The women were ensnared in a massive standstill at the foot of the bridge, and he trained his scope on Anne. There seemed to be a slump about her shoulders, and Jack was concerned by the tired way she leaned on the handle of the barrow. The morning was closing in on noon, and from his position high up on the ridge, her face was lost in the shadow of her hat and he couldn’t make out her features.
“The bloodybacks seem awful concerned about the quality of their bridge,” Titus noted. “Very careful, they are, letting only one wagon cross at a time.”
“Their column is moving slower than a toad in a tar bucket…” Jack swung his glass to the left and watched a single teamster, on foot, leading his oxen up and over the span. “Flooding the road was one of your most clever ideas, Titus. That hour’s handiwork cost Burgoyne two days in time and rations.”
Riding in from the opposite side, a Redcoat officer astride a chestnut mare came cantering over the bridge, the horse’s gait drumming an echoing rhythm on the puncheon logs. Once across, the officer paused and rose up in his stirrups, the black ostrich plumes on his cavalier-style hat streaming grand in the morning breeze as he maneuvered his steed with skill around the periphery of the waiting crowd.
“Now, there’s a fine hat for horseback!” Jack said. “Better-looking than those ugly leather helmets the dragoons sport.”
“Let me see—” Titus took the glass and brought it to focus on the officer. “That is a fine hat… Hold on, now… He’s having words with Mrs. Anne.”
“Who is?”
“Captain Feather Hat…”
“Hand me back that peeper—”
Jack pulled focus to see the feathered officer had dismounted, cutting as fine a figure on foot as he had on horseback. With hat tucked under one arm, the man was intent in conversation with Anne, and it was clear to Jack that she was on familiar terms with the officer.
“The shitsack! I can see from here he ain’t worth wrapping a finger around.”
“C’mon, Jack…” Titus said. “The man’s a captain in the King’s Army, after all…”
“Exactly.” Jack nodded. “Where any drooling idiot willing to part with a few guineas can buy himself a commission.”
“I can see you’re workin’ yourself into a lather over naught,” Titus said. “You best hand me the glass, brother.”
Jack kept his eye to the spyglass, riveted to the unfolding scene like a hungry hawk soaring over an unknowing rabbit. He watched the officer pull a packet tied with a broad red ribbon from his breast pocket and offer it to Anne. At first demurring, then shaking her head, Anne cast a furtive glance over her shoulder as she accepted the item, almost as if she knew Jack was watching. Without taking his eye from the scope Jack announced, “He just gave Anne a present.”
“Who did?”
“Captain Shitsack, that’s who.”
“What’d he give her?”
“I don’t know—I can’t see…” Jack inched forward, tugging on the end of the scope even though it was already fully extended. Smiling and nodding, Anne began to undo the wrapping and Sally huddled in, obscuring Jack’s view. “Move your arse, Sal,” he muttered.
Making a big show of being thrilled with the gift, Anne even spun around to show the item to the rotund wagoneer waiting his turn next in the queue.
“This is not good…” Jack said. “Not good at all. I don’t like the look of him, Titus. He’s got mischief on his mind—that’s for certain. Look at him standing beside my Annie, grinning like the butcher’s dog.”
Titus tugged at Jack’s sleeve. “Let’s go. We need to fetch up the message the girls left for us.”
Jack shrugged Titus off and kept his spyglass trained on the road, muttering, “Don’t do it, Annie… Don’t…” But Anne ignored his warning to pop up on tiptoes and give the officer a peck on the cheek. And just as Jack knew the Redcoat would, the Captain wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her into a deeper kiss on the lips. Jerking the scope away as if his eye had been scalded, Jack emitted an audible and painful “Unghh.”
“What happened?” Titus asked.
“She kissed him.” Jack handed over the spyglass. “See for yourself.”
Titus peered through the eyepiece for a moment, and handed it back. “You are such a foolhead! I’m sure the kiss you saw is but chalk and water on Mrs. Anne’s part—pretense—she’s acting as ordered, making connections among the officers to glean the information we need.”
“Does she have to go ‘ooh!’ and ‘ah!’ and kiss him?”
