The Moravians engaged in polite conversation at their hearty meal of sausage, boiled potatoes, maize pudding, and fresh bread, carefully avoiding personal questions. But clearly they had been informed about Duncan’s intentions at the mission.
“He has lost all the talents of society, the young one,” declared the solemn, gray-bearded senior Zettlemeyer. “He faithfully performs his duties and sits through all our worship services. That has to suffice, and perhaps that is the way it will always be. When Herr Weiser comes next month, we will send the boy back with him.”
“Mr. Weiser?” Duncan asked.
“Conrad Weiser, of Berks County, in the Pennsylvania colony. He comes on errands for the government, to speak with the tribes. Conrad will know a farm safe from the war that needs an honest hand. The boy is no trouble.”
“He is nothing but a beast of burden,” Duncan said.
“In the eyes of the Almighty,” Reverend Zettlemeyer opined, “we are all beasts of burden. If we can each find the particular burden we are destined to carry, then it is a blessing.”
“Find our true skins you mean.”
Duncan’s words stopped all conversation at the table. Everyone looked toward the old reverend, who worked his tongue against his cheek, as Duncan had seen his son do. The Reverend cast an oddly pained glance at Duncan, then, too loudly, asked for the potatoes.
Duncan insisted on helping to clear the meal, carrying the empty dishes to one of the tubs where the Zettlemeyer daughters worked with scouring rushes and hot water, singing a spirited hymn in German. Still the ox stall was empty. As he carried his last load to the washtub, one of the women appeared with another bucket of hot water. But when he turned from his task, she was gone-and the bucket hadn’t been emptied over the dishes. He found no sign of her as he circled behind the buildings, but discovered behind the woodshed a makeshift laundry line of white linen strips, pieces of old bedding torn into bandages.
From the shadows he studied the buildings with new interest, rubbing the head of one of the mission dogs that had followed him. The furnace and charcoal shed. The neat cabins that housed the inhabitants of the mission village. The cow shed, a wagon shed, the summer kitchen. A large springhouse with the door slightly ajar. Why would the woman take hot water into the building used for cold storage?
Duncan broke off a small piece of the sausage he had saved from dinner, wrapped in a leaf, coaxed the dog to follow him, and tossed the morsel into the open door. He slipped in behind the dog, hugging the inside wall. From behind a blanket hung on a rope at the rear, the woman gave a half-hearted reprimand to the dog, but did not rise from her work. As the dog nosed the blanket open, a sturdy hand reached out and patted its head. But the woman did not look away from her patient.
The man lying on the straw pallet was a few years older than Duncan, with long reddish hair clubbed at the rear. His face was puffy, his jaw clenched against pain as the woman lifted a poultice and began washing an ugly, oozing wound on his right calf. On the wall behind the man hung a black leather cartridge box, beside a knife sheathed in deerskin.
As the man flinched and twisted, Duncan saw the ugly color of the leg in the sunlight. Without conscious thought, he stepped forward around the edge of the blanket.
“Gangrene.” The terrible word leapt out uncontrolled, as if he were suddenly in his Edinburgh classroom again. “It will be rotten soon.”
The woman gasped. The man stretched for his knife but recoiled in agony, his only resistance a curse as Duncan knelt beside him to examine the wound, then sniff it. It was an old bullet wound, poorly healed over, which had broken open and festered. “How long ago were you shot?” He sniffed the poultice, then nodded with approval. Oatmeal and linseed.
“Nigh a year,” the man grunted, clenching his jaw again in obvious pain. “It was wedged into the bone. It’s been no problem until now.”
“It has become dislodged and is moving about,” Duncan declared, “mortifying the flesh. If we do not cut, the gangrene will take hold.”
“Cut?” the woman asked in a stunned tone.
“I studied with surgeons. We need more water, scalding hot. Your best knife, freshened on a stone. Rum. Lots of rum. Have you knitting needles?”
The woman nervously nodded. “But my uncle allows no spirits here, none closer than the bark mill.”
“Then he must be carried outside to the table, with men to hold him down and a strap in his mouth. And cover his eyes. He must not watch the blade.”
The man’s eyes had gone wild and round. “Like hell you’ll cut me.” His words were few but enough for Duncan to recognize the Scottish burr.
“Then you will die,” Duncan declared, the firmness in his voice surprising even him. “As certain as daybreak you will die a terrible and slow death if we do not remove the offending metal and clean the wound inside. This time next week you’ll be in the ground.”
The words took all the fight out of the man on the pallet.
In a quarter hour all was ready, and in another quarter hour Duncan was done, sewing up his incision with the mission’s finest thread. He looked up at last to find an audience of eight wary faces. “Now,” he said, finding his confidence rapidly leaving him, “all we can do is pray.”
“That,” solemnly replied Martin Zettlemeyer, “is what we do best.”
A great wave of fatigue surged through Duncan as he watched them carry the man back to the springhouse, then gazed at his hands, which had begun to tremble. It was the first time he had ever cut into a living human being.
As he lowered himself onto the bench by the table, the cowmaid appeared with a jug of cold milk, then with a nervous glance toward the house produced from her apron a piece of bread dipped in precious sugar. As he reached for it, the girl stopped his hand and wiped the blood from it before he ate.
“Do you speak English words?” he asked when he finished.
“Oh, yes. Papa says if his Indians can speak three or four tongues, then we can try two at least.”
On the table Duncan absently rolled the round bullet he had excised in the surgery. “His Indians?”
“It’s why we are here, to christen the Indians.” She cast a worried glance at Duncan. “But you mustn’t think we condone. . ” Her mouth twisted in confusion. “You’re a Ramsey,” she added, as if it were the cause of her sudden discomfort.
“I have an Indian friend as well,” Duncan assured her. Only after the declaration left his tongue did he realize how strange it sounded, though it was perhaps the hundredth time that day he had thought of Conawago, left with the dead at the Chimney Rocks, preparing himself to become one of them.
“I was wondering about the iron on the graves,” Duncan said. “It reminds me of my old country. Is he the one who does it?” he asked, nodding toward the springhouse.
“Different ones come,” the girl said, gazing now at the cemetery. “They usually appear at dawn, smoke a pipe or two with my father, and are gone.”
They spoke of small things. Duncan pointed out a hawk soaring over the field. “Were you here last year when the ghostwalkers arrived?”
The girl shuddered, then silently nodded. “That was the second day, after all the killing. Brought in like captives, with the red-coated soldiers.”
“Major Pike?”
“Oh, yes,” the girl said dreamily. “On his fine white horse. He made sure Miss Ramsey got a bed, and a real dress. One of mine. I was happy to offer it.”
“And Adam Munroe?”
The girl nodded again. “When he arrived he had his hair in braids and animals painted on his skin. I thought he was playacting, like my brothers and I do sometimes among the stumps. Some play the Indians, some play our fine brave soldiers in their red tapestry.”
“Did you ever hear the boy speak?”
“Twice he spoke.”
“Only two times?”