WITH A DESPERATE SOB, SARAH ripped open the sack. Conawago helped her stretch out Will’s limp limbs. Duncan searched for a pulse. “He lives,” he announced, though the boy’s heartbeat was as light as a feather.
“He’s been beaten most cruel,” Munro observed over Duncan’s shoulder.
Will’s bruised and bleeding face had received several violent blows. A gash on his left temple oozed blood where something had been slammed into his head. Duncan gingerly probed the wound, fearing a fracture. The boy’s hand did not respond as Duncan pressed it, hoping for a returning grip.
Sarah saw the worry in his eyes. The thief may not have been successful in stealing the boy, but he may have stolen Will’s life. She stood, calling for a blanket as the rest of the camp stirred, and a black shape wedged into the opening she made. Molly began gently licking the boy’s face. Sarah bent to pull the dog away, but Conawago stayed her arm.
“She may be the best medicine we have,” the Nipmuc said.
Will’s fingers began moving, slowly curling inward, then reaching upward until they found the big dog’s neck. Molly gave an acknowledgment that was half snort and half joyful yap, and she began licking more energetically.
The wagons were on the road an hour later, leaving Duncan and Sarah by the campfire, still tending to the unconscious boy. Sarah had insisted that the slow-moving wagons continue the westward journey, and Conawago had insisted that Duncan stay with her as he ventured into the forest, hoping to find sign of the boy’s assailant.
“The ax sank deep in his thigh,” the old tribesman said. “He left much blood on the trail, which means he won’t be traveling fast this day and for many to come.” He gestured up the slope. “But the number of bountymen will only increase as the broadsides are distributed more widely, Duncan. Bring down your horse in case you need a quick departure.”
Sarah heaped the fire higher and reached for their copper teapot. “There’s food,” she said with a nod to a flour sack stuffed with biscuits and bacon.
Duncan warily eyed the eastern road and shook his head, knowing that neither of them had any appetite. When he returned with Goliath, Sarah had the boy cradled in her lap. “It’s someone else’s fight. Will is just a bystander. But he had to endure the horror on that beach in Boston—and now this.” She clutched the boy close to her breast and rocked back and forth. “I told him he could join our school in Edentown. He laughed when I explained that sometimes the schoolchildren go out and sit on the broad backs of the oxen while they plow the fields. He’s a good boy, a joyful boy. He’ll like the maize pudding that the new cook makes,” she said in a brittle voice.
It wasn’t like Sarah to prattle on. She had been deeply shaken by the events of recent days but had maintained her usual reserve. Now, alone with Duncan, her guard was dropping. “You can run in the orchard with Molly, Will,” she whispered. A single tear rolled down her cheek. “You will laugh to see the lambs play with the fawns in our back fields. We make gingerbread at Yuletime,” she added, then changed from English to the tongue of her tribe. “Jiyathontek.” It was an invocation to the forest gods. She held Will out, for the spirits to take notice, and beseeched them. “Bring this brave warrior back to us,” she begged, then paused and looked up at Duncan.
“He wasn’t just stuffed in this bag and carried away,” he said. “That Abenaki took him into the trees and beat him. I think Will knows something they desperately want to learn. I think he wouldn’t tell them and just took the beating; then Mog put him in the bag for the French to interrogate.”
“But Molly would have—”
“Molly came up with me last night,” Duncan said, feeling shamed now at allowing the dog to stay with him. “But I don’t think this was the first attempt, Sarah.”
She scrubbed at her cheek. “Not the first?”
“We couldn’t understand why this Abenaki, this Chief Mog, came into Mrs. Pope’s house. He didn’t know you or me. But Will was sleeping in the room down the hall.”
“Surely he could not have known that.”
“The French were watching. They were already in Boston, probably looking for the Hancock warehouse. It’s where we took Will when we came back from the shipwreck. They had but to follow us when we brought the boy back to Mrs. Pope’s.”
“But why?”
“He’s the sole witness to their horrible deed.”
“Then why not try to kill him here? Why do they need to speak with him?”
Duncan could only shake his head. He lifted his rifle and made a wide scouting circuit in the forest beyond the camp. When he returned, Sarah still held the boy close to her heart, but her eyes were closed as if in sleep. He opened the pouch he had retrieved from one of the wagons before their departure and extracted a small vial of amber liquid and a small muslin bag; then he poured a mug of hot water into which he dropped the bag and a few drops from the vial. When he finished, he discovered that Sarah was watching him, and she lifted Will’s head. Duncan held the aromatic mixture under the boy’s nose and gently lifted it to his lips. Will stirred and accepted the brew in slow sips.
Molly, who had stayed at the boy’s side since the wagons departed, raised her head toward the forest and gave a tentative wag of her tail. Will looked pale and sapped of all strength, but his eyes had opened.
He stretched an arm out, as if trying to reach something in the direction Molly was staring. “Come back!” the boy said in a strangled cry, grabbing frantically at the thin air. “I did not mean it!”
Sarah stroked his head and murmured words of comfort.
“I can’t see the face!” the boy cried, and looked frantically toward the shadows of the forest.
“Don’t fret so,” Sarah said. “We saw his face. We will not long forget it.”
“So bright,” Will said, still looking at the shadows. “The color of fresh snow! And when she approached and spread her arms, I saw the feathers! Wings!” Will twisted as if to trying to rise. “I have to go to her! Don’t you see? It’s my mother! She died when I was but four, but I am sure of it! Her face! I want to remember her face!” He grabbed Duncan’s hand. “Why couldn’t I see her face?” the boy asked in a forlorn voice.
Duncan found himself following the gaze of the boy and the dog back toward the trees, for a moment looking for the angel himself. He turned the boy’s head and looked him in the eyes. “Because it wasn’t time, Will. Because you’re needed in this life for many more years. She just wanted you to know that, and that she will be waiting, biding her time for the blessed day in the next century when you’re old and weak and surrounded by adoring grandchildren.”
The boy chewed on Duncan’s words, slowly calming. “The next century? Really?”
“I am certain of it. And an amazing time it will be.”
“But will she know me then?”
“Mothers always know,” Duncan assured him.
Will gazed back into the shadows, then accepted the still-steaming mug Sarah offered him and silently sipped. “Maybe it wasn’t because it was not my time. Maybe it was to say there was still hope despite my sin. Maybe it was because of the way I killed all those others.”
Sarah and Duncan exchanged an alarmed glance. “You’re too young to be troubled by sin,” Sarah said, encouraging the boy to drink more of Duncan’s brew.
“What if Jonathan told her?”
