The thrush was joined by another sound, a low murmuring that he might have mistaken for the working of the wind were it not so constant. He pursued it slowly, consciously placing each foot so as to remain silent, to the far side of the second chimney, where on a wide, flat bank more platforms lay ravaged. Something frigid clutched his heart as he first thought he had discovered one of the sacks of bones, crusted with grime and blood, come to life.
Then with a stab of pain he recognized the gentle old man collapsed against the stone. Conawago had stripped to his loincloth, had covered all his skin except for his tattoos with dirt. He rocked back and forth, uttering low, prayerful sounds as with his knife he made a row of cuts on his arm. One leg was already oozing blood from two dozen parallel slash marks along his thigh. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
When Duncan reached out and pried the blade from his hand, the old Indian continued the cutting motion as if he still gripped the knife. Duncan closed his hand around the blood-soaked fingers. It took a long time for Conawago to become aware of him.
Finally the Indian scrubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand and looked up. “Who would do such a thing?” he asked forlornly. “Who would kill our dead again?”
It was nearly an hour before Duncan finished ministering to Conawago. The Indian moved like one of the decrepit aged when he rose, letting Duncan lead him toward the water, advancing in short, hobbling steps, pausing to silently lean on Duncan every few feet. He was as ruined as the cemetery.
Finally they sat on a rock ledge at the edge of the river, with Conawago’s limbs washed but still oozing blood. He began speaking in his native tongue, not to Duncan, but toward the sky, then toward the water, in low, anguished tones. Eventually he fixed his gaze downward. Duncan looked away awkwardly then, as Conawago began what sounded like one side of a conversation. When he turned back toward his companion, another chill crept down his spine. The old Indian was speaking to the head under the water.
Duncan lowered his gaze and watched Conawago’s blood drip from his fingertips into a still pool at the edge of the river.
“When I was young,” he began when the Indian finally grew silent, “some English soldiers came up the coast seeking enemies of their king. My family sailed away to distant islands for a month. When we returned, we found that the English had slain all our livestock. My grandfather paid it no mind, said there were always calves and lambs in the mountains. But the next day I found him speechless, weeping on a rock by the sea. Our ancestral graveyard was in a small vale above our croft. The English had pulled up the grave markers and smashed them to pieces. They opened several graves. The most recent was that of an uncle three months dead, whom they hung from a tree, with a note pinned to his chest saying he had been tried and found guilty of treason. Other bodies, mostly just bones, were scattered over the hillside.”
Conawago said nothing. Now he, too, was watching his blood mix with the river water, desolation in his eyes.
“We reburied our uncle. My mother wanted to try to determine which pieces of which ancestors went into the other graves. My father said it didn’t matter, so long as we showed proper respect. So we just put a few of the bones in each of the old graves and covered them up. We were almost done when my father looked past me and groaned. My mother had cut off her beautiful red hair, had shorn herself like a spring ewe, and was dropping a lock of her hair tied around a sprig of heather into each grave.
“My grandfather disappeared when the sun went down, and we found him playing pibroch in the graveyard, under the moon. Every night for a month he did that, and every night more of our people came to listen, until at the end of the month there was a great gathering and a bonfire with the clans swearing blood oaths to support each other. My grandfather declared it enough that the old ones in the graves were peaceful again.”
Conawago, still staring at the blood as it slowly swirled downstream, gave no sign of hearing his words. Duncan fought an unexpected torrent of emotion as he relived the pain of that long-ago day when his family had found their own ancestors scattered across the slope.
“Pibroch?” the old Indian suddenly asked.
“It means the Great Music, the old music. .,” Duncan began. “I don’t know how. . ” He stood, slowly surveyed the cemetery again, and stepped to his haversack. Conawago gave no notice as he extracted his precious pipes, inflated the bag, and began to play at the base of the tallest chimney. But as he played, his companion’s head slowly rose, until he was solemnly staring into the sky.
Minutes later Conawago rose and slowly began collecting the remnants from the ground and arranging them on the surviving platforms. Duncan played for nearly an hour, then set down the pipes and helped Conawago. They worked until dusk, when at a distance from the cemetery Duncan made a small fire and a bed of moss for his companion.
“Hawkins,” he said, breaking a long silence. “You asked who would do such a thing. It was Hawkins. He left Edentown last week with Ramsey men who were familiar with handling the dead.”
“But why?”
Duncan had no answer.
“I had a dream last night,” Conawago said after another silence. “I was at Stony Run. Men flew through the air like birds. As I was speaking with an old woman, rocks began pouring from the sky. There was great lamentation, though the okewa had not even begun.”
“I, too, had a dream,” Duncan rejoined, his heart racing now. “I was with Sarah Ramsey. She sat in the shadow of a great bear, and Hawkins was sneaking up on her with a knife between his teeth.”
Conawago nodded slowly. “It is the way of things for her,” he said in a weary voice. “She becomes only bone and starts over.”
“I don’t understand.”
“She is dead again. The last time, I believe.” Conawago gestured him around the outermost of the tall pillars, which towered over a bend in the river. A new scaffold had been raised, the only one left standing. On it lay a dead woman in a familiar green dress, with crows sitting at her head.
With a mournful sob Duncan leapt forward and in an instant was on the cross support of the scaffold, hoarsely yelling at the birds, with blind horror lashing out at them. Then he began to see the thing. It was Sarah’s dress, he was certain, as was the small gold chain around the neck. But inside the dress were old bones, including a skull from which long hair still clung, with skeleton arms, even skeleton hands clasped together. He fell away, dropping from the scaffold, and gazed at the thing in horror. He wanted to weep.
After a long moment he steeled himself enough to examine the thing on the scaffold. Around the scaffold were the recent prints of moccasins, many overlain with boot marks. Indians had been there after the destruction of the burial ground and erected the scaffold. And the men who come after, probably Arnold and his party, had been too frightened to touch it.
A terrible despair tore at Duncan’s heart. He gazed out onto the ruined dead. He felt so weak, he dared not ask the Indian to explain.
Conawago pulled him away, back toward the fire. “You still mean to go north?”
It took Duncan a long time to answer. “I have begun to understand the truth of dreams.” he said. “An innocent man is going to hang. The truth of the murder he is charged with lies in the north. I know of no other way to go.”
Conawago gestured to the broken bodies. “This is what Hawkins and the others will do to you,” he said in a calm, matter-of-fact voice.