MacFarlane's Ridge (37 page)

“As the woman fell deeper and deeper,” continued Running Stream, “she could see water beneath her. A flock of birds flew up and caught her, and lowered her down to the water. The birds asked Turtle if they could put the woman on his back, and then they asked who she was and where she was from. The woman was very homesick and missed her husband. She told them that her world was all land, but she did not wish to stay in this one because it was all water. The animals told her that there was land beneath their water, and they would bring her some.

“They took turns diving beneath the water to bring some earth to the woman, but they all failed, except for Otter. Otter stayed under the water for so long that when he came back to
the surface, he died, but in his paw there was a small piece of earth. The animals placed the earth on Turtle’s back, and the earth and Turtle both began to grow. The woman walked in a circle to keep the land growing, following the direction of the sun, and so the land took the shape of the world. The tobacco and the strawberry began to grow all over the land.

“One day, the woman gave birth to a daughter, and when her daughter grew to womanhood she became the mother of twin boys, but she died giving birth to them. The grandmother decided to raise them, and she named them Teharonhiawako, the Holder of the Heavens, and Sawiskera, the Mischievous One. These twins fought over everything, and when they were men they even fought over the grandmother’s body when she died. Sawiskera wished to kick her body off the edge of the world, but Teharonhiawako wanted to bury her in the earth, for she was so much a part of it. Finally, Sawiskera pulled off his grandmother’s head, and tossed it high up in the sky, where it became the moon.”

Cam suppressed a shiver, but couldn’t help listening. The girl’s voice was soft, yet strong, and she had a natural gift for storytelling.

“Sawiskera and Teharonhiawako competed in everything. They began to create animals and plants. Teharonhiawako made a beautiful flower, the rose, but Sawiskera, the Mischievous One, placed thorns upon it. Teharonhiawako created the kind and gentle deer and rabbit, but his brother made the bear and the mountain lion to kill them. This went on for some time, until they decided to divide the world in half. The day would belong to Teharonhiawako, and the night to Sawiskera.

“Because he was the keeper of the daylight, Teharonhiawako decided to make some beings to inhabit his world. He would make several different beings, and made a yellow one from the bark of a tree. From the foam of the ocean he made a white man, and from the soil he made one with black skin. Finally, from the red earth he created a being as well. He gave life to each of them, but they argued and fought amongst themselves. He explained to them that he must separate them so they would learn to be thankful for the good things of the earth, and respectful of other living beings.

There were nods and murmurs of approval from the old women.

“Teharonhiawako took the white, black, and yellow beings across the ocean, far away from each other. He told them that some day, when they could learn to get along with others, he would bring them back together again. He kept the red being in his place of beginning, where he learned to live in harmony with the natural world. He was called Onkwehonwe, the Original Being, and because he learned a good way to live with the earth, Teharonhiawako was very pleased,” she finished.

The old women smiled at Running Stream, for a story well told, and they silently filtered off to their own parts of the longhouse. Cam smiled at the idea of little clay people being sent off to their corners of the world, until they could learn to get along. With these comforting thoughts, she drifted into a deep sleep.

It was still dark when the women of the longhouse awakened her. They snapped at her in their unfamiliar tongue, and she sat up groggily. Wanda was already on her feet, and the two of them were shoved outside into the cold morning air. Running Stream and Plenty Rabbits were already there, as was Kills Bears and several other members of his war party.

When Cam looked up, she saw Peyton Basham and Ambrose Meador being pulled forward. Although Cam and Wanda’s hands were now free, the men’s wrists were tightly lashed together, and they were both tied to a length of rope that was being pulled by one of Kills Bears’ men. As she watched, Basham lost his balance and stumbled, pulling his large brother-in-law with him.

They were bruised and dirty, and it looked as though one of Meador’s ears was missing a small piece of the lobe. At least they’re walking, thought Cam grimly. Meador spotted her and nodded in silent acknowledgement.

As the sun rose, the group began to make their way down the main concourse of the village, between the two rows of longhouses. The women lined up, watching them and muttering amongst themselves. All of the village’s men appeared to be part of the war party.