With a chill, Duncan realized that he was talking about the dead Jonathan Pine speaking to his dead mother.
“Would he be there yet? Reverend Occom consigned his soul to the angels. I heard him say it in that Boston cemetery. You have to tell the important truths when you meet them. No secrets in heaven. Jonathan would have ciphered it out.” The boy looked back toward the shadows. “She knew, that’s why she turned her back on me. Fifty or sixty more years won’t matter. She’ll never want me again.” Will began weeping.
Duncan braced the boy’s head between his hands. “He would have ciphered what out? What secret sin?”
Tears streamed down Will’s cheeks. “When those two were in Halifax, I thought they were so entertaining. They told me riddles when I met them on the wharf there. What cheese is made backwards, Philip asked me. Why, Edam, says he, and when I puzzled it out, that the letters are just reversed, I laughed so hard. The captain, he didn’t like us speaking to strangers about the Arcturus and her ports, but I didn’t mind telling them. They bought me candy in Halifax, and a whole orange from the Caribbean, just for me, my first ever. Henry wanted to know the captain’s name, and whether we had sailed from London, and did I know the name of our shipping agent there. I asked them why they were writing all those things down and they told me more jokes and bought me a cup of chocolate. Once, Philip started telling me about a great circus he saw in Paris, with lions and elephants, but then Henry cut him off, though I didn’t think anything of it then. Later, they asked if we was carrying military supplies, and they watched as the army loaded a few barrels of gunpowder, supplies for the fort in Boston. Then they asked if we had any of those remarkable natives of America who sometimes went to sea, and I told them of my good friend Jonathan. Next day they were there with a letter, addressed to the captain. I didn’t think anything of it until we sailed with them on board, but I realized it was curious that they didn’t know the captain’s name one day and had a letter for him the next. Then they had more candy, sweet molasses candy, and after the first day they observed that Jonathan Pine worked long hours, standing double watches, and they asked why he didn’t strip off his shirt like most of the other men.” Tears began flowing down the boy’s cheeks again. “Don’t you see! He died, they all died, because I wanted molasses chews.”
“I don’t understand,” Sarah confessed.
“I said it was a secret, but they were my friends and each of them told me a secret, like how Philip had shot off his own toe once, and I wasn’t sure about it so he showed me. So then I told them about Jonathan, explaining that he didn’t take off his shirt because he had important papers strapped to his chest, that very important people waited for his secrets in America. I was prideful because I knew such a secret and wanted to let them know I could be trusted. And then they killed everyone, took away everything my friends ever had with a spark on a fuse.” Will wiped at his tears. “Don’t you see? I am a sinner who sold my friends’ lives for a handful of candy.” He buried his head in his hands as a long sob racked his body.
Sarah pressed the boy to her shoulder. “Will,” she said, “those men were going to have those secrets no matter what. They left you in that boat to die with the others. But you showed them you had a different fate. Better for the world that Will Sterret lives. Your mother came to tell you that, and that she and your uncle and all the Sterrets who ever lived count on you now.”
The boy lifted his head. “Count on me for what?”
It was Duncan who replied. “Count on you to help us find justice for all those new angels, so they can find peace. Tell me, Will, did those men want to know something about Mr. Oliver? What was the Indian asking for today?”
“My uncle said no one was to know.”
“Your uncle is one of those angels, Will. You have a piece of the key that will unlock the puzzle of his death so he can find rest on the other side.”
The boy reached toward his britches, but the effort caused his face to screw up in pain. “It’s there, in the pouch inside my waist. My uncle said to keep it for us. Mr. Oliver gave it to us for our new life in the Maine country, saying that it would mean a lot of ewes for our flock. Mr. Oliver said the major would understand, and maybe we’d go thank him in his new mountain home one day.”
“The major?” Duncan asked.
“That’s all I know. It came in a parcel to Mr. Oliver last time he was in port. I had a whale tooth. I thought I would take that to the major to show our thanks. I told Philippe and Henry one night, ’cause we shared our secrets. I boasted that I had a golden king and showed them.”
“Golden king?” Sarah asked.
Will nodded. “It was funny. They got very excited and went off and spoke to each other, and when they came back, they asked where it came from, and I just said the north. They asked if my uncle was a ranger too, like they knew Mr. Oliver was a ranger already. Then today, that Indian, he kept asking who sent it, and did I get it from a ranger, and where in the north did it come from, but I would not tell the bully.” He swallowed and fixed Duncan with a sober gaze. “I will tell you, though, because we are going to find justice. Mr. Oliver told us. It came from the place of the heroes of Quebec, from St. Francis.”
Trying hard not to provoke the boy’s pain, Duncan pried the pouch out and handed it to Will, who upended it onto Duncan’s palm. “Ain’t it grand?” the boy asked. “And the seawater didn’t stain it at all.”
Duncan stared in mute amazement. It was a gold coin bearing the image of the King Louis of France.
THEY BROKE CAMP IN MIDMORNING, Sarah on one of the two horses left by the convoy, holding Will and leading the second by a lead rope. She insisted that Duncan stay out of sight, and he followed slowly, often walking beside Goliath, who registered his sentiment about the turtle’s pace with impatient shakes of his head, as if to suggest that Duncan had confused him with a plow horse.
Duncan finally relented and cantered ahead half a mile. As he reined Goliath in, the horse spun about, his ears bent sharply toward the eastern road. Two riders emerged, riding fast out of a cloud of dust. With an explosion of instinct, Goliath stamped the earth with a front hoof and burst into a gallop despite Duncan’s strenuous effort to hold him back. He had recognized two military horses and was charging to battle.
Sarah threw up a frantic hand as Duncan approached. He slid off his saddle, rifle in hand, and disappeared into a clump of brush before the dust around Goliath cleared.
The two horses were indeed from dragoon stables, but to his relief, Duncan saw Ishmael mounted on the first, though he could not understand why Sarah, clutching Will tight to her, hesitated when she saw the young Nipmuc. Then Ishmael inched forward, and Duncan saw the musket aimed at his back. It was held by Sam, the dead wheelwright’s nephew.
“Is it only you then, Duncan?” Ishmael called as Duncan edged out of his cover, his gun aimed at Ishmael’s captor. The click of a second hammerlock came from across the road. “Not just, nephew,” came Conawago’s voice from the shadows. “And you’ll not be able to take down both of us,” he warned Sam.