“Don’t you start…” Titus shook a finger. “This is neither the time or place for your kind of crazy. None of us are at play, Jack—you know what’s at risk here—for Mrs. Anne most of all. Now pocket that damn spyglass and let’s be on our way!”
Jack turned the scope back to the bridge. “I suppose he might be one of those namby-pamby Britishers who pretends to like women…”
Titus rolled onto his back, groaning, “By mighty! I swear, your brains have officially settled in your bollocks.”
Jack watched the Redcoat hand off the horse’s lead to Sally, and his feathered hat to Anne. Clutching the hat to her breast, she seemed to be also clinging to the man’s every utterance with blissful wonder. Jaw tense, Jack could feel a ridge of mad hackles crawl up his spine. You damn bloodyback bastard…
The officer tossed his fancy coat up onto the barrow, rolled up the sleeves on his ruffled white shirt, and began shouting orders, taking control of the bottleneck at the foot of the bridge. Shouting and waving his arms to clear the path, he pushed Anne’s barrow up the steep gravel slope to claim the head of the queue. Once given the go-ahead from the engineer on duty, the Captain pushed the barrow over the bridge with Anne strolling alongside, and Sally following behind leading the mare. Jack watched until they disappeared beyond sight.
“Enough.” Snatching the scope from Jack, Titus collapsed the instrument to its shortest draw length, and screwed a battered brass cap onto the lens end. “You need to forget about the Redcoat captain and set your mind to our important business.”
As if he’d just been woken from a deep sleep, Jack gave his head a vigorous shake. “You’re right. Anne’s at work, and so am I. Don’t waste any worry over me, Titus.”
Titus grinned and scooted out of the furze. “We’ve got to find that message—am I right?”
“As right as bean water, brother.” As they scrambled up to their feet, Jack gave his friend’s shirttail a tug. “Tell the truth, Titus—a man has to be some kind of a molly to wear a hat like that, don’t you think?”
Jack followed behind Titus, rifle cocked and gripped in both hands—his every sense tuned to the woodland heartbeat as they traveled under the dense green canopy, switchbacking up to their hidden camp. The blue-glass bottle they’d unearthed at the base of a big maple tree had made its way down to the very bottom of his possibles pouch, adding an odd weight, and thumping a steady reminder with every footfall.
“I hope Neddy kept the fire going,” Jack said. “I mean to put this message to a flame posthaste.”
Titus glanced over his shoulder. “I’m hopin’ Neddy’s cooked up some grub.”
“Hang on—” Jack pulled Titus by the shirttail to a stop as they neared the area of their camp. “We’d better give signal.”
“Good thing you remembered,” Titus said. “I forgot coming back from having a piss last night, and Isaac near slit my gullet. I never knew such jittery Injuns.”
“Isaac and Ned are smart to be so careful—the wood is thick with Burgoyne’s savages.” Jack cupped his hands to his mouth and gave the owl call he’d practiced, “Ho-hoo… hoo… hooooh! Ho-hoo… hoo… hooooh!”
“A natural turn you have for birdcalls, Jack. You’ve got the whoop owl exact!”
“I can do a fair turkey, like Ned, but my owl is better.”
The pair turned off the barely discernable trace and navigated through thick brush and chest-high fern. Just as Jack caught a glimpse of the gray granite wall th
at sheltered their camp, a lead ball buzzed by—head high—thunking into a tree trunk, sending a spray of wood chips flying. Jack and Titus dropped to their stomachs.
“Goddamn it!” Jack called. “Hold your fire!”
“That you, Jack Hampton?”
“Shekóli!” Jack shouted the Oneida greeting Neddy had taught him. “It’s only me and Titus.”
“Come slow—hands where we can see ’em.”
Jack and Titus scrambled up to their feet with hands raised over hatless heads, and walked forward into the clearing. The two Oneida guides came out from behind an outcrop, uncocking their weapons, and, without another word, took seats opposite each other on a pair of log benches positioned in a V near a fire ring. Isaac leaned in to stir a kettle of beans stewing over embers, and Neddy dropped dollops of sticky dough onto a flake of shale heating over hot coals.
“I don’t see why you boys got all up in arms,” Jack complained as he stomped back to fetch his hat and weapon. “I sent out a call…”
Isaac snorted. “We heard your stupid call.”
