Bone Rattler (22 page)

Though the men kept their backs to him as Duncan approached, the moment the taller of the two spoke, Duncan froze. With a burst of speed he reached the man’s side, spun him about, and slammed a fist into his jaw.

Lieutenant Woolford staggered backward, landing in a sprawl by the fireplace. Duncan did not wait for him to rise, launching himself through the air to land on the officer. But as he raised his fist again, a blade materialized at his neck, its edge pricking his throat, strong fingers seizing the locks at the back of Duncan’s head.

“Excuse my manners,” Woolford said in a steady voice, not moving. “You have not been introduced to Sergeant Fitch. His appearance of age has fooled many men no longer breathing today. He is the very best at what he does.” As his assailant relaxed his grip, Duncan twisted to meet the gaze of Woolford’s sinewy companion. A treacherous grin split the man’s grizzled, leathery face.

Woolford rubbed his jaw as he stood, then surveyed the room. The innkeeper was studiously ignoring them. “If you had done that with a roomful of witnesses, McCallum, I would have been forced to arrest you.”

“Again,” Duncan shot back.

Woolford frowned, then shrugged as if conceding a point and rubbed his jaw again. “I deserved this one perhaps. Just the one, mind.”

Fitch offered an amused snort and belted his knife.

“You stole my private correspondence to my brother,” Duncan growled. “You had me dragged through the streets in chains.”

“If you search your dim memory, McCallum, you will find that you yourself were the cause of your trouble. You may recall how you told the world about your connection to the infamous Captain McCallum of the Forty-second. You gave me no choice but to send official word. I know nothing about your letter. And as for the arrest, that was an order from Major Pike. If I had not gone to the house, there would have been only his bullies to fetch you. For many in the army, your brother is more reviled than the French.”

Duncan’s anger began to ebb. “I never knew about Jamie,” he said in a hollow voice.

“No,” Woolford agreed. “That was clear to me on the ship, and clear to General Calder when you saw that broadside. Pike wronged you.” He studied the wound on Duncan’s cheek, which had broken open again and was weeping blood. “For that I am—I am sorry,” he said, seeming surprised at his own words. “And I shall buy us all a round of that excellent applejack,” he hastened with more cheer. “I am fair parched from our journey.”

The innkeeper set out and filled three heavy mugs. By the time Duncan reached the bar, Fitch had drained his and disappeared out the front door into the night. Duncan drank slowly, in silence, letting the cider dilute his anger as he pondered Woolford’s words and how Adam Munroe had secretly carried the newspaper story of Duncan’s trial. “The brother of such a notorious fugitive might offer a means of finding him,” he ventured at last. “Adam used his knowledge of how to find me to bargain his way into the Company.”

Woolford replied with only a frown.

“But how could Adam have known I was Jamie’s brother?”

“That was what you might call private information.”

Duncan’s mind raced. “You mean Adam knew Jamie?”

“Their paths had crossed. I wasn’t sure of the truth about your connection to him until the moment I saw your face.”

Duncan looked up at the ranger. “Meaning you also knew my brother.”

Woolford drained his cup before answering. “We served a few weeks together.”

Duncan considered the words a moment. “So you struck a bargain with Adam Munroe, and without a by your leave, you change my life forever.”

“I seem to recall,” Woolford shot back, “that you were rotting away in some mildewed cell. And it was Arnold’s bargain to strike, not mine.”

It was Duncan’s turn to drain his mug. “If I search my memory as you suggest,” he observed after a moment, “I didn’t tell the world about my brother. I told you, with Cameron ten feet away.”

“Even the biggest of birds sometimes sings.”

“The letter. I last saw the letter with Cameron.”

“Cameron’s papers show he started life as a merchant. Perhaps for him everything is still about striking bargains.”

Duncan glanced out the door to the porch, where Fitch had disappeared. “You were going to bring me to America and not tell the general or Pike? Why?” he demanded. “Your duty is to this man you call Calder.”

“My duty,” Woolford said, as if correcting him, “is to bring peace to this land.” He fixed Duncan with a dangerous gaze, then lifted the pitcher again.