To their surprise, Ishmael laughed, then leapt off his horse and ran toward the sound of his uncle’s voice. Before dismounting, Sam grinned, opened the pan of his musket, and turned it over, showing that it was not primed. He quickly explained how the young Nipmuc, having led his pursuers on a hot chase up the northern road, had circled back around them the next night to return to Worcester, hoping to secretly return two of the stolen horses after having given the third to an ecstatic northbound farmer on the condition he ride it hard into New Hampshire, then keep it out of sight once back on his farm. Ishmael had hoped to find more evidence of the killer at the wheel shop but instead had found Sam.
“He knows, Duncan,” Ishmael explained. “Sam didn’t just make wheels with his uncle.”
“If he’s with the Sons, then why treat you so?” Sarah asked Ishmael, still uncertain of the newcomer.
“In case someone encountered us and recognized me. Sam would say he had captured me.”
“Captured you, then headed in the opposite direction of the magistrates?” Duncan asked.
“It was the best we could think of. We had to come. Sam has news and something to give you.”
The apprentice explained that he had gone back into town the night of the murder after his mother and siblings had retired for the night. As usual when going to see his uncle on Sons’ business, he had kept to the shadows. “But I wasn’t the only one. As I was passing the first inn, two men came out, both wearing cloaks, one with a thin beard that he kept trimmed close.”
“A soldier from Boston?” Duncan asked.
Sam shook his head. “If I understand what happened, this was before the soldiers arrived.”
“Tell him,” Ishmael urged the youth.
“Tell me what?” Duncan asked when Sam remained silent.
“They were speaking fast and urgent-like, sixteen to the dozen, and in French. I know just enough to recognize the tongue. My uncle Josiah knew it, from the north, and sometimes sang French songs. And for a moment I smelled lavender, if that means anything.”
Duncan gazed into the shadows as he considered the news. Mog’s French masters had been in Worcester with him the night Chisholm died. “What did they do?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” Sam said, pain now in his voice. “My uncle had a rule, one he said I must never break, just like the ranger rules he would talk about. If anything ever seemed amiss in town, I was to run back to protect my ma and the family. I didn’t linger.”
“Did you understand anything they said?”
“No, only their names. Henry, he was the one with the beard.”
“And the other was Philip! It’s them!” Will cried out, then held his head from the pain of the effort. “Hughes and Montgomery, or so they called themselves! The devils who sank the ship!”
Sam gazed at the boy and nodded. “Philippe. That’s what the bearded man called the other. Philippe pointed down across the river to where your wagons were, and Henry said no and pointed to the mill . . . or maybe”—Sam paused, collecting himself—“maybe I guess the wheel shop.”
Duncan saw the agony in Sam’s eyes and put a hand on his shoulder. “You did nothing wrong.” He shared the boy’s pain. The French had been right there. If he had known, or if he had warned Chisholm, the wheelwright might still be alive.
“There’s more,” Ishmael said with a worried look back up the road. “Tell them, Sam.”
“Next morning the lieutenant posted a bounty before he left. But not for my uncle’s killer, as everyone expected.”
Sarah and Duncan exchanged worried glances. “We know of that bounty, Samuel,” Sarah said. “Believe none of it.”
The apprentice looked away from Sarah, as if in embarrassment. “You don’t understand, ma’am,” he said in a near whisper. “A new one. Ten pounds sterling. For ten pounds a man wouldn’t have to work for a year or more, or could buy a fair piece of land.” He looked back at Sarah with wide eyes. “For you, ma’am. It’s for Sarah Ramsey, on charges of harboring an infamous traitor. Aiding and abetting the notorious Duncan McCallum, the broadside says.”
Duncan heard Sarah’s sharp intake of breath. Will put his arms around her and patted her back. “It’s a lie, Miss Sarah. We all know it is a lie.”
She pushed the boy away and took several steps toward the forest. Duncan followed her, stricken at the thought that he had brought such trouble to her. When she turned to face him, her countenance was calm again. “It’s just a way of distracting you, Duncan,” she declared as she returned his worried gaze. “You must run faster than ever. Go.”
“With you, yes.”
“Impossible. Will needs me. We’ll catch up with the wagons by nightfall.”
“I followed a trail of blood to a camp where Will’s abductor went to meet with two other men,” Conawago reported as he approached. “He was still bleeding from the ax blow. If he is their guide, they’ll not make quick progress. We may catch them yet.”
“Go,” Sarah said again. “The world is against us, Duncan, don’t you see? If they take me back to Boston, I’ll have my Mr. Adams, John Adams. But you must recover that damned ledger to be free again.”
AN HOUR LATER, CONAWAGO AND Duncan were scouring the campsite the old Nipmuc had discovered. Three men riding three horses had indeed used the camp along the high game trail, one wearing moccasins, the other two in expensive shoes with stitched leather soles. The three had departed in a hurry, alarmed no doubt that the mission of their guide had failed.
Duncan extracted a broken pipe bowl from the ashes, then two pieces of its clay stem. It was as if someone had thrown the pipe down in anger. On the bowl was stamped a small fleur-de-lis. Conawago pointed to chestnut-red spots on a frond of ground cedar. It was drying blood. “Sarah slowed Mog down. I think an artery was nicked. He’ll need a doctor or risk losing the leg—or worse.”
“And if their guide’s truly disabled, they’ll be wary of staying in the forest,” Duncan said as he pointed to more drops of blood on the trunk of a maple.
“Meaning they’ll take to the road, or follow close to the road, to the next settlement, to Agawam on the Connecticut River. That’s where we can intercept the killers.”
THE SUN WAS SETTING AS Duncan and Conawago, leading their weary mounts, gazed down on a tidy little farm joined to the western road by a narrow, winding lane with a cow pasture on one side and maize field on the other. With rising alarm, they had searched in vain for any sign of Sarah and Will. Ishmael and Sam had, as agreed, lingered behind to slow down any pursuers, but Sarah had not, as agreed, gone to meet the wagons.
In the last of the light they warily approached the farm, studying the horses by the small stone-walled barn. The dapple mare Sarah had been riding was tied with five other horses in what appeared to be a military-style picket line. The pursuers had caught up with her.
Duncan and Conawago quickly conferred, then dismounted and advanced on foot, circling through the pasture to the stone wall nearest the barn. Exchanging a sober glance, they checked the priming charges in their rifles. If they could surprise her captors, the two of them had a reasonable chance of rescuing her, though that was only if all the captors were in one place. They paused at the barn, looking for evidence of whether she was held in the barn or the white clapboard house.
Through the solitary window on the east side of the house they could glimpse figures inside, though the only person who was plainly visible was an unfamiliar woman in a linen cap who was bent at the hearth. Conawago pointed to the smoking chimney and made a downward motion with his palm before nodding toward the big oak beside the house. Duncan nodded and pointed to a blanket airing on a clothesline. If he blocked the chimney, they could disable the captors one by one as they fled the smoke.