“Owls never hoot before twilight, Jack,” Neddy admonished. “A call like that at midday signals to all within earshot that you’re a man…”
“A stupid man,” Isaac added.
“Call like that,” Neddy said, “can draw the enemy and get us all killed.”
Jack looked at Titus. “I should’ve used the turkey call.”
Titus slapped the dirt and duff from his clothes with his hat, his face a scowl. “Firing weapons can draw the enemy as well…”
Isaac shrugged. “Or scare ’em off.”
Neddy flipped the corncakes sizzling in bear grease on his makeshift griddle. “You were gone a long time.”
“We were gettin’ ready to go and search for your scalped carcasses,” said Isaac with a rare grin, “once we et.” He dipped up a portion of beans with a tin cup, took a fresh-baked johnnycake from the hot stone, and settled back onto his seat.
“It’s a comfort of a sort,” Jack said, taking a seat beside Ned, “knowing you wouldn’t leave us to the crows.”
Ned scooped the baked cakes from the hot stone with a piece of birch bark. “Did the women leave a message today?”
“They did—” Titus plucked up a johnnycake, and sat beside Isaac, juggling the hot cornbread from hand to hand.
Jack rifled through his pouch and came up with the blue-glass bottle, waggling it in Neddy’s face. “Light the candle, my friend, for it is time for a little magic.”
Ned was quick to produce a stubby candle cemented into a tin holder by a pool of hardened wax. He lit the wick with a brand, and set it on the log bench. Jack shook the little scroll from the bottle, and unrolled the message.
“Two pages!” he cried, showing the first around. “A recipe for rattlesnake stew!”
Isaac nodded. “My woman makes a good snake stew…”
“As I recall, Isaac,” Titus said, “your woman makes a good pemmican as well.”
Taking the hint, the Indian brought out a sausage from the parfleche at his feet. He cut the length into four equal pieces, and handed one to each man. Isaac’s pemmican was a perfect balance of dried venison, blueberries, and bear fat pounded and ground into a paste, then packed and sealed into deer intestines for transport.
Titus tore a bite from his portion. “A little of this pemmican goes a long way in smoothing the wrinkles from my belly.”
Neddy sat beside Jack and watched with rapt attention as the first page was put close—but not too close—to the heat of the flame. As Jack moved the paper slowly from side to side, the empty spaces between the cursive lines of the recipe coalesced inch by inch into faint, brown-tinged block print:
HEARD IN CAMP AND AT DINNER
Rattlesnake Stew—Page 1
WITH BURGOYNE, FRASER, + OTHERS
Take a large rattlesnake—
COURIER FROM HOWE BROUGHT A
skin, gut, and wash it until clean;
MESSAGE HIDDEN INSIDE A SILVER BULLET
cut into pieces no longer than the
TO BE SWALLOWED IF CAPTURED
two joints on your finger.
CONTENT WAS NOT REVEALED TO ME BUT
Set meat into a clean pot and put to them
GEN B MOST DISTURBED BY IT
a gallon of water. Season well with a
LOYAL MACCRAE GIRL SCALPED
handful of salt, a blade or two of mace,
AND KILLED BY GEN B’S INDIANS.
whole pepper black and white, a whole
AS GEN B PRESSES FOR JUSTICE
onion stuck with six or seven cloves,
INDIANS ANGER—DESERTING IN DROVES
a bundle of sweet herbs, and a nutmeg
THE MURDERER WALKS FREE—
“Goddamn! She’s wheedled her way into having dinner with Burgoyne himself!” Jack leaned over the fire pit and handed the page to Titus. “I suspect the ‘others’ she mentions include a bastard of the feathered hat variety…”
Titus waved Jack back to his task. “Quit with your green-eyed yammering and see to the rest of the message.”
Neddy worked at taking the curl out of the second page, pulling the narrow slip back and forth across his thigh. “What do you say, Jack? Maybe I can try to make the words appear…”
“Not this time, Ned.” Jack took the paper from him and put it to the flame. “It has to be done just right—we can’t risk scorching the message.”
Titus reached across the fire and set the first page beside Jack. “So Burgoyne’s Indians went and scalped a Loyalist woman—even the most loyal of Loyalists can’t be too happy about that. Might turn a few to our side. The bit about the silver bullet is good to know, if we ever catch another courier, but I really don’t see anything here that’s stripe-skirt worthy.”
