Original Death (30 page)

“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.

The ranger officer was clearly struggling to keep his temper under
control. He glanced at Duncan, whose face was known to Cameron, then brought a knuckle to his temple like an obsequious recruit. “Too bold,” he repeated. He was about to turn when a figure leapt out from an alley and launched itself onto Rabbit Jack's back. The Mingo seemed more amazed then hurt as Hetty screeched Indian epithets and pummeled him with her small bony fists. Rabbit Jack laughed as the grenadiers began prying her off. She did not want to give up, and she clutched his blue jacket as she was dragged away. As she dropped into the dirt the hell dog leapt beside her, baring his teeth at the Mingo as he retreated, still laughing.

“There was another man in that canoe,” Woolford reported to Duncan. “Before that fool Cameron interrupted, I told Rabbit Jack he was going to hang for murder. He laughed and said we had the wrong man, that we should speak with the poet. He said it is the poet of death who teaches the flock how to leave bodies behind.”

The poet of death. He sounded like a European. Duncan looked to Sagatchie and Kass. “We were all at the Council,” Sagatchie said. “No one watched the landing where those from the red-eyed canoe made their camp.”

“Several men arrived together at the council fire,” Duncan said. “But only two came forward, Rabbit Jack and Black Fish. The others backed quickly away. One of them was a tall man in European clothes, wearing a wide-brimmed hat.”

“The fox will back away when it sees a wolf at a kill,” Sagatchie observed.

Duncan broke the silence that followed. “If this poet is here, then Rabbit Jack will probably be running to him now.”

“I think that particular hare will hop to a tavern,” Woolford said. “And poets are known to be partial to ale.”

They resumed their search, more wary than ever of the scarlet coats, tracing reports of Rabbit Jack calling at two taverns, asking after a tall man in a black hat. At last an old Oneida hawking baskets pointed to a two-story stone structure overlooking the river, the most substantial of
the town's taverns. With a glint of victory in his eye, Woolford directed Duncan to enter the rear door while he and Sagatchie stood outside the front. They would snare Jack as he fled.

Duncan entered the back of the building and stepped to the cage-like alcove built into the corner from which the tavernkeeper dispensed his beverages. Beside the cage a plump woman with rouged cheeks sat, rolling three silver beads back and forth on the table. Duncan hesitated a moment, realizing they matched the beads he had seen in the bowl at the gaming hut. When he asked for a warrior in a naval jacket, the old Dutchman pointed toward the entry. “Left not five minutes ago.”

Duncan darted out the door so quickly he did not see the halberd that tripped him until he was sprawled on the ground.

“Not so fast, laddie. You could crack your brainpan.” An ox of a man wearing the bearskin hat of the grenadiers bent and pulled Duncan to his feet. Duncan looked through the ring of provosts that surrounded him to see the red-eyed canoe gliding past the tavern. Rabbit Jack made an obscene gesture at him then with a laugh slapped the back of a lean, black-clothed man who sat on one of the wooden chests. The brim of his black hat was too wide for Duncan to see the face of the poet of death.

The big grenadier pushed Duncan back inside, to a table where Conawago now sat. The old Nipmuc absently lifted the deck of worn playing cards on the table and began shuffling from hand to hand. Duncan kept his eyes down, painfully aware of whispered commands and grumbling, of chairs scraping the floor.

Suddenly the tavern was quiet. There were no more soldiers, no more patrons, not even the tavernkeeper. Duncan rose uneasily and was eyeing the rear door when Woolford stepped out of a doorway along the opposite side of the room. With a look of apology he opened the door wider to reveal a private dining chamber. The ranger captain gestured them toward the candlelit table where a solitary man sat waiting.

Duncan at first did not recognize the figure since he had never seen
him in civilian clothes. “General Calder!” he said with a shudder, and he spun toward the rear door before realizing provosts were undoubtedly standing outside.

“The proprietor serves an excellent applejack,” Calder said, gesturing to a clay bottle beside several pewter mugs, another deck of cards and a set of draughts. “Sit down, McCallum,” he said when Duncan hesitated. “There is no point to arresting you since you make such light work of my prisons. And last I heard, your dead body had already been dragged out of the hole. I'm not sure even I have authority to hang a dead man.”

Conawago gave a restraining tug on Duncan's arm as he stepped to the table. The old Nipmuc seemed more curious than afraid of the general. Duncan followed and sat beside his friend.