Duncan had begun inching toward the blanket when a long moan rose from inside the barn. He instantly shifted direction, slipping into the shadows of the forebay, then easing through the open double doors of the entry.
Sarah was sprawled, unconscious, on a pile of hay in the center aisle. A man in a black hat was grabbing the wrist of an equally comatose Will Sterret.
All the anger and frustration that had been boiling inside Duncan erupted in a white-hot fury. He raised his rifle and rushed forward, slamming the rifle butt down hard on the back of the man’s head, then standing over Will with his rifle aimed in case the man rose to resist.
Sarah stirred, rubbing her eyes, then gazed in confusion at Duncan and the fallen stranger. “What have you done?” she gasped, and darted to the unconscious man, pulling away the hat that had fallen onto his face. An angry chatter rose from above, and Sadie swung down onto Duncan and pounded his back with her tiny fists before slipping onto her prostrate master. Duncan had attacked Solomon Hayes.
The capuchin and the proprietress of Edentown both offered comforting strokes on the tinker’s shoulders, then looked up with accusing stares.
“I—I didn’t know,” Duncan muttered to Sarah. “I thought you were . . . What is he doing here?”
“What is he doing?” Sarah shot back. “Helping us, unlike you! My God, Duncan, you may have killed him! Look what all those fools and their talk of liberty is doing to you!”
Duncan was rescued from the sharp edge of her temper by Molly, who gave a quick yelp of greeting and bounded over to him. Ishmael appeared in the doorway with a pot of steaming water, his uncle close behind.
The young Nipmuc explained that they had caught up with the wagons by midafternoon, but Will had shown no sign of improvement. Hayes was acquainted with the owner of the farm, who readily agreed to let them spend the night, in the hope that a few quiet hours in a bed might restore the boy. Sarah had ordered the wagons on, hurrying them toward the safety of the Hudson Valley and the New York colony.
Duncan knelt by the still-unconscious Hayes. In his fury, thinking that the man was threatening the boy, he had hit him a desperate blow with the brass butt plate of his rifle. At the back of his head his black hair was matted with blood over a disturbingly large lump.
Duncan’s face was flush with guilt as he turned to Sarah. “I didn’t . . .” he began before she cut him off.
“He had been so kind to us today, carrying Will on his back to get him here because he said the horse was too rough a ride. We were trying to wash the grime off the boy before getting him to a bed.” Her eyes brimmed with tears again. She shook her head despairingly at Duncan, gathered up her skirt, and marched out of the barn.
There was movement in the hay. Will Sterret was staring at Duncan with narrow, disapproving eyes. “How do you feel, lad?” Duncan asked.
“Mr. Hayes needs that bed more than me now.”
Duncan met Conawago’s worried gaze. “Help me carry him to the house.”
“Ishmael and I will take him,” his friend insisted. “You must go. You should have been a hundred miles away by now. Every minute you linger brings the noose closer.”
Duncan looked back at the comatose tinker, whose face was ghastly pale. “If I let him die, the noose will be the least of my problems.”
He exchanged no words with Sarah, who pointedly ignored him as they carried Hayes inside and laid him on a cot that had been brought to the back of the kitchen. They installed Will on a folded quilt on a long deacon’s bench, with Molly lying beside him.
“Poor Mr. Hayes,” the farmer’s wife declared as she brought a pillow for the boy. “He collects tragedy like a fresh pie collects flies. How awful if he were to perish like this after all his travails.”
Duncan looked up. “Travails?”
The farmer put a hand on his wife’s arm. “Don’t know that he would want us to speak of them, Judith.”
The woman pushed away her husband’s hand. “You know he’s lived with one foot in the grave all these years. He takes so many risks.”
Duncan looked from the farmers to Sarah and back to their hosts. “He’s a tinker.”
“Yes, yes,” Judith agreed. “He can be a good tinker. Or a juggler. Or an actor. Or a teamster even. But he had much nobler beginnings. A prosperous merchant, son of one of the most successful merchants and shipowners in the Rhode Island colony. But seven years ago he had a notion to expand his business into the New Hampshire colony, at the edge of that wild country they call the Hampshire Grants, up between New Hampshire and New York. Decided to take his young wife and son up the Connecticut River after his new store was built. The war wasn’t quite over, but they took no notice, acted as if they were still in Rhode Island. The raiders came at dawn, as is their way. Hayes’s two hired men were killed. The Indians took his wife and six-year-old son. He managed to raise a party out of Charlestown, and they took off in pursuit a day later. The savages left a warning on the trail fifty miles to the north—his young son’s head on a pole. Solomon called off the pursuit, fearing they would kill his woman.”
Duncan glanced at Hayes. Sarah was still at his bedside, listening closely.
The farmer’s wife pressed her hand to her heart and sighed. “Oh, he loves her so much, like in one of those romance tales. He won’t speak much of it, but over the years we’ve heard the story. He abandoned his comfortable life in Rhode Island and spent months looking for any sign of his dear wife. Rebecca, as she be named. After not finding any sign the first year and barely escaping captivity himself several times, he went back to Rhode Island, then sold his holdings to his brother, we hear. He made himself up to be a tinker and trader so as to move unsuspicious-like among the tribes and villages in the north. The second year, he showed up with darling Sadie,” she added with a nod toward the monkey, who laid curled up beside Hayes, “and they’ve been like father and child ever since. Only real family he has now.”
As the woman stirred the steaming kettle that hung in the hearth, Duncan examined Hayes once more. Sarah, on a stool beside the bed, held the tinker’s hand. As Duncan lifted the other hand, Sadie stirred, snuggling closer to her master.
“His pulse is stronger,” Duncan reported. “A good sign.”
When Sarah did not acknowledge him, Duncan turned to his second patient. Will lay with his head propped up by pillows, watching the low flames of the hearth. Duncan sat beside him.
“You must wish you had stayed in Mrs. Pope’s house,” he suggested to the boy.
“Never in life, sir! It’s been such an adventure! A monkey befriended me! I got a sea bear companion and got to feed dragoon horses! And then an Indian kidnapped me and Miss Sarah saved me! Ain’t it grand!”
“TABLE’S READY,” CAME THE FARMWIFE’S call as Duncan and Conawago returned from rubbing down and feeding their mounts. Duncan watched, his heart aching, as Will rose, steadying himself on chairbacks at first, and went to lead Sarah to the dinner. She steadfastly ignored Duncan. Hayes did not stir.
The party of travelers ravenously consumed the thick soup and fresh-baked bread. When Duncan reached for his pouch and offered to pay, the farmer held up a hand in protest.
