The Judge Hunter

by Christopher Buckley

  New Amsterdam exhaled. Cheers went up. The taverns did brisk business the night of August 27th, 1664.

  Reaching home that evening, Stuyvesant was greeted by Judith. She’d heard nothing of the events in town. She told him of her strange encounter that morning, shortly after he’d stormed off. She heard a screech in the conservatory, and going in to see, had a fright. It was the Englishman who’d come to dinner, and a woman, Johann perched on her arm.

  She didn’t recognize the woman, who was young and fair, with golden hair, just like a Dutch girl. Knowing her husband’s views, Judith did not mention her apron and cap, typical of Quakers.

  The man’s manner was courteous. He said they’d found Johann on the Breuckelen side of the river, and having seen him here at the dinner, recognized him. And brought him home.

  When the man and woman went to leave, Judith said, Johann made a terrible screeching and tried to fly to the woman but was thwarted by his tether.

  What kind of day had her husband had? Was it not a glorious day the Lord had given them? Such weather!

  – CHAPTER 47 –

  No Quaker Nonsense

  A meeting was convened the next day at Stuyvesant’s farm—a dozen Dutch and English to discuss the details of the handing-over.

  Colonel Nicholls was present, also Winthrop, and Huncks, acting as his adjutant. Huncks said nothing. When in late afternoon the meeting adjourned and the parties dispersed, Stuyvesant motioned to Huncks to remain.

  They went into the conservatory. Seeing Huncks, Johann’s feathers flared as he hissed. Stuyvesant calmed him with a juicy bit of peach.

  “Why did not Nicholls or Winthrop mention about your friend?” Stuyvesant asked as he fed his bird.

  “I asked Governor Winthrop not to raise the matter. Or to bring it to the attention of Colonel Nicholls.”

  “And the rehicides?”

  “I asked Winthrop not to mention that, either.”

  “Why?”

  “Thought it might complicate matters for you.”

  Stuyvesant considered. “Nicholls knows nothing of these people?”

  “Only that they’re hiding somewhere in New England. They’re of interest to him, certainly, but for now are not his primary concern. He is occupied with other matters.”

  Stuyvesant nodded. “Yes. Seizing my land.”

  “I thought your excellency had enough on your plate without having to answer to accusations of harboring English regicides. As we both know, you weren’t. Your deputy was.”

  Stuyvesant offered Johann another bit of peach.

  “What have I done to deserve such consideration from you, Colonel?”

  “To be frank, it’s more a question of what you can do for me.”

  “Ah. Mr. Balthasar.”

  “Indeed.”

  “He is a very talky fellow, your friend.”

  “Well, he’s half French.”

  “Would he be talky with Colonel Nicholls?”

  “Under the circumstances, I’m confident I might persuade him of the virtue of silence.”

  Stuyvesant stroked Johann’s head.

  “After the killing of Koontz, I ordered a searching. Every house. Every room in every house. There was found no rehicides.”

  “I believe you. Still, the King might take it hard if he suspected you’d protected his father’s executioners.”

  Stuyvesant smiled. “And how would he punish me for this? By taking New Netherland?”

  “Fair point.”

  “This afternoon during the discussing, you saw when the soldier arrived to give me a message?”

  “I did.”

  “Do you know what was this message? That two men had just departed the town through the gate. An Indian, with some strange markings on the face. The other a man with big . . . these”—Stuyvesant touched an eyebrow. “Mr. Balthasar gave us the description of them after Koontz was killed. So we were looking for these very fellows.”

  “Yet you say they’ve—left?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask why they weren’t arrested? They killed your deputy.”

  “Koontz was very naughty to be making arrangements with such men. And he should not have killed one of my soldiers, in such a way. He was a good boy, Jan, the one who died. What shall I tell his mother and father when I write to them? I must make a prevaricating. So I have no quarrel with the men who killed Koontz. I am glad to be rid of them.”

  Stuyvesant patted his bird. “Your friend is waiting for you at the gate. I think it would be best if you both leave New Amsterdam. New York. I must accustom to say it. New York.”