Duncan gave up trying to break the strange cipher in which Woolford spoke. “My brother was no coward.”

“I daresay he was a hero to his men,” Woolford turned to Duncan. “Pike did not convey the fullness of the story. Captain McCallum did not flee. He ordered his men to retreat and regroup. By that time the tripe-skulled fool who—” Woolford paused. “By then,” he said in a more judicious tone, “the esteemed commander of our troops, General Abercromby, had already sent a dozen companies into the French guns. A frontal charge against cannon and
mortar, when every officer advised against it. We could have cut them off and starved them out. We could have brought in our own artillery in a few days time. But Abercromby was hungry for glory, desperate for a quick victory. At every turn of the battle, mistakes were made. After six hundred of our brave lads had fallen, your brother said it was no longer the bastards in front of them who were killing his men but the ones behind. He called back his soldiers, said he would no longer send more Scots to useless deaths. Pike may call it cowardice. Most just call it mutiny. If your brother had stopped there, the general would not have had the spine to bring charges.”

“Scots?” Duncan asked in surprise, then remembered the kilted officer he had seen in New York.

“The Forty-second Regiment,” Woolford said. “The Black Watch. It’s a Scottish troop, mostly Highlanders. The king permits them to wear kilts. For their bravery, they are even allowed a few pipers despite the laws against them at home.”

Duncan turned away to gaze into the fire, struggling with a pang of guilt, a feeling that he had somehow wronged his brother. Until that morning at the army’s headquarters, while he had not entirely forgotten that the army had allowed a few Scottish troops to be formed, he had always assumed them to be lowlanders living in English ways. Duncan had never considered that his brother might have found a means to come back to the old ways. “Pike said he deserted,” Duncan recalled as he fixed the ranger with another suspicious stare.

“He all but said your brother caused the defeat at Ticonderoga—a strained interpretation of events. Your brother ripped away the insignia from his coat and threw off his gorget, knowing he would be broken, then said he was going to collect the wounded. He had saved another hundred from death by his order to withdraw, then he and a few of those most loyal to him saved another score lying bleeding on the field. But on his last trip carrying the wounded to safety, the survivors say they saw him point to a surrounding hillside, then run into the trees with a dozen of his men. Another artillery barrage from the French prevented anyone from following.”

“Then he could have been killed.”

“He was glimpsed a week later in the forest, with a handful of Highlanders who had been listed as missing. When a patrol followed, they were ambushed at night. Every man was knocked unconscious and woke up tied to a tree, having never glimpsed their attackers. But not one soldier was seriously harmed. On each of their packs was a small bone. Some said it was forest phantoms who’d attacked the patrol.”

“Where would he go?”

“People say he is in Canada. Nova Scotia perhaps,” Woolford said, referring to the colony that had adopted the Latin name meaning
New Scotland
. “Or in France. Pike has sent letters to every garrison commander in the army, especially in Europe, every commander in the fleets. He insists your brother has betrayed us and is helping plan the next French campaign.”

“Why is Pike so rabid about him?”

“Pike was a senior aide to General Abercromby that day. A victory would have guaranteed him a colonelship. Instead he is assigned to duties behind the front with no hope of promotion.”

“What kind of duties, pray tell, provide for chaining a man to a chair and whipping his face?”

“Gathering information for planning.” Woolford looked up with a sardonic grin. “They call themselves Military Intelligence, to keep us from using the true description. Now he thinks he will rewrite the battle by proving your brother was in league with the French that day.”

There was movement at the outer door, and Sergeant Fitch appeared, nodding at Woolford, then hastened to the bar as the innkeeper refilled his mug. Where had the sergeant gone, Duncan asked himself, remembering the warnings he had received that day. The savages could be anywhere.

“I need to find Jacob the Fish,” Woolford said to the innkeeper. “Tonight.”

Duncan slowly turned toward the officer, not sure he had heard correctly.

“He was arrested, Lieutenant,” the Dutchman replied.

“Captain, if you please,” Sergeant Fitch interjected. “He’s got hisself anointed.”

“Promoted since this morning?” Duncan asked, suddenly suspicious again.