“We had a bad time of it two years ago,” the man said. “Cow died, half our wheat failed. Mr. Hayes stopped over on his way west and saw our shame when we could only feed him half-rotting potatoes and some wild onions. He gave us five guineas out of his own purse, enough to get us a new cow and see us through that long winter. He and his friends will ne’r owe a pence for the hospitality of this house,” he declared as his wife poured out servings of buttermilk.
Duncan encouraged Will to drink two cups, then looked back at Hayes. He knew the tinker lay perilously close to death. “I fear there is a swelling in his brain,” he said. He had seen more than one man die from such an injury. “We need to keep cool compresses on his head, from buckets of fresh spring water.”
“There’s ice,” the farmer offered.
“Ice in May?” Duncan asked in disbelief.
“Aye, we have a pond out back with a cellar dug into its hillside.”
Ishmael followed Duncan out to the ice cellar. The tomahawk the young Nipmuc had put away while in Boston had returned to his belt, and he now used it to chip away at one of the large blocks at the rear of the low stone-walled chamber.
“They’re coming, Duncan,” he said as he helped fill a bucket with the chips. “The men from Worcester. We slowed them down, but not for long. There’ll be soldiers next.”
“You mean I shouldn’t be anywhere near this house.”
“It would go bad for our hosts if you were found here. And no sense in making it easy for those looking to cash your bounty.” Ishmael returned the tomahawk to his belt. “But I’m coming with you.”
“No. Stay with her. Keep her safe. I’ll not be far.”
“No. You must clear your name. Go north into the Abenaki lands. My uncle and I will find you.”
“Not until she is safely past the Hudson.”
“Then you are a fool, Duncan McCallum,” the young tribesman said, and grimaced at his choice of words. “The wise warrior stays away from danger until he understands it. You are just running headlong into it.” Ishmael lifted the bucket and cocked his head at Duncan. “My uncle speaks of the great Battle of Culloden, where Highlanders ran foolhardily into rows of English cannons with nothing but swords and wooden shields. Is that what you seek, a proper Scottish suicide?”
“Your uncle teaches you too much,” Duncan muttered, as if the battle where so many of his clansmen had died was somehow his personal secret. He dropped the last of the ice chips into the bucket. “Those men were brave, fighting for a noble cause.”
“And such a fine line it be between stupidity and courage. You need to find those Frenchmen and let your friends handle these problems,” Ishmael said as he closed the cellar door and turned to the house.
Duncan lingered at the cellar, weighing Ishmael’s words. “Wrap the ice in a piece of linen,” he called to the youth’s back. “If he wakes, make him drink.”
The young Nipmuc paused, then spoke over his shoulder, sounding uncannily like his uncle. “You won’t reach Sarah by pushing toward her.”
GRIPPED BY AN UNFAMILIAR TORRENT of emotion, Duncan watched as the dark of night settled over the little farm. A deep anger had taken hold of him, anger at the florid merchants, anger at the French for refusing to accept their defeat, anger at the killers, anger at the ruthless Horatio Beck. Most of all, he was furious at himself for keeping the Edentown party for so long in Boston against Sarah’s wishes just for the pleasure of its many ships and books. At his core, though, it wasn’t anger that tormented him, it was the ache from the withering looks Sarah had thrown at him, stabbing deep into his heart. She had often been distant during their time in Boston, often reluctant at his touch, but tonight she had refused to even acknowledge him. Hearing the tragic tale of Hayes’s quest for his wife and his charity to mere acquaintances had only hardened her toward him. If Hayes died, that ice would be in her gaze forever.
Goliath responded to his warbling whistle by trotting out of the shadows of the pasture, standing eagerly as Duncan saddled him. He tied on his rifle and mounted, then eased out into the moonlight in front of the cabin. Someone looked at him from the dimly lit interior. He saw only a silhouette but knew well that gentle shape. He stayed motionless, praying Sarah would come outside. She did not wave, did not hold an open palm to the glass as she had so many times in Edentown for a final farewell. He lingered, too long to avoid more pain, then dug his heel into Goliath’s flank and they sprinted to the top of the hill above the farm, where he dismounted and sat on a ledge rock, gazing down on the farm with an unexpected desolation.
HE STEADIED HIMSELF AGAINST THE memory of that bleak day back in March when Sarah wouldn’t speak with him when he returned to Mrs. Pope’s house, would not even answer his knocks on her bedroom door when he heard her weeping inside. When she arrived at breakfast the next morning and saw him at the table, she had abruptly turned and gone back up to her room. He had never seen her like that, had indeed expected that her visit to Boston at the end of his five-month stay would be five weeks of joy, as his indenture would expire soon and he would no longer be her bonded servant.
To his great irritation and his great shame, it had been John Hancock who explained Sarah’s distress. The merchant had been unable to look Duncan in the eye. He had found him on the Hancock Wharf, where Duncan was directing the unloading of cargo from one of the merchant’s coastal ships. Duncan had given the tally board to Munro and followed Hancock to a private place between stacks of crates.
“Duncan, a solicitor came to our offices—” Hancock began as he nervously flattened a torn label on one of the crates. “He had me sign an affidavit he had already prepared. I thought it was just another dispute between consignees of cargo, in which the court often wants to confirm particulars of shipments or of a voyage. It seemed just a confirmation that one of my sloops ran to Bermuda and back, with a list of the cargo and confirmation of the officers.”
Duncan tried to look interested. Hancock’s legal affairs were of no concern to him.
“It stated that you were the captain, that you left Boston on such a date and returned on another. My clerk confirmed the details, and I signed. I get documents every day to sign, you know. Now I feel practiced on. If anyone had explained the point, I never would have signed, you have to believe that.”
“The point?” Duncan asked impatiently. He was eager to return to work.
“That it was about you, not the cargo. You and Sarah,” Hancock added, and quickly looked away.
Duncan went very still. “Sarah?”
“I just found out this very hour. My own solicitor was in court yesterday when the proceedings occurred.”
Duncan pushed Hancock down on a crate. “Stop looking away, John,” he demanded, “and speak to me straight.”
“A gentleman in London, a lord of some rank, had been paying someone to watch your comings and goings. The affidavit was used as proof that you left the territory of the American colonies. Apparently you have an indenture with Sarah, who is this lord’s daughter, an indenture imposed as a condition of your transportation to America. As a condition of your release from prison. I never knew, Duncan. You never told me.”
Duncan found his hands curled into fists. “And?”
“And you broke your bond by leaving America. When a servant breaks bond, the indenture renews upon his return, that’s a standard term.”
