“Forgive me. To the point, then. One of my farmhands—a boy, not the smartest lad, but a good lad, not the sort to make up tales, you know . . . We’ve had eggs go missing. Our hens are regular, but if there’s thunder and lightning—”
“Mr. Fish.”
“Forgive me, forgive me. The boy—he says he’s seen two men. Lurking, like. In the woods near the coop. Twice, he’s seen them. Again, it may be nothing.”
“Did he describe these men?”
“He did. He did. What struck me was he said they were old. And carried themselves like soldiers.”
“How does an old soldier carry himself?”
“Well, Colonel, you’d be the expert there. I suppose he meant straight-spined. Neat. That’s it. He said they looked neat like. Beards trimmed. Point is, they didn’t look like tramps.”
“Well, Mr. Fish. Thank you for this. You say your place is beyond the cliff?”
“I could take thee there, if you like. I was on my way home when I saw you through the window. My horse is outside.”
“Then we’ll finish our drinks and join you outside.”
Fish left.
“Then well, there’s a bit of luck,” Balty said.
“Anything strike you as queer about our new Quaker friend?”
“The eyebrows?”
“His Quaker pronouns weren’t consistent. Mixed up his ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ and ‘yous.’ Quakers don’t say you. His boots were a bit shiny for a farmer. And Quakers don’t go in for vengeance. Or violence. Your inamorata Mistress Mott, who owes us her life, wouldn’t even help us. Why should he?”
“Oh, hell. So it’s a trap?”
“Without doubt, I’d say.”
Balty peered out the window. “Swine. Fawning all over us in that disgusting fashion. God bless thee. Thou must be angels. I say we heave him off the wharf. Feed him to the lobsters. The size of the lobsters here—bloody sea monsters.”
“Gratifying as that would be, it’s possible Mr. Fish is sincere. Perhaps a recent convert to quaking who’s not got his ‘thees’ and ‘thous’ straight yet. There are farmers who give their boots a polish when they go into town, so’s not to look like bumpkins. But I’ve yet to meet the Quaker who’d abet at manhunting.”
“Well, where does that leave us?”
“If it is a trap, he’s going to a lot of trouble. And risk.”
“Oh, Huncks, do get to the point.”
“If he’s going to the trouble, he may have a personal stake in protecting the judges.”
“Yes? And?”
“In which case, he might know where they are.”
“Ah.” Balty considered. “So . . . what? Are you proposing that we walk into his trap?”
“Do you have other plans for the evening? Bible study with the Reverend Davenport? Here, take this.”
Huncks handed Balty one of his pistols under the table.
Balty stared at the thing in his lap.
“It’s loaded,” Huncks said. “Draw the hammer back with your thumb—”
“Yes.”
“Try not to shoot me. Think how lonely you’d be without me.”
“I still don’t grasp the wisdom of walking into a trap.”
“The wisdom is in knowing it’s a trap.”
* * *
“Is it not a sight?” Mr. Fish said as they came into view of the cliff. The late-afternoon sun bathed it in a fiery red glow. “It’s the iron in the rock gives it that blood color. In all my years here, I’ve never tired of it.”
It was a sight, Balty thought. Huncks gave it only a glance.
Twilight turned the air cool and the light purple. They rode along a stream that skirted the base of the cliff. It grew darker. Hawk screech echoed off the rock face.
“Raptors,” Fish observed. “Great falconers, Quiripi.”
They stopped to let the horses drink.
“How far?” Huncks said.
“Less than a mile. My land starts at the foot of the slope that goes up to the cliff. Goes all the way.”
“It’s getting dark.”
“I know the way well.”
“Strange place for a farm, isn’t it?”
“How so, Colonel?”
“No water.”
“Oh, there are springs,” Fish said. “I shouldn’t want to haul my water up a hill every day. It’s good land, you’ll see. And none in New Haven have a view like mine.”
A half mile on, they turned up the slope. It was almost dark now.
“I’ve got the boy watching in the coop. If you like, you can watch with him. Or from the house. Whatever suits thee.”