Jack looked up from his work on the second page. “Where’s Bennington?”
Titus shrugged. “Never heard of it.”
“Two days’ walk or one long day running from here…” Isaac said.
“A small village near Walloomsac River,” added Ned. “The Continentals have gathered cattle and other provisions there.”
“Listen to this—” Jack read the important lines aloud from page two of Anne’s message:
Cover the pot and let all
REBEL DELAY TACTICS A SUCCESS
stew softly until the meat is tender,
REDCOAT MORALE SLIPPING
but not too much done.
PROVISIONS DWINDLING
Pick the meat out onto a dish.
A MOVE TO HALF RATIONS RUMORED.
Strain the pot liquor through a coarse sieve.
MASSIVE FORAGING EXPEDITION ORDERED
Return the meat; cut carrots into
ONE REGIMENT—BRUNSWICKER DRAGOONS
coins and add with peeled Irish potatoes.
ALONG WITH EXPECTED LOCAL LOYALIST MILITIA
Take a piece of butter as big as a walnut
BEING MUSTERED TO BENNINGTON
and roll in flour. Put into pot with
TO COMMANDEER HORSES,
one cupful each of catchup, and sack;
PROVENDER, AND MATÉRIEL
Stew till thick and smooth and send
MESSAGE ENDS.
to the table speckled with minced parsley.
Jack set the page aside. “A full regiment disengaging from the main army…”
“Plus Loyalist militia,” Titus added. “That’s a sizable force—at least six hundred soldiers, maybe more.”
“There’s the reason for the striped skirts.” Jack struggled his bowl from his pouch and scooped up some beans. “Eat up, boys, and let’s get a wiggle on it. Traveling by night, we can get this information to David by daybreak.”
Titus and Jack at once began slurping their beans and shoving johnnycakes into their mouths. Barely chewing his supper, Titus pushed at least half a dozen corncakes inside his shirt for the road.
Neddy watched Titus and Jack galloping their supper l
ike pigs at a trough and warned, “Eating thataway afore a trek’ll put a tangle in your gut.”
Isaac agreed with a shake of his head. “White folk always eat too fast.”
“White!” Titus spewed out a stream of cornbread crumbs. “I’m five times darker than you on any day, Isaac Onenshontie—and, for that matter, so is Jack.” They all laughed, for it was true—living wild in the open had deepened the tone of Jack’s complexion to a honeyed brown.
Once the men finished their supper, they began collecting their bedding and gear for the hike back to the Continental Army Command in Albany. Joining the others sitting around the fire distributing the common gear among their pouches and haversacks, Titus said, “Ned—don’t forget to burn those pages and pack the candle.”
Ned picked up one of the pages lying beside him on the log seat, and held the paper to the stubby candle still burning in its holder. But rather than set the damning evidence alight, as he was told, Ned began moving the page from side to side, just as he’d seen Jack do earlier.
Titus looked up from securing his bedroll with a length of rope. “Quit fooling around and burn the thing.”
Ned turned the paper upside down, and brought it close to his eye. “There’s something more writ here… on the bottom. Look…”
Titus took the page, studied it for a moment, then hooted, “Ooooh, Neddy boy! You’ve uncovered some vital information here—a most urgent love note.”
“You see, Jack,” Ned declared, lifting his chin and folding his arms across his chest. “And I didn’t scorch nothing.”
“Let me have that…” Jack leaned in for the paper, but Titus swept the page up and out of reach. Ned and Isaac laughed as the two men tussled like boys over a ball—Jack chasing after Titus, who circled backward around the fire, switching the paper from hand to hand—his height and the length of his arms keeping the page just out of Jack’s grasp—all the while teasing in a silly falsetto, “Oh my sweetie darling, I love you so!” In mock swoon, he dropped back in his seat, fanning himself with the page.
Jack snatched the paper from Titus and sank down onto his hunkers to read the message Ned had revealed. But there were no words. Centered along the bottom edge, and no more than half an inch high, Anne had drawn in simple lines an image of their two love tokens fitted together to form a full crown, flanked by the initials J and A.
The Turning of Anne Merrick Page 8