Except for Man Who Sees Far. He stood at the end of the wide path, watching them, and as they were walking past them, he smiled at Cam and came towards her. Before she knew it, he had embraced her in a bear hug.

“If you and your man need to get out of Fort Wyndham,” he whispered quickly, “go to the church and pray.”

He released her then, and she had no more time to think about his strange suggestion, because Man Who Sees Far stepped back and raised his hand to wave.

As he did, Cam caught a glimpse of his left forearm. She suddenly felt dizzy, and a cold chill coursed through her body. Man Who Sees Far glanced back at her, and she met his milky eyes, suddenly understanding it all.

She hadn’t seen it the night before, in the dim light of the longhouse.

Now she knew what he had meant when he said you are like me. It had nothing to do with the fact that they both had white skin.

When the sleeve of his dusty linen shirt had slipped back, she had seen it, as clear as day. Although sixty years had faded them slightly, the tattooed numbers on his forearm were still visible, standing out in the sunlight like a beacon.

Otto Ruehle had been in a Nazi concentration camp.

Aboard the Frigate
Lord Savernack

June 1777

The prisoners were back up on the deck of the frigate, as they were for two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon. Alexander McFarland stood alone, not interested in associating with the rest. None of them were his own men; he had no idea what had become of the twenty-odd sailors that had been working on his ship when it was captured, but suspected they were being held somewhere else. He also thought it likely that a good many of them had opted to join the British Navy rather than hang as pirates.  

The
Lord Savernack
was anchored in the Delaware River, not far, in fact, from where Alexander’s ship had been boarded. On the shore he could see the British garrison, Fort Wyndham.

It was small, as far as military compounds went, but always seemed to be a beehive of activity. In fact, even as he watched, a group of red-coated soldiers climbed into a small boat and began rowing towards the
Lord Savernack
.

He expected that eventually he would go to trial. It was merely a formality, really. If he was destined to hang for piracy, the British would already have decided that. They would come get him, parade him into a courtroom, chant their endless litany of charges, and then find him guilty on all counts. It was what they did.

“MacFarland?” said a voice at his shoulder.

Alexander glanced back, and saw one of the younger prisoners behind him. It was a boy named Ralph something-or-other. Ralph had been a cabin boy on another vessel, the
State of Grace
, which was captured slightly before Alexander’s own ship.

“Ralph.”

“Are they comin’ for us today, do you think?” Ralph’s voice was shaking. He was young, and likely had not yet seen much bloodshed, thought Alex.

“They might be,” he acknowledged. “Ye’ll not have seen a man hang before?”

The boy shook his head. “Have you?”

“Aye.”

Alexander could sense the boy’s fear; it was practically rolling off him in dark sweaty waves. “Is it as bad as they say?” whispered Ralph.

“Not if it’s done right, lad. Not if it’s done properly,” he sighed.

The lad looked at him, expectantly.

“If ye’ve a good hangman,” he continued, “it will be quick, and that’s the best way. If ye’ve a hangman who’s not experienced, or not very good at it, well…” His voice trailed off.

“Then what?” Ralph asked, his eyes on the lapping waves below them.

“Then it’s bad,” Alex finished abruptly. “And that’s the whole of it, lad, and no more.” He walked away from the boy. He didn’t want to have the conversation, not with a lad who was too young to even have a beard or bed a woman yet, and most likely never would. Ralph’s age would not gain him clemency.

The skiff had arrived and was bobbing alongside the frigate in the water. A ladder was lowered so that the men below could board the
Lord Savernack
. Once on board, one of them unrolled a list of names. Of the hundred men on board, ten would travel to the fort today for their hearings. The other ninety were granted one more week before the ritual began all over again.

The first name called was that of young Ralph Fitzralph, who was practically sobbing by the time he was pushed down the dangling ladder. Eight more names were read off with no emotion whatsoever, and finally, the fat dragoon holding the list glanced around.

“And which of you sodding bastards is Alexander MacFarland?” he roared.

Alex glanced up from his position near the bow of the ship. “I dinna ken about the sodding bastard bit, but I am called Alexander MacFarland,” he said politely.