“Speak plain!” Duncan growled.
“The indenture started over the day you returned to Boston. There’s a magistrate’s order. You are bound for another seven years.”
Duncan had collapsed onto a crate, not even realizing that Hancock was gone until several minutes later. He stayed out late, wandering the streets, lost in despair, and when he returned, Sarah was shut in her room again, weeping. He had not even knocked, just sat on the stair near her door. They had gone seven years without joining as man and woman, without consummating the love they felt for each other. Their relationship could not survive another seven years.
Sarah did not speak until the following day, when she asked to walk with him on the Common. She was wearing a colorful new dress, and she tried hard, but failed, to put the same brightness on her face. “I had a note from Mr. Hancock,” she reported. “He says you know what Lord Ramsey did with a magistrate here.” She almost never referred to the aristocrat as her father.
Duncan tried hard to push his heart back down his throat. “Seven more years,” he murmured.
“And who cares what some old Boston nabob with a frayed wig says?” she asked, forcing a smile.
Duncan stopped, pulling her to face him. “Everyone, when that nabob is the law.”
“But I don’t!” she protested, moisture filling her eyes.
“Sarah, I would not shame your honor by—”
He would not have been surprised had she run away or put her hand over his mouth. He did not expect her to slap him. “Damn you, Duncan McCallum! We are not talking about my honor, and we are not talking about the vile creature who calls me his daughter, may he rot his eyes in a cold, hollow tree,” she snapped, conjuring a tribal notion of a particularly unpleasant hell. “We are talking about your stubborn Scottish pride that makes you a slave to a piece of paper! You would make me a slave to it as well. But I am no such slave! I am a woman full in my years, if you haven’t noticed!” Tears flowed down her cheeks, and Duncan pulled her to his shoulder.
“I’ve well noticed, mo leannan. I notice every day of my life, and when you are not there, I still set your image in my mind so I can get through my day.” He patted her back, but her fire would not be quenched.
“Stop it! Stop using your Gaelic words of love when you do not mean them!” She pushed away. “I wonder more and more, do you like the image of me more than me in real life? Is that the way of it, that you like the concept of my love better than the imperfect, tattered, fatiguing way of love with a real woman? I think you just harbor me the way you harbor your damned honor, like some trophy that can never be tarnished!”
The tears were flowing fast now, but she did not wipe them away. “You will have to decide, Duncan. Every time you swell your honor, you shrivel my heart.” And she turned, looking frail, and walked back to the house alone.
He had not gone back that night, but walked to the waterfront and sat on a pier until sunrise. She had spoken no more of indentures but mentioned more frequently the Mohawk way, in which a warrior just acknowledged that it was time to set aside his war ax and take a wife.
DUNCAN DID NOT KNOW HOW long he sat staring down at the farmhouse, but Goliath finally pressed his muzzle into his back, and he climbed into the saddle. He rode hard up the shadowed road, savoring Goliath’s power as he gave the horse his head. A special air of wildness seemed to settle over the forest at night, and he drank it in like a raw, renewing liquor. They had gone miles before he reined to a halt at a flat at the top of a mountain with a view of moonlit hills for miles to the east. He was alone and heart-weary, on a stolen horse, with men coming to kill him, but he found a weak smile on his face. If he squinted, the scene merged into an image of the Highlands, and in a distant memory he heard bagpipes.
He had learned much about freedom since arriving in America as a virtual slave, and the most important lessons had come from his tribal friends. There were freedoms in this continent that were unimaginable to the inhabitants of the Old World—freedom to earn your own way as an equal among men, freedom to travel the vast open spaces, freedom to cherish and worship whatever things a man held sacred, freedom to make your voice heard—but most powerful of all was the freedom he was beginning to sense now, the freedom of the land itself. The leaders of the Sons were fond of speaking of freedom, but he was no longer certain they understood it. The freedom spoken of in Boston taverns did not taste like what he found here. Was there a city freedom and a country freedom, he wondered, or did ten men have ten different notions of freedom, each his own?
Duncan bared his spirit the way Conawago had taught him, stretching out his arms and opening himself to the moon and the mountains, and he felt the power of the earth course through him. He calmed himself, knowing what Conawago would say if they were together. He did not know if he could outrun the noose, could not tell if the woman he loved was abandoning him, did not know if the lies of Beck and his invisible conspirators would destroy his good name, but no one could steal this, the freedom of his soul.
He found himself stroking Goliath’s neck, speaking low words that came unbidden, some in Gaelic, others in Mohawk. Despite their rash galloping, the big horse’s breath was still deep and steady. Goliath gazed out over the shining hills, and Duncan was convinced he too felt the power of the land. “Easy, boy,” Duncan chided. “You belong to the king.”
They continued westward until, perhaps an hour before sunrise, Duncan spied the camp of the little caravan. He slipped off Goliath and approached on foot, studying the sleeping shapes about the camp. The metallic click of a weapon being cocked froze Duncan in his tracks.
“Like a highwayman in the night,” came an amused voice in a Yorkshire accent. “Do you have any notion of the grand size of that bounty on your head, McCallum? You would addle some brass for me, as they would say back home in York.”
“Enough to set up a deserter in a new life,” Duncan suggested as Sergeant Mallory stepped out of the shadows, a pistol in his hand. “Glad to see you’ve recovered.”
“A new life? Gawd, a new world! I could set myself as a gentleman merchant in Savannah. New Orleans, even.” Mallory gave an exaggerated sign and eased the hammer back. “But where’s the honor in that? You saved my life, I seem to recall.”
“The bounty on deserters be almost as high,” came Munro’s voice. The old soldier had circled behind the sergeant. “And a thousand lashes would wait ye, if not the noose.”
The deserter turned to see the rifle Munro aimed at him, and he lowered his pistol. “Alas, McCallum and I are at your mercy. With McCallum’s bounty I could be a gentleman on a southern plantation. With both our bounties, you could be a prince of the frontier.”
“Already got a job, thankee,” Munro rejoined, nodding at Duncan as he lowered his own weapon. “Keeping this fool Highlander alive.”
Mallory tucked his pistol into his belt. “Better to aim for a less difficult challenge, sir, like keeping the sun from rising. His Britannic Majesty seeks McCallum’s head, and I fear that when the king wants something so desperately, he tends to get it.”
Munro stretched languidly. “I look forward to debating King Jordie about that particular notion. Now, do ye suppose there’s some of that good bacon from Boston left?” he asked, and marched off toward the smoldering fire.
