The constabulary station was a nondescript four-story building of muddy yellow brick. Bushell’s first thought was that it would fall down in an earthquake. Doshoweh, though, didn’t need to worry about earthquakes the way New Liverpool did.
Some of the constables inside the station were using the Iroquois language. Bushell noticed that. A lot of Spanish-speakers lived in Upper California, but English was the universal language of government there. But the affiliation of the Six Nations to the NAU was looser than that of ordinary provinces. Major Shikalimo met them in the lobby. When he saw Kathleen Flannery, he looked a question to Bushell. After introducing her to him, Bushell said, “Dr. Flannery has been conducting her own independent investigation of the theft of The Two Georges. Now that we’ve run into each other here, we’ve decided to join forces.” He spoke in carefully neutral tones, hiding both his annoyance that Kathleen hadn’t listened to him and her resentment at being forced into an alliance.
“I see,” Shikalimo said in a voice just as neutral, and then, as if reminding himself, “Well, this is an unusual case in almost every way.” He knew Bushell hadn’t told him anywhere near the whole story, then. When he saw he wasn’t going to get any more of it, he gave half a shrug and went on, “If you’ll come with me to my office, I’ll show you what we’ve been doing here the past few days.”
His office was bigger than the one Bushell had back in New Liverpool, but Bushell wasn’t the chief’s nephew, either. On the wall opposite Shikalimo’s desk was a large print of The Two Georges; on the wall in back of his desk hung a copy of the same portrait of Sosehawa as the one in Bushell’s hotel room. He pointed to it. “By the way it’s displayed, that picture is as important here as The Two Georges is all over the NAU. Who was Sosehawa, if I may ask?”
Kathleen Flannery stirred, as if she knew the answer. But Bushell had aimed the question at Shikalimo, and she left the reply to him. He said, “He was the man who made my people what we are today. He went east, into the province of New York, in 1821, and there he had a - well, you might call it a religious revelation.”
“He was a prophet, then?” Bushell had already heard that some of the Iroquois still followed their Great Spirit, so it stood to reason that they’d had prophets.
But Shikalimo smiled. “Only in a manner of speaking. Sosehawa saw all the new things brewing in New York province: the steamships in New York harbor, the very beginnings of the railroad, things like that. He realized we of the Hodenosaunee did not even know how to smelt iron. If we needed guns to defend ourselves, we had to buy them from white men, for we could not make them ourselves. We were living on the white man’s sufferance, for if whites wanted to brush us aside, they had the power to do it.”
“And Sosehawa changed all that?” Bushell said.
“Exactly. Thanks to him, schools went up all through the Six Nations. We brought in smiths and craftsmen of all sorts, and learned from them all we could. It did not happen overnight, but in a couple of generations’ time we took our place beside the white man as full equals, and no longer had to beg scraps from his table.”
“What’s finest about that is how you’ve kept your own traditions, too,” Kathleen Flannery said. “You’ve taken what you found useful without throwing away everything you had before.”
“That’s what we’ve tried to do, at any rate,” Shikalimo said. “It’s not always easy. With so many more of you people, with your books and films and wireless, we sometimes feel swamped. But we can speak of history another time. On to the matter at hand.”
Bushell leaned forward in his chair. “Good. What have you done since you learned the Sons of Liberty have been operating out of Doshoweh? How do we go about discovering who they are and where in the city they might have concealed The Two Georges?”
“That is the question,” Shikalimo said, with an intonation that left no doubt he was quoting from Hamlet. He spread his hands. “So long as they stab sub rosa, it’s - difficult. What we’ve begun to do is look close at those white men named Joe and Joseph and even Josiah who have let their distaste, shall we say, for the Iroquois become obvious to us. Things would be easier if your letter writer had a name less common among you.”
“Don’t I know it,” Bushell said. “That is a place to start, I suppose, but the Sons, at least the ones involved in this crime, are liable to be too clever to give themselves away so readily.”
“I am assuming as much,” Shikalimo answered. “I don’t look to find them among the men who are outspoken in their scorn. But like associates with like. Some of the men who loudly hate us will have quiet friends who are more dangerous.”
Samuel Stanley glanced over at Bushell. He nodded slightly. Bushell nodded back. Sachem’s nephew he might be, but Shikalimo thought like a police officer. Kathleen Flannery was looking out the window at Doshoweh and missed the bit of byplay. Shikalimo didn’t. He said nothing, but glanced down at his desk as any well-bred man might have on finding himself praised.
He said, “I gather from your colleagues, gentlemen, that you RAMs identified the headline in the newspaper pictured with The Two Georges as coming from the Doshoweh Sentinel, and that is what brought you here.”
“In part, yes,” Bushell said. “Dr. Flannery made the identification independently, with help from an associate of hers, Dr. Gyantwaka - I hope I’m not pronouncing that too badly.”
“You’re understandable,” Shikalimo said: faint praise. “Yes, Gyantwaka is from my clan. We’re all very proud of him, though he and I are only distantly related.” Bushell felt the triumphant smile Kathleen sent his way. Before he could respond to it, Shikalimo went on, “That photograph, by the by, was not sent to the Sentinel, or to any other part in Doshoweh.”
“As I said, the villains here are clever,” Bushell answered. “They tried to delay recognition of the headline for as long as they could.”
“Yes,” Shikalimo said, drawing the word out into a thoughtful hiss. His eyes suddenly came to intent focus on Bushell - he had the makings of a formidable interrogator. “You say you came to Doshoweh in part because of the headline from the Sentinel. The rest would have involved your discovery of the note signed by the man named Joe?”
That led to Bushell’s recounting yet again the story of the gunfight at Buckley Bay, and of finding the envelope postmarked Doshoweh and the note among the rubbish the Sons of Liberty had thrown away. Shikalimo clicked his tongue between his teeth, not quite in the same way a white man would have. “Not only clever men, but terribly in earnest,” he observed. That intent look returned to his long, high-cheekboned face. “Did you bring the envelope with you when you came here? Perhaps by studying the postmark, we can learn from which part of the city it was sent.”
“Major Shikalimo, I was hoping either you or the local RAMs would say something like that.” Bushell reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. “Here you are.” He handed the Iroquois constable the envelope.
Shikalimo looked at it for a moment, then set it on his desk and picked up the telephone. He spoke rapidly in his own language, paused to listen, spoke again, and hung up. A couple of minutes later, another Iroquois whose neat queue contrasted oddly with his spotless white laboratory robe came into Shikalimo’s office. The major’s guests might as well not have been there for him; he had eyes only for the envelope. Carrying it with the care another man might have given the Holy Grail, he departed.