“That demon left ya to suffer,” Colm said.
Gordon clinched his teeth and nodded. Then, his grief slid below the surface of his emotions. “Mr. Jackson Walker gave me my freedom that very day. I learned how to track demons and how to kill them from the handful of people I came across who suffered the same thing. I don’t know how to kill the demons with orange eyes, but I can find a way if I know where they’re from and why they’re here.”
Colm leaned forward and set the tankard in his hand on the table. “I know ya are being honest. Come back in a few days. Then, maybe we can talk.” He got up and left the taproom.
Gordon Walker sat back in his chair and smiled. He finished his tankard of rum and called for another. Although the man had refused to answer his questions, Gordon was certain he had just spoken to the archangel rumored to be in Boston.
Eleven
General Henry Hereford invited Robert Percy and Bethel Oldman to join him on a horseback ride through the countryside. The light snowfall from the previous night glittered in a rare occasion of sparkling sunlight from the late morning sun. The woods of Suffolk County were interrupted here and there by farms and frozen streams.
Even in the crisp morning air, Robert detected Bethel’s body odor. It reminded Robert of the way his first pet dog had smelled the morning he found her dead behind the barn of his childhood home in rural Surrey County, England. He shuddered and glanced at Henry. The general was beginning to exude the same smell.
A wagon trundled the muddy road past the British officers. The male driver, his wife, and seven children, all dressed in rough homespun clothing, glared at the men on horseback. Less than an hour into the ride, a small band of colonial men and women, armed with various weapons, began to accumulate on the road behind the officers. Some carried muskets, while others held knives or shovels. Two young boys joined the band swinging long sticks.
An old woman clutching a crude bow and arrow in one wrinkled hand, shouted, “Wagtails!”
This development pleased Henry. He was certain the ragtag mob’s intention was merely verbal harassment despite their display of weapons. This was his opportunity to kill Robert and incite terror in the hearts of these dirty ill-bred Yankees. When Robert was dead, and his soul was gone, Henry’s second-in-command would leave Bethel’s body for its new home in Robert’s body. The final result would be the death of Bethel Oldman and the resurrection of Robert Percy’s human vessel.
When they were west of Roxbury, Henry reined his horse and shouted, “HALT!”
Robert and Bethel reined their horses.
The colonists halted.
Henry dismounted and favored the colonists with a bright smile.
The colonists retreated several paces.
“What are you waiting for?” Henry asked Robert and Bethel. “Dismount! We must not be rude to our little group of admirers.”
Robert felt uneasy. He dismounted slowly and remained close to his horse without engaging in eye contact with the colonists.
The old woman carrying the bow and arrow raised her right hand. The fingertips on her three middle fingers were wrapped in dirty strips of cloth. She knocked the arrow, raised the bow, aimed and shouted at Robert, “Remove your coat, boy!”
Chills ran down Robert’s spine. “What are you doing, old woman? Put that down!” He looked to Henry for support, but Henry merely grinned.
“I will not tell you again to remove your coat!”
Henry was no longer grinning. “Do as she says, Robert, or I shall do it myself, and it will be terribly painful.”
Robert slowly unbuttoned his coat, and let it slide off his arms and onto the ground.
“Now, say my name, boy!” the old woman demanded.
Terror stained Robert’s blue eyes. He pointed at her and shouted, “Make the old woman stop!”
The colonists took another step back. The frightened British officer was pointing at them, but there was no old woman among their group.
Robert’s legs refused to move when he tried to run.
“Say my name, Robert Percy!” the old woman prompted.
His eyes widened and his cheeks flushed when he screamed, “I DO NOT KNOW YOUR NAME!”
“My name is Serepatice!” She released the bow.
Robert flinched when the arrow pierced his heart. His eyes shifted against his will to Henry’s face. He prayed for God to have mercy on his soul. He did not want to die looking into those eerie yellow-green eyes or smelling the odor of the dead.
Women screamed. Men shouted profanity. The colonists’ desire to witness perversion outweighed their desire to flee, but what they desired made no difference. Henry had no intention of releasing his captive audience.
