"But we saw them," Duncan said. "Conawago and I were at their camp. They were French Indians."
"Some were," Conawago agreed. "But not all, I think. If such men were paid to kill English, might they not be friendly with the French?"
"But who would use such killers?" As the question left his lips Duncan realized it was what the men around him had been asking themselves. By the worried glances they exchanged he realized they thought it possible it was someone within their own confederation.
They sat in silence.
"The great chiefs of the Iroquois League," Conawago finally said to Duncan, will never sign a treaty without understanding what the dead man was trying to say to you. Those on the other side are watching what is done here."
Duncan reminded himself that these chiefs too would have heard that there was a crack in the world that seemed to be spewing out ghosts. The English members of the treaty party desperately wanted to forget the killing at the tree, dismiss it as something unrelated to their mission. But the Iroquois knew all things were related, and ghosts from the Warriors Path had joined their negotiations.
With an outstretched hand Old Belt cupped smoke and directed it to Duncan, letting it wash over him before offering the pipe again. He meant to bring the spirits into Duncan's heart before he spoke. But Duncan could find no words.
"If it is as you say," said the Mohawk, doubt lingering in his tone, "then they took him so he would stop sharing his secrets with you."
Duncan realized the Indian had grasped the truth that had been eluding him. "They are taking him to another who understands the language of the dead," he agreed. But why? he desperately asked himself. What on the body had he missed?
"Captain Burke was a man not used to physical labor," he began, at least offering what he knew, "a man not at ease in the forest." The Indians were much more interested in the details of the murder than the English had ever been.
"What did his tattoos speak of?" Old Belt asked.
"He had none, only a little scar like a bolt of lightning."
The announcement triggered a worried exchange among the Iroquois.
"His hand was nailed to the tree," Duncan continued. "He could not stop his killer from cutting away his silver buttons. And this-" He lifted his pouch, pulling out the lump of copper and dropping it onto the ground in front of him. "This was in his throat."
The announcement was punctuated by a gasp. Long Wolf seemed to have stopped breathing. Old Belt sagged. "That explains it. Why he does not speak with you."
"You mean it blocked his tongue?" Duncan ventured.
"No." Long Wolf lifted a kindling stick and pushed the lump back toward Duncan, gesturing for him to put it away. The copper scared him. "It is his soul," he declared matter-of-factly, "shriveled and melted. Without a soul the dead will never speak, never see, never find the other side."
An unnatural chill gripped Duncan's spine. He too was now strangely scared to touch the metal. He pushed it back into his pouch with a fingertip.
Old Belt produced a little bag of deerskin and upended it by the fire. Three more molten lumps dropped out. "The killer did the same to the warriors Skanawati sent," he said in a mournful tone. "We cannot let this happen to Skanawati." He stared pointedly at Duncan. "He is the best of us. We will need him on the other side."
Duncan looked to Conawago for help. But the expression on his friend's face said he too was frightened, more than Duncan could have imagined.
"Tell us what the words of the dead say on the trees. Perhaps it is how they speak when they have no tongue." Long Wolf tossed wood on the fire, making it flare up for more light. He then carefully extracted and unfolded a square of finely tanned doeskin, laying it beside the fire. The skin showed signs of wear, of being folded and unfolded and handled often. A shiver ran down Duncan's spine as he saw the geometric shapes painted on the skin. The treaty chiefs had recorded eight groupings of the shapes from the trees. He returned the somber gaze of each man in turn. The chiefs were trying to reconcile the deaths in their own way.
"I have not unlocked the magic of these shapes," Duncan replied, "but I can tell you each set marks a death along the Warriors Path. I think it is the killers, not the dead, who make them. And," he added, "I am aware of only four, maybe five." He reminded himself that the surveyor Putnam had never been accounted for.
"The three members of the turtle clan Skanawati sent down the trail late this winter," the old Mohawk chief said in a heavy voice. "They were killed at such trees as they tried to clean the old shrines."
"Why?" Duncan asked. "Why would he have sent them?" He stared at the molten lumps. They would be a perfect shield for a murderer among the Indians. Any body discovered with such a lump would be taboo. No one would have touched it, no one would ever have tried to learn more about it.
"Skanawati told them the old trees, the marker shrines, needed to be cleansed, needed to have the dust removed from their eyes and ears."
Duncan looked at Conawago. The chief was referring to a greeting ceremony, like that performed at the edge of the woods between travelers. It was what Conawago had performed at the western tree. Skanawati had guessed the other trees were also ancient shrines.
"None of this explains why they wanted the dead Virginian," Conawago pointed out.
Long Wolf frowned. "There is a French shaman who could put more of those wheels in his chest and make him live again," he said. "Neither warrior nor soldier could stop such a creature."
The words hung in the air. Duncan wanted to dismiss them as absurd. But then he saw the frightened way the other chiefs reacted to them.
"Before he left for the western lands," offered Old Belt, "Skanawati argued to the Grand Council that the world was coming to an end, that the Iroquois had brought it upon themselves by ignoring the ancient, honored ways. There is an old tale told at our campfires of how our world will end with a great monster of rock eating everything." The chief paused, drawing deeply on the pipe, letting the smoke slowly waft out of his mouth as he seemed to consider his own words. "After Skanawati left, an old woman of our tribe had a dream that a monster came to her village, some sort of European man machine with a chest of metal, and he began eating the village, starting with the children."
Duncan wanted to shake the chiefs, to reason with them, to tell them it was impossible. But he dared not break through the solemn, anxious atmosphere. Dreams could never be ignored or denied, for they were considered messages from the other side. And the moment a man had been found with a gear in his chest, the terrible vision had become possible.
"You are the one who possesses the power to reach across the edge of the worlds, to the spirits of your tribe," Old Belt declared to Duncan. "You must ask them to speak with the Iroquois spirits on that side. Ask what we must do so our children will not die."
It was Duncan's turn to despair. He did not know how to say yes, was not certain what was being asked of him, yet could not bear to refuse the wise old man, who reminded him of so many Highland chieftains he had known, vital, courageous men, now in the ground, whose children, whose world, had been destroyed. He found himself struggling against one of his recurring visions of his dead family, reaching out for him.
"We will need more tobacco," Duncan said at last.
The despair that seized him every few weeks was like a living thing, a beast that burrowed into him, devouring his vital organs so that Duncan could not see, could not feel, was sometimes not even conscious of his whereabouts. It was a cold winter dusk when he had found himself sitting on the lip of a hundred-foot cliff with Conawago an arm's length away, ready to grab him.
"You need to let them go, Duncan," the old Indian had said. "You need to let your dead family go."