The half-king waited for him outside his tent.
“I told my people the British would break their word when they agreed not to cross the Allegheny mountains.” The Revelator seemed to want to explain himself to Duncan. “The British broke their word. I told them the strong liquor of the Europeans would steal the souls of our warriors. Now drunken Indians litter the settlements. I told them join me, and the settlements along the Ohio would disappear. Now the line of burnt cabins runs for two hundred miles. When I passed through the villages of the Seneca last spring, the women asked me on what day the gods wanted them to plant their squash and maize.”
“There is a long history of prophets arising in times of calamity.”
“Exactly. I prophesize your future, Duncan McCallum. You are going to be taken to Fort Stanwick by some of my men. They will ask for a reward for their capture of a fugitive from British justice, to make it convincing. When you are taken back to the general you will let him learn of the French secrets.”
“The French lies.”
“The British will have to retreat from Canada. They will be denied their victory. The French will see our strength and ally with me. The Iroquois Council will beg to join me. We will seal the frontier with a wall of thorns.”
Duncan returned his steady gaze. The half-king was worried about the Grand Council. He had promised his followers that the Council would embrace their cause. “You mean the Iroquois have refused to treat with you,” Duncan asserted.
The Revelator ignored him. “You will agree tonight, or by this time tomorrow, Conawago will be sent to live entirely on the other side and you will begin dying just like that Delaware. He took five days to die. I have peeled away the flesh of a living man’s face, turned it into a living, screaming skull. My men laughed to see it. Five days is an eternity in such pain. We will take your fingers and nose the first day, then your feet before we take your face, McCallum.” He spoke the words like a vow, then with a click of his tongue a guard appeared and pulled Duncan back toward the torture post.
The half-king followed, and when Duncan was on the ground, tied to the post, he abruptly kicked him in the ribs. “Messages came from the North. Their teacher has taught them well, don’t you think?” he spat at Duncan. One by one he dropped five slips of paper onto the ground beside him before kicking the lifeless Delaware and marching away.
A guard lingered with a torch, waiting for him to examine the papers. They were all done in the hands of children. Not just any children, and not, he suspected, of their own free will. The first was a skeleton, over the name Jacob, then a grave with a cross over the name Noah. Next was a skull over Abraham and a coffin over Abigail. The last was an angel over Hannah, who had also penned Pray for Mr. Bedford, tortured for our lives.
It would be spring on the other side when he searched for Conawago. He would find the old Nipmuc on a mountain trail, watching the warblers that always filled his heart with joy. At the summit they would sit with old bears in the night and watch shooting stars.
Duncan lingered at the edge of sleep, drifting again and again into visions of how he might meet Conawago on the other side. Sometimes they were alone in lush forests, encountering strange animals that no longer existed on earth. Sometimes they sat at a fire with Duncan’s father and grandfather, exchanging tales of mortal lives. Sometimes Duncan was walking endlessly in a dense fog, hearing Conawago’s voice but never finding him.
He sensed movement beside him and turned to see Sagatchie rubbing the rope that bound him against a rock at the base of his pole. No guard was to be seen.
“I am not leaving,” Duncan warned the Mohawk.
Sagatchie looked at him, confused. “I seek not to escape, Duncan. I seek to free you, to go with you to the oracles.” Duncan had explained to his companions about Hetty and Conawago. “It is a job for a Nipmuc warrior, but you will have to do it.” He kept sawing at his ropes as he spoke. “When you have the flint knife in your hand, you will become a Nipmuc warrior.” A stone flew out of the shadows, grazing Sagatchie’s temple, and he stopped.
“I don’t understand,” Duncan said.
“It’s why he clutches the knife to his chest. A Nipmuc would never be a slave to a man like this half-king. But he would never take his own life. The warrior’s duty falls to you.”
“We could never fight our way free.”
“I will fight whomever blocks your way to the lodge. Once you are inside it should be but the work of a moment. Just position the flint blade over his heart and pound the hilt.”
For a long moment Duncan could not speak. “I could never kill him, not Conawago.”
Sagatchie sighed. “Then I will do it, though it is best that he be released by a friend.”
Sagatchie was wrong, Duncan kept telling himself, but the Mohawk’s words kept echoing in his mind, mixed with visions of his father calling him to death. He had no choices left, except one. He could let Conawago be slowly killed by the half-king as he himself died at the torture post. Or he could die performing the warrior’s duty.
He drifted into a fog of despair and fatigue. He would do better in the next life, he mused. This life had been one misadventure after another, just a series of fits and starts with no real purpose, no anchors except for Conawago and the gentle Sarah Ramsey. He had wanted nothing more than to be a doctor among his beloved clansmen, but the Highland life had been systematically destroyed, leaving him a transported criminal, an indentured servant, a fugitive who found his way into prison every few months. Now, here, it ended, in the camp of a bloodthirsty prophet.
A new vision seized him. Conawago was escorting him into a council fire where Scottish and Indian chieftains spanning many centuries silently passed around a pipe. From somewhere in the shadows behind them came a melancholy song. I am coming home, mother, the hoarse, faltering voice chanted. On the wings of my eagle I fly.
“May the old ones embrace you. May the old ones sing your name in the dawn.” These were the words of a tribal ritual, a refrain in response to a death song. Suddenly Duncan realized they had been spoken near his ear. He was abruptly awake. Beside him Sagatchie gazed into the shadows ahead of them, reciting the mourning words. A bright moon had risen, making his features clearly visible, and the stoic warrior’s face was full of emotion.
“I am coming, Mother,” came the song again, “with a fat deer on my back,” the voice croaked from in front of Duncan.
His heart rose into his throat. The dead Delaware was singing.
Chapter Nine
“He knows he is about to cross over,” Sagatchie whispered, his voice full of admiration. “I have known many Lenape,” he declared, more loudly. “Your tribe may be broken, but its warriors are not.”
The song faded away. Words came in faltering gasps. “There was a time. . when the Lenape. . were the masters of the forest. All along the great rivers tribes trembled at our name.”
“With a thousand such as you my friend, you would be masters again,” Sagatchie replied.
“How are you called?” came the weak voice.
“Sagatchie of the Wolf clan of the Mohawk.”
“I am Osotku of the Beaver clan, though few of my clan yet survive.”
“Where is your hearth, Osotku?”
“In Pennsylvania along the Forks of the Delaware. .” The phrases came piecemeal, punctuated by groans of pain. “Near Nazareth. My wife waits in our cabin with our four children. Some damned European said the land was given to him by his government. He said I had to pay him eight pounds or he would drive my family out. I went for furs so my family would not be slaves. I had enough to pay for the land, but these dogs who follow that Mingo butcher said the furs were theirs. I said they do not own the animals, that the furs belong to the one who does the work for them.” Another agonized groan cut off the words, and Osotku’s head slumped onto his chest. “I am coming home,” he moaned.