  Old Petrus turned to leave. He said over his shoulder, “My wife tells me there was a woman with you when you brought back Johann.”

  “Yes.”

  “It seems she was kind to Johann. Tell her I am grateful. Goodbye, Colonel Huncks. I hope never again to see you.”

  * * *

  Balty was there at the main gate, pale, bandaged, glassy-eyed. Seeing Huncks, he brightened a bit.

  He knew little of what had happened. He remembered reciting the Lord’s Prayer as he mounted the steps of the ladder, and taking a deep breath on reaching the top, closing his eyes, and waiting for the hangman to shove him off. Then the hangman grabbing at him, and shouting from below. Then opening his eyes and lying on the ground looking up at the gallows. Odd. Hands lifting him and carrying him off. He remembered terror of being buried. It must mean he’d been sent to Hell for his sins and this was the first of the punishments. If only he’d lived a better life!

  But they weren’t carrying him off to be buried. They took him back to his cell and made him drink a large glass of wine that tasted powerfully of laudanum. Then everything went rather pleasantly black.

  “What’s going on, old man?”

  Huncks told him. When he finished, Balty said mildly, “Oh,” as if Huncks had related a not very interesting anecdote.

  “You’re foggy with laudanum. Come, we must hurry.”

  They set off at a gallop, Huncks leading Balty’s horse by the reins. They rode east along the town wall to the river, then turned north to the ferry.

  Arriving on the Breuckelen shore, they went to the farmhouse, now swarming with English soldiers and sailors.

  Thankful ran to Balty and hugged him. Huncks left them in each other’s arms and went to find Dr. Pell.

  Pell was in fine fettle, already brimming with plans to sell plots on his land—now indisputably Crown land—to the waves of immigrants who’d surely now be arriving in droves to settle in Greater New England, or whatever it was to be called.

  Huncks told Pell he needed a boat. The wind was still from the west, the tide flooding. He could fetch Fairfield by dawn.

  The doctor had enjoyed more than a few celebratory cups of punch. Why did Huncks want to leave? Surely he didn’t want to miss the celebrations. There was to be a huge feast tonight, with a great bonfire and—

  Huncks got Pell by the shoulders. “I need a boat. Now.”

  Dr. Pell summoned one of his captains. It would be arranged. But what a pity, to miss the celebrations.

  Balty and Thankful were sitting where she and Huncks had watched Balty climb the scaffold. He told them what Stuyvesant had said: that the regicides weren’t in New Amsterdam, that Jones and Repent had fled the town only hours ago, by the main road. Pell was arranging a boat. If he and Balty left now, they had a chance of reaching Fairfield by morning and intercepting Jones and Repent on the King’s Highway.

  “Do you mean to say Whalley and Goffe were never here?” Balty said.

  “Stuyvesant swears. I believe him.”

  “Then why were Jones and Repent here?”

  “To kill us. Or get us hanged for spies. Deputy Koontz’s integrity was conveniently for sale.”

  Balty considered. “Then where are the regicides?”

  “I don’t know. They’re not my concern. My business is with the Indian.”

  Balty nodded. “Yes.”

  “I�
�m going with thee,” Thankful announced.

  “No,” Huncks said.

  “Why?”

  “This is no business for a Quaker.”

  “I too would see justice done.”

  “I think we differ in our conceptions of justice.”

  “I would have him pay for what he did.”

  “With what coin, lady?”

  “There are laws, even here.”

  “Whose laws? Magistrate Feake’s? Jones’s? Davenport’s?”

  “Vengeance is mine, sayeth the Lord. I shall repay.”

  “Don’t fling Scripture in my face, madame.”

  “Now, now,” Balty said. “No need for that.” He said to Thankful, “It’s not a journey to make in your condition.”

  “I will go to New Haven with or without thee.”

  Balty looked at Huncks. Huncks sighed.

  “Give me your word. No Quaker nonsense.”

  “Not even take off her clothes?” Balty said. They laughed. Pell’s man arrived to say the boat was ready.