General Calder silently filled four mugs, motioning Woolford to join them, then pushed two across the table before raising his lined countenance toward them. “A dispatch rider off his route, tied to a solitary wheel of an army wagon, deep in a lake. It would sound like one of those ridiculous conundrums posed for the entertainment of philosophers. Except that I was conducting an inspection at William Henry and decided to see for myself. Nothing ridiculous about the bloated corpse of a loyal soldier. Normally a missing dispatch rider means missing dispatches. But his dispatch case was still sealed when the horse you borrowed found its way to its stable.”

Duncan looked from Woolford to the general before replying. “You haven't found the payroll,” he stated. Neither man returned his gaze. He pushed his chair back to leave.

“We haven't found the payroll,” the general reluctantly confirmed. “And one puff of wind in the wrong direction, and the house of cards built of our recent military successes will collapse.” When he finally looked up at Duncan, his face was dark with worry. “People think we win our wars because we have more troops, more cannon, more bullets. But that is seldom the case. Our secret weapon is discipline. I have the best disciplined troops in America. And that discipline has gone to hell. Three thousand
men are en route here, and I don't know how many I can rely on when I take them north. I have no money to pay them, have had none for months. Many of the best-loved members of their regiments have been imprisoned for insubordination. I have several thousand savages who may turn against us at any moment. When they do, all that will be left of his majesty's army will be scalps hanging on tribal lodgepoles.” A bitter smile rose on Calder's face, and he drained his mug. “Where is the king's money, McCallum?”

“I did not take it.”

The general filled his mug again. “That verdict has yet to be rendered. But your friends say I could benefit from your intellect, that you have something of an instinct for the mysterious ways of men in the wilderness.”

“You cast your net too wide,” Duncan said. “Look to your own.”

Anger flared in the general's eyes. Duncan extracted the pieces of paper he had taken from the Bethel Church school. He laid them with the writing of the students facing down.

“Paper is scarce in the frontier settlements,” he explained. “Everyone uses both sides.” He began arranging the papers to line up the disjointed arcs and lines on them, fitting them together like pieces of a puzzle. “I took these to try to understand the captured children, but they tell me more about the captured coins.”

Calder pushed the candle closer. “A drawing of a cabinet?”

“A door?” Woolford suggested.

“The detail of a chest. Or rather an elaborate coach seat that opened like a chest.”

The general sighed. “I am weary, McCallum. I have no appetite for your games.”

“The payroll wagon was built in Bethel Church.”

Calder frowned. “That information was secret. But yes, the quartermaster chose to contract with the Mohawk builders. A gesture of respect to our woodland brethren. But the drawings for it would have been surrendered on delivery of the vehicle.”

“As I would expect. But someone made a second set and it was kept
even more secretly. When they were no longer of use, the schoolmaster must have found them and salvaged the paper for his students.”

Calder made a gesture of dismissal toward the papers. “What purpose would a second set of plans serve?” he asked. “The pay chest was impregnable. It could only be opened with two different keys, which had been sent north with different dispatch riders the week before.”

“Keys that did not work,” Duncan stated.

Calder offered no disagreement.

“A second wagon was built with the same secrecy as the first,” Duncan continued. “An identical wagon. The Mohawk builders did not suspect anything because it was arranged for, and paid for, by officers in uniform, perhaps even the same officers. They were building another for his majesty as far as they knew.”

The general went very still.

“It would have taken them at least three months to build,” Duncan continued. “Add a month for the second set of drawings to be made and sent to them, say a month of planning. Meaning the scheme was hatched just after the defeat of the French at Quebec. What was it the French needed most then?”

“A few thousand regular soldiers and a few tons of munitions.”

“All of which are expected soon, with the arrival of their next fleet any day now. Which means all they really needed was time. They're getting it. What they did was to assure you lost confidence in your troops, in your ability to act swiftly in delivering the killing stroke. The theft of the payroll was meant to change the tide of war.”

The general looked like he had bitten something very sour. He lifted the bottle as if to fill his mug once more then lowered it. “You have an active imagination, sir.” There was no confidence in his voice.

Duncan balanced a structure out of the cards on the table, two walls and a roof. “Those involved knew the routine, knew the wagon's schedule and that it would stop for a meal at the settlement.” He took a draught piece and pushed it inside the card structure. “The second
wagon waited in the barn. Some of the escorts were part of the conspiracy, including the driver. The others went inside for the meal.” He pushed a second draught piece into the back of the house of cards. “The paywagon was driven into the far end of the barn, the horse team switched to the new wagon and driven out.” He extended a finger and pulled out the wooden disc. “It would not have been difficult to make the new wagon look road worn—just throw some dirt on it, maybe add a scratch or two. The only one who would likely notice a difference would have been the driver.”