The dragoon squinted at him in the sunlight. “You know I’d be within my rights to have you shot right now for your insolence,” he sneered.

Alex shrugged. He had resigned himself to the idea that death was just around the corner. It didn’t matter if it was at the end of a rope or down the barrel of a musket. He looked at the dragoon, pausing conspicuously for a moment on the large stomach which was nearly splitting through the front of the white trousers. “Shoot me if ye like,” he sighed, “but be quick about it, would you?”

The dragoon swung the stock of his musket up and caught Alexander square in the chin. He toppled to the ground silently. The dragoon waddled over to him and leaned down. “I don’t know who you are, you bloody treasonous Scot, but someone at the fort seems to think you’re rather important. I’m to deliver you there alive, but it doesn’t matter to me one bit if your bloody jaw is broken when you get there,” he hissed.

Alex said no more, and staggered down the ladder into the skiff.

By the time the little boat reached the dock at Fort Wyndham thirty minutes later, the pain in his jaw had subsided enough that he knew it wasn’t broken, although at one point he discovered that one of his teeth was loose. He wiggled it with his tongue, and it popped out. He promptly spit the tooth over the side when no one was looking.

Fort Wyndham was constructed of large logs, held together with mud mixed with broken shells. The simple wattle-and-daub construction didn’t look terribly intimidating, but the men of the garrison had remedied that by constructing, right in the center of the fort’s courtyard, a gallows scaffold.

Ralph Fitzralph wet his pants, and Alexander ignored him.

They were led into a large cell, already occupied by several other men, many of whom Alex recognized from the
Lord Savernack
. He expected these men would be dangling from the gallows in the next few days.

The fat dragoon shoved him contemptuously, and slammed the door shut.

The cell was good-sized, although crowded, and the barred windows offered a straight-on view of the scaffold outside. Alexander staked out an unoccupied spot in a corner, and sat. Ralph followed him.

“MacFarland? Can I sit beside you?”

“Aye,” he shrugged indifferently..

He wondered what the fat dragoon had meant about someone in the fort thinking he was important. He certainly didn’t know anyone here, and had rarely even come into contact with anyone from the royal army, even during his privateering excursions.

A stringy-haired man sitting on the opposite wall recognized young Ralph, who introduced him to Alex. His name was Charlie Banastre, a former indentured servant, he said, who had run away from his master and signed onto the
State of Grace
a mere two weeks before the ship was taken in the process of commandeering cargo from a British ship.

“Bad luck for me, eh?” he grinned, showing an expanse of bad teeth.

“Aye,” agreed Alexander. “If ye had continued wi’ your servitude, you’d likely not be facing the gallows right now.”

“Certainly I would,” reflected Charlie Banastre. “I killed my master’s wife before I run away, and I wager I’d be hanging for that as well,” he chortled.

Banastre, although a thoroughly repugnant human being, was a wealth of information, and was able to tell Alexander a good deal about the workings of Fort Wyndham.

“They’ve a new officer here, a chap named Clarendon. He’s a bit of a scary bastard, if you ask me. Something in his eyes not quite right,” Banastre smirked. Considering the source, Alexander thought the statement spoke volumes about Clarendon.

“Where’s he from?” Ralph piped up, not because he was really interested but simply to be part of the conversation.

Banastre leered at the boy. “Well, he’s supposedly the bastard son of an earl or a duke or something. He spent some time in the army when he was young, disappeared for a while – there was some scandal about a dead whore – and then popped up here for his new post.”

Alexander closed his eyes. He didn’t give a damn about any of the dragoons or their personal histories. He just wished they would hurry up and get things over with.

That afternoon, Charlie Banastre was led to the gallows. Alexander watched the entire proceeding with detached interest, and Ralph Fitzralph, who was standing on tiptoe to see out the window, vomited all over his own shoes.

Banastre did not die terribly well.

The hours passed by, each just like the one before it. All of the men in the cell were ready to kill Ralph, tired of his incessant whining and sobbing. Only Alexander’s protective hand had kept him alive. He didn’t really think of the boy as a friend; Ralph was more a lost and whipped pup that merely needed to be protected from bigger, more vicious dogs.