  – CHAPTER 48 –

  Oh, Do Get Up

  The wind held from the west. They reached Hell Gate as the last light was fading. Seeing the boiling churn of water, Balty wished for two things: darkness, to render the froth invisible; and the bottle of laudanum, so that he wouldn’t care.

  Ably steered by Pell’s crew, the shallop negotiated the passage without wrecking or capsizing. The water quieted and widened as they entered into the Sound, a name Balty found preferable to the Devil’s Belt. As he had on their prior crossing, Balty laid his head on Thankful’s lap, now feeling the bulge in her belly where Gideon’s—or Repent’s—child was growing.

  Toward dawn the wind freshened. By midmorning they fetched Fairfield harbor.

  Mrs. Pell welcomed them and gave them a good breakfast and three horses for their journey. Huncks went about the town asking if a large white man and strange-looking Indian had been seen passing through. No. It appeared they’d beat them to Fairfield. As was his wont, Balty asked, “What now?”

  Huncks weighed. What if Jones and Repent were avoiding the King’s Highway? They might be. The King had just dramatically reasserted his authority in these parts. Jones and Repent may have reckoned the safer way to New Haven was a parallel one through the forest north of the highway. The rivers there were narrower, easier to ford.

  “Do you remember the way we took when we left New Haven?” Huncks said.

  “I remember that it took forever.”

  “That’s how we’ll go. But we must leave now.”

  They said their farewells to Mrs. Pell and left Fairfield by the way they’d come two months ago. Again Balty found himself embosomed by the New England forest, conjuring visions of slavering catamounts behind every rock. They crossed a river Huncks called Howsatunnuck, which he said in the Mohican language meant “River of the Mountain Place,” though Balty could see no mountain. They rode without stopping.

  * * *

  Toward late afternoon they arrived at a fork in the path and dismounted and stretched. Balty vaguely recognized it. The more trodden path continued straight, toward New Haven. A less-traveled one veered right, up what looked like a long, ascending slope.

  “Where does that go?” Balty asked.

  “To the cliff,” Thankful said.

  “The cliff? Then we’ve passed New Haven.”

  “No. The west cliff.”

  “No more cliffs for me,” Balty said. “East, west, north, or south.”

  Huncks said, “If they avoided the highway, they’ll pass through here.” He went about scouting a place to make an ambush.

  The afternoon heat brought a rumble of thunderclouds and a brief, drenching rainstorm. Balty and Thankful sheltered under some elms.

  Huncks found a spot that satisfied him, a hundred yards beyond the fork on the New Haven path.

  They tied the horses at a distance downwind and took up their position behind some rocks. Huncks and Balty inspected their pistols and powder.

  “I’ll take the Indian,” Huncks said. “Jones is fat. Even you couldn’t miss him.”

  Thankful said, “Thou aren’t just going to shoot them, surely?”

  “What would you have us do? Invite them to prayer?”

  “This is murder, Colonel.”

  “You gave your word. No nonsense.”

  “Condoning murder, nonsense?”

  Huncks muttered, “God, give me strength.”

  “If thou ask God for strength, Colonel, he will give it thee. Come, let us pray together.” She took Huncks and Balty by the hand and closed her eyes.

  They heard sounds. Thankful was deep in communion with the Holy Spirit. Balty and Huncks saw two men emerge from the woods. Jones and Repent.

  With his free hand, Huncks brought the butt of his pistol down on Thankful’s head. She went limp. Huncks caught her and laid her gently on the ground.

  “Huncks! What have you done?”

  “What the Holy Spirit told me to.”

  “Jesus, man!”

  “We should never have brought her. I told you Quaker women are trouble.”

  Jones and the Indian dismounted at the fork. Balty patted Thankful’s limp hand in his.

  “She’s alive.”

  “Of course she’s alive,” Huncks snarled. “We won’t be if you don’t look sharp.”

  Jones and the Indian remounted. Instead of continuing on the path to New Haven, toward Huncks and Balty, they took the one that went up the long slope.

  “Come.”

  “What about her?”

  “Leave her.”

  “She’ll be eaten.”

  Huncks took the small pistol from his boot and laid it on Thankful’s stomach.

  “Unless the Quaker aversion of violence extends to not shooting lions trying to eat you. Coming or not?”