“Very obliging of you. Tell me, Mr. Fish, how long have you been a Quaker?”
“All my life. From the cradle.”
“You’re fortunate. Living as we do in a time of so much shifting of religions.”
“It is a comfort, yes.”
“How old are you, might I ask?”
“Forty-two this November. And still in possession of my teeth. Most of them, anyway.”
“I congratulate you. Yet one thing perplexes me.”
“Oh?”
“Mr. Fox established the Quaker faith—what?—fifteen years ago. Yet you say you’ve been quaking since you were in the cradle. Which makes you either a prophet or a liar.”
Fish reined his horse to a halt and turned to face Huncks. Huncks had his pistol out.
“What say thee to that, Mr. Fish?”
Fish spurred his horse.
“Tricky subject, religion,” Huncks said, charging after him.
Balty watched Huncks disappear into the dark.
“Did I not say this was a bad idea?” But no one was present to affirm the truth of Balty’s remark.
Swish. Thwack.
Balty’s horse whinnied fiercely and bucked, kicking backward. Balty was pitched forward hard onto its neck, abrading his face, filling his mouth with mane. He lost his grip on the reins.
“What’s got into you! Hold! Damn you, horse! Hold, I say!”
The horse continued bucking and craning its head back toward its hindquarters. Balty looked and saw something—a stick of some sort, protruding from its flank. He glanced again and saw that the tip of the stick was feathered.
Oh, hell, he thought.
Another swish and thwack. The horse bellowed in fresh agony and bolted forward up the slope.
Balty clenched the mane in a death grip. His feet came free of the stirrups. His chest and stomach thumped against the saddle, bruising and knocking the air out of him.
His instinct was to arrest the frenzied animal. But his brain, violently shaken along with his other bodily organs, cautioned that stopping was not desirable. Whoever was firing feathered missiles into his horse might be in pursuit. Unless the saints of New Haven had adopted the bow and arrow, the likelihood was that his assailants were of aboriginal persuasion, a disagreeable prospect. What had Balthasar de St. Michel done to give offense to the New Haven indigenes?
Balty did not linger over this rhetorical inquiry. He clung like a desperate limpet to his pain-maddened horse, which continued its headlong charge in darkness toward the edge—somewhere ahead—of a four-hundred-foot cliff. He was not an accomplished horseman. He wondered, hopefully: Could the beasts see in darkness? Surely they possessed some primordial instinct that would alert them before they leapt, pell-mell, off a cliff into a yawning abyss. Surely? Pray.
What if they didn’t? Should he hurl himself off now? He dismissed this option on the grounds that it would likely result in breaking a dozen bones, including his skull. Even if he landed without injury, there remained the—pressing—question of pursuivant savages.
Balty closed his eyes. If he was going to sail off a cliff, he didn’t want to watch. There was nothing he desired to see. No, that wasn’t true. England—oh, to see England again! And Esther. And sister Bess. And Brother Sam. Oh, yes, he would very much like to see Brother Sam again, if only to wring his damned—
Bang.
A pistol shot, directly ahead.
Balty’s horse burst from the woods into a wide clearing. Silhouetted against the night sky were two horses, riderless, standing near a tree. He made out other shapes, structures. Beyond he saw lights, twinkling, as if a portion of the stars had fallen to earth. New Haven. He saw the edge of the cliff toward which his horse continued its mad, headlong charge.
“Huncks!” Balty shrieked. “For the love of— Help!”
Huncks leapt in front of the horse, arms outstretched. It tried to veer around him, then jerked to a halt.
“Hoah! Hoah . . .” Huncks got a rein. The horse snorted. Huncks gentled it.
Balty saw the body sprawled facedown on the ground.
“Did you kill him?”
“He turned to fire at me and ran into the tree.” Huncks pulled the arrow from Balty’s horse and felt its head.
“I told you this was a terrible idea!”
“Quiet.”
Huncks listened. Balty looked. What were these strange forms? Looked like platforms of some kind.