On his third day in the Fort Wyndham prison, Alexander McFarland was rudely awakened by the fat dragoon, whose name was Tumblesby.

Tumblesby kicked him in the side, and Alexander felt the air rush out of him. Ralph Fitzralph scurried to the far corner, not wanting to get kicked himself.

“Get up, you Scot bastard,” Tumblesby said conversationally. “Lieutenant Clarendon wants to see you before you get sent off for your trial.”

Alex pulled himself to his feet. The cell was not as full as it had been. All of the prisoners who had been there when he arrived were now gone, and of the ten in his group, only five were left. One had hung himself the night before. Alexander had thought it mighty charitable of the fellow to save the British the trouble.

His hands were bound and Tumblesby and another, smaller, dragoon called Stave led Alex down the narrow corridor. They emerged from the prison building into the bright June sun, and made their way across the courtyard. As he passed the gallows, Alex glanced up, wondering for the first time exactly what it felt like to die.

While he had accepted that it was coming, he was still curious about what he would feel, what he would think as it was happening. Would it be peaceful, his soul floating off into a pale oblivion once the rope dropped and his neck snapped? Or would he flail wildly, like Charlie Banastre, flopping back and forth like a puppet on a string, a great wet stain appearing on the front of his trousers?

He hoped that when the time came, he could die with some semblance of dignity, like old Grey Fox had done. He was a bit worried about young Ralph Fitzralph, who would be sobbing like a little girl all the way until the end. Bad enough to die with your neck in a noose, he thought, but then to have a bunch of redcoats laughing at you as well…

Tumblesby led him into the main officers’ quarters, grumbling the entire way about a number of different ailments, all of which he seemed to blame upon the prisoners, including his digestive problems.

Stave rapped on a door, and shoved it open. “Lieutenant Clarendon? I brought you the one you asked for, sir.”

A tall man with a vicious pink scar across his right cheek turned to face them, and Alex tried to keep the expression on his face neutral, but it was impossible. He had been caught completely off guard.

The lieutenant brushed an invisible speck of lint from his fine red coat, and walked casually up to Alex.

“Well, well,” he drawled. “What have we here, now? I rather thought it might be you, when I saw that Mr. Alexander MacFarland had been captured on the
Lady Meg
.” He circled Alex slowly, like a cat ready to pounce at any moment. “How have you been, Robert?”

Rob said nothing, staring straight ahead.

“Shame about your friend Thibodeaux,” he continued gently. “Likeable fellow. And what about, hm, dear me, what was her name?” He tapped his finger on his chin thoughtfully. “Oh, right. Cameron. Do you keep in touch?” he smirked.

There was no answer

“Guess not,” continued the lieutenant. “That’s okay, I don’t hear from her either. She wasn’t much fun, really.” He looked Rob dead in the eye. “She did make an awful lot of noise in bed, though, didn’t she?”

And before he could even finish the sentence, Robert McFarlane, who had inexplicably managed to loosen the bonds around his wrists, leapt at him, knocking the powdered wig right off the lieutenant’s head, much to the surprise of Tumblesby and Stave.

It was his every intention to kill Wayne Sinclair before the dragoons could get off a shot.

Cameron Clark had never been as exhausted in her life as she was during the weeks of June 1777. Her body ached, and she guessed that she was walking between fifteen and twenty miles a day. That in itself might have been tolerable, but most of the terrain was barely navigable. She found herself on narrow, rocky hillside paths through the woods, and her feet were bloody and blistered from the journey.

They stopped in the middle of the day to eat, but other than that there was no rest period until they camped for the night, and as they lay by the fire, Running Stream would tell stories. Wanda and Cam had their wrists tied each evening, but were allowed to get up and wander about. Peyton Basham and Ambrose Meador were not as fortunate; they spent their nights sitting lashed to a tree.

They were all hungry, but Cam always saved a piece of her meal for Ambrose.

Sometimes, as they walked, Running Stream would come and chat with them. They learned that she was fourteen, rather than the twelve or so they had guessed. Some day she would marry Plenty Rabbits, who had been married once before but his wife had died in childbirth.