Duncan helped Mallory feed grain to the horses as Munro and Occom prepared breakfast over the replenished fire. If the weather held, the reverend declared over their bacon and corn cakes, they might make their rendezvous with the Wheelock party on the Connecticut by nightfall.
“Wheelock?” Duncan asked.
“Oh, ye did not hear?” Munro said. “A messenger met us on the road. The eminent Eleazer Wheelock and his disciples are expected in Agawam, the settlement on the banks of the Connecticut.”
“He is my guiding light,” Occom declared. “The man who made me who I am. The tribal college I raised funds for these past two years was his inspiration. I was honored to be the instrument of his charity.”
Duncan had heard of the famous Reverend Wheelock. “But he already has a school for natives, in Lebanon town, in Connecticut.”
“That was but the start, a trial, as it were,” Occom proudly explained. “We will build a vastly bigger institution that will shine like a light in the wilderness. It will change the destiny of thousands of our tribesmen.”
Duncan pieced together what he remembered of the tales about Wheelock. “He is a man who inspires zealous loyalty, I hear—”
“The Apostles,” Munro interjected. “That’s what they call the stern tribesmen who escort him.”
“A man who earns zealous admiration,” Occom said, as if correcting them.
Munro cocked his head. “And perhaps ye were one of those Apostles yer own self once?”
“I was honored to serve at his side for many years,” Occom said, a bit too defensively.
“Then your reunion in Agawam will no doubt be joyful,” Duncan said, and motioned Munro away on the pretense of getting the horses ready.
“Something happened that night of the St. Francis raid,” Duncan said to the Scot as they hitched a team to one of the wagons.
“A lot of people died, that’s what happened. Loved ones were taken. The Abenaki have blood feuds that last for generations. That assassin isn’t killing randomly, he’s killing rangers who were there.”
“His masters left Halifax in pursuit of that ledger. But they found something in that unexpected code, and they took the package from the warehouse, a parcel that went to a ranger with a gold coin in it. Daniel Oliver got a gold coin from the north and gave it to Will and his uncle. Josiah Chisholm had a parcel from the north he had hidden in the cemetery. All three from the ranks at St. Francis with Major Rogers. That parcel from Hancock’s warehouse put the killers on a new scent, a scent that led them to Will Sterret. I thought they wanted him because he was a witness. But now I think it was because they wanted to learn all they could about old rangers and French gold. What do you know about St. Francis? Is it connected to the Sons of Liberty?”
“Not possible, Duncan,” the old Scot replied. “No one had even heard of the Sons of Liberty back in ’59. Took the stamp tax to bring the Sons out, and that was just three years ago.”
Duncan stared at Munro in confusion. The Scot was right. The ledger may be about the Sons, but the parcels from the north were not. If the pieces of his puzzle were not fitting together, perhaps it was because there were two puzzles.
Sergeant Mallory appeared, sharing the last of the morning tea with them. “Left sucking the bottom leaves, as we used to say at Fort Ti.”
Duncan looked up at the soldier in surprise. “Were you stationed at Ticonderoga, Sergeant?”
Mallory jerked his thumb toward the north. “All over the Champlain Valley. Crown Point, Ticonderoga. Sometimes on those sloops of war that patrol the lake. The Ticonderoga navy, we called it, though it was mostly an army affair.”
A thought occurred to Duncan. “Do they keep records at Ticonderoga? Archives from the war?”
“You’re speaking of His Majesty’s army, sir. Of course they have records. Rivers of records, oceans of records, all locked up in the clerk’s office. The scriptorium.”
“Sorry?”
“That’s what the colonel in charge calls it. Colonel Hazlitt’s a bit of a scholar. An office soldier, if you catch my meaning.” The sergeant paused, weighing Duncan’s question. “I worked in the scriptorium some days, ’cause I have such a neat and legible hand, they said. Sometimes visitors would go in to spend a day or two, hunched over old journals and such like old monks.”
“Not for a lowly sergeant to be asking. Some high-ranking officers, even officers wearing civilian clothes sent from headquarters. I recall one from London a few months back, an arrogant, excitable cove who expected us to salute him even though he was a civilian. Bark, bark, bark, people called after him, though never in earshot. On account of him giving angry orders all the time and it sounding like his name.”
“Beck? Was his name Beck?”
Mallory rubbed the stubble on his chin. “Don’t recall for sure, sir, but yes, I think maybe so.”
Duncan and Munro exchanged a worried glance. Horatio Beck had visited the record vault at the great bastion of the north, Fort Ticonderoga, before returning to Halifax to join the chase for Jonathan Pine.
DUNCAN RODE BACK ALONG THE trail above the road until, at midmorning, he finally saw the stragglers. Ishmael and Conawago rode ahead of Sarah, riding double with young Will, beside the slumped figure of Solomon Hayes. Duncan eased Goliath as close as he dared without disturbing them. Hayes wore his slouch hat pulled low, his face pale and twisted in pain, but the tinker was at least handling his horse, staying mostly upright in his saddle.
After a few minutes, Conawago, with his usual uncanny awareness of Duncan’s presence, leaned to exchange words with his nephew, then left the road, urging his horse up the slope. Duncan waited for him behind a ledge rock that opened to a view of the empty road to the west.
“Hayes does not blame you, Duncan,” Conawago said even before he dismounted. “He was confused when he awoke in the night, asking who had spared him from the assassin, as if that Abenaki had attacked him. After Ishmael explained what had transpired, the first words from his tongue were ‘Tell Duncan not to feel at fault.’ ”
Duncan did not acknowledge the words. “Did you look into his eyes? Were the pupils still dilated? Was he seeing double at all? Was his pulse strong?”
“His vision seemed fine,” the old Nipmuc replied. “He was understandably weak when he awoke. He asked for his hat, then some tea, and after sharing a slice of bread with his Sadie and downing a cup of that fine buttermilk, he announced that he was ready, if someone would just help him into the saddle, saying we must not tarry, for Sarah’s sake. The farmer went out with us, with an ax. He said he needed wood and would cut a tree down by the road and make a convenient mistake, letting it fall across the road. It wouldn’t be much of an obstacle, but it would encumber pursuers, and when they asked, he would say he saw us yesterday, splitting off the road to flee into the Berkshire heights.”
“She must leave the tinker,” Duncan stated. “Does she not know the danger she is in?”
“She’ll not leave him. Asking will just stoke her anger.”
“He’s just a tinker.” Duncan regretted the words the instant they left his lips. He could not explain the bile he felt toward the man.
Conawago shot him a disappointed glance. “Jealousy does not become you, Clan McCallum,” the old Nipmuc said, addressing Duncan as the head of his nearly extinct clan.
Duncan muttered in Gaelic.