Robert collapsed onto the snow-muddied road and died before his mind could conjure another thought.
Lieutenant Bethel Oldman swooned. He fell sideways into the snow at the edge of the road. The sound of a single beating drum arose from the ground. A bell accompanied the steady drum beat; joined by a powerful throbbing rhythm. Voices spoke Latin in unison. The sounds swirled and blended and rushed on a current of cold air in and around the people standing in the road.
Henry removed his riding gloves and walked to the place where Robert Percy’s body lay. He straddled the body and asked, “Who did God command to kill this man?”
The colonists covered their mouths and shrank from the look in his yellow-green eyes.
“Serepatice! Say Serepatice!” Henry plied with a grin.
A woman sobbed.
“SAY IT!” Henry commanded.
A very young man pressed the muzzle of his pistol between his eyes. A woman screamed, “NO, CHRISTOPHER!”
Henry took three long strides toward Christopher and ripped the pistol from his hands. He wrapped his hand around the young man’s throat, shook him and said, “SAY IT!”
Tears streamed down Christopher’s face. Henry broke his neck and flung his body away.
The horrified people said, “Serepatice.”
“SHOUT IT!”
“SEREPATICE!”
Robert Percy’s body got to its knees then stood up. The demon within tested the movement of its new, younger human vessel. It flexed its arms and stomach. It turned its head from side to side. Robert’s eyes flamed.
The colonists looked at Bethel Oldman, and then they looked at Robert and the arrow protruding from his chest. They murmured prayers. God, rid of us of these demons and send your angels to protect us!
“Please, sir, let me take my children home,” a woman begged Henry. The two boys she pulled into an embrace were not her children, but no one refuted her claim.
Henry regarded the woman. She wore rough dirty clothing, and her dark hair was pulled severely away from her thin plain face. He said, “Come here.”
She recoiled.
“I will not ask again.”
She inched forward until she was within arms’ reach of Henry.
He viciously ripped out the pin that held her hair away from her face. Dull dark hair tumbled in curls to her shoulders and down her back. She cast her eyes down. Henry clutched her shoulders and pulled her close.
A stocky gray-haired farmer thought, I cannot let this continue even if it means the demon kills me. He spoke, “Please, sir, let my daughter take my grandsons home. We mean no harm to you.”
Henry ignored the farmer. He gripped the bodice of the woman’s dress and the shift beneath it with one powerful hand. Both garments ripped and exposed her breasts. Her chin quivered and tears wet her thin cheeks. Henry slid a hand over her breasts.
Bethel groaned from the edge of the road.
Henry shoved the woman onto the road. She curled into a ball and cried.
Bethel rolled on to his back.
Henry strode forward, placed the heel of his boot on Bethel’s throat, and applied pressure. Bethel’s eyes flew open. He wrapped his hands around Henry’s calf. He kicked and arched his back and tried to force Henry’s boot from his throat.
The horrified colonists mu
rmured their prayer again, God, rid of us of these demons and send your angels to protect us.
Bethel stopped struggling. He lay on his back, looking skyward with dead eyes.
Henry removed his boot from the dead man’s throat. Robert extracted the arrow from his chest and handed it to Henry. With a flourish, Henry jammed the arrowhead into Bethel’s windpipe. Blood and bile oozed from the wound.
“Captain Percy, our work is done here,” Henry said with satisfaction.
Robert nodded. He picked up his coat and put it on. Then, he mounted his horse.
Henry looked at the woman lying curled up on the muddy road. He kneeled beside her, slid his fingers through her hair, and jerked her head up so he could kiss her lips. Then, he slammed her head down. Her eyes rolled back in her head. Henry shoved her skirt up over her waist and then began to unbutton the front of his breeches.
“General, I do not think what you are about to do is prudent at this time,” Robert advised.
Henry considered Robert’s advice. “I believe you are correct.” He stood up, brushed at the mud on the knees of his breeches and mounted his horse.
