By the time Duncan reached him, the Mohawk ranger was already speaking with their companions. Duncan was about to explain that they could not travel on the lake that day when he saw Adanahoe unrolling their blankets, and he realized Sagatchie had broken the news. Conawago straightened and motioned Duncan in the direction of the settlement. “If someone killed Black Fish for telling the story of the half-king and the spirits, we must know why. Those from that canoe will know.”
“Perhaps he didn’t die for telling the story,” Duncan suggested. “He had a heavy scent of rum about him. Maybe it had more to do with him getting drunk after telling it.”
Conawago stared at the river as he weighed Duncan’s words. “You mean he may have divulged something his killer did not want others to know.”
“A drunk man can boast. A man who played a trick on the Council might be very proud of himself.”
“No!” Conawago shot back. “You saw him. He held the beads, Duncan!” In the old Nipmuc’s world it was not possible to lie to the Council.
“A man with a dark heart may not speak with honor,” Duncan pointed out. “Words can become snares for the unknowing.”
“Stop this!” Tushcona cried out. “I thought you understood our ways. Do not pretend a member of the League could speak other than the truth to the Council. It is the sacred duty of all. It is not possible to hold the beads and lie.”
“He spoke and then he died,” Duncan replied.
Conawago frowned at him, unhappy that Duncan would press the elders.
“Whatever the reason he died,” Duncan continued, “word will get back quickly to the half-king that on the very the night the Council was asked to support him his disciple was murdered. No matter what words we use now, that will be the message the half-king will hear. Vengeance is in his blood. We have seen what he does to those who anger him.”
Sagatchie slowly led Conawago and Duncan back toward the docks, pausing to step into shadows whenever boats carrying soldiers and militia passed by, then stopping at the wide canoe. Two wooden chests of cargo covered with blankets were still in the vessel, though no guard watched them. The Mohawk stepped into the canoe, threw off the blanket on the first chest, and opened it. There was nothing inside but four small bags of cornmeal and half a dozen of the cheap axes used in trade. The second held nothing but a smaller chest packed in straw. Wooden panels divided the inner chest into half a dozen compartments, holding nothing but sawdust. Sagatchie ran his fingers through the sawdust, lifting some in his palm and watching with a confused expression as it blew away. “Those who belong to this canoe were supposed to be traders, who called at the Iroquois castles to spread the promise of the half-king. They received nothing in trade. Their cargo was a ruse,” he said with a pointed glance at Duncan. “Onondaga Castle was their last stop. They are traveling back to the half-king.”
A cool anger grew on the Mohawk’s face. He covered the chests again and pointed toward the hut built into the side of the bank. Sagatchie and Duncan stepped through its flimsy leather-hinged door into a smoky, foul-smelling chamber where several Indians and rough looking trappers were tossing white and black pebbles in a circle marked with flour on the dirt floor.
“They have to bet to play, but first they pay the owner,” Sagatchie said. As he spoke a stout man in a leather apron took a coin from a tribesman, who then extended his forearm. The proprietor reached out with a stick of chalk and left a broad white mark on his skin then dropped the coin into a bowl on the table beside him. “With that mark he can play all day,” the Mohawk explained and gestured Duncan toward the plump man’s side.
“Five men from that red-eyed canoe woke me up this morning to buy a jar of rum,” the proprietor explained, “and to begin their games.” Duncan saw that his bowl held not just coins but silver links from jewelry, brass pins, and even a piece of crystal rock. “My customers usually play for hours. Those five left around noon, the only ones to leave so far today.”
“Meaning the only ones with the mark will be those from that canoe,” Conawago observed when Duncan reported the news, and he gestured Duncan onto the muddy street.
The settlement was alive with activity. They found themselves weaving around women carrying huge piles of firewood on their backs or dragging branches on the ground. An old tribal woman sold fish strung on vines, another small pumpkins stacked at her side. A boy carrying a bundle of sassafras roots on his shoulder passed by, leaving a scented trail. Conawago and Duncan had reached the end of the outermost street and were about to continue their search closer to the fort when Sagatchie stepped out of the shadows. “Two of them are in the stable below the fort, sharing a jar of ale.”
“You found them so soon?” Duncan asked. “How did you. .” As he glanced further into the shade of the trees, he realized he did not need to finish his question. Patrick Woolford sat against a big oak. “You were already looking for them,” he concluded.
Woolford nodded. “I saw the canoe this morning. Red eyes on the bow. It’s been calling on every Iroquois settlement this side of Lake Cayuga. Even here they have been recruiting men for the half-king, offering a new ax and a pint of ale to each man who agrees to go north.”
Duncan quickly explained the murder at Onondaga Castle.
“If we had any sense we’d throw the lot of them behind bars,” Woolford groused. He rose and made a quick gesture toward the trees, and four more men wearing ranger green emerged from the deeper shadows, two Iroquois and two sturdy bearded men. Woolford offered a few quiet words, and the men left at a brisk walk toward the fort.
“There’s an old stable behind these trees where we made our camp. We will bring them all back for a chat. We want none to flee to the renegade camp. Wait there, Duncan. Need I remind you you are still a fugitive from the army’s justice?”
Woolford took off down the street with Sagatchie. Duncan and Conawago waited until the ranger was out of sight and resumed their own search. They had wandered down nearly half the town’s paths and streets, studying every man they passed, when Conawago grabbed his arm in alarm. Provosts were walking down the street toward them. As they watched, however, two of the old women carrying a bundle of wood between them stumbled before the provosts, scattering the wood, then falling to the ground to block their path. Duncan did not understand Conawago’s chuckle until the women raised their faces toward them. It was Hetty and Tushcona the weaver. They had interfered with the provosts to give them time to hide.
As they watched from the shadows, Conawago silently gestured to an old man dragging several long branches along the road. Custaloga glanced up but pretended not to know them. As he watched, the old Oneida seemed to stumble, turning the branches sideways as he did so, blocking the path of two tribesmen walking up the track. Duncan did not notice the white marks on their forearms until two of Woolford’s rangers suddenly appeared behind them and grabbed their elbows. Their army of Iroquois elders was at work.
A moment later a sharp whistle rose from further down the street. Woolford and Sagatchie were pulling Rabbit Jack between them.
“Hold there, Captain!” The sharp, angry command came from the prim and powdered officer who had sent Duncan to the iron hole. Duncan lowered his head and fought the impulse to run.
Woolford stiffly acknowledged the older man. “Colonel Cameron.”
Cameron wore the scarlet, gold, and lace of a senior British officer, but beside him were two stern grenadiers in Highland plaid. “Have you no grasp of our sensitive relations with the tribes?” Cameron snapped.
“I have some experience in that regard, sir. I mean to question these men.”
“Nonsense!” Cameron thundered. “Do not play the magistrate, Woolford. I will not abide insults to our brave companions in arms!” He gestured to his escort, who pulled the prisoners from the rangers. “You are too bold, sir, entirely too bold!” the colonel snapped.