His old friend frowned, not understanding the words, but hearing the sarcasm. “Lesser men are always tempted to hate the ones they wrong.”
The words tore at Duncan’s heart. “I’m bone-weary,” he said after a long and painful silence. “I’m soul-weary. Since that day walking among all those bodies on the beach, I have been adrift, without a compass. I don’t know whom I can depend on except for you. The warrant that would have me hanged is based on lies, but I don’t know why.”
“You know a good man was murdered in Quinsigamond. You know you attacked Hayes only because of the killers. You know liberty is worth fighting for.”
“No, I don’t. Liberty this, liberty that. So many invoke it for so many reasons that I don’t know what it means anymore. In Boston it seems just the name of some game being played by politicians. If more men minded their honor and less about some mob’s notion of liberty, this world would be the better for it.”
“Fine. Your honor is worth fighting for. And Sarah’s. And Ishmael’s and mine. I don’t know about the Sons of Liberty. But I do know about our small tribe, and its liberty is its honor.”
They nudged their horses up the narrow game trail to keep parallel with the little party below. “I recall,” Conawago observed, “that the river is just a dozen miles from here. Occom says he will prepare his friends to offer comfort when we reach the Agawam settlement. Hayes and the boy can take to bed. Let Will recover, and we can talk with him further when his mind is clear.”
Duncan was surprised at the suggestion. “You mean to turn him over to the missionaries.”
“I’ve nothing against a proper measure of Christian charity.”
“Some say those Apostles are more like riders out of the Apocalypse.”
“I believe they take their role as Christian soldiers most seriously,” Conawago said. “Shepherding eternal souls is a somber business.” A question seemed to linger in his tone.
THEY WAITED, WATCHING THE LONG stretch of road that led to the final rise before the river, until the weary riders appeared. Even from a distance Hayes, Ishmael, and Sarah, holding Will now, looked fatigued from their arduous ride, but once they crested the final ridge, they would have less than a mile to Agawam, the community nestled on the western bank on the Connecticut. Conawago, after scouting ahead while Duncan rested with Goliath, reported that it appeared to be a surprisingly large, prosperous settlement. The old Nipmuc had ventured far enough to confirm that the Edentown convoy had already been ferried across and was setting up camp along the riverbank by one of the three white steepled churches. Duncan relished the idea of a good night’s sleep and a chance to mend things with Sarah. Wary of the reception she would give him, he resisted the temptation to ride down the road to meet them, but he reconsidered as they passed his observation point, and he eased Goliath down toward the road, keeping pace behind them.
Relief washed over him as the stragglers began climbing the last long slope that would lead to the promised help in Agawam. Duncan paused, letting Goliath nibble at the grass of a small clearing less than half a mile from the crest of the hill. He was about to urge the horse on, to catch up with Sarah, now only fifty yards away, when a strangled cry rose from the woods. Conawago was recklessly galloping down the mountain toward the road.
Ishmael had wheeled his horse about and was gazing defiantly at a dust cloud in the east. Sarah pushed her horse into a trot and shouted for Hayes to hurry, but the tinker seemed not to hear her.
Conawago burst out of the woods and reined in beside his nephew, lifting the club he had tied to his saddle. Sarah grabbed the reins from Hayes’s limp hands, leading his horse as she hastened up the hill. Duncan dug his heels into Goliath’s flanks, and the big horse, as if sensing a battle, snorted and stomped the ground before lunging into a gallop.
By the time Duncan reached his friends, the roiling dust on the road was only a quarter mile away and half a dozen riders could be seen. The bounty riders from Worcester had not given up.
As Duncan, Conawago, and Ishmael blocked the road, the riders slowed. Another four men came into view as the dust settled.
“She’s there! The red-haired bitch!” one of the men at the back shouted, pointing toward Sarah, who was now a few hundred yards from the crest, struggling to keep Will balanced while still leading Hayes’s horse. “And that’s probably the damned traitor with her! We’re rich, boys!”
Unexpectedly, Ishmael dismounted as the riders trotted eagerly forward. He bent into his horse’s neck, whispering into its ear, then slapped its flank.
“T’is one of them stolen army mounts!” a man yelled as the horse ran past them, up the mountain trail. “Five pounds reward!” Four riders broke away, racing to claim the army’s bounty.
“Don’t let them get to the river!” shouted one of the remaining men.
Duncan jerked Goliath back and forth across the road to impede the riders. As a bountyman kicked his horse into a burst of speed, Conawago raised his oaken club, and in a blur of motion the old tribesman intercepted the man, leaning low to thrust the long club between the horse’s legs. Rider and horse tumbled to the ground, the man groaning in pain as his shoulder slammed against a rock. As a second rider tried to run past Duncan, Goliath instinctively lunged and clamped his jaw around the man’s arm. Conawago gave a triumphant cry as the big horse tossed the man from his saddle. “A horse bred for war!” Ishmael called out. The stunned rider gazed up in terror, gripping his arm, all the fight gone from him. The remaining mounted men, however, charged past with a cry of “Ten pounds for the wench!”
Conawago was spinning his horse, about to give chase, when one of the men who had ridden into the woods reappeared, holding up a loop of rope as he charged Ishmael. As the old Nipmuc changed course to protect his nephew, Duncan and Goliath charged up the hill.
Sarah and Hayes were only a stone’s throw from the crest when Hayes sagged and slowly slid to the ground. Sarah instantly leapt off her horse and ran toward the tinker, grabbing his arm in a vain attempt to drag him uphill.
Duncan burst through the group of riders, reins in his mouth, flailing out with a fist to bloody a man’s nose; then he leapt off Goliath and planted himself between Sarah and her pursuers. To his surprise, they halted, looking up in confusion. Will threw a stone that hit a rider on his shoulder, but the man seemed not to notice. As Duncan raised his fists, fear began rising on the riders’ faces. He grinned, thinking they may have tasted the fury of a Highlander before. He shouted his grandfather’s battle cry and was rewarded to see two of the riders turn back.
“Duncan,” Sarah said behind him.
He took a step forward, hoping to push more bountymen back, but then realized they seemed not to see him.
“Duncan,” Sarah repeated. In the corner of his eye he saw Will step closer to her, as if frightened of a new threat. Conawago trotted up, Ishmael riding double with him, but as he passed the bountymen, he too halted, looking uphill with new worry on his weathered face.
Duncan slowly turned. In a row along the crest of the hill were half a dozen very large bronze-skinned men, all on black horses and all wearing black coats, with raven feathers in their long, braided black hair. Mr. Wheelock’s wrathful Apostles had arrived.