Robert and Henry spurred their horses into a gallop. The horror-stricken country folk were released from the demon’s restraint.
Jeremiah Killam arrived in Boston the morning after Michael and Brandon encountered the demons on Beacon Hill. He and Colm ate breakfast in the Greystoke Inn tavern. Colm told Jeremiah about the Sons of Liberty and, in particular, Dr. Joseph Warren.
“I want us to join the Boston militia, but we need guns. My hunting rifle and a few pistols is all we have,” Colm said. “Actually, we need any kind of weapons: muskets, rifles, pistols, sabers, and knives—anything ya can get without causing suspicion. Take them to the farm in Roxbury where we’ll be living. Don’t carry them through the streets so everyone can see what ya are doing or where ya are going.”
“Do I look like an ijit?” Jeremiah asked.
Colm frowned. “Just be careful.”
Two days out, northwest of Boston, Jeremiah learned from a sympathetic member of the Pokanoket tribe that the patriots were stockpiling arms and gunpowder. Tatoson was hunting turkey when he encountered Jeremiah washing his hands and face in a rocky fast running creek.
Tatoson’s grandmother claimed he was twenty-three years old. His head was shaved except for a scalp lock, and his deerskin mantel covered the tattoo of a turtle on his shoulder and a bear paw on each breast. Tatoson took to Jeremiah’s plainspoken manner.
“I’m lookin’ for weapons,” Jeremiah said when Tatoson asked what he was doing wandering the snowy backwoods. “Me and my brothers are newly arrived in Massachusetts. We traveled unarmed because we didn’t want ta stir up trouble.”
“No one travels unarmed,” Tatoson said. “Unless you want to get killed.”
“You callin’ me a liar?”
Tatoson’s eyes fell on the haft of Jeremiah’s skinning knife that poked out from the pocket Mkwa had sewn on the thigh of his deerskin breeches.
Jeremiah ignored the innuendo, stood up, and dried his face with the hem of his bearskin coat. He shoved his disheveled blond hair out of his face and said, “You speak good English, which makes me wonder why we’re talkin’.”
“My grandmother says I am meddlesome.”
Jeremiah narrowed his eyes at the young man. “Like I said, I need weapons, but I don’t want anyone ta think I’m totin’ ’em ta start a war.”
“Then stay out of Concord,” Tatoson said. “I have been there. The patriots are stockpiling arms there.”
“Ain’t no Indian waltzing inta Concord.”
“I do not know what waltzing means. What I mean is you just got lucky.”
“You Indians ain’t luck ta me. I got me one back home whose gonna have my baby. I ain’t never gonna see her again. Do you know where I cain buy muskets or not?”
Tatoson tilted his head northward and began walking.
Jeremiah fell in step beside him. “Where’re we goin’?”
“Fort at Number 4. It has been abandoned, but Algonquians from Quebec squat there and sell French muskets they steal from trappers.”
“They killin’ trappers ta git ’em?”
Tatoson shrugged. “You want guns?”
Colm ain’t gonna like it if he finds out I’m buying blood guns, Jeremiah thought. But I ain’t got time ta be scoutin’ for another source. Damn Indian’s right. I got lucky. He asked, “So you can just stop what you’re doin’ and lead a white man you don’t know ta gun buyin’?”
“If you buy their guns, I get something for my trouble.”
“Should’ve known. Why do you trust me not ta kill you?”
“The way you talk and the way you dress tells me that you are from the mountains somewhere south,” Tatoson said. “I have never met a vicious mountain man.”
“How many you met?”
Tatoson shrugged.
“You’re an uppity cuss. Who taught you ta speak English?”
“A man in Concord. Redcoats killed my mother and father when I was ten. He felt sorry for me and took me in.”
“He educates you then lets you loose in the wild?”
“It was not like that.”
“What was it like?”
“The British murdered most of what was left of my tribe during the war. The general who governs Massachusetts was one of them. Those who survived, including my grandmother, ended up living with another tribe. When I was old enough, I left to find her. I live with her now.”