“What are those—”
“Keep your voice down. Burial ground.”
“Doesn’t look like a cemetery.”
“Quiripi burial ground. Get down.”
“Gladly.” Balty dismounted with a groan. His body was one entire bruise. He spat strands of mane.
Huncks slapped the horses. They ran off.
“Come. Keep low.”
They crouched behind a large rock near the cliff edge.
“Wait here.”
“Where are you going?”
“To look for a way down.”
“Down what?”
“The cliff.”
“No. No. Absolutely not.”
“Do you know what they do to grave violators?”
“I’m not violating their damned graves!”
“They start with your fingers. After a day or two, they get to your torso. Cut holes, put in hot coals and sew them in. It can last three or four days.”
“But I’m not violating their—”
“Then stay and explain to them. While they cut.”
“Huncks. I’m . . . I’m not good at heights. I went up the tower of Westminster Abbey once and fainted.”
An arrow splintered against the boulder.
“Coming?”
Arrows hissed through the air above the boulder. Balty pressed himself against it. His heart pounded.
“Can’t you speak to them? Explain?”
Huncks had his pistol out. “When I fire, follow. Stay close.”
“I thought they’d been domesticated.”
“Shut your eyes.”
“Why?”
“So you won’t be night-blinded. Ready?”
“God. Yes.”
Huncks cocked the pistol and raised it above the boulder, drawing a hail of arrows. He fired. A jet of yellow and orange flamed from the muzzle.
They crawled along the edge of the cliff.
“Here,” Huncks whispered. He let himself over the edge. Balty followed.
The cliff was sheer but fractured and jagged, providing hand- and footholds. Red cedar trees rooted everywhere in cracks, making a series of ladders. They made their way down slowly, groping, holding on to cedar limbs, pressing themselves against the still-sun-warm rock.
A rain of arrows descended.
“Hug the rock,” Huncks hissed.
“If I hug it closer it’ll be indecent.”
Rocks rained down.
“Huncks, this is no good at all.”
“Keep moving, unless you fancy spending the night here.”
They came to an outcropping and maneuvered beneath it, finding some shelter from the hail of arrows and rocks. They clung to cedars, breathing hard.
“Huncks.”
“What?”
“I shall die here.”
“No you won’t.”
“I shall. I know it. I have a sense about these things.”
“You’ve no sense at all. About anything.”
“Don’t let me die in ignorance. You owe me that much.”
“For God’s sake, man.”
“When you said my mission was to vex the New Haveners, what did you mean?”
“I was being jocund.”
“Don’t lie to me. Not now. Was I sent here to find the bloody judges, or for some other reason? I shan’t continue down until you answer.”
Huncks sighed. “The judges aren’t the principal objective.”
“So all along you have been keeping things from me.”
“Shall we discuss this once we get off this cliff?”
“Why are we here? Why am I here?”
“Your Mr. Pepys wanted to be rid of you. And having spent these last weeks with you, I fully understand why.”
“No. It can’t be. Brother Sam and I are devoted to each other.”
“It was in Downing’s letter. The one I burned. Your Brother Sam thinks you’re a pest.”
“Lies. Foul lies.”
“There’s a larger scheme. Your part in it is not without value.”
“Oh, well, bloody marvelous. So now I can plunge to my death, pierced through by heathen barbs, in the consolation that my death is not ‘without value’! How very gratifying!”
Arrows swished past like lethal sleet.
“Mr. St. Michel. Pray, cease blubbering and listen. It doesn’t matter why you are here. You are here. I am here. I assure you our mission is vital to the Crown. Critically vital. If we succeed, you’ll return to England wreathed in so many laurels you’ll resemble a damned topiary. And your Brother Pepys will spend the balance of his life choking on crow and addressing you as Sir Balthasar de St. Michel. But if we’re to succeed, we must first get down off this rock. Shall we proceed?”
Balty nodded miserably.
“Good. Careful, now.”
They lowered themselves. They’d only gone a few feet when a rock struck Huncks on the head. He toppled backward, lost his grip, and fell.