  Balty was all at sea. What kind of man would abandon an unconscious woman in the forest? A woman with child. A woman for whom he had the most tender of feelings. A woman—

  “Stay, then,” Huncks said.

  Balty thought of Micah’s face, his mouth full of earth.

  “I’m coming.”

  They went on foot. Jones and Repent’s horses were tired. They were moving slowly. Huncks and Balty were able to keep pace.

  “Please tell me there’s not another bloody Indian graveyard on this cliff.”

  “I doubt they’re paying their respects to dead Quiripi.”

  The trail went along the rim of the cliff. The vista to the west became more and more expansive as the ridge steepened. The sun cast a warm glow over the forest. Here and there, like patches on a quilt, early-turning maple trees blazed orange and red. On any other day it would be a view to make one pause and marvel at New England’s beauty.

  Several miles on, the ridge had risen four hundred feet above the forest. Huncks said they must be near the southern rim. Still, Jones and Repent continued. If they were making for New Haven, this was a very circuitous route.

  Through the trees ahead loomed a large and discrepant object. As they drew closer, they saw it was an irregular rock, a giant boulder that had cracked into three or four sections. There was something otherworldly to it. In ancient Greece, people might say it was the remnant of a battle fought at the dawn of time between the Titans—a sling stone shattered into pieces by a retaliatory lightning bolt.

  Jones and the Indian dismounted in front of it. Balty and Huncks took cover behind trees.

  Jones called out, as if addressing the rock itself: “General Whalley! It’s William.”

  Two men, old, frail and filthy, clad in rags, emerged from a cleft in the rock, a pair of Lazaruses, rising from the tomb. They clasped hands with Jones.

  “Well, old cock,” Huncks said, “behold—your regicides.”

  Balty stared, incredulous. Was it possible that these . . . trolls were Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe?

  Whalley, hero of the Battle of Naseby, cousin to Oliver Cromwell, one of se
ven men summoned to his deathbed; King Charles’s jailer at Hampton Court; signer of his death warrant?

  Goffe, most radical of the Puritan commanders, who’d declared the King was Antichrist, with all heaven arrayed against him and the Second Coming at hand?

  Was it possible these ragged creatures who’d crawled out from under a rock—literally—had only a few years ago been two of the most formidable men in England? Who’d wielded the ultimate power, decreeing that the monarch’s head should be cut off?

  Over the nine months since Downing had dispatched Balty over the sea, he’d had various images of the men he was hunting. Stout, hardy men, dashing figures, gleaming in armor, swords in hand, mounted on prancing steeds with flaring nostrils. Such was how England had known them. Balty had suspected the reality might turn out to be less impressive. Fugitives tend not to go about gleaming in armor on prancing steeds.

  But—this?

  Balty had made a fantasy for himself about the moment when he would run his prey to earth. The regicides would be on their backs on the ground. He’d stand over them, holding his sword. Conscious of the drama of the moment—the history!—he’d address them in a commanding voice, perhaps in iambic pentameter.

  “In the name of his majesty Charles, King of England, I, Balthasar de St. Michel, arrest you for the crime of high treason and the odious sin of regicide!” Balty had rehearsed it a few times out loud, out of Huncks’s hearing.

  What grand oratory was appropriate to this shabby scene? “I say—you there, Whalley. You, Goffe, come along, then. Oh, do get up.” Balty was so flummoxed he didn’t even ask Huncks “What now?”

  Jones was doing most of the speaking, Whalley and Goffe listening with long faces.

  They couldn’t hear what he was saying. Probably that a great force of English arms had arrived and soon these woods would teem with English soldiers. They were no longer safe here, even inside a rock atop a ridge thick with trees.

  Daylight was fading. Repent left the white men to their talking and gathered wood. He assembled a pile in front of the cleft from which the regicides had emerged, struck shavings with a flint, crouched, and blew. The wood crackled and wisps of smoke rose.

  Balty whispered, “All this time, they were here?”

  Huncks seemed amused. “Ironic, eh? But these cliffs get their color from iron. So, what are your orders?”