“Since three months ago, apparently,” Woolford replied. “But word did not catch up until I landed.”

Duncan studied Woolford as the officer pressed the innkeeper about the missing Jacob, realizing how little he understood about the man. He did not trust Woolford, but did not hate him as he once had. Woolford was not simply another brandy-swilling bluestocking prig who had purchased a commission and passed his time carousing in garrison towns. He was a brandy-swilling bluestocking who willingly entered the dark hell of the wilderness so he could confront the savages, risking a horrible death again and again—and who, just as strangely, seemed more committed to finding peace than to obeying his own senior officers. But why, in the middle of the war that was so important to him, had he sailed to England? And why, once there, had he decided to accompany, even assist, the pious Reverend Arnold and the Ramsey Company?

Woolford leaned toward the innkeeper. “I must speak with Old Jacob.”

“Gone, sir,” came the reply. Duncan heard the Dutchman say, “He had been planning to leave, told me he had business with old friends. He won’t be back. In the mountains, I daresay, building a hut for winter. He was no threat.”

“Damn you, old man, I know he was no threat.” Woolford’s mouth twisted in frustration. He gazed outside, into the night, for a long moment, before turning back to the Dutchman. “Then I must know what he said when he was leaving. What happened that day?”

“Lord Ramsey,” came the innkeeper’s hesitant reply.

Woolford’s knuckles whitened as he wrapped his fingers around his mug. “Where exactly in the mountains?”

“I cannot say for sure. North and west, I daresay. He won’t be found unless he wants to be.”

Woolford closed his eyes a moment, then cast a pointed glance at Fitch, who quickly reached for his own mug, as if suddenly in great need of the potent liquor.

They drank in silence, stabbing with wooden splints at the slices of hot sausage volunteered by the proprietor. Duncan became aware of a soft, lyrical sound from the dining chamber, gradually growing in volume, that he recognized as the strains of a violin. As patrons in the room lifted chairs, turning them in the direction of the music, Sarah came into sight, standing against the wall, flanked by her siblings. Beside them on a window seat rested Crispin, alternately watching the night and the Ramsey children.

“What Shakespeare do you have, Captain,” Duncan asked after a moment, “for a tutor to an old family come to a New World?”

When Woolford did not respond, he noticed the intense way the officer stared at Sarah.

“You spent much of your voyage with Miss Ramsey,” Duncan observed.

“Not exactly with her. She was sleeping most of the time, like she was in a coma. I would take my turn watching her. Sometimes I would read aloud, though she seldom gave sign of hearing.”

“I would have thought her father would have wanted a doctor to escort her. Instead she had you and the vicar.”

Woolford’s gaze was full of challenge but Duncan did not look away. “The Reverend received instructions from a great physician in London before embarking.”

“It was he who prescribed the laudanum?”

Woolford stared into his cup. “I took no pleasure in assisting with that. She was judged mentally unfit for a voyage. We had no choice. The doctor said otherwise we would have to tie her to her bed. Mix it with tea, he said, every cup of tea, so soon she would not notice the bitter taste.”

It was Duncan’s turn to gaze into his mug, so as not to reveal the flash of discovery in his eyes. Before he died, Evering had been making tea for Sarah and had smashed the dosing vial. Before he
died, Duncan realized, Evering had been reviving her. They must have sat in the night, speaking secretly, just as Adam and Evering had done. He had been wrong to think the disasters on the ship had started with the opening of Woolford’s trunk. There had been another event, perhaps just as important. Sarah Ramsey had awakened.

Duncan fixed the officer with a sober gaze. “You lied to Adam Munroe about the destination of the Company, about it going to a Ramsey plantation in the south. What else?”

“That,” Woolford said with a sigh, “was the only lie that was necessary. You would think it a small thing.”

“But you knew it wasn’t. Not for him. Not for you. For his sake, you owe me the truth. I had thought the key to Evering’s death lay in the connection between Adam and the professor. But perhaps that is not the connection that was important. How did Adam Munroe know Sarah?”

“They lived in worlds apart.”

“You mean one in chains, one chained by opium.”