“Huncks!”
From below came the sound of crashing branches.
Balty called again. No reply.
Balty shouted up the cliff: “The King of England will hear of this! He’ll have your red guts for garters!”
His jeremiad was interrupted by another cascade of rocks, one of which caught him on the head, causing sparks in his eyes. Balty clung desperately to a cedar. Rivulets of blood streamed into his eyes. He blinked to clear his vision, what little there was.
A surge of something else new rose in Balty—rage. He heard a voice, his own, commanding him not to succumb—to live, if only to deny the heathen brutes the satisfaction of sending him to his death, along with Huncks. Poor Huncks!
He continued down the cliff, head pounding, gasping for breath, blinking blood. An eternity passed, then suddenly he felt sturdier footing. He’d reached the bottom, a jumble of scree, the detritus of millennia. He clambered down until finally his feet touched earth. He sat, breathing, face sticky with warm blood. His hands and fingers were shredded, throbbing and raw.
Huncks—where was Huncks? He called his name. No answer.
The forest was thick around the base of the cliff. He called again and listened. In the silence, he heard only the babble of the stream they’d followed on their way up.
“Huncks! Huncks—are you there?”
A groan.
“Huncks! Oh, thank God!”
Balty threw himself on Huncks, hugging him.
“I thought you were dead!”
“Let go. Can’t breathe.”
“You’re alive! Good. Good. All right. We’ll . . . rest. Then we’ll . . . do something.”
“Can’t move legs.”
“I’ll carry you.”
Balty tried to lift Huncks. It was useless.
“No matter. We’ll rest here. I’ll get you some water. There’s a stream. Somewhere.”
Balty saw light through the trees.
“Huncks! Someone
’s coming! We’re saved!”
Huncks gripped Balty’s ankle.
“Quiet.”
The lights grew more distinct. Torches.
Huncks whispered, “Quiripi.”
“How can you—”
“Go. Quickly.”
“No.”
“For Christ’s sake, man, I’m done. Go.”
Balty felt for his pistol. It wasn’t there.
“For once, don’t be a fool.”
Balty took hold of Huncks’s jacket and dragged him toward the scree at the foot of the cliff.
“What are you doing?”
“Shh.”
There was a recess created by large fallen shards. It was a tight space, but he succeeded in stuffing Huncks in, then squeezed in himself. He sat, bent over, breathing hard and listening.
The torches drew closer.
“Go.”
“Quiet, Huncks.”
Balty took Huncks’s pistol from its holster and drew back the hammer.
Huncks whispered, “Balty, listen to me.”
“What?”
“Get to Fairfield. Find Dr. Pell. Tell Pell . . . squadron of Navy ships coming. Mid-August. Commanded by Nicholls. Colonel Nicholls.”
“Shh.”
“Tell him . . .”
The torches were close. Their light fell across the threshold of their bolt-hole.
Balty held the pistol. He heard a voice say, “Owanux.”
“Stay here,” Balty whispered.
He emerged from the hiding place, pistol in hand.
There were a half dozen. Their skin, greasy with raccoon and eagle fat, gleamed in the torchlight. Some held hatchets; others, bows, arrows nocked. Balty saw no muskets or pistols.
White man and red men beheld each other. Balty was light-headed from blood loss. He tried to stand upright so as not to show fear. He held the pistol at his side, pointed at the ground.
Should he smile? He’d tried that once on London roughs, and it got him nothing but contempt. He waited for one of them to reveal himself as head man.
The one closest had some design on his forehead. Balty blinked blood from his eyes and stared. It looked to be some kind of face, with wings. He was a tall man, strongly built, who might have looked handsome were it not for the thing on his forehead.
He spoke. The two Quiripi with bows drew back the strings.
“Now, now,” Balty said in the matey, scolding tone of the gaming table when someone deals out of turn. “No need for that. We’re all good fellows here. My friend and I were only taking the night air. I assure you we had no designs on your graves.”
The Judge Hunter Page 10