“The French and Indian War?”
Tatoson nodded.
“So that’s why you cain waltz inta Concord. And you hate the British so the rebels trust you.”
Tatoson nodded.
“You buyin’ guns from these Canadian Indians for the rebels?”
“No. I am not allies with the rebels. I just know some of them.”
“Well, I’m havin’ trouble reckonin’ the way you talk with the way you look. Skinny Indian boy talkin’ like a dandy.”
Tatoson laughed.
“How far is Fort at Number 4?” Jeremiah asked.
“Four hours walk with all this snow on the ground. How many guns do you want to buy?”
“As much as I can carry.”
“Carry to where?”
“Roxbury.”
Tatoson reached into a small deerskin pouch around his waist, pulled out a hunk of deer meat, and offered it to Jeremiah. Jeremiah took it and tore off a bite.
“How are you going to get the guns back there?” Tatoson asked.
“You’re gonna help me.”
“No.”
“I ain’t buying ’em unless you do. I need you ta take a message ta someone in Boston, and return with his reply.”
“Unlike Concord, I cannot just ride into Boston.”
“You ain’t gonna ride inta Boston. One of your Concord people is.”
Tatoson thought for a minute, and then said, “I know someone who will oblige.”
“Do you think them Canadians will let me stay at the fort until you git back?”
“If you give them a reason to let you stay.”
“Pay ’em?”
Tatoson nodded.
“The things I do for them angels,” Jeremiah grumbled. He tore off another bite of deer meat.
Tatoson looked surprised. “Do you mean angels of God?”
“Don’t tell me you believe in the Christian God.”
Tatoson said nothing.
Colm and Joseph arrived in Cambridge on the afternoon of Monday, February 6. Snow showers blew in while they were traveling. The horses struggled to pull the carriage through the heavy wet snow. The miserable journey took twice as long as it should have. Colm’s apprehension over leaving his men was not lost on Joseph as they sat in the cold, cramped carriage.
When they were situated in front of the fire at Irving House, Joseph said, “You are distressed about something. Perhaps I can help.”
“Either ya are very observant or
I’m failing to hide my concerns,” Colm said.
Joseph smiled. “I have been told that I am observant.”
Colm drank from his tankard of rum before he said, “They’ve found us.”
Joseph leaned in close to Colm and whispered, “Your demons?”
“Aye. Michael and Brandon were discovered. It’s the way they reacted that worries me.”
“They were frightened?”
“Aye.”
“I do not understand why that is a concern.”
“John Adams has seen to it that our missive to draw Henry out will be published in the Boston Gazette tomorrow. The intent is to display our boldness. We’ve been afraid for millennia. If we betray our fear, Henry will use it against us.”
Colm drained his glass of rum and rose without comment. He went to ask the server to bring another glass of rum.
Joseph contemplated the menace his children and their nanny could be exposed to if he allied with the angels. He supposed it was too late to take that concern under consideration.
Colm returned and sat down. “While I’m here, my men are moving to the farm in Roxbury. I hope that’ll confuse the demons long enough...” He realized that he was exposing his worries by speaking them out loud.
“Long enough for what?”
Colm’s green eyes searched Joseph’s blue eyes for the trust he so desperately needed in a peer. It was there.
Joseph heard Colm’s wings rustle. He repeated his question. “Long enough for what?”
“I don’t know, and that scares me.”
The following morning, Joseph and Colm attended the Second Provincial Congress of Massachusetts. Fergus was also in attendance. Colm sat in silence and witnessed the resolve of men who would not allow other men to suppress them.
Fergus and Joseph were one of several men appointed to the Committee of Safety. The committee members were charged with the duty to observe all persons who would attempt to carry out the execution of the British Parliament laws by force. Those attempts would alarm, muster, and cause a completely armed militia to march to a place of rendezvous for the purpose of opposing such attempts.
Colm found their decree to offer the highest gratitude to their Supreme Being for a government that allows land ownership equality for all men no matter their societal standing discomforting, for he knew God had nothing to do with it.
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