'Twas a night no one will soon forget. I still have nightmares. The heathen beast hallooing, the new fire brigade scrambling, the neighborhood carrying away their belongings in panic, certain the whole block would perish."

"Heathen?" Duncan asked, dreading the answer.

"Aye. The real thing." The barman twisted his face as he stared at the ruins. "Though something of playacting about it, too, it seems when I think on it. Theatrical if ye understand me."

"I'm not sure we do," Conawago said, slowly chewing on a piece of the tough, spicy meat.

"There were two of them. Indians, I mean. Why the proprietor lets them come and go in the city is beyond me. Because of our brotherly love, is why," he answered himself in a bitter tone.

"The fire?" Duncan prodded.

"The two knocked on his door in the afternoon, wearing blankets over their shoulders as if to conceal their identity. They wanted something of Townsend's, but he wouldn't admit them. He shouted from the door, something about it being locked in his desk and would remain there. Then that evening one returns. He starts stripping down to a loincloth under the corner lantern," he said, indicating the whale oil streetlight, "then daubs on paint. On his face, on his arms, on his chest, all the while chanting some gibberish. Right out of the tales you read about the savage raiders. I sent my boy for the constable. Then I see him coolly light a little torch from the lantern and start igniting little piles of kindling and branches he had stacked against the house. He opens the door and yells out for those inside to leave as if planning to ambush them on their way out, and starts prancing by the fires, making an unholy racket, calling down his war gods, they say."

"Did he? Ambush them?"

"It was damned curious. When they appeared, he quieted and just gestured them along to the street before starting his dance again. By the time the fire company arrived there wasn't much to do but water down the house next door. All the while that heathen stayed, speaking in his devilish tongue."

"They arrested him?"

"Most wanted to lynch him on the spot. But that is not the way of the Quakers who run this town. Words have to be spoken first to make things right. They trussed him up like a wild bull and held a proper trial the next week. He never resisted, never argued."

"And?"

"We hanged him, of course. Most of the town turned out. He was one of those whose neck didn't snap. He just hung there and twisted, slowly strangling."

Conawago buried his head in his hands. Duncan stared into his cup. "Did he speak in the end?"

"Nary a word. Except when he climbed the scaffold he called out, not in protest, just shouted toward the sky. One of the farmers who spoke a little heathen said he was calling his name to the spirits, to let them know he was on his way."

Duncan and Conawago exchanged a tormented glance. They needed no further explanation. It was clear that Skanawati's brother had not understood what Townsend had drawn on his map. That a white man would capture a sacred place on paper would have been unimaginable. Yet it had happened, and to prevent Skanawati from taking suicidal action he had taken his own, donning his war paint and correcting his unforgivable mistake, burning down the house to be sure the map was destroyed.

"What happened to this Townsend afterward?" Conawago ventured.

"Like I said, a restless soul. A week after the fire he came in and declared he had a new commission as a surveyor. There was new coin in his pocket. He said he would be soon gone and wanted to pay advance board for his sister to sup here twice a week, for three months, though that ran out months ago. Never saw him again. Dead in the wilderness, people say. Without his support, his sister's had to take up household service."

"Surely becoming a surveyor requires an apprenticeship," Duncan observed.

"This colony suffers from land fever. Private companies being formed every day to acquire land, usually in competition with each other. All the trained surveyors have their hands full with the local conveyancing. The companies, what they need is gross work, one might say. More like rough mapmaking, and most of that in secret. The more definite a claim the more likely it is for the courts to uphold it. Hell, at this point I think anyone who can read and write and has the spine to face the Indians can find a commission."

"Where does one go to hire such a surveyor?" Duncan asked. "Do they have a hall?"

"Lord boy, this is America. We have no guild halls." He grinned as he rose from his seat. "But we have taverns. Down near the river, below Walnut Street, that's where they go. The Broken Jug, mostly, after the supper hour."

Duncan pulled out one of the clock gears from his pouch and spun it between his fingers. "Meanwhile we seek a clockmaker."

"Which one? This be Philadelphia. Most American clocks are made here. You could spend a day and not visit all their shops."

"The nearest then," Duncan pressed.

A quarter hour later they stood by the worktable of a middleaged bespectacled man leaning over a small vise, assisted by a candle mounted with a lens that collected the light onto the gear he worked on. He had assessed them with a quick glance when they stepped into his shop, apparently concluding they were not potential customers, so he kept them waiting as he worked with a tiny file.

Finally he looked up with a barely tolerant expression that softened only when Duncan produced one of the gears and spun it like